Summary
COVID cases are rising in most states 15 days before election. President Trump dances as pandemic rages. President Trump calls Dr. Fauci a disaster. Dr. Atlas stirs controversy on White House COVID Task Force. Trump bizarrely says there will be no Christmas if Biden is elected. Republican leaders are ignoring COVID risk. COVID hospitalizations are rising in at least 37 states. Dr. Scott Atlas pushes herd immunity, says, getting the infection is not a problem. Stanford University colleagues denounce Dr. Scott Atlas. Dr. Fauci says he's absolutely not surprised Trump got COVID-19. Amy McGrath, Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Kentucky, running against Mitch McConnell, is interviewed.
Transcript
ARI MELBER, MSNBC HOST: Thanks for joining us tonight. I want to let you know tomorrow, we have some very special guest including, Mary Trump, live on THE BEAT with her thoughts on her uncle's campaign on the home stretch.
THE REIDOUT with Joy Reid starts now.
JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: Donald Trump revels in the power and prestige of being the president of the United States, or at least what used to be the prestige before he got there. But he never seemed too keen on doing the work of being president. His first attempt at passing major legislation failed after he realized, hey, this healthcare stuff is kind of complicated, having to prepare for debates, so that Americans actually know your platform, boring.
And now, with 15 days until we start tally up the votes in a coronavirus pandemic that seeping into every facet of American life, what's abundantly clear is that Trump doesn't want to deal with the hard part of being president at all. And his latest way of dodging all that work is wage war on science, namely Dr. Anthony Fauci.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: People are tired of hearing Fauci and all the idiots, these people, these people that have gotten it wrong. Fauci is a nice guy. He's been here for 500 years.
Every time he goes on television, there's always a bomb, but there's a bigger bomb if you fire him. But Fauci is a disaster.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: The White House has repeatedly blocked Fauci from just doing his job, a man served as an infectious disease expert for 36 years, getting us through three different pandemics. And who is now forced to go on his power walks with security detail because he's received death threats, because science is mean and won't let them go to the gym or bar hop or sneeze in the fruit aisle at Super Target without a mask on.
Meanwhile a totally different doctor has become more central to the nations pandemic response. Scott Atlas a neuroradiologist, whose commentary on Fox News led Trump to recruit him, after what he clawed his way to the top of the White House coronavirus task force by telling Trump what he wanted to hear, that the pandemic is no big deal and he and his followers could just go about their business. Catch the rona, cough it out and it would all be fine.
Atlas is indeed a doctor, just not the kind who deals with infectious diseases. It's kind of like of seeing a urologist for open heart surgery. No one is feeling better anytime soon. According to The Washington Post, Atlas has pushed the baseless idea inside the task force that the U.S. population is close to herd immunity. He also shot down attempts to expand testing and tweeted that masks don't work to stop the coronavirus, a tweet so false Twitter removed it.
As coronavirus cases surge, this is the person Trump is listening to and who he thinks you should be paying attention to, a man who is advancing fringe theories, lying to the American public, putting an entire nation at risk of sickness and death. He is the man who has Trumps ear while Trump simultaneously mocks Joe Biden for actually listening to scientists, something Biden responded to saying, that's not an attack. That's a badge of honor. Adding all that Donald Trump has done is cower and wallow in self-pity.
Trump also claimed that at a Nevada rally that if Joe Biden wins, there will be no Christmas, apparently forgetting that he will still be president during the holiday season and beyond. And if Christmas is an economically disastrous, depressing mess it will be because of his mishandling of the virus, not because of Joe Biden.
This war on science is so vile and so baffling that we can't even say Trump's party has their head in the sand, because they are out there embracing the COVID-19, acting as if they actively want to shoot coronavirus up their nasal passages. Because what else can describe Georgia State Legislator Vernon Jones doing this?
What it boils down to is Trump and his followers are tired of the coronavirus. This is one thing to go back to pre-COVID times, so they can get their haircut and go to restaurants and theme parks. But guess what? The pandemic isn't over just because you're tired of it and it's certainly not over because our government doesn't want to deal with it. It's the medical experts who are using scientific data to make the case that we have to put in the work.
Instead Trump just wants to ignore it, deflect, have a mega MAGA rallies and throw herd immunity against the wall to see if it sticks, even though millions of people, under the herd immunity, strategy would die, millions.
Look at this map. Nearly 40 states are seeing surges upticks and increases. As of Sunday COVID-19 hospitalization are growing by 5 percent or more in 37 states. The U.S. is staring down a third wave of coronavirus cases. And more than 220,000 people in the U.S. are dead, and millions of the living are slipping into poverty. But Trump, Trump just wants to have fun.
Joining me now, Dr. Kavita Patel, former Obama White House Health Policy Director, Jason Johnson, Professor of Journalism and Politics at Morgan State University, and former Republican Congressman, David Jolly.
Andm David, I want to start with you because Floridian are already voting. Today was Miami-Dade day in Florida. Lots of big counties voting. And I'm wondering as somebody who lives in the state, as you're seeing people come out and vote, is the rush that we're seeing to the poll at least in the state of Florida about people so excited that Trump just wants to have fun and Trump is going to make it fun again and we can forget corona, or is this seniors and people who are concerned and parents and people who are terrified of coronavirus coming out to vote? Can you tell us which of those things you think is more predominant?
DAVID JOLLY, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I think what's pushing early voting is trying to do it safely, as you mention the fear of COVID and what is the best way to do it. But it's also distrust in our institutions to ensure their vote is counted.
And so in states like Florida and other, and my wife and I did this last week, you have the opportunity to early vote, and now we have two weeks to make sure that our vote was counted. The ballot was opened and that it was registered.
So I think a lot of what you're seeing is the distrust of the current system. The voters want to make sure their vote is counted.
And, Joy, I was talking to a very senior Florida Republican today who admitted to me that Donald Trump's attack on the integrity of mail balloting has decimated Republican strategy in the state. And they are now relying on Election Day turnout, which they have not had to do before as Republicans. They are not as pessimistic as you might think, but they know that their mail ballot strategy now has been decimated by the president of the United States. The voters you see today are those that are Democratic leaning.
REID: Yes. You know, I can tell you, having done a couple of elections down there the Republicans usually were the one who just dominated the mail-in ballot voting. I have now seen the desperate mailers who are getting sent out, saying, no, wait, we didn't mean that whole thing about mail balloting being bad. You should mail in vote, and I'm doing it.
Let me play Dr. Atlas himself just because I don't think people aren't that familiar with him. But if you don't watch Fox News, you probably never heard of him before now. And you think why (INAUDIBLE) Fauci with the scarf lady, Dr. Birx. Here he is. Here he is actually just supporting herd immunity in the real world.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. SCOTT ATLAS, WHITE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS ADVISER: But when you isolate everyone, including all the healthy people, you're prolonging the problem because you're preventing population immunity. Low-risk groups getting the infection is not a problem. In fact, it's a positive in terms of finally acquiring enough immunity in the population to stop the spread of the disease, the connectivity pathways to the high risk people.
REID: Dr. Kavita Patel, before I let you respond to that and tell me whether you think that he is a quack or whether he is somebody who you would listen to, there's been an open letter from 98 infectious disease physicians, immunologist and health policy leaders at Stanford University where he is a fellow, he's a fellow at the Hoover Institution, a conservative institution at Stanford, who have denounced him and denounced his false comments on the virus, and that's from back in September. What do you make of this doctor and his ideas?
DR. KAVITA PATEL, FMR. OBAMA WHITE HOUSE HEALTH POLICY DIRECTOR: Joy, there is no doubt that what he's talked about is just spread misinformation, lies. I mean, calling him a quack would be generous because he is proud of actually propagating, you know, these crazy notions. And it's not just herd immunity. It's herd immunity as you point out, is that masks don't work. He's even been quoted as saying that he thinks that, you know this whole coronavirus, it's no big deal with the cures.
And, really, Joy, when you look at the timing and I have talked to colleagues who work inside the White House, they're all frustrated because he came in and ascended to power right when the president wanted to hear the lies that he's spewing. So it was just this unfortunate kind of ascendency that knocked out anybody with any credibility, Surgeon General Jerome Adams, Dr. Deborah Birx, as you point out, Dr. Fauci and now you have someone who has no qualifications in public health was so much a disproportionate amount of influence, who is also crowding out anybody else who could possibly convince the vice president or the president to do otherwise. And now you see a president mocking people.
And what's the strategy is we're going into the third wave that you point out, Joy. The strategy is well let's just hope like that a vaccine happens soon. And whatever happens until then, you know, too bad. Hopefully, they will make it to the hospital and get some of those, you know, great antibodies that aren't even approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
REID: All right. I mean, they're doing herd immunity, Jason. And they're doing it among their own fans, right? So they're like come to this rally catch the COVID. It's crowd surf over us. And breathe the COVID down your lungs. Come to the White House and get COVID. Like they're actually trying to do herd immunity on the cheap without announcing it, and then they're surprised when they get COVID.
Here is Dr. Fauci, he was on 60 Minutes this weekend, about whether he was surprised that Donald Trump got the COVID.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Were you surprised that President Trump got sick?
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Absolutely not. When I saw that on T.V., I said, oh, my goodness. Nothing good can come out of that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Put your political science this hat on for me, Jason Johnson. Is there any logic in pursuing a strategy wherein you essentially kill 3, 4, 5, 6 million people? This is, to me, not -- I cannot accept that this is political strategy. I think it is just dimwittedness or maybe Trump is just a sucker and he's just been suckered in. But if there is some strategery behind the idea of just killing off 6 million Americans, please tell me what it is.
JASON JOHNSON, PROFESSOR OF POLITICS & JOURNALISM, MORGAN STATE UNIVERSITY: Yes. Joy, look, there's no strategy. And when Trump throws this sort MAGA COVID rallies, where he is breathing on people.
REID: Do we have Jason audio, I don't hear it. I know Jason giving thoughts, okay.
JOHNSON: Can you guys hear me?
REID: Okay, I don't hear you, Jason, but I think everyone can hear you.
JOHNSON: Okay. Well, basically, what I was saying is --
REID: Oh, now I got you. Now I got you.
JOHNSON: There's no strategy this Trump throws his rallies. They breathe on people, they crowd surf, they have everything sort of buffet and kissing booth, catch the COVID, kiss me, catch the COVID. It doesn't make any sense. There is no strategy to this. It's not effective. It's not going to work long-term.
But there's a political element to this that also can't be ignored which is also help hurting the president. We keep forgetting that on top of 216,000, 217,000 people who have died of COVID, the 6, 7 million people who have contracted COVID and survived, they now have a pre-existing condition.
And this is a president who has been attacking the Affordable Care Act. We are facing a financial and a healthcare crisis because of this mismanagement. And if there's no solution any time soon, that is why people are backing away. That's why Dr. Fauci is like, hey, I'm not surprised this guy caught it. That's why you see large numbers of seniors who are voting for Joe Biden, because Trump's lack of a plan has campaign consequences in addition to economic and healthcare consequences.
REID: Right. And, you know, let me actually play -- this Donald Trump talking about Fauci. This is just a little way he's talked about him. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: He's been doing a very good job. We're very happy with Dr. Fauci.
So Anthony is a good person. Very good person. I disagree with him.
Dr. Fauci is a nice man but he has made a lot of mistakes.
I inherited him. He was here. He was a part of this huge page of machine. I didn't put anybody in charge. He was here. He's been here 40 years.
But he's a nice guy, so I keep him around, trying to keep him around. He's a Democrat. Everybody knows that. He's Cuomo's friend.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: I mean, David, you know on top of all the other political issues, Dr. Fauci is the only person anybody trusts other than Trump people. Attacking him just seems really not very smart.
JOLLY: Yes. Joy, sometimes the strongest leaders is the silent leader. And what Donald Trump could have done from the beginning of the COVID outbreak was still have all the White House briefings, the task force briefings, but let the public health officials speak and Donald Trump should have stood in the back with his mouth shut. The nation would be safer, it would be healthier, we would have greater control over this. And the truth ultimately would have been provided to the American people.
I think Trump's frustration with Fauci is exactly that. It's around this baseline issue that frankly voters can use to inform their votes on November 3rd. The baseline is you being Trump's strategy is to lie. This is the thread throughout his entire career. It is an art of the deal that people want to be lied to. They do not want the truth. That has governed Donald Trump decisions from release of his taxes to his real estate success, to his foreign policy, to his domestic policy. He is somebody who succeeds through lies.
And when he comes against a truth teller, like Anthony Fauci, it is one impediment in the way of Donald Trump's strategy. The only question today, is why did it take so long for Donald Trump to really throw Fauci under the bus. But I think Trump's behavior today regarding Fauci speaks for itself. And I think it will push more voters to the blue side of the ticket come November 3rd.
REID: The really quickly, Jason, and also then the doctor, Dr. Kavita Patel, because here is the challenge. If Donald Trump somehow manages to sling through with the Electoral College again, and he's president again, one could see him getting rid of Dr. Fauci and only going with and then being open, because then he won't be up for re-election anymore. He'll have nothing to lose. And if he really has been taken in, right, if this is his new religion, herd immunity, they might do it. And that's the other issue, Jason.
JOHNSON: Yes. So, Joy, here is also the weird thing about herd immunity. What it would require, if you listen to Dr. Atlas, who sounds like somebody who is selling chemicals at 2:00 in the morning on QVC, if you listen to Dr. Atlas, you've got to bring all the healthy people together and then supposedly isolate those people who are more susceptible to co-morbidities.
Does that mean every black person is going to get a check? Is that my reference (ph)? Because black people are dying in COVID at higher rates than white folks, so does that mean all black people get separated, all seniors get separated? They don't even have a plan for how to conduct herd immunity. It only works if you keep people more likely to die in safe and isolated spaces. They're not going to do that because all there doing is throwing COVID party.
So, even herd immunity is just something being thrown at the wall. It is not actually being applied in a practical, functional way from a policy standpoint.
REID: You know, Dr. Patel, what worries me is that people are doing their own versions of herd immunity. They're doing parties, small parties, graduation parties, we're coming up Thanksgiving, we're coming up on the holidays, people doing their own experiments with this and going into bars and getting COVID. There's no way to tell who is susceptible to it.
I really do worry that Donald Trump's long-term plan, if he is re-elected, is to attempt to unleash this hell broadly, officially, on the American public.
PATEL: Yes, you're right to think that way because that's exactly what's happening. And to your point, look at what we're talking about tonight. We have this quackery of a doctor distracting us when we should be talking about how can you be safe during the holidays, why do masks work, talk about the science and the data.
So, to your point, Joy, you're absolutely right, that the herd immunity is happening because of the lack of a strategy and a lack of any sort of clear messaging. And I worry about that as well.
REID: Absolutely. And Europe is hitting their third wave as well. We're going to hit ours. And they are usually two weeks ahead of us. It's going to be brutal.
Dr. Kavita Patel, Jason Johnson, David Jolly, thank you guys very much, I really appreciate you all.
Up next on THE REIDOUT, Trump's dangerous rhetoric, like a proper dictator, he is -- he says that everyone who he doesn't like is a criminal and he wants them all locked up.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Joe Biden, is a criminal and he's been a criminal for a long time. And you're a criminal in the media for not reporting him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Speaker Nancy Pelosi joins me next on that, and on tomorrow's deadline to get a COVID relief bill done.
Plus, long lines on the first day of early voting in Florida as some Republican candidates finally, after four years, start to creep, creep, creep away from Trump.
And the millions of Americans are facing a desperate autumn because Trump's COVID economic collapse.
Back with more of THE REIDOUT after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
REID: While Donald Trump might be bored with the coronavirus, millions of Americans are scared, scared they can't make rent, buy food, or pay their light, heat and water bills.
On the campaign trail, Trump is more focused on his reelection.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Yes, lock them up. You should lock them up. Lock up the Bidens. Lock up Hillary.
What you're doing in Michigan has been amazing. Now, you got to get your governor to open up your state.
AUDIENCE: Lock her up! Lock her up!
TRUMP: Lock 'em all up.
QUESTION: Your campaign strategy seems to be to call Biden a criminal Why is that?
TRUMP: He is a criminal. And you're a criminal and the media for not reporting it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Wow.
Well, while Trump is busy ranting about locking up people that he doesn't like, eight million Americans have slipped into poverty. Six million households missed their rent or mortgage payments in September alone.
One of the main reasons for that is because Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has refused since March to take up any House-passed legislation. His lone priority? Ramming through the Supreme Court nomination of Amy Coney Barrett.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi spent the day negotiating a larger relief package with the Treasury secretary, Steve Mnuchin.
And she joins me now.
And, Madam Speaker, thank you for being here.
This dichotomy between what Donald Trump is doing, threatening to sort of go full Mobutu and try to lock up anybody he doesn't like politically, and dancing around on stage as if COVID doesn't exist, and goofing around, and pretending that he's just sort of at summer camp, and this crisis.
We all at this point -- I think a third -- it's something like 29 percent of African-Americans know somebody who has died of COVID. I know somebody who's died of COVID.
Why doesn't that seem to resonate inside that Briefing Room? When you're talking to Steve Mnuchin, does he get that? Does he -- do you think he understands what's happening?
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): Well, negotiating with him is what we're trying to do to get something accomplished.
But the fact is -- you described it very well -- from the start, the president has never taken this seriously. And neither has Mitch McConnell.
I don't know if you saw him in the debate the other night, when he was asked -- when he was asked, what is he doing to help with this, with the resolution of this challenge, the COVID-19 and the economic -- he laughed. He laughed. He laughed.
Never taken it seriously. Let the states go bankrupt. Let's take a pause. The president, from the -- it's a hoax.
OK, so now, at last, finally, they have come to the table, and we're going to try to get something done. And I tried to make tomorrow a time where we would have exchanged all of our differences of opinion, so that we can -- and numbers and paper -- so that we can see.
Let's make a judgment. We may not like this, we may not like that.
REID: Yes.
PELOSI: But let's see, on balance, if we can go forward.
REID: Right.
PELOSI: Every time we think we're close, then they have a setback. So we will see what tomorrow will bring.
But it is really sad...
REID: So...
PELOSI: ... because eight million people infected, 220,000, nearly, people dead.
REID: Yes.
PELOSI: Many of that -- much of that could have been prevented.
REID: Yes.
PELOSI: But, if we don't solve the problem, which is the virus, we're all going to continue and continue to be dealing with the consequences of it, which are attacking the lives, the livelihood, and the life of our democracy.
REID: Yes, so, let me just -- so, just to show our audience what the differences have been, the Senate Republicans, they're calling this the skinny relief packages.
It's -- they want to give $300 a week in federal unemployment, instead of the $600 a week that was offered by the HEROES Act. They have a little bit of money there for testing. They have some stuff for farmers. They have some other things.
It doesn't include any additional money for state and local spending and no stimulus checks, no more stimulus checks, whereas the House bill that already passed -- and we should note that you all already did your job, $1,200 stimulus checks, which people really need, $600 enhanced unemployment, the PPP money for small businesses, $4 billion for housing assistance, $5 billion for homelessness assistance, food assistance, worker protections.
It just goes on and on.
What is going to be in the bill that you all get together? Because that's a big difference between what you wanted.
PELOSI: Well, it's a big difference because we have different values. We don't have shared values.
We believe, and we are told by economists and the rest that it is the right thing to -- not only the right thing to do, but the best thing to do for our economy is for us to help the neediest first, to help the neediest first.
And so now we finally, in the last 24 hours, have come to a place where they're willing to address the crisis, the coronavirus, to crush the virus. And what they had done over the weekend was take out all the language that addressed the disparity in how it affects the black community, the Asian Pacific community, the Hispanic community, the Native American community.
Can you imagine that, when a child who is Hispanic is eight times more likely...
REID: They took that out?
PELOSI: ... to go to the hospital for COVID than a white child, an African-American child five times more likely?
So, anyway, we have made progress in that. Because of the public view of it, they came back, and they're agreeing to that.
REID: Wow.
PELOSI: Now, they have not agreed to all the health language yet. But that's that.
But we have different values. And, therefore, it's a longer road back for them to do the right thing.
REID: Do you -- let me ask you about Mitch McConnell.
And I understand that you're negotiating with Mnuchin. He's got to then deal -- Mitch McConnell has to deal both with Senator Schumer, but also with the White House.
Do you trust him to ever make a deal? There's -- there is a lot of reporting. Paul Krugman has written a piece that I think has compelled a lot of people -- other people have written it -- that, really, what Republicans want is to either hand Joe Biden a weaker economy or to put themselves in a position to go to full austerity if, in fact, Joe Biden is elected, and then say, well, we need fiscal austerity, we're not going to do anything, and that they would actually prefer to have no bill and that Republicans have an attitude that they don't want any bill.
He's out there calling you Marie Antoinette, when he is the one who won't do a bill.
Do you trust that, no matter what you do and what you negotiate, that he will ever put a bill on the floor?
PELOSI: Well, what he said on Saturday -- they say different things.
But what he said on Saturday was if, in fact, the head -- the Senate -- excuse me -- Secretary Mnuchin and the House Democrats come to agreement, that they would put it on the floor. He did say that, or consider putting it on the floor.
The president said yesterday -- I don't know if you saw his statement -- he said, I want to do more than Nancy. And if she agrees with my number, then I'm -- I'm sure I can convince the Republicans in the Senate.
But you know what? You talk about what they want to do to sabotage this, that, or the other thing.
The antidote to all their poison is just to vote. We have got to heal our country. We have got to heal the -- crush this virus to heal physically our country. We have got to heal all the injustices in their bills, whether it's talking about what they don't want to do for schools that especially affect some of our lower-income children, what they don't want to do for child care, which enables people to go to work, what they don't want to do for our Earned Income Tax Credit and child tax credit for the poorest working, working families in our country.
What they don't want to do for state and local, which meet the needs of all of our people. Let...
REID: Right.
PELOSI: We will fight that fight in the Senate.
But we have to heal. And Joe Biden is a great healer. He will bring us together. He will unify us.
And I'm sitting in -- welcome to the speaker's office. I'm sitting in front of Abraham Lincoln here. Public sentiment is everything, he said. And that public sentiment of wanting to come together, I think, will prevail.
REID: Speaker Nancy Pelosi, always great to have you on. Thank you so much for some of your time this evening.
Truly appreciate it.
PELOSI: My pleasure. Thank you, Joy. Thank you so much. My pleasure.
REID: Thank you. Cheers. Thank you.
And still ahead: Americans are early voting like never before. That surge, combined with Joe Biden's leading the polls, has some Republicans belatedly rethinking their unwavering support for Trump.
Huh.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. KAMALA HARRIS (D-CA), VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Justice is on the ballot in 2020. Economic justice is on the ballot in 2020. Climate justice is on the ballot in 2020. Health care justice is on the ballot in 2020.
Reproductive justice is on the ballot in 2020. Criminal justice reform is on the ballot in 2020. Climate reform is on the ballot in 2020. Everything is on the ballot in 2020!
Joe Biden is on the ballot in 2020!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris reminding voters in Orlando, Florida, just what's at stake in this election, now just 15 days before the day we start counting the votes.
Today, in-person early voting kicked off to long lines in parts of Florida. Early voting is now under way in the vast majority of the country, 37 states. Alaska, Arkansas, North Dakota, Idaho, and Colorado also started today.
More than 30 million Americans have already voted. Wow.
And, today, Donald Trump was in Arizona trying to stop the bleeding. A CBS News poll out yesterday showed him trailing Joe Biden by three points there, within the margin of error.
In another important battleground, Wisconsin, he trails Biden by five, outside the poll's margin. Wisconsin in-person voting starts tomorrow. Officials there report some communities have already surpassed more than half of the 2016 turnout in absentee ballots alone.
So, naturally, Senate Republicans are freaking out, warning of a potential bloodbath, and pretending they haven't been Trump's corrupt sycophants for the last three-and-a-half years. Oh, no, no, no, no.
Like, say, Senator John Cornyn of Texas, who now claims he broke with Trump on things like a border wall, just not publicly, where anyone would notice. Weird, since he defended Trump's decision to raid the Pentagon budget to pay for the wall back in February.
Now, of course, the rot comes from the head, which brings us to Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell. During a debate last week, his Democratic opponent, Amy McGrath, took him to task for his failure to pass a coronavirus relief package, after months of waiting and after leaving hundreds of pieces of House legislation for dead in the Senate, including a very specific relief bill called the HEROES Act.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AMY MCGRATH (D), KENTUCKY SENATORIAL CANDIDATE: The House passed a bill in May, and the Senate went on vacation.
(LAUGHTER)
MCGRATH: I mean, you just don't do that. You negotiate.
Senator, it is a national crisis.
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): Yes.
MCGRATH: You knew that the coronavirus wasn't going to end at the end of July. We knew this.
I mean, I just think you have got to -- and here's the thing. If you want to call yourself a leader...
MCCONNELL: So, Bill...
(LAUGHTER)
MCGRATH: ... you -- you -- you -- if you want to call yourself a leader, you got to get things done.
And those of us that served in the Marines, we don't just point fingers at the other side.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Amy McGrath joins me next on McConnell's cynical politics.
Don't go anywhere.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
REID: With just two weeks until votes are counted, Senate Republicans are running scared. Warning of a potential blood bath and pretending that they don't know Donald Trump.
Enter Mitch McConnell. Slowly. With vulnerable Republicans screaming bloody murder and after laughing off his failure to provide economic relief from coronavirus for millions of struggling Americans in a debate last week, suddenly, he's interested in something.
This week, the Senate will vote on a coronavirus package to the tune of $500 billion, far cry from what the House wanted. Mere pennies compared to the $2 trillion package passed by the House earlier this month, while McConnell was more concerned with stealing a Supreme Court seat.
Joining me now is Amy McGrath, Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Kentucky, running against Mitch McConnell.
Thank you for being here. I'm glad to have you on the show.
Talk about that laugh. There were a will lot of people who said that you should have gone completely off on him, when he laughed in your face as he laughed off the fact that I don't have to provide coronavirus relief.
He's laughing at the people of your state -- the state of Kentucky, like he really just doesn't care. What was your -- what do you say to that? Do you feel that he deserve sort of more a stronger telling -- telling off at that moment?
AMY MCGRATH (D-KY), U.S. SENATE CANDIDATE: Well, you know, I think it shows you the disconnect that he has. And for me, I'm laser-focused on what's right for Kentucky and what we need to do right now.
The Senate shouldn't be doing anything other than passing coronavirus relief. And the problem was that Senator McConnell wasn't serious about it back in May. He wasn't serious about it all summer.
He didn't feel urgency. And I simply pointed that out. And, you know, I think his laugh shows you that he's really just a part of a political system in Washington, D.C. that cannot see how urgent this is and thinks of this as a political gain, you know, laughing at the people of Kentucky.
We have a million Kentuckians that have filed for unemployment sometime in the last six months. We have 300,000 Kentuckians that don't have healthcare. Renters are facing eviction right now. And he somehow thinks this is a game.
You know, his job as the leader is to lead.
(CROSSTALK)
REID: You know, your state Kentucky has 88,247 cases. There have been 1,326 deaths. It's a lot of Kentuckians who died. Kentucky actually is a state that has a Democratic governor. So a Democratic can win statewide there.
Both the current governor and his father have been governor. They passed their version of Obamacare. And that meant hundreds of thousands of Kentuckians -- Kentuckian has one of the largest Medicaid programs in the country, 1.5 million are covered. That's nearly a third of the population.
It grew by 7 percent just between March and April, and, obviously, it's going to grow more because of the coronavirus. So, this is state that really needs the Affordable Care Act.
One of the reasons that Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump want to get that Supreme Court seat is that so they would like to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, which could get rid of that healthcare for 1.5 million of your fellow members.
If you were in the Senate right now, you did say initially that you would have voted to confirm Mr. Kavanaugh, Justice Kavanaugh, who's now on the court.
Would you vote for Amy Coney Barrett if you were in the Senate?
MCGRATH: I don't think anybody should be voting on a senator right now, or a nominee. And I would not be voting for her. Because I don't think it's the right thing to do at this point. We're in the middle of a national crisis, 220,000 Americans have died in this coronavirus.
The only thing the Senate should be working on in the middle of a national crisis is passing the relief aid. You shouldn't do anything else.
And Senator McConnell, of course, is the most hypocritical of everyone because, four years ago, as you know, he said let the people decide with a duly elected president and the Supreme Court coming up in an election year.
Well, we shouldn't be doing this right now. And the people of Kentucky, they do get it. We're hurting here.
And I have to bring it back to Kentucky because Senator McConnell in the debate a week ago all you heard was him talking about Washington D.C. and regular politics and other states.
And we're hurting here. And he's not looking after us. And, you know, that's just who he is.
REID: If he -- I mean, they're going to probably get the seat. If you then are elected, would you support expanding the court in order to restore the balance that Ruth Bader Ginsburg created on the court against those who want to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, get rid of women liberties, get rid of potentially LGBTQ rights, all the stuff that they want to do?
Would you support a couple of things? You'd be in a position to potentially to add Puerto Rico, add D.C. as states, which give more power to your party, the Democratic Party? Would you support expanding the court? Do you support those moves?
MCGRATH: Yeah. So, here's the thing -- Senator McConnell has broken the Senate. And I think the first step to getting it back, unpacking is unpacking the Senate. Let's get him out first, OK?
Then we need to look at rebuilding our Senate and making it work again because he has polarized and made these things so partisan that we can't even -- you had senators --
(CROSSTALK)
REID: But I don't -- I mean, I have to ask you to be -- I have to push you to be specific, though, because one way to -- one way to undo it would be add more diverse states like D.C. and Puerto Rico.
MCGRATH: That is -- that is one way. Here's the thing. I believe we can get the Senate back by getting rid of him.
Now, I'm not saying we shouldn't do these things. I'm saying let's no not throw away 200 years of tradition right off the bat. Let's see if we can get our Senate back first.
And the most important thing we need to do is get rid of Mitch McConnell. And then if we can get it working again, great. And if we can't, then we ought to look at making sure we can fix our democracy, you know? So, I think that there's --
REID: Very quickly, Joe Manchin --
(CROSSTALK)
MCGRATH: Go ahead.
REID: Very quickly. Joe Manchin put a tweet out, very strong tweet talking about Donald Trumps attacks on Dr. Fauci.
Please, Mr. President -- have you no decency and no respect?
I mean, when Joe Manchin is going -- he's going hard, you know, there's a big change. You know, Joe Manchin -- it's going to have to be different Joe Manchin in the next Senate, because no matter how conservative the state might be, there is an imbalance in terms of the way that Republicans and Democrats use power.
Do you think that John Cornyn or Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio are any different than Mitch McConnell? They all behave in the same way. So, getting rid of McConnell would leave those people behind. They're all like that.
So, don't Democrats have to do more than say get rid of one guy?
(CROSSTALK)
MCGRATH: Well, that maybe the case. But I'll tell you what, let's get rid of McConnell first and then see. That's what I have been saying.
I believe that he has broken our democracy and broken our Senate.
REID: Last question.
Yes, I've got to go because my team is going to kill me here. But I do want to ask one question -- you did not participate in the Black Lives Matter rallies that your opponent did in the primary.
Do you regret that? Do you think that you should have been more involved in the Black Lives Matter cause leading up to this race?
MCGRATH: Well, I have been out at the demonstration. And I do believe that we really need to tackle the massive racial injustice that we've seen in this country for far too long. And the death of Breonna Taylor here in Kentucky was an absolute tragedy.
So, what I have done is come together with leaders around Kentucky and come up with an equality-for-all plan, a racial justice plan that could tackle some of the underlying major problems that we have, not only in the education, wealth gaps, healthcare gaps and criminal justice reform.
We cannot do these things unless we get rid of Mitch McConnell. So, I'm focused on that. But that plan is on my website.
And I always tell people, that's just a start, OK?
REID: Yeah. Amy McGrath, thank you for being here. I ran way over time. So thank you very much. I really appreciate your time tonight.
And up next, a staggering 8 million Americans -- thank you -- have slid into poverty since the start of the pandemic, with black and brown people baring the brunt of the economic pain.
Bishop William Barber joins me next to talk about what his Poor Peoples Campaign is doing and demanding. Stay right there.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
REID: Just 15 days until we start tallying up the votes. And so far, we're seeing a more than 350 percent increase in early voting compared to this time in 2016.
The battle against voter suppression continues in the courts with voting rights proponents winning some, but not all of the many cases across the country.
A short time ago, the U.S. Supreme Court denied the Republican's request to stop Pennsylvania from counting mail-in ballots up to three days after the election day. Big win for democracy.
Meanwhile, the pandemic continues to rage hitting battleground states especially hard. And as I mentioned earlier, eight million Americans have slipped into poverty, with politicians unable to agree on coronavirus aide.
I'm joined now by Bishop William Barber, co-chairman of the poor people's campaign.
And, Bishop, I don't know if you were listening to the previous segment. But I, you know, I probably -- people who are fans may not be happy that I asked her the question, but I will ask you the same question. But I will just ask you the same question.
Mitch McConnell is one member of the Republican Party. He is their leader but he isn't any different than Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz. He behaves just like Cornyn. They do all the same things.
I wonder if you think that just having him -- let's say he's gone away. Do you think anything would fundamentally change about the way the Republican Party is dealing with poverty and want in this pandemic?
BISHOP WILLIAM BARBER, THE POOR PEOPLE'S CAMPAIGN CO-CHAIR: Now, this form of extremism that cloaks itself as Republicanism, it is selfishness and lust for power that has corroded all of that. And you really got to have an entirely new majority. Democrats better understand it and stop playing with this stuff.
These people are for real. When I heard that laughter, you know, I'm very careful with my words, Joy, that was one of the most damnable forms of "I'm so sick with lust for power that I just don't care".
I mean -- and they cannot change that. They are the cause of all of this.
None of this stuff we're seeing now had to happen. It's man created. It's human being created. It's politics created.
The way in which this pandemic is hurting people, the way in we've been respond, the fact that we have care plans and help plans, that all traces back to McConnell and his majority that's only concerned about lust for power and not about stimulus for the least of these, and this is a real battle -- battle for the soul. It's not just one person.
And eight million more people have been added, Joy. I'm glad you brought that up. It's not that 8 million people -- 8 million more people -- 8 million in poverty, 8 million more.
REID: Yeah, right?
BARBER: We're already at 140 million poor and 8 million more.
That's one quick thing, Joy. I did the calculation. You know what that looks like? Fifty-three thousand people a day going into poverty since May. Fifty-three thousand people a day.
REID: Yeah. You know, Bishop, we did this -- Donald Trump sat at a Vegas church on Sunday, he sat an indoor church service, you know? He -- I don't know how often he goes to church. I don't -- he doesn't seem like a huge church going guy.
But, you know, right wing religious people just love him. And I think what I just learned in church, you have 8 million more people slipped into poverty. You have more than 6 million people who missed rent or mortgage. That means they're about to slip into poverty, maybe homelessness.
There are children in those households that are hungry. And Mitch McConnell thinks it's funny he hasn't passed a bill. And he's saying let them eat SCOTUS. All you get is this Supreme Court seat and nothing more. I can't believe that this is our politics. I can't believe that this man is anyone would elect him.
But he's ahead of Amy McGrath in the polls. I don't get it.
BARBER: He laughed at 46 percent of Kentuckians, that -- because 2 million of those are poor and low wealth. And in Kentucky, he laughed at 271 Kentuckians that are uninsured.
And, listen, I'm going to say it clearly. Trump went somewhere. They may put on it called church, but in any church that was in Jesus Christ with a person sitting there like that would have preached the gospel of repentance, would have called him to turn around and stop killing people and stop lying and stop hurting the church.
That's why we got to be clear. Some of this stuff, it's not about church. I'm glad you said religion because it's not Christianity, it's something else when you give a pass to this fella.
It's not about Democrat or Republican. What we're seeing is what the bible calls legislative evil and wrong. And it's time for people to really stand up and the only hope is that poor and low wealth people have the power to turn this around. There are so many poor and low wealth people now, about 30 percent of the electorate. There are so many poor and low wealth people now, about a third of the electorate.
And we're working. We've got over 3,000 people trained in the calling over 2 million people in eight states where just one to 19 percent of poor and low wealthy people voting this time that didn't vote last night can change who sits in the Senate and can change who is in the presidency.
REID: Yeah.
BARBER: But I'm telling you, this is about really, really, the soul of this nation. I haven't heard a laugh -- I'm not going to tell where I heard a laugh, but I have to go to my Pentecostal roots, that some of you may not understand. Well, I heard that kind of laugh in the face of injustice.
REID: Yes.
BARBER: I can tell you where I've heard it.
REID: My mom (ph) is Pentecostal, so I know what you're talking about. I know what you're talking about. I know what you're talking about.
Bishop William Barber, I know what you mean, thank you so much. Really appreciate you as always.
And that is tonight's REIDOUT. Thank you.
But before we go, last week, we did announce #votingmvps. And you guys turned it out. You guys came out strong. I love seeing all of your pictures, and with just two weeks left to get your ballots in, I want to see more. Tweet at me or THE REIDOUT using #votingmvps, with pictures like these beautiful folks here.
And if you're anything like me, intent to stay up late tonight, you can catch me tonight on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert". So much fun.
Thanks for being with us.
"ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES" starts right now.
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