Summary
Senator Kyrsten Sinema Openly Said That She Protects Voting Rights But She Will Not Support Her Party`s Aim to Get Rid of the Filibuster. State Representative Reginald Bolding Explained What Push Him to Call Out Senator Sinema Over Her Wrong Principle on Fighting Democracy. Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT) Said That Donald Trump`s Capacity and Capability to Lie is Just Astonishing. Democracy does not work unless we as citizens make it work. Over the last couple of years many Americans who take part in this critical work of grassroots democracy are being harassed and worst.
Transcript
AYMAN MOHYELDIN, MSNBC HOST (on camera): And I will see you again tomorrow night at 8 Eastern for my show Ayman where we will be two of -- we will be speaking to two of the people who help create "Don`t Look Up" the hit movie about an impending planet killing disaster. You don`t want to miss that.
Now it`s time for THE LAST WORD. Ali Velshi is in for Lawrence tonight. Ali, good evening.
ALI VELSHI, MSNBC HOST: Always great to see you, my friend. I`m not going to, you know, spoiler alert, I`m not giving anybody spoiler about "Don`t Look Up," but it`s worth seeing because other an interesting film it speaks to our time and how we deal with things that are perhaps too big for our mind to comprehend.
So, I`m looking forward to that. But always a pleasure to see you, and you have a great weekend although you`ll be working. So, we`ll see you.
MOHYELDIN: Thank you, my friend. I appreciate it.
VELSHI: All right, well, with one speech Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema seemingly doomed the Democrat`s chances of overcoming Republican opposition and passing voting rights in the Senate.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. KYRSTEN SINEMA (D-AZ): These bills help treat the symptoms of the disease, but they do not fully address the disease itself. And while I continue to support these bills, I will not support separate actions that worsen the underlying disease of division infecting our country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI (on camera): Senators Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin, another protector of the filibuster, seem to believe that when it comes to protecting democracy the cure is worse than the problem. In their minds eliminating the filibuster, a maneuver done many times before to bypass the 60-vote threshold, that fosters more obstruction than bipartisanship, that that is somehow worse than Republican states like Texas and Georgia making it harder to vote and installing partisans to perhaps put the thumb on the scale in a close election.
How big is the threat? Consider this. Last year, 19 states enacted 34 laws that restrict voting and alter the vote counting process. Hundreds more were introduced. More are coming this year. And threats of violence and intimidation from big lie believing Trump supporters have forced dedicated election workers to quit. With the MAGA faithful lining up to take their places, perhaps less interested in democracy than in partisan victory.
A sham audit in Arizona sparked copycats around the country. And even though no fraud was found, the fake audit still worked by sowing doubt in legitimate election results. This break down of trust is so bad that recent polling shows that just 21 percent of Republicans believe that Joe Biden`s election victory was legitimate. Twenty-one percent.
We`re still learning new disturbing details about how Trump and his allies tried to steal the 2020 election including a plot by Republicans in at least five states to send forged election documents to Washington declaring that Donald Trump won.
Tomorrow, Donald Trump and his big lie cronies including QAnon supporters and the guy who sells foam pillows are heading to Arizona for a rally that will be unhindered by fact or reality to promote Republican candidates who are backing these election lies.
Now, this would be a fringe event except for the fact that the headliner is the former president of the United States and the front running Republican presidential candidate for 2024.
As Axios notes, "Trump who remains the most powerful figure in the Republican Party is making his false claims about the 2020 election the center piece of his GOP platform. Trump has made clear to all who seek his endorsement that if they want his blessing, they need to make overturning the 2020 election as much of a priority as subverting future elections," end quote.
According to a count by NBC News Donald Trump has endorsed 93 candidates in GOP primaries and general elections. Of those 93 Republicans, quote, "59 have questioned the 2020 election results including by voting against the Electoral College certification in Congress in addition to questioning the 2020 election results 10 candidates who received Trump`s endorsement attended his rally in Washington on January 6, 2021.
Well, tonight Donald Trump warned Arizona`s Republican Governor Doug Ducey, that he will not get Trump`s endorsement if he runs for Senate. Not Trumpy enough according to big lie standards. While election denying Republicans execute the slow-moving coup, we learned this week that the Justice Department is now prosecuting 11 insurrectionists with something called seditious conspiracy.
The charges all tied to following Trump`s big lie, attacking the capitol and attempting to stop the certification of Joe Biden`s win. And Donald Trump seems to think he can keep undermining our democracy in plain sight and there won`t be any consequences.
Consider all of the damage happening to our democracy as we speak. We can all see it. You`re not imagining things. The threat is very, very real.
[22:05:00]
And for 48 Senate Democrats, at least, losing our democracy seems to be worse than losing a Senate rule. Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin apparently do not see it that way, so what else can be done?
Leading off our discussion tonight, Reginald Bolding, he is a Democratic leader of the Arizona House of Representatives and also running for Arizona secretary of state.
Representative Bolding, thank you for joining us this evening and good evening to you.
I want to read to our viewers something important you said after Kyrsten Sinema`s speech on the floor of the Senate. You said senator Sinema defends the antiquated Jim Crow era filibuster by arguing any rights granted by passage of a new Voting Rights Act under regular order could be rolled back in future years if Republicans gain power.
You go on to say, I challenge her to step outside the D.C. bubble and take a closer look around her state and her country. Those rights are systematically being rolled back right now here and in state legislatures around the country. Your point here is she`s missing the point.
STATE REP. REGINALD BOLDING (D-AZ): Yes. First, thank you for having me, Ali. Absolutely.
VELSHI: My pleasure.
BOLDING: We`ve been in these for literally four days. And in these four days we have already seen legislation that would limit dropping ballot, you know, ballot box, and would make it more difficult for individuals to have mail-in voting. We`ve seen restrictions out the door.
And one of the things that we have said to Senator Sinema is that, currently right now, what you`re defending against is already happening here in the state of Arizona.
VELSHI: So, what do you think -- this begs the question. What can be done? Because the court of public opinion is being brought to bear on Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin right now, but basically what Kyrsten Sinema was saying yesterday is don`t bother continuing to try, this is what I have decided to do. I support better voting rights. I do not support fiddling with the filibuster.
BOLDING: You know, we can`t -- we can`t operate with this defeatist mentality. We have to make sure that we are continually pressuring Senator Sinema. The reality is democracy is on the line. Elections are at stake, and we are seeing it every single day that the seat of democracy is being pulled from our communities.
And that`s why I`m running for secretary of state because my primary opponent in this race sent an e-mail to a supporter to say if I was secretary of state, I would have made sure that Donald Trump won.
So, this big lie is already happening, and it`s going through legislation and we can`t have lawmakers celebrating MLK Day in just a couple of days without actually passing the legislation of what he fought for and stood for.
VELSHI: One of the complexities particularly in states that are legislating ways in which it makes it harder for people to vote is that a lot of people can`t register what`s happening. If they -- if they don`t feel like their right to vote is going to be curtailed or their ability to vote is not going to be hindered, it seems distant and abstract to them.
But taken in the aggregate, this is a very serious problem. How do you get people for whom this is not going to be a problem to understand that their democracy is imperfect until this is fixed?
BOLDING: You know, I think one of the things you have to look at here in Arizona, 80 percent of Arizonians choose to vote by mail. And just this last legislative session we had a bill that would literally remove 200,000 individuals. These are people who signed up for something called the permanent early voting list.
It would remove 200,000 of these individuals from the list if they chose not to vote into elections. And it`s designed primarily to make it more difficult for people to participate. Coincidently, the more people we have that sign-up for vote by mail, the more you see our state moving and turning blue.
So, I would say to people who don`t understand and realize that this is directly attacking them, realize that they are coming for your vote, they are coming for democracy. If they believe that voting rights and expanding those rights will make it more difficult for them to win elections.
VELSHI: How much of Senator Sinema`s position is influenced by the fact that you have a disproportionate number of elected people in the state of Arizona who are not just supporters of the big lie but proponents of it?
They are -- they are disinformation specialists. This rally that`s going on in your state is wild. The participants and the things that they`ve got to say, there`s almost no line now between in your state between Republicans, election deniers, conspiracy theorists and QAnon people.
BOLDING: You know, I think Senator Sinema is banking that in a couple years we`ll all forget that we had this fight. But the reality is we`re not going anywhere. We understand that democracy is on the line.
[22:10:00]
And I believe that she is anticipating that after you go through a Senate cycle and potentially power changes that she`ll somehow be off the hook. But we want -- we`re asking Senator Sinema to fight with that same vigor that she did with the infrastructure package, to fight for voting rights.
Because just a few years ago when she was in the same state legislature, she stood on behalf of the communities who are now being disenfranchised. So, we`re asking her to remember her roots, remember why she ran for office and stand up and fight for these communities who so very much need her to fight for democracy.
VELSHI: Arizona State Representative Reginald Bolding, it is good to see you, sir. Thank you for your passion and thank you for joining us tonight.
BOLDING: Thank you for having me.
VELSHI: Joining us now is Democratic Congressman Peter Welch of Vermont. He`s a member of the House intelligence committee. He`s running for the United States Senate.
Congressman, good to see you again. Thank you for being here. You know, I marvel at the fact you were at the intelligence committee, so you saw this coming a long time ago, right? You saw how little lies became bigger lies, became the big lie.
I -- could you guess this is where we were going to be, that Donald Trump`s ability to lie about stuff has become the major challenge to democracy that we face in America today?
REP. PETER WELCH (D-VT): You know, Donald Trump is pretty good at lying, and now he`s the big lie. My first task on the intelligence committee is when he called the president of Ukraine and asked him to essentially do campaign dirt on Joe Biden.
So, I`m astonished about it because it`s not anything that we`ve had in this country. Presidents Republican and Democrat have always adhered to the sacred trust that we have that the voters decide who our president is. And their votes are counted, and their votes are accurately counted. So, no, I`m astonished what Trump has done.
VELSHI: What`s also amazing -- I just want to show our viewers an article from the Washington Post entitled how Republicans became the party of Trump -- Trump`s election lie after January 6th. And it talks about how 163 Republicans who embraced Donald Trump`s false claims are now running for statewide positions that would give them the authority over the administration of elections, 50 -- 69 candidates for governor in 30 states, 55 candidates for the United States Senate, 13 candidates for state attorney general, 18 candidates for secretary of state in places where the person is the state`s top election official.
So, again, when we were dealing with this on the intel committee when you were in those early days and Donald Trump`s first administration, it felt like it was a more contained thing. There was a moment after the election of 2020, after January 6th and at any time between January 6th of 2021 and now for Republicans to say this is not who we are, and they have not done that.
WELCH: They haven`t. In action and (Inaudible). I mean many of -- after the violence of January 6th, and I was there when the shot was fired, when the mob was trying to break in the door. And I`ve talked to capitol police officers, and there were five people who died as a result of that.
What was even more astonishing to me was that when we certified the election of Joe Biden 147 of my Republican colleagues in Congress voted against certification. That`s never happened before in our country. What we have had is a norm through thick and thin, Republicans and Democrats, that the voters in this country are the ones who decide who their president is, not the Congress, not elected politicians.
That`s been shattered by Donald Trump. And it`s a profound threat to the maintenance of our Democratic tradition, the norm that the voters decide, not politicians. That`s what`s at stake.
VELSHI: If everybody were clear, though, on the degree to which democracy in this country as we know it is threatened, you know, I ask you the same question that I talk to Representative Bolding about a moment ago, then everybody would realize they need to be in this fight. But it does seem that there are a lot of otherwise fair-minded people who just don`t think this is a five-alarm fire for the way we do things in America.
WELCH: No, that`s true. And what`s so scary about this is that there was violence that was used on January 6th in an effort to overthrow the election. I thought that that would be repudiated because most of us really recoil from the use of violence as a means of political persuasion.
But right after that at three in the morning 147 of my colleagues voted, in effect, to side with the folks who were challenging the election through violence.
[22:14:58]
And then what we`ve seen in legislatures around the country who are now trying through the Democratic process setting up the machinery to be able to overturn an election in the future. And we cannot deny that`s happening.
And that`s why it`s so essential that we pass the voting right protections. Those protections are about making certain that folks in Trump districts and in Biden districts have their vote counted and that there`ll not be --
VELSHI: Yes.
WELCH: -- any political overthrow of what the voters want. This is really an all-hands on deck moment for us.
And by the way, you know, we`re talking in the Senate about the filibuster. And there`s a real strong desire that I`ve always had to have bipartisan support for any legislation we pass. But what is existential is that your vote be counted accurately and that the voters decide who our leader is. And that`s really what`s at stake here.
VELSHI: I think that`s the point. That`s existential. The other stuff is debatable, and it`s -- it`s things that we`ve come to compromises on, but the existential part is that everybody`s vote does get counted, we don`t give up that right. Congressman, good to see you. Thanks for joining us tonight. Congressman Peter Welch of Vermont.
WELCH: Thank you.
VELSHI: Coming up, the Trump effect on our politics has brought ugliness to our towns and communities, but local public servants from election officials to school board members being shouted out, harassed, menaced, even in some cases physically threatened.
Capitol rioters chanted hang Mike Pence at a recent school board meeting. Some New Hampshire members were told they should be hanged. We`ll talk to one of them next.
[22:20:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI (on camera): Democracy does not work unless we as citizens make it work, and there are some pretty easy ways to do that. For starters, help people register to vote, volunteer at polling places, attend your local school board meetings, and those are just first steps which lead to greater civic engagement including running for office.
This is the deal in the democracy of the people. The people get involved in debate and change things hopefully for the better. But over the last couple of years many Americans who take part in this critical work of grassroots democracy are being harassed and worse.
Our next guest, Erica Cohen is the chair of the Derry school board in New Hampshire. She and her fellow school board members have been threatened at meetings. Here`s one example of what Erika Cohen has dealt with. It`s about COVID mandates in schools.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNKNOWN: I just have to call it for what it is. You guys are cowards. You force the masks on these kids, and I just want to say if you do force a mandate, genocide jab, an experimental jab on these kids, you guys are Nazis and I hope you hang. I hope you --
(CROSSTALK)
UNKNOWN: Sir, please be --
UNKNOWN: No!
UNKNOWN: Please stop.
UNKNOWN: No, you`re war criminals. You`re war criminals.
UNKNOWN: Please, please cut.
UNKNOWN: If you do that to the kids, you are war criminals, I hope you hang.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI (on camera): The disgusting behavior we`ve seen from national politicians has trickled down to our local government. We can`t expect democracy to work if that`s what happens when you attend a school board meeting.
Erika Cohen fears that moments like this are going to discourage and prevent democratic participation. She writes in the Boston Globe, quote, "What I fear most is that community participation will become the domain of those who seek conflict or hold an anti-mask, anti-vax viewpoint. For the conflict-averse, going to a meeting in today`s hostile climate is deeply uncomfortable and running for office is out of the question. And the next school board election in my town is in March."
Joining us by phone is Erika Cohen, chair of the Derry School Board in New Hampshire. Erika, thank you for being with us. You make two distinct points and I want to address both of them.
The first one is that this comes in the way of civic duty. This comes in the way of people like you, volunteers typically who get involved sort of the gateway levels of public participation, and that that will be discouraged. We`ll have fewer good people who want to be involved in politics.
ERIKA COHEN, CHAIR, DERRY SCHOOL BOARD, NEW HAMPSHIRE: Yes. My biggest fear is that we`re breaking down what needs to be a healthy discussion. Without a healthy discussion you can`t respectfully exchange ideas. But because of all the vitriol going on I don`t respond to speakers unless I respond in a very planned and clipped ways so things can be caught or posted or misconstrued and used against me.
And I find this very sad because I want to have a really discussion with people. But since people talk at each other more than they talk to each other, I fear my words will be used against me instead of communication. And I fear we can`t exchange ideas if we can`t listen to each other. And I feel like people aren`t listening.
VELSHI: Are you in a position to hear or listen to a parent who n complains about masks or vaccines or things like that who doesn`t accuse you of being Nazis and don`t -- doesn`t accuse you of enacting a genocide and doesn`t say that he wished you would hang? Is it the tone and tenor of the conversation or is it the substance?
COHEN: It`s definitely the tenor and not the substance. I have had parents who have e-mailed very frustrated and concerned, and we exchanged opinions and we agreed to disagree. I actually even had one parent who was very against masks who after probably a 20-minute conversation offered to walk me out of the school board meeting the next week if people made those comments and I was scared.
So, it`s definitely the tenor and not the substance. I have a strong belief that we need to be able to disagree and understand that disagreeing doesn`t mean not listening. But I feel that that`s something that`s not always heard these days because of the instability and the vitriol.
[22:24:55]
VELSHI: Now the other thing that you write about which I think is equally and maybe more important is that attending school board meetings or community board meetings or city council meetings is one of the basic things that every citizen in this country can do.
They don`t, but they can, and they can participate. And your feeling is that these are not as well-populated as you`d like them to be and well- attended as you`d like them to be. And when there`s this kind of vitriol it just turns people off who weren`t going to run for office but at least they were going to be engaged.
COHEN: And that is my biggest fear that people will see all this vitriol and now say there`s no way I`m getting involved in that because I don`t want to be yelled at or I don`t want to listen to other people yelling or that`s not something I want to be around.
And as it is, participation in school board meetings, in voting in running for office is very low. In my town in the last decade probably the average turnout was under 10 percent. So, it doesn`t take that many people --
VELSHI: Wow.
COHEN: -- to swing a vote. So, if people don`t participate at any level because they`re turned off by the vitriol, you get even less participation and you get a result that a lot of people didn`t choose, and I think that`s very sad for democracy and for the kids, frankly. The kids deserve better.
VELSHI: Yes. You`re right. And thanks for sticking it out and for bringing this to our attention because everybody can actually fix this in every town across America tomorrow. So, let`s do that.
Erika, thanks very much for being with us.
Joining us now is Democratic Congresswoman Brenda Lawrence of Michigan, she is a member of the House oversight committee and co-chair of the Democratic Women`s Committee.
Representative Lawrence, good to see you. Thanks for taking time to be with us tonight.
I have to say on one hand, I`m listening to Erika and thinking, I`m glad there are people like her around. But on the other side when she says fewer than 10 percent show up for these meetings, we now need more than ever for people to be politically engaged. And it has to start at things like school boards and city councils.
REP. BRENDA LAWRENCE (D-MI): I am so glad to be with you tonight because I started my political career as a school board member. And I can`t tell you how critical the job that you do as a school board member. You are setting the budget, the criteria, the books and the curriculum for the next generation.
And we find that those people who come out only when they can come and voice their anger and engage in name-calling, it`s sad but you have to stay focused on the issue. And thank God we have school boards, we have city councils, we have those township boards that come every, you know, weekly to discuss and take care of the people. And that`s where I learn my respect for public service.
VELSHI: You also learn that you do have to get engaged with people who do not share your viewers whether they are your constituents or they are people who attend these meetings or your fellow board members. And that is also something we`re losing practice at.
LAWRENCE: You know, listening to the people I can tell you during the last four years when Donald Trump was president, I had to listen to a variety of positions and people who supported and people who were frustrated with the Democrats because they felt we weren`t doing enough.
I`m hearing that now, but I have to listen. Because from listening to the people you actually are educated. Because what am I? I`m a representative. I`m not Brenda Lawrence going to Congress to fight for my beliefs. I chose to run as a representative of the people.
And it is critical that even those that you sit there and you say, my goodness, and sometimes I have personally asked someone can you bring down the volume, talk to me, don`t yell at me. I`m not hard-of-hearing. I want to hear what you have to say.
And sometimes you as a statesman or stateswoman have to create the tone and the dialogue. And two things I cannot tolerate and that is lies, untruths and the insulting language where you`re calling someone other than what their mother or father named them. Other than that, we can talk about everything. I`m an open book, and let`s have that dialogue.
VELSHI: One of the points that Erika made that struck me, I mean, we know that the participation in municipal elections tends to be very low. But when she said under 10 percent, possibly means you can win an election with under 5 percent of support. And that gives a lot of voice to extremism, something you in your state have been dealing with.
Today we saw, this week we saw the charging of a number of members of the Oath Keepers, but you have a lot of history of that in your state where people decide you know what, you know, this politics thing isn`t for me, I`ll deal with it in my own way.
[22:29:51]
LAWRENCE: Well, you know, one of the things when we`re approaching Martin Luther King, and one of the deadly sins in our country is that loud voice of silence, where people, good people sit on the sideline and allow those who are promoting hate, promoting untruths to go unchallenged, or no one stands up to say, no, that is not true.
And that is the greatest fear because when you talk about school board elections, they are low turnout. But the reality, the power that they have and the responsibility for your child, it should be just as popular as a presidential election.
But I can tell you that we in America, we are motivated -- if someone`s doing a good job they don`t even turn out. It`s not I`m not voting for you, but they will come out to vote against something. You know, they can actually say I don`t know what the issues are, but I don`t want this person.
And so it is important on every level to get your message out and talk to people. And we count on these local elections to energize the local base because everything is local politics.
And if the turnout is low for the elections, then you are going to have a low turnout for Congress and for president.
VELSHI: And this whole idea that if you dissuade people those few people who do decide to run for office may be discouraged as well. We need to fix this, and like I said we can all fix this immediately.
Congresswoman always good to see you. Thank you for taking time to be with us tonight, Congresswoman Brenda Lawrence.
Coming up, when Ronald Reagan declared it was morning in America again, the unemployment rate was 7 percent. By that measure the unemployment rate in the Biden presidency right now is like Christmas morning in America in a pandemic recovery and actually still in a pandemic. We`ll talk about that next.
[22:31:45]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: It`s time for an economic reality check. The news media hasn`t done a great job of communicating where the country`s really at. You see a lot of doom and gloom and not a lot of substance to back that up economically.
For starters, the stock market, a key indicator of economic health for the former president is going strong. The S&P 500 ended 2021 with a 27 percent gain. About half of Americans are not invested in the stock market which means that about half are, and that market performance helps your 401(k) and your IRAs.
Then there are jobs, the unemployment rate is at a pandemic low, 3.9 percent, almost as low as it was before the pandemic and far lower than most economists will tell you is something called full employment. Average hourly pay has risen as a result, 4.6 percent in the past year.
And all of these signs are signs of a strong economy, but let`s not go overboard here. Not everything is wonderful, economically speaking, at the moment.
Families are bracing for their first month without a child tax credit payment. The monthly payments of about to $300 per child included in the Democrats` American Rescue Plan did not go out today for the first time in six months. What`s more, the payments are ending as inflation takes a toll on working families wallets.
Now, I mentioned that wages are up, but so are prices which increased 7 percent over a 12-month period making 2021 the worst year for inflation since 1982. Now there`s undoubtedly room for improvement, but what we`re seeing right now is not an economy in crisis. We`re seeing the result of policies that put more people in a stronger position during a once in a generation pandemic than they would ever otherwise have been.
Joining us now is Austan Goolsbee. He`s the former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers for President Obama. He`s currently a professor of economics at the University of Chicago`s Booth School of business. Austan, good to see you, sir. Thank you for being with us.
Let`s talk about this economy. There are a lot of people who are cautioning Democrats that, you know, there`s going to be a mid-term election, and what people really vote on is the economy. Except that the economy we`re facing right now is in pretty good shape, notwithstanding the fact it`s coming out of a pandemic.
AUSTAN GOOLSBEE, FORMER CHAIRMAN, OBAMA COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC ADVISERS: Yes. I thought your opening there was quite realistic, that certainly in the polls there are people expressing that they`re dissatisfied with the economy.
But if you take a step back there are major upsides on the economy as well as some of the things that are bad.
So the inflation is the worst part. And we`re going to have to hope and work to get the supply chain under control and get the virus under control to bring down inflation in 2022.
At the same time, the job market is as strong as it`s been in years. Economic growth has thus far been fairly robust and wages and incomes are up.
As you look at 2021, it does at first look like prices were up more than wages were up, but that forgets there was also an average of $3,500 tax cut for the average person. So if you add the tax cut to the amount that wages went up, overall we`re a little better in 2021.
But I don`t want to be too rosy. I mean there`s a reason why people in the polls think the economy`s bad. And a lot of that has to do with prices, you know. And then they`re seeing gas prices and food prices going up.
I think we can get control of that if we can get control of the virus and go back to spending our money on services, which is what we used to spend most of our money on, and take a little of the pressure off the physical goods, which is the thing that`s really driving up the price.
But that still remains to be seen. I mean, we`ve definitely got to stay vigilant.
[22:39:45]
VELSHI: Let me ask you about something you wrote in December in an op-ed in the "New York Times". You said, "Understanding inflation`s unequal impact across income groups could have far reaching implications for policymaking. For all the talk about income inequality, we need a matching discussion about inflation inequality."
Tell me what that means in lay-terms?
GOOLSBEE: At first I thought I was like I agree with you 100 percent. No, but you were reading what I wrote.
Look, it says the inflation rate that you face as an individual, as a family depends on what you buy. Ok, and so some things the prices are way up.
If you live in a place where you have a long commute, then you`re going to care a lot about the price of gas. And depending what foods you buy, depending where you shop, depending what your income is, it looks like the inflation rate differs systematically by income, and actually lower income people face higher inflation rates during this pandemic than high income people did. And we`ve got to take that into account.
It`s exactly like we think about wage growth across the income distribution. We should also be measuring what`s happening to price growth across the income distribution.
VELSHI: I think this is a remarkably interesting conversation that could benefit from some graphics, which I will bring the next time we talk about it.
GOOLSBEE: Yes.
VELSHI: Let`s talk about how you fight inflation. We`ve generally got in our minds, in the back of our brain, in our lizard brain the idea that inflation -- or inflation that`s going too high too fast is a bad thing.
There are methods to fight -- to slow down an economy and that includes raising interest rates, which the Fed has said it`ll do probably three times this year. Some economists are predicting maybe four times.
Will it do the job? And is there a danger that if you increase interest rates that you could -- you could squash this growing economy?
GOOLSBEE: Yes. Of course, there`s a danger of that. There`s a danger on the other side that if you don`t snuff it out before it catches hold that like a sunburn, you know, by the time you see it, it`s too late and you`re going to be in pain.
The only thing that I would remind everybody is have some sympathy for the Fed because it`s a difficult situation they`re in because this wasn`t a normal recession. In a way it wasn`t really a recession at all. It was a huge downturn.
But in a normal recession, the thing that drives activity down is people stop buying TVs. They stop buying cars. They stop buying houses. The cyclically sensitive sectors are what go down.
And that didn`t happen this time. Housing went up, TV purchases went up, cars booming through the roof. And the thing that caused the downturn was people stopped going to the dentist, they stopped going to restaurants, a bunch of services that are normally recession-proof.
So the normal Fed playbook that, hey, we raised the interest rate and that`s the way we cool off the demand for the booming sectors, how much does the interest rate matter for whether you`re going to go to the dentist or get your haircut?
VELSHI: Right.
GOOLSBEE: Not that much. So everybody`s hounding the Fed to dial back their stimulus. And I understand why. But I think we should also be realistic that when this is happening in the middle of a pandemic, and at least some major component of it is coming from a supply chain shock, the normal Fed menu is not -- that`s not really what we might not --
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VELSHI: It`s not built meant to deal with that.
GOOLSBEE: Yes.
VELSHI: Austin, good to see you as always. It`s a great, stimulating conversation.
GOOLSBEE: Great to see you.
VELSHI: I hope to continue it with you. Austan Goolsbee is the former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers for President Obama. He`s a professor of economics at the University of Chicago`s Booth School of Business.
Coming up, 2022 is a going to be a tough mid-term election year, but Democratic leaders are about to hand Republicans a cudgel to bash them with for the next ten months. And some Democrats like our next guest are screaming "Stop, don`t do it". I`ll explain next.
[22:43:46]
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VELSHI: So of all the problems with Congress, I want to tell you about one you may rarely if ever think about. Why are lawmakers allowed to trade stocks in individual companies and write the laws to regulate those companies at the same time?
Case in point, as the pandemic started in early 2020, several senators came under scrutiny for selling millions of dollars in personal stocks before COVID shutdowns tanked the markets. Their stocks were dumped around the time that senators were getting private briefings about the severity of the virus.
In short they knew stuff that we didn`t. And they acted on that privileged information for their personal gain. Anywhere else, wouldn`t you call that insider trading?
Now, most people shrug this type of thing off as the kind of soft corruption in Washington that`s unlikely to change in any meaningful way. But some people are starting to pay more attention to this including some politicians who think that banning members of Congress from trading stocks is an issue where good politics and good policy align.
Now, currently there`s a weak law in place. It`s called the stock trading on congressional knowledge or STOCK Act, pretty clever. But an investigative report by a business insider in 2020 found that 54 members of Congress failed to properly report their financial trades as mandated by the STOCK Act and the law is only meant to discourage conflicts of interest. It doesn`t actually keep the members from doing something that you and I would call unethical. They just actually have to report that they did it.
Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff has introduced a bill that would ban lawmakers and their families from trading stocks while in office. Lawmakers, spouses and their dependents would have to put them in a blind trust. But does that even go far enough?
Joining us now is Lucas Kunce. He`s a Democratic candidate for United States Senate in Missouri. He`s a U.S. Marine Corps veteran as well. And also with us Walter Shaub, senior ethics fellow at the Project on Government Oversight. He`s a former director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics in the Obama administration.
Welcome to both of you, gentlemen.
[22:49:49]
VELSHI: Walter, this one comes up against resistance from Democrats and Republicans who say why shouldn`t they be able to make money off of this stuff? And no one is saying that they shouldn`t be able to make money, nor should they not be able to invest their money. We`re just saying you can`t invest in companies because you may have information that the rest of us don`t have.
WALTER SHAUB, SENIOR ETHICS FELLOW, PROJECT ON GOVERNMENT OVERSIGHT: That`s right. You know, Congress exempted itself from the conflict of interest statute that applies to the executive branch, so they have nothing pushing them to divest stocks or stock trading on the information that they had.
I think you`re seeing a growing movement on both sides of the political spectrum, everybody from Matt Gaetz on the right to Alexandria Ocasio- Cortez and Representative Spanberger in the House introduced the first of this many bills that are pending right now.
And Jon Ossoff introduced a bill that I really like. He ran on a platform of pushing for change in congressional stock trading. One thing I really like about his bill is the level of transparency it gets because it requires the trustee of blind trust notify the Senate and House Ethics Committees when they sell off the stock, and then those committees post them online.
That`s incredibly important because what you put in a blind trust isn`t blind at all until it`s sold off. And currently members of Congress get told by trustees when it`s sold off, so they have information we don`t have about whether they know what`s in their trust or not.
And Ossoff`s bill would close that knowledge gap by forcing those notices to be put online, which means we, the public, can be engaged in monitoring these members of Congress --
VELSHI: Yes.
SHAUB: -- and it creates an incentive to sell them off and not just let them sit there in the blind trust where they can pose conflicts of interest.
VELSHI: You answered a question I was going to ask about what`s the problem with the blind trust part of things.
Lucas, some of the stuff in Senator Ossoff`s bill is called the Ban Congressional Stock Trading Act -- it applies to spouses and dependent children which is important and interesting. It`s got oversight by the Ethics Committee. And they can fine lawmakers from their salaries if they break the law.
This is an instance where -- you know, I don`t know that there are many things in our society today that we could be nonpartisan about. I`m not even sure we can agree that it`s Friday night. But we can probably agree that there`s a way that these people, these members of Congress do not have to sacrifice being able to invest their money and still live up to something that we would like to see in terms of ethics.
LUCAS KUNCE (D), MISSOURI SENATORIAL CANDIDATE: You know, when I go around the state and I meet voters of every stripe, you know, what I hear over and over again is just a complete lack of trust in our institutions and Congress is always at the very top. And this is another good example of that, right? And then -- it`s like we talk about.
They get busted for insider trading it seems like every ten years. And in 2012 they came up with the fancy STOCK Act where they`re going to police themselves and fine each other $200 each time they did something wrong. And now we the don`t even pay the $200 fine.
And for me, this blind trust, honestly, it`s just another shiny object. I mean we have seen how blind trusts work. Like Joe Manchin, for example. He has his coal company in a blind trust. Does he suddenly forget that that`s where his wealth comes from?
VELSHI: Right.
KUNCE: Or if you put your money into Pfizer, or you`ve got a whole bunch of defense stocks, do you suddenly forget? No, you don`t. There`s still a conflict of interest. And as long as there`s any temptation we are in trouble and we`re not going to build the trust that we need to build.
VELSHI: Walter, do these new investment vehicles like exchange traded funds and index funds where you`re buying a basket of stocks, does that solve any of the problem? Could we just say you can`t invest in Pfizer or Boeing or something like that, but you can invest in a basket?
SHAUB: Yes, and the executive branch, for instance, diversified mutual funds and diversified exchange traded funds are exempt from the conflict of interest law. And so everybody who goes into the president`s cabinet has to move their money into those kinds of investments.
There`s no reason members of Congress can`t get out of stocks and into these kind of diversified investment funds. I am completely unsympathetic to their claim, oh, we should still be allowed to make money like anyone else.
Well, they can. They could stay out of Congress and make all the money they want. But if they want to ask the American people to hand them a great deal of power over their lives, then they owe us something.
VELSHI: Lucas, in December, Nancy Pelosi said that. She said we are a free market economy, meaning members of Congress, they should be able to participate in that. There`s some Democratic resistance, but the argument in favor of actually doing the right thing here seems to be stronger.
KUNCE: Yes, when I heard her say that, I heard let them eat cake. And for me, like, and for everyone in Missouri on either side of the party, that is the injustice that we`re all facing. Like, when you join Congress, you`re there to serve.
[22:54:54]
KUNCE: When I joined the Marine Corps and my buddies joined the Marine Corps and we went to Iraq and Afghanistan, we didn`t get rich on that. We didn`t whine and complain. We were there to serve our communities, the ones that took care of us growing up and the ones we joined to serve.
When you join Congress, you should be there to serve. It is about service, not getting rich, and, frankly if what it takes to rebuild trust and to make decisions for people is to not own any stocks at all and to have a punishment equivalent to that of you, me, or Martha Stewart if we conducted insider trading then that`s a deal we should all make and we should stand by because we have to make that change or we are never ever going to have faith again.
SHAUB: Amen.
VELSHI: This actually is why I wanted to have this discussion tonight because this has actually got an easy solution.
Lucas, good to see you. Lucas Kunce and Walter Shaub. Walter, it`s good to see you again as well. Thank you both for joining us tonight.
Tonight`s LAST WORD is next.
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[22:59:52]
VELSHI: Well, that`s tonight`s LAST WORD. You can catch me tomorrow morning at 8:00 a.m. Eastern on my show "VELSHI".
I`ll talk to not one but two attorneys-general from key swing states who are ringing the alarm bells about the midterm election.
Plus I`m very excited about this one. I`m going to talk to my friends Dean Obeidallah and former congressman Joe Walsh about how or whether we should be engaging with the post-Trump class of dangerous conspiracy theorists who now walk the halls of Congress.
"THE 11TH HOUR" starts now.