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Transcript: The ReidOut, 8/5/21

Guests: Mara Gay, Mary Trump, Rebecca Martin, Cori Bush

Summary

Cuomo urged to resign as impeachment probe nears end. Conservative hypocrisy on display in calls for Cuomo`s resignation. E. Jean Carroll describes Trump`s alleged assault. Interview with U.S. Congresswoman Cori Bush of Missouri.

Transcript

ARI MELBER, MSNBC HOST: And, of course, shout-out to Ray Charles and Georgia on our mind.

That does it for me, THE REIDOUT with Joy Reid is up next. And I`ve heard she`s back.

JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: I`m back.

MELBER: Welcome back Joy.

REID: I am back. Thank you very much, Ari. I appreciate it. I followed you into the long vacay, but I`m back. So, thank you very much. I appreciate it.

MELBER: Yes.

REID: Have a good one. All right, everyone, good evening. Yes. Happy Friday Junior, everyone. It is great to be back. And I want to thank everyone who filled in for me while I was on a much-needed vacation, Tiffany Cross before she wound up with me in Cabo, Alicia Menendez and Jonathan Capehart, thank you, thank you, thank you.

So, I spent almost a week apiece in Montego Bay, Jamaica, a country that actually takes COVID seriously, and Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, with these dynamic and gorgeous ladies. Big ups to Angela Rye and Jemele Hill, the greatest vacation planners ever, and the other machetes, Sunny Hostin, Tiffany Cross, Erin Haynes, LaTosha Brown, Alicia Garza and Brittany Packnett Cunningham. We had the best time, as you can see.

And I know a lot has gone on while I`ve been away. This delta variant has now mutated again into delta plus. And some of your governors are belatedly figuring out that this is actually out of freaking control. We`ll get to that later in the show.

And Mary Trump will be here to talk about her new book. And you know I`ve got to ask her what happened on The View of this week. And there`s a lot more.

But we begin THE REIDOUT tonight with the state of New York where New York City has finally gotten the ball rolling implementing a serious vaccine mandate, which will probably save the state`s economy, but where the governor is in unpoquitito trouble, facing multiple sexual harassment allegations.

So, let`s be clear. If Governor Cuomo had a reasonable conscience he would resign. But if you`re one of those conservatives who`s sticking your chest out and calling for his head the same way that you all acted like Al Franken should have resigned while paying near attention to your own backyard, I`m going to need you to stand down since you never used even an ounce of that energy for any of your folks.

Let`s start with Clarence Thomas, shall we? Remember him?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANITA HILL, CLARENCE THOMAS ACCUSER: My working relationship became even more strained when Judge Thomas began to use work situations to discuss sex.

He talked about pornographic materials, depicting individuals with large penises or large breasts involved in various sex acts.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

REID: Now, Clarence, from your right-wing Supreme Court contingent, was credibly accused of sexual harassment, and not just by Anita Hill, there`s also Angela Wright, who said this to NPR in 2007. Thomas, quote, had made similar remarks to me and in my presence about my body and other women`s bodies, and he did pressure me to date him, and he did drop by the house when unannounced.

And also, Lillian McEwen, who was in a relationship with Thomas at the time when his alleged harassment of Hill has said to have occurred, though McEwen never claimed that Thomas had been inappropriate toward her, she has alleged that Thomas would often talk about the women he worked with. McEwen, told the Washington Post, quote, he was always actively watching the women he worked with to see if they could be potential partners. It was a hobby of his.

Oh, and Sukari Hardnett, who was Thomas` special assistant at the equal employment opportunity commission from 1985 to 1986. During Thomas` confirmation hearing, she submitted a sworn affidavit describing her experiences with Judge Thomas. She wrote, quote, if you were young, black, female and reasonably attractive and worked directly for Clarence Thomas, you knew full well you were being inspected and auditioned as a female.

And for all you resign Cuomo conservatives let`s recall what your man Clarence said about whether he would withdraw his nomination given the allegations against him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLARENCE THOMAS, SUPREME COURT NOMINEE: I would have preferred an assassin`s bullet to this kind of living hell that they have put me and my family through.

I`d rather die than withdraw.

I never cry uncle.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

REID: Never cry uncle. Rather die than withdraw. Oh, and then there`s the, I like beer and I black out justice, Brett Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh cried and whined his way through his confirmation hearings, in which he was credibly accused of sexually abusing a teenage friend, Christine Blasey Ford.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRISTINE BLASEY FORD, KAVANAUGH ACCUSER: I believed he was going to rape me. I tried to yell for help. When I did, Brett put his hand over my mouth to stop me from yelling.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

REID: And let`s not forget your king, MAGA mob, Donald Trump. I mean, you give me nasty Cuomo and I`ll give you at least 26 accusers who have alleged Trump committed everything from sexual harassment to rape. Cue Miss E. Jean Carroll, who I interviewed on my former show A.M. Joy back in 2019.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

E. JEAN CARROLL, TRUMP ACCUSER: I walked in right in front of him and he shut the door and bang, right against the wall.

REID: So immediately upon walking into that dressing room he attacked you?

[19:05:01]

CARROLL: Right against the wall.

REID: Yes.

CARROLL: Like I`m just going to love kissing this guy. It was -- I was so surprised.

REID: Did he say anything or --

CARROLL: No.

REID: Did he say anything, or indicate trying to get consent from you?

CARROLL: No.

REID: Did you want him to kiss you?

CARROLL: He was -- I guess this is what he thought was --

REID: That he could do. You mean that he thinks he`s a celebrity, he can just kiss you, which is something he`s said?

CARROLL: He can take what he wants.

REID: Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

REID: And it`s not just Ms. E. Jean.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JESSICA LEEDS, TRUMP ACCUSER: It was a real shock when all of a sudden, his hands were all over me. He started encroaching on my space. And I hesitate to use this expression but I`m going to and that is he was like an octopus. It was like he had six arms. He was all over the place.

JILL HARTH, TRUMP ACCUSER: He pushed me up against the wall and had his hands all over me and tried to get up my dress again. And I had to physically say, what are you doing, stop it. It was a shocking thing to have him do this.

KRISTIN ANDERSON, TRUMP ACCUSER: The person on my right, who unbeknownst to me at that time was Donald Trump, put their hands up my skirt. He did touch my vagina through my underwear.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

REID: According to insider in a 1990 divorce deposition, Trump`s first wife and the mother of his three eldest children, Ivana Trump, accused her then- husband of raping her in a fit of rage in 1989. Though she later slightly altered her allegations saying, that while she felt violated on that occasion, she hadn`t accused Trump of raping her, quote, in a literal or criminal sense.

But I could go on. There are 26 of these. And what the hell was Trump doing hanging around Jeffrey Epstein anyway? Has anybody answered that? My point is that none of these holy, holy MAGA Trumpers ever spoke a word about any of this. So, they`re just going to have to forgive me if my response to their demands that Democrats answer for Andrew Cuomo is to tell them to kindly fart off.

Let the adults in the room deal with Cuomo, meaning the New York attorney general, Letitia James. She`s got this. If Cuomo gets impeached, he gets impeached. I literally don`t care what happens to him. He did a much better job on the pandemic than Trump even with all of the issues.

But then again, who didn`t? He was a good crisis manager for what it was worth, although clearly there were many, many issues including nursing homes. But, again, you all worshipped Donald freaking Trump. You don`t get to complain.

And if Cuomo doesn`t resign, if he decides to just thug it out, you right- wingers can just blame yourselves because he`ll just be rolling the way your nasty man roll, the way Jim Jordan is rolling. Despite accusations that he looked the other way as an assistant coach while the coach was allegedly raping wrestlers, or the way Matt Gaetz is literally on tour, like a MAGA celebrity, despite allegations that he sexually trafficked a child and gravitated toward teenage girls as sexual partners. Or like creepy-ass Madison Cawthorn, who reportedly became notorious on his college campus for driving the feely car.

All of these nasty bastards should resign. But they won`t. They`ll all just do the Trump and stick around afflicting us and dare you to get rid of them. You created that dynamic, conservatives. That`s on you. This is the world as you have made it. And don`t give me Bill Clinton. He cheated with an adult, and he got impeached for it by men who were stooping their secretaries. I`m looking at you, Mr. and Mrs. Newton Leroy Gingrich. How was the Vatican, by the way?

And I know. I know you`re all about to say Juanita Broderick. This is her, right? Okay, this country -- no, this world is replete with predatory men. They`re in politics and T.V., hey, Matt Lauer, and Hollywood and hip-hop. There`s Harvey Weinstein and Les Moonves and Bill O`Reilly and the probably burning in hell Roger Ailes and Russell Simmons and on and on and on. It`s a huge problem. But it`s one that has grown out of this toxic idea of male entitlement that only one of our two political parties actually embraces. Democrats literally fired Al Franken for a picture and apparent hugging.

We are over the top on moral compass on this side. It is you on the right who voted 60 percent in Alabama for Judge Roy banned from hot topic Moore and voted six in ten for Jeffrey Epstein`s rapey bosom buddy Donald Trump. And then made him your king. So that`s on you.

Joining me now is Mara Gay, a member of the New York Times Editorial Board, and Charlie Sykes, Editor-at-large at the Bulwark and an MSNBC Contributor and Columnist. Thank you both for being here.

I want to start with you, Mara, because I sat and kind of wrote this rant just thinking as I was flying back from Cabo and just listening to a reading, what was on twitter about Cuomo, and I think everyone is outraged at the stories you`re hearing. But I`m thinking to myself the people who were doing the most talking are the people who have been the most silent about all of those other people and those other cases. Your thoughts.

[19:10:00]

MARA GAY, THE NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBER: Well, first of all, I`m glad you came back refreshed and ready to go, Joy. I love it. I really love it.

So, you know, it`s infuriating, the double standard is obvious and yet, I would say, as somebody who has covered Andrew Cuomo, has covered New York politics forever a very long time, the funny thing here is that, you know, because the Democratic Party right now is kind of the only one holding it down for democracy, there does need to be a higher standard.

And so, ultimately, I do believe that there should be accountability no matter who you are. And I think, yes, it`s very frustrating, in fact, enraging to see some of these folks, you know, ready to cut down somebody who is one of the most or was one of the most popular figures and in the Democratic Party. It`s just -- it`s transparent what`s going on. But at the same time, that doesn`t make what the governor did according to the A.G.`s report acceptable. And there does need to be accountability for that. And so, both things can be true.

REID: Yes.

GAY: But you don`t want to get too focused on, I think, the Republican peanut gallery at all in this case. You really want to focus on if the governor needs to be moved out of the way so he`s no longer a distraction. If you`re the Democrats, you want him out.

And that`s another reason that Joe Biden, I think, you know, has stayed the course on what his word was about whether the governor should resign. And I think it`s because he`s become a distraction to the Democratic Party. So, there`s right and wrong and then there`s the politics, as always. And both signs, your point, to it`s time for the governor to go.

REID: And here is the reason that I bring all this up. I think that is absolutely valid, Mara. But, Charlie, the reason that I have to bring up these other cases is that the model that has been created in American politics right now, four powerful men in politics in particular, Hollywood and other -- after a while you can shift people out. And you did see me to begin to move people out.

But the thug it out strategy, Donald Trump has 26 known accusers. And his - - the attitude of his party was, so? Madison Cawthorn, there are women who work on the Hill right now have to pass him in the hall every day who dealt with him in college and know what he was like and don`t feel comfortable. And the party is like, so? Matt Gaetz is accused of trafficking a teenage girl. And the attitude is, so?

And so my thing is how do you even foresee Cuomo being incentivized to do what Eric Greitens wouldn`t do? Eric Greitens, the former Missouri Governor, who was accused by a woman of coercing her to perform oral sex, undressing, kissing and touching her without her consent, and threatening to release a naked photo if she told anybody about it. He is now running for office like it ain`t nothing. So what are the incentive structures you can possibly create for Cuomo? Your thoughts, Charlie.

CHARLIE SYKES, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR AND COLUMNIST: Well, I mean, you know first all. He`s actually thinking that he can use the Trump rules, right, which is never apologize, never resign, try to discredit the investigation and the attackers. And what he`s discovering, I think, is that the Trump rules don`t apply to him. And that`s kind of this radical asymmetry when you think about it.

And I agree with what Mara had to say here. The extraordinary story to me is the way that the Democrats are willing to hold their own accountable. I mean this is a real contrast. I think that Andrew Cuomo`s looking around and going okay, you know, one thing I learned is like Bill Clinton, do not resign. Like Donald Trump, do not resign, do not admit anything and yet the rules have changed for him.

But he doesn`t have a party that is going to line up behind him, like Donald Trump had. He doesn`t have a conservative -- I`m sorry, a liberal media echo chamber that is going to be defending him. I mean, he`s out there on his own.

And I have to say that one of the -- things do change in American politics.

REID: Yes.

SYKES: You mentioned Bill Clinton. And I think the Democrats have learned that they paid a price for not holding Bill Clinton more accountable for his behavior. They lined up behind him. But that Democratic Party is now not going to make the same mistake with Andrew Cuomo. And I think that`s part of the story and it`s why if he doesn`t resign, he`s going to be impeached. And even if he does resign, he may face criminal charges.

And I certainly understand the contrast -- look, Republicans who are piling on Andrew Cuomo having supported Donald Trump obviously have no shame whatsoever.

REID: None.

SYKES: But I do think that you do look at these two different parties, the parties, the way they do it. I mean, I wish Republicans, you know, after the Access Hollywood video would have come out, would have basically said we`re done with this guy. And some of them did for about five freaking minutes.

[19:15:02]

And yet look what they did. And so now they have no moral standing to talk about this.

But I agree with Mara, leave aside the whataboutism, Andrew Cuomo needs to be held accountable, he needs to go, he needs to be impeached, needs to resign and I think that will be a good thing for our politics.

REID: And, in fact, there were women who wore Trump can grab my mm-mm T- shirts, after he said that. You`re right --

SYKES: Yes. That`s it.

REID: It`s very different, I will just keep it classy. I will note that the party, as you just said, Charlie, is going out from under Andrew Cuomo. He -- there`s a difference between respecting a politician and worshiping them. You`re seeing that difference in New York. Because whatever people felt about Andrew Cuomo as a leader, they are walking away from him now. So, it`s a very different party from the Republicans.

Thank you both for being here for my first a bloc back in two weeks. I really appreciate you both, Mara Gay, Charlie Sykes. Thank you.

And up next on THE REIDOUT, Trump`s dangerous presence on the national stage and how America can`t recover from the damage that he`s done. Psychologist and Author Mary Trump, there she is, niece of the disgraced, twice-impeached former president, joins me next.

And Congresswoman Cori Bush raised the alarm about the coming eviction crisis. But will the Democratic leadership follow through on what she has started? Congresswoman Bush joins me live.

Plus, the absolute worst are cheering on autocrats overseas and trying to bring that brand of authoritarianism home here to the U.S. We`re going to call it what it is tonight.

THE REIDOUT continues after this quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:20:40]

REID: Nearly seven months after a domestic terrorist -- domestic terrorist Trump mob laid siege to the U.S. Capitol on January 6, President Biden today awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor to Capitol Police officers and others who defended our democracy that day and stressed the need for a full accounting.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: My fellow Americans, the tragedy of that day deserves the truth, above all else.

We cannot allow history to be rewritten. We cannot allow the heroism of these officers to be forgotten. We have to understand what happened, the honest and unvarnished truth.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

REID: Last month, 21 House Republicans opposed the legislation bestowing Congress` highest honor to the people who saved their lives, objecting to the use of the word insurrection.

In her new book, Mary Trump, Donald Trump`s niece, examines how our national pathology pave the way for the disgraced twice-impeached former president and the depravity of his enablers.

In "The Reckoning: America`s Trauma and Finding a Way to Heal," she writes: "We are going to be dealing with the consequences of the Trump administration, the pandemic and particularly the insurrection of January 6 for a very, very long time, just as we are going to be confronting the fact that 74 million people wanted four more years of whatever they thought they got in the last four."

The book highlights the GOP`s complicity with the big lie, taking aim at those in the sedition caucus who repeated his claims in the lead-up to the deadly insurrection and continue to this day.

She writes -- quote -- "Donald is an instinctive fascist who is limited by his inability to see beyond himself. Or, as the historian Timothy Snyder puts it, his vision never went further than a mirror. Still arguing about whether or not to call Donald a fascist is the new version of the media`s years-long struggle to figure out if they should call his lies, lies. What`s more relevant now is whether the media and the Democrats will extend the label of fascism to the Republican Party itself."

I`m joined now by Mary Trump, author of "The Reckoning: America`s Trauma and Finding a Way to Heal."

I have the book here.

Mary, thank you so much for being here. I always love talking to you because you`re just always so blunt and honest, and I love a blood sister. I love it when a lady is blunt.

You talk about fascism in the book. And it`s something that Mehdi Hasan has talked about. It`s something Chris Hayes. I have talked about it. And we normally get slammed for using the word fascism.

But, to your point, this is what David Frum wrote in "The Atlantic" recently. He said: "There`s a word for what Trumpism is becoming. Two traits of historically marked-off European-style fascism for more homegrown American traditions of illiberalism, contempt of legality and the cult of violence. Presidential era Trumpism operated through at least the forms of law. Presidential era Trumpism glorified military power, not mob attacks, on government institutions. Post-presidentially, these past inhibitions are fast dissolving."

Do you believe that your uncle is a fascist and that his party, the Republican Party, is now a fascist party?

MARY TRUMP, AUTHOR, "THE RECKONING: AMERICA`S TRAUMA AND FINDING A WAY TO HEAL": There`s no doubt about it.

And we need to be very clear about that. Part of the problem and part of the reason we got here is that we have never -- and, by we, I really do mean the majority of the white Americans, honestly, because the failure to hold powerful men account -- white men accountable and white supremacy go hand in hand from the beginning of our history.

So we need to be very clear with our language, because everything really is at stake. And by dancing around it, by being polite, people aren`t going to understand that. And I`m afraid the Democratic Party doesn`t quite understand that, because this is nothing new.

One of the reasons we`re here is because we have never faced the fact that there have been fascistic tendencies in this country since the beginning. The Jim Crow South was a closed fascist state, while America was pretending to be the beacon of democracy for the rest of the world.

REID: That is actually absolutely true.

And I wonder, if you think that part of the issue here is that, even when confronted with sort of mass death, really at the hands, because of Donald Trump -- I mean, he was literally willing to let 500,000, 600,000, 700,000, maybe a million people, 1,000 people, die right because of COVID, because all that mattered to him were his own pecuniary interests.

[19:25:14]

Why do you suppose that mass death didn`t break the connection between the people in that party and your uncle?

TRUMP: I think part of it is because he made them feel that they were so superior that they would be immune to it.

That`s only part of the explanation, though, because a lot of people who had loved ones die from COVID still think it`s a hoax, or still think that they`re going to be immune from it somehow.

REID: Yes.

TRUMP: In fact, I think part of it is something that Ruth Ben-Ghiat mentioned, which is that, over time, people on the right have gotten more comfortable with death.

In other words, the value of human life has lessened. And one of the very important reasons for that is the gun culture too. So, it`s all kind of wrapped up together. And it`s going to be really difficult to turn that around as well.

REID: Right.

And I think because that is sort of one of the elements of fascism, right, is the idea that, if the right people are dying, it doesn`t matter.

You wrote this in this in this book. You wrote: "COVID is directly affecting every single person on the planet, creating an even greater opportunity to unite us around this common cause. Imagine if Donald`s administration had led a global response to COVID. A real leader would have said, I don`t care about politics or my reelection. A mission -- my mission is to do everything in my power to save lives. But Donald and his henchmen couldn`t even see their way to getting help to states that didn`t kiss Donald`s ass sufficiently."

I have taken a lot of heat for having said back in September that, if Donald Trump remained president, I wouldn`t trust anything that was coming out in terms of vaccines that he was offering, and that it was difficult to trust the CDC after he had warped it so thoroughly, and that, if he became -- even if he wasn`t president, it would be difficult to restore that kind of trust.

But I said that because, in my mind, a psychopath was president. And if a psychopath is telling you, this vaccine, which is really for my reelection, is what you should take, there`s a good reason not to trust that.

But now there`s not a psychopath in the White House. Do you -- do you think that there`s some way to shift kind of the attitudes of people who are just hesitant, based on the fact that, look, guys, there`s not a madman there now, you should really think about it? Do you know how do we even get to that conversation?

TRUMP: Well, I think the Delta variant is doing a lot of the work for us.

REID: True.

TRUMP: And worse variants coming down the pike are going to continue to do that as well, unfortunately, at the cost of more -- it`s needless human death, including many, many children who are now getting sick and dying.

But it`s complicated by the fact that the right is very good at mirroring the left`s strategies. We rightly call them fascists. They erroneously and falsely call us Marxist communist socialists, whatever that means.

We rightly say I am skeptical that a mass murderer can be trusted when it comes to a vaccine because he`s likely to just say it`s effective to gain voters, right, whereas now we rightly say you can trust the government in this instance.

So it`s -- we`re in a bit of a bind, shall we say.

REID: Yes. You can trust the government when it`s in the hands of someone sane. I think that`s the point. And it`s hard, I guess, to make that point any way subtly.

You write this about the big lie. Let`s talk about this, because this is the thing that is now posing a national security threat to this country. That`s what Christopher Wray, the FBI director, has said. And you write about the big lie.

You said: "When your motive is not simply winning at all costs, but grievance and revenge, you are more dangerous than a straight-up sociopath. Donald is much worse than that. He`s someone with a gaping wound where his soul should be."

Do you believe that your uncle is a psychopath?

TRUMP: I haven`t read the book in a while, so I`m a little surprised at how I really didn`t pull my punches.

(CROSSTALK)

REID: You did not. You never do.

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: Yes, that`s -- that`s pretty harsh, but true.

Is he a sociopath? I don`t think it matters. He`s somebody who`s directly responsible for hundreds of thousands of Americans` death -- American deaths. He`s somebody who`s directly responsible for the kidnapping and incarceration in concentration camps of children.

He`s somebody who was willing and continues to be willing to end the American experiment so he can stay in power and he can avoid accountability, which is so necessary.

The truth is great. Historical truth is very important. But without accountability, that`s how we get here. In fact, I believe it was Bryan Stevenson of the Equal Rights Initiative -- sorry -- Equal Justice Initiative who said, the North won the war, but the South won the narrative.

[19:30:09]

And that`s one of the very most important reasons we are where we are today.

REID: Yes.

I have to ask this question. It is sort of an elephant in the room. You were on "The View" the other day. And it occurred to me -- we were talking about this in the meeting -- the fact that Ms. McCain, Meghan McCain, did not show up for the meeting. I was with Sunny, actually, in Mexico shortly before that.

I know she wasn`t even super -- feeling super well. But she did show up and she was there. Meghan McCain was not.

Are you concerned that the people who style themselves as normal Republicans, as sort of old-time Republicans, and not Trumpist Republicans are still as resistant to confronting the truths that you`re putting forward as the MAGA Republicans? So they`re not willing to even have that conversation with you.

Does that concern you that the people who most need to hear and, in theory, would be the most reasonably open to your arguments, will still not discuss it because of partisanship?

TRUMP: It concerns me greatly.

But I`d also add quickly that Democrats are going to have a problem facing these truths as well, some of them.

REID: Yes. It`s going to be tough going forward.

But it`s great to have you as a truth-teller willing to speak out.

This is the book. I will hold it up again. Everyone, please get a copy of it. It is called "The Reckoning."

Mary Trump, thank you, as always.

TRUMP: Thank you so much, Joy.

REID: OK. Cheers.

And still ahead: More states are running out of ICU beds, as the Delta variant spreads like wildfire among the unvaccinated.

Meanwhile, medical experts are sounding the alarm about the growing likelihood of new, even deadlier variants. Perfect.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:35:23]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, CHIEF MEDICAL ADVISER TO PRESIDENT BIDEN: As long as the virus continues to spread, you give it ample opportunity to mutate. And when you give an ample opportunity to mutate, you may sooner or later get another variant.

And it is possible that that variant might be in some respects worse than the already very difficult variant we`re dealing with now, which is a major reason why you want to completely suppress the circulation of the virus in the community.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

REID: Dr. Anthony Fauci gave that grim warning this morning, as U.S. cases near 100,000 daily, with half of those new infections coming from just seven Southern states, states that, to the surprise of no one, have low vaccination rates.

In one of those states, Arkansas, Republican candidate for governor and former Trump White House lie disseminator Sarah Huckabee Sanders insists on boosting a different type of big lie, calling the shot the Trump vaccine, like he created it, to try to induce the incalcitrant -- the recalcitrant right-wing flock to take it down.

Yes, OK. I guess that tack is not working, though, since there are only 25 ICU beds available in the entire state at the moment. Arkansas now has more than 20,000 active cases of COVID-19, meaning nurses and doctors are back in crisis mode, with one Arkansas physician telling TIME.com, more than a year later, "People dying of COVID-19 are back to saying goodbye to their loved ones through iPads while isolated in dark rooms."

Well done, GQP, FOX News and friends.

Joining me now is that physician, Dr. Rebecca Martin, a pulmonologist in Arkansas.

Dr. Martin, I read this "TIME" piece. It was -- it was brief, but chilling. Let me read one of the little pieces of it..

Apparently, in August -- in April 2020, you did a 96-hour stint at Wyckoff Heights Medical Center in Brooklyn.

And they -- "TIME" writes this: "She wondered at the time how her own hospital, Baxter Regional Medical Center in Northern Arkansas, would handle COVID-19. She got her answer this July, when rising infections turned the state into one of the most biggest virus hot spots in the nation."

You write that there were not enough sedatives to go around at a certain point. Patients would wake up prematurely and -- prematurely and pull their breathing tubes out.

Talk about the scene that you saw in your hospital.

DR. REBECCA MARTIN, ARKANSAS PULMONOLOGIST: Well, that was at Wyckoff.

And that was a very, very different scene. It was honestly like guerrilla warfare. Yes, we were out of all of the medicines that we needed. We were out of antibiotics, sedation. One day, we ran out of paralytics. And so it was -- it was barely fighting with Third World medicine, with the hallways line with people.

Now, not so much. And so we have a little bit better handle on it. I have a much smaller hospital. And so I don`t have as many of those problems. But even now, I mean, we have had periods where we were running low on remdesivir and had to choose which patients were going to get it.

Right now, they recently sent me an e-mail and I said I had five doses of Actemra left and I needed to choose who was going to be able to get it. And so you try to find the people who you think will recover the most. And that`s a similar scenario. You`re looking around trying to find who you think might actually recover and then offering whatever resources are left to those people, which is really sad and unfair to everyone else.

REID: You mentioned remdesivir.

We have heard that term before about -- that`s one of the drugs that`s used to treat COVID. There`s a lot of people who are doing sort of armchair expertise and saying, well, I did my research because they saw a Facebook or a TikTok that says that the vaccine is dangerous.

Has any patient ever asked you what`s in remdesivir and expressed a desire to not have you administer that treatment to them because they don`t know what it is?

MARTIN: No, so not specifically with remdesivir.

With monoclonal antibodies, I have had some patients question that. And they are not usually the sick ones. Usually, when you`re sick, you will take anything and everything...

REID: Anything.

MARTIN: ... that we have to offer to try to get you out of there.

But when you`re at home, and you`re just feeling bad, we have some of the monoclonal antibodies that we use to prevent people from getting sicker. And I do have patients question those. Typically, once you`re in the hospital, you just want some relief from your suffering.

REID: I mean, what strikes me is that people who have no expertise and are not researchers are sort of declaring themselves experts on COVID, saying it isn`t real.

Do you still have patients who come in with COVID and say, COVID isn`t real, I don`t have that?

MARTIN: Yes.

Oddly enough, yes. Even almost a year-and-a-half in, they still say, well, I`m just not really sure that that`s what this is. Well, I know there`s something going around that makes people sick, but I`m not really sure it`s COVID.

And I have I would say probably 10 people a day tell me, well, I have been doing my research, and I`m not going to do it because of this.

(LAUGHTER)

MARTIN: And that`s a very common thing for people to say.

REID: You were very honest in this "TIME" piece about talking about the fact that, the first time around, it was -- the empathy was deep, right, because you`re seeing people who were just caught unawares by an illness, that there`s nothing they could have done about because there was no vaccine.

[19:40:04]

But now there`s a vaccine that`s cheap and easy to get people are like I don`t want that, I`m not going to do that. How -- is it hard to keep a sense of compassion?

I know for a lot of us out here, the compassion is waning and it`s turning into just anger.

DR. REBECCA MARTIN, ARKANSAS PULMONOLOGIST: Right. It is very frustrating. It is. Knowing that I don`t go home at night to see my children, that I don`t get to exercise, I spend my entire day at work all because of other people`s choices. That is frustrating. But I take care of a lot of diseases that people do to themselves. And so, I`m a pulmonologist. I mean, take care of plenty of people with COPD that come in over and over and over again sick. Alcoholics, people who abuse drugs in the intensive care unit because I`m the intensivist also.

So I spend my life taking care of a lot of things that people do to themselves. And so I try not to view this as anything different.

REID: Yeah.

MARTIN: I want them to get the vaccine. I want to encourage people. And my daily goal is to convert at least one or two of the fence sitters, the people who just might get it and didn`t realize how important it was.

So I spend an enormous amount of my time trying to convert clinic patients and even hospital patients that are hospitalized with COVID. I tell them to call their families. Call your family, tell them to go ahead and get the vaccine. Hey, while you`re here call your friends, just anything that we can do to try to stop it. But I think prevention is key. And I don`t spend as much time reading about the research of how to treat it either. I`ve spent all of my spare time on prevention because I think that that`s by far the most important.

REID: Well, God bless you. I`m so glad that there are people like you that are out there still fighting this fight. It`s got to be frustrating. But thank you for doing what you do.

Dr. Rebecca Martin, really appreciate you.

MARTIN: Thank you.

REID: OK -- cheers.

All right. Well, tonight`s absolute worst is still ahead. But first, progressives are quickly losing patience with the lack of political urgency on pressing issues like voting rights and evictions. Grassroots activist- turned-Missouri Congresswoman Cori Bush has been leading the charge on both issues and she joins me next.

We`re back after this quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:46:15]

REID: Over the weekend, Missouri Congresswoman Cori Bush spearheaded a five-day sit-in, sleeping on the steps of the House to push the White House and Congress to do something, anything to put a stop to the looming eviction crisis. A national moratorium on evictions expired last week after the Biden administration announced that the Supreme Court had limited their powers to address it.

On Tuesday, the congresswoman`s dogged determination pushed the Biden administration to issue a new moratorium, which may not survive given the right-wing majority Supreme Court`s stated intention to limit executive powers now that a Democrat is president. Biden alluded to that earlier today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I can`t guarantee the court won`t rule that we don`t have that authority. But we will have an ability to if we have to appeal to keep this going for weeks, I hope longer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

REID: Yesterday a group of property managers and realtors filed a motion to block the pour moratorium. Republicans have refused to work with Democrats on the issue. They`re called the moratorium government overreach and yet another example of leftist handouts.

But for now, as many as 40 million Americans have a roof over their heads thanks to the work of Cori Bush and others.

And Congresswoman Cori Bush joins me now.

I want to thank you for being here. I was texting about you on my way back from Cabo saying, we`ve got to get her on because what you did was heroic.

Talk about the origins of this sleep-in, the sleep-out.

REP. CORI BUSH (D-MO): Yeah. I -- you know, I fell back on what I know. You know, I know how to, when I feel powerless or when I feel like something has to happen, like there was this feeling on the inside of me, Joy, when Representatives Ocasio-Cortez and Pressley and I were standing outside of the doors of the Capitol building just wondering like what do we do now? Because we -- the House had recessed.

And we were talking about upwards of 11 million people that would be forced out of their homes. Like what do we do? I just felt like running on the inside of me, just go, go, go.

And I -- what do I usually do when I feel like something has to happen and people will be hurting? Because the truth of the matter is we are in the midst of a global pandemic that is deadly, that has taken out over 600,000 of our people in this country alone and how dare we push more people out while this delta variant, you know, is surging?

And so, I know how to sit in. I know how to protest. I know how to hold the line. I know how to sleep outside. I`ve done it for protests. And I had to do it personally.

REID: Absolutely. You come from an activist background. So you really as you said understand that that is the way sometimes you have to move things.

There`s this video of Chuck Schumer, the Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer coming up and hugging you and sort of greeting you. In that conversation, that very brief conversation, did he indicate that there`s going to be legislative action? Because it looks like these Alabama realtors and property owners are probably going to be successful in that right-wing Supreme Court, meaning that it`s only Congress that can make this moratorium more permanent.

Did he commit to you that he`s going to have to -- and it`s going to have to be through reconciliation. We`re back to the same place we were with voting rights. Is this going to happen?

BUSH: Yeah, so we understand -- and that was part of the conversations we`ve been having. Let me just say, people have made the criticism that all I did and the other Congress members that were there and all we did was show up and slept outside.

But that`s not true. We were having conversations with the White House, with the speaker`s office, with others in leadership, the CPC, the CBC, and so many other members the entire time. So -- but when Chuck Schumer came out and, you know, he was greeting us the way that he was because we had been in conversation.

[19:50:08]

Because he had already come out, we had talked about like what this could look like. And he came -- so when he came and hugged us at that time, it was like, hey, y`all, you continue this work, and we did it, like we are here. We have something for the people.

REID: Yeah. By the way, the people who said that, that was called a trash take as LaTosha Brown would say literally. That was a thrash take.

BUSH: Literally, literally.

REID: That`s why we didn`t even discuss that here this evening.

OK. So talk about how the legislation ought to be structured in your view, because, you know, the right is already coming out and calling this everything from socialism to Marxism. We know those are meaningless terms. They just say them.

BUSH: Yeah, yeah.

REID: What do you think legislation should look like that would protect Americans in this first world country from becoming homeless during a pandemic? What do you want that legislation to look like?

BUSH: You know, so we started sending letters to the CDC months ago. Some even as far as January other progressives were sending letters and probably some moderates maybe. But we started sending letters months ago to the CDC.

Our office has been saying, along with Representative Gomez, Representative Pressley, have been saying, strengthen a moratorium. Have the moratorium go through the course of the pandemic. That is what we need to see right now.

When we think about how this pandemic has hit homes, hit families, we have people who were the one bringing home the majority of the money or all the money into a household and some of those people are no longer with us because of COVID-19. We have people who have not only lost jobs, but lost jobs and lost careers and are trying to figure out how so they may be taking a job that pays considerably less, you know?

And when we think about as someone who has been evicted before, when I think about when you get behind and having someone to help you, but then you have to get back on track. Then you have to be able to keep up on top of all the other bills and other things happening. So, for me, it is making sure that we have that moratorium, that we have the -- utilities are able to be paid, where small landlords are getting the money, making sure that we get this money out, that $43.5 billion that`s still setting, get that money out to the landlords, get the money out to those who need it most.

But then after that, we see what else we need. Who still is in need? How else can we help?

It`s more than just making sure that we have money for renters and making sure that we have the money for the landlords. We have to make sure that people are able to get better wages in the jobs that they have right now. We have so many -- we have a multitude of issues that are not being addressed and I do not want to hear when people say we`ve already given too many handouts.

Call it what you want to, but what people don`t like is to see people unhoused in their communities. You don`t like -- people don`t like that. So keep people in their homes. Help people to have this social safety net right now that is very needed.

REID: By the way, when people become homeless, they also cannot vote and it is not handout, it`s called a return on investment. Because the people who are serving the food and working retail and doing everything to keep everybody happy and healthy and at home, those are the people who are at risk of being evicted.

BUSH: Yes.

REID: Cori Bush, I appreciate you so much. Thank you so much for doing what you do. Keep it up.

BUSH: I appreciate you.

REID: Thank you, thank you, thank you.

All right. Well, up next, could somebody please explain to me the right wing`s infatuation with authoritarian leaders? Tonight`s absolute worst is coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

REID: So everyone needs a break and some quality time with family and friends. As I said at the top of the show, I took a little summer vacay with my family and then with friends last week. Now I hear that just the other day, our friend Tuckums also went on vacation with one of his friends in Hungary.

But Tuck Tuck`s friend happens to be a Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orban, the so-called prime minister of that country who`s waged a decade-long assault on democracy and freedom.

If you`re unfamiliar with Viktor Orban, his rap sheet reads like a wish list for aspiring dictators. He`s compromised the independence of the judiciary by creating his own court system. He`s cracked down on the media, taking control of 90 percent of Hungary`s news outlets so they only put on his right-wing propaganda. And he`s accused of spying on independent journalists who might report negatively about his government.

He`s tightened his grip over Hungary`s electoral system, effectively rigging the game in his favor. He`s pushed a school curriculum that puts a warped form of patriotism over critical thinking. In fact the Hungarian state controls most of the academic content in that country. No surprise, that curriculum is now whitewashing unflattering episodes from their history.

And when it comes to immigration, Orban is pushing a particularly insidious brand of ethno-nationalism and blocking asylum seekers he describes Middle Eastern refugees as, quote, Muslim invaders. And he`s embraced the far right concept of replacement theory, pushing ethnic purity over diversity.

Orban -- as Orban said in 2018, we do not want our own color, traditions, and national culture to be mixed with those of others.

Oh, did I mention that he intends to stay in power until at least 2030?

Under Viktor Orban, Hungary isn`t just back sliding toward authoritarianism rule, it`s already there.

But according to Tucker Carlson, who surprise, surprise, digs all of those ideas, if it walks like Mussolini and talks like Mussolini, it`s still not Mussolini.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS HOST: Hungary is not an authoritarian country. I think that`s a false statement that you made.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

REID: Well, Tucker Carlson, he doesn`t just approve of Viktor Orban`s Hungary, he`s hosting his show from there all week and openly promoting Hungary`s regime as a model for this country. It`s an ugly trend we`ve seen from the American right for some time.

I mean, the architect of Donald Trump`s rise to power, the man who bragged that he made breitbart.com the home of the nationalist alt-right, namely Steve Bannon, reportedly once called Orban Trump before Trump. We got another glimpse of the right`s descent toward Orbanism yesterday from crypt keeper Stephen Miller who, like Orban, has long sought to curtail and even end legal immigration, purportedly to keep the U.S. population as European as possible.

And as it happens, there`s a name for what this brand of the American right has morphed into, you heard it on this show earlier and some people like Mehdi Hasan and David Frum, that word is fascist. It`s time we started calling it what it is because it`s dangerous. It`s in our midst and it`s the absolute worst.

And that`s tonight`s REIDOUT.

"ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES" starts now.