Summary
Former President Donald Trump demands Gov. Abbot back the election audit in Texas. Texas Governor Greg Abbott is facing far-right primary challengers. Select Committee dropped four subpoenas for former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, former Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, and former Defense Department official Kashyap Patel. Rep. Lauren Boebert paid rent and utility bills for her restaurant with campaign funds, which is in violation of federal campaign finance laws. Interview with Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) on the debt ceiling fight. Congress debates on spending plan as the government shutdown looms.
Transcript
JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: It doesn`t get any worse than this. This is a recipe for a coup. We`re going to stay on this. MSNBC will obviously stay on it. Yamiche Alcindor, Sahil Kapur, Glenn Kirschner, thank you all very much. That is tonight`s REIDOUT. "ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES" starts now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST (voice over) Tonight on ALL IN.
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I want to just thank the people of Texas because we won in a landslide. It wasn`t even close.
HAYES: The big lies spreading to states Trump won. Tonight, the push for an audit in Texas, and why Greg Abbott of all people suddenly isn`t MAGA enough. Then --
REP. LAUREN BOEBERT (R-CO): Americans need someone who will stand for them, who will fight for them, who will be their voice here at the people`s House.
HAYES: The populist congresswoman accused of using campaign funds to pay her rent. Plus --
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): Republicans are united in opposition to raising the debt ceiling.
HAYES: As Republicans once again hold the debt ceiling hostage, meet the red state Democrat who calls it all a ridiculous effing dance.
SEN. JON TESTER (D-MT): We go through this dance all the time and it`s a dance that`s very, very dangerous. Senator Jon Tester of Montana joins me live when ALL IN starts right now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES (on camera): Good evening from New York. I`m Chris Hayes. We`ve got big breaking news just off the top. Just a few minutes ago, we learned that the January 6 Select Committee, the bipartisan committee tasked with investigating exactly what happened when a mob of Trump rioters stormed the Capitol has just issued four subpoenas including one for former Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and for Steve Bannon.
That is a huge development we`ll be covering in depth because it shows a committee looking into what exactly the president and his advisors crucially were plotting for that day. Although we should also say at a certain level, we already know. Donald Trump wanted to overturn the election. I mean, for a man with little in the way of constancy, he`s been consistent about that. And anyone that didn`t want to do that is a sworn enemy of is.
In fact, yesterday a very funny thing happened. Amidst a news cycle dominated by the familiar Dems in disarray story, Donald Trump, from his exile at his golf course in New Jersey started issuing a flurry of statements like he used to do on Twitter in the middle of the night before he got booted. And, you know, they don`t sort of capture the national attention anymore, which is all for the good, issued a bunch of statements blasting just about everyone in the Republican Party, to remind them that he is still out for blood.
And while Republicans are not in power now, they have a far easier job of opposing rather than governing, they do continue to be entrenched in a pretty brutal civil war, even if you don`t see it on the news every night. So, the statements from Trump are all over the place. They were airing grievances with everyone from ostensible allies like Republican Senators Mike Lee and Lindsey Graham, to perceived enemies like George W. Bush and Congresswoman Liz Cheney. But they all stem from the same cause, Trump`s inability to acknowledge he lost the 2020 election.
And to that end, it`s particularly notable that today he is taking aim at Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott. He is calling for the conservative governor to back an election audit in Texas. Think about that for a second. Yes, you heard that right, Texas.
Now, before we go forward, let`s just stop and recap the Greg Abbott record here. You probably know pretty well, the governor of the second largest state in the Union, become something of a national figure over the past year. Substantively, I think he`s a pretty terrible governor. I think he has bad politics. I don`t agree with him. But he`s also done I think a pretty objectively bad job managing COVID in Texas.
His state has one of the worst death rates in the country. It lags behind half of the country in vaccinations. And Abbott is a man who had every opportunity throws red meat to his right wing base even when it comes to the expense of public health measures. He banned mask mandates in schools like Ron DeSantis did, and he essentially gave the game away entirely the some of the vaccine questions.
So, get this. First, he issued an order banning mandates for any vaccine under emergency use authorization, which all the vaccines were. But then, the FDA granted full approval to the Pfizer vaccine, and then Abbott comes in and bans mandates on all COVID vaccines, regardless of approval. Because of course, it`s not actually about the science. Oh, this is experimental. It`s about appealing to the macro crowd that doesn`t like the vaccine. And that`s something that Governor Abbott does a lot.
He of course sign that massively restrictive voter suppression bill plainly aimed at imposing restrictions on precisely the methods that local governments used last year to make it easier for people to vote. He signed the worst abortion bill in the country, a facially unconstitutional law forcing pregnancy after six weeks enforced by private parties where anyone can basically sue anyone else they suspect of enabling an abortion and be rewarded with a $10,000 bounty.
[20:05:09]
And just yesterday, he signed a second anti-abortion bill, one that has gone under the radar somewhat, restricting access to abortion inducing drugs after seven weeks. And all of that was just over the course of a month. So, by any definition, Governor Greg Abbott I think is one of the most conservative governors in the country. What does he get for it? He gets put on blast by the twice-impeach would-be authoritarian ex-president demanding he support a bill in the special session of the legislature in Texas to audit the Texas election results, a state which Donald Trump won by more than five points.
Now, if you take a step back for a second, there is something darkly comical about all this. It reminds me that old quip from the conservative intellectual William F. Buckley who ran a disastrous campaign for mayor of New York City in 1965. And a reporter asked Buckley, what`s the first thing you would do if you won, and Buckley fired back, demand a recount.
Not only did Donald Trump win Texas, Texas is the state that I keep holding up as an example of the nihilistic toxicity of the big lie in the voter suppression efforts from Republicans, because Texas had very high turnout and Republicans still did well. So, what are y`all so afraid of? But that is not enough because it is very clear that Trump wants a 50-state strategy with audits.
He`s going one step further than saying, well, the swing states I lost were stolen from me as he did with Georgia, and Arizona. He`s pushing that in Pennsylvania. No, this is now a full comprehensive undertaking. What he wants to do is basically say, you cannot trust any election results anywhere. Because if he could convince his supporters not to trust any election results, if it`s all just rigged and fundamentally unknowable, then he has effectively destroyed the epistemic foundations of democracy itself, which is what he`s really trying to bring about even if that sounds like grandiose.
It`s not hyperbolic to say, that is what he is doing with his approach. Cultivating state after state, putting pressure everywhere he can, backing secretaries of state candidates who will do his bidding in order to essentially undermine the entire edifice of trust upon which American democracy or any democracy is built, that the people vote and then you count the votes, and then there`s a winner.
If that can`t happen, then you got nothing. You got what? Sheer will to power. This was his plan all along, of course. I mean, listen to then President Trump one year ago today already sowing doubt and legitimacy of the election that was still then weeks away.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Will you commit to making sure that there was a peaceful transfer of power after the election?
TRUMP: Well, we`re going to have to see what happens. You know that. I`ve been complaining very strongly about the ballots and the ballots are a disaster.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I understand that. But people are rioting. Do you commit to making sure that there`s a peaceful transfer of power?
TRUMP: No, we want to -- we want to have -- get rid of the ballots and you`ll have a very transfer -- we`ll have a very peaceful -- there won`t be a transfer, frankly. There`ll be a continuation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Again, listen to what he said. Get rid of the ballots. There won`t be a transfer, there`ll be a continuation. Here`s the thing. Governor Abbott of Texas could just ignore Trump or tell him to get lost or just pretend it never happened. But guess what? The ultra-conservative governor is facing a series of credible primary challenges from his right. Those are the people he is worried about for his political future.
And they are just about exactly what you`d expect. Like former Florida Congressman Allen West who`s now carpetbagging in Texas. He announced his campaign by pledging to "protect our borders to ensure Texas is for Texans." Right-wing talk show host Chad Prather who bizarrely opposes contact tracing for COVID of all things, and his campaign Web site proudly claims, "We can`t kill an economy over a virus with a 99 percent survival rate" in a state where more than 60,000 people have died from COVID.
Then there`s former State Senator Dan Huffines. He opposes all COVID magnates, including mandates for COVID tests, supports a constitutional amendment allowing Texans to "refuse vaccinations in all circumstances." And he is attacking Governor Abbott for not cracking down on "local mass tyrants." And his COVID stance has earned him at least one piece of institutional support and endorsement from Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY): When other Republicans would say, wear a mask, stay inside, you must do this, you must do that, when other Republicans were siding with Dr. Fauci, it was Don Huffines who would stand up and say he`ll side for your freedom.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: And so, the dynamics of the Republican Party are that you`re never safe, neither from COVID nor a primary challenger, that no amount of MAGA extremism or fealty to Donald Trump will ever be enough. The future of the entire party looks a lot like what`s happening in Texas.
Adam Serwer is a staff writer at the Atlantic who`s written a pair of recent articles about both Trump`s attempted coup and the Texas governor`s race. And Abby Livingston covers Texas politics full time as a D.C. bureau chief of the Texas Tribune. Good to have you both.
Abby, let me start with you first on just -- I find this this -- all these people coming at Abbott fascinating and not necessarily anticipated. What`s going on?
[20:10:26]
ABBY LIVINGSTON, D.C. BUREAU CHIEF, TEXAS TRIBUNE: Well, he has a primary challenge. He has several, as you noted. And so, he is trying to bolster his right wing. And his polling, I have to admit, I was a little shocked. But Republicans, specifically Abbott are behaving as if they are not afraid of a general election. There is obviously Matthew McConaughey`s name has been thrown around. And then we`re all expecting former Congressman Beto O`Rourke to likely announce in the near term. So, he -- there -- but those are not posing credible threats in a way that would altered Republicans behaviour.
And I think one of the things to remember here is the reason so many of these bills have passed is because they had a good election year last year. And so, the idea that there is widespread fraud is just not something that`s accepted in Texas. And I`ve spent more time in Texas than I have in recent years. And this is not a common topic of conversation. I don`t remember it coming up.
And Trump`s letter kept saying things like Texans think, your citizens say. And I just have not seen evidence that this is something of a driving concern in mainstream circles in Texas.
HAYES: No, because they won. They only think it`s fraud when they lost, Adam. I mean, that`s the whole -- that`s the whole game. And yet, here you have him pushing for this audit. It`s -- what work is this doing to your mind in the context of the big lie in the context of the failed coup?
ADAM SERWER, STAFF WRITER, THE ATLANTIC: Look, Abbott has consciously mishandled the pandemic in an effort to prevent exactly this from happening, which is the possibility of losing Trump`s endorsement.
HAYES: Yes.
SERWER: Abbott is generally seen in Texas as sort of he`s very conservative, but people see him is not a loony conservative.
HAYES: Right.
SERWER: And so, he`s seen as sort of an elder statesman, someone who`s holding back the much-crazier people who want his spot. But in the past few months, the reason why his approval rating has gone down is because he`s totally mishandled the COVID pandemic in Texas in an effort to prevent a challenge from his right.
And now, Trump has shown that it actually doesn`t matter very much to him how much fealty you show to him, even if you spend taxpayer money in Texas on trying to build a wall -- your own wall at the border. Trump is still going -- you know, if he feels like it, he`s still going to come for you.
So, you know, obviously, Texas is a pretty conservative state. And so, Abbott thinks he has nothing to fear from a general election challenger from a Democrat because the state is so right of center. And as a result, he is trying very hard, you know, to prevent a Republican challenge from getting traction, even if that cost the people of the state tremendously.
HAYES: Yes, we should say that he is underwater on approval. His approval is at 45 percent. 54 percent think we`re right direction, wrong direction numbers, I guess. 54 percent think the state is --
SERWER: and that`s unusual.
HAYES: Yes. And Abby, what`s striking here is that this statement, like, it`s so out of nowhere. No one in Texas is talking about this, right? It doesn`t exist on any agenda. It`s not in front of mind for people that are like trying to go to work and try to knock it COVID or whatever they`re trying to do in Texas, which is live their lives. And yet, that will have this gravity because this small Vanguard, the small part of the Republican base is going to determine Abbott`s political fate.
LIVINGSTON: Well, yes. And there are several questions about that letter. I mean, first of all, I made some calls before the show, and I`ve talked to a few folks who are mainstream Republicans in Austin. And the important thing to remember is we`re in a special session right now in Texas, which is really unusual. There`s many reasons for that.
But this is a state government that was formed to only meet briefly every other year, and the legislature is still in session. Legislators are exhausted. Staffers are exhausted. This is a state where members of Congress have been in an insurrection this year. There`s been a winter storm that hold a lot of Texans and every single person in the state practically suffered from it.
There was the whole drama around the voting rights bill. And then there was the abortion bill fall out. And these are exhausted -- the political classes exhausted. So, what does that mean? It could mean we might see even more retirements and more staffers leaving politics who are the more mainstream ilk of the Republican Party. That was the initial buzz.
And when this letter came out, it was just like a huff. Like, oh, one more thing. The objective in the next month is to get done congressional maps. That is what everyone is obsessed with in the state and the down ballot maps, not this sort of conversation. And on top of that, the letter was very esoteric. It used language about the legislation that seemed very familiar.
And so one of my sources did wonder out loud. It doesn`t feel like the former president wrote this. Who did?
[20:15:06]
HAYES: Yes, because there`s clearly an agenda here, Adam, whether it`s the endorsements in the Secretary of State races, or it`s pushing now in Pennsylvania that wants to get all -- basically all voter data in its hands, to create some bedrock, distrust across everything, for anyone casting a vote that follows Donald Trump that allows him to contest any election results anywhere.
SERWER: I mean, I think you know, Texas -- Republicans control the legislature in Texas. They don`t need any encouragement to try and slice the democratic vote into pieces so that they can continue to control the congressional delegation or the state legislature in Texas.
But what`s happening is that Donald Trump is really cultivating this ideology that says that the Democratic Party and its constituencies cannot legitimately contest power. Any election in which Democrats win is actually fraudulent by definition, even if they win more votes, because Republicans are the only one who can legit -- ones who can legitimately hold office.
And that`s true -- and that`s why this is happening despite the fact that Republicans won Texas, it`s the same ideology that led Republicans to advise Trump that he could get pressure of Mike Pence to try and overturn the 2020 election by fiat. And it`s a very dangerous ideology because it says we`re not going to respect the democratic outcome of elections that we lose.
HAYES: Yes, if you don`t -- I mean, you know, he did this with the media obviously, and Roger Ailes did it before him and -- which is, you know, cut people off from that sort of chain of trust. If you cut them off the chain of trust or just like election results, then you`re just floating out in authoritarian space. Like, whoever can seize power, gets it. That`s the way this works. Adam Serwer and Abby Livingston, thank you very much.
LIVINGSTON: Thank you.
HAYES: All right, that breaking news that we mentioned at the top, the very first subpoenas that have just been issued by the January 6 Select Committee, they`re out to the President Trump`s Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, Steve Bannon, two other Trump associates. We`ll break down the details with Dan Goldman next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:20:00]
HAYES: All right, we`re following that breaking news out of Washington tonight. In just the last hour, the January 6 committee -- Select Committee dropped four subpoenas for people either working in or communicating with the White House in the days leading up to the insurrection.
The Committee is seeking information from former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, former Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, and former Defense Department official Kashyap Patel.
Daniel Goleman is a former lead counsel for the majority of the 2019 House Impeachment Inquiry into President Trump. He was formerly the senior advisor and director of investigations for the House Intelligence Committee, also former federal prosecutor, and he joins me now.
Dan, this is skipping past the request phase. We saw some document requests go out. What`s the significance of these four subpoenas to your mind?
DAN GOLDMAN, FORMER LEAD COUNSEL FOR THE MAJORITY, HOUSE IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY: Well, there are several things. The first is, as the committee advised this week, they were going to go directly to subpoena for people, individuals or entities who either have not been cooperative, they don`t expect to be cooperative.
Obviously, these four, they do not expect to be cooperative, and that likely means litigation. The bigger thing to me, Chris, is not so much that they`re going straight to subpoenas, it`s that they`re going straight to the critical witnesses, rather than in many investigations where you would start with lower level people and try to work your way up, so you`d have a better sense of what the role was of the higher level people.
But there`s no time for that right now. And they`re anticipating litigation. So, they`re what you would ordinarily do on the back end, you`re doing that on the front end so the litigation can play out while they continue to investigate through other entities, other individuals.
HAYES: We should say, Steve Bannon has talked about his role in basically planning for January 6, at least the rally part of it. In fact, he just said so on his podcast. The subpoena says the following: "You`re also described as communicating with then-President Trump on December 30, 2020, potentially other occasions, urging him to plan for and focus his efforts on January 6. And you were quoted as stating on January 5, 2021 that all hell is going to break loose tomorrow. "
What are the legal -- what`s the next step legally you anticipate here?
GOLDMAN: Well, all of them will -- or Trump will intervene to file a lawsuit to prevent them from testifying. There is just to be really, really clear, there is absolutely no basis for Donald Trump or any of these former officials to claim executive privilege, but they will because their objective is not to win the litigation, their objective is simply to delay and let Congress and let this committee run out.
Steve Bannon has an even greater uphill battle because at the time January 6 he was not even a government official. And there, of course, is no executive privilege for non-government officials. The other three were government officials, so in theory, at that time, they could have claimed executive privilege.
But it`s very important to remember, Joe Biden controls what is executive privilege right now, not Donald Trump, and Donald Trump is no longer the president. So, he can say right did in the statement, oh, I`m going to claim executive privilege to preserve it for the office of the presidency. Hey, pal, you`re no longer in the office of the presidency, what you think about the office of the presidency is irrelevant.
HAYES: In fact, there`s some reporting today that the White House is considering turning over some communications that I guess they have access to precisely under that rationale.
GOLDMAN: Well, the White House and the National Archives has access to a lot of communication from White House officials. And Donald Trump is threatening to intervene to file a lawsuit to prevent the National Archives from producing those documents to the Select Committee, and he`s claiming executive privilege.
What came out today is that the Biden administration is likely reportedly likely to know to not claim executive privilege over those documents, to allow them to go to the select committee. And ultimately, the current administration is the one that preserves executive privilege. So, what we`re going to see is a completely brand new, you know, created out of whole cloth legal theory that has no basis in the law that is just designed to get the district court, the appeals court, and potentially the Supreme Court to have to rule on it, which will run out the clock. I hope the judiciary has learned its lesson and they will move quickly.
[20:25:26]
HAYES: Yes, that that is the big thing here. That`s the lesson we`ve learned, we have learned, right? I mean, this has been Donald Trump`s entire career is like keep people tied up in the courts until you can make a getaway. But this is a very -- this is a kind of bold, aggressive move by the committee and I think it augurs well for their posture, at least. Dan Goldman, thanks so much for joining us the last minute.
GOLDMAN: My pleasure, Chris.
HAYES: Republican Congresswoman Lauren Boebert made a name for herself pretty early on. Like, when she cut an ad vowing to carry her Glock to Congress. That ad was released on January 3, by the way. Or when she constructed this shrine-like setup as her background for a committee hearing in February.
But if you think or gun fanaticism is what will come to define her time in office, there`s another competing theme, and that is her possible misuse of campaign funds. Why the Colorado Congresswoman is in hot water with the FEC next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:30:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TUCKER CARLSON, HOST, FOX NEWS CHANNEL: Of the nearly 200 different countries on the face of the earth, precisely one of them has an elected leader who publicly identifies as a western style conservative. His name is Viktor Orban. He`s the Prime Minister of Hungary. What does Viktor Orban believe? Just a few years ago, his views would have seemed moderate and conventional. He thinks families are more important than banks. He believes countries need borders. For saying these things out loud Orban has been vilified.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Oh, they`re so mad at Viktor Orban. Last month, Tucker Carlson, Fox News host and heir to a frozen dinner company Fortune, took a field trip to all places Hungary. He spent the week there broadcasting from the capital city of Budapest and like you just saw lavishing praise on the country`s Prime Minister, a man named Viktor Orban.
Orban has been in power for over a decade. He has positioned himself as a right wing populist. He loves families not banks, a man of the people railing against those liberal elites in the media and the greedy bankers. He`s bragged about building a "illiberal state," widely seen as a well aspiring dictator and a strong man.
It`s a rhetoric that sounds all too familiar. But the thing is, Orban is not really a man of the people, I hate to break it to you. Over the last decade, he has consolidated power and guess what, wealth for himself and his allies throughout his rule. Check this out in July, a Hungarian Member of the European Parliament tweeted these photos from a Hungarian news sites and "Viktor Orban has been lying about the massive construction project claimed to be his father`s agribusiness with almost no assets on paper. He`s building a private mansion on a former estate, a feudal lord in the making.
Orban is not publicizing this estate. There`s very little publicly available about it. Another publication wrote late last year, "Among other things, a huge underground garage and a 500 square meter residential building is being built." Yes, Viktor Orban, the guy whose entire brand is about right-wing populism being for the working class. Families not banks, building oversized style mansion.
But that`s the stories all this time, the populist channels that will the people against evil elites also stuffing his own pockets. One of the oldest grits in the universe, the populace who uses populism as a cover for corruption, certainly something we`re familiar with here in the U.S.
Take Republican Congresswoman Lauren Boebert of Colorado. She owns a restaurant called Shooter`s Grill, where employees are encouraged to carry firearms. She was just elected to Congress in 2020, running on an anti-COVID restrictions platform. Now we have learned that Boebert paid rent and utility bills for her restaurant with campaign funds, which is very much in violation of federal campaign finance laws, the new filings of the Federal Election Commission show.
And this is not the first time Boebert has misused campaign funds. In February, the Denver Post reported Boebert paid herself more than $22,000 in mileage reimbursements for her campaign account last year. To justify those reimbursements, Boebert would have had to drive, get this, 38,712 miles while campaigning, despite having no publicly advertised campaign events in March, April, July, and only one in May.
Just for context, the equitorial circumference of the Earth is not quite 25,000 miles, so it`s quite a congressional campaign she was running. We have seen this behavior with wildly flagrantly corrupt politicians who champion the working class and then misuse the resources of their supporters for their own personal gain.
Ruth`s Ben-Ghiat is a professor of history in New York University, author of Strongmen: From Mussolini to the Present. Ian Silverii is a columnist at the Denver Post following the January 6 insurrection. He published a piece titled Lauren Boebert Should Resign or be Expelled. And they both join me now.
Ian, let`s start on the Boebert story because, you know, once -- well, I mean, the mileage stuff. I`ve reported around, you know, these FEC filings enough to know that that is an absolute like alarm bell going off in an FEC filing. But you do it once. Now, we`ve got twice. And it appears that they`re just recording this in their public disclosures that they`re using campaign money this way.
IAN SILVERII, COLUMNIST AT THE DENVER POST: Yes, they do it like quite a bit after those reports are due too, so it`s pretty weird. They don`t actually file when they`re supposed to. And then several months later, they file some kind of weird amended report. And it`s not just the mileage reimbursement. I mean, that`s one and a half times the circumference of the earth, in case you`re trying to do the math at home, $20,000.
Weirdly enough, it was the same amount of money that her failing restaurant Shooters Grill owed Garfield county for non-payment of unemployment premiums around the same time. So, she gets 20k from her campaign and then pays off a $20,000 lien that was on our restaurant. So, it`s really no surprised that all of a sudden she`s using her campaign funds to pay her rent.
Now, it`s really important to remember --
[20:35:05]
HAYES: Wait, wait, slow down. I want to -- I just want to make sure that I understand this. This is all publicly available and established. There was a lien and a debt that you owe the county because she hadn`t played -- paid taxes on unemployment insurance?
SILVERII: That is correct. Yes. She got $19,000 in the county and then $20,000 from her campaign, and it`s around the same time.
HAYES: It`s really audacious.
SILVERII: Yes. And this is the thing. Donald Trump committed crimes in broad daylight all the time. He has yet to be held accountable. He`s her hero. She probably figures she can do the same thing. And so far, despite the fact there`s investigations and complaints being filed, she`s getting away with it.
HAYES: Yes, that`s -- I mean, that is -- that is sort of the theme here, Ruth. And it`s interesting to me that actually, Orban has been secretive about this because it`s a little different. It`s sort of a little less flagrant, although there`s a lot of stories that come out of Hungary about people that are connected to Orban in the same way that people connected to Mubarak in Egypt, for instance, used to find themselves with like massively lucrative car dealerships and all sorts of businesses.
But this has always been a central part of the kind of authoritarian two step, particularly when they sort of are champion (INAUDIBLE)
RUTH BEN-GHIAT, PROFESSOR OF HISTORY, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY: Oh, totally. And I added a chapter on corruption to my book Strongmen because it`s central to the whole authoritarian playbook. And one of the biggest scams of populism from, you know, for 100 years, is this idea that they were going to drain the swamp, that their pure individuals who are going to clean up corruption.
And drain the swamp was actually, you know, Mussolini slogan. And remember, Trump said, oh, I`m not going to take a salary. Well, Hitler also said, he`s not taking a salary. And then he had the Gestapo destroy the records that he never paid the taxes. So, the essence of authoritarianism is not just getting away with it, but it`s turning public office into a mechanism for private profit. Because you don`t recognize any difference between public and personal and you have no government ethics.
And Orban is extremely skilled at this. He`s used all the tricks where, you know, he rails against globalists, and then all of these, you know, people keep their money probably in offshore, you know, global network of offshore finance. And ultimately, the state becomes a predator.
And just like in Turkey and in Russia and Hungary, if you have a flourishing business, you know, one of Orban`s cronies will come and force you to sell your asset. And so this is -- this is really -- and this happens in Russia and Turkey, and it`s part of authoritarianism, and yet we fall for this charade of them as globalist champions to the people.
HAYES: Yes, there`s also an aspect of the press here that I think is crucial and important, Ian. You know, when I was coming up as a reporter in Chicago, like that kind of story, this story is the stuff that local corruption reporting was made of. And when there was -- when there was power in the local press, that would hurt -- you know, it would you.
It would be on the cover of the local paper, and then the aldermen would have to be like, why are you paying off your restaurant lien from campaign money? And I feel like, you know, a lot of Boebert`s followers, a lot of the folks that vote for her and her supporters don`t read the Denver Post. They don`t trust the fake news. And it sort of plays the role of insulating from these very bog standard corruption stories.
SILVERII: I mean, the irony of it all, of course, is that Boebert refuses to talk to any local reporters in Colorado and only goes on fake news stations like OANN and Newsmax, and the other right wing fever swamp weird fake news stations that are all over the country. She`s never spoken to the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel which is a newspaper in her district. She doesn`t talk to the Denver Post ever.
HAYES: Wow.
SILVERII: And it`s because she could draft her own narrative and control her own story. The other thing to note is that her restaurant lost $143,000 in 2019, and $226,000 in 2020. This is not like a successful business that she like, forgot to pay unemployment insurance on or she forgot to pay her rent once in a while. This is the entire problem is that she`s a failed businessperson, and she`s using her campaign funds to paper it over. It`s a house of cards, and at some point, the whole thing`s going to fall down.
HAYES: Yes, I mean, that`s why -- that`s why power is so attractive, Ruth, right, because it`s a way to keep the house of cards up.
BEN-GHIAT: Totally. And, you know, we just lived through this. I still -- I think we should talk about this every single day, that from 2017 to 2020, Trump spent 1/3 of his time in office visiting Trump properties. I mean, this -- you know, the thing is, they`re not interested in governing. They`re interested in generating profits for themselves and. And so, you know, Boebert is a symptom of this kind of what we`ve lived through, we still haven`t fully reckoned with, is some kind of breakdown of government ethics.
[20:40:06]
HAYES: Ruth Ben-Ghiat and Ian Silverii, thank you very much. That was great.
SILVERII: Thanks for having me.
HAYES: Yesterday, Politico published an article about how Democrats are trying as best as they can to avoid a government shutdown. It was called Dem seek to avoid a shutdown at all costs, good headline, as GOP picks debt fight. It`s pretty straightforward. Except, one of those articles you really, really need to read all the way to the end because it had the most amazing closing quote in the final paragraph from the sitting senator.
I quote him here. "We always do this effing dance. I don`t know if people are going to put their sane mind on -- sane minds on and do what needs to be done or shut it down. This is just a ridiculous exercise. I can`t even compare it to anything I do on the farm that`s this stupid."
Don`t go anywhere. I`ll talk to that senator who summarized things so succinctly right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JOHN KASICH (R-OH): The mothers and fathers in this country know one thing, that if the federal government is unable to control its appetite, if we are unable to slow the growth and federal spending, it`s going to eat us alive.
REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R-OH): Let me just be clear here. A debt limit increase without any reforms to lower our deficit just isn`t going to cut it.
REP. STEVE SCALISE (R-LA): The bill that the Speaker Pelosi is bringing through this week will not become law. They`re going to have to go back to the drawing board. They might have to go to reconciliation to address the debt ceiling.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[20:45:25]
HAYES: Everyone knows every time Republicans threaten to refuse to raise the debt ceiling, there`s a Democrat White House. Just so you understand, the debt ceiling is not some essential piece of American governance. It`s not new spending. It`s basically saying like, we will pay the debts we already incurred. We`re going to pay our bills. And it`s the thing that Republicans remember to whine about when they are not in power. That`s simple.
As Senator Jon Tester very astutely told Politico, we always do this effing dance. I don`t know if people are going to put their same minds on and do what needs to be done or shut it down. This is just a ridiculous exercise. I can`t even compare it to anything I do on the farm that`s this stupid.
Joining now, Senator Jon Tester, Democrat of Montana. A lot of people identify that quote because it seems so true. It truly is a ridiculous institution to everyone`s minds. You know, when you go out and you pay for dinner on a credit card, that`s when you`re making the decision to buy the meal. But you can`t go home and two weeks later and say, I`m just not going to pay the credit card bill or bad things will ensue.
SEN. JON TESTER (D-MT): You`re exactly right. That`s a great correlation. This is -- the money has already been spent. And now, we have to pay the bills. So, that`s what the debt limit is about. Look, neither party is innocent when it comes to adding to the debt. The deficit is about $29 million right now. I`m as concerned as anybody with the debt.
But for a matter of fact, this last year, we passed the Cares Act because the economy was tanking because of COVID. We did a couple other extraordinary measures to take care of the coronavirus pandemic, and spent that money. And now when it comes to paying the bills -- and by the way, we did that in a Republican House, a Republican Senate, and with a Republican president. And now, when it comes to paying the bills, it`s like, no, we`re not going to do that.
Well, it`s great for messaging. But in reality, this will impact the families across this country incredibly negative. It will cause unemployment to spike up to potentially nine percent, some are predicting. It will cause interest rates not only for the federal government on that $29 billion to go through the roof. But for credit card debt, for auto debt, mortgages on homes -- let me put it this way to your viewers. If you`ve got a mortgage on your home like most of us do, and you don`t pay it, you got a problem.
You play it out the credit card, Chris. You go out to have dinner, you come and get that -- get that bill. At the end of the month, and you decide not to pay it, you got any problems. This Chris is going to do bad things to this country. China has been trying to set themselves up as a leader in the world economically. This is like giving them the keys to the car. Here you go China. Take it and run with it. We`re going to do something stupid.
HAYES: I have to explain this to folks. And just I want to walk through it with you. Because Mitch McConnell`s position is, yes, it should get raised, but just not by us, right? OK, fine. He says you guys are the majority. But I feel like I`ve lost my mind. Correct me if I`m wrong. They`re not just not voting for it, they`re actively filibustering it so that you can`t raise it by yourself. Is that correct?
TESTER: Well, that`s correct. And we need 60 votes to pass the debt ceiling. And quite honestly, Mitch McConnell has been here long enough. He knows the rules as well as anybody and better than most, that if we don`t get some Republican votes to do this, then the debt ceiling major fails, and it turns the economy upside down.
And maybe that`s what they want, but it`s certainly not what I want. And it`s certainly not what the people of Montana sent me here in Washington to do.
HAYES: What`s the endgame here? I always -- it`s a little unclear to me. Here`s the two train cars that are set towards each other, right, the debt ceiling and the filibuster, basically, right, unless I`m misunderstanding this. I mean, you could raise the debt ceiling, you got 50 votes to raise the debt ceiling tomorrow, OK. I think every Democrat is going to vote to raise the debt ceiling.
TESTER: I would hope so. I hope they would do the responsible thing is. That`s correct.
HAYES: You got the filibuster, so you can`t. It seems like one is got to give. What am I missing?
TESTER: No, I think -- I think you`re spot on. I mean, I think that if you`ve got to have 60 votes, maybe -- you know, look, maybe Mitch McConnell is advocating for doing away with the filibuster. I don`t know. I mean, the truth is that we`ve got a job to do here that the American public sent us here to do. We work for them. And I think part of our job is making sure we pay for the bills. And if we don`t pay for the bills, then bad things happen just like they do in our households.
[20:50:12]
HAYES: You know, everyone`s -- you can pick it up. Just tell them. Tell them I said that. No -- Biden was on Capitol Hill yesterday or I think at least -- I`m sorry, in the White House meeting with folks from Capitol Hill. And the readout was at his productive meetings.
You know, I said that yesterday, and I think people don`t appreciate this. I think there`s 271 or 272 Democrats on Capitol Hill between House and Senate. And you need like, 269 to agree which, you know, I mean, if you`ve ever, you know, been on like a family vacation with nine people to try to like pick the right -- the same activity is impossible. So, the task here really is a difficult one. What is your sense of where things are at?
TESTER: Well, look, there`s a lot more negotiations that have to be done. We got to make sure that everybody is at the table, not just, you know, three or four or five or 10 people. That everybody is at the table, making sure their opinions are heard. I think everybody has got to be willing to compromise. And I think everybody`s got to be willing to meet at a reasonable -- a reasonable place to do something meaningful for this country moving forward and do the right thing.
Look, when I go home -- and we pass a bipartisan bill, that`s a good piece of legislation, and I could talk about it for the next hour. But the fact is there`s some things that it did not address. It didn`t address things like child care. It didn`t address things like housing. It address-- it ddress climate issues, but we need to do more. And quite frankly, that doesn`t mean we have to spend $3.5 trillion, but it means that we have to do something meaningful and we have to spend that money right.
HAYES: Do you -- who are the people that you talk to? Who are your -- who are the people you`re closest to in the Democratic caucus in the Senate?
TESTER: Oh, look, I try to talk to everybody.
HAYES: That`s a very politician answer.
TESTER: No, it depends on who I eat lunch with. Let`s see. This week, it was it was Booker and it was -- it was Dr. Jeanne Shaheen. I visited Maggie Hassan.
HAYES: Here`s why I`m asking this. I have a -- I have a sense of what the group`s internal in the House are. And I have some sense of, you know, the 10 people, the 10 progressive senators who said, look, we want both or -- you know, both bills to pass. And then you`ve got folks like Manchin and Sinema, I think are in their own category. And I`m just kind of wondering where the other folks in that caucus are?
TESTER: Well, look, I think that you pointed it out. You put a family together, put them on the road, you have a hard time making a decision where you`re going to eat lunch. And it`s the same thing with the Democratic caucus. And I think that if we`re able to get everybody in the room and their opinions are respected, and we actually do compromise, negotiate, we can come up with a deal that does good work for this nation. And I think that`s really the bottom line.
There`s a lot of pressure on Schumer. There`s a lot of pressure on the White House. And they`re working hard. And I will tell you that I think that everybody will come to the table, both from the moderate side, so to speak, and the progressive side. And I think we`re going to end up with something that`s going to work this country.
HAYES: Do you think -- I mean, I this is what everyone says. Everyone does seem to think like this will -- there will be a bill. There`s going to be something that is passed in the United States Senate. And you`re saying that too.
TESTER: Absolutely correct. Look, these people are good people. They want to do the right thing. There are some differences of opinion on what the right thing is. That`s -- you fix those things by communication, just like you do -- just like you do in your marriage. (AUDIO GAP)
WATTERS: It would be really wild to be married at 270 people. I don`t think any amount of communication could necessarily iron things out there.
Senator Jon Tester, thank you for indulging all my thought experiments tonight. I appreciate it.
TESTER: You`re a gentlemen and a scholar. Thank you, Chris.
HAYES: Thank you very much.
Right now, Democrats are trying to come to a difficult full party consensus, as I said, on President Joe Biden`s agenda. To discuss, I`m joined by Max Rose, former New York Democratic Congressman who was elected in the House in the 2018 midterms. And Faiz Shakir, political advisor to Senator Bernie Sanders, who ran his 2020 presidential campaign. Max and Faiz -- it`s great to have you, Max, in person.
Let me start with you because -- so right, so you`ve got -- you`ve got a lot of moving parts right now. They`re very complicated. I want to put the debt ceiling and the government shutdown aside because I think there`s actual democratic unanimity on that. Like, we need to keep the government funded and open and pay our debts, right?
My question to you is, how do you read the dynamics in the Democratic caucus in the House because my reading is, frontline members are not the ones who are saying like, slow down, don`t do this. They seem actually very invested in most of the agenda.
MAX ROSE, FORMER DEMOCRATIC REPRESENTATIVE, NEW YORK: Yes. Now, that`s not what`s happening here. And that`s what -- this one`s so scary it`d be laughable. Everyone agrees. But the truth of the matter is, is they`re forgetting about certain basic commandments, OK. One, don`t play defense for big pharma.
[20:55:05]
HAYES: Right.
ROSE: Two, remember --
HAYES: It`s a good -- it`s a good commandment.
ROSE: Remember the promises that you made to the American people. Remember, we just passed in 2018. Literally, some of them are arguing we shouldn`t do what they voted yes for previously. Three, the American people do not care about process. They don`t care if you pass infrastructure this month, or next month, they just want to see you get it done.
HAYES: Right.
ROSE: But lastly, and most importantly, this is about delivering in big, bold, dynamic ways that people will feel with their pocketbooks. They`re going to get over this, but they have to stop with the circular firing squad right away.
HAYES: It`s funny that you said big pharma because I remember looking at your ads in 2018. So, you run in 2018 against an incumbent Republican. And you did a lot on taking on big pharma over oxycontin and opioids. I mean, that was a real thing.
Now, you`re running in a district that was a Trump district. I mean, Trump had won the district, right?
ROSE: True.
HAYES: That was an issue that you felt both I think passionate about substantively and was politically advantageous for you in a district that was -- that was a district Trump carried.
ROSE: Right, right. People cannot listen to their donors right now.
HAYES: Yes.
ROSE: They cannot listen to their donors, and they have got to listen to the American people, all right.
HAYES: Yes.
ROSE: The American people -- that`s what makes this also shocking. The American people are united about this.
HAYES: You`re talking about the prescription drug benefit particularly.
ROSE: Oh 100 percent. And here`s what`s amazing about that, OK. That`s the thing that actually provides them revenue to do others things.
HAYES: Yes, yes.
ROSE: OK, so --
HAYES: You get rid of it, the deficit gets bigger. Yes.
ROSE: Right.
HAYES: Because it saves the government money.
ROSE: You save Medicare hundreds of billions of dollars which then you use to pay for universal childcare, universal pre-k, expanding Medicare, and combating climate change.
HAYES: Faiz, on the Senate side, I mean Tester -- you know, Tester is interesting because he`s an interesting player in there. He`s, you know, next to Manchin who probably represents the most conservative state but is much less of a kind of caucus contrarian, I think, that the Manchin is. And Manchin, I think, has his own sort of thing. But having worked for Reid and worked in that Senate, and know Bernie well and work with Bernie, like, what is the approach here to get -- because you need all 50 to agree on a number and on what`s actually in it.
FAIZ SHAKIR, POLITICAL ADVISER TO SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Well, the problem is, Chris, we`ve been having a fake negotiation. We`ve been into this for months and months and months. And at this point, you would think that if you were on the other side of Bernie or whatever, you would have a proposal.
HAYES: Right.
SHAKIR: And yet, what the surprising thing for Manchin or Sinema is there is no proposal. You`re negotiating with the shadow. And it`s very hard to have a "compromise" when progressives are both advertising the North Star where we need to go and then offering the compromise, and yet begging, what is your alternative to this? What is it? And to this point, I`ve been talking about this for months. They cannot offer a specific alternative.
HAYES: That is a really good point because anyone who`s ever been through a negotiation, it goes like this. There`s an offer, there`s a counter, there`s an offer, there`s a counter. You need a counter. And I`ve been in negotiations where you`re waiting on the counter and it drives you nuts. Where`s the counter? Where`s the counter?
There`s no -- I mean, that`s the thing. Manchin`s counter is a strategic pause, or maybe we don`t do anything at all, but if he -- maybe he`s doing this privately, but if Manchin and Sinema has a counter, you`re right, they should say what the counter is.
SHAKIR: Yes, I mean, I face this every night with my children. It`s kind of like debating with children. Like, if you start with a here`s what you should eat for dinner, maybe carrots and broccoli. How about mac and cheese? How about the spaghetti and meatballs? They say, no, no, no, I need you to work with me. You can`t go to bed hungry. It`s like, you got to give me something to work with. And I feel like we`re dealing with kids here.
You got to put something on the table. At least get to yes. This is a team sport. Legislating at this juncture right now is a team sport. And I think Senator Sanders realizes it. He`s making compromises. Pramila Jayapal is making compromises. Where the heck are people wanting to be -- in good faith offer a compromise that gets to yes.
HAYES: Here`s the key thing about the team sport. The lesson I think I`ve learned in now analyzing this and you`ve led to this is you can`t outrun the wave. Meaning, you can`t distinguish yourself so much as a member, frontline member, that you`re going to survive if it`s not a good election year.
ROSE: Right.
HAYES: Right? Like, you`re bound the Democratic Party and its fate either way.
ROSE: Sure. Yes, but here`s the thing, though. I`ve taken tough votes.
HAYES: Right.
ROSE: This isn`t hard.
HAYES: Right.
ROSE: These are these are not tough votes. They`re arguing over taxes. I want a member of the Democratic Party to stand up and say that they want to venture capitalists to pay lower tax rates than teachers, cops, firemen, or anyone else in the working class. Who`s for that? I do not understand any more what they`re arguing about.
It`s time from the put their heads down. Remember that the Democrats, the party of the New Deal, the party of working people, get this thing done.
HAYES: Faiz Shakir and Max Rose, that was great. Thank you both, gentlemen.
That is ALL IN for tonight. "THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW" starts right now. Good evening, Rachel.
RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC HOST: Good evening, Chris. Thank you, my friend. Much appreciated. And thanks to you at home for joining us this hour.
Man, when it rains it pours. We`ve got news to break on a few different fronts tonight. There`s a lot going on. Today started off as a normal Thursday. We had sort of a normal Thursday show planned.