Summary
The inspector general of the Justice Department will review a Trump- era probe of two Democratic lawmakers, their staff and family members for subpoenaing their phone data to investigate media leaks about Trump and Russia. Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT) answers question regarding the probe of the Justice Department and possible testimonies of William Barr and Jeff Sessions for abusing their power to spy on lawmakers. Attorney General Merrick Garland has announced that it will protect voting rights against the voter suppression bills by the GOP sweeping the nation. The "Boston Globe" editorial board argues that Donald Trump must be different from Richard Nixon, that holding him accountable is necessary to restore faith in the American justice system.
Transcript
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC HOST: I`ll leave you with one parting thought tonight. Looking for a gift for the person who has everything? How about a gift subscription to their local newspaper or two? Our guests tonight on this show, we didn`t make a special effort to do this or anything.
It just worked out our guests tonight were local reporters from the San Luis Obispo Tribune and the Kansas City Star, local reporters at local papers doing work of national significance that we would not know about without them.
It`s work that is needed in those communities, in those counties, in those states, but also in our country. Subscribe to your local paper. Give gift subscriptions to your friends and family members when it comes time to give somebody a present. Tell them I sent you.
That does it for us tonight. We`ll see you again on Monday. Now it`s time for the "Last Word" where Ali Velshi is in for Lawrence tonight. Good evening, Ali.
ALI VELSHI, MSNBC HOST: I`m glad you said that, Rachel, because you and I think a lot about the big problems in media and this issue of news that isn`t accurate, news that isn`t real. And a bulwark of local news across this country is what pushes back on that because you`ve got local reporters who are often not influenced by the powers that influence national media.
And when we see that erode, there`s just less of a check and a balance for news that spreads like wildfire on social media because that`s where people go to. So, I`m deeply appreciative you put that message out to get out there and support local news any way you can. Rachel, have yourself a great weekend. Thanks for telling us about that.
MADDOW: Thank you so much, Ali. Thank you.
VELSHI: See you Monday. Well, tonight we begin with the obvious and the dangerous. Donald Trump is a threat to democracy. Now, this concept is not new. In fact, if you weren`t paying close attention, you might think that this segment was from 2018 or 2020, but it`s not. This is actually live.
It`s June 11, 2021, and the threat posed by Donald Trump continues to grow. Just look at the bombshell reporting from "The New York Times" which details Trump`s efforts in 2017 to investigate media leaks about contacts between Trump associates and the Russian government.
Trump ordered his own Justice Department to secretly seize phone data from Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff and Congressman Eric Swalwell, aides on the House Intelligence Committee and members of their families in order to further his investigation.
Today, the Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin threatened to subpoena Trump attorney`s general William Barr and Jeff Sessions to testify before Congress about Trump`s undemocratic order.
And under pressure from Democrats in Congress, the Justice Department announced today that its internal watchdog will open an investigation into the Trump effort. Keep in mind, this happened in 2017. This abuse of power then wasn`t some frantic action of an embattled president during his final days.
Trump wanted the Justice Department to bend to his will when Republicans still controlled the House, and Adam Schiff, now the Intel Committee Chairman was just the most senior Democrat on the committee. This was pre- impeachment number one, well before the second impeachment.
This was before Democrats even began investigating Trump in the House. Three years before Trump lost the 2020 election. This is just who Donald Trump is. This is who Donald Trump has always been, a man unmoored by morality, principle and any sense of fair play. A man only looking out for himself.
So now you know what I mean. If you`re not paying close attention, you might think that we`re talking about 2019 Trump, but 2021 Trump is actually worse because it always gets worse with Trump. We never find out that some undemocratic order was less undemocratic than we first imagined.
And that`s what House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler knows and fears. Tonight, Chairman Nadler said, "My concern at this hour is that the corruption may run deeper than has already been reported." Because it always gets worse with Trump.
And as this inspector general investigation goes forward, there`s a good chance that we`ll learn about more heinous acts committed by Trump and his administration. That`s the thing about Trump. You kind of figure that most of his democracy destroying efforts were done and they were done out in the open because so many of them were.
But apparently many were carried out behind closed doors because he knew and those around him knew that they were wrong. So we need this investigation to learn more about the efforts to obtain the records of Democrats in Congress and reporters who we`ve learned over the last few weeks were also targeted in the Trump leaked probe.
As Chairman Nadler points out, "We do not yet know how these two efforts were connected or whether there were additional targets of this gross abuse of power." An inspector general investigation is good, but it can`t be where we begin and end with this chapter of the Trump era.
Chairman Nadler lays it out like this, "An investigation by his office is, however, no substitute for swift action by the Department of Justice. The Department has a very short window to make a clean break from the Trump era on this matter. We expect the Department to provide a full accounting of these cases and we expect the attorney general to hold the relevant personnel accountable."
Nadler threatens that the Judiciary Committee will step in if the Justice Department doesn`t step up. And honestly that`s what we need, real substantive action because Trump clearly isn`t going away, and neither are the Republican lackeys who have embraced his anti-Democratic principles.
Rewriting election rules to disenfranchise voters and blocking a commission to investigate the capitol attack. It`s going to get worse because it always does with Trump and his henchmen and women. Many of us hoped after Trump left office that democracy could breathe a sigh of relief that the attacks were over.
But we must still be vigilant because he is still attacking democracy from the outside, and we`re still learning about all of the attacks that he made from the inside. Joining us now Democratic Congressman Jim Himes of Connecticut. He`s a member of the House Intelligence Committee and as of now, we don`t believe you were a target unless that`s changed of this investigation.
REP. JIM HIMES (DCT): Well, we don`t know, Ali. Right now, I can`t find an e-mail -- and believe it or not, they let us know by e-mail. I can`t find an e-mail in my spam box from Apple, but at this point I don`t know. Again, I know you ask that -- I`m speaking tongue in cheek, but we don`t begin to know how wide this goes.
VELSHI: Yes.
WHIMES: We`ve asked the Justice Department for a complete list of who was subpoenaed, whose family members, whose children. We haven`t gotten that list.
VELSHI: Staff members, okay, it doesn`t sound right, but okay, I get it. But there are families. There were some children on this list. What do we think this is?
HIMES: Well, it almost makes you wonder whether you get into the realm of intimidation, right. Not only -- well, a minor child apparently was one of the phone records or text records that was demanded. I mean, it almost begins to feel like intimidation rather than what it almost most certainly was, which was an effort to go after the president`s political opponents.
And remember, the key part of this story -- there`s a lot of importance here, but the key part is that very shortly after this investigation began, prosecutors determined that there was nothing there, nothing there. So, we need to understand why it was originated and then we also need to understand why Attorney General Bill Barr restarted that investigation.
And finally, we need to understand not just who was involved in this, but what else? What else? Remember, I think a lot about the intelligence community. Remember that two of the president`s most loyal supporters, Don Ratcliffe and Rick Grenell were the director of National Intelligence for a lengthy period of time.
What did they do inside the intelligence operations? I`m not saying I know. I`m not making allegations, but why do we believe that this stuff with the Department of Justice? What other federal entity was compromised to work Donald Trump`s political interests?
VELSHI: What do we need to do? We`ve heard from Apple. We`ve heard from Microsoft now to say that they were also approached and there was a gag order on them. What do we have to do to make sure that our tech companies, which basically know more about us than we know about ourselves are not subject to political whims of people in office? Is that a legislative matter? Is that a matter of investigative, well, what do we do about that?
HIMES: Well, they`re in a tough place, right? Because when the DOJ says you can`t talk about this because national security is at stake there is a threat that they might be prosecuted if they violate that order. But hopefully those tech companies have learned and they are learning slowly with things like, you know, taking Donald Trump off Facebook and Twitter.
Hopefully that they have learned that they can be complicit if they`re not careful, if they don`t reflect on what it is exactly that they`re doing. They may be complicit in the destruction of our own democracy. So, we have a responsibility as Congress to make it clear that things like the first amendment, going after reporters, aren`t going to fly.
Because at the end of the day, you know, the Department of Justice is funded by the United States Congress. So we have a say here and we need to make sure that we use that say. But the tech companies themselves, you know, they`ve got some naval gazing to do, some self-reflection to do right now because they could easily as demonstrated be complicit in the destruction of our democracy.
VELSHI: There`s a story on this in "The New York Times" and I want to read you a line from it because it caught my attention. It said, "Some cases had nothing to do with leaks about Mr. Trump and involved sensitive national security information, one of the people said. But Mr. Barr`s overall view of leaks led some people in the department to eventually see the inquiries as politically motivated."
This is interesting because this is stuff that you deal with as a member of the Intelligence Committee. We mere mortals don`t know and can`t divine what is a national security issue, what is an intelligence issue that is sensitive, and what is political snooping and possibly veering into intimidation as you just said.
How do we get to the bottom of that? Because obviously there are some things that our intelligence apparatus and our Department of Justice should be able to do in the national interest and in the interest of public safety.
But this First Amendment thing is not a joke. This is really serious. This sends a chill particularly through the journalistic community that there have been reporters have been snooped on as well.
HIMES: Well, that`s exactly right, Ali. And look, I think with reporters because there is explicit First Amendment protection of the press with reporters I think it`s an easier case. Don`t go after reporters, right? That is not an investigative tool when you`re looking at the breach of national security information.
Now, you can sort of come up with a case. Let`s imagine -- let`s imagine that a member of Congress -- I don`t think this has ever happened before. Let`s just imagine a member of Congress decides to sell the American nuclear codes to Russia for a million dollars and you find a million dollars under the bed.
Okay, okay. But this is not that. This is not that. Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell, what do they have in common? They were probably the most vocal Democrats in opposition to Donald Trump. What do we know? That there was nothing there.
So, again, this is a million miles away from a legitimate prosecution, which is why it`s important that every last fact, every last statement made, what was said to a grand jury needs to see the light of day so that we really understand the full contours of what happened here.
VELSHI: Congressman, good to see you. Thanks for joining us tonight. Congressman Jim Himes is a member of the House Intelligence Committee. Thank you for joining us.
Coming up, the Republican effort to stop people from voting and to stop votes from being counted is reaching new levels of insanity with Republicans flocking to view the fraud-it in Arizona and Trump supporters issuing death threats against election officials. Cliff Albright from Black Voters Matter joins us next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Republicans saw what happened in 2018 and 2020 when voters made their voices heard at the ballot box. They lost the House then the White House and then the Senate, giving Democrats unified control of Washington and the power to investigate the corrupt Trump era.
Republicans saw that and they decided to in effect cheat to make sure those losses are reversed. At least 14 Republican controlled states have enacted 22 new laws this year that restrict voting access. And these laws are about more than just making it harder for Democratic leaning constituencies to cast a ballot.
As the "Nation" writes, "Republicans are no longer gambling on voter suppression to give them the election results they covet. They are now writing laws that open the way for overturning results that go against them. The bill that Texas Democrats blocked last week would lower the burden of proof for a partisan poll watcher to allege fraud, making it easier for a judge to overturn an election.
Ten of those Texas Democrats will meet with Vice President Harris next week to discuss the urgent need for federal voting rights legislation. NBC News reports, "Republican lawmakers and officials from at least seven states have toured or planned to tour the site of the partisan ballot review in Arizona."
That includes some of Trump`s staunchest allies in states that cost him the election including Pennsylvania and Georgia. The fake audit is being studied so that more states can attempt their own fake audits. The election lies from Trump and his Republican backers have had another terrifying effect.
Reuters reports that Trump`s lie has inspired his supporters to terrorize election officials and their families with threats of hanging, firing squads, torture, and bomb blasts. Some are still receiving death threats to this day.
Today, the Biden administration announced that it`s taking action to fight back. The attorney general, Merrick Garland announced that the Biden Justice Department will expand its efforts to protect the right to vote.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MERRICK GARLAND, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: To meet the challenge of the current moment we must re-dedicate the resources of the Department of Justice to a critical part of its original mission, enforcing federal law to protect the franchise for all voters. We are scrutinizing new laws that seek to curb voter access and where we see violations we will not hesitate to act.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: Attorney General Garland said he needed help with these enforcement efforts from Congress urging them to pass federal legislation to protect voting rights. Joining us now Cliff Albright. He`s the co-founder and executive director of Black Voters Matter. He`s the host of the podcast "Black Power Revisited."
Cliff, good to see you again, This is a strong statement from the attorney general, certainly better than in the past where we may have had the Department of Justice working in the opposite direction of expanding voter rights.
But let`s go back to, you know, the `60s where the same thing had to happen. The attorney general, the Department of Justice can investigate these things and make some rules to see if everyone is being treated fairly, but it really is up to Congress to legislate to make sure that things like -- are going on in Texas can`t happen across the country.
CLIFF ALBRIGHT, CO-FOUNDER, BLACK VOTERS MATTER: Yes, Ali. Thanks for having me. And you`re exactly right. That was actually part of the big purpose of the 1965 Voting Rights Act to begin with, particularly Section 5 which was eventually gutted several years ago.
But part of the purpose was to avoid exactly what you`re seeing, avoiding that states would be able to take away our rights or localities would take away our rights and we will have to fight it county by county, state by state, that the Justice Department would have to come in after the fact and try to correct the wrong.
Part of the purpose of the Voting Rights Act was to give that pre-clearance power so that before these changes could even be made they would have to get cleared by the Justice Department. That was taken away. And in fact, we`re coming up on the anniversary of the Shelby decision to which the Supreme Court took that power away from the Voting Rights Act.
We desperately need that to be restored with the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. And we need HR1, the For the People Act. We need both of those things because they`re not substitutes. They`re complements. They`re supplements.
VELSHI: Right. They do different things and I think that`s something that, you know, because of the names and the general talk about them a lot of folks are not clear on the fact that they do separate but important things.
ALBRIGHT: Exactly. HR1 deals with opening up, expanding voter access, guaranteeing that there`ll be certain provisions, guaranteeing certain hours, right, guaranteeing the way that you can get registered. Keeping things from happening like exactly what we`re seeing in these voter suppression bills, right.
So it`s kind of a proactive approach toward expanding voter access whereas HR4, the voting rights -- the John Lewis Voting Rights Act is what lets us come in and say, you know, you`ve got to get things pre-cleared before you could then make changes.
So, in other words, the John Lewis Act would keep new voter suppression from happening in these states. But if by itself would not have the power to overrule some of the voter suppression that we`ve seen pass in these states, HR1 would have the ability to do that because it would set new standards for voter access.
VELSHI: So what do you say to somebody for instance -- I`m not meaning to pick on him -- but Joe Manchin, who supports one of them, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, but says that he won`t support HR1 unless it has bipartisan support, which strikes some people as odd.
You might or might not get bipartisan support, but only Republicans are trying to do this on one side and only Democrats are trying to fight off the encroachment on voting rights.
ALBRIGHT: Yes, there`s a lot I`d like to say to Senator Manchin, but part of what I`d say to him is that listen to the people of West Virginia. You know, we`ve got this notion of West Virginia. We keep saying, people keep saying, oh, well Trump won the state with 68 points, and so what`s Joe Manchin to do.
But at the end of the day, 79 percent of West Virginia support the For the People Act, 79 percent support expanding voting rights. And so he`s not even put aside the fact that he`s putting the rest of the country at risk. Put aside that he`s putting at risk black and brown voters and all the marginalized voters all across the country.
He`s not even being responsive to his own state, to voters in his own state that are telling him that they want to see voting rights protected. That`s part of what we`ll be saying to him when we and other groups, dozens of other groups go to West Virginia as part of our freedom ride campaign that we`re going to be doing from June 19th to June 26th.
VELSHI: Let`s go back to the executive side of this, the stuff that Merrick Garland talked about today. Garland said that the Justice Department will do what it takes -- I`m reading from "The Washington Post," by the way -- will do what it did before the 1965 legislation passed. It will scrutinize laws and practices county by county and state by state to ensure all voters have equal access to the franchise.
In addition to the expanded team of trial attorneys, which will grow from about 12 to two dozen ,the department`s national security and criminal divisions, 93 U.S. attorneys as well as the FBI will be part of the effort to "investigate and promptly prosecute any violations of federal law," he said. He being Merrick Garland.
It sounds pretty strong. Are you at least satisfied that Merrick Garland and the Department of Justice are doing what they are empowered to do in the face of this crushing weight on voting rights?
ALBRIGHT: Well, it certainly a step in the right direction, right? It`s strong language. And look, Ali, you know, there aren`t too many other people I could think of other than having somebody like, you know, Kristen Clark who`s in charge of the civil rights division or Vanita Gupta, the number two at the Department of Justice, to be looking into that.
So, he`s got some very confident and dedicated people around him and the words and statements are strong. And yes, doubling the number of attorneys focusing on this, all of that is a good start. We`ve got to see them back it up. You know, we`ve just got to see that the words are matched with the actual actions.
But again, I have to remind folks that it`s exactly that type of approach that the Voting Rights Act was meant to avoid, having to go state by state and watch them and trying to correct the things that they`re doing.
VELSHI: Yes.
ALBRIGHT: The pre-clearance provision, restoring the Voting Rights Act is absolutely critical in order for us to truly protect our voting rights.
VELSHI: Right, I get your message. Garland is saying that he will do what it is for them to do, but we`d rather that not be left to the Department of Justice to do, going state by state and county by county. Cliff, good to see you as always. Thank you. Cliff Albright is the co-founder and executive director of Black Voters Matter. He`s the host of the podcast "Black Power Revisited."
All right, coming up. Donald Trump exposed the weaknesses in our system of government that could be exploited by a corrupt leader with control of the White House. So begins the urgent new project from the "Boston Globe" editorial board focused on future proofing the presidency and the key part of that is prosecuting Donald Trump. That`s next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Richard Nixon was never held accountable for his crimes in office. After resigning in disgrace Nixon, of course, received a full pardon from the never-elect President Gerald Ford. Ford claimed the pardon was in our national interest.
Ford`s son explained last year, quote, "The idea was to get Nixon out of the way, heal the nation and go forward," end quote.
So healing is important, but how effective is healing without addressing the damage that required the healing in the first place? What if healing from the Trump years means restoring confidence that American democracy, a system of rule of law, can effectively contend with a politician who tries to exploit it, undermine it and threaten it even if that person is a president. Even if our highest office is the vehicle for that malfeasance.
The "Boston Globe" editorial board argues that Donald Trump must be different from Richard Nixon, that holding him accountable is necessary to restore faith in the American justice system.
Trump`s post-presidential legal problems include three criminal investigations at the state and local level in New York and Georgia. And the editorial board argues that the Biden Justice Department should also hold Trump accountable.
In a piece entitled, "future proofing the presidency", the "Boston Globe" editorial board writes, quote, "Allowing him to go unpunished would set a far more dangerous precedent than having Trump stand trial. To reform the presidency so that the last four years are never repeated the country must go beyond passing laws. It must make clear through its actions that no person, not even the president, is above them."
Joining us now, Abdallah Fayyad "Boston Globe" opinion writer and editorial board member and Glenn Kirschner, former federal prosecutor and an MSNBC legal analyst. Gentlemen, thank you for being with us.
Abdallah, let`s start with you. There are good people across this country who think that this is best left behind us, it`s over. Donald Trump`s out. He`s been impeached a couple of times.
We have a president who does not seem to make this a priority. He seems to think that reconciliation of some sort is the main order of the day. What makes you and your colleagues at the "Boston Globe" think that this is an important course of business for the country to pursue?
ABDALLAH FAYYAD, OPINION WRITER, "BOSTON GLOBE": Well, Ali, thanks for having me on. You know, I totally understand the impulse to want to just move on and never look back, but that would be extraordinarily irresponsible.
The Donald Trump presidency was an unprecedented time in American history in the level of corruption and the scale of corruption that we saw. And we have to learn and study exactly what went wrong because we were very close to seeing the collapse of American democracy. And we`re seeing it still happen now.
Since Trump has left office voting rights are being chipped away at and trampled on in Republican states and Congress is refusing to do anything about it. But it`s really important to go after Donald Trump and for prosecutors to focus on finding evidence.
And if they have enough evidence to actually prosecute them for the crimes committed in office because if we do not do that, he laid out a road map that makes it very clear for future American tyrants how do you serve American democracy.
And so it`s really important for Congress to act now with urgency to restrain future presidents from abusing their power. And if they don`t do that, then the collapse of American democracy is not a matter of if but when.
VELSHI: Glenn Kirschner, you`re a former federal prosecutor. When there was a lot of debate during the Trump administration about a memo from the office of legal counsel about whether a sitting president can be prosecuted. And there was certainly an understanding that once he`s not the sitting president there`s a lot of stuff to go after Donald Trump for.
In fact, the day after his second impeachment Mitch McConnell actually said former presidents are not immune from being held accountable by the system. So why not do what the folks at the "Boston Globe" are suggesting?
GLENN KIRSCHNER, MSNBC LEGAL ANALYST: I`m with Abdallah, Donald Trump was an unabated crime wave as president. Even before he became president he committed campaign finance violations with Michael Cohen for which Michael Cohen went to prison.
Donald Trump has yet to be charged, and he arguably gained unfair advantage by committing those campaign finance violations.
But Ali, then once he took office we could tick through the felony crimes that we can prove based on the information that has been publicly reported alone, whether it`s the bribery and extortion of President Zelensky, the ten counts of felony obstruction of justice meticulously documented by Bob Mueller in Volume 2 of the Trump-Russia report for which Bob Mueller famously testified Donald Trump could be prosecuted upon leaving office.
There`s something that we often forget about which is obstructing congressional proceedings. Remember Donald Trump instructed all of his executive branch officials do not comply with lawfully issued congressional subpoenas. And that`s very different from saying let`s go in and assert executive privilege and fight it legitimately.
There are so many other offenses. There are countless, avoidable COVID deaths that I think could be pursued by the states.
Then, of course, there is inciting the insurrection. We saw it with our own eyes. When Donald Trump said things that provided both the act and the mental state that I believe exposed him to criminal liability, he told these supporters that he riled up, go down to the Capitol and stop what`s going on. That`s an action word. He directed what they then did at the Capitol.
If he is not held accountable, Ali, if we don`t prosecute him then what we are doing is we are encouraging tomorrow`s version of Donald Trump. We have to prosecute today`s version of Donald Trump to send the message that we will not tolerate a run away criminal president.
VELSHI: So Abdallah you addressed this in "The Globe" editorial. I want to read this to you. "Foreign democracies including South Korea, Italy and France routinely manage to prosecute crooked former leaders without starting down the slippery slope to authoritarianism. President Nicolas Sarkozy of France was recently found guilty of bribery, a decade after his predecessor Jacques Chirac was convicted of corruption. France`s democracy and its image around the world remain intact."
And when I read, I thought to myself, it`s a really good point. We don`t think about France, whenever we talk about France we don`t actually think about the fact that they`ve had two former presidents convicted of criminal offenses. It doesn`t seem -- it almost seems like, well, things seem to be working in France.
FAYYAD: Yes, I mean that`s exactly right. You know, there`s this idea that, you know, once you go after former presidents, you know, we`re going to see a political tit for tat where you know, one political party will be in power and then will go after the minority power and prosecute them.
I mean, Trump himself had this impulse where he wanted to prosecute Barack Obama and his predecessors. And so, you know, the reality is in advanced democracies around the world, South Korea like you mentioned, France, and Italy and others, they have prosecuted former leaders without really turning into autocracies. And their images are not less intact than the United States.
They are facing some -- you know, some of them are facing troubles of democracy, but that`s not the main cause. The United States is right now facing the cliff toward autocracy. And so it`s really important to actually do this in the United States.
You often hear the phrase no one in the United States is above the law. That could not be further from the truth if the last two centuries are any evidence. I mean not a single president has been held accountable for the crimes they`ve committed or for the abuses of power they`ve committed.
Now we`ve had the 45th president try to incite or instigate a coup and he has yet to face any legal accountability for anything that he`s done. Five people died. I mean, like the commander in chief of the United States incited an attack on the United States and its democracy.
And if that goes unpunished, then what message does that send to future tyrants, future authoritarians, be they Republican or otherwise? What message would that send them, you know, if Donald Trump, of all people, gets away with the crimes that he`s so brazenly committed in the Oval Office?
VELSHI: Gentlemen, thank you. An impassioned discussion about an important matter for this country. Abdallah Fayyad and Glenn Kirschner, we appreciate your time tonight.
Well, coming up, diplomacy is back. That`s it. That`s the tweet. No wild policy lurches, no love letters to dictators. No blimps, just the president of the United States going abroad to meet with world leaders who are happy to have America back at the table.
We`ve kind of forgotten how to do this. We`re getting a refresher right after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: After four years of scenes like this. And this. We`re finally getting back to a sense of normalcy on the world stage as President Biden makes his first trip abroad as president and the world loves how normal it all is.
A Pew Research poll of 12 major nations found that 75 percent have confidence in Biden to do the right thing on the world stage compared with just 17 percent for Trump last year. Can you blame them?
Today President Biden joined the leaders of the G7 for a family photo. Look how normal it is. It`s just a photo. It`s not like the 2018 G7 summit when Trump called Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, quote, "dishonest and weak". And this iconic photo of Trump and German Chancellor Angela Merkel which went viral for his blase demeanor.
It`s clear that President Biden`s respect of world leaders allows him to command respect from those leaders and the global public. Of course, Trump did give his respect to one leader, Vladimir Putin, for whom he infamously vouched in 2018 when he denied Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Today President Biden was asked about his upcoming meeting next week with Putin in Geneva.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, what`s your message to Putin?
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I`ll tell you after I deliver it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: I`ll tell you after I deliver it.
Joining us now Michael McFaul, former United States ambassador to Russia under President Obama and an MSNBC international affairs analyst. Michael, what a different time. You and I have spent so much time talking about Donald Trump meeting with foreign leaders including Vladimir Putin and everything that could and did go wrong.
And now we`ve got this, I don`t know, this perverse normalcy on the world stage. We`ve got Angela Merkel, you know, suggesting that, you know, the world is back together. We`ve got Emmanuel Macron saying the same thing.
But niceties aside we`re not going to have Joe Biden pushing world leaders aside and snubbing world leaders and saying nasty things about them and fighting with Canadians which I always find amazing.
But there`s actual work to be done, Michael. There`s work that Joe Biden has to get done including in his meeting with Putin. What does that look like to you?
MICHAEL MCFAUL, MSNBC INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, first of all, thanks for playing this clip. I`d kind of forgotten just how horrible it was when talking to our allies.
President Trump offended our allies and befriended Vladimir Putin, the person that in his view were the enemy and yet he tried to be his friend. So it`s the exact reverse. And it is a welcome change for me, most certainly. And as you saw incredible polling numbers you just showed to the world.
But there is work to be done in two regards on his part. One, President Biden wants to unify the democratic countries of the world, right? G7, NATO, European Union summits -- those are all democracies coming together. And as he`s articulated many times he believes that at this moment in our history democracies have to be united in dealing with the autocracies of China and Russia.
And then the second one, he has to bring a tough message, I think, to Vladimir Putin. It can`t be any happy talk. It cannot be a staple of normal and friendly relationship and that`s tricky to do because on the one hand he wants to cooperate on some things but he also has to make clear when we have disagreements he`s not going to be afraid to express those disagreements.
VELSHI: Let me understand the nuances of that because people would like to think about Russia as an adversary and clearly Donald Trump didn`t think that. But there are important roles in the 2021 world, things that America and NATO have to do with Russia and other things that they have to work against Russia on.
How does Biden craft that message, because you can`t go in there like a bull in a China shop and be the anti-Trump because work has to get done.
MCFAUL: Yes, it`s tricky. It`s hard. I want to be clear about it. And it`s been hard for decades. If you think about what you`ve just described is exactly what we did with the Soviet Union. We were adversaries. We were ideological enemies.
We sometimes even fought proxy wars all over the world. And at the same time we cooperated on some issues. We eradicated smallpox together, for instance. We did nuclear arms control even during the Cold War.
And I think that`s the historical metaphor that President Biden needs to bring, which is cooperate when you can. And I think strategic stability talks. Getting going again nuclear arms control negotiations with the Russians is his highest priority in his Geneva meeting.
But then contain when you must and deter, which all of those rather belligerent things that Vladimir Putin is doing in the world today.
VELSHI: One of the things I remember talking to you about was how you prepared President Obama for some of these meetings and how they went. The first lady was asked the other day whether the president is prepared for this meeting with Vladimir Putin, and her response was he`s over-prepared.
You know Joe Biden. Joe Biden knows the world pretty well. This is one of his fortes. What do you think this preparation looks like for Joe Biden?
MCFAUL: Well, first of all I don`t think there`s been a more experienced president dealing with Europe and Russia and the countries around Russia, by the way -- that`s very important. President Biden really knows Georgia, he really knows Ukraine, he really knows Moldova. And I say those three countries because I traveled with him to those three countries when he was vice president.
And I actually briefed him the meeting before -- the last time he met with Prime Minister Putin I was in the briefing room with him with Tony Blinken, Secretary Blinken now.
We spent hours getting him ready because he wants to be ready and he should be ready when talking to Vladimir Putin.
VELSHI: Ambassador McFaul, when asked about this by CNN Jen Psaki, the press secretary said we`re not going to tell you. It`s not in his agenda, but the president intends to raise human rights issues. That`s going to be another thorny thing for them to talk about, which I`d like to have you back to have more of a discussion about how he deals with these issues around the world.
But good to see you and thanks for being with us tonight Ambassador Michael McFaul, former United States ambassador to Russia.
Coming up, we will talk to a Democrat who`s been where Joe Manchin is now, who knows what it`s like to be a Democrat in a deeply red place, facing a consequential vote.
He`s got some words of advice for Joe Manchin about how to think about this vote. It`s not something you`ll hear from national political pundits. He joins me next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: During his ten years in office, Democratic Senator Joe Manchin has walked a fine line between the policy priorities of his party and holding on to his seat in an increasingly red West Virginia.
Our next guest understands the position that Joe Manchin is in. Tom Perriello was the last Democrat to represent Virginia`s fifth congressional district. In 2008 Tom Perriello won a narrow victory over a six-term incumbent who actually switched parties from being a Democrat to a Republican mirroring the political shift in the district.
In 2009 Congressman Perriello faced a consequential choice -- the vote on the Affordable Care Act. After voting for it, Congressman Perriello was ousted in 2010 after one term.
He says he knows what Joe Manchin is facing. Quote, "When I came to Congress I represented a deep red district and dreamed of bipartisanship. And I was proud to retain support from Independent and Republican voters and outperform the party brand by double-digits. But the one place I found no bipartisanship was on the Hill."
Perriello has no regrets. Why ask the voters for political power he says if not to use it when it matters most?
Joining us now Tom Perriello, former Democratic congressman from Virginia. He`s now the executive director of Open Society U.S.
Congressman good to see you. Thank you for being with us.
Your story is instructive because while people can say Joe Manchin was the governor of West Virginia and he won by a lot the last time, his most recent election was, in fact very, very, very tight. And he is in a red state, an overwhelmingly Republican state generally speaking. So he`s got - - he does have to be thinking about his political future as he`s walking this fine line right now.
TOM PERRIELLO, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, OPEN SOCIETY U.S.: He does. I really can`t imagine the pressure he`s under. Literally, he`s a shadow president trying to navigate doing the right thing while representing a state that obviously went heavily for Trump.
He`s a man of great integrity, great decency, and the stakes of what was we`re up against right now are enormous. And I think he has the opportunity to be a transformative and historical figure. And we`re all hoping that he is on the path to doing so. But it`s a tough path for him.
VELSHI: Your father before he passed lived in West Virginia, like Joe Manchin. You`re familiar with the voters of West Virginia. You understand that this is tough, but one of the things you write in the Washington Post is that, Americans are so deeply cynical about Washington that the only way to build support from a broad bipartisan set of voters is to err on the side of the boldest possible reforms.
Watering down reform does not strengthen support from Republican, Democrat, or Independent voters. It only fuels their cynicism.
Tell me a little bit more about this because you`re referring to Joe Manchin saying that he`s not supporting sort of a voting right reforms, not for any good, critical reason about the reforms, but because it doesn`t have bipartisan support in the senate?
PERRIELLO: Yes. You know, a lot of Italian immigrants ended up in West Virginia, either attracted to the coal mines or Union Carbide. My father`s family was in and out of poverty there. We grew up going to the Sternwheel Regatta, big even every year, passing through the Dairy Queen in (INAUDIBLE).
And you know, It`s an incredible, beautiful state that Joe Manchin represents. It`s the state that believes that neither party is fighting for them. And I think what`s ironic here is that the For The People Act is actually an effort to reach beyond partisanship.
People don`t want bipartisanship to be defined by elite senators on the Republican and Democratic sides agreeing on a deal. They want a deal that actually puts both parties in check and returns power to the people.
And this is where I think Senator Manchin has such a great opportunity to be a transformative figure. Because this really is not about left or right. It`s about bold versus incremental (ph).
That`s the political divide today. People are cynical that the system is working for them. And the For The People Act and The Voting Rights Act and other things are about actually handing power back to the people.
And I get why Senator Manchin wants so hard to hold his Republican colleagues accountable. But as, you know, West Virginian Chuck Yeager said, you can`t stray on results, no risk is too great to prevent the necessary job from getting done.
At the end of the day, you`ve got to focus on what gets the job done and he has a chance to make that happen in a way that doesn`t just build back our economy better but builds back our democracy better.
VELSHI: Well, he`s not getting a lot of empathy from Democratic circles this week, so he may appreciate wisdom that comes from somebody who has walked in footsteps similar to the ones he`s walking in right now.
Tom Perriello, good to talk to you. Thanks so much for writing your column and for being with us tonight. Tom Perriello is a former Democratic congressman from Virginia. He`s the executive director of the Open Society U.S.
And that is tonight`s LAST WORD. You can catch me again tomorrow morning on my show "VELSHI" at 8:00 a.m. We`ll be following President Biden`s historic first foreign trip. Plus, I`ll be joined by Congressman Roger Krishnamoorthi who sits on the Intelligence Committee, along the Democrats targeted by the Trump Justice Department; and Washington Governor Jay Inslee.
That`s 8:00 to 10:00 a.m. tomorrow morning.
"THE 11TH HOUR WITH BRIAN WILLIAMS" begins right now.