Summary
President Donald Trump continues to spread lies about the election and the coronavirus. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) is interviewed about the lies and misinformation spread by President Trump and the Republican Party. Scott Atlas resigned as President Trump's COVID Adviser. Dr. Anthony Fauci in an interview said that the U.S. may see a surge upon surge of cases in the incoming weeks. President-elect Joe Biden announces his top economic team. Republican Party's hope to keep the Senate rest on flawed candidates in Georgia.
Transcript
JOE SCARBOROUGH, MSNBC HOST: He took responsibility. And I believe at the end, he changed the world for the better.
JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: He was an adult. Joe Scarborough --
SCARBOROUGH: He was an adult, yes.
REID: It helps. Author of Saving Freedom: Truman, The Cold War And The Fight For Western Civilization. You all pick it up. That is tonight's REIDOUT. "ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES" starts now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST (voice over): Tonight on ALL IN. Has this ever happened to you?
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Congratulations, sir. You just won the election. This election was over and then they did dumps. They call them dumps, big massive dumps.
HAYES: The massive dumps 51 days until Trump moves out, critical Senate run-offs in Georgia, and Republicans have lost control of the monster they've created.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How are going to spend money and work when it's already decided?
RONNA MCDANIEL, CHAIRWOMAN, RNC: It's not decided. This is the key. It's not decided.
HAYES: Tonight, as Arizona and Wisconsin are certified, the party of Trump has to reap what it has sowed. Then, new reports of insider trading by both Republicans in the Georgia run-offs. And 51 days until Joe Biden takes office, how the fate of his administration could rest on who controls the Senate. When ALL IN starts right now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES (on camera): Good evening from New York. I'm Chris Hayes. Today, the states of Arizona and Wisconsin, hotly contested swing states, certify their election results formalizing Joe Biden's victory, and all but ending the faintest hope President Trump may have had of stealing the election.
But there are millions and millions of Trump supporters who will not accept that. That is because Donald Trump and Rupert Murdoch and the rest of the Republican political machine and much the conservative media have spent years, decades metaphorically drugging their supporters, sedating them, feeding them tranquilizers of the mind lies and conspiracy theories because it helped them at the time, and it was easier than trying to win them over with the truth.
But there are consequences out past the immediate benefits that may have redounded to their side over the years. Those supporters then go on to become addicts, addicted to the lies. And we find ourselves now in a surreal and dangerous situation, a strange one.
The President is a lame duck. He spends all his time golfing and sitting behind his little desk there and watching obscure T.V. channels and railing against a rigged election, a stolen election that was not rigged or stolen, an election which he was resoundingly defeated by historic margins, actually, when you look at him as an incumbent president. He was -- he is completely checked out for managing the once in a century catastrophe pandemic that is just getting worse by the day.
Even Scott Atlas, the man that Trump's on T.V. and put in charge, possibly the single most damaging source of COVID bad ideas is tonight, as the country sees another day of record hospitalizations, walking away from the job, hanging a mission accomplished banner somewhere, no doubt. He's resigning as Special Advisor to the President.
But the damage is done. The wreckage and loss of lives left in their wake will be with us for years to come. So, thank you so much for your service, Scott Atlas. But if it were just Trump's actions, or even the actions of the broader GOP that have gone along with him, which we'll talk about more in a moment, that would be one thing. But the essence of the issue we face at this moment, what do you do with tens of million people who have become addicted to misinformation, addicted to nonsense, addicted to conspiracy theories addicted to lies, and who will like addicts do, do whatever is necessary to get their fix.
What do you do when the President is the number one pusher in the country, the pusher of the lies and the conspiracy theories and the dangerous fraudulent nonsense on both the election and on COVID? There are tens of millions of people who are swallowing it all.
The open question for American society as we move into the Biden era is what this means for what we are all doing together as citizens, liberal and conservative, different races, different geographies, different areas, different states, what we're doing in the project of collective self-governance. Because here's what it looks like down in Georgia right now.
This is RNC Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel this weekend trying to whip up the Republican faithful to go vote in the January run-off elections, fighting against the lies coming from the President and his crackpot legal team that the last vote was fraudulent and rigged, and that the ghost of Hugo Chavez snuck into the voting machine software from beyond the grave.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The machines are switching the votes and we go there in crazy numbers, and they should have won but then they still --
MCDANIEL: Yes, we have to wait and see that in the audit. So, we've got to just -- that evidence I haven't seen, so we'll wait and see on that.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How are we going to spend money and work when it's already decided?
MCDANIEL: It's not decided. This is the key.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How do we know?
MCDANIEL: It's not decided.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Look at that. Look at that facial expression, that nod to the side, like, are you hearing this? Yes, we're all hearing and seeing it, Ronna McDaniel. She is staring into the eyes of the addicts that she helped create. They consumed the drugs she sold them. This is the leader of the RNC, you may remember, who changed her name to please Trump.
By the way, this is the same RNC that posted a video in which Trump's lawyer, Sidney Powell, who was fired days later, said that Trump won by a landslide. That same RNC, they have been going along with this whole batty thing.
Here's Georgia's Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who again, has conducted himself with integrity today bemoaning what is happening to his party.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRAD RAFFENSPERGER, SECRETARY OF STATE, GEORGIA: Once this recount is complete, everyone in Georgia will be able to have even more confidence in the results of our elections despite the massive amounts of misinformation that is being spread by dishonest actors. There are those who are exploiting the emotions of many Trump supporters with fantastic claims, half-truths, misinformation, and frankly, they are misleading the president as well apparently.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Misleading the president. Wait a second. Who is being manipulated and who's doing the manipulating? That's the thing about the Trump presidency. The President is both a pusher of misinformation and also a user. It's a problem.
Now, the President's trying to tear down Republican Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, one of Trump's most ardent supporters, because Kemp will not just full out endorse essentially an authoritarian pooch to take away the votes of Georgia residents. Every time Trump gets in front of a camera now, he's pushing up a racist conspiracy theory that big cities with lots of voters of color had mysterious ballot dumps in the middle of the night.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: And all of a sudden, ballots were dumped all over the place.
If you look at 10:00 in the evening, you saw what happened. Then you had these massive dumps. Nobody has ever seen anything like it.
This election was over. And then they did dumps. They call them dumps, big massive dumps in Michigan and Pennsylvania and all over.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Those large dumps the president is worried about are literally just what happens when large counties have to count a lot of votes and Republican legislators prevent them from starting early. But this is the thing. Trump is not going to be president. He's going to go on to do whatever he's going to do. This is all much bigger than him, than our unhinged president.
Here's Rand Paul, a member of the united senate -- United States Senate echoing the President's racist nonsense. "Interesting, Trump's margin of defeat in four states occurred in four data dumps between 1:34-6:31 a.m. Statistical anomaly? Fraud?
Yes, Senator. Why is it the big counties with big cities all reported the numbers and the total ones went against Trump? Maybe because they don't like him in Milwaukee, genius. It is worth noting that Senator Paul joins the president as another elected Republican who has to be flagged for posting misinformation like a common Twitter troll.
We are watching this -- I mean, they're supplying this, and misinformation and people are taking because they want it. And we were watching this addiction lay waste the basic fundamental legitimacy of an American election. The idea we're all in this together. Lay waste to the last shreds of shared universal fact.
It's bad for democracy. It's depressing to watch but it pales in comparison to the tangible life and death stakes of the poison they have spread about COVID-19. It's this precise, same misinformation phenomenon. Remember what the President and the right-wing media said it's going to go away. It will disappear. It is like the flu. 99 percent of people survive. So, come on, move on. Who cares?
It's a liberal hoax. All the death numbers are inflated. They're all being fabricated, which is just dead Hugo Chavez rigged the election conspiracy theories for COVID. And people believe it the same way they believe the election stuff and then they tailor their actions based on it and there are real life results.
Today, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy said that nearly 70 percent of residents who spoke to contact tracers in the state refused to provide information about their close contacts. In the middle of the worst surge and the coronavirus pandemic in this country, the TSA says nearly 1.1 million people cross TSA checkpoints the day before Thanksgiving, the most on any day since March 16, the very beginning of the pandemic shutdowns in this country.
Now, not all those people are listening to the president. There's people of all political persuasions who are engaging this behavior. Absolutely. But the fact remains this. More people will get sick and die because the President and the Republican lying machine are telling them that there is no danger and they believe it.
NBC News reporter Dasha Burns has been spending time with frontline workers in Appalachia where hospitalizations have more than doubled last month. She just arrived in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, one of the worst areas in the entire world, and she joins me now.
Dasha, I've been following your great reporting. What do you -- what did you hear when you went to Eastern Tennessee, I believe, where you were about? What folks sense of the risk was of the potency of the virus and what was happening when that met reality?
DASHA BURNS, NBC NEWS REPORTER: Hey, Chris, thanks so much for having me. You know, one of the people I spoke with, the chief infection prevention officer at the hospital where we were reporting, put it pretty plainly. She said, they'd been preparing for the possibility of a pandemic like this for years. What they weren't necessarily preparing for, though, was a people wouldn't believe that one was happening, even as it hit their community very hard.
And that is exactly what is going on right now. You just mentioned hospitalizations in that region more than doubled in the last month. And in the time we were on the ground reporting at the hospital system there, they told us they saw the biggest jump in a single day of hospitalization. And Chris, that was actually Thanksgiving Day to the following day, Friday. So, on that holiday, they saw more people hospitalized than they have in this entire pandemic.
And the frontline workers that I've been speaking with, you know, in our conversations, the first part was always about their experiences behind the doors of those hospitals, which were tragic and heartbreaking. I mean, nurses, were seeing multiple patients die in a single shift.
But then the second part of the conversation was just as heartbreaking to those frontline workers, which was they were seeing patients who were coming into the hospital, coming in sick, and did not believe that they had COVID even when the test came back positive.
I want you to hear from one of those nurses. This is Heather White. And keep in mind, when she talked to us, she was coming off of a 12-hour shift. We spoke to her at 7:00 a.m. She started her shift at 7:00 p.m. on Thanksgiving night. Here's what she had to say. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HEATHER WHITE, COVID ICU NURSE, BRISTOL REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER: We have seen some that were skeptical beforehand. But now, you know, otherwise completely healthy 30-some year old will come into the ER and be short of breath and not understand why.
I think once they get to the critical point, then I think it becomes more real to them. A lot of times, if they just come in and they are just kind of on a few liters of oxygen at first, these patients decline very fast. And I think it's almost like it's a shock to them how sick they get and how quickly it happens. And I think at that point is really the only point when they realize that this is something very serious.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNS: And Chris, that's what's been so heartbreaking to these nurses is that is what it takes to convince people how serious this is. Another nurse told me that people will come in, test positive, and then blame the hospital for giving them the virus. And this is a nurse that saw three patients die in a single shift. And she is hearing things like this.
And it's having real tragic impact on the patients themselves because they're often delaying care. They will start having symptoms, not believe it's real. And then by the time they get to the hospital, they're in really bad shape. And at that point, it's tough to help.
HAYES: I know -- I know, you've just gotten to Sioux Falls. You've been out on the road reporting. You're in Eastern Tennessee now. I mean, I guess the question I have is, as we look at South and North Dakota, which is the epicenter right now of the -- of the outbreak in the entire country, whether when you reach the levels they have 1,000 people dying in the state I think in North Dakota, whether that just sets in and people start to modify their behavior. I think there's some evidence of that, but I'm curious to hear what you see in here. BURNS: Yes. You know, it's interesting, I just got here. And so, we're going to be doing a lot of reporting here tomorrow. But after I posted a thread on Twitter about what I was seeing in Appalachia, and the response I got was overwhelming from nurses across the country, from Maine to Texas, to South Dakota. I had a nurse from South Dakota reach out to me saying she is seeing the same thing.
And part of it too is that a lot of these areas have not been seeing these spikes until very recently. I've been traveling covering COVID since April, and I was in rural areas back there -- back during that time talking to farmers. And at that point, everything was shut down across the board. But areas like this we're not seeing high rates.
Now, I'm traveling and areas like this are hit so hard, and yet things are nowhere near as shutdown as they were earlier on in the pandemic. So, there's this sort of contradiction here. And Chris, one thing that's important to note about these kinds of hospitals to New York, nurses are often treating strangers and it's so heartbreaking to see those folks suffer. But in hospitals like where I was Appalachia, these are small, tight knit communities. So, the people that come in, the nurses often know them. They're their friend's dad or their high school English teacher.
And you can imagine how difficult it is to watch those people suffer, to watch those folks have to be intubated, and especially to hear people like that still deny the fact that this is -- this is the reality.
HAYES: Dasha Burns doing fantastic reporting out there I've been following very closely, thanks for making some time for us tonight.
BURNS: Thanks so much, Chris
HAYES: Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut has had front row seat to all the lies and misinformation being spread by President Trump and the Republican Party, and he joins me now. And I want to start on your colleague Rand Paul saying that. I mean, it just -- it was such a striking thing. Maybe my standards are too high, or my expectations are too high. But it's like, come on, you got to know this is absolute nonsense. And it's just so dangerous and insidious to be feeding this to people. What do you see as the effect of this as we get -- when we get out past this?
SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D-CT): Well, Trump has created this reservoir, right, of folks who now trade in and soak up conspiracy theories that Republicans are going to attempt to tap into. Donald Trump may not be in the White House any longer, but now everyone who has national aspirations in the Republican Party is going to out-trump or out-conspiracy theory the next.
And so, whether or not Rand Paul really believes that, it is a political tactic that you are going to see more of in the Republican Party because Trump has created a demand for the kind of things that Rand Paul is saying about these rigged voting machines.
But, you know, where this goes, is really dangerous. And you know this, Chris. As this Republican Party becomes more and more divorced from truth, eventually there is a real threat to democracy, right? Nobody is ever going to run for the Secretary of State in Georgia on the Republican ticket ever again who has an ounce of common sense. You're only going to get q anon conspiracy theorists seeking out election posts in Republican states.
Now, this election wasn't close enough to steal. But once you have those kinds of people in charge of Election Boards, in charge of Secretary of State's offices, people who believe that every democratic vote isn't a legitimate vote, then at some point, you actually do have an election that gets stolen. And so, that's where this is also really heading unfortunately.
HAYES: Yes. This point about political incentives, I think, is really important, because I think people could look at this and say, what the President's doing in its own way is kind of impotent, right? These preposterous lawsuits that have been laughed out of court and then angrily tweeting and calling into, you know, a conference in Gettysburg. But it does create political incentives.
I mean, Doug Ducey and Brian Kemp have a real political problem on their hands. They refuse to go along with essentially an authoritarian overturning of a democratic election. That was what the demand was. Just ignore what your state voter said, give it to me. And by not doing that -- you're a politician, you've been in politics for a while. Like that will have political consequences for them and for everyone watching.
MURPHY: Right. And anybody who thinks like Brian Kemp -- and frankly, Brian Kemp is a really conservative dude who, frankly, has a history of doing some pretty awful things when it comes to voter suppression. But even Trump's temperature was too high for him.
So, anybody that, you know, has any amounts, any ounce of respect for democracy, the democratic process, is just going to stay away from running for office on the Republican ticket any longer. And all of a sudden, you're just going to get, you know, more and more of, you know, these QAnon followers in really important posts. And that's eventually sort of how democracy falls apart, at least in some parts of the country.
HAYES: I want to ask you two questions, one about relief and one about what happened in Iran over the weekend. So first, a little smattering of talk about relief. Mitch McConnell is somewhat disingenuously whining about it. It seems to me -- tell me if I'm wrong. You need Mnuchin, McConnell, and Pelosi all in the same place or on the same Zoom call. Anything short of that is not going to make it work. You need all three points of the triangle.
MURPHY: 100 percent. And thus far, Mitch McConnell has refused to step into that negotiating room. He is the leader of the Senate. Ultimately, he has to call this bill up for a vote -- for a vote. But he refuses to be inside that room. Why? Because he has about 20 Republican senators that don't want to do an ounce more of coronavirus relief, and he really doesn't want to go through the trouble of having to deal with a split caucus.
So, as much as folks out there don't really want to hear about process, they just want to get this bill over the finish line and get some relief, get unemployment benefits turned back on, until Mitch McConnell decides to actually negotiate rather than sitting on the sidelines, you can't get a bill done, because there's no way around it.
He is the president of the Senate. He is the majority leader. He is in charge. And as long as he stays outside of the room, there's very little hope to get something done by the end of the year. There's definitely 50 or 60 votes for a bill in the Senate, but only Mitch McConnell can deliver that bill to the Senate floor.
HAYES: All right, we're out of time, so I'm going to have you back to talk about what happened on Iran where Iranian nuclear scientist was assassinated. That needs a little bit more time than just jamming at the end of the segment. So, let's make a date for that. Senator Chris Murphy, thank you very much.
MURPHY: We'll do.
HAYES: Next, what would a post-holiday spike in coronavirus cases mean for hospitals that are already at the breaking point? Dr. Richard Besser on the aftermath of Thanksgiving and the months ahead, after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DEBORAH BIRX, CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE COORDINATOR, WHITE HOUSE COVID TASK FORCE: We saw what happened post Memorial Day. Now, we are deeply worried about what could happen post-Thanksgiving because the number of cases 25,000 versus 180,000 a day, that's where -- that's why we are deeply concerned.
ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: If you look at the slope of that curve that led to the numbers that you just mentioned, Chuck, we're going to be seeing as we go towards the end now and getting into December, we're seeing the surge with inflection curve like this.
ADM. BRETT GIROIR, MD, ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR HEALTH, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES: This is a really dangerous time. We really have to see what this weekend looks like. I can't really project that. But remember, we're not passive bystanders. If we do the right thing, universal mask-wearing, avoiding indoor spaces, crowded bars, restaurants, indoors, all those sort of things, we can still flatten this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: It's striking to see members of the White House Coronavirus Task Force who had essentially been exiled within their own government, kept away from television while Scott Atlas ran around telling people that have Thanksgiving dinner back on the Sunday shows with basic common sense, public health advice about how to avoid this getting worse.
According to the COVID Tracking Project's latest data, another 147,000 people in the U.S. are infected. That number is artificially low because of reporting lag from the Thanksgiving holiday. But the number that is not artificially low is that more than 96,000 people are currently hospitalized with the virus. That is a new record. We have 1,100 deaths today. But again, there are reporting lags. We expect those numbers to go up. That hospitalization number is the one that is least affected by reporting lags and the most worrying.
Dr. Richard Besser serve as Acting Director for Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, helping lead the Obama administration's response to the H1N1 flu outbreak, and he joins me now. First, let me start about the news of Scott Atlas. I mean, there was a lot of reporting about the ways in which the President saw Scott Atlas, liked what he said, hired this conservative radiologists to come in, and he basically wrench-control the task force and the policy and told people like we're not trying to suppress the virus, it's fine if it spreads, actually. That's good. And we now sort of see what that policy led to. How much do you think that's responsible for where we are?
RICHARD BESSER, FORMER ACTING DIRECTOR, CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION: Well, I wouldn't put it on the shoulders of Scott Atlas. I would put it on the shoulders of an administration that decided not to lead with public health. And that's been a big challenge. We've talked about that before, Chris. When you have a different message coming from public health and you're having from political leadership, then you end up with a situation that we're in right now where part of the country feels that we need to do more to keep this under control, and part of the country feels we're doing way too much to do -- to try and control the pandemic, and that it's hurting the economy.
You know, as Dr. Fauci was saying, this is the most dangerous period of the pandemic. We've been predicting all along that the winter would be very, very challenging. Respiratory viruses, they like the winter, they like cold air, they like low humidity, they like that we're indoors and close to each other. And so, we expected the numbers to go up.
But, you know, we also had hoped that it would be at a time where we were all on board. We were all on board with doing the right things, with wearing masks, sitting apart, washing our hands. And we're faced with a very different situation. We're faced with the situation where people are tired. And you can understand people being tired. We're nine months more into this and they've had it.
And we're hearing such exciting news about vaccines that to some people that are saying we can stop. We can take -- you know, we can step back from those measures, we can get back to our lives, and forget about this. But that's not where we are. We're at a point where we have to double down on the recommendations of public health.
HAYES: Right. But here's the -- here's the -- you're saying what everyone else is saying, which is -- which is focusing on these behavioral interventions, right? Ways that people through their behavior can mitigate the spread and reduce it, which I get and that's right.
But there's a fundamental paradox that Dasha Burns pointed to the top of the show is that when it wasn't as widespread and prevalent, we had locked down all of society, essentially. I mean, not really. You could still go out. You could still go to the Home Depot and, you know, buy a generator or whatever. But we had shelter in place orders.
It's worse than it's ever been now, and like we don't have that. And it's a weird paradox to be living through in terms of the messages people are being sent.
BESSER: Yes, I -- you know, Chris, I think that -- I don't want people to think that I think this is all about personal behavior, because it's not. The ability to do the right thing in this -- in this country depends in large part on the color of your skin and how much money you have.
HAYES: Yes.
BESSER: Congress, as you were just saying, hasn't stepped up and put money in people's pockets, essential workers, high proportions are Black, Latino, and Native Americans are out there still getting infected at higher rates and being hospitalized at higher rates and dying in hospital rates -- at higher rates.
And if Congress doesn't act, you know, what does it say about us as a nation in terms of whose lives we value and whose lives were willing to sacrifice? So, you know, I sometimes think we put too much on the side of personal behavior, because Congress, what they're doing is absolutely unconscionable.
HAYES: Well, I totally agree. And I think it's in the absence of federal leadership, honestly, that everyone is trying to make this work, you know, as best they can, local leaders. You saw Dr. Anthony Fauci this weekend saying we have to closed bars and keep schools open, which is everyone agrees on that.
The problem is, if you closed bars, they go out of business. So -- but if you close schools, they don't. So, every local leader is making these decisions based on this essentially, financial calculation about what the market will bear as opposed to public health because there's not a larger infrastructure in place to support them to make public health-based choices.
BESSER: Well, and Congress could change it so that we don't have that as the choice. We shouldn't have to decide between small businesses going under and our children being in school. I was thrilled to see New York City saying that they're going to be sending elementary school kids back to school. I'm a pediatrician and I know how critical it is to have in-person learning when you're ---when you're that young.
But it shouldn't be lifted up as saying we're doing this, and the bars can go out of business. We should be seeing this support for small businesses, for their employees coming from Congress like we saw early in the spring, but we're not. And so, we're seeing our teachers and our children in schools being put up against small business owners. And that's just a false choice. We should be able to do both in this country.
HAYES: Yes. From the beginning, I think there's been a very cynical attempt by people at the top, starting with the president, to make the false choices that a kind of cudgel to force people to choose between these false choices because it was politically beneficial even if it would mean tens of thousands of people would die who didn't have to. Dr. Richard Besser, thank you so much for your time.
BESSER: Thanks, Chris.
HAYES: Ahead, President-Elect Biden announces another list of potentially history-making nominees. Are they going to be able to make it out of the Senate that's led by Mitch McConnell, if that indeed is what the situation is? That's coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: President-Elect Joe Biden officially announced some key members of his economic team today. He nominated Janet Yellen, former chair of the Federal Reserve, for Secretary of the Treasury. She would be the first woman in that role in American history. And Neera Tanden, president and CEO for Center for American Progress for Director of the Office of Management and Budget. She'd be the first woman of color, the first South-Asian Americans head OMB.
Biden chose Wally Adeyemo, president of the Obama foundation and veteran of the Obama-Biden administration for Deputy Secretary of Treasury. And Cecilia Rouse, currently the Dean of the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs as chair of the Council of Economic Advisers. Both are also historic choices, would be the first African-Americans to hold those jobs.
And the nominees for those four top jobs have to be confirmed by the Senate. And the incoming Biden administration clearly seems to be trying to avoid any big confirmation fights with most of its choices. Not all, but the most of the choices so far. Remember, though, what Mitch McConnell did one of the last times he have the opportunity to confirm a nominee from a Democratic president, refusing to even consider then-President Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland at the Supreme Court.
Now, that's a lifetime appointment, a little different. But there will be a lot more of these roles coming up for confirmation, jobs that are just necessary for the basic functioning of government. And all of that is at stake in Georgia with the two run-off elections that will decide who control the Senate. We'll talk about that next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: The U.S. presidential system, of course, allows for a divided government, that is one party occupying the White House while a different party has one or both houses of the Senate. And those lead to natural conflicts. Things can get pretty nasty in divided governance. But basically, what's kept government functioning even during periods of high drama or conflict is that there are basic expectations for how the two sides will sort of acclimate to each other.
Those have been breaking apart over the last decade or so, particularly during McConnell's Senate obstruction of President Barack Obama. So, what happens if the two Democrats do not win the Georgia run-off, Mitch McConnell keeps control the Senate and Biden is sworn in as president? Like, maybe Mitch McConnell just doesn't confirm anyone or maybe he confirms a few cabinet positions but just says you don't get to have a DOJ Civil Rights Division person, or Deputy Treasury Secretary, or 1,000 other positions throughout the government.
The functioning of the government is at stake right now in a tangible way in the state of Georgia with those two runoffs and Democratic control on the line. I'm joined now by someone who's personally familiar with Senate confirmations and with McConnell, Chris Lu, who was unanimously confirmed by the Senate as Deputy Secretary of Labor in 2014. He also served as White House Cabinet Secretary to President Obama. He's now advising the Biden transition. He's not appearing here in that capacity, I should note.
So, Chris, you know, you have been around. You're around for the Obama administration, the Obama transition, McConnell's obstruction in the Senate under Obama. How do you think of the stakes of these two elections in Georgia in terms of what Senate control for Democrats means versus McConnell control?
CHRIS LU, FORMER DEPUTY SECRETARY OF LABOR: Well, Chris, look, I think the Senate seats are going to be critically important not just for these confirmations, but obviously, for the broader policy agenda of President Biden. But I do think it's worth doing a little history here.
You know, the last time an incoming president face the Senate of another party was back in 1989 with President George H.W. Bush. I went back and looked. Nine of bush Cabinet nominees were confirmed either unanimously or with one no vote. Now, there was one person defeated, John Tower, for a variety of personal reasons. But the second nominee for the Defense Secretary, Dick Cheney, was confirmed unanimously.
So, there's a long tradition of the Senate giving deference to the President's picks. And even if you look at Trump's picks, and obviously there were some like Scott Pruitt that got by and by and large party-line votes, people like Wilbur Ross, and Elaine Chao, and Sonny Perdue were confirmed by large bipartisan margins.
And so, look, this is an important precedent that ought to be followed. That being said, we know another precedent, and we know what happens when these people don't get confirmed, and we saw that with the Trump administration, where he essentially ran an entire government with acting officials.
At the Homeland Security Department right now, there has not been a Senate confirmed Secretary since April of last year, so about 19 months right now. So, look, I haven't gone through the process. I think it's important for nominees to get prepared to answer questions, to talk about why they're qualified. I think it's important for the Senate to consider the qualifications.
I don't like the idea of a government run by acting officials. I just don't think that provides the right level of accountability.
HAYES: But I mean, one of the things you're saying there, and this is one of the most bizarre stories of the Trump-McConnell era is even with a Republican Senate, Donald Trump just -- like, they just did everything through actings. They use what's called the Vacancy Reform Act. They push it as far as it would possibly go.
And you got to think that like there's got to be a team in the White House Counsel's Office in the president like Biden's office, who just looking at that because you may find a position where Mitch McConnell just says like, I don't care about like the DOJ Civil Rights Division enough to move that nomination to the floor.
LU: And I think that's exactly right. I mean, if you want a blueprint for how a potential Biden administration could go down, whether it's on personnel or policy, simply look at what Donald Trump has done. And I would think, even if you ask senators behind closed doors, whether they think it's good idea to have essentially an entire Homeland Security Department from top to bottom run by acting officials, I think they would admit that's not a good thing.
HAYES: Right.
LU: And yet, over the last four years, they've essentially allowed that to happen up in part because Donald Trump hasn't even nominated many of the people for these jobs because he has openly admitted, he likes acting officials because he wants people to be loyal to him.
But I do think it's important to go back to some sense of regular order. And I think that's certainly the preference of the President-Elect. The only question is whether that will be reciprocated on the other side.
HAYES: Well, that's the question. I mean, there's a -- there's the question there, and then there's a question of just, you know, when you talk about the substance, right. So, I think, you know, some idea of some massive set of new deal level legislative agenda is just almost certainly not happening even if, you know, Ossoff and Warnock were to win in Georgia, you have a 50-50 Senate with a tie breaking vote in Kamala Harris, the vice president.
That said, things like the debt ceiling, funding the government, COVID stimulus and relief, getting us, you know, vaccine appropriations. All that just becomes way, way harder if McConnell is -- you got to get his buy on it -- buy in all that stuff.
LU: Well, and it's exactly right. Look, I mean, I think we can interpret this year's election in many different ways. But I'm fairly sure the 160 million people did not vote for four years of gridlock, particularly during a period of time when we've got a pandemic that's raging, we've got 20 million people on unemployment, millions are going to lose their benefits. If it's not extended in December, millions are facing evictions.
And so, we've got serious problems. On top of all of that, it's the basic nuts and bolts of keeping the government running. Right now, we're operating under another continuing resolution. It is not clear that there will be any kind of deal cut to keep this government open. And so, look, we -- notwithstanding whatever the partisan differences about how big we want to go on change or not, but the basic machinery of government has to work.
And that relies on the President, the Senate, and the House coming to some sense of cooperation along these issues.
HAYES: Yes. The more reliable is if Democrats actually do control that body. It's going to be harder with Mitch McConnell. It's why all eyes are on Georgia. Chris Lu, thanks so much.
LU: Thank you.
HAYES: Coming up, some new allegations in Georgia that both Republicans running for Senate are abusing their powers to enrich themselves and their wealthy friends. The latest on the David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler scandals next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: There's a lot of money flowing to Georgia right now. According to AdImpact, combined ad spending in the two Senate run-off races there on January 5th, has already reached a total of $283 million. We're still more than a month from Election Day.
Republicans need to win at least one of the races to maintain control of the Senate, but they are depending on two very flawed candidates to try to get there. One is the appointed senator, Kelly Loeffler, who's believed to be the richest member of Congress. She has a $10 million home and a private jet. She and her husband are worth an estimated $800 million.
In January, Loeffler dumped millions of dollars in stock after a private Coronavirus briefing before the general public knew the scope of the outbreak. The Senate Ethics Committee and the Justice Department both launched and then dropped investigations into those trades. Georgia's other Republican Senator, David Perdue, also facing serious questions about his stock trades including a more than $1 million sale of stock in a financial firm where he once served on the board which the New York Times reports prompted a Justice Department inquiry.
I'm joined now by the co-author of that New York Times story, Justice Department Reporter Katie Benner. Also with me is Pema Levy. She's politics -- Political Reporter for Mother Jones, who recently co-authored a story titled Purdue and Loeffler's well-timed stock trades give Georgia Democrats an opening.
Katie, can I start with you on the -- on the David Perdue story and sort of what we've learned over the last week or so about the trade that -- the trades you looked into?
KATIE BENNER, REPORTER, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Yes. We were able to get a tremendous amount of detail into this trade. It's significant for a couple of reasons. One, because you just see how much ambient information is available to somebody this close to a company. It's one of the reasons why a lot of (INAUDIBLE) believe that members of Congress should not hold individual (INAUDIBLE) especially if they've done something like been on the board and benefited so richly from that.
What we saw was in January, the CEO sent David Perdue an e-mail saying, if you intend to talk to the CFO, please let them -- please know that I have not yet alerted to change it. It's very vague, but I think we can all agree that when somebody like the CFO doesn't know about a big change, that might portend perhaps bad news.
HAYES: Right.
BENNER: We then see is the justice -- we then see that from record subpoena from the Justice Department, that Senator Perdue asked his money manager at Goldman Sachs to please sell about a fifth of his position (INAUDIBLE) a $1.3 million that are about profit, which his Goldman trader does you know subsequently.
Now, we were told by people close to the situation that Purdue and Goldman have previously discussed the (INAUDIBLE) and I have no reason not to believe that. But it really is a startling series of events that really led investigators to say this was -- this is something that bores scrutiny.
HAYES: Yes. It's a very, very big trade, first of all. It's a big trade of an individual stock, second of all, right? It's not like moving into. And it's a big trade of an individual stock of a company you're intimately familiar with and have some insight access to. Like, that doesn't mean that's prima fascia illegal or criminal, but those three together are going to call some questions. Apparently they did.
BENNER: Yes, of course. And, again, this is why people say that members of Congress really should not hold individual stocks because in Perdue's case, he actually was on the board of the company, and he is very, very close to the CEO. But even given the information you get in a Congressional briefing, at a Senate briefing, and if you're on a banking committee as he is, that can all have a real impact on your ability to do your job and on your ability to make money.
HAYES: Now, Pema, the Purdue moving a million dollars is just sort of a pikers anti compared to the amount of money that Loeffler has, who's whose husband is a president of the New York Stock Exchange, and the two of them made a whole bunch of trades early on. Again, people, just to refresh everyone's memory, like the markets tanked before it kind of set into the general public what exactly we were dealing with in terms of, you know, the level of this pandemic.
She has been cleared, I guess, in so far as the Justice Department or Senate Ethics Committee have dropped their investigations. But again, the sort of basic facts here still don't look great politically.
PEMA LEVY, REPORTER, MOTHER JONES: Yes, politically, they're terrible. You know, Kelly Loeffler and her husband began selling stock immediately after she attended a senator's briefing on the Coronavirus on January 24th. And then they also bought some stock. For example, they bought stock in a company that does telework software, which also seems to indicate, you know, a pandemic is coming in about to shape the economy.
So, as with the case that Katie was just discussing, the Justice Department, and also the Senate Ethics Committee, both dropped their investigations. But again, these things are incredibly hard to prove. And the thing about public corruption is that it's sort of like the appearance is a really big deal and it's really hard to shake it.
This really impacted Loeffler in the spring, when the investigations were going on. She was in a tough primary. And she ended up succeeding in the in the primary, which was actually her November election so that's why she's now in a run-off. But these things continued to haunt her campaign, and that really stuck with her.
I think, you know, when it comes to Purdue, in some way, he's sort of the gift that keeps on giving, because there's been so many recent revelations including Katie's breaking story. But Loeffler is the one who's had these sort of following her the entire year, really her entire Senate career.
HAYES: We should -- I want to play this. Loeffler also, in order to ward off that challenge from Doug Collins to make sure she got into the top two slot, she ran to the farthest right possible in that -- in that race. And now, in a remarkably brazen pivot, is really got a different message down the homestretch.
I want to -- these are ads from earlier in the year and the ad she's running now mashed up against each other. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did you know Kelly Loeffler was ranked the most conservative senator in America?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: More conservative than Attila the Hun.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Kelly Loeffler, 100 percent Trump voting record.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We need someone who understands how to not only write paychecks and sign paychecks but how it feels like waiting on that paycheck.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Pulling opportunities for minority businesses and a comprehensive health care plan for all Georgians.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Pema, that ad says someone who understands waiting on that paycheck. She is literally the richest member of Congress as far as we can tell.
LEVY: Yes. You know, this is sort of the classic pivot, right. You run really far to the right during a primary to get out those base voters. And I think this is particularly true of Loeffler because, first of all, she was haunted by these corruption charges. And so the best thing she could do for herself was really hug the Trump base.
But now, she really needs to basically win reliable Republican voters in the Atlanta suburbs who have really been disillusioned with Trump and are willing to walk away from the Republican Party in ways that they haven't been before. So, now you're seeing this sort of classic pivot back to the center.
I think, especially with someone like Loeffler who ran so many of those, you know, ads showing how close she is to Trump and how conservative she is, I think that pivot will be tricky, but clearly she's giving it a go.
HAYES: Katie, David Perdue has gotten kind of tight-lipped about all this is my understanding. Like, he has kind of stopped talking to the press generally in the face of this. What's going on there?
BENNER: I think two things. He's maintained his innocence. And we have to again, reiterate that the Justice Department did not find wrongdoing at the end of the day, so that is very fair. But I think that, what it's going to come down to Georgia is a turnout operation and will voters turn out for these candidates?
And I don't think it behooves him to talk about the possibility he has ethics issues as he tries to get people to the polls in the face of a very polarizing set of actions on the part of presidents who deny the results of that action, as we see Loeffler try to make these pivots. You know, when it comes to the Republican vote, there are a lot of reasons for people to worry that people come to the polls. And the last thing they want to do is focus on whether the candidate possibly has ethics issues. It does not (INAUDIBLE) to speak with them.
HAYES: Yes. Katie Benner, who's done great reporting on this, as has Pema Levy. Thank you both for being with me tonight. I appreciate it.
That is ALL IN on this Monday evening. "THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW" starts right now. Good evening, Rachel.
RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC HOST: Good evening, Chris. Thank you, my friend. Much appreciated.
HAYES: You bet.
MADDOW: And thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. We got a big show tonight.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.END
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