Summary
Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna of California is interviewed. Democratic Congresswoman Katie Porter of California is interviewed. Sen. Sinema was asked by reporter where she stands on the bill, and she responded, "I`m clearly right in front of the elevator." Sen. Manchin says they won`t get reconciliation agreement tomorrow, wants to keep negotiating in "good faith." Gov. Hochul promotes vaccinations. House Jan. 6 commission issues second round of subpoenas.
Transcript
LAWRENCE O`DONNELL, MSNBC HOST: Good evening, Rachel.
I don`t think we`ll be seeing those signs at any other baseball games.
RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC HOST: Exactly. Dems don`t -- yeah, that doesn`t work at any other baseball game.
It`s interesting to see. It feels like it`s a full court press. The progressives are not giving up on passing this thing.
O`DONNELL: Yeah, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez I think made it clear, the votes aren`t there tomorrow in your discussion. We`re going to have three House members here, Ro Khanna, Katie Porter, Jamie Raskin.
We`re not going to leave this show tonight without knowing what`s going to happen in the House tomorrow. We have to decode the whole thing.
MADDOW: Yeah. And it sounds like we may be averting a government shutdown on the Senate side. But what happens in the House will be drama all day.
O`DONNELL: Yeah, Chuck Schumer worked out a deal, giving the Republicans a guarantee of votes on three Republican amendments before you get to the continuing resolution. Those will probably all be defeated on a party-line vote, and then you`ll get the continuing resolution. And the government will stay open until December 3rd.
MADDOW: And we`ll then do this all again for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Because the debt ceiling is something invented in World War I to appease isolationists from that conflict. Maybe it`s time we got over it
O`DONNELL: We`ll see what happens.
MADDOW: Thank you, Lawrence.
O`DONNELL: Thank you, Rachel.
Well, the breaking news is not about infrastructure legislation. It`s about the more immediate business of keeping the government funded after midnight tomorrow night, when current funding runs out. And they have reached a business as usual deal.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has reached an agreement with Republicans that will allow a vote tomorrow at 10:30 a.m. on a continuing resolution to fund the government until December 3rd. If that holds overnight, there will be no government shutdown tomorrow at midnight. And so there you see the Senate working as it is supposed to.
But in other Senate news, there is a bit of a mutiny under way with two Democrats blocking the other 48 Senate Democrats and the Democrats in the House from reaching an agreement on the Biden infrastructure package. The two senators holding up the deal are as everyone seems to know by now, West Virginia`s Joe Manchin and Arizona`s Kyrsten Sinema. They are very different people.
Senator Manchin is an experience senator who knows how the Senate works, but represents a state with the highest level of Trump supporters than any other state represented by a Democratic senator. Joe Manchin has an experienced Senate staff. Joe Manchin is accustomed to high level negotiations in private. But he also believes that he owes a public explanation of his position to the voters of West Virginia and in this case, to the country, because he is standing in the way right now of an important deal on legislation affecting all 50 states in a very big way.
So, Senator Manchin speaks to reporters pretty much every day about what he`s trying to accomplish. Sometimes he speaks in vague terms, like all politicians do sometimes. You may not like what he has to say. But he does seem to have some sense of public accountability.
This is not true of the first term senator from Arizona, Kyrsten Sinema. She has been involved in high level private negotiations on exactly one important bill that has passed the United States Senate. And that is the bipartisan infrastructure bill. She is not an experienced legislator, and she`s not highly experienced in the way the Senate works. She does not have an experienced staff who can fill in the gaps of what she might not know.
And the most peculiar thing about the way Senator Sinema works is that she does not seem to believe in any form of public accountability at all.
[22:05:05]
She is invited on every one of these shows every day and every night, and refuses all of them, which is perfectly okay with me. I understand that she might think rushed TV interviews may not be the best place for her to discuss complex legislation. Okay.
But nothing prevents her from going to the floor of the Senate whenever she wants to and speaking as long as she wants to about what she`s trying to accomplish in these secret discussions she`s conducting, discussions she`s keeping secret from her voters in Arizona and from the American people. That is a huge difference between Senator Sinema and Senator Manchin. Huge.
Not only is Senator Sinema not using the Senate floor to explain her position, she actually appeared to insult Arizona voters and every other American anywhere in the country who might be trying to understand what it is Senator Sinema is trying to do.
Before I show you what she did say tonight, let`s listen to how Senator Manchin discussed the situation when NBC`s Garrett Haake caught up with him.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GARRETT HAAKE, NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Senator, where did you leave things with the president?
SEN. JOE MANCHIN (D-WV): We have the most important piece of legislation that we`ve ever had in the last 30 years, which is the bipartisan infrastructure bill does so much in so many ways. Clean energy, everything we talked about before. Why wouldn`t you take that, move on, and negotiate?
HAAKE: The progressives don`t trust you, sir. They don`t trust you that you`re going to be with them on the reconciliation bill.
MANCHIN: (INAUDIBLE) in good faith. I trust them, I negotiate in good faith. We just have different positions.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: Now, that may be a frustrating answer for other members of Congress, and it is, members of Congress who want to know exactly what Joe Manchin wants to change in the $3.5 trillion budget resolution that both Senator Manchin and Senator Sinema voted for. They voted for the $3.5 trillion budget resolution, and having voted for that budget resolution, they apparently now do not want to vote for the matching $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill which contains the actual details of how the $3.5 trillion would be spent, and how tax revenue would be raised to pay for that bill.
But as unsatisfying as Senator Manchin`s reply might have been, Senator Sinema`s response to the question of what does she want is not just unsatisfying, it`s something that no senator with the slightest sense of accountability to voters would ever say.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
REPORTER: What do you say to progressives that are frustrated that they don`t know where you are?
SEN. KYRSTEN SINEMA (D-AZ): I`m in the Senate.
REPORTER: There are progressives in the Senate that say they don`t know where you are either.
SINEMA: I`m clearly right in front of the elevator.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: I`m in the Senate. That is so much worse, so much worse than not saying anything.
There`s a senator mocking the very concept of public accountability. A senator who appears to think that what she`s doing is funny. There is a senator who appears to be laughing at people all over the country who support that legislation and have their hopes pinned on getting some help in their own lives through some of the provisions of that legislation. Like help with child care.
Senator Sinema is laughing about that. She`s having secret meetings about the legislation, as all senators do, but then she`s refusing to tell the people she represents what she is trying to accomplish in those discussions. She`s refusing to tell the people she represents what she wants for them and what she does not want them to get in that legislation. She`s refusing to tell her constituents what she`s trying to block them from getting.
Is she trying to stop parents from getting help from child care? We don`t know. And tonight, she thinks that`s funny. Senator Sinema clearly does not understand the full range of responsibilities of a United States senator. And unfortunately for the people of Arizona, and for the people of the United States, there is no one working on Senator Sinema`s staff who can tell her what is so grotesquely wrong about what she said tonight.
Reporter, there are progressives in the Senate that are also frustrated that they don`t know where you are, either. Senator Sinema, I`m clearly right in front of the elevator.
[22:10:08]
I have never seen a Democratic senator behave anything like that. Not once. Not ever. There is no playbook about how to negotiate with a senator who talks like that.
Leading off our discussion tonight is Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna of California. He`s a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
Congressman Khanna, you have, I know in other comments, isolated your focus on Senator Sinema. And that is becoming increasingly, it`s becoming increasingly clear that that is the unpredictable problem here. That`s where the secret discussions are going on, where we know absolutely nothing about what is going through her mind.
REP. RO KHANNA (D-CA): Lawrence, you articulated it better than I could. And you put your finger on what I sensed is the problem. I have no problem with Senator Manchin. We disagree, I wish he would give us a number. But he is cordial, he is substantive, he will threat you with respect.
Senator Sinema is just not responsive. Her remark in I`m in the Senate was sort of a condescension to people working in the House. Lawrence, you served in the Senate. Io know you have great respect, you served for one of the great senators, Senator Moynihan. And my problem with Senator Sinema is not her ideology. Is the way she`s conducting herself and the fact that she is not being transparent with people, her colleagues, or with, frankly, the president of the United States.
O`DONNELL: Let`s listen to what Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told Rachel in the last hour.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-NY): If we vote for this underfunded, too small infrastructure bill alone, instead of voting for it with the rest of the president`s agenda, if we vote for it alone, it could make our climate crisis worse, and it risks being the only or the last substantive piece of legislation that we`ll pass. I do not believe, we do not have the assurances necessary to believe in good faith that reconciliation will pass if infrastructure passes tomorrow.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: If the speaking brings the bipartisan, the senate-passed bipartisan infrastructure bill to a vote in the House tomorrow, will it fail?
KHANNA: It will not only fail, it will fail overwhelmingly. A week ago, I would have told you there were 20 to 30 no votes. And Pramila and I and Katie Porter, we`re whipping folks to see where they would stand. Today, there are probably over 60 votes. It`s organic.
The reason it`s organic is people understand that we have been negotiating in good faith, progressives are willing to compromise. We`ve said, front- load the benefits, reduce the years if you want to get to a better number. But there`s been no movement with Senator Sinema. And people understand the frustration.
O`DONNELL: Do you expect the speaker to bring this to a vote, to show Senator Manchin, Senator Sinema and others that, no, you cannot pass the bipartisan Senate bill without passing the reconciliation bill?
KHANNA: I don`t think she will at the end of the day, because the collateral damage will be to the party, and frankly to the president. You don`t want to vote to fail, and certainly not with overwhelming numbers. And the deadline of Thursday, that`s the Senator Sinema deadline. That`s when she went and told the press, if it doesn`t pass by Thursday, I will walk.
Who does that? Who threatens the president, the minority, the speaker of the House, and the majority leader, saying if I don`t get my way, I`m going to walk? There are a lot of bills. If one of my bills passed the Senate, I won`t go to the speaker and say, if you don`t give a vote by tomorrow, I`m not going to vote for your bill.
So, there`s an immaturity in the way this is being handled. I don`t think the speaker will put the vote. I think she`ll say, let`s negotiate until we can win the vote.
O`DONNELL: Senator Dick Durbin, an experienced member of the Senate, is I think, at the end of his patience with both Senator Sinema and Senator Manchin. Let`s listen to what he said tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. DICK DURBIN (D-IL): Now it`s time I would say for both senators, make your mark and close the deal. What is it that you want? What is your final goal? It`s time to stop talking around it and speak directly to it. I would say both of them, their point of view is different from mine, but it`s been respected, it`s been negotiated, and now it`s time to close the deal.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: Senator Durbin does not know what they want.
KHANNA: It`s remarkable. He`s the number two person. He`s so accommodating of senators. He`s not one to criticize his colleagues. And he`s trying to be inspiring.
He`s saying, look, we can actually do something amazing.
[22:15:03]
This is why you come to Washington to serve. We can actually help working class Americans. We can make sure they have child care, make sure they don`t have to go into debt if they go to community college.
We can make sure seniors can actually see a dentist, that they can actually get a hearing aid. We can actually tackle climate for the first time. The federal government can do something about climate. And we`re so close.
And Senator Durbin, I think he`s appealing to Senator Manchin and Senator Sinema saying, come on, let`s do something for our country, for our president. I hope they`ll listen.
O`DONNELL: What is your sense of where the speaker is on what her next move is?
KHANNA: The speaker would love for us to have an agreement and have a vote. And that`s why she`s keeping the possibility open. She`s very appropriately deferential to the president of the United States. But she will see if the votes aren`t there, which I don`t expect them to be, she`ll say, okay, how do we negotiate, how do we get everyone on the same page? We`ll work with the president to negotiate.
But I think she`s not used to this. I mean, Lawrence, you know, because you`ve been in the senate, it`s highly unusual for a first-term senator to come in, forget having their own agenda, defy the president of the United States, defy the Senate majority leader, defy the speaker of the House of their own party, and defy 99 percent of her colleagues. I don`t think I`ve never seen anything like that.
O`DONNELL: No, they never have. Congressman Ro Khanna, thank you very much for starting off our discussion tonight.
KHANNA: Thank you.
O`DONNELL: And joining us now, Democratic Congresswoman Katie Porter of California. She`s the deputy chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
Congresswoman Porter, do you know if the speaker is going to bring this to a vote tomorrow and let it fail? As speakers in the past have sometimes had to do in order to make the point about where we really are.
REP. KATIE PORTER (D-CA): I don`t think Speaker Pelosi will bring the bill to the floor, because I think we already know where we are, which is exactly what Congressman Khanna said. I think there are dozens and dozens and dozens of colleagues who are going to vote no if needed because we have to deliver the entirety of the president`s agenda.
You know, I think sometimes people think that we have some secret information, we have information that they don`t have. I just want to show people, this is what we received today for what will be voting tomorrow. Question mark, first votes, question mark, last votes, question mark.
So we don`t know exactly the sequence of what we`re going to do tomorrow. But we do know what the outcome will be. Until Senator Sinema and Senator Manchin are able to come up with what they want to do for their constituents, to do for the American people, until Senator Sinema stops being cute and starts doing her job and leaving for the people of Arizona, we`re simply not going to be able to move the president`s agenda forward.
O`DONNELL: Well, we know strategically what Senator Sinema and Senator Manchin are doing, one more professionally at least on the exterior than the other, and that is they`re trying to delay any possible action on the reconciliation bill so that the bill that they worked on, the bipartisan Senate infrastructure bill, will pass. Then they will have unlimited time to object to what is in the reconciliation bill, and possibly never vote for it.
PORTER: Well, think that`s really irresponsible to their constituents and to the people of this country. Infrastructure is incredibly important. It will create good-paying jobs and it`s an important part of the economy.
But I wasn`t elected just to represent one industry or just to elect one kind of worker. I was elected to create a strong and stable and competitive economy. And to do that, for example, we have to see women re-enter the workforce, we have to address the crisis in elder care, we have to make sure that workers are healthy and able to go to workplaces.
And so, I think this idea that, you know, it`s infrastructure and nothing else will be okay, if that`s really what Senator Sinema and Senator Manchin believe, they owe it to the American people to say that.
O`DONNELL: Let`s listen to what Senator Bernie Sanders said about the situation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT): What you got now are 48 out of 50 members who are prepared to support this legislation. You have 95 percent of the House Democrats prepared to support the legislation. It`s not like, okay, let`s reach a middle ground. We have the overwhelming votes, the president of the United States wants it, and the American people want it.
So I would hope to answer your point that after months, not weeks, of discussion, we can in fact go someplace and pass what the American people want.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: Senator Sanders has been a completely practical legislator on this all the way through. He`s had the responsible of budget committee chairman, to get the budget resolution on this, which Joe Manchin and Senator Sinema, they both voted for, the $3.5 trillion budget resolution that is now being reconciled and the other half of that process.
[22:20:15]
PORTER: That`s exactly right. They supported that budget resolution, and now we`re simply doing the work in the House. We`ve had markups, we`ve debated, made amendments to the legislation, put it together into a package, and now, we`re expecting them to engage back in good faith.
If they have concerns, if they have problems, tell us what they are. But we simply can`t negotiate away from -- you know, with ourselves and away from what the American people want if there are no meaningful competing concerns. And I was elected to represent the people of Orange County, to fight for families, to stand up to corporate interests. I wasn`t elected to read the mind of Kyrsten Sinema. Thank goodness, because I have no idea what she is thinking.
O`DONNELL: Well, you`re in similar situations, right, because she won a previously a -- Senate seat that was previously held by a Republican. You won a seat in the House previously held by Republican. Do you recognize anything in the way she appears to be handling this that is based on the fact that she flipped a seat from a Republican, and has a concern about being able to appeal to Republican voters, as you do too in Orange County?
PORTER: I have to be honest. I really don`t. The way that I find it easiest and best and most honest to connect with constituents who might have different values or different opinions that I do is to be incredibly accountable, to be as transparent and forthright and honest with them as I can be. And so, I think, you know, likely that all of us have constituents who disagree with us. But you listen to their concerns, you tell them where you stand, you explain, you answer their questions, and you go forth and do exactly what you told them you`re going to do.
She`s simply not answering to the American people. And that should be a concern for the American people, regardless of where they fall on the political spectrum.
O`DONNELL: Congresswoman Katie Porter, We will see how the question marks on your phone get field in tomorrow. Thank you very much for sharing that with us and for joining us tonight.
PORTER: Thank you.
O`DONNELL: Thank you.
O`DONNELL: And coming up, tonight, one Democratic senator used the one heartbeat away scenario from losing Democratic control in the Senate when he was explaining the urgency of passing both Biden infrastructure bills. That`s next with John Heilemann and Adam Jentleson.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:26:45]
O`DONNELL: Tonight, Senator Dick Durbin raised the one heartbeat away from disaster scenario for Democrats in the Senate when discussing Senator Joe Manchin`s suggestion that Democrats delay the vote on the reconciliation package for a few months.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DURBIN: Joe`s made a number of states. He`s my friend, I respect him, and I`ve tried my best to sit down for a few minutes and talk to him about this. But I would say to him, we can`t delay these things. Simply delaying them is just inviting a bad result, to be honest with you. You know, we`re one heartbeat away from losing the majority in the United States Senate. I`ve been in the Senate long enough to see that happen. I would urge Joe, if you believe there`s value and merit to the programs in the reconciliation bill, don`t wait. Do it now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: Joining us now, John Heilemann, NBC News and MSNBC national affairs analyst, host and executive producer of Showtime`s "The Circus" and host of "The Hell and High Water" podcast on the Recount.
Also with us, Adam Jentleson, former deputy chief of staff for Senator Harry Reid. He`s the executive director of Battle Horn? What is it, Adam, the battle what?
ADAM JENTLESON, FORMER DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF FOR SENATOR HARRY REID: Battle Born.
O`DONNELL: OK, teleprompter confusion here. And, Adam, the title of your book, please.
JENTLESON: "Kill Switch: The Demise of Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy".
O`DONNELL: The single most important book written about the Senate in the Trump era.
John Heilemann, the situation is the mutiny of the first term senator joined by the senator who is elected to the Democratic side of the Senate from Trump country. The Manchin phenomenon is easily understood when you look at the voting profile of West Virginia. But what they`re dealing with in Senator Sinema, it`s something that as far as I can tell, the Democrats and a Democratic president has never had to deal with in a Democratic senator.
JOHN HEILEMANN, MSNBC NATIONAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Yeah, I`d say first of all that Adam`s book is the most important book ever written about the Senate. Number two, I`m not sure it`s just that a Democratic president has had to deal with.
I think, you`ve been around a little longer than me, but I`m not sure either one of us have seen anything quite like Kyrsten Sinema, in terms of what is on the surface at least and I`m trying to dig deeper to see if there`s something below the surface. But on the surface at least, it`s total irrationality, like behaving in a way that`s completely unpredictable and somewhat unhinge.
And I heard your monologue, your opening today. I can tell you, the view that you expressed is the view that shared privately by many senior people in the White House. That they feel like Kyrsten Sinema, Senator Sinema and Senator Manchin, though they`re occupying the same position right now, has the object of a lot of ire on the part of a lot of Democrats, especially progressive Democrats, although they are both holding this up, that they can deal with Senator Manchin. And that Senator Manchin is a commodity that President Biden and his team understands.
They do not have an understanding of Senator Sinema. They do not know what she wants. They do not know how to deal with her, and they do not know how to deal with her staff. And so, I think that is at the core of what the problem is right now.
She is, you know, in the words, in the language of chemistry, she`s a free radical at this point. And that one free radical has messed up all the variables, all the equations, all the physics and the chemistry that`s supposed to have led to a vote tomorrow that Nancy Pelosi was betting on when she decoupled the two bills earlier this week, she assumed they would get to a rational outcome. Senator Sinema and Senator Manchin they are not there tonight. And I`m not sure I don`t think we`re going to be there tomorrow.
O`DONNELL: And Adam you know what a challenge it is, when there`s really - there`s no one in the Sinema office, you can call, there`s - it`s not like there`s some experienced legislative director or Chief of Staff, there`s not someone there who can talk sense to anyone, including Senator Sinema.
ADAM JENTLESON, FORMER DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF FOR SINEMA HARRY REID: That`s right, you know, and what Senator Sinema has done as a freshman senator, is to put herself at the center of a wide variety of policy battles. And, you know, a senator simply doesn`t have the staff capacity to become an expert on all of these policies. It`s not like she was an expert on these subject matters coming into office, and she certainly hasn`t gained profound expertise in the few months of this year. And, you know, you don`t have millions of experts on staff as a - as a, as a freshman senator.
So you know, I think that she`s sort of, you know, flying by the seat of her pants a little bit here, when it comes to the policy and making a lot of this stuff up as it goes along. And I think that`s what`s profoundly scary about this, is that she understands and has used the power that she holds as the potential 50th vote on a lot of this stuff to position herself in a position of great power. However, it`s not clear that she has brought along the expertise or the thoughtfulness or the deliberation that you would require to actually think through these issues and counter to thoughtful rational conclusions. And I think that`s what`s kind of terrifying about the position we find ourselves in right now.
O`DONNELL: And John, one of the things that I`m watching here is that it may very well be that the White House is at this stage. And Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi May at this stage, be glad that Joe Manchin is still in that space with Senator Sinema, because at least they can talk to Joe Manchin, at least there`s a way of - there`s a communication channel that makes sense to them.
And that if Joe Manchin were to come along tomorrow and say, OK, I`m reasonably OK with X, but Senator Sinema did not come along, then she would be completely isolated. And Joe Manchin would not be able to really influence her at all that that`s a theory of the case that I`ve been trying to track down. But the - it`s hard to get that confirmed, put it that way.
HEILEMANN: Well, I`ll tell you, it`s hard to get it confirmed Lawrence, because I`ve floated it to people in the White House. And what I get back is no comment on that. Which, to me sounds a lot like a yes, it sounds a lot like a yes to me, because see, you know, we`ve been around this block a few times. I think that`s right. And, and I just to go to Adam, Adam made a point a second ago, the one word he didn`t use was responsibility. She has great power.
And with great power comes great responsibility to she doesn`t seem to understand that in addition to not understanding the expertise, having the expertise, or having given the due deliberation or consideration to these matters, I don`t think she has taken seriously the responsibility she has, nor the politics of it. And I think this is what`s most perplexing to people in the Biden, White House, Senate leadership on the House side all around. They all understand Joe Manchin`s politics.
They understand that he`s the only Democrat as Nancy Pelosi has said. Who could get elected in West Virginia, they get why he does what he does, even when it confounds them and frustrates them. She`s from Arizona. It`s not a blue state, but it`s not West Virginia. It`s a state Joe Biden carried as Ro Khanna pointed out earlier on in this program. It`s a - it`s a trending purple trending blue state where the politics give her much greater latitude than the politics that constrain Joe Manchin. So that just makes it all the more mystifying and all the more apparently irrational, that she is more, in some ways, apparently more obdurate on these matters than either Senator Manchin is.
O`DONNELL: Yes. And Adam, what I`ve been watching here is that - is that Joe Manchin represents a continuity of sorts with the kind of Democrat we`ve always had. And if you go back, you know, two Democratic presidencies to the beginning of the Clinton Presidency, you had 57 Democrats and a minimum of six of them were just like Joe Manchin and actually much more conservative than Joe Manchin.
They were from Georgia, they were from Oklahoma. They were from Louisiana, Texas, places like that. That used to deliver Democrats to the Senate. And so the oddity or the difference now is that you`re seeing that the - well, there`s just one of them, and now, one and a half or two, depending on how you count the Sinema.
JENTLESON: Right? You know, continuity is not a word I would use to describe a Senator Sinema`s career. I mean, she started her life in politics as a member of Green Party supporting Ralph Nader, and now she`s become supposedly a very conservative Democrat. I think it`s a little bit hard to credit. The substance of that shift is being purely about principle. I think that to John`s point about Arizona being a purple-ish state, you know, you sort of have a control case here in Senator Mark Kelly, her fellow senator from Arizona, who is doing very well in Arizona by strongly backing President Biden`s agenda.
Sinema is doing worse than Kelly by just about every measure by taking this disposition. So it seems like she`s sort of putting the, the erraticness of her position first and sort of this desire to be front and center ahead of policy, ahead of principle, ahead of responsibility, and in many respects ahead of good politics when you get down to the Brass Tacks because Kelly is doing better than she is.
O`DONNELL: Adam Jentleson and John Heilemann, thank you both very much for joining us tonight.
JENTLESON: Thank you.
HEILEMANN: Thank you, Lawrence.
O`DONNELL: Coming up. The breaking news of the January 6th Select Committee is that they are issuing new subpoenas. Congressman Jamie Raskin, a member of that committee will join us next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O`DONNELL: Tonight the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th attack on the Capitol issued a second round of subpoenas, this time targeting 11 Donald Trump supporters who were involved in organizing events before the attack on the Capitol. That includes organizers of a rally on January 6th, where Donald Trump urged his supporters to head to the Capitol to "fight like hell".
The subpoenas seek planning and funding records including any coordination with the Trump White House. Last week the committee issued subpoenas to force top Trump White House officials today, the spread of the big lies amplified by Donald Trump or discussed during the house hearing on "confronting violent white supremacy". John Cohen, who focuses on counterterrorism and the Department of Homeland Security, said this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN COHEN, COORDINATOR FOR COUNTERTERRORISM, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY: So when public figures whether they be in the media, whether their elected officials or former elected officials, amplify and spread those narratives, they validate them. And when they validate them, they increase the potential that an individual who`s vulnerable to being influenced, vulnerable to being influenced to commit an act of violence. We`ll see this as a legitimate rationale for committing an act of violence.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: Joining us now is Democratic Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland. He`s a Member of the House Select Committee on the January 6th attack, and he served as the Lead Impeachment Manager during the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump in the United States, Senate. Thank you very much for joining us tonight. Congressman, you - you`ve already had a first round of subpoenas out there. Have you gotten any response from the attorneys for the people involved, indicating they will resist production of documents or resist the subpoena for their testimony?
REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): That not to my knowledge, of course, Donald Trump is out there talking about executive privilege and trying to delegitimize the work of the Select Committee. The interesting thing about that executive privilege argument, of course, is that it`s always adhered to the President, not a former president, much less to the President`s assistants and officials. But also, even in those cases where the Supreme Court has taken it seriously, like U.S. versus Nixon, the Court has said that what you balance is the public`s overwhelming interest in the right to know against a serious national security concern.
But here the public`s overwhelming interest in, in getting the information about the attack, and the national security interests are both on the same side. Both of those factors militate for discovery and not for secrecy. So we think that the argument is essentially empty, it`s devoid of merit. And, you know, the situation couldn`t be more serious. I`m really glad you showed that clip of Mr. Cohen`s testimony, because what he was pointing out was the big lie, the propaganda, the disinformation, can lead to two kinds of terrorist attacks. One is the kind that we saw on January 6th, which was massive, it was coordinated, it was organized there was a lot of money behind it.
But the other kind is the sort that we saw, like in the tree of life, synagogue attack back in 2018, or the Charleston Emmanuel Church killings back in 2015, where there are lies, propaganda and hate put up online, and then it activates one lone wolf individual to go out and kill people. And that kind of thing is even more difficult to deal with. Then, you know, what the President - Former President accomplished on January 6th, which was basically the fusion of all of these different violent extremist sects like the proud boys, the Aryan Nations, the 3 Percenters, the Oath Keepers, into a mass fighting violent street movement, which is what they did, and of course, they broke our windows, they injured or wounded 140 cops, and they delayed the county electoral college votes for the first time in American history in the most serious attack on the Capitol, basically, since the war of 1812.
O`DONNELL: There are reports that the - that your committee might be reaching out to people who have pleaded guilty already in the attack on the Capitol in and hoping to get information from them. Is that something that you`ll be doing in coordination with the Justice Department? And will the prosecutors of those cases be able to share information with you about these people?
RASKIN: Well, we`re interested in hearing from anyone who was involved in the events, and especially those who have misgivings now and regret the way that they were pulled into this nightmarish attack on the U.S. government and there`s a tip line that people can get in touch with us through but we`re getting lots and lots, lots of information about what took place or piecing together the complete story and it`s obviously an overwhelmingly complex sequence of events. And yet you don`t knock over the U.S. Capitol spontaneously. That requires a lot of systematic coordination and planning, and it takes a lot of money too.
O`DONNELL: Congressman, before you go. Let me get your sense of what`s going to happen in the house tomorrow. And what Speaker Pelosi his options are with the senate bipartisan infrastructure bill?
RASKIN: Well, because I`ve been so involved in this attack on democracy, Lawrence, I see that all of our budget machinations through that prism, and so I`m not as tied into the most recent inside scuttlebutt about what`s happening with Senator Sinema or Senator Manchin, but I see it in kind of more macro historical terms. Failure is not an option for us because democracy is at stake we`ve got one Democracy Party, which is the Democratic Party we have another political party that`s basically been hijacked by one right wing authoritarian guy who is demanding on absolute power for himself and people going along with it.
And so they position themselves outside of the constitutional order. And so I believe that the cooler heads will have to prevail that we will get everybody`s egos under control, and we`ll all be moving forward together not too far to the work, not too far the starboard but an even keel for the Democratic Party and for the country.
O`DONNELL: Congressman Jamie Raskin of the Democracy Party thank you very much for joining us tonight.
RASKIN: My pleasure Lawrence.
O`DONNELL: Thank you. Coming up Fox is attacking New York`s New Governor Kathy Hochul about her religion. That`s next.
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O`DONNELL: The other night Tucker Carlson condemned some people who he says are in a cult that believes there is no power higher than government. He called it the cult of coronavirus, which he says has become a new religion he said quote, you`re not going to hear Joe Biden doubting this new religion. Joe Biden was baptized in Catholicism at birth, and has never wavered from that religion, and is probably the most religious president we have ever had. Tucker Carlson`s favorite President Donald Trump is obviously the least religious president we have ever had. Most of Tucker Carlson`s outrage was aimed at the New Governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, who he calls "one of the high priestesses of this new faith".
Kathleen Courtney was baptized and cooked into Catholicism at birth by her - with her Irish Catholic parents. She has never wavered from that faith. She took the married name Hochul 37 years ago in a Catholic Church during the sacrament of matrimony and on Sunday, at a socially distance religious service in Brooklyn.
Governor Hochul spoke of many things including spreading the word that people should get the vaccine for coronavirus, Tucker Carlson said "Hochul was the vaccine messiah preaching the undying word of St. Anthony Fauci, Governor Hochul, spoke for 10 minutes and did not mention the name Anthony Fauci. And she could not have made it more clear that she believes in a power higher than government. Here is how she began.
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GOV. KATHY HOCHUL (D-NY): The Praise Be to God, this is the day the Lord has made. Amen, Amen.
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O`DONNELL: She didn`t think that Sunday was the day that government made Kathy Hochul`s education in Catholicism while she was growing up in Buffalo, was just like Joe Biden`s they think about religion in their lives and in their work in the same way. And that can be heard in the way Governor Hochul framed her remarks at the Christian Cultural Center in Brooklyn on Sunday morning.
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HOCHUL: Everything I have done in life has been because of the Grace of God leading me to that place. And now God has asked me to serve humbly as your servant, as your governor. And yes, it is the first female governor. That`s kind of exciting, but I feel the responsibility more than ever because of that, because I know I also cannot let my sisters down. I have to succeed for them.
And if I can demonstrate that women can govern with strength, courage, but also heart and compassion and show a different way to lead this state, when we bring people together as women so naturally do, then other women will be able to follow behind me and step into the roles of power, that`s what`s on my shoulders right now, the weight that I bear but I embrace that opportunity.
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O`DONNELL: And Governor Hochul said this about vaccination.
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HOCHUL: I wear my vaccinated necklace all the time to say I`m vaccinated, all of you. Yes, I know, you`re vaccinated. You`re the smart ones. But you know, there`s people out there who aren`t listening to God, what God wants, you know this, you know who they are. I need you to be my apostles. I need you to go out and talk about it and say, we owe this to each other. We love each other. Jesus taught us to love one another.
And how do you show that love, but to care about each other enough to say, please get vaccinated because I love you. I want you to live. I want our kids to be safe when they`re in schools. I want you to be safe. When you go to a doctor`s office or to a hospital and are treated by somebody. You don`t want to get the virus from them. You`re already sick, we wouldn`t be there. We have to solve this, my friends. I need every one of you. I need you to let them know that this is how we can get fight this pandemic.
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O`DONNELL: This is how the governor who was falsely accused on Fox of renouncing her religion and in her remarks on Sunday.
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HOCHUL: As you heard in the earlier songs today and they`re so beautiful and I thank them for lifting my heart and my soul listening to music. One of the messages was, God will keep his promise to you. God will keep his promise to you. And here`s my promise to you, my friends, I will use the inspiration of God in my life and fight for you every single day as your governor and beyond. Thank you very much for listening. Thank you for the privilege of representing you.
O`DONNELL: We`ll be right back.
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O`DONNELL: The Senate will make some progress tomorrow at 10:30 a.m. on a vote to avoid a government shutdown. But what happens in the house in the senate after that tomorrow? Was just a bunch of question marks on Katie Porter`s phone tonight? That is tonight`s last word. "The 11th Hour with Brian Williams" starts now.
BRIAN WILLIAMS, MSNBC HOST: Well, good evening once again day 253 of the--