Summary
Medical examiner who ruled George Floyd`s death a homicide blames police pressure for his death. The House Ethics Committee opened an investigation to allegations of sexual misconduct by Matt Gaetz. The FBI and local law enforcement and this incredible group of online sleuths have been piecing it all together to make sure they face justice.; A new piece of New York Times titled four ways of looking at the radicalism of Joe Biden, columnist Ezra Klein wants to better understand why President Biden is making such a sharp break with Joe Biden.
Transcript
JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: But I decided not going to be the first he`s in. This is going to be Don Lemon. You won the week, my friend, because earlier this week, last week with our friend Tamron Hall, you talked about you and Tim starting a family. So, not only do you win by starting a family -- there you are. That`s your engagement party. There`s adorable Tim. That`s his sister. But I`ll be your babysitter. Who doesn`t love that?
Thank you Don Lemon. That`s tonight`s REIDOUT. "ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES" starts now. We lost him.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST (voice-over): Tonight on "ALL IN."
JERRY BLACKWELL, PROSECUTION ATTORNEY: Do you standby today that the manner of death for Mr. Floyd was as you would call it, homicide?
ANDREW BAKER, WITNESS: Yes, I would still classify it as a homicide today.
HAYES: The man who declared George Floyd`s death a homicide finally takes a stand. Tonight, as the prosecution winds down, why the medical examiner`s testimony could turn this case.
ERIC NELSON, ATTORNEY FOR DEREK CHAUVIN: You made a conscious decision not to watch any videos before you performed the autopsy, correct?
BAKER: Correct.
HAYES: Then, a new investigation for Matt Gaetz as he hires a new attorney and breaks his public silence.
Plus, Richard Engel on his chilling investigation into the Capitol attack.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Everybody`s marching on the Capitol. All millions of us. It`s insane.
HAYES: Ezra Klein explains the unexpected progressive first 100 days of President Joe Biden.
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I beat the socialists. That`s how I got elected.
HAYES: ALL IN starts right now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES (on camera): Good evening from New York. I`m Chris Hayes. The second week of the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is now complete. Prosecution is actually expected to rest its case as soon as Monday. And prosecutors spent much of this week presenting the medical evidence against Chauvin.
We heard testimony from the emergency room doctors who treated George Floyd at the hospital, as well as a world-renowned pulmonologist and breathing expert and a police surgeon. And all of them built up the evidence to support the prosecution`s case that George Floyd died because Chauvin kept his knee on Floyd`s neck for nine minutes and 29 seconds.
It was devastating testimony throughout the week, all leading up to this afternoon when we finally heard from the medical examiner. That`s the individual who performed the autopsy on George Floyd`s body and also completed his death certificate.
Dr. Andrew Baker clarified some of the confusion around that document, the death certificate, which lists the immediate cause of death as cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement`s subdual, restraint, and neck compression with other contributing conditions being heart disease, fentanyl intoxication, and recent methamphetamine use.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BAKER: The top line of the cause of death is really what you think is the most important thing that precipitated the death. Other things that you think played a role in the death but were not direct causes get relegated to what`s known as the other significant conditions part of the death certificate. So, the other significant additions are things that played a role in the death but didn`t directly cause the death.
So for example, you know, Mr. Floyd`s use of fentanyl did not cause the subdual or neck restraint. His heart disease did not cause the subdual or the neck restraint. In my opinion, the law enforcement`s subdual restraint and the neck compression was just more than Mr. Floyd could take by virtue of that -- those heart conditions.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Now, the best chance to defense had to rebut any of this clear medical evidence and opinion was to highlight those other conditions, right, the ones that are mentioned, the ones that the medical examiner mentioned, like Floyd`s heart disease. And Chauvin`s defense attorney Eric Nelson spent nearly an hour of cross-examination trying to do that, looking for any ambiguity he could exploit in the medical examiner`s report.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NELSON: In this particular case, we have Mr. Floyd`s heart is at least above average size, right?
BAKER: Correct.
NELSON: He has a heart with narrowed coronary arteries, right?
BAKER: He does. If a substantial amount of force was being used by the knee, or the shin bone, on the neck, or back area, in your line of work, and if that force was sufficient to asphyxiate him, would that -- would you expect to see bruising?
BAKER: I would expect to see bruising, but I don`t know that the lack of bruising excludes that.
NELSON: in terms of the placement of Mr. Chauvin`s knee, would that explain anatomically why Mr. Floyd -- would that anatomically cut off Mr. Floyd`s airway?
BAKER: In my opinion, it would not.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: So, the defense seemed to get in a few points in that exchange particularly but nothing could really shake Dr. Baker`s final conclusion.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BLACKWELL: What today remains your opinion as to the cause of death for Mr. Floyd?
BAKER: So, my opinion remains unchanged. It`s what I put on the death certificate last June. That`s cardiopulmonary arrest, complicating law enforcement subdual restraint, and neck compression. That was my top line then, it would stay my top line now.
BLACKWELL: And so, we look at the other contributing conditions. Those other contributing conditions are not conditions that you consider direct causes. Is that true?
BAKER: They are not direct causes of Mr. Floyd to death. That`s true. They`re contributing causes.
BLACKWELL: And in terms of manner of death, you found then, and do you stand by today that the manner of death of Mr. Floyd was as you would call it, homicide?
BAKER: Yes, I would still classify it as a homicide today.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: I want to bring in two people who have been following this trial closely throughout these first few weeks. David Henderson is a civil rights attorney and former prosecutor, and Katie Phang an MSNBC Legal Analyst, former prosecutor for Broward County and Miami Dade County.
Katie, maybe I`ll start with you. Just let`s start with today in the medical examiner, I know, you know, again, there`s always been there`s sort of a trial narrative and a public narrative. And I know that, again, this sort of coterie of apologists who have attempted to kind of spin away the plain truth of what we`ve seen.
I`ve tried to say that well, the medical examiner`s report shows that this was complicated, and it wasn`t the police officer that actually killed George Floyd. And that seemed to be part of the kind of implication in the -- in the back and forth today. What was the goal for the prosecution and the defense today in the -- in those exchange?
KATIE PHANG, MSNBC LEGAL ANALYST: So, the goal today was to continue to do what we`ve seen so far with the medical testimony in this case, which has been this elegant choreography in terms of the presentation of what is otherwise very complex, and very kind of complicated medical concepts that are reduced to easily digestible ideas for the members of the jury.
And that is what the state has done exceptionally well over the last couple of days. We saw it through Dr. Tobin, the pulmonologist. We saw it with Dr. Thomas, the forensic pathologist who actually trained at Dr. Baker. And even though Dr. Baker was not as maybe elegant as the other witnesses, he delivered the final punch today on behalf of the prosecution.
Now the defense did what it could possibly do, which is create as much reasonable doubt as possible. And that`s what I kind of want to remind everybody, Chris, right. At the end of the day, it`s the state`s burden to prove to the, to the exclusion of every reasonable doubt their case. And if the defense can get just one juror, just one to hold out and not find Derek Chauvin guilty of a one of the three charges he`s facing, then you`re not going to get a guilty verdict.
But what`s important in terms of a takeaway from today`s medical testimony is the following. There are going to be jury instructions that are going to be read to the members of the jury before they deliberate. And within these jury instructions is a definition of cause, causation, to cause, because we`ve heard a lot about a primary cause of death, etcetera.
And the jury instructions itself states that to cause it, it doesn`t have to be the only thing. As long as it`s a substantial causal factor in the death, it can be one of many, but as long as it`s substantial, then that can carry the day for the prosecution. And so, I think, Chris, all of the hay that`s being made by the defense about pre-existing heart conditions, drugs in the system, it`s not going to work. I don`t think it`s gonna work.
HAYES: Yes, I have to say just in a non-legal sense, Dave, right. So, watching this, and this was true, even before the trial, watching the trial, right. I mean, if you imagine a situation where somewhere to run up on a -- on an elderly person and punch them with all their force, and that person were to hit the ground and die from their injuries, and then it turned out that they were on blood thinner, or they had a heart condition, or they were just out of the hospital, it would hardly seem exculpatory to say, well, they had a lot of, you know, health conditions. And that was really the reason.
It`s like, well, you punch the person. That`s the proximate cause here. That`s the thing we`re prosecuting. So, I`ve had a hard time like sifting through the legal significance as against these three charges about what the state has to show vis-a-vis cause to get the highest charge that they`re gunning for.
DAVID HENDERSON, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Well, Chris, I like the way you put that in which you have to focus on is what`s necessary to prove each one of these charges individually. So, let`s start with the highest charge and second-degree murder charge. Remember, it`s an unintentional murder charge. He`s charged for committing murder as a result of assaulting George Floyd.
So, you have to -- you have to prove that he intentionally assaulted him. When you moved down to the third-degree charge, you basically have to prove that he did something that placed George Floyd in imminent risk with an (INAUDIBLE) mind, which is a recklessness standard, more or less. There`s a heightened risk that you know that conduct is going to result in a particular cause.
And you move down to the manslaughter charge, and essentially, it`s a negligence standard where did you behave the way a reasonable person would have under the circumstances. But here`s the thing. None of that means absolutely anything in real life.
Lawyers come up with terminology to describe different types of conduct. But here`s what it`s like. It`s like me talking to my wife and saying, I love you. And she says, no, I love you more. And I say, you know what, I love you to the moon and back. How much more is I love you to the moon and back versus I love you more.
HAYES: Right.
HENDERSON: Let`s talk about these different standards, but they don`t mean that much. And so, ultimately --
HAYES: Right, I guess -- I guess to the extent --
HENDERSON: I`m so sorry. I thought you`re --
HAYES: No, no, go ahead.
HENDERSON: I was just going to say what it comes down to is, what is the jury`s gut reaction to what they`re saying? And I think we`ve established that Derek Chauvin deserves to be convicted. I think that causation and intent is less clear. But in the case they`re strong, it may not matter.
HAYES: Yes, that`s so well put because -- I mean, obviously, there`s -- you know, there is a sort of technical legal distinction between the three charges and the threshold the state has to meet, Katie, but then, you know, we`re dealing with the human enterprise of a jury.
And it`s a jury that we should note, again, the context here, which, you know, gives me a little bit of pit in my stomach, is that it`s a jury that`s been screened for having zero or minimal knowledge of what was probably the most ubiquitous and significant news event in many, many years.
So, I don`t know what`s inside the minds of those jurors. And to Dave`s point, I mean, this sort of technical question of causation seems less important than should -- was this OK what happened or not, which was kind of the case, right?
PHANG: Yes. And so, listen, you do want that fair and impartial jury, right? You want that jury that`s going to go win with no preconceived notions, biases, prejudices, and you tell people, you got to leave that out the door when you serve as a member of the jury. But the reality is, you know, you carry that baggage with you always.
And so I agree, it`s kind of ironic that the videos themselves that kind of were the thing that resonated globally in terms of the death of George Floyd was something that they were looking to have these members of the jury not know about. But that is why it`s been so critical that the prosecution has done its presentation by starting with the civilian witnesses, and then going to the officers body cam videos themselves.
And now, we`re moving on into the police use of force experts. And now we`re in the medical experts. And so that is why the actual presentation of this case is theater, Chris. Trial is theater. And so, the state has basically said, we are going to take you through this journey. And at the end, we`re going to ask you to convict.
And you know what? Dave is right. There`s three different charges. They only have to pick one. They don`t have to do all three, and Derek Chauvin is going to get lit up. And so, really Chauvin has got a lot of exposure here. And his attorney is doing the best that I think he can with very little on that menu for him to choose from.
HAYES: Well, on that note, Dave, you know, we`re expecting the prosecution arrests next week. Again, this is -- I mean, there`s two kinds of countervailing forces here. One is that it is hard to convict police officers. We`ve seen this time and time again. On the other hand, this was one of the most egregious and documented uses of force by a police officer to cause someone`s death we`ve seen in a very long time. What do you expect from the defense next week?
HENDERSON: So, I agree with what you`re saying, it`s actually a double whammy. On the one hand, you have to convict a police officer, you`re also trying to convict someone of an unintentional murder, which is always hard. In terms of the defense, I think they`re going to stick to the same, I`m going to say tired approach they`ve taken and that is to try to blame alternate causes underlying health issues and drug use as a causative factors. It`s basically dog whistling.
On the one hand, I despise that. At the same time, it tends to work. You have to remember some people saw this video, and they put Blue Lives Matter signs up in their front yard. But I have to say this in terms of balanced legal analysis, this was not the right way for the defense to try this case. And this hints at a bigger issue that`s associated with this trial.
Derek Chauvin alone is not on trial. American policing is on trial. And part of the problem with the way this case has been presented is it`s hard to draw the distinction between effective trial strategy and what`s actually good in real life. I think it was effective trial strategy to basically insert a commercial for the Minneapolis Police Department, which we`ve received in this trial. Because if you have a Blue Lives Matter, you don`t want to alienate them.
At the same time, we`ve done that at the expense of holding the Minneapolis Police Department accountable for the role they played in this. Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd. He deserves to be convicted. But part of the reason that happened is because of inadequate training, and supervision and policies that enabled him to do it in the first place, because let`s not forget, there were three police officers there with him when he did that.
And I think they had the defense taking that approach, what my guy did wrong, but it`s part of a much bigger systemic problem. He could have calculated potentially being convicted of manslaughter, which would not be a win for the community or possibly being acquitted with some likelihood of anticipating the outcome of the trial. `
HAYES: That`s very interesting. David Henderson and Katie Phang, that was really, really illuminating. Thank you both. I appreciate it.
HENDERSON: Thank you.
HAYES: Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz is under investigation by the DOJ. His buddy Joel Greenberg, we`ve been talking about good old Joel, he`s reportedly considering a plea deal in his sex trafficking case. He`s got 33 counts, I think, against him.
So, naturally, tonight, Gaetz decides by far, best course of action, head to the friendly waters of Trump`s Doral resort, headline event for Republican women. We`ll talk about that and the new investigations to the congressman after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: The vice appears to be tightening around Florida Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz. Today, the House Ethics Committee opened an investigation to allegations of sexual misconduct by Gaetz. At this point, that could be the least of his problem, frankly.
Yesterday we learned that his close associates, a guy named Joel Greenberg is likely preparing to cooperate with authorities. Greenberg who previously pleaded not guilty faces 33 charges including stalking, wire fraud, and the sex trafficking of 17-year-old girl. He`s also being investigated for recruiting young women online and paying them for sex including allegedly with Congressman Gaetz.
For his part, Matt Gaetz is being investigated for possibly sex trafficking the same aforementioned 17-year-old girl according to New York Times, and here`s the thing, the probe is not just limited to that because investigators are also looking into whether Gaetz traveled to the Bahamas with women who were paid for sex, and what Gaetz may have known about any payments to young women allegedly recruited for sex online.
Congressman Gaetz has denied all wrongdoing saying he never paid for sex, that he has not had sex with an underage girl, and that he did not recruit women online, and that investigators are engaged in the fishing exercise about consenting relationships. He`s also refused to resign.
In fact, just an hour or so ago, Gaetz spoke at what appeared to be conservative women`s garden party in Miami which was held naturally on the veranda at Trump`s resort there while people milled around in the background. He vowed that he is not going anywhere.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MATT GAETZ (R-FL): The smears against me range from distortions of my personal life to wild and I mean wild conspiracy theories. I won`t be intimidated by lying media. And I won`t be extorted by a former DOJ officials and the crooks he is working with. The truth will prevail.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Joining me now is Katie Benner, Justice Department Reporter at the New York Times. She`s one of the authors in a story about how now Matt Gaetz`s former associate, Joe Greenberg, is expected to plead guilty. That piece is full of incredible new details. Also with me, Marc Caputo, Senior National Political Reporter for Politico who is at that Gaetz speech in Miami tonight who also recently wrote about Gaetz and Greenberg.
Marc, let me start with you. I mean, Gaetz is not someone who shies from the camera. In fact, that seems to be why he`s in politics, quite frankly. And so, even facing very, very significant legal exposure, which I think any competent lawyer would advise you to shut up about, he`s not going to do that. What was -- what was going on tonight?
MARC CAPUTO, SENIOR NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, POLITICO: Yes. What was going on tonight was Gaetz being Gaetz. He`s of the school that if he is quiet, it looks guilty. If he has lawyers talking for him, he looks guilty. And he`s kind of an always on offense Republican and MAGA Republican.
And a few days ago, he accepted this long-standing invitation to come speak for obvious reasons. He wanted to kind of plant his flag to say, look, I`m not going anywhere. I think it`s almost a direct quote of what he said tonight. And he has had kind of a week of attempted counter-programming, knowing that there`s going to be this kind of steady, drip, drip drip of bad information.
I mean, after all, he was associated with Joel Greenberg. I mean, these guys were engaged in activity that a lot of people find very distasteful. And in the case of Joel Greenberg, he`s been indicted for sex trafficking a minor and other offenses that Gaetz is not accused of. So you know, Gaetz and Gaetz`s his view is that if he`s quiet, he`s going to look guilty, so he`s going to do talking.
And that comes on the heels of him hiring a new legal team. Some people thought, oh, maybe he`s going to shut up now. Well, he`s not.
HAYES: You know, Katie, in terms of the drip, drip, drip, I mean, from your reporting and others, this seems to be a quite a significant investigation now. And, you know, anytime that there`s someone who faces a bunch of charges, and then appears like they`re going to plea, that`s usually bad news for the people that might be associated with them.
But there`s also like different points of this. There`s Joe Greenberg who is a sort of county tax assessor. There`s a hand surgeon and marijuana entrepreneur who also appears to have had some dealings with Mr. Gaetz and also is under investigation. Like it seems like a fairly broad scope, is that fair to say of the investigation at DOJ?
KATIE BENNER, JUSTICE DEPARTMENT REPORTER, THE NEW YORK TIMES:" It`s fair to say that the investigators are going to pull the camera back and go as broad as they can to find as much information as they can. We know about investigations as FBI can go in looking at one thing, and then over the course of their investigation as they subpoena records, as they obtained information from people`s social media accounts, and their e-mail accounts, their records, their phones, they can find other wrongdoing, and the investigation can spread to new topics.
And I think that`s one of the things that we`re seeing investigators do here. Keep in mind, I`m saying this, but it does not mean that Mr. Greenberg is guilty of any of the things he is currently being probed for. I`m just saying that investigators are starting to look at a wider array of things.
So, what began with investigation into Joel Greenberg, the Seminole County tax collector for a variety of crimes, including sex trafficking of a 17- year-old girl, turned into a sex trafficking investigation to Mr. Gaetz because he was suspected of having sex with the same girl.
Now, as investigators have had more interviews, one of the interviews they`ve had was somebody relaying to the FBI that they heard a conversation between Matt Gaetz and a very well connected sort of lobbyist about potential election interference in a state senate race that Democrats thought that they would flip.
Basically what the men allegedly spoke about was whether or not they could run a third-party sham candidate in order to siphon votes away from the Democratic candidate. That is not necessarily illegal unless that sham candidate is paid which is what the lobbyist told us when we interviewed him about it. He said he does not recall the conversation, but that just talking about it would not be illegal.
That said, the FBI is very interested in that conversation because of course, again, they`re broadening the lens. They`re looking at everything. And if they feel that there`s reason to continue to investigate election fraud, they will proceed.
HAYES: Marc, can we talk about Mr. Pirozzolo who`s the hand surgeon marijuana entrepreneur, sits on the board, I believe, at the Orlando airport connected -- you`re laughing because it`s like the most incredible Florida bio of all time. That is him there greeting --
CAPUTO: It gets weirder. It`s getting weirder.
HAYES: Yes, that`s in greeting Donald Trump with the governor Ron DeSantis when he came. And he`s the one who -- again, there`s -- there is reporting indicating investigations of the trips to the Bahamas and the possibility of payment for sex on those trips and Matt Gaetz going along. But, you know, this seems like a pretty connected guy more broadly in Florida Republican circles if he`s showing up at the airport when the President comes down.
CAPUTO: Sure. He -- in fact, Matt Gaetz at one point was saying maybe he makes a good surgeon general for Florida. The doctor loved coming to Tallahassee. There`s a kind of a ceremonial thing that they have during session, which is kind of doctor of the day. Normally, you know, you`re a lawmaker, you have a doctor to a district, they come up for a day.
But he`s done it like 27 times, two dozen times. So, he`s been very kind of active and coming to Tallahassee, very interested in the medical marijuana legislation that Gaetz when he was a state legislator had helped pass. He`s just kind of one of the cast of characters who was on that -- on this trip you mentioned, probably about three planes that were talking total.
There was him, his girlfriend of these other women, which some people (AUDIO GAP) including the once 17-year-old at the heart of the set with a minor case who then had turned 18. There was also a now-former State Division of Business and Professional Regulation chief who also flew his private plane there, and then there`s Matt Gaetz who flew commercial.
So, they all kind of gathered there in the Bahamas for quite a time. The question is whether that time was illegal or not. There are going to be interesting aspects of the case in that it is illegal to pay someone to have sex and go across state lines. The question is, since some of these women had long-standing relationships with these men, were they actually being paid directly for sex or was it a secret arrangement sort of deal?
HAYES: Yes, right. And Matt Gaetz somewhat famously said early in this that there was an effort to paint his generosity towards ex-girlfriends as something more untoward.
And Katie, let me ask you one final question about the part of justice in this. Obviously, this is a politically sensitive case. We know it was -- it was greenlit under Bill Barr of last administration. Where is this being run out of? And I imagine if you`re -- you know, if you`re the Attorney General or anyone else, right, you want to make sure this is all very by the book and very segmented from any possible politics or political interference.
BENNER: Absolutely. So, to your point, Attorney General Barr, who did have to greenlight this last year. He sent a memo to all federal prosecutors saying if you`re looking in to any members of Congress, people running for office, up to the presidential race, he needed to basically sign off. All supervisor would need to be apprised and then the Deputy Attorney General and the attorney general.
So, that is -- that was the process. The investigation itself is being run out of the Middle District of Florida. It is actually not Gaetz`s district, that would be the Northern District, but it`s where the Greenberg investigation began. So, it`s still being run by that office.
HAYES: Seminole County Tax Assessor Joe Greenberg and now someone who Matt Gaetz may be sweating a little bit. Katie Benner and Marc Caputo, thank you both for being with me.
CAPUTO: Thank you.
HAYES: Still ahead, Richard Engel`s chilling new investigation into the January 6th attack. What he pieced together after combing through hours of video. And the unforgettable interview of the Capitol Police Officer about the racist abuse he endure from rioters coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AMY KREMER, CHAIRWOMAN, WOMEN FOR AMERICA FIRST: It is the most absurd thing I`ve ever heard to say that we incited an insurrection.
I`m telling you, you don`t advertise for months and tell people to show up with their Trump flags and cell phones if you`re going to try to take over the U.S. government.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST (on camera): That was the chairwoman of Women for America First speaking today at the group`s Save America Summit at Trump -- Donald Trump`s Doral golf resort. That group sponsored a bunch of people to come to the Capitol on January 6th, then she was making the claim that the people who stormed the U.S. Capitol could not have possibly had a sinister motivations because they brought their Trump flags and cell phones with them.
But on January 6th, as they watched this happened in real-time, most people escaped that day without being arrested but because there`s probably more documentation of this set of crimes than any other in recent memory.
Well, the FBI and local law enforcement and this incredible group of online sleuths have been piecing it all together to make sure they face justice.
Those group of investigators includes the open-source intelligence group Bellingcat which has done all sorts of amazing work in places from Russia to Sub-Saharan Africa. They`ve now partnered with NBC News and Richard Engel for a special on assignment that takes a closer look at the insurrectionists and undermines the idea that everything was fine since they brought flags.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A group forms a stack.
A military formation used to enter and clear buildings.
In the stack is Jessica Watkins. 38-year-old Jessica Watkins served in the army and deployed to Afghanistan.
Watkins is a transgender woman, and according to her own account, she received an other than honorable discharge when the army determined her presenting as a female was unacceptable. She ran a bar in Ohio with her boyfriend.
Earlier on January 6th, she`d been at President Trump`s Save America rally, providing security she claims with a group called the Oath Keepers, a militia largely made up of former military and police.
As Watkins walks from Trump`s rally by the White House to the Capitol. She speaks on a walkie talkie app on her phone. The conversation suggests advanced planning.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What kind of numbers do we have going to the Capitol? Any estimates? What percentage of the crowd is going to the Capitol?
JESSICA WATKINS, LEADER, OATH KEEPERS: 100 percent Everybody`s marching on the Capitol. All million of us. It`s insane.
We`re about two blocks away from it now and police are doing nothing. They`re not even trying to stop us at this point.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Bellingcat and NBC News were also able to piece together some incredible footage as the rioters rushed the police were defending the Capitol.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The rioters had been battling police for more than half an hour when they charged the left set of bleachers erected for the upcoming inauguration.
The bleachers are built over stairs that lead right to the Capital`s doors and windows. The police are determined to defend this choke point. But again, they`re outnumbered.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Cruiser 50, they are scaling the scaffold. They are scaling the scaffold to the Capitol.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There`s a million and a half behind us.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is over (INAUDIBLE).
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Not even 100 days have passed since this happened. And for all we have seen and after all the arrests and all we`ve learned, every day there`s more, every day we learn more.
Richard Engel and his crew got an incredible interview with the Capitol Police officer who`s defending the Capitol that day.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HARRY DUNN, U.S. CAPITOL POLICE OFFICER: One person said, you heard that? This N word voted for Joe Biden and they started booing.
And the people that were with them, joined them with them and said, yes, this N word F.U. This N word voted for Joe Biden, F.U., F.U. Boo.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: A terrifying encounter between the officer and the insurgents is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: We`ve already seen some remarkable footage of the people who assaulted the Capitol building. But the people bearing the lasting scars, the people who are defending Congress, at least 138 officers, 73 from the Capitol Police, 65 from Metropolitan Police Department Washington were injured in the attack.
Richard Engel spoke to Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn, a 13 year veteran of the force, about his experience that day.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICHARD ENGEL, NBC NEWS CHIEF FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT: What about the fact that you are a black officer? And there were guys in there who were wearing camp outfits, t-shirts. Was being a black officer there has a different experience for you? Is that a big factor for you?
DUNN: There was a time, one instance it was off of -- off of the rotunda area. And I was still holding a hallway. And these people stand there yelling, so I started talking to them. And we started talking about why they`re there. And Joe Biden didn`t win the election and it`s stolen.
And then, I started talking about me voting, I voted for Joe Biden. Does my vote not count? And then one person said, you hear that? This N word voted for Joe Biden and they started booing.
And the people that were with them, joined them with them and said, yes, this N word F.U. This N word voted for Joe Biden, F.U., F.U. Boo.
ENGEL: What do you think it means about the state of America where we are today? What do -- you`ve had a little bit of time now to process it.
DUNN: We got a long way to go. We got a long way to go.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: You can see the rest of that interview in the latest installment "ON ASSIGNMENT WITH RICHARD ENGEL", titled Our House this Sunday at 10:00 p.m. Eastern. And NBC chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel joins me now.
From what the stuff I`ve seen, Richard is really incredible and it`s very, very powerful, very effecting to take these images and stories and pieces of information we`ve had in disparate contexts and put it together.
What was the process? How did -- how did you go about sort of synthesizing all this incredible information?
ENGEL (on camera): So, it was a team effort and you mentioned some of that before. So, we worked with Bellingcat, which is this online investigative group. We have a team of producers and editors that I worked with.
So, all in, we`re talking about probably a couple of dozen people. It took well over a month, and we`re talking about building an image that is effectively a mosaic.
You`re looking at all of these different little pieces of information that are scattered all over the internet. Some of them have been pulled from the internet, and trying to piece them together in a way that makes sense.
So, we all lined them up chronologically, matched the different images likes to likes, similar events to similar events, figuring out what was actually the same event just taken from multiple angles. Then, had to line that up with the police audio, with intercepted audio, with the CCTV footage.
And once we have this bag of material, this enormous -- we`re talking about thousands of hours of material, then we start to figure out, OK, how do -- how can you put this all together in a way that makes sense.
And that was the -- that is the hour that`s going to go out on the Sunday by putting it out that way, stringing it out that way. We start to see patterns, key individuals, key moments in which things could have turned differently.
A key moment in the beginning when the rioters first approached the Capitol. And were able -- to their own surprise, to some of their own surprise, that they were able to get right up to some of the staircases, that they were able to breach the outer perimeter easily. That was something that some of them clearly didn`t expect that was going to happen.
Then, they were in this standoff, there was a battle and then they were able to use some of the scaffolding that was there to get right up to the Capital`s doors and windows.
And then, we were also able to identify some key people, some key players who had emblematic stories. And then, tie it all together and putting it on the Sunday.
So, hopefully, people will find it revealing.
HAYES: That interview with that officer I found so upsetting and enraging. I had seen an interview with a few other officers prior to that.
That interview, I mean, what he`s describing sounds like -- honestly, sounds like a lynch mob. It`s almost -- it`s really unfathomable and disgusting to hear and I just wonder what your reaction was hearing that story?
ENGEL: So, we put that interview at the end, sort of as a -- as a coda to the piece. So, we lay out what has happened. And using all of these bits of information and you get to understand the narrative.
And then, in the end, we hear him, sort of his testimony as one person who was there, one person who is trying to stop these events, trying to understand what was happening as there was this chaos all around him.
And it was a very very emotional interview. He really didn`t hold back. And in the clip you mentioned which is just one of it, and there`s actually we`re putting an extended interview with him on Peacock which will air in coordination in with the hour.
And to hear him talking about being surrounded inside the Capitol by this angry mob yelling at him, yelling racial slurs at him, yelling that particular racial slur at him inside the Capitol does say a great deal about where we are as a country, what happened that day and race relations in general. Because race was a major factor here.
This was -- there was so many different hatreds and pent-up conspiracies and anger and the sort of the dark side of Trumpism that exploded onto the Capitol and into the Capitol that day.
HAYES: Richard Engel, it`s called "ON ASSIGNMENT WITH RICHARD ENGEL" of course. And it airs this Sunday at 10:00 p.m. special about January 6th, it`s really really incredible work. Richard, thanks a lot. Be sure to check it out.
Coming up, Ezra Klein explains the unexpectedly radical Biden presidency as we approach his first 100 days. And will that presidency stay radical? That`s next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Even if you could address our camera directly, talk to the voters that are worried about socialism and you raising taxes.
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I beat the socialists. That`s how I got elected. That`s how I got the nomination. Do I look like a socialist? Look at my career, my whole career. I am not a socialist.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Joe Biden`s whole strategy during the Democratic primary first in the general election was running as the sensible centrist, right? Like, I`m not a crazy socialist. Look at me, I`m Joe Biden. I`ve been doing this for decades.
So far, however, his presidency were not socialist, for sure, has been decidedly ambitious in its scope. In his first 100 days, Biden has already passed one major piece of legislation, and is now proposing another, both of which are quite progressive and quite popular.
And a new piece of New York Times titled four ways of looking at the radicalism of Joe Biden, columnist Ezra Klein wants to better understand why President Biden is making such a sharp break with Joe Biden.
And joining me now is Ezra Klein, columnist for New York Times, host of the podcast The Ezra Klein Show.
Ezra, you have covered Joe Biden for a long time. I think anyone who has covered politics that could be said of, including myself, and you know, I remember seeing some data visualization at one point about Joe Biden, that was to me sort of so representative, which is that it showed him through various like congresses in the U.S. constantly being in the middle of the Senate Democratic Caucus.
Like, whatever year it was, Joe Biden was in -- found the middle of the Senate Democratic Caucus. How do you understand that part of his career with what we`re seeing from him as president now?
EZRA KLEIN, OPINION COLUMNIST, THE NEW YORK TIMES (on camera): I actually think they`re very, very, very related. So, let me get through a couple of things here.
So, number one, in virtually every debate inside the Democratic Party that you can go through over the last like 20 years, there`s always a faction arguing for more ambition, more radicalism to do more confrontation, and the faction arguing against.
And Joe Biden is in almost every case arguing against and that includes, by the way, the Obama administration as a faction, he says, let`s do a big universal health care bill. And then there`s a faction says, you`re going to get into a political morass, do something smaller, and Joe Biden is in that latter faction, that is also what he does in the Democratic primary.
But Joe Biden, as you say, always finds the middle and the middle was changing and for two or three really, really big reasons.
The first one, and I think it actually does not get enough attention is the Republican Party in Congress collapses as a negotiating partner during the Obama administration.
So, basically, every big bill under Bill Clinton, under Barack Obama, it begins from the question, or at least one of the major questions is, how do we write this in a way that can get a couple of Senate Republicans to support it? Or at the very least, how do we get caught trying to get a couple Senate Republicans to support it?
So, you know, Clinton`s first budget, big spending cuts, Barack Obama`s Affordable Care Act built on Romneycare. But when the Republican Party collapses on that level, all of a sudden, Democrats begin designing policies simply among themselves, and that really does more than anything else to unleash their ambitions and Joe Biden ends up going along with that.
HAYES: Then, you talk about two other aspects in the piece that I really agree with. One is the ideological and intellectual aftermath of the great recession and recovery, right, which I think that among people that work in Democratic Party politics, like learn some real lessons, which is the recovery was too slow, that you can be much more aggressive with deficits and trying to get back to full employment.
And that relates to a political lesson, which is, look, the country`s polarized and you`re always swimming upstream anyway. But, at least, the best thing you can try to shoot for and hope for the best is get to full employment, like run things hot, and sell what you do.
And that, in some ways, doesn`t even have an ideological valence, but does seem central to how the Biden folks are seeing this.
KLEIN: Yes, this is true and it`s interesting. It`s been very divisive among Obama era economists and reaction by column.
One of the things going on in Joe Biden`s presidency is we`re dealing with a period in which the economic advice of the past 20 years does not look great. And that is not to say that the Obama administration`s policies did not in some, in many, many, many key cases work.
But for instance, a deficit panic in 2010, that looks like a huge error. As you say, we did not get back to full employment nearly quickly enough.
And here`s the key thing out of that, the political consequences of that were really severe. So, Democrats over the course of the Obama era, though, they do remarkable things like the Affordable Care Act and preventing great depression, they lose the House, and then they lose the Senate, and then they lose the White House to Donald Trump in 2016, then loses the Supreme Court for a generation.
And so, one thing that really ends up changing in the Biden era, is a recognition that economic risks are not the only thing you need to worry about when you`re making economic policy. Political risks are really, really consequential and political risks have a much larger range now than people thought they did before the Obama administration thought, you know, they lost reelection, at some point, it would be to somebody like Mitt Romney, not to somebody like Donald Trump, not to somebody who wanted to do functional authoritarian takeover of the country. And of course, you can`t make any good economic policy if you don`t have power.
So, that has moved to the Biden administration, both for ideological as you point out, but also for more self-interested political reasons towards trying to run the economy, towards full employment, towards doing policies like the $1,400 checks.
They`re not well targeted in economic sense, a lot of people who, you know, have reasonable amounts of money and kept their jobs got them, but they`re very, very, very popular, that kind of thing that helps you build political momentum in the midterm.
And then, some of the risks that economists generally worried about overheating inflation, deficits, they`re a little bit more willing to run those.
HAYES: And the final point I took away from the columns, just thinking about is that, you know, it`s not always the case there`s a one-to-one match between the, you know, pre-presidential profile of an American president and what they do.
I mean, the times and circumstances matter and Ulysses S. Grant was not like an outspoken proponent of multiracial democracy, for instance, right? He was -- he was an abolitionist. He was, you know, he was for the union. But he ends up in a place quite quite more radical than he began and FDR talked about budget deficits a ton in 1932.
I mean, there is a degree to which the moment matters, the intellectual currents, the circumstances and the politics in producing what a presidency looks like.
KLEIN: You have to get Bernie Sanders and his two campaigns a lot of credit here. But as part of that, and this is, of course, part of why his campaigns worked, our young Americans have moved quite a bit to the left. And this is a point I make at some length in the column. It`s very important, by the way to understand this about staffing in the White House and among Democratic senators and among Democratic members of Congress.
What is part of what is going on is that the younger generation grew up in an era of climate emergency of debt crises -- I mean, personal debt crises here and of watching markets fail again and again.
And so, that`s movement to the left and it has changed the politics of the Democratic Party dramatically. And then as you said from the beginning, Joe Biden changes alongside the politics of the Democratic Party.
HAYES: Ezra Klein, it`s a great column. Thank you for making time tonight. I appreciate it. Have a great weekend, man.
KLEIN: Thank you.
HAYES: That is ALL IN on this Friday night. "THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW" starts right now. Good evening, Rachel.