Updated
Summary
Hours away from the start of the Jan. 6th public hearings, we learn what to expect and what counter attacks Republicans might have planned. The 11-year-old girl who smeared herself with her friend`s blood to survive the Uvalde school shooting shares the horrific story to lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Hours after hearing the gut-wrenching testimony, the House passed a package of new gun bills. Plus, Americans are still paying up big time at the gas pump.
Transcript
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LAWRENCE O`DONNELL, MSNBC HOST: That`s tonight “LAST WORD.” THE 11TH HOUR with Stephanie Ruhle starts now.
[23:00:30]
STEPHANIE RUHLE, MSNBC HOST: Tonight, hours away from the January 6 committee going public with its findings for the first time and more revealing audio of Kevin McCarthy from right after the violent insurrection. Vowing to do the very thing the committee promises.
Then, today`s gut wrenching testimony on gun violence from the 11-year-old Uvalde survivor who played dead to stay alive, begging America don`t let this happen again.
Plus, Americans paying up big time at the pump, a reality check on who and what is really to blame as THE 11TH HOUR gets underway on this Wednesday night.
Good evening. Once again, I`m Stephanie Ruhle. Tomorrow night, the January 6 Committee`s public hearings officially begin. And we have new audio of Kevin McCarthy during the Republican conference meeting. Just days after the riot listen to this.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA) MINORITY LEADER: We cannot just sweep this under the rug. We need to know why it happened. Who did it and people need to be held accountable for it and are committed to make sure that it happens.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RUHLE: Well, that is exactly what the committee is not planning to do. As Vice Chair Liz Cheney says it is all about showing Americans why January 6 is a line. This country can never cross ever again.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): This was a violent assault on the United States Capitol. And it was provoked by a sitting president of United States. If we really want to understand why January 6 is a line that can never be crossed again, then we really do have to sort of put the politics and the partisanship aside, let`s understand what happened. And let`s do everything we can to protect ourselves from it in the future.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RUHLE: Tomorrow, we expect to hear from two very important witnesses, a Capitol police officer who suffered a brain injury from the rioters and a documentary filmmaker who got footage of the far right violent Proud Boys leading up to the attack.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is reportedly in talks with the committee to testify publicly as well. We also just found out tonight public hearing number three is now officially on the books for next Wednesday at 10:00 am.
And while the panel is gearing up for these hearings, Republicans are teasing some of their own counter attacks, which do absolutely nothing to inform us about what happened on that day.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ELISE STEFANIK (R-NY): It is a smear campaign against President Donald Trump against Republican members of Congress and against Trump voters across this country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RUHLE: It has been a year and five months since that awful attack happened. So let`s just take a moment to remember some of what this country experienced and what the world saw.
Chanting hang Mike Pence, destroying Nancy Pelosi`s office, beating police officers. It was an attack on our democracy. It was not a normal tourist day.
The Committee is still gathering evidence. Think about that a year and five months later, a federal judge ordered Trump think back ordered Trump lawyer John Eastman to turn over documents to investigators and as a reminder, Eastman is the guy who wrote the memos arguing that then-Vice President Mike Pence could overturn the 2020 election, which he could not.
At the same time the Justice Department is conducting its own investigation. More than 800 people have already been arrested across the country. And another story we are following tonight. An armed man was arrested near the home of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Officials say the 26-year-old man he called 911 on himself. He was armed with a handgun a knife and pepper spray. And he said he was there to kill Justice Kavanaugh.
[23:05:004]
There`s a lot to get into with that. Let`s bring in our leadoff panel hopefully get a little bit smarter tonight Phil Rucker joins us, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, deputy national editor for The Washington Post. Former federal prosecutor who we have not seen in a while Glenn Kirschner joins us. He has tried hundreds of cases in his 30-year career, including murder trials, organized crimes, and precedent setting cases. And Jeremy Peters is here, a political reporter for the New York Times and the author of The must read book “Insurgency: How Republicans Lost Their Party and Got Everything They Ever Wanted.”
Mr. Peters, I turn to you first, from the committee`s perspective, what does the definition of success look like for these hearings?
JEREMY PETERS, THE NEW YORK TIMES POLITICAL REPORTER: I think it`s puncturing this alternate reality that half the country or close to half the country now sees where, because of conservative media because of Donald Trump, and because of Republicans in Congress. Many people now believe that this committee is nothing more than a smear campaign. It`s nothing more than as Elise Stefanik said, in your run up an effort to purge Donald Trump and his supporters from the Republican Party.
Now, I think that`s going to be pretty hard to do. But the fact that they have promised new evidence and new testimony, we don`t know what they have. And I think that`s part of what makes tomorrow night so interesting, and why a lot of people are watching with anticipation to see what happens is, you know, there are going to be witnesses that we`ve never heard from before, there are going to be scenes from this documentary filmmaker that we`ve never seen before.
And as much as the horror of that day is seared into the memory of most Americans, I think what the committee hopes to do is to remind people that this is not political. This is not some partisan gambit. This is about an assault on the seat of American democracy that should not be forgotten, and should not be vanished down the memory hole of Trumpism.
RUHLE: Then let`s talk about that, Phil, the majority of the American people who are not dug in hardcore red or hardcore blue, they`re watching what are they hoping to get?
PHIL RUCKER, THE WASHINGTON POST DEPUTY NATIONAL EDITOR: Well, Steph, I think they`re hoping to get a few things. They`re hoping to maybe get some new information. Remember, this committee has done much more interview — witness interviews and document reviews than any of the journalists who`ve been looking into the January 6 attack over the last year and a half.
So there`s potential here for the committee to reveal some new revelations, new information that adds to what the public knows about what happened in the run up to the attack and on the day of the attack itself.
But I think the American people also are looking for some understanding. They know this was a terrible event for the country. They of course saw the images of people storming the Capitol. But what they might be missing is a bit of context. It`s connecting the dots and understanding collectively, what this means, who`s at fault for it, and how the country moves forward and whether the threat is still alive out there.
And I think those are sort of the meta questions that the committee is going to try to answer beginning with tomorrow night`s hearing.
RUHLE: And that`s sort of the biggest question whether this threat is still alive. I want to share with Jamie Raskin, who`s a member of the committee said earlier today about the goal of the hearings,
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP))
REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): We need America to know that this is an ongoing assaults on the democracy, is this something that we ever want to allow to happen again? And if not, then they`re going to have to listen to the final act of our committee, which is we will be issuing recommendations on what should be done in order to fortify ourselves against coos and insurrections in the future.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RUHLE: And that`s it right there, Glenn, the committee`s — I want to say almost obligation to show the American people that what happened on January 6, isn`t just something of the past that connecting those dots, that danger is still alive today. And in fact, January 6 was just a dress rehearsal for what`s to come, will they be able to show that?
GLENN KIRSCHNER, FMR. FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Oh, I think they will stuff because what we`ve gotten thus far we`re you know, letters from the select committee that were sent out to witnesses, cataloging some of the evidence they expected that witness to provide then we would hear some things sort of leaking out appropriately so after some of the witnesses had testified, but we haven`t seen the evidence with our own eyes.
And you know, I for one thing, it`s going to be a very compelling performance. The January 6 Committee investigative team, headed up by Tim Heaphy, a former expert RICO prosecutor from my former office, the D.C. U.S. Attorney`s Office, that team of former federal prosecutors I believe has approached the J6 investigation as if they were investigating a RICO case.
[23:10:10]
And I think just as they are expert investigators, they are very adept at presenting evidence and presenting a case to a jury. In this case, the jury is the American people. So once we see the evidence with our own eyes, if we conclude as I suspect we will, that there`s proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Donald Trump and company committed crimes against the United States, guess what? Pressure burst pipes. And the Department of Justice will feel the pressure.
I was a career prosecutor, we pretend to be immune from pressure and public opinion and perception, but we`re human. And if we give this kind of information to the American people, they see the crimes that can be proved with their own eyes. Well, then I think the Department of Justice will have nowhere to go, but to begin indicting the command structure of the insurrection.
RUHLE: What does that mean indicting the command structure?
KIRSCHNER: It means Trump and John Eastman, it means Rudy Giuliani and Mark Meadows. Steph, we should pay more attention to the fact that a federal judge in California, David Carter, has announced in his rulings multiple times that there is proof by a preponderance of the evidence 51 percent of the evidence that Donald Trump and John Eastman together committed federal felonies of obstructing an official proceeding and conspiracy to defraud the United States. Those are important findings,
RUHLE: OK, I`m with you. But think about the American people. We`re saying the American people who`ve been waiting five plus years for Trump to pay the consequences for anything. You`re saying they need to pay attention to a ruling from a judge in California who said something that hasn`t resulted in anything. Come on.
KIRSCHNER: They need to pay attention to what the Select Committee is about to present to them, just as we would present the case to the jury. It`s going to be compelling, it`s going to be riveting, it`s going to be linear. And I think if they sit and they absorb it, they`re going to come to the same conclusion that these wrongdoers need to be held accountable.
RUHLE: Jeremy, we keep talking about Fox News isn`t airing these hearings. How are you going to get those people their viewers to see this content? Are we looking at the wrong thing? If you`re a hardcore Fox viewer, you dug in. You believe the big lie, you believe that January 6 was a normal day for tourists. Is this about focusing on the millions and millions of Americans who aren`t just watching Fox News at night? There`s a lot more out there.
PETERS: That`s an excellent point, Stephanie, because the people who are dug in, who are loyal Fox News viewers who aren`t even necessarily loyal Fox News viewers, but who just kind of tune in on a regular basis and tend to tune out political news like most of Americans, they weren`t going to watch this anyway. And that`s why Fox isn`t airing this. That`s why you`re not going to hear about it on conservative media, in general, after that happens is their audience isn`t interested. And that`s in essence, what`s happened to the Republican Party right now is they are just like Fox is worried about how its audience will respond if it showed these hearings.
The Republican Party, Kevin McCarthy, Elise Stefanik, all of its leaders are afraid of getting on the wrong side of their voters. They`re afraid of getting crosswise with Donald Trump. And as much as, you know, there`s been ink spilled and voices on various networks that have said, Oh, well, Trump`s grip on the party is weakening, his endorsement doesn`t matter as much as it used to.
No, he has permeated the party to such an extent that it has completely, almost completely whitewashed the memory of one of the most like horrific events to happen in modern times. And that I think speaks volumes, speak volumes that somewhere close to half the country is willing to just write this off, as you said, as some kind of tourist expedition through the Capitol, or they`re just willing to say it doesn`t matter in the scheme of things and I`m just going to worry about something else.
RUHLE: Except what happened isn`t necessarily a thing of the past. You`ve got participants in that movement, running for offices for school boards, working in polls, getting election related jobs all around the country. The threat is still alive and kicking.
Phil, I want to share with Harry Dunn. This is one of the officers who is defending the Capitol on January 6, told our colleague Chris Hayes about how he`s feeling ahead of the hearings.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OFC. HARRY DUNN, U.S. CAPITOL POLICE: I`m a little anxious, not necessarily in a good or excited kind of way, but we`re going to find out some information some may not be good, some may not be pleasant. I just want the truth about what happened that day.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[23:15:02]
RUHLE: What does this hearing mean for all of the people who are at the Capitol officers, staffers, people who were scared for their lives?
RUCKER: Yes, you know, Steph, I think it`s actually going to be a very difficult night for the people who witnessed and experienced the January 6 insurrection firsthand. You know, of course, they want the details to come out into the public. They believe in the fact finding mission of this committee. They believe in in finding ways to hold the perpetrators accountable. But this is personal for them. And it`s traumatic, and many of them have experienced tremendous personal trauma in the wake of these attacks. They`ve talked openly about the not only the physical pain, but the mental health troubles that they`ve had.
And so to see all of this played out, in video, in sort of live recollections, the recordings of these witness interviews, and so forth, I think could be a very painful experience for them, even as it`s necessary, in many of their assessments for the public to learn this information and to really study what happened.
And by the way, you mentioned the threat not being extinguished. We should remember that tens of millions of Americans continue to believe the big lie that the election was stolen. And former President Trump is fomenting that lie day in and day out on the campaign trail still to this day, and the anger and hostility that so many of his voters feel about the 2020 election, creates this threat very alive in state capitals around the country, and here in Washington. And so it`s very real. And I think we`ll see members of the committee try to drive that home tomorrow night.
RUHLE: Glenn, what happens if the hearings lay out all of the awfulness that happened on the sixth? And lay out what Phil was saying? All the things that are happening with the big lie across the country. What if it does all of that, and still nothing comes of it? Remember, all the committee can do is make recommendations to Congress, a Congress that agrees on almost nothing. Then what happens to the American people? How will we feel then?
KIRSCHNER: We will be slouching toward the end of our republic. If we see with our own eyes, what Trump and company did to try to overturn free and fair presidential election in a very real sense sort of bring an end to our democracy. If the Department of Justice believes it doesn`t have enough evidence to indict, then virtually it will feel like DOJ is giving its stamp of approval to the next nefarious president to do everything that Donald Trump has done. And then some I don`t see that as a viable option for our democracy.
RUHLE: Jeremy, your colleague, Peter Baker, has some pretty extraordinary reporting, how Jared Kushner washed his hands of Trump before January 6, right? We always hear he wasn`t there on January 6. He wasn`t doing that at all. Because what he was doing, he was focusing on his own personal project. He was in the Middle East raising money. So when Trump was out of office, Jared could become the rich, rich man he always wanted to be. What do you think about that?
PETERS: Well, I think the underlying point there and Peter`s reporting it and Susan Glasser, his co-author and wife on this project, his book that`s up in the fall, which I can`t wait to read, is that what you realize is there`s around Trump in those moments, nobody was there, that you had people like Hope Hicks, which Peter reported in his story who had vanished and told Trump, I`m sorry, no, I`m not with you on this
And that created this vacuum, where people like Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell and Mike Lindell could come in and have the ear of the President of the United States. And that is so extraordinary. But that`s the reality of the Republican Party.
RUHLE: OK. Hold on. Hold on. I know we`re out of time, Jeremy saying that is almost implying, well, if Jared and Ivanka and hope were there, then Trump would have done much better things. Tell me when over the course of four years, they were staring him in the right direction.
PETERS: Sure. And there`s — I hear you 100 percent. And that is something that should be said and will be a part of their legacy. They were complicit. They stood by and watched as Trump was impeached the first time and told the President of Ukraine to interfere in the election. Right. So I mean, the record there is pretty well established.
But I think it stands that the fact that the Republican Party now has no one, no one who is an adult in the room who can stand up to present not even Mitch McConnell can stand up to President Trump, former President Trump and say, Enough, and that`s what we`re facing going into 2020 for that, no one —
RUHLE: Yes, so that implies that at some point, Jared Kushner was the grown up in the room. Yes, he was not pushing the big lie. He and Steve Mnuchin were overseas trying to gain big bucks for themselves.
[23:20:00]
Phil Rucker, Glenn Kirschner, Jeremy Peters. All eyes will be on that hearing tomorrow. Thank you for getting us ready. Coming up, emotional testimony from an 11-year-old child who survived at Uvalde school shooting her message to lawmakers as they tried to find some sort of agreement on new gun laws.
And later what we can learn from last night`s primaries with Michael Steele and Maria Teresa Kumar. The signals we`re getting from voters in both parties and the impact it could have on the midterms. THE 11TH HOUR just getting underway on a very busy Wednesday night.
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[23:25:10]
RUHLE: The absolute horror of the elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas two weeks ago, got very real today on Capitol Hill. As this morning`s House hearings on gun violence, lawmakers heard you evolve a fourth grader, fourth grader, Miah Cerrillo bravely describe how she survived the shooting that killed 19 of her classmates and two teachers.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MIAH CERRILLO, FOURTH GRADER AT ROBB ELEMENTARY: There`s a door between our classrooms. And he went there and shot my teacher and told my teacher good night and shot her in the head. And then he shot some of my classmates and the whiteboard.
When I went to the backpacks, he shot my friend that was next to me. And I thought he was going to come back to the room. So I grabbed the blood and I put it all over me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If there was something that you want people to know about that day and about you, right, or things that you want different, what would it be?
CERRILLO: To have security.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you feel safe at school? Why not?
MIAH CERRILLO: Because I don`t want it to happen again.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And you think it`s going to happen again?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RUHLE: Extraordinary. Committee members also heard from Uvalde a pediatrician, Dr. Roy Guerrero. And I warn you, as hard as it was to hear from Miah, what you`re going to hear from the doctor is even tougher.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. ROY GUERRERO, UVALDE SCHOOL PEDIATRICIAN: What I did find was something no prayer, whatever we leave to children whose bodies had been pulverized by bullets fired at them decapitated, whose flesh had been ripped apart. That the only clue as their identities was a blood splatter cartoon close to clean to them, cleaning for life and finding none.
I could only hope these two bodies were a tragic exception to the list of survivors. But as I waited there with my fellow Uvalde doctors, nurses, first responders and hospital staff for other casualties we hope to save they never arrived.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RUHLE: Not long after today`s hearing the House passed a package on gun safety bills. It includes a measure that raises the minimum age to buy semi-automatic rifles from 18 to 21. But here`s the plan. It`s going nowhere. It will stall in the Senate.
Separately, the plan the Senate is working on. Well, that has a problem too, t appears to have hit a snag. NBC News reporting there`s a sticking point with background checks.
So what does that mean tonight, we are no safety — we are no safer on gun safety. And we were two weeks ago when that massacre took place.
With that, let`s bring in Texas State Senator Roland Gutierrez. His district includes Uvalde here we are again. It has been two weeks since that tragedy happened. What is the state of daily life for people in Uvalde?
STATE SEN. RONALD GUTIERREZ (D), TEXAS 19th DISTRCT: Well, Stephanie, I mean, to say that people are stuck is putting it lightly. I mean, it`s just — it`s tragic. Families are shattered. I saw Ms. Rubio today in Congress, and how strong she was, and how strong her husband was. I`m just so impressed with how they`re able to cope, but not miss Rubio or anybody else. No one sought to be an advocate in this space. They just want their children back more than anything else. It`s just tragedy, what`s going on in the community. And all we can do is just be here for them. And that`s what I`m trying to do.
RUHLE: John Cornyn is negotiating in the Senate on a possible gun laws package. He`s obviously negotiating on behalf of Republicans. Do you think anything`s going to get done here?
GUTIERREZ: Well, you know, look, I`m concerned about a lot of things. I mean, we`ve been hearing a lot about red flags. The fact is, the NRA knows that if they pass a red flag law in Congress, that they`re going to go fight it in the court system, the best thing that we can do is raise the age limit.
This is about money. It`s about gun manufacturers making more and more money. And they know that if they raise the age limit, it`s not constitutionally challengeable. And so they`re going to make less money.
And so they want to see red flags because they know what they`re going to do. I`m very disappointed right now and what`s happening in the Senate.
RUHLE: Yes.
GUTIERREZ: They find every little thing to just break this thing down.
RUHLE: Sir, we know what should happen. But I want to get realistic. Let`s say something doesn`t get done in Congress, Texas, which is only broadened, broadened what you can do around on guns over the last few years given the impact Uvalde has had on the community and on the state. You think anything`s going to get done on a state level? Is that a no?
[23:30:08]
GUTIERREZ: Well, I would as Greg Abbot too — probably not, no, and that`s the sad part about all this. I would ask Greg Abbott to look at his friend Ron DeSantis. And look what he did after Parkland. What he did was he raised the age limit from 18 to 21. It`s the right thing to do. Republican constituents are asking for it. I mean, we need a governor that has the fortitude to call us back in a special session and do the right thing at the age limit. And at least that, at least give us that common sense solution. But he refuses. He refuses because he`s in the same. He`s stuck because of his own ambition.
RUHLE: But sir, he`ll do something if Texans demand it. Do you believe Texan voters will?
GUTIERREZ: 80 percent of Republican voters. 80 percent want an age limit increase on assault weapons. It`s what makes sense. You have to be 21 to buy a pistol, but you can be an 18 year old to buy an AR-15. Everybody I talked to Republican and Democrat tells me that — tells me that that makes no sense. And clearly it`s something that we could address.
Red flags are something that we can pass in Austin. But what we could do is we can pass our own Texas sized ATF or we could have a 10-day waiting period, allow state agencies to interview people. Those are the things that make common gun sense.
As I`ve told you before, Stephanie, I`m a gun owner. I get it and I get what my constituents in West Texas want. At the end of the day, everybody I talked to wants to raise this age limit Republicans and Democrats.
RUHLE: Some Texas officials have floated this idea of arming teachers, something the majority of teachers in Texas absolutely do not want. I want to share what Congresswoman Ayanna Presley of Massachusetts the point she made about this earlier today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. AYANNA PRESLEY (D-MA): Only in America, do we consider arming teachers while failing to pay them a livable wage?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RUHLE: What do you think about that?
GUTIERREZ: Well, you stole the poll right out from under me. 77 percent of teachers do not want to carry weapons in the classroom. It`s not what they signed up for. They didn`t sign up to the cops. They signed up to teach our children that`s what they love to do. But not arming teachers. Not one door is some people in our — in Austin legislature would ever suggest not having every cop have a ballistic shield. None of that is going to fix the bottom line problem. And that`s we`re putting militarized weapons in the hands of 18 year olds. It is madness. And Greg Abbott refuses to do even what is colleague in Florida did the right thing.
RUHLE: Well, Greg Abbott and Governor Ron DeSantis, You mentioned earlier ask them I`d love to another day has passed. They have both been invited on this show. And like so many of their colleagues they have declined our invitation but they`re invited here tomorrow.
Senator, thank you for joining us this evening. I appreciate it.
GUTIERREZ: Thank you.
RUHLE: Coming up our dear friends Michael Steele and Maria Teresa Kumar share their takeaways from last night`s key primary races. The message Democrats are sending in Florida when THE 11TH HOUR continues.
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[23:37:50]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEW DOWD, MSNBC POLITICAL CONTRIBUTOR: I do think California said for all the people that said the Democratic Party is crazy far, left crazy, far left crazy far left. What yesterday showed was No, not really. If the Democrats were smart, they said yes, this is who we are, we`re more closer to the center of the country, the center of our party is more closer to the center of the country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RUHLE: While the full impact of yesterday`s primary results is still being determined. We might be witnessing a slight trend away from polarization. Can you believe that? And not one, but both parties. On the Democratic side The New York Times described the California results this way. The choices seem to signal a shift to the center likely to reverberate through democratic politics across the nation.
As to the GOP side where five, five congressmen who voted for a January 6 Commission appear to have survived their primaries. POLITICO points out quote, for the most part, Republicans who crossed Trump were not suffering for their infidelity.
With us tonight, two of our favorite MSNBC contributors Maria Teresa Kumar, the President and CEO of Voto Latino, and Michael Steele, former chairman of the Republican National Committee and former Lieutenant Governor of the state of Maryland.
Maria, you heard Matthew Dowd, is the Democratic Party more center than people realize or more center than Democrats excuse me than Republicans would want you to realize.
MARIA TERESA KUMAR, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: Well, I think it`s the latter. I think that they`re more centered. What we saw in San Francisco last night was incompetence unfolding. And Democrats say we want competence. It wasn`t because he was promoting bail bonds. I mean, you to bail bond reform, because that happens in Houston to great welcome. It was more that he wasn`t able to fix what people wanted. And that is this idea of feeling secure when you go outside, not to be mugged to clean up the city. And it was those basic things that wasn`t happening in San Francisco that the voters got fed up.
This was also remember a recall election where the Board of Education was not meeting the moment that people wanted their kids in schools, and instead they were talking about something completely off the books.
[23:40:00]
And so it`s this understanding that the majority of Americans are reasonable. They want a functioning government that they feel safe and that their kids are back in school, and at the same time, looking at ways to explore creatively solutions that address fundamental broken pieces of our government. But it`s not either or. And what we saw in San Francisco was someone was either we do this or this and it`s like, no, no, we need you to do at minimum, keep us safe.
RUHLE: Yes. But that`s San Francisco. You can talk about incompetence. What about LA? Karen Bass is highly competent, and Rick Caruso is the guy there.
KUMAR: Yes, but I think the same thing is like you, I mean, if anything there was some — the head as a law enforcement in LA had some couple of missteps. And they`re still saying, no, we want you to continue this modernization. And it wasn`t that Karen Bass is not coming in as a close second. It`s more of a realignment.
And I encourage people to look at what we`re seeing, not just in California, but we`re seeing in Houston. We have Lena Hidalgo who is incredibly progressive, but has kept the city of Houston safe. And she`s going to go on into a reelection. So it`s a matter of, again, being competent, and being able to demonstrate receipts, and Karen has been able to demonstrate receipts in the House of Representatives.
And now it`s a testament of is she going to be able to do that in LA? I don`t see a contest. Because, again, the person running there, yes, he was a former Republican, but he`s independently minded and is going on as a Democrat.
RUHLE: Mr. Steele, what do you think?
MICHAEL STEELE, FMR. RNC CHAIRMAN: Well, I appreciate the very final analysis for my friend, but I think it does speak to a —
RUHLE: Fine analysis, but I`m going to disagree with you.
STEELE: Yes, I`m about to blow that issue.
KUMAR: No you`re not.
STEELE: Because the reality of it.
KUMAR: (INAUDIBLE) Michael.
STEELE: I love Maria. But the reality of it is, you got — I look to California. And I look at LA and I look at San Francisco. And what I see is a state that recognizes citizens recognizing that when you`re looking at issues around crime and economics and things that they want people who can get things done. They`re looking for a more grounded approach in dealing with the police.
I think there`s still a little bit of that narrative lingering out there with defund the police and things like that, that sort of, while not preeminent still kind of rattles a lot of the electorate.
And so what you see is a nation that I think, you know, is, again, I`ve been saying this forever, it`s a center right nation on my center left friends would disagree with that. But what it means is, there is a center space, right, that the American voter is looking for in these elections.
And when they don`t see it, they don`t hear it, and especially if they don`t feel it, if they don`t feel that, to Maria`s point, that you`re dealing with crime, you`re dealing with the concerns we have in our community, they`re going to make that change. And I`m not going to build too much into that and say, All right, well, there`s this national shift all of a sudden, but I think there`s some lessons that can be learned by Democrats there and Republicans about the kind of candidate that the voters are going to be looking forward to or looking for in these upcoming elections, which will make the general, Stephanie, really, really interesting when you`re looking at someone like a Karen Bass and Caruso in California, because that will give you a better sense of the final direction people really want to go into, not that Karen Bass is some flaming progressive, liberal person.
But it`d be interesting to see how she counter narratives a little bit off Caruso`s Law and Order kind of approach. I give you in New York, we just saw this narrative play out in New York.
KUMAR: But he didn`t say we shouldn`t be found the police. He said that we actually had to meet the moment and address the issues that the police department were having in a way that addressed safety and modernization. And I think that speaks to understanding the fundamental issue that if you are in LA or sadly, San Francisco that you are not feeling safe, and that you have to address those and that is responsible politicians and being responsible public servant.
RUHLE: Michael, look a little further ahead for me, Ron DeSantis over the weekend and a conservative straw poll beat out Trump but Ron DeSantis, that`s just another version of Trump.
STEELE: Right.
RUHLE: The same thing that you`re talking about Democrats could they see forward to have a more centrist candidate? What about Republicans? Do you see a lane for this Liz Cheney type character forging ahead? I mean, you had five Republican congressmen who supported the January 6 committee. They survived last night. Trump don`t like that.
STEELE: Yes. Yes, no, I think that`s actually very telling in in some very interesting way. So it — I sit for a while there`s always been a lane for the Liz Cheney Larry Hogan type of Republicanism.
[23:45:05]
The question is, how do they then begin to navigate it? How do they set it in motion? I think what we`ve seen from some of these primary results is the beginning of the cobblestones on that pathway, right? So when you`re looking at someone like DeSantis, who is just a dressier, a more suave and the Boehner version of the Trump man, right, he`s going to be able to go out there and try to play that lane that`s going to keep that Trump voter in play.
But the problem is still remains for someone like him is Donald Trump, because he`s hit so much to Trump. And while he tried to do that Heisman with Trump, unlike these other candidates, he`s not going to find that necessarily to his benefit. It creates an opportunity for the Liz Cheney`s to play off of him and to play against him, because he`s got — he`s already been out here now trying to distance Trump. And when Trump gets mad at him, and Trump is not feeling him right now, because he`s been saying all this stuff about Trump. He`s beating him in these straw polls.
There`s a point where there`s going to be an accounting by Trump. And when Trump decides that he`s had enough of DeSantis, that`s when that race gets very, very interesting because who`s going to be the fallback?
RUHLE: Well, we`ll see Trump had enough of Brian Kemp and Brad Raffensperger. You know what they both have right now? Jobs. He doesn`t. Maria Teresa Kumar, Michael Steele, thank you both for joining tonight. I love seeing you both.
Coming up. There is a whole lot of finger pointing over the very high price of gas. The problem is, are they being pointed in the right direction. We`re going to get into all of that when THE 11TH HOUR continues.
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[23:51:23]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HAROLD CORONADO, DRIVER: May call it inflation because somebody is pocket or getting your fate. We`re the ones hurting down here, you know, the poor people. The working class.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I mean, I`m working a minimum wage job. So pretty much most of my paycheck goes to paying for my gas.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Clearly there`s a lot impacting gas prices now in the world. So, yes, let`s just hope they turn around and it doesn`t get worse later in the summer.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RUHLE: With gas prices still soaring all over the country, people want someone to blame and plenty of people. They`re blaming the White House, which is struggling to address inflation and this pain at the pump, calling it quote the problem from hell.
But here`s the thing. Let`s have a reality check. Because as it turns out, these really high prices are not a problem for everyone. In fact, as former Labor Secretary Robert Reich recently pointed out major oil and gas companies and their shareholders are celebrating absolutely huge, monstrous first quarter revenues.
So let`s take a look. Chevron, you know, that little company had its best quarter in nearly a decade, the first quarter of this year. Shell guess what, they just had their best quarter ever. So you and I are paying up, paying up, paying up and they are getting paid, paid, paid.
Just yesterday, ExxonMobil, their stock had its first record close since 2014. And remember, the stock market`s not doing so hot lately. So perhaps this company can take all this big money they`re making and do a whole lot more drilling here in the US. So we can tell these complicated oil and gas producers on the other side of the world to kick it to the curb once and for all.
Just a suggestion. I know we`re all mad about the price of gas. We`re blaming the White House. We`re blaming all these different things. Look who`s making all the money, those big, big companies.
Coming up, will the plates of thousands of desperate migrant families once again distract and enrage American viewers. One network sure hope so. When THE 11TH HOUR continues.
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[23:58:00]
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SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: We are also tracking tonight another massive migrant caravan as a matter of fact the largest date marching to the U.S. border as Biden`s open borders agenda is now a full blown threat to U.S. national security.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RUHLE: Last thing before we go tonight, counter programming. The January 6 hearing, what January 6 hearing? Didn`t you know a giant caravan is coming to take over our country. That is the message coming from Fox News and the Republican cohorts in an attempt to scare and distract the American people. And if at all sounds very familiar. Here`s why.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That caravan of Central American migrants —
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fight with another migrant caravan forming in Honduras – –
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Breaking overnight hundreds of migrants in a newly formed caravan —
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Massive migrant caravan.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But first what could become the largest caravan ever.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RUHLE: Fox News resurrecting their scary caravan playbook from the 2018 midterms. Remember so scary, so scary than the day after the midterms it disappeared. And since then that threat seems to come and go whenever it`s convenient.
So for facts sake, while there is another caravan of migrants trying to make its way here, the Biden White House says it has a plan to address it. According to documents obtained by NBC News, the administration is looking to send migrants to cities deeper inside the country starting with LA. The plan would alleviate overcrowding along the border where record numbers of border crossers have been overwhelming the capacity of shelters in some cities and at times leading Customs and Border Protection to release migrants onto the street to fend for themselves. That is a problem.
So while the Biden administration is trying to respond to this problem, Fox News is once again trying to scare and distract from what will be happening on Capitol Hill tomorrow. When a hearing, a hearing showing actual evidence of an attempt to violently take over the country by overturning a legitimate presidential election. So why isn`t Fox showing these hearings again?
[00:00:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS HOST: They`re all upset that Fox isn`t covering it live. We actually do something called, you know, catered to our audience. Our audience knows what this is.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RUHLE: Cater like a restaurant, not a news organization. Well, the truth matters, but only if you hear it. And to hear the truth, tune into MSNBC for our special coverage of the January 6 committee, beginning right here at 7:00 p.m. Eastern, tell your family, tell your friends, this matters to America.
And on that note, I wish you all a very good night. From all of our colleagues across the networks of NBC News, thanks for staying up late with us. I will see you at the end of tomorrow.