Updated
Summary
Voters delivers a major victory for reproductive freedom in Kansas. Arizona Republican voters go full MAGA. More missing January 6 text messages are reported, this time at the Pentagon. Alex Jones discovers that his lawyers mistakenly sent years of his texts to the opposing counsel. Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs discusses her gubernatorial race.
Transcript
JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: Tonight on THE REIDOUT.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CROWD: Tell me what democracy looks like!
CROWD: This is what democracy looks like!
CROWD: Tell me what democracy looks like!
CROWD: This is what democracy looks like!
CROWD: Tell me what democracy looks like!
CROWD: This is what democracy looks like!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: A major victory for reproductive freedom in Kansas, which should make Republicans very nervous about the midterms.
But it was also a big night for the big lie. Arizona Republicans go full MAGA, and the state`s top conspiracy theorist could, could end up running the future elections.
Also tonight, more missing text messages, this time at the Pentagon. Maybe it`s worth asking which text messages did not get deleted by Trump officials.
And speaking of text messages, did you see this? Alex Jones on the witness stand hearing for the first time that his lawyers mistakenly sent years, years of his texts to the opposing counsel. Oops.
But we begin tonight with Samuel Alito, the Supreme Court justice who played partisan god, or at least thought he could, when he authored the majority opinion that overruled Roe.
Now, we imagine today was a hard day for Justice Alito, but, no, no, we don`t feel especially badly for him. Remember, he`s the one who cited in his opinion a 17th century jurist who supported marital rape and witch burning.
So it shouldn`t surprise us at all that Alito, in his first public appearance since penning that opinion, gloated over making women suffer and mocked his foreign critics during a speech he delivered in Rome.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SAMUEL ALITO, U.S. SUPREME COURT ASSOCIATE JUSTICE: I had the honor this term of writing, I think, the only Supreme Court decision in the history of that institution that has been lambasted by a whole string of foreign leaders.
(LAUGHTER)
ALITO: One of these was former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, but he paid the price.
(LAUGHTER)
ALITO: What really wounded me was when the duke of Sussex addressed the United Nations and seemed to compare the decision whose name may not be spoken with the Russian attack on Ukraine.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Huh. Who knew the Supreme Court justice had jokes fit for a dystopian comedy club, no less?
As we often say on this show, quoting the great Adam Serwer, the cruelty is the point. Yet most voters in America are rejecting such cruelty. Alito and the conservative majority believed that they could do this to you and laugh about it.
But, on Tuesday, Kansas had its own message to send, delivering a stunning F.U. to the right`s shock and awe campaign against bodily autonomy. It was a testament to the desire for abortion rights in this country in one of America`s reddest states with even rubier red pockets, rural, conservative, MAGA, where voters resoundingly rejected a ballot measure that would have allowed lawmakers to ban abortion in the state.
In much clearer terms, the right to an abortion will remain in the Kansas Constitution, a state Constitution, by the way, that in its original form was built on opposition to slavery.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ALLIE UTLEY, KANSAS VOTER: I`m super proud to be from Kansas tonight.
And I feel like my state just showed and boldly told me that they going to take care of me and my female friends and everyone that can get pregnant in the state of Kansas. We are protected tonight.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: The vote was overwhelming.
According to NBC News, 914,000 people voted, which is a massive turnout for a measure put on the ballot in August. That`s about two-thirds the number of votes cast in the 2020 presidential election.
The first post-Roe election test proves what many of us knew. Abortion rights are a potent midterm issue, even a defining one. And, yes, the fight is far from over, as more states will pose similar messages — similar measures on their November primary ballots — their November ballots.
But Kansas has put a wrinkle in the Republican plan to steal bodily autonomy from millions of us, because that`s what Kansans showed up for yesterday, isn`t it? The right to receive abortion care, yes, but also the right to bodily integrity to navigate with dignity, with self-ownership and self-determination, to live fully and freely.
There is a rage Alito and his Republican peers tapped, an anger that is real and powerful. To think that women, girls, people and voters would be OK with losing their freedoms, well, it looks like Alito may have laughed a little too soon.
Joining me now is Katie Paris, founder of Red Wine and Blue, which organizes suburban moms across the country, and Jamie Manson, president of Catholics for Choice, here in the studio with me.
And I do want to start with you, because your organization, Catholics for Choice, Jamie…
JAMIE MANSON, PRESIDENT, CATHOLICS FOR CHOICE: Yes.
REID: I`m a religious person. I`m a Christian. You are a Catholic.
And I think there has been this presumption shame that religious people only fall on one side of the abortion issue, of the choice issue. But I grew up in the Methodist Church. They had a whole different view of what religiosity meant in terms of public life. It was helping immigrants. It was being good to the poor.
[19:05:12]
MANSON: Yes.
REID: I switched to the Baptist Church. It had a different thing, voting, participating in civics. That`s what I heard about, not abortion.
But being in the Catholic Church is different, because it is very strict. And I actually like this current pope, but he even he is very strict.
MANSON: Yes.
REID: What did it mean to fight an abortion measure, in your view, for Catholics and for religious people in Kansas?
MANSON: It was a very powerful night last night. It was so wonderful to have a victory.
And for us, as Catholics, it was a David and Goliath story…
REID: Yes.
MANSON: … where we had Catholic bishops put $4 million into this campaign to ensure that people don`t have abortion access.
And we had two very brave nuns who came out in “The Kansas City Star” and said, we don`t accept this. We want people to have this access. It`s a matter of justice.
REID: And the Alito thing, it is — we talked about this a little bit before the show, and I definitely did sort of speak my — I mean, it stuck in my craw when I saw — I watch this whole 40-minute speech, the arrogance of him, the arrogance of basically thinking it`s funny, and also trying to put forward this idea that this country is a land of religious persecution against Christians, that Christians are being persecuted simply because women have the right to decide what to do with our own bodies.
What did you make of his speech?
MANSON: It was very difficult to watch to see him do a victory lap in Rome after this.
REID: Yes.
MANSON: It spoke volumes, because we have this incredible overreach by Catholic leaders in our civic society. And they`re taking away basic human rights.
So, it`s a very painful moment.
REID: Yes. And it isn`t just Catholics. It`s — the white evangelical churches are doing it too.
MANSON: Right.
REID: So it isn`t just the Catholics, but it is pretty distinct.
I want to talk about Red Wine and Blue.
Katie, thank you for being here. So this fight really did span across women. I mean, the numbers are showing that 20 percent of Republicans — we don`t know if they`re all men or women — voted no in Kansas. We know that this cut across to independents. This was not a partisan issue. It was a bodily integrity issue.
What do you make of the result in Kansas?
KATIE PARIS, FOUNDER, RED WINE AND BLUE: You`re absolutely right.
Last night showed us that the votes of millions of Americans can absolutely overwhelm the votes of six conservative extremist Supreme Court justices. And you`re absolutely right. Just look at Johnson County last night. That was one of those big, populous, suburban counties right outside of Kansas City.
Now, in 2020, they voted for Biden by eight points. Last night, they supported reproductive freedom by 36 points.
REID: Wow.
PARIS: That`s a 28-point game, OK?
And in Johnson County, yes, there`s Democrats, but there`s a whole lot of those Republicans and unaffiliated voters. Across the state, about 50 percent of the votes in support of reproductive freedom came from Republicans and unaffiliated — unaffiliated voters.
REID: Yes.
PARIS: So this is not just about Democrats, absolutely.
And there are Johnson counties all over this country.
REID: Right.
PARIS: Here in my state of Ohio. That`s just like Delaware County in Michigan. Let`s just like Kent County and Oakland County. So what we saw last night, there is so much more to come.
Women are fighting back. And we are talking to our friends about it too.
REID: Could we put our map up, my map my wonderful producers created?
It shows what states are restricted vs. protected. And it`s a range. So if your state is considered a little bit restricted, that doesn`t mean that it`s not a free state. But those red states are where it`s the worst.
Do you believe, Katie, that this is going to be a voting issue, even in red states? Because Kansas definitely indicated that it could be.
PARIS: Absolutely.
I mean, my networks have just been fired up today. And that is women in blue states, purple states, red states. They are energized by what they saw out of Kansas last night. The truth is, is that abortion access is truly threatened in half of this country.
And — but what we know and what I know from suburban women and looking at all the data about suburban women, but also because I`m talking to them every single day, 86 percent of suburban women believe that the right to decide whether or not to have an abortion should be between a woman and her doctor. That should not be up to politicians and the government.
They do not support government-mandated pregnancy. They believe that you cannot be for freedom and government-mandated pregnancy at the same time. They believe Republicans have gone way too far. And they know that their freedoms are under threat.
The consequences of this decision have been immediate and far-reaching. This isn`t something that is just impacting some women. It`s impacting all of us. So, I think the consequences are going to be huge in November.
And all those saying that, oh, the women they will settle down by then, they will simmer down by then, have they met many women? That is my question for these people.
REID: They haven`t — yes, haven`t met any at all.
[19:10:00]
I mean, the thing is — and, Jamie, we were talking about this. It isn`t — and it`s great. I think it`s actually poetic that it happened in Kansas, because this is a state that wrestled with the question of who owns people.
MANSON: That`s right.
REID: It wrestled with the question of slavery.
And this question is a question of who owns you, of who owns your body, right?
MANSON: Yes. Yes.
REID: And what Alito said is, your state owns your body. The minute you become pregnant, your state owns your body, and your state can tell you what to do with it. Sorry, no luck. You don`t own yourself.
But this is a fundamental issue for women, but it`s also a fundamental issue across religion. There is a lawsuit that`s being happening — that`s happening right now in Florida where clerics have sued over their Florida abortion law, a 15-week ban, saying it violates religious freedom.
MANSON: Right. Right.
REID: So here`s where we get a religious freedom argument.
Seven Florida clergy members, two Christians, three Jews, one Unitarian Universalist and a Buddhist argued in separate lawsuits filed on Monday that their ability to live and practice their religious faith is being violated by the Florida law, post-Roe abortion law. And the law is one of the strictest in the country, makes no exceptions for rape or incest.
It was signed in April by the governor, DeSantis.
MANSON: Yes.
REID: This is now going to become an issue, do you believe, where various faiths are going to come together on it, women of various faiths?
MANSON: Absolutely, because…
REID: And men.
MANSON: Yes, and men, absolutely, because the issue is, religious freedom guarantees not only the right to practice your faith, but to be free of the faith of others.
REID: Yes.
MANSON: Yes, it`s freedom from religion.
And so we`re seeing — the interesting is, the majority of Catholics do support abortion access; 68 percent did not want to see Roe vs. Wade struck down. They want abortion to remain legal. But the struggle is that, for a lot of religions, abortion is not only supported, abortion access, but it`s required, especially — particularly by Jews and Muslims.
REID: Yes.
MANSON: And so it is an infringement on their religious freedom.
And what we see is this incredible overreach by the white Christian nationalist movement trying to take away basic rights, claiming that they are the ones under siege, right?
REID: Yes. Yes.
MANSON: And that`s really where it`s painful, because what this is, this is how they build power, though.
They create this battle, where they`re despised by the world, and this is a Christian country, and that`s what God wants. And that`s really what we`re fighting up against. And you`re — what you`re saying about freedom is so important. This right to access abortion is about freedom.
It`s about the entire trajectory of a woman`s life.
REID: Absolutely, yes.
MANSON: Every aspect of her life is impacted on this.
And this is how she gets freedom and she gets power.
REID: Yes.
MANSON: And this is what this white Christian nationalist, Catholic nationalist movement does not want.
REID: They don`t want, absolutely.
And, Katie, I want to come back to you for a final thought on this, because this is an issue that goes beyond abortion. It goes to ectopic pregnancies. Will you be left to bleed to death because doctors are afraid to provide this care because they think they will get in trouble?
It goes to whether or not in vitro fertilization will remain legal, because a lot of people on the far right think that`s abortion. It goes to whether you can have contraception. There are a lot of people on the far right who think that is abortion.
Are women talking about those other issues? Or is this just a matter of, nope, this is about abortion, this is about getting that particular kind of care?
PARIS: They`re talking about every issue you just named every day, every minute, every hour.
Women are sharing deeply personal stories of how they know this decision would have impacted really difficult decisions that they have had to make previously in their life. They know how it impacts all of their reproductive health care. And they know that those decisions, to make the right decisions, to make the safe decisions, they need to be able to make these decisions with their doctors, and not have politicians or the government involved.
Women are sharing these stories, thousands of them, in our online communities every day, and they`re connecting with each other. We have had 8,000 women sign up to volunteer as part of our midterm outreach program.
Women are energized because — because this is so deeply personal in the ways you just said.
REID: Yes, absolutely.
And for the — for people on the far right, just look at this picture right now. You see this? You see what you`re seeing right here? This is who own women. Women own women. We own our own bodies. And good luck trying to force us back into the 1950s of the 1850s. We ain`t going, not without one hell of a fight.
Thank you so much, Katie Paris, Jamie Manson, both. Thank you.
Up next: Few Republicans love Trump more than Arizona Republicans. And Tuesday was a big, big night for Trump`s big lie.
THE REIDOUT continues after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:18:54]
REID: Last night was a big night for supporters of the big lie.
What happened to you, Arizona? I mean, just a reminder that Arizona has long been a conservative state, conservative in the old-fashioned sense of the word, maybe not so great on civil rights, immigration and guns, anti- tax, that sort of thing. It was home to the likes of Barry Goldwater and John McCain.
But the results of last night`s primary makes it clear that the current Arizona Republican Party has gone more full-tilt MAGA than perhaps any other in the nation, which explains why the slate of Trump-endorsed election deniers and conspiracy theorists have either won or are leading in every single one of the major races from Senate through to attorney general.
Kari Lake, who made repeated unsubstantiated claims of election fraud in the days leading up to this primary, is ahead in the gubernatorial primary by more than 11,000 votes. And state Rep. Mark Finchem, who has made several attempts to decertify the 2020 election, is now one step closer to overseeing those very elections as Arizona`s secretary of state.
Joining me now is the Democratic nominee for Arizona governor, Arizona`s current secretary of state, Katie Hobbs, and David Frum, staff writer for “The Atlantic.”
And, Katie Hobbs, I am going to start with you, because Kari Lake has said lots and lots and lots of things. She says that you should be in prison, you should be imprisoned over the handling of the 2020 election. She claims you broke laws.
[19:20:10]
She is saying some things that are pretty — pretty strange. But I want to play for you something she said last night, because the way she won is not that different from the way Biden won, the things that she said you should be in jail for. She was behind in the early vote. And then she caught up and went ahead because of the same-day vote.
And then the sort of X-factor was the absentee vote. Those same three systems were in place for her that were in place for him. Here she is asking if there`s a little bit of irony in her stance.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
QUESTION: You said that this election was messed up. You said you have evidence of cheating.
Why should voters trust that you won this election fair and square, if elections are just such a mess?
KARI LAKE (R), ARIZONA GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: Well, we have a lot of evidence of irregularities and problems. And we`re going to address those.
QUESTION: Will you release those?
LAKE: I`m not going to release it to the fake news, but we will release it to the authorities.
QUESTION: Why not release it right now?
QUESTION: If it`s real…
(CROSSTALK)
LAKE: Why would I release it to a bunch of people who deny that there was fraud, when there`s obviously fraud?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: You`re the current secretary of state.
Has Ms. Lake released to you any evidence that there was fraud in the current election or any evidence that you did something criminal in the previous election?
KATIE HOBBS (D), ARIZONA GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: No, she certainly has not, although she`s made this, obviously, the central theme of her campaign.
REID: And so I guess the question is, how — I mean, you`re the secretary of state. She is claiming that the whole process is basically broken and not trustworthy.
Why should any Republican voters trust that she`s the real nominee?
HOBBS: Well, I think that she`s walking a really fine line here, as are all of these election conspiracy theorists, election deniers, in saying that our system is broken, but then fullheartedly accepting the results when they`re the winners of it.
So, quite frankly, it`s dangerous to our democracy. Democracy is on the ballot in 2022. And it`s not hyperbolic to say that the future of free and fair elections is on the line here. And I need folks to join me at KatieHobbs.org, to make sure this doesn`t happen.
REID: David Frum, let me bring in here, because what happened to Arizona?
I mean, Arizona is a state — I didn`t agree with the politics of a John McCain at all. But I wonder, if John McCain were still alive and he were still here, would the sort of perverse incentives that are at work right now in the Republican Party, because it didn`t work on him with the wall, build the wall, would even a John McCain have had to run this kind of campaign?
DAVID FRUM, SENIOR EDITOR, “THE ATLANTIC”: I don`t think so, and for this reason.
What is happening in Arizona is, here`s a state that was, as you said, a very conservative state.
REID: Yes.
FRUM: It`s becoming an increasingly contested state, the rise of education, the rise of technology industries. Arizona is now a jump ball state.
Now, one response to that is to try to build out your majority.
REID: Yes.
FRUM: And that`s what John McCain always did. He picked up lots of crossover votes.
But the main — the dominant faction of the Republican Party now has said, you know what, we are going to double down on trying to squeeze more and more juice out of an ever-shrinking lemon. We used to have three-fifths of the lemon. Now we have half the lemon. Now we`re on our way to two-fifths of the lemon. And we`re just going to try to squeeze more and more juice with less and less lemon.
REID: Yes.
FRUM: And one of the things that makes `22 such an interesting year for the whole country is, if that strategy fails, you have got a better Republican Party.
REID: Yes.
FRUM: If that strategy works, as the candidate said…
REID: Yes.
FRUM: … as the secretary of state said, you are playing hand grenades with the American democracy.
REID: And, look, there are — we have a map here that shows the election deniers that have been nominated just for secretary of state.
These are the — this is the position from which they could do what they have promised to do, which is say, no matter who wins in 2024, we`re giving the election to Trump or whoever the Republican is. These six states account for 58 Electoral College votes just in total.
But to come back to Arizona a little bit, Barry Goldwater, among other things, I mean, he chased the John Birch Society away. He said, this is too crazy for us. We don`t want this in the party.
At this point, the strategy is the reverse. They see MAGA Republicanism, which denies that elections actually are real. And they have said bring it in. But it`s not helping them. It`s made it more likely that Democrats will actually hang on.
What is the logic behind wrapping the Republican Party`s arms around a hand grenade?
FRUM: It`s not brain logic. It`s psychic logic.
When you — I mean, obviously, it doesn`t make sense. Obviously, the right thing to do is build out and go toward the middle. And there lots of — the out party, the party of the non-president, can talk about prices, meat prices, fuel prices. There`s a terrible crime problem in the country that got worse because of the tens of millions of guns that were acquired during COVID.
So they have issues. And since the president`s name is on the door, you blame the president.
But the psychic reality is, if you feel under threat, if you feel shoved to the margins, people can sometimes embrace their marginalization. And that`s what`s happening.
REID: In your state, Katie Hobbs, talk about your — you`re running for governor.
[19:25:02]
But it`s a full-slate race. As I see it, it`s either all of you who are in the world of reality are going to win, or all of the MAGAs are going to win. It`s hard to imagine a split-ticket voter who would say, I will take Finchem and Katie Hobbs, right? I will take the two of you.
HOBBS: Right. Yes.
REID: I can`t imagine that.
So, is the — is the state party prepared to run essentially a slate strategy, to say, if you put this whole crew in, you`re essentially breaking Arizona democracy, and U.S. democracy perhaps as well?
HOBBS: I mean, absolutely. We have to run this way.
It`s not just the governor`s office or just the secretary of state`s office or just the attorney general`s office. We — there`s too much at stake not to focus on all of these races, and, again, because of the damage that can be done to our democracy.
These folks are not based in reality. And, honestly, I don`t know how people take them seriously as candidates, outside of their base.
REID: Then, how do they — I mean, the thing is, is that the base of the Republican Party is choosing these folks, right? They`re not being forced to.
HOBBS: Yes. Yes.
REID: They have choices among people. And they have in this case chosen all of the Trump people.
Does that mean that there is enough of a base, do you think, beyond the primary to elect these people to office in November?
HOBBS: Yes, roughly a third of the electorate in Arizona are no party- affiliated voters. They`re going to decide this election.
And I have spent this campaign — and I will continue to — talking to voters, Democrats, Republicans and independents, about the real issues that we face, protecting reproductive health care, contrasting my stance on that with the extreme positions of my opponent, whoever that ends up being, and talking about how we work together to tackle the tough issues that our state is facing.
And that`s how we win those voters.
REID: It does sound like your opponent is going to be Kari Lake, who perhaps sometimes sounds like she`s speaking from another planet.
(LAUGHTER)
REID: We shall see.
Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs and David Frum, thank you both very much.
Still ahead: more missing text messages, this time from the Pentagon. Coinkydink?
We`re back after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:31:53]
REID: More text messages from around the time of the January 6 insurrection are missing, conveniently, from a third government agency.
This time, it`s the Department of Defense. Texts and e-mails from top Pentagon officials who would have been in charge of mobilizing the National Guard, including former Defense Secretary Christopher Miller and Army secretary Ryan McCarthy, but also other more controversial figures, like last-minute Pentagon appointee and Trump loyalist Kash Patel, former Pentagon chief of staff.
According to a federal court filing, the Pentagon and the Army said that, when an employee leaves the Pentagon and turns in their phone, the phone is wiped and text messages from around the attack were — quote — “not preserved and therefore could not be searched.”
The government watchdog group American Oversight sued for the records and is asking Attorney General Merrick Garland to open an investigation into the Pentagon`s failure.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin has also-called on Garland to investigate wiped texts from the Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security.
The investigation into missing Secret Service texts is now a criminal investigation. But top Democrats want the Trump-appointed DHS inspector general to step aside from that investigation, since he knew about the erased text months, months before he told Congress.
Joining me now, Richard Painter, former chief White House ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush administration and professor of law at the University of Minnesota, and Charles Coleman Jr., a civil rights attorney and former prosecutor.
Thank you both for being here.
Richard, I`m going to start with you.
Michael Beschloss has said: “And I once thought an 18-and-a-half minute gap was a big deal. Important to strictly enforce all existing U.S. laws requiring preservation of presidential of other federal records. Essential if we want to keep our democracy.”
It does not seem possible for it to be coincidental, at least to me, that three agencies deleted, wiped their phones, and didn`t think to preserve the records from January 5 and 6. Does it seem possibly coincidental to you?
RICHARD PAINTER, FORMER ASSOCIATE WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL: Doesn`t sound coincidental to me. It sounds intentional.
And I will tell you exactly what I told the White House staff — and I was the chief ethics lawyer in 2005 to `7 — about preservation of government records. It is a felony under 18 United States Code Section 2071 to engage in concealment, removal or mutilation of any government record.
That is a felony. And every White House instructs its staff, as well as the agencies, that, when you leave the government, the only messages or other communications that you can remove from the premises or destroy are your personal, personal communications about your personal business, not the response to January 6, 2021, or any other official document.
This is a felony under numerous statutes. I heard rumors that there was going to be destruction of government documents during the Trump administration at the end of the administration in November 2020 within days of the election.
And I wrote an op-ed for the blog Just Security on all of the statutes, letting people know that, if you can destroy those documents, government records, including texts, you will go to jail.
[19:35:10]
And now we have also obstruction of justice, because, once January 6 2021 happened, we know that there were criminal investigations of who incited this riot. And so not only do we have destruction of government documents, but obstruction of justice, in not one, but three government agencies.
And I strongly suspect that the orders for the destruction of this evidence came from the White House and perhaps from the president of the United States himself.
REID: And, Charles, it`s not as if the Trump administration had a good history when it came to preserving record.
Let`s just go through it a little bit. January 6 White House logs to the House show a seven-hour gap, which is what Michael Beschloss was talking about, in the Trump phone calls that day. The National Archives says that Trump took 15 boxes, 15 boxes of White House records to Mar-a-Lago in Florida.
Trump flushed, per NBC News, or just lost documents, including allegedly swallowing some of them. The White House is refusing to release its visitor — had refused to release its visitor logs from the very beginning. That`s from January of 2017 on.
They have always been secretive. They have never handed over records. This is a pattern. And so, to you, as a former prosecutor, could it possibly be just a coincidence that no one thought to preserve the records from the 5th and the 6th from these three agencies before allowing the phones to be wiped?
CHARLES COLEMAN JR., MSNBC LEGAL ANALYST: Well, Joy, I think the more that we look at this, it becomes increasingly obvious that it`s not likely to be coincidental, nor accidental, that you have three agencies now where these messages are missing from the same time period.
This certainly appears to be a very intentional effort. And I think that, in many respects, it`s a gamble that officials were taking, because, in most cases, prosecutors are not necessarily going to pursue something like this, under normal circumstances.
Had January 6 not happened and certain records been missing, it is not likely that the DOJ is bound to open up a huge investigation in terms of trying to ascertain the intentional destruction of certain records.
But, because January 6 did happen, now you have something that is monumental and historic, and of such a huge magnitude, that the DOJ is almost compelled to look into it vis-a-vis a criminal probe. And so I think that`s the issue here, is that, normally, something of this nature, even though it is criminal, might not rise to the level of getting prosecutors` attention.
But given all the implications that it has, in this case, with respect to January 6, and everything that may have taken place to cover up, what, we don`t even know, because we haven`t seen the text messages, it becomes that much more imperative that the DOJ make this a priority.
REID: And, very quickly, I`m going to ask you two, starting with you, Charles, the significance, in your view, of Pat Cipollone being called by grand jury, being subpoenaed by a grand jury?
COLEMAN: Well, it doesn`t look good for Trump. I will tell you that much.
I think that it`s very clear that the DOJ is focusing their efforts on trying to identify, as much as they can people who have direct knowledge of Trump`s actions, his thoughts, and could give them as much information as possible. It does remain to be seen, however, how Cipollone will cooperate with this grand jury subpoena.
Remember, when he testified in front of the January 6 Committee, there were a number of different provisions that helped him avoid executive privilege and other things of that nature. Without those things in place. It`s not clear how he`s going to respond to the subpoena when he actually shows up.
REID: Richard Painter, I mean, what do you make of the ethics of his — this need to be subpoenaed in order to turn over information about an insurrection against our country?
PAINTER: It is abundantly clear that the White House counsel has no privilege with the president that can`t be waived by the Justice Department.
We went through that with President Clinton. So there`s no attorney-client privilege here that can be kept secret from a grand jury. And there`s an obligation here for a him to testify, for the White House counsel to testify truthfully about what happened. And I believe he will.
He repeatedly advised President Trump not to engage in insurrection and sedition, up to and including January 6. President Trump clearly ignored that advice. And that is going to be admissible evidence against President Trump in a criminal trial.
He is not President Trump`s personal attorney.
REID: That`s right.
PAINTER: He is an attorney for the United States government, for the office of the presidency.
REID: Indeed.
Richard Painter, Charles Coleman, thank you both. Really appreciate you.
And up next:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARK BANKSTON, ATTORNEY: Your attorneys messed up, and they sent me an entire digital copy of your entire cell phone with every text message you have sent for the past two years.
And, as of two days ago, it fell free and clear into my possession. And that is how I know you lied to me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[19:40:01]
REID: Ruh-roh.
Stunning moments today in the defamation case against professional conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.
We will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NEIL HESLIN, FATHER OF SANDY HOOK VICTIM: I can`t even describe the last nine-and-a-half years of the living hell that I and others have had to endure because of the negligence and the recklessness of Alex Jones.
[19:45:00]
SCARLETT LEWIS, MOTHER OF SANDY HOOK VICTIM: It seems so incredible to me that we have to do this, that we have to implore you, not just implore you, punish you, to get him to stop lying.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Those are the parents of Jesse Lewis, who was 6 years old when he was killed alongside 19 of his classmates and six educators in the Sandy Hook mass shooting.
They`re seeking up to $150 million from Alex Jones, the bomb-throwing right-wing conspiracy theorist who has spent the last 10 years profiting off his horrific lie that the massacre never happened.
Now, just to be clear, Sandy Hook was not a one-time thing for this particular grifter. Alex Jones built the model for making money off of conspiracy shtick long before Joe Rogan started podcasting about horse meds and vitamin supplements as treatments for COVID.
He has been the screaming, over-the-top theatrical voice of the believe nothing anti-government far right, which, unsurprisingly, has made him a key ally of Donald Trump and the MAGA universe.
Along with Sandy Hook, he has also claimed that 9/11, the Boston Marathon and the tiki torch Nazi rally in Charlottesville were all false flag events orchestrated by the U.S. government. And even though he begrudgingly admitted today in court that the Sandy Hook massacre was 100 percent real, he has been far from on his best behavior during the trial, mocking Lewis` father on Infowars yesterday, and confronting both parents, accusing them of being Fed fake videos.
Meanwhile, in a huge, almost unbelievable development today, the lawyer for the Sandy Hook parents said Jones` lawyers had accidentally sent him the entire contents of Jones` phone.
You really cannot make this stuff up.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BANKSTON: Did you know that 12 days ago, 12 days ago, your attorneys messed up, and they sent me an entire digital copy of your entire cell phone with every text message you have sent for the past two years and, when informed, did not take any steps to identify it as privileged or protected in any way?
And, as of two days ago, it fell free and clear into my possession. And that is how I know you lied to me. You know what perjury is, right?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Oops.
Joining me now, Sebastian Murdock, HuffPost senior reporter.
Well, that was a bombshell. What was in the phone?
SEBASTIAN MURDOCK, HUFFPOST: Yes, oops, indeed.
So what was in the phone were text messages about Sandy Hook. And the reason that`s an issue is, Alex previously testified under oath that he had given all of his information in his phone related to Sandy Hook to the court.
What we learned today is that that was a lie, and Alex was caught in that lie.
REID: Let`s also — let`s just go back to where this all started. This is Alex Jones. He did an interview in 2017 with Megyn Kelly, and that is what is at the center of this trial. This is part of what he said. Take a look at that point.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ALEX JONES, HOST, “THE ALEX JONES SHOW”: At that point — and I do think there`s some cover-up and some manipulation. That is pretty much what I believe.
MEGYN KELLY, JOURNALIST: Was that devil`s advocate? “The whole thing is a giant hoax. The whole thing was fake.”
JONES: Yes, I looked at all the angles of Newtown, and I made my statements long before the media even picked up on it.
I tend to believe that children probably did die there. But then you look at all the other evidence on the other side, I can see how other people believe that nobody died there.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Sebastian, for those who are not familiar with Alex Jones, that is what he does.
He sort of makes it look like: I`m just asking questions.
But he`s been doing this for a really long time. Talk a little bit about, like, what this podcast, this Infowars thing is and what it does.
MURDOCK: Yes, he`s a carnival barker who has millions of listeners, and has also profited hundreds of millions of dollars from spreading these lies, convincing rubes and people who perhaps are not in their right mind to believe the most absurd, dangerous and horrific lies imaginable, one of, if not the worst, being that the Sandy Hook shooting didn`t happen.
And we know that it did.
REID: And the thing is that people like him, the late Rush Limbaugh, the rest of them, they sort of play like they`re like an everyman, but this guy lives it in a massive house.
I mean, he`s getting really rich doing this. The Huffington Post — and this isn`t a January — Alex Jones` Infowars, his store alone earned $165 million over three years, according to records, $165 million.
This guy at one point was earning $800,000 selling products in a single day, which would amount to $300 million a year. And yet this guy is claiming that he`s bankrupt, that Infowars is bankrupt, that he`s broke. I`m sure his ex-wife in their divorce would beg to differ.
[19:50:00]
But what do you make of this claim that this very rich man is supposedly broke?
MURDOCK: Yes, it`s a it`s a B.S. claim.
And we know that because, in court today, when he was confronted with that $800,000 number, he didn`t deny it. What he said instead to the plaintiff`s lawyers is: You are cherry-picking my most profitable days.
He doesn`t deny that he has this money. And we have the evidence right there to prove it.
REID: How does he make money? Is it — are people paying to read Infowars?
Because I know one of the things he does is sell the supplements, just start screaming and going crazy, and then saying, buy these supplements. And then people do.
MURDOCK: That`s exactly right.
The majority of the money that he gets is from selling supplements, these sort of brain pills, and whatever else under the sun, supplements that really aren`t doing any good for anyone. They`re not FDA-approved. But, again, his audience, these rubes, will buy it.
And he has made hundreds of millions of dollars off of it.
REID: And so is there any kind of a sort of a nexus here? Because there is another court case.
This case looks pretty bad for him. This is — at this point, are they just looking at the settlement, how much he`s going to pay? Is that what we`re at in this trial? Because the judge seems to be over it, over him.
MURDOCK: Yes, absolutely.
Yes, we`re coming towards the tail end of this first trial. He`s got two more coming up related to Sandy Hook. This is about accountability. And what parents Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis want is not money. They want to hold Alex Jones accountable.
And they understand that the only way to do that is to hurt him where it hurts, and that is his wallet.
REID: And the jury does have the case. I will just mention that the jury does have it now. The deliberations are taking place.
You were in the courtroom a couple of days. How are these parents holding up? Are there a lot — are their other families there besides this one Sandy Hook family?
MURDOCK: Yes.
Scarlett and Neil have been — they have been there every day, which cannot be said the same of Alex Jones, and have just displayed tremendous courage and bravery. Both parents testified yesterday.
Scarlett Lewis, Alex Jones was in the courtroom, and she really did hold him accountable. She said: “Alex, I want you to listen to me. Alex, I want you to hear this.”
REID: Yes.
And, I mean, the idea that she had to sit — get on that stand and say, “My son existed,” it`s so tragic, given what they already have had to live through. Just unbelievable, but also believable.
Sebastian Murdock, thank you very much, man. Really appreciate you being here.
And up next: After inexplicable bad judgment by Republicans, there is finally some good news for veterans suffering serious health effects after being exposed to burn pits.
Back in a sec.
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[19:57:19]
REID: Some good news for the country today.
The legislation that would expand health care benefits to the millions of veterans exposed to toxic burn pits during their military service, also known as the PACT Act, is on its way to President Biden`s desk to be signed into law.
The victory comes after a bitter weeklong fight. The bill initially failed in the Senate after two dozen Republicans, led by Pennsylvania`s Pat Toomey, former head of the anti-tax Club for Growth, blocked it from advancing using a parliamentary maneuver, despite previously supporting it.
Some of them were caught on camera celebrating afterwards with all the high-fives and fist-bumps. That moment caused a massive amount of outrage, including from Susan Zeier, the mother-in-law of the sergeant the bill was named after.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SUSAN ZEIER, MOTHER-IN-LAW OF SFC. HEATH ROBINSON: I felt that fist bump right in my gut. That was a punch in my gut.
And I don`t understand how anyone who`s sitting on Capitol Hill working in the Senate or the House could have the barbaric audacity to celebrate.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Then, after a weekend of defending their indefensible move, and getting the crapo kicked out of them by veterans families and comedian Jon Stewart, suddenly, those same Republicans who were fist-bumping on the Senate floor miraculously changed their minds, even though what actually changed in the text of the bill between when it first went to the floor last week and the vote last night is nothing.
They`re identical. Toomey`s amendment, AKA, the reason the whole thing was blocked in the first place, failed. I mean, it`s almost as if the whole fight was a fraud.
And even after all that, 11 Republicans still voted against the measure that would save veterans lives, including Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, who gave this excuse:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY): This bill puts our economy, though, at risk by creating presumptions of service connection for the most common of ailments.
The legislation also creates a presumption of service connection for global war on terror veterans for asthma. The CDC estimates that one in 12 people have asthma, which is approximately 25 million Americans. This bill would cost hundreds of billions of dollars, at a time when the national debt is climbing over $30 trillion.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Well, everybody has asthma does not seem like the best political message for a candidate on the ballot this November to me.
But the reason this bill was able to finally get across the finish line is very much due to the tireless work of veterans groups, advocates and family members who spent days camped out outside the Capitol in extreme heat fighting for this legislation.
And Stewart, who has stood with the families this entire week, had this late last night:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JON STEWART, COMEDIAN/ACTIVIST: I`m not sure I have ever seen a situation where people who have already given so much had to fight so hard to get so little.
And I hope we learn a lesson.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Hope so too.
That is tonight`s REIDOUT.
“ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES” starts now.