Summary
Singer-songwriter David Byrne speaks out. The Supreme Court rejects a last-ditch effort to challenge Biden's victory over President Trump. Is President Trump preparing to go on a pardon spree? A restaurant owner speaks out about how she is facing what she views as small business discrimination, while corporations do just fine.
Transcript
NICOLLE WALLACE, MSNBC HOST: "THE BEAT WITH ARI MELBER" starts right now.
Hi, Ari.
ARI MELBER, MSNBC HOST: Hi, Nicolle. Thank you very much.
Welcome to THE BEAT. I'm Ari Melber.
We start with breaking news.
The Supreme Court is rejecting tonight a last-ditch effort that was trying to challenge president-elect Biden's victory over President Trump. This is a new order that flatly and completely rejects any effort to challenge Biden's win in Pennsylvania, another loss for a Trump/GOP strategy that has become legally futile, a scattershot of complaints and challenges in different states that, to be clear, would not individually change the outcome of Biden's victory, no matter what happened, even if they were more successful.
But what I'm reporting to you tonight, new from the Supreme Court, is even these little ineffectual piecemeal efforts are completely failing.
And what does it look like when your case is so weak, it doesn't even merit a trial or Supreme Court arguments or a detailed set of rulings? Well, I will tell you right now. It is very short and it's very simple.
Consider this brief text both a civics lesson and a legal burn for the Giuliani-led strategy, because it only takes one sentence -- we will show you specifically -- to see how the justice is shot down this last-ditch gambit.
You're looking on your screen at the entire ruling tonight. This came out within the last hour. And it reads: "The application for injunctive relief presented to Justice Alito and by him referred to the court is denied," period, end of story, end of case. Game over.
Now, this is short. This is decisive. I could tell you no judge on the court noted a dissent or disagreement. The court has a majority of Republican justices, of course, three appointed by President Trump himself.
So it's pretty striking what's happening tonight.
Meanwhile, lower courts continue to toss cases before they even get to the high court. Look at this new ruling from a judge in Michigan, noting the ship has sailed regarding any effort to challenge Biden's win there. The people have spoken.
And tonight's last legal gasps come as the United States hits a deadline tonight that we have been reporting on for you. You may recall that we have been tracing how all these different election results are processed, that there are rules for this, that the rules must be followed, that even a powerful incumbent commander in chief cannot change them.
And that is why we knew long before tonight that there was no avenue left for Donald Trump to reverse the national outcome. Under law, by midnight tonight, all states must formalize their final results. They must close off any remaining pending challenges, recounts or audits.
So, this is how it ends. After all the puffery or the lies or the claims of fraud with no evidence, which Trump's own lawyers ultimately dropped when forced to discuss those claims under oath -- that's a forum where lying can become a crime -- I can tell you tonight, here we are.
Take a deep breath. Take it in. Whether you like it or not, facts matter, the law governs, the Constitution is the final word in our country. And it ends like this, with states following the federal and constitutional rules to lock in the results. The results here were Biden winning and Trump losing.
Now Republicans are reduced to offering basically meaningless symbolic acts of petty objection on behalf of their lame-duck leader, like today's move delaying the resolution that would start planning for a Biden/Harris inauguration. And 88 percent of Republican members of Congress still won't admit Biden on, according to a "Washington Post" count.
Well, that is about power and pettiness. It's not about the facts or the results or the rule of law that we just walked through. And we know that because even those in Trump's own orbit publicly concede to the press it's over.
And that is the context for one final piece of P.R. that might be easy to misunderstand. If you only saw a headline blaring across your phone or social media, it might be easy to misinterpret.
But with everything I just told, you can bring the proper lens to a P.R. stunt by someone who knows better, who's educated through law school to know better, the Texas attorney general picking this last-ditch last-minute effort to sue other states like PA, Wisconsin, Michigan, GA, to flip their results for no reason.
The other states responding, this is an obvious publicity stunt and a genuinely embarrassing lawsuit.
Now, the embarrassment may be in the eye of the beholder. But, tonight, it is striking that, after everything you just saw, a federal deadline in law, which all attorneys general know about, this is the moment a new lawsuit drops, when it literally is too late to do anything, when it cannot change anything.
Real lawyers trying to win real cases start early to win, to be on time. Whatever's going on down in Texas, whatever lawyering that is, whatever you want to call it, it is not designed and it cannot change the outcome.
And this is how this race ends, different than every other, but, in one important way tonight, similar to every other race we have had. It is the law and the Constitution that protects the results, not the acts of any last, desperate politicians.
I want to bring in our experts, now, Gene Robinson, the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer for "The Washington Post," Joyce Vance, a former federal prosecutor, and Libby Casey from "The Washington Post" as well, a political reporter.
Good evening to all of you.
And, Gene, how do you take in the duality of the system in this way working amidst all of this ridiculousness?
EUGENE ROBINSON, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, absolutely.
I mean, I think, tonight, you, you literally can say, to the extent there was actually a game, you can say game over. I mean, the Supreme Court -- there's no mention of any dissent by any justices in the decision to deny cert on this -- or to deny the motion for injunctive relief, and just sort of bat it away. End of story.
And this certainly means, to me, at least -- I will defer, of course, to Joyce, who is my expert in all things legally, and you -- but it certainly means that ridiculous Texas, I don't know if you could even call it a lawsuit, with Texas suing to overturn other states' election results, will meet a similar fate, because it's just so absurd.
Well, this Pennsylvania case was one that Ted Cruz, Senator Ted Cruz, who clerked at the Supreme Court, thought had such merit that he offered publicly to deliver the oral argument in this case.
But there is no argument to deliver. This is ridiculous. This -- it's over. And the Supreme Court just made that really crystal clear tonight.
MELBER: Yes, to paraphrase Perry Mason, ain't going to be no oral argument for Ted Cruz to get.
(LAUGHTER)
MELBER: There's no case there.
And, Joyce, again, I think it's important, because part of our job is to just give people the clarity of the context, and they can make up their own minds. There are close legal questions.
Voter I.D., for example, is something that's been controversial for its discriminatory impact, but which has had voluminous oral argument, big cases. The Supreme Court upheld versions of it, right? Those are, what I would say, is a closer call.
Explain to everyone why this one line, this one piece of paper line from a unanimous Supreme Court, is the opposite of a close call.
JOYCE VANCE, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: You don't have to be a good lawyer to understand that this bevy of cases Trump and Trump supporters have filed are not meritorious. It's not a close call, as you say.
And the Supreme Court, with absolutely no dissent, makes abundantly clear tonight that this case has so little merit that they are not even willing to entertain briefing or argument or any sort of further process on this case, that they have simply ended it out of hand and it is over.
There could not be a more glaring smackdown of a case than the one the court has delivered here.
MELBER: Yes. As you say, they have heard enough legally.
And courts make it their business to hear both sides of what we call, as you said, a meritorious, non-frivolous, legitimate cases. Even if they still were going to ultimately say, yes, you're very unlikely to reverse PA now, we got to hear, though. They don't even need to hear it.
That's all the law.
Libby, this is all infused, of course, in politics, including the intramural politics on the right, where there has been a lot of tension. Take a look over at the FOX News network, where Lou Dobbs is on FOX business, his clash with someone that he's generally kindred with, one of Donald Trump's longest serving, most loyal aides, Stephen Miller.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LOU DOBBS, FOX BUSINESS: Republicans do nothing, Stephen, nothing.
STEPHEN MILLER, SENIOR ADVISER TO PRESIDENT TRUMP: It's an outrage.
DOBBS: What in hell is wrong?
MILLER: Right.
DOBBS: Well, what's wrong with the Republican Party?
My God, this is not a time for internecine nonsense on the part of the Republican Party, which is watching its blood drain into the streets because they're gutless. These people are either damn fools or they're damn liars.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: Libby Casey, what do you see there?
LIBBY CASEY, "THE WASHINGTON POST": Well, Ari, "The Washington Post" surveyed Republicans serving in the House and Senate, and about 88 percent of them would not say who won the election.
So, you don't just have Ted Cruz grandstanding and offering to deliver the oral arguments. You also have a lot of Republicans on Capitol Hill staying mum.
And it's so important. And I love the way that Joyce talked about that one line, that simple delivery from the Supreme Court has such stark clarity to it.
But President Trump was really hoping for something else. And we heard him at two different events in the last day at the White House say, blatantly, that he won this election, making a joke about he's 2-0, at an event that was supposed to be about vaccines, talking about how he's the one who won the election, as though there's absolutely no question about it.
Tweeting earlier today a picture of Justice Amy Coney Barrett with like lasers coming out of her eyes or something, this kitschy, campy thing that I guess was supposed to signify that he thought she could destroy Joe Biden or somehow come to his aid in this moment.
And so the Supreme Court has chosen to cool down the political rhetoric, step out of this and do what we know many of the justices wanted to do and not get involved in the politics of this. But the question is, when and how will Republicans at the national level do what we're seeing Republicans do at the state level in places like Pennsylvania and Michigan, which is stand up to President Trump's pressure to not change the results of this election?
MELBER: Yes.
And the laser eye meme of your new justice is one more precedent broken.
(LAUGHTER)
MELBER: But that's the silly part.
The serious part is something that we may have gotten through more easily because Biden's victory was multistate and decisive, took a couple days to count, but was pretty clear. But we might not be as a nation so lucky next time.
And, Gene, you have talked about this quite clearly. You have, I think, warned us about it.
I want to give a little context before bringing you back in, the Supreme Court, of course, denying Trump in PA. But the president did call lawmakers in an effort to steal the state result of the race, Trump calling Pennsylvania's House speaker, asking him directly to overturn the election.
If Donald Trump could get away with this, or if it were closer in a manner that would be allowed, we might be sitting through a very different moment, a very different test of our democracy, trying to overrule the people.
Now, we do have these backstops I mentioned, of course, the courts, the institution that Trump seemed to think would jump in, and they haven't jumped in the way he wanted, Supreme Court here doing this unanimously.
You have 35 of Trump's lawsuits that have been dismissed or rejected by all courts in the United States. It winds its way up the system. And we should also note the election officials that have stood up, including the Georgia secretary of state, who called out these efforts, who stood up to Trump's demands to steal a race.
So, the system worked at times, Gene, with those different backstops, but also a clear margin. How concerned do you think we should be as a nation -- take this particular politician out of it -- that this many people in one party were willing to go along and that someone can occupy the highest office in the land and openly ask to steal state races?
ROBINSON: We should not be concerned, but alarmed, and we should be deeply worried about the way President Trump is destroying the faith of millions of Americans in the fundamental act of our democracy, voting in a free and fair election.
And we are indeed fortunate that, even though Republicans who serve in the Senate and the House of Representatives disgracefully indulged the president's ego -- I think that's what they think they're doing. But they are undermining this basic act of peaceful transfer of power that we have observed since John Adams turned power over to his bitter enemy, Thomas Jefferson, in 1801.
I mean, this is how far it goes back. And it's -- and it's being wounded. And we should worry about this. When you lose that habit, it's -- it doesn't automatically just come back. Democracy has to be cultivated and kept going. It's -- we are -- we are indebted to the Republican state election officials who insisted on doing their job honestly.
We are indebted to the Republican state legislative leaders in various states. While some members have played along with President Trump, the leadership has said, no, no, we have no authority to overturn the will of the people, nor will we do so.
And so those are good things. But, as a whole, I am deeply, deeply concerned about the impact that this interregnum episode is having on the future of our democracy. And I don't think I'm being hyperbolic there. I think this is really bad.
MELBER: Joyce?
VANCE: I think that that is dead on the money, as far as assessments go.
And the flip side, Ari, of these deficient lawsuits is that they never really were a compelling legal strategy. They were always a narrative strategy.
MELBER: Right.
VANCE: It is the president's ongoing effort to undercut democracy, to undercut the integrity of the election that is so damaging moving forward.
MELBER: And, Libby, I'm running over on time, but what are the next inflection points for Republicans? Because some were claiming tonight's deadline was what they were waiting on.
CASEY: Yes, OK, so we have got tonight.
On Monday, we will see the next step. The Electoral College electors will meet and cast their votes in states. And then we will look to Congress and we will see what happens in January.
But it is important to note that this safe harbor deadline tonight is an important one and a significant one. And it's likely the Supreme Court wanted to get there. They're saying here, before we sort of started rolling over a clock into something else.
But it's important to note this isn't only about the future. This is so significant. It's also about human beings' lives right now, the secretary of state of Michigan having people protest armed at her home, scaring her child, and the House speaker of Pennsylvania also having people show up to protest.
So, we're seeing people run with this narrative that Trump is creating. And it is a powder keg, not just for our democracy, as Eugene points out, but potentially in people's lives right now at this moment, Ari.
ROBINSON: Absolutely. Absolutely.
MELBER: Right.
I appreciate that final point. And it matches the reporting out of Georgia, where elections officials, including some Republicans, are warning that they thought what Trump was doing was increasing the risk that someone would get hurt.
And, again, for viewers tuning in here just in the last few minutes, it was only within the last hour that the Supreme Court weighed in. And this time, in contrast to what lawyers can be like, it only took them one sentence to say, game over. We don't need to hear anymore. The election is done.
Gene Robinson, Libby Casey and Joyce Vance, I want to thank each of you.
We have our 30-second break coming up, our shortest of the hour, but a lot more tonight on the vaccine, new reporting Trump wants to hand out mass pardons. What does that mean?
And, tonight, music pioneer from the Talking Heads David Byrne on THE BEAT.
All that and more. We're back in 30 seconds.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MELBER: COVID is on everyone's mind, for good reason in this second surge. But, ultimately, what we're seeing from the Trump White House has been another show about nothing, the president saying he wanted to hold a -- quote -- "vaccine summit today."
And he put out an executive order, raising the question, if there are COVID executive orders to put out, why didn't you do them in the last four years? He claims he will put America first.
His team has a problem, though. The United States has a lot of issues here regarding how it gets the vaccine as compared to other countries. And some of this goes to what a chief science adviser has to say.
This is from Trump's Operation Warp Speed.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC NEWS: Can you explain this executive order the president's going to be putting out?
DR. MONCEF SLAOUI, CHIEF ADVISER, OPERATION WARP SPEED: Frankly, I don't know. And, frankly, I'm staying out of this, so I can't comment.
(CROSSTALK)
STEPHANOPOULOS: You don't know?
But you're the chief science adviser for Operation Warp Speed.
SLAOUI: Our work is rolling. We have plans. We feel that we can deliver the vaccines as needed. So I don't know exactly what this order is about.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: That's a diplomatic way Trump's own experts don't want to be involved in the order.
"The New York Times," meanwhile, reports Pfizer offered the administration a chance to lock in more vaccine doses than the United States currently is on track to get. But the Trump administration didn't make the deal.
Quote: "Pfizer officials repeatedly warned the Trump administration demand could vastly outstrip supply and urged kit to preorder more doses, but were turned down."
The Trump administration argues that the vaccine wasn't finalized at that point, so they were balancing those considerations.
Meanwhile, in another sign of hope, this is a big, big piece of news. We have a woman in Britain who is the first person in the world to receive the Pfizer vaccine. She's 90. She says she's looking forward to spending time with her family once this all kicks in.
Meanwhile, in the United States, you have Senate Republicans talking about the vaccine, but they invited the testimony of an individual associated with highly anti-vaccine critical views.
Now, the medical consensus has been the COVID is spread through aerosol droplets and that wearing masks, as you well know, helps curb the spread.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. JANE ORIENT, ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN PHYSICIANS AND SURGEONS: Somebody mentioned the oral fecal transmission, which I think is very interesting. Maybe, instead of putting masks on everybody, we should be putting lids on the toilet or pouring Clorox into it before you flush it.
And I think our epidemiologists have not been doing a very good job of figuring out just exactly how does the transmission occur, so that we can be sure that our mitigation methods are targeted to the means.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: Prepare for the vaccine wars to continue to hit Congress.
Meanwhile, the president-elect, Joe Biden, has been rolling out more and more members of his health team and reinforcing his support and his coming administration's support for masks, as well as other distancing protocols.
That's your update on that very important public health story.
We have a lot more in the program, a federal judge absolutely hammering Donald Trump and Michael Flynn over that controversial pardon, new reporting on Attorney General Barr, and this allegedly growing pardon list, and why talking about giving pardons to everyone who works for you makes your White House sound like the mafia.
We will explain after this break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MELBER: The clock is winding down now on this Trump presidency, with growing signs he's planning what many see as a potential pardon avalanche.
Axios, which often reports directly leaks out of the White House, says Trump telling an adviser he's going to pardon -- quote -- "Every person who ever talked to me."
It goes on: "Trump's also interrupted conversations to spontaneously suggest that he add the person he's speaking with to his pardon list."
Yes, it does sound almost like self-parody, some even reminded of this moment.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OPRAH WINFREY, HOST, "THE OPRAH WINFREY SHOW": Everybody gets a car!
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
WINFREY: You get a car! You get a car! You get a car!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: Now, that was understandably exciting, and it's led to memes like this across the Internet. You get a pardon. You get a pardon. You get a pardon. Yes, everybody gets a pardon.
Axios reporting, in the Trump White House, that pardons are literally being discussed like Christmas gifts.
Now, that may just be a turn of phrase, a literary license, but if you dig into the history, this is no coincidence that it comes around the holidays and the inauguration.
And Donald Trump, of course, has an attorney general very familiar with the ultimate Friday news dump, a Christmas season pardon. Bill Barr, of course, was attorney general once before, and he helped engineer President Bush's controversial pardons that also involved issues of White House criminality and conflict of interest.
Then it was the Iran-Contra scandal, and some of the biggest news dropped on Christmas Eve.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: President Bush pardoned Caspar Weinberger, accused of lying to Congress, and five others in the scandal.
Bush called it an act of healing. The Iran-Contra prosecutor called it the completion of a cover-up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In light of President Bush's own misconduct, we are gravely concerned by his decision to pardon others.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: I'm joined by Elie Mystal, justice correspondent at "The Nation."
Good evening, sir.
ELIE MYSTAL, "THE NATION": Good evening, Ari. How are you?
MELBER: I'm fine.
We go into the holidays. In fairness to every president, the precedent is there, although it's highly controversial, because you don't tend to do the things you're proud in the Friday night news dump or the Christmas Eve news dump.
Do you think Bill Barr is someone who might be involved in planning this again? And does that concern you?
MYSTAL: Is there anything I wouldn't put past Bill Barr? Of course this is something that Bill Barr would think about doing.
And I'm so glad you brought up the Caspar Weinberger pardon, not just because of Bill Barr's direct involvement and potentially ideation of such a -- of that move, but to point out that the pardon power has generally been used by presidents for trash, right?
I think we have all been spoiled a bit by Barack Obama and his use of pardon powers to really kind of reshape justice or -- and really give clemency in the way it was kind of most highly intended.
What presidents in the past have done have used that power kind of corruptly to pardon kind of friends and cronies. Bill Clinton did it. George W. Bush -- George H.W. Bush did it. Gerald Ford, obviously, famously did it. It potentially cost him an election campaign.
So, the president's -- the president is there, that the pardon power can be used by the president in these kind of horrible and corrupt fashions.
MELBER: Right.
MYSTAL: It's potentially something we should think about changing at some point in our future.
MELBER: Yes, you mentioned that this has been sort of on pause during the eight years of the Obama presidency.
Previous presidents in both parties did a lot of shady pardons, including of their own indicted aides, Bush for people caught up in the Scooter Libby scandal, Clinton for donor-linked fugitives, both parties bad.
Obama was different. Indeed, he went eight years and there was no one to pardon who worked for him because, during those eight years, no one was indicted, let alone convicted. Contrast that to the Trump aides in criminal cases, Manafort and Stone, who worked together, Gates, who has asked publicly for a pardon, Cohen, who has been on with us recently warning about this.
Flynn and Stone, of course, having pardoned. Bannon awaits trial. There's a lot of choices there. And yet those who are at the wider circle, Elie, in fairness to those who aren't accused of wrongdoing, look at this headline as well, "Trump plotting mass pardons even to people not asking."
And it notes: "The adviser didn't believe they had committed crimes and believed being on this list, because pardons are for criminals, would hurt their persona."
You think?
And where does that fit in? Donald Trump's acting like everyone here was part of some mob family, so everybody needs a pardon. What if you're just a random person who, whatever your beliefs, didn't do crime in the administration?
MYSTAL: These are important sides of this coin, right?
On the one hand, we have an administration, at least seven Trump associates have so far been indicted, which is a lot. That's a lot of people.
MELBER: It's a lot.
MYSTAL: And I do not believe we have caught them all. I just -- I do not believe that we have caught them all.
So, that is -- on the one hand, that is why Trump is thinking of pardoning so many people. On the other hand, Ari, I think you make the very good point, some of these people legitimately did some -- did nothing wrong.
And when you say that the -- when they're worried that the pardon suggests that they are guilty of something, that's not them talking out of it -- that's not them inventing an idea. That's literally what courts have said, that accepting a pardon is, in fact, an admission of guilt.
It is one of the reasons -- and this is the only thing that I think is going to arrest Trump's pardon spree. When you pardon somebody, you take away their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, because they have essentially already admitted to the crime.
So, once you take -- once you give them a pardon, they can be compelled to testify about other crimes that you may be investigating and you may know.
So, when -- if Trump is going to pardon just an overabundant array of officials, that means that every one of those officials could potentially be brought and be pressured to testify against whoever else might be prosecuted in the future.
MELBER: Yes. Right.
MYSTAL: Just saying.
MELBER: Right.
And when you are going to lose the White House, that matters more, because, if you imagine pardoning family members, and then they're hauled in for an investigation, and they don't have a federal Fifth Amendment privilege, as you say, they're facing a new crime that they don't have a family member president to pardon them for if they lie in that situation, et cetera.
Elie Mystal, as always, thanks for your insights, sir.
MYSTAL: Thank you so much for having me.
MELBER: Thank you.
We have a lot coming up.
Mitch McConnell slow-walking essential COVID relief, as many face some of the largest financial problems to date. We have a special report, something different about the class disparities here. We think it's important, a restaurant owner speaking out about how she is facing what she views as small business discrimination, while corporations do just fine.
She joins us next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANGELA MARSDEN, OWNER, PINEAPPLE HILL SALOON & GRILL: And they set up a movie company right next to my outdoor patio.
Tell me that this is dangerous, but right next to me is a slap in my face.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MELBER: Turning to an update on a big story.
Former Trump aide Michael Flynn had his charges formally dismissed today. He, of course, was famously given a post-election pardon by President Trump, one of those many types of pardons that have stoked the expectations that more could be on the way.
But that's not all. The federal judge took some final shots at both the recipient and the giver of this controversial pardon, Judge Sullivan calling the pardon of Flynn -- quote -- "extraordinarily broad," adding that the president has not hidden the extent of his interest in this case, which sounds like shade.
And then, as for the defendant-turned-convict-turned-pardon-recipient, the judge says: "Flynn is not just anyone. He was the national security adviser to the president, clearly in a position of trust, who claimed he forgot within less than a month that he personally asked for a favor from the Russian ambassador that undermines the policy of the sitting president prior to the president-elect taking office."
He also spoke about something that one of our guests mentioned tonight and we have reported on that hangs over all of this pardon talk, that it's guilty criminals who get pardons most of the time, Flynn, of course, guilty.
And this pardon -- quote -- "does not, standing alone, render Mr. Flynn innocent of the alleged violation."Yes, because accepting the pardon is also, under the law -- doesn't matter what people say on the Internet or what people's opinions are -- as a legal matter, in this legal process, accepting that pardon is admitting guilt, which is why, if you want to remember it, you can always remember it simply as, pardons are for criminals.
That's an update on an important story.
We have a lot more, including some of those stories I mentioned and a special guest, right after this break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MELBER: Turning now to a special discussion about how many ordinary people are getting hit much harder by certain COVID safety restrictions than big, powerful corporations.
Take a look at this restaurant owner spotlighting how a COVID shutdown supported by the Democratic mayor of L.A. reveals some class disparities.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARSDEN: So, this is my place, the Pineapple Hill Grill & Saloon.
If you go to my page, you can see all the work I did for outdoor dining, for tables being seven feet apart. And I walk into my parking lot. And, obviously, Mayor Garcetti has approved this, this being set up for a movie company.
I'm losing everything. Everything I own is being taken away from me. And they set up a movie company right next to my outdoor patio. And people wonder why I'm protesting and why I have had enough.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: Many production companies in California operating under these rules.
We should note, by the way, this was near the set for our sister company NBC's "Good Girls."
Now, the larger issue is small business is facing the end, as "The Washington Post" put it, with many giant corporations as the remaining survivors in this COVID economy.
The restaurant owner in that video, Angela Marsden, has agreed to come speak with us. Her restaurant is the Pineapple Hill Saloon & Grill.
Thank you for joining me.
MARSDEN: Thank you for having me, Ari. I appreciate it.
MELBER: Absolutely.
So, what are you going through here, after you tried to follow what were the original rules for COVID safety and dining and those investments? And what are you up against right now, as you as you touch on in that homemade video?
MARSDEN: I mean, it's -- I'm living off a loan that's almost out.
And it's not just me. I'm speaking on behalf of a lot of small businesses and a lot of small restaurants and bars, some of which that haven't been able to open for nine months.
Basically, that particular day, I was handing last paychecks out and bags of groceries to my staff, and -- you know, because I could not afford to stay open for takeout. It costs me too much. I lose too much money. And I only have so much money left in my bank account.
So, I had to close, in hopes that a PPP loan would happen again, or we would at least reopen by February, because, if not, I'm out of money, and I can't keep going.
MELBER: A lot of people say these rules are necessary for safety. Certainly, many of them are backed by science.
You don't seem to be arguing with the science, but, rather, the classism or the discrimination. Walk us through your view and what you saw there, that, basically, you think, at least under this mayor and this county set of rules, they don't apply equally.
It seems like there are breaks for bigger companies.
MARSDEN: They don't apply -- no. No, not at all, Ari.
And I'm just going to say, it is not about politics. It's about people. And that's what I keep trying to say. I don't blame "Good Girls" productions or whoever was filming there. Like, the entertainment industry has been decimated. They need to work.
But small businesses, we are destitute. I mean, we're looking at something worse than the Great Depression. And most of us were basically on our last breath, and they shut us down again.
I did everything right. I had temperature checks. I had gloves. I had shields. I was outdoors. My tables were seven feet apart. I mean, I went above and beyond. And I spent $60,000 to $80,000 doing everything that they wanted.
And Mayor Garcetti said his heart went out to me and to my staff, and that the film theater -- or the film companies are more regulated because they get testing every week.
Well, here's my answer. Pay -- put money from unemployment to help us test, us small businesses test to keep us open to save our economy. I mean, the fact of the matter is, I was -- also heard that, because I have people from the public coming in, and so there's different people coming in that can't be tested.
But yet, as of today, right now, they just closed down nail salons, hair salons, but the mall is open.
There's hundreds of people...
MELBER: That's right, retail, big box retail, yes.
MARSDEN: ... at the Sherman Oaks Galleria shopping, no temperature checks, no face shields. You can still try on clothes. Target is open. Costco is open.
And we are at our -- we're at -- we're in a very, very crucial moment in history right now, because I can tell you five bars or hairstylists that cannot reopen that did not get PPP. I'm one of the lucky ones. I'm considered the lucky ones.
And the ones that have, like me, that came out to my protest, one month left -- I mean, Baked Potato has been around for 50 years. It's -- there's not going to be any businesses left. And small businesses are the heart -- we're the heart of the community.
And if you pull out the heart, there's -- the body doesn't live, right? I mean, we need help. We need real help. We need to open in a safe way.
And, myself, I have tuberculosis. So, when this -- this is -- another thing that's very upsetting is this idea that we can all stay at home. My staff can't stay at home. I can't stay at home, if we don't eat and we can't pay our rent.
My employees are out of -- they're out of unemployment, most of them. My manager has a little boy. She's out of unemployment. I hired a new girl...
MELBER: Yes.
MARSDEN: ... two weeks training, and then had to tell her she had no job. She has a 3-year-old.
MELBER: Yes.
MARSDEN: She can't pay her rent.
MELBER: Well, I will tell you this. I saw -- we saw your video. We wanted to put this on.
I appreciate you speaking so frankly about what you're going through. There's many sides, many stories to this.
Mayor Garcetti has been on this program before, and I invite him back to discuss this or discuss it with you, if you're willing, because these are, as you say...
MARSDEN: I'm willing.
MELBER: These issues are alive.
Angela Marsden, thank you for joining us.
MARSDEN: Thank you. Thanks.
MELBER: Appreciate it.
And we will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MELBER: This election had unusually high turnout, breaking a 120-year record, which means the last time this high a portion of the electorate actually voted, many people couldn't even legally vote.
Now, that 66 percent turnout is high, and far higher than something else important, the often lower 20 percent turnout you see in civic local races. That's a point that the famed talking heads rocker David Byrne makes in his Grammy nominated project "American Utopia."
You're looking at it right here, an album and Broadway show adapted into a Spike Lee film where Byrne -- this is interesting -- literally shines a spotlight on the lack of civic participation of his own audience, dramatizing low voter turnout, a point that we actually discuss, among other things, in our brand-new interview.
Here's a clip.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID BYRNE, SINGER-SONGWRITER: Here are 20 percent of the people in this theater. Here they are. These are the ones that vote in local elections.
The ones up top are waving and laughing because, well, they just decided your future and the future of your children.
MELBER: But you're literally putting the spotlight on these people. What made you want to do that? And, more specifically, how are you not afraid of offending or alienating these people who came for a show?
BYRNE: I started off doing it just verbally. We can put a light on that.
And I thought, OK, this will visualize it. Let's see what happens. They get all excited. They start waving and cheering, like, hey, we're the good guys over here.
(LAUGHTER)
BYRNE: And they will go, all right, this is just a symbolic thing.
MELBER: I heard you say Jared Kushner could make an interesting character. I'm curious.
As America turns, is there anything in the Trump era or in the coming Biden/Harris era where you see characters or people that you might want to play with?
BYRNE: Sometimes, when you're writing a song, you try and write from a particular character's point of view. And, sometimes, it's a character that -- that you don't agree with.
But it's -- but, by writing that way, you can kind of get inside their head. But it's like the Bruce Springsteen song "Born in the USA," which is a very pointed political commentary, it's not a rah-rah patriotism song, in that sense, but it sounds like it is, which he did intentionally, I imagine, that he wanted it to sound that way, as a contrast -- to add some contrast with what the words were saying.
But a lot of times, people just hear -- they just hear kind of the music and the vibe, and they figure, well, that's what it's about.
So, it's kind of -- it's a tricky balance there.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MELBER: Byrne believes culture can certainly shape people's actions.
Before the killing of George Floyd renewed protests in America, Byrne was already performing Janelle Monae's song "Hell You Talmbout," regarding police killing innocent black people in America, which we also discussed.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BYRNE: The show has to reflect the world we live in. We can't ignore what's going on.
And I'd heard this song that Janelle Monae and some other people had done, and I thought it was incredibly moving. By saying the names of these people, it puts a human face on it, and which -- and Spike pushed that further by having the relatives and family members of these people who've been murdered hold up the pictures of the slain family members.
And I got to write to Janelle Monae and ask her, what does she think of a kind of older white guy doing this song? I was perfectly ready to hear her come back and say, no, you have not had this experience. This is not part of your experience. You can't speak for us. Totally willing to hear that.
But she was incredibly generous and said, no, this song belongs to everybody.
Occasionally, we would have some walkouts, or people would yell things at us or whatever.
MELBER: That alone is interesting. You -- in some places, this song, which, to many people, looks like a memorial of real people who were killed by police, the response for some was, they saw that itself is controversial or political, and they literally walked out. And they are David Byrne fans.
BYRNE: Yes, they're obviously David Byrne fans. They came to the show, and they bought their tickets.
But they didn't expect that. And maybe that kind of rubbed against their politics in some way, and they didn't -- they didn't like it. We heard from audience members who said, yes, it was a punch to the gut, but it felt very necessary, and we're very glad that you did it.
So I thought, OK, they get -- the audience, they're smart enough. They get what's going on here.
We bought into the myth, let's say, that this country was a place of opportunity, a place where things could -- people could reinvent themselves, reinvent a new way of -- a new kind of government that you kind were organizing ourselves.
But the thing is, it is a work in progress, and that we haven't completely given up on that idea.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MELBER: The 68-year-old Byrne is very busy with new projects.
Many first discovered him, of course, as the founder of the hit new wave band Talking Heads, which debuted in the year '75. They hit it big channeling an absurdity and an alienation that really met the moment, a lot of people said.
Now, Byrne says his band did tap into something very real. But he's also quick to tell me that he thinks their rise and their spread around the world involved some luck. In this new far-ranging interview, which is for our "Mavericks" series, Byrne also talks about navigating the business, his favorite lyrics, how performing actually helped him overcome his own shyness, and why so many people do feel weird and alienated.
Here's some of the highlights.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BYRNE: Our way of thinking is not the only way of looking things.
I would happily get on stage and perform, scream my head off or do whatever, then retreat. It was just kind of a desperate drive to somehow be represented in the world. But the only way I could do it was to get on stage.
A song that I might have written years ago suddenly seems very relevant, very hopeful, very aspirational, maybe slightly delusional.
(LAUGHTER)
BYRNE: How does this world look like to a dog? What is heaven for a chicken?
Music really is you kind of defining who you are, and you can never let go of that moment. I also look around and go, what is going on here? What does this mean? How do I work this?
My God, what have I done?
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MELBER: My God, what have I done?
If you're a music fan, you know the Talking Heads and so much of David Byrne's work.
And I did want to share one more little personal thing here at the end of our show, thinking about this interview. We put this series, "Mavericks," together and a lot of our music and cultural interviews to go wider.
And David Byrne, as I'm sure so many of you know, is such a great example of that. He speaks in the interview -- we showed a little bit of it there -- about how he once considered himself on the spectrum, that he was so shy, that music and culture really helped him become the person he is today.
The work with Spike Lee and Black Lives Matter and that incredible band that you saw there on the "American Utopia" stage also goes to transcending the day-to-day and thinking, how do you actually have a conversation about the world we want to live in? How do you get people to turn out? How do you take those stories and make them bigger than just politics or policy?
We think, which is part of, obviously, why we chose him, that he does that so well. So, I hope you will check it out. I will give you the URL, as we always do for this series. It's MSNBC.com/mavericks.
You can see the full conversation. It was much longer than just that clip. There are also the other installments of this series, "Mavericks With Ari Melber." It's MSNBC.com/mavericks.
David Byrne, such a great one. And, again, we thank him for his time.
That does it for THE BEAT tonight. We will be back here tomorrow night at 6:00 p.m. Eastern.
"THE REIDOUT" with my friend Joy Reid is up next.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.END
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