Summary
Three weeks from the election and we see more rallies, more exposure, and more reckless endangerment from the Republican Party. COVID cases and hospitalizations are rising as the U.S. enters into the third wave. Dr. Anthony Fauci scolds the Trump campaign for taking his comments out of concept in an ad. A Michigan sheriff suggests extremists charged in kidnapping Gov. Whitmer were trying to make an arrest.
Transcript
JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: John Brennan, thank you very much for your time. Best of luck with the book, sir. Thank you. And that is tonight's REIDOUT. Thank you all for being here tonight. "ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES" starts right now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST: Tonight on ALL IN.
MARK MEADOWS, CHIEF OF STAFF, WHITE HOUSE: Well, I'm more than 10 feet away. Well, I'm not going to talk through a mask.
HAYES: Three weeks from the election, more rallies, more exposure, and more reckless endangerment from the party of COVID. Tonight, Senator Cory Booker on why none of this is normal.
Then, she was allegedly the target of a terrorist kidnapping plot. Tonight, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer on why she says she will not be intimidated.
And inside the Republican movement to stop counting all the votes as voters line the streets on the first day of early voting in Georgia.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It doesn't matter how long it takes. We will stand in line to vote. We're voting like our life depends on it.
HAYES: When ALL IN starts right now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Good evening from New York. I'm Chris Hayes. I want to show you tonight some video from earlier today that embodies the priorities of the party of Donald Trump just three weeks before Election Day in the midst of a pandemic that is now entering its third wave.
That is Utah Republican Senator Mike Lee, speaking in person in the room at the Supreme Court confirmation hearing for a conservative judge Amy Coney Barrett today. As you can see, Senator Mike Lee, though speaking, is not wearing a mask. And you may recall the Senator from such events as this one. That would be the White House Rose Garden event on September 26 that Dr. Anthony Fauci described as a super spreader event for Amy Coney Barrett where Senator Lee was seen hugging people.
And here's Lee maskless three days later with Judge Barrett. He is one of at least 12 people who were at that super-spreader event who were then subsequently diagnosed with COVID. And while he wasn't hospitalized, he has had and maybe still has a pretty serious case by his own admission.
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SEN. MIKE LEE (R-UT): I had fatigue; I had some fevers. Sometimes I felt like it might feel to be 98 years old in a boxing match.
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HAYES: Now, Mike Lee is not fully out of the woods. His doctor today released a letter that acknowledged that while Lee is improving, he is basically still experiencing symptoms self-reported. And yet there he was in the hearing room today, speaking without a mask, so committed to ramming through a justice to giving Trump and conservatives a 60 majority on the court for generation so they can do things like, I don't know, maybe take away Americans health care.
He's so committed to that project that even though he might have contracted the illness at the last big event for this justice, even though he is still experiencing symptoms, he rush back into that room to breathe all over his colleagues. He could have done it on Zoom. I mean, we've all spent seven months working remotely, but no, no, no, no, no.
Why? Well, because they just don't seem to care how many people get sick and how many people die so long as they can push their justice through. Kamala Harris who chose to attend to the hearing via video conferencing, smart call, told committee members that what they were doing was completely irresponsible.
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SEN. KAMALA HARRIS (D-CA), VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This hearing has brought together more than 50 people to sit inside of a closed-door room for hours while our nation is facing a deadly airborne virus. This committee has ignored common sense requests to keep people safe, including not requiring testing for all members, despite a coronavirus outbreak among senators of this very committee.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: She's right. Senator Lindsey Graham, you may recall, chairs the committee, in a tough reelection battle in South Carolina against Jamie Harrison. He's been in contact with COVID positive senators and has refused to get a COVID test, apparently, for fear, oh my word, he might test positive and then not be able to ramp to the judge before Election Day.
Neither would another committee member get tested, Senator Chuck Grassley. Look at this. There's Mike Lee and Lindsey Graham before they took their masks off standing directly above the 87-year-old Grassley this morning and chatting. Let's help those masks run tight.
Now, Donald Trump's party wants to ram through this justice, this judge, and submit the majority for generation no matter who gets sick, whether in their home circle or in America at large. They will do whatever it takes, and they get prickly and petulant when you try to get them to be just a little bit responsible on even the most minor things.
No one has worked closer with the president while he was shedding viral load as chief of staff Mark Meadows has. And this morning, Meadows lost his cool when reporters on Capitol Hill had the nerve to suggest he maybe wear a mask while speaking to them.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MEADOWS: I tell you what, let me do this. Let me pull this away.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, pull away.
MEADOWS: And then, that way, I can take this off to talk. Well, I'm more than 10 feet away. I'm not -- well, I'm not going to talk through a mask.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: I'm not going to talk through a mask. You poor guy, oh my gosh, what a burden to talk through a mask. Man, I understand where you're coming from. It's not like millions of people have been doing this for seven months so that we don't get each other sick and so that more people don't die, but I understand.
That attitude is no surprise coming from someone working for a man who made a point of removing his mass while still infected with COVID and then returning to the White House. In Ohio today, Joe Biden said the President's approach to the virus is somehow only getting worse.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: His reckless personal conduct since his diagnosis has been unconscionable. The longer Donald Trump is president, the more recklessly seems to get.
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HAYES: The behavior on display from this president and from his enablers in the Senate today is why we are now in the third wave of Coronavirus. It is why we have one of the highest death tolls per capita of rich countries. It is why cases continue to spike. Look at that. You can see the line of the pink chart-climbing, nearly 50,000 new cases a day on average next to it. Perhaps even more worrying, hospitalizations and the blue chart, and that's ticking up again. There are now 35,000 Americans in the hospital right now as I speak to you with this virus. That's trending up too. And we are still averaging 700 deaths daily.
We are entering the third word wave three weeks before the election. Those are the numbers this is what it looks like around the country. The headlines, rolling average of infections hits new high in 13 states. Only 16, one-six, ICU beds left entire state of North Dakota. North Dakota's new COVID-19 cases double the number of hospital beds available in the state. A Missouri health official warning of a very concerning rise of hospitalizations in just the St. Louis area while a Kansas health officials starkly seeing that Kansas is losing the battle on COVID-19.
The White House has already shrugged his shoulders at more than 200,000 Americans dead, 215,000 of them. It's now lying about Anthony Fauci's opinion about its response. Fauci had to scold the Trump campaign for using his comments out of context in a new ad to make it look like he was lauding Trump.
Fauci is also warning that we could have 200,000 more deaths if we don't do the right thing. This is what he says, "that model show unless necessary precautions are taken for this fall in winter, we could have 300,000 to 400,000 deaths in the U.S." Necessary precautions, those people rushing back into the room while they have COVID to take their mask off and talk. Those people that won't talk through the mask because it's such a burden.
Do you trust these people, this White House, and that party to take those precautions? This stuff is a matter of life and death. There are tens of thousands of people right now who aren't sick who are going to get sick and die if the right precautions aren't taken. They don't appear to care how many people die if they can get their Supreme Court Justice through or somehow get this president re-elected. It sounds almost deranged and hyperbolic to say it, but it is absolutely the plain and indisputable truth.
I'm joined now by Erin Banco, National Security Reporter of The Daily Beast who co-authored a new very well-reported piece titled Trump fans will never wear masks, horrified COVID Task Force admits. Erin, some of -- some of what's reported in your piece is sort of publicly intuitable because of the behavior we've seen. But I just thought like the personal petulant animus towards these basic precautions you saw from Meadows today as a sort of reflection of President self, I thought this was so remarkable. So, I want to read this piece of the article and get you to talk about it.
"If you step into meeting with the President and you wear a mask when he and the rest of the room were not, you would very likely hear about it from the President himself, said a Trump administration official who's been in the room in such cases. It was well known in the building, if you want to be taken seriously by the president, you should take his lead on the mask thing and not be the guy wearing a mask in a gathering with him as if to say you're sticking it to Trump.." Say more about that.
ERIN BANCO, NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER, THE DAILY BEAST: Yes, so this is -- this sort of sentiment about, you know, do I wear a mask in the White House, do I not wear a mask in the White House, will I get in trouble if I do wear a mask goes back until the early days of the pandemic in the spring during the peak season of COVID.
You know, the feeling among the staff was that they were going to actually get in trouble if they wore masks in the White House because either their bosses had told them something about them perhaps getting in trouble or the President wasn't wearing a mask, so we have to have a unified look of the White House. And that sort of idea and feeling about masks has persisted throughout this pandemic.
And sort of through the summer months, it became sort of a symbol, you know, for people who are Trump supporters. It became the symbol of not wearing it, became a symbol of defiance, right, that you were supporting the President's choice, personal choice not to wear a mask.
Meanwhile, you have scientists and doctors who work with the Coronavirus Task Force out in the community telling your everyday average American, you have to wear a mask. This is the way we're going to stop the spread. And yet, you have the president and his advisors and his staff choosing not to do so because they say it's a personal liberty. It's their decision to not wear a mask.
And we all know the consequences of not social distancing, about washing your hands and not wearing a mask. It can only lead to more community spread.
HAYES: There's a moment in your pieces, you know, when he comes back from being -- I think there was some hope in some quarters, and I did not share this hope because I've been alive for the last seven months, that the President's diagnosis would somehow change the trajectory of how seriously people would take it including the President.
And there's a piece -- you talked to some of the peace who talks about the moment that he comes back and sort of theatrically takes the mask off. I mean --
BANCO: That's right.
HAYES: -- out of the hospitals, he says, that's what I realized the time to convince Americans to take all these health precautions seriously in order to prevent the spread was totally over, said one senior health official who works with the Coronavirus Task Force. I mean, think about that quote.
BANCO: Yes. This is an amazing turning point. You know, I've been speaking to officials who work with the Coronavirus Task Force and the immediate vicinity of the Coronavirus Task Force who say that this was a real turning point for them because they realized in that moment with Trump's whisking away his mask, that the public messaging on social distancing, and particularly mask-wearing had sort of fallen off the radar, right. That this was, you know, a turning point in the sense that in trying to get all these Americans to wear a mask, that you just -- now, you can't. Right now, it's so far gone that public messaging and there's no turning back.
HAYES: And I think it's just important. I mean, I think people who've been following this closely, who watched the show have a sense of this, but I just want to state it as clearly as I can. I mean, I think we've often talked about the president bumbling the response and incompetence. But you know, what's revealed in your reporting and their actions is they are working affirmatively intentionally to take actions to promote the spread of the coronavirus. Whether that's the intention or not, what they are doing is actively working to have more people get sick. It's not like, oh, he screw this up. They are actually taking affirmative steps to get more people sick.
BANCO: Yes. And, you know, you hear a lot of the president and White House officials quoting CDC guidelines about mask-wearing, but what they're really doing is sort of misinterpreting what the guidelines say, and they're cherry-picking guidelines that work for them. And at the end of the day, mask-wearing is essential. And if they're pushing a message that says you don't really need to wear a mask, or it's your personal choice, and don't worry about it, everything's under control, that is in complete opposition to what people like Dr. Birx and Dr. Fauci and Dr. Redfield are pushing and what they say will help prevent not only the spread but future deaths.
HAYES: Erin Banco, great reporting that piece. Really, really well done. Thank you.
BANCO: Thank you.
HAYES: I want to now bring in Dr. Richard Besser, former Acting Director of the CDC who's nonpartisan, recently wrote that COVID in the White House should be America's wake up call. Also with me Olivia Troye, former aide Vice President Mike Pence, who served on that Coronavirus Task Force we've been talking about, and now plans to vote for Biden because of Trump's "flat-out disregard for human life during the pandemic."
And Olivia, maybe I will start with you as someone who worked on the task force watching the development -- two developments, parallel developments in last few weeks, the White House's response to having birthed a COVID cluster through fairly reckless behaviors inside that facility, and the fact that the cases are growing in the country, more important, I think, in many ways that we're entering a third wave. And to watch the messaging from Republicans, not just the President, Mike Lee, and all those today, what is going through your mind as you watch that?
OLIVIA TROYE, FORMER AIDE TO VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE: You know, it's appalling to me that they continue to behave in this manner. And it just shows their complete disconnect and disregard for people. I mean, these are selfish actions by these individuals. These are supposed to be the GOP leaders, right, of our country. And watching Mark Meadows during that interview, he took his mask off and then put it back on and basically throw a tantrum no different than the President has shown in the past, just shows you how willing and committed they are to perpetuating this misinformation in support of the president.
HAYES: There's also just something so wildly out of touch about these childish tantrums like -- about oh, I can't -- I can't remotely attend the meeting, I can't talk to you through mask. Like, hey, buddy, welcome to the world. What the hell do you think we've all been doing for seven months? Like, oh, I'm sorry, in the White House, you get to do everything in person. You don't have to wear a mask. But welcome to the universe we inhabit.
And that's, Dr. Besser, that's what relates, I think, to where we find ourselves now. You know, many people have foretold a difficult fall and winter from CDC director, Dr. Redfield, to Anthony Fauci and to many experts who said, we start to move indoors. We are seeing a big wave happen in other pure countries, the U.K. and France and Spain really worrying a new case is being posted. Are we in a third wave? What is your assessment of this moment?
RICHARD BESSER, FORMER ACTING DIRECTOR, CDC: Yes, you know, Chris, I don't tend to use the phrase third wave, because the virus hasn't gone away. The number of cases we've seen in states and cities is a direct reflection on whether the people in those places are following the guidance of public health. So, in many states that have followed that guidance, and those are red states and blue states, we've seen the cases go down, we've seen hospitalizations going down.
And what we're seeing now is in many places where people are not following the guidance, where people aren't wearing masks, and the behaviors is such that allows the virus to spread, we're seeing the numbers go up. And the challenge is that everywhere, we'll be facing the same situation of colder weather, lower humidities, more interactivity where the virus will do well.
So, if we're not together as a nation, in terms of wearing masks and washing hands and social distancing, then we're going to be in real trouble, and the models that predict hundreds of thousands of more deaths will be true. It's not a foregone conclusion that they will. We have a choice as a nation to make. But if we don't get on board with public health, those models will unfortunately become a horrible reality.
HAYES: Yes. I mean, I think that the if-then sentence you just uttered, I feel like I'm pretty confident on the if part of it, where you say like if we're together as a nation, if we're not together, then it will be bad. Like, I kind of know the answer to the first part of that, unfortunately. We have seen polling suggesting that you know, 75 percent of the population is complying. But you've got this like, crazy political season, Olivia, where the White House is now using Dr. Fauci's comments praising the taskforce, praising you and your colleagues work, independent of the sabotage by the President. Fauci telling my previous guess Erin Banco that the Trump campaign is in effect harassing me because they won't take down the quote. What is it like to watch Fauci be used by the campaign as some kind of imprimatur for how well the President has done on this?
TROYE: He's angry. I was furious when I saw that ad. This is Trump hypocrisy 101 being displayed head on. I mean, to publicly undermine Dr. Fauci repeatedly and to try to discredit him when he was out there trying to tell the truth about what was going on. I personally saw them block him from being in White House press briefings.
I was the one that actually had to sometimes make call and call him and say, Dr. Fauci, you're not going to be needed today. And I would try to figure out the best way or like most polite way to do it, because I was basically disrespecting his time when he was already on his way to the White House at times. I mean, this is what the level that we're dealing with here.
And so, when I saw that ad, I really -- I really just -- I said, how dare you? How dare you try to use him now as your political pawn, someone who has served for decades unwaveringly, and given everything he has in his career in a non-biased manner, in a non-political manner? And suddenly now you're trying to use his words out of context to support your political agenda, because you know that discrediting him and undermining the work of the task force and him hasn't quite worked out in your favor. So, hey, let's flip the switch. And suddenly, we're Dr. Fauci fans again? I'm not buying it.
HAYES: Dr. Besser, you talked about behavior and behaviors over sort of population levels in various places. It just strikes me that we've got this problem which is that it is hard to maintain the kind of vigilance that we need A. B, there's a kind of thermostatic relationship between population behaviors and perception of risk so that people, you know, if the virus and community transmission have gone down, people tend to be more lenient, and they take more liberties.
Understandably they do things like oh, I haven't gotten a haircut in a few months. Let me go do that now. And then what you see is those create the conditions for a spike, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. Like how -- is there any way out of that cycle?
BESSER: I think there is. Because you know, the narrative you just laid out, when the numbers go way down, and hospitalizations go way down, that is the time to slowly carefully following public health advice, try and get people back to some more activity. So, that is the time where you can go get your hair cut, if it's at a, you know, barbershop or salon that's following the CDC guides, you know, it has barriers up and increased numbers of people.
The goal is to use public health not as a barrier to economic activity, but as the roadmap. And you know, the big challenge right now, Chris, is that public health is being put forward as the enemy of economic recovery instead of the way to sustained economic activity. And if we can get past that, you know, then what we'll see is that we will be able to do more activities than we currently do because if people are following all the guidance, we're going to see less transmission.
HAYES: Dr. Richard Besser and Olivia Troye, thank you both for making some time to speak with me tonight.
BESSER: Thanks, Chris.
HAYES: Up next, confirming a Supreme Court justice in the middle of a pandemic with the presidential election already underway. Senator Cory Booker on the reckless push by Republicans to get Amy Coney Barrett on the bench after this.
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HAYES: Today began the Senate confirmation hearings to the first-ever Supreme Court nominee of an impeached president, interesting historical note. It's also the closest hearings to have been held to an election in over a century. Democrats say Republicans are forcing the process forward at rush speeds and against the will of the majority of Americans who believe it should wait for the election.
Democrats on the Judiciary Committee made day one about the fate of the Affordable Care Act, arguing that putting Amy Coney Barrett on the court will put the health care of millions upon millions of people at risk during a pandemic. Barrett has previously criticized ObamaCare's constitutionality in a previous case on different grounds.
And just one week after the election, of course, the Supreme Court will hear yet another lawsuit to dismantle the ACA, a lawsuit that the President himself and his Justice Department and Republican attorneys general around the country all support. Even though the majority of Americans do not, which of course, is why Republicans made incredibly insanely disingenuous arguments like this today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. CHUCK GRASSLEY (R-IA): The left is also suggesting Judge Barrett's confirmation would be the demise of the Affordable Care Act and the protection for pre-existing conditions. That's outrageous. As a mother of seven, Judge Barrett clearly understands the importance to healthcare.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Outrageous, he calls that. Think about this for a minute, OK. Chuck Grassley is saying, look, this person is sitting before me. She's not a monster. She has seven children for God's sake. There is no way she would strike down the Affordable Care Act amidst a pandemic. You would have to be a psycho sadist do that. But again, that's exactly what the Trump administration is asking the court to do.
Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey serves on the Judiciary Committee, and he joins me now. Senator, it's good to have you. And I want to talk about some of the things you said today. But I just want to start on the ACA. It was something that came up a lot at the Judiciary Committee. I think there's reasons to think that the case is very weak before it gets to the court. But there's something head spinning about being told that your concern about this lawsuit is unfounded and preposterous when it is the Republican Party, the Republican president who are pursuing it.
SEN. CORY BOOKER (D-NJ): It's part of the Republican platform to get rid of the Affordable Care Act. They -- President Trump explicitly said that he would not put someone on the court unless they were willing to do the right thing and get rid of the Affordable Care Act, his word. So, this is not something we're pulling out of thin air. This is what they told us time and time again.
And not only they told us, it's their actions. They came at the Affordable Care Act, one of the first things out of the gate when Donald Trump was elected. If it wasn't for three Republicans getting morally swayed by all those Americans, 130 million Americans with pre-existing conditions, 20 million Americans that would lose their health insurance from the Affordable Care Act immediately and more, if it wasn't for those three Republicans, we would have lost it.
But they've continued to work it, and now they are rushing this through in order to get Amy Coney Barrett seated by the time the oral arguments are heard. I think November 10th is the day they want to get her seated by so that she can rule against the Affordable Care Act.
HAYES: So this was the biggest theme I think of the day today. And I have to say, I was sort of two minds about it. One is that I understand why that was the focus because it's so tangible and substantive and material and so impending, and there's an election. But it also felt like it conceded a certain normalcy to the entire undertaking that was not due. And you were very outspoken on it.
So first, I want to ask, what was it like to be there? Did it feel as surreal as the whole thing looked? And then second of all, like, what is the tension between these sort of meat and potatoes arguments on the ACA and process arguments about how insane this entire undertaking is?
BOOKER: Well, I mean, to say that this is surreal is an understatement. We're in the middle of a global pandemic. You just were talking about cases on the rise. Mitch McConnell decided that it was not safe enough for the Senate to return. So, he left the Senate in recess for a while he though is still going ahead with a hearing in which two Republicans have already, because of a super spreader event, already gotten COVID-19.
And so, you're sitting there in a mask in a closed room for hours on end, with a lot of staffers, a lot of support staff, going through something that we know is a historic. It's never happened before. The only time a Supreme Court justice has died as close to an election was when Lincoln was president of the United States. And what did he do? Nothing. He did not put someone up.
So, the whole process is broken, especially as Lindsey Graham sits there. And it wasn't that many months ago that he said he would not be doing this, and to use his words against him. So, the whole thing, it has the air of absolutely illegitimacy. There is a perilousness to it of sitting there. We are in the midst of an election in which millions of people have already voted. This is just wrong every which way you look at it and most certainly not normal.
HAYES: What do you -- what is the conversation amongst Democrats about what the goal is of these hearings? Like what -- there's this weird kind of fait accompli feeling to a lot of it and there's a madness and frustration that people sort of express through donate to Act Blue and doing what they can, as you know, on the Senate races. As someone on that committee, like, what's your goal for this undertaking?
BOOKER: So first, I just want to confess, I have more of a feeling of dread in the first time they came after the ACA. I was very surprised by John McCain. I did not think that they -- he would -- he would be swayed. But remember, there were thousands of Americans speaking out that morally swayed three Republicans to stop them from tearing down the ACA in the first place.
So, I'm not going to give up the hope that only one of the committee members on the Republican side changes their mind and it doesn't get out of committee, two on the Senate floor and it doesn't pass, to join the other two senators who have already -- Republican senators who have already spoken out against this.
So, that's number one, but number two is, I also want the American people to know plainly what is at stake. And I think that's what you're going to hear over the next couple of days is number one, obviously the Affordable Care Act. We also know Roe v. Wade. How do we know that she will overturn Roe v. Wade? It's because Donald Trump has said that, that he would not nominate a justice that would do anything but overturn it.
We have some of my Republican colleagues said they wouldn't vote for somebody unless they would overturn Roe v. Wade, which means the potential criminalization of abortion. It means really that potentially states could pass laws that caused the investigation of miscarriages to see if they were abortions which they've declared illegal.
This is a dramatic change and shift in American culture in that way. And this doesn't even begin to get to the other issues that will be touched upon, which is the rolling back of union rights, of voting rights, of civil rights, of LGBTQ equality and more.
HAYES: Senator Cory Booker who is in person at that Senate Judiciary hearings as they continue through the week for Judge Amy Coney Barrett who has been nominated to the Supreme Court. Thank you so much for talking to us time.
BOOKER: Thank you for having me. Thank you.
HAYES: Up next, the alleged right-wing terror plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. Don't go anywhere because the governor herself is here to react to the charges and the President's continued attacks after this.
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GOV. GRETCHEN WHITMER (D-MI): These are high stakes. And I got to tell you, I've had a heck of a 24 hours. And if I can show up here and show up for Dan O'Neil, we all can every single day between now and this election.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Governor of the state of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, was back out on the campaign trail just one day half the FBI says it broke up a plot by right-wing extremists to kidnap her. Six men were charged in that plot, and then seven more men were charged by the state on related terrorism charges.
Some of the suspects have been seen armed at protests inside the statehouse in April, after President Trump called for people to "liberate Michigan" from Governor Whitmer's COVID restrictions. And I'm pleased to be joined now by the governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer.
Governor, it's great to have you. And first, I just want to sort of get a sense of where things stand for you in terms of your state and your security situation and how you're feeling.
WHITMER: You know what, Chris, I mean, obviously, I don't think this should be a part of any bargain in public service that we have to sustain and deal with threats to our physical well-being. This was ugly, there's no question. 2020 has been a tough year. And I know lots of people have made a lot of sacrifice, and we're stressed out, and we're worried.
And I think that's why it's so important that, yes, we hold people accountable. And they've been arrested. And I'm so grateful for the FBI and the Michigan State Police. They did a phenomenal job and put themselves at risk to keep my family and me safe. But we got 22 days until election. And that's why I'm still out on the campaign trail, still governing, still trying to keep people safe in Michigan because people need leaders who are going to put them first.
HAYES: I want to ask about the politics in your state and COVID. But I wanted to get your response to something that a sheriff in your state said. He's an individual who had been at several protests protesting some of the public health restrictions the state had put in place. He'd been seen on stage with several of the men subsequently arrested. And he was asked by a local news reporter about the charges against them planning to kidnap you. And his answer was a real doozy. I'd like you to respond to it. This is what he had to say.
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DAR LEAF, SHERIFF, BARRY COUNTY, MICHIGAN: Well, it's just a charge. And they say plot the kidnap. And you got to remember that are they trying to kidnap because a lot of people are angry with the governor, and they want her arrested? So are they trying to arrest or was it a kidnap attempt? Because you could still Michigan, if it's a felony, you could make a felony arrest. And I think it's MC0764.4 or something like that, point five, somewhere on there.
And it doesn't say if you're an elected office, that you're exempt from that arrest. So I have to look at it from that angle and I'm hoping that's more what it is. In fact, these guys are innocent until proven guilty. So, I'm not even sure if they had any part of it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: It's Barry County Sheriff Leaf. What's your response to that?
WHITMER: You know, I read -- I have no response to that, Chris. The fact of the matter is he shared a stage with people that are accused of and have been arrested for attempting to -- you know, they're planning to kidnap and try me and murder me. That's -- if it was -- that something that sounds like ISIS, right? I mean, that's not acceptable.
And what we need are people of goodwill on both sides of the aisle who are willing to stand up and take on the hate that has overcome our country. I was out knocking doors today. I talked to some people who for the first time put political yard signs in their lawns. They want leaders who can bring us together, leaders that can chart a better path, leaders that can speak to our aspirations and the aspirations of this democracy, not people that are going to feed into or excuse or incite this dangerous unlawful behavior that these domestic terrorists were engaged in.
HAYES: You said you're knocking on doors. Obviously, Michigan a crucial state for a whole bunch of reasons, and your victory there in the midterms in 2018, a real bright spot in a state that obviously went for Donald Trump in 2016. A new New York Times poll today has Joe Biden winning by eight points in that state 48 to 40.
But a real interesting result is the Senate race where incumbent Gary Peters is facing a challenge from John James who's a second time candidate. He ran two years ago as well, and that's a very close race. What is your assessment of where that race is, where the state's politics are with three weeks until the election?
WHITMER: Well, we know that, you know, Michiganders are practical people. We work hard, we are good people, we expect our government to be as good and to work as hard. And Gary has been a phenomenal senator for the state of Michigan. We are fortunate to have someone who truly is a public servant in every sense of the word in Gary. His -- the person that is running against him ran two years ago against Debbie Stabenow. She beat him handily.
He is, you know, running a campaign. He's built some name I.D. This is going to be competitive race. But I really believe that because of Gary's record, and because of his dedication with people in Michigan, he will be successful. But we're not taking anything for granted. We're going to keep our foot on the gas all the way through Election Day.
HAYES: You know, one thing that's striking about your tenure as governor, particularly over the last year is I remember watching those protests back in April, and I remember this. There was a very concerted attempt by national conservative media and the president and others to sort of really sort of target you politically, right, that this was -- you know, this was the boot of tyranny.
And it seemed to be an open question about what it would mean for you politically in your state. It's a, you know, it's a swing state, and it's hard to stay at home for a long time, and everyone is frustrated with it. And it is striking to me that your approval rating right now I think, is up, you know, 51 to 41, that the political and policy incentives in your state seem to align, which is to say it seems to be you have been politically rewarded by the folks in your state for taking the measures you have and taking the virus seriously. Is that your sense?
WHITMER: Well, I've been following the science. People in this state, by and large, have been doing the right thing. We've taken this seriously. In the early days, we've the third highest number of COVID cases and COVID deaths. If you look at where we are now, we're like 33rd in the country. We've pushed our rates down. We've saved thousands of lives. And our economy is one of the top 10 economic recoveries in the nation. We have a lot to be proud of.
When you take this pandemic seriously in a nurse and not just the benefit of your economy, but to the health of our people, which is centered all the work that we're doing. And that's why I think Joe Biden is going to win this election. People understand an administration that doesn't get their arms around COVID-19 costs us all.
It costs us in terms of 220,000 lives that have been lost. It cost us tens of millions people who are in without work. People who are in food lines who never been in a food pantry line in their lives. That's the real truth here. That when an administration doesn't get their arms around the pandemic, we all pay in so many ways. But our economy, there's no question, is struggling because the Trump administration never got their arms around this pandemic.
And I know I'm not popular with them because I said they didn't have a national strategy six months ago, but to this day, they still don't, and we deserve better.
HAYES: Governor Gretchen Whitmer of a state of -- state of Michigan which you can see on the pillow, the love pillow behind her, which is a great pillow and a great state, thank you for making time.
WHITMER: Thank you, Chris.
HAYES: Still ahead, more than nine million Americans have already cast their ballot in the presidential election. Coming up, new reporting tonight on the behind the scenes effort by the Trump campaign to undermine the election.
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HAYES: We are still more than three weeks from Election Day and already more than nine million people have cast their vote in the presidential election. Every day, new states are opening their in-person early voting. And this is a scene in the possible swing state of Georgia today, a state where Republican efforts at voter suppression and mismanagement have led to legendary long lines.
Today was no different. Local NBC reporter Andy Parati spoke to one woman who got in line at 6:20 a.m. and still waited over five hours to vote.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think people are just really ready to vote. And it doesn't matter how long it takes, we will stand in line to vote. So, I think that's the most important part. We're voting like our life depends on it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Gwinnett County, which is near Atlanta, is a crucial county this election, actually post the wait times for early voting sites online. The time was 90 minutes while the elections office location had an eight, that's eight-hour estimated wait. Now, today was the first day and demand was high, turnout was bonkers by historical standards, so we will see how this develops over the next few days and weeks.
Because even though we are in a pandemic and even though things are undeniably crazy, all signs are pointing to the highest level of voter turnout in modern American history. And right now, if everyone who wants to vote, you can vote safely. And if the polls are anywhere close to accurate, Donald Trump is losing by a lot.
In FiveThirtyEight, the national polling gap between Trump and Biden hit its largest margin yet. Trump is now down 10.5 points. The Republican plan to counter those polls, cheap, basically. That's clearly been the plan for a while, but now they're just coming out and saying it.
The Associated Press -- listen to this quote. "Some Trump allies say their best bet is to hope the elections look close election night before some of the mail-in ballots are counted allowing Trump to declare victory and have the results thrown to the courts." The results thrown? No, that's not how democracy works. But that is not stopping the Trump campaign from assembling an army of lawyers trying to undermine the entire election. We're going to talk about that next.
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HAYES: People around Donald Trump know he is losing right now even if Trump himself is incapable of recognizing it. Trump is obviously dedicated to sabotaging the election and its legitimacy, but he cannot do it alone. There's a whole Republican Party legal apparatus going along with it.
As the New York Times report, there is an extensive behind the scenes effort led by the lawyers and operatives on Trump's campaign claiming with no evidence that mail and voting is rife with fraud, pushing the boundaries of traditional poll monitoring in ways that many Democrats believe amount to voter intimidation and putting legal pressure on states to aggressively purge their voter rolls.
The Times identifies operatives such as Trump deputy campaign manager Justin Clark, Trump campaign general counsel Matthew Morgan, Trump campaign staffer Michael Roman, and Trump campaign senior advisor Robert Paduchik. Remember those names and remember those faces, those four gentlemen you see there. These are the people that are trying to make it harder to vote.
These are the people trying to blur the lines between legitimate pursuit of the campaign's legal interest in courts and a full-fledged assault on the basic principles of free and fair elections. The plan is to twist the law to cheat Trump to a second term.
I want to bring in someone who is closely tracking those efforts, Ari Berman, senior reporter for Mother Jones and author of Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America. Ari, I thought that that quote in the A.P. article, you know, 20 paragraphs down saying, yes, well, hopefully, it'll be close enough and we can just throw it to the courts as if that's like the actual game plan here. But it seems clear and clear that that is the actual game plan here.
ARI BERMAN, SENIOR REPORTER, MOTHER JONES: Yes, it's pretty amazing, Chris. I mean, voter suppression is not a new thing. We've talked about it a lot on this show. It goes back a long way in the Republican Party. But it's pretty incredible to me that the Trump campaign's only strategy right now seems to be voter suppression, seems to be openly admitting that they can't win unless they prevent people from voting.
And that to me is a dramatic escalation of what Republicans have done in the past. They've spent a lot more time trying to suppress the vote and they've tried to suppress the (AUDIO GAP) this is where we're at right now.
HAYES: Yes. And I think that point about voter suppression to me too, it's -- there's two different ways this happens, right? I mean, front end efforts that we know they're undertaking to make it harder to vote early, and to make it harder to vote by mail and have to get an affidavit, or to reduce the amount of drop-in boxes, right. But the idea that after people have cast their votes that you would aggressively go into court and try to make sure ballots that are cast aren't counted is a whole other level of suppression.
BERMAN: Exactly. It's suppression at every level of the process. First, you make it as difficult to vote as possible. Then, that leads to all sorts of questions about whether votes are counted. And then you use the uncertainty over the counting of those ballots to then challenged those ballots. And then you litigate into the court, and then of course, you appoint justices.
And this is the whole reason they want Amy Coney Barrett on the court so quickly, you appoint justices, will then hear those challenges. So, it really manipulating democracy at every stage of the process from the beginning of the end trying to achieve the outcome that you want through anti-democratic means.
HAYES: You know, it does seem that there's some evidence for a backlash effect with these efforts. And I thought -- I thought that the images you saw on Georgia today were pretty interesting. At one level, yet another administrative failure it would seem from Georgia, although many people noted that, look, it may just be demand is so insane.
But also, what you see there is, you know, these efforts do have a kind of backlash effect, right. I mean, do we have evidence that sometimes is -- sometimes is what ends up happening when stakes take measures to try to restrain people from voting.
BERMAN: Yes, we do have some evidence of that. And I think we're seeing in Georgia and other states that massive turnout can overcome massive suppression. And the question this year isn't really whether people will vote. We know that people are very motivated to vote. The question is, will they be able to overcome the barriers that are put in front of them? And I think what we're seeing so far that people are very motivated to try to overcome those barriers, whether it's voting by mail early, or voting early in person. And that's one reason why we saw record vote -- voter turnout in Georgia, because people want to vote early. They don't want to wait until Election Day. So, there's really big problems at the poll.
So, I think we're seeing evidence through nearly 10 million people already voting, that people are motivated to overcome the barriers that are in front of them. And I think that will be one of the dominant storylines, if not the dominant storyline of the election going forward.
HAYES: Yes. I think there are 80,000 votes cast in Georgia just today, which is crazy when you consider that it's three weeks to the election tomorrow. There's also this -- the Texas story continues to be amazing. Texas and Georgia to me the two of the most striking states.
These are states that have, you know, generally Republican control. These are states that never considered themselves to be swing states. They are states that now show essentially ties at the presidential level and very hotly contested Senate races. And you've got efforts by state Republicans to sort of make it harder to vote, and also enormous registration increase in Texas that could change how this election goes. What do you think?
BERMAN: Yes. And we're -- Texas has the first day of early voting tomorrow, and we're probably going to see major turnout, long lines in Texas as well. But I think in Texas and Georgia, you have the Republican Party doing everything it can to make it harder to vote to stop the changing demographics of the country. But you also see those changing demographics, exercising political power in record numbers.
And I think in both Texas and Georgia, young people, communities of color, more progressive white folks are forming a really powerful coalition to take on this kind of suppression. I think these are two states that if they don't tip in 2020, are going to tip very soon. And that's going to change the entire political map and it's going to force the Republican Party either double down on voter suppression or to change their strategy and get away from some of this stuff if it starts to backfire on them like it seems to be backfiring right now.
HAYES: Yes, I think that's really the question. And part of the reason the stakes are so high in this election, above everything else, is just this sort of breaking point of when a -- of when a party decides that is kind of anti-democratic tactics are no longer worth it. Ari Berman who does a fantastic reporting on this, as always, great to have you.
BERMAN: Thanks so much, Chris.
HAYES: Happy birthday -- happy birthday to Nora too.
BERMAN: Thank you.
HAYES: That is ALL IN on this Monday evening. "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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