Summary:
A Trump appointee was arrested for the role in the attack on the
Capitol. Rep. Eric Swalwell filed a lawsuit against former President Trump,
Trump Jr., Rudy Giuliani, Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama of violating federal
civil rights law and local incitement laws with their speeches at that
rally near the White House in the morning of January 6th. Sen. Joe Manchin
has agreed to a Democratic proposal that will decrease the unemployment
bonus that`s over the normal amount you get right from $400 a week to $300
a week. Seven Democrats and one independent vote against raising minimum
wage to $15.00; New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo faces investigation over
handling of death of nursing home residents; Ezra Klein: Joe Biden getting
things done by being the Anti-Trump.
Transcript:
JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: Renee Montgomery, who went to battle against Kelly
Leoffler when Kelly Loeffler was downing Black Lives Matter, former player
on the WNBA, now a part-owner of the Atlanta Dream, bought out Kelly
Loeffler stake. She won the week. Dean Obeidallah, Susan del Percio, that`s
tonight`s REIDOUT.
Do not miss the "CROSS CONNECTION" tomorrow morning. Tiffany will be joined
by Dr. Anthony Fauci. Tomorrow morning at 10:00 a.m. Eastern on MSNBC. "ALL
IN WITH CHRIS" starts now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST (voice-over): Tonight, on ALL IN.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We need fresh patriots to the front.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We need fresh people. We need fresh people.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come on. What the (BLEEP) are we doing? I can`t even
see. Let`s (BLEEP) go.
HAYES: The first known Trump administration official indicted for attacking
police during the Capitol riot.
Tonight, major developments on the January 6th investigation, including a
new civil lawsuit filed against the former president. Then --
SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): As for our friend from Wisconsin, I hope he
enjoyed his Thursday evening.
HAYES: Senator Raphael Warnock on the ongoing COVID Relief vote and how on
earth the minimum wage vote went up in flames.
Plus, devastating new reporting on what looks like an Andrew Cuomo cover-
up. And Ezra Klein on why Joe Biden`s anti-Trump presidency is off to such
a successful start when ALL IN starts right now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES (on camera): Good evening from New York. I`m Chris Hayes. We now know
that in the mob that stormed the Capitol on January 6th, pushing into the
building and fighting the police was at least one Trump political
appointee, an active employee of the Trump State Department on that day.
His name is Federico Klein. That`s his picture there. He`s 42 years old. He
was until his resignation on January 21st of this year a special assistant
in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs. Klein entered Trump`s orbit as
a tech analyst on the 2016 campaign. He then joined the State Department as
a staff assistant with the Trump transition team.
According to the FBI affidavit, as of January 6th, the day that this all
went down, the insurrection, Klein also had an active top-secret security
clearance. That same 16-page FBI affidavit published today by the New York
Times reveals the Klein was present in some of the most grisly, violent,
upsetting scenes at the Capitol on January 6th.
This image captured by surveillance cameras shows Klein in the red MAGA hat
along with other members of that insurrectionist mob and during a tunnel
that leads to the doors of the Capitol Building. You might remember the
police were stationed at that entrance, desperately trying to use their
bodies to keep the mob out.
And body cameras footage shows that Klein himself pushed his way to the
front of the crowd. That is a Trump administration official in the mob
pushing his way to the front of the crowd physically and verbally engaging
with officers attempting to stop the invasion. It also captured Klein
violently shoving a riot shield towards the officers, pushing it in between
doors, so they couldn`t be closed.
Federico Klein continued to fight to breach the police line and the
building according to the affidavit until an officer deployed a chemical
irritant spray. The FBI also identified client in this publicly posted
video from January 6th. Again, a Trump administration official, he was
still an official when you`re seeing him here. You`ll see him in the center
of your screen in the red cap, dark green jacket with his back to us.
You may recognize that we`ve shown you pieces of the scene before because
in this scene, the mob violently tries to break through the police line at
the entrance of the Capitol building. And you will hear Klein, a Trump
administration official, encouraging members of the mob to come forward as
reinforcements.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We need fresh patriots to the front.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We need fresh people. We need fresh people.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come on. What the (BLEEP) are we doing? I can`t even
see. Let`s (BLEEP) go.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We need fresh people. We need fresh people.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Make a hole.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Push.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: That`s the mob violently attempting to invade the Capitol to stop
the peaceful transfer of power. And that man, Federico Klein, according to
the FBI seen their cameras saying we need fresh people to help with the
invasion on the day he`s still working for the State Department.
Later on that same video, the FBI notes we see further violent action from
Klein. You can see him on the right side of your screen here pushing and
shoving with the mob, trying to break down the line of police blocking the
doorway into the Capitol, right up against the officers` riot shields. And
he`s visible again just a few minutes later struggling with officers,
pushing back with the shield as they keep trying to disperse the rioters
attempting to stop the peaceful transfer of power.
Klein was arrested yesterday charged with multiple felonies including
assault on police officers interfering with police during civil disorder
and obstruction of an official proceeding. In a brief court appearance
today conducted by phone, he was advised that two of the six charges he`s
facing that carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
The FBI found and arrested Federico Klein thanks in part to tip from the
public. And they included his photo on a seeking information list posted
online. They are able to verify his identity and details about his actions
through social media and videos like the ones we just showed you.
But there are still a lot of questions about other individuals involved in
the attack on the Capitol, as well as the organization and planning behind
it. The FBI is investigating whether foreign governments, groups, or
individuals may have funded extremists who help plan and execute the
January 6th attack.
FBI sources telling NBC News that the Bureau is examining payments of
$500,000 in Bitcoin apparently by the French national to key figures and
groups and the alt-right before the riot. It`s kind of weird. We also know
the FBI collected thousands of phone and electronic records connected to
people at the scene of the rioting, including many records from the members
of Congress and staff members who were there that day.
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and several of his fellow Democrats have called
for Senate Ethics Committee to look on the behavior of their Republican
colleagues, Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, in relation to the events of January
6th. And today, Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell of California actually
filed a lawsuit, and it`s the second lawsuit on this -- on these actions.
This lawsuit accuses former President Donald Trump, his son Donald Trump,
Jr. republic -- Rudy Giuliani, and Republican Congressman Mo Brooks of
Alabama of violating federal civil rights law and local incitement laws
with their speeches at that rally near the White House in the morning of
January 6th.
The lawsuit alleges the Capitol attack was, "A direct unforeseeable
consequences of the defendants` false and incendiary allegations of fraud
and theft, and in direct response to the defendants` express calls for
violence."
Josh Gerstein is a senior legal affairs reporter at Politico where he has
been covering the arrest of Trump appointee Federico Klein, and he joins me
now.
You know, Josh, I saw this story. And obviously, this guy was not like,
particularly high up in the State Department. But it may -- when I read the
story, I thought he had left. He was working there, right, like until the
end of the Trump term.
JOSH GERSTEIN, SENIOR LEGAL AFFAIRS REPORTER, POLITICO: That`s right,
Chris. I was told he tendered his resignation on January 19th. So, that`s
two weeks after the storming of the Capitol. And it became effective a
couple days later. So, I guess he was wandering around at Foggy Bottom
knowing full well that he had taken part as the video appears to depict in
this assault on the nation`s Capitol, on the Congress.
HAYES: Tell us a little more about this individual.
GERSTEIN: So, he`s 42 years old. He served in the Marine Corps in Iraq
according to his mother. I haven`t been able to determine much in terms of
a work history. He had a couple of jobs on Capitol Hill about 15, 20 years
ago as an intern briefly, working for the House Small Business Committee.
But he seems to have sort of pottered around two different kinds of posts
before fetching up at the Trump campaign in 2016.
There are pictures on his Facebook page showing him working at Trump Tower,
I believe, on election night in 2016, with a couple of other young men
there. And then he managed to turn that into a political appointee job at
the State Department in this special assistant position.
Exactly what he did there is also a little murky, I have to say. I spoke to
a number of people last night who worked in this department at the State
Department, this office at the State Department, and a lot of them didn`t
know him or said they only met him briefly. He seems to have ended up in an
office that handled Brazilian and what they call the Southern Cone Affairs.
I think those are the Andes countries.
And then somebody told me he was eventually transferred, believe it or not,
Chris, to the Freedom of Information Act Office, which is not usually the
career trajectory most people in government are looking for.
HAYES: This quote from his mother, Cecilia Klein, saying that "Fred`s
politics burn a little hot, she said. I`ve never known him to violate the
law. I believe, as he said, he was on the Mall that day. I don`t have any
evidence nor will ever ask him unless he tells me whether where he was
after he was on the Mall."
It`s striking to me that -- I mean, here you have someone who literally
worked in the administration, who is on a million videotapes in some of the
most videotaped and violent moments of assault, a political appointee of
the State Department, and nothing happened for two months.
GERSTEIN: Yeah, it is a little surprising. And while the FBI did get some
tips on him, he does -- they don`t seem to have gotten as many as they did
about other people. I`ve read some of these affidavits where there are half
a dozen, a dozen, maybe more tips here. They got a couple that were
correct, it looks like, and a couple that were inaccurate. And after
running down like where people`s cell phones were and so forth, they said,
OK, it`s not those people.
But you`re right, Chris. It took quite a while and there weren`t that many
people coming forward to finger him for his role here. Then again, you
know, there are more than we think around 800 people that went into the
Capitol that day, and over 300 people have been charged already.
HAYES: Well, that was exactly what I was going to bring next, that number,
that ratio, right. So, we`ve got 300 charges, and the estimate is 800. It`s
-- I mean, that striking, right? Because that`s two months of work, lots of
a shocking, almost sort of overwhelming amount of evidence, and still less
than half of the people in that building, as far as estimates are concerned
with cases against them.
GERSTEIN: Yes, that`s right, Chris. I mean, I`m not totally clear on how
many of these people have been able to specifically identify individually.
I mean, one of the issues is, they may not have, despite all the great
video angles, they may not have great pictures of everybody. You know,
perhaps some people in the crowd, were wearing masks, there`s a lot of hats
that people had on and so forth.
So, the FBI hasn`t succeeded yet, in getting all these people. But it is a
massive, massive effort. And then I think, once they think they know who
someone is, sometimes it takes a few weeks to nail down the details to make
sure they are right (AUDIO GAP) and that they have all the evidence.
So, it`s a complicated process. And we`ve got prosecutors across the
country as far away as Alaska, believe it or not, Chris, who are working on
this investigation right now.
HAYES: Yes, I will know that I remember thinking on that day, as I, as I`m
sure you did, as everyone did watch this all happening in real-time that
people were just walking out to go away. And I`ve covered protests where
one person chucked a plastic water bottle, and I watched 50 people get
arrested immediately.
Like, it`s a lot harder -- a lot harder to arrest everyone once they`ve all
gone to the four winds, and it is right at that moment. But as we see from
those videos, police weren`t really in the condition to do that. Josh
Gerstein, great reporting, a shocking story, I got to say. Like, really
wild. Thank you very much.
GERSTEIN: Thank you, Chris.
HAYES: Danya Perry is a former federal prosecutor in the Southern District
of New York, also served as Deputy Attorney General for the state of New
York. She joins me now to break down this new lawsuit from Congressman Eric
Swalwell.
This is the second lawsuit, Danya, that we`ve seen. Bennie Thompson of the
NAACP filed under a reconstruction error bill called the Ku Klux Klan Act,
or informally called the Ku Klux Act. What is the sort of legal theory
behind this lawsuit?
DANYA PERRY, FORMER DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL, NEW YORK: This one is a little
more focused on the President himself, the former president himself, and
his immediate close entourage. Representative Thompson`s lawsuit was also
targeting some of these right-wing militant groups, Proud Boys, and the
Oathkeepers. This really focuses in very closely, very directly on the
former president`s actions not just, of course, on the day of the
interaction -- of the interaction, but also in the -- in the weeks leading
up to it.
So, there`s a different focus, but of course, the same core nucleus of
operative facts, which is the incitement to violence based on, you know,
the big lie that the election was stolen and that Patriots were duty-bound
to come forward and to step up, no longer to stand by, and to take back our
democracy.
And so, there are many overlapping theories of law and many overlapping
facts. But there`s a different, I`d say, focus to Representative Swalwell`s
lawsuit filed today.
HAYES: One of the things that has been clear is that the bar for criminal
prosecution of incitement is actually -- is quite high and appropriately
so. I mean, the First Amendment is really pertains here. But this is a
civil standard, right? You`re suing someone for saying like, you cause this
foreseeable disaster with your words and actions. Is that an easier bridge
to cross in a legal sense than, say, a criminal charge on insight?
PERRY: Absolutely. You have a very different standard. You don`t have to
meet the very high burden of a beyond reasonable doubt. Here, I really
think that the executive privilege defense will probably be the subject of
perhaps years of litigation as it goes up and down the court system. I
don`t think that the First Amendment defense is going to be the main
defense here. And of course, the plaintiff will still have to prove intent.
So, there are going to be a number of defenses. But I think the executive
privilege one, there`s a distinct lack of clarity around that. There`s very
little precedent. There`s a lot of questions about whether a former
president can claim executive privilege at all over what, whether the
sitting president can claim it. And that will bring all kinds of
interesting nuances to the question of whether the privilege will be
invoked, and whether it will prevail.
HAYES: It`s not just the president. Don Jr. is also a party in this
lawsuit. I want to read from the portion of the suit here. Trump Jr.
conspired with the other defendants to undermine the election results by
alleging without evidence the election had been rigged, and by pressuring
elected officials, courts, and ultimately, Congress rejected results. Trump
Jr. also promoted and spoke at the January 6th rally. He addressed the
crowd at this event and directly incited the violence of the Capitol that
followed.
I mean, there are sort of -- you never know what`s going to happen with a
lawsuit and whether it`s going to get tossed in summary judgment and how
far it`s going to go. But in your legal opinion, like is this a serious
lawsuit that really has a chance of going somewhere?
PERRY: It`s a serious lawsuit. I think it`s likely -- I mean, it will -- I
think, we`ll see what happens with the executive privilege defense, but it
really should survive a motion to dismiss based on these facts and based on
the statute that is being alleged here. I think it will probably go
forward. And of course, Trump Jr. does not have the same defense.
HAYES: Right.
PERRY: So, he had some pretty fiery rhetoric there, and he will be called
to account for it.
HAYES: Same for Rudy Giuliani, among others. Danya Perry, thank you so much
for making time for us.
PERRY: My pleasure, Chris. Thank you.
HAYES: All right, we saw this stunt last night. You remember this where
Wisconsin Republican Senator Ron Johnson used this procedural motion to
force the Senate clerks to read all 628 pages of the COVID Relief Bill. And
maybe the biggest delay tactic turned faceplant ever because in order for
his son to work, the senator had stay on the floor and listen as they read
the bill.
According to one reporter watching the gallery, "I cannot underscore enough
how miserable Senator Johnson looks right now with many hours to go." So,
did the senator manage to sit through a 13-hour dose of his own medicine?
The surprise twist is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. RON JOHNSON (R-WI): Had I not forced that 11 hour reading, and I sat
on the floor of the Senate, I listened to the entire 11 hours, what we
would have been doing is we would have gone into vote-a-rama last night, no
time during the bill, no time to really prepare decent amendments.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Republican Senator Ron Johnson defended his stall tactic of forcing
the Senate clerks to spend nearly 11 hours reading the entire COVID rescue
bill aloud, saying he sat through all 11 hours, but he had to, or Democrats
would emotion to end this stunt and there would be nobody to object.
However, once the reading ended early this morning, Johnson and the
Republicans left. And that`s when Senator Chris Van Hollen got up and
proposed cutting the debate time on the bill from the original 20 hours
down to three. And since there were no Republicans around to objected, it
passed right through, and so much for Ron Johnson`s silly delay.
This afternoon, the Senate began a process known as vote-a-rama which
allows any member to propose an amendment with a full roll-call vote. But
that process was stalled for eight hours as both parties tried to win West
Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin`s support for their competing changes to
unemployment benefits.
Now, we can report at this hour Manchin has agreed to a Democratic proposal
that will decrease the unemployment bonus that`s over the normal amount you
get right from $400 a week to $300 a week, but it extends it from August to
September. It also keeps the first $10,000 of unemployment insurance
benefits as non-taxable, which is pretty crucial because there`s a lot of
folks who were getting a big surprise tax bill. But that now only applies
to households with incomes under $150,000. If none of that (INAUDIBLE) you,
that`s OK.
Democratic Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock push for a comprehensive COVID
rescue bill during his upset bid for Georgia Senate seat, and he joins me
now.
Reverend Senator, I want to ask about the sort of details here. But the
first thing I want to ask is, you know, every time I talk to people in the
U.S. Senate, I say -- I feel like I`m talking to, you know, a culture from
another planet, right? Like it`s a very strange institution, all sorts of
weird traditions that are hard to explain. You`re new there. What is it
like to go through this? How strange does the institution seem to you or
does it not?
SEN. RAPHAEL WARNOCK (D-GA): Well, it`s great to be here with you tonight,
Chris. We`re going, you know, through the sausage-making of legislation.
But the good news is that after months of waiting, and when you think about
the long period where nothing happened under the previous administration,
relief is right around the corner, help is on the way. And we`ll be here
for a little while, but we are there. And I`m confident that we`re going to
pass the relief that Americans need and deserve in this moment.
We are about to pass, I think, a historic piece of legislation that for one
thing will cut child poverty in half. Think about that. We will cut child
poverty in half $1,400 relief payments to people that are going directly in
their pockets.
And we know that when poor people, when working class people receive
relief, they buy food, they buy medicine that`s needed. They buy baby
diapers, a coat for their kid, it helps them and it stimulates the economy.
We`re going to get this virus on the control and get the American economy
roaring again. I`m proud to be a part of that process.
HAYES: You are -- you were just elected in that special election in
January, obviously. It`s a -- it`s a closely divided swing state, the state
of Georgia now. You will be up again in two years because it was a special
election. So, I think it`s -- you could say that you`re -- you have the
most frontline position of any senator in that caucus.
So, from the position of your political life, what do you want to tell your
fellow Democrats about what you need to deliver back to your constituents
in Georgia?
WARNOCK: Well, we`ve been fighting that good fight from day one, not for
me, but for the people I was sent here to represent. You know that I come
into this job as a pastor, someone who is used to walking with people
through their pain. I`ve seen firsthand the ways in which people are
suffering through this pandemic that has literally taken their loved ones.
Half a million Americans has devastated our economy.
And the good news, again, is relief is right around the corner. Help is on
the way. We`re about to pass a historic piece of legislation that will cut
child poverty in half. We`ll give workers the relief and the support that
they need. In this bill, we have $5 billion of debt relief that will go to
farmers of color. And we`re going to get this virus under control so that
we can safely reopen our schools and our economy.
That`s the good news. And I couldn`t think of a better sermon for a
preacher to be preaching on this weekend.
HAYES: Do you think -- in terms of -- in terms of the future, do you think
about -- do you have hope for the second half of this year even as someone
who, you know, there`s a lot of clergy around the country who have not been
preaching in person and who desperately want to commune with their flocks
again? And do you think that that that kind of thing is a possibility in
the second half of this year if things go right?
WARNOCK: What I can tell you is that we`re making progress. And what I`ve
insisted on from day one is that we have to follow the science. You know,
my faith has no quarrel with science. It`s been tough on those of us who
worship, whether we worship in a synagogue or on a -- in church on a
weekend.
But we have stayed apart from one another, not out of a sense of fear as
much as out of a fear of love -- a sense of love. But the vaccine is being
distributed. The President has said that we`ll have enough vaccines for
every adult by May. And in this package is $20 billion of aid so that we
can get the vaccine distributed.
I know it`s been a long, dark night, but I can see the glimmer of light
just on the other end of that tunnel. And I just want folks to hold on,
hang in there, continue to socially distance. Help is on the way.
HAYES: One of the votes today in that vote-a-rama was a vote on a $15
minimum wage. It was of course removed by the Senate parliamentarian as not
being germane to the specific budget process called reconciliation. The
Democrats lost eight -- had eight no votes along with every Republican. You
were a yes vote. Why would you vote for it?
WARNOCK: Well, I think it`s a contradiction to say that people ought to
work and not make work pay. I have long been an activist in the fight for
15. And I will not shrink back from that not one moment in any way. Workers
deserve to be paid for their work. America deserves a wage. You know, in a
state like mine, in a city like Atlanta, there`s a real problem around
affordable housing, for example.
And what happens is that working class people work all day every day,
sometimes two or three jobs, and they still can`t afford the rent in any
city in America. That`s not right. And, as often is the case, what the
morally right thing to do is also the smart thing to do. It`s right to pay
workers for the work that they do. And when we do, I think we actually spur
the economy and it helps all of us.
HAYES: All right, Senator, Reverend Raphael Warnock, the first time I think
I`ve gotten to talk to you as a U.S. Senator. It`s a great pleasure, sir.
Thank you very much.
WARNOCK: Thank you. Great to be with you.
HAYES: All right, next, why didn`t more Democrats than anyone expected vote
against an increase in minimum wage today? The bizarre thumbs down moment
after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: All right, so we got the Senate doing their Senate thing today,
right, the vote-a-rama. There`s all these amendments and there`s this sort
of standoff happening.
And something that happened there today, a seven Democrats and one
Independent who caucuses with Democrats joining with Republicans to shoot
down raising the federal minimum wage to $15.00 an hour as part of the
Biden COVID relief package.
Among those Democratic no votes, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Chris Coons
of Delaware. The moment that really stood out was when Arizona Democrat
Kyrsten Sinema walked up to cast her vote.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Miss Sinema -- Miss Sinema, no.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Now, she represents Arizona. Maybe that was a homage to the late
John McCain who famously did that to that ACA repeal vote but that full
thumbs down from Arizona helped end hopes for a really big wage hike that
the Congressional Budget Office says would directly affect 17 million
American workers.
I want to bring in Maria Teresa Kumar, co-founding president and CEO Voto
Latino, Faiz Shakir former senior advisor, Senate Democratic Leader Harry
Reid and current adviser to Bernie Sanders.
And Faiz, let me start with you. I want people to understand this vote
before we analyze this. This was a vote that was going to fail either way.
It was essentially a symbolic message vote because it needed 60 votes. It
was a filibuster a Volvo (PH).
So, going into this, everyone knows it`s not going to -- it`s not going to
pass. No Republicans are going to vote for it. So, it`s a free ride. It`s a
layup.
You get to get up there and say, yes, we want a $15.00 minimum wage. So, it
was very, very surprising to me a lot of people to see Democrats, eight of
them in the caucus vote no. What is your explanation?
FAIZ SHAKIR, ADVISOR TO SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (on camera): Well, Chris, you
got to go back in history a little bit where President Obama suggested
raising the minimum wage to 10.10. It was Hillary Clinton during the 2016
campaign who suggested raising it to 12. It was Bernie Sanders who`s been
pushing along with SEIU to raise the wage to $15.00 an hour. And as a
result of that, we have gotten a lot of progress in the Democratic caucus,
not all the way.
Clearly, and you know, what painful Chris as you take Senator Sinema,
Arizona has got a $12.00 minimum wage. And in fact, if you look at raise
the wage, which gradually raises the minimum wage to $15.00 over five
years, it would be at 12.50 by year three, which is where Arizona is now.
So, in many ways, it doesn`t really impact Arizona, and yet you have
Senator Sinema denying many people, millions of people around the country a
raise of their wages.
HAYES: Maria, what did you make of it?
MARIA TERESA KUMAR, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR (on camera): So, I used to work in
Congress as a Hill staffer a long time ago on appropriations. And this was
a fairly unusual because what those eight did was say that they were not
going to deliver the Biden agenda.
And the Biden administration right now is going to figure out how to
channel little LBJ, and demonstrate that there are consequences when there
are not voting down for the president`s agenda.
As you mentioned, Chris, this was a layup. But I have to say, when we --
when we witnessed this thumbs down by Sinema, I think for a lot of folks,
people felt at odds because when John McCain did it, it was to save health
care for millions of Americans. When she -- what she did today was turned
down this idea that there was going to be some sort of economic -- closer
to economic equity for millions of Americans.
And $15.00 has -- even $15.00 does not keep peace with the -- with the
inflation rate of the 1970s when the minimum wage was really first
established.
So, it was perplexing on many fronts, but this is an opportunity really for
Joe Biden to say, you guys are going to have to come down to the White
House, because we`re going to have a talking to.
HAYES: Yes, we should say that Senator Sinema put out a statement today --
a long statement about basically saying she supports it. Essentially saying
she supports minimum wage but senator of both parties have shown support
for raising federal minimum wage, we should keep an open debate and
amendment process separate from COVID focus reconciliation bill.
I will keep working with colleagues and both parties to ensure Americans
can access good paying jobs, quality education, skills training to build
economically secure lives for themselves and their families.
I mean, Faiz, this is one of those places, I think we`re like, I hate
talking about Senate procedure, it sucks that this is what we have to talk
about. But it`s a place that is -- that cuts off the feedback of Democratic
accountability.
So, no one ever knows what anyone is voting for or against. Because it`s
like, well, we weren`t really voting for it, and it was going to fail the
filibuster, and actually, our no vote was because we don`t want to include
this bill. And it`s like, people want to know, what do you stand for? What
do you deliver? And the more attenuated that gets, the worse democracy
functions in my humble opinion.
SHAKIR: And the irony, Chris, is it, you know, is that had the
parliamentarian ruled our way, right? And you would have had a 50-vote
threshold for the minimum wage.
I actually think the politics would have moved so dramatically that you
would have had basically the caucus supporting a $15.00 minimum wage, which
is kind of, you know, ludicrous.
But because, as you mentioned, we have a filibuster, we have the
parliamentarian ruling, now we`ve got weird politics, and people take a
rider to show their moderateness. And so, yes, I think, you know, they`re
suggesting I think, oh, we want a deal on the minimum wage, we want to find
a different number than 15. Felt like it is ludicrous that we have
procedural rules that are stopping us from delivering justice in America.
HAYES: The other thing that`s frustrating about this, Maria, is that, you
know, there`s -- there are lots of things where people say, well, that`s
not popular. You know, you have this idea -- you know, banning, fracking,
or -- you know, which is popular, actually, in a lot of places.
But there`s lots of things that Joe Manchin, like, it`s a Trump plus 25
state. There`s lots of Joe Manchin can`t vote for and hope to get reelected
in the state. It`s just a conservative state. The minimum wage is not one
of those things. The minimum wage is popular basically everywhere.
KUMAR: Right. Well, and what you`re saying it`s absolutely popular across
party lines regardless of how you vote. Most Republicans, Independents,
Democrats, they all believe that the $7.00 minimum wage is just not
sustainable.
But this is a thing, Chris, what I found really curious, every single
senator that voted on from the Democratic side, they`re not up for
reelection. So, they`re basically betting that the voters will not remember
them when they are up for reelection in 2024, that`s one thing.
But the other thing that I really find curious is that when Sinema says
that she wants to have a standalone bill, because this is tied to
appropriations, it`s tied to financing, so to speak. It has to go and beat
the filibuster.
HAYES: Right.
KUMAR: The filibuster, which she supports. So, it`s kind of wanting to have
it both ways, but not speaking straight to the American people where she
stands.
HAYES: Yes. And I think to Maria Teresa make a great point about the --
about the politics of this. You know, I said this earlier today Faiz on
Twitter, which is that I do think we have a tendency to interpret all
political actions through the lens of political calculation. And I think
something that you will agree with and you Maria Teresa as well, having
worked in Congresses. Senators have belief systems and ideologies. They --
like, some of them really believe in the filibuster, or they really believe
that the minimum wage shouldn`t go through reconciliation.
I think that`s a weird belief. I think it`s a wrong belief. But they --
like, these people have beliefs. Some of them are bad beliefs, but they
actually do have them, and they act on them and that was kind of what we
saw today.
SHAKIR: Yes, I agree with that. I`ll make a controverse -- can I make a
controversial statement about Senator Manchin for a moment? I think there`s
a lot of huffing and puffing, a lot of theater to my progressive friends
out there for all of that, he hasn`t gotten a lot.
I mean, you know, he wanted to cut a little bit of the direct payments.
Well, guess what? 150-1/2 million people are getting checks this time, 162
got it last time. Guess what, for the 158 million people, it`s going to be
$1,400 rather than $600. So, all he did was tweak a little bit.
Again, today, he saw in this deal, Chris, oh, cut it for $100 on U.I. for
like three weeks. But you know, what`s he getting at it? This is a
progressive bill and I think there`s a lot of theater and he`s quite
frankly not getting much.
HAYES: I agree with you Faiz. I also think like Joe Manchin is in a
different category in all these people. You get yourself elected to Senate
in the midterm election in West Virginia man, you`ve got something figured
out that I sure think though.
SHAKIR: He`s playing his politics. All I`m saying is we still got a
progressive bill here to be --
HAYES: Oh, I don`t -- I don`t disagree that. Faiz Shakir, Maria Teresa
Kumar, thank you both.
Joe Biden has been in office exactly 45 days, the number of days Joe Biden
has been on the golf course is at zero. And he is finding political success
in not being anything like his predecessor. We`ll show you just exactly how
successful he`s been coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: New allegations of a cover up of coronavirus nursing home deaths in
New York while the governor was writing a book about his leadership during
the crisis.
Ever since the pandemic began in New York State, there have been reports
the state was not fully disclosing the death toll among nursing home
residents.
Now, the New York Times is reporting the top aides to the governor rewrote
the official data into nursing home deaths. Not only that, it happened as
the governor was starting to write a book on his pandemic achievements.
The state attorney general finally got to look at the real numbers. She
concluded in the report that coronavirus resident deaths associated with
nursing homes in New York State appear to be undercounted by approximately
50 percent -- 50 percent, that`s a lot.
Now, this all stems from the state directive that basically forced nursing
homes to accept COVID positive patients released from the hospitals. And in
hindsight, that looks like a pretty bad decision.
At the time, there were lots of decisions being made very quickly amidst
of, you know, unprecedented pandemic. We`re being confronted by something
no one had experienced before. And hospitals, particularly New York were
really overwhelmed, crunched for space.
So, given that, some bad decisions are at least defensible, right? You`re
just trying to do your best; you make a bad judgment call. And the public
has been pretty forgiving actually about errors in COVID policy.
Cuomo`s administration is accused not of erasing those deaths in the state
total but have deliberately not reporting them as nursing home residents if
they died in the hospital rather than the care facility, a move critics
say, artificially deflated the nursing home death rate.
Governor`s office released a statement saying the aides named The New York
Times story were involved in reviewing the draft report. None of them
changed or altered fatality data. Instead, according to a statement, out of
facility deaths were not being listed as a subset of nursing home deaths
stemming from concerns related to potential for double counting.
Last month, though, Governor Cuomo`s top aide told lawmakers, the
administration took so long releasing the full data because they were
worried it would be used against them by Donald Trump`s Justice Department.
Both the FBI and U.S. Attorney in Brooklyn are currently investigating the
Cuomo administration`s handling of nursing home death data.
New York State House which is, you know, held by Democrats just passed
legislation to strip Cuomo of the emergency pandemic powers that granted
over a year ago.
Governor said he has no plans to resign. But to state the obvious, this is
really really bad. There does not appear to be a good explanation for this.
It`s the lying and the manipulation that is indefensible.
That`s the thing about the Trump administration and their COVID management
that was indefensible. But when Trump said, I want to keep people on the
cruise ship because I didn`t want those numbers. That`s not a defensible
position, right? You can make mistakes in managing COVID and people did but
that`s not a defensible position to artificially suppress the numbers. That
same principle applies here.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: Joe Biden is a pretty popular president right now according to the
polling we have. A new poll from the Associated Press shows Biden with a 60
percent job approval rating. Perhaps more tellingly, that number jumps 10
points when it comes to the response specifically to the pandemic. 70
percent of Americans approved of his handling of the COVID crisis including
more than 40 percent of Republicans.
But what`s interesting here is it Biden`s reached this level of popularity
even though he has very much not dominated the news cycle, which is the
exact opposite, of course. The last president who was not very popular, in
fact, he was unpopular the whole time but remained an omnipresent force in
the media.
In a new piece, The New York Times Ezra Klein writes that by approaching
the job as the anti-Trump, Biden can get more things done. And Ezra Klein
opinion columnist for The New York Times joins me now.
Ezra, I think you and I are on the same page on this, I love the column.
And I think there`s something counterintuitive here, which is I think, for
a lot of time, people that are think of politics, as -- you know, they
think about the presidency as a bully pulpit. And they think part of the
job of politics is like you want to draw people`s attention to things and
then you can change their minds about it.
But there`s a lot of evidence that in the times we live, it actually works
the opposite and then Biden`s exploiting that.
EZRA KLEIN, OPINION COLUMNIST, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Yes, this is a function
of polarization. So, I talked about this great study (INAUDIBLE) by a guy
named Steven Nicholson. And what he did was he gave Democrats and
Republicans little like, pieces of paper that read off different policies,
but some else would say, Barack Obama support the policy, or George W. Bush
support this policy.
And what he found was really fascinating. If you told partisans, a
president of their own party supported a policy, it didn`t change the
support for it at all. They were either already bought in or already bought
out. But if you told them, the leader of the other party supported it, it
changes support really dramatically.
And so, one of the key things there, a lot of people are sort of OK with
their party but they don`t love it. What they know is they hate the other
side.
So, the more president steps forward and associate to every bill with his
personal or in a different world, her personal, success or failure, the
more polarizing that bill becomes to the opposition.
Joe Biden by not making himself the focal point of his own legislation is
to some degree, it seems to be avoiding that trap. It`s really notable that
the American Rescue Plan is about 10 to 20 points more popular than he is.
Well, if you look at Donald Trump, his plans tend to be 10 to 30 points
less popular than he was.
HAYES: Yes, and it`s striking as you say this to remember the fight over
the Affordable Care Act, the ACA, which the right called Obamacare, right?
Because that was a very easy shorthand way to signal the partisans like,
you don`t have to know what`s in it. Just think of it as Obama. It`s Obama.
It`s Obama, Obama. And that was the -- that was so central to the
messaging.
KLEIN: Yes, and President Obama at some point embraced that. He said, yes,
they want to call it Obamacare, I`ll call it Obamacare. And I totally got
that emotionally but this research has made me think in retrospect, that
was -- that was quite a mistake, not only one that he made that got call
(INAUDIBLE) but by the end, but it was a constant refrain of Democrats.
And if you pull the individual policies in the Affordable Care Act, they
were more popular than the bill itself. But that was because the bill
itself acted as a refrain on how you felt about Obama.
So, you had Democrats who understood differences in the bill, maybe you had
sort of more liberal or left Democrats, Bernie Sanders Democrats who wanted
to be single parent, they didn`t like it for that reason. They knew
Republicans who knew they how they felt about Barack Obama.
So, with Biden, he`s just not made the American Rescue Plan, it`s not Biden
care of the stimulus. Stimulus payments are not Biden, but the child tax
credit is not Biden kids, like none of its Joe Biden.
And part of that is Joe Biden is running a pretty quiet presidency. I think
there are a lot of reasons for that. I don`t think it`s actually just all
strategy. I think less is expected of Joe Biden because of the way that he
won the White House. I think he is a different temperament. I don`t think
people think he can be a superhuman communicator. And I also think the
right has become more split on economic issues, and they`re just obsessing
about cultural issues.
I kept thinking about how this week, the right wing seemed obsessed with
Dr. Seuss. Meanwhile, a $1.9 trillion, like the most progressive economic
package in my lifetime is passing through the Senate and they seem to have
very little to say about it. So, a lot is going on here, but I do think
strategy is meaningful
HAYES: One -- yes. So, I agree with you. One of the things that`s happening
here, too, is and I -- you know, when you compare it to Barack Obama, it`s
like, Barack Obama had a real big difference from Joe Biden, right? Like,
he was the first black president named Barack Obama and we know from a lot
of data that that fired up people in certain ways, particularly white
folks, and particularly white folks who are conservative or Republican and
how they felt about Barack Obama.
And I want to read this paragraph from David Weigel who is at CPAC, which
to me is like one of the most succinct explanations of this error I`ve ever
read.
He`s talking about displays of anti-Biden sentiment were fairly rare as the
new president had not attained the boogeyman status of former President
Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, who galvanize the right. I can`t give the
Biden stuff away, said David Solomon, a MAGA merchandise seller whose post-
election shirt designs included Biden with a Hitler-style mustache and the
message, not my dictator.
Like, here`s this t-shirt vendor at CPAC who is still being able to move
Hillary and Obama product. And cannot -- and to me, it`s like, there`s
something very deep and profound there that maybe extends past like how
much Biden is talking.
KLEIN: I think that`s right. And I want to walk a very careful tightrope
here and you`ll know why. Everything you`re saying about President Obama is
true. There`s a great book by Michael Tesler on the way that politics
racialized around him, how he was treated was profoundly, profoundly unfair
on that dimension.
It is not the case, though, that all white male leaders in American
politics are non-polarizing.
HAYES: That`s true.
KLEIN: And even just go back to Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton was intensely
polarizing president in his day, there is much more conspiracy theorizing
around him, there are decades of conspiracy theories that like he and his
family -- I mean, and Hillary, (INAUDIBLE) a crazy stuff on the right about
what Bill Clinton was and wasn`t doing.
Joe Biden for a variety of reasons, it manages to get away with different
kinds of things. And personally, I think the right has walked itself into a
weird trap of this.
Do you remember Donald Trump`s messaging about Joe Biden? His messaging
about Joe Biden was he was like a senile old man controlled by Bernie
Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. And to some degree, I think they
neutralized Biden through their own forces.
Now, also, the right has become more based on racial and gender identity
politics. So, there`s a lot of things going on here. But I don`t think it`s
inevitable that even a white male Democratic president would be able to
like hold back in a useful way.
HAYES: Yes, that`s a good point. I mean, my question, right, is like, is it
just that the polarization machinery is like worrying to life? And has it,
you know, like, -- because my general priors on this is that polarization
rules everything around us and eventually, like, everything`s going to get
to 52 you know, that sort of 52, 48 universe, somewhere around there. And
do you think it`s avoidable? Like, can the choices presidents make about
their rhetoric and their omnipresence avoid that?
KLEIN: No. And I want to be really clear about that, maybe an overly
settlement of my column. I am making a distinction here between what is
going to -- Joe Biden and legislation Joe Biden supports. The key question
for our president right now is not can you not become polarizing, he
already is polarized.
HAYES: Right.
KLEIN: He`s got a 12 or 10 percent approval rating among Republicans. It`s
an incredibly polarized approval rating.
The key thing is the American Rescue Plan is polling at 65 to 75, I`ve seen
as high as up to 80 percent. And how do you keep that delta between how
popular a lot of the progressive policies somebody like Joe Biden might
want to push are and how popular he is, how polarized he gets? And that`s
where I think the president hanging back is meaningful.
HAYES: Ezra Klein, great columnist, check it out in a little publication
called the New York Times. Thank you for making time and I appreciate it.
KLEIN: Thank you.
HAYES: That is ALL IN on this Friday night. "RACHEL MADDOW SHOW" starts
right now. Good evening, Rachel.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY
BE UPDATED.
END
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