Summary
Three U.S. senators test positive for COVID. Alabama hospitals have no ICU beds left. Mores kids are being admitted with COVID amid delta surge. Florida Governor DeSantis threatens to punish schools that defy ban on mask requirements. Anti-maskers protest in Miami. Southern states battle serve COVID resurgence. Parents sue Florida Governor DeSantis over ban on mask mandates. Texas Governor Abbott receiving Regeneron after getting COVID. Florida judge refuses to dismiss lawsuit challenging ban on school mask mandates. Biden says governors banning school mask mandates set a dangerous tone. Suspect arrested after terror threat on Capitol Hill. A former Afghan translator for the U.S. military is fighting to save family members from Afghanistan.
Transcript
JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: Like that was one of my favorite shows of all time, so kudos on that. And I`m really glad that your audience agrees with me on the protest song. I feel seen.
ARI MELBER, MSNBC HOST: Joy. Now, Joy, real quick everyone had your back and the only question is did they already agree because it was a good idea or did you work the numbers because people listen to Joy Reid and you said it on T.V. But we`re going to do a whole protest song update soon. And have a good night.
REID: I might have tweeted a thing, but I`m not going to -- I`m not owning that. They just agreed with me because I`m right. Ari, bye.
MELBER: Bye, Joy.
REID: Have a good evening.
Okay, good evening, everyone. We begin THE REIDOUT tonight with the stark reminder about the continued threat of COVID. Three U.S. senators announced today that they have tested positive, Democrat John Hickenlooper of Colorado, Independent Angus King of Maine and Republican Roger Wicker of Mississippi, all say they are fully vaccinated. That news comes as parts of the country, particularly the south, are being just pummeled by the delta variant.
As we speak Alabama has no, zero ICU beds left. In fact, it`s in negative territory, with some patients being treated on gurneys and hallways or in emergency rooms. The state has now surpassed Florida with the child hospitalization in the country. Alabama`s Republican governor, Kay Ivey, declared the state of emergency last week as her state`s hospitals face this nightmare scenario, but still, she stood her ground on saying there will be no new statewide mandates.
Her fellow Republicans have been actively declaring war not on the virus, but on virus protections, like in neighboring Georgia, where hospitals are also running out of ICU beds. Governor Brian Kemp is banning local governments from requiring businesses to adopt mask mandates. And in Texas, where health officials warn the current surge could be worse than anything the state has yet seen. The head of Texas medical center says that with nearly 20 percent of new cases in children, it`s a recipe for disaster.
Despite that threat to Texas children, the thrice vaccinated newly COVID positive Republican governor, Greg Abbott, is blocking schools from mandating masks for kids too young to get vaccinated while he receives the Cadillac treatment for COVID himself. Cue this clip from Titanic.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have a child. Please.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can`t pass here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Please I have a child. Please, I am all she has in the world.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go on. Step back. Step back, I say.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Give her to me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: If you haven`t seen the movie, that was not his child, #cowardice. Sure to Gregg Abbott, the COVID lifeboat is for me. The rest of you Texans better learn how to tread water.
Which brings us to Florida, where perhaps America`s cruelest governor, the always mercenary, Ron DeSantis, isn`t promoting vaccinations, oh, no. He`s threatening to financially punish local school boards who try to enact mask mandates and he`s spending more time attending fundraisers appearing on Fox News and selling anti Fauci merch than even trying to stop COVID from spreading in his state.
And his state is also drowning in record cases, including among school kids, stretching Florida hospitals to the limit. DeSantis` big idea is to offer already infected Floridians Regeneron pop-up clinics, like this one in Jacksonville, where you can see severely ill COVID patients laying on the floor awaiting the normally expensive treatment that`s been paid for by the federal government yesterday. Look at that.
The city confirmed that the state-run site was unprepared because of a surplus of people, but claimed they`ve since made adjustments to facilitate patients.
Meanwhile, as anti maskers in Miami continue to try to bully educators into continuing to infect the Sunshine stage children yesterday, two of the state`s largest districts, Miami-Dade and Hillsborough, voted to defy the governor`s idiotic and dangerous mask mandate ban and a group of parents have filed a lawsuit against DeSantis and the state, arguing it violates kids rights to safe secure public schools.
Joining me now is Democratic Congressman Charlie Crist of Florida, who is running again for governor, Dr. Vin Gupta, Critical Care Pulmonologist and Health Policy Expert and Amy Nell, a parent in Hillsborough County, Florida, who is among those suing Governor Ron DeSantis over masking policies in schools.
I have to start with you, Ms. Nell, because you are a parent that`s really at the center of this nightmare.
[19:05:02]
Why have you all sued and what do you hope to gain?
AMY NELL, FLORIDA PARTENT SUING GOVERNOR DESANTIS OVER MASKS: We felt like we needed to sue because the governor is clearly not prioritizing the health and safety of our kids.
REID: Yes. I think it`s clear.
NELL: And what we`re hoping to gain is that -- yes, we`re hoping that we can have the courts agree with us that he`s overreached his power and is surfing (ph) the power of our local school board to make decisions that should be made at the local level.
REID: Talk about that a little bit. Because, you know, the school board -- you know, Republicans used to believe in small government, the government closest to the people. There`s nothing closer to the people than our school board. That`s our kids, right? Do you feel that school boards and that parents are being bullied because they want mask mandates?
NELL: I do, because if we`re going to lose funding for trying to keep our kids safe, what -- I know that the school board members feel their hands are tied and that`s not fair.
REID: Are your kids old enough to be vaccinated?
NELL: No, they are not.
REID: They`re not. So they`re more vulnerable.
And I`m going to go to you Dr. Vin Gupta, because here`s the thing, kids under 12 can`t be vaccinated. There`s nothing they can do. They`re just sort of sitting ducks for COVID if their parents get COVID or if their grandma gets COVID.
I want to put this back up again. Can we put back up again this pop-up clinic? Because Ron DeSantis has decided, let COVID run through our schools. Let the kids sick, let the parents get sick. Let COVID run wild on cruise ships, but then we put up a pop-up clinic and then you become get expensive with Regeneron that the state had got from the federal government. They`re giving it out for free. But people, instead of being in the E.R. or in the ICU, were literally laying on the floor. This post, it went viral on Reddit. People were moaning apparently in suffering. There it is. This is what Ron DeSantis has decided is the right way to deal with COVID. I just have to get your reaction, Dr. Gupta.
DR. VIN GUPTA, CRITICAL CARE PULMONOLOGIST: So, good evening, Joy, and great to be here. A few things, on schools just to start there briefly. Here`s the thing. What we`re learning now more and more, is that if you don`t have updates to heating ventilations and air conditioning system, HVAC for short, and that costs a lot of money, Joy. We`re talking about HEPA filters, something called MERV-13 filters actually installed in the ducts, That`s a lot of money for a school district in an urban city, especially to afford.
It`s not like Governor DeSantis has opened up a spigot and is funding goes renovations to school district across Florida. Without that, without that innovation, without that investment, and that`s a long-term investment, what do we have? They have masks. That`s the only thing we have to keep our children safe in the state of Florida and schools across this country because vaccines, as you pointed out, are not available.
So let`s just be clear right here about the mitigation measures that we can input because there`s -- and responding about the vaccines that don`t exist for kids yet, and masks. That`s all we have.
To your point about Regeneron vaccines, it`s really odd and it`s incredibly strange that Governor Abbott and Governor DeSantis seem very willing to message on monoclonal antibodies, which I`m certainly an advocate of for those who need it. Now, its indication is proposed exposure prophylaxis. So, a quick plug (ph) Joy, for your viewers out there, combatcovid@hhs.gov, if you`re high risk, or unvaccinated, you have been exposed, go to that website and you can get access to it. But that is not a backbone of a great strategy to get people through this pandemic. It`s to get vaccinated. It`s to put up masking policies, not to prohibit those.
REID: Let me play what -- you mentioned mask, Dr. Vin Gupta. Here`s what Ron DeSantis and this is on Fox, and this is what he said about masks just today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-TX): There is not a lot of data supporting forcing kindergarteners to be masked. You have this obsession that a little five- year-old should not be able to go to school without wearing that mask for eight hours a day and just as a parent, you know, I`m offended that the federal government thinks that they know better than we do as parents.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Sorry, he was not on Fox at this point. I mean, he`s on Fox so much, I just assume that`s where he`s always talk. He was at a press conference. Is he telling the truth, Dr. Gupta?
GUPTA: No, he`s not. And I`ll be happy -- Governor DeSantis, I`d be happy to brief his team (ph). You are wrong. There is data that was just published in the Journal of the American Medical Association showing that young kids, toddler age and those less than five who are not going to get vaccinated anywhere in the near future, can more easily transmit the virus, Joy, than adolescents. So he`s wrong. And there`s empirical data now publish in our best journals proving him wrong. So I`m happy to talk more about that directly to his team.
REID: Yes. Let me go to you. I always want to call you Governor Crist, Representative Crist, because you inherited the unique position of having been governor of Florida, but also having been education secretary of Florida.
[19:10:03]
So you were in charge of that system of schools. So I am very eager to hear what you think of the governor`s strategy so far.
REP. CHARLIE CRIST (D-FL): Well, I would echo the comments of the doctor and, Joy, thanks for having me on. The governor is just wrong, dead wrong, and, you know, continues to pursue, you know, not having kids wear masks in schools. I mean, as education secretary, the last elected one in Florida, I understand the most important thing to do is make sure to keep children safe. I mean, what parent doesn`t think about that when they get up every morning and their kids go away to school, I hope my child is safe at school today?
But what`s happening in Florida is we`re not allowing them to be safe because Governor DeSantis signs an executive order saying that, you know, if you wear a mask in school in your school district, wherever one of the 67 counties that might be that that happens, I`m going to threaten you by taking away some of your education funding. But it got worse than that, Joy. He doubled down sand said, you know what, I might even think about taking you out of office, removing you from office as superintendents or school board members if you dare, you know, to go up against the governor. And say that, you know, children in our school district, whether it`s Hillsborough, Miami-Dade, Broward, Nassau County, some of the others that have already done this, and they`re defying Governor DeSantis because they`re putting the children ahead of the governor, which absolutely they should.
It`s appalling. He is wrong, DeSantis. The doctor said it best. He`s just wrong.
REID: I also -- you used to be a Republican. I mean, you`re a lifelong Republican until the party chased you out of office for accepting stimulus money and not wanting to destroy teachers` pensions. Can you get in the heads of these Republican governors who seem to think letting children get sick is good politics? Do you get it at all?
CRIST: I don`t. I really don`t, except to say that you know, the time I became an independent then a Democrat, the Republican Party was much different than it is today and now, you know, that was back when the tea party was occurring in 2010. But now what we have, it`s metastasized, if you will, particularly after the reign of President Trump.
So what are the Republican governors doing that are thinking these things, that are not protecting our children that are, you know, really saying that they`re going to punish school boards that try to protect the children in those districts? They`re not going around, you know, advocating taking a vaccine. Rather what they`re doing is saying take the medicine after you get the disease.But thank God we have that medicine and it exists.
But why don`t you advocate you know beforehand, prevention, prevention, prevention, make sure that you keep the kids safe before they even get sick and advocate wearing of the mask? It makes no sense except for one thing, that this governor, DeSantis, is more in pursuit of the presidency in 2024 and appeasing that hard right sliver of the Republican Party, the primary voters, to get that nomination that he is concerned about being governor. He`s more concerned about Iowa votes than he is about people and children in Florida, and that`s wrong.
REID: And people like Ms. Nell. I`m giving you the last word of this. I want to note for our audience that a Leon County, Florida, Judge C. Cooper, has refused to dismiss the parent lawsuit challenging the mask mandate ban. It has cleared the way for a three-day hearing next week on whether to block enforcement of DeSantis` order.
Ms. Nell, I have to ask you, what will you do if the governor prevails, ultimately, and is allowed to stop schools from having mask mandates? Will you feel safe sending your kids to school?
NELL: Of course not. We know, based on all reputable science that masking is the safest -- universal masking is the safest thing we have particularly for our elementary-age kids who aren`t illegible for vaccine yet. And if he prevails, I don`t think that`s the end of the road. I think we have some other options and it`s really reassuring to hear Biden step in and say that he`ll help us and we hope that that`s possible.
REID: Yes. Yes, I will note that President Biden said today, this was his statement on stop intimidating teachers. Unfortunately, as you`ve seen throughout this pandemic, some politicians are trying to turn public safety measures, that is children wearing mask in schools, into political disputes for their own political gain, he says it`s dangerous. He says we`re not going to sit by as the federal government and try to intimidate teachers. So he has stood with the parents who want to protect their kids from a deadly pandemic.
Thank you, Congressman Charlie Crist, I appreciate you, Dr. Gupta, as always, and Amy Nell, best of luck to you. We are all on your side.
Up next on THE REIDOUT, the domestic terror threat after a long standoff and a suspect surrenders in D.C. after threatening to detonate bombs near the Library of Congress, as the government warns yet again of the threat we all face from domestic extremists.
[19:15:06]
Plus, a former translator for the U.S. military in Afghanistan joins me on his desperate effort to get his family out of Afghanistan amid the growing Republican backlash against allowing Afghan refugees into the United States.
And tonight`s absolute worst, churning out deadly COVID misinformation to an audience that just keeps coming back for more.
THE REIDOUT continues after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
REID: For the past three days, the American media gaze has been fixed on Afghanistan and the potential for terrorism to rear its ugly head again with the Taliban back in charge. We`ve heard 24/7 dissections of everything the Biden administration did or didn`t do and all the factors going into the withdrawal of U.S. troops and what it all means for Biden`s political future and the future of Afghanistan and of our country.
[19:20:00]
It`s been remarkable to see daily press conferences and demands for oversight and constant information flowing out of Washington and the press.
It sure is dramatically different, frankly, from how the country has approached the January 6 insurrection, which was, to be clear, an attempt by domestic terrorists to take control of our government, to try to install Donald Trump as president, against the will of a majority of voters, 80 million of them, to be clear.
It was literally homegrown terrorists attacking our democracy. Yet, to this day, the details remain elusive, unlike with Afghanistan. There were no daily briefings about what happened on January 6 and why.
Republicans have refused to even investigate the root causes of the assault. Some have even lionized the assailants and sided with them, even as hundreds of cases are winding their way through the courts with very little fanfare.
The lack of attention feels odd, frankly, given the magnitude of the attack, the fact that it happened live on TV, and that it was the first attack on our Capitol since 1814.
What`s even more confounding and, frankly, terrifying is that the threat isn`t even close to being over. Months ago, FBI Director Christopher Wray warned that violent domestic terrorism is a threat that is growing. And six days ago, the Department of Homeland Security issued a warning about potential violence from domestic extremists, including people radicalized by COVID-19 conspiracy theories and conspiracy theories related to the big lie.
Well, today, those warnings came to life. Authorities say a North Carolina man drove a pickup truck to the steps of the Library of Congress across the street from the Capitol and threatened to blow up two D.C. blocks. Police who responded to the scene observed what appeared to be a detonator in his hand.
For a time, he was livestreaming his rantings, suggesting that President Biden`s election was legitimate and offering to end his standoff if Biden resigned. He also claimed that he was prepared to die for -- quote -- "the revolution" and called on other so-called patriots to join him.
Capitol Hill police and Metropolitan police officers, the same police agencies who were physically attacked in January by a pro-Trump lynch mob who chanted "Hang Mike Pence" and hunted Speaker Pelosi, spent hours negotiating with this would-be bomber.
The suspect, identified as Floyd Roseberry, surrendered willingly hours later. No viable explosives were found, but possible bomb-making materials were collected from the truck.
Now, what is clear, though, seven months after thousands of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol to try to overturn the 2020 election, what is clear that domestic terrorism remains a very clear and present danger.
I`m joined now by Malcolm Nance, MSNBC terrorism analyst and Joyce Vance, former U.S. attorney and an MSNBC legal analysis -- legal analyst.
Sorry. I`m learning to talk today.
Malcolm, I want to read to you what the Department of Homeland Security issued in its national terrorism advisory system bulletin.
Here`s what it said: "Through the remainder of 2021, racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists and anti-government, anti-authority violent extremists will remain a national threat priority for the United States. There also continued nonspecific calls for violence on multiple online platforms associated with domestic violent extremist ideologies or conspiracy theories on perceived election fraud and alleged reinstatement of Trump and responses to anticipated restrictions relating to the increasing COVID cases."
You have talked about that on this show, that this is the threat we should be focused on. I take it what we saw today did not surprise you. But what do you make of the fact that we have so backed off that concern just eight months after the attack?
(CROSSTALK)
MALCOLM NANCE, NBC COUNTERTERRORISM AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, it`s absolutely amazing.
Yes, it`s absolutely amazing that, while we`re going through this paroxysm in Afghanistan on incompetence or lack of planning, I mean, we had the same thing at the Capitol. I mean, I just had this debate recently on a major TV show with the Republicans` supposed top intellectual, where he denied that there were 40,000 people at the Trump rally.
And I said, 40,000 people were at that rally. As many as 10,000 marched on the building and as many as 2,000 fought and got their way into that building. Complete denial about this.
The biggest part of the big lie is phase two, right, this denial strategy that they have, in believing that nothing happened. But like that funny meme goes right, they said it was Black Lives Matter, Antifa and left-wing paid crisis actors, but they refused to investigate it.
That naturally led -- by May, I started seeing an upswing back to where people were quintupling down on armed revolution or quintupling down on reinstalling Donald Trump back into power.
[19:25:03]
And, as we`re studying January 6 -- and I have said this before on this show -- we are headed into an insurgency that is going to be generational. These people do not believe a word that is said in media. They get their own information sphere, and that creates lone wolf actors like we saw today.
And the next one may have a real viable weapon system that he detonates.
REID: And, Joyce, does it surprise you, as it does me, that, after the January 6 insurrection, normally, we would have like daily -- what you would think we would have would be almost daily press conferences, like the ones we`re seeing about Afghanistan, from the Capitol Police, from the FBI.
If this had been a Muslim -- Muslims that attacked us, or if the people had been black, if it had been anything other than the people who attacked us, I don`t see how we wouldn`t have had daily press conferences every day, constant hearings, constant information coming out.
We`re getting more information about what Biden knew on Saturday about the Taliban than we have ever gotten about January 6. Does that surprise you, as it does me?
JOYCE VANCE, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: I think we have the same reaction, Joy.
In the immediate aftermath of January 6, I and many other former DOJ folks kept waiting for the establishment of a command post and daily or twice daily or even three times daily briefings sharing information, because this is what you typically see after far less significant incidents.
And perhaps far less significant is the wrong way of characterizing them, but that`s to say anything that approaches domestic terrorism. So, for example, something that hits close to home for me, Eric Robert Rudolph, who set off a string of bombs in Atlanta, and in Birmingham, Alabama, in the Birmingham case, killing a police officer, immediately, there was a command post, and there were briefings given to the press three and four times a day around the clock, updating them.
We never saw any of that in the aftermath of January 6. And it was left to the acting U.S. attorney in the District of Columbia, in essence, to finally hold a press conference days later, and be a sort of source of information.
That sort of treatment in the inter -- the immediate aftermath of this incident, I think, has played a role in permitting it to fade from the public conscience. That`s not any blame to the Biden Justice Department. They were obviously not in charge at that point.
But it is now critically important that public leadership from both sides of the political spectrum, instead of indulging whether they`re lone wolves or organized political insurgents, that there just be an absolute condemnation of this sort of violent conduct and a reiteration of the fact that, in America, we play political games at the voting box, not with guns and with explosive devices.
REID: And the only reason that we know who the Taliban are is because they decided to back a terrorist group, al-Qaida, right?
They are an extreme right-wing organization that perverts the Islamic faith for power, for their own -- for power, for power.
Here in the United States, our extremists have a political party backing them. They have the only other major political party backing them. There are only two major political parties. One of them basically backs them, right?
Let me look -- show you this poll real quick, Malcolm, whether people are concerned about extreme -- about domestic terrorism or -- and foreign terrorism. Are you concerned about terrorism, terrorist groups in the United States? Republicans, even Republicans, 57 percent are concerned about it. Democrats, 75 percent are concerned about it.
But concerned about foreign terrorism, well, Republicans are far more -- they`re a little less concerned about that. But you can see that there is somewhat of a partisan difference.
But people are actually really concerned. Even Republicans are concerned about domestic terrorism in the United States.
Can you get me to understand why we have one political party that has opted out of the securing this nation from a lethal threat that the FBI, not some liberal organization, but Chris Wray, worked for Trump, right -- he was Trump`s FBI director too -- says is a lethal threat to us?
Can you understand that?
NANCE: Well, I can understand it, in the sense that we should stop referring to the Republicans as being like the Taliban. They`re not. That is a unified homogeneous group.
They`re more like Sinn Fein, the political branch of the Irish -- of the provisional Irish Republican Army, and who represents their interests as they carried out the insurgency against Great Britain in the 1970s, `80s, until it all was settled in the 1990s.
They view this as an opportunity to have a political warfare in the houses of Congress, which will eventually start playing out in the streets.
[19:30:08]
REID: Yes, well, the Taliban saw al-Qaida as being useful to them too. Just saying.
Malcolm Nance, Joyce Vance, thank you very much.
Still ahead: the bewildering backlash on the right against our Afghan allies, who now find themselves refugees from the Taliban, with one clueless Republican Senate candidate accusing President Biden of turning America into -- quote -- "a refugee camp."
We will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
REID: Thousands of our Afghan allies remain in a state of purgatory tonight, not knowing if they will make it out or face the deadly repercussions from the Taliban for having bravely supported our men and women in uniform.
And while we should be welcoming them with open arms for putting their lives in danger to help keep us safe at home, they are instead facing attacks from some on the American right, who, as we have been telling you, are trying to spread fear that our Afghan allies are dangerous, even calling them invaders.
[19:35:08]
Earlier this week, I spoke with Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who, as a child, was a refugee herself from Somalia, about what those on the right might actually be afraid of.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ILHAN OMAR (D-MN): I know what some of these people are worried about, is that they`re worried that refugees like myself, when they come to this country, will outshine them. But that is just their own failure and their inability to find success in the ways in which refugees have found success in this country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Can`t find the lie.
And, as if to prove her point, the pied piper of fish sticks and FOX -- of fish sticks and FOX News himself, old Tuckums himself responded last night, predictably attacking the congresswoman.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS: The truth is, this is our fault. She is our fault. Ilhan
Omar is living proof that we are not very good at resettling refugees. She was saved from a refugee camp in Kenya as a child by the kindness and generosity of America. And yet she has grown to hate America and the people who live here.
Where did she learn those attitudes? Well, of course, in college. Our colleges, we taught her to hate our country. She became worse after she got here.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Joining me now is Christina Greer, associate professor of political science at Fordham University, and Tim Miller, writer at large for The Bulwark.
I mean, Christina, obviously, you`re right. It`s an absolute failure. This young woman comes here as a refugee from Somalia as a little kid. She manages to, let`s check these off, go to college and graduate with a degree, per Tuckums, and become a congresswoman.
Yes, I guess the guy who got rejected by the CIA, but does have the fish stick money, I mean, clearly a failure, as he`s described it, Yes?
CHRISTINA GREER, FORDHAM UNIVERSITY: Right.
I mean, Ilhan Omar did the thing that all of the Tucker Carlsons of the world say that she should do, right, come here, become an upstanding citizen, go to university, get a job, and then aspire for something more. She did that. And now he`s angry.
I mean, I think sadly, the narrative of this nation of being a nation of immigrants has never been true. We can look at how we have Chinese Exclusion Acts dating back to the 1800s. We know how we treated the Irish, the Italians, the Jewish, the Germans, the Japanese.
I mean, when we think about Japanese internment camps, there were Germans and Italians and there as well. So, when Tucker Carlson criticizes Ilhan Omar, and obviously signaling the new refugees who will be arriving at our shores, is trying to scare his base even more.
These are people, by and large, who did not have any competition growing up. And now they`re -- as Ilhan Omar stated, now you actually might have to earn something for yourself. And don`t be mad at me because I worked and I`m still working to make this country better.
And, as James Baldwin has said, we know to love America is to criticize America. The brochure of America has always have been very different from the reality. We know that, because of the genocide of Native American peoples. We know of chattel slavery of African-Americans for hundreds of years.
So this ideal of America has never been a reality. And we now have way more educated people who are speaking about it in various corners of the world, not just in classrooms, such as myself, but in the halls of Congress. And that is what sort of the Tucker Carlsons of the world cannot stand.
That`s what -- you and I get lots of hate mail from people who cannot stand educated black woman on television and other educated black women in the classroom. This is what they tell us to do. And when we go and do it, now we see we have a problem.
REID: You know, Tim, the word I think that stands out to me that Christina said is competition, right, is the idea that, back in the day, when it was all white guys and all white guys got everything, there was no competition.
So there was nothing threatening. Everybody was like you. And you figured, well, I can get all those jobs because -- if they`re like me.And it does strike me that people like Tucker have resentment that other people now have the chance to be a congressperson, right?
But the people, the other people joining in this -- I mean, he doesn`t surprise me at all. He`s Tuckums. I get it. That`s who he is.
I was disappointed. I have to be honest. I know Steve Cortes. I used to battle with him on my weekend show. He`s a nice guy. He joined in this. He, who I`m sure a lot of the Tuckums of the world would probably get pissed if he moved in their neighborhood, said: "Raise your hand if you want this plane landing in your town."
He joined in this. People who know better, they`re doing this.
J.D. Vance, who essentially sort of pimped the idea of white poverty for cash, and has now sold those people out and said that they`re bad people, J.D. Vance writes: "While many of the Afghanistan people are good people, they`re bad ones too, don`t like Americans and our Western way of life. Resettling them in the United States, so our country becomes a refugee camp, is not the answer."
He, in theory, knows better, because people like him who were white and poor used to get looked down on by people like Tuckums.
Why do people who would be looked down on by people like Tuckums join in this?
TIM MILLER, THE BULWARK: Man, Joy, this topic just fills me with rage. I just can`t -- I can`t even contain it sometimes.
[19:40:00]
Look, here -- they`re doing it for a simple reason, for the same reason that politicians and media personalities on right, in the populist side of American politics have done this for generations. I can`t give the same history lesson that the professor did, but I can tell you, it goes back to Father Coughlin, and the beginning of time in this country. They do it because there`s a market for it.
CHRISTINA GREER, FORDHAM UNIVERSITY: Yeah.
MILLER: Because people want it. And about half of the Republican base is calling for this and really wants it and the other half is just fine to go along with it, right? And that is essentially what is underpinning all of this.
And when I look that the Steve Cortes tweet, you know, first, I raise my hand and say I want them in my community for starters. And it makes me so upset at him, but it also makes me upset because the people on that plane are going to be great Americans, are going to be the best Americans. They`re going to have the fervor of a convert to the American way of life, right? And they`re going to go on and achieve things.
It gets me even more frustrated, Joy, I just have to say this. I feel like there`s been a callousness even from this administration, from people that I expect better from on this topic because we`ve left this people in really terrible situations and they`re our problem. It`s our problem.
I saw this video of a young guy who has his green card and he was supposed to fly here today but couldn`t get out of an airport today because the Taliban`s blocking it because we didn`t realize the city was going to fall to the Taliban this quickly. That young man would be a great American and it`s up to us right now to go get them and bring them here and we can deal with the Steve Cortes and the Tucker. These guys are the scum on the bottom of our shoe.
We can all deal with the politics later. This administration is going to get them here. And, you know, make them leave it to me and you to trash all the bigots that they see is political challenges.
JOY REID. MSNBC HOST: Amen.
MILLER: They shouldn`t be thinking about the politics on this. I`m a little frustrated it feels like they are.
REID: You know what? I am far more interested in how we get that mission done than in knowing what Joe Biden knew from the CIA on Saturday. I feel like the media has been more obsessed with how did Biden not know the Taliban were terrible? He knew they were terrible, OK? We get it, we get it. You`re pissed off it didn`t go smoothly like you were when they rolled out Obamacare, we get it.
But I want to know to what you want to know, how do we get them out of there.
I will report for our audience, just very quick news item. There is now a quorum in Texas. So, bad things come in Texas on voting rights.
But we will get to that another day.
Christina Greer, Tim Miller, thank you both very much.
Tonight`s absolute worst is still ahead. As a certain right wing news channel relentlessly endangers the life of its own viewers while keeping themselves safe.
But first, a former Afghan translator for the U.S. military on his fight to save family members from Afghanistan. That`s next. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:46:51]
REID: Afghans marched in protest today against the Taliban in the capital city of Kabul and other provinces. A very brave move given the Taliban`s reputation for brutality. In fact, three people were killed for trying to hoist the Afghan national flag.
There`s been violence near the Kabul airport, which the U.S. military continues to control, as people who want out rush to escape the country. But the key to that being do whatever you can to get to that airport.
Twelve people have been killed since Sunday according to "Reuters". Still, the evacuations are happening. The pentagon says 7,000 have been evacuated since august 14th with 2,000 flown out in the last 24 hours. Fewer than 300 of those evacuees were American.
Now, if evacuations continue, the challenge of getting to the Kabul airport remains very real. Afghans have a good reason to fear targeted at Taliban check points for connections to the U.S. military.
Qismat Amin is a former interpreter for American troops who now lives in Texas is doing everything he can to get his family out, including his two college educated sisters, but particularly his brother, who also worked as an interpreter and his initial visa application was turned down.
I`m joined now by Qismat Amin, former U.S. military interpreter from Afghanistan.
I want to start by thanking you for doing that. Very important and very brave of you to do that for us. So thank you. Tell me about the circumstance facing your brother and your sisters right now?
QISMAT AMIN, FORMER U.S. MILITARY INTERPRETER FROM AFGHANISTAN: Well, thank you, Joy, for having me on your show. Yeah, well I just talked to my family this morning. I talk to them every night and morning. I`m sure you can imagine what I`m going through.
They`re fine as of right now, but like, they`re really terrified for their lives because the question is that can we trust the Taliban or cannot. No, we cannot trust Taliban under no circumstances because what exactly happen is that with the deal struck that they wanted come to Afghanistan, they said they will reduce the violence. They didn`t do it. A lot of civilians were killed, a lot of Afghan forces were killed.
Now, they`re in Afghanistan, they say they will forgive everyone. But they`re looking for people now. They have people in their custody. So people are really terrified for their life.
My sisters were educated girls and one wanted to be just like you, Joy. She wanted to be on the TV in her country. My brother who is an SIV applicant, worked for the U.S. government and he is actually, he`s terrified. He`s stuck there and can`t go anywhere, basically.
REID: I believe your sister will be on TV in this country. I really believe that. I`m just going to go ahead and believe that.
I want to play Richard Engel. He spoke to some other folks trying to get out. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICHARD ENGEL, NBC NEWS CHIEF FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT: They wait outside for hours until the planes arrive. Surrounded by trash. Always under guard. Most arrive here already exhausted because to get here, they had to navigate through Taliban fighters who control the airport perimeter and whose idea of crowd control is using guns and whips.
We`ve now landed in Doha, Qatar.
[19:50:01]
This has been a long journey for the Afghans and also been a very emotional one.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: So that kind of gives our audience a sense of what it looks like and what it is like for your family trying to get out. I want to primarily ask you, number one, do your sisters and your brother, do they feel safe having their paperwork, especially your brother, who is a translator, are they keeping the paperwork or are they afraid to have it? If they don`t have it, how will they get admission?
AMIN: That`s a very tough situation, Joy. I talked to my mom the other day and she`s actually terrified, like I said, for her kids` life. She store all her documents in the pillow in the House. I talk to my brother and say, hey, there could be a chance for you to go to the airport and make it through the checkpoints and hopefully you`ll make it in a safe place.
But he said, my brother said, I cannot go to Kabul. I`m from Jalalabad which is two hours drive from my home to Kabul. He cannot make it because there`s tons of checkpoints and all are controlled by the Taliban.
So think about having a document with yourself that you worked for the American forces and you go through these check points, the odds are they will find you. And you don`t know because at this point, the Taliban is not a recognized group or if this was a military group you would know who`s who but it could be anyone at the checkpoint and they can hurt you in any possible way.
REID: So, let`s put a map, so people get a sense of between Jalalabad and Kabul, how far it is, about two hours, 155 kilometers or 96 miles. It`s a significant distance. Have you gotten any assurances given your service and your brother`s service to us from the Biden administration that they will expedite -- because they have said they`re expediting these applications? Have you gotten any assurances like that?
AMIN: To be completely honest with you, nothing so far. But the whole thing is just chaos right now because people wanted to come to -- they want to go to the airport but they cannot go to the airport.
REID: Yeah.
AMIN: Like on your previous show when you had that gentleman on your show, he said there was a person with a green card and he wanted to get on a plane but he was not able to make it to the plane because these -- it`s such chaos there and you see Taliban shooting at people.
So at this point, I`ve got no assurance from the government or the administration to assure me, hey, your brother or your family will make it. But at this point, I`m just having a conversation with you guys, having a conversation with other folks and trying to pull all the contacts or connections that I have in the U.S. to kind of figure out what I need to do at this point because the family is literally stuck there.
It`s so hard to process the whole thing because it all happened in the matter of a couple of days. And these people are not -- like I said, they don`t keep their promises. They don`t live up to their promises.
I`m sure you read the report this morning from U.N. they are actually looking for people`s houses. They want to go into your house and search for documents for any possible thing they can. So, that is really, really scary.
REID: Yeah. No, it`s terrifying. Listen, I`m hoping that seeing you on this show tonight will help you in any way. We are going to be praying for you, your brother, your sister, because we want your sister to be here on TV. I want her to come on with me and we`re just going to wish you all the best.
Thank you so much, Qismat Amin. We are going to be sticking with your story and following up.
And stay right before because tonight`s absolute worst is straight ahead. As a certain TV cable news network reaches new highs -- really new lows of hypocrisy while putting its own viewers at risk. That`s next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
REID: Sean Hannity, who hurt you? I ask, because in one week alone, you hawked MyPillow products while talking about Americans stranded in Kabul, the same day that you let a con man come on to your show and say that the Taliban created in 1994 has been around for 1,000 years.
But it didn`t stop there. Last night you had on another con man, deeply committed to making the pandemic worse and that is baby MAGA DeSantis who is opening up Regeneron pop-up clinics while at the same time fighting prevention measures like vaccines and masks.
Those clinics, let`s look at one of them again. Take a look at this. This photo went viral on Reddit. This person is very sick, lying on the floor of a clinic, these pop-up clinics at the Jackson Public Library downtown. I repeat, a library.
Why aren`t these people in the hospital? Isn`t that the question Sean Hannity should be asking rather than promoting this kind of, sort of sketchy situation pushed by a governor no one ought to trust regarding COVID? Because, Sean, you know that COVID can kill you. Your company knows it too. Per an internal memo, fox news is mandating employees, like Hannity`s own producers, to enter their vaccine status in a database.
So what gives? Is it the insatiable thirst for ratings or validation? Maybe it`s money.
Whatever the reason, this is what Fox News and DeSantis have done. Neither Hannity nor Tuckems nor Laura Ingraham and the rest of the filthy rich Fox News hosts nor any of their wealthy friends will ever have to lie dying on a library floor begging for Regeneron. You all will never be refused a hospital bed. Your bills are covered. Your king got COVID and got flown to the nation`s best military hospital in a helicopter to receive all the Cadillac treatments available. Money was no object.
Most of your viewers, they don`t have that luxury. They aren`t going to get Regeneron because they can`t afford it. It`s $1200 a shot.
And that is why the Fox News hypocrites who are pushing anti-vax, anti-mask lies and expensive COVID treatment that most of their viewers can`t afford and will never get instead of giving them useful and powerful information, using their platform to give free information on free prevention, they are tonight`s absolute worst.
And that`s tonight`s REIDOUT.
"ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES" starts now.