Summary
The Senate Republicans vows to sink the voting rights legislation. The GOP quickly squashes Joe Manchin`s voting rights compromise. Child Tax credit is going to hit eligible parents starting July 15. There`s a new drug treatment for Alzheimer`s disease that could change health care in America as we know it. Seven months after the election, poll shows that one-third of U.S. believes Joe Biden won due to fraud.
Transcript
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST (voice over): Tonight on ALL IN. I challenge you, Republican senators. Come to the floor. Defend these policies.
HAYES: America to crossroads as a vote to protect the vote heads to the floor and Republicans vow to stop them. So, what are Democrats and Joe Biden willing to do about it?
JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: That fight doesn`t stop tomorrow at all. This will be a fight of his presidency.
HAYES: Then, six months after insurrection, why so many Republicans still believe the big lie. Plus, how America is on the verge of what could be the most transformational social policy experiment in history.
KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The American Rescue Plan will lift half of America`s children out of poverty.
HAYES: And why a breakthrough Alzheimer`s drug could change American health care forever, when ALL IN starts right now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES (on camera): Good evening from New York. I`m Chris Hayes. Tomorrow, for the second time in less than a month, Senate Democrats are going to get together on the floor of the Senate, we`ll all watch it, and they`re going to run into a brick wall made of Mitch McConnell and the modern Republican Party`s filibuster.
Democrats have this huge voting rights bill called the For the People Act which many Democrats view as an existentially important piece of legislation to protect democracy in its current form considering the assault it is undergoing in state after state, not to mention the ongoing low-level insurrection that`s just running in the background cultivated by the last president.
Now, the bill would create some minimum baselines to protect the right to vote across the country, some minimum standards across the nation for mainland voting and early voting things like that. OK, Democrats could not get West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin on board with the original version of this bill. He thought it was too overly broad, and so he himself started bipartisan negotiations with Republicans to craft his own acceptable voting protections narrower than what Democrats have proposed and what they pass in the House.
And what happened next is remarkably similar to what happened in the House for the January 6 Commission, right? Remember, we had Chairman Thompson on this program. He and his colleague across the aisle, John Katko started this good-faith bipartisan negotiation, old school kind of legislating, right? You`ve got your list demands, we`ve got our list. There was give and take. There was stuff there Democrats and Republicans didn`t like, right? As is the case with all negotiations. They did it for weeks and then months.
They came up with this thing. Katko endorsed it, right? This is the January 6 Commission. And they`ve said here, we`ve done the work. Well, Manchin did the exact same thing. He sits down with Republicans, negotiates, tailors the bill down, makes it less broad, and says here, we`ve got an outline. So, voting rights advocate Stacey Abrams comes out, backed it right away, even though there were things she disagreed with.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STACEY ABRAMS, FOUNDER, FAIR FACT ACTION: I am endorsing the fact that we now have a list of priorities and that Joe Manchin is at the table and he`s part of the conversation. It`s an important step forward as we try to protect the freedom to vote and protect access to the vote that all 50 Democratic senators are part of the conversation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: It`s the second time we`ve done this now in the last month or so, right? And there`s no suspense about what happened after that clip, after Stacey Abrams endorsed it, after Joe Manchin set about in good faith tailoring it down and working up negotiation. The Abrams endorsement immediately led -- immediately led to Republicans running away from it. In fact, this is how Republican Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri explained it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. ROY BLUNT (R-MO): Well, we all -- I think every one of us looks for opportunities to work with Senator Manchin and we found those opportunities. I actually think when Stacey Abrams immediately endorsed Senator Manchin`s proposal, it became the Stacey Abrams substitute not the Joe Manchin substitute.
HAYES: Oh well, that`s interesting. That`s a very interesting to say. Joe Manchin was the one who actually crafted it. Joe Manchin, the guy that won in the state that Trump won, the most conservative member of the Democratic caucus. But it`s weird you would attach it by name to Stacey Abrams and not Joe Manchin who actually wrote it just because she went on TV and said fine, this is OK.
So, again, the second time in a month, just like the January 6 Commission, right, the Democrats came to the table, they went through what appeared genuine motions of negotiation. Joe Manchin tried to do the bipartisan thing. But even before that, we all knew what the Republican answer would be, right? And if you`re sitting at home saying yes, Chris, yes, you`re right and this has been maddening to watch, I don`t disagree because the core question of American politics right now, everything revolves around this, is this. Will the Democratic party, one of two viable coalitions in America use the power entrusted to them by a majority of Americans, a majority of Americans who guaranteed them the exceedingly rare combination of the House, the Senate, and the Presidency to reinforce the fundamentals of American democracy against the enemies arrayed against it. And every day we see those enemies right out in the open.
Elected Republicans across the country continuing to push the big lie that the 2020 presidential election was rigged. And as a result a new poll shows, about a third of Americans, one-third of Americans think Biden only won because of voter fraud, the same fraction the electorate that held that view in Monmouth`s polling in March, in January, and November. The number hasn`t changed. And that`s perhaps because people like the number three senate Republican John Barrasso of Wyoming say things like i want to make Joe Biden a one-half term president.
Today, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell shot down any notion that Republicans would allow a bill that would make it easier to vote to pass the Senate, accusing America -- Democrats of trying to rig American democracy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): They made abundantly clear that the real driving force behind S.1. is a desire to rig the rules of American elections permanently, permanently in Democrats` favor. That`s why the Senate will give this disastrous proposal no quarter.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: You hear that? Take him out his word, no quarter. There will be no quarter to reinforce American democracy against its enemies like Mitch McConnell like the entire Republican Party more or less. They will give no quarter because democracy in all of its full multi-racial realization in America in the 21st century, they view as a threat existentially. And that`s the same Mitch McConnell who just said last week he would block any Biden Supreme Court nominees, anyone, if republicans would back control of the Senate. No nominees for you..
And yet despite all this, despite what we saw with Merrick Garland, right, when they ran that play in the last year of the Obama administration, the Republican obstruction, this faith that there are bipartisan deals we had is not totally wrong in certain ways, OK. And this is an another important fundamental dynamic to understand about where we are right now. We`re going to talk about this with Sherrod Brown in just a bit.
You can cut side deals on things like funding for basic scientific research as they did the endless frontier bill. You may be able to cut some good deals in the bowels of the surface transportation bill. Seriously, there might be some good stuff in there. but all the issues surrounding the core question of the strength of American democracy and majority rule, the existence of majority rule and the rule of law and the rule of democracy. And the idea of people selecting their leaders as opposed to the other way around, the issues that are the most important, the most existential, those that are the places where there are, in Mitch McConnell`s words, no quarter. There is no compromise.
There is a brick wall of Republican opposition that will either be sledge hammered down or will just remain blocking us from a path towards a free and equal multiracial democratic country. That`s it. No way around the fight, no deals to be made, no way to avoid it. No version of a bill -- no version of a bill that will get 10 Republican votes that would also safeguard American democracy. It`s the elemental question we will return to. And the Democratic Party will need to find a way to collect itself to get to full consensus and unanimity on that point or it will not.
Congresswoman Katherine Clark, Democrat of Massachusetts serves as the assistant speaker for the house and she joins me now. I want to play you first something that Ronnie Jackson said on Friday because i thought this was a bit of a hand tipping. One of the things that both the For the People Act have in common with the Manchin proposal is some kind of regulation of partisan gerrymandering. The Supreme Court has basically said, we`re putting no limits on it. And if you can figure out a way as a Republican state legislature to figure out a gerrymander, so even the Democrats win 60 of the votes, the Republicans get 60 of the seats, that`s fine.
And here`s what Ronnie Jackson said, tipping his hand about the centrality importance of that on Friday. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. RONNY JACKSON (R-TX): We have everything working in our favor right now. We have redistricting coming up and the Republicans control most of that process in most the states around the country. That alone should get us the majority back.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: What do you think when you hear someone just say it so plainly?
REP. KATHERINE CLARK (D-MA): Chris, they keep saying the quiet part out loud and they keep telling us exactly where they are. They are not on the side of democracy. They are not on the side of the American people, and they are not meeting this moment where everything is on the line.
We are at this point in our country`s history where we are fighting for racial, economic, and climate justice. And the route to all of that goes through protecting that right to vote, protecting our democracy. And just five months ago on January 6, we saw the insurgents stormed the Capitol fueled by the big lie of Donald Trump. And then we watched as our colleagues across the aisle perpetuated that big lie.
And now, they are exploiting that and saying that we don`t want to compete, we want to cheat. And we will do anything to keep power. They keep telling us who they are and we have to believe them.
HAYES: I`m just going to come back to this just because the quote here is really amazing. We have everything working in our favor right now. Now, normally a politician can say that and say look, the recovery`s going to be bad or he could -- maybe he`ll say something about inflation or something - - you know, we have everything working our favor or usually parties do well in the out years. There`s a million things you can say after that.
But to say, as a politician, everything is working right now. We control a redistricting process where we will be able to name our own voters and redistricting to the majority is to say like that`s what this is all about. And that`s why it seems to me there has to be a realization, I imagine there is in the House, that like there`s not going to be 10 votes on the Republican senate side for something that would reform the process by which the very Republican Party thinks it will redistrict itself into a majority.
CLARK: Yes. And Mitch McConnell underscored that again today saying that no matter what compromise is met, if we met all the concerns of Republicans in a compromise bill, it still wouldn`t be good enough. And that is why we are in not a fight for the majority or for the midterms, we`re in a fight for the soul of our country. We are in a fight for who we are going to be as a country.
Do we get to continue this grand experiment in democracy? Do we get to use this opportunity to reset our economy and our recovery to put the American family first and make sure there`s equal opportunity for everybody or are we going to allow that fundamental right of voting to be taken away.
And what we have to realize is that this is a Washington problem. When you get outside of the beltway, the American people understand this. They want us to fight corruption. They want our presidents to have -- you know, to be free of conflict of interest. They want voting to be secure and to be easy so that you don`t have to choose between showing up at your job and collecting a paycheck and exercising that fundamental right to vote.
They want communities of color to be able to vote as easily as any other community. So, it is the American people versus a small group of Republicans who are bound and determined to roll back history back to a Jim Crow era where we have very damaging and oppressive voting laws in this country that are aimed at making sure communities of color cannot vote, that people cannot express their democracy. They want it so that politicians pick their voters instead of voters picking their politicians.
HAYES: They just said it. And it`s just common sense among Republicans now. Like, well, we`re just redistricting ourselves into a majority so why would we have to listen to anyone else? Congresswoman Katherine Clark who`s in House leadership, thanks for making some time for us tonight.
CLARK: Thank you, Chris.
HAYES: Ari Berman is a senior reporter for Mother Jones. He is probably one of the number one voters covering voting rights and that`s been the case for years, in fact, author Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America. And he joins me now.
So, two dynamics here, right. I mean, I thought the no quarter line from McConnell was bracingly obvious but also honest. Like that`s just where there are. There`s nothing there. The thinking all the time here if there`s a theory of the case, right, is that look, you`ve only got a 50-seat majority. You need unanimity first on the bill and then unanimity about getting rid of the filibuster if you`re going to pass anything. That`s just the way it`s going to work. So, you got to basically do -- go along with Manchin`s efforts and keep hitting the wall until his head is so bruised and bloody. He turns around and says like let`s stop doing this.
Today, you had the president meeting with Sinema and Joe Manchin in separate meetings on structure though obviously the subject of this all is how do you get to them, right?
ARI BERMAN, SENIOR REPORTER, MOTHER JONES: Exactly, Chris. I mean, it would make sense if Democrats were compromising on voting rights if they needed to get to 60 votes. But right now, they are compromising with themselves just to get to 50 votes which means that nothing is going to pass.
And it just seems like we are still witnessing a huge game of asymmetric warfare here where there is a 60 vote super majority requirement in the Senate to pass any legislation protecting voting rights, but in the states, Republicans are unilaterally making it harder to vote with a simple majority on party line votes.
HAYES: That`s a great point.
BERMAN: And so, Republicans are going to do whatever they want in the states to make it harder to vote but Democrats can`t do anything in Congress to actually prevent that from happening.
HAYES: OK, I want to just -- this is such an important point because when people say oh, if you get rid of filibuster, what will happen? It`s like, most states don`t have it already and they`re -- they all just legislate. It`s fine. I mean, a lot of them pass terrible stuff. Don`t get me wrong. But it doesn`t like, make the thing non-functional. Like, the state, they - - majorities pass the laws.
And so, the asymmetry of what`s happening in the states and what`s happening the federal level just knocks you over the head every day particularly as we see Texas and all these other states just marching to the same drum.
BERMAN: Yes. I mean, it took this extraordinary act in Texas for them to walk out and break quorum just to temporarily block the bill. I followed all of these debates. They were party line simple majority debates in Georgia, in Arizona, in Florida, in all of these states making it harder to vote. And republicans didn`t say, oh, what will the Democrats say about us? We need bipartisanship.
The entire point of voter suppression is to make it harder for your opponents to be able to vote. And so, there`s just two standards here. There`s the game being played by Republicans in the states but they do whatever they can to undermine democracy. Then there`s a game being played by Democrats in Washington where they fail to protect American democracy because of these arcane rules that nobody actually cares about. And in a hundred years, nobody is going to care about the filibuster if the right to vote is undermined for decades.
HAYES: Yes. And we should just say here, we see Democrats, like 99 -- I mean as far as I can tell, I think a lot of the caucus honestly has been radicalized on this. A lot of people moved a lot of folks that I don`t consider like the left edge of the caucus. Amy Klobuchar is a great example, right? She`s pretty squarely in the -- in the kind of center of that caucus politically.
I mean, it`s really a few holdouts. And I thought today Barack Obama saying this during the town hall was notable in that way, right, because this is the sort of -- you know, aside from Biden, obviously, the sort of most looming figure in Democratic politics. "In the aftermath of an insurrection with our democracy online and many of the same Republican senators going along with the notion somehow there are irregularities and problems with legitimacy in our most recent election, they`re suddenly afraid to even talk about these issues and figure out a solution on the floor of the Senate, Obama said. That`s not acceptable, he added."
Do you think -- I mean, it seems the pressure is going to be brought to bear and that`s going to be the game here. I don`t think anyone, Chuck Schumer included, thinks having these votes is going to shame the Republicans, right? This is all being done for Manchin and Sinema, not public opinion and not pressure on Republicans..
BERMAN: Yes, exactly. I mean most Democrats would rather pass something than nothing. And those are the choices right now. And then the question is when this vote is blocked tomorrow, what are Democrats going to do? Are they going to say, stopping this wave of Jim Crow 2.0 voter suppression laws is more important than keeping a filibuster that is a relic of Jim Crow. To me, that seems like a very easy decision. Clearly for Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin, it`s a tough decision. But it`s just crazy right now that 41 Republican senators representing just 21 percent of the country can block bills that would expand voting access for millions of Americans.
I think when people understand the stakes of the filibuster, they would much rather see action whether it`s on voting rights or gun control or climate change or anything else than to preserve an arcane Senate rule that is hampering one party but doing nothing to stop the anti-democratic forces in the other party.
HAYES: That asymmetry is so important and so key to understanding everything as it`s sort of moving around right now. Ari Berman, thank you so much.
BERMAN: Thanks so much, Chris.
HAYES: All right, did you know in just a few weeks from now, the U.S. is starting what could be one of the most transformational social policy experiments the country has ever undertaken, really not an exaggeration, monumental. It`s almost certainly going to impact either you or someone you love. Don`t go anywhere. Senator Sherrod Brown is standing by to explain it all next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: All right, so less than a month from today, the United States begins one of the most potentially transformational social policy experiments is ever tried, free money every month to help parents pay for the cost of raising children. It`s called the child tax credit but it is really a near- universal basic income for parents with the government subsidizing about 90 percent of all households with children. So, we`re talking like, you know, poor, working poor, working-class, middle class, upper-middle class sending them several hundred dollars per month per child zero strings attached, OK.
That money is going to start showing up in American parents` bank accounts next month as just as a direct deposit or in their mailboxes or as a prepaid debit card or check. Now, polling indicates not a ton of people even know it`s about to happen. 53 percent of Americans say they know little or nothing about the upcoming monthly payments. That`s according to recent poll from the progressive firm Data for Progress. So, the White House has gone into a kind of overdrive to get the word out.
Today, Vice President Kamala Harris was in Pittsburgh touting the benefits of the new credit. And the White House released this video of the President encouraging families who did not file taxes to sign up.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: -- children but didn`t file taxes in the last couple of years, go to childtaxcredit.gov. See how you can sign up. But if you file taxes last year, share this video with your friends and family. You never know who might need to hear it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio is chair of Senate Banking Committee where he led the effort to include the expanded child tax credit in the American Rescue Plan. He joins me now.
Senator, a big moment on legislation that you and a few other colleagues have conceived of and worked on and advocated for years. We`re now going to kind of hit this moment where the rubber hits the road in a few weeks. What should families say middle-class family, two-parent household making $67,000, let`s say, two or three children, what should they be expecting if they did file taxes? Does this -- is this going to happen now?
SEN. SHERROD BROWN (D-OH): Yes, it`s going to happen beginning July 15th. If they -- if it`s refundable, if they don`t have much of a tax liability, they`ll get that check. They`ll literally get the check in the mail or get it put in their account if they file taxes in 19 -- 2019 or 2020. If they haven`t filed taxes in those two years, they should go to child.childtaxcredit.gov and sign up. It`s as easy as that.
We`ve been working with Secretary Treasury Yellen for months since this was included in the American Rescue Plan. I spoke with Commissioner Rettig on Friday afternoon, a long conversation, just to make sure all the access portals and all were available and this is up and running, is more quickly i think than anybody expected as promised mid-July and then mid-August. And then, mid-September, our job now is to make sure this is permanent not just one year the way the law is written now.
HAYES: Yes, so I want to just show what the numbers are. $3000 per child six to 17 years old, $3600 six per child under six in working families as long as they make up to 150,000 for a couple will qualify. Again, the key outreach thing here is for someone who`s watching this who is a parent with kids and didn`t file for taxes, you should go to that Web site and sign up. There`s no strings attached, right? You`re not going to like -- it`s not going to increase -- I just want to make this clear for people. It`s not going to increase your income eligibility. This is not taxable income. It`s not going to like, screw you.
BROWN: Yes, it`s not -- it`s not -- yes, that right. It`s not taxable income nor does it put you above a level in anything to make you ineligible for any other benefit. It is directly -- a matter of fact, 92 percent of children in my state are eligible. Only children in the most upper income of upper income families will not be eligible. So, it is -- it is essentially universal. It`s universal for everybody that needs $250 every month if your children are over six. And if they`re under six, it`s $300 every month per child. So, if you have three kids and they`re all small, you would get $900 a month for 12 months. We renew it and make this permanent. It will have a permanent impact. In fact, this law, we start working this -- I started working this in 2013 with moderate amounts of success. Obviously, now with the elections matter, with the two Georgia elections, and with President Biden, it`s going to drop the poverty rate between 40 and 50 percent cut in the poverty rate. Imagine that, the Congress stepped up. It shows what elections mean. It shows how government can be on the side of working families and moderate low-income families.
HAYES: You know what I find fascinating about it? So, there`s -- this is one year. There`s going to be a big political fight to renew this, so that`s why I called it an experiment. You know, you`re -- it`s an experiment of policy. One thing i find really striking here is someone who came of age in the -- in the most intense moment of what we call welfare politics. You know, Bill Clinton ending welfare as we know it, and all this sort of demonizing of the dole and the social safety net would become a hammock and all these things.
As far as I can tell, there`s like no concerted right-wing backlash to this. In fact, you`ve got members of the Republican Party who have somewhat similar ideas. I mean, they`re not exactly the same, but it is striking to me that we`re about to run this experiment for 92 percent of household families, Republican, Democrat, Black, White, Latino, indigenous, Asian- American, whoever you are, right, THIS huge experiment and essentially I think people are kind of into it like it`s not a very controversial program.
BROWN: Yes, well, the goal is universality. And as Social Security is so popular because it`s everybody, Medicare is so popular because it`s everybody, unemployment insurance is pretty popular and social insurance, you pay in and then you get out. This is essentially universal. Again, not quite for the most upper income of families, but 92 percent, as we were saying, 92 percent of children in Ohio will get this benefit.
And when it`s universal, and some obviously need it more than others for many. I talked to two Clevelanders today. One was an activist working on this that helped to run programs like this one. As a mother who will use these dollars to enhance her child care so she can work more hours at work and build income and build her career and help to be the role model for her children, all the things she wants to do. But this $300 a month, $600 -- I think she has one child, seven or eight one child, four or five. And then they`ll get (AUDIO GAP) that`ll make a huge difference in on getting -- I mean one of the reasons people aren`t going back to work because they can`t afford child care or they can`t find child care.
So, this is going to matter across the board to encourage -- I mean, it really does play to the dignity of work. Not to forever forget that raising children is real work and we should reward raising children. This is one way to do it.
HAYES: Final question is just a political one about the credit too. You know, I mean, here you got this thing. It`s -- you know, the polling indicating that that a lot of people are going to get this and have no idea they`re going to get it, of just letting people know that this was passed, if I`m not mistaken, on a party-line vote with zero Republicans voting for it. It was the agenda of the Democratic Party, and a Democratic President, a Democratic House, and a Democratic Senate that will make this happen in your lives whoever you are, whatever your political beliefs. It seems important for everyone to know that over the next few months.
BROWN: It was a 51 to 50 vote to pass the whole package. It was also a 50- 51 vote when they tried to take it out. We had the vice president -- or maybe it was 49-50. There might have been one Republican absence. I don`t know. But it was one vote and it really does show elections matter. But I think you`ll see, Chris, that -- this almost makes me laugh and it`s probably a good thing, but in the next five or ten years is this become so universally accepted not just by the voters. The voters already overwhelmingly accept this, but even by Republican politicians just like -- you know, they act like they like Social Security and Medicare. They didn`t used to like it.
They`re going to act like they like to child tax credit and the income tax credit. So, you can count on that because of the -- because it`s -- think of the opportunity it`s going to create in families in my -- in counties in my neighborhood in Cleveland, the opportunity in low-income families. We had huge foreclosures in my neighborhood. We`ve had all kinds of -- all kinds of issues in in relatively low-income areas like this. And people`s lives will get significantly better as a result of this. And what`s government for but for that?
HAYES: Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, has worked on this for a very long time, thank you very much. I appreciate it.
BROWN: Chris, one more thing. Thank you for supporting the Union in MSNBC.
HAYES: You bet, sir.
BROWN: I really appreciate you publicly saying that. Thank you.
HAYES: Union strong always. Still ahead, the controversial new drug for treating Alzheimer`s and new reporting about why it could change American health care as we know it. Don`t go anywhere. That story is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: There`s a new drug treatment for Alzheimer`s disease that could change health care in America as we know it and that`s not an exaggeration. The last time the FDA, Food and Drug Administration approved a new drug for Alzheimer`s Disease was all -- back in 2003. One of a handful of medications that treat the cognitive symptoms of the disease but do not pause or delay the decline in memory and function that comes as it progresses.
For the last 18 years, patients and their families have lived without any substantive treatment options or much hope. And I, like millions of other people know the devastation of that, the face of a devastating illness that affects over six million Americans.
Then, early this month, something big happened. The FDA approved a brand new medication, the first to treat the possible underlying cause of Alzheimer`s. And after that approval, a 70-year-old Rhode Island man was the first patient to receive it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was hopeful that something like this would happen but what`s amazing is that it`s happening for me. If it took another few years to do this, maybe it would have been too late for me.
I think everybody who has parents who`ve had this are worried about it. And so, this should lift, you know, their thoughts about that maybe they don`t have to worry about it either.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Amidst all that hope and promise, there are some pretty big catches. For one, legitimate concerns surrounding the drug`s efficacy. I mean the FDA`s approval came against the advice of their own expert independent panel. In fact, three members of it resigned in protest arguing there is insufficient evidence and conflicting evidence regarding its benefits and a risk of side effects. And then there`s the estimated cost. Get this. $56,000 a year which could single-handedly cost the government hundreds of billions, even trillions of dollars, and seniors and their families thousands of dollars a year.
Benjy Starlin is a policy editor at NBC News. He wrote that piece titled "How a single new Alzheimer`s drug could blow up the federal budget" and he joins me now. Benjy, this is such a fascinating story and there`s a sort of two perfect storm components. So, one is the cost. Let`s talk a little bit about what the cost is, why it`s so high, and who would pay for it.
BENJY SARLIN, MSNBC POLICY EDITOR: So, Chris, the cost is put by the company Biogen at $56,000 per year per patient. And they would be going -- you would go into the doctor`s office or a clinic. You would get it as a kind of intravenous treatment. And the cost would be born probably mostly by Medicare because the overwhelming number of Alzheimer`s patients are seniors who get their care through Medicare. Some potentially through Medicaid. Many Medicare patients are also covered by it. It fills in some gaps. But then also by seniors themselves because Medicare part B still has a 20 percent copay.
So, for many of those seniors getting this treatment, they`d also be paying 11,000 or more out of pocket every year unless there`s some kind of discount taken to relieve them of the -- of the price or of the burden. So, the costs of this are absolutely enormous, but this also has to be a way -- a way against the fact that for many Alzheimer`s patients, this is the first hope they`ve had, you know, in decades. There`s never been a drug approved that even promises to do something like this to actually slow the progression of the disease. But that gets into the next issue which is there are serious questions about whether it does do that.
HAYES: I want to get to that first. But just to give a sense of this, right? So, Kaiser Family Foundation estimates of one million Medicare beneficiaries got this drug which may be even low end of Biogen`s expectations. Spending on the one drug alone would exceed $57 billion, surpassing spending on all other part B covered drugs combined.
Like -- I mean, there`s just nothing like this. This is a complete like black swan budgetary drug situation in the entire Medicare drug ecosystem.
SARLIN: Yes, Chris. I know we`re used to talking about very big numbers in the COVID era with bills. But remember when Obama passed the stimulus like the biggest spending bill ever at the time. We`re talking about potentially that much or more on one single drug, one drug.
HAYES: By the way, on one drug, there was no legislative debate. What`s remarkable is you`ve got this drug that just gets approved, and then Medicare pays for it, and Medicare does not bulk negotiate its drug prices somewhat infamously. And two plus two then equals, you know, $56,000.
SARLIN: So, the way this has been put to me talking to experts who focus on the issue of drug pricing here and abroad. This is kind of the perfect storm of so many of our issues around drug pricing all colliding at once. There`s one issue named which is that unlike other, you know, wealthy uh advanced economies, we do not negotiate for drug prices. Medicare is not allowed to negotiate. They`re not allowed to factor in cost in their decisions about approving a treatment. So, there`s not really any leverage to get this price down if it`s approved.
And it just creates a knock-on effect here if this drug -- bear in mind this is an issue even if this drug does turn out to do everything it says.
HAYES: Right. So, that`s -- I just want to quickly talk about that because it really was pretty eye-opening to me to read that resignation of three experts. Like, what does our best reporting and science say about the efficacy here?
SARLIN: So, the dispute here centers a little on the evidence that the company put forward. They had clinical trials that initially did not seem to show benefits. Later they said they went back and saw that there was promise. So, the FDA said that there are further trials needed but the drug can be approved in the meantime because at least in theory they seem to buy that by removing a certain plaque in the brain called a beta amyloid, you might be able to reduce the onset of Alzheimer. It`s basically a substance that shows up in the brain that`s associated with Alzheimer`s.
But medical experts including people on the panel are very skeptical that reducing this plaque in the brain actually does affect the progression of it. It`s possible it`s correlation not causation and they want further studies. But because the FDA says they could have up to nine years to finish their trials, by then you might have spent $500 billion --
HAYES: That is wild.
SARLIN: And seniors have spent tens of thousands of dollars, hundreds of thousands of dollars out of pocket potentially before we know if it`s confirmed as doing what it says.
HAYES: All right, we`re going to keep following this story. Benji Sarlin, great piece on nbcnews.com. Thank you so much.
Still to come, new polling shows the majority of Republicans still believe the big lie. What that means for our future elections coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: In 2004, early exit poll data showed an overwhelming victory for Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, so much so it caused Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine to e-mail her mother that "all is lost." That data eventually proved to be just misleading. It was not right, OK. Democrats watched that night as the margins grew for George W. Bush especially in Ohio, the key state to determine the winner in the Electoral College. That is why Kerry conceded when Ohio finally did fall into the Republican column.
But some Democratic lawmakers were not so quick to let things go. They aimed much of their anger towards the election official in charge of Ohio`s voting. That was Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell who was also at the time a co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign. A couple of days before, congress was set to ratify Bush`s election victory. Congressman John Conyers, Democrat of Michigan, then the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee released a report citing, massive and unprecedented voter irregularities and anomalies in Ohio involving then-Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell.
So, when it came time to certify Bush`s election, Congresswoman Maxine Waters, Democratic of California leaned in on that report when she voted to reject Ohio`s electoral votes.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MAXINE WATERS (D-CA): The judiciary -- Democratic Judiciary Committee staff report clearly establishes that the state of Ohio has not met its obligation to conduct a fair election. Ohio`s partisan secretary of state Mr. Kenneth Blackwell, I`m ashamed to say, an African-American man has failed even to follow Ohio`s election procedures, let alone procedures that comply with federal law and constitutional requirements. Our ancestors who died for the right to vote certainly must be turning over in their graves.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Now, again, they weren`t alleging that votes have been changed by some like company or whatever, but in all, 31 members of the House voted to reject Ohio`s votes along with then-Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California, the only member of the Senate to do so.
Even then-Senator John Kerry, the presidential nominee, did not support the objection, nor did most Democrats, right? And so, it was not long before well, Democrats acknowledged the problems with Ohio, and there were some, were just not enough to change the results of the election. In fact, at the time, only 16 percent of Americans thought the election was unfair while only four percent of Republicans did and as high as 27 percent of Democrats.
But in the end, they more or less let it go, right? People realize that Bush had won. This is usually what happens. People in positions of power tamp these kinds of things down. But when political leaders in power refuse to let it go you, get the former Vice President of the United States being called a traitor before a room full of Republicans on Friday for saying that Joe Wyden -- Joe Biden won the election back in January.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MIKE PENCE, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I want to thank my friend Ralph Reed for those overly generous words. I`m deeply humbled by them. And Ralph Reed knows me well enough to know the introduction I prefer is a little bit shorter. I`m a Christian, a Conservative, and a Republican in that order. And I am honored to stand before you today.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: You get Georgia`s secretary of state Brad Raffensperger who personally stood up to Donald Trump, rebuffed his attempt to overturn the election`s favor now planning a big purge of over a 100,000 names from voter rules. They`re refusing to accept reality which is that he lost a fair and secure election. Donald trump has convinced his party and his supporters if you did not vote for him, your vote does not count. And there are really alarming new numbers that completely back up that fiction among the base. That`s next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: A new poll out today shows that as long as conservative leaders and Republicans are pushing Trump`s big lie, there will be a considerable market for it, one that has remained relatively stable over time. Somewhat worryingly, the poll from Monmouth University shows about a third of Americans think Joe Biden won the election only because of voter fraud. It`s roughly the same fraction of the electorate that believe that lie in Monmouth`s polling all the way back in March and in January and in November.
When you only look at Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, in about two-thirds of those folks have consistently said they think Joe Biden won only because of fraud. Olivia Troye is a former adviser of Vice President Mike Pence, director of the Republican Accountability Project, and Cornell Belcher is a Democratic Pollster and NBC Political Analyst, and they both join me now.
Cornell, let me start with you as a pollster. You know, sometimes the polling results, I wonder like, are we getting a real look at people`s belief system or are they saying I don`t like Joe Biden by other means, right, by answering that as a way of sort of emotionally effectively signaling that. What do you think about this polling data? What does it mean and what does it say?
CORNELL BELCHER, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, no, Chris, because this is different. I mean, this is fundamentally different than what you`ve seen historically. I mean, even when your guy doesn`t win, you don`t have a majority of the people in the other party saying it`s fraud or it was stolen. And there`s other ways to emote your disapproval, like saying I disapproval of their job or you`re not -- you`re not favorable to them. But this goes -- this goes a little bit deeper. I think it`s more fundamentally problematic in the day. Quite frankly, Chris, this goes back to 2008, right? And it goes back to Obama.
And you`ll remember, they -- sort of after Obama, you had this rise of the tea party which everyone, you know, screaming out to the idea of take back our country. And even there were the seeds, Chris, that somehow others were taking their country away from people who were real Americans. And I think this is very much within the continuation of that seed of the Tea Party, and is ideal that other people are taking their country from them and they`re the real Americans.
HAYES: Olivia, it doesn`t really matter in a moral or political sense to me whether you know, people like Kevin McCarthy or people that worked in the White House believe this, Mark Meadows believe it, because that`s immaterial. But as a sociological question, I am kind of interested in the answer to that. Like, as someone who worked in that White House, whether people -- are they so detached from reality, so brain broken that they have told themselves, they`ve sold themselves on their own lie or is this just entirely cynical?
OLIVIA TROYE, DIRECTOR, REPUBLICAN ACCOUNTABILITY PROJECT: I think it`s actually a mix of both. I think, personally, they have sold themselves on the lie. But they`re also complicit in the spread of the rampant spread of misinformation. And this is classic manipulation of information that they`ve been feeding to voters and their supporters head on.
And it goes, you know, whether it was Donald Trump, whether it was his inner circle, and whether it`s people who are currently still in elected office right now that are pushing this kind of information to voters, and they`re using it to undermine Joe Biden`s presidency. They`re using it to undermine the rights of the voters and the electoral process which is ultimately the bottom line undermining of our democracy. And that is the most dangerous overshadowing narrative of it all.
HAYES: I think, you know, Cornell, anyone that watches this show knows that I find this like, incredibly awful and existentially threatening, honestly, to like a building a 21st century American multiracial democracy that represents people with dignity and, you know, shared purpose. There`s also I think, in a narrow tactical sense, a real risk of a bad boomerang effect on this for the Republican Party. And we saw it in Georgia.
I mean, I think it doesn`t seem crazy to mark some causal connection between the voting turnout drop off we saw in Georgia, you know, in those run up -- the runoff elections, and the idea that like they`re changing the machines anyway. And I wonder what you think of it too. Like if you got paid to advise the RNC, I feel like you would be freaked out about the persistence of this belief.
BELCHER: Well, I would be freaked out by it because I think is it -- your market share is shrinking and you`re continually having to try to figure out ways to rig the system so that you can win with your -- with your shrinking market. But Chris, you remember, they had an autopsy years ago after Obama won that basically told them that what Donald Trump and what Trumpism was to the Republican Party, they need to get rid of because there was no future in it. They needed to expand the party, and talk more to young people and talk more to voters of color, and try to bring them into to their big coalition.
Trump came along and killed all of that. And now, sort of the base of his party is kind of doubling down on Trumpism and tribalism, and they`re stuck there because they -- because a Republican can`t win a Republican primary if they`re not where the tribe -- where the tribe is.
HAYES: Again, this is a psychological or sort of observational question again, Olivia, but like, I watched Mike Pence and all these people that, I think, think they`re going to maybe be the nominee. And like, I don`t know, life`s confusing and unpredictable. If the last year of my life taught me anything, it`s like, you do not know what is -- what is behind the curtain of time. That said, it seems obviously nuts to me that a guy like Mike Pence thinks that there`s any way that he would be the standard-bearer for this party with this belief system after what happened.
TROYE: Yes. The best thing he could do is just walk away from it. And knowing that you probably had no chance of winning in 2024 with the base of where the party is. And fundamentally, I think the best thing he could do for all of America is to take a stand against it and walk away from it and start speaking the truth. That actually would be better serving to our democracy and our country.
But I think that he has gone so far down the rabbit hole with Trumpism and you know, he realizes that that is where the base is and he needs these voters to come around to him.
HAYES: And they`re not -- and they`re not wrong. And Cornell, we should -- we played that Ronnie Jackson sound very quickly, but like, they think they`re going to redistrict themselves in the majority either way and they`re probably right.
BELCHER: But then, Chris, democracy ends because the moment they -- one of these -- they still election from the majority, all hell is going to break loose, Chris, and we`re all going to lose.
HAYES: Yes, that`s the hell that is knocking on the door. I mean, that`s why we`re sitting in this very, very strange kind of eye of the storm, as Michelle Goldberg put it recently. Olivia Troy and Cornell Belcher, thank you both for making time tonight.
That is ALL IN on this Monday night. A big thanks to Zerlina for filling in for me last week. "THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW" starts right now. Good evening, Rachel.