Summary
The NBA struggles to get 100 percent of the players vaccinated. The small but loud anti-vaccine minority is dictating the protocol. Rick Hasen is interviewed saying, the integrity of counting the votes in the U.S. is in danger. The Republicans unanimously vote for U.S. default.
Transcript
JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: "ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES" starts now.
HAYES: Tonight on ALL IN. New hope for a return to normal even as COVID continues to crush the unvaccinated and the vocal resistance pushes back.
ANDREW WIGGINS, NBA PLAYER: Some people have bad reactions to the vaccine. Nobody likes to talk about that.
HAYES: then election law expert Rick Hasen on why he is bringing a new alarm over the future of democracy.
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The people of Georgia must replace the RINOs and weak Republicans who made it all possible.
HAYES: Plus, what we know about the fate of the Biden agenda in congress on what could be a fateful week. And from the racist venom of Charlottesville, to prime time talking points.
TUCKER CARLSON, HOST, FOX NEWS CHANNEL: This policy is called the great replacement, the replacement of legacy Americans with more obedient people from far away countries.
HAYES: How the Republican Party is now embracing the so-called replacement theory by name when ALL IN starts right now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES (on camera): Good evening from New York I`m Chris Hayes. You know, you could have gotten very rich over the past year and a half betting against the people who said we were beating COVID. It`s just around the corner because here we are still fighting it. But it can be beaten. We have the tools to do it that may be obvious to some of you, may seem crazy to others, but covet can be beaten.
We have life-saving vaccines. We know what mitigation efforts work. And I think it is really important to keep sight of all that so we do not succumb to an unnecessary pessimism about where we are and where we can be as a nation. And I thought of this as I was looking at this chart of COVID deaths here in New York City.
That enormous spike at the top of the chart over there on the left is the early weeks the pandemic back in April of 2020. It`s when the virus first made its way over from Europe, right? The U.S. East Coast got that European strain. And New York got hammered almost as bad as anywhere in the world before or since.
Last winter, we saw deaths rise again although, to be clear, it`s nowhere near as bad as it could have been. That`s partially due to natural immunity. Yes, folks who`d already gotten COVID, but also because of way better testing, strict public health measures, masks, social distancing, and contact tracing. And then delta landed on our shores. And frankly, a lot of people, myself included, were pretty worried about what things would look like.
I mean a few weeks ago it seemed like all of the progress of the spring maybe might be -- undone everywhere and we all braced for this battle, vaccinations and public health measures versus the incredibly contagious virulent Delta variant. And guess what, the vaccine won.
We did not see a massive spike in deaths this summer in New York City. That`s what vaccine victory looks like. We did not even see anything close to the winter surge, let alone the deadly early days of the pandemic. You can see it on the charts, deaths have essentially plateaued since July.
I`m starting with this tonight just to keep everyone`s eyes on the North Star where we can return almost to normal. And we can see our loved ones and go to see plays and sporting events and be around each other and fellowship. But of course, the problem is that vaccination rates aren`t unevenly distributed throughout the country. I was looking at another statistic this weekend that was kind of blowing my mind about how far we`ve fallen in the international competition to vaccinate all of our population, at least all of our eligible population.
Australia, remember Australia had a very rocky early rollout of the shots, huge amounts of criticism in that country about how slow it was going. It`s now on pace to beat us in terms of vaccinations. You can see it on this chart. Australia, the line of the right, has almost surpassed the U.S. despite not really even getting a proper start until June of this year.
And meanwhile, the United States has hit, well, a kind of brick wall after getting out to this incredible start under the first few months of the Biden administration where the key test was just logistical competency which they showed in spades. Now, they are up against this wave of vaccine resistance. And tens of thousands of Americans are dying needlessly day after day because they have not gotten vaccinated.
And as David Leonhardt pointed out in the New York Times today, it is incredibly consistent along basically political partisan ideological lines. The political divide over vaccinations is so large that almost every reliably blue state now has a higher vaccination rate than almost every reliably red state. As a result, parts of the country that broadly supported Donald Trump in 2020, that red line on this chart are seeing more COVID deaths in parts of the country that voted for Joe Biden represented by the blue line.
HAYES: And that`s due in large part to the nihilistic and destructive and I would even say evil deal with the devil that some of the right have embraced which is basically flirt with denialism and let their supporters die off at awful rates for juiced ratings or some small political advantage.
It`s everywhere you look. We see it unfolding right now in the state of Tennessee which has seen one of the worst outbreaks in the country. Remember, that is a state where back in August, angry parents hounded health care workers who had advocated for a mask mandate. They yelled at them through their window saying things like you can leave freely but we will find you, we know who you are.
Well, today, school was cancelled in the state`s Knox County after an anti- mask event yesterday in which parents openly plotted mass civil disobedience including blocking the entrance to schools to stop kids from going to school to protest an order requiring masks. I`m going to play some sound from that event for you. The video is very grainy but you can hear what`s being said.
[20:05:42]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was communicated that starting Monday morning and until this is over, we need to bring Knox County schools to a screeching halt. Staff -- and it was literally said, parents, students, staff, and bus drivers. So, we have a moral obligation for our children`s future. Block the entrance to the school with your car. That`s my suggestion. Block the entrance to the -- don`t even let a bus in your schools. If you can be that bold in your groups, do it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Here again, the key dynamic of play, the core of the issue for us as a society, as a country. There is real grassroots energy among certain parts the right-wing Republican base to protest the very basic public health measures like masks and vaccines that will help get us out of this pandemic and save the lives we are losing.
And again, it`s important to note, if those folks, the folks you know, blockading schools, they`re a small minority. This is not an issue that`s splitting the country apart. Big majorities of Americans are vaccinated. More than 75 of the eligible population have made the choice to get at least one dose. It`s not a 50-50 issue. It is a small but increasingly militant group of people who are being egged on by these opportunistic politicians like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Texas Senator Ted Cruz and Tennessee Governor Bill Lee.
It`s a really dangerous version of something that constitutional law experts call in another context, the heckler`s veto. A situation where the most radicalized outside the mainstream people with destructive views on this, the most fired up angry folks end up controlling or trying to control all of public policy.
But again, this debate is not solely among political lines. It`s part of a more profound example of human beings trying to find consensus. You`re seeing a version of it play out right now one of the most high-profile businesses in the entire country, the NBA. And basketball, strangely in certain ways has been linked to COVID since the start of the pandemic.
You remember, when the league delayed the season in March of 2020 after a player on the Utah Jazz, star center Rudy Gobert tested positive for COVID right before the game. The teams didn`t come out and they canceled the game, and then they canceled the season.
And for many of us, that was the break glass moment, right? The first realization, oh my word, this was going to alter our daily life in an unprecedented way. And then there was the NBA bubble where the league pulled out all the stops to essentially keep all of their players who were playing quarantined in like a hotel complex last year. And it served as something of an example of how he could return to some weird surreal sense of normalcy amidst a once in a century pandemic without a vaccine.
Now, the vaccine fight is unfolding very publicly in the league. The season is about to start next month. Training camp kicks off tomorrow. According to the NBA, 90 of its players are vaccinated which seems like a high number, but it`s lower than say the NFL`s vaccination rate which is nearly 94 percent.
And today the disagreements here played out very publicly at the Brooklyn Nets pre-season media day where the one of the team`s star players, Kyrie Irving did not attend in person. He joined from his house via Zoom, refused to answer questions about his vaccine status and whether or not he would participate in games.
See, the problem is New York City correctly mandates athletes have at least one dose of a COVID vaccine when playing basketball indoors and like breathing on each other. And while Kyrie Irving is one of many high-profile holdouts, he`s not any old player. He is the vice president of the executive committee of the players union according to Rolling Stone.
He "Recently started following and liking Instagram posts from a conspiracy theorist who claims that secret societies are implanting vaccines in a plot to connect Black people to a master computer for a plan of Satan. This Moderna microchip misinformation campaign has spread across multiple NBA locker rooms and group chats according to several of the dozen plus current players, hall of famers, league executives, arena workers, and virologists interviewed for this story over the past week.
This is all sparked a public outcry including from NBA legend Kareem Abdul- Jabbar who told Rolling Stone -- Rolling Stone, "There is no room for players who are willing to risk the health and lives of their teammates, the staff and fans simply because they`re unable to grasp the seriousness of the situation or do the necessary research."
And from Boston Celtics center Enes Kanter who has been encouraging his fellow players to take the shots. And Enes Kanter joins me now.
Enes, it`s good to have you. I wonder what the locker room conversations have been like, what the tenor of this conversation has been among folks in the NBA, the players.
[20:10:31]
ENES KANTER, NBA PLAYER: Thanks for having me, Chris. You know, I think I just signed with Boston Celtics, so I cannot talk for Celtics players. But last year, I was playing for the Portland Trailblazers. And when this vaccine, you know, conversation you know started to happen, we all sit down and say, listen, we are role models. And we need to, you know, not just save ourselves, but our families, and our communities. So, we were all fully vaccinated.
You know, I feel like players listen to medical experts on pretty much everything, surgeries, treatments, medicine, and diet, so I feel like we need to listen to the experts on this vaccine for sure.
HAYES: Yes. One thing that has really been striking -- I mean, again, 90 of players are vaccinated, so again, this isn`t a 50-50 issue. It`s not massively polarizing. But, you know, there`s been a lot of prominent athletes who have resisted the vaccine in different sports. And you know, it`s trying to me that you are someone who -- your livelihood depends on your health. And you would think that someone for whom that`s the case.
KANTER: For sure.
HAYES: I mean Karl-Anthony Towns is a great NBA player, got COVID and has reported long -- you know, a long recovery period and really negative effects afterwards. You`d think that players would be worried about that they`d want to protect themselves against that.
KANTER: I mean, I think for sure. You know, like you said, Karl-Anthony Towns, I believe he just said on one article, he lost 50 pounds and lost multiple family members. You know, just last year, I just lost my uncle because of COVID. So, I think -- I feel like players needs to understand, we are not just saving our lives but everyone else around us.
And we are role model, right? There are so many kids out there, so many young generations out there are idolizing us. So, I feel like we need to be a good -- we need to be a good example and just go out there and encourage people and encourage our community to, you know, just get vaccinated so we can save people.
HAYES: You also had an interesting quote in the Rolling Stone piece about religion and religious exemptions which I wanted to just read to you. "If a guy is not getting vaccinated because of his religion, I feel like we are in a time where the religion and science has got to go together. I talked to a lot of religious guys. I`m like, it saves people lives so what is more important than that."
Have you encountered the religious objection as a strong part of the objection in the conversations you`ve had?
KANTER: I mean -- I mean, like I said, we are in a time that religion and science has to go together. I mean, you know, religion is telling you -- every religion telling you to take care of your body, right? And this is the best way to take care of your body, get vaccinated. And I believe -- I understand -- I respect all the religions. And you know, we have a freedom of religion in our country, but at the same time, it`s very simple, what is more religious than saving other people`s lives? That`s it.
HAYES: How would you feel -- I mean, one of the origin or part of this battle that`s happening is that my understanding is the NBA doesn`t have a requirement. The NFL came up with a set of requirements that that strongly incentivized vaccination. And the NBA has basically been relying on the rules of local venues, stadiums, and stuff like that.
Do you think the league should be more proactive? Should there be an agreement between the players union and the league that says look, everyone`s got to get vaccinated?
KANTER: I feel like they should, you know, because like I said again, I mean, I`m playing basketball, right? And then a non-vaccinated player will be breathing on me during the game because we are not -- we`re playing basketball, and there`s contact all the time. Think -- exactly. Think about a player will be breathing on me and sweating on me the whole game and I know that he`s not vaccinated.
So, I don`t think the players who are vaccinated already won`t feel comfortable to go against those players. But at the same time, I mean, you got to respect the people`s decision. That`s what it comes to that. But you know, I speak to some of the athletes, even some of the non-basketball players about there is this thing you just -- were just talking about that they were just worried about that government is trying to put a chip in us.
And when i heard that I just lost word. I`m like i don`t know what to say. But I think we just need to educate ourselves and we just need to be smart because like I said again, we are leaders -- community leaders and there are so many people are idolizing us. So, I feel like you use this platform to encourage others to get vaccinated because it`s literally saving people`s lives.
HAYES: All right, Enes Kanter, thank you so much for joining me. I appreciate it.
KANTER: Thank you, brother.
All right, Andy Slavitt served as the White House Senior Advisor for COVID response under president Joe Biden. He`s the author of the book, Preventable: The Inside Story of How Leadership, Failures, Politics, and Selfishness Doomed the U.S. Coronavirus Response. And he joins me now.
Andy, Scott Gottlieb last week on the show said something that I found very encouraging which was his belief that the Delta wave on the back side of it, we`re entering a period where we`re not going to see -- barring some huge new mutant variation, things like this. That we`re achieving a level of immunity collectively through antibodies, post infection, and vaccination where we`re not going to have this kind of situation. Do you feel the same way?
[20:15:43]
ANDY SLAVITT, FORMER WHITE HOUSE SENIOR ADVISOR FOR COVID: I think it`s a little too early to say. You know, Scott is often right. Nobody is always been right, so I think we ought to be a little bit cautious. But what I think he`s noting is that we are reaching a point in many parts of the country where you`re either been vaccinated or infected and at least for a little while until immunity wanes. That ought to keep you in good stead.
Now, we have too many large pockets of people that haven`t been vaccinated. Those communities are ripe for not only the virus to grow and for people to die, but also for variants. So, you know, I don`t think we should be ready to declare victory just yet.
HAYES: One of the strange things about the behavioral changes that -- and risk assessments that happen along these sort of ideological or lines of worldview or even personal risk appetite, whatever it is, right, is that as Delta started to spread, I think you saw people that are the most cautious, the most concerned about the virus, who are already vaccinated and already -- tend to be in places that have fairly strong public health measures, doing the most retrenchment, and the places where it was happening the most were not.
And it does seem to me like the New York City example and some of the stuff we`ve seen in California and even what Oregon has done which had some real bad outbreaks in rural counties, that you know, it`s a sufficient level of vaccination really is protection against that kind of outbreak. Like, we can believe that that -- we`ve gotten to that point in these places.
SLAVITT: Yes. I mean, look, it is -- part of the reason why we`re having to do boosters and third vaccines in many places is because we are -- still have parts of the community where there`s too much spread because kids aren`t vaccinated or because we`ve got adults that aren`t getting vaccinated. But as you say, if you go to Connecticut, if you go to a community -- the community where I live in California where 91 percent of people are vaccinated, there are very, very few cases.
And you can imagine of getting to a place in the country where many parts of the country are like that. And when that happens, you know, I think we will be able to not wear masks. We`ll be -- you know, I think we`re still going to have to watch for things so that when we have bad periods of time, that may change.
But certainly, we`re a lot closer to that, but what I wouldn`t say is that that`s going to be a yet a permanent state. I think we still have too many shoes to drop.
HAYES: What do you mean by that?
SLAVITT: I mean, it`s probably too early to say that even if we go back to not having to wear masks or there`s a lower amount of cases as is projected in the spring, that until we get the globe vaccinated -- or to take one major example, until we get the African countries vaccinated which is about six percent vaccinated, you know, we still can see what we saw from India, from South Africa, from South America where a new variant emerged.
So, I`m still going to be holding my breath until the globe gets vaccinated. And as soon as that happens, I think we`ll be able to breathe easier both because a few more people`s lives will be saved, but because the chances of a -- of a variance rate coming back that`s more dangerous than Delta will be -- will be much less.
HAYES: Finally, New York City had a deadline for health care workers on a vaccine requirement today. There`s lots of places that have been implementing. What do you think the evidence of vaccine requirements whether governments or employers is so far?
SLAVITT: Well, the evidence is that to be -- you know, oftentimes the media will cover the literally dozens of people that are unhappy, and I don`t doubt that there aren`t dozens of people that are unhappy. But the facts show that as you talked about with the NFL, even with the NBA, the NCAA, 85 percent, plus the military over 90 percent, that most people say you know what, you know, I`m going to get vaccinated.
And part of the reason is that most people don`t feel that strongly about not getting vaccinated. They haven`t done it because they haven`t had to, it hasn`t been super convenient, who wants to go get a shot, but they`ll gladly do it. And I think we`re seeing that vaccine requirements work. And yes, there are a few people that are unhappy. We should understand that, but that`s a very small minority.
HAYES: All right, Andy Slavitt, always great to talk to you. Thank you very much.
SLAVITT: Thank you.
HAYES: There is a very real and continuing threat to our democracy. Just under the radar of turning the everyday anonymous people who make our elections run into agents of sabotage.
[20:20:09]
The MAGA world could not steal the election for Trump in 2020 but what`s to stop them from trying to do it in 2024 or even earlier. One of the top election law experts in America is here with a new warning next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: This weekend, the twice-impeach disgraced ex-president Donald Trump held a rally in Georgia, one of the states that helped clinch his defeat. In the 10 months since the election, Trump has not wavered from his thoroughly debunked claims that the results in Georgia were fraudulent and he was really the winner. That`s false.
Speaking at the Georgia National Fairgrounds on Saturday, Trump made it clear he plans to campaign not just on this platform of the last stolen election, but also explicitly on putting in place people who are willing to steal the next one for him.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: They attacked and cheated on our elections and they did it right here in Georgia also, right here in Georgia. Now, the people of Georgia must replace the RINOs and weak Republicans who made it all possible.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: This is the number one continuing threat to American democracy, the very real possibility that Donald Trump or potentially someone else, but right now is Trump, could claim fraud as Trump did in 2020 and essentially try to steal the election. And that crucially, Republicans in positions of power up and down the hierarchy would enable him to do it.
[20:25:05]
Now, we came close to that nightmare last year, really close. It only thwarted thanks to a handful of folks, one of them Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger who is refusing to bend Trump`s will. But he`s now being primaried with Trump support. Before we find ourselves back in that situation again, we have to make actual changes to fortify the defenses of our election systems.
Rick Hasan is one of the nation`s top experts on election law who`s been thinking about studying and proposing those necessary changes. In fact, he just published a paper titled "Identifying and minimizing the risk of election subversion and stolen elections in the contemporary United States." He`s also founder of the election law blog, a professor of law and political science at the University of California Irvine where he serves as the co-director of the Fair Elections and Free Speech Center. And he joins me now.
Rick, you have been very, very focused on this. I share your concern and focus on it, and we`ve been pretty focused on it. First, have you gotten more or less concerned as time has passed between January 6th particularly and now?
RICK HASEN, PROFESSOR OF LAW AND POLITICAL SCIENCE, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA IRVINE: Oh, I`ve gotten much more concerned. First of all, we`ve learned a lot more about what happened behind the scenes January 6th. We learned how Vice President Pence was urged to essentially just declare Trump the winner based on a false claim that there were seven states with alternative slates of electors because of irregularities in elections. None of this stuff was true, but Vice President Pence stood up.You mentioned Raffensperger, he stood up.
People who were actually in power and who had to make decisions stood up and we were able to withstand what Trump was throwing at the election system last time. But now, over the last nine 10 months, as Trump has convinced millions of his supporters that the last election was stolen and he`s trying to replace those who stood up to him with those who either buy into this false claim or pretend to buy into this false claim, I have much less confidence that would be able to withstand the same kind of thing come 2024.
HAYES: Yes. You write -- so you write about addressing this in a legal sense, right? So, what are the things we can do legally, changes we can make to essentially fortify free and fair elections, to defend them from malefactors like Trump. And I want to read a passage here and have you describe it.
The kinds of legal changes I advocate run the gamut, things like ensuring we have paper ballots that can be recounted by hand, conducting official risk limiting audits to check the validity of a vote count, removing from power those who play essentially a ceremonial role in affirming election results, making sure that there are streamlined processes for bringing bona fide challenges in elections that are actually problematic.
Those last two strike me as really important. One of the things we learned last time was that all these people involved in passing the baton, and there are all these different pressure points, and then the question of like, how you -- what if something really did go wrong, how would you challenge it was sort of unclear. And it seems like you`re saying we need to streamline one and clarify the other.
HASEN: Well, you know, the thing about the Presidential Election is that it`s so different than every other election we run in the United States, right? It`s run across 50 states in 10,000 different jurisdictions. And then, even once the people vote, there are a whole bunch of steps that have to happen before the full ceremonial counting of the Electoral College votes happens.
Each of those is a place of weakness in a system that doesn`t rely upon norms and the rule of law. So, we`ve relied on the fact that people were going to do the right thing, they weren`t going to lie about the outcome of the election. If you`re going to have the potential that people are going to lie, you`re going to need to have that paper to back it up. You`re going to need to have rules that make it harder to engage in false claims that the -- you know the vote total was what it was.
But legal change won`t be enough. We also need to have a political strategy because it`s not clear that these changes are going to come either from congress or from the states and that they`re going to be enough next time.
HAYES: The big federal law here is the electoral account act which was actually passed in 1887. It was ten years after one of the most contested elections in American history in 1876 in which the person with less votes in the popular vote actually got to be President of the United States Rutherford B. Hayes beating Samuel Tilton. And the Electoral Account Act is a mess and kind of, I keep saying the Chekhov`s gun of this tragedy which John Eastman centered on.
I mean, the famous Eastman memo is him basically saying, here`s how we could use the gaps in this law and its tension with the 12th amendment to get our guy in. How important is it to change that?
HASEN: Well, I think it`s essential. And I`m hoping that after the January 6th Commission goes through and sees exactly what happened the last time around, that they`re going to propose some changes this time around. But you have to understand that John Eastman`s strategy, at one point, he declares that the electoral count is unconstitutional and the 12th Amendment just allows the Vice President to do whatever he wants.
So, again, law making legal changes, it`s so important. It`s my number one priority to push this over the next few years. But legal change alone is not going to protect American democracy. We`re going to have to be ready for mass peaceful protest. We`re going to be ready to organize civil society, the kinds of things i never expected would have to talk about in the United States.
[20:30:17]
HAYES: Rick Hasen, that was sobering. Thank you very much.
HASEN: Thanks.
HAYES: This week, stakes are high for Democrats and the country as the House tries to pull off one of the most ambitious undertakings in generations. Can it be done? Everything you need to know after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: I think it`s fair to say we`re entering the most intense, high stakes period of Democratic legislating in generations. This week, the house is going to try to pull off one of the most important undertakings we`ve seen in recent memory.
Yesterday, speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi sent out a letter to her colleagues detailing the plan for this week, just this week what they`re going to try to undertake. Today, they start a debate on the $1 trillion bipartisan physical infrastructure bill.
[20:35:04]
On Thursday, the House will vote on the bill just hours before transportation funding is set to lapse on Friday. So, they`ve got a deadline for that. But adding to that, is Speaker Pelosi`s efforts to craft the President`s sweeping build back better reconciliation bill that includes widespread improvements to the social safety net as well as desperately needed climate investments.
It`s the legislative equivalent of running two marathons back to back in six hours. If anyone can do it, it is Nancy Pelosi. But can it actually be done? This evening the senate blocked a bill that would raise the debt ceiling and continue funding the government.
With every Republican voting against the measure, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer took the floor warning of the dangers of failing to pass a funding bill, calling Republicans the party of default.
Congressman John Yarmuth is a Democrat of Kentucky, chair of the House Budget Committee which passed the president`s budget priorities on Saturday. Speaker Pelosi now needs to send it to the House floor. And Congressman Yarmouth who is at the center of all this joins me now.
Let`s start -- so let`s separate these out as I keep doing when we try to make this clear for the folks watching at home. Just keeping the government funded and having the U.S. government not have its first default in history triggering an enormous crisis. Everyone on the Democratic side is on board in doing that. Every single Republican unanimously just voted to shut the government down and default on U.S. debt. What happens now?
REP. JOHN YARMUTH (D-KY): That`s a great question, Chris. Thanks for having me on. You know, my senator, Mitch McConnell, is at the -- he`s kind of the leader in this effort. And, you know, I`ve watched while he has uh traveled around the state taking credit for funds that are coming into Kentucky that he voted for that he now doesn`t want to pay for.
And then he stands up and says, you know, the facts are indisputable that we`re right. And no, I agree with Mitch on that. The facts are indisputable. He`s wrong. You know, he tries to make this case that this is all about passing the ability to incur future debts. This is all about paying for what we have already committed ourselves to.
So, he`s blatantly lying to his -- the American people. And this is kind of what -- one of the biggest problems right now is nobody pays a price for lying. Nobody is held accountable. I remember when I debated in high school. If you told the lie and you misrepresented a fact, you have -- you automatically lost the debate regardless of how compelling your presentation or argument was. And you know, unfortunately, we don`t have that in politics. But right --
HAYES: No. And, there`s no judges coming to save you, Congressman.
YARMUTH: No. We don`t but, you know, right now, we`re playing with fire. Again, as you said, nobody has ever defaulted on the national debt. The constitution actually prescribes in the 14th Amendment that you never question the debt of the United States. But the Republicans are playing games.
And here`s the other thing. They say they want Democrats to raise the debt ceiling by themselves. There`s a way to do that that`s pretty easy and that would have been tonight not filibustering the bill.
HAYES: That`s right.
YARMUTH: They could just say, OK, we`re going to let it come to a vote 50, Democrats plus one, the Vice President can raise the debt limit, and every Republican can vote to default on the debt of the United States as you -- as you mentioned. And -- but they what they`re trying to do is play games. They want us to use reconciliation because then under reconciliation, we actually have to specify an amount. And you know --
HAYES: Right.
YARMUTH: Yes. So, you know, my suggestion -- and I`ve only half-heartedly told -- suggested to Speaker Pelosi, why don`t we just say OK, we`re going to raise it to a gazillion dollars, and we`ll be finished with this charade forever.
But -- so, you know, we`re at $28, $29 trillion now, so we`ll say OK, let`s raise it to 31 trillion. So, now, in a -- in six months or so, we`re back in the same game which allows the same kind of hostage-taking and brinkmanship. It just doesn`t work that way. It`s just a silly, silly game that we`re playing but unfortunately it could have real world consequences.
HAYES: OK, quickly, final question here is about the -- about the reconciliation package. That`s going to have to get figured out one way or the other. The big question on the reconciliation package is Democrats coming to agreement. John Tester is saying this today and our own Sahil Kapur is saying that he`s potentially the most optimistic human on Capitol Hill. Our reconciliation deal is attainable by Thursday.
Here`s my question to you. The frustration has been that most of the c1aucus, the Biden folks, the House Democratic Caucus across the span mostly ideologically and almost all the Senate are all on the same page. There`s a few holdouts in Manchin and Sinema. And the frustration is they have not been offering counters so that you can negotiate. Has that progressed such that you now know what objections are so you can work towards a deal?
[20:40:17]
YARMUTH: The best I can tell, no, it hasn`t. And it`s really unfortunate. It`s like you have a couple of musicians in the orchestra who want to play but they don`t know what piece the orchestra is playing. So, they`re on their own and they don`t understand the overall objective. And it`s really sad because it sounds to me like what they`re engaged in both Senator Manchin and Senator Sinema, is brand management. They`re only concerned about their own brand. They`re not thinking about the objective of not just the Democratic Party but what`s a good policy for the country.
And I have not heard one word yet from either Senator Sinema or Senator Manchin about why any of the things that is -- that are proposed in the Build Back Better Act are bad for the country. I`ve not heard one word. Not any of them have said that. And they`re playing with numbers. The numbers don`t matter. You know, the question is what does the country need us to do.
HAYES: Yes.
YARMUTH: And I think this this package is something that demonstrably is something that the American people need and that is something that`s perfectly appropriate for the federal government to try to provide for them.
HAYES: Congressman John Yarmuth on that budget committee in the House, thank you very much.
YARMUTH: Thanks, Chris.
HAYES: Next, from the tiki torches in Charlottesville, to Fox News, to Congressman Matt Gaetz, and beyond. The Republican embrace of the so-called Replacement Theory after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:45:00]
HAYES: Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz appears to be trying to brush away his looming legal troubles by ostentatiously performing the kind of racism that has become so core to so much the modern Republican base. This weekend, he blasted the Anti-Defamation League whose mission statement is literally, "To stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all."
Gates called the ADL "a racist organization" because they were critical of Tucker Carlson`s racist replacement theory drivel that we talked about on Friday night. "Tucker Carlson is, all caps, correct." The so-called replacement theory claims that Democrats are bringing people -- bringing people from foreign countries to replace the legacy Americans as Carlson referred to them.
You may remember hearing about this theory when it was shouted by frothing white supremacists protesting the removal of a Confederate statue in Charlottesville in 2017.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CROWD: Jews will not replace us. Jews will not replace us. Jews will not replace us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: That`s what replacement theory sounds like when it`s being communicated honestly. Just to remind and again how stupid the whole idea is, we have to remind you that again, no one`s getting replaced. We don`t kick people out when we let in new people. The fundamental title of the whole shtick is wrong. Everything else about it is wrong too.
You know replacement theory sort of thing that was like, I guess, buzzy in view on white supremacist Web sites, you know, in the last decade. It`s now increasingly at the center of Republican Party ideology.
This morning, Congressman Gaetz tried to walk back his racist replacement theory tweets by writing, "The left media think on replacement solely race ethnicity terms. I don`t at all." Of course, that`s ridiculous because as the Washington Post Phillip Bump points out, Gaetz was defending a segment where Tucker Carlson literally claimed and listen closely, President Biden was trying to import non-white DNA which again isn`t a thing. There`s no racial DNA.
Bump argues I think rightly that a lot of this is a very old trick used by demagogues and racists to cover up their corruption or misdeeds. And Matt Gaetz who is again under federal investigation over possible sex trafficking of a minor, a charge he denies, is probably engaging in that here. And again, while it`s clear, some Republicans use racism for the purposes of distraction. Let`s just keep in mind that many of the party are also doing it behind the scenes.
This man has been nominated for an important role in the Biden administration. He`s got a great record, more than qualified. Republicans are blocking him and you`ll never guess why. That`s next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:50:00]
HAYES: This is Dilawar Syed. He`s a Pakistani-born American, former CEO and president of Healthcare Analytics Company, Joe Biden`s choice for Deputy Administrator for the Small Business Administration. If confirmed, he would become the highest ranking Muslim administration official in U.S. history.
The White House sent Syed`s nomination to the Senate`s Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee in March. Republicans led by Missouri Senator Josh Hawley have been holding up his nomination ever since, citing all kinds of changing reasons.
First, they complained about loans that one of Syed`s companies had accepted from the SBA. Once it became clear he had paid the loan back before being nominated, Republicans found other problems. This time, according to the Washington Post, they sent a letter that implicitly accused him of being anti-Jewish and anti-Israel. That accusation was strongly rejected by a broad coalition of groups including Jewish organizations.
And just last week, Republicans found another problem with Syed`s nomination, one that had nothing to do with Syed at all. They`re now refusing to vote on the nomination until SBA sorts out the paycheck protection loans that were given to Planned Parenthood entities under the Trump administration.
There`s a very real racial animus and fear of a multicultural American future that has become central to the Republican Party. And sometimes it`s not just performative, it`s operationalized beneath the rhetoric.
Michelle Goldberg is an op-ed columnist for the New York Times. Linda Chavez a former Republican who is the former head of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights under President Reagan. And they both join me now.
Linda, you know, we`ve watched Josh Hawley performatively block this nomination for this cycling reason -- I mean, it`s very clear there`s no good faith here. And you know, this is -- people are not paying a lot of attention to this, but they are doing this. Like, it seems to me that whether it`s performative or not, this just probably is what it looks like.
LINDA CHAVEZ, FORMER HEAD, U.S. COMMISSION ON CIVIL RIGHTS: Well, first of all, I don`t know whether or not Mr. Syed is a good nominee or not but he certainly should not be blocked on the -- on the basis of his religion. And it has become increasingly clear that the Republican Party has gotten into some very, very nasty identity politics.
And you know, you talked about Representative Gaetz earlier. And frankly, you know, this is so early 20th century. It sounds like Madison Grant and the passing of the great race. Republicans want to be the party of white America. Well, if they decide to go that route, they`re not likely to gain national office again anytime soon.
HAYES: Yes, you make a good point that like, race suicide as a concept is not a particularly like new one or fashionable one. It`s a very old one, very popular among the worst fascists in the last hundred years. And Michelle, it really is -- I mean, again I keep not wanting to be shocked or like call in the referees because there are no referees. This is just what a certain portion of the right believes.
But it continues to be shocking that the kind of rhetoric that you find in the manifesto of the guy who murdered those folks in El Paso, you know, that the invasion by immigrants in the United States and citing the French book by Renault Camus, the great replacement, which composed to the conspiracy theory, the White race was being replaced by non-white or non- European people.
The kind of -- that kind of thing posted by that shooter, that is now like on people`s TVs every night as canon for conservatives.
[20:55:34]
MICHELLE GOLDBERG, COLUMNIST, NEW YORK TIMES: Well, yes. I mean, not only are you hearing that over and over from Tucker Carlson who previously took a lot of umbrage at the idea that anybody would accuse him of promoting kind of replacement theory and now promotes it openly.
And so, you can almost see in real time how the goalposts are moving or how quickly the party is dropping whatever veil still existed post-Trump. But also, it pervades the Republican Party, right? We`re not just talking about Matt Gaetz who is you know kind of a clown. We`re not just talking about Paul Gosar and Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Elise Stefanik who`s as close to a centrist as you`re going to get in this Republican Congress was running Facebook ads the other week with language that`s smacked of replacement theory and was called out by her hometown newspaper for it. So, this is the operative ideology of the Republican Party.
And they might not be -- they wouldn`t be able to win an election based on the popular vote, but the reason that they are so hell-bent on curtailing voting rights is precisely because they don`t think that the emerging electorate is valid.
HAYES: And here`s the crazy part of this. I keep making this point, Linda, is that one of the most fascinating things that happened in 2020 was at a certain point, Donald Trump pivoted away from his immigration rhetoric in the campaign. He didn`t talk about it in the same way and some -- in some ways that invective role was played the role of Black Lives Matter and Antifa, right? That`s -- that became the kind of other enemy.
He runs a bunch of Spanish language ads in South Florida and has a citizenship swearing-in ceremony in the White House and actually does better in 2020 in the Rio Grande Valley and in South Florida and among certain immigrant communities and African American communities he did in 2016, and no one in the Republican Party wants to take the lesson apparently. Like, there`s actually gettable votes there if you don`t run around saying these people are going to kill off the white race.
CHAVEZ: That`s exactly right. And in fact, I`ve been writing about this now going back to my first book in 1991. Republicans have actually since the 1970s done reasonably well among Hispanic voters, anywhere from a third of the vote till almost a half the vote depending on who the president -- presidential nominee was.
This is a really suicidal mission but it`s more than that. This should not be about politics. America is an immigrant country. That is one of the things that differentiates us in the world. It is one of the things that i think makes America great.
And it`s not just me. Ronald Reagan gave a speech at the Statue of Liberty in which he talked about making America great again, and what he was talking about was immigrants making America great again. That Republican Party is dead i guess.
HAYES: Well, this to me -- I mean, to me the central issue here, Michelle, is this question about like what is the nation. And you know, both parties bought in at least in rhetoric to Reagan`s point about like we`re a creedal nation where people of all different kinds of people come together to be Americans.
And then there`s people who are like no, it`s a White man`s nation. And that used to be not something you could rhetorically enunciate, you know, in the last several decades but is now frankly a thing that is being enunciated by Republican politicians.
GOLDBERG: Yes. I don`t think that -- I think there`s very few people in the Republican Party today who believe that this is a creedal nation, right? You hear blood and soil rhetoric constantly from the Republican Party. And it`s interesting -- you know, as you said, there`s a lot of culturally conservative immigrants. The last election should have put to bed the notion that mass immigration is going to ensure a permanent Democratic majority. And so, in some ways it`s not even about politics. It really is about an attachment to a certain kind of make -- racial makeup in this country.
HAYES: Yes, I think that`s a key point is that there`s a certain amount of instrumentalism here but there`s also just deeply held horrible racist beliefs that people have. And there`s like some pandering that`s happening, but it`s also like people have terrible views, and that`s a huge part of what`s driving this. Michelle Goldberg and Linda Chavez, thank you both.
CHAVEZ: Thank you.
HAYES: That is ALL IN for this Monday night. "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.
The Speaker of the House of Representatives is of course Nancy Pelosi. She has been speaker this time around since January of 2019, but this is not her first rodeo. This is her second turn in the speaker`s job.