Summary
The January 6 Select Committee has issued subpoenas to six more of Trump associates including John Eastman and Michael Flynn. In October 2020, Claremont Institute released a report on a war game exercise called 79 Days to Inauguration that imagined the aftermath of a disputed election filled with violent protests and crackdowns. Sen. Ted Cruz accuses Big Bird of spreading propaganda. President Obama touted the importance of President Biden`s Build Back Better agenda in Glasgow this morning even though that bill that he was discussing has not actually passed the House.
Transcript
TERRY BRADSHAW, FOX SPORTS: Unfortunately, we have got players that pretty much think only about themselves. And I`m extremely disappointed in the actions of Aaron Rodgers.
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JONATHAN CAPEHART, MSNBC HOST: Kids, that`s what we call a read. And here are some facts that even Big Bird would understand. The New York Times is reporting the gap in COVID deaths -- COVID`s death toll between red and blue America has grown faster over the past month that at any previous point. The big difference of course is vaccinations.
So the lesson of the day is, if you find yourself attacking Big Bird on getting vaccinated or really on any issue, you`re probably on the wrong side. And in the case of those on the right already doing that, you`re tonight`s absolute worst.
And that`s tonight`s REIDOUT. "ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES" starts right now.
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CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST: Tonight on ALL IN. Six new subpoenas from the Select Committee investigating January 6th. Tonight, what we know about what the committee wants with Michael Flynn, Bernard Kerik, John Eastman, and more.
Plus, why hasn`t the Justice Department moved on Steve Bannon yet. And new reporting on the right-wing playbook drawn up in advance of the insurrection.
JOHN EASTMAN, LAW PROFESSOR: All we are demanding of Vice President Pence is this afternoon at 1:00, he let the legislatures of the state look into this.
HAYES: Plus, the grim reality of the partisan toll COVID continues to take on America. And the former president addresses the world in Glasgow.
BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Some of our progress stalled when my successor decided to unilaterally pull out of the Paris Agreement in his first year in office. I wasn`t real happy about that.
HAYES: Tonight, energy secretary Jennifer Granholm on what the Biden agenda means for climate when ALL IN starts right now.
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HAYES: Good evening from New York, I`m Chris Hayes. Today, the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Insurrection handed down subpoenas to six more top Trump officials and campaign aides.
This comes after the chair of the committee, Congressman Bennie Thompson of Mississippi said they were set to issue up to 20 new subpoenas. We have six of them as of today. One of them went to a guy whose name may ring a bell. We`ve spent some time covering him on this program back in the day. His name is Bill Stepien. He was involved in the New Jersey Bridgegate scandal. Remember that?
He was then-Governor Chris Christie`s deputy chief of staff until he was fired and he went on to work for Trump. In fact, he was the campaign manager for Trump`s 2020 re-election where, as the committee puts it in the letter it sent today to Stepien, he "supervised the conversion of the campaign to an effort focused on Stop the Steal messaging.
And those lies the election was going to be stolen from Donald Trump were "echoed by individuals who attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6th. The campaign led by Stepien also reportedly urged state and party officials to affect the outcome of the election. Like in Michigan where they asked lawmakers to overrule the results and appoint electors for Trump.
The next subpoena went to Jason Miller who you may remember as the chief spokesman for Donald Trump`s 2016 campaign and transition. He was named as Trump`s first communications director. He withdrew in the wake of news of having impregnated a campaign staffer. Last year, he joined the re-election campaign as a senior advisor. In that role, as the committee notes, he regularly spread the claim the election had been tainted by widespread fraud, spreading those same lies that of course, the January 6 rioters repeated.
After the election, Miller coordinated with Trump and Rudy Giuliani to hold press events pushing those claims the election was rigged. And according to reporting in Robert Costa and Bob Woodward`s book, Miller was among the Trump allies who gathered at the war room at the Willard Hotel on January 5th the day before working up a plan to ferment a coup, to overturn the election results.
The third subpoena went to a largely unknown staffer. And I will admit, when I saw the name on the list, I thought to myself, is this someone that I should know. Her name is Angela McCallum. That`s her right there. She is young. She`s a 2019 graduate of Clemson University who interned at the Trump White House and then to went to work on the campaign ultimately the role of national executive assistant of Election Day operations.
And the reason she appears to have been subpoenaed, according to the committee, is evidence that McCallum is "aware of and participated in efforts to spread false information about alleged voter fraud in the election as well as efforts to encourage state legislators to alter the outcome of the election. In fact, we have very clear evidence of that last point in the form of a voicemail that Ms. McCallum left for a Michigan lawmaker in the weeks following the election urging them to just appoint Trump electors.
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ANGELA MCCALLUM, FORMER TRUMP CAMPAIGN AIDE: Hi, Representative. My name is Angela McCallum. I`m calling from Trump Campaign headquarters in Washington D.C. I know you`re very busy but I did want to personally reach out to you on behalf of the president as you`ve got an opportunity to be a crucial part of his re-election.
You do have the power to reclaim your authority and send a slate of electors that will support President Trump and Vice President Pence.
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[20:05:25]
HAYES: What an incredible voicemail, kind of like a -- like a spam robocall for a coup, just like blowing through that list. Like, hey, how`s it going? Yes, you can you know, ignore the will of the people and install the loser over the winner. OK, thanks.
Another subpoena today goes to John Eastman who is a more familiar character in this drama of course. He`s a conservative lawyer who was in the news recently as the author of that memo outlining a plan for then-Vice President Pence to essentially unilaterally overturn the election results on January 6.
The committee notes in the lead up to the insurrection, Eastman told the Georgia State Legislature that they could reject election results and directly appoint electors. If you`re sensing a theme here, that`s because there is. He also participated in a briefing for nearly 300 state legislators from several states regarding purported election fraud on January 2nd telling them it was their duty to fix this egregious conduct.
And of course, Eastman was at the Willard Hotel too in that Trump war room helping plan the events of January 6th. He`s the man with the white hair circled in this photo approaching Rudy Giuliani.
The committee also subpoenaed former General Michael Flynn today. You will of course remember him as Donald Trump`s first national security adviser who resigned after less than a month amid revelations about his conversations with the Russian ambassador before Trump was even inaugurated. He ended up pleading guilty to lying to the FBI. He started cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller`s investigation but then seemed to stop and then turned against it and then said it was all a witch hunt and then was later pardoned by Donald Trump.
In its letter to Flynn today, the January 6 Community references reporting that he attended a December 18, 2020 meeting in the Oval Office during which participants discussed seizing voting machines, declaring a national emergency, invoking certain national security emergency powers and continuing to spread the message that the election have been tainted by widespread fraud.
Just the night before, Flynn spread similar claims on the right-wing network Newsmax.
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MICHAEL FLYNN, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: He could order the -- within the swing states, if he wanted to, he could take military capabilities and he could place him in those states and basically rerun an election in each of those states. I mean, it`s not unprecedented. I mean, there`s people out there talking about martial law it`s like it`s something that we`ve never done. We`ve done -- the martial law has been instituted 64 times, Greg.
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HAYES: Well, it would be unprecedented to institute martial law to re-run an election that you lost. The final subpoena today went to another a familiar name, Bernard Kerik. Boy, that`s a name. He was a former commissioner in New York City Police Department who pleaded guilty to eight felony charges including tax fraud and making false statements back in the day. He then spent more than three years in prison and then was subsequently pardoned by Donald Trump last year.
It`s sort of a theme here of people pardoned by Donald Trump, then working very hard to try to install Donald Trump in a coup. You got your Bannon, you got your Flynn, you got your Kerik. It`s a crew.
Kerik is an ally of Trump and Rudy Giuliani, his former boss, who he worked with to "investigate allegations of voter fraud and promote Stop the Steal efforts." The committee notes reporting that carrick paid for rooms and suites in Washington D.C. Hotel that served as election-related command centers. It`s nice that he paid, I guess.
He participated in the January 5th meeting at the Willard Hotel with the also pardoned Steve Bannon, John Eastman, and others. This is where we are tonight with outstanding subpoenas for Bill Stepien, Jason Miller, Angela McCallum, who by the way, I hope she has a lawyer. She should definitely get one. Ms. McCallum, if you`re watching. John Eastman, Michael Flynn, and Bernard Kerik, as well as Steve Bannon who you know, has made no moves to comply despite the contempt vote against him.
So, we wait to see what the newly subpoenaed Trump allies of the January 6 Committee and the Department of Justice will do next.
Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, Democrat of California is a member of the January 6 Select Committee that just issued those subpoenas, and she joins me now. What -- is there a unifying theme here in these folks or should we interpret this as the committee making its way through the main players?
REP. ZOE LOFGREN (D-CA): Well, I think it`s just part of our plowing through to get all the evidence about everything that happened. We -- clearly, these are individuals who were heavily involved in trying to overturn the election, being involved in the so-called war rooms at the Willard Hotel. And we need to find out everything they said and did leading to that mercifully failed effort to overturn the election.
We are -- we have interviewed hundreds over 150 people so far and we`ve got additional interviews and depositions ongoing so that we can get all the information and it`s -- that`s our job.
[20:10:21]
HAYES: Yes. The 150 interviews seems important. I just want to linger on that for a second because obviously the news is made by those who don`t comply and we`re going to talk about Steve Bannon and maybe Jeffrey Clark in a moment, but the committee has been doing my understanding -- and you just said, 150 years, and he`s doing a lot of work in parallel to whatever obstacles are being thrown up by those individuals.
LOFGREN: That`s right. We`re just plowing ahead. Quite a few people have stepped forward voluntarily to tell us what they know. A few people want to do that but felt that they would like to have a subpoena just to explain why they were appearing. And then some have been more resistant.
In each case, we intend to get the information we need to get to the bottom of everything, how it was planned, what the intent was, who paid for it.
HAYES: Let`s talk about one of the people that was subpoenaed, Jeffrey Clark, key player in this. If folks don`t remember, he was t -- he ended up as the number three in the Department of Justice. He reportedly plotted directly with President Trump to replace the acting attorney general so as to have the Department of Justice sort of take over this role of sending out letters to Georgia and perhaps other states saying the election is tainted and you should consider, you know, your constitutional remedies including sending electors for Donald Trump.
This is reporting from the Washington Post on Mr. Clark`s cooperation. The January 6 Committee warns department -- Trump official Jeffrey Clark he must cooperate with investigation or it will move aggressively against him. Chairman Bennie Thompson, if Clark doesn`t cooperate, they will take strong measures to hold him accountable to his obligation.
My understanding was he was appearing before the committee on Friday. Can you tell us what happened?
LOFGREN: Well, you know, it was executive session so I can`t go into all the details. But I will -- you know, I was on -- in the meeting and he is required to answer questions and if he has some privilege that he wishes to assert, he`s required to assert it question by question.
He refused to do that and ultimately he and his team walked out. That`s unacceptable. We`re doing a follow-up with him explaining that it`s unacceptable and giving him a very short period of time to come to his senses and comply. I hope he does.
HAYES: Steve Bannon of course did Clark one better by never even bothered to showing up. And today, the Attorney General of the United States held a press conference for an announcement on some prosecutions of a ransomware attack. And he was asked a question about Mr. Bannon. I want to play it for you and get your reaction. Here`s what happened.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you provide the status of the referral for Mr. Bannon where you are on that?
MERRICK GARLAND, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: No. This is a -- this is a criminal matter. It`s an ongoing examination of the referral. And as you know, the Justice Department doesn`t comment on those. We evaluate these in the normal way we do, facts and the law, and applying the principles of prosecution.
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HAYES: By the book answer but I wonder how -- what you think about the timeline thus far.
LOFGREN: Well, I don`t know what the timeline is. But obviously, they do need to take a look at the facts and the law to make a determination on whether to prosecute. I think the facts and law are quite clear and I expect that the attorney general and the Department of Justice will proceed accordingly once they`ve gone through all of the material.
I believe that the uh analysis is being done in the ordinary course of events. It`s not being run by the attorney general himself, it`s being run by the law enforcement officials who would in every case ordinarily do that. And I expect that the Department of Justice will indeed prosecute.
HAYES: All right, congresswoman Zoe Lofgren on the committee, thank you very much for some time tonight.
LOFGREN: Anytime.
HAYES: Elie Mystal is a Justice Correspondent for The Nation. He recently published a piece titled the Department of Justice is letting the coup plotters get away and he joins me now.
There was a little bit of a moment I think today when there was an announcement that went out this morning that there was going to be a big Department of Justice announcement. Maybe this would have something to do with this case. It did not. He did get that question. He answered in a very rote fashion which in his defense, that`s sort of the way you have to answer unless you`re going to make news on it. But you seem to think that they are not moving quickly enough here. Why?
ELIE MYSTAL, JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT, THE NATION: Yes. The rickrolling conference was salt in the wound here. Look, the answer is ridiculous, right? He`s saying he`s looking at the law and the facts. The law and the facts are that Steve Bannon got a subpoena. Here`s what you have to research. Was the subpoena duly authorized? Yes. Did he show up? No. Then, arrest him and we`re done, right? Like, that`s the law and the facts here.
[20:15:17]
Look, the frustration with Merrick Garland for me is kind of bowling, boiling over. You`re kind of -- look, you -- it`s like -- it`s like you go to the store with your mom, right. and you`re like, mommy, mommy, I really need an attorney general, an action attorney general. And your mother says, we have attorney generals at home, and you end up Merrick Garland.
He looks the part, but he doesn`t do the things that an attorney general is supposed to be doing. Now, the scuttlebutt -- I mean there are so many layers to this. The scuttlebutt is that one of the reasons why he`s delaying going after Steve Bannon is that he`s trying to cross all the eyes and dot all the T`s and -- I`m sorry, cross the T`s, dot the I`s. And he`s waiting for a court ruling showing that Congress has a congressional purpose, a legislative purpose for their select committee hearing, that he`s kind of waiting for that decision before he goes whole hard on Bannon which sounds like a reasonable cautious thing to do until you remember the fact that look at what`s happening. Because he`s delaying with Bannon, now all of these other subpoenas are going to be delayed because these people most likely, I think Flynn is -- would be my take for the one least likely to comply.
HAYES: Right.
MYSTAL: These people are most likely not going to comply with the subpoena. So, now, that`s going to be delayed. And now, they`re going to have to -- you see what I`m saying?
HAYES: Yes.
MYSTAL: Like, there isn`t a lot of time here because of the political realities of the situation. And that`s my last point here. With the waiting for the determination of a legislative purpose, all of this could be obviated if Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray were doing their job and investigating -- having a criminal investigation into the people who planned and did this coup. Like, that would obviate the entire need for the select committee.
HAYES: Yes. And that`s. And that`s part of -- that to me gets us closer to the point in some ways. I mean, there`s this -- Stephen Beschloss wrote this piece on a substack today basically saying that, you know, talking about sort of Garland`s dispositional conservatism, his belief his primary responsibility it`s the institution he`s now serving, the need to de- politicize it after four years of decreasing obeisance to out-of-control -- I never know how to say that word -- to an out-of-control president.
I guess the point here seems to me to two-fold. One is that you`ve got the committee doing its work, but it continues to be the case like when you go through these committee subpoenas, it`s like, they tried to overturn an election. That was the thing they did.
Now, whether that crosses the boundary of federal criminal law or not, I`m not a lawyer enough to know. There`s reporting today about that Fulton County District Attorney and a grand jury possibly in Georgia today, but that is in some ways the issue here which is like, whatever this committee were to do, it really does seem like we saw them try to attempt a coup and thus far face no criminal repercussions or investigation.
MYSTAL: It speaks to -- and look, I don`t want to impugn bad faith. I think Garland is a -- is a dedicated public servant.
HAYES: Yes.
MYSTAL: But it speaks to cowardice. It speaks to straight cowardice. He is happy to indict the foot soldiers, the people who breach the capital because that is easy. It is easy to get indictments of people waving confederate flags around and breaking out windows in the capitol. It is harder -- it is comparatively harder to investigate and prosecute and charge the people who planned it, the people -- the brains behind the operation so you can (INAUDIBLE) having brains. That`s harder.
And he doesn`t seem to have the gumption to do it. And every time he delays, every delay that he does, brings us one step closer to Democrats losing control of the House, them not being able to continue their congressional investigation, and everybody involved getting away with it.
Democrats right now are kind of reeling from the election results from a week ago wondering why voters didn`t seem to care that the Republican Party tried to coup. My question for Democrats is why doesn`t your Justice Department care.
HAYES: Yes.
MYSTAL: Where is the sense of urgency coming from the Justice Department and the FBI to care about these things and to do something about them because I don`t see it.
HAYES: Yes. It`s a fair -- it`s fair critique. Elie Mystal, thank you very much.
The January 6 memo wasn`t the only election scenario Trump lawyer John Eastman was dreaming up. He was also a co-author who report that claimed to depict what would happen if the results of the election were somehow ambiguous. What they wrote instead was a violent, dystrophic instruction manual laying on how Trump partisans and right-wing street gangs could join forces to ensure a second term for Donald Trump. The unbelievable details from that report right after this.
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[20:20:00]
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RUDY GIULIANI, FORMER LAWYER TO DONALD TRUMP: Every single thing that has been outlined as the plan for today is perfectly legal. I have Professor Eastman here with me to say a few words about that. He`s one of the preeminent constitutional scholars in the United States.
EASTMAN: All we are demanding of Vice President Pence is this afternoon at 1:00, he let the legislatures of the state look into this so we get to the bottom of it and the American people know whether we have control of the direction of our government or not.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: That man who was introduced by Rudy Giuliani at Trump`s January 6 rally is John Eastman. Today, he was subpoenaed by the committee investigating the January 6 insurrection. And he is the guy who literally wrote the memo on how to overturn the election. He`s also a senior fellow to a right-wing think tank known as The Claremont Institute.
And back in October 2020, less than a month before the election even happened, that institute released a report on a war game exercise it ran called 79 Days to Inauguration. It is the imagined aftermath of a disputed election filled with violent protests and crackdowns. Listen to how it is described in the Bulwark which wrote about it. "Practically, the report is instruction manual for how Trump partisans at all levels of government aided by citizen posses of Proud Boys and Oath Keepers could quite literally round up opposition activists, kill their leaders, and install Donald Trump for a second term in office.
Christian Vanderbrouk is a contributor at the Bulwark who wrote that piece. He also served eight years in the George W. Bush administration and he joins me now. Good to have you here.
CHRISTIAN VANDERBROUK, CONTRIBUTOR, THE BULWARK: Nice to be here, Chris.
[20:25:00]
HAYES: So, I want to -- so, I want to introduce the precipitating incident for this report from the Claremont Institute which is right-wing think tank is something that`s done by the Transition Integrity Project Report. There`s a lot of folks previously election watching Donald Trump saying it`s rigged, it`s rigged, it`s rigged, saying like we`re headed somewhere bad. And this report said, we assess -- it`s released in August of 2020 -- we assess President Trump is likely to contest the result by both legal and extra-legal means in attempt to hold on to power. Remarkably prescient and prophetic and that came true.
The Claremont Institute then reacts to that with this report. What is that?
VANDERBROUK: Right. So, what the Claremont Institute has done is basically said, all of you people at the Transition Integrity Project, your hair is on fire. You don`t need to worry. And your focus is on the wrong place, right? Your focus needs to be on left-wing agitators and rioters who are going to cause all of this post-election chaos. And we the Claremont Institute and the Texas public policy foundation, we are going to put on our sober realistic war gamer hats and we`re going to find out exactly what`s going to happen in the aftermath of these nationwide riots that we all assume are going to happen because Antifa and Black Lives Matter we all know are just inherently violent.
HAYES: Right. So there`s -- they`re sketching out the -- so, rather than saying like, it`s sort of like no, like, I know you are (INAUDIBLE) right, about the -- about the obvious authoritarian fantasy of Donald Trump. And then they sort of sketch out this. And again, like this war gaming thing is like it`s basically just you know -- it`s pretend. It`s make-believe. It`s with a name that makes it sound like some sort of serious rigorous undertaking.
VANDERBROUK: Yes. It`s an excuse really for them to write their dream scenario.
HAYES: Yes.
VANDERBROUK: So, they -- so they start by imagining that on election night, Texas has initially declared for Biden. Immediately afterwards, news -- the news stations withdraw their call that Biden has won. And how does the nation react? With riots in cities across the country. They imagine 14 police officers are shot.
There are fires just consuming the nation. It overwhelms police and fire officials. And so, what does law enforcement, what do they do? Well, they turn to rural sheriffs who are looking to the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters who are putting their names out there saying hey, we`re retired law enforcement, we`re retired military, we can protect the good Americans in these rural counties from all of these raving bans of left-wing rioters. And so, this is really where their scenario begins.
HAYES: And I mean, it`s a bizarre document because that gets ostensibly issued as warning but is actually fantasy, is that fair to say? Like, you know what I mean? It`s like oh this will -- this is what will happen if the left wing like, doesn`t get the result they want, but it`s also a like there`s a sort of salivating that`s happening in this bizarre text.
VANDERBROUK: Yes. As I write in the piece, they`re steering into the violence. So, the Transition Integrity Project, they knew that if Trump declared that he had won the election, that there would be a place for the mass mobilization of peaceful protesters. And they really wrangled with OK, how do we do this and really maintain the peaceful character of these protests? And so, you can see that the tip the Transition Integrity Project planners wrestling with this question.
The Claremont Institute, they don`t wrestle at all. They assume that violence is going to happen and they say OK, so this justifies a massive authoritarian response starting with the federal government which rounds up Antifa and Black Lives Matter -- Black Lives Matter leaders by the thousands. And just on the lowest of charges, they use RICO statutes which as legal scholars know is kind of a silly law. But they`re just looking for any justification to round these people up, get them off the playing field.
Some of these interactions are quite violent. They describe three people being killed in officer-involved shootings. And as they write in the report, neither the suspects nor the shooters were identified. And so, this lends a sense of impunity to the whole exercise. It starts to sound more like death squads than any kind of legitimate law enforcement function.
HAYES: I mean, I`ve read sections of this and I think it`s not insane characterization to say like, it amounts to kind of like fascist fantasy.
VANDERBROUK: Sure, sure.
HAYES: And -- but also, I mean, the sort of justification of authoritarian moves. I mean, this is the thing that`s in the air around all this when you saw Michael Flynn that we played I think in the previous block. I mean, talking about using martial law. Like -- and it`s the specter that hangs over the decision-makers like Millie. It`s the decision-makers that hand over -- or Christopher Miller at DOD when they`re thinking about whether he uses troops or not. Like, this kind of fantasy about unrest, violence, and an authoritarian response in response to a dispute election is the context for much of the decision-makers in actual reality.
VANDERBROUK: Right. And that`s what makes this much more than just political fantasizing because the key players behind this report were very active in that room with Rudy Giuliani. You had John Eastman. You talked about the Eastman memo. He`s a key player in laying out this entire scenario. K.T. McFarland who was Michael Flynn`s deputy at the national security council. She is part of this team that`s laying out again how law enforcement aided by pro-Trump law enforcement and irregular posses of Proud Boys would win the 2020 election in the streets. And I think that`s why this bears much more scrutiny than it`s gotten.
[20:30:18]
HAYES: Christian Vanderbrouk who wrote this up for the Bulwark, you can find it online. Thank you very much.
VANDERBROUK: Thank you.
HAYES: Ahead, the conservative fury over giant yellow bird who is just trying to do his job. What it reveals about the tangible consequences at the right-wing messaging on COVID, that`s next.
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HAYES: There are roughly speaking, two kinds of messaging that Americans are getting on COVID. There are people out there trying to be helpful. People across the ideological spectrum, people that are civil servants or media figures and just trying to get folks vaccinated to save lives. And then there are people doing everything they can to undermine the progress that we are making slowly as a country.
Big Bird from Sesame Street has always been a helper which is why this weekend, the bird tweeted -- I mean, the bird didn`t literally tweet, a human tweeted for the bird, "I got the covet 19 vaccine today. My wing is feeling a little sore but it`ll give my body an extra protective boost that keeps me and others healthy."
[20:35:19]
And if you`ve ever watched Sesame Street, you would know the show has always promoted public health measures. In fact, this morning, the show shared this clip from 1972 when Big Bird learned about getting his measles vaccination. Of course, that did not stop those of the right from attacking, and I cannot believe I`m saying this, Big Bird.
For instance, aspiring podcaster Senator Ted Cruz who heroically attacked the children`s TV puppet as a quote -- as "government propaganda for your 5-year-old. And yes, this is dumb trolling. This is kind of what he does, but it was a real life and death consequences here.
I mean, again, beneath all the like, the discourse and the gotcha stuff and all that, you don`t have to go very far to see how this constant drumbeat from people like Ted Cruz specifically and others has had and can have huge repercussions.
Look at this chart from the New York Times today showing the cumulative COVID deaths since the beginning of this year when vaccines first started to become available. The blue line shows counties where President Joe Biden won at least 60 percent of the vote. The red line shows counties where Donald Trump won at least 60 of the vote. The gray line is everywhere in between.
The Times reports "In October 25, out of every 100,000 residents of heavily Trump counties died from COVID, more than three times higher than the rate in heavenly Biden counties, 7.8 per 100,000.
Dr. Ashish Jha is the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health and he joins me now. I was looking at this data today. There`s also data suggesting that 40 of Republican adults remain unvaccinated where only 10 of Democratic adults. And again, I don`t want to like get into a like this is some sign of the superior virtue of one set of people or other or these people are pro-science or these people wrote anti-science, but there`s a very real thing that`s happened in this country. Like, it really is a real thing and it has had -- it has cost tangibly in a way that is very rare in governing like just a number of lives that did not have to die.
DR. ASHISH JHA, DEAN, BROWN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH: Chris, thanks for having me back. No doubt about it. Look, Americans live in different information ecosystems, right? Some Americans get very different information than other Americans do. And they`re a group of Americans who`ve been hearing non-stop for 10, 11 months now that vaccines don`t work, that they`re experimental, all sorts of nonsense. And they`ve also been hearing from the year before that this was not a big deal, that this was nothing worse than the flu.
So, if it`s not a big deal and you`ve got an experimental vaccine, no surprise you`re not going to end up taking it. But the consequences are exactly what you said, what Mr. Leonard laid out, which is that tens of thousands of people have died unnecessarily.
HAYES: There`s also something about this data that speaks to the difficulties we`ve had in a response which is to say, because it focuses on the county level, a lot of these counties, in fact, maybe the majority of them are in, you know, Democratic states or have Democratic governors for instance or they might even have local Democratic administrators, right?
I mean, so we tend to focus a lot on policy. We focus on what Ron DeSantis is doing, Greg Abbott, and that policy matters, but I think behavior here and behavior culture information ecosystem particularly as vaccines have become so key it just shows how robust that effect is.
JHA: Absolutely. And it actually tells you the limits of state policy making. You can make vaccines widely available. We see that here in Massachusetts where vaccines have been available. Vast majority people have gotten them. But there are still counties in Massachusetts where vaccine rates are lower than the national average. And it`s not because something is -- you know, the governor is doing something wrong. The bottom line is people get their information from Facebook and Twitter and other sources and families. And to the extent that they have been dissuaded from getting vaccinated, that`s really having an effect.
HAYES: And of course, the reason that Big Bird is tweeting about this is because we now have approved vaccines for kids 5 to 11. People in my social circle are all, you know, posting their pictures their kids getting vaccinated. People are trying to get on websites that are overloaded. You know, I think all that`s going to get sorted out within a week or so. But this is another place where like, those same messages are going to extend and those same fights are going to extend. And I guess, I wonder what you think the public health consequences of that are.
JHA: Yes. I actually am really worried about the long-term public health consequences of all of this stuff because look, we have actually been pretty bipartisan when it comes to vaccinations. The most vaccinated state in our country pre-COVID was Mississippi, had fabulous policies on vaccinations. And what I`m really deeply worried about is that this politicization of a vaccine of a -- of an infectious disease is going to make people go back and question vaccine mandates for measles or polio or other things. And I worry about really rolling back, you know, 50-60 years of public health gains.
[20:40:09]
HAYES: Yes, there`s a thing that happens in these discussions rhetorically where people -- I think any argument against the vaccine the COVID vaccine ends up in a sort of logical sense proving too much which is to say, if it works for that, it works for other vaccines. But then, you never really want to take that rhetorical tact because I don`t -- I don`t want to end up in this position where like you`ve like checkmate gotcha and someone into a corner where it`s like well, if you believe that then you can`t believe in any vaccine mandates. And it`s like yes, fine. And then, we`re in precisely the position that you identify.
JHA: Yes. No, that`s right. This is one of the things why I actually -- I worry about trying to get into an argument with people. Look, what we actually have to do is normalize this vaccine mandate because we`ve been doing mandates for a long time. They work. They`ve kept our kids healthy. But there are going to be people who are -- and we`ve started seeing this. There are legislators in Mississippi who`ve now started asking the question well, maybe we shouldn`t have mandates at all.
HAYES: Yes.
JHA: We`ve really got to push back against that because we cannot turn our back on the gains of science and public health over the last half century.
HAYES: All right, Dr. Ashish Jha, always a pleasure. Thank you very much.
JHA: Thank you.
HAYES: Coming up, a big day at the U.N. climate conference in Glasgow where before he spoke today, Barack Obama referred to himself as John Kerry`s hype man. He certainly lived up to his own billing. We`ll show you how next.
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[20:45:00]
HAYES: For the past week, the 26th United Nations` climate change conference has been taking place in Glasgow, Scotland. The U.S. has taken a leading active role in these proceedings. President Joe Biden in fact went there himself, addressed the conference last week. It`s something that would have obviously been entirely unthinkable had Donald Trump been re- elected president one year ago.
In fact, the Trump Administration`s backtracking on climate policy costs the world precious time we simply do not have. A mistake former President Obama addressed in a speech of his own at that climate conference today.
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BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Back in the United States, of course, some of our progress stalled when my successor decided to unilaterally pull out of the Paris Agreement in his first year in office. I wasn`t real happy about that. And yet the determination of our state and local governments, along with the regulations and investment that my administration had already put in place, allowed our country to keep moving forward despite hostility from the White House.
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HAYES: President Biden officially rejoined the Paris Agreement earlier this year, was a main campaign pledge and he did it. But as former President Obama noted today, the Trump Administration was not the only global player to shirk its client responsibilities over the past few years.
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OBAMA: The ratcheting up of ambition that we anticipated in Paris six years ago has not been uniformly realized. I have to confess it was particularly discouraging to see the leaders of two of the world`s largest emitters, China and Russia, declined to even attend the proceedings. And their national plans so far reflect what appears to be a dangerous lack of urgency, a willingness to maintain the status quo on the part of those governments and that`s a shame.
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HAYES: Now, he`s right about that but there`s a little bit of a glass house situation here. The U.S. does not have an exemplary record on the climate. under both Democrat and Republican -- Democratic and Republican administrations, the countries move far too slowly to address the apocalyptic threat of global climate -- global climate catastrophe.
Of course, when Republicans are in power, they actually move the country back into denial. When Democrats are in power, they move ahead but very slowly and we need to move ahead quickly. Last week, the House passed the bipartisan infrastructure bill which to its credit contains billions for clean energy. But again, it does not go nearly far enough.
The real big climate provisions, the biggest ever in the history of this country will have to come from the Democrats only Build Back Better Bill which as of now, faces a very uncertain future. One of the key people in the Biden administration charged with actually making a difference on climate joins me next.
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[20:50:00]
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OBAMA: It will reduce consumer energy cost, it will invest in a clean energy economy. It will create hundreds of thousands of jobs, and it will set the United States on course to meet its new climate targets, achieving a 50 to 52 reduction in greenhouse gas emissions below 2005 levels by 2030. So, the U.S. is back.
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HAYES: President Obama touted the importance of President Biden`s Build Back Better agenda in Glasgow this morning even though that bill that he was discussing has not actually passed the House. Very late Friday night, the House did pass another big Biden bill, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill. But the infrastructure bill doesn`t have any of the real big climate fighting measures in it like the one that President Obama touted.
Those are all in the nearly $2 trillion social policy and climate plan that has a very, very unclear future at this moment. I`m joined now by one of the key members of Biden`s cabinet when it comes to fighting climate change, Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm.
Secretary, it`s great to have you. First, I just want to start on that note. I mean, you`ve got President Obama talking about the climate provisions, the Build Back Better reconciliation bill. That has not been passed. We instead have the infrastructure bill. You were just in Scotland. What were you telling people there? Like, were you telling them we`re going to pass this thing, trust me?
JENNIFER GRANHOLM, U.S. SECRETARY OF ENERGY: Well, yes, we were. And in fact, I left on Saturday just after the infrastructure bill was passed. And by the way, Chris, just a slight correction on that. The Infrastructure Bill actually does have some significant climate provisions including billions of dollars for the -- for the transmission grid including electric vehicle charging stations, including billions of dollars for -- that pluses up weatherization of homes including capping oil and gas wells which are the source of a good number of methane leaks.
So, there are a lot of climate provisions, climate-related provisions in the Infrastructure Bill, however, your point that the reconciliation bill, the next step is going to be really exponentially more important because the long pole in the tent are the tax credits that are very significant that will get the private sector to invest in solar, wind, geothermal, hydrogen -- clean hydrogen hydro power, and the batteries for the electric vehicle, etcetera.
So, there`s the one-two punch of both of those bills will be very significant for the climate. Altogether, those two will be about $700 billion, the biggest investment we`ve ever made in combating climate change.
[20:55:12]
HAYES: I`m curious, what is -- what is the conference like? I`ve never been to one of these. I`ve thought about going. You know, when I think about the politics of this, it just seems like -- it fills me with a kind of just despair, right, because -- I mean we`re watching how hard it is to get like 50 Democratic senators to agree on something. That`s hard enough. You`re talking about every country in the world, right, agreeing on something, and agreeing on a thing that is difficult, that is going to be difficult for everyone. And what is -- what is it like to be there? What is the mood like at this?
GRANHOLM: Well, I think the mood -- I mean, everybody there of course is totally committed to this fight, and every country is doing its own version of what we are doing, but some more and some less. One -- I mean, one of the things that happens there are a series of announcements that every country makes about what it`s going to do.
So, for example, the United States announced something called net zero world where we were going to help countries that had made really ambitious pledges but maybe didn`t have the means to develop the pathway to get to those ambitious pledges, for example, the technology pathways. And so, we`re going to help a number of countries like Indonesia, and Nigeria, and Egypt, Ukraine to get to their goals of net zero by 2050 through our national labs. We have 17 national labs and they have the expertise in identifying the pathways.
So, that`s the kind of announcement we made. We also made a big announcement, for example, the U.S. did, on removing CO2 from the atmosphere. It`s called a -- we have a series of earth shots like you know, you have moon shots. Well, we have earth shots to be able to get to the technology leaps that are necessary to reach our goals.
These are longer-term strategies. So, for example, our carbon negative shot was to remove carbon from the atmosphere because the internet -- intergovernmental panel on climate change says we cannot get to our overall goals without all manner of technologies including carbon removal from the atmosphere.
HAYES: Are you confident -- I mean, I think i know the answer, but are you confident that when you talk about those $700 billion in climate investment across the two bills, and I agree that there are some -- there is some good stuff in that infrastructure bill, the grid stuff which maybe we can talk about in a second.
I mean, I guess everyone`s sort of wondering like is this thing going to happen and just like how confident are you that it`s going to happen and those climate investments are going to be there in the final thing that gets signed into law.
GRANHOLM: You`re talking about in the -- in the second step in the Build Back Better agenda? Am I confident --
HAYES: Yes in the second step. I mean, because you`re right, it`s --
GRANHOLM: Yes.
HAYES: Yes.
GRANHOLM: Yes -- no, listen, the President would not have put it out and expressed utter confidence in it if he hadn`t been having very significant conversations with the senators who were more reluctant to support the bigger part of the bill.
HAYES: Right.
GRANHOLM: I am very confident that we are going to get, for example, these very significant tax credits which are -- which are monetizable, which are paid up front to allow for the build out of these technologies. And that is going to -- it`s over a long period of time. It will be a game-changer. We`ve got to triple the amount of renewable energy on our transmission grid. We`ve got to double the size of our transmission grid.
One of the tax credits for example is an investment tax credit of 30 percent for the build out of the transmission grid in addition to what`s already in the infrastructure package. So, those -- these are significant incentives to be able to do what we need to do.
HAYES: How far -- I mean, how far does the -- just in the bipartisan infrastructure bill, that the one that has been -- that has been passed. What is -- just explain to me what that money does when we talk about the grid because it seems very abstract to me and there`s a lot of things that have to happen with the grid. Where does that money go to begin with? Like, who gets it and what do they do?
GRANHOLM: Yes. Well, for one example, we need to be able to, as the federal government, take a position, an off take position on the building of transmission. So, in other words, transmission lines are not built on spec. They`re built by folks who are private sector folks who are going to be assured of a payback.
HAYES: Right.
GRANHOLM: But if you don`t have an immediate off take, then that`s too much risk for them. So, the United States can help that by saying we`re going to have some of that off take. We need to take -- we need to use our facilities on renewable energy. We`ll take that risk. We know it`s going to be paid back in full. So, that`s one example of how we will be able to do that, incentivizing local governments to be able to grant the permitting necessary for some of these big transmission lines, doing the planning and the digging.
If we`re going to put transmission lines on federal rights of way, including along freeways or on federal lands, those are all the kinds of things that we`re going to be inside the department creating a grid deployment authority to be able to do to break down some of the barriers that are definitely out there for the building of the grid.
HAYES: All right, Secretary Jennifer Granholm, just back from Scotland, thank you very much.
GRANHOLM: You bet.
HAYES: That is ALL IN on this Monday evening. "THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW" starts right now. Good evening, Rachel.