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Transcript: All In with Chris Hayes, 11/18/21

Guests: Olivia Beavers, Joanne Freeman, Bernie Sanders, Anthony Fauci, Elizabeth Warren

Summary

House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy condemned the Democrats for censuring Rep. Paul Gosar and promises to restore his committee assignments and even give a promotion when Republicans take back the House. Sen. Bernie Sanders vows to oppose the record-breaking Defense Bill. Tomorrow, the Food and Drug Administration is expected to authorize Pfizer and Moderna boosters for all adults. President Joe Biden`s nominee for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency became a target of the "red scare" campaign.

Transcript

JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: And Jimmy, the good thing is that whatever happens next, he`s alive to be able to clear his name. He`s alive. He is still alive. I`m out of time, but I just want to tell you all, thank you for being here. We`re sending our love to you both. To you, especially, mama, we love you, Ms. Madeleine Davis-Jones, thank you very much for being here. Jimmy Lawson, thank you both.

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

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

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why is it that the only thing Republicans will punish one of their own members for in this Congress is speaking out against Donald Trump?

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): How is it -- I don`t understand your question.

HAYES: Donald Trump endorses Paul Gosar as the Republican leader, plans to reward him tonight. The stakes for American democracy as the troll caucus grows.

Then, as the Build Back Better plan moves toward a vote, Senator Bernie Sanders on his plan to hold up defense spending that no one is asking questions about.

Plus, Dr. Fauci with his message on boosters and Thanksgiving gatherings. And Senator Elizabeth Warren on the big money interest trying to stop a Biden bank regulator as the ghost of Joseph McCarthy returns to the Senate.

SEN. JOHN KENNEDY (R-LA): I don`t mean any disrespect. I don`t know whether to call you professor or comrade.

SAULE OMAROVA, KAZAKH-AMERICAN ATTORNEY: Senator, I`m not a communist.

HAYES: When ALL IN starts right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES (on camera): Good evening from New York, I`m Chris Hayes. You know, Congressional censures of colleagues are rare and it makes sense if you think about it. I mean, look, members of Congress don`t want to set that precedent and potentially open themselves up to censure of their own. They`re not generally in the business of policing each other`s behavior, a kind of a live and let live approach.

That said, censures do happen, not very often, but from time to time. When a conduct by a member of Congress is so egregious, it requires formal condemnation. Now, before last night, this was the most recent censure. It was more than a decade ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRIAN WILLIAMS, MSNBC HOST: A dramatic moment in Washington tonight. You don`t see this often, even over the course of a lifetime, the censure of a member of the House of Representatives.

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): Will the gentleman from New York, Mr. Rangel, kindly appear in the Well.

WILLIAMS: Democrat Charles Rangel tonight standing in the Well of the House accepting the punishment as read by Speaker Pelosi.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: That`s part of the ritual of censuring. You got to go out there and face the music. And that was from December 2010 when the legendary House Democrat Charlie Rangel, a guy I grew up with in New York, who represented his Harlem District in Congress for more than four decades, was censured by the House.

It was for a number of misdeeds including improper financial disclosures and the failure to pay taxes on a vacation home. Now, those ethical breaches, they were real, they were worthy of condemnation to my mind. But I got to say, it was going back and looking at this story and they feel almost kind of quaint, frankly, in the post-Trump era.

Another thing to note about that, you heard it there on the clip a moment ago, Congressman Rangel, a Democrat was censored by Speaker Nancy Pelosi in a Democratic Congress. And he was condemned overwhelmingly by both parties. 333 members of Congress supported that censure resolution, including 170 Democrats. Only 79 voted against it.

The Democrats were clearly sending a message there. We`re not going to tolerate ethical shortcuts among our own even if it is painful, even if the person who did it is a legend. So, that`s what the last censure looked like, Congress setting aside partisan point scoring to call out bad behavior in its ranks.

That`s not the process anymore. Fast forward 11 years. You`ve got a guy like Arizona Republican Congressman Paul Gosar. Now, Gosar, even before the thing that he was centered for, this is someone who -- he tweeted essentially a thinly veiled threat supporting the violent January 6th mob on the day of January 6. He spoke at a conference sponsored put on by a white nationalist who at the conference said something about how, you know, if America loses its white identity, it`s over, OK.

And then, last week, Gosar posted an anime video that depicts him killing his colleague Congresswoman Alexander Ocasio-Cortez and attacking President Joe Biden. For that, he was censured yesterday. The vote was much narrower than with Congressman Rangel in 2010. The vote was 223-207. Only two Republicans voted to rebuke his conduct. And in fact the top House Republican Kevin McCarthy defended him.

Now, Congressman McCarthy, he is not the most impressive legislator I`ve ever seen. He`s not the most razor-sharp intellect, but he does know what he`s doing. He knows he has a very good chance of becoming Speaker of the House in a year if Republicans win the Midterms.

[20:05:12]

And he looks around his conference, those are the people he`s going to need the votes from, and he understands Republicans like Kevin McCarthy are not the future of the party. Paul Gosar, Marjorie Taylor-Greene of Georgia, Matt Gaetz of Florida, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, the troll caucus, the most exuberantly anti-social members. They are where the Republican Party is headed. And quite frankly, McCarthy is properly correctly scared of their influence.

After all, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor-Greene is telling reporters, well she doesn`t think McCarthy`s a shoo-in for the speaker`s gavel, instead saying Donald Trump`s endorsement for the position will make the final difference.

Meanwhile, Trump`s own former chief of staff Mark Meadows who used to be a member of Congress is currently essentially evading a duly order Congressional subpoena, he`s out there plugging Trump for the position of speaker himself.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARK MEADOWS, FORMER WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: I would love to see the gavel go from Nancy Pelosi to Donald Trump as -- you`re talking about melting down. People would go crazy. As you know, you don`t have to be an elected member of Congress to be the Speaker. Wouldn`t you -- wouldn`t you -- she would go from tearing up a speech to having to give the gavel to Donald Trump. Oh, she would go crazy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: Now, at least that`s honest about your vision of government for the country. Now, the odds of Donald Trump, a man who has zero interest in actual governance becoming Speaker of the House, I think are quite low, although you will watch a crescendo will build for it 100, OK.

The sentiment is out there. Now, Kevin McCarthy understands it, which is why he is rewarding the worst behavior of his own caucus. He`s patting Paul Gosar in the back, and now today pledging not only to restore Gosar and Marjorie Taylor-Greene to the committee seats they were stripped from for their egregious and offensive behavior, but to give them promotions.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you plan to give Marjorie Taylor-Greene and Paul Gosar their committee assignments back if you take the majority?

MCCARTHY: They`ll have committees. The committee assignment they have now, they may have other committee assignments. They may have better committee assignments.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: That`s an attaboy for Gosar from leadership after he posted a video of murdering his colleague. And keep in mind, there are dozens of people auditioning right now to be the next and most extreme House Republican. I mean, things don`t stop, right?

Media Matters for America has found nearly 50 2022 congressional candidates who have embraced the insane far-right conspiracy theory QAnon. If you think this freshman class of Republicans is bad, oh man just wait. Yes, not all these candidates are going to win, but some probably will or some other person with these fringe extreme beliefs will, this animus towards the legitimacy of democratic governance.

Next year is likely. We don`t know the future as we`ve learned from the pandemic. But it`s likely to be quite favorable to Republicans. And on the one hand, that`s just sort of the result of political gravity. Congress often swings from the party in power during the Midterm elections. But also, Republicans are actively trying to game the system and take back power and hold it permanently.

Because of their tight grip over state legislatures, they`re able to control the redistricting process in a number of key states which means they can essentially gerrymander their way into a congressional majority before voters even have to weigh in.

Look at a state like North Carolina. It leans Republicans, sure, but registered Democrats and Republicans run about equal. For reference, Donald Trump won it with 49.9 percent of the vote last year. That`s a pretty close state. That`s 1.3 percent. If Republicans get their way, the new congressional map will likely give them 10 of its 14 seats to Republicans.

Their process of approving similar maps in Ohio and Texas and Georgia which they famously lost badly in the last election, or surprisingly at least, they`re redrawing a new congressional majority, again, before voters get a say. And then they`re redrawing that majority with their state reps who themselves are results of gerrymander. And then, that majority, when and if it comes about, will be the troll caucus on steroids.

It`s not going to be a handful of fringe figures saying outlanders things. They will be the center of gravity for real legitimate governing force in American politics with an actual say over how government functions. Those are the stakes here for our democracy a year out from these elections.

Kevin McCarthy is letting us know which side he`s on. I`m joined now by Olivia Beavers who covers Congress for Politico. Her latest piece is titled GOP can`t escape self-inflicted injuries as they fight to reclaim the House. And Joanne Freeman, a professor of history at Yale University who we mentioned yesterday on the program, the author of Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and The Road to Civil War.

Olivia, let me start with you. You know, it was so striking to go back to that wrangle vote because when this happened yesterday, I thought, oh, this doesn`t happen often, what`s the last time. And there you`ve got this like beloved elder statesman who really did, you know, engage in ethical -- ethics transgressions. And this painful vote of a big bipartisan showing to, you know, say that was bad what you did Charlie Rangel. And then you`ve got Paul Gosar doing this thing that I think I would imagine most people find indefensible. But McCarthy rallying the caucus to deliver basically a party-line endorsement. Olivia?

[20:10:25]

OLIVIA BEAVERS, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, POLITICO: Oh yes, sorry, I thought we were playing a clip. No, it`s definitely -- it`s definitely been very interesting watching this. With Rangel, you saw that he on this -- on the House floor, offered contrition. With Paul Gosar, after he was censored, after he was stripped of his committees, he went back and he posted the video and then he removed it again, and he`s been posting similar media again that is around what got him censored and what god had been stripped of his committees.

The irony is he was apologizing only to his own colleagues. He was not apologizing to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. He was not apologizing to President Joe Biden. And the one thing that I will say I would watch, because you saw it happen with Marjorie Taylor-Greene, is that after she got stripped of her committees, she made a ton of money in fundraising.

So, they get this name in the news and then as a self-perpetuating cycle of they also then get bigger platforms.

HAYES: Now, Professor Freeman, your book is an incredible book. I had you on my podcast Why Is This Happening to talk about it. And it`s about Congress and threats of violence that sort of hung over the entire body particularly in the run-up to the civil war. And given that as this academic work you`ve done, what do you see when -- what do you think when you see this Gosar video, when you see people say well, it`s just a joke, it was just a video, yadda, yadda, yadda? Does that scan to you?

JOANNE FREEMAN, PROFESSOR OF HISTORY, YALE UNIVERSITY: No. I mean, essentially, it`s easy to dismiss that and say well, it`s not a real act of violence, that it`s -- you know, it`s only a video. But looking back to the 1850s, what you see is that threats like that don`t have to be violent to have an impact.

So, at the same time that that kind of an anime video appeals to the base, appeals to the folks who, you know are plotting it on, it`s also meant to be intimidating to the people on the other side. It makes a statement in the same way that the kind of behavior we see at school board meetings. It makes a statement, and the goal is to be threatening. to encourage people to not step up, to encourage people as some have to resign from school boards.

So, no, it isn`t a joke. It`s a threat and it`s meant to be a threat. I mean, I said on Twitter yesterday, if you were at a job and someone who didn`t like you with that job sent out, tweeted out a video of that person killing you, and then said it was the joke, it`s not a joke.

HAYES: Right. And of course, we now have the entire incentive structure rallying around Gosar. Trump, not surprisingly -- I mean, Paul Gosar is not in a competitive district, he`s not in a competitive race. I mean, he doesn`t have a primary challenger. Of course, because who would possibly primary him? He is the full manifestation of what I think primary voters want.

But Trump nonetheless coming in to say that he`s, you know, been loyal, he`s a loyal supporter of the American first agenda, and giving a complete endorsement, again, after the censure. It`s like good job, attaboy, we love you, Paul, keep it up, Olivia. And that`s the message here today on this day of this story.

BEAVER: Well, yes. And it`s sort of ironic, right, because while you have Paul Gosar and his colleagues and Donald Trump, you know, rallying around behind him -- not all of them, by the way. I will say some would come up and they said that video was horrific, they just didn`t agree with the vote to strip him of his committees.

But the irony is that you have Congressman John Katko on the other side being completely berated by these Freedom Caucus members over his votes to impeach and his votes for infrastructure. So, like, while they are rallying basically and deciding not to punish Gosar, they are punishing this particular member over these votes where he`s working with the Biden administration and he has decided to police his own.

And that`s sort of an irony that you`re seeing right now is the Katko versus the Gosar at the very same moment.

HAYES: And when you talk about violence, you know, I can`t help -- when I saw Trump`s endorsement, I remember him joking about Congress -- former Montana Congressman Greg Gianforte who`s now the governor of that state, who several years ago just straight-up assaulted and body tackled a reporter for asking the question about a CBO score.

And that guy is now the governor, and you know, no one -- no one ever faced any consequences for that. He pled out to something and went about his business. And Trump joked about it because Trump likes to joke about violence, Professor Freeman. Like that`s a consistent theme. And jokes about violence are another way of creating the conditions for people to accept it as a legitimate means of pursuing one`s aims.

[20:15:06]

FREEMAN: Well, precisely. It`s a matter -- it`s a means of normalizing it. It`s a means of getting people accustomed to it so that actually you are sort of waiting for things to get more extreme, so that it will register on the public consciousness.

So yes, there`s a lot about that behavior even -- and in that case, there was an actual assault, but a lot of this behavior is setting a tone, is laying a groundwork that is blatantly anti-democratic, right? If you`re Democratic, you sort of assume that democratic processes lead to the people giving power to people choosing the people who lead them. And if you don`t like what happens, then you can either protest in a civil manner or you have another election.

So, what we`re seeing now, this kind of behavior, it`s what people do who are in a minority, and know they`re in a minority and are afraid of the demographics, and they`re using violence to gain ground.

HAYES: Olivia Beavers and Joanne Freeman whose book Field of Blood is really fantastic. You should pick it up. Thank you both. For months, Congress has been fighting over the cost of Biden`s Build Back Better Bill. That`s a lot of Bs, dude. But there`s another bill that costs twice as much every year. It passed the House with little fuss, is now making its way through the Senate against these strenuous objections of one particular senator who says this country needs to get its priorities straight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT): People dying because they don`t have any health care, kids unable to get the early childhood education they need, not a problem. We can`t afford to pay for those things. But somehow when it comes to the defense budget and the needs of the military-industrial complex, we just cannot give them enough money.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: He`s right. He`s right. Senator Bernie Sanders joins me next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:20:00]

HAYES: The Biden administration`s Build Back Better Plan is a huge climate and social investment, an estimated price tag of around $1.75 trillion crucially over 10 years. So, doing the math quick in my head, it`s about $175 billion a year. The Congressional Budget Office, a non-partisan office that calculates how much-proposed legislation will actually cost as well as other macroeconomic modeling just estimated that the House`s version of the plan will add just under $160 billion to the federal deficit over this 10- year window. Again, I know that`s a lot of numbers but that`s 16 billion a year.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the House will vote on the bill tonight. Debate is currently underway. We could have a vote on that within the hour. It doesn`t really matter when they vote. It doesn`t really matter how the CBO scored the House version because all that matters, in the end, is what Senate democrats can agree to, or more specifically, what senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema will agree to.

But it is worth noting that late last night the Senate also, in the course of their work, advanced its annual defense policy bill costing more than 700 billion dollars per year, twice the cost of the proposed $350 billion annual cost of the original very big and ambitious proposal for Build Back Better, more than four times the cost of the current pared-down version.

And who`s threatening to hold up the whole process on that bill for costing too much, who`s refusing to go along until every penny can be accounted for? Well at least one senator is. Independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont is the chair of the Senate Budget Committee and he joins me now.

Senator, you know, look, I`ve been covering politics in Washington for 15 years thereabouts, and it has always been the case. There`s money for domestic programs which is real money that has to be accounted for where you`ve got to get CBO scores, it`s going to be paid for as deficit, and then there`s money for defense particularly for war funding. It just doesn`t count.

It`s just in a different category existentially just however much, trillions, trillions, trillions here, trillion there. And it must be maddening at this point to watch everyone pouring through the CBO score while the defensive probes thing just sails through.

SANDERS: Well, I`m going to be on the floor of the Senate in a bit and, Chris, you stole my speech. That`s exactly the point I`m going to be making. The hypocrisy is extraordinary. When we want to improve lives for our children, for the elderly, when we want to make health care universal and affordable, when we want to deal with climate, oh my God, Bernie, don`t you understand we have a terrible national debt in the deficit.

But when it comes to military spending, really, the military-industrial complex in a bipartisan way, always gets what they want. And what we`re talking about now is a budget that is $35 billion more than President Trump`s budget, $25 billion more than what President Biden requested. And you`re giving it Chris to an agency, the Department of Defense which is the only major federal agency that has never been successfully audited to account for what it does with its money.

And everybody knows there are massive cost overruns, enormous amounts of fraud from defense contractors. But that`s OK, not a problem.

HAYES: You know, you just said this. So, it`s 25 billion more than the budgetary request of the White House. Now, that`s one year. And again, this is -- I know I`m throwing a lot of numbers to people, but this is part of what`s so maddening about the situation, the one year versus the 10-year scoring.

In the 10-year scoring, that`s $250 billion. I`ve been tracking all these negotiations about Build Back Better. That would be a huge chunk, just that, just a little bit over above what the -- what the White House asked for, times 10, would buy you clearance room for like a whole new program in Build Back Better.

SANDERS: Right. What you`re talking about -- and I hope people understand. When we talk about $1.75 trillion for Build Back Better, that`s over a 10- year period. When you talk about $778 billion for the military, it is one year. Multiply that by 10, and probably you end up with you know, close to $10 trillion over a 10-year period.

HAYES: I was -- I was laughing the other day because the New York Times did a piece. And it was a perfectly -- a perfectly good piece about all the different things that are Built Back Better. The framing was a little weird to my mind. But one of the things I mentioned is that I think in Build Back Better, there`s like, you know, $25 million with an M, for doulas who are um practitioners who help women give child -- give birth. And there`s lots of empirical evidence to suggest that it really helps with childbirth and postpartum recovery in a country that --

SANDERS: Right. Right. And it saves money, by the way.

HAYES: It saves money, $25 million which was written up in like, oh, here`s the hidden spending in this bill. It`s like 2.5 percent of a single stealth bomber, a single one.

SANDERS: Look, this is what the debate is about. What we are trying to do in this legislation is break through this myth of the need for austerity and to make it clear that our working families, our children, our senior citizens are entitled to certain rights which by the way, exists in countries all over the world.

There`s this great controversy, you know, about paid family and medically leave. Can we afford it? You know, Chris, we are the only major country on earth that doesn`t have it. There are women who give birth today who have to go back to work a week from now. Our child care system is dysfunctional. Elderly people walking the streets with no teeth in their mouths, not to mention the needs of climate.

But when it comes to working families, oh my God, we can`t afford it. When it comes to tax breaks for people on top, for military spending, no problem.

HAYES: Yes. And just on that note, I just want to remind people back in 2017, around this time when the -- when the big corporate tax cut was being pushed through the CBO estimate, had it estimating adding 1.7 trillion to the deficit, I mean enormous amount to the deficit. And it turned out, that was actually an underestimate. It now looks like it`s going to be closer around 2.5.

So, the CBO didn`t even get it right there. It actually has turned out to be more expensive than initial projections.

SANDERS: And that`s what it is. I mean, what we are fighting for now is not only the programs whether it`s child care or pre-k or climate change. What we are fighting for is to a consciousness which says, you know what, in America, we can do what other major countries do, that when people get sick, they can have affordable prescription drugs, that if you`re old and disabled, you can have somebody come to your home and help you rather than be forced to go into a nursing home, that you can get hearing aids or eyeglasses or dental care when you are a senior citizen.

So, it is a change of consciousness to say you know what, we can spend money not just on the military and tax breaks for the rich, but on the needs of working families.

HAYES: We`re going to see what`s in the final package, of course. The House might be voting tonight. The hearing aid stuff is in the House package, a limit on insulin is in the House package. It was actually something folks has been trying to do for a long time. So, we will get a look at that. That`s I think live footage right now in the Well of the House floor.

Senator Bernie Sanders, thank you very much for coming by.

SANDERS: Thank you. Take care.

HAYES: Big news from the FDA that could go a long way toward ending confusion about booster shots. Dr. Anthony Fauci is here to talk about that and more next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:30:00]

HAYES: Tomorrow, the Food and Drug Administration is expected to authorize Pfizer and Moderna boosters for all adults. We just got that brand new reporting within the past hour from Politico. If it is true, that is news we`ve been eagerly awaiting because the science is conclusive at this point, at least as conclusive as things get in these circumstances, boosters work.

A large study released by Pfizer showed that a booster dose of vaccine was over 95 percent effective against the coronavirus including the infectious Delta variant. And this big move comes as 13 states and several localities like here in New York City for instance have bypassed federal regulations and expanded booster shot eligibility to all adults. That`s in response to an increase in Coronavirus cases and rising hospitalizations among fully vaccinated people.

I`m joined now by one of the top health officials in the country who`s been strongly advocating for booster shots. Dr. Anthony Fauci is director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, also Chief Medical Advisor to President Joe Biden.

Good to have you, Dr. Fauci. We have had you before on this issue, and I got to say, I feel like the messaging here has gotten pretty muddled and needlessly complex and it`s because there was a bureaucratic fight about boosters. And ultimately the pro-booster side represented by yourself won but with a lot of caveats when the actual thing should just be, if you got it more than six months ago, go get a booster. Am I right?

Dr. ANTHONY FAUCI, CHIEF MEDICAL ADVISER TO THE PRESIDENT: You`re correct and that`s what I`ve told you in previous interviews and that I`ve been very vocal about. I`ve been convinced about that data for some time right now. And as you said very correctly, Chris, there`s -- vaccine efficacy wanes over several months. It`s still a very, very effective vaccine.

But as we`ve seen from studies in Israel, most recently from the U.K., when you boost an individual with a third shot who has had an mRNA boost, that you dramatically increase the protection against infection, against hospitalization, and in the Israeli study, even against death. So, there`s no doubt about it. The data are very clear.

What I like about what will likely happen tomorrow is that there`s no more ambiguity, no more people going to try and figure out what category do I fit in or not.

HAYES: Right.

FAUCI: If you`re 18 or older and you`ve been primarily vaccinated, go get boosted particularly now as we`re entering into the winter season, the weather will be colder, people will be indoors, there`s circulating virus around, we`re seeing it uptick in some of the cases right now -- we had about an 18 increase in cases over the last week or so. We`ve got to blunt that. And the best way to blunt it is to get unvaccinated people vaccinated in the first place, and get vaccinated people boosted as soon as you can.

[20:35:14]

HAYES: You just mentioned your expectation for tomorrow. Do you personally -- like, is that news correct? Is that what we -- you`re expecting tomorrow?

FAUCI: I never get ahead of the FDA. I make them make their decisions, but you know exactly how I feel, Chris. I`ve been saying this for some time. I think we should do it. I hope they do. If they don`t, I will be terribly disappointed.

HAYES: In terms of people gathering in the sort of colder weather which is, you know, coming and we`re seeing cases go up, and I keep telling everyone I know this. Like, prepare yourself. There will be a lot of -- there will be cases going up this winter.

If people are going to get together for gatherings like Thanksgiving, how should they be thinking about it? My instinct is, you know, everyone should be vaccinated and you should get boosted if you can, and maybe test the day of. How do you think about it?

FAUCI: Well, the situation is if -- and let`s just take a scenario. You have a family setting. You`re vaccinated. Your family members are vaccinated. And even if the children who are yet too young to get vaccinated go have an enjoyable Thanksgiving in your home, you don`t need to wear a mask. The situation is that when you are outside, an in indoor congregate settings where you do not know the vaccine status of people, then you should be wearing a mask.

If you`re in a situation where everybody is vaccinated, then you really don`t need to wear a mask. If you`re at home, that`s the situation. And that`s the reason why the CDC says when you`re in congregate settings and you have no idea who`s around you, there`s no requirement for vaccination, that`s when you need to wear a mask. But if you know people are vaccinated, you don`t need to wear a mask.

HAYES: Yes, that`s been -- that`s been basically my M.O. I mean, on the subway, I wear it. But you know, not in social gatherings and not in places where I know there`s vaccine checks. This is a big new mask-wearing -- I mean, there`s been a lot of back and forth on masks, right?

A big new mask-wearing study out in the British Medical Journal saying it`s the single most effective public health measure against coronavirus cutting incidents by 53 percent. That`s according to a new global study from British Medical Journal.

It does seem like masks in indoor settings and booster shots are two things where the picture has gotten clearer and clearer and clearer and clearer and it`s pretty crystal clear now.

FAUCI: Exactly, Chris. And I`m so glad you put it that way. And anybody who starts saying you shouldn`t be wearing a mask because we don`t know if masks works, that`s been put to bed. Masks work, period. And there are many studies that now show that just like the recent study that has come out from the British study just literally today it came out.

HAYES: Final question for you is on this health equity question. My understanding is that a lot of the dissent about boosters was sort of this equity, this global equity thing. You know, Americans would be getting three shots while three or four billion people in the global south had never had one. I have to say, I sort of thought about that myself. I haven`t gotten boosted. I`m going to get boosted tomorrow.

And part of the reason I was thinking, I was like, well, is this wrong? Is it -- am I doing something wrong by getting a booster? Am I taking a shot away from a person who hasn`t had a shot yet? And I`ve come to think like that shot is not going to someone in the global south if I don`t get boosted, but there is an equity question that hangs over all this. Isn`t there?

FAUCI: There is. And equity is a profoundly important subject. But let me tell you what we`re doing. You can do both. You can optimally protect people with a booster shot at the same time as you provide equity to the extent you possibly can for the developing world. I don`t think there`s anybody that has been more vocal about this from the days of PEPFAR and antivirals in Africa. I believe we have a moral responsibility to make doses available to low and middle-income countries.

So, what is the united states doing? We`ve already given 300 million doses to 100 countries. We have either given or pledged 1.1 billion doses to low and middle-income countries. We`ve given four billion dollars to COVAX. And for every dose we give to somebody in the United States, we give three doses to people worldwide. And most recently, they -- that`s it. I mean, we`re doing it.

HAYES: That is -- yes, that is useful to know. Dr. Anthony Fauci, always good to have you. Thank you, sir.

FAUCI: Good to be with you, Chris. Thank you.

HAYES: Up next, some absolutely appalling behavior towards one -- towards one of Joe Biden`s nominees.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KENNEDY: I don`t mean any disrespect. I don`t know whether to call you professor or comrade.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh my goodness.

OMAROVA: Senator, I`m not a communist.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: Senator Elizabeth Warren just destroyed that line of attacks. She joins me live ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:40:00]

HAYES: Today, on Capitol Hill, the Senate Banking Committee held a confirmation hearing for a relatively obscure but very important regulatory position. It`s the head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. It`s part of the Treasury Department. It regulates assets held by a thousand banks worth almost $15 trillion.

Joe Biden`s nominee for this role, Cornell Professor Saule Omarova who served in George W. Bush`s Treasury Department has been the subject of intense resistance from the banking interests who would be regulated. She has also been subject of one of the all-time dumbest, most craven Fox News propaganda wars I have seen in a while which is really saying something.

Let me give you a taste of what that sounded like on the Hill today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KENNEDY: You used to be a member of a group called the Young Communist, didn`t you?

[20:45:03]

OMAROVA: Senator, are you referring to my membership in the youth communist organization while I was growing up in the Soviet Union?

KENNEDY: I don`t know. I just -- I wanted to ask you that question.

OMAROVA: Well, Senator, I --

KENNEDY: There was a group called the Young Communists and you were a member, is that right?

OMAROVA: I`m not exactly sure which group you`re referring to.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: What`s going on there? Well, Republican Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana has clearly been watching his Fox News. And again, this is all cover for finance interest. It`s not some grassroots conservative moment. They don`t care about this. No one the grassroots knows about this professor or cares about our work or cares about this regulatory position.

This is what the Republicans do. This is modern conservatism operating at its highest level of synthesis and cooperation where the finance interests whip up the mob via Fox News propaganda like that. And the way they have decided to do that is to attack Professor Omarova for being a communist. And the origin of that attack is that she was born and raised in the communist Soviet Union as you just heard her say.

You see, Omarova came to United States as a university student, has become a U.S. citizen since. Growing up, she attended communist schools in that communist country and wrote papers in that tradition. She was in fact a member of the Young Communists as she was mandated to be which was as she told Senator Kennedy, a required part of her education.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KENNEDY: Have you resigned?

OMAROVA: From the youth --

KENNEDY: From the Young Communists?

OMAROVA: You grow out of it with age automatically.

KENNEDY: Did you -- did you send them a letter though resigning?

OMAROVA: Senator, this was many, many years ago. As far as I remember how the Soviet Union worked, was at a certain age, you automatically stopped being a member of --

KENNEDY: Could you look at your records and see if you can find a copy --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: Oh, maybe she should write a letter now to a country that no longer resists -- exists. The real subtext here is this is a formidable intellectual with an incredible vision of financial regulation. She`s had very little chance to speak for herself and tell her story until today when she defended herself from Senator Kennedy`s attack.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KENNEDY: I don`t mean any disrespect. I don`t know whether to call you professor or comrade.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh my goodness.

OMAROVA: Senator, I`m not a communist. I do not subscribe to that ideology. I could not choose where I was born. I did not -- I do not remember joining any Facebook group that subscribes to that ideology. I would never knowingly join any such group. There is no record of me ever actually participating in any Marxist or communist discussions of any kind.

My family suffered under the communist regime. I grew up without knowing half of my family. My grandmother herself escaped death twice under the Stalin regime. This is what seared in my mind. That`s who I am. I remember that history. I came to this country. I`m proud to be an American. And this is why I`m here today, Senator. I`m here today because I`m ready for public service.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: After Senator Kennedy was done with that absolutely embarrassing and clownish display, Senator Elizabeth Warren came in to set Kennedy straight. And I`m going to play that for you and then talk to Elizabeth Warren right after this. Don`t go anywhere.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:50:00]

HAYES: Are you now or have you ever been a member of the communist party? That`s most Americans know from Senator Joseph McCarthy`s communist witch hunt in the 40s and 50s. The crazy thing is that today in the year 2021 in the U.S. Senate, President Joe Biden`s nominee to regulate banks, Saule Omarova had to sit and feel the same kind of questions.

After more than six minutes of that ridiculousness, Senator Elizabeth Warren stepped in and decided to put an end to it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA): Professor Omarova, I know that the giant banks object to your willingness to enforce the law to keep our system safe and that you may cut into big bank profits so they and their Republican buddies have declared war on you. The attacks on your nomination have been vicious and personal. We`ve just seen them, sexism, racism, pages straight out of Joe McCarthy`s 1950s red scare tactics. It is all there on full display. Welcome to Washington in 2021.

Now, one claim is that you intend to nationalize the banking system. So, let`s just get this nonsense out of the way. Does the OCC have the power to end private banking and to move all consumer deposits to a public ledger?

OMAROVA: Absolutely not.

WARREN: If the OCC did have that power, is that something you would support?

OMAROVA: Absolutely not.

WARREN: And are you a capitalist who believes in free markets?

OMAROVA: Yes I am.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: And Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, member of the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee joins me now. I got to say, I have watched a lot of absurd stuff uh on Capitol Hill. That was one of the most cringe-inducing and embarrassing performances I`ve seen in a long time. Am I wrong? I mean, did you feel that way?

WARREN: Oh, you know, to be in the room with it was just unbelievable. But here`s the thing. It is so cynical. If Professor Omarova had actually been somebody who had been out there saying and writing, ma`am, we need to help the big financial institutions and whatever JP Morgan chase wants is what I`m for and we should deregulate, we should just let them run the entire country. You realize that those same republicans would be hailing her as someone who grew up under this oppressive regime and then overcame it --

HAYES: Exactly.

[20:55:01]

WARREN: -- and came to America and fulfilled her dream, her dream to help giant financial institutions. But since that`s not what she wants to do, since she has actually got a pretty good record of having written about the abuses in the financial system, talking about the crash in 2008 and how it was brought on by loading up on risks and regulators who were feckless, as a result these giant banks are like, we don`t want that woman. We have -- no, no, no.

And so, they look for a way to push back against her. You can`t do it on the merits. So, they go after for having been born under the Soviet Union`s regime. She was born in Kazakhstan. She loses half her family to the Stalinists. They -- literally, her family -- much of her family was murdered by them.

She wants to come to the United States. She comes to the United States. She studies at American college. While she is here, the Soviet Union collapses. And she gets to stay and build a life here. She is a well-respected academic. Not someone who sought the limelight, she has just worked through how she believes banking regulation should be run for the American people, not for the big banks, and that`s how she ends up in this crazy Joe McCarthy meets Trumpism on the -- in the Senate banking hearing.

HAYES: And as you know it, I mean, this is -- to your point here, I mean, this is -- this is cover essentially for interest that don`t want to be regulated. Rebecca Traister wrote a great profile of Omarova that was in New York Magazine and made this point, which I think, again, these are obscure positions I think for most people that don`t deal with this universe, OCC, office Comptroller of Concurrency.

But Traister noting this. In the early aughts, OCC became notorious for making itself so attractive to big banks as a regulator whose looser rules would supersede stricter state regulations, that banks like JP Morgan would use to be chartered by New York eagerly took federal charters over state ones.

So, because there`s this -- all these different entities that regulate banks, there can be a kind of like race to the bottom effect that`s happened.

WARREN: Oh, yes, totally.

HAYES: This is a really important -- I mean, the OCC regulates banks and she would be the head of that regulation, is that how this would work?

WARREN: That`s the basic deal here. And understand, we have had recent OCC, it`s called the Comptroller of the Currency.

HAYES: Yes.

WARREN: We`ve had recent people in this position who refer to the banks, these giant banks, as the customers of the OCC and how urging the staff to be better on customer service. Excuse me. They are supposed to be the government that is supposed to regulate these big financial institutions to make sure that they follow the law and don`t cheat their customers, Wells Fargo, for example. And also to make sure that they don`t load up on risk and crash our whole economy again. That`s the function of the OCC.

And that`s the role that she will take, watching out for American consumers, making sure that we get some real competition in the banking industry, and making sure that these guys follow the law. And for that, they have attacked her viciously, mercilessly, and personally, and stupidly.

HAYES: She is a really impressive person. I should note, on my podcast Why Is This Happening? I actually interviewed her for an hour about some of her ideas which have to do with how to think about the Federal Reserve and its role in investment in in the political economy.

She`s a really interesting thinker. She`s not like at all a polemicist in any way. She`s not like out there. She worked in George W. Bush`s Treasury Department. So, people should check that out if they want to -- final question for you because I have you right now. The House is debating that Build Back Better Bill.

The last time I had you on, it was sort of when this framework was developed. You seem very optimistic. It looks like this is going to pass the House tonight. How are you feeling about it now?

WARREN: I`m feeling good. I think it`s going to pass the House tonight. It`s going to go through what we call a scrub after that. And the parliamentarian in the Senate has to run through all the details to make sure it`s right. But I would say right after Thanksgiving, we`re going to have this in the Senate. I`m hopeful we`re going to get this done.

Universal child care, universal pre-k, we`re going to be able to lower the cost of insulin for everybody in the country who takes insulin. Instead of hundreds of dollars a month, we`re going to bring it down to -- measured in the 20s or $30.00 that people pay. It`s going to make a real difference.

And we`re going to get my minimum tax through, the one i have with Senator King. And we`re going to get it through the one that says giant corporations, Amazon pay nothing in taxes even when they`re reporting billions in profits. 15 percent minimum taxes --

HAYES: 15 percent --

WARREN: It`s going to raise $300 billion.

HAYES: That is in the BBB being voted on tonight. Senator Elizabeth Warren, thank you very much.

WARREN: Thank you.

HAYES: That is ALL IN on this Thursday night. "THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW" starts right now. Good evening, Rachel.