Summary
President Biden holds first meeting with Russia`s Putin. Biden reaffirms America`s commitment to democracy. President Biden takes questions after meeting with Putin. Reporter presses Putin on human rights abuses. Putin defends Capitol insurrectionists. Osama bin Laden niece displays pro-Trump sign. Biden says he pressed Putin on human rights, cyberattacks and election interference. Biden and Putin say their meeting was constructive. Biden says it`s ridiculous to compare Putin`s crackdown on dissidents to BLM movement. President Bush says, Putin is straightforward and trustworthy. California Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell is interviewed.
Transcript
ARI MELBER, MSNBC HOST: You can always connect with me online. Thanks for watching THE BEAT.
"THE REIDOUT" with Joy Reid is up next. Hi, Joy.
JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: Hey, Ari. First of all I love Ben & Jerry, and, second of all, I do love the whole pass the Juneteenth holiday, ban teaching why there`s a Juneteenth. It is art. It is irony. Anyway, have a great day.
MELBER: It is irony. And thank you for that because it is the contrast that needs to be seen even if the holiday is, as we covered, a measure of something.
REID: Yes, maybe it is --
MELBER: And thank you Joy, always good to see you.
REID: They probably figure it is during the summer so they don`t have to explain it in class, so it is fine, because school`s out. Anyway, bye, Ari, have good evening.
Good evening, everyone. And welcome. We begin THE REIDOUT tonight with a handshake in Geneva, a historic face-to-face meeting between two world leaders, U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin, representing two sides of one of the most significant and enduring conflicts of the 20th century and who remain far from trusting partners today.
For four years, America`s relationship with Russia was perversely framed around a U.S. president who saw Putin not as a foreign adversary but as an idol to be emulated. And so today, it was against this very backdrop that President Biden opened a new chapter on Russia, a 180-degree pivot from the last administration, aimed at reestablishing America`s role as world leaders in the fight for democracy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT: Every generation has to reestablish the basis of this fight for democracy. I mean, for real, literally have to do it.
Each of the countries, we have our own concerns and problems, but we still, as long as I am president, we are going to stick to the notion that we are open, accountable and transparent. And I think that`s an important message to send to the world.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: The leaders also gave separate press conferences when President Biden asked, among many other things, about the string of cyberattacks linked to Moscow, which Putin today denied.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: I made it clear that we will not tolerate attempts to violate our democratic sovereignty or destabilize our democratic elections and we would respond.
REPORTER: You have spoken many times about how you have spent perhaps more time with President Xi than any other world leader. So is there going to be come a time where you might call him, old friend to old friend --
BIDEN: Let`s get something straight. We know each other well. We`re not old friends.
REPORTER: Why are you so confident that he`ll change his behavior, Mr. President?
BIDEN: I`m not confident he will change his behavior. Why do you do all this? When did I say I was confident?
REPORTER: So you said in the next six months, you will be able to determine that.
BIDEN: I said, what I said -- look, let`s get it straight. I said, what will change their behavior is the rest of the world reacts to them and it diminishes their standing in the world.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Okay, Spicy Biden. Meanwhile, Putin`s take was positive, calling the talks constructive. He had also to endure the unusual, unusual for Putin anyway, task of facing a free press, which might explain why the most memorable moment came from a reporter rather than from the source.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: The lists of your political opponents who are dead, imprisoned or jailed is long. Alexei Navalny`s to organization calls for free and fair elections and end to corruption, but Russia has outlawed that organization, calling it extremist. And you have now prevented anyone who supports him to run for office. So my question is, Mr. President, what are you so afraid of?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Come on, journalism. Putin, however, deflected throughout the presser, dismissing questions about Russia`s treatment of Alexei Navalny, refusing to even say Navalny`s name, while also invoking U.S. politics in answers about his own country, suggesting that the United States was silencing dissidents, referring to the arrests of suspects in the January 6th attack.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT: As for who is killing whom and throwing whom in jail, people came to the U.S. Congress with political demands. They`re being called domestic terrorists.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: It goes to show the ways in which U.S. politics are steeped into life abroad, with Noor bin Laden, the niece of Osama bin Laden, outside the summit in Geneva, flying a Trump Won flag from a boat.
While inside the summit, one of the most ruthless autocrats of our time is defending American insurrectionists, echoing the rhetoric of America`s Republican Party, as we often say on this show, this is indeed real life, weird and also dangerous.
Joining me now from Geneva is Yamiche Alcindor, Moderator for PBS Washington Week and PBS NewsHour White House Correspondent. Also in Geneva, former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, and Ben Rhodes, former Deputy National Security Adviser to President Obama.
And, Yamiche, I want to go to you first. From the White House`s point of view, what was the goal of these last several days and what was the outcome?
I don`t know if we have Yamiche. Okay, Ben. Okay, were going to go with you Ben first. We`re going to start with you first. Just assess for us for a moment. You know, I caught on Spicy Biden today. Biden was really, very definitive in not allowing the media to try to -- you know, the Fox News reporter tried to frame President Xi as a friend, which is sort of a narrative on the right, but he also, I thought, was very strong in saying to reporters afterwards in the scrum, look, we`ve got a problem, you know, reasserting the importance of democracy. And this is a challenge for western nations around the world. What do you think the outcome was of the meeting with Putin and the aftermath?
BEN RHODES, FORMER DEPUTY NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: I mean I think it was an incredibly important piece of business, Joy. Because, essentially, what he is doing is after four years of Vladimir Putin getting a complete pass from the president of the United States, he was going there to lay down some lines.
And it is very telling to me the bulk of the meeting was the small meeting, just the two presidents alone with their secretary of state and foreign minister. And I think he was laying it out for him. Here are my concerns on cyberattacks. Here are my concerns with respect to the treatment of Alexei Navalny and the opposition. Here are my concerns about Ukraine, and not aiming to negotiate detailed agreements there, but aiming to lay down these markers and deliver some warning that if we don`t see some progress on this, you might have a response from us in terms of the U.S. using our offensive cyber capability. And I think he was also highlighting for Putin, look, I just came out of a G7 and a NATO where the world`s democracies are circling the wagons again here.
And now, let`s be very clear, Joy, this is not going to solve all of our problems with Vladimir Putin. Vladimir Putin has been consistently a bad actor. But I think what he is going to do is Biden is laying this down and saying in six months or a year, if we don`t see progress or we see Russia continuing to take these actions, he can refer back to the conversation that they had in Geneva and say, this is why I`m now taking an action.
And I think he got a little annoyed at times with the press because they try to frame it as kind of a performance art, the performance art of summitry (ph) or you`re chummy with this guy or chummy with that guy. And Biden is there, like, no, this is deadly, serious business, literally, life and death issues being discussed here. And I think he was very careful to not overly raise expectations and say one summit is going to solve all of these problems, and he wanted to put that in context for people in this country and around the world.
REID: Yes. And he also was clear about telling the press I`m not negotiating with you, or in front of you, you know, we`re going to negotiate behind the scenes. You know, he definitely -- he had his withies this morning, or whatever if you can get withies over there in Geneva.
Professor McFaul, Michael McFaul, thank you for being here. Let me ask you a similar question. Because you know, Russia is not the equal of the United States in terms of its economy. You know, our friends at MORNING JOE this morning put up a chart, which was pretty definitive. I mean, they are a small economy, smaller than the Canadian economy. They really -- they`re an oil exporter, you know, they`re sort of a grander Mississippi. They don`t have a lot going for them in terms of actual strength.
What they do have is a huge nuclear stockpile, bigger than ours, and they sell arms. Why is it important to give them the stage next to the United States president at all?
MICHAEL MCFAUL, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO RUSSIA: Well, I don`t think you need to give them the stage and I thought it was very appropriate that they didn`t have a joint press conference today. That was smart, in part, because it gave our American journalists a chance to ask Vladimir Putin some very tough questions. That wouldn`t have happened if they were together.
But you have to talk to the president of Russia, no matter who he is, and the general secretary, the communist party, the Soviet Union, back in the cold war because they are a nuclear superpower. The United States and Russia are the only two countries in the world that can blow up each other and the planet, and so we need to cooperate and we need to talk about that, as they called it today, strategic stability talks. We`re the only two countries in the world that have those arsenals. That`s why we need to meet together.
The second point that, Joy, I want to add, you are right about the economy. Russia is, you know, 11th in the world, maybe sixth if you do purchasing power parity, but the cards that Putin has, he`s willing to play in a very revisionist way. He`s willing to invade countries, annex territory, send his air force to prop up Mr. Assad, and to use his cyber agents to undermine our democracy, as we learned in the last two presidential elections. And so he is, I think, a very difficult actor on the international system today, and not just engaging him, as President Biden did today in Geneva, that`s right, but now we need to have containment strategy as well.
REID: Yes. And we`ve now -- we do have Yamiche now. We`re getting everybody online in terms of trying to get all of these long distance connections to work. Yamiche, I want to play a part of the press conference today when President Biden actually responded to a question that you raised to him on the crackdown of dissidents in the Capitol. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: I would say that`s a ridiculous comparison. It`s one thing for literally criminals to break through, go into the Capitol, kill a police officer and be held unaccountable and that it is for people objecting and marching on the Capitol and saying, you are not allowing me to speak freely, you are not allowing me to do A, B, C or D. And so they`re very different criteria.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: And just to frame it correctly, that essentially Vladimir Putin tried to draw a false equivalence between his crackdown on dissidents in his country and the prosecution of the people who were insurrectionists in the Capitol. Was it a surprise to folks in the White House, Yamiche, that, that is where Putin went, that he went to Black Lives Matter, that he went to essentially a sort of Trumpian defense of what happened on January 6th? Was that a surprise to the White House?
YAMICHE ALCINDOR, PBS NEWSHOUR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: From what I can tell, White House aides and White House sources were expecting that President Putin would try to make a false equivalency because that`s what he does. That`s part of his playbook. It`s trying to call out what he sees are human rights abuses, trying to call out crimes, trying to call out people how people live and die in the United States, and to try to make these false equivalencies when, of course, they`re wrong, when, of course, it is not the same thing as the human rights abuses we are seeing in Russia and the jailing of opposition leaders and the flat-out denying of opposition parties from even being able to exist.
So this was me really pressing President Biden here to talk about January 6th because you saw the Russian President try to use January 6th against the United States. So what you saw here, of course, was, yes, there were gains today. Yes, there was constructive meeting here, both sides saying it wasn`t hostile. But what you also saw was real tension between these two leaders, and at the core of it was human rights.
And this -- I think this answer by President Biden to my question, I think, really underscores that there is a lot still to be worked out in this relationship. President Biden said it is going to take three to six months to see what are the real fruits of this meeting, and I think human rights will also be at the center of that, assessing really how well this summit went on and what the actual consequences of it will be.
REID: Right. And so on the question of sort of what will be consequences for the bad behavior of Russia, there was in that last scrum this conversation, Yamiche, between reporters and the president, in which he said -- clarified what he was saying was that he wasn`t super overly optimistic that Russia would change its behavior, but that the way that nations, free nations react to Russia need to be coordinated and needed to change.
Was there -- what was the outcome of conversations with other G7 nations about how they will coordinate, the way that they respond to Russian aggression? Did anything come of that during these meetings?
ALCINDOR: Well, White House sources and President Biden himself says that these meetings with Russian -- with the European leaders, these meetings to really underscore that democracy needs to be working, it needs to be united against autocracy, they`re saying that that is a step forward in fighting back against Russia, fighting back against China.
So there is what they would say this united front against what Russia is doing and the human rights abuses. But I think there is this real question about Russia is going to be this international bad actor. President Biden said he didn`t really issue an ultimatum of threat, but then you heard President Biden say, look, I looked President Putin in the eye and said, do you want your infrastructure to be attacked? What would it be like if your oil fields were not working out?
So there you saw President Biden taking a very, very firm stance and doing what he came here to do, which was really having a complete contrast to what we saw four years ago with former President Trump who really, I mean, had some real cringe worthy moments even for his own administration.
REID: To say the least. Yes, thank you. Well said. Well said. Yamiche Alcindor, thank you very much. Michael and Ben are staying with me.
And up next on THE REIDOUT, after years of U.S. presidents looking into Putin`s soul, hitting the reset button, or just humiliating America like Trump did, President Biden is taking a tougher approach to Putin, but will it make any difference?
Plus, tonight`s absolute worse, claim to support the police but they revealed how they really feel on the floor of the House.
Meanwhile, some of the very same Republicans have new revisionist propaganda about January 6th, claiming that it was an inside job -- get this -- by the FBI. You heard me right, folks.
THE REIDOUT continues after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
REID: In taking a more confrontational posture toward Russia at the outset of his term, President Biden is bucking the trend set by his predecessors. That`s because even before Trump past administrations extended more of a benefit of the doubt to Putin than he necessarily deserved. For instance, when asked in a 2001 joint press conference, whether Putin was trustworthy, George W. Bush famously and naively gave him this gushing endorsement.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH: I will answer the question. I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be straightforward and trustworthy. We had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Of course, Putin went on to crackdown on the media, cancel elections, arrest his political opponent and invade the neighboring country of Georgia during Bush`s eight years in office.
Then came the Obama administration, which gave Putin another chance in what was dubbed a reset with Russia. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton even presented the foreign minister with a prop reset button to symbolize American good will. And while there was some progress on Iran and disarmament, Putin betrayed that trust again when he seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and then attacked our election in 2016.
But any miscalculations on the part of President Bush or Obama were trivial compared to Donald Trump`s total capitulation to Russia. That includes what was probably the most humiliating moment in the history of U.S. foreign relations, when Trump let Russia off the hook for attacking our democracy and took Putin`s side over his own intelligence agencies in Helsinki in 2018.
It was so disastrous that former Trump adviser Fiona Hill considered pulling a fire alarm to cut it off.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FIONA HILL, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL OFFICIAL: First of all, looked around to see if there was a fire alarm. But we were in a rather grand building attached to the presidential palace of the Finnish presidency, who had lent it to us for the occasion.
And I couldn`t see anything that resembled a fire alarm. It was mortifying, frankly, and humiliating for the country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: After his three predecessors, Biden has no illusions about Putin. And that was apparent in his performance today.
Back with me are former Ambassador Michael McFaul and Ben Rhodes. And joining us now from Moscow is NBC News senior international correspondent Keir Simmons.
And, Keir, you recently sat down with Vladimir Putin himself. And so I`m wondering if you could give us an assessment of what you saw in that press conference today, in which it seemed that Putin was determined to answer any question about his own country and his own administration of his country with things like Black Lives Matter and defending the January 6 insurrectionists.
KEIR SIMMONS, NBC SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes.
REID: Is that something that you expected, given you -- just recently having spoken with him?
SIMMONS: Hey, Joy.
Yes, 100 percent. Look, I`m glad that you frame this as a more confrontational approach from a President Biden, because this is a kind of war. There was a guy in the Russian delegation, General Gerasimov, who invented something called the Gerasimov doctrine.
And it basically describes going to war without going to war, if you like. Let me just read you a little bit from what that Russian general wrote some time ago about what it`s about. He said: "The rules of war have changed. Wars are no longer declared and, having begun, proceed according to an unfamiliar template."
So wars no longer declared. So there you see Putin in that news conference denying, deny, deny, deny that you`re doing it, an unfamiliar template. That`s the propaganda. That`s getting into the divisive issues in the U.S. and trying to lean into them.
This is a kind of shadow war by Russia. Russia, we have said, is too weak vis-a-vis America to go to war with America up front. But that is what the strategy is. And I think the first step in taking it own is to really recognize it. What I think you have to hope is that this is President Biden`s first move on the chessboard, because what happened today is not even close to enough.
Russia, the Kremlin behind me here, needs to feel like there will be real consequences. President Biden did say that. He also did say that we will see what happens. So we will see -- Joy.
REID: Yes.
And -- but, Ambassador McFaul, I feel like even some of the stagecraft almost sort of played out what you`re hearing Keir Simmons talk about. I mean, the fact that they didn`t do a joint press conference, there was no opportunity for Putin to try to do that same act with Biden in Biden`s pressure, the fact that they remained separate, the fact that Biden actually made him wait.
We talked about some of this stuff yesterday. Those subtle messages, what does that do to Putin inside of his own country? Because it seemed like they were trying to put out images and pictures that would raise his stature, because he didn`t get to have a side-by-side, too many side-by- side opportunities.
MCFAUL: Well, in terms of the protocol and the scripting of this summit, it`s the anti-Helsinki, and very appropriately so.
I think the Biden protocol folks should get a lot of credit. You`re right. Putin had to show up first. They changed that, by the way, in a last-minute thing. That`s great. Number two, they had notetakers in the room. Secretary Blinken was there. Donald Trump didn`t have any notes. We have no idea what he talked about when he was one-on-one with Vladimir Putin.
Fiona Hill, who you just showed a clip of, she could have been there. She was his Russia senior adviser at the NSC. She wasn`t let in that meeting.
And then no joint press conference, which I think was a great thing, because President Biden didn`t have to stand there and listen to the greatest hits of whataboutism that Vladimir Putin did in his press conference.
That`s all for us. But, back home, let`s be clear, Mr. Putin is coming back from Geneva feeling pretty good. He did a whole bunch of bad things. He annexed Crimea, propped up Assad, violated our sovereignty in 2016, tried to kill Mr. Skripal in the U.K. in 2018. And after all of those very bad behavior, he gets to have a summit here in Geneva with the most important leader in the world.
And then, secondly, he then went to his press conference, and he was having a good time. I watched it. I speak Russian. I could listen to both of it. And for his folks that are not -- I think most of those people are not independent press journalists.
He got to frame this as, everybody, despite everything I do on the stage, they need to talk to me.
REID: Yes. Hard to avoid that point.
Let me play a little bit for you, Ben. This was former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. And she was talking about how difficult it is to deal with this country. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, FORMER U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: I think you can`t be either starry-eyed or totally turning your back. You have got to walk what is an uncomfortable, but necessary path. How do we calibrate? How do we get them to do something? How do we stop them from doing something? How do we impose costs if they do go forward?
And I think Joe Biden has learned a lot, as we all have. I do think you need both an inside and an outside game. You need a public and a private approach to Putin. And that`s what Joe Biden gets.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: And, Ben Rhodes, you lived that through the administration.
And I wonder if you think that -- getting the START Treaty was a big deal. Some of the advancements that were made during the Obama years were a big deal. But do you think that, essentially, Putin has emerged really emboldened, because, as you just heard Ambassador McFaul say, he knows that we have to deal with him, no matter what he does?
RHODES: Look, Joy, I mean, we have a 20-year history now with Vladimir Putin, and we can see who he is, and he`s not going to change.
And so there`s really two tasks in front of us. One is, what can you do through your foreign policy to try to contain what he`s doing? You`re not going to reverse what he`s doing. You`re not going to make him stop trying to control events inside of places like Ukraine and Georgia. You`re not going to make him suddenly open up Russia to a multiparty democracy.
But you need to try to contain his excesses, because he`s aware that there`s a cost, there`s some deterrent on him, and because you have other countries with you in imposing those costs and consequences.
I think, more fundamentally, though, Joy, the elephant in the room here is that Vladimir Putin is part of a strain of nationalist authoritarianism. He`s kind of at the vanguard of it. It is in this country right now.
There`s a symbiosis. The reason that Russia could interfere in our 2016 election so effectively is because not only was the door being held open to them by Donald Trump, but because the kind of conspiracy theories and garbage that they were sending in their disinformation campaigns was the exact kind of thing that was on Breitbart or FOX News.
The -- you talk about January 6, I don`t doubt for a second that there weren`t Russian trolls amplifying the big lie leading into January 6. It wasn`t just something that he decided to do today. It`s something that he - - he is overlapping, he is symbiotic with the nationalist authoritarian trend in this country.
So, the other thing that we have to do is, we have to fortify our democracy at home. There`s two sides of this coin. And we saw one side of it, which is an American president making us proud by standing up for democratic values and human rights on the world stage.
But then we also need to come home and make sure that the toxins that Vladimir Putin exploits in our own democracy, we`re taking care of as well.
REID: And, Keir, that leads me to, you`re right. We can`t control the way that Vladimir Putin behaves. He is who he is. We can only control our behavior on our end.
SIMMONS: Yes.
REID: One of the things that we`re seeing happen within American politics is sort of backing off trying to dig into just what went down between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.
There are still so many unanswered questions. This news from ABC News that congressional Democrats say they are no longer seeking records of the former president`s private meetings with the Russian leader, despite previous concerns that Trump tried to conceal details of their conversations.
You, as a journalist, these are the things that we both want to know.
SIMMONS: Yes.
REID: What message does it send that we`re not going to get answers to some of really probably the most important questions about the previous four years, what was said behind closed doors and on the phone between these two men?
We`re not -- I guess we`re just not going to know.
SIMMONS: No, it`s a great question.
And I have tried, with the Kremlin, to push them to see if they will tell us. Well, I mean, it`s ridiculous, isn`t it, that we have to ask the Kremlin to find out what was going, what happened between a Russian leader and an American president?
(LAUGHTER)
SIMMONS: But I have tried. They won`t do that. They talk about kind of diplomatic protocol and things.
But I would say something else, Joy, too, just on this propaganda battlefield, if you like. You have got to be smart. So, watch what President Putin did this week. He did this interview with us. And then, at that news conference today, he had multiple U.S. reporters asking tough questions.
And the Russian media here now are reporting, saying, look at our president. He`s answering questions from the American media. Why wasn`t President Biden doing that? Does President Biden not want to answer questions? Is he not prepared to answer tough questions?
So, I actually think there would be some value to an American president doing interviews with the American media -- with the Russian media to get the message across.
But you have just got to be smart. Got to keep watching what Putin does, respond, and fight back.
REID: Yes, it is an information war. It is fascinating.
Michael McFaul, Ben Rhodes, Keir Simmons, thank you all very much.
Still ahead: Honoring the heroic officers who risked their lives to protect lawmakers on Capitol Hill from an insurrectionist mob, well, that seems like a no-brainer, right?
The staggering hypocrisy of some Republicans on that very issue makes choosing tonight`s absolute worst a no-brainer too. And that is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I rise today to honor the courageous men and women in blue.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our law enforcement officers are being harassed, targeted, criticized, mocked, defunded.
REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): I really do appreciate our men and women in law enforcement, our wonderful Capitol Police, all of our law enforcement.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Republicans love the police.
And they love showing their support to the public, whether it`s for National Police Week, or the hashtag #backtheblue, or just a general dig at Democrats.
But everyone you see on your screen right now voted against awarding Congressional Gold Medals to the police who defended the Capitol during the insurrection. That`s 21 Republicans in total who decided to vote no, just so they could score political points with their rabid base, with Lauren Boebert claiming the bill is playing partisan games, and Marjorie Q. Green, along with others, taking issue with the word insurrection in the bill about protecting them from the insurrection.
This is a woman who actually suggested awarding Congressional Medals of Honor to the police who -- quote -- "protect America from Black Lives Matter," just not the police who risked their lives to protect her on January 6.
Margie Q. also gave airtime today to the latest conspiracy theory from Tuckums Carlson, tweeting about his latest tirade last night, blaming the FBI for organizing the Capitol attack.
It`s a theory he sourced from the extremely well-known, super objective, and very important news source Revolver News, which led him to raise the question of whether some of the indicted co-conspirators named in the insurrection indictments could possibly be government officials?
And we won`t force you to listen to him or the many leaps in logic it takes to get to this point, because it should go without saying that, nope, nope, nope, not how the FBI works.
As Aaron Blake points out, legal experts say the government literally cannot name an undercover agent as an unindicted co-conspirator.
But while it`s always tempting to make Tucker go through some things, he`s not tonight`s absolute worst. Nope, that dubious distinction goes to those 21 Republicans who voted against awarding those medals to the people who protected their very lives, simply because they refuse to admit that the violent "Hang Mike Pence," Trump MAGA insurrection actually happened.
Take Congressman Andrew Clyde, who claimed the insurrectionists were just like tourists.
We will have more on him and his utter disrespect for the police after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ANDREW CLYDE (R-GA): If you didn`t know the TV footage was a video from January 6th, you would actually think it was a normal tourist visit.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Former (ph) Georgia Republican Congressman Andrew Clyde, who called the insurrectionists tourists, even though there was actual photographic evidence of him barricading the House chamber doors. Not only did he vote against avoiding Medals of Honor to Capitol police, Congressman Swalwell tweeted today, get this, Capitol Police Officer Michael Fanone who was attacked by the insurrectionists ran into Clyde today. He introduced himself as someone who fought to defend the Capitol and put out his hand to Congressman Clyde who refused to shake it.
Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger said he called Fanone and confirmed this story.
"The Washington Post" reports that Fanone came to "The Hill" today, the day after 21 House Republicans voted against the gold medal resolution in an effort to meet them and tell his story. He happened upon Clyde in an elevator.
Now, we tried to get a comment from Congressman Clyde but some far, no response.
But I am joined by California Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell. He`s a 2021 impeachment manager and is a member of House Committees on Intelligence and Homeland Security.
Congressman, when my producers told me this story, I had to look at your Twitter feed to verify. Even though I trust my producers inherently, I need to read it for myself.
Then I read Kinzinger`s retweet. Unbloody believable.
I -- I`m just going to let you comment. How? How can that be possible that this officer who has been on TV a lot, nine whole minutes of him talking on CNN are available, so everybody knows who he is.
Your comments on Clyde. I don`t get it.
REP. ERIC SWALWELL (D-CA): Joy, to honor Donald Trump, you now have to dishonor the police. That`s the only explanation I have for it.
Officer Fanone and Officer Harry Dunn stopped by my office earlier today, just unannounced. They popped in, I chatted with them for a while. They told me how much it hurt to watch the vote yesterday where 21 Republicans voted against giving these hero officers the gold medals.
And they said they wanted to embark on going to those offices to meet the members of Congress, tell them about their experience and hopefully change their minds. So, Fanone called me about 20 minutes after he left my office and he was just enraged. He said, is this really how it works around here?
The other part of this, Joy, I only had a couple of hundred characters in the tweet. He said that Congressman Clyde actually after he refused to shake his hand pulled out his cellphone and started recording Fanone like he was some sort of criminal, that he had to document the interaction. That`s just where these guys are right now.
I saw Clyde on the floor, scared for his life as all of us were, and I saw the brave officers who put their lives in front of ours and everyone else in that building. And this is just no way to treat them.
REID: Unbelievable. Yeah, let me ask you this. Let`s go back through this again.
On the day of the insurrection, did Congressman Clyde go out and greet the protesters and high five them and take selfies with them because they were just tourists? Did he go and greet them?
SWALWELL: No, I was actually grateful for what he did. He went and helped the Capitol police barricade the main door into the House floor, which was -- that was heroic of him, because he saw it with his own eyes. He was up close and personal.
But then what happens? Time passes, Donald Trump says it was just a nice day at the Capitol and that`s the new big lie that you have to accept.
And, by the way, you know who else -- who also did not go and confront the protesters despite telling us just days before she was going to bring her big gun to the Capitol? Lauren Boebert. She had that video two days before the insurrection that she was going to bring her gun on to the floor.
No, she ran for her life. And you know who defended her? People like Harry Dunn and Mike Fanone. That`s why they`re worthy of our gratitude and worthy of those gold medals that they`re all voting against.
REID: Absolutely. I mean, absolutely. This is the job we actually want police to do, to defend and protect people`s lives. This is what we want from police.
Let my play for you Paul Gosar, another person who I don`t know if you want to tell me. If he -- did Paul Gosar go out and greet the insurrectionists? Did you see --
SWALWELL: No, no.
REID: OK. Here is Gosar talking about one of the people who was killed during the insurrection.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. PAUL GOSAR (R-AZ): Why hasn`t that officer that executed Ashli Babbitt been named when police officers around the country are routinely identified after a shooting?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: So, it seems to me now what Republicans are trying to do is not just ignore these officers, refuse to honor them, but now also vilifying them. When you saw the police officers who had their guns trained on the doors, why did they have their guns trained on the doors of, for instance, the speaker`s lobby? From your point of view.
SWALWELL: Because -- you know, the -- and I was receiving the Capitol Police alerts of what they did know right before that, which is that pipe bombs were found, live pipe bombs were found, that there were armed people coming into the Capitol, that intelligence had shown on websites that people intended to bring their firearms to the Capitol that day, and the mob had broken through five different perimeters.
The last line was where Andrew Clyde stood and just 100 feet on the other end of where Andrew Clyde stood where Ms. Babbitt was killed was the other line where the officer had to resort to, you know, the deadly use of force to protect the dozens of members who were still on the floor.
That officer is a hero. He saved lives. He is not an executioner as Republicans are describing him as.
REID: Let me ask you this. If Ashli Babbitt, who was a military, trained - - you know, trained by United States tax dollars, being military. You know, she obviously knew how to use a gun, she knew how to do combat. If she had gotten through that door, the speaker`s door, and she and all of the crowd that were screaming on the other side of the door, if they got through what would have been on the other side of the door?
SWALWELL: They would have killed my colleagues. I saw that mob. I saw the colleagues who were left behind, who were the least mobile, and we were trying to figure out ways to get them out because it would require a stairway exit, and so you would have had the least able to defend themselves overrun by that mob, Joy.
Ashli Babbitt was the tip of the spear of that mob. As Office Fanone described, when he interacted with the mob they tried to strip him of his gun. If the mob had gotten around the final police officers who were there, they would have done the same thing and you would have seen dead members of Congress. So God bless the officer who saved us.
REID: My last question. If the name of that officer were to be released, what do you think might happen to that officer, given the fact that people on the right who support Donald Trump are threatening to kill people who were just in the business of counting votes, people who work in elections? Would it endanger that officer`s life to release his name?
SWALWELL: It would absolutely put a target on his back. And, by the way, that officer has been cleared and that shooting has been deemed as, you know, a lawful, unfortunate, shooting.
And, Joy, so now we have a Republican Party, you know, today by the way over double digits voted against recognizing Juneteenth. So it`s a pro- slavery, anti-police party that is rolling with the cop killers right now. That`s where we are here in Washington, D.C.
REID: Congressman, we spent a lot of time talking about police and, you know, issues of police abuse. The Capitol Police officers who defended the Capitol are the ideal of the way that we wish police would behave all over the country and the way a lot of police actually do.
They were brave. They did their job. They defended you. They defended your staff. They defended every member of Congress.
God bless them. They deserve those medals.
SWALWELL: That`s right.
REID: If you voted against them, you know what? Shame on you.
SWALWELL: That`s right.
REID: Congressman Eric Swalwell, thank you very much.
SWALWELL: My pleasure.
REID: After taking a -- cheers. After taking a successful stand against a new voter suppression bill in their home stay, Texas lawmakers were in Washington to meet with Vice President Harris and Democrats on Capitol Hill. One of those Texas lawmakers joins me next.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
REID: Let me begin with one immutable fact, the 2020 election was the most secure election in American history, period. But that`s not stopping Republicans from pushing the big lie of election fraud and laying the ground work to steal future elections.
Senator Chuck Schumer has reaffirmed that the Senate will bring the For the People Act which will make voting easier, increase election security, reduce the power of big money in elections, and mandate independent redistricting to the floor next week.
South Dakota Senator John Thune speaking on behalf of all Republicans said this bill needs to die and die quickly. And not helping matters are Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.
But Democrats outside Washington, D.C. are pulling out all the stuff to turn on the heat on these obstructionist Democrats. Yesterday, a delegation of Texas Democrats who stood together to block Republicans from passing a dangerous suppression bill for now, travelled to Washington to ask Democrats for help during their weekly lunch.
Senators Manchin and Sinema did not attend. Manchin`s office told NBC News he had another meeting.
Today, the Texas Democrats met with Vice President Harris.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: What we are seeing are examples of an attempt to interfere with that right, an attempt to marginalize and take from people a right that has already been given. We are not asking for the bestowal of a right, we are talking about the preservation of a right, that is the right of citizenship. And it`s that fundamental.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: And late today, five members of the Texas delegation were able to sit down with Senator Manchin to talk voting rights and in that meeting, Texas State Representative Chris Turner who joins me now and our first non- staff guest. It was first, Lawrence O`Donnell, and then you. So, congratulations on being our first on set guest in the COVID era.
STATE REP. CHRIS TURNER (D), TEXAS: I`m honored. Thank you for having me.
REID: So, let`s talk about, first of all, the fight that you all mounted in Texas. It was I think heroic for a lot of people to see you all stand up. How permanent is your ability to stop the law in Texas? What happens next?
TURNER: Well, it`s not permanent which is why we are here in Washington, D.C. We need federal help to stop Republicans in Texas and around the country from passing these suppressive laws, these discriminatory laws to make it harder for people. We need Congress to act. We need the president and vice president to act, and they`re doing everything they can.
REID: Yeah.
TURNER: And that was our message on Capitol Hill today.
REID: So, let`s get right to this Manchin meeting.
Manchin was not at the previous meeting. I guess he had some other meetings. We don`t know what those were as of now. But you met with him today. What did he say to you?
TURNER: Look, he was very gracious. He was generous with his time. We met about an hour. And he -- we had a robust discussion about voting rights and he made clear his commitment to making sure all-Americans have the ability to cast a ballot.
He talked about his experience as secretary of state and how -- they used to have competitions to see which state could get the biggest turnout. And he believes in that.
You know, he had some concerns, he said, with HR-1 and put out information with suggested changes he is proposing which I have not had a chance to fully review all of that yet.
We also talked about the Voting Rights Act, and the importance of passing John Lewis Voting Right Act and HR-1 so that we have robust protections.
In Texas, we need the Voting Rights Act back so we can have the preclearance mechanism to stop some of these discriminatory laws that we`ve not been able to stop since the Shelby County discussion.
REID: Well, I have a list here of at least what has been -- has been reported to be the potential changes that Senator Manchin is proposing. There is some troubling stuff.
It would codify what we`ve seen state by state as these voter ID laws which it`s not that people can`t get an ID. It can be expensive. It can be difficult to get to where you can get them.
There are all of the reasons that people generally don`t have the kind of ID that, you know, in Texas, they want you to have, a gun permit or whatever, right? People may not have it.
It would also codify not allowing people to vote absentee unless they had an excuse. Meaning affluent people whose summer in Florida -- or winter in Florida could vote absentee but not average, every day Texans.
If those are the changes, would putting John Lewis` name be appropriate if those are the changes that are made? Would that help Texas?
TURNER: Yeah. Well, so when we talked about some of those issues with the senator. And we explained to him on voter ID, in Texas, we have such a restrictive voter ID law that, as you say, you can hunt -- you can vote with a hunting license, but you cannot vote with a state-issued college ID.
REID: Right.
TURNER: The senator was shocked to learn that and thought that was completely unacceptable and he expressed his opposition to policies like that.
So, you know, it`d be my hope that he`d be open to conversation going forward. He`s certainly open today, to where -- we said these are the circumstances we are facing in Texas and need federal legislation to address these circumstances. The more we get into the details --
REID: Yeah.
TURNER: -- perhaps we could get somewhere.
REID: Representative Turner, I would be remiss if I didn`t mention Juneteenth, a law was just passed through the House, and I know Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, it has been a big part of her push.
What does it mean that at the same time we`re making Juneteenth a national holiday, you have states, including your home state, trying to push essentially to erase teaching the history that would explain what Juneteenth is?
TURNER: Yeah, it`s a complete and total disconnect. And Juneteenth is, of course, originally a Texas holiday because it happened in Texas --
REID: We celebrated it in Colorado, too. It was an original Texas holiday.
TURNER: Absolutely and we`re very proud of Juneteenth in Texas.
And I saw Congresswoman Jackson Lee earlier. She was very excited about what she was about to do in passing this bill and we congratulate her for it. But it is a complete and utter disconnect. I mean, we have such a history in Texas and across the country that we need to make sure that young people learn about the history of racial discrimination in this -- in our state and across the country.
Juneteenth is an important part of that, some -- a very pivotal moment in that history --
REID: Yeah.
TURNER: -- where the final slaves were emancipated in Texas.
But this critical race theory nonsense that Republicans are pushing across the country, including in Texas. Governor Abbot just signed the bill in Texas --
REID: How many elementary and middle and high schools in Texas are teaching critical race theory?
TURNER: The bill author couldn`t explain the problem he was trying to solve.
REID: Yeah, he doesn`t know what it is.
TURNER: Yeah, exactly. They have no idea what it is. They have no idea what it is.
REID: State Representative Chris Turner, we get the fist bump. Thank you for being here.
TURNER: Thank you, Joy.
REID: Welcome to being on set with us.
TURNER: Thank you.
REID: That is tonight`s REIDOUT.
And "ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES" starts right now.