Summary
Michael Flynn met with President Trump in the White House to discuss his idea of imposing martial law and deploying military in the swing states to rerun the election. Right-wing media walk back election conspiracies after a lawsuit threat from Smartmatic. England is dealing with a rapid spread of a new strain of coronavirus. The House is voting on a new COVID relief bill.
Transcript
JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: You're not going to want to miss Wednesday's show. We've got something very special for you. We're just going to call it an early Christmas present. I can't give too much away but it involves the amazing Leslie Jones, empress of Twitter, and a certain Christmas classic updated by yours truly. Be sure to tune in this Wednesday.
And that is tonight's REIDOUT. "ALL WITH CHRIS HAYES" starts now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST (voice over): Tonight on ALL IN. MAGA world floats insurrection inside the Oval Office.
MICHAEL FLYNN, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: Within the swing states, if he wanted to, he could take military capabilities and you can place them in those states and basically rerun an election in each of those states.
HAYES: Tonight, Trump's obsession with overturning the election, the people helping him plot, and the distress signals from inside the White House. Then --
LOU DOBBS, HOST, FOX BUSINESS NETWORK: One of the companies is Smartmatic.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Smartmatic.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Smartmatic.
HAYES: The lies about voter fraud that left certain right wing media in serious legal jeopardy. Plus, as Biden gets the vaccine, new concerns about a U.K. super spreader strain.
BORIS JOHNSON, PRIME MINISTER, UNITED KINGDOM: It may be up to 70 percent more transmissible than the old --
HAYES: And at long last, a deal on Capitol Hill. What we know about what's in the $900 billion of COVID relief.
SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): Today is a good day. But it's certainly not the end of the story. It cannot be the end of the story.
HAYES: When ALL IN starts right now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES (on camera): Good evening from New York. I'm Chris Hayes. Well, there was a sedition summit in the White House this weekend. It may sound extreme, but that's what appears to have happened. And it's kind of weird it's not a bigger story. I mean, we have seen the president try through political pressure and of course the courts to, you know, overturn the election to undo American democracy and to install himself in the White House for another term against the will of the people.
Now, none of those efforts have worked. In fact, they've been so cartoonishly flailing that one of Trump's most unwavering supporters, Attorney Lin Wood just filed a suit in which he asserted he was telling the truth, "under plenty of perjury." That's supposed to be penalty of perjury. But Lin Wood isn't exactly known for getting things right. The work of wood and others is all in pursuit of the only project that Donald Trump seems genuinely committed to at the moment.
Instead of attending to -- attending to the once in a century humanitarian crisis that's killing roughly 3,000 Americans a day, or playing a central role in negotiating the COVID relief package, or really engaging in any way with the job being president, Trump is mostly just holed up bitter and raging and watching extremist fringe programming on his TV. As we've known for a long time, that is where he gets most of his ideas for what to do next.
And while we don't know if Trump was watching live when his disgraced and pardoned former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn went on Newsmax last Thursday, it certainly appears that Trump heard what he was saying.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FLYNN: Within the swing states, if he wanted to, he can take military capabilities, and he can place them in those states and basically rerun an election in each of those states. I mean, it's not unprecedented. I mean, there's people out there talking about martial law as like it's something that we've never done. We've done -- the martial law has been instituted 64 times, Greg.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Yes. Just send the military into the swing states and make everyone revolt at the point of a gun. Definitely what the Founders had in mind. Now, one day after that appearance, that guy, Michael Flynn, who is going on TV and openly toying with the idea of Trump invoking martial law in order to retain power and end the American experiment, that guy was meeting in the White House with the President himself to discuss his idea.
OK, this is not him just like out there saying stuff. He's in the White House with the President. Also at that meeting, as in New York Times first reported, was attorney Sidney Powell, who has been spreading wild conspiracy theories about rigged voting machines. Trump reportedly discussed naming Sidney Powell as special counsel -- like an official, I guess, Department of Justice counsel, overseeing an investigation to voter fraud.
What would that look like? Well, at the meeting, our participants reportedly discussed commandeering voting machines from the states with Powell as special counsel to inspect the machines according to Axios.
Now keep in mind, Sidney Powell is someone so extreme, and whose performance has been so bizarre and error-ridden that Trump's own legal team publicly disavowed her. She supported QAnon conspiracies, claimed the CIA helped steal the election, called for military tribunals, and said Republican officials who don't support Trump's delusion will go to jail.
Again, in the White House with the president just chewing the fact, brainstorming, figuring out what to do next. Now, apparently, there was some pushback in the meeting as we will discuss shortly. But think about this. You have the President of United States considering apparently declaring martial law and announcing new elections and or seizing the nation's voting machines so that Sidney Powell could use them to push her lies.
And again, it's all so ridiculous, right? But it's not idle talk here. Axios reported Rudy Giuliani called up Ken Cuccinelli, second in command of the Department of Homeland Security on Thursday night and ask him whether DHS could seize voting machines. Maggie Haberman reported this afternoon, guess what? Guess who's back? Sidney Powell was back to the White House again today for the third time in four days. What do you think they're doing in there, guys? What do you think they're talking about? What do you think the President is contemplating? What are they drawing up in there?
What Trump is apparently contemplating here so extreme and offensive that even some of his most stalwart, yes men are having to ever so gently tell the president he's lost his mind. Even Attorney General William Barr who has completely debased himself on Trump's behalf, Barr is saying, no, there is no basis for seizing voting machines or appointing a special counsel to investigate non-existent election fraud.
So, that's where things are. Too much for Bill Barr to carry water for. And it is true that we've gotten five-plus years of headlines about how (INAUDIBLE) Donald Trump is, and how the people around him are concerned. But two people who have covered him for the duration of that time, more or less, report that things have actually, in the minds of people around him, reached a whole new level.
In a piece about how officials have become increasingly alarmed about Trump's power grab, Jonathan Swan quotes a senior administration official saying, "People who are concerned and nervous aren't the weak-kneed bureaucrats that we loathe. These are people who have endured arguably more insanity and mayhem than any administration officials in history." Maggie Haberman adding, "Sources who have gotten used to Trump's eruptions over four years sound scared by what's transpired in the past week when I've talked to them."
I want to give you a sense of the dynamic at play here within the White House. We start tonight with New York Times Homeland Security Correspondent Zolan Casino-Youngs -- Kanno-Youngs who first broke the story of that Friday night meeting at the White House along with his colleague Maggie Haberman.
Zolan, just tell us, how long was this meeting? Who was there? And what was the dynamic of this meeting?
ZOLAN KANNO-YOUNGS, HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Right. So, the meeting took place on Friday night. There's three main takeaways that came out of our reporting on this meeting, as well as a separate push on the same week involving some of the same people. So, the first thing that you touched on in your intro, the president considering making Sidney Powell a sort of White House Special Counsel, a lawyer from within the White House who would be investigating what she, as well as other people in the Trump campaign, have deemed -- have described as widespread voter fraud.
It's important to point out here again, Chris, that that is something that has been tossed out from the courts already, and to this point, that those are baseless claims. That was the first takeaway, to make her a sort of lawyer from what from working within the White House that would investigate this. And you saw pushback on that. And we'll get back to that.
The second takeaway is the fact that her client as well, Michael Flynn, the former National Security Adviser that was recently pardoned by the President was also present at that meeting as well. And as you touched on, Michael Flynn also recently went on to Newsmax and indicated that the president should use the military, invoke martial law to "rerun the election." And we do know, based off of our reporting, that the President did ask about that in the meeting as well.
And then the third is also a separate push. Now, Rudy Giuliani as well, earlier in the week, separately, also placed a call to Ken Cuccinelli, the Acting Deputy Secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, the second-highest ranked person at the department, and put in the request to have DHS assert control of voting machines for the purpose of trying to find some sort of evidence of some of this voter fraud.
Now, it's important to say here, there was pushback. You touched on that. In terms of Sidney Powell and appointing her this council to investigate fraud, you saw pushback from almost everybody else in the room. I mean, really specifically the White House people, as well as Mark Meadows chief of staff. And when it came to Rudy Giuliani separate push, you saw as well, Ken Cuccinelli denying that request and saying that DHS's cyber arm just does not have the legal authority to do that.
HAYES: So, here's my -- I've read your reporting and some others' reporting on this meeting. And the basic dynamic, as far as I can tell basically is you've got these people that are working on the President's behalf in the courts and trying to overturn the election, right? So, Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani.
And my understanding is -- what it seemed like this meeting was them coming in the White House and saying, we don't have the support of the state. The American government, which is run by the president isn't helping us in this. How do we -- basically, how do we use the government to help us pursue this agenda? And a bunch of people, Meadows and Cipollone, essentially a barred -- now, you know, today, basically, he was a meeting, but really not wanting that line to be crossed as I understand it. Is that a fair characterization of the dynamic?
KANNO-YOUNGS: You have Sidney Powell calling people in that room that refuse to use the resources of the federal government for the efforts of the campaign to overturn the results of the election, she was calling them quitters, quote, unquote, quitters at that point.
And yes, right, you hit on it. There are those career -- you do have people that are within the federal government, including the Attorney General, who just today at a press conference, an unrelated press conference said that he had no intention in appointing a special counsel to investigate so-called widespread fraud or Hunter Biden, which has been another wish of those individuals.
HAYES: Yes. This -- so, there's a guy -- there's a guy who's a former CEO of Overstock.com named Patrick Byrne who claims he was in the room at this meeting as well. I don't know if that's been confirmed by other independent reporting. But I think the tenor -- and we know that he's kind of become a very big MAGA diehard. The tenor of what he's saying, which is, I think, partly what you're getting from Sidney Powell is my involvement is I was in the room when it happened. They raise voices including my own. I can promise you, President Trump is being terribly served by his advisors. They want him to lose and are lying to him. He is surrounded by mendacious mediocrities.
It does seem like there's a dynamic here with the Sidney P0wells of the world are telling the president that the Mark Meadows or the William Barrs are undercutting him and he needs to be more forceful.
KANNO-YOUNGS: And so that note also, it seems like -- well, not just seems, the reporting shows that this push by Sidney Powell and some of what was said in that meeting cause concern for even those who have been the most staunch supporters of the President.
Now, that being said, while Mark Meadows did push back in that meeting, we did have another meeting today. Sidney Powell has continued to go to the White House. As you noted, my colleague Maggie Haberman reported that today. We also had a group of Republican congressmen go to the White House today. And Mark Meadows tweeted that out and touted that as well.
So, even those who pushed back a couple of days ago, you're still seeing that there are individuals from within the federal government that are going to continue to advocate for this push that there was widespread fraud in the election.
HAYES: Zolan Kanno-Youngs who did that great reporting this weekend on that piece, thank you so much for sharing that with us tonight. I really appreciate it.
KANNO-YOUNGS: Thank you.
HAYES: Now, for some perspective on what exactly is happening, I want to turn to a retired U.S. Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to the Secretary of State Colin Powell. At one level, Colonel, again, this is -- in a story similar to many stories we've heard where the President has a crazy idea and people are trying to walk him away from it, in this case, though, it's hard to get your head around just how wildly dangerous and offensive it is it. What is your reaction to what you have heard about this meeting and what the President's currently attempting to consider?
LAWRENCE WILKERSON, FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF TO SECRETARY OF STATE COLIN POWELL: My first reaction, of course, is don't take counsel of your fears. We've just gone through one of the most incredible election sequences in our nation's history, certainly since World War II. More people voted by more methodologies in a pandemic environment, etcetera, etcetera. And I have to commend all those people out there in every state that worked so hard to deliver a free and fair election.
At the same time, I say that I have to say my fears are somewhat significant with a former lieutenant general in the United States Army saying what Flynn said with regard to martial law and going to the battleground states and essentially re-conducting the elections. Well, if was the Secretary of Defense, I'd call him back to active duty which is in the prerogative of the Secretary of Defense, and I'd Court Marshall him. At a minimum, I citing for incitement to insurrection.
This is not something that a military officer should do. You serve until you're roughly 85-years-old. It's half pay. It's not necessarily retired pay. You can be called back at any time. I got my letter from Secretary Rumsfeld when I was Chief of Staff to the Secretary Powell. I was called back to active duty. I was judged (AUDIO GAP) and didn't have to do it. But that's the power of the military over this general. And he needs to be rebuked. He needs to be reprimanded and it needs to be done so officially, and that would be the best way to do it.
These other people like Bannon and Powell and so forth, they're sycophants who are seeking whatever they can gain from the magical aura of this man before he dissipates. And it frightens me as to the things that they could do if the 25th amendment or something like it is not implemented, and we don't remove him from office.
There's a lot of time left. When we worked on this at the Transition Integrity Project, we saw Trump do some pretty desperate things. One of the things that we saw him do that I'm not waiting eagerly to see if people fills it, is he did everything he could possibly do, the team playing, his team, to ruin Biden's first year in office. Everything from not allowing him to get cabinet officers confirm because he had such a control that we've seen demonstrated over the Senate of the United States, to not allowing good transitions to take place.
I understand from inside sources that those transitions are, for the most part, taking place but they're taking place in some instances grudgingly. And that's not the way transition should occur.
HAYES: Yes. Your point about General Flynn, just to circle back to that for a moment, I find the general's trajectory here really -- just really unnerving. I mean, this is someone who is, you know, celebrated, had a fairly sterling record. You know, people thought he was an incredible intelligence officer, and he was the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency before he was essentially fired.
And to watch someone who served and had this reputation and is known by a lot of people that work with him, go on the direction he has where he was essentially an unpaid foreign agent of a foreign government, the Turkish government, which he did not disclose, and now, you know, ideally talking about martial law is it's a very unnerving trajectory.
WILKERSON: It is. And in my view, he's a disgrace to his uniform. And he's one of those examples, and I knew several of them when I was in the military some 30 years plus, he's one of those examples of person who gets squirreled away in a special community, in this case, special ops and also intelligence. And he grows up to flag rank, and no one really applies any adult supervision. And I include in that General McChrystal in Afghanistan, when he worked for General McChrystal.
I blame General McChrystal for putting him in the position that he's in right now to a certain extent. But these people come along, and they get to the position where they really have some authority. In this case, much beyond the three stars, National Security Advisor, and they then show their true colors. And I think that's what Flynn is doing. Otherwise, I've got it pronounced him psychotic or worse.
HAYES: You seem unnerved but also somewhat confident about the situation we're in which I think tracks where I am. I mean, again, there is a dwindling amount of power that the President has. There's a kind of whiff of desperation. He's going to sort of more and more bizarre crank-ish kind of voices. And yet, you know, the authority, the government still rests in the man's hands for 30 days and we've been anticipating break class moments.
We don't -- I don't think we've quite gotten one yet. But are you confident, basically, based on the reporting and also on what you know about the institutions, particularly the Department of Defense that like, he will not be allowed to do anything like he is contemplating.
WILKERSON: There'll be nothing with the military. In my very strong view, the military will not do anything untoward, no matter what orders come from him. And indeed, if the orders were truly on board, the 25th amendment might be implemented. I don't see how people could stop them doing that.
What worries me, Chris, right now, is the opportunistic advantage that's out there. Right now, for a very hard press by COVID-19, North Korea, for example, Kim Jong-un, for a very -- a very pressured China with regard to what Taipei is doing and Taiwan in general, and in the situation with Iran where we have them just waiting. These are the kinds of things that like Trump could leave as a blow to the country, and it would wind up being a significant blow to the country into the new administration.
HAYES: Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, always great to get your insight and experience share with us. Thank you very much.
WILKERSON: Thank you for having me.
HAYES: Still to -- still to come, a rare walk-back from right-wing media outlets about one of their favorite election fraud conspiracy theories, the potential lawsuit that has them worry. After this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: So, ever since the election, there have been all kinds of outlandish, untrue claims being put forth on various right-wing media outlets trying to bolster the President's claim that somehow the election was stolen from him. And one of those conspiracy theories involves a voting technology company called Smartmatic.
Now, Smartmatic happens to have been founded by a Venezuelan entrepreneurs in Boca Raton, Florida. It had nothing to do with any voting systems in swing states, OK, so it wasn't even present in them. In fact, it's only involved in 2020 was in Los Angeles County where it didn't even count tabulator store votes according to the company's Web site. But those facts didn't stop this kind of nonsense from making air.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: One source says that the key point to understand is that this Smartmatic system has a backdoor that allows it to be -- that allows the votes to be mirrored and monitored.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Smartmatic is the multinational corporation that makes vote-counting machines as well as software and is purportedly tied to the late Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez's regime.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have to look at the Dominion and Smartmatic issues as almost a national crisis. We have evidence that is both suggestive and something that is indisputable, affidavits that have been signed as it relates to the technology and its vulnerability, all sorts of enormously troubling international ties.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Now, none of that seems to have any basis in fact whatsoever. And the New York Times media columnist Ben Smith reports that the CEO of Smartmatic has had just about enough. Last week, his lawyer sent scathing letters to Fox News Channel, Newsmax and OAN demanding they immediately forcefully clear his company's name and that they retain documents for a planned defamation lawsuit.
And Ben Smith joins me now. Ben, it's great -- a great column and a fascinating look at this individual. Basically, what is his perspective? This guy started this election software company that was -- no one was saying -- talking about at all. And he has watched now for six weeks the name of the company be really dragged in the mud day after day, until he decided to send these letters. What does that experience been like for him?
BEN SMITH, MEDIA COLUMNIST, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Yes. I mean, he was sitting in London, because their operations, you know, they're in Latin America, and Brazil, and Belgium and all over Europe, have some contracts in Africa. And he's just sitting there in London, and watching some of this stuff pop up on Twitter, not worrying too much.
And then Rudy Giuliani goes and sort of says that he and Dominion, which was sort of a competitor, but they mostly work in the U.S. and he doesn't are, you know, are part of this big conspiracy. And his phone starts ringing off the hook because his clients in Africa and in Europe are worried that local political parties are going to say, how could you, you know, bring in these criminals who are going to steal an election?
Like it's -- I mean, I think you know, when you talk about defamation, one of the issues often is well, are there really damages? Are you really inflicting harm on a business? And that's what part of what makes this such a dangerous case for these companies. It's just so clear that they're like attacking this business at the core of its sales pitch with its clients.
HAYES: Yes. And you compared it to the pink slime lawsuit which is $150 million-plus in damages. You call it the red slime lawsuit and says there are legal threats any company even giant like Fox News, Fox Corporation would take seriously, and they could be fatal to the dream of the new Trump TV, a giant new media company in the president's image.
And that's because, again, I think you and I take an expansive view of the First Amendment, right? Like we, you know, we think it's good that we have strong sort of -- we don't have the regime that say in the U.K. But when you are saying untrue things day after day hammering a single entity, you're getting pretty close to like what the textbook of it -- of defamation looks like.
SMITH: Yes. I mean, it's -- right, if you figure these defamation laws were written for a purpose, you know, that's what lawyers I talked to said is this is pretty much what these laws were written for. And I think, you know, the thing with defamation is that often these cases are knocked out by judges at various stages, and the nightmare is you get to a jury for these companies.
That's why, I mean, ABC News settled this suit in which it used the term pink slime to describe some beef products. And it was sued under South Dakota as, by the way, ludicrous food defamation laws. And the lawyer who brought that case is the lawyer who Smartmatic hired.
HAYES: So, I wanted -- so, here's the fascinating twist here. So, all these -- this strongly worded letter goes out basically saying, you're defaming our company. It's baseless and untrue. You need to make this right. And so, we have watched this just -- I've never quite seen anything like it. And I am someone who has done thousands of hours of television and occasionally we have made mistakes and we have corrected them because it's important to us to get it right. I've never seen anything like this.
I want to play a little snippet of something that ran on Lou Dobbs' show attempting to sort of clear the record. So, here's an example of what this looks like. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DOBBS: There are lots of opinions about the integrity of the election, the irregularities of mail-in voting of election voting machines and voting software. One of the companies is Smartmatic. And we reached out to one of the leading authorities on Open Source software for elections, Eddie Perez, for his insight and views.
Eddie is the global director of tech development at the Open Source Election Technology Institute. We asked him for his assessment of Smartmatic and recent claims about the company.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Have you seen any evidence that Smartmatic software was used to flip votes anywhere in the U.S. in this election?
EDDIE PEREZ, GLOBAL DIRECTOR OF TECH DEVELOPMENT, OPEN SOURCE ELECTION TECHNOLOGY INSTITUTE: I have not seen any evidence that Smartmatic software was used to delete, change, alter anything related to vote tabulation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: So, this segment goes on like this with this off-screen voice asking these very specifically worded questions for like six or seven minutes. There have now been versions somewhat not quite as bizarre formally as that. But on Newsmax, Chris Ruddy tonight saying they're running this three-minute script on every Newsmax show.
This seems to have worked. I guess the question is, what does it mean for Smartmatic whether you can like put this back in the bag?
SMITH: I mean, they're trying to do damage control here. And in the -- in a lot of this stuff, the law isn't particularly settled. There's not really clear law on what happens if an on-air guest goes and defame somebody and you invite them back, you know, and you invite them back again, and again. That's what a lot of these allegations are. Like, is that on you or not? I think that's something for the courts.
But there is a rule that you can -- you can express false and defamatory opinions as long as you have laid out the facts upon which those opinions are based, and people can draw their own conclusions and disagree with the facts. And so, I think what they're trying to do is sort of hastily jam a bunch of facts out there so they can say, see, we gave everybody all the facts. We just had different opinions.
HAYES: Yes. It is -- I've never seen -- I have to say, I've just never seen anything quite like what is being done right now.
SMITH: Oh, yes.
HAYES: A great column as always, Mr. Ben Smith. Thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it.
SMITH: Thank you, Chris.
HAYES: All right, next, alarming reports out of the U.K. The Coronavirus is mutating. I don't like the sound of that. And I'll talk to Laurie Garrett about what that means and just how worried we should be right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: President-Elect Joe Biden got his first dose of the Pfizer Coronavirus vaccine today live on television. Here in New York, healthcare workers started getting the second approved vaccine. That's the one from Moderna. And there's a lot of optimism in the air around the vaccines as we got two now circulating.
It was tempered, I got to say, for me by news out of England were an apparently highly contagious new strain of the virus helped nearly double the rate of infections there in the past couple of weeks. The question now, so how worried should we be about this new strain? And also, the vaccine still going to protect us from that, right?
There's perhaps no one I'd rather talk to right now to help answer some of those questions than Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer Laurie Garrett, columnist at Foreign Policy Magazine and author of The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance. All right, Laurie, let's start with the mutation that is in the U.K. Is it real? And do we know that it is contributing to a much higher rate of transmission?
LAURIE GARRETT, COLUMNIST, FOREIGN POLICY MAGAZINE: So, Chris, I have to give you a very bad news. This is the fourth mutation event that is significant, apparently, in the transmission of the virus. The first big mutational event occurred after the virus jumped to Italy sometime in February or March. And it was that very transmissible strain that made its way to New York and the East Coast of the United States.
The second mutational event occurred this summer when the virus somehow got into mink in mink farms. This is the animal that makes fur coats in Denmark and elsewhere, and now also in mink populations in North America. And that strain can spread to people from minks. It's not clear whether it goes from people to minks, but presumably that's how it originally got in the mink population.
The third one appeared in October in South Africa. And it is a significant change. It seems to make the virus more transmissible and there are some indications from the South African Ministry of Health just today that it may also be more virulent in young adults. It's spreading faster in younger adults and it seems to cause more severe disease in younger adults.
And then we have the British one, which was first noticed apparently in September. It has really swept the U.K. over the last three weeks. It now accounts for about 40 percent roughly of new cases in the U.K. and seems to be about 71 percent more transmissible from person to person compared to the routine strains of COVID 19, or SARS CoV 2. So, yes, there's a lot to think about here.
Are we looking at something that's more dangerous? If these estimates of its rate of reproduction hold up, and it's now several different laboratories and research organizations confirming what the British originally said that their strain is reproducing much faster log scale faster than the routine spread COVID strains. If that holds up, then we may or may not be looking at a more virulent strain, but we're certainly looking at a faster spreading strain.
One set of studies seem to indicate that once people are infected, their bodies actually start producing far more virus, at least a log scale more virus and so there's shedding more virus. They're more likely to be infectious to people around them.
HAYES: So, this is just a graphic that sort of gives you a sense of how this has happened in the U.K. This chart shows sort of how overtime this strain has become more and more dominant. You see that -- the prevalence of that, that orange variant growing over time. So, then the big question becomes the vaccine right.
So, my understanding from the reporting I've done over these last few months and talking to virologists, right, is that this Coronavirus is relative to say flu is fairly stable. And that has been useful in in sort of designing the vaccine. We've already started to see mutations. What do we think that pretends for the vaccine?
GARRETT: Right now, the general statement that's being made by all parties associated with health departments and so on is looks like the vaccine will be fine, and this is going to work out just fine. But we don't actually have data one way or the other to answer that question.
It is interesting that the U.K. studies on using the routine nucleic acid test that a lot of places are using to see whether or not you're infected, are missing this new virus if they are tests that target the so-called S protein, which is the spike that you see sticking up out of all the little ball, this the sort of ball-shaped virus with these little spikes sticking out. And that S protein is the key mutational event that seems to make this more transmissible because that protein is what logs on to a human cell and then opens a door and then the virus goes into your cell.
Well, it's also what your antibodies recognize. And, you know, there -- it does appear that at least those kind of PCR tests that specifically target that finding that S protein are missing a lot of the English infections. And they are advising that you use a broader PCR analysis that looks for more elements of the virus. And that, you know, that's a little disturbing.
HAYES: Yes. It's not the greatest news. My sense is that the way that this works is this probably already making its way over here, and we're going to have to sort of be dealing with this here as well. Laurie Garrett, as always, thank you so much for sharing that. I appreciate it.
GARRETT: Thank you, Chris.
HAYES: Still to come, after months of waiting, we finally have a new Coronavirus relief package. The House is literally voting on it right now as I'm speaking to you. Does it go far enough? What is in the bill and what is missing? Just ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: Finally, after months and months of negotiations and false starts, there is a new code relief package being voted on the house right now expected to be passed by both houses and signed. And there's a lot of stuff in the bill, a lot of stuff that didn't make it. We're going to talk about all that in a few moments.
But before we do, you know, the wrangling over this bill has become a kind of stand in for Washington dysfunction and the idea of Congress in a generalized way being a bunch of clowns who can't get their act together. And there's something to that for sure. But we should just remember, it was clear months and months ago, almost as soon as the Cares Act was passed in March that more fiscal relief would be needed. And Republicans were almost immediately shooting that idea down.
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REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): We have just passed three bills, the largest ever made in American history, more than $2 trillion. I think our focus should be implementing those and making sure they're working.
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HAYES: In fact, Republicans were predicting the economy was already healed even before a lot of money from that relief package had even made it into Americans hands.
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JARED KUSHNER, SENIOR ADVISOR TO PRESIDENT TRUMP: I think what you'll see in May as the states are reopening now is May will be a transition month. You'll see a lot of states starting to phase in the different reopening based on the safety guidelines that President Trump outlined on May -- on April 19.
And I think you'll see by June, a lot of the country should be back to normal. And the hope is that by July, the country is really rocking again.
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HAYES: We're going to be rocking. All right, so the idea was, look, we passed this big Cares Act. Now, we're reopening. The economy can do it by itself. We don't need anything. But Democrats in the House passed a bill in May because they thought that wasn't true. And so, they passed the so-called Heroes Act. It was an enormous rescue package, $3.4 trillion package. It included helpful local governments, more safety net spending, a range of other provisions, including the extension of unemployment insurance.
Democrats argued then and continue to argue that more relief would obviously be necessary because the virus was not going anywhere. Instead, a run of better than expected jobs numbers this summer gave Republicans an excuse to say no, the economy is doing great, so any stimulus needs to be pretty small.
A spokesperson for Chuck Grassley told Politico in July, after another a rise in payrolls, the jobs report underscores why Congress should take a thoughtful approach and not rush to pass expensive legislation paid for with more debt before getting a better understanding of the economic condition of the country.
The White House unsurprisingly claimed those job numbers were showing the economy was zooming upwards.
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We saved millions of lives. And now, we're opening and we're opening with a bang. And we've been talking about the V. This is better than a V. This is a rocket ship. This is far better than a V.
LARRY KUDLOW, DIRECTOR, UNITED STATES NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL: Green shoots popping up everywhere. Stocks are soaring. POTUS policies are working. Stay with the winners, Trump and Pence, and me. The best is yet to come.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: So, you got that. All these rosy scenario about just, you know, everything's going to be back to normal, everything is great. And then you also got the constant concern trolling from Republicans about deficits and the horror of government spending. One irony of all this, of course, is that Republicans have passed another package earlier this year and made it big enough, Donald Trump might very well have been reelected.
After all, there has been a constant Democratic caucus in Congress pushing to go big and Republicans were constantly trying to do less. That's the basic dynamic we've had for months. And that is the dynamic that gave Is the package we finally got today. So what's in it and is it going to be enough? That's next.
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HAYES: The House is now voting on a new COVID relief bill. Some of the highlights are a $600 relief check for many Americans that includes children as well, enhanced unemployment benefits, although not at the same levels in that earlier cares package, rental assistance. There's a lot in here but also a lot that didn't make it into the final version.
Here to talk through what's there and what's missing, Heather Long economics correspondent at The Washington Post. Her latest piece is titled $900 billion stimulus is second biggest newest history, but it won't last long enough. And Dave Dayen, he's the executive editor at the American Prospect where he wrote today that COVID relief success depends on vaccination's success.
Heather, let me start with you about the sort of top-line items that did make it in, checks and that unemployment bonus, right? So, more money on top of what your calculated unemployment would be. One of the most powerful parts of the Cares Act, I think probably the best provision, was $600.00 on top of whatever your normal unemployment would be. That ran out. What's in this new bill?
HEATHER LONG, ECONOMIC CORRESPONDENT, THE WASHINGTON POST: Yes, that's right. I mean, for a lot of Americans, this is a Christmas miracle that they're going to get this extra unemployment money. It should start next week, an extra $300 through the middle of March. There's also extra aid for rental assistance. We know millions of people were going to face eviction, and that's going to help a lot, extra money for SNAP, the food stamp program.
Also, of course, extra money to help get these vaccines out to help schools get the protections that they need. And small businesses, we know millions of small businesses are closed again, and are really hurting, and this allows them to get more emergency loans and emergency grants to try to get them through.
But the major flaw here is the aid just doesn't last long enough. A lot of it will expire in March and April, and it's wishful thinking that the vaccines will be widespread enough and the economy will be open enough that all these jobs will come rushing back by the spring.
HAYES: Yes, Dave, I mean, you made a similar point in your coverage of this that fundamentally, the plug is too small for the whole as the fundamental dynamic here that -- particularly in terms of the timing of this.
DAVE DAYEN, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, THE AMERICAN PROSPECT: Yes, absolutely. I mean, I've seen, you know, reporting that the U.S. has spent maybe twice as much as other industrialized countries on dark targeted relief. But of course, the reason for that is that we have a terrible safety net to begin with. And most of the relief in these other countries is automatic, whereas we have to backfill it because we don't have enough.
HAYES: Right.
DAYEN: So, yes, I mean, the real problem is when does the vaccine reach a critical mass of people in the United States. And if it comes after mid-March or early April, as Heather said, then this relief is going to run out just like it ran out previously and triggered this massive rise in poverty, this massive rise in food insecurity and things like that.
HAYES: The two -- I want to talk about
Two things that did get in the bill are targeted provisions for like concert venues, which again, also have specific challenges. Like, they've just been completely shut down, as well as provisions for public transit which are hemorrhaging money. So, there's sort of like four different groups that kind of needed specific money, and two of them got it and two of them didn't. How did that work out, Heather?
LONG: Yes, there's a lot of remorse that the state and local aid wasn't addressed here. We know that 1.3 million jobs have been lost. And they're just not coming back. There just hasn't been any improvement in that sector and it's likely to get worse. You've got cities like Los Angeles that are laying off police and other cities that are threatening to raise taxes or do more layoffs in the coming months.
There's hope that President Biden, when he gets in, may be able to do something to address and plug that hole. But it'll be hard if the Senate stays in Republican hands. Those transits are a little bit more interesting. They will be eligible for more of these PPP loans. And they do -- and the bill allows for a slightly larger loan to go to restaurants. But as you say, they were really looking for even more relief than having to go through this onerous PPP process again which will take time.
HAYES: Dave, I think you thought that that Cares was going to be it, that there was no actual deal for Nancy Pelosi to say yes to because there wasn't actually a deal on the table largely because of McConnell. Are you -- why do you think this deal actually ended up happening? Because the half -- glass half full is -- $900 billion is better than $0 which looks like a possibility reasonably.
DAYEN: Yes. And the answer is Georgia. So, Mitch McConnell does not have much Guile, right? He tells you exactly what's happening. And he told his caucus, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue are getting hammered because there's no relief out there.
And that was as they say it. He needed a relief bill so that the Georgia senators can go back and say they delivered for their constituents before January 5th. And think about it. David Perdue got 49.7 percent of the vote. If he got 0.3 percent of the vote more, he would be the 51st Republican senator in the next Congress, and we might not be having this conversation.
HAYES: Yes. It's really, really well said. Heather Long, Dave Dayen, thank you both for that. That was great. That is ALL IN on this Monday night. "THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW" starts right now. Good evening, Rachel.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.END
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