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Transcript: The Beat with Ari Melber, 9/17/21

Guests: Brittney Cooper, Dorian Warren, Victoria DeFrancesco Soto, Kurt Bardella, Ezekiel Emanuel, Ryan Reilly

Summary

A racist conspiracy theory jumps from the fringe to the GOP`s mainstream. News emerges on evidence seized in the Rudy Giuliani raid. What does Matthew McConaughey have to do with a resurgence in the labor movement? D.C. goes on high alert as it prepares for another right-wing rally at the Capitol. The FDA announces details on booster shots from Pfizer.

Transcript

NICOLLE WALLACE, MSNBC HOST: THE BEAT with Jason Johnson, in for Ari, starts right now.

Hi, Jason.

JASON JOHNSON, MSNBC HOST: Hi. Thanks, Nicolle.

Welcome to THE BEAT. I`m Jason Johnson, in for Ari Melber.

D.C. is on high alert, just hours away from another right-wing rally at the Capitol. The rally is in support of the January 6 insurrectionists, former President Trump expressing sympathy for them. Authorities say they are ready, and here`s why they`re taking precautions.

One of the jailed MAGA defendants recently said this:

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

LANDON COPELAND, TRUMP SUPPORTER: Now, if the president said -- well, soon- to-be president, Mr. Trump, said, hey, go to the Capitol again, there might be a large movement going that way.

But I don`t...

QUESTION: Landon, you think he`s coming back? You say soon-to-be president?

COPELAND: Absolutely. People from all sides recognize that man`s ability to negotiate.

QUESTION: How is that possibly going to happen?

COPELAND: Well, if he was able to speak on a public platform again, then it would absolutely happen.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

JOHNSON: I don`t know if they believe in Trump or the Great Pumpkin.

That rioter seems to believe that Trump is coming back to power, and he`s going to appear just magically hours after the rally. Trump is asking Georgia`s secretary of state to decertify the 2020 election, the same big lie that fueled the January 6 riot.

And Capitol Police speaking today about their preparations for what could happen this weekend.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TOM MANGER, U.S. CAPITOL POLICE CHIEF: There have been some threats of violence associated with this -- the events for tomorrow. And we have a strong plan in place to ensure that it remains peaceful and that, if violence does occur, that we can stop it as quickly as possible.

We`re not going to tolerate violence and we will not tolerate criminal behavior of any kind.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHNSON: The National Guard is standing by, and that fence around the Capitol is back up.

Look, since the insurrection, we haven`t seen that much change. Democracy is still under attack, but the Republican Party is still beholden to a blogger and twice-impeached person in Florida, refusing to speak out against Trump, who says his heart is with the protesters this weekend.

And Pennsylvania Republicans are pushing an election audit. Today, we learned a pro-impeachment Republican lawmaker is leaving Congress, citing the toxic dynamics within his own party.

To discuss all this, joining me now is David Corn, the Washington bureau chief for "Mother Jones," Ryan Reilly, the senior justice reporter for Huffington Post, and Rutgers Professor Brittney Cooper.

Thank you all so much for joining us tonight on THE BEAT.

David, I will start with you.

There`s a large number of Republican lawmakers, many of whom have publicly backed the insurrectionists, voted against impeachment, but they`re not showing up to this event that could be happening tomorrow. What has changed? I mean, these guys were saying it with their chest just a couple weeks ago. What`s changed about so many Republican officials not wanting to show up at this rally tomorrow?

DAVID CORN, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, that`s a really good question.

The Trump cult of personality is a bit of a weird cult. There are different levels of belief. There are the people like you just played out there who believes he`s going to reappear like the Great Pumpkin and be president again. And then there are members of Congress who believe that or close to that and believe the -- or act as if they believe the election was stolen.

But I think a lot of them don`t believe it at all. They`re just running scared. They`re running scared of their own base that has been radicalized and weaponized by Trump and other conservative groups within the Republican Party universe.

And so it`s chasing people like Anthony Gonzalez out of the party. You had a congressman named Scott Perry from Pennsylvania who`s out there today saying that the January 6 protesters are being held like they`re at Guantanamo and haven`t been released. Almost all of them have been released. They`re being prosecuted. He called them peaceful protesters.

You have seen the video. So there is a lot of denial and big lying going on again and again and again. But when it comes down to it, there were only a handful of Republican congresspeople at the January 6 riot itself, at the march beforehand.

A lot of these Republicans are just more scared than they are fierce warriors for Trump, right? But they`re still enabling him and enabling that army. He put together an army of extremists, Christian nationalists, neo- Nazis, white supremacists, to try to stop the election on January 6.

And these Republicans, whether they want to be there with pitchforks or not, are still enabling those forces, those authoritarian, anti-democratic forces. Some of them, a small percentage of them, are coming back to town tomorrow.

JOHNSON: You know, it`s interesting.

Trump brings together this whole motley group of deplorables. It was like that gang they had in "Blazing Saddles" where they were trying to put like the worst gang together in the country.

[18:05:03]

And the interesting thing about it is that, as much as many Republicans are trying to get those people to come out and vote for them, they also don`t seem to want to stand for them in public.

Ryan, we have a quote here from General Honore talking about the fact that he thinks that we sometimes have a soft glove approach on domestic terrorism. I am one of the people and many Americans out there have said, why isn`t the boom being lowered on insurrections, the same way it was on, say, Black Lives Matter protesters last year?

You have still got people who are being given special dispensation here and there. What is sort of the fence about why we haven`t seen as many of the insurrectionist facing serious legal charges, the way we have seen for other people who were perhaps protesting for good?

RYAN REILLY, THE HUFFINGTON POST: Yes, the case that I always bring up in connection with this is, if you look at what happened during Trump`s inauguration, when hundreds of anti-Trump protesters were rounded up on the street and had serious felony slapped at them for being on the street and not committing any violence, like, you stack that up against how the January 6 defendants have been handled, and, I mean, it just sort of looks ridiculous, the entire argument that is being made for this rally.

If you look at how many people are actually detained, and what they`re detained for, there`s not really a good person that they could seize on and say, oh, hey, look how this person is being mistreated. There`s not really a case that would demonstrate that or illustrate that or a poster boy for that that you could say, OK, this person is nonviolent or wasn`t involved in a conspiracy and has been jailed for however long, because there aren`t that many cases.

The vast majority of people have been released pretrial. There are a few dozen who are detained. And, basically, all of them, those people are either part of a broader conspiracy where they pre-planned an attack on democracy, or they were on video committing violence.

The judges have been relatively generous about, I think, releasing people pretrial, given some of the charges they are facing, and there`s some who have had some regrets about that. And some of them immediately, when they were released, violated their conditions, and then had to be sent back to the jail.

There is the one individual in the QAnon shirt who was chasing -- that famous video of him chasing officer Eugene Goodman up the stairs. And he actually was released. And then he couldn`t stay away from this conspiracy material and then was actually sent out to jail because of that, because the first time the probation officer showed up to his house, he was streaming Mike Lindell`s conspiracy theories online.

So it`s this addiction. It truly is. It`s this -- and, I mean, I guess -- I think because, like, their lives would sort of fall apart if they admitted the truth here, which is that, OK, yes, I got completely suckered by this bogus conspiracy theory. And I basically ruined my life because of it, because I fell for a con man.

Like, that`s what they would have to admit. And that`s not a situation that most of them are in. They actually subscribe to these beliefs. And if you actually subscribe to these beliefs, you think -- you have to stick with them. And you have to think that President Trump is going to be reinstalled.

JOHNSON: Right.

Professor Cooper, I can think back to being in Ferguson and literally having police announce -- it was the most dangerous game of Simon Says ever. They would say, hey, you got to protest in the streets, you got to stand here, you got to stand there.

And no matter where you went, no matter how many Twister positions you put yourself into, they were still locking people up, throwing them away, people who weren`t seen for a while or anything else like that. We saw all sorts of hyperaggressive policing when it comes to people who are fighting for justice.

But, again, we see so many people here who engage in a terrorist activity walking away. Obviously, that`s racial. But the larger question that I have for you today is, what are the consequences of that?

I mean, isn`t that sort of soft hand that General Honore is talking about inspiring other people to engage in this activity at the local level?

BRITTNEY COOPER, PROFESSOR, RUTGERS UNIVERSITY: The United States has always been complicit in white supremacist actions like this, because the truth that we need to tell is that this violence has been critical to shoring up white dominance in the country.

The Republican Party knows it. And at this point, part of what Trump did for them is to unleash their ability to actually publicly assent to violence. So they won`t get behind these people, but they also won`t denounce them, because they know that violence becomes really important to their ability to enforce their own sort of brazen power grab for generational white dominance, right?

When I look at these folks, I just think that they`re playing from a post- Civil War playbook, where they`re basically remixing Lost Cause ideology and saying this wasn`t about how we want to be white supremacists. This is about the fact that this was stolen from us. Our values are not being respected.

This is an old narrative, but it is finding truck in this moment. And if what Biden said is true, he admitted when he came into office that domestic terrorism was perhaps the biggest threat on our soil, then we need the U.S. government to act in that way.

JOHNSON: Right.

COOPER: And that means to take seriously what is actually happening.

But the psychological problem that many white folks struggle with, not all white folks, but many white folks, is that they still understand this as just a mere ideological difference, and not an actual attempt at terrorism, right?

JOHNSON: Right.

[18:10:02]

COOPER: They understand that these folks are saying, we just have a different political position than you, which is interesting, because, when black people protest, it`s not seen as a difference of principle or a desire to expand democracy.

Every black protest is seen as a potential insurrection, right? And actual white insurrections are seen as mere protests, in service and in protection of one`s rights. And that is the problem that we have.

JOHNSON: Right.

I mean, we`re a week away from the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. The transformation that this country went through after facing foreign terror is immensely more aggressive than anything we have seen in the six to eight months after someone literally tried to take over the government.

Speaking of the government, some people don`t want to take it over. Some people want to get out of it.

David, I want to play you some audio from a congressional representative in Ohio who`s basically saying, I`m taking my ball and going home because his party has become too toxic,

I will get your thoughts on the other side.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ANTHONY GONZALEZ (R-OH): The truth is, the environment is very toxic, and especially the dynamics inside our own party, which have sort of stopped making sense to me in a lot of ways.

We just seem to have lost the ability to dialogue and to reason, and to do it in a way that`s respectful and thoughtful inside of politics. Our politics has gotten so polluted that that environment for me personally is just not one that I`m willing to be a part of going forward.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHNSON: Now, David, on the playground, we would refer to this usually as taking your ball and going home.

Look, is this an act of courage or is this quitting? Because I can see it both ways.

CORN: Yes.

This guy, Anthony Gonzalez, I don`t know him personally. But I know that he was an NFL player. So I`m guessing there`s a certain amount of toughness in him, right? And if he can`t take this, that just shows you how bad it is, that there was this moment -- you remember -- we have talked about this, Jason -- right after the January 6 riot.

Maybe lasted one or two nanoseconds, when Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy, and Lindsey Graham all kind of said, we have had enough. This is going too far, whether it`s white supremacy, attacking the government.

And, to Professor Cooper`s point, when the Black Lives Matter people protests, they`re protesting against systemic racism. This was an attempt to take over a part of the government and stop a constitutional process, nothing similar at all between these two things, even if you have different ideologies.

But so here we are. We had that moment where the Republicans said, OK. And I thought they said like, we can get rid of Trump now, this is it, he finally went too far.

And that lasted, as I said, a nanosecond or two, and then quickly McConnell and Kevin McCarthy all came into line. McCarthy went down to Mar-a-Lago to get Trump to fund-raise. And they saw the party is the base, the 80 percent of the party who believes Trump is really -- is still the president or should be president.

They have radicalized their own base, that now they can`t have those reasonable debates within the party that Representative Gonzalez wants to happen. So this is a sort of a snake eating its own tail type of situation.

And I don`t see any room for a Gonzalez or Liz Cheney or anybody else. They`re not making progress anymore. They need to leave and diminish this party as much as possible if they care about democratic values.

JOHNSON: I got to say I`m a bit more of a stay and fight kind of person, but I can understand any sort of toxic work environment. Maybe they want to quit.

David Corn, Ryan Reilly, and Brittney Cooper, thank you so much for starting us off today.

Coming up: breaking news from the FDA on those third booster shots from Pfizer, and how the anti-vaxxer hysteria is getting really violent.

Plus, we will show you how Tucker Carlson`s Replacement Theory is still going mainstream in the GOP, and the Democrats looking to win by making Trumpism a problem for everybody.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:17:43]

Breaking news on vaccines. Late today, an FDA panel voting to approve a third Pfizer booster shot for people 65 and older and those at high risk for severe cases.

The panel voted against a booster shot for the rest of the population, saying the first round of shots is enough to protect most people. This decision comes as fights over vaccines are exploding across the country. The scientific and political responses to vaccinations are inextricably linked, with lawmakers politicizing the pandemic fight, 24 GOP state attorneys general now threatening legal action over Biden`s vaccine mandates.

In an open letter to the president, calling his plan to protect millions of Americans from COVID -- quote -- "disastrous and counterproductive."

That division fueling scenes like this at a local New York City restaurant, where tourists attacked a hostess after being asked to show proof of vaccination to dine indoors.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Watch as the hostess stand is nearly tipped over. Tempers flare. At one point, a waiter helps carry someone away from the scene.

It all started when the 22-year-old hostess simply asked a group from Texas to show proof of a COVID vaccination to dine inside. The hostess was then repeatedly punched in the face and body and sent to the hospital.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHNSON: This looks like a job for WorldStar.

I turn to two experts on this when we`re back in 60 seconds.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:20:18]

JOHNSON: Joining me now is Dr. Uche Blackstock, founder and CEO of Advancing Health Equity and an MSNBC medical contributor, and Dr. Zeke Emanuel, vice provost of global initiatives with the University of Pennsylvania. He was a member of Biden`s transition COVID Advisory Board.

Thank you so much for joining us today.

So, Dr. Blackstock, I will start with you.

I thought that video was horrifying. I don`t -- it doesn`t matter that the people happen to be from Texas. Apparently, that can happen anywhere. But this idea that people are attacking essential workers over vaccine mandates is a problem.

So, from a public health standpoint, how do we deal with issues like this? Do we need to get more aggressive in supporting restaurants and businesses that have vaccine mandates? Do we need to lower the boom harder on people who are resisting? What`s the solution? Because nonsense like this is not just happening at your local Applebee`s and restaurants. It`s happening on airplanes. It`s going to be happening at schools soon.

DR. UCHE BLACKSTOCK, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: Yes, I agree.

That was actually horrific to see that poor hostess be attacked like that. I do think the vaccine mandates are here to stay. We know that we need to get a larger percentage of the population fully vaccinated, about 80 to 90 percent fully vaccinated.

And so we need these vaccine requirements to get into establishments. And so what I`m going to say, and this is coming from a physician perspective, is that we have to really keep doing that outreach and education about why these vaccination -- vaccines are important. We have to make sure that the public health messaging continues to be strong.

And, yes, absolutely, we do have to protect our essential workers and our service workers, because, unfortunately, they are left to have to sort of reinforce these mandates or these requirements themselves and so they need an extra layer of protection indeed.

JOHNSON: Right.

Look, if you are enforcing a federal mandate, you`re working at Home Depot, you`re working at Carmine`s, you`re not getting paid enough to fight this kind of nonsense.

BLACKSTOCK: No. No.

JOHNSON: We need to be giving these people the support that they that they need.

Dr. Emanuel, so we have these 24 Republican state attorneys general, and they`re writing Biden, and they`re saying you`re destroying America and you`re destroying democracy and destroying individual freedom.

Look, you used to advise -- you were part of the COVID transition team for the Biden administration. How should the White House respond to these kinds of letters? Because, really, this is a shot across the bow. They`re going to start suing. And, again, they`re going to make it more difficult for these kinds of federal mandates and a large national health care plan against COVID to be successful.

How should the Biden administration respond?

DR. EZEKIEL EMANUEL, FORMER WHITE HOUSE SPECIAL ADVISER: Well, they have to respond very forcefully.

And I think the response is, this is perfectly within federal powers to do, this is necessary to end the pandemic. And I think they need to repudiate these attorneys generals and show that, in fact, it`s not going to disrupt American democracy.

We have had these kind of mandates before, and we can continue to have them. And, more importantly, we know that being vaccinated is critical to ending the surge we`re in now and to bringing deaths down from nearly 2,000 to the place it needs to be, about 100.

Those attorney generals are totally irresponsible, and they`re not consonant with the data. And it is a little ironic that we`re talking about whether vaccinating more people would be good, and simultaneously whether to give people a third shot.

That`s a lot of dissonance for the public to handle.

JOHNSON: So, I think this is a good question. I want to take this to Dr. Blackstock.

I am fully aware, we see it all the time, that disinformation can harden people who have already made the decision that they don`t want to be vaccinated. It can harden decisions that people have already made.

But I do sort of wonder, when you hear a message from the FDA saying, hey, look, older people, people who are 65, they can get a third shot, but these other people can`t, is that really that confusing for the public to understand? Because it seems to me, we`re eight months into having vaccines available. We`re 18 months into the pandemic.

Most people pretty much know how they feel already. I don`t know that new information is necessarily changing minds. What`s your thoughts?

BLACKSTOCK: Yes.

No, I agree. I mean, I think that there probably has been some confusion. I think the messaging around the boosters from the Biden administration has been confusing, especially back in August, when the administration said that everyone will be eligible for a booster as of September 20.

[18:25:03]

And we obviously see that`s not the case based on the evidence. And I think what`s important that we need to think about how that messaging can undermine public trust even further. And people are saying, well, why do I even need a third booster?

And so we have to continue to follow the science, which is very important, which is why I actually think the recommendation by the advisory committee today, it was evidence-based and hopefully will continue that way moving forward. That will help to engender more trust.

JOHNSON: So, speaking of trust, one of the places that we used to feel relatively safe in this country, our schools, but now we`re seeing that they have become a battleground for not just guns, not just Critical Race Theory, but now, of course, COVID.

Dr. Blackstock, I want to play this sound and then get thoughts from both of you about teachers and parents right now who are concerned about COVID in the classroom.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right now, our district, we don`t have any mitigation efforts in place for COVID, which is making a lot of teachers very nervous.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, I have an entire school of children who cannot be vaccinated yet. I have to do everything I can to keep them as safe as possible.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have a sixth grader who`s not vaccinated, and I don`t feel safe for her to have lunch together with hundreds, potentially, of other kids who are also not vaccinated.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think we need to educate our students. And I have taken the time to educate mine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHNSON: Now, look, the idea of placing responsibility in a bunch of 9- year-olds to keep their masks on is difficult. Most 9-year-olds can`t keep their shoelaces tied, let alone keep masks on.

But the inability of adults who are working in these classrooms to enforce these kinds of issues and get school systems to listen is a problem.

Dr. Blackstock, from your perspective, what do we need to be seeing more of in public schools in order for teachers and parents to feel safe?

BLACKSTOCK: So, what I will say -- and this -- as a parent of two children in New York City public schools, I will say that we need policies to keep schools safe.

So we need mask mandates indoors. I mean, that should be the bare minimum. And I think anyone eligible for a vaccine should be required to be vaccinated. I mean, that should be a non-negotiable. But we also know that what happens outside of school matters, that levels of community transmission determine what happens inside of schools.

And I just actually got an alert today from my child`s school that there`s a class that`s been quarantined, not my children`s class, but a class, already four days after the start of New York City public school.

So we need to have layers of strategies, masking, vaccinations, testing. We`re not utilizing rapid testing as much as we should. But I think that we`re putting too much pressure on parents to have to figure this out. Really, these are how policies should work. Policies should work to protect the public. And we need better enforcement of those really at a local level.

JOHNSON: And, Dr. Emanuel, it`s one thing to have a mandate from a public school. You can get that from a governor. You can get that from the city council.

But we`re having problems in colleges. I`m seeing numbers rising, even colleges that have students vaccinated. Look, dorms are not the most sanitary place on the planet. I know. I`m a college professor. We have all been to college here.

What are some of the policies that we should be seeing now from university professors and state governors to institute in schools to keep colleges safe? Because those have been hotbeds of infection, even on schools that are requiring vaccination.

EMANUEL: Well, I think, again, it`s the same thing Dr. Blackstock said, right?

We need to try to drive down the rates of infection in the community. We need to have universal masking. And, by the way, it`s not just indoors at colleges.

BLACKSTOCK: Yes.

EMANUEL: One of the things that happens in colleges, as you switch classrooms, there are very busy path -- walking paths and others. You need to wear it when it`s very crowded, even outdoors.

You need to have testing. I know, at my university, University of Pennsylvania, you want a test, you just drop in to test. I get a test every Monday morning to reassure my students that I`m negative, and I encourage them to get tested all the time.

You also need to upgrade the mask and upgrade the ventilation inside of classrooms and inside the dormitories. That`s a very critical element that I think we have underplayed in this country because we haven`t emphasized the aerosol spread. And that can be important for primary schools too.

And I totally agree with Dr. Blackstock. Everyone who should be vaccinated has to get it. And, by the way, those mandates work. We have seen, at the University of Pennsylvania, we have put in a mandate, and the number of people who are resisting goes down and down as the deadline for being vaccinated approaches.

Very few people are willing to say, I don`t want a job or I won`t attend school and I`m not going to get vaccinated.

And we need to shrink the number of excuses people can invent, like I have got a religious objection. Well, it doesn`t apply to every other part of medical care. What is the unique aspect here?

JOHNSON: Right.

EMANUEL: We need to emphasize also that these are very safe vaccines.

[18:30:00]

We have got overwhelming data. Hundreds of millions of Americans have gotten it, and billions of people around the world. These are one of the most safe vaccines we have ever developed.

JOHNSON: Right.

EMANUEL: I think that`s very important.

JOHNSON: Dr. Uche Blackstock and Dr. Zeke Emanuel, thank you so much for joining us this evening.

Ahead: Rudy Giuliani gets bad news on those documents seized by the feds.

But, first, a racist conspiracy theory goes from FOX News to GOP leadership, or maybe it came from leadership back to FOX News.

Stay with us after this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JOHNSON: A racist conspiracy theory is suddenly jumping from the fringe to the GOP`s mainstream.

This week alone, multiple top elected Republicans parroting the language of the so-called Replacement Theory, a paranoid notion that shadowy leaves want to somehow replace white people with immigrants of color.

Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick of Texas hitting all the notes of Replacement Theory in an interview on FOX last night, warning of a -- quote -- "revolution."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LT. GOV. DAN PATRICK (R-TX): The revolution has begun, a silent revolution by the Democrat Party of Joe Biden to take over this country.

We need every state, every red state, because the blue ones won`t do it, to send and invoke Article 4, Section 4 of the Constitution to tell the president that we are being invaded.

Our government that`s run by our citizens with illegals who are here, who are going to take our education, our health care, all -- so, it`s government, it`s politics, it`s health care, it`s safety.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[18:35:12]

JOHNSON: Remember, this is the same network that had the guy 15 years ago saying we need to have more white babies?

Look, this fearmongering is also now making its way to Capitol Hill. And I`m not talking about the notorious MTG. We know about her. Or even Matt Gaetz. It`s coming from the third-ranking Republican in the House, Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, who replaced Congresswoman Liz Cheney, after Cheney wouldn`t stop criticizing Trump for the January insurrection.

This week, Stefanik placed a Facebook ad claiming that Democrats are seeking a -- quote -- "permanent election insurrection by expanding pathways to citizenship." You can see a massive group of people, immigrants perhaps, reflected in Joe Biden`s sunglasses.

Now, the Replacement Theory itself is not new. In 2019, "The New York Times" reported on its racist and colonial roots and its increasing embrace by some in right-wing circles. Through the Trump era, FOX`s loudest voice, Tucker Carlson, picked up the theme.

And he`s continued throughout the Biden era.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS: The left and all the little gatekeepers on Twitter become literally hysterical if you use the term replacement, if you suggest that the Democratic Party is trying to replace the current electorate, the voters now casting ballots, with new people, more obedient voters from the Third World.

But they become hysterical because that`s what`s happening, actually.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHNSON: I mean, from like swollen parts to immigrants coming over to -- what`s the difference between this guy and Alex Jones?

Look, Tucker Carlson has been pounding away at this nonsense for a while. But what`s new tonight is that top elected Republican officials are getting more brazen about adopting the same ideas.

Joining me now is Kurt Bardella, adviser to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and Victoria DeFrancesco Soto, assistant dean of civic engagement with the LBJ School at the University of Texas, obviously, examples of this new emerging majority that`s going to be taking over the country that Republicans have to stop.

(LAUGHTER)

JOHNSON: I will start with Dr. DeFrancesco Soto.

So, look, the idea of fearmongering about this sort of horde of Latinos coming over to this country, that is not new. But what strikes me -- and I`m very curious about your thoughts about this -- when the lieutenant governor of Texas -- this is a state where electoral futures are still determined by having Latino votes.

Republicans still need Latino votes. How are they getting away with -- why do they feel so comfortable with this kind of ridiculous, bold racism, knowing how it hits the ears of people in the state?

VICTORIA DEFRANCESCO SOTO, UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS: All right, I`m going to get to that last piece in just a second, Jason, but I want to go back to the very, very beginning.

You know, since we were in graduate school, I have been doing research on immigration. I teach immigration. Every year, I do my immigration seminar. And we start with the history.

And the fact of the matter is that, regrettably, Replacement Theory or anti-immigrant sentiment is older than the United States itself. Ben Franklin, one of our founding fathers, had some not-so-nice words to say about Germans, French, Swedes, and other Europeans.

And then you go into the 1850s, and you have the Know-Nothing Party, which is a party established based on anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic, anti-Irish sentiment. Fast forward, and you get to the Chinese Exclusion Act. So, then we get to the eugenics movement and the feeling that Eastern and Southern European immigrants at the turn of the last century were swarthy. Pick a negative term, and it applies to them.

So this is not new, this predates our country`s history. And it really is head-scratching in terms of why Republicans would do this, because we know that when Republicans make an effort to court Latino votes or immigrant votes, they actually have a shot.

I mean, here in Texas, we saw that with George W. Bush. He was very effective at gathering the Latino vote both at the state level and later at the national level. I think the Trump 2020 election is a case in point. He was able to pick up Latinos because he went aggressively after them and let up on the anti-immigrant piece.

So it is a bit puzzling that they`re just assuming that immigrants are automatically going to go with the Democratic Party. If they were to actually fight for them, that could be different. But Replacement Theory. I wish I could tell you I was surprised at this, but I`m not, Jason.

JOHNSON: At this point, Kurt, it`s very obvious that the party has -- the Republican Party, look, they have just leaned in on whiteness. And I guess people who are excited about whiteness want to join in with them.

I want to play you this sound from Sarah Palin, always a bastion of intelligence and insightful commentary, and her thoughts on whiteness and the COVID vaccine and our current politics.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FMR. GOV. SARAH PALIN (R-AK): I am one of those white commonsense conservatives. I believe in science. And I have not taken the shot, because I do believe in science.

And the Fauci-ism of the day back then was, if you had COVID -- I have had COVID -- well, then Mother Nature was creating an immunity.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[18:40:06]

JOHNSON: There was a phrase in very popular movies in `30s and `40s, where a woman would say, I`m free, white, and 21.

This is basically Sarah Palin`s equivalent of that: I am a white commonsense conservative.

(LAUGHTER)

JOHNSON: Kurt, look, Sarah Palin doesn`t have the best record when it comes to winning office or supporting people for going to office or even having television shows that are successful.

But my thought is, when you say things like that, when you turn COVID, vaccinations and political behavior into an identity issue of whiteness, how effective is that going to be in states like Texas, in states like Virginia, in states like Georgia, where you can`t just win with white people alone voting?

KURT BARDELLA, DEMOCRATIC CONGRESSIONAL CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE ADVISER: Well, Jason, I just looked back at the 2021 senatorial election that we had earlier this year, how that went in Georgia. Not too well for these folks.

I think about the -- to bring this here at play, Sarah Palin and the Republican Party are out there, and they`re saying to their voters, their core, hardcore base, the people that they rely on to get elected to anything, don`t take healthy medicine. Their plan is to literally kill their voters in order to show off and own the libs and all the nonsense that we hear from them.

And there is zero political strategy behind it. It is very simple what has happened here. The Republican Party has been hijacked by a bunch of racist, ignorant fools. And instead of divorcing themselves from that, which they actually talked about doing way back when, instead of embracing a political strategy that can actually reach minority voters and appeal to immigrants, like they wanted to do during the Bush compassionate conservatism times, they have instead doubled down on a minority plan that, at the end of day, isn`t going to work.

And it hasn`t been working. I mean, how many elections do these guys need to lose before they realize that all they`re going to do is keep getting smaller and smaller and lose more and more?

We saw this already play out in California. California used to be a Republican Party stronghold, a Republican governor, Republican-dominated state legislature, Republicans in every statewide constitutional office. And what happened? They went into a racist, anti-Hispanic agenda.

And two generations later, they were wiped out of office. Democrats took control of every office in California. They had a veto-proof majority state legislature. The governor can`t -- a Republican can`t get like the dogcatcher statewide in the state.

That`s where the story ends for the Republican Party.

JOHNSON: I agree with everything you said, Kurt, and not just because we have matching outfits today.

(LAUGHTER)

JOHNSON: Dr. DeFrancesco Soto, so, when it comes to this Replacement Theory, though, I just want to say this very quickly, do you think it is now mainstream? Or do you think it still remains on the fringe?

Because that`s the real concern. From people marching in Charlottesville saying "You will not replace us" to now being echoed by Republican Party leaders, is this now going to be the main message of the GOP?

DEFRANCESCO SOTO: Jason, I think it`s always been mainstream to a certain impact.

I`m thinking about Sam Huntington`s work? I mean, Sam Huntington, Harvard professor, the Hispanic challenge that came out, so I have never seen it as fringe. I mean, it has been with our country forever. There have always been substantive segments of the population that have anti-immigrant ethics.

So I may be the odd one out here, though.

(LAUGHTER)

JOHNSON: I share your cynicism.

Kurt Bardella and Victoria DeFrancesco Soto, you so much for joining us this evening.

Coming up: news on evidence seized in the Rudy Giuliani raid, a federal judge delivering some bad news for Trump`s former lawyer.

And what does Matthew McConaughey have to do with a resurgence in the labor movement?

I will explain right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:47:49]

JOHNSON: We`re back to talk about the American labor movement and Matthew McConaughey. Let me explain.

Remember when McConaughey took off as a serious actor a few years ago with roles in "True Detective," "Lincoln Lawyer," "Dallas Buyers Club," "Magic Mike," and -- chest bump -- "Wolf of Wall Street"? It had a name. It was the McConaissance.

Well, now the labor movement is in the midst of its own McConaissance. It was something that we always appreciated, but didn`t know how big of a deal that was. Unions now represent a larger share of the work force than any time in the past five years, 10.8 percent, and 68 percent of Americans now support unions.

That`s the highest number it`s been since the 1960s. And support is especially high amongst some of the fastest growing sectors of society, African-Americans, Hispanics and young people.

President Biden speaking about the importance of labor unions just earlier this month.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Now, in the economy my administration is building, instead of workers competing with each other for the jobs that are scarce, everybody`s mad at me, because now, guess what? Employers are competing to attract workers.

(APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: When unions win, workers across the board, win. That`s a fact, families win. Community wins. America wins. We grow.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHNSON: All right, all right, all right.

Unions were a driving force of the middle class for decades, especially once they expanded to allow African-Americans and other minorities to take active roles.

The road to fighting billionaires and economic inequality starts with American unions. Right now, they`re flexing their newfound muscle, with unionizing workers squaring off against giants like Starbucks, Amazon, and even Hollywood.

Joining me now to discuss is someone with many, many titles, Dorian Warren, co-president of Community Change, a grassroots activist group, co-chair of the Economic Security Project, and co-host of the "System Check" podcast, man of many names, many talents.

Thank you so much, Dorian, for joining us this evening.

DORIAN WARREN, CO-PRESIDENT, COMMUNITY CHANGE: Thanks for having me, Jason.

JOHNSON: Thank you so much.

So my first question is, where do you think this has come from? Like, I mean, unions -- look, President Obama wasn`t even always the most supportive person in the world when it came to unions, but they have really seen a comeback in the last five or six years. Why do you think that`s changed and where is it coming from?

[18:50:08]

WARREN: Well, that`s a great question to ask me, Jason, on a day like today, because today is the 10th-year anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, for those of you that remember, that social movement that emerged today in Zuccotti Park in New York, with the mantra, remember, the 1 percent vs. the 99 percent.

And so I mention Occupy Wall Street because, as you know, scholars have talked a lot about movement cycles. And so we have been in a decade of a movement cycle, of people organizing and joining together to take action to say, no more. This is not -- injustice is not acceptable.

So if you think of Occupy Wall Street, the next year, we saw the Fight For $15 and a union launch in terms of low-wage fast food workers organizing, huge victories on raising wages, right, in terms of $15 an hour in many places.

The last remaining step there is the union part. And so I do think, when you think of Occupy Wall Street, you think of the Fight For $15, you think of the Movement for Black Lives, you think of MeToo, you think of the climate change activists, there`s just been -- we`re in a movement cycle.

People are mobilizing. And so it`s no surprise that workers themselves, whether it`s teachers, or DoorDash delivery folks, or Amazon workers, as you said, or Starbucks workers, people are fed up, and they`re joining together to say no more, and we can change the conditions that affect our lives.

JOHNSON: And also, Dorian, I think what`s been happening is, some of the language, even if it`s not the policy, some of the language about labor unions has begun to change, even from sort of mainline and centrist Democrats.

Want you to listen to this sound from Nancy Pelosi. I want your thoughts on the other side.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): In America, capitalism is our system. It is our economic system. But it has not served our economy as well as it should. And so what we want to do is not depart from that, but to improve it and to make sure that it serves us.

You cannot have a system where we -- the success of some springs from the exploitation of the workers and springs from the exploitation of the environment and the rest. And we have to correct that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHNSON: That is fantastic to hear from Nancy Pelosi. But I think it`s also expanded.

We just had a very, very, very aggressive fight for union leadership for SAG-AFTRA, for stars and celebrities, just a couple of weeks ago. The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, the people who put together your "Hamilton"s, the people who put together your symphonies, they are threatening to strike if they don`t see a better contract.

Why do you think we have also seen this change in sort of the entertainment field? That used to be a place where people were like, look, I`m just desperate to work on this play. Why are we even seeing entertainers push now to unionize and protect themselves in our new economy?

WARREN: Well, we have always had entertainers who have been supportive of the labor movement and of unions.

By the way, there`s a former Republican president who was a union buster who was at one point president of the Screen Actors Guild, Ronald Reagan. So there -- history is funny like that.

But think of it this way, Jason. There are two kinds of union premiums. There`s an economic premium you get from joining a union. And particularly if you`re a woman or a worker of color or a black worker, unions, we know, reduce income inequality, they lift wages, you get a range of other benefits, right, related to the workplace, paid sick days, paid holidays, hey, safety and protection from a pandemic, in terms of equipment that essential workers need.

If you don`t have a collective voice against powerful corporations to say, this is what we need to do our job safely, then people suffer. And I think people are fed up. Americans are fed up. Workers are fed up.

There`s a second reason why I think we`re hearing from people like Speaker Pelosi and the president himself. And that`s called the union political premium. Democrats know that, if you`re a member of a union, you`re more likely to turn out and vote. You`re also more likely to turn out and vote Democratic.

So there is a political imperative for Democratic politicians to support the labor movement. In some cases, they have always been there, but for others that are just waking up, welcome to the party. If you want a democracy, you need a strong labor movement. If you want a middle class, you need a strong labor movement.

And so I think it`s both the union economic premium and the political premium, the economic premium for ordinary workers who are trying to make ends meet. But the political premium, I think, is the one that politicians pay attention to.

JOHNSON: Yes, I think it`s Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi have started to realize, a lot of mainstream Democrats, that unions aren`t just the hardhats anymore. They`re sometimes white-collar folks working at Verizon too.

Dorian Warren, thank you so much for joining us this evening.

WARREN: Thank you.

JOHNSON: Ahead, we have news on that Giuliani raid and those seized documents, a federal judge delivering bad news for Rudy.

That`s next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:59:04]

JOHNSON: Rudy Giuliani did Giuliani getting bad news on his ongoing criminal case, his request to have material feds seized in raids denied by a federal judge.

Feds took 18 electronic devices. Giuliani`s team requested some be returned or destroyed. That`s not going to happen.

"The Wall Street Journal" reporting the feds are examining his communications with former Ukrainian offices and whether he violated foreign lobbying rules. Tonight, a trove of documents in the possession of the feds, and Giuliani will not get them back.

And a final programming note before we go tonight. Beginning tomorrow, Ayman Mohyeldin takes his reporting to Saturday and Sunday nights with the launch of his new show, "AYMAN." Very excited for him. Watch "AYMAN" Saturdays at 8:00 Eastern and Sundays at 9:00 p.m. Eastern on MSNBC.

That does it for me.

"THE REIDOUT WITH JOY REID" is up next.

Hi, Joy.

JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: How you doing, Jason?

That`s exciting. I love Ayman. Ayman is amazing, amazing, amazing.

But I want to see a Jason Johnson show. That`s what I`m thinking.

(LAUGHTER)

REID: I`m -- that`s what I`m thinking about.