Summary
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy opposed the bipartisan commission to investigate the January 6 Capitol attack. The Department of Justice under Bill Barr used its power to try to unmask Devin Nunes` Twitter troll. President Joe Biden touts the future of electric vehicles at Ford Plant. Some Democrats are frustrated with President Biden`s response to Israel and Gaza conflict.
Transcript
JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: The Palestinian death toll in Gaza is now 217 people including at least 63 children. According to health officials, the death toll in Israel is now 12 including two children. The Palestinians in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Israel stage a general strike with shops closing their doors and students staying home from school in a rare joint action against Israel`s air campaign in Gaza.
And that is tonight`s REIDOUT. "ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES" starts now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST (voice over): Tonight on ALL IN.
REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D-NY): I don`t know what Kevin McCarthy is afraid of. The Republican leader moves to kill an investigation into the Capitol riot, as one of his members defends the insurrection on the floor.
REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): The people who breached the Capitol on January 6th are being abused.
HAYES: Tonight, will Kevin McCarthy and Donald Trump get away with another cover up? Then, alarming reporting on the length the Trump Justice Department went to unmask a Devin Nunes parody account on Twitter. Plus --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President.
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This sucker is quick.
HAYES: Joe Biden`s National Climate Adviser Gina McCarthy on what today`s big push for electric trucks means for the country. And Senator Chris Murphy on why the White House still isn`t formally calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, when ALL IN starts right now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES (on camera): Good evening from New York. I`m Chris Hayes. Today, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy announced that he will be opposing the bipartisan commission of inquiry into the January 6th insurrection along lines of the 9/11 Commission. Now, this comes a little bit as a surprise because it comes after months of negotiations that he was party to.
There are probably a lot of reasons for this announcement. One of those reasons is likely that McCarthy is a principal figure in the big lie that Donald Trump won the election and everything that happened around it. Here`s McCarthy two days after the election.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY: President Trump won this election so everyone who`s listening, do not be quiet. Do not be -- do not be silent about this. We cannot allow this to happen before our very eyes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: We cannot allow this to happen before our very eyes. Trump won the election, unequivocal. It`s easy, of course, to just focus on Donald Trump`s role in fomenting the insurrection. But Trump won, we have to stop them from stealing it, like Kevin McCarthy said, was the general rhetorical call from a lot of Republicans in the days and weeks after the election. Not, we will wait and count the votes and see who won.
And then, you know, after a while, eventually became incredibly clear, Trump had lost. He`d gotten, you know, beaten pretty badly, seven million votes. There was very little bravery from Congressional Republicans until they were finally forced to vote just hours after living through the Capitol riot on January 6th, and even then, not so much.
And of course, let`s not forget the phone call Kevin McCarthy had with President Trump in the middle of the insurrection on January 6th. You might remember, this has happened during that -- came out during that second impeachment trial the President face. Republican Congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington said that McCarthy told her about the call in a statement that was then entered as evidence in Trump`s second impeachment trial.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): When McCarthy finally reached the President on January 6th and asked them to publicly and forcefully call off the riot, the President initially repeated the falsehood that it was Antifa that had breached the Capitol. McCarthy refuted that and told the president that these were Trump supporters. That`s when according to McCarthy, the President said, well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: They are barricaded in a building being invaded by a mob that is beating up cops left and right. He`s saying call off the mobs, Mr. President, and that`s what he gets back, movie villain level menacing from Donald Trump who was talking to people that were at that moment in physical danger being eroded by that mob, chanting hang Mike Pence, erecting the gallows outside. At that point, a mob that had assaulted dozens of officers.
And that call, well, it clearly struck Kevin McCarthy enough to relay the conversation later on to a colleague. All of that would be part of the January 6th increate naturally. And of course, Kevin McCarthy was also one of the 147 Republicans, a majority of the caucus, who voted to overturn the election, to defy the will the people and install the loser over the winner.
Now, given McCarthy`s title, his role in the insurrection and his call with the President, one can imagine he doesn`t want to be a principal subject in the inquiry, although I have to say it is still strange that he apparently played along with the idea he might support it. I mean, last night, in this very program, sitting on this very desk, right, if you watch the program, we had congressman Bennie Thompson of Mississippi on the show.
Now, Thompson`s the chair of the Homeland Security Committee and he`s been for months negotiating with the ranking member of that committee. That would be Congressman John Katko of New York who was Republican. And he told me that the two of them negotiated to reach a bipartisan deal on this January 6th inquiry. They engage in lots of -- you know, the classic good- faith bipartisan congressional work, the kind of stuff that used to happen a fair amount, still happen at stuff that`s kind of in the background of Congress.
And Congressman Thompson said Kevin McCarthy was part of the negotiations and he has the receipts.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. BENNIE THOMPSON (D-MS): Kevin McCarthy, he knew about it. He exchanged letters with us, saying he wanted to see certain things. So, he was engaged all the time. The Republican leadership needs to step up. If we have to produce the letters that the Minority Leader wrote to us saying, this is what I want in the bill, I mean, we`ll do that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: OK. Now, McCarthy has decided to flip the table over. It`s honestly more surprising he was ever engaging in good faith because we know what his boss, his boss in Mar-a-Lago thinks about the whole situation, and we know what the rising power in his own caucus thinks about it.
Here`s Republican Congressman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia on the House floor today explicitly defending the honor of the January 6th insurrectionists.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GREENE: While it`s catch and release for domestic terrorists Antifa, BLM, the people who breached the Capitol on January 6th are being abused, some even being held for 23 hours a day in solitary confinement.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: She literally describes him as people who breach the Capitol as if there`s nothing wrong with that. Look, the lesson here is you cannot straddle the big lie. The truth of what happened and the big lie repel each other. Donald Trump did not win the election, Joe Biden did, and you cannot put one foot on each and hope to stand.
That`s the lesson for all Republicans. It`s the lesson we`re seeing down in Arizona, a state in which Republicans have already used the excuse of the big lie to ram through voting restrictions signed into law by the governor on a party line, if I`m not mistaken. The big lie has already played its useful purpose and restricting access to the ballot box after Republicans lost that state.
Now, there`s a small group of Maricopa County republicans coming out to defend the integrity elections. They personally oversaw against the both clownish and insidious privatized audit taking place.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILL GATES, MARICOPA COUNTY SUPERVISOR: We ask the difficult questions, all right. And we certify the election back in November. But now, it`s time to say enough is enough. It is time to push back on the big lie.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: It`s long past time, but OK, better late than never. I think those folks there that you saw, they understand you cannot let the stand. You cannot wink, wink, nudge, nudge it. You either have to be for the big lie or against it, and they have declared against it. They`ve done it collectively because as one of the Maricopa Republicans told Lawrence O`Donnell last night, if you stick your neck out, it will get chopped off.
Congressman Joe Neguse, Democrat from Florida, serves in the House Rules Committee, also served as an impeachment manager during the second trial of Donald Trump, and he joins me now. What was the conversation on the Hill today among your Democratic colleagues, just text messages, you know, what were you guys saying when McCarthy comes out against this thing that Bennie Thompson negotiating with John Kakko under the auspices of a, you know, leadership`s approval?
REP. JOE NEGUSE (D-CO): Well, it`s good to be with you, Chris. And I`m proud to represent Colorado in the Congress, although I am a fan of Florida. But --
HAYES: Did I just say Florida?
NEGUSE: No, that`s all right.
HAYES: Did I seriously just say Florida?
NEGUSE: I may have misheard it. I may have misheard it.
HAYES: OK, I`m sorry. You`re from Colorado. Let`s get that right, Boulder, in fact.
NEGUSE: Look, it`s maddening. It`s maddening and yet it`s totally unsurprising. I mean, I -- you know, I think your analogy is a really apt one in the way you described it, but I actually don`t think that the Minority Leader has really tried to have it both ways.
I mean, we -- his complicity in perpetuating the big lie has been well known for quite some time now. And I think what is most confounding is that typically, you know, at least the Minority Leader would try to create some veneer of being a responsible and thoughtful leader. And that just simply isn`t the case IN this instance.
He is doing what the base of his caucus ultimately demands which, of course, is what, as you said, the former president demands. And that`s to ensure that this commission doesn`t go forward so that his complicity in perpetuating that big lie and the complicity of others isn`t exposed. You know, there`s no cogent rebuttals to why this commission isn`t the most prudent step forward.
HAYES: No, it`s all -- it`s all bad faith nonsense. I mean, Scalise wrote a letter today. And obviously, Scalise was the victim of a horrible act of political violence. He was shot by a man, I think, who was animated by political animus along with I think other issues. He survived. He had to go through a lengthy period of rehab. It was brutal and awful day for this country, for the Republican caucus, for him and his family.
You know, he made the point, you know, well, any political violence not related January 6th, you know, wouldn`t be able to be studied. But the point is, to study January 6th and what led up to it. And so, you`ve got Scalise recommending a no vote. They`re not whipping against it. But I guess my question to you is like, what`s the gain here? Like were they lying before? Did they have a change of heart? Like I don`t get why you pretend to go along and then pull the rug out.
NEGUSE: I mean, I think it`s because they were trying to avoid the political consequences of taking the position that they have now taken, which I think the American public is clearly not going to support, right?
I mean, folks understand that the insurrection on January 6th was one of the darkest days for our democracy, and that it makes sense to pull together a bipartisan commission to look into the events of January 6th further and make recommendations to the broader Congress from a security perspective about what guardrails we need to put into place in the future prospectively.
That makes sense to the vast majority of American public. And the minority leader and the Minority Whip know it. And so, I think they had hoped that they could fly under the radar for as long as they could. And now ultimately, this bipartisan deal that was negotiated has forced them into announcing their opposition.
But I will just say this, Chris. It is the theater of the absurd. What`s happening in Arizona, what happened with respect to the representative you mentioned earlier this week from Georgia describing the insurrectionists as tourists, even though there`s a picture of him helping the security personnel barricade the door of the House floor, it is theater of the absurd.
And yet we know it will have dangerous consequences because there were many of us who called what happened in October and November and December, regarding the perpetuation of the big lies as theater of the absurd, and the consequence was an insurrection on January 6th.
HAYES: Yes. And I think that -- just the final point here, you know, it`s clear the strategy here from Republicans is to treat the question of who won the election, like a Trump tweet. Like, oh -- like, just, they`re just going to avoid it or not talk about it. You can`t do it. I mean, you just not -- it`s not tenable.
So, you`re either going to sign up this sort of insane, insidious, toxic, destructive, you know, possibly violence-facilitating conspiracy theory or you`re going to say the plain truth and keep saying it. But they want to avoid it and I don`t think they could do it.
NEGUSE: No, I agree, because it goes to the heart of bedrock principle of our constitutional republic, which is the legitimacy of our elections and a peaceful transfer of power. And the more that those conspiracy theories metastasize, the more dangerous the consequences could be for our republic.
So, you know, look, it`s why we need more leaders of good faith, folks like Liz Cheney and others, to stand up and speak up for the truth regardless of the political consequences that they clearly will face from their own party.
HAYES: Congressman Joe Neguse -- and I want to just -- if I did say Florida, I want to -- I apologize, A. And B, I want to defend the honor of my very, very fine and detail-oriented staff because I`m looking at it. It says Colorado in the prompter. So, if I invented that error, that is 100 percent of yours truly, and I apologize to you.
NEGUSE: You know, I may have misheard it. Well, you`re welcome to Colorado anytime, Chris.
HAYES: All right. Michelle Goldberg is a New York Times columnist and MSNBC political analyst. She recently wrote a column of the growing Republican embrace of authoritarianism titled "How Republicans could steal the 2024 election." And she joins me now.
Michelle, what do you make of that -- the Arizona situation is so fascinating to me for a bunch of reasons. What do you make of it?
MICHELLE GOLDBERG, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I think that, you know, they do need a level of plausible deniability to get away with making these kinds of radical changes to voting laws. So, it actually -- the people who want to restrict voting in Arizona, that people who want to basically change the law so that the sort of honorable public servants that you just saw, the -- you know, the Maricopa officials who said this is ridiculous, you know, what you`re seeing in some other states are laws that are designed to disempower them and to vest power with the legislature that tends to be much more partisan and kind of stay much more in line.
But in order to do that, it doesn`t really help you if you have a bunch of crazy people looking for bamboo fibers or whatever it is that they`re doing in Arizona, right. It`s that rate for them that this becomes a national laughingstock. And also, the longer they drag it out, it`s just -- they keep whipping up animus against the local officials who, you know, according to the true believers, won`t -- you know, sort of won`t admit that this terrible fraud took place, and so it puts people in real danger.
HAYES: Yes. And I -- what I keep finding fascinating from a human perspective, and you`re seeing it play out in Maricopa County is, you know, in my experience as a reporter, as a person in the world, right, people tend to take pride in their work, and they`re kind of -- you know, they`re very turf-oriented and inside institutions and political movements and companies and movements, all sorts of places, people throw elbows around when you come into their turf and say like you have done a bad job. And it`s amazing to me how much that`s been happening and people have brought over.
You know, so it`s -- to say, well, you idiots oversaw some fraudulent actions to finally months later, half the people that oversaw the county election say, well, no, actually we didn`t. We like -- we did our job. Or John Katko who spent four months hammering out legislative language with Bennie Thompson, only to have McCarthy send him under the bus. It`s like, no one has any professional pride for the work. No one stands up for themselves. It`s incredible.
GOLDBERG: I mean, I think when you talk about John Katko, I think the four months is really important because the politics of this thing looked pretty different four months ago than they do now.
HAYES: Yes.
GOLDBERG: You know -- and there`s this -- there`s this phenomenon we see with Trump over and over again where occasionally the veil drops, the horror of it all becomes undeniable, and even people who have been shameless lackeys have to respond, right. That was the theme of his entire presidency, it was the theme of his campaign with the Access Hollywood Tape. And then the ultimate example of that was January 6th when you saw Mitch McConnell really react in horror.
And you thought that this might be the moment that they`re going to try to purge this man from the party and go in a different direction. It`s only for their own self-interest, right? Because he just lost them the election and there`s other people with ambitions to take his place.
But it just doesn`t last. And the more time goes by, the more he`s able to sort of wrap at least the people within his ideological movement in this impenetrable alternative reality. And the more people who want to represent that movement have to -- have to pretend to buy into it.
HAYES: Yes. And Katko is an interesting case. He`s -- talking about a guy who`s got one foot on the boat and one foot on the dock. He was the one who nominated Elise Stefanik for leadership while he`s trying to pull off this, you know, bipartisan compromise. So, I think he will -- today, he ended up in the water. Michelle Goldberg, thank you very much.
GOLDBERG: Thank you.
HAYES: OK. The sentence I`m about to say may scramble your brain. But do you remember when Devin Nunes sued an internet cow? There`s this parody account called Devin Nunes and his cow that is -- well, it`s written from the perspective of a cow and the cow didn`t like Devin and his slavish support for President Trump. And so, the cow would tweet things like the herd has lots of info on Devin. He`s utterly worthless. And it`s pasture time to move utterly worthless Devon to prison.
Now, Nunes didn`t like it very much. Mean tweets hurt his feelings, so he tried to sue Twitter and he lost which should have been the end of it. The whole thing was weird. But why on earth was Bill Bar`s Department of Justice trying to use the Department`s court power to unmask another Devin Nunes parody account? That story is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: Republican Congressman Devin Nunez of California has been engaged for years in a very weird legal battle with a bunch of random Twitter accounts that troll him. There`s Devin Nunes` cow which is a parody account, obviously, pretending to be a cow, hanging out in the dairy in Iowa looking for a little treasonous cowpoke.
And another one called Devin Nunes` alt-mom, which is clearly a parody. It builds itself as the not so proud alt-mom, a prolific libeled tourist and part-time congressman, Devin Nunes. Now, Nunes tried to force Twitter to unmask the parody accounts taunting him, filing a lawsuit in 2019. Again, a strange thing to do. Like, Twitter trolls are annoying, but who cares.
He was unsuccessful. The case was dismissed last year. But then this happened. We just learned the Department of Justice of the United States of America under Donald Trump and Attorney General Bill Barr, apparently took up Nunes` cause, secretly obtaining a grand jury subpoena last year in an attempt to identify the person behind a Twitter account dedicated to mocking Representative Devin Nunes of California, the alt-mom account, according to a newly unsealed court document.
Twitter fought the subpoena as well as an associated gag order barring the company from talking about it publicly. And ultimately, the Times reports, according to a person familiar with the matter, the Justice Department withdrew the subpoena on the spring after President Biden took office.
Now, this is extremely anomalous behavior from the DOJ. And it comes on the heels of a bunch of news about possible abuses of power in that department under Bill Barr that we`re just now finding out about.
Barbara McQuade is a former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, and she joins me now. All right, I didn`t actually -- I thought there must be something wrong when I first saw this. When it first got published, I thought, oh, there`s some mix up here. They weren`t actually trying to do this.
So, first, let me just start with this. What -- under what circumstances will the Department of Justice try to unmask an anonymous Twitter account?
BARBARA MCQUADE, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY, EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN: Well, it could be a legitimate use in some context. For example, Chris, if someone were to tweet a threat about somebody.
HAYES: Right.
MCQUADE: Now, I`m going to -- I`m going to kill Chris Hayes, and it`s coming from an anonymous account. That would be an appropriate use of a grand jury subpoena. There`s a federal statute, 18 USC. section 875C, that makes it a crime to threaten to kidnap or physically injure someone in interstate commerce.
And so, that would be appropriate to figure out who sent that threat so that person could be investigated, questioned, find out if they mean it, if they have the means to actually kill you. So, there is a legitimate means for that when there is some evidence of a threatening communication.
HAYES: But there is no indication -- I mean, this was trolling. This was not threatening. And in fact, we have some exchanges that appear to show that, you know, they were contending it was a threat, but there doesn`t seem to be anything threatening. Like, can you -- is this an appropriate use, I guess, is the second question?
MCQUADE: Well, yes, and that`s what has the Twitter lawyers concern, what prompted them to file this motion with the judge to challenge and quash the subpoena. Twitter responds to subpoenas all the time. But what got their attention, in this case, was it appeared that this subpoena was trying to criminalize free speech.
It looked at this account to see if there was anything that was threatening about it, and it said there`s not. It looks like just a lot of mockery of Devin Nunes, a lot of things about his politics, ridiculing him, and there`s nothing that they found that seemed to demonstrate any sort of threat that would fit within that statute.
And that was their basis for filing this motion. And in response, rather than saying here`s the threatening communication, the Department of Justice simply withdrew the subpoena. So, I don`t know if that means that there is no -- there never was any threatening communication or there`s something they don`t want to share. It`s a little murky there.
But I think that we`re right to be concerned that this appears on its face to be a really blatant abuse of the grand jury power.
HAYES: That`s -- I mean, OK, so here`s the -- you know, so step one is we know Devin Nunes hates these Twitter accounts because he sued them. And I thought -- the whole time as I watched this unfold, I thought, man, this is so embarrassingly thin-skinned. Like, you`re a public figure. It`s the internet. Like, who cares, right? You can be mocked. That -- it comes with the territory, buddy. Get another line of work.
But whatever, it hurts his fefes. He was very sad about it. He wanted to use the legal process to make them stop making fun of him. Now -- so that that didn`t work. Then, we`ve got the Justice Department attempting to go after one of these accounts. And like, it looks like two plus two equals four, which is that the Occam`s razor theory for what happened here is that someone in Devin Nunes` orbit passed along to the Department of Justice their frustration with this, right? I mean, we don`t know, but it`s hard to understand how it would come to that otherwise.
MCQUADE: Yes. On its face, it absolutely looks like that. And I think the real danger here is two things. One is the civil liberties intrusion of criminalizing free speech, of using a grand jury subpoena, which is for criminal investigations, to just try to get to the bottom of who is the anonymous person behind this particular Twitter account.
I also think that as a former prosecutor, this has an institutional threat as well. Prosecutors are entrusted with a lot of authority to utilize grand jury subpoenas. They`re used without court oversight so that prosecutors can act quickly and nimbly when they need to find someone who is truly threatening someone in the state commerce.
HAYES: Right.
MCQUADE: And if there is an abuse of that power, I worry that there will be a movement to curtail that power from even legitimate use.
HAYES: That`s such a good point. So, this is the DOJ without a judge signing off going to Twitter and be like, hey, give us this Twitter username. And Twitter saying, not so fast, right?
MCQUADE: Yes. And, you know, Twitter is a pretty big institution. They have a strong legal staff. You wonder how many times have there been subpoenas submitted to other entities that didn`t have the nerve to push back or the resources to push back. And so, when you see this kind of abuse, it`s good to see that Twitter challenged it and took them on and that DOJ actually backed down when they did so.
But how many people are not backing down in those situations? That`s why I think this is a really dangerous abuse of power, if it is what it appears to be.
HAYES: Barbara McQuade, thank you so much. That was great. So --
MCQUADE: Thanks, Chris.
HAYES: Why was the President of the United States whipping around a parking lot doing 80 miles an hour in a pickup truck today? The nation`s first official White House Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy has the answer and she joins me next.
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HAYES: Do you know what Americans love? Americans love pickup trucks specifically Ford`s F Series, which has been among the top-selling vehicles in the U.S. for nearly 40 years. This year, for the first time, the best- selling Ford F 150 will have an all-electric model called the F 150 Lightning.
While the truck won`t be officially unveiled until tomorrow, the President got a test drive today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President.
BIDEN: This sucker is quick.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How does it drive?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How does it feel?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Would you buy one of these?
BIDEN: I would.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How does it feel to be behind the wheel, sir?
BIDEN: It feels great. I tell you what, these electric vehicles is (INAUDIBLE)
Now, I don`t know if anybody has stopwatch, but I think it was on zero to 60 in about 4.3, 4.4? Four flat?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, can you release it, Mr. President?
BIDEN: It`s odd that it`s quiet.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, how fast were you going?
BIDEN: OK, I`m just going to step on it. I`ll come off eighty miles an hour and see what it is, OK. You ready?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, can I ask you a quick question on Israel before you drive, sir?
BIDEN: No, you can`t. Not unless you get in front of the car as I step on it. I`m only teasing. OK, here we go. Ready? Ready?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: You know, it`s right. The pickup on electric vehicles is amazing because they don`t have the latency of a gas combustion engine. It just accelerates just right away. Biden was in Michigan specifically to visit Ford`s electric plant in Dearborn and highlight American-made electric vehicles and electric batteries as part of his big jobs, climate, and infrastructure agenda.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: My name is Joe Biden, and I`m a car guy. The future of the auto industry is electric. There`s no turning back. The real question is whether it we`ll lead or we`ll fall behind in the race of the future, or whether we`ll build these vehicles and the batteries that go in them here in the United States or rely on other countries, or other the jobs to build these vehicles and batteries are good-paying union jobs with benefits. Jobs that will sustain and grow the middle class.
Right now, China is leaving in this race. But I got news for them. They will not win this race. We can`t let them. We have to move fast. And that`s what you`re doing here.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: As former Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, now senior adviser of the White House on climate, Gina McCarthy knows what`s at stake here as well as anyone, and she joins me now.
It`s great to have you on. So, the big pledge, the sort of headline pledge of the Biden administration is halving American carbon emissions by 2030. How much of that is in the vehicle space as you understand that?
GINA MCCARTHY, WHITE HOUSE NATIONAL CLIMATE ADVISOR: Well, transportation is really big. And obviously, we`re very excited about the movement to electric vehicles, especially vehicles being put together by union workers with pots in the United States of America, including batteries now being manufactured here.
So, there is a big transition to electric vehicles. And as you can see from President Biden, they`re kind of great performance vehicles that you`d really want to drive. So, the importance of today was really to put this iconic model F 150 and to show people that electric vehicles aren`t just about city dwellers, they are actually working vehicles. And we can really take advantage of that.
But you know, utilities as well. The energy sector has to be a part of the effort. We`re also looking at investments in transit. We`re looking at consumer rebates to get them to buy the vehicles of the future. We`re looking at rebuilding our manufacturing, grabbing back the supply chain that we`ve lost to other countries.
So, this isn`t about building or producing second-rate cars or products. It`s really about how do we grow good union jobs, and at the same time, start grabbing the opportunities of the future right here in the United States of America.
HAYES: So, we know that there`s going to be a huge bunch of electric vehicles this year. So, things are moving -- you know, they`re moving in the right direction, just in terms of market forces. You got Ford developing plans, developing -- produce electric vehicle batteries, and they can then -- you know, I know this true of GM too where they sort of bootstrap their own platform. That`s then modular. They could use it for a bunch of different models.
The Edmunds folks say that 30 EVs from 21 brands will become available for sale this year, compared to 17 from 12 brands in 2020. I guess the question is, how much can the market do on its own and how much does the jobs plan need to get past, or do there need to be investments by the government to get to those targets of having emissions by 2030?
MCCARTHY: Well, it`s very clearly that the market -- that the market can do a lot on its own. You don`t just have Ford and GM, but you got Volkswagen, you got Volvo. I mean, we`re talking about Hyundai. I mean, everybody is going electric. And the question is who`s going to win in that race and who`s going to capture these markets.
So -- but it`s also important to recognize that in the American jobs plan, there are incentives that will help consumers be able to afford these vehicles. We know that soon they`re going to have parity with the cost of combustion engines, but we want them to have parity now. We want consumers to have opportunities for rebates. We want to actually provide benefits to companies that have union workers, and to actually manufacture these batteries. We want to have opportunities for a manufacturing upstream and the entire supply chain. So, we`re talking about grants and loans and other opportunities that we can bring to the table.
In the American Jobs Plan, we`ll accelerate everything we`re doing, everything from electric vehicles, to transit, to buses. I mean, we are talking about transforming our transportation sector so that we`re ready to build the future, not just rely on what we had in the past. That`s what President Biden means about build back better. And it`s just the start because we`re looking at investments and broadband, we`re looking at investments in the future that`s really going to point us to win in this economic challenge that we face -- that we face right now.
And Lord knows, the pandemic is getting close to being behind us and we want it to be there. Now is the time to look at hope and opportunity, new jobs, good-paying jobs, really building the future in a way that we`re going to be proud to hand to our kids because there`s going to be low carbon, it`s going to address the issue of climate change, and provide us an opportunity to live healthier and safer lives. That`s what it`s all about.
HAYES: We should note, there`s a bunch of cars coming out of Detroit, an American manufacturer, the Hummer. There`s going to be all-electric Hummer, which right now is a -- is a concept car which I think is moving to production. I got to see one up close, which is pretty cool, at least the sort of concept models. So, there`s a whole bunch of stuff coming out.
I guess, here`s the question. This number stuck with me. So, if you want to hit that target by 20 -- we`re going to be at zero emissions and national level by 2030, you need 95 percent to 100 sales -- to 100 percent sales in new light-duty vehicles in the U.S. by 2030. I mean, can we get there, I guess, is the question? Like that, it`s easy to say stuff, but can we get to that target? That`s nine years from now.
MCCARTHY: Well, we got to that target of 50 percent below 2005 levels by 2030 by looking at the transportation sector, by looking at the power sector. We want clean energy by 2035, not just net zero by 2050. We looked at our housing stock. We looked at our ability to be able to grab carbon and maintain it in the soil and in our oceans.
So, it is -- it is a system approach where we may not get to the exact level we`re looking for in transportation, but we can make it up another way. So, we want to be on that trajectory to get to 2050 zero. And we can do it in a variety of ways, and we`re going to try them all.
HAYES: All right, Gina McCarthy, thanks so much for making time tonight.
MCCARTHY: Thank you, Chris.
HAYES: Still to come, Senator Chris Murphy is making a public plea for a ceasefire in the conflict between Israel and Palestinians. So, why isn`t the White House going that far? Senator Chris Murphy joins me ahead.
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HAYES: The fate of American democracy rests on the shoulders of Senator Joe Manchin, Democrat of West Virginia. OK, that might be a slight exaggeration but also maybe not by much. As you know, since the 2020 election and Donald Trump`s big lie that he actually won and the insurrection on January 6th, Republicans have moved very aggressively in states where they have political control to restrict access to voting, to make it harder to vote, right.
They`ve been focusing on changes that appear designed to make it harder for Democratic constituencies to vote, young people and non-white voters, especially Black voters. In response, Congressional Democrats have proposed legislation in the House and Senate called the For the People Act. The legislation would expand voter registration with automatic and same-day registration, expand voter access through vote by mail and early voting, limit removing voters from the rolls, something that we`ve seen a bunch of states, and require states to establish independent redistricting commissions among other provisions.
Now, that bill was actually proposed before all this happened. It already passed the House back in March. In the Senate, the entire Republican caucus is united in fierce opposition to it. And Democrats can`t even count on all their own members. Senator Manchin confirmed last week that he is not on board with S.1, the For the People Act.
But there`s a somewhat interesting wrinkle. As we`ve talked about previously on the show, the only reason we are having the state by state fights over voter access is because the Supreme Court gutted a key provision of the Voting Rights Act back in 2013. That provision was preclearance in which states and municipalities had applied to. It required non-partisan members of the Justice Department to review proposed changes to voting laws like the ones we`re seeing now to assess that they would have the effect of being racially discriminatory.
So, one obvious solution to this problem which we have floated here, right, would be to simply have Congress revive that portion of the Voting Rights Act that Chief Justice John Roberts and the conservatives knocked down. And guess what? That is exactly the solution that Joe Manchin is now proposing.
Yesterday, in a letter to House and Senate leaders, Manchin, along with Republican Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, wrote in part, "We urge you to join us in calling for the bipartisan reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act through regular order. We can do this. We must do this."
Now, I actually think this is a pretty smart approach. But it faces the same daunting math in the Senate as the For the People Act. That is Manchin and Murkowski who`s Republican would need to convince nine more Republicans to come on board in order to get it passed the filibuster.
Now, if they can find those nine votes, great, let`s do it. But if they can`t find nine votes for such a vital elemental legislative reinforcement of American democracy, then Manchin should be willing to ditch the Filibuster, because in his own words, we must do this.
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HAYES: All right, so we showed you earlier in the show, right, President Joe Biden was in Detroit today. And while he was there to tout the city`s electric car renaissance, it was hard to escape the specter of the ongoing bloodshed in Israel and in Gaza and the West Bank.
When he arrived, he was greeted by Congresswoman Debbie Dingell who represents a district with the highest population of Arab Americans in the country, a site of big protests this weekend, and Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian-American member of Congress. They spoke on the tarmac nearly eight minutes. And President Biden went under praise Congresswoman Tlaib in his remarks.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: I admire your intellect, I admire your passion, and I admire your concern for so many other people. And as my -- from my heart, I pray that your grandma and family are well. I promise you, I`m going to do everything you see that they are in the West Bank. You`re a fighter. And God, thank you for being a fighter.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: In fact, part of that trip today, you might remember from earlier in the show when Biden went out to take that electric F 150 for a spin, a pool reporter tried to ask a question about Israel to no avail.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: OK, I`m just going to step on it. I`ll come off at 80 miles an hour. I`ll see you in a bit, OK. Are you ready?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, can I ask you a quick question on Israel before you drive, sir?
BIDEN: No, you can`t. Not unless you get in front of the car as I step on it. I`m only teasing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: As Matt Yglesias noted, I`m getting some subtle hints Biden would rather talk about electric cars which unite his party and divide the opposition rather than about Israel and Palestine which unites the opposition and divides his party.
But whether the White House wants to talk about it or not, the world wants to talk about it and members of the Democratic Party want to talk about it. Like, for instance, Congresswoman Tlaib, who reportedly confronted President Biden on Israel saying U.S. support is enabling Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to commit crimes against Palestinians.
She`s not the only one who`s frustrated. This Times headline reflects a growing sense of anger and frustration from Congressional Democrats. President Biden continues to give Israel the green light to bombard Gaza as opposed to pressuring both sides into a ceasefire. The ceasefire that if achieved, would surely save lives, Israeli laws, Palestinian lives.
Just today, five people died, three in the West Bank, two in Israel. 217 Palestinians, including 63 children and 13 people in Israel, including two children have died since violence erupted eight days ago.
Joining me now is Democratic member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut. Senator, my understanding is you and Senator Young, a Republican, have called for a ceasefire in the Middle East. Do you think the Biden administration is doing enough?
SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D-CT): Well, the President has expressed support for a ceasefire. If you look at the readout of the calls that the administration has been engaged in over the last 48 hours, they are very clearly working the phones hard. And my understanding is that that they are pursuing this policy that the President has enunciated that we are trying to get a ceasefire.
HAYES: Oh, come on. But that not -- well, that`s -- that is different, you and I both know, than diplomatically pressuring. It just is. I mean, I`ve read the readouts. I`ve read the readouts of the DOD and Secretary Austin. I`ve read the thanks given to him by the foreign minister of Israel to Blinken. Basically, they feel like the American government has given them room to do what they`re going to do and it is not pressuring them to stop.
MURPHY: Yes, listen. I mean, I don`t -- I don`t claim to know the details of the conversations happening between the Biden administration and the government. I doubt that there`s a policy being enunciated by Joe Biden that is not being effectuated by his team. But let`s also be honest here. The Israelis in the past have not shown much of a willingness to listen to advice and pressure from the United States when they have made past incursions in Gaza.
Right now, it benefits Benjamin Netanyahu`s politics to continue this assault, unfortunately. It also benefits Hamas` politics to continue to lob rockets into Israel. And so, notwithstanding the pressure that we may be putting on both sides, the forces inside both of those political infrastructures, unfortunately, push against compromise, push both sides away from a ceasefire.
HAYES: You know, there`s been these images I`ve seen of the Iron Dome System, right. This missile defense system, the U.S. partly funded that has been intercepting Hamas rockets into Israel. And those rockets are being fired as a Palestinian human rights lawyer said on the show last night, indiscriminately on civilians are war crime, by definition.
And the Iron Dome has worked quite well. Today, some got through. I think, two Thai nationals and Israeli died as a result. But I look at those images and I think, well, good. That`s good. I`m glad those rockets are being intercepted. And also, there`s some part of me that`s like, can we get an Iron Dome for Gaza? Can the American taxpayer foot the bill to protect innocent children in Gaza where there`s two million people in one of the most densely populated parts of the world so that they don`t have death rained down upon them?
MURPHY: Yet, not so long as Hamas is running Gaza. Hamas is an organization that seeks the eradication of Israel and organizes the armed rebellion against it. And I will just say clearly that, you know, so long as Hamas is in charge, there`s going to be absolutely no security partnership between the United States and Gaza.
But your point here is that the United States should have a policy of preventing civilian death on both sides of that line. Which is why, early on, I have been pressing the administration to engage on a ceasefire, and it`s also why I think we`re going to have to have a discussion about what forms of leverage the United States does have to try to convince the Israeli government to get back on a path to a two-state solution, because without a viable path to a Palestinian state, then this crisis is just going to continue to repeat itself.
And that`s the conversation that is really important to have, simultaneous to our discussions about how do we get to a ceasefire.
HAYES: You know, you wrote a book about violence. It`s specifically in the context of U.S. gun violence and interpersonal violence. The U.S. has a very high level of violence. We`ve seen a huge spike in violence in the last year, really worrying numbers, huge spikes and gun violence in the top 25 cities, 30 percent, 35 percent, 40 percent.
You know, there`s some similarities in the cycles of violence anywhere, right, violence, retribution, a lack of some third party entity that can interrupt that or bring justice. What did you learn from writing that book when you survey the violence happening abroad?
MURPHY: Well, I think two things. First, as I argue in the book, you know, Americans have a biological predilection towards violence. And in particular, we have a habit of organizing ourselves in groups and tribes, and then using violence as a way to protect ourselves against the other. And it is our ability to integrate those tribes that protects ourselves against those violent instincts.
Obviously, in Israel and Gaza, they have not done an adequate job of integration. And so, there is a fear built up of the other. But second, access to weapons, access to easier means of violence leads to higher levels of violence. And so, that`s why it is worthwhile for the United States to continue to have a discussion about why we continue to load up the entirety of the Middle East, tribes on different sides of different conflicts with a higher caliber and higher class weapons. That is a part of the story of violence from the very beginning of human history.
HAYES: Yes, it`s a -- it`s a very good point and obviously plays domestically as well where we have the highest per capita gun ownership rate in the world by a mile. And we see that every day in terms of how it manifests here. Senator Chris Murphy, that book is called The Violence Inside Us. It is now out in paperback. Thanks so much for making time tonight, Senator. I appreciate it.
MURPHY: Thanks a lot, Chris.
HAYES: All right, that is ALL IN on this Tuesday evening. "THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW" starts right now. Good evening, Rachel.
RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC HOST: Good evening, Chris. Thank you, my friend. Much appreciated. And thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. I`m happy to have you here. We`ve got a lot to get to tonight. There`s a lot going on in the --