Summary
GOP death cult extending COVID crisis. Lara Logan compares Dr. Fauci to Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele. GOP defends freedom to die of COVID. Red America suffering worst impact from pandemic. Many countries imposing new restrictions in hopes of defeating COVID. Dr. Oz announces U.S. Senate bid in Pennsylvania. Judges consider Trump`s claim of executive privilege.
Transcript
ARI MELBER, MSNBC HOST: THE REIDOUT with Joy Reid starts now. Hi, Joy.
JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: How are you doing, Ari? Have a great evening.
MELBER: You too.
REID: And thank you, cheers.
And thank you, everyone. Good evening. We`ve got a lot to get to tonight, including breaking news from the January 6th committee. Guess what Trump ally is cooperating with the investigation.
Plus, we`re hours away from a monumental day at the Supreme Court with abortion monuments on the line like never before in recent history.
But we begin THE REIDOUT with a deplorable form of Republican gaslighting, comparing mask mandates to the holocaust. Again, last night, it reached a new low when former respectable journalist and current right-wing troll Lara Logan went on want to be Trump T.V. to say this about Dr. Anthony Fauci.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LARA LOGAN, HOST, LARA LOGAN HAS NO AGENDA: And so in that moment what you see on Dr. Fauci, this is what people say to me, that he doesn`t represent science to them. He represents Josef Mengele, Dr. Josef Mengele, the Nazi doctor who did experiments on Jews during the Second World War and in the concentration camps.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Yes, some people say we`re getting some nasty stuff in. Now, to show you how ludicrous but also how offensive that comparison is, let me talk a bit about who Josef Mengele actually was. Known as the angel of death, he presided over deadly and inhumane medical experiments on Jewish prisoners while serving as a physician at the Auschwitz concentration camp. He is described as the embodiment of absolute evil, a doctor assigned to select who would die or who would live, only to be subject to the ghoulish human experiments that he over saw. He was particularly enamored of torturing twins. So, no.
Dr. Fauci, a public servant who has seen this nation through AIDS, bioterrorism, Ebola, swine flu and now COVID is nothing like Nazi Dr. Josef Mengele, nor is Fauci anything like the creator of fascism, Benito Mussolini, of them being Italian. Is that what they`re getting at? Because that too is offensive. It`s a comparison Tuckums Carlson of frozen dinner fame made on his show last night, and, no, it doesn`t make sense.
But making sense is hardly the point. It`s about power and spreading lies and fake outrage so the MAGA squad wins elections. They are today`s angels of death. Refusing to get vaccinated and urging fellow Americans to remain exposed even as their own parents, grandparents and children die of COVID. The numbers prove it. Red America has the highest rates of COVID death but the lowest rates of vaccinations. They are literally killing people and even admitting. One Kansas state senator said, and I quote, there are people that do not want to take this vaccine even at the expense of their own lives. So we`re here defending that liberty, unquote.
So, how many more people have to die before we say what we have all known for quite some time? This faction of the right is a death cult. Six unvaccinated members of a Florida family dead after contracting COVID, mothers dying shortly after giving birth, parents of young children wiped out. And then the harrowing news that more than 140,000 U.S. children have lost a caregiver due to the pandemic. Almost two years in, the trauma is irreversible. It`s a trauma that has crossed generations. It is permanent and unforgiving.
And so we ask again, how many more people have to die before these ghouls are satisfied? There is a way out. But one thing keeps us tethered to this awful pandemic, and that one thing isn`t even COVID.
Joining me now is Claire McCaskill, former Senator from Missouri and MSNBC Political Analyst, and Dr. Kavita Patel, former Obama White House Policy Director and an MSNBC Medical Contributor.
And, Dr. Patel, I want to let you start. Because the idea, first of all, the insult to Jewish Americans to anyone whose family was lost in the Holocaust, of trying to compare a guy who is just trying to do good epidemiology and good medicine and save lives to Josef Mengele is so insane, that it`s hard to believe they`re doing it, but Lara Logan did it. And I want to let you respond.
DR. KAVITA PATEL, MSNBC LEGAL ANALYST: Yes. When I heard this, Joy, I actually kind of had to stop and think did I hear that clip as I thought I heard it? And it`s just because of exactly what I think all of us are thinking, not only is it an insult to so many generations of people who are still grieving, I mean, it`s just tearing open fresh wounds for so many around the world, but it also just creates another environment where we somehow have taken science, politicized it and then not only politicized it but turns science into the enemy in its entirety and then it renders useless anything that comes out of public health people, my mouth, anybody.
[19:05:05]
All of a sudden, anything you say gets set up to fail by default because when you can just throw out crazy comments like that.
And it makes me also really kind of understand -- I have to underscore there is no universe where Dr. Fauci could just spout things like this. He has to be rooted in evidence. That`s what we`re trying to do as doctors. He`s a researcher as well. Where is that accountability in the media? I mean, Joy, I know that we all try to hold ourselves accountable for even what we`re saying on television to people and we make mistakes, I`ve made them. But what is it when we do something that literally translates to people dying. And it really is -- I mean, we`ve all been grieving for 20 months. I truly, truly grieved another kind of wave when I heard that and it has me bracing for more.
I think that`s where I left it and where I`m coming to you tonight. It just tells me how much they want to turn this into something that is nuclear weaponized, really, and I can`t even imagine what is going to come if omicron and other things prove to be -- I hope they don`t -- prove to be more virulent, more severe.
REID: You know, and, Claire, literally you can look at the map and red states have more COVID, more death, more hospitalization, more children going to the hospital. They`re literally killing their own people. And people like Tuckums, who I bet you is vaccinated, whose company makes them prove they`ve been vaccinated. they can`t even walk into the Rockefeller Center building or the one D.C. just unvaccinated and unmasked. They don`t let themselves be at risk.
But they have no problem bumping off their own supporters. Because, I mean, I just spoke with a dad over the last several days who lost his 28-year-old daughter to COVID because her mom pushed her to not get vaccinated. She`s now dead. You can`t take that back. These people don`t care about that dad and mom. They don`t care who dies. They just want people to believe the vaccines are going to change your DNA or spike proteins or whatever B.S. they`re pumping. I do wonder too about the lack of accountability that you can just say that stuff on T.V. Your thoughts, or on streaming or whatever it feels.
CLAIRE MCCASKILL, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: I think there needs to be a rule. It`s a pretty basic rule. You can`t trash the vaccine if you`ve taken it. End of discussion. If you`ve taken the vaccine, you can`t trash it. Because if you have taken it, then you are acknowledging the science that is involved in the life saving qualities that vaccine represents in your own body. So, all of these folks, everybody at Fox News, all of the people that are in Congress, Don Junior, Don Senior, all of them, all of them have taken the vaccine.
There is another golden rule here that I think we ought to talk about, Joy. This is party that has always billed itself as the party of lies. And it`s not just about giving somebody the freedom or liberty to kill themselves by not protecting themselves from the vaccine. Vaccines are about protecting others. They are about preserving the lives of people that you encounter.
Let`s talk about health care workers, the doctor works with every day. They are exposed when these unvaccinated people show up in the hospital and they are then in danger. So this is all about a very Christian principle. Whether or not you care about others enough to accept the unquestionable science that this vaccine not only can save your life but it can save the life of people that you care about and strangers that you encounter.
REID: Yes, indeed. I mean, Reza Aslan, the brilliant Reza Aslan, who is the first person who told me this is a death cult, this Trumpist Republican Party is a death cult, and he`s absolutely right, also is the person who said to me is a religion is when your savior dies for you. If you`re a Christian, you believe that the savior died for you. A cult is when you`re asked to die for your savior. That`s what this is.
And, Dr. Patel, there`s also a whining baby part of it. These people are so mad that anyone would tell them what to do, wear a mask, do something simple, like wear a piece of cloth. They are os outraged that anyone would dare tell them to do something safe to keep other people. It`s like I`m not responsible for other people. I don`t care.
But here is the thing, if they land in Austria, they have a vaccine mandate for the whole population. That`s strict. Italy, real strict. Those mayors on Italy got on T.V. and screamed at people and said, you better take your butt home. They will stop you on the street when they were on lockdown. Greece makes mandatory for everyone 60 or older with fines for not complying. Ghana is making COVID-19 vaccines mandatory for targeted groups. Singapore is going to stop covering the medical bills of the unvaccinated COVID-19 patients. No more money. You don`t get your treatment paid for.
[19:10:00]
Italy is making health passes mandatory, health passes mandatory. You have to walk around with a little green pass.
They have it so easy in the United States, Dr. Patel, because this country politically can`t do those kinds of mandates, that`s why we`re 58th in terms of vaccinations. Your thoughts?
PATEL: Yes, absolutely. Look what is happening right now literally in the recent days around the Biden administration`s mandates across the board, federal contractors, federal workers and even health care workers who are working with Medicare or Medicaid patients. There has been a large kind of appellate decision so that you can`t even enforce mandates.
Imagine this, Joy. You have family member in a nursing home and we know that nursing homes are the hotbeds especially early on and continuing still with people dying, even with breakthrough infections, because their elderly, immunocompromised, in general. And the health care workers in these institutions are not going to be held to a mandate.
I think it`s just speaking to we have long lived in this kind of world of national exceptionalism in the United States where, you know, it is all about me, and I`m not saying that`s something that I haven`t experienced even personally, but I will say that what we are seeing as a global pandemic that a virus doesn`t care if it`s all about me because it about the virus. The virus is the ultimate enemy that we should concentrate on, and instead we`re doing what we would absolute opposite script should be where we picking on each other, we`re politicizing things that make no sense.
Imagine if you descended kind of the midst of this from any of those countries you mentioned and you saw what we were doing and you saw that you can walk into a pharmacy and any of us could get a vaccine. I have medical assistants who come from Central America, from other countries. They see us throwing away extra doses. Every single time it grabs at them and they say, I wish I could send this home to my relatives, think about that.
So, what are we doing here? You know, this is going to be what defines us for generations to come and it sometimes just feels like we`re losing.
REID: No, sometimes, like every day. I mean, have family on the continent who they would love to get the vaccines for free and love to get access. They can`t get it. There are countries where people cannot get access to it and people are like, I don`t want it. It`s embarrassing and it`s stupid.
But here is the thing, Claire. It`s also politically effective. Like the best kind of politics is say, do whatever you want. Get everybody sick you want. Cough on any child you want. Make them sick. It doesn`t matter. It`s all about you. We`re going to make sure you get your tax cuts because it`s all about you. The playing to the greed, the avariciousness, the sort of guile and meanness of people is good politics because it means you can do whatever you want.
Mehmet Oz, Dr. Oz, who as people know him, he used to have a show on this network, he is going to now run apparently for statewide office for Senate in the state of Pennsylvania. I guess he now maybe lives there. Here is what he has written. He wrote this in The New York Times published today. The pandemic, he wrote in the announcement that he`s running, has been mishandled by, quote, elites, like he`s not an elite, who stifled dissenting opinions, mandated policies and closed our parks, shuttered our schools, shut down our businesses and took away our freedom.
This is the seat that Pat Toomey is vacating, Claire. This guy is a doctor: He is a T.V. star. He has got the same sort of Trump characteristics, which means he`s probably in a really good position to win and this doctor is running on the idea that I`m going to be the guy to free you to cough on anybody you want and give them COVID and it`s all good. Your thoughts?
MCCASKILL: Well, first of all, you said doctor and T.V. star and it has to go the other way. He is first a T.V. star, then he kind of is a doctor. Because we did an investigation into Dr. Oz when I was in the Senate and I convened a hearing of a Consumer Protection Committee and grilled Dr. Oz. This is a guy this went on T.V. and said that green coffee beans were a miracle in a bottle. It could burn fat magically. He pushed all of this ridiculous stuff that has no scientific basis whatsoever. And he was exposed in that hearing as a charlatan, as a snake oil salesman. So, no wonder he is embracing Donald Trump. They are both T.V. stars and neither one of them belong in government.
REID: He`s like the surgeon general in Florida. There is a whole bunch of them out there. They have doctor in their title but they aren`t going to help you get well. They`re going to have to get sick. It`s amazing. And he`s probably got a good shot because he`s famous. What a world.
Former Senator Claire McCaskill and Dr. Kavita Patel, thank you both very much.
Up next on THE REIDOUT, Trump`s efforts to block Congress from getting White House records maybe nearing an end as the select committee gets ready for its next contempt vote.
Also, on the eve of one of the most consequential Supreme Court cases in decades, what overturning Roe v. Wade would mean for America.
Plus, he could be the next speaker, the spineless Republican leader who refuses to do anything about the open racism within his caucus.
[19:15:05]
And tonight`s absolute worst, the organized campaign to make sure the books your children read first get the stamp of approval from the white right.
THE REIDOUT continues after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
REID: Three appellate judges today heard arguments about whether Donald Trump can withhold White House records from the select committee investigating January 6th. For months now, Trump has tried to claim executive privilege over documents held by the National Archives, even though the current president whose prerogative it is has waived that privilege.
So, it`s no surprise the panel of judges today appeared skeptical of Trump`s case. As NBC News reports, they seemed prepared to rule that Trump`s authority as a former president is not strong enough to overcome president Joe Biden`s decision that Congress needs material. Notably, one judge bluntly questioned why a former president should be the one to determine what gets released and what doesn`t.
Meanwhile, Trump`s allies are stonewalling when it comes to witness testimony. According to "The New York Times," the committee is now ready to refer Jeffrey Clark for criminal charges of contempt for defying their subpoena and walking out of a deposition. Clark was the guy inside the DOJ who plotted with Trump to lie to officials in six states about the validity of their vote.
By defying the committee on so many fronts, Trump and his former officials are covering up potentially criminal conduct, using frivolous court challenges to try to slow the investigation down.
At the same time, Trump is laying the groundwork to attempt another coup in 2024 if he runs again and the election doesn`t go his way. "The Washington Post" is out with a new report on Trump`s ongoing effort to install big lies stalwarts in key election posts at the state level that even includes volunteer poll watchers, paid precinct judges, elected county clerks and state attorneys general.
He`s packing those offices with loyalists who would be the most willing to overrule you, the voters, and put who they want in office. And that is a very scary prospect.
With me now is Maya Wiley, MSNBC legal analyst, and Kurt Bardella, adviser for the DNC and the DCCC.
Thank you both for being here.
Maya, just listening to the arguments that were made today, what do you think the chances are that Trump prevails in trying to keep these records secret?
MAYA WILEY, MSNBC LEGAL ANALYST: Oh, I think Trump is going to lose.
I have long maintained that this was a flimsy, flimsy attempt to try to find whatever it is he`s trying to hide, which is probably some things that don`t make them look too good, at minimum, in the court of public opinion.
And, as we already heard from the district court judge at the trial level - - it was a very strong opinion, because, essentially, there is a statute, a law that Congress passed that said, it is the protection of the presidency, not the protection of the person that this privilege covers. So it is the sitting president, in this case, Joe Biden, who determines whether or not there`s a real interest of the presidency to protect.
And what interests can there be in Congress seeking to figure out how it was violently attacked, why it was violently attacked, how to prevent it from being violently attacked again, and the extent to which anyone, including the president, may have in any way participated in the events of January 6 that are criminal?
It seems to me that`s very specifically within the legislative purview of Congress.
REID: It`s so obvious, it would seem, that if the theory of the case is that the attempted coup was spawned by either the White House itself or people who supported the current -- the previous president, that president shouldn`t decide whether or not we get to know about it.
It`s absolutely weird that they`re making this argument or that it would embarrass the former -- they made that argument too, that it would be embarrassing, so that should -- that`s why it should be kept secret. That`s not how that works.
Kurt, let`s talk about some of the people who are actually cooperating. So, Mark Meadows, the former chief of staff to Trump, is now cooperating.
Represented Bennie Thompson, he said this in a statement: "He has produced records to the committee and will soon appear for an initial deposition."
However, Meadows` attorney said -- quote -- "We continue to work with the committee to see if we can reach an accommodation that does not require Mr. Meadows to waive executive privilege."
So it sounds like they`re going back and forth just a little bit. But that`s two days after Adam Schiff said in -- a contempt referral that was going to come for him this week. You have also got Brad Raffensperger, who`s Georgia`s top elections official. He was already interviewed for more than four hours by the select committee today.
And he said he spoke at length about a notorious January phone call with Trump in which Raffensperger refused that then-president`s demands to -- quote -- "find enough votes in Georgia to overcome his deficit and hand him the election."
What do you think Trump world is feeling and thinking, knowing that some people are now finally talking?
KURT BARDELLA, DNC AND DCCC ADVISER: Well, I think, Joy, it explains why there are so many who are so close to Trump who are resisting and obstructing this investigation.
They know that, the more people talk, the more it`s going to be -- the worse it`s going to be for them. I think, when it comes to Mark Meadows, again, this is kind of one of those trust, but verify situations. It would not shock me if, at the end of the day, they do this little back and forth with the committee, and end up being on opposite sides.
It would not shock me at all if it turns out that Meadows isn`t being as cooperative as he would like to believe, that this is just a legal tactic for him to try to appear to be cooperative, without actually complying. We will see how that all plays out.
But, at the end of the day, the more that comes out, the more that people are testifying, the more that people are cooperating, the worse it`s going to be for Donald Trump.
I mean, we already know innocent people don`t act like the way that Donald Trump and Steve Bannon and Jeffrey Clark are acting right now. If you have nothing to hide, you cooperate. The fact that anybody would try to obstruct an investigation that`s trying to get to the bottom of one of the darkest days in this country`s history is downright un-American.
[19:25:00]
It`s unpatriotic. It`s a violation of our democracy and our rights. And, at the end of the day, we have to get to the bottom of what happened. And we need to know who was involved, what people knew when, who profited from it, who helped organize it, and who is ultimately going to be held accountable for it.
REID: Yes.
I mean, these people were using burner phones to contact the White House, I mean, obviously, something was up.
Let`s talk a little bit about some of the people who are actually being prosecuted. It`s the low-level people. It`s the stupid people who decided to rush in there and kick in the doorways, Maya, and go inside and defecate in the Capitol, and the guy with the funny horns, who is now trying to switch out his legal team.
He`s decided to hire -- the QAnon Shaman, he`s decided he needs new lawyers, Jacob Chansley has. He got 41 months for the stupidity he did there in the Capitol. He`s hired John Pierce, who represented Kyle Rittenhouse, but was fired by Kyle Rittenhouse and his mother because he`s the one who allegedly set up Rittenhouse with the Proud Boys in a bar when he was 17, where he was there with his mom, and, therefore, it was legal to be in the bar.
That`s who he`s hired. Your thoughts, Maya?
WILEY: Look, you can`t make this up.
I mean, let me just start with the fact that it makes perfect sense that, from a prosecution standpoint, you`re going to start with the easy, obvious cases -- you have got videotape, you have got clear violations -- and work your way up from that.
But I think really what we`re seeing -- and this links not only from the prosecutions, but also to what the January 6 Committee is doing, which is drawing a line between white supremacy and neo-Nazism right into January 6, but also right into the White House, because Alex Jones, adviser to Trump, who is being subpoenaed because Trump apparently asked that he be allowed to speak at the rally, who is someone who has made common cause with Richard Spencer, who has now been found by a jury to have been conspiring for violence in Charlottesville.
Roger Stone, who met with the Proud Boys at an Oregon Republican club committee and flashed a white supremacist OK symbol. These are the people that this January 6 committee is also subpoenaing. So there really is a very clear link between the relationship between both the Trump administration and its acolytes and white supremacy and neo-Nazi behavior, which is violent, which is dangerous to democracy, and which played a key role here in the January 6 violence that we saw and in other violence.
REID: Yes.
And, very quickly, Kurt, the problem is that that is not a -- that`s not a negative enough to get you booted out on the Republican side right now. All of those things that Maya Wiley just said at this point are not a -- they`re not an absolute no.
BARDELLA: Well, I mean, this is the problem that we have right now, is one political party in America has become and has fully embraced being a white nationalist gang, effectively.
I mean, when you see that there are people like Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz and Paul Gosar, it used to be that these people were the outliers in the party, that they were -- they were oftentimes mocked by the Republican Party establishment.
They are the Republican Party establishment now.
REID: They are.
BARDELLA: And so anybody who`s out there who`s thinking about how they`re going to vote, what party they`re going to align with, make no mistake about it. If you`re with Republican Party, you are with the racist white nationalist party.
It is a black and white issue now. There`s no gray area anymore.
REID: Yes. Yes. Well, yes, the weirdos are in charge. That`s for sure.
Maya Wiley and Kurt Bardella, thank you both very much.
Up next: looking ahead to a monumental day at the Supreme Court tomorrow, as it considers whether to turn back the clock on abortion rights in America. The ramifications of this case cannot be overstated.
And we will be right back.
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[19:33:05]
REID: We are hours away from the start of one of the most significant Supreme Court cases in years, which could spell the beginning of the end of Americans` constitutional right to an abortion.
Tomorrow, the Supreme Court will hear arguments from the state of Mississippi, which is outright asking the court to overturn Roe vs. Wade. If that happens, the Guttmacher Institute reports that 26 states are certain or likely to ban abortion, which would force patients to travel hundreds of miles to find a clinic in a neighboring state, assuming they can afford to do that.
Overturning Roe is extremely unpopular with the American people, it turns out. In a "Washington Post"/ABC poll, 60 percent say that Roe v. Wade should be upheld, and 75 percent say that the decision to have an abortion should be left to a woman and her doctor.
But the court isn`t beholden to popular opinion.
Joining me now is Neal Katyal, former acting U.S. solicitor general, and Lizz Winstead, comedian, co-creator of "The Daily Show," and founder of Abortion Access Front.
Thank you both for being here.
And, Neal, I`m going to start with you, because I just assume they`re going to overturn it. And I just base it on the fact that you have a couple of the justices who`ve been outright very clear that they want overturn it. Justice Roberts is one of them.
But I`m just going to go through and put up the "Washington Post" analysis of where these justices stand. They have Roberts as hard to peg. Thomas has written that Roe was wrong, wrongly decided. Alito, previous support for restrictions. Gorsuch, few rulings on abortion to really go by.
They labeled Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett as basically conservative, but maybe they would believe in super stare decisis or being incremental, which I`m not sure I believe. And then there are the three liberals.
Am I wrong to be skeptical? Because, when John Roberts was actually -- went through his confirmation hearings, he said that he was only acting as a lawyer when representing a client when he wrote in a legal brief filed by the George W. Bush administration that Roe v. Wade had no support in the text, structure, or history of the Constitution.
I take that to be the views of all the conservatives. And I just think you`re going to overturn because they want to.
[19:35:03]
NEAL KATYAL, MSNBC LEGAL ANALYST: So, Joy, I think tomorrow is maybe the most important case in our lifetimes, because, for -- since 1973, women have been guaranteed a right to an abortion under Roe vs. Wade, a 7-2 decision, written at a time when there were seven Republican-nominated justices on the Supreme Court.
And so, when you look at that tally, I think that that`s the cause for concern. I`d say, if there`s any hope, we`re going to be watching the chief justice and perhaps Justice Kavanaugh, because both of them do have a professed desire to be incremental.
Now, the problem is, a lot of justices say that at their confirmation hearings, and then actually don`t live it in practice. Justice Thomas said he hadn`t thought about Roe vs. Wade ever during his confirmation hearings, and then turns around two months later and says Roe is obviously wrong and should be overruled.
And so one of the things -- we will be covering this tomorrow live from -- on our network on MSNBC, and we will be actually taking the questions the justices are asking and the statements they are making and contrasting it with what they said at their confirmation hearings, because the confirmation hearings, unfortunately, have been a charade.
And I think we have to be really worried. We`re really worried about Roe vs. Wade, given the Republican project, which has been since 1973 to get that decision overruled.
REID: Amen.
And, by the way, when Roe first happened, Lizz Winstead, the Christian conservatives did not react to it, because they were more focused on segregated academies not being able to get their tax breaks. They weren`t really focused on Roe.
But they are focused on it now. And there has been a list of justices that were just handed to Republican presidents, including Donald Trump. Donald Trump didn`t pick these people, Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett. They -- it was on the Heritage Foundation list. And he just did what they -- what he was told.
And they are picked because they want to overturn Roe. They will say whatever they have to get in. But that`s what they`re going to do, right? I mean, so for you, who has an organization that is actively trying to protect women in this instance, what happens if they overturn it?
LIZZ WINSTEAD, CO-CREATOR, "THE DAILY SHOW": I mean, what happens if they overturn it is, we have to do what the Republicans have been so amazing at. We have to really be laser-focused on what is happening in our state legislatures, because these laws are being passed in our state legislatures, and have been the entire time.
And, Joy, it was so interesting to watch your previous segment, because, as we talk about the insurrectionists and the people who just do not care at all about the rule of law, when you look at Mississippi and how this case got to the Supreme Court, the lower court, the Fifth Circuit, the most conservative court in the land, twice said, you know what, this isn`t going to pass muster.
And the state of Mississippi and the extreme conservatives there went to the Supreme Court to say, we want a hearing, and they got one. And that should make everyone take a pause, right?
And so folks learning about who are the legislatures, who are the governors in your state, who are the people who are running solely on this issue, because so many of them are, and looking at the intersections of those people, and white supremacy, and how they feel about guns, and how they feel about all this stuff.
REID: Well...
WINSTEAD: And I think that it`s all intersectional and we need to pay attention closely.
REID: No, I totally agree with that.
And the thing is, Neal, it`ll be like the dog that caught the car. During the Bush II administration, I used to say in talking with Republican friends, you all don`t really want to get this overturned, because then you are going to have to fight women in all of the states. Every state, you`re going to have to fight not poor women, because they don`t have any money.
You are going to have to fight rich women, because rich women are going to go want to get their abortion. They`re going to want their daughters to be able to do what they need to do. So you`re going to have to fight women who thought they were in the club. You are going to have to fight them now.
And what do you think happens then in all of these states, when these state legislatures do what they said they were going to do when they ran, including in Virginia, where that guy secretly said, listen, as soon as I`m in wink, wink, Youngkin, I will do what I got to do.
KATYAL: Yes.
No, there`s been a whole performative aspect to this upon the Republican Party claiming to be pro-life and pass all of these laws, but knowing all the well that these laws will never take effect because of the Supreme Court decision in Roe vs. Wade.
REID: Correct.
KATYAL: If Roe is overturned, they`re going to rue -- live to really regret that day....
REID: Yes.
KATYAL: ... because the idea in 2021 of taking a woman woman`s right to choose away from them?
I mean, that`s basically unthinkable. And I know your poll said 60 percent. I have seen polls saying it`s much higher than that.
REID: Yes.
KATYAL: This is going to be a decision that is immensely out of step with the American people and really American values.
REID: We`re out of time, but, Lizz, is your organization going to be out there tomorrow?
WINSTEAD: We`re out there tomorrow.
And I think what you`re going to see tomorrow is people who are angry and are going to show it and the juxtaposition of how civil disobedience looks in a democracy. And that doesn`t mean you can`t be angry. But it also means you can be respectful. And it also means you can stand your ground in a way that is not violent.
[19:40:14]
And I want people to watch what happens tomorrow, because that is how it`s -- tomorrow is how it`s done, not January 6.
REID: Yes.
And once they take away your rights over your own body, you will see what happens to come next. It`s never good.
Neal Katyal, Lizz Winstead, thank you both very much.
And still ahead: It`s not your parents` GOP. Tracing the downward, not to mention dangerous trajectory of the Republican Party. Who are these people now considered leaders of the once-august party? And how in the world did they get there?
We will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
REID: The Republican Party has had quite a life cycle, with impressive figures like Joseph Gurney Cannon and Nicholas Longworth serving as speakers of the House.
[19:45:02]
But that was more than a century ago. More recently, we have seen a precipitous decline in the quality of Republican leaders like Newt Gingrich, who ushered in the age of hyperpolarization and open moral hypocrisy, Dennis Hastert, who was later accused of pedophile, John Boehner, who couldn`t control the Tea Party or even handle them, and throw granny under the -- throw granny over the cliff guy, Paul Ryan.
These days, who does the Republican Party have in waiting? Why, Kevin McCarthy, whose spinelessness in the face of fascist GOP freshmen make Boehner look like Thaddeus Stevens.
Where has McCarthy did while members of his caucus made racist remarks and threatened the lives of fellow Democratic colleagues. For example, perhaps America`s dumbest congresswoman, Lauren "Pew Pew Pew" Boebert, predictably decided not to use her recent call with Congresswoman Ilhan Omar to apologize for portraying her as a suicide bomber, and instead used it to further attack Representative Omar.
And we also learned today that Boebert did that same tasteless Islamophobic Vaudeville act at a conservative gathering last month. And when a member of Kevin`s party, Congresswoman Nancy Mace, actually did the appropriate thing for once that he was too cowardly to do, condemn the comments, Mace gets attacked and called trash by the ratchet three-named congresswoman from Georgia, who then runs off to call orange-hued retired daddy to complain about Representative Mace.
Wouldn`t you think that little Kevin, who wants to be leaders so, so badly, would show some, I don`t know, leadership? Nah.
With me now, Dana Milbank, columnist for "The Washington Post."
And, Dana, it`s always great to see you.
I want to play for you an old clip of Kevin McCarthy. This is back when he was pretending to be a grown male adult. Here he is condemning Steve King`s comments, which were openly defending white nationalism.
Here he is. It`s hard to believe this is the same guy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): We know that Kevin McCarthy...
REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): First and foremost, I came out at the very moment. That language has no place in America. That is not the America I know. And it`s most definitely not the party of Lincoln.
I will not stand back, as a leader of this party, believing in this nation that all are created equal, that that stands or continues to stand and have any role with us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(LAUGHTER)
REID: Is that the same guy? I mean, if Steve King was around today, would he even condemn him, or what?
(LAUGHTER)
DANA MILBANK, OP-ED COLUMNIST, "THE WASHINGTON POST": What have they done with Kevin McCarthy? Bring him back.
Joy, I think the issue here is, we call Kevin McCarthy the Republican leader, but, really -- you hear of RINOs, Republican in name only -- he`s a leader in name only.
The real power in the caucus, the de facto Republican leader, is your friend Margie Greene, because for the very simple notion that she commands a large enough -- because of her outrageous -- she commands a large enough segment of the House Republicans that Kevin McCarthy can`t remain as leader and certainly can`t become speaker without her say-so.
So, essentially, everything he does has to pass muster with Greene. So I think we need to start recognizing that they have titular leaders in the party, but the real powers are Greene, Gosar and Boebert, the ones who have succeeded in being the most outrageous, the most white nationalist, the most violent in their rhetoric.
That`s how you get power. That`s how you get on FOX News. And that`s how you dominate in today`s Republican Party.
REID: You know, 100 percent. It`s not a party anymore, right? They`re just like -- they`re like a comedy act, like a bad comedy act.
And you`re right. The ones who do the stupidest act -- they`re competing with each other to like out-dumb each other. And that is how they survive, because they get on FOX. They get popular. It`s gay to keep your teenagers locked down if he`s in the room.
It`s Goh -- what is his name, Gohmert? It`s the guy who`s trucking with white nationalists whose family says that he`s unfit to be a congressman?
Like, Margie Green said it very clearly. And I think she ain`t lying. She is saying Kevin McCarthy can`t even be speaker without her, just as you said.
Let`s play her. This is Marjorie Greene about Kevin.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GREENE: We know that Kevin McCarthy has a problem in our conference. He doesn`t have the full support to be speaker. He doesn`t have the votes that are there, because there`s many of us that are very unhappy about the failure to hold Republicans accountable, while conservatives like me, Paul Gosar, and many others just constantly take the abuse by the Democrats.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: That`s him, Gosar.
She ran to daddy Trump to go tell on Mace, who was doing the two-step on CNN, saying one thing about vaccines on FOX, then the other thing. But now she`s, like, trying to be decent, and they`re attacking her. She went and told on her to daddy.
And Trump has released a statement today saying it`s Ilhan Omar who should apologize, disparaging her further. So, once daddy has said that, doesn`t that mean that Kevin McCarthy cannot condemn these remarks, cannot condemn this behavior?
[19:50:07]
Because that lady, Marjorie Greene, will probably be in his leadership team if, in fact, he becomes speaker. It`s going to be the guy who says he`s Donald Trump without the baggage as number two, and it`s going to be probably that lady or one of the other weirdos at number three, right?
MILBANK: Well, yes. I -- right. That`s true.
And I agree that Kevin McCarthy can`t condemn. But I think the real question is, does he wish to condemn? I don`t think we`re talking about the same man you played a clip of a few years ago, because the party has changed so much. And he`s just so nakedly ambitious that he wishes to stay in control.
So think of all the outrages, the two -- the censure, the two members removed from committee, Boebert. We have seen outrage after outrage, and he`s not said a thing.
REID: Yes.
MILBANK: You might get a pass because you have got a poor political hand once or twice.
When you`re doing it steadily, you are the problem.
REID: Yes. That`s right.
MILBANK: You are embracing this white nationalism. You`re embracing the violent rhetoric.
I mean, you showed a picture of John Boehner. He had to deal with Michele Bachmann. But he dealt with her. And he remained the leader. Of course, he left after a while because it was so frustrating.
McCarthy is not even trying. He has...
REID: They ran him out of town.
(LAUGHTER)
MILBANK: Right.
REID: Yes.
MILBANK: He`s handed over the party to the Margie Taylor Greenes of the world.
REID: He has sold his soul. He`s selling his soul to the devil, basically. He`s like, take my soul. I just want to be speaker.
Let me play for you Representative Omar. She had a press conference today. She actually played one of the death threats that she got after Lauren Boebert did her little stupid joke. Here it is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We see you, Muslim sand (EXPLETIVE DELETED) bitch. We know what you are up to. You are all about taking over the country.
Don`t worry. There is plenty that would love the opportunity to take you off the face of this (EXPLETIVE DELETED) earth.
Come get it. But you (EXPLETIVE DELETED) Muslim piece of (EXPLETIVE DELETED) jihadist.
REP. ILHAN OMAR (D-MN): To date, the Republican Party leadership has done nothing to hold their members accountable.
It is time for the Republican Party to actually do something, to confront anti-Muslim hatred in its ranks, and hold those who perpetuate it accountable.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: I`m going to give Representative Ilhan Omar the last word in this segment.
And thank you, Dana Milbank, my friend. Appreciate you.
MILBANK: Thanks, Joy.
REID: And coming up, don`t go anywhere, because tonight`s "Absolute Worst" is next, as librarians across the country grapple with conservatives` organized campaign to ban books that scare them.
We will be right back after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:57:02]
REID: Anyone who knows me knows I love books, history books, novels, comic books. I just love to read. It`s a total coincidence that my married name sounds just like R-E-A-D, but spelled differently.
So, this thing really bugs me that`s happening in our country right now, where so-called conservatives who fear history and who hate the fact that young people might access the true history of this country in books are launching fake grassroots campaigns to try to get books banned, especially books that tell the story of the formation of this country from the point of view of the indigenous, or slavery and post-slavery America from the point of view of black people, or the history and stories of people who are LGBTQ.
In short, the book banners are coming in. And their fake grassroots campaigns aren`t being run by random parents on their own. Oh, no.
They`re being sponsored by right-wing organizations like Heritage Action, the campaign arm of the Heritage Foundation, and a Daughters of the Confederacy-style group called Moms For Liberty, whose Tennessee chapter filed a complaint under that state`s new anti-Critical Race Theory law, objecting to K-12 schools teaching several books about the civil rights movement, including a book about the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who the book banners love to fake-quote to justify their aggression against teaching history.
Why did the Moms For Liberty object to the book "Martin Luther King Jr. and the March on Washington"? Well, because it describes white police spraying powerful fire hoses at black children marching for equal rights, to the point where the water tore off their clothes, which actually happened. So they, of course, have labeled that pornography.
And they are displeased by the fact that the book describes notorious director of public safety Bull Connor as standing for hate more than any other person in Birmingham, which sounds accurate.
Other books Moms For Liberty objected to in Tennessee include "Ruby Bridges Goes to School," a book written by Ms. Bridges, who desegregated a New Orleans elementary school at just 6 years old, accompanied by National Guard troops for her protection, in 1960, also "The Story of Ruby Bridges" by Robert Coles and "Separate Is Never Equal" by Duncan Tonatiuh, because you wouldn`t want children to know that black people were treated as unequal in America.
They also think that learning about the March on Washington would be too traumatizing for white kids. Seriously. Luckily, the Moms For Liberty` complaint was rejected. But they and their allies are not stopping.
They`re accelerating these campaigns all over the country, claiming that books that talk about racism, slavery, the Holocaust, growing up LGBTQ and more, including books by Pulitzer Prize winner Toni Morrison, are unacceptable, offensive, anti-American, and dangerous and, of course, pornographic.
So they want these books banned. Some of the radical anti-history people even want them burned, like "Fahrenheit 451," which they will probably also tried to ban, if they haven`t already, which is why I think we should buy these books even more and give them as gifts or donate them to schools and libraries, because reading is what? Fundamental.
And learning history is important and worthy. And book banners are the "Absolute Worst."
And that tonight`s REIDOUT.
"ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES" starts now.