Summary
House expected to vote on hard infrastructure bill. U.S. added 531,000 jobs in October, jobless rate fell. Biden touts economic benefits of his spending bills. Build Back Better on hold as Democrats focus on infrastructure bill.
Transcript
ARI MELBER, MSNBC HOST: Have a great weekend and keep it locked right now because THE REIDOUT with Joy Reid starts now. Hi, Joy.
JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: Hey, Ari. Thank you very much. I really appreciate it and have a great weekend.
All right, good evening, everyone. We begin THE REIDOUT tonight with the truth Republicans do not want you to hear, President Biden`s economic plan is working and is poised to get yet another boost. The House is expected tonight one of two big parts of President Biden`s agenda, the bipartisan infrastructure frame work, money for roads and bridges and ports, and that could be sent to Biden`s desk to be signed into law as soon as it passes. So, that`s the upside. And it could be big news for people that work in construction and development and electric vehicle production, for example.
What doesn`t appear to be moving tonight is a vote on the second part of Biden`s broad investment plan, the Build Back Better bill, money for things like child care and climate change, basically jobs that will largely benefit women, low income people and the planet.
To make this new strategy to decoupling these two bills, two make that work and finally land this plane, President Biden made a national call to action on the heels of today`s very strong economic news. The October jobs report showed job creation roaring back. 531,000 jobs were added last month and unemployment fell to a modern day record low of 4.6 percent.
Now, it may be hard to process this very good news amid what is a real disconnect between how the economy is actually performing and how the economy feels at the kitchen table when incomes are up but so are prices and your Amazon deliveries are super slow. But as President Biden welcomed the strong jobs report, he made clear the way to tackle those bread and butter issues is to keep moving forward.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT: I want to say very clearly, if your number one issue is the cost of living, the number one priority should be seeing Congress pass these bills.
Send the infrastructure bill to my desk. Send the Build Back Better bill to the Senate. Let`s build an incredible economic progress, build on what we`ve already done, because this will be such a boost when it occurs.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi confirmed that there would be no vote on Build Back Better tonight to buy time to placate moderate Democrats who are demanding numbers on how the bill would be paid for. NBC News learned that as many as seven moderates had been holding out on the Build Back Better part of the plan requesting a Congressional Budget Office score that could take weeks.
Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said that he expects the Build Back Better bill to be passed the week of November 15th, in time for a Thanksgiving gift to the American people. It`s not actually clear if Democrats have enough progressive votes to pass the bipartisan infrastructure tonight or to pass Build Back Better in the Senate even if it passes in November.
Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal underscored that progressives must have both bills together, stressing that if moderates want to see the O score, her members are prepared to wait and vote on both bills together.
So, there are a lot of balls in the air. NBC News reports that President Biden called Congresswoman Jayapal this evening and he continues to make calls to Democratic holdouts.
Joining me now, Congressman Ro Khanna, Deputy Whip for the House Progressive Caucus. So, Congresswoman, thank you so much for being here.
So, I guess, my pretty straightforward question is, is the progressive caucus going to give in and vote for the bipartisan infrastructure bill if it comes to the floor tonight?
REP. RO KHANNA (D-CA): Joy, we`re open to listening to leadership, at least some of us are, and we`re open to the CBC`s proposal to be considered to get the president a win.
Now, I believe the best ways to have both bills voted on and to see if the six votes of the moderates would actually vote yes. I think there is a good chance they would. But I have said at least I and some others are hoping to finding a way forward.
REID: Let me just play for you. This is Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal and she was on with us last night. And she talked about the leap of faith that you all in the progressive caucus would need to take in order to vote for what we called, in shorthand, the BIG, the bipartisan infrastructure bill. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL (D-WA): But I do believe that this is too important to people across this country, to the Democratic Party, to the president for anyone to vote against this once it goes to the Senate. So, no, we don`t have a full and complete assurance. We are taking a bit of a leap of faith. But we`re trusting President Biden, who I believe has done a lot of work to assure himself that he`s going to get 51 votes in the Senate.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: So, here is the challenge, I think, to people in your caucus, I`m not in your caucus obviously, but I can see why somebody like Congresswoman Cori Bush would not have faith.
[19:05:00]
I mean, you have got Joe Manchin driving around in his Maserati, talking about we don`t want an entitlement society. You`ve got Kyrsten Sinema just raking in money. This is the latest (INAUDIBLE) where she takes money from multilevel marketing businesses that want to kill the labor pieces of the bill. She`s got all these other interests, big pharma and others that want to kill other parts of bill.
How do you know that if, in fact, your caucus members, your fellow progressive caucus members go ahead and give the moderates their bipartisan infrastructure bill that all of them won`t just literally leave you all in the lurch and abandon Build Back Better? Because it sure feels like that`s something they could very well do both in the House and in the Senate.
KHANNA: They could, Joy. I guess I trust President Biden. I wasn`t for him in the primary. I co-chaired Bernie Sanders` campaign. But I trust him. I trust the speaker. And what choice do we have? We are so divided in this country. The working class has been left out. We want to try to do something good for working families. We want to finally get money in their pockets. We want to finally have every kid go to preschool. We want to finally do something for the climate.
People say, we`re not negotiating hard enough, it`s because we want to pass something. And, obviously, someone has more leverage if they`re willing to walk away and burn everything down. But I don`t want this president to fail. I want him to succeed. And I guess my plea tonight is let`s just come together as a party. Let`s let this president, who won fair and square the nomination of the presidency, let him lead, let`s deliver for people.
REID: You know, the challenge is let him have a win and let him have a win. It feels like there are Democrats. First of all, the Republicans are off the table. They`re doing stupid memes, showing up in like let`s go Brandon fashion gear. Like they`re off the table. They`re not helping. They are literally a non-entity, moaning about critical race theory and stuff. So, they`re off the table, unfortunately.
But among Democrats, it does feel like there are Democrats that think that just doing the infrastructure bill, because it was bipartisan, which is their favorite thing, because Republicans like it, and because it will impact very directly, let`s be honest, men, men in this country and get a lot of men back to work, that they`re like that`s enough, that the women and the poor people, the people of color, the planet, all of that can wait. Let`s just get bills for the men. And that feels to me like Joe Manchin`s position. And he`s said as much. He was like push the rest of it, the ladies and everybody else could wait until next year.
KHANNA: Joy, it`s not President Biden`s position. He gets it. He understands. He wouldn`t be president if it weren`t for the African- American community. And I think it`s in his bones that he wants to deliver for those who don`t have opportunity. And I believe that he will follow through on climate. He was on the world stage saying America is going to do this. I believe he will follow through for universal preschool. That`s the biggest thing we can do for kids to give them an equal shot when they start first grade.
So, the question is how are we going to come together in a 50/50 Senate with three votes in the House? Progressives have compromised. We`ve compromised time and again. And it`s right that a lot of people were excluded but we have to now come together. And the only way I see is to trust the president and the speaker on moving forward.
REID: Last question, you talked about you were supporter of Senator Sanders when he ran for president. Have you talked to him about what he would like to see the progressive caucus do, and if so, would you be open to telling us?
KHANNA: I`ve talked to him over the past couple weeks, and he rightfully has been pushing for vision, dental and hearing, the most popular provision in the entire bill, and he wants to get as progressive a bill as possible. But the one thing that people didn`t appreciate enough about senator sanders is, ultimately, a team player. He wants this president to succeed and he`s not going to do something that jeopardizes that.
So, we`re pushing as a caucus. I`m going back into the meeting. We want both bills to be voted on. But there are a number of us now who are saying, let`s figure out a way forward and the progressives are willing to put the party and the country first.
REID: How ironic that Bernie Sanders, the independent, is more a team player with the caucus than it seems Manchin and Sinema. What a world. Congressman Ro Khanna, thank you very much. I really appreciate your time, as always. Have a great weekend, if you even get a weekend.
Let`s bring in Juanita Tolliver, Democratic Strategist, and David Cay Johnston, Founder DCReport.org.
I want to start with the good first before we go to the challenging. David Cay Johnston, this jobs report today was actually really good, you know, and it shows that the fundamentals, the structural underpinnings of the U.S. economy are actually strong. So, why do you think that it doesn`t feel like that for sort of the average person? But do you agree with me that actually this a very strong report today on jobs?
DAVID CAY JOHNSTON, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER: We`ve had an extraordinary nine months of job growth. Under Joe Biden with the pandemic still underway, we`ve been adding an average of 600,000 jobs a month. Donald Trump pre-pandemic only added on average 187,000 jobs a month.
[19:10:00]
So, Biden is doing three times as well as Trump, and yet he`s in the pandemic. And if you take the full Trump administration, of course, he cost us 2.3 million jobs, the first president since Herbert Hoover to leave office with fewer jobs than when he came in. So, Biden is doing well.
By the way, the job numbers would be even bigger if it weren`t for government cutting jobs. There were over 600,000 private sector jobs created last month but government, mostly state and local, shed about 73,000 jobs.
REID: Yes, and red states, I`m sure.
Juanita, this is one of the challenges for Democrats. It is just actually - - I`m old enough to live through a few of them, the Clinton administration, I was a kid when Reagan was president. But I can even remember just in my own household that the economy felt stronger under Clinton or under President Obama than it`s under Republicans, but Democrat -- the voters, in general, especially independents, they tend to like have this tick that says Republicans are better on the economy.
Let me put this chart up. It is just an actual fact if you just go back and measure who actually helps the economy more. Democratic presidents just far outstrip Republicans. Herbert Walker Bush, under his administration, 2.36 million jobs created, under Clinton, 22.9, W. Bush, 1.36 million over his two terms, Obama 11.56. You can just do this all day.
Trump, as you heard David Cay Johnston said, he cost this country 2.49 million jobs, Biden already at 5.58. It is just an actual fact, GDP growth, same kind of story, it flip-flops. It goes back and forth. And whenever a Democrat comes into power, they clean up the mess of the previous president on the economy and they don`t really get credit for it. Do you understand why Democrats don`t tend to be able to get credit for the facts that they`re just better on the economy?
JUANITA TOLLIVER, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: I think it goes to something that the president mentioned in his remarks today, is that people need to feel the impact and know who to thank, right? So, he`s talking about you need to feel it in your lives and in your bank accounts. And that`s what I can tell you. He`s likely going to be fixated on for the rest of his presidency because he`s like, no, I delivered this for you, expect it to be a major message in the midterms.
And, honestly, if these numbers had come out just a week ago, things might look different in Virginia, because it literally emphasizes the point of we are doing so much better, the recovery was not hampered by the delta variant, like the GOP was screaming across the country for the past few months. And, in fact, Biden`s investments in the economy are working. I think Biden continuously talking about the real world impact and the tangible benefits that people will be feeling is going to help them.
And it changed their minds when they respond to the types of polls that show that they don`t trust Democrats because when you deliver consistently, when people see a change in their bank accounts, when people can afford their bills, they feel that. And that`s something that Democrats need to remind them time and time again, hey, we did that, that was us.
REID: Yes. But Democrats don`t like to brag. Like Democrats are like way too modest about it, right? I mean, the shots and checks is like why Biden got elected. Even GDP -- I`ll put GDP up. Most don`t care about. But, David Cay Johnston, on these two bills, the 2008 recession, the George W. Bush era recession, was like a mancession.
This current downturn under pandemic was like a womancession. Like women lost a lot of ability to work, a lot of access to -- lack of access to child care, having to have your kids stay home that largely wound up falling on women who had to stay home and work from home. So this recession really impacted women hard. Can you get in your head the explanation of why somebody like Joe Manchin or Kyrsten Sinema would want to basically crush the bill that would get women back to work and only do the hard infrastructure bill?
JOHNSTON: The behavior of those two senators is sort of beyond understanding but there is an important issue here, I think, Joy, and that is I don`t think the White House is selling this the right way. You can hear President Biden again and again refer to his spending 3.5 trillion. No. He wants to invest less than $3 a day per American so that we will have a healthier country, a wealthier workforce, women who want to work will be able to do so because they`ll have child care available, they will be able to afford it.
But instead, the White House and the news media especially across the board, we talk about spending in this big, scary, humongous number that means nothing when it`s really an investment. And even if we pass the half bill for the human infrastructure, that means it`s less than $1.50 a day per American to make us better off in the future. This is about investing in our workforce, in our children, the most valuable asset we have in America are the brains of children that need to be given rigor and plot so they can have good lives in the future. And that should be the focus of debate.
I really blame the White House for not properly selling this.
[19:15:00]
Democrats need to learn what the Republicans know, how to market.
REID: And how to appeal to your instinct and your gut and not just do these brainiac things. I mean, just the term human infrastructure, can we get rid of that, because nobody knows what that means. Like, come on.
Anyway, Juanita Tolliver, just say what David Cay Johnston just said. It will be a lot easier. Juanita Tolliver, David Cay Johnston, thank you both very much.
Okay. Up next on THE REIDOUT, Rudy Giuliani puts on his clown shoes and his big red nose and says under oath, no, no, you can`t expect me to verify any of the voting-rigging nonsense coming out of my mouth.
Also, we`re keeping a close eye on the trial of the men accused of murdering Ahmaud Arbery. Today, prosecutors laid out their case.
And you might think you know what happened at Attica. But 50 years after the deadly prison uprising, there is a groundbreaking new documentary. The filmmakers join me tonight.
Plus --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Colin Powell was a great lion with a big heart. We will miss him terribly.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Honoring a towering public servant who also a good and decent man.
THE REIDOUT continues after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:20:14]
REID: We are awaiting news from the select committee investigating January 6, following word from its chairman yesterday that they are set to issue up to 20 new subpoenas.
This forthcoming batch could double the number of witnesses under subpoena, bringing the total to 39.
Meanwhile, we have a not-so-surprising admission from Trump`s former lawyer and peddler of election disinformation. CNN has obtained video from one- time Mayor Rudy Giuliani`s sworn deposition in a defamation suit filed by a former executive of Dominion Voting Systems. Among other things, Giuliani discussed his false claims that Dominion could manipulate the vote count and that it had done so in Venezuela.
In that video, Giuliani said under oath that he doesn`t attempt to confirm -- he didn`t attempt to confirm the veracity of all of his wild allegations before repeating them publicly.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RUDY GIULIANI, FORMER ATTORNEY FOR PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: It`s not my job, in a fast-moving case, to go out and investigate every piece of evidence that is given to me. Otherwise, you`re never going to write a story. You never come to a conclusion.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: The other thing is, the Trump campaign knew those allegations of fraud were bogus before they made them.
As "The New York Times" reported, they had already prepared an internal memo on many of the outlandish claims about Dominion and had determined that those allegations were untrue.
Joining me now is Tim O`Brien, senior columnist at Bloomberg Opinion, and Glenn Kirschner, former federal prosecutor and MSNBC legal analyst.
And, Glenn, I`m going to start with you.
If you have Rudy Giuliani saying it`s not his job to investigate whether the claims he`s making about a company, Dominion, alleging that they rigged the election, that he doesn`t have to verify they`re true, and then, on the other hand, the Trump campaign had already attempted to investigate those claims and had found they are not true, where do you think that leaves Rudy Giuliani?
GLENN KIRSCHNER, MSNBC LEGAL ANALYST: That leaves Rudy Giuliani on the losing end in a defamation suit.
It`s pretty transparent, Joy, what Rudy is trying to do here. He`s trying to persuade people that, you know what, I may have been negligent, I may have been grossly negligent, I may have even been reckless, but I wasn`t malicious. I didn`t intentionally lie.
He`s holding up his own recklessness as a shield against a jury someday concluding, no, you intentionally lied. So here`s the good news. Legally speaking, it`s a very short walk from recklessness to malice, to intentionally lying, and no jury in the world has to believe Rudy Giuliani when he says, I was only negligent or I was only reckless.
He appears to have been intentionally lying, so he`s got trouble ahead in the defamation suit.
REID: When would it surprise you Tim O`Brien -- I know your answer, but I`m still going to let you talk about that.
I mean, the Trump -- it does feel like he`s kind of on the outside looking in, OK, that he could be the guy who winds up being thrown over the side, because he did go out and make the claims. He was the face of this big lie for so long and in so many ways, even on the Ellipse on the day of the insurrection. Would it surprise you if you wound up being the guy get that gets hung out to dry?
TIM O`BRIEN, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, BLOOMBERG OPINION: It wouldn`t surprise me at all. You correctly predicted my answer, Joy.
(LAUGHTER)
O`BRIEN: But it -- Donald Trump is not a sophisticated man. Donald Trump is not an educated man, really. But he has a reptilian sensibility about how to survive. And he has always made sure he had people around him who do his dirty work, so he has deniability.
And the power he has had over those folks to convince them to put themselves in harm`s way is either money or sort of basking in what they perceive to be this reputational glow of Trump. And Giuliani has been this person who`s had his face up against the glass for years with Trump, and has been wanted to be -- has always wanted to be let in.
And now Trump, to a large extent has taken advantage of him. But Rudy Giuliani is also an adult. Let`s not forget that in the years prior to Giuliani becoming America`s mayor, when he was a prosecutor in the Southern District, he operated a tad bit like Savonarola.
And he made -- he became famous for his mob cases. But the cases he gave he made against insider traders on Wall Street, a lot of those later fell apart. He engaged in a lot of spectacle, marching people out of their offices in handcuffs. But he was doing a lot of it for self-aggrandizement, as much, I think more so, than for the rule of law.
And that part of his character got forgotten, I think, after 9/11. He went after squeegee handlers in Central Park.
REID: Yes, I remember that.
O`BRIEN: He has always wielded the law like a cudgel, and he`s been pretty, I think, willing to bend the rules when it suited him.
And you`re seeing that come home to roost here.
REID: That is the Giuliani that I remember from living in New York, the America`s mayor part not so much.
Let`s go back to the January 6 investigation. So, Associated Press is reporting the Jeffrey Clark, the former assistant attorney general who tried to use the Justice Department`s influence to overturn the election, has declined to be fully interviewed by the select committee. He did that today, ending a deposition after around 90 minutes, according to the Associated Press.
[19:25:14]
What does that tell you, Glenn, if he was cooperating and then becomes uncooperative?
KIRSCHNER: It tells me that he`s probably unwilling to answer questions that might incriminate him, but he`s not trying to invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, because that never looks good.
So, he`s probably engaged in lots of bluff and bluster and misdirection. And then, if he ends up leaving before the questioning is over, it`s probably because he`s trying to follow Trump`s playbook. He`s probably trying to get Congress to force this into court, so they litigate his refusal to testify.
And then what will he do? Well, he will try to run out the clock by weaponizing the court delay, just as Trump has done successfully over and over again. Don McGahn did it successfully for two years. And if this moves into the courts, let`s hope that the courts have learned their lesson, and they don`t continue to let nefarious litigants use them by weaponizing the court delay, because that is a recipe for none of these issues ever getting resolved.
REID: Exactly.
Let me read you what the chairman of the 1/6 commission, Bennie Thompson, said. He issued a statement, saying: "Mr. Clark`s complete failure to cooperate today is unacceptable. He`s has a very short time to reconsider. He has a very short time to reconsider and cooperate fully. We need the information that he`s withholding. And we are willing to take strong measures to hold him accountable to meet his obligation."
So I think that he should expect to maybe to get subpoenaed again.
Let`s go back to Rudy Giuliani for just a second because, Tim, I`m going to give you -- this is a fun one. The Four Seasons Landscaping Company was one of Rudy Giuliani`s darkest moments and funniest moments.
There`s a documentary that we`re running on MSNBC about it. I want to play a little clip of it. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Then I got a phone call from my son, Anthony. And he said, "Mom, this is bigger than we think."
And he sends me a picture while I`m talking to him. And Rudy is sitting at my desk, and the plaque in front of my desk says, "Boss Lady."
I looked at my husband. I said, I think we better get over there.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Tim, I wonder if you think that perhaps Rudy Giuliani`s entire reputation that stemmed from his handling of 9/11 was as much a fraud in some ways as Donald Trump`s, because I think people have been surprised by how sort of low he sunk, unless -- people like me, who lived in New York when he was there and saw him, like you said, arresting squeegee men and being cruel.
O`BRIEN: I mean, I think Rudy Giuliani rose to the occasion on 9/11. I think he calms people down at an uncertain moment. I think people felt a lot of gratitude for the sense of community and responsibility he brought to that event.
But it clearly was an aberration. I think the Rudy Giuliani -- and I think he got a lot of traction out of that both in his business life and professionally and politically. And I think that`s one of the reasons that Trump didn`t sort of excommunicate him entirely during those years, is Trump wanted to be present around that as well.
But the reality is, Rudy Giuliani has often been a thug. And he`s been an irresponsible thug. And his own -- his own -- he is such an interesting case, his personal history. His father did time in Sing Sing for armed robbery. He was an enforcer later with possible mob connections, and his son goes on to go after the mob in a very vitriolic way.
REID: Yes.
O`BRIEN: I think that he had -- and think who you`re -- the person you`re seeing now is this sort of Shakespearian plunge into the reality of who he is exactly. We`re seeing who he is now.
REID: The families of Amadou Diallo and Abner Louima and many, many, many other -- those families understood who Rudy Giuliani was from the very beginning.
Everybody else is just catching up.
Glenn Kirschner, Tim O`Brien, thank you all very much.
And, by the way, you do not want to miss, this "Four Seasons Total Landscaping Documentary" about the real company behind Rudy`s most embarrassing post-campaign mistake. It airs Sunday night at 10:00 p.m. Eastern right here on MSNBC. Do not miss it.
And still ahead on THE REIDOUT: opening statements today in the trial of three men accused of killing Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia -- how prosecutors laid out their case straight ahead.
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[19:33:40]
REID: Today was the first day of the trial of a three man accused of murdering Ahmaud Arbery; 25-year-old Arbery was shot and killed early last year after Gregory McMichael, a former police officer, and his son Travis and their neighbor William "Roddie" Bryan chased him down, cornered him and shot him three times with a shotgun while filming the incident.
They each face nine charges, including murder, false imprisonment and aggravated assault. They pleaded not guilty. Lead prosecutor Linda Dunikoski told jurors that, months prior to the killing, the owner of a vacant house construction had been investigating people accessing his property, which Arbery had purportedly done.
But, at that point, police had already determined that Arbery had committed no theft, no felony, and the McMichaels had been informed of that fact. Months later, on the day he was killed, Arbery was spotted jogging away from the same house. It was there that Gregory McMichael saw Arbery.
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LINDA DUNIKOSKI, COBB COUNTY, GEORGIA, ASSISTANT DISTRICT ATTORNEY: He`s assumed the worst and has absolutely no immediate knowledge of any crime whatsoever.
So, Gregory McMichael makes his driveway decision in this case. This is where it all starts, right at this moment, in that driveway. Five minutes later, Ahmaud Arbery is dead.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Prosecutors Dunikoski then explained what they did next.
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DUNIKOSKI: Greg McMichael chooses specifically, knowingly and intentionally to arm himself with a handgun, because he hauls ass inside his house and gets his revolver.
[19:35:09]
He gets his son, Travis McMichael, who gets his Remington .12-gauge pump shotgun.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: The McMichaels` friend and neighbor Roddie Bryan then joined the chase.
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DUNIKOSKI: Defendant Bryan sees Mr. Arbery running away from the white pickup truck, and he makes an assumption, because he has absolutely no idea what`s been going on, and he joins the McMichaels in chasing down Mr. Arbery.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Lawyers for the McMichaels and Bryan are claiming self-defense and that they were trying to make a citizen`s arrest because they had -- quote -- "reasonable and probable grounds of suspicion" that the person had just committed a felony.
But Dunikoski pointed out that at no time did Arbery say anything during the confrontation, nor did any of the defendant say they were making a citizen`s arrest. Jurors were shown him the full video of the killing, which Bryan had shot on his cell phone.
It was a horrifying moment in the courtroom. Arbery`s father couldn`t handle the images. His mother made an audible gasp and an emotional cry as she watched the video of her son dying.
After a recess, the defense presented its opening arguments. The lawyer for the younger McMichael, Bob Rubin, argued that they were armed -- quote -- "for protection" and pointed the gun at Arbery to -- quote -- "de-escalate the situation."
With me now, David Henderson, civil rights attorney and former prosecutor.
And, David, thank you so much for being here.
Give me your assessment of the opening of this trial, the opening arguments from both the prosecution and the defense. How do you think they both did? Do you think either was more compelling?
DAVID HENDERSON, CIVIL RIGHTS ATTORNEY: And, Joy, keep in mind as I say this I am not indifferent or impartial when it comes to this case.
But I have to look at the evidence in terms of how the trial is developing so far. And if I have to say one side won over the other, I would say the defense won as far as opening statements go, because you have to remember, they`re persuasive for those of us who already have our minds made up about this case.
But, overall, from the prosecution, the argument was too long. It was based on a shaky theme, focusing on assumptions, instead of saying specifically with the McMichaels and what Bryan did. It also had a lot of legal mumbo jumbo in it, which doesn`t play well with the jury.
The one time the prosecution broke from that was to call one of the defendants by his nickname, which helps to humanize him for the jury, which is something you should leave it to the defense to do, not the prosecution.
REID: You know, the defense is relying on this Civil War era law, claiming they were trying to make a citizen`s arrest. And this is a Civil War era law that stated that it was legal in Georgia for people to arrest someone, civilians to arrest someone when they had -- quote -- "reasonable and probable grounds of suspicion" the person had just committed a felony.
It was later repealed amid an uproar over the shooting, but had remained the law largely unchanged since 1863. This is essentially a legalized lynching law, let`s just be honest, that it allowed -- because this wasn`t black citizens could just go legally arrest a white person in Georgia.
This was used by white citizens to -- quote, unquote -- "arrest" any black person they wanted and kill them. And so I wonder if the fact that the vibe and sort of the atmospherics of the way that Georgia has operated really since the Civil War era plays into this with a bunch of jurors, many of whom are probably gun owners and probably thinking, I don`t know that I want the liability for killing somebody because I made an assumption because I saw a black guy jogging. I don`t know that I want to be in the position of these defendants.
HENDERSON: No, that`s exactly right.
And that`s part of the reason why the way jury selection was handled was so important. Whenever you have a sitting judge saying, I believe that there`s intentional discrimination in jury selection, and then he doesn`t do anything about it, and any time you have got lawyers who have the chance to change venue, and they say, we know our clients are known in this community, and they choose to stay in that community for the trial, that tells you everything you need to know about what their expectations are.
REID: Yes.
HENDERSON: And that`s one of the elephants in the room I wish the prosecution had addressed more directly.
People who own guns often in the South think they can use those guns whenever they feel threatened, even if they caused the threatening situation to begin with, which is exactly what happened here.
And you have to remember that, for all the facts we`re discussing right now, originally, a prosecutor heard them and chose to sweep this case under the rug.
REID: Yes.
HENDERSON: And he was an elected official. If he chose to do that, what does that say about the people who elected him to office, many of whom are now on that jury?
REID: And the NRA has really been big about using sort of dummy -- sort of matching legislation all over the country, particularly in Southern states, to get those things encoded, right, that you can use your gun, you can use it fatally.
This case reminds me so much of the George Zimmerman case. The judges -- these are some of the rulings. The prosecution`s motion was granted to exclude evidence of minute new levels of THC in Arbery`s system. They`re going to -- because the defense wants to try to make him out to be somebody who was on something. And the THC is not being on something.
[19:40:00]
The judge said photographs of Travis McMichael`s pickup truck featuring a vanity plate of the old Georgia flag that features the Confederate Battle Flag will be allowed and shown during court. The judge also ruled the defense could not mention that Arbery was on probation.
Do you think those things in any way will impact this case? Because it really feels like the George Zimmerman-Trayvon Martin case to me.
HENDERSON: It feels like the George Zimmerman case.
And there have been countless examples, if you look at the way self-defense laws play out when you have got a situation like this, white people shooting black people they`re claiming attacked them. It also plays out when you only have one black person on the jury.
REID: Yes.
HENDERSON: We can track numerous trials where it didn`t work out the right way under those circumstances.
So, I absolutely think those things matter. And also, Joy, what you`re hinting at is a broader discussion of the way people are treated in this country, because it hints at George Zimmerman. And when you think about those cases, the new definition of CRT is that you have got cases like George Zimmerman. And, on the flip side, you have got cases of people like Philando Castile, Alton Sterling.
REID: Yes.
HENDERSON: And let`s even be honest. Tamir Rice falls in there too...
REID: Yes.
HENDERSON: ... where they are shot and killed under circumstances, where someone like Kyle Rittenhouse, not the case we`re talking about, but still a similar theme, can walk by the police without even so much as being questioned.
And if you think that`s not going to play a role in this trial, you`re missing the point.
REID: A hundred percent.
The man who massacred nine people inside of Mother Emanuel Church got a cheeseburger lunch from police.
HENDERSON: That`s right.
REID: That is why there is such a thing as Critical Race Theory in law schools, because we have an endemic in equality in our system of justice by race. That`s just reality. Sorry if that makes you feel sad, people out there that don`t like CRT.
David Henderson, thank you very much. Really appreciate you.
Up next: A brilliant new documentary offers a definitive look at the events surrounding the five-day standoff between prisoners and police at Attica Correctional Facility in 1971.
Award-winning director Stanley Nelson and co-director Traci Curry join us next. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:46:04]
REID: There`s a certain meaning, a feeling in the word Attica, the name of the maximum security prison in New York state were, in 1971, 1, 200 inmates took more than three dozen guards and civilian employees hostage, demanding more humane treatment and better conditions.
What resulted was a massacre by state police that left 29 inmates and 10 hostages dead. But you may not really know that, part that it was the police who were fully responsible for those deaths. No charges were ever brought against authorities for those killings in what is now known as the largest prison rebellion in U.S. history.
We know the word Attica, but a documentary now tells the story behind the name.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They wanted to use those weapons.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Put your hands in the air and you will not be harmed.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You will not be harmed.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You will not be harmed.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But that was (EXPLETIVE DELETED).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They want to kill us.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are men!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was waking up America.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Somebody had to take the stand.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Joining me now, the filmmakers behind Attica, Emmy Award-winning director Stanley Nelson and co-director and dear friend of mine and this show`s Traci Curry.
Thank you both for being here.
Stanley, I`m going to start with you.
The two things that struck me the most about this documentary were that day -- the first day of freedom after the hostages had been taken and these inmates were in the yard free and that exuberance that you feel viscerally in the documentary, and then the sense of just raw vengeance by the police and the desire to kill and humiliate as many of those men as possible, to punish them, no matter what the consequences were.
That`s what struck me the most.
In this story, what struck you the most and made you want to tell this story?
STANLEY NELSON, DIRECTOR, "ATTICA": Well, I think it says so much about America.
It`s about not only prison and prison reform, and not only about race. It`s a story about power. We bring in Nelson Rockefeller, the governor of New York and one of the richest men in the world, and Richard Nixon, who are on the phone talking about it. So it`s about government. It`s about so many things.
And it`s a roller-coaster ride from the first day, the exuberance of the prisoners when they take over, to the murders and the killings of the last. It`s really -- it`s like a thriller that you couldn`t have written if you were a really great writer.
REID: Yes.
And, Traci, let me play another piece of it, because this is also a story about the people who were caught in the middle, because it wasn`t just a brutal -- the brutality against black people. It actually wound up being brutality against these white guards as well.
So let me play a clip. And this is Dee Quinn Miller, who`s the daughter of one of the guards, whose name was William Quinn. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DEE QUINN MILLER, DAUGHTER OF GUARD: I have never received an apology. I have never received an apology. And, for me, that`s a pretty big deal. What does money do when you don`t have your dad or your brother or your uncle? How does that replace anything?
And I think it was the state`s way of saying, we`re going to give you this money, and we want you to go away.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Traci you did the -- these interviews. And so talk a little bit about the process of bringing out these stories, in some cases remotely, because we were during the pandemic, and you had to do a lot of these things through the magic of Zoom, plus cameras. Talk about that.
TRACI A. CURRY, CO-DIRECTOR, "ATTICA": Yes, Joy.
Well, it became apparent really early on after doing research that there were certain categories of people we had to hear from in the film. So we had to hear from the former prisoners. We wanted to hear from the people in the village of Atlantic, because it`s not a prison. This is a place and a community, the observers, the media all of these various people.
[19:50:07]
And so it was really a process of taking the time to find whoever I could who was alive that could talk with -- about their firsthand experience in this, who was willing and able to talk about it.
As you can imagine, this was a traumatic event for every single person that was involved. And so it was really just a process of, one, finding people, two, taking the time to really kind of talk to them and gain their trust, which, interestingly, the pandemic kind of allowed me, because we`re all in our -- I was in my little pandemic box, as we all were, with nothing to do but talk to people, and then, eventually, just kind of giving them the space to feel it and experience it and remember it the way that they did.
And the end result is what you see in the film.
REID: Absolutely.
Let me play another one of the -- one of the inmates. His name is Arthur Harrison. He`s a former prisoner. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We would like the press to come in, including the television cameras. That transformed everything, because now the prisoners had a worldwide audience.
ARTHUR HARRISON, FORMER ATTICA INMATE: A roll of toilet paper would have to last you a month. You would have to be a magician or tear up papers out of the you know, the books and stuff like that to wipe your behind and stuff like that.
Guys were complaining about the basic things like toothpaste, toilet paper, a change of sheets more than once a month, things like that, clothes being cleaned, personal hygiene things, being treated like human beings.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Stanley, this -- it strikes me this is a film also that`s about manhood and democracy, because these men wanted to be treated as human beings, as men.
And they also formed their own sort of version of democracy, multiracial democracy, in this prison. What do you make of that?
NELSON: I mean, that`s one of the most incredible things about the story.
The first day that they take over the prison, they vote on leaders, on who they want to lead. There`s white prisoners and black prisoners and Latinx prisoners. And they talk about being united now, that they are one.
And it has to be said that we talked earlier about the fact that the guards in the prison system kind of kept them separate. So the white prisoners are given more privilege, and, of course, are resented.
But when they get out into the yard, they realize that, no, we are now all just prisoners. And we have to unite if we want to survive.
REID: Yes, indeed.
And, Traci, this is also a critique in many ways of the media, the way the media covered it at the time and the way the media covered it afterwards. As somebody who worked in the media yourself and comes from this side of the of the storytelling world, what do you make of that critique? And what should people take from that?
CURRY: Yes, Joy, it`s something that I think you and I used to talk about all the time, which is sort of the perils of access journalism, because what happens is that all of the media is gathered outside.
And on that last day, when the state troopers go in and kill 39 people, it is reported that 10 of the hostages were killed by the prisoners. And this is in all the major news outlets in the country.
And that is the story that everyone believed, only to find out less than 24 hours later after the medical examiner has looked at the bodies and seen that they were also killed by gunshots -- and, of course, none of the prisoners had any guns -- that that was a lie, that it was the state troopers that had killed them.
And the media failed in that account.
REID: It was indeed a media fail.
But you know what has been a success? You, Traci Curry. And I`m going to embarrass you now. And I know this is something you do not enjoy, but it is your birthday. So I want to wish you a happy birthday on national television.
CURRY: Oh, my God.
And Kai Ma, who produced this segment and who is your good friend and produced this segment, she put me up to it. So we were in a bit of a cabal.
CURRY: Oh, my God.
REID: A lot of us who worked with you before, Lorraina (ph) and Kai and Hank and all of us, we wish you -- but the whole team -- happy birthday, my friend.
(CROSSTALK)
CURRY: OK. Thank you so much, Joy.
REID: OK.
NELSON: Happy birthday, Traci.
CURRY: I love all you guys.
NELSON: Happy birthday,
REID: Thank you. Thank you, Traci Curry.
Congratulations to Traci curry and Stanley Nelson. You all are amazing.
"Attica" premieres tomorrow at 9:00 p.m. Eastern on Showtime.
And up next: our tribute to the late Colin Powell.
We will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:58:02]
REID: Today, Colin Powell, our country`s first black secretary of state, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and national security adviser, as well as a four-star general, was honored with a funeral service at the beautiful National Cathedral.
Powell was a man of deep faith, as many noted today. And the service reflected that, with U.S. Army Sergeant 1st Class Adiza Jibril seeing one of my personal favorite hymns, "Precious Lord."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(SINGING)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: As we have seen with so many of these funerals, the presidents sat in a row, Joe and Jill Biden, Barack and Michelle Obama, George and Laura Bush; 97-year-old Jimmy Carter didn`t make the trip. And our most recent former president, of course, wasn`t there.
Bill Clinton is still recovering from his hospitalization a few weeks ago and did not attend, but his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, was there as well.
Powell received heartfelt eulogies from his deputy secretary, Richard Armitage, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, and his son, Michael.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MADELEINE ALBRIGHT, FORMER U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: As I grew to know him, I came to view Colin Powell as a figure who almost transcended time.
Colin Powell`s legacy of service to the country he loved will long survive his passing.
MICHAEL POWELL, SON OF COLIN POWELL: I have heard it asked, are we still making his kind? I believe the answer to that question is up to us.
To honor his legacy, I hope we do more than consign him to the history books. I hope we recommit ourselves to being a nation where we are still making his kind.
RICHARD ARMITAGE, FORMER DEPUTY SECRETARY OF STATE: Listen real carefully, and you might hear our savior say, Colin, welcome home, and here`s your starry crown.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Powell was 84 years old, and will be remembered as one of the greatest public servants of our time.
And that`s tonight`s REIDOUT.
"ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES" starts now.