Summary
Rep. Kevin McCarthy threatens telecoms not to comply with the January 6 Committee`s request for GOP phone records. Tens of thousands of Afghan refugees are seeking a new home as the last U.S. soldiers leave Afghanistan. The New Orleans levees held up to Hurricane Ida. Hundreds of thousands of people in Louisiana are without power after Hurricane Ida. The American Medical Association, the professional association for physicians released a statement last week on why Ivermectin should not be used to prevent or treat Coronavirus.
Transcript
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST (voice over): Tonight on ALL IN.
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I was not going to extend this forever war. And I was not extending a forever exit.
HAYES: The President marks the end of war abroad as an elected Republican suggest taking up arms at home.
Tonight, the growing backlash to a congressman`s wild incitement and how Kevin McCarthy is now threatening the January 6 Investigation.
Then, as the President speaks to the nation on Afghanistan, how Americans are embracing refugees of our longest war.
Plus, 16 years after Katrina taking stock of what did and did not fail in New Orleans.
GOV. JOHN BEL EDWARDS (D-LA): If there`s a silver lining, and today, it`s kind of hard to see one, it is that our levee systems really did perform extremely well.
HAYES: And is it time for doctors` groups to start sanctioning the doctors giving out livestock drugs to COVID patients, when ALL IN starts right now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES (on camera): Good evening from New York. I`m Chris Hayes. As America and Americans today assess the aftermath of the end of the 20-year war, many people have noted that the violence in Afghanistan itself is not over, far from it. I mean, there are millions of Afghans, and these are of course, people like you and me, family members, jobs, hopes, dreams, who have known only war their entire lives.
You know, in the history of human life on this planet, most political conflict has been resolved violently, conquering empires and bloody civil wars and pogroms and ethnic cleansing. It`s a great miracle of a functioning liberal democracy, like the one that we find ourselves in that we find a way to resolve the inherent conflict between different factions and beliefs and religions and ethnic groups without resorting to violence.
That`s the idea anyway. The idea is we resolve those differences through democratic struggle and protest and free speech and politics, and all those other features we have of liberal democratic nations like our own. But all of that is being threatened right now before our eyes in a way that I do not think many people quite have grasped.
Last night, we showed you some examples of straight-up menacing threats of violence against school board members and their requirements for students to wear masks during a pandemic.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEVE LYNCH, REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE, NORTH HAMPTON COUNTY EXECUTIVE: Forget going into these school boards bringing data, you go into school boards to remove them. That`s what you do. Forget -- they don`t follow the law. They don`t follow the law. You go in and you remove them. I`m going in with 20 strong men. I`m going to speak in front of the school board and I`m going to give them an option. They can leave or they can be removed.
JASON LEFKOWITZ, ANTI-MASK AND ANTI-VACCINE ORGANIZER: The list of all council people`s homes that are voting on the vaccine mandate, OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.
LEFKOWITZ: Whoever votes yes, we`re coming to your door. We`re coming to your home. You want to feel intimidate -- you want to intimidate us? We`re coming to you now. Civil war is coming, people. It sure does
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Civil War is coming, people. You know, there`s supposed to have a building crescendo for a second Civil War, a flirtation with thoughts about it among some of the right. We saw that on full display, of course, on January 6. That`s the day that gave us the first really violent reaction to interrupt a peaceful transfer of power essentially since Fort Sumter after Abraham Lincoln`s inauguration.
Thousands began that day listening to Trump repeat lies about a stolen election, telling the crowd never give up and never concede. And Trump supporters, some armed with weapons, stormed the Capitol building. It broke down doors and shattered windows to get in, forcing Congress to adjourn and take shelter, easily one of the America`s ugliest days.
And the idea of starting a civil war was a recurring theme. For example, here`s a group of January 6 insurrectionists with MAGA Civil War printed on their shirts. But those who took part in that violent insurrection, including the nearly 600 people have been charged, are in the process of becoming martyrs and political prisoners in the eyes of the faction that supports their actions.
Which brings us to freshmen Congress in Madison Cawthorn, a Republican from North Carolina. This past Sunday, he came out and lied about the election being rigged. Warned of violence and bloodshed if these non-existent rigged elections continue.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MADISON CAWTHORN (R-NC): I`ll tell you, anybody who tells you that Joe Biden was duly elected. If our election systems continue to be rigged and continue to be stolen, then it`s going to lead to one place and into bloodshed. And I will tell you, as much as I`m willing to defend our liberty at all costs, there`s nothing that I dread doing more than having to pick up arms against a fellow American.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: There is nothing I dread doing more than having to pick up arms against a fellow American. Dread doing more, that construction plainly, right, is you dread a thing that you might have to do. You dread taking a test tomorrow. You dread having to deliver bad news. It`s a thing you don`t want to do but have to do. That`s the construction the congressmen use there about taking up arms against fellow Americans. And what he seems to be doing is encouraging more violent insurrection along lines of January 6.
[20:05:08]
When asked to clarify his remarks, a spokesperson for the congressman said he was in no way supporting or advocating for any form of violence and that Cawthorn was clearly -- and that Cawthorn was clearly advocating for violence not to occur over election integrity questions.
But again, that`s not what he said. What he said was that if things get bad enough, and people might have to take up arms, I would do it. I will do it, but I dread to. It`s the last thing I want to do. I want to avoid that by dealing with election security.
And let`s be clear, the dealing with election security he and others are talking about, is making sure Democrats don`t win elections because there was no breach in security in last November`s presidential election. It`s one thing when some red-faced vein-popping rage attic screams at someone or at a camera, like that dude that we saw at the meeting there, or at a local school board or some public hearing. It`s bad enough, it`s a little embarrassing for them, but bad enough as it is. It`s another thing altogether when a member of Congress flirts with the possibility of political violence from the American right towards the people the American right perceives to be its enemies, a member of Congress.
That`s how the big lie the election was stolen works, and in this case, is leading to what sounds like a call for violence. Nearly 10 months after the election, this is still going on. They`re not stopping. The delegitimization of Joe Biden, the big lie he was not actually elected, and this recourse to violence as a possible solution in a spectrum of solutions that lay out before us, well, it`s happening amid rhetoric that`s increasingly violent and militant and gun-obsessed and seems to be getting stronger by the day both in and outside our government.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): He must go. He is a clear and present danger to the nation that we all love.
MIKE COLLINS (R-GA), CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE: I`m going to Washington to stop the Pelosi agenda, and you`re not going to silence me.
TEDDY DANIELS (R-PA), CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE: They don`t care about protecting your freedom of speech, your right to bear arms, or even election security. They`re more concerned about appeasing the left than they are standing up for us. It`s time to bring out the big guns. And the big guns are the millions of men and women in this country who feel as though their voices aren`t being heard. I`ll be your voice.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Again, both of those people running for elected office. Now, imagine if you saw those ads from another country. It`s like, oh, this is a slice of the democratic culture in this country. People with guns like that. What would you think?
Look, a certain portion of Americans love their guns. American politicians have been posing with guns, mostly in ads for hunting, right, for years. But this feels different. It just does. It feels like intimidation. The presence of the gun in a political ad like that, the big guns, I`m going to shoot up Nancy Pelosi socialism alters a perception of what is being said in any context.
And this is why what Congress Madison Cawthorn said and what he`s done should be disqualifying, a sitting member of Congress raising the specter of violence, of civil war, of taking up arms against fellow Americans, a thing he dreads doing, if future presidential elections do not go his way.
And he`s not the only one. These sorts of intimations of violence, threats of violence that become increasingly common among a certain faction of the Republican Party. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia seemingly suggest that people encouraging others to get vaccinated should be shot, to Congressman Matt Gaetz of Florida telling supporters the second amendment is for armed rebellion against the government.
You know, it sounds hyperbolic say it. But this is part of how peaceful liberal democracy is undone when some group or party or institutions or groups of people within a society withdraw from the political sphere of argument debate, and they move forward with fantasies of violence and violent insurrection.
Congressman Adam Schiff is a member of January 6 Select Committee. He was the lead impeachment manager in Trump`s first impeachment. He`s the chair of the House Intelligence Committee as well, and he joins me now. What do you think about your colleague Madison Cawthorn said?
REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): Well, it`s so irresponsible. It`s hard to imagine. But this is really a continuation of the big lie. What he is saying is if elections continue to be rigged, he may find it necessary to take up arms. Well, of course, the election wasn`t rigged. So, what he`s really saying is if he continues to propagate the lies about our election, it may lead him to bear arms to confront his own lies.
And this is the danger that led us into January 6, the propagation of falsehoods about our election, the glorifying a political violence that urging other people potentially to violence, and it couldn`t be more reprehensible. But it`s also reflective of this new generation of Republican members of Congress that came to Congress, basically each of them trying to scream louder than the other, who trying to get their 15 minutes of fame for being more outlandish than the other, all devoted to tearing down the institutions of government and never making the transition to governing in any way. And it`s just an incredibly dangerous trend for the country.
[20:10:14]
HAYES: You mentioned January 6. Of course, you`re on the Select Committee. Yesterday, we got news the Select Committee is -- I don`t know if preparing or has already sent out requests to telecom companies for the communications that includes some members of Congress.
First, I want to ask you -- I`m going to read the statement that Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy issued. But first, I just want to ask you, do you have any weariness about this line? Do you have any worry? Was there discussion in the committee about what precedent this might set to be getting phone records from fellow members of Congress?
SCHIFF: You know, certainly, we`ve discussed the range of requests that we`re making. And without getting into any of the particulars of our conversation, we looked at the historic precedent, and there is precedent for seeking records relating to members of Congress, most often in the context of ethics investigations.
Well, I think participating in an insurrection, an armed insurrection against the government is among the most serious ethics violations you could imagine if not more than that. But yes, we did consider it. And I think that at the end of the day, we`re determined that whoever was involved in this effort to prevent the peaceful transfer of power should not be able to hide behind their office.
We want to develop all the facts. If people were not involved in trying to overturn the government, they shouldn`t be concerned. But Kevin McCarthy clearly is for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is his boss, his master at Mar-a-Lago doesn`t want it to happen.
HAYES: I will read you now the statement he issued in full because it mentions you and I want to get your response to it. He says Adam Schiff, Bennie Thompson, and Nancy Pelosi`s attempts to strong arm private companies, to turn over individuals private data would put every American with a phone or computer in the crosshairs of a surveillance state run by Democrat politicians. If these companies comply with a Democrat-ordered turnover private information, they are in violation of federal law, subject to losing their ability to operate in the United States. If companies still choose to violate federal law, a Republican majority will not forget and will stand with Americans to hold them fully accountable under the law.
This is not a threat of violence, but it is certainly a threat that he is making in response to that.
SCHIFF: Well, it`s a threat and it is a threat to premised on a falsehood that somehow asking these companies to preserve records were ultimately -- to turn over records of people involved in an insurrection is somehow against the law. That`s just flat wrong.
But McCarthy, look, he`s scared. And I think his boss is scared. They didn`t want this commission and this Select Committee to go forward. They certainly didn`t want it to go forward as it is on a bipartisan basis. And they don`t want the country to know exactly what they were involved in. And you can see why.
I mean, these two stories are not unrelated to each other. His caucus, his conference members are people like Cawthorn who are still pushing the big lie that resulted in the insurrection to begin with. They`re still pushing a big lie that may result in further violence in the future.
The last thing Kevin McCarthy wants to do his take on these rabble rousers in his conference, because frankly, they represent Donald Trump. And Kevin McCarthy lives to do whatever Donald Trump wants. But he has tried to threaten these companies. And it shows yet again, why this man, Kevin McCarthy, can never be allowed to go anywhere near the Speaker`s office.
HAYES: This is a question I`m going to ask and you don`t know nothing about. But I`m going to ask because the news just came over that a Republican congressman named Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, has been making multiple attempts to get into Afghanistan, reportedly went to Tajikistan, was going to enter with a bunch of cash. Asked the embassy, they told him, that`s a terrible idea. You can`t do that. And as of now, his whereabouts are unknown.
And as chair of the House Intelligence Committee, I just wonder if like, do you know anything about this or have any read on where Congressman Mullin is?
SCHIFF: You know, I don`t. He`s a member of our committee but I don`t know what his circumstances are. Look, you know, a lot of our members feel very, you know, I think desperate to try to help people, particularly those that have served in Iraq, or Afghanistan, and no interpreters or others who are at risk. And while I can understand that, and I feel very much the same way, we don`t want to put people`s lives in risk. We don`t want to put our service members lives at risk by one of the members putting themselves in a position where they may be harmed.
And I think when members, for example, went to Afghanistan while we were trying to evacuate others, it added to the burdens of those conducting the evacuation and added to the dangers of others. So, I really think we need to work through the administration to try to continue to evacuate any people that worked with us who were threatened. But I don`t think that`s the right way to do it.
[20:15:04]
HAYES: All right, Congressman Adam Schiff, thanks so much for making some time tonight.
SCHIFF: Thank you.
HAYES: Up next, with the U.S. finally out of Afghanistan for the first time in nearly 20 years, the President declares the era of nation-building over.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We succeeded in what we set out to do in Afghanistan over a decade ago. Then we stayed for another decade. It was time to end this war.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: Today, President Joe Biden address the nation marking yesterday`s historic event the end of America`s longest war.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: My fellow Americans, the war in Afghanistan is now over. It was time to be honest with the American people again. We no longer had a clear purpose and an open-ended mission in Afghanistan. After 20 years of war in Afghanistan, I refuse to send another generation of America`s sons and daughters to fight a war that should have ended long ago.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: The President forcefully defended his decision to fully withdrawal the united -- withdraw the United States military after two decades of occupation in Afghanistan. Those final moments looked like this. This is an image of the last American soldier to leave the country. His name is Major General Chris Donahue. He`s commanding general the 82nd Airborne. And this is just before he boarded the final C-17 plane to take off from the airport in Kabul.
[20:20:07]
Today, Secretary of State Tony Blinken also shared this photo of the last remaining American diplomats and Kabul. The Acting U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Ross Wilson, is the man holding the folded American flag.
A new era now begins both for the United States and for Afghanistan under Taliban rule. And for tens of thousands of Afghan refugees now spread all over the world -- 98 countries including the United States have agreed to take in groups of displayed -- displaced Afghans. Refugees evacuated to an American Air Base in Germany spoke about what they left behind, but also what they`re looking forward to.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 20,000 evacuees have already come through here, brought on giant transport planes. The accommodation is rudimentary but the mood here is one of happiness and relief. Among the crowds, Lima and her father Hamid. At the start of the month, she was a news presenter on Afghan television. Now she`s a refugee.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s dangerous living in Afghanistan in that situation with Taliban.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hamid had founded the television network that was staffed only by women.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 20-year achievement just we lost within less than 24 hours. And the new life with the new chapters might be stopped, but it`s very difficult. But anyway, we have a hope and we have vision to come back stronger.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Those Afghans at the airbase in Germany are on their way the United States where they hope to rebuild their lives in safety. Kimberly Motley is an international human rights attorney who`s in Mexico working to escort Afghan f evacuees to the U.S. Also author of Lawless: A Lawyer`s Unrelenting Fight for Justice in a War Zone.
Jason Kander joined the Army after September 11. He served in Afghanistan as a military intelligence officer rising to the rank of captain after serving the Missouri House of Representatives as the Missouri Secretary of State. He is now the president of the Veterans Community Project. And they both join me now.
Kimberly, first, let me get an on-the-ground view from you now. I know that you`ve been very active in getting refugees out. You`re in -- you`re in Mexico, where a bunch of folks have ended up. In fact, I think a bunch of the New York Times, the people associate with the New York Times had ended up in Mexico thanks to the intervention of their foreign minister there.
What is the situation on the ground there like in terms of those people getting to safety and now being resettled?
KIMBERLY MOTLEY, HUMAN RIGHTS ATTORNEY: Well, thank you for having me, Chris. The Mexican government has been extremely friendly and generous with their opening the doors to Afghan evacuees. And so, you know, they`re transitioning them. They`re trying to figure out what type of housing to give them, programs and things like that, which is very encouraging.
They`ve been going so far as to actually go physically to the airport and to, you know, welcome personally those that are coming in the country. So, it`s really, really encouraging. A lot of people have left very traumatic situations from Afghanistan, literally running for their lives with the shirts off their backs, leaving all of their belongings and a lot of their loved ones behind.
So, it`s a very encouraging place where people are being sent. And so, I`m here to sort of help to support them, and to sort of figure out the next steps for them with this new chapter that`s beginning of their lives.
HAYES: You know, Jason, there`s been a lot of darkness and grief and fear and catastrophe in the last few weeks. And one of the bright spots, I think, as you noted, is this sort of sprawling effort that happened across all sorts of areas of civil society, people that I know, veterans, people that were used to work in the Foreign Service, working with NGOs, and immediate companies, all this sort of volunteer effort to get people out.
You talked about wanting that story to be written. Tell me a little bit about what it -- what that has been like, what that`s looked like.
JASON KANDER, PRESIDENT, VETERANS COMMUNITY PROJECT: It`s been this incredible, inspiring, little piece of a really, really awful couple of weeks. And I actually commented to one of the people who I met in the last few days, and now we`re very close in these -- in these hodgepodge ragtag groups of people who have come together to do this. I actually said that this week feels like Argo meets stripes.
It`s just like, it`s just people who -- in some cases, it`s civilians who really didn`t have any connection to this in the beginning, who just dropped everything. But in a lot of cases, it`s people like myself, I`m the former Army Intelligence Officer. It`s people like, you know, that I worked with, you know, in intelligence, whether they were in the military or not. But then it`s also folks like one of the people I`ve been working with that`s never deployed. And they feel like this is their deployment, and they`re a reservist.
And it`s just any little piece of intelligence or reliable, you know, rumor that we can get about a way to get somebody out. We`re all sort of in it together to figure it out. And in many cases, it`s working in some cases, it hasn`t worked yet, but it keeps you going.
[20:25:10]
HAYES: Kimberly, there`s been some really disgusting, bigoted demagoguery directed at these folks, these desperate people who are fleeing the Taliban that they are, "unvetted," that they represent some menace, some potential fifth column. You know, as a lawyer who`s working through the bureaucracy of this, I`m curious how you would respond to people saying that.
MOTLEY: Well, I mean, I think definitely they`re -- that people on the ground are doing the best that they can to make sure that those that are going to different countries are vetted properly. I mean, frankly, this was not something that anyone could have planned for. This was a humanitarian nuclear bomb that, frankly, exploded on Afghanistan in a very, very fast pace, to the point that there were -- Afghanistan wasn`t prepared, nor were other countries prepared.
And so, I think that that`s a little selfish, frankly, for people to be saying those things. I agree with what your other guests is saying, Jason, that there are way more acts of kindness that I have seen within the last couple of weeks. There have -- there are -- I`m sure Jason is on various WhatsApp chat rooms as I am. We don`t even know who these people are, but we`re just trying to help as many people as we can.
And I think that`s what we need to do as a world. I mean, we really need to support and make sure that those with -- in Afghanistan that are staying, and frankly, those that are also outside of Afghanistan, that we continue that support. And from a legal perspective, of course, we believe that people should be vetted. And people are trying to do that as best as they can. Which is why, you know, there is usually a country that Afghans are sent to before they`re going on to their, you know, new home place.
So, those things are happening. And I think people that are saying that may be very, very misinformed as to what a lot of the on-the-ground work that`s being done to make sure people are moving safely and that all the various countries where people are being said are also protected moving forward.
HAYES: And Jason, I --
KANDER: Chris, can I add something to that real quick?
HAYES: Yeah, go ahead, please.
KANDER: Everybody -- anybody who is saying something like, are these people vetted? What people who have been involved in this the last couple weeks like myself, what we hear is, can we trust them? Because the very -- the initial vetting before the vetting begins, is you don`t get somebody like me leaving their ringer on all night and getting a different long distance plan so that I can call Afghanistan several times a day for somebody who I think you know, could be ISIS. Like, that`s not happening. And, and frankly, I find it insulting that anybody is suggesting otherwise.
MOTLEY: Right.
HAYES: Kimberly Motley and Jason Kander, both of whom have been working very hard to bring people to safety. And thank you both for your efforts and for sharing some of your perspective with us. I appreciate it.
MOTLEY: Thank you.
KANDER: Thanks, Chris.
HAYES: Coming up, how the devastating impact of Hurricane Ida proves the value of investing in infrastructure. That`s next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:30:00]
HAYES: Louisiana and other parts of the South are still reeling from Hurricane Ida. Hundreds of thousands of people lack access to power and running water. But in New Orleans, there is at least one piece of very good news. The 192 miles of levees and floodwalls did what they were supposed to do.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EDWARDS: If there`s a silver lining, and today, it`s kind of hard to see one, it is that our levee systems really did perform extremely well.
Our federal -- non-federal levee systems, particularly the hurricane and storm risk reduction system in the metropolitan New Orleans area all performed as intended.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: That`s not an accident. The levees breaking were the most critical failures of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. And that was really -- that was the worst thing that happened, right? Dozens of flood walls collapse. And as a result, 80 percent of New Orleans flooded as much as 15 feet. It shouldn`t have, but it did. And everything that happened after that was a result of it.
And that in turn led to widespread power outages and transportation issues and all the human misery and suffering that we all saw on television. And it`s a large part of why the aftermath of the storm was so devastated. So, after that, federal, state, and local government decided to do something about it.
Every level of government and NGOs and citizens of New Orleans understood a failure like that could never be allowed to happen again. The federal government spent more than $15 billion to proactively fortify and expand the levee system. They stabilize barriers, they reinforce walls with steel. They overhauled pumping stations to reduce flooding.
They built a $1 billion surge wall at a key inflection point that extends nearly two miles long and more than 26 feet high to avoid the scenario that unfolded 16 years ago to the day when storm surges overtook the barriers. And it worked.
Now, the system is not perfect. There are many who think that the erosion of the swamp land is something that has to be dealt with as well. Civil Engineers argue there`s still more to be done to fortify the city. But we managed to avoid the kind of massive failure that happened during Katrina, which again, that`s really good, important stuff.
It goes to show how important investments in critical infrastructure can be and why more investments are desperately needed to avoid a situation like we saw over the weekend when an electrical tower crumbled in the storm landing partially in the Mississippi River.
By one estimate, climate disasters have already cost us more than $1.8 trillion in damage over the last 40 years. Say nothing of the cost of human suffering and misery and death. We know they`re only going to get worse, which is why it is crucial we do it in New Orleans did and invest ahead of time.
Congressman Troy Carter is a Democrat representing Louisiana`s second congressional district which contains New Orleans. And Ed Link is a senior research engineer at the University of Maryland`s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. He worked with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to reinforce the levees in New Orleans.
Congressman, let me start with you just to get a sense of where things stand particularly on the -- on the power aspect of the situation.
[20:35:24]
REP. TROY CARTER (D-LA): Well, we find ourselves --
HAYES: Congressman, I don`t know --
CARTER: Can you hear me? We find ourselves in a situation now where much of our city, much of our district, much of the state is without power, people without electricity, without cellular service. Cellular service is getting better now. And obviously, that`s critically important to be able to communicate so people will know where they are that need help. And they`ll be able to contact us or access the resources that are available.
And we`re hopeful that Entergy would at some 16,000 linemen on the -- on the ground will be able to restore service as soon as possible.
HAYES: Ed Link, let me ask you about your involvement on the levee side of things. I mean, it really was one of the most catastrophic infrastructure failures in recent memory. A huge study is done afterwards, multiple reports, and then a concerted effort to address it. What are those efforts look like? And how do you feel about how it appears to perform, have performed in what some say is the fifth most powerful storm ever to make landfall?
ED LINK, SENIOR RESEARCH ENGINEER, UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND: Well, it`s very gratifying to wake up Sunday morning and find out that people reporting from New Orleans were standing on dry ground. I think what happened in New Orleans after Katrina is a great example of what has to happen in a lot of other places around the country.
Congress gave the -- provided the resources that allow the very conscientious comprehensive analysis of what went wrong, and why. And the ability to create a design of a new system based on risk that was much more conservative and much more robust. And based on new information, not legacy information, but 60s and 70s type information that the old system was based on.
So, it was teamwork, it was resources, and it was a great will to get this thing done by everybody involved from within New Orleans and externally. It`s exactly what needs to happen in a lot of other places.
HAYES: Well, well, the grid -- I mean, the grid and cell service, Congressman Carter, you`re -- to your -- to your point about the two major pieces of infrastructure that are down for your constituents. Do you have a sense from the utility company there what happened, what the timeline is like, and does it inform how you`re thinking about these big votes on infrastructure that are being happening in D.C. later this summer?
CARTER: Well, certainly, when we think about infrastructure, and I`ve said this all along that if there was something that was bipartisan, that was not tied to party, infrastructure is just that. We know that if we were to build back better, and by building back better, I say, instead of having these transmission lines exposed where every time we have a hurricane we have to redo this, better thinking and a better use of taxpayers` dollars would be to bury those powerlines underground and make sure that we don`t have this kind of issue in future years when hurricanes come.
We know that the investment that was made 16 years ago after Katrina, paid huge dividends. And with this hurricane, while is horrible, and as difficult and as painful as this hurricane was, it could have been a lot worse. Going forward, we should use our infrastructure dollars to put our powerlines underground and build back better so we can be able to be much more resilient going forward.
HAYES: Professor, you made a really important point here when you`re talking about basically the risk data, right? Like, what`s the universe of the possible, and people calculate what`s called 1000 year flood, right, which is what you know, the actuarial projection, probabilistically, you get one of these floods every 1000 years, right?
If you use 60s and 70s data, you get bad risk assessments because the climate is changing. And that seems to be a crucial part of this here is that all forms of sort of civil engineering and environmental engineering now have to take as the data set, they calculate risk off of a much more current set of data, and project out forward to be able to meet the kind of tail risk possibilities that threaten us.
LINK: Well, this effort in New Orleans after Katrina was actually the first large geospatial -- geographically distributed infrastructure system that was rebuilt, redesigned based on risk information. That was brand new. Risk has been used in a lot of other industries, the petrochemical industry and so on. But it has not been used in water resources infrastructure to a large degree.
But it is now the primary focus of agencies like the Army Corps of Engineers. They have restructured all of their guidance and methods to be based on modern risk assessments to support decision-making.
[20:40:35]
HAYES: Congressman Troy Carter and Ed Link, thank you both. Congressman, were thinking about your constituents and hope people get power back soon.
CARTER: Thank you very much.
HAYES: Still ahead, as doctors push horseworm medicine to treat COVID, why isn`t the medical profession policing its own and stopping those doctors. That`s coming up.
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[20:45:00]
HAYES: 17 of the nearly 600 people arrested in connection with the January 6 insurrection have this guy as their lawyer. His name is John Pierce. He`s an anti-vaccine conservative lawyer who recently tweeted "the entire 82nd airborne couldn`t make me get an experimental government vaccine stuck in my arm."
Well, now it seems like those 17 people he represents are without representation, and that is because he is reportedly sick with COVID and on a ventilator, according to federal prosecutors. There is of course, a flourishing right-wing information ecosystem that is turned against the vaccine, and it is producing tragedy for many within that ecosystem, for them, for their loved ones, families.
This week of conservative talk show host named Marc Bernier, a guy who spoke out against a vaccine, died of COVID at the age of 65. He`s the third conservative radio host who publicly rejected vaccines to die the virus.
A Texas man named Caleb Wallace who led anti-mask rally last year in his state and protested Coronavirus mitigation efforts as recently as June, died this week of virus -- of the virus. He`s only 30 years old. He leaves behind a pregnant wife and three children.
You know, I want to be clear here about these stories and they come in every week, multiple weeks. Getting COVID is not some kind of come up ends or some revelation of personal moral failing. These are excruciating human tragedies, every single one of them. And especially because the outbreak right now in this nation is being driven by the unvaccinated and the safe, effective, available free vaccine can prevent so much of the suffering we are seeing.
The alternative information ecosystem that caused this suffering in large part has grown over the decades. It`s the same one that`s been saying climate changes is not real. They`re faking the temperatures and yada, yada, yada. Apparently, however, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was caught unaware.
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SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): Honestly, my friends, it never occurred to me that we`d have a challenge getting people to take the vaccine. But that`s where we are. We`re all I think perplexed as to how we tackle this problem.
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HAYES: Oh, shocks, how did that happened? For the record, this occurred to basically everyone paying attention, everyone. You didn`t have to be a genius to see a comment. Now, to his credit, Mitch McConnell does believe in vaccines and he has cut his second PSA encouraging residents in Kentucky to get vaccinated. The problem, of course, is republicans are not listening to Mitch McConnell. He might be the Senate Minority Leader but come on.
There`s this ravenous demand for misinformation. Increasingly, there are doctors, medical professionals who are willing to show up in their white coats on YouTube and in Senate hearings and tell people what they want to hear, that there`s some miracle horse deworming agent that can protect them from COVID.
And well, we all debate how this information should be regulated and what tech companies should do, one question I have not heard a good answer to is this. Shouldn`t the medical profession be policing its own? What of the consequences for doctors pushing snake oil solutions. We`re going to get into that after the break.
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[20:50:00]
HAYES: Back in December, Republican Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin held a hearing on the Homeland Security Committee about alternative treatments for Coronavirus. He was then Chairman so he could do that kind of thing. It was an addendum hearing to another one which took place weeks earlier. But at Johnson`s hearing, a very specific drug took center stage.
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DR. JANE ORIENT, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN PHYSICIANS AND SURGEONS: Hydroxychloroquine and other safe, long-used agents such as Ivermectin is showing particular promise, but there are others. They could be immediately available if the government stopped blocking access and determine their use.
DR. PIERRE KORY, PULMONARY AND CRITICAL CARE SPECIALIST: It seems like a no-brainer that you should try it. And here`s the thing about Ivermectin -- going back to Ivermectin because you know that is my message today that it is the cure for this --
SEN. RON JOHNSON (R-WI): Wait, you support Ivermectin, right?
KORY: Of course. You`re not confused about that, right, Senator?
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HAYES: Ivermectin, you`ve probably heard by now, is a drug often given to livestock to treat parasites. It`s typically for horses and sheep, although it is used for people. It`s not as far as we can tell so far a Coronavirus miracle drug. But that last person you heard from in Senator Ron Johnson`s hearing, Dr. Pierre Kory is one of the founding members of a group calling itself frontline COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance which pushes Ivermectin heavily.
The group is comprised of 10 doctors with a page telling visitors, if your doctor will not prescribe Ivermectin for you, please contact one of the providers listed below. That group is not alone. The right-wing pandemic misinformation machine has been an overdrive. Conservative media, anti- vaccine figures have latched on to Ivermectin as the cure the government won`t allow you to have or something. So, of course, this stuff is flying off the shelves at farm supply stores. You`ve probably seen these stories.
Now, In response to all this the American Medical Association, the professional association for physicians released a statement last week on why Ivermectin should not be used to prevent or treat Coronavirus, which prompts the question, why aren`t these professional medical groups doing more to police members in their group pushing this misinformation?
Dr. Marianne Gausche-Hill is an ER doctor and president of the American Board of Emergency Medicine, which issued the statement last week reminding members that making public statements that are directly contrary to prevailing medical evidence can constitute unprofessional conduct. And if a doctor has found doing so, ABEM may withdraw or deny certification. Dr. Gausche-Hill joins me now.
Doctor, thank you for coming on the program. Your statement caught my eye because I was doing a little research on this question. And this seemed the strongest one that any medical group has put out. Can you tell me a little bit about what prompted it?
DR. MARIANNE GAUSCHE-HILL, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN BOARD OF EMERGENCY MEDICINE: Yes, I think the biggest thing is that we had received any of a number of concerns by some of our certified emergency physicians as well as the public in terms of the misinformation and potential harm on public safety.
So, without -- we felt given that we had already published a code of professionalism in April 2021, we felt that a statement relative to spreading misinformation that rises to the level of egregiousness that may impact public safety is worth putting out a statement that that`s something that we will be reviewing.
[20:55:34]
HAYES: Yes, you know, just to take a step back for a second. I mean, you know, lawyers and doctors, these are -- these are guilds. They`re interesting sort of public-private partnerships. Government kind of grants a monopoly. You can`t just become a doctor, right? The same way you can say, like, you know, open a lemonade stand, right? You got to go through this sort of process of professional certification.
And the idea is that, in turn, there`s some policing internal to the profession. What -- you know, how do you think about that? How often are those consequences applied in your profession to doctors that are doing things they should not be that are medically an unethical?
GAUSCHE-HILL: Well, doctors do police themselves. Obviously, the medical boards do. And I think, the certifying bodies, and we`re a certifying body for emergency physicians -- and really, the key thing is that I think we have a duty to self-govern in a way that`s really accountable and accountable, not only to our diplomats to ensure the value of certification, but also to the public who trusts us.
And we want to ensure that the public is confident that when they are treated by a Board Certified Emergency Physician, that they`re getting the best care possible, and also when Board Certified Emergency Physicians make statements, that they do so that really ensures the safety of the public.
HAYES: Yes, I mean, it`s striking to me, and I`m curious to hear your thoughts on this. But if you spend time in the world of this sort of alternate information ecosystem, whether it`s pushing things like Ivermectin, before that hydroxychloroquine, or that, you know, the vaccine is not safe and effective, you find a lot of doctors.
I mean, it`s not -- it`s a small handful of them in absolute numbers, but they do -- you know, they`re there in their lab coats. I mean, the sort of use of medical authority to promote this has been really a key part of the vector of this disinformation.
GAUSCHE-HILL: You know, I think many doctors mean well, and this has been a dynamic situation in which information was coming in very quickly. And there were drugs antivirals that had promised but really have not been borne out. We just have to understand that that`s the case.
HAYES: Yes, I mean, you`re pointing here to some of the nuance, which is obviously information changes. Medicine is complicated. And you certainly didn`t -- wouldn`t want to kind of like Stalinist body that like stop people from debating effective treatment regimens, particularly if you have doctors who are finding success with certain treatment regimen.
But at a certain point, when you`re -- it seems to me to cross a line when you`re basically becoming a kind of warehouse to prescribe this drug for folks that, you know, there`s not a lot of medical evidence to support and could be having a real deleterious effect insofar as it tells people that they don`t need to get the vaccine.
GAUSCHE-HILL: I think the bottom line is we do not want to stop debate or discourse. We don`t want people to be afraid to speak their mind. But again, if there is concern that impacts people who could receive treatment that is otherwise helpful, then we certainly have a concern.
And so, I think the bottom line is what we are going to do is as an organization, as certifying body, we want to uphold the highest standards that we can have emergency medicine. And we do this thoughtfully, OK. This is not something -- there is due process. There would be important review.
And it is important to understand that everyone on the board is a practicing emergency physician. We`re in it on the front lines like all of our colleagues, and we want to ensure, you know, that their certification has value and the public continues to trust us.
HAYES: Yes. I mean, one of the -- one of the things I`ve heard from critical care docs and the ER docs is you have people coming in sicker because they are self-medicating. This piece in HuffPo mentioned in Caleb Wallace, the individual from Texas I talked about who her died at age 30 self-medicating with a cocktail of vitamin C, zinc, aspirin, Ivermectin, and dying at the age of 30. That`s something I Heard anecdotally from a lot of doctors, and it`s really, really upsetting to hear that.
Dr. Marianne Gausche-Hill, board-certified emergency medicine, thank you so much.
GAUSCHE-HILL: Thank you for having me.
HAYES: That is ALL IN for tonight. "THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW" starts right now. Good evening, Rachel.