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Transcript: The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, 3/4/2021

Guest: Tim Ryan, Norm Ornstein, Rosa DeLauro, Ritchie Torres, Sacha Baron Cohen, Aaron Sorkin

Summary:

"Politico" tonight is reporting that the first Trump aide, the first

Trump appointee has been arrested in connection with the invasion of the

Capitol. Senate Democrats unified today when they cast their first vote on

the bill, which was a simple motion to begin to debate the COVID relief

bill. Interview with Democratic Congressman Tim Ryan of Ohio, chair of the

House Appropriations Legislative Branch Subcommittee which oversees the

Capitol police.

Transcript:

LAWRENCE O`DONNELL, MSNBC HOST: Good evening, Rachel.

I am going to be joined later in the hour tonight, making his debut on the

show, by Sacha Baron Cohen.

RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC HOST, "TRMS": Wow.

O`DONNELL: Do I have to explain who that is, Rachel? He is kind of a movie

thing. It`s not a news person.

MADDOW: I know.

O`DONNELL: And he is going to be joined, actually, by Aaron Sorkin, who

might have, you know, written some words for Sacha to say tonight. Not that

he needs any help.

And I am not going to tell you why they are both here, okay?

MADDOW: Wow.

O`DONNELL: Because it`s actually kind of a movie thing that crosses over

into our news. But, you know, that`s coming up.

MADDOW: You got Sacha Baron Cohen and Aaron Sorkin?

O`DONNELL: Yes. In my case, in my case, Aaron is the easier get, you know,

because he`s a friend of mine and I`ve worked with, and he`s on the show

before. But Sacha Baron Cohen, yeah, I`m wicked excited about that.

MADDOW: Wow. That`s incredible. I am going to go because I want to watch

your show.

O`DONNELL: You have a reason to watch this time. Thank you, Rachel.

(LAUGHTER)

O`DONNELL: Thank you.

We have a breaking news report which we will get to in a moment from

"Politico" tonight reporting that the first Trump aide, the first Trump

appointee has been arrested in connection with the invasion of the Capitol.

He was a former aide in Mike Pompeo`s state department. His name is

Federico Klein, a former marine.

He was arrested tonight for his participation in the attack on the Capitol.

We are going to get to that, the details in a moment.

And a new study shows that Black Lives Matter protests worked. Killings by

police declined after Black Lives Matter protests. The Civil Rights Act was

passed in 1964 after civil rights protests would not have been passed

without those protests. The Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965 because of

civil rights protests and would not have been passed without those

protests.

Protests can work. Anti-war protesters did something that had never been

done before when they stopped the Vietnam war by slowly changing the minds

of members of Congress who shut down congressional support for the Vietnam

War. Anti-war protesters had never stopped a war before.

Abbie Hoffman was one of the leaders of the anti-war protesters at the 1968

Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The protesters didn`t win in

1968, but they finally won when the last American soldier left Vietnam in

1973. President Nixon and his generals were forced to end that war years

before they would have thanks to millions of American anti-war protesters.

The protesters were right, and the president was wrong, and the generals

were wrong. Abbie Hoffman and the anti-war protesters saved lives by

forcing the end of that war, but Abbie Hoffman and other leaders of the

anti-war movement were put on trial for what they did in 1968 at the

Democratic Convention. Reports from the courtroom dominated the news for

months in what the news media then called the trial of the Chicago 7, which

is now the title of the powerful new film written and directed by Oscar

winner Aaron Sorkin with Sacha Baron Cohen in a mesmerizing performance as

Abbie Hoffman.

Sacha Baron Cohen and Aaron Sorkin will join us later in this hour.

We now have peaceful relations with Vietnam. There are no more American

soldiers in Vietnam, but there are American soldiers in Washington, D.C.,

tonight. National Guard troops are guarding the Capitol and the government

from a threatened attack by the most deranged people who voted for Donald

Trump. Every person who attacked the Capitol on January 6th was a supporter

of Donald Trump and now every threat being picked up about possible new

attacks on the Capitol are by supporters of Donald Trump.

Now, most Trump voters know that the people who attacked the Capitol and

want to attack the Capitol again are insane and criminals. Seventy-four

million people voted for Donald Trump and just about 74 million of those

people did not once even consider lifting a finger or their voice to

protest Donald Trump`s loss to Joe Biden. Seventy-four million Trump voters

went about their business disappointed in the outcome of the election,

knowing that they would get a chance to vote for the president again in

four years. And that was good enough for them.

But a few thousand completely deranged people who desperately need help

followed what they believed were Donald Trump`s orders to attack the

Capitol and Donald Trump has once again proved that he wanted them to

attack the Capitol because he had a chance to tell them not to attack the

Capitol again, today. And he refused to do that.

When threats against the Capitol focusing on today, March 4th, emerged,

Donald Trump could have easily released a public statement saying don`t

attack the Capitol.

One Republican member of Congress, a former chairman of the Homeland

Security Committee, said this yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MIKE MCCAUL (R-TX): I think President Trump has a responsibility to

tell them to stand down. This threat is credible and it`s real.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O`DONNELL: We all know what happens when you put the word Trump and

responsibilities in same sentence. Nothing. Nothing happens when you ask

Donald Trump to be responsible and nothing happened at the Capitol today.

Possibly because the evidence of another plot to attack the Capitol was

exposed and even more National Guard troops were sent to the Capitol and to

the congressional office buildings today.

Republican Senator Ron Johnson didn`t know that nothing was going to happen

at the Capitol today. He didn`t know that the Senate wasn`t going to be

attacked again. Or did he?

Even though the Capitol was under a threat today, Ron Johnson decided to

use a power that every senator has and none use, to order Senate clerks to

read every page of the 628-page Biden COVID relief bill. With a credible

threat against the Capitol today, Ron Johnson decided to force Senate

clerks to remain on the Senate floors for hours on end reading 628 pages,

which is what they are doing right now.

There they are. They are on page 390 right now. Ron Johnson`s stunt and his

cruelty to those Senate clerks who you see on the screen will not delay by

even a day the delivery of $1,400 Biden COVID relief checks along with

$3,000 child tax credits.

Senate Democrats unified today when they cast their first vote on the bill,

which was a simple motion to begin to debate the COVID relief bill. All 50

senators were joined by Vice President Kamala Harris in a 51-50 vote to

simply proceed to consideration of the bill. Fifty Republicans voted

against even talking about the COVID relief bill.

Joining us Democratic Congressman Tim Ryan of Ohio. He is the chair of the

House Appropriations Legislative Branch Subcommittee which oversees the

Capitol police.

Congressman Ryan, thank you very much for joining us tonight. And I`m very

glad that we are welcoming you on a night that was an uneventful day at the

Capitol today.

REP. TIM RYAN (D-OH): Yeah, thank God, Lawrence. Appreciate that. But it`s,

you know, a sign of the times and we`re continuing to have to deal with

this threat. And, fortunately, nothing happened, and we can continue the

nation`s business.

O`DONNELL: I want to get your reaction to this new reporting by "Politico"

just about -- just about a half hour old at this point from "Politico".

They report the FBI on Thursday arrested Federico Klein, a former State

Department aide, on charges related to the storming of the Capitol on

January 6th, making him the first known instance of an appointee of

President Donald Trump facing criminal prosecution in connection with the

attempts to block Congress from certifying President Joe Biden`s victory.

It will be fascinating, Congressman, to hear what his defense is in court.

Is he going to claim that the president ordered me to do it?

RYAN: Well, I`m sure he will. But again, this is a blockbuster. I mean,

there`s no question about it.

But, unfortunately, in this day and age, I don`t think anybody is really

surprised that people who worked for Donald Trump would be involved in

something like that. They have been complicit for the last four years, you

know, going back to Charlottesville and all of these other instances where

people who were around him, close to him, appointed by him, supporters of

him never said a word.

So it`s not really surprising, unfortunately, that somebody that was

appointed by him would have been there on January 6th or aiding and

abetting. It will be interesting to see what his role exactly was.

O`DONNELL: Well, it also becomes interesting, for example, how he got that

job because as we know that`s a political appointee job. Is he someone who

is a favorite of Mike Pompeo`s? There is going to be a very interesting

report on how this person ended up in the Trump administration before then

ending up in the invasion of the Capitol.

RYAN: Yeah, you got to be very close. I mean, a lot of us as Democrats now

are going through the appointment process or trying to help people get into

the administration. You`ve got to -- you`ve got to have some pull.

And so, this person probably did, and we`ll see who their connections were.

I mean, it`s hard to tell with this group where he came from. But we`re

going to find out.

That`s what I love. Nobody is above the law here, Lawrence. This is what is

really the bright spot of this entire thing is to watch the FBI continue to

do their work. Watch the U.S. attorney`s office continue to do their work,

including possibly members of Congress who are -- no one is looking the

other way for them as well.

And I think that`s -- that`s the sign that the rule of law is continuing to

take hold and justice is continuing to take hold. It wasn`t there for a

while, but I think we`re getting back on track.

O`DONNELL: In 2022, there is an open Senate seat in Ohio. There will be a

retiring Republican senator.

Are you considering running for that seat? And why would you want to do it

when you watched the madness that we are looking at on the Senate floor

tonight?

(LAUGHTER)

RYAN: You sound like my wife, Lawrence.

I mean, you know, yeah, I`m very interested in it. We are looking at it

very, very closely, because it`s an opportunity to, you know, do good

things, to try to move the ball down the field.

I represent a working-class district that has been in many instances left

behind, globalization, automation, and there are opportunities to plug

these communities and these families into the new economy. But you need

people on the Senate floor that aren`t acting like Ron Johnson, but are

acting more like Sherrod Brown, you know, more like somebody who cares

about the workers and that`s, you know, a powerful place to be. Worked

there for a long time, and you can make a big difference.

And to have somebody from, you know, Niles, Ohio, on the Senate floor

making a difference, it`s intriguing. So we are looking very, very closely

at it. And it`s exciting for us in Ohio to have an opportunity. Democrats

haven`t held the seat for decades, and we may have a good shot at picking

it up. So, we`re super excited about that.

O`DONNELL: What do you hear from your constituents about this Biden COVID

relief bill and what they want from that bill?

RYAN: Well, you know, what don`t they want? You talk to teachers, they need

help. You talk to principals, superintendents, they need help. You know,

your phone blows up because people aren`t getting unemployment checks. So,

there`s a big extension there.

The waitresses and waiters that are working more hours or as many hours as

they used to work and making half as much as they used to make. They need

that $1,400 check. The utilities, the help with their rent and rent relief.

I mean, people are hanging on by a string, which is why it`s so maddening

when Ron Johnson is there doing what he is doing to just drag this out. It

may not be long, but it`s longer than it needs to be. And they need help

across the board, Lawrence.

And I just think that this is so straightforward for the economy, but also

this is a moral issue. I mean, make no mistake about it. This package is a

moral package that is supporting people who need help.

And this garbage that somehow the Republicans are going to be the class of

the -- the party of the working class when, in fact, this entire bill is a

shot right for the working class and they are all voting against it and

dragging their feet on it. So we got to call B.S. on that.

But let`s get it out the door and start helping people.

O`DONNELL: Congressman Tim Ryan, thank you very much for starting us off

tonight.

RYAN: Thanks, Lawrence. You got a good show ahead, I see.

O`DONNELL: Thank you very much.

And coming up, how do you solve a problem like the filibuster? I probably

should have sung that lyric. Democratic Senator Joe Manchin promised he

wants to preserve the filibuster rule, but what there is a way for Senator

Manchin to keep his promise and enforce the rule differently so that

Democrats will actually have a real chance of passing the Biden agenda in

the Senate? Our next guest has solved that puzzle.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O`DONNELL: It should be obvious to everyone that nothing in the Biden

legislative agenda that requires 60 votes in the Senate is going to pass.

Technically, problem is not the filibuster, which is a dramatic show on the

Senate floor where one senator holds the floor non-stop until that senator

just can`t speak another word.

We see real filibusters on the Senate floor, less than once a decade now.

Most senators never even think of mounting a real filibuster. A much lazier

practice has taken its place.

And instead of one heroic or misguided senator blocking the progress on the

Senate floor, the cloture rule requires 60 votes for the Senate to close

debate and move forward. In today`s Senate, that means the Democrats would

need ten Republicans to join them to vote for cloture so the Senate could

vote on legislation. Ten Republicans will never cast that vote. Never.

Republicans don`t even have to show up for cloture votes now because it`s

impossible for the Democrats to get to 60. That is the rule that West

Virginia`s Democratic Senator Joe Manchin almost alone among Democrats

wants to preserve. Joe Manchin has promised his West Virginia voters that

he will reserve that rule, commonly referred to as the filibuster rule. So

as not to confuse anyone, I will surrender to that usage and call it the

filibuster rule.

Some House Democrats are complaining about the filibuster rule and Joe

Manchin more than they have complained about anything in the Senate because

the rule has never been more obviously absurd and profoundly anti-

democratic as in anti-democracy. You can try to crush Joe Manchin and make

him break his promise to his voters in a state that Donald Trump, that

voted for Donald Trump twice, or you can try pushing Joe Manchin towards

your view, but pushing Joe Manchin towards a Democratic view of Senate

rules, you might just push him all the way out of the Democratic Party and

send him walking across the aisle to join the Republicans.

And if that happens, Mitch McConnell instantly becomes the majority leader

of the United States Senate and that happened the last time we had a 50/50

Senate and luckily for the Democrats it was a Republican who walked across

the aisle under too much pressure to conform to his party and that gave the

Democrats control of the Senate. Such is life in a 50/50 Senate.

Our next guest has been listening to Joe Manchin and has come up with a way

for Joe Manchin to keep his promise about the filibuster rules, but shift

the burden of how the rules are enforced in a way that would allow the

Democrats much more opportunity to maneuver and proceed on the Senate

floor. It is an elegant solution and I would feel embarrassed for not

having thought of it myself were it not for the fact that Norm Ornstein has

been studying the workings of the United States Senate much longer than I

have and knows much more about it than I do.

Joining us is Norm Ornstein, congressional historian and scholar at the

American Enterprise Institute. His new article in "The Washington Post" is

entitled "Democrats cannot kill the filibuster, but they can gut it."

Norm, let`s get to your two biggest ideas. Let`s start with the present and

voting way of determining the threshold here and how that actually used to

be rule.

NORM ORNSTEIN, CONGRESSIONAL HISTORIAN: So, Lawrence, the last time the

filibuster was changed for legislation in a fundamental way in 1975, the

lore is that they lowered the threshold from two-thirds to three-fifths.

But it didn`t work that way. It was before this, two-thirds of those

present and voting and now it`s three-fifths of the entire Senate. As you

said, the burden now is on the majority.

Now, if you have a present and voting standard and you go around the clock,

if the minority doesn`t show up, if, say, 20 members don`t show up, then

under the three-fifths standard, you only need 48 senators to invoke that

cloture, stop the debate. And if it`s a absolute standard, if you decided

to go around the clock, the minority doesn`t have to show up at all. A

couple of members could be there.

One to deny the absence of a quorum or to keep from getting a unanimous

consent agreement. It`s the majority that has to show up. So if you move

this pack to a present voting standard, make it three-fifths of those

present and voting, then Democrats can shine a spotlight on an important

issue like HR1, democracy reform, make them go around the clock for two

weeks. Make the 87-year-olds like Chuck Grassley and Dick Shelby and Jim

Inhofe have to sleep on the lumpy cots all night long. If they don`t show

up, then you have got the opportunity to break that filibuster.

O`DONNELL: Yeah, and this for Joe Manchin, this takes you back to an even

earlier precedent. You are still listening to what Joe Manchin says he

wants and trying to work within that and say, okay, here is a Senate

precedent that preexists the one they are using now.

Let`s go to the other idea, which is a new idea, which is switching the

burden. Now it requires 60 votes to proceed, and you`re saying what if we

switched that to 40 votes in order to basically continue debating the bill.

ORNSTEIN: And I`d like to push the envelope a little bit, make it 45 votes.

But the idea here is the burden is supposed to be on the minority. What Joe

Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have talked about, both of them, is this idea

that you need to give the minority some skin in the game.

The old filibuster, the one that they have lionized, it was about a

minority feeling so intensely about an issue that they would take on a

great burden and go to great lengths. Now they don`t have to lift a little

finger.

Put the burden back on them. Every vote, the cloture comes if they can`t

muster the 41 or 45. They have to be there constantly. They all have to be

around.

If you make them debate on the floor while all of this is going on, you add

to that burden. You are not eliminating the rule. You are restoring what it

was supposed to be, what they have lionized.

It`s not perfect. Nothing is. But it gives us a fighting chance of getting

things like democracy reform, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and some

other things that are very important to us, and the fact is, as you said

earlier, we`re not going to eliminate the rule. We are not able to do it

with 50 senators with a couple who are dug in against it. We have to find a

different way to operate.

O`DONNELL: Well, you know, I am not opposed to continuing lobbying Senator

Manchin, but what you are saying is, okay, if that doesn`t work, don`t give

up. There is some other ways that you can soften what we currently have.

I know you talked to Al Franken about this idea. He told me what he is

telling you about it, which is he used to sit on the Senate floor during

these cloture situations and say to Republicans, well, I have to be here

this weekend and they would say, we don`t. We`re leaving because they don`t

have to be there to sustain their blocking maneuver and they get to go

often on the weekend and the Democrats are sitting there trying to muster

60 votes, which they simply can`t muster.

ORNSTEIN: And, of course, the way it works now, you can filibuster

everything. Little bills, big bills, take up a lot of time on the floor

because it costs you nothing.

If we change the burden back to the minority, they are only going to do it

in a handful of cases. And when they do, we are going to get a public

spotlight shined on them that`s going to make it very different. Imagine

if, for instance, you brought up the Voting Rights Act that would now apply

to everybody, not just the five states, to satisfy the Supreme Court. And

you made them go around the clock explaining why they are against voting

rights when most of them voted for the original Voting Rights Acts.

You can make a difference this way. And we have a chance, I think, to get

all of those senators and get the 50 to make a difference. If we don`t,

then we are not going to get that legislation. You push Joe Manchin and you

are going to end up with Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

O`DONNELL: Norm Ornstein, thank you very much for your thinking on this.

Really appreciate it.

ORNSTEIN: Anytime, Lawrence.

O`DONNELL: And as Senate clerks continue to read the COVID relief bill, we

will be joined by two members of the House, Rose DeLauro and Richard

Torres, to focus on an important provision in that bill. That`s next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O`DONNELL: The Senate clerks are on 414 of the reading of the COVID Relief

Bill. There are so many important provisions in this 628-page bill that is

being read on the Senate floor right now. But most of them don`t even get

mentioned in many of the news summaries that tend to focus on only three or

four prominent provisions.

In our "What`s In The Bill Segments", we will be studying one provision at

a time. Tonight the Senate clerks read this provision on page 362. The

child tax credit. A tax credit is a check. It is real money just like the

now famous $1,400 checks that everyone knows people are going to be

receiving from this bill.

The bill will increase the child tax credit 50 percent. It will go from

$2,000 to $3,000 per child with an extra $600 added for every child under

six years old. That`s $3,600 in real money if you have a five-year-old

child at home. That provision of the bill will fit -- will lift more than

four million children out of poverty.

Joining us now is Democratic Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut,

she`s the chair of the House Appropriations Committee and has been

advocating the child tax credit since 2003. Also joining us Democratic

Congressman Ritchie Torres. He is a freshman who campaigned on expanding

the child tax credit.

Chairwoman DeLauro, let me begin with you, you have been a crusader on

this. This is the most significant increase in this tax credit that we have

seen.

REP. ROSA DELAURO (D-CT): First of all, thanks to you, Lawrence, for having

both Congressman Torres and myself on the program tonight. We also want to

tip our hat to Congresswoman Suzan Delbene who was the third author of the

American Family Act, the child tax credit.

And you know, this is a historic moment for our country, Lawrence. It

really is. We are about to create a child allowance that, as you have

pointed out, will lift four million children, one half of children in this

country out of poverty.

And in my own district, in the 3rd district of Connecticut, over 50 percent

of kids will be lifted out of poverty. And this is the scale. The scale of

this is what Franklin Roosevelt did when he passed the Social Security Act,

which lifted 90 percent of seniors out of poverty. Now we have the ability

to lift millions of children out of poverty.

And it is really an extraordinary moment. And I have, you know, 2003 is

when I first introduced the first amendment on the child tax credit so you

imagine how this has come full circle and how excited I am to hear you to

talk about page 362 of the bill. And this is the moment. We are on the

cusp. We`re on the cusp.

O`DONNELL: Right. You know, when I was working in the Senate for Senator

Moynihan, he was a leader on this kind of issue in the Senate. And whenever

welfare reform proposals came up he would always say, you know, the thing

that cures poverty is money. And money was the thing that the government

was most reluctant to give people who needed money.

And Congressman Torres, your constituents in the Bronx, it`s one of the

more economically-disadvantaged congressional districts, this is real money

to them, isn`t it?

REP. RITCHIE TORRES (D-NY): It is real money. The South Bronx is said to be

the poorest congressional district in America and there is no single policy

that would do more to lift the South Bronx out of poverty than the American

Family Act which would permanently expand the child tax credit.

You know, the subject of poverty is no abstraction to me. It`s deeply

personal. I spent most of my life in poverty in the South Bronx. I was

raised by a single mother who had to raise three children on minimum wage,

which in the 1990s was a mere $4.25.

And if we had access to the child tax credit, it would have been a game

changer for me and my family. So I have been on a personal mission to

ensure that no child in America faces the hardship that weighed heavily on

me as a child.

O`DONNELL: Congressman DeLauro, talk about what it takes to get these kinds

of provisions in bills like this, including one of the reasons it`s in this

bill tonight is that you have been pushing it for all of these years.

DELAURO: Well, I have spent a lot of time. Just every year, year in and

year out, advocating, building a coalition to really get it placed where it

is.

But I would just say, the moment that we are at, Lawrence, is that we have

presidential leadership. President Biden is fourth square (ph) for this

piece of legislation. He spoke to our Democratic caucus not two nights ago

where he said he is committed to making this permanent.

And when I had the opportunity to be in the Oval Office with my colleagues

and he was sitting under that portrait of Franklin Roosevelt, and it just

clicked and I just said, you know, with that stroke of a pen, you are able

to do this the way Franklin Roosevelt lifted seniors out of poverty.

But it has been Congressman Torres, Congresswoman Delbene and building a

coalition. And you know, my mother, who passed away three years ago at age

103, said, "Rosa, you never give up and you never take no for an answer."

So we have never given up, we don`t take no for an answer, and we move on

and we are going to get the child tax credit passed. The president is for

it. The Congress is for it. And the pandemic makes the urgency of it all

the more poignant.

O`DONNELL: Congressman Torres, the $1,400 check has been well-publicized. I

think people know that`s coming, you know, whether or not there is going to

be an increase in the minimum wage, has gotten an awful lot of attention.

Do your constituents know that this money is coming in the child tax

credit?

TORRES: There is more awareness than ever before. And for me the most

important provision of the American Rescue Plan is the child tax credit,

which we need to make permanent. You know, permanent child tax credit would

do for children what Medicare and Social Security did for senior citizens.

It would end extreme poverty among the most vulnerable Americans.

So it represents a historic triumph of economic and social justice and

everyone should know about it.

O`DONNELL: Chairwoman Rosa DeLauro and congressman Ritchie Torres, thank

you both very much for joining us tonight. Really appreciate it.

DELAURO: Thank you. Thank you very, very much for having me.

O`DONNELL: Thank you.

Up next, Golden Globe`s best actor Sacha Baron Cohen will join us in his

debut on THE LAST WORD and Oscar winner Aaron Sorkin will make a return

appearance to THE LAST WORD. That`s next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O`DONNELL: We are a nation of protesters. This nation was born in protest

with a birth certificate called A Declaration of Independence written by

protesters.

By the end of the 1960s, two massive protest movements overlapped when

civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. began adding their voices

to the anti-war movement which was led mostly by young American men who

were subject to being drafted into the army and shipped off to die in

Vietnam in a war the United States was on its way to losing decisively with

55,000 Americans killed in action.

The protesters called it an immoral, illegal, unwinnable war. The president

and general insisted we would win the Vietnam War and they were all wrong.

The protesters who said we couldn`t win were all right. Including Abbie

Hoffman, played brilliantly by Sacha Baron Cohen in Aaron Sorkin`s

masterful film "The Trial of the Chicago 7".

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you have contempt for your government?

SACHA BARON COHEN, ACTOR: I`ll tell you, Mr. Shultz, it`s nothing compared

to the contempt my government has for me.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We`ve heard testimony from 27 witnesses under oath that

say you hoped for a confrontation with the police, that your plans for the

convention were designed specifically to draw the police into a

confrontation.

COHEN: Well, if I had known it was going to be the first wish of mine that

came true, I would have aimed a lot higher.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s a yes or no question. When you came to Chicago were

you hoping for a confrontation with the police?

I`m concerned you have to think about it.

COHEN: Give me a moment, would you, friend? I have never been on trial for

my thoughts before.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O`DONNELL: Joining us now, Sacha Baron Cohen, who won a Golden Globe on

Sunday night for best actor in a very different movie and came in second

for the Golden Globe for best supporting actor for his portrayal of Abbie

Hoffman in "The Trial Of Chicago 7 " and Aaron Sorkin, who won the Golden

Globe for best screenplay and apparently came in second for the Golden

Globe for best director. Thank you both for being here.

And Sacha, I know that show business protocol requires that the movie star

speaks first, but I beg your indulgence in this instance. With your

permission, as the movie star, may I violate show business protocol and

direct the first question to Aaron?

COHEN: Fine, but only because this is live. Normally my publicist would

intervene. But go ahead.

(CROSSTALK)

O`DONNELL: No, I know. That`s exactly what I`m taking advantage of,

exactly.

Aaron, it`s so long ago, it feels several, many years ago when you first

said to me that Steven Spielberg brought you an idea about "The Trial Of

Chicago 7" and I thought that was in development for a while and then

nothing happened and then here we are.

AARON SORKIN, ACTOR: Yes. It`s been 15 years. It`s been 2006 on a Saturday

morning, Steven Spielberg asked me to come to his house. Just to be very

clear, that`s not common. I don`t hang out with Steven Spielberg on

Saturday mornings.

He said he wanted to make a move about The Chicago 7 and I said count me

in. Chicago 7, that sounds great. It`s going to be a fantastic movie.

Left his house, called my father and asked him who the Chicago y were. I

was just saying yes to doing a movie with Spielberg. And I just kept

writing it and writing it and writing it. And for a whole host of reasons

it kept getting moved to next year and now it`s not going to happen at all.

Finally, Donald Trump started running for president and he got elected and

he had rallies and there would be a protester. And he`d start getting

nostalgic about the old days when we`d would carry that guy out of here on

a stretcher, punch him right in the face and let`s beat the crap out of

them, I`ll pay your legal bills.

And Steven decided the time to make this film was now. by then, I had

directed my first "Molly`s Game" and he said that I should direct Chicago

7.

We thought the film was plenty relevant last winter when we were making it.

We didn`t need it to get more relevant but it did obviously in May with the

killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, protesters took to the streets

all over America. And in a number of those cities the protesters were met

again by riot clubs and tear gas.

then finally on January 6th Donald Trump stood at a microphone and did

exactly what the Chicago 7 were on trial for doing.

O`DONNELL: Sacha, you lived at a greatest distance from the story. Aaron

was just too young to have lived through it but there`s a whole ocean

between you and this story. What attracted you to this script?

COHEN: Well, I had first heard about Abbie Hoffman when I was a student in

Cambridge researching the Jewish black alliance in the 60s. And looking at

Jewish left-wing students who went down south to fight for -- against

systemic racism.

Abbie was one of those. And that group of students became the epicenter of

the anti-Vietnam War movement. And so, yes, I knew about this from the age

of 20. Then I also heard that Spielberg was making this movie. Called him

up. And cheekily asked whether I could audition.

O`DONNELL: Well, that worked out. Let`s listen to what Jerry Rubin said

during the trial.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JERRY RUBIN, FORMER CHICAGO 7: As I say, you know, I say it`s in a way I

want to laugh because the story is kind of exciting. I think we ought to

make a movie and have Pearson (ph) be the director of the film. It`s a

great story, the ways, the whole thing, the diary. It`s really -- it`s

really right out of the Latin American revolutions and right out of James

Bond and everything and Pearson is a quite hero. I dig it, you know.

I sat there saying, if this were all a dream, it would be great.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O`DONNELL: Sacha, did you study a lot of video like that of the characters

in this movie?

Cohen: Oh, yes. I mean, I -- you know, this was an intimidating character

to try to portray. You`re portraying somebody who is real, somebody people

know about that many people alive now actually knew.

So I got hold of every bit of video that I could get from him. I read all

his books. I managed to track down radio of some of his stand-up tours. You

know, he was a huge fan of Lenny Bruce and kind of ate his comical style.

So, yes, I tried to get everything I could. And obviously, trying to master

the accent, being an Englishman was a challenge because he is born in

Boston, but was educated in Brandeis in Berkeley. So, yes, it was tough.

And I`m half a foot taller than him. I couldn`t do anything about that.

O`DONNELL: Yes, there`s that. Well, you had your director to fix that for

you, the whole height problem.

Aaron, I got a tweet sent to me before the show tonight. This is not

someone I know. And he said, Sorkin is the only writer that can make me

feel so patriotic that it brings tears to my eyes and I`m Canadian.

Aaron, do you think of yourself as a patriotic writer?

SORKIN: I do. First of all, I just want to thank whoever wrote that tweet

because I always wanted -- listen, I wrote this film over and over and over

again. It took a long time. But I always wanted people to feel good at the

end of the movie.

I just wanted people to feel taller. And I think that they do. And listen,

you know, from the time we spent together on "The West Wing" that I like

reclaiming the idea of patriotism from the silly idea of patriotism, you

know, just flag waving, that kind of nonsense.

You know, the Chicago 7, they were seven funny guys but they were terribly

serious guys. The Chicago 7 were called unAmerican, unpatriotic, anti-

American, overly educated -- it`s still an insult that I don`t understand -

- lame pansies. Ok?

Well, they were anything but lame. They risked their lives. They risked ten

years in federal prison. In order -- today it`s widely accepted that the

protests that they led, the thousands of others who protested with them

hastened the end of this disastrous war.

So I would just say, put them next to senators whoa re unwilling to risk

having a primary at home, tell me who the patriots are?

O`DONNELL: We`re going to squeeze in a break here. We will be right back

with Sacha Baron Cohen and Aaron Sorkin.

During the commercial break, they can fight over will get THE LAST WORD.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O`DONNELL: Here is Sacha Baron Cohen in November of 2019.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COHEN: Today around the world, demagogues appealed to our worst instincts,

conspiracy theories once confined to the fringe are going mainstream, hate

crimes are surging as murderous attacks on religious and ethnic minorities.

All this hate and violence is being facilitated by a handful of Internet

companies that amount to the greatest propaganda machine in history.

Zuckerberg speaks of welcoming a diversity of ideas. And last year he gave

us an example. He said that he found posts denying the Holocaust, equally

offensive, but he didn`t think Facebook should take them down because I

think there`re things that different people get wrong.

To quote, Edward R. Morrow, "one cannot accept that there on every story

two equal and logical sides to an argument. We have unfortunately millions

of pieces of evidence for the Holocaust. It is an historical fact and

denying it is not some random opinion. Those who deny the Holocaust aim to

encourage another one.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O`DONNELL: Back with us, Sacha Baron Cohen and Aaron Sorkin.

Sacha, the seriousness of purpose of that is not something that people are

used to, certainly they don`t have a lot of lat (ph) it in your work. And

so, you, what you brought to that is something that strikes me as very

similar to what we often hear in Aaron Sorkin`s speeches about the way he

wants the world to be.

Did you find yourselves to have that kind of kindred spirit about these

kinds of crusades?

COHEN: I think we did. In fact, one of the early conversations we had was

about the danger of social media and it`s responsibility in spreading

conspiracies, hate and lies. And actually, Aaron, if you look back wrote a

fantastic op-ed in the New York times critiquing Mark Zuckerberg.

O`DONNELL: And Aaron --

(CROSSTALK)

O`DONNELL: Go ahead Aaron, you are (INAUDIBLE) is for the social media, so

I think it might have something to say about this.

SORKIN: Well, I did. The speech you just showed that`s just one of the

reasons I admire Sacha so much.

COHEN: Thank you.

SORKIN: That was all I have to say about that.

O`DONNELL: I`m having a little trouble with audio right here, but Sacha,

the commitment that these young people, you were all young people. I mean I

was a kid at the time of the Chicago 7 trial, so they seemed like, you

know, real old guys to me.

But the commitment you saw in these young people that you were portraying

in the Chicago 7 seems very similar to the commitment we have seen on

American streets with Black Lives Matter protests over the last year.

COHEN: Definitely. When we made this, there was not that mass movement and

that mass sense of communal courage, and it took immense courage to risk go

out during COVID to protest against systemic racism.

And actually if you look at the last 12 months, we have seen it --

incredible courage from protest movements around the world who are out

there peacefully protesting dictatorships and autocratic rulers everywhere

from Moscow to Myanmar. In Belarus, we had a largely led female movement

where they risked extreme violence.

So, it really has been a year, where young people in most part, have gone

out and actively made democracy happen or fought for democracy.

O`DONNELL: Aaron, when you were alone in the room writing the script for

the Chicago 7, did you then later find yourself out there in the set as a

director with Sacha, with the other actors and discovering new things about

it that you could only find by being out there as the director?

SORKIN: Yes, Absolutely. And particularly, listen, the cast obviously --

you know, I`m beginning to think it`s possible that the performances of the

actors have something to do with the quality of the film. This cast was

incredible to work with.

Coming to the set in the morning I felt like I was getting tossed the keys

to a Formula 1 race car. As long as I didn`t put the car in the wall, these

actors were going to win the race.

But a kind of -- a good tug of war that we had on the set which was helpful

for the film, was that Sacha and Jeremy Strong -- Abbie Hoffman and Jerry

Rubin, they understood that it was their job in the courtroom every day to

demonstrate to this judge that they have no respect for the proceeding at

all. And that they were going to do whatever they could in the courtroom to

bother Frank Langella, basically.

In the meantime, I had to make sure, because we are doing a courtroom drama

that both sides cared about whether they won or lost. So we kind of kept

going back and forth on how much circus there could be in the film.

But these guys have done a tremendous amount of research coming in. Look,

even before Sacha got the part, he was --

O`DONNELL: Aaron, I`m sorry, we are going to have to take that in to our

offline discussion.

SORKIN: That`s ok.

O`DONNELL: We are out of time, and Sacha, that`s the only reason Aaron

Sorkin got THE LAST WORD. Sacha Baron Cohen, Aaron Sorkin -- thank you both

for joining us tonight.

COHEN: You will be hearing from my publicist. I have had THE LAST WORD.

(CROSSTALK)

COHEN: I stole THE LAST WORD.

O`DONNELL: Ok, Sacha did get THE LAST WORD.

"THE 11TH HOUR WITH BRIAN WILLIAMS" starts now.

END

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