Updated
Summary
Cassidy Hutchinson reportedly urged to “do the right thing” before Jan. 6 hearing. Trump demand to go to Capitol on January 6 reportedly circulated in Secret Service over past year. 1/6 panel seeks testimony from Pat Cipollone. Trump media company subpoenaed. Washington State will prohibit police from aiding abortion investigations. Wyoming congressional debate demonstrates GOP split. Fallout continues after SCOTUS decisions reshape U.S.
Transcript
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JASON JOHNSON, MSNBC HOST: And that`s tonight`s “LAST WORD”. I`m Jason Johnson. Thanks for watching. Have a good holiday weekend. THE 11TH HOUR with Stephanie Ruhle starts right now.
ALICIA MENENDEZ, MSNBC HOST: Tonight, the mob like mentality of a former president, and the alarming new details of potential witness intimidation sent from Trump`s allies. Then the growing confusion over different states abortion laws, what the White House is planning to do to try to protect reproductive rights across the country.
Plus, a reflection on the week that changed America. One of our favorite presidential historians, who says we won`t forget where we were on these critical days. As THE 11TH HOUR gets underway on this Friday night.
Good evening, I`m Alicia Menendez in for Stephanie Ruhle. Do the right thing, that reportedly was part of the message sent to Trump White House Aide Cassidy Hutchinson ahead of her questioning by the January 6 committee.
NBC News has confirmed she received at least one of the messages shown in Tuesday`s explosive hearing as evidence of potential witness intimidation. Again, here`s a reminder of what it said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. LIZ CHENEY, (R) WYOMING GOP CONFERENCE CHAIR: This is a call received by one of our witnesses. “A person let me know you have your deposition tomorrow. He wants me to let you know he`s thinking about you. He knows you`re loyal. And you`re going to do the right thing when you go in for your deposition.”
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MENENDEZ: According to a source familiar with Hutchinson`s deposition, that person reference there is her former boss, Mark Meadows. A spokesperson for Trump`s former White House Chief of Staff says no one from Meadows camp himself or otherwise has ever attempted to intimidate or shape Ms. Hutchinson`s testimony to the committee.
It is worth remembering Meadows has yet to appear before the panel despite being subpoenaed, and the Washington Post notes, this may all be part of a trend, writing, “Evidence across multiple state federal and congressional investigations points to a similar pattern. Trump and his close allies privately shower potential witnesses with flattery and attention, extending vague assurances that staying loyal to Trump would be better than crossing him.”
While some on the right are challenging the veracity of Hutchinson`s testimony. There`s more reporting tonight that says Trump did angrily demand to go to the U.S. Capitol on January 6.
Two Secret Service Sources tell CNN that he berated his protective detail when he didn`t get his way. Stories about the incident reportedly circulated in the months following the attack and before Hutchinson`s testimony. Those sources say they heard about it from multiple agents, including the driver of the presidential SUV, and say the details were similar to how Hutchinson described it.
As for what`s ahead, next Wednesday is the deadline for Trump`s former White House Counsel Pat Cipollone to testify before the committee. He is seen as a key January 6 witness, one who allegedly and repeatedly resisted Trump`s efforts to overturn the 2020 elections.
NBC news reports Cipollone will probably agree to a transcribed interview limited to specific topics to avoid any privilege issues.
The same time, the former guy is facing even more legal pressure outside of the January 6 investigation. Trump`s media company has now been subpoenaed by a federal grand jury in connection to a criminal probe. The company was also subpoenaed from the Securities and Exchange Commission in a civil probe.
With that, let`s get smarter with the help of our leadoff panel. Peter Baker, Chief White House Correspondent for The New York Times, Luke Broadwater, Pulitzer Prize Winning Congressional Reporter for the New York Times. And Barbara McQuade, a Veteran Federal Prosecutor and former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan. She worked with the DOJ during the Biden transition, and is Professor University of Michigan`s Law School.
It is good to see you all. Barbara, I`m going to start with you. Here is how the Select Committee`s former adviser summed up the story now surrounding Cassidy Hutchinson. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FORMER REP. DENVER RIGGLEMAN, FORMER ADVISER TO JAN. 6TH COMMITTEE: Seeing the attacks that are hitting her right now, the fact that she was getting text messages or phone calls to try to persuade her to do the right thing, it just shows you, you know, what that ecosystem looks like, and the kind of pressure they can put to you if they say hey, you know, I said it before, as sort of the godfather type of negotiation, you know, we`re going to, you know, you know, make — give, what does it give you a deal, you can`t refuse or whatever and — but if you don`t do that, they`re going to come after you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MENENDEZ: Barb, putting aside his horrible paraphrasing of that iconic line from the godfather, does this pressure help build a case for witness tampering?
BARBARA MCQUADE, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY: Absolutely, you know, I think that the criminals are often more sophisticated than to come right out and say don`t say bad things about me, don`t tell the truth. They say it in more guarded terms like this, you know, don`t forget whose loyalty you belong to, don`t forget whose team you`re on, those kinds of things.
[23:05:18]
And so, you know, standing alone, I don`t think it`s enough. But I think if you put it together with other comments, other statements, there`s certainly a motive to try to persuade her. It can be the stuff of a criminal case, and it`s a serious crime. The statute provides for up to 20 years in prison. Sometimes people dismiss these as mere process crimes. But I`ll tell you what, prosecutors and judges consider these very serious crimes. Because lying to juries, lying to fact finders is what works investigators from getting to the truth.
MENENDEZ: Luke, you reported on Trump`s political organization, his allies helping with legal fees for witnesses. There`s nothing illegal about that, so why is it getting so much attention here?
LUKE BROADWATER, THE NEW YORK TIMES CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER: Well, Cassidy Hutchinson has cited this as one reason why she felt she was able to speak more freely before the select committee. When she first was subpoenaed by the Select Committee. She needed a lawyer and so she went and got a recommendation from people in the Trump orbit. And they set her up with an attorney and they — the Trump`s PAC paid for the legal fees. But through the course of her testimony, she felt that she was constrained and so she`s through a friend Alyssa Farah got in touch with Liz Cheney, the Vice Chair of the Committee, and set up a fourth interview. And at this fourth interview, she parted ways with her previous attorney and got an independent attorney.
And it was at that interview that she felt not constrained anymore and give a much fuller account of everything that she says she witnessed, and then agreed to testify publicly about it. And so this highlighted an arrangement where more than a dozen witnesses are having their legal fees paid for by the Trump PAC, or a Trump aligned PAC. And so, if Cassidy Hutchinson parted ways, and then talked much more openly about what she witnessed, are there other witnesses in that same situation? And so it raises more questions about this arrangement with the Trump PACs paying for these legal fees.
MENENDEZ: Barbara, we`ve talked about the PAC. We`ve talked about Mark Meadows, we`ve talked about other allies, from what we know now, could all of this be linked directly to Trump himself, and add his own legal jeopardy?
MCQUADE: Well, it could but, of course, you`d have to show that he had the knowledge that these statements were being made and that he intended for them to be made.
One of the reasons it`s often so hard to get to the person who`s at the top, whether it`s a corporate CEO or a mob boss is because the person insulates themselves from the dirty work, they don`t get their hands dirty, they have other people make these statements and do these things. So the question would be whether he himself was involved in issuing these statements and whether he intended to use them to keep people quiet.
MENENDEZ: Peter, tonight`s reporting from CNN that secret service insiders, they are backing much of what Cassidy Hutchinson testified about this week, about that encounter inside Trump`s SUV that she heard others describe. Does all of that dilute some of the pushback that we have heard from the right about the veracity of her testimony?
PETER BAKER, THE NEW YORK TIMES CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, let`s remember the pushback, first of all, is because they find her to be a credible and powerful witness, right? There`s a reason why they`re attacking her so much. Secondly, I think it`s important remember, she wasn`t pretending or saying to anybody that she witnessed this. She was very careful about what she said. She told us, the country that this is what she was told by Tony Ornato, who`s a deputy chief of staff and a former Secret Service agent for President Trump. She wasn`t pretending to know what actually happened in the vehicle that Tony Ornato told her something that turned out not to be the full version of what happened the vehicle, that doesn`t speak to her credibility.
But the — I think, it`s really interesting to know is what you just said, which is that nobody is questioning the important part and it`d be taken (inaudible). They wouldn`t take him, and then he was angry at them for not faking it to, that tells us something important, which is that he would determine the politically lead, the crowd that he knew, was armed and potentially violent to the Capitol himself. It was not just a throwaway line in speeches, Mark Meadows tried to say in his book, he himself wanted to go to the Capitol, burst into the to the building where they were counting the votes against them and somehow disrupt that transfer of power. And it was a Secret Service that wouldn`t let them do it, not because they disagree with politics or policy, but because they thought it completely unsafe. But that`s the most important thing that Cassidy Hutchinson testimony told us about that episode.
MENENDEZ: Luke, Peter just referenced Tony Ornato, you have new reporting about him. I mean, just to remind our audience he left the Secret Service to become a White House Deputy Chief of Staff, a move you do not ordinarily see. What else do we need to know about Ornato?
[12:10:03]
BROADWATER: Well, we`re at — because privately people close to Tony Ornato have let it be known that he disagrees with Cassidy Hutchinson`s account of this conversation that they had describing what happened in the SUV. We now have sort of two people who are pitted against each other in terms of what they have said and who`s more credible. And what all I`ve heard all week from the select committee is that Tony Ornato`s testimony was seen as less credible to them, was less consistent. There were two different interviews. There were problems they felt with his testimony where they didn`t feel that he was forthcoming or fully forthcoming. And they felt that Cassidy Hutchinson had more corroboration with what she had to say.
So I expect we`ll hear a lot more about this. We may even have some more witnesses come forward and testify publicly about these events. But the Select Committee having interviewed all the people involved at different points, did feel that Cassidy Hutchinson, was the most credible and felt very comfortable putting her out there publicly for the whole world to see.
MENENDEZ: Barbara, there are signs that Pat Cipollone may agree to a transcribed interview limited to specific topics, can you talk us through the mechanics of a transcribed interview? And how much that could impact then what he has to offer the committee?
MCQUADE: Yes, I think because of some genuine privileges, that he may still have. Attorney client privilege, even executive privilege. There are some areas that you probably can`t talk about. But there`s certainly plenty of other areas that he can. Of course, he`s not Donald Trump, the man`s lawyer, he is a lawyer for the President of the United States. And so to the extent that those positions diverged, his legal skills were being representing the presidency. And so I think they will want to carve out, these are the areas we`re going to talk about, these are the areas we`re not. And of course, if any third parties will present at the time of these conversations, then any privilege would be waived. So if Roger Stone is present, or Michael Flynn or anybody else is not subject to the privilege, then that waves as well. So I think they`ll get there. I think they just want to carve out which areas they`re going to talk about, and focus on the ones that matter here. But it seems that you`re talking about things like whether he was going to go to the Capitol and why he believed that they would be charged with every crime imaginable if that happened, I think all of that is fair game.
MENENDEZ: So Peter, as all of this is ramping up, your paper reports tonight, the Trump may push up an announcement about running again, in part to blunt damaging revelations from the January 6 investigation, apparently, Lindsey Graham, all four and others in the GOP are not, what more do we know?
BAKER: Yeah, I think that`s exactly right. And I do think it says something about their evaluation of the impact of this testimony and the impact of these hearings. The President`s trying to sort of change the topic and effect. And I think that it`s also perhaps a way of, you know, deflecting some of this conversation about whether or not, the former president should be charged to the crime. The dynamics, at least on a political level kind of change a little bit, we`re talking about charging somebody who`s currently running for president of United States, as opposed to simply a former president, which is already unusual. In fact, is unique enough. So that`s, that`s another factor, I think in there.
And it`s — and it`s one way of keeping Trump in charge of the Republican Party at a time when there is some fear among his borders of fatigue factor that people will say, yeah, I`m still for Trump. I like him, I want to do the things he wants to do. But I`m so tired of relitigating the last election, maybe it`s time to look at somebody else. If he gets out in front, because I`m running again, he captures that sort of momentum, he hopes at least, and wants to stay at the top of that party. So I think this is a way of keeping him out in front. But it does complicate the party at a time when he`s trying to win these midterm elections, win his back is probably the front runners for the House elections anyway, in the fall. And then a lot of Republicans are concerned about distracting him up.
MENENDEZ: Yeah, I mean, Luke, speaking to that fear and that complication, NBC reports, Trump`s fear factor among Republicans may be waning. You have former allies testing the waters for a possible presidential bid, your sense of how vulnerable he is?
BROADWATER: Well, you know, there`s sort of a game on Capitol Hill where you`re always judging, is this going to be the moment when the Republicans break with Trump? Is that going to be the moment and after outrage, after outrage, the moment never comes? And so maybe it will be this time, but I`ll believe it when I see it.
MENENDEZ: Yeah, I mean Peter, this is the end of a very busy weekend. So I have two questions for you. One, how big of a deal was it? You had Biden`s comments yesterday supporting a carve out for the filibuster to protect abortion rights? What are you going to be looking for after the July 4 holiday?
BAKER: Yeah, I think it`s a big deal in that sense, it says how sensitive president is to the criticism he`s hearing from the left and his own party he`s not being aggressive enough to counter the decision by the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade.
[23:15:09]
There`s a lot of angst inside the party, a lot of consternation, a lot of feeling that the President should be more aggressive. Maybe he should do something even like packing the court with more justices or something like that. That`s not something President Biden is likely to do. So instead, he`s talking about getting rid of the filibuster, which is, you know, a pretty big deal for him because he`s a respecter of the institution and not very easily convinced to try to dispense with things like the filibuster.
At the same time, they don`t have the votes to actually do it. So it`s kind of a theoretical conversation at this point. So in effect, what he`s doing is setting the stage for the fall election saying to voters, Democratic voters, if you really want to do this, if you want to get rid of the filibuster, you`d have to give me a couple of more seats in the Senate, that they have to be two seats. They don`t need to worry so much about Joe Manchin, they could possibly still, you know, overcome the filibuster and then codify Roe v. Wade, of course, you`re going to have to win the House, which is pretty problematic at this point, anyway.
MENENDEZ: Peter Baker, Luke Broadwater, Barbara McQuade, thank you all so much.
Coming up, one of the governors who talked with the President today about protecting the right to choose. Washington State`s Jay Inslee joins us next.
And later, after recent tumultuous events in the nation`s capital, one noted presidential historian warns, we now live in a different society than we did just 10 days ago. Michael Beschloss will tell us he needs. The 11th Hour just getting underway on Friday night.
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[23:21:08]
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GOV. KATHY HOCHUL, (D) NEW YORK: Mr. President, we`d ask that you consider your ability to use federal facilities. What am I talking about? Veterans, hospitals, military bases, and other places where the federal government controls the jurisdiction in some of the states that are hostile to women`s rights, and make sure that those services can be available to other women. So those are just a few of the ideas that we encourage you to look at.
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MENENDEZ: Exactly one week after the Supreme Court`s reversal of Roe vs. Wade, the President got the chance today to hear the concerns of nine Democratic governors and states where abortion rights are protected. For now, we`re pleased to welcome one of those governors Jay Inslee of Washington State.
Governor, thank you so much for taking the time to be with us. What can you tell us about the meeting today?
GOV. JAY INSLEE, (D) WASHINGTON: That was a good meeting. The President`s very engaged in this. He obviously has given deep thought to it. I was really gratified to hear what he had to say obviously stand up to eliminate the filibuster in this consideration. So we can have a statutory protection at some point when we got a couple more votes in the Senate.
But more importantly, short term, he was very open to our ideas that we suggested, as you know, we formed a sanctuary in our state and across the west coast and other state, Democratic states as well. And so we talked — what we talked most about is how can the federal government do the best job to partner with us, to ensure those sanctuaries are effective. So we suggested several ideas to him to make sure that women can be protected around the country to work with our state`s either to come to our states, to have these services provided, or to have pharmaceutical medicine provided to them from our states, so that they can receive this medicine to exercise right of choice without leaving their states.
And I actually think that may end up being the most effective solution to this problem. And he`s very open to considering, this has been suggested. The FDA, making it very clear that the FDA has made these medicines, pharmaceutical products legal, safe and authorized in this out of pre- empting states trying to take away this right of pharmaceutical abortion.
MENENDEZ: I mean, Governor, to your point, you have already taken an aggressive approach in your own state seeking an abortion rights amendment to the state`s constitution. You`re prohibiting the Washington State Patrol from aiding abortion investigations. And so my question is, as these vigilante laws continue to take hold our steps like this going to be pro- choice, governor`s best line of defense, what more can you do from your purchase, Governor?
INSLEE: Well, one of the things we — I talked to the President about is, I`m hopeful that he would issue an executive order to prevent the law enforcement, federal law enforcement authorities, FBI, Homeland Security, ATF, any of their databases or their investigatory systems to be used by governments or these vigilante groups.
Obviously, those databases are very powerful. He seemed open to that suggestion. I do think this is an important aspect to not allow the databases which are extensive, as we know the federal government to be used by the prosecutors or investigators of the states that want to take this right away from women. I do think that`s an important thing.
We also, I hope, that he will jawbone and talk with the data providers in private enterprise to prevent their databases, which are extensive being — to being used and accessible to the states. Those are important things as well. And obviously, we`re all going to pass, I believe, measures to prevent to the extent humanly possible, extraditions or civil lawsuits against people come to our states. So there`s quite a number of things we can do. And I feel good after talking to the President that he`s going to be open to as aggressive a position on this as possible.
[23:25:02]
MENENDEZ: Governor, recent polling finds the Roe decision has women more interested in voting this November, especially Democratic women, I wonder what you believe the Democrats at the state level, at the federal level need to be doing in order to earn voters confidence on this issue?
INSLEE: I`m not concerned about that. We will do have the voters confidence on this. That`s why I believe we`re going to do better than some people think. Because people know very fundamentally, there`s a basic difference between the Democratic and Republican candidates all across the United States, whether it`s legislative or Congress, or governors, particularly governors that are so important in this matrix right now.
The Republican Party is on this obsessive movement to take away this fundamental right of women. I`m telling him people are irate about this. And all we need to do is to encourage them to channel that anger. And by the way, it`s not just women, I think people misunderstand this. We`ve actually had some — if I can share secrets with some focus groups that show men were angry about this as women, that may surprise people. And so there is a huge amount of anger about one of the first times in American history where we`ve gone backwards, where the Supreme Court has actually stripped Americans of a liberty interest. And this fundamentally, is a liberty interest.
So what we can do is just suggest people to don`t get hangry, get active and vote. And I believe people are going to be motivated to vote. And I believe they`re going to be motivated for the only party who stand up for this liberty interest. And not just Democrats. You mentioned Democrats, Republican, people understand that their party has been stolen from them. This is no longer the party of, you know, my predecessor in Congress 50 years ago led us to be the first state in the union to win the right by popular vote the right choice. Those Republicans are extinct. People get this, they`re going to vote on this.
MENENDEZ: Governor, I have about a minute left. But I do want to ask you, even as you declare Washington, a safe haven for abortion, you have other states in close proximity to you that still have pending abortion bans. When you talk to providers in your state, what is it you were hearing from them about what they need in order to meet what is going to be a forthcoming increased demand?
INSLEE: Well, they need the things that we talked about with the President today. They need — we need access to personnel and financing to accommodate the 1000s of women that will be coming to our state. We`ve just released a million dollars from our emergency fund, we`d already done seven and a half million last biennium.
We talked to the President today about potentially increasing the health distribution of federal funds to our states to help with all kinds of reproductive health, including contraception services, and then he can — the federal government can help on that, even if we — if there is a Hyde Amendment because it can help our state`s, our health costs. We need to protect women`s right to not lose their privacy. We need to hire more people to actually do this work in the services. We need to enable our telemedicine system which is extremely effective and safe. So that a woman in one state can communicate with a physician and get a prescription for these pharmaceutical measures that we know that are totally authorized by the FDA. And I believe one of the most important things we`re going to need to do is to make it clear that these pharmaceuticals, the law of the federal government, in allowing them to be used safely preempts these efforts of Republicans to take away this right in the states.
And so we believe that there is a good chance that women will be able to access physicians by telemedicine in our state, stay in their states and receive these pharmaceuticals. And I believe that we need to be aggressive in litigation to make that clear. We talked about the president. His team is evaluating that potential prospect right now, and that`s important.
MENENDEZ: Governor Jay Inslee, thank you so much for your time tonight.
INSLEE: Thank you. Be well.
MENENDEZ: Coming up, politicians running on or against the big lie, now having to explain themselves to voters. Tim Miller, who knows a bit about Republican campaigns tells us how that is going. When THE 11TH HOUR continues.
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[23:34:08]
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HARRIET HAGEMAN, WYOMING REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE: The threat to our republic really comes from other sources, including the fact that right now we`re seeing that we have two different systems of justice in this country, where we have one system of justice, where you have people like Hunter Biden or Hillary Clinton, or even Joe Biden who are not accountable or held accountable for the decisions in the bad acts that they undertake.
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MENENDEZ: The Republican primary voters in Wyoming are witnessing the party split in real time. Several candidates including natural resources attorney Harriet Hageman are running against January 6, the Vice Chair Liz Cheney.
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CHENEY: I will never put party above my duty to the country. I will never put party above my duty to the Constitution. I swore an oath under God and I will abide by that oath. I won`t say something that I know is wrong simply to earn the votes of people to earn political support. That`s what the voters of Wyoming deserve.
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[23:35:00]
MENENDEZ: Let`s bring in Tim Miller, a contributor to the Bulwark and the former Communications Director for Jeb Bush. His new book, Why We Did It: A Travelogue from the Republican Road to Hell, was just released this week.
Tim, my friend, congratulations. It`s a big deal to finally have the book out in the world. I got to tell you, listening to Hageman, it sounds a little bit like opposite day or life in the upside down where she started talking about two different systems of justice. And I thought, you know, I think we all — those of us who are tethered to reality thought we knew where she was headed, and then took that detour. So my question to you is, can Cheney`s principle, reality based stance, save her in Wyoming?
TIM MILLER, THE BULWARK CONTRIBUTOR: Yeah, thank you, Alicia. I think that Republican Road in my book subtitle is leading to that Wyoming — or that Wyoming House debate last night, because boy, I don`t know what is happening that then it is the upside down and the cowboy state.
I don`t think that Liz Cheney has a realistic path to victory, unfortunately. I`m happy that she`s fighting the good fight. I would love to be surprised. The numbers that I`ve seen, from, you know, both what as public as well, as friends, were working on the race, you know, show her behind quite a bit. And it`s hard to know. Yeah, you know, what she could do that would help turn it around. I mean, the reality is, if you watch that entire debate, which unfortunately, I suffered through, Liz Cheney sounds like a conventional Republican — from conservative Republican from 2014 on every issue except for two, whether or not Donald Trump should have tried a coup. She`s against that, all the other candidates on states are for it. And whether or not we should have been vaccinating people for COVID-19. She was for that, everybody else dabbled in some kind of conspiracy.
So what do you do if you`re in that situation of Liz Cheney? You`re only losing because, you know, you didn`t want the Donald Trump autocracy, you didn`t want to end our democracy and you will — and you believe in basic science to save people`s lives. If those are the reasons, she`s going to go down. I mean, at least he`s going down for something good that says really troubling things about the voters who are participating in these primaries.
MENENDEZ: And you talk about this exact kind of split in your book, on the very first page, “America never would have gotten into this mess if it weren`t for me and my friends. We were the normal Republicans, the pragmatic and practical. The adults in the room you hear so much about.” I mean, do Republican voters even want a so-called adults in the room anymore?
MILLER: No, they don`t. And I think the people that I`m talking to in that book are Harriet Hageman, her consultants, as a woman that`s running against Liz Cheney, are the so called people that were on Team normal. You remember in the January 6 hearing where Bill Stepien said, I was on team normal, it was Rudy, those the crazy ones. This has been happening time and time again. And I go over it in the book for a decade, where people who — in some cases were well intentioned Republicans, who were just trying to deal with the fact that the voters wanted them to support crazy things and other cases, in most cases, people were not well intentioned, they were just trying to take advantage and trying to win and trying to play the game. But what they did was people who knew better, people who knew that the vaccine jumped with microchips and bodies, people who knew that Donald Trump lost a legitimate election in 2020. They play footsie with the conspiracy nonsense with the extremism stuff, because that`s what they think they need to do to win.
And over time, these “normal people,” the people who know better have been co-opted by the extremists. And it is very clear that that has happened right now. In 2012, this has been going on for a minimum. I cover 14 years in my book, I`m sure some people have been around longer would say it`s been going on longer than that, but it`s been going on for a decade and a half now. And yet, the vast majority of my former colleagues continue to play the same losing game, you know, where they are complicit in the extremism, in the anti-democratic actions of people like Harriet Hageman, and the former president.
MENENDEZ: To your point about extremism, and I want to make sure we get to this because I thought it was some of the most compelling material in the book. You have Florida`s don`t say gay law going into effect today. Here`s what a Florida kindergarten teacher had to say this afternoon.
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CORY BERNAERT, FLORIDA KINDERGARTEN TEACHER: I`m scared for myself. But I also know that I have to stay true to who I am. And I just hope that other LGBTQ plus teachers can do the same, and that they have supportive staff, supportive colleagues, supportive supervisors, that administration and school colleagues that will be behind them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MENENDEZ: Tim, I watched you shake your head throughout that. You write, and why we did it a travelogue from the Republican Road to how about coming to terms with your own identity as a gay Republican. How does it feel to watch the party continue to push legislation like this?
MILLER: Yeah, to go back to it after we thought we`d won that. You know, look, I reflect on that. I have some regrets about my work in the past for Republican candidates or anti-gay. And you can read the blog, going to see how I grappled with all of that.
[23:40:10]
But to think that this was something that we felt like we had made progress on and why. And now to just have this vicious backsliding. And what is happening in Florida is less like what was happening in my career and more like 1978. This is like Briggs Initiative, old school, anti-gay, going after gay teachers. And it is just insane. And the bill — and there was no need, this bill serves no purpose. This new law serves no purpose, except to demonize and to tear down gay teachers and kids in school who come from, you know, LGBT families like mine. And it was written in such a way that any angry MAGA parents can now sue a school and threaten a teacher. And so you have people walking on eggshells around these schools. And so anytime you want to defend it and say, well, you know, this isn`t exactly in the bill, but the way that this bill is written, now, there`s a good reason for teachers, principals, to be scared to acknowledge gay families, kids that are dealing with their own sexuality and gender identity, and it`s going to cause a lot of pain and a lot of harm. And it serves no purpose except for to advance Ron DeSantis, the short term political game.
MENENDEZ: Again, the new book, Why We Did It: A Travelogue from the Republican Road to Hell. Tim Miller, congratulations and thank you.
MILLER: Thank you.
MENENDEZ: Coming up, our next guest says it is the week that literally changed America. Presidential Historian Michael Beschloss is here to weigh in on the landmark Supreme Court rulings and this week`s stunning testimony and the January 6 investigation, when THE 11TH HOUR continues.
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MENENDEZ: The Supreme Court`s decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade was just one of several significant rulings that have changed our country in recent days. For more, let`s welcome celebrated author and Presidential Historian Michael Beschloss. His latest work in a bookshelf full of works is, President of War.
Michael, always good to see you. And I want to start with your reaction to —
MICHAEL BESCHLOSS, NBC NEWS PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Oh, great to see you, Alicia.
MENENDEZ: — all these SCOTUS rulings, this was a huge week, how different is our country today from where we were 10 days ago?
BESCHLOSS: Well, 10 days ago, as you will know, there were a lot of people were saying, yes, there`s a conservative new majority on the Supreme Court, but they`ll probably tread cautiously. Anything they do against Roe v. Wade, for instance, will probably be incremental. Same with other things. That is not what`s happened.
You know, a lot of people were worried about Donald Trump over these last seven years. One of the things that were worried about from the White House was tyranny on behalf of a group of policies that only a minority of Americans support. Well, last week, we`ve seen exactly that same kind of tyranny, now from the Supreme Court.
You know, it`s possible for the Supreme Court to come up with a momentous decision like Brown versus Board of Education, desegregating American society 1954, and say, this is a big social change. Some people may disagree, we`re going to do it in a way that`s kindly and try to bring everyone together. That`s not the tone of the decisions we saw on the last week. Roe v. Wade, and also on gun safety, and also the ruling on restraining the EPA, that was not a hand on our shoulder in a friendly way. That was a slap across our face. It`s almost as if they`ve arrived in town, almost like bullies and said, you`d better now reckon with us. We`ve got the power, we`re going to do what we want, even though we`re not in touch with a majority of Americans.
MENENDEZ: So Michael, let me ask you historically, what has happened after decisions like this? How do Americans typically react?
BESCHLOSS: They react in two ways. Number one, it can divide the country almost to the point of civil war. That`s what happened in 1857, the Supreme Court did the Dred Scott decision saying basically black Americans are not people. And if you don`t like slavery, deal with it, it`s going to be here forever. That led directly to a civil war four years later.
Mid 1930s, the Supreme Court said to Franklin Roosevelt in the New Deal, you can`t get so involved in, you know, trying to regulate the economy and other areas of private life and struck down a lot of the reforms that Roosevelt had done. A lot of people were angry. This country was very unsettled. There were demagogues in the late 1930s. I think there`s a very good chance we`re going to see all this again, especially because something they didn`t decide this week, the Supreme Court, but they did ominously announce, and that is, they`re going to take on a case during the next year, that may give the right to decide presidential elections much more strongly to state legislatures.
There`s a possibility that — I hate to say this, Alicia, there`s a possibility that we may have seen our last fair and free presidential election to the United States, I hope not.
MENENDEZ: Absolutely devastating. I want to play some sound of Cassidy Hutchinson describing the form President`s reaction to Bill Barr`s public statement that there was no election fraud.
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CASSIDY HUTCHINSON, FORMER SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT: There`s catch up dripping down the wall. And there`s a shattered porcelain plate on the floor. The valet had articulated that the President was extremely angry at the Attorney General`s AP interview and had thrown his lunch against the wall.
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MENENDEZ: As someone who has studied the White House so closely, how does Donald Trump`s behavior compared to other presidents throughout our nation`s history?
BESCHLOSS: Every other president is in one category. Donald Trump is in the other. We`re hearing our brave witness Ms. Hutchinson`s testimony saying that this is a president who tried to get his attorney general to lie and say that he really won the election, that Trump did. It`s not his attorney general. It`s our Attorney General. He had no right to do that. Almost every president knows that. But above and beyond that what we heard, even reinforced, expanded from her testimony is, this is the only president in American history who has sought to unleash violence against the Congress on the Capitol, to take down our democracy and the peaceful transfer of power that goes so far beyond what any other president history has ever done. I do hope that we never see it again. I`m not sure that that will happen or will not happen.
MENENDEZ: Michael, I`ve got about 30 seconds left. But I got to say, I almost lost my breath. When you just said what you said about how we may have seen our last fair and free elections predicated on this, you know, future Supreme Court decision. Do you think Americans understand I mean, I think our viewers do, but do you think Americans at large understand the parallel that American democracy is in?
BESCHLOSS: I`m not sure that they do. And they better because of our democracy has taken away and it might be even in the next four or five months, it will be because people stood silent. All I would say to our friends who are watching us is vote, organize, express yourself and peaceful protests would be good too. Remember what Robert Kennedy said, in our society, it is not enough to allow dissent, we must demand it.
MENENDEZ: The incomparable Michael Beschloss, Michael, as always, thank you so much.
Coming up, our nation`s highest civilian honor, the big list of names to whom President Biden will award the Presidential Medal of Freedom, when THE 11TH HOUR continues.
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BARACK OBAMA, (D) U.S. PRESIDENT: For the final time as President, I am pleased to award our nation`s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
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MENENDEZ: Last thing before we go tonight, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. January of 2017, President Obama surprised then Vice President Biden with the nation`s highest civilian honor. Now, as President Biden gets to extend that honor to others, though they and their family are getting more advanced notice than he received. Here`s a look at some of those both living and who are no longer with us who will be recognized this year.
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SIMONE BILES, OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALIST: I have to focus on my mental well- being and that`s what I did.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You sure did. That was brave.
BILES: Thank you. It was hard, working five years for a dream and just having to give it up. It was not easy at all.
STEVE JOBS, CO-FOUNDER OF APPLE: An iPod, a phone and an Internet communicator. These are not three separate devices. This is one device and we are calling it iPhone.
SISTER SIMONE CAMPBELL, SISTERS OF SOCIAL SERVICE: Our faith strongly affirms that we are all responsible for one another. I am my sister`s keeper. I am my brother`s keeper.
KHIZR KHAN, GOLD STAR FATHER: Donald Trump, have you even read the United States Constitution? I will gladly lend you my copy.
FORMER SEN. JOHN MCCAIN, (R) ARIZONA: I don`t give a damn what the President of the United States wants to do or what anybody else wants to do. We will not waterboard; we will not torture.
MEGAN RAPINOE, OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALIST: I`ve been told that I don`t deserve any more than less because I am a woman. You see, despite all the wins, I`m still paid less than men who do the same job that I do.
RICHARD TRUMKA, FORMER PRESIDENT AFL-CIO: Now is the time. In fact, it`s way past time to protect the right to organize for workers in the 21st Century.
SANDRA LINDSAY, CRITICAL CARE NURSE: I want to instill public confidence that the vaccine is safe. We`re in a pandemic. And so we all need to do our parts.
GABBY GIFFORDS, FORMER CONGRESSWOMAN: Stopping gun violence takes courage, the courage do what`s right. We must never stop fighting, fight, fight, fight.
DENZEL WASHINGTON, ACTOR, BOYS & GIRLS CLUB SPOKESMAN: Whatever you have in life or whatever do you think you`ve acquired, you can`t take it with you. On your last day you will not be judged by how many cars you have or how much money you have, but hopefully by how many people you helped?
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MENENDEZ: President Biden will present the medals during a ceremony at the White House on July 7.
On that note, I wish you a good night. From all of our colleagues across the networks of NBC News, thank you for staying up late, have a great and safe Fourth of July.