Summary
MSNBC continues its coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. Senior Senator from Minnesota, member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Amy Klobuchar is interviewed. The Department of Homeland Security officials fear that a ransomware attack on state or local voter registration offices and related systems could disrupt preparations for the November 3rd election or cause confusion or long lines on Election Day.
Transcript
ARI BERMAN, SENIOR REPORTER, MOTHER JONES: And it's going to force the Republican Party to either double down on voter suppression or to change their strategy and get away from some of this stuff if it starts to backfire on them like it seems to be backfiring right now.
CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST: Yeah, I think that's really the question and part of the reason that the stakes are so high in this election above everything else. It's just this sort of breaking point of when a party decides that these kind of anti-democratic tactics are no longer worth it.
Ari Berman, who does fantastic reporting on this -- as always, great to have you.
BERMAN: Thanks so much, Chris.
HAYES: Happy birthday, Nora, too.
BERMAN: Thank you.
HAYES: That is ALL IN on this Monday evening.
"THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW" starts right now.
Good evening, Rachel.
RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC HOST: Good evening, Chris. Thank you, my friend. Much appreciate it.
And thanks to you at home for joining us this hour.
Twenty-two days until the election. When election day arrives, again, just 22 days from now, when election day arrives and you wake up full of anxiety about what's going to happen that day in terms of the election results, when you wake up on the morning of election day, will you be able to say to yourself that morning, well, whatever happens, I know that I did all I could do?
I'm thinking of your mental health here. The whole country right now has collective anxiety and frankly collective dyspepsia over what's going to happen in the election with the Congress and a lot of states with the governor's race or the control of the legislature, with the all-important control of the United States Senate, and, of course, with the presidential race.
The only thing I can tell you to do to protect your mental health and reduce both your anxiety and your stomach acid is to do it now. Sit down. Talk with your family or your partner or your best friend or your kids or whoever you make important decisions with. Figure out what you personally can do to apply your own self toward bringing about the election outcome that you want. And then go do it right away.
We are -- I mean we're here. Three weeks and one day left. If you are going to do anything, this is the time to do it. And when you wake up on Election Day, won't you want to know that you have done all you could have done?
I mean, and, yes, that's your personal voting plan in terms of getting your vote in and your vote counted. But it's more than that, right? If you are going to donate, if you have money to donate, now is the time. If you are going to phone bank for a candidate or for a proposition or for a party, now is the time.
If you're going to volunteer for a candidate or for a campaign, now is the time. If you're going to sign up to a poll worker and you haven't done so already, now is the time. The time for thinking about it, for pondering it, for trying to imagine yourself doing something like that, the time for that is coming to an end. It's now time to go.
You are going to wake up three weeks from tomorrow morning wanting to feel like you did all you could. You will be happier and healthy over the next three weeks if you are in fact doing something to help bring about the outcome that you want.
So this is the time to figure out what that is. It is time to hit the "go" button. I'm just saying. I'm saying it because I care about you, and I worry.
Today with just 22 days to go before Election Day, with more than 9.6 million Americans having already cast their ballots for who they want to be the next president. Today, Republicans in the U.S. Senate started the process of trying to jam another hard-line conservative justice onto the Supreme Court, this time to take the Ruth Bader Ginsburg seat.
Amazingly, the Republican chairman of the committee, Senator Lindsey Graham, and the Republican senator who was the last chairman of the committee, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, both those senators are refusing to be tested for COVID-19 in conjunction with these in-person hearings for Judge Amy Coney Barrett.
I mean not for nothing, but Senator Grassley is third in line to the presidency if something, God forbid, should happen to the president. The line of succession would go to Vice President Mike Pence, then after him to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.
Then after her, to Senator Chuck Grassley because he's Senate president pro temp. He's 87 years old, and along with Senator Lindsey Graham, Senator Grassley is refusing for some reason to be tested, apparently because these guys are concerned that their test results might come back positive, which would mean they should not be there holding this hearing in the Senate for the Supreme Court seat 22 days before the election. So, to alleviate that prospect that they'd get a positive test result, they are not being tested.
Now, to be clear, not being tested is not a way to prevent yourself from getting COVID-19. Not testing is not prevention. Not testing is just a way to present yourself from knowing if you've got it, which of course among other things would give you a heads-up that you're infectious to others and you should there for take care not to give it to other people.
That said, Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah was diagnosed with COVID less than two weeks ago, and he showed up today in person, indoors at the this Senate hearing for hours with no mask because -- because -- well, I don't know because. All I can say is he did it. And God bless the committee staff and the other senators in the room with him all day.
As he opened his mouth and talked all day long, diagnosed less than two weeks ago, I hope he feels big and strong and brave for doing that today.
Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, former Democratic presidential candidate, she is a member of the committee that is dealing with this Supreme Court debacle right now, so soon before the election.
Here is how Senator Amy Klobuchar put a fine point on all this today. Of all the comments that all the senators made today with opening statements, I think this was the most worth seeing.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN): It has been said that the wheels of justice turn slowly. And justice, on the other hand, can move at lightning speed as we are seeing here today. We cannot, and you watching at home should not separate this hearing from the moment we are in and from the judge he is trying to rush through, a justice whose views are known and who will have a profound impact on your life.
The president knows this. We have a president who has refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power after an election. Every candidate does that, but not this guy. We have a president who has fired or replaced five inspector generals, Senator Grassley, who has fired an attorney general, an FBI director, and is now going after their replacements.
And now he says this election will end up in court. He is putting the Supreme Court in place, in his words, to, quote, look at the ballots, end quote. Well, I won't concede that this election is headed to the court because you know at home exactly what the president is up to. That's why you're voting. That's why you are voting in droves.
Why are you voting? Well, you know that your rights, your health, your health care is on the line. You know that they are trying to push through a justice who has been critical of upholding the Affordable Care Act, and they're doing it in the middle of a pandemic.
And you can see here in this room the misplaced priorities of this Republican-run Senate, and it's in your hands to change it.
Are they working to pass a bill to help Americans to get the testing they need to save their lives? Are they working to help the moms trying to balance a toddler on their lap while balancing a laptop on their desk? Are they trying to help our seniors isolated, missing graduations and birthdays? Are they passing the bill the House passed that would help our economy?
That's not the priority. Instead, they choose to do this. So, no, we cannot divorce this nominee and her views from the election we are in. We didn't choose to do this now, to plop a Supreme Court nomination hearing in the middle of an election. They did.
Judge, I think this hearing is a sham. I think it shows real messed up priorities from the Republican Party. But I am here to do my job, to tell the truth.
To all Americans, we don't have some clever procedural way to stop this sham, to stop them from rushing through a nominee. But we have a secret weapon that they don't have. We have Americans who are watching, who work hard every day, believe in our country and the rule of law, whether they are Democrats, Republicans, or independents.
They know what this president and the Republican Party are doing right now is very wrong. In fact, 74 percent of Americans think we should be working on a COVID relief package right now instead of this.
Let me tell you a political secret. I doubt that it will be a brilliant cross-examination that's going to change this judge's trajectory this week. No. It is you.
It is you calling Republican senators and telling them enough is enough, telling them it is personal, telling them they have their priorities wrong. So do it.
And it is you voting, even when they try to do everything to stop you. It is you making your own blueprint for the future, instead of crying defeat. So do it.
This isn't Donald Trump's country. It is yours. This shouldn't be Donald Trump's judge. It should be yours.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: Senator Amy Klobuchar today turning the last-minute, desperate Supreme Court play right before the election by the Republicans in the Senate, turning that today into a war cry for the American people to vote them out.
Senator Klobuchar is going to join us live tonight here in just a moment after the first day of confirmation hearings for President Trump's last-minute, urgent nominee to try to get a hard-line conservative justice onto the Supreme Court right before election day. These were the voting lines today in the state of Georgia where early, in-person voting started today.
People in Georgia today waited three hours, six hours, even ten-plus hours in line today to vote. "The Washington Post" reporting tonight that the lines were longest in the state's heavily Democratic strongholds in and around Atlanta, Augusta, Savannah, and Macon, Georgia.
In Gwinnett County, northeast of Atlanta, voters started lining up as early as 4:00 a.m. today. That was three hours before the polls open at 7:00. By the afternoon, the main elections office in Gwinnett County had an eight-hour wait. Two other locations in Gwinnett County reporting five to six hour lines.
By the end of the day today, by the end of in-person early voting today in Georgia, more than 120,000 people had voted just today in that state. But, again, people having to stand in line three, six, nine, ten-plus hours in order to do it.
Meanwhile, this is the latest new shenanigans tactic from Republicans trying to stop people from voting or to stop people's votes from being counted. The California Republican Party setting up fake drop boxes for people to put their ballots into.
The California secretary of state saying that that's a felony. Tonight, the California secretary of state and the state's attorney general issued the state Republican Party a cease-and-desist order over these fake drop boxes where they've been trying to dupe people into sticking their ballots even though they're not official drop boxes.
The Democratic nominee for president, former Vice President Joe Biden, campaigned today in Ohio. Recent polls in Ohio show a dead heat between him and President Trump. There had been a lot of discussion over the past few years about Democrats potentially righting off their prospects in Ohio for any future Democratic presidential contender. Biden keeping it close in Ohio and devoting a campaign trip there today in the last few weeks of the campaign is an interesting development in terms of Democratic confidence. Their beliefs that they may be able to win back places they had previously written off.
President Trump tonight for his part did a rally in Sanford, Florida. On average, recent Florida polls show a -- look at the social distancing there at a Sanford, Florida, rally.
Recent polling in Florida on average shows a narrow Joe Biden lead over President Trump. But this, everybody packed in tight, no masks in evidence appearance in Sanford, Florida, tonight shows -- follows another Florida appearance this weekend by Vice President Mike Pence. Mike Pence this weekend spoke at a huge Florida retirement community called The Villages.
I think The Villages is the largest discrete retirement community in the whole country. It's therefore a like bull's-eye in terms of concentrations of old people at risk for coronavirus infection. Still, just like the Sanford event featuring the president, the Pence tonight -- the Pence event this weekend at The Villages just had everybody packed super close together, all screaming their guts out, almost no masks in evidence at the event.
After the president's event tonight in Sanford, Florida, the president is expected to do a bunch more swing state events in a row. He'll be in Pennsylvania tomorrow, then Iowa Wednesday, then I think North Carolina, Greenville, North Carolina, on Thursday.
And over and over again, even with the president's recent diagnosis, these are large-scale events with no social distancing, with very little mask-wearing. It's just a COVID road show spectacle at this point, but this is apparently how they are going to end their campaign. It's going to have an impact on some of the places they visit.
The mayor of Des Moines telling "The Des Moines Register" today ahead of the president's planned visit there this week, quote, absolutely I'm worried about the spread. We don't want a super-spread event here in Des Moines.
But nevertheless, the president is coming to Des Moines on Wednesday, and if it's anything like tonight's event in Sanford, we shouldn't expect people to be more than a few inches from one another, and we shouldn't expect many masks.
Health officials in Minnesota say they've tracked at least nine COVID infections now among people who attended the president's recent rally in Bemidji, Minnesota. That includes two people who ended up hospitalized.
The president's campaign is so caught up in the disastrous response to the coronavirus pandemic from the president himself and from his administration that they've now started running ads which falsely portray Dr. Anthony Fauci as if he is praising the president on COVID.
And you can imagine why the Trump campaign would want to pretend that President Trump has a different record than he does on COVID. You could see why they'd want to lie and portray Dr. Fauci as endorsing the president on his handling of COVID.
But, you know, wanting to do it and actually carrying it out are two different things. And from the response to this false ad, falsely portraying the words of Dr. Anthony Fauci, I'm starting to get a sense that they might regret what they're doing to Dr. Fauci here because he's not taking this quietly.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Should the Trump campaign take this ad down?
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: You know, I think so, Jake. I think it's really unfortunate and really disappointing that they did that. It's so clear that I'm not a political person, and I have never either directly or indirectly endorsed a political candidate. And to take a completely out of context statement and put it in which is obviously a political campaign ad, I thought was really very disappointing.
TAPPER: What would you say if I told you I heard that the Trump campaign was actually preparing to do another ad featuring you?
FAUCI: You know, that would be terrible. I mean that would be outrageous if they do that. In fact, that might actually come back-to-back to backfire on I hope they don't do that because that would be kind of playing a game that we don't want to play. So I hope they reconsider that if, in fact, they are indeed considering doing that. I hope that they reconsider and not do that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: Dr. Anthony Fauci should not be messed with by the Trump campaign or anyone, right? We've got well over 200,000 Americans dead from an infectious disease pandemic that is accelerating after already killing more than 200,000 of us. He's the top infectious disease expert in the United States government and has served multiple presidents of both parties with incredible distinction.
Now they're deciding that he's going to be their target. They're going to take him on. They're going to lie about him in defiance of him saying, hey, cut it out.
It's a strategy. I'm not sure they have a complete measure of who they're dealing with here and the kind of reputation that he has earned.
I mean this ad that falsely portrays Dr. Fauci as if he is endorsing the president is something that the campaign is defending against Fauci saying those are not my words. That's not what I said. You shouldn't use me that way.
Fauci himself punching back is a considerable thing. But here's more. Here's actually an exclusive that you haven't seen anywhere else. This is just out tonight from the group Republican Voters Against Trump.
Again, this is something you haven't seen anywhere else. This is brand-new. We have just obtained it from them. It's launching tonight.
Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OLIVIA TROYE, ADVISOR TO THE VIP FOR HOMELAND SECURITY, COUNTERRORISM: I'm Olivia Troye. I worked on the Coronavirus Task Force from day one, side by side with Dr. Anthony Fauci. I witnessed Donald Trump and senior White House officials routinely sideline and discredit Dr. Fauci both privately and publicly.
And now, the Trump campaign is twisting Dr. Fauci's words in a campaign ad for their own political gain. It's gross and upsetting and typical of a White House that has no regard for the truth.
For Donald Trump, it's always about him. For Dr. Fauci, it's always been about serving the American people.
Join me as a Republican and former Trump administration staffer who is voting for Joe Biden.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: Again, that is just out tonight. That is the first time that ad has played anywhere. New ad from Republican Voters Against Trump, defending Dr. Anthony Fauci as the Trump campaign starts to air ads falsely claiming an endorsement of President Trump on his handling of COVID from Fauci.
As I mentioned, Dr. Fauci is objecting loudly to that himself. Republican voters against Trump with this new ad tonight, they're basically trying to backstop Dr. Fauci and try to defend him from what the Trump campaign is doing. But the national case numbers right now on COVID look absolutely terrible.
The president this weekend at the White House told a not socially distanced crowd summoned for a campaign appearance that the virus is disappearing. It is not disappear. By all accounts, we appear to be heading into a third peak.
More often than not in recent days we are once again topping, you know, 50,000 new cases a day, which puts us back to the bad old days of where we were in the late spring.
Over the past week, the seven-day rolling average for new cases reached new record highs in more than a dozen states. Alaska, Colorado, Indiana, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, and Wisconsin, they've all had new case numbers within the past week.
In North Dakota, the new cases curve right now looks terrible. Look at North Dakota. I mean, North Dakota has been going up rapidly and with increasing steepness since the early part of July. Last month alone, over the month of September, the state of North Dakota saw an 80 percent rise in cases in one month.
Today, for a fifth straight day, the state hit a record number of new cases. There's no statewide mask requirement in North Dakota. The Republican governor there is up for re-election, and he keeps say publicly that North Dakotans wouldn't follow a mask requirement even if he instituted one, so he's not going to bother.
The state has been through three state health directors in the past four months. This is as the state has developed into the fastest growing epidemic in the country. They've gone through three state health director in four months, the last health director lasted only two weeks before he quit.
Hospitalizations keep peaking in North Dakota and then peaking again and then peaking again. For a glimpse of what that means, look at this snapshot in time. A month ago, the number of people in the hospital with COVID in North Dakota, a month ago, the number of people hospitalized in North Dakota was 65.
One month ago, 65. A week ago, the number was 112. Today, the number was 158.
And in a state as small as North Dakota with as limited of hospital capacity, that's sort of the state of North Dakota getting to the end of their rope. Local health director in Bismarck, North Dakota, Renae Moch, told "Newsweek" magazine today, quote, in my lifetime, North Dakota has never seen anything like this, where all hospitals are being impacted at the same time. That said, the area that she serves is in a particularly bad way.
As of today, the state says there are a grand total of 29 ICU beds left available in the entire state of North Dakota. In the state capital of Bismarck, North Dakota, the state now reports that the grand total of ICU beds available in all of Bismarck right now is one. One available ICU bed in the whole city, plus three staffed regular inpatient hospital beds. One ICU bed, three regular hospital beds for the whole city, for the whole state capital. This thing is not just disappearing.
Joining us now is Renae Moch. She is the public health director in Bismarck, North Dakota.
Ms. Moch, thank you so much for being here. I know this is an incredibly difficult time for your state and your city. Thanks for making time.
RENAE MOCH, PUBLIC HEALTH DIRECTOR, BISMARCK, NORTH DAKOTA: Thank you for having me.
MADDOW: What explains why North Dakota has had such a sharp, steep, and now sustained surge in numbers since early July?
MOCH: So following the Fourth of July holiday, we really saw an uptick in our number of cases, and I think that largely it was attributed to the large gatherings and celebrations that took place during the Fourth of July holiday. Since then we've continued to climb and are now after Labor Day seeing our steepest increase in the number of cases, and it's continuing to rise, and now it's impacting our hospital capacity.
MADDOW: I imagine that in North Dakota, people have to be aware of how steeply the curve is rising, not only the number of new infections will you the number of new hospitalizations that have already resulted -- I mean, we've all been reading. We've all been focusing on it at the national level, seeing hospitals transferring patients around the state, trying to find empty beds. The real strain in terms of ICU beds in particular.
I imagine that has to be dominating in terms of news and local discussions, but for some reason, that doesn't seem to have translated into the kinds of changes in behavior that might slow the spread.
MOCH: It hasn't. And I think the level of severity is maybe not being shared to the right people in the right way. I know that some of our bed capacity, the local hospitals are used to being occupied and being highly full for census.
And so, some of this is normal operation. They've had some essential types of things that have been put on hold from elective types of surgeries from earlier in the year and are now being taken into consideration for surgery. Then, we have COVID cases on top of that.
And then what's very concerning for local public health is the possibility of the influenza season, which is upon us, and what that could possibly mean if we start to see influenza cases increasing in our state with an already stressed system. So that's why local public health is taking -- taking some extra steps to look at that.
MADDOW: As the number of ICU beds available in the state declines to sort of seriously small numbers, seeing less than 30 beds available across the state while those new infection numbers rise so steeply, and so you know that that's going to result within a couple of weeks in, you know, additional people turning up sick and needing hospitalization, with Bismarck where you are having only one ICU bed available right now, only three staffed hospital beds beyond that available, I have to ask if there's some sort of plan B, if there's any plan to build field hospitals or to come up with some other sort of plan for how people can be taken care of, especially in an intensive care setting. It feels like you as a state are really being pushed to your limit.
MOCH: So I know here in Bismarck, when we are that short on beds, they often look to other facilities within the state. So likely Fargo, which is about a three-hour drive from Bismarck.
And so, if we're thinking about someone that maybe suffers a heart attack or a stroke and needs that emergency care and would end up in an ICU, if there's not a bed, they could be transported to Fargo or out of state possibly if there was no room at Fargo hospitals.
And so that is something that we're keeping track of here. I know the state health department is keeping track of the ICU beds. We are prepared. Hospitals have their surge plans and their tiers in place, and I know one of the local hospitals has added additional 14 COVID beds within the last couple weeks, and I think those are already occupied.
And so as we continue to add beds and they're filling, we look to that next stage. And when you're looking at that next stage to tier three, are you looking for additional bricks and mortar? You know, there are possible site locations where we could set up hospital facilities and field hospitals if needed, if that were the dire situation that we were in.
We hope not to get to that point. But the big concern, I think, for us too is to consider not just the bricks and mortar of it but the staffing and who's going to take care of those patients. We are already short on staff for nursing, and that was a problem before the pandemic was here. And it's just been exacerbated by the number of COVID patients that we're seeing.
And then if we have flu patients on top of that, the biggest concern rather would be staffing and not necessarily the ability to set up additional bed locations.
MADDOW: Right, because the beds are only useful to the extent that they're staffed by the expert careers that need to be there, especially in an intensive capacity.
Renae Moch, public health director in Bismarck, North Dakota, you're really up against it, you and your colleagues. Thank you for helping us understand.
Please keep us apprised. There's a lot of national interest and concern about what's happening in North Dakota right now. Keep us apprised as to how things go and good luck to you and your colleagues.
MOCH: Thank you very much.
MADDOW: All right. We've got much more ahead here tonight. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MADDOW: In 2013, an anti-abortion group at Notre Dame University, a group called Faculty for Life, which is not like faculty with tenure -- it means faculty against abortion rights -- they ran this full-page ad criticizing the Roe versus Wade Supreme Court decision and affirming their commitment to making it illegal for a woman to get an abortion in the United States.
As you can see, Amy Coney Barrett signed on to that ad as a law professor. She's right there near the top.
Again, this was 2013. Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed as a federal appeals court judge four years later in 2017. She was nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court this year in 2020.
But Professor Barrett didn't disclose to the Senate, to the senators considering her nominations as a judge -- she didn't mention that she signed on to this ad until late last Friday, when she included it in a supplemental filing that was sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee. In that filing, she also just remembered to mention that she had given two talks to anti-abortion student groups, talks that she had never previously disclosed.
These are all things you would have expected her to disclose initially, right, given that abortion is a live issue in the courts and judicial nominees are supposed to disclose statements that they have made that might give senators an inkling of their position on issues before the courts.
Here's something that's even more curious, though. I want to show you another ad. This one is two pages. It ran a few years earlier. It ran in 2006, and on one side of the ad you can see it says, quote, it's time to put an end to the barbaric legacy of Roe versus Wade and restore laws that protect the lives of unborn children. It calls Roe versus Wade, quote, an exercise of raw, judicial power.
On the other page of the ad, it reads in part, we the following citizens of Michiana, which means I think the region around South Bend, Indiana, and southwestern Michigan -- we the following citizens of Michiana, oppose abortion and defend the right to life from fertilization. One of the Michiana citizens who signed that was now Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett. Her signature on that ad was first reported within the last few weeks, but it turns out that Judge Barrett has never disclosed her signature on that ad to the Senate Judiciary Committee, not in her initial Senate filing, not in the supplemental package that she submitted at the last minute on Friday. She has refused to mention it altogether.
I mean, here's a judicial nominee saying in writing, I oppose abortion, and Roe versus Wade is barbaric. That's like the definition of the kind of thing you're supposed to disclose to the Senate if you've made public pronouncements like that and signed your name to things like that while you're being considered as a judge. But she's being considered as a judge, and she has not disclosed that to the Senate even now.
And whether or not Amy Coney Barrett continually refuses to acknowledge it, this is part of her record that she's trying to keep hidden?
Judge Barrett has signed onto at least two of these anti-abortion ads declaring herself a fervent opponent of abortion, and she's also been an active member of the anti-abortion faculty group while she served as a law professor at Notre Dame.
Despite that, President Trump and other members of the Republican Party keep insisting they have absolutely no idea what she thinks about abortion or what she would think about Roe versus Wade if it came up before her as a justice on the Supreme Court.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I would never presume how judge Amy Coney Barrett would rule on the Supreme Court of the United States.
SEN. CHUCK GRASSLEY (R-IA): Democrats and their allies shouldn't claim to know how any judge would rule in any particular case.
SEN. JONI ERNST (R-IA): I think the likelihood of Roe v. Wade being overturned is very minimal. I don't see that happening. Truly I don't see that happening.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We don't know her view on roe v. Wade. We don't know her view.
(END VIDEO CLIPS)
MADDOW: You don't know her view. Why would you think she's against abortion? Why would you think she's against Roe v. Wade?
President Trump himself said explicitly in 2016 he would only appoint judges who were explicitly willing to overturn Roe versus Wade. He has also said that Judge Barrett could be the deciding factor that would overturn Roe versus Wade.
Fundamentally, though, this is a very unpopular position. A Fox News poll release last week found that 61 percent of registered voters said they want Roe v. Wade to stand. Only 28 percent said it should be overturned. That's a more than two to one margin.
A "Washington Post"/ABC News poll released this morning shows again more than two to one, 62 percent say the Supreme Court should uphold Roe. Only 24 percent say it should be overturned.
The Republicans are full steam ahead with the Amy Coney Barrett nomination. A majority of voters think that the Senate also shouldn't be even considering a Supreme Court nominee until after the election. A new "Washington Post"/ABC News poll shows that 52 percent of Americans believe that filling the seat should be left to the winner of the next presidential election and a senate vote next year.
None of what the Republicans are doing right now is popular, and yet they are doing it anyway as fast as they possibly can, three weeks before the election, let's get this nomination rammed through.
For their part, Democrats are doing what they can to talk to the American people about what is at stake, what they can do tactically remains to be seen. But the Democrats are highlighting what this is going to mean not just in terms of the court in the abstract, but in things that affect people's everyday lives, including the right to have an abortion in this country and also whether or not any of us have health insurance, an issue that very much is hanging in the balance with this nominee.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. DICK DURBIN (D-IL): Let's be very honest about this. This president has never suffered an unuttered thought. He gives us 25 tweets a day to tell us what's going through that fertile mind. We know what he thinks because he tells us what he thinks.
And he made it clear that he wants his Supreme Court and this nominee to join him in eliminating the Affordable Care Act. This is his litmus test.
SEN. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE (D-RI): Republicans in Congress tried and failed to repeal the ACA more than 70 times. It's in the Republican Party platform for justices to reverse the ACA decision. Trump has over and over said this is his reason. And now, we're in this mad rush to meet the November 10th argument deadline, and colleagues pretend this isn't about the ACA. Right.
KLOBUCHAR: The truth matters, and the truth is America, that this judicial nominee has made her views so clear, and this president is trying to put her in a position of power to make decisions about your lives. The Affordable Care Act protects you from getting kicked off of your insurance. That's on the line.
The president has been trying to get rid of Obamacare since he got in power. John McCain went in and stopped it with that big thumbs-down. Then they went and brought a case to the U.S. Supreme Court, and they're now trying to stack the deck against you right now.
(END VIDEO CLIPS)
MADDOW: Senator Amy Klobuchar speaking today at the first day of confirmation hearings for President Trump's Supreme Court nominee just three weeks before the election. Senator Klobuchar joins us live here next.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN): You don't have to be a lawyer or a senator to figure out where this nominee is coming from. Despite my colleague's comments from the other side of the aisle about how somehow this judge's decisions are in some ivory tower and they're not going to affect people's lives, they're going to affect people's lives. Our colleagues on the other side can do what they want to distract from the real issues from the American people, but the real issue for the American people is their rights, their health care, their health.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: Joining us now is the senior senator from Minnesota, member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, took part in today's confirmation hearings, Senator Amy Klobuchar.
Senator, it's nice to see you. Thanks for being here.
KLOBUCHAR: Thanks, Rachel. It's great to be on again.
MADDOW: I was struck by your decision today to take this moment that you have with your opening statement in the confirmation hearing for Judge Barrett and to turn it basically to the American people saying, listen, if you are watching this process, you need to know that you have the power here, that your vote here is the thing that matters. That's our magical superpower here, not some tactical trick that's going to be able to stop this. We need the people to stand up.
Can you tell me a little bit about that decision in your approach today?
KLOBUCHAR: You know, I actually thought of the approach when I was at the memorial for Justice Ginsburg in the Capitol, and the rabbi spoke very briefly, unlike senators, and she actually talked about Justice Ginsburg's dissents. And she said, you know, her dissents -- she was writing not just for today. She was writing for tomorrow, and her dissents were not cries for defeat. They were blueprints for the future.
And suddenly, it dawned on me as I was getting ready for this hearing, that's what this is, is that, yeah, are the cards stacked against us here? Do we have some special magical cross-examination that's going to change everything tomorrow with our Republican colleagues? Maybe not. But we have a secret weapon, and that is the American people.
As you just pointed out, they are on our side overwhelmingly. Seventy-four percent think that we should be working on COVID relief for the American people instead of doing what our Republican colleagues are doing to ram through this nominee.
And then you've got the fact that people know exactly why President Trump has put this nominee up, and that's because the Affordable Care Act, something he's been trying to get rid of since he got into office, is on the line. That's because he somehow thinks that the court will end up counting the ballots. Those are his words, not mine, in this election.
So I think it's really important that we make the case to the American people outside of that room.
And I just -- when my Republican colleagues kept talking about, oh, this is obscure. They're talking about the dormant Commerce Clause in the court cases.
No. Their decisions have real-world impacts for people, and that's why I called on people to vote and to call their Republican senators and make it very clear to them that this is a rush to put in a justice, and it must stop.
MADDOW: It strikes me that Judge Barrett's nomination is unusual in the modern era because -- in part because she is totally on the record when it comes to some of the most controversial things that are going -- that she's going to be asked about during the questioning part of her confirmation hearings. She is on the record explicitly and in writing calling Roe versus Wade barbaric and calling for it to be overturned. She has a lifelong history as an adult activist trying to get Roe versus Wade overturned.
Her Affordable Care Act advocacy extends to her explicitly criticizing the reasoning of judges who voted to uphold the Affordable Care Act, saying this they were wrong.
I am struck given that, that the Republican strategy seems to be to try to convince people that on the Affordable Care Act and on Roe versus Wade, she's a blank slate. There's no way to know what she might think. This is -- it's offensive for anybody to try to read anything into it as if it's subtle.
I just -- I don't know how that gets sustained over the questioning you guys are going to do or over the length of this nomination.
KLOBUCHAR: Exactly. I mean, there is very clear evidence here. There is the -- on the Affordable Care Act side, there is the statements that she made in a law journal in Minnesota actually criticizing Justice Roberts, her praise of Justice Scalia's dissent in that case, a different case related to the Affordable Care Act.
It's very clear where she's coming from on that as well as reproductive rights. We know that.
And I think it's our job to put it out there because their claim today that, oh, don't mess with policy. Don't mess with policy. As we said, the decisions the court makes, whether it's who can marry, where you can go to school, your actual right to contraception, they have real-world policy implications.
Yes, they are applying the laws to facts, that's right. But to deny they have policy implications when, you know, the Roberts courts came in there and just got rid of the main guts of a bipartisan campaign finance ruling in McCain-Feingold campaign finance legislation with Citizens United and just throw it out the window, that's what's at stake here.
There are policy implications to everything they do, and my Republican colleagues are going to come to grips with it. If they didn't today, where I think we made the case very strongly, it certainly will tomorrow.
MADDOW: Senator Amy Klobuchar, we are looking forward to tomorrow and the next couple of days. It's a remarkable thing that we're seeing so close to the election.
Senator, thank you very much. Good luck over these next couple of days.
KLOBUCHAR: Thank you very much, Rachel.
MADDOW: All right. Coming up next here, something really important to keep your eye on these next couple of weeks until Election Day. This is news that's just broken over today in the last few days. It's not getting a lot of attention. I think you should know about it. I will tell you about it when we come back.
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MADDOW: Something worth keeping an eye on. "The Washington Post" reported a few days ago that ahead of the election, U.S. Cyber Command is trying to disrupt a surveyor of a ransomware. Ransomware is a kind of attack where hackers locked the computer systems of whoever it is they're targeting, it could be a company, or a hospital. They've done this to the city of Baltimore.
The attackers locked up the computers of their target, and they demand a ransom. They demand a payment in order to unlock the computer system.
The U.S. Cyber Command has been after a particularly dangerous ransomware outfit called Trickbot. Trickbot is described as an army of at least 1 million hijacked computers run by Russian speaking criminals. And they do these ransomware attacks all over the world.
Trickbot, for example, was apparently involved in a ransomware attack just last month on a big health care provider in the U.S. Their attack affected computers on all 250 American facilities run by a company called Universal Health Services.
The fear is if Trickbot can do that to a big U.S. health care provider, what might they be able to do to U.S. election systems?
Quote: The Department of Homeland Security officials fear that a ransomware attack on state or local voter registration offices and related systems could disrupt preparations for the November 3rd election or cause confusion or long lines on Election Day.
That's kind of the back story here.
Now, today's news is this. Trickbot is being targeted, and it is being disrupted now not by the government but by Microsoft. Microsoft just got a court order handing it control of Trickbot's servers. The company says it's now working to dismantle the Trickbot network ahead of the election specifically they're worried about what it's going to do during the election.
Quote: Adversaries can use ransomware to infect the computer systems used to maintain voter rolls or report on election-night results, seizing those systems at a prescribed hour optimized to sow chaos and distrust.
Microsoft says what makes Trickbot particularly dangerous in terms of election security is that it essentially operates as a middle man, a facilitator, what Microsoft calls a malware as a service model. Essentially you're a bad guy, you have some kind of ransomware attack you want to insert somewhere, you want to launch against some target, well, Trickbot will sell that to you. They have a delivery mechanism on this army of hijacked computers and they'll do it to anybody -- do it for anybody that pays them.
One of the things we've learned from investigating how Russia attacked our election in 2016 is that there's a real link between Russian intelligence operations and Russian criminal enterprises. There's a reason people think of the Russian government as kind of a gangster outfit.
The organized crime in Russia and the intelligence services often dovetail. Russian intelligence uses criminal gangs to do some of their dirty work abroad. It gives the government deniability. It also gives the government a way to co-op that country's more effective criminal elements.
So a giant botnet run by Russian-speaking criminals that's proven its ability to disseminate effective ransomware in the U.S., ransomware that could lock up election infrastructure in key locations, that's just the kind of thing we might expect Russian intelligence to exploit.
And this is something we're not talking about Russia targeting voters with disinformation and divisive social media messaging. That's happening, too. This is something different, though. This is them potentially messing with our ability to carry out our elections.
I would usually say watch this space on this one. That's hard to say here because fights between American companies and the American government and Russian hackers tend to be pretty invisible fights. We only know in this case what Microsoft has chosen to tell us.
But heads up nevertheless, protecting the integrity of this election is going to be an everywhere, all-hands-on-deck operation, and some of it already seems very intriguing.
Twenty-two days to go. Let's go.
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MADDOW: One last important note before we go tonight, Wednesday night, two nights from now, vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris is going to be here with me live for the interview day after tomorrow, Kamala Harris. That will be my first interview with Senator Harris since she became the Democratic nominee as vice president of the United States. I could not be more excited and nervous about that interview.
Again, that's Wednesday night. But I'll see you again tomorrow.
Now, it's time for "THE LAST WORD WITH LAWRENCE O'DONNELL".
Good evening, Lawrence.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.END
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