Summary
20,000 National Guard troops are expected to be deployed to Washington D.C. ahead of the inauguration. Public officials, school therapist, and a former CEO are among those who are arrested in the wake of the siege of the U.S. Capitol. The FBI warns of violence in D.C. and state capitols ahead of the inauguration. Incoming President Joe Biden talked about the crisis before us and an outline of a plan to spend nearly $2 trillion to help get the country back on track.
Transcript
JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: Absolutely. Natasha Bertrand, Paul Butler, Glenn Kirschner, I apologize, we don't have much more time. We did have that speech by Biden in the middle. So, thank you all for being here. That is tonight's REIDOUT. "ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES" starts right now.
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CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST (voice-over): Tonight, on ALL IN. The incoming president addresses the nation as the moving trucks pull up to the White House, and the seat of American democracy remains a target.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were invited here. We were invited by the President of the United States.
HAYES: Tonight, as arrest continues, what we're learning about how the insurrection was planned, and new warnings about the threat we still face.
REP. JOHN CURTIS (R-UT): This was taped to my office door just a few minutes ago.
REP. PETER MEIJER (R-MI): Our expectation is that someone may try to kill us.
HAYES: And as the economy moves in the wrong direction and vaccinations continue to flag, will the new plan Joe Biden announced be enough to make a difference? When ALL IN starts right now.
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HAYES (on camera): Good evening from New York. I'm Chris Hayes. Six days from now, Joe Biden will be sworn in as president in a Capitol that right now looks like an occupied city. 20,000 National Guard troops are expected to be deployed to Washington D.C. ahead of the inauguration. Thousands are already there patrolling the streets, sleeping in the halls of Congress, but remains on high alert in the wake of the violent attack a week ago incited by the current twice impeached president.
The incoming president, Joe Biden, spoke to the nation just a short while ago as he prepares to inherit a nation in the midst of three distinct but intertwined crises. First, of course, the pandemic, which is arguably the worst it has ever been. We have lost more than 40,000 Americans so far this year, in 2021, just in the last 14 days. We hit a record number of deaths this week. We are cruising at 200,000 new cases and 4,000 deaths a day as hospital systems in hotspots across the country are overwhelmed. The vaccine distribution is lagging very far behind the targets President Trump set. That's one crisis.
Then, of course, the related economic crisis worsening as the virus worsens, as we have said, for 10 months, forcing more businesses to close, more people to lose their jobs. The jobs number is moving in the wrong direction. One of the first major tasks facing the incoming President Biden will be passing a rescue package.
And of course, perhaps the most immediate or I should say, at least, existential threat, the crisis of American democracy. A democracy that is in peril, that is as threatened as it has been certainly in my lifetime, and perhaps since much longer, perhaps since the Civil War. Our ongoing actions being taken to do whatever possible to secure the Capitol, everything from installing metal detectors at the entrance to the House chamber, requiring members of Congress themselves to pass through them before they head onto the floor, to adding barricades around the Capitol Building, high fencing concrete barriers, to officials reportedly seriously considering shutting down the National Mall on Inauguration Day.
Airbnb announced they will block and cancel all reservations in the Washington D.C. area during inauguration week in light of officials requesting people not travel to the Capitol. Several airlines including Delta, United, American, Alaskan are banning passengers from flying to D.C. from checking firearms.
The FBI is warning of armed protests being planned at all 50 state capitols and the U.S. Capitol in the days leading up to inauguration. And more than 70 people have been charged with crimes related to the attack at the Capitol. And given the footage we've all seen, officials expect that number to rise and the hundreds, you would think.
The group that have been apprehended in charge includes a remarkable cross-section of Americans, including a 49-year-old occupational therapist, Christine Priola, who worked in Cleveland public schools, seen here standing on the desk at the Senate chamber. The CEO of the Chicago area tech company, 52-year-old Bradley Rukstales, who claims he was in the wrong place at the wrong time and has since been fired from his job.
A recently, retired firefighter from Pennsylvania This is Robert Sanford, age 55 at the Capitol on January 6th. The criminal complaint against him alleges he threw a fire extinguisher at a group of police officers striking at least three of them. And tonight, we continue to see new footage, more surreal, disturbing scenes from what happened during the siege.
A Capitol Police trying to retreat underground in this footage attempting to seal off the Capitol by bringing down big metal security gates, only to have the mob, push them back up.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you scared now?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go, go, go.
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HAYES: Just so you know what you saw there, a rioter chucked a chair at a cop who's retreating behind those metal gates. And as it came down, they stopped the metal gates from coming down and they yelled at that police officer, you're scared now M-effer. Remember all the ads in the summer of the Trump campaign about what Biden's America would look like? Mobs overrunning the country, violent mobs overrunning the country.
And we're also getting more evidence tonight that some of the people who stormed the Capitol were better coordinated than the mob appeared on TV that day. This is footage of a group moving together inside the building methodically making their way down hallways trying to kick in each door as they pass. Listen closely to this next video with the crowd claims they were invited to the Capitol.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were invited here. We were invited. Hey, we were invited here.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're invited by the President of the United States.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Invited by the President of the United States. He's not wrong. They were invited there by the Present of the United States. Maybe most disturbingly, The Guardian has obtained audio and chat logs from a walkie-talkie app called Zello showing that some rioters were communicating in real-time as they broke into the Capitol.
A female militia member saying, "We're in the main dome right now. We are rocking it. They're throwing grenades. They're freaking shooting people with paintballs. We're in here." And a male voice replying, "This is what we effing lived up for. Everything we effing trained for."
All this evidence underlines the urgency, of course, of securing the Capitol in the next six days as the inauguration is still expected to go on largely as planned on January 20th. Erin Banco is a national security reporter at The Daily Beast, covering the security preparations leading up to next week's inauguration. And Ryan Reilly, a senior justice reporter at HuffPost and they join me now.
Erin, tell me about what the security planning and security situation looks like right now.
ERIN BANCO, NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER, THE DAILY BEAST: Well, as you mentioned earlier, Chris, there are thousands of National Guard troops manning the Capitol campus as we speak, and more are on the way. We at the Daily Beast have been reporting on what's expected to come in the coming days before the inauguration and on the on the inauguration day in terms of far-right extremist groups who are already planning to appear in and around the D.C. area, as well as other state capitols throughout the country.
The law enforcement, as far as we know, are contingency planning around some of these events that are still, you know, in the stages of planning. You know, people are still planning on showing up. We received an intelligence bulletin yesterday from the secret service that sort of lays out where those protests are supposed to happen and how the law enforcement agencies are planning on reacting and planning for these events. But a lot still remains to be seen here.
HAYES: Ryan, you've been covering -- you've been covering violent acts of extremists throughout the Trump presidency and you've been covering some of the folks arrested here. This is some of your reporting. West Virginia lawmaker, two Trump-loving cops who took a selfie during an attack on the U.S. Capitol, I mean, it's remarkable a how much these people posted themselves and the positions we are finding these people in.
RYAN REILLY, SENIOR JUSTICE REPORTER, HUFFPOST: Yes, it is really remarkable because you have these people who just thought that they could post this information and that nothing would happen to them. And now they're realizing some of the consequences of their actions.
You know, the -- I've covered a lot of this sort of, you know, domestic extremism cases, but those are sort of, you know, individual cases on their -- on their own that the Feds have typically gone after. But I think the closest analogue we can look at here is actually the inauguration trials back -- the J20 Trials. When Trump was first sworn in, there were over 200 people who were kettled together.
And you look at that and you compare that to the situation here. And what the prosecutors did there was everyone who was in that kettle faced severe charges. And he were -- several felonies that could have set them away for decades, potentially. And a lot of those cases, in fact, I sat through these trials, the only evidence that they presented was that they were A, wearing certain clothes and B, on a public street. That's it.
They admitted that some of these days weren't involved and they were going after like four decades of prison time. So, if you look at that comparison and then you actually look at, you know, these people invading the Capitol, I don't think these people realize the consequences of their actions at all, and in fact, you know, bragging about it on social media. It's just completely remarkable how they thought they could get away with this.
HAYES: There were two -- just -- I don't want to hammer this home. There were 200 people. It was the day before the inauguration, I think, or was it the day -- I guess day of -- day of, right. The day before the Women's March, right? So, it's the day of inauguration, and 200 people they get captured.
Now, the things that happened there was a limo was -- had its windows broken and a garbage can was lit on fire and some store windows were broken. That was extent. The Feds took those 200 people, all kettle together, whether they were involved or not, including reporters, and tried to send them all away for years, OK.
REILLY: Years.
HAYES: We've got -- I mean, we've got hundreds of people defacing the Capitol in a riot that killed five people, including assaulting cops, and we've got 70 arrests so far? Like, it does not seem like this is moving with dispatch, I got to say.
REILLY: It doesn't. You know, I mean -- I mean, the problem is that they weren't kettled, right? If ever there was an excuse to kettle someone, this was it.
HAYES: Right.
REILLY: You were a lawbreaker as soon as you cross that line. You're actively breaking the law. Every single person in these photos has broken the law, and they were left to walk away. In the scenario that we went in with the J20 cases, there was no evidence of individual wrongdoing in these cases. All of these people individually did something wrong. You could have arrested them all and then you could have decided, OK, who do we put the tougher charges on and who do we let off with maybe a misdemeanor?
But that's the situation that they really should be in here. And because they were allowed to walk off, and because they were underprepared, we're never going to find out who a lot of these people are.
HAYES: And that's -- and that, Erin, gets to something Reuters reporting today that, you know, the people that are being arrested because they are the infamous images, right, the people who took the selfies, and the lectern, and the shaman with the, you know, Nordic Aryan tattoos, yadda, yadda, yadda. There were people there, it seems clear, Erin, who were not trying not to be on camera, who were not taking pictures of themselves, who were much more serious wrongdoers here than those folks. And it's unclear whether there's a beat on them.
BANCO: That's right. I mean, we're starting to see some of these new videos emerge where we're seeing organizers, basically, at the event, try to hide their faces and put their face masks on to try to walk away from the camera, yet still trying to lead people in an orderly fashion into representatives' offices.
And so, you know, bottom line here, as Ryan pointed out, it just took too long to get for law enforcement to clear the Capitol, to get control of the Capitol. And by the time four hours later, there was some semblance of a law enforcement sort of order to things, people had already left and had walked away. Yet, many of these organizers were known to law enforcement before this all happened.
I mean, ask any reporter who covers QAnon or their far-right groups, and they'll tell you many of these people they knew about.
HAYES: Right. Final thing for you, Ryan. There is, of course, a huge fingerprint, which is that cell phone GPS data which the feds, of course, can issue a warrant for and do a lot with whatever cell phone was in that Capitol during the time.
REILLY: Yes, I think that could be a potential path. Also, you know, facial recognition could be a path. I think there are a lot of different ways they're going to be able to figure that out. The indications that we've seen so far, at least, what the feds have put out publicly is that, you know, when someone was seized that they learned from the phone that they were in that place at that time, there wasn't a proactive look for that to try to track them down.
But I think that, you know, that's something that is going to change going forward. But this is really going to just overwhelm the system. Like, this is really going to be something we've never seen before in America and in the nation's capital.
HAYES: Yes. The sheer person power that will be needed to pursue, apprehend, build the cases is really something the DOJ has its work cut out for it under the new administration. Erin Banco, Ryan Reilly, thank you both. Next, what we're learning about the level coordination within the mob as concerns grow that members of Congress might have played some part in the assault on the Capitol. The latest reporting after this.
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HAYES: Just over a week after the insurrection of the capital that left a Capitol Police officer and four rioters dead, we're still learning about the nature of the threat to members of Congress both then and right now. Now, we've been reporting on this. Some of the most disturbing allegations centered around concerns from some Democrats which they've expressed on the record that Republican members were somehow aiding the rioters, not just sympathetic to their aims, but providing some kind of aid.
Yesterday, Democratic Congressman Mikie Sherrill herself, a former Navy helicopter pilot, sent a letter to the Acting Sergeant at Arms and Capitol Police signed by more than 30 of her colleagues requesting an investigation into "Suspicious behavior and access given to visitors at the Capitol Complex on Tuesday, the day before the attacks." She elaborated her concerns to Rachel Maddow last night.
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REP. MIKIE SHERRILL (D-NJ): It was so odd to see them that my chief of staff called the sergeant at arms to say what is going on. And he reiterated the only way these people could have gotten into the Capitol Complex was with a member or that member's staff. And we now know that those violent groups that attacked the Capitol Complex had inside knowledge of the Capitol grounds.
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HAYES: Speaker Nancy Pelosi thought there was enough reason to be concerned about the people sitting across the aisle, that after several republicans believe their way through the newly installed metal detectors on the way to the floor, she announced any member who refuses to be screened will be fined $5,000 for the first offense and $10,000 for a second.
And even though we are not close to knowing all the facts about the assault in the Capitol, the more we learn, the more does seem like there was possible intelligence gathering and coordination between the rioters.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What's the floor plan?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's a door to the right.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's a cop.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go down the stairs, back looping around. (INAUDIBLE).
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hey, guys, I've been in the other room. Listen to me. In the other room, on the other side of this door, right here where these feet are standing, there is a glass that if it's broken, you can drop down into a room underneath it. There's also two doors in the other room, one in the rear and one to the right when you go in. So, people should probably coordinate together if you're going to take this building.
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HAYES: Amazing footage, I mean, announcing on a bullhorn, we should all be part of a conspiracy for this illegal act of taking the capital. Now, to be clear, it's unclear when that woman on the bullhorn when she was in the other room or how any of them adopt this information. But they're clear understanding of the Capitol's layout is pretty disconcerting. I mean, maybe there's an innocent explanation, which is that they've broken in and we're just reporting it or maybe not.
Meanwhile, even some Republican members of Congress are concerned for their safety. I mean, here's what Congressman Peter Meijer who voted to impeach Trump and Congressman John Curtis, who refused to object to electoral count said on this network just today.
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MEIJER: Colleagues who are now traveling with armed escorts out of the fear for their safety, many of us are altering our routines, working to get body armor, which is a reimbursable purchase that we can make. It's sad that we have to get to that point. But, you know, our expectation is that someone may try to kill us.
CURTIS: This was dropped off at my office just a few minutes ago. And I know my colleagues are very, very concerned. It's just a very troubling time for all of us.
KATY TUR, MSNBC ANCHOR: That -- can you show that again? That was dropped off in your office? Is that in the Capitol?
CURTIS: So, it was -- it was taped at my office's door just a few minutes ago.
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HAYES: In case you missed it, the note to Congressman Curtis who voted against impeaching Trump reads, "Wanted for treason, for resisting the true victor, Trump, and willful failure to stand up to object to the corrupt and vitiated states." It was pinned to the door of his Utah office. His only crime, voting to certify Joe Biden as our next president.
NBC News Policy Editor Benjy Sarlin has a new piece out tonight titled Some Democrats in Congress are Worried Their Colleagues Might Kill Them. And he joins me now. And I feel like that headline says a lot, so explain.
BENJY SARLIN, NBC NEWS POLICY EDITOR: Well, I've been covering the hill a long time, you know, the last 11, 12 years and I've never seen anything like this, nor have people I've talked to who are veterans, which is members right now are not talking about "I'm worried my colleagues will get me killed in some indirect sense."
Like, their rhetoric might inspire someone or their support from the president who they believe incited the riot might contribute, you know, to a similar insurrection style attack. They are worried that members quite specifically either participated in the attack itself or future ones, or are so radicalized by some of the more further far-right conspiracies out there, especially QAnon, that they might become a danger themselves.
Now, Chris, I want to be clear, there is no evidence right now that any member was directly involved in the attack. There are members calling for investigations. And I talked to some of the members have been brought up the most, their offices denied any involvement, any involvement with violence, any involvement with QAnon, though some of them have made extremely supportive comments in the past, especially Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has gotten the most attention.
But the atmosphere of fear right now is like, nothing that's ever been seen. Members just a week ago were huddling for their lives. Some of them like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said they had moments where they feared for their lives. But she also mentioned that one of the reasons she was scared is that she was afraid that there were radicalized members sheltering with her who might give away her location.
This is what's going through members' heads as they walk down the halls every day to go to work with these people who are their colleagues. It's just an absolutely insane situation in an American democracy. And adding to it is this sense of dread that's also mixing with second amendment politics --
HAYES: Right.
SARLIN: -- which is the insurrection payment, just as one of the members they're most concerned about, Lauren Boebert, was pushing to carry a firearm around the Capitol as an exercise of her rights. After the attack, another member who spoke at the 1-6 rally, Madison Cawthorn, said he was armed during the attack.
So, metal detectors are going up and members -- the reason those are going there -- it's not normal to have metal detectors on the floor, is at least partly because there is some kind of fear amongst the caucus that their own colleagues might be coming in armed and that they can't trust them with a gun.
So, just -- I do not know how they get back to anything resembling a normal workplace, let alone the legislative body of the greatest democracy in the world while this fear is out there right now.
HAYES: Yes, we should -- we should note. I mean, the intersection of the Second Amendment politics are a key part of this right now because it's come to a head on those metal detectors which have become the physical instantiation of the -- of the fear, right. I mean, this is Marjorie Taylor Greene's Facebook post back in September which got a lot of attention that time, which is like her posing with a gun next to The Squad.
And again, it's like, right, the gun is kind of her thing. She's second amendment person, but you can understand. At the time, it was like, well, that feels like kind of a violent threat. And I think after a bunch of violent mob storm is a Capitol urged by like members of right, there's a lot of frayed nerves in that building right now. And then you've got people saying like, we -- it is our right to bring the gun, our guns onto the floor, and we will sidestep this metal detector.
SARLIN: And it's the nature of radicalization that fear -- that's casting such fear in their hearts. Now, there was a lot of polarization. Relations were terrible during the Tea Party era. The government was frequently almost shutting down and these constant standoffs, but they were worried that members would vote no on everything. They were worried that members would disrupt the ordinary business of Congress through procedural means.
There wasn't this fear that -- you know, at the lowest points, no one was worried that like Ted Cruz was going to punch someone. It's ridiculous to even suggest it.
HAYES: Right.
SARLIN: That just was not the nature of what was going on when people were polarized then. QAnon is a different animal. It's not just there's conservative, and then there's more conservative, this is off the map. And it specifically is a libel that alleges that there is some hidden agenda that members are participating in which they are themselves some kind of murderous pedophiles.
If you ever heard one member espouse those views, even if they now deny to be -- denied they're part of it, it's hard to go along them and not think, are they thinking every day, am I part of this?
HAYES: Right.
SARLIN: And what are they going to do about it? We know they're very much into guns, if they decide that I am.
HAYES: Benjy Sarlin, who's great report is up at msnbc.com. You should check it out. Thank you for sharing that.
SARLIN: Thanks, Chris.
HAYES: Congressman Conor Lamb was at the Capitol during an insurrection last Wednesday. And he excoriated his Republican colleagues later that night for the role that they played.
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REP. CONOR LAMB (D-PA): We know that that attack today it didn't materialize out of nowhere. It was inspired by lies, the same lies that you're hearing in this room tonight. And the members who are repeating those lies should be ashamed of themselves. Their constituents should be ashamed of them.
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HAYES: Democratic Congressman Connor Lamb of Pennsylvania joins me now. First, Congressman, maybe I get your reaction to what I was just discussing with Benjy. I'm not sure if you heard that. I think you were piped in, but just about what the atmosphere is there that the fears that there are, the sort of flashpoint conflict over these metal detectors.
LAMB: Yes. I mean, one thing that your viewers should know, Chris, is that there is no right to bring a weapon on to the House floor. It was against our rules before this Congress. It is against our rules now. Nothing has changed since the invasion. And so, what we're really dealing with is a small but passionate group of legislators who are refusing to abide by the rules.
And the other night, some of them were pushing past Capitol Police officers, defying those Capitol Police officers, police officers that their party just ran a campaign all about how much they respected. And we're trying to match that defiance with, you know, just basic enforcement of the rules.
And my personal opinion is these people shouldn't have run for Congress if they were so afraid to walk on the House floor without their guns because they're not allowed to bring them on the House floor. They wouldn't have been last year, they're not this year. And we're just simply trying to enforce the rules.
HAYES: Yes. I mean, there's something a little rich about the body that, you know, created the TSA and funds it where, you know, people have to like, squeeze their toothpaste and take their shoes off getting all indignant and haughty about, you know, security checks.
LAMB: Yes. I mean, it's just -- it's just not right. And I have to be clear, it's a subset of the Republicans. It's not every Republican. But it's a lot of them. And it's -- it is of a piece with the same defiance that you saw on the House floor, you know, the night -- the video clip you showed of my speech.
It's the defiance of the truth about the election, the defiance of reality about the nature of the threat that we're all facing, the defiance of face masks and the science of COVID-19. And I think that's why we have such a combustible atmosphere right now because we are all sort of wondering, what are we going to do about this?
And you know, my own personal opinion is that we have to remember, we are defending a small D democratic institution in which the most powerful weapon is debate. And I think what last week showed is that when you shine the light on these people and confront them with the shame that they should be feeling because of their actions, it gets uncomfortable for them very fast, and it really allows the American people to see what they're about.
HAYES: What about this -- just the notion of physical fear, right, like, a fear of a colleague? You know, that there's not much precedent for that. I mean, the famous one is that an 1856 South Carolina's Preston Brooks caned Massachusetts Charles Sumner nearly to death on the floor. It's famous because it pre-staged the Civil War by five years. But other than that, there's not a ton of, you know, notable examples of this sort of idea of physical fear. What do you think of that?
LAMB: You know, I think that, given what we all just went through, it's not surprising. But what we need to do is try to do everything that we can to lower the temperature, support the investigation. That is going to be our surest path to bring these people to justice. And by these people, I mean, the ones that attacked the Capitol and anyone who coordinated and plan with them, and then do what we can to set the institution on a better path.
And we're going to do that with the power and strength of our ideas, our ability to reach back across the aisle and get votes, you know, not from Marjorie Taylor Greene, but from Adam Kinzinger and Brian Fitzpatrick, and people like that. And, you know, I just firmly believe that it's time for us to show the American people that while they may be afraid, the people they're afraid of, the passion that they have, the anger that they have, it is nothing compared to the will of this Democratic House Majority to do our jobs and makes the institution work against the obstacles that these people are throwing at us. And so, at some point, we're going to have to try to live with the fear, set it aside, control it and get the job done.
HAYES: All right, Congressman Conor Lamb of Pennsylvania, thank you so much for coming on tonight.
LAMB: Thank you.
HAYES: Ahead, even as we learn more about the true scope of the attack on the Capitol targeting members of Congress, some Republicans continue to spread the President's lie that started it all, and that's next.
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SEN. MITT ROMNEY (R-UT): No congressional audit is ever going to convince these voters, particularly when the President will continue to say that the election was stolen. The best way we could show respect for the voters who were upset is by telling them the truth.
That's the burden. That's the duty of leadership. The truth is that President-Elect Biden won the election. President Trump lost.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: That was a senator Mitt Romney on the night after the attack, the night of the attack, when they reconvened, telling his colleagues that it's a very simple thing to do to tell the truth. And as a nation tries to move on from the enormous damage done by Donald Trump's ceaseless pounding election lies, there are some Republicans who are doing the right thing.
Here's one, Conservative South Carolina Congressman Tom Rice. This is a gentleman who has long supported Trump. He even voted to object to the election results, OK, a terrible vote. But he was also one of 10 House Republicans who voted yesterday to impeach the president. He told the Associated Press that he knows he'll be primaried for his vote for impeachment, and that it may cost him his seat in Congress.
In Georgia, the Republican lieutenant governor stripped three election deniers in the state senate of their chairmanships, sending a message that their lies must be punished. Even Mitch McConnell on January 6th, stated flatly that the election was not stolen, that Joe Biden won fair and square. But you are not hearing that message from the vast majority of Republicans or the most far-reaching conservative media.
In his video yesterday, Trump declined to tell people the truth that the election wasn't stolen, that he lost. There was no large-scale fraud. He did not make that crucial admission. And in fact, just this morning, White House Trade Adviser Peter Navarro was still pushing this poisonous lie.
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PETER NAVARRO, WHITE HOUSE TRADE ADVISER: The Democratic Party did violence to this country by attacking a president who I believe was legally elected on November 3rd. These people disgust me, disgust me.
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HAYES: The Democratic Party did violence by attacking this president who won on November 3rd? Let's be clear about something. We cannot move forward as a country until people like White House official Peter Navarro stop lying. They have convinced tens of millions of Americans that Donald Trump had the election stolen from him. It was a landslide and was stolen. And they've included -- the people they've persuaded include the people who stormed the Capitol.
People believe the lie because the president and his accomplices in politics and the media, like people on Trump TV, for example, have pushed that lie over and over and over again, beating it into their heads. And if those people really want to unite this country, then Trump's elite enablers must renounce their false claims. They have to tell people that the election was not stolen and that they were wrong to goad people on, that the simple truth is that Joe Biden won.
If people like Jim Jordan really want to help, they can go on fox news and tell people there was no election fraud, that this was a free and fair vote, and their side loss, that this is a democracy and we all have to accept the will of the people. And until Jim Jordan and Ted Cruz and all the rest of them do that, the damage will endure.
And they're right that we need to come together. We really do. There is a pandemic raging in this country and Joe Biden and all of government has enormous challenge ahead of it to get Americans behind Biden's plan to stop it and spur the economy. And how Biden is going to do that, next.
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: The vaccine rollout in the United States has been a dismal failure thus far. Tomorrow, I will lay out our vaccination plan to correct course and meet our goal of 100 million shots at the end of my first 100 days as President.
The more people we vaccinate, the faster we do it, the sooner we can save lives and put this pandemic behind us and get back to our lives and our loved ones.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Incoming President Joe Biden addressed the nation tonight. He stressed the paramount importance of ramping up the nationwide vaccine effort as nearly 4,000 more Americans lost their lives to COVID-19 just today, nearly 129,000 more remain hospitalized across the country. As a former Acting Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Richard Besser have some ideas on what needs to be done to save American lives. He joins me now.
Let's start where we -- where we are, and we'll talk about vaccination next. I mean, I cannot believe that we have arrived at this point, although I can because I've been covering it. But we have 200,000 new cases a day and almost 4,000 deaths and that's just essentially the equilibrium.
RICHARD BESSER, FORMER ACTING DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION: Yes. I mean, the current situation in America is really under fathomable. But what gives me hope, Chris, are some of the things that I'm hearing. One is that we are going to take a new approach to this. And we are going to work to ensure that everyone has what they need to keep themselves, their families, and their community safe.
And, you know, we saw some support coming from Congress over the past month, but we need a lot more than that. And what I'm hearing is that people are going to get the economic support. They're going to get the protection from eviction. They're going to get the unemployment insurance, the sick, leave the family medical leave. Without those pieces in place, it's impossible for the people who are hit hardest by this pandemic, those frontline lower-income workers to stay home when they're sick, to stay home when they're exposed.
And that's critically important this winter, because vaccines, while it's so exciting they're rolling out, they're not going to get us through this winter, they're not going to save hundreds of thousands of lives that we could lose, if people don't have what they need to follow the recommendations of public health.
HAYES: Let's talk about the vaccine. My reporting -- two combined streams of data. Reporting, talking to people, texting with experts in different places, and just people in my life that there has been an uptick in the vaccine, that the beginning was a very slow rollout but we're getting the trajectory is improving. Is that your sense of where things stand?
BESSER: Well, my sense is that the numbers are going up, and that's a good thing. But I want to see data in terms of who is getting vaccinated. We know this pandemic is hitting Black Americans, Latino Americans, Native Americans, essential workers, frontline workers the hardest. And I worry that by loosening up the group of people who are getting vaccinated, the numbers are going to look good. They're going to continue to look good.
And it's great that people are getting vaccinated. But I want to make sure that the systems are getting stronger to reach those people who are at the greatest risk, to reach those people who've been hit the hardest in terms of hospitalizations, and deaths. And that's the real challenge here. We -- you know, our public health system has been underinvested in for so long that it's going to take time to get these systems in place.
Mass vaccination centers is going to help or we're going to have to look and we're going to have to look carefully at the data. And there's going to have to be transparency to make sure we're really reaching those people who need it the most.
HAYES: Today, Congressman Adriano Espaillat who's from New York announced that he tested positive for COVID-19 having had both shots of the vaccine. How unnerving is that? How worried should people be when they see that?
BESSER: Well, you know, it reinforces a couple things. One is that you're not fully protected until at least a couple of weeks after your second dose. The second is that these vaccines while incredibly good, they're 95 percent protective.
HAYES: Right.
BESSER: That means about five percent of people, five out of 100 people who get this, they may think that they're protected, but they're not. And it's the reason why once you're vaccinated, you still need to wear the masks, you still need to social distance and wash your hands until the public health data show that the virus is not circulating in the community and it's safe to do so.
You know, my heart goes out to those people in Congress who had to congregate together. My Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman is another one of the representatives who became sick because they were exposed likely because they're exposed to people who weren't wearing masks. We wear masks to protect ourselves and to protect those around us.
And, you know, I'm hoping that we can come together for -- as a nation that will get a reboot on this. And it will be seen as something we all do for each other not something that's partisan.
HAYES: All right, Dr. Richard Besser, thank you so much for your time tonight.
BESSER: Thanks, Chris.
HAYES: Next up, six days away from becoming the president, Joe Biden tonight unveiled the specifics on his plan to stabilize an economy that is right now is headed in the wrong direction. We'll talk about what he's proposing with a Senator who have to vote on it next.
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HAYES: When it comes to economic recovery right now, the train is headed in reverse. Nearly a million workers filed for unemployment benefits last week, according to the Labor Department. The problem is that is the highest number in nearly five months, a number that largely reflects the impact the recent surge in COVID cases has had on the economy.
A short time ago, incoming President Joe Biden talked about the crisis before us and him an outline of plan to spend nearly $2 trillion to help get the country back on track.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: In this moment of crisis, with interest rates at historic lows, we cannot afford inaction. It's not just as smart fiscal investments, including deficit spending are more urgent than ever, it's that the return on these investments in jobs, racial equity, will prevent long term economic damage and the benefits will far out surpass -- far surpass the cost.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Now, Biden, of course can't do that alone. He'll need the help of the Democratic Caucus, which includes Senator Tina Smith, Democrat from Minnesota, and she joins me now.
I'm curious how much discussion there has been in your caucus about this bill, and how much the Biden plan is at a kind of rallying center spoke here. Is this -- is the full caucus on board, basically, for what Joe Biden said tonight?
SEN. TINA SMITH (D-MN): Well, you know, we just saw it, you know, an hour or so ago. And I think most people are responding to it a little bit like my husband responded to it as we were watching it. Archie says, it's such a pleasure to see an adult in the room. And here we have a plan that we can work around full of good ideas. Ideas that are at the scale that we need to address this huge public health and economic crisis. And it is addressing and dealing specifically with the inequities in the system.
You know, we know that COVID hasn't been the great equalizer and Minnesota farmer said it to me best when he said, we're all on the same storm but we're not all in the same boat, and this plan addresses that. I think that it has great ideas in it. And I'm excited to rally around it and do everything I can to get it done.
HAYES: There was some discussion about the $2,000 of direct assistance. There was a $600.00 passed from the last one. The vice president -- incoming President Biden has proposed $1,400 more. There are some have said, no, it should be the full $2,000. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez saying $2,000 checks mean $2,000 checks. What do you think about that?
SMITH: Well, I look at the totality of what is in this plan. And what it would mean for, you know, a mom of small children here in Minnesota, she has the potential of getting -- if we get this done, she's got the additional direct payment, she has the opportunity to get extended unemployment insurance benefits, which could be a really great help to her if she hasn't been able to work because there -- she's lost her childcare.
It has resources to make sure that when her child goes back to school, that there's going to be testing and there's going to be resources in the school so that she knows that her child is going to be safe. It's got significant resources for childcare, which is something that Elizabeth Warren and I have worked really hard on together. We see women dropping out of the workforce in record numbers because they don't have a safe, caring place for their children to be.
And it has one of the most substantial child tax credits that many of us, including Michael Bennett and Sherrod Brown have been fighting for a long time to really address poverty. So, I see the totality of this and what it can mean for that mom I'm thinking about in Minnesota who's trying to figure out under all this stress, what is she going to do, how is she going to make it through this moment?
HAYES: Yes, the child tax credit would be enormous. It's been something that's been in the works for a while, Sherrod Brown, Michael Bennett, yourself, other Democrats. It's projected that were to pass in the form of the bill that's been written and is now integrated into this plan. It would cut total child poverty in the United States by 50 percent. Is that right?
SMITH: Think about what that would mean. And think about not only the inequities that we are experiencing because of COVID, but the inequities that are built into our economic system. I think President-Elect Biden said in his speech, economic growth should not be a spectator sport. And that is what this child tax credit can accomplish for families that are working hard, they're doing everything they can, and they still can't get ahead.
I'm super excited about that, and would love to be a part of getting that done, because that's going to make a difference to that mom I was talking about.
HAYES: So, I don't want to get too into tactics here. But of course, that's -- I mean, nothing matters unless you --
SMITH: Right. It's the Senate.
HAYES: Yes. You know, you can pass it. There's stuff in there that you can do in reconciliation, there's stuff in there you can. Like, for instance, a minimum wage $15.00 an hour, incredibly important, incredibly popular. Is the thinking you guys going to try to go get 60 votes and get 10 Republicans and then go from there? Like, is that a possibility even?
SMITH: Well, you know, I think we've -- here's what I think. There's been so much conversation about unity over the last week. Let's put -- like, let's put real meaning into that term by unifying around, doing the work that we need to do to help Americans help Minnesotans, help people all over this country recover from this terrible pandemic. Let people see that. Let them see us actually doing something together.
Now, as you say, these are big, bold ideas. They are popular ideas. Let's make it happen. And Mitch McConnell has been the master of obstruction in the United States Senate. He's really good at figuring out how to make things not happen. But we are now -- the Democrats are in charge and we're ready to move hell or high water to get this done. And that's what we're going to do.
HAYES: Marco Rubio did say, I have to say, that a move towards unity would be to do $2,000 direct payments. Josh Hawley who fresh off of, you know, voting to overturn a democratic election also favors that. I mean, I don't know. Do you think maybe you could find 10 votes for that?
SMITH: I mean, we almost did. We almost did. I fully believe that if we had just voted on that up or down in the United States Senate, that would have passed a couple of weeks ago. So, the point here is that we've got good -- we've got good support for this. We just never get a chance to vote on it in Mitch McConnell's Senate, and that's going to change.
HAYES: How much -- just very quickly. I mean, no one got enough time to metabolize the GA wins, but like it's another -- it's a different universe between Mitch McConnell running things by one vote and Chuck Schumer.
SMITH: Yes. I mean, think about it. Mitch McConnell -- here's one example. The Senate would come into the -- kind of come into town on Monday at around 5:30. We'd vote. We'd be there for a couple of days, and then we'd leave on Thursday. What if we were working a full week? What if we were actually working on legislation as opposed to judicial nominees? That's what the Senate is supposed to be doing. And I see a real hunger for that not only amongst Democrats but amongst Republicans.
HAYES: All right, Senator Tina Smith of Minnesota, thank you for making time tonight.
That is ALL IN on this Thursday 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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