Updated
Summary
The January 6 Committee gets set to hold a prime-time hearing on Thursday. The investigation into deleted Secret Service text messages continues. EPA Administrator Michael Regan discusses`s President Biden`s new initiatives aimed at salvaging his blocked climate agenda. The ways in which gun manufacturers market firearms to children are examined. Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering speaks out.
Transcript
ARI MELBER, MSNBC HOST: And, again you can RSVP @THEBEATWITHARI link on your screen if you`re interested. I wanted to make sure remind folks, in case you heard about that and wanted to know where to go.
Thanks for watching “THE BEAT”. That does it for us.
THE REIDOUT WITH JOY REID is up next.
JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: Tonight on THE REIDOUT:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CAROLINE EDWARDS, U.S. CAPITOL POLICE OFFICER: I mean, I saw friends with blood all over their faces. I was slipping in people`s blood. It was carnage. It was chaos.
Never in my wildest dreams did I think that, as a police officer, as a law enforcement officer, I would find myself in the middle of a battle.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: The January 6 hearings began with chilling personal stories from the people caught in the middle of the insurrection.
Then we learned in great detail how Trump himself caused it, all of it. Tomorrow, we will watch the season finale, when we will get the inside story of the 187 minutes Trump spent reveling in the violence that he caused, while doing nothing to stop it.
And that is where we begin tonight. Over the last six weeks of these public hearings, the January 6 Committee has put forth an exhaustive record of not just what happened on the day of the insurrection, but everything leading up to it, spelling out the former president`s scheme to sell the big lie, summon the mob, and light the match of violence.
They have accomplished that using live testimony from more than a dozen witnesses and recorded depositions from people who would know, Republican former White House officials and members of the president`s inner circle, his own legal team, both in the White House and on the fringe, all of whom paint a damning portrait of what the twice-impeached, disgraced former president knew and when he knew it, and how he chose to act on it, all the way up to what he`s still doing now, even as these hearings unfold.
Here are some of the key moments so far.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAM BARR, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: I told him that the stuff that his people were shuttling out to the public were bull — was bullshit, I mean, that the claims of fraud were bullshit.
REP. PETE AGUILAR (D-CA): A recent court filing by the Department of Justice explains that a confidential informant from the Proud Boys told the FBI the Proud Boys would have killed Mike Pence, if given a chance.
RUBY FREEMAN, FORMER GEORGIA ELECTION WORKER: Do you know how it feels to have the president of the United States to target you?
RICHARD DONOGHUE, FORMER ACTING DEPUTY GENERAL ATTORNEY: He responded very quickly and said, essentially: “That`s not what I`m asking you to do. What I`m just asking you to do is just say it was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen.”
CASSIDY HUTCHINSON, FORMER AIDE TO MARK MEADOWS: Where I overheard the president say something to the effect of: “I don`t effing care that they have weapons. They`re not here to hurt me. Take the effing mags away. Let my people in.”
Tony described him as being irate. The president said something to the effect of: “I`m the effing president. Take me up to the Capitol now.”
PAT CIPOLLONE, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL: To have the federal government seize voting machines, it`s a terrible idea for the country.
REP. STEPHANIE MURPHY (D-FL): So, why did you decide to march to the Capitol?
STEPHEN AYRES, PLEADED GUILTY TO DISORDERLY CONDUCT: Well, basically, the president got everybody riled up.
REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): After our last hearing. President Trump tried to call a witness in our investigation, a witness you have not yet seen in these hearings.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
REID: Tomorrow`s prime-time hearing will focus on the former president`s final choice, to do nothing on the 6th as the mob descended directly on the Capitol.
We will hear about those seemingly endless 187 minutes from two former White House officials, Deputy White House Press Secretary Sarah Matthews and Deputy National Security Adviser Matthew Pottinger. Both resigned after the violence.
And while it promises to be a blockbuster, with all of the new findings, the committee may not be nearly done, pursuing multiple new avenues of inquiry created by the investigation. There are also just lingering questions about what kind of criminal referrals the committee could put forward to the Justice Department.
Although committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney has repeatedly suggested there could be multiple referrals, she`s also added that the DOJ does not need to wait for a formal recommendation to act.
One of my next guests has already made some suggestions for Merrick Garland in that regard. Andrew Weissmann says the department should rethink its approach and think of the insurrection as what prosecutors call a hub-and- spoke conspiracy to prevent the peaceful transfer of power.
Joining me now is Andrew Weissmann, former FBI general counsel and a senior member of special counsel Robert Mueller`s investigative team, and Maya Wiley, MSNBC legal analyst and president and CEO of The Leadership Conference for Civil and Human Rights.
Thank you both for being here.
And, Andrew, I want to start with the idea of these potential charges, because just based on what we have heard so far, this is what we have kind of put together just as a list. And I want you to go through and correct the record or tell us what seems viable potentially for legal liability for the former president.
[19:05:01]
Obstructing an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, seditious conspiracy, which we have seen the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers charged with, and witness tampering.
Where is the potential liability, just based on what we have heard so far?
ANDREW WEISSMANN, FORMER DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE PROSECUTOR: So, that is a great list of potential charges.
And I think, at the outset, your summary of highlights makes it really clear that the next thing that we all have to keep our eye on is, frankly, not tomorrow night. It is DOJ, because the hearings will go away. And it is true that there`s a political consequence as a result of those hearings. But whether there will be a legal consequence is whether DOJ rises to the occasion.
Now, we have heard from Merrick Garland today and we heard from Lisa Monaco, the DAG, yesterday. And they seem to be signaling something slightly different in terms of what they`re doing, speaking of a broader mandate, for instance.
But I think the real issue is, are they going to rise to the occasion? What I wrote about was that you can`t just say, we`re going to look at the people who attacked the Capitol and do a bottom-up investigation. That will take forever, and it is not clear that you will actually get past the people who were not actually at the Capitol.
And one thing that the hearing has clearly shown is, this was an orchestrated conspiracy by the former president of the United States. It involved Georgia. It involved other states. It involved Mike Pence. It involved a crazy scheme to have a special counsel in Sidney Powell that was shot down. It involved a scheme to behead the former head of the Justice Department, not literally, but figuratively, to put in a crony.
I mean, there were all these different aspects. And the Justice Department needs to open on all of that, and really think about what was the former president up to? But I think that`s really where our eyes are going to need to turn after tomorrow night.
REID: Yes, look, I mean, the Department of Justice, they say the right things, right?
This is what they said today, to the point that you mean, that — quote — “We`re going to continue to do our job, to follow the facts wherever they go, no matter where they lead, no matter what level.” This is what Lisa Monaco, the deputy attorney general, said Tuesday to a cybersecurity conference. “We`re going to continue to investigate what fundamentally was an attack on our democracy.”
OK. But, Maya, yes, the conspiracy was complex. It spread across the country. But it was also kind of simple. It was kind of to try to rerun the scheme that Roger Stone had in his mind back in the year 2000, which is to say, hey, if there`s an objection to these electors, maybe the certification of the electors won`t go through.
And if you can just find a way to pressure Mike Pence to say, fine, I will dismiss those electors and use these fake ones instead, voila, there is no certification of the election. Suddenly, there`s enough chaos that maybe Congress can then do it through voting vote just through the Congress and make Trump president.
It all boiled down to staying in power. And the only person that that benefits is Donald Trump. So it is hard to get through this conspiracy, as complex as the pieces were, and leave him out.
So, I think that`s why a lot of people are scratching their heads wondering, to Andrew Weissmann`s point, why they`re focusing so much on giving 15- and 18-month sentences to the brutes that were beating up on police officers and trying to kill them in some cases, or maybe potentially could have killed them with their actions, I should say, and not going to the guy who would have benefited.
MAYA WILEY, MSNBC LEGAL ANALYST: So, I love Andrew`s hub-and-spoke analogy, because what we`re looking at, exactly to your point, Joy, is, the hub is Donald Trump, because all of these things radiating out, to your point, is all — it`s not just that it benefits him directly, which it clearly does.
It`s that he`s directly and personally involved. I mean, the most, I think, damning parts of the story that I think the January 6 Committee has laid out elegantly is that you see Donald Trump as the central figure in the conversations witnesses are describing, where he is simply looking for the person or people who are going to give him the answers he wants.
And that`s why you have different spokes and different levels of complexity and facts. But the story is very simple. He is looking for his path to stay in power, and he will listen to whoever is going to give him that path, even when he has been told it`s not a lawful one.
That is staggering. And I would just add to Andrew`s point about other places to look, because there`s also Georgia. There`s also the grand jury that is impaneled there, because, as we also have heard both in the January 6 Committee, but also from the first smoking gun, real public smoking gun we had in this case, was the audio recording of Donald Trump personally calling the state attorney general of Georgia and saying, find me that extra vote. Find me — just get me one more.
[19:10:22]
It`s kind of a shock, in a way, to see that a district attorney in a state, seeing that kind of smoking gun, opens the investigation, and our own Department of Justice, having similar smoking guns, including that one, does not.
REID: And, by the way, those fake electors that were released out of Georgia are now targets of this investigation, not witnesses. That`s very significant.
And, Andrew, to that very point, he`s still doing it. It`s not as if Trump has stopped doing it. This is the Wisconsin Assembly speaker talking about a call with Donald Trump that`s recent.
Let me play it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
QUESTION: When`s the last time you talked to the former president, President Trump?
STATE REP. ROBIN VOS (R-WI): Within the last week.
QUESTION: Within in the last week?
VOS: Yes.
QUESTION: Before after he tweeted about you?
VOS: Before.
QUESTION: And what was that conversation like?
VOS: It was one of those that it`s very consistent. He makes his case, which I respect.
He would like us to do something different in Wisconsin. I explained that it`s not allowed under the Constitution. He has a different opinion. Then he put the tweet out. So that`s it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: He wants Wisconsin to rescind its election results now, in the summer of 2022.
Andrew, this is proof that he must…
(CROSSTALK)
REID: Yes, go on.
WEISSMANN: Yes.
So, if you`re the Department of Justice, you should be collecting all of these admissions. These are admissions that you — you think, how do I prove a criminal case? Well, you don`t have a defendant here who`s coming up with a defense. These are all, yes, that`s what I did.
So this issue that this is a wide-ranging and complex case, I actually disagree. Yes, there are a lot of witnesses. But the scheme is simple. And there are a lot of people to interview. But hats off to the January 6 Committee. We have seen, essentially, a criminal investigation playing out.
Yes, there`s more that you would do in a criminal investigation. But they have done a remarkable job of piecing together sort of the disparate aspects of this and showing the single overarching plan by the former president.
And I really do think we`re going to see more of that tomorrow night. But then we really should be counting on our Department of Justice to fulfill its job.
REID: Absolutely.
And I should say, Roger Stone and John Eastman, because they literally were like, in 2000, they were like, hey, here`s a way you can change the election results.
There is a political response, Maya, the last question to you, that you do have some senators that are trying to do things with the Electoral Count Act. Like, there`s this — these attempts to sort of have a political response to it. And I think — and this is an idea that they would sort of adjust the Electoral Count Act and do things like that.
But the challenge is, is that if every institution is waiting for a different institution to fix this, then we`re in danger in 2024. If the Justice Department is saying, well, there will be a political solution if the Senate fixes it somehow, and then we don`t know if that will happen, or saying, well, Georgia will deal with this, the illegality of what Donald Trump did, it worries me that then people then lose faith that the Justice Department can do anything.
Because, if plotting a coup ain`t illegal, then nothing is illegal.
WILEY: Well, let me just say, we need every organ of our government, every institution to do its job.
We do need Congress to act. And we need it to act on the Electoral Count Act. And we also need it to act in a way that includes in the Electoral Count Act ways to make it easier for people to vote without discrimination, because that is another piece of this story, Georgia being a great example, with a law right now on the books that says that now a party — a statehouse dominated by one party can decide it`s not the state — secretary of state who can decide what the final vote count is.
It can be a partisan political body. That`s very dangerous. But the other thing I would say, to your point, is exactly the same thing, is, you need a both/and. You need legislative, but you also need accountability, including criminal accountability. That means an investigation.
REID: That`s right.
And in the end, never forget, this was not just a crime against amorphously the government. It was a crime to try to rob 80 million people of their votes. It was a robbery against the people of the United States who had made an electoral decision. And the next step is to rob us all of our votes and simply install who one party decides is going to be the president.
Andrew Weissmann, Maya Wiley, thank you both very much.
Up next on THE REIDOUT: new details on the warnings received by the Secret Service to preserve their text messages. Oh, but they deleted them anyway.
[19:15:04]
THE REIDOUT continues after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
REID: One thing that will be missing from tomorrow January 6 hearing will be any revelations from the text messages exchanged between Secret Service agents on the day before and the day of the insurrection.
The agency claims information was accidentally purged as part of a planned system reset. But NBC News has learned that Secret Service employees were sent not one, not two, but three e-mails reminding them to preserve their texts. But, of course, that did not happen.
[19:20:09]
Only a single text conversation was actually handed over to the January 6 Committee. They say the apparent purge of these text messages — quote — “appears to have been contrary to federal records retention requirements and may represent a possible violation of the Federal Records Act.
According to “Washington Post” reporter Carol Leonnig, who has done extensive reporting on the Secret Service, this may be more than a case of simple incompetence.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CAROL LEONNIG, “THE WASHINGTON POST”: We don`t know whether or not this was just a stupid screw-up or something a little more intentional. We don`t know yet. And I, again, won`t speculate.
But it is clear to me that senior leadership and several — and I`m not talking like half — I`m talking about the majority of President Trump`s detail were in the tank for him. I have seen numerous texts, social media postings by members of the president`s protective detail in which they were essentially cheering on the insurrectionists on January 6.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Joining me now is Hugo Lowell, congressional reporter for “The Guardian,” and Glenn Kirschner, former federal prosecutor and an MSNBC legal analyst.
And, Hugo, I`m going right to you on this. That is shocking, maybe not so surprising, hearing Carol Leonnig`s reporting that you had a lot of MAGA inside of the Secret Service details. Any reporting on whether or not people might have been so MAGA as to be willing to deep-six text messages?
HUGO LOWELL, “THE GUARDIAN”: Well, I spoke to a member of the January 6 Committee today.
And the way it was described to me what the committee thinks this stinks. And they think it stinks because, if you look at the timeline, there`s no real other way to get to any other conclusion. I mean, the insurrection happened on January 6, and then Congress requested those records on January 16.
That`s 10 days later, right? The device replacement didn`t happen until January 27. And two days before that replacement program went into effect, they got an e-mail reminding them to back up their data.
So the idea that they were not on notice that there was a pending congressional investigation, the idea that there wasn`t — they weren`t on notice by their own agency to back these messages up, and yet they went forward and just decided not to keep these records.
And when they swapped the phones out, it all got purged. I think the committee takes this very seriously. And the committee thinks there`s some sort of malfeasance here.
REID: And, Glenn, I mean, the Federal Records Act, violating that law, there would, in theory, be consequences for that.
But since they can`t find these records, you can`t really reconstruct what the texts might have said. How would this even be approached, potentially, if there were legal — if there were violations of the law here?
GLENN KIRSCHNER, MSNBC LEGAL ANALYST: Well, one way you can try to recreate what those text messages said is to put everybody under subpoena, place them under oath, and ask them, for example, when you were in the basement of the Capitol, in the loading dock, trying to urge the vice president to get into the car, and he said what Representative Raskin said were those six most chilling words, “I`m not getting in the car,” what did you communicate to your fellow Secret Service agents?
Sweat them. Look, at this point, Joy, let`s call it what it is. They were asked to preserve texts, and they deleted them. That to me feels like what we call adequate predication, a fancy term for enough evidence to open a criminal probe.
If the Secret Service did nothing wrong, then they should welcome an FBI investigation into something that really looks nefarious.
REID: And, Hugo, director of the Secret Service, his names James Murray. He`s a political appointee of Donald Trump. He`s a career man, Secret Service man.
But he already did something really unusual. And that is to allow Tony Ornato to go from being a Secret Service agent on a detail to having this rather senior White House job. That does not happen. That is not normal.
So, there were already abnormal things going on in terms of this merger of Secret Service and politics, which is supposed to be forbidden. They defend and protect any president from either party.
So there`s already enough unusualness here that I wonder if the committee might be digging further into this as an avenue of inquiry.
For Hugo.
Oh, I`m not sure if Hugo can hear me. Oh, Hugo has frozen. Oh, Hugo has frozen.
OK, well, let me go back to you on this.
Oh, if Hugo comes back, he will wave his hands at our producers and let — and he will get back in.
[19:25:01]
But while I have you, Glenn, I`m going to go to something else. Let me just play really quickly Steve Bannon, speaking of people who don`t seem to have much respect for the law. This guy thought, oh, I don`t have to do these subpoenas. We don`t do that in the Trump world.
Here`s him recently during his trial.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEVE BANNON, FORMER WHITE HOUSE CHIEF STRATEGIST: For them to sit there and try to get a complete hearing, and they won`t bring in any testimony, any testimony about FBI involvement, any testimony about DHS involvement, any testimony about any other involvement and what`s driving this, the total and complete illegitimacy of Joe Biden.
Trump won. Joe Biden is illegitimate.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: He obviously thinks that doing that outside the courtroom has some impact on what the judge is doing inside. That seems like an idiotic notion.
KIRSCHNER: Yes, here we go. Joy.
So I think one thing that can actually bring all Americans together, I think we can all agree, Steve Bannon loves to run his mouth. He runs his mouth on a podcast. He runs his mouth. I have been in the courtroom every day. He runs his mouth outside the courthouse every day.
He`s trolling Bennie Thompson. He`s trolling Anthony Fauci. He is spewing all of this nonsense into the public square. Well, guess what? Tomorrow is his big day. Tomorrow, the defense case opens. He gets to take the stand, and he gets to run his mouth under oath.
And then he has to withstand cross-examination by a prosecutor, assistant United States attorney Amanda Vaughn, who, together with her trial partner, has done a remarkable job of presenting the evidence of Steve Bannon`s guilt.
So let`s see if he is brave enough to take the stand and run his mouth when it really counts. I`m saying the smart money is running on Steve Bannon continuing to sit quietly in court like a bump on a log and saying nothing.
REID: Yes, and I will note that Rudy Giuliani is going to have his day in court coming up next month. He`s been ordered to testify before that Fulton County grand jury in Georgia. Eventually, the law does catch up with you.
I want to thank you, Glenn Kirschner. I want to also thank Hugo Lowell. We lost him for a minute, but I think we might have back just for at least me to say thank you.
So, thank you, Hugo Lowell. Appreciate you both.
And coming up next: President Biden unveils new initiatives aimed at salvaging his blocked climate agenda, but stopped short of declaring a climate emergency, at least for now.
We will explain all of that when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:31:55]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANTONIO GUTERRES, UNITED NATIONS SECRETARY-GENERAL: This has to be the decade of decisive climate action.
That means trust, multilateralism, and collaboration. We have a choice, collective action or collective suicide.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: That was the dire warning from U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to countries around the world, around the globe, as the world is plunged into the realities of the ongoing climate emergency.
Yesterday, Britain recorded its highest temperature ever, 104.5 degrees Fahrenheit. It`s part of a massive heat wave blanketing most of Europe, leaving death and destruction in its wake. Hot, dry weather has triggered wildfires in Portugal, France, Greece, and Spain, just to name a few.
Here in the U.S., 100 million Americans, a third of the country, are under a heat warning that stretches from California to New Hampshire. The worst of it is set to ravage the Southern Plains and Lower Mississippi Valley. Yesterday, Oklahoma City hit a high of 110 degrees for the first time in a decade.
In Northwestern Texas, Fort Worth and Dallas hit 110 and 109 degrees respectively. Today, south of Boston, in sweltering 90-degree heat, President Biden announced a set of executive actions on climate change after Republicans, aided by West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, who happens to be in the family coal business and a huge recipient of fossil fuel campaign donations, have repeatedly killed any serious attempt to address this crisis.
Biden also seemed to foreshadow future steps.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Climate change is an emergency. And in the coming weeks, I`m going to use the power I have as president to turn these words into formal official government actions.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Join me now is Michael Regan, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.
You`re too young to be doing that job.
(LAUGHTER)
REID: But we`re going to go ahead and ask you some questions, because, look, I think, for a lot of people, Biden — President Biden stopping short of saying this is a climate emergency, when, literally, part of Europe is on fire and the U.S. is baking, it felt like he — short of what he could have done.
He was there in Boston with Ed Markey, Elizabeth Warren and Sheldon Whitehouse, all of whom wanted him to declare a national emergency and use the National Emergencies Act. Why didn`t he do that?
MICHAEL REGAN, ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY ADMINISTRATOR: Well, Joy, thank you for having me.
And I believe that the president is showing leadership. He showed up today and he made some executive announcements, announcements that will shore up some resources for those who are facing wildfires and droughts, low income- communities that need cooling centers, access to cooling centers, and also talking a lot about offshore wind potential.
But, listen, he didn`t take any options off the table. And, as he announced over the coming weeks, he will continue to evaluate and look at all of the actions that he can take.
One of the things that he said was, if Congress doesn`t act, he will. And the president is not taking no for an answer.
REID: Now, I mean, if he`d done it a national emergency, he could have tapped money that would have given — it would have freed up some money to curb climate-warming emissions. It could have allowed him to use the Defense Production Act to boost renewables, manufacturing.
He could have stopped some offshore drilling. There`s more he could have done. Is the idea here to save that for part two or — and to try to do what he can now without that? Because we know the Supreme Court has limited the powers of the EPA somewhat with their recent ruling. Is that the concern, that, if he pushed it, it could trigger even more sort of retractions of EPA power?
[19:35:15]
REGAN: You know, I think the president`s been acting from day one.
He`s instructed his entire Cabinet to focus on climate. I`m having conversations and have been with secretaries of DOD, DOE, Interior, Agriculture. So we have been moving since day one.
The president is evaluating very clearly all of his options. And I believe that he is moving forward. He said today, he was very firm, that climate change is an emergency. And he said, in coming weeks, he would continue to take action.
So I wouldn`t take anything off the table on that and read too much into it.
REID: OK. Give me some specifics. What is going to be done?
REGAN: Well, let me just say what I have been doing at EPA.
We have focused on some of the biggest climate pollution sources in this country. Number one, we have proposed and finalized a rule, the most stringent rule for cars and trucks in United States history. We have proposed the most stringent rule for reducing climate pollution from the oil and gas sector, methane.
We are laser-focused on the power sector. I am deeply disappointed in the decision of the Supreme Court. But let`s be clear. The Supreme Court did not take EPA out of the game. We know that we have the authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. The Supreme Court`s ruling does constrain us, but it`s not about whether EPA can do it.
It is how quickly we can do…
REID: Right.
REGAN: … what the market, quite frankly, has already determined needs to be done.
REID: It`s difficult to imagine having to do that while also still wanting more oil production and more oil imports.
Is there going to be at some point a shift to say, let`s take it seriously and reduce our use of oil in this country?
REGAN: You know, I think it`s an all-of-the-above approach.
I mean, I think the president has really focused on, number one, we are facing a global crisis with this unprovoked war from Ukraine. At the same time, the president has said, let`s look at all of our options, carbon capture and sequestration, the reduction of our dependency on fossil fuels, the infusion of clean energy and the market potential that clean energy possesses.
So I think the president is doing a good job of walking and chewing gum at the same time. We didn`t get in this mess overnight. We`re not going to get out overnight. And so I believe that what you`re seeing is a good, steady transition in a way that doesn`t jeopardize our national security and our ability to be globally competitive.
REID: Michael Regan, EPA administrator, thank you very much. Really appreciate you being here.
REGAN: Thank you so much.
REID: Come back. Please come back.
All right.
REGAN: I will.
REID: Let`s bring in David Wallace-Wells, columnist “The New York Times” magazine and author of “The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming,” a very subtle title there.
Talk to me about what you heard today is going to be done and what you think needs to be done.
DAVID WALLACE-WELLS, AUTHOR, “THE UNINHABITABLE EARTH: LIFE AFTER WARMING”: Well, we`re starting off with a really low baseline of really bad American action and leadership here.
I think the rest of the world has spent the last couple of decades rolling their eyes at rhetorical commitments from American presidents and then seeing how little the country actually did. That`s basically where we`re coming from.
With the failure of Build Back Better and the follow-up compromises that were proposed, most of the sober-minded analysts that I know think that the U.S. is going to fail to fulfill 91 percent of Joe Biden`s climate pledges.
So the announcements today are useful. They`re especially useful for protecting some vulnerable communities. But they`re not going to move the needle nearly as dramatically as a large-scale spending project like that, like that bill, would have done, which means we`re still going to be in that same position.
The rest of the world is going to be moving quickly, and we`re going to be suffering. It`s a really — frankly, an embarrassing place for us to be, given that we`re the world`s second largest emitter, and, according to historical emissions which still hang in the atmosphere and still cook the planet, we`re by far the biggest emitter, which means that we have the most responsibility to move most quickly.
And, in fact, we`re moving, compared to our peers, very slowly.
REID: And the U.S. is still the biggest producer of oil.
I mean, people tend to think it`s the Saudis. It`s really us. It`s us, the Russians and the Saudis are sort of the top…
WALLACE-WELLS: Yes.
REID: Right. Exactly.
And the thing is, is that we also seem to be the most captive. I mean, Europe is in many ways captive to oil, Russian oil specifically, but they are making some very painful choices about trying to use less. But how do we get out of this sort of trap where oil, coal and gas producers essentially own many of our United States senators, and they won`t let them do anything about it?
And you have at least one senator who`s in the business himself.
WALLACE-WELLS: Well, I think the tragedy is, as the EPA administrator you just had on said, the market is actually moving in the right direction.
They — it just needs regulations to follow and structure that transition. You know, 90 percent of the world now lives in places where fossil fuels are more expensive than renewables. The U.S. is unusually well-positioned to take advantage of this — of these technologies because we have so much land. We have a lot of solar power. We have a lot of wind capacity.
[19:40:01]
We should be moving really quickly. And the money is there and the investments are there. It`s just that the regulations and government action isn`t there to support that transition. And so it`s moving considerably slower than it could be otherwise.
And that`s the tragedy of our political economy, which is stalled on this, as it is stalled on so many other things. I think it`s easy to say our system is broken. When it comes to fossil fuels, I think that`s a fair statement. But the truth is, our system is broken on delivering a lot of things that we need. And this is just one of the many.
REID: Oh, absolutely.
Give us — we sometimes say scaring us caring on this program. Give us the worst-case scenario here, because I read a piece of in Britain that they had projected that getting to like 120 degrees would be like 20 years away. It`s happening now. So it`s accelerating. The climate catastrophe is actually getting worse faster.
How bad could this get? It`s not just heat. It`s a lot more than that.
WALLACE-WELLS: Yes, it`s interesting.
The U.K. Met Office, which is the national weather service, put this — put up this like worst-case scenario for 2050 map a couple years ago, and, this year, they hit those same temperature targets.
But what`s even more remarkable is that the French weather service did the same thing a couple of years ago, and they hit those temperature targets also this year, not even during the same heat wave, but a month ago, which means that Europe has had these off-the-charts extreme weather events twice this year already.
I think, actually, worst-case scenarios are looking less likely than they did a few years ago because the world is moving relatively rapidly to transition off of fossil fuels. But we`re talking about probably a worst- case scenario of maybe three degrees of warming this century.
And that means hundreds of millions of additional people dying from air pollution from burning of fossil fuels. It means that flooding events that used to hit once a century are going to hit once a year. And extreme heat events, like we`re seeing this — Northern in the Northern Hemisphere this year, are going to be once a decade or maybe even more often than that.
REID: Absolutely.
And, as places become uninhabitable, you know what people are going to do? They`re going to move. And people who are freaked out about migration and immigration, you`re going to get more freaked out when people start moving.
David Wallace-Wells, thank you very much. Really appreciate you.
Up next: the revolting ways in which gun manufacturers are now marketing firearms to kids, because who cares about human decency when there are profits to be made, right?
We`re back after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:46:40]
REID: The guns debate in America is often focused on the actual firearm or weapon, who should or should not have access to them, the danger and violence that they bring, and the Republicans who continue to line their pockets with NRA money, even as civilians die.
But there`s also the culture around guns created by a bizarre interpretation of the Second Amendment, which tends to completely ignore the words well-regulated.
We are a country with the highest gun ownership per capita in the world. And that unfortunate statistic does not flourish in a vacuum. Like most things in America, it all boils down to marketing pumped out by gun manufacturers and the NRA.
And what`s most disturbing is how guns are marketed to kids. There is now an AR-15 for children called the JR-15, or JR-15, designed for teeny, tiny hands.
Here`s WEE1 Tactical`s Eric Schmid profiling the gun.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ERIC SCHMID, WEE1 TACTICAL: And what we released here is the JR-15. It`s lighter, it`s safer, and it`s smaller. So what we have here is a scaled- down, 20 percent scaled-down .22 long rifle that looks and feels and operates just like mom or dad`s gun.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Clarification: just like mom or dad`s weapon of war.
WEE1`s logos are cartoon child skulls with pacifiers. Now, keep in mind, the Joe Camel cartoon character was forced out of ads, given its potential for enticing kids to smoke. But cartoons seem to flourish in the gun market. The NRA`s cartoon Eddie Eagle program, which they say is about gun safety, is really basically just a kids show about guns.
Kids also get to meet Eddie Eagle at NRA youth days, where the association provides all sorts of shooting fun for the fam. Days before the Uvalde massacre, Daniel Defense, the manufacturer of the rifle used in the shooting, posted this ad on social media that featured a toddler holding a similar weapon.
Oh, and who can forget the Florida high school that raffled off guns for a fund-raising campaign? Even NERF guns look like assault weapons now for kids who wish to unleash a massive 50-dart storm at the playground.
Guns are intrinsically tied to masculinity, so-called patriotism that`s really more about militarism and power. And these associations are cultivated over many years, romanticized, normalized from a very young age, so that this perverse culture thrives.
It`s the culture too, not just the lax gun laws, that allow assault weapons to shoot 83 rounds into a crowd with ease. That`s what happened when the shooter in Highland Park, Illinois, opened fire on a parade on the Fourth of July.
The Highland Park mayor described the chaos in a Senate — in Senate testimony today, offering the sobering reminder that young people aren`t just the shooters, but also the victims.
And she joins me next. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:53:37]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NANCY ROTERING, MAYOR OF HIGHLAND PARK, ILLINOIS: Less than a minute is all it took for a person with an assault weapon to shoot 83 rounds into a crowd, forever changing so many lives.
And the most disturbing part, this is the norm in our country. Highland Park had the uniquely American experience of a Fourth of July parade turn into what is now become a uniquely American experience of a mass shooting. How do we call this freedom?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Today, the mayor of Highland Park, Illinois, where a gunman opened fire at a Fourth of July parade, testified before Congress to call for a ban on assault weapons.
And joining me now is said mayor, Nancy Rotering of Highland Park.
Thank you for being here. And it`s great to actually meet you in person.
ROTERING: Thank you, Joy. Delighted to be with you.
REID: Talk a little bit about — we heard what you said. We know what you said.
What did Republican senators specifically who were listening to you, knowing the tragedy that your community has endured, say back to you?
ROTERING: They didn`t talk directly to me. They talked to their own witnesses, but what they really focused on were the rights of law-abiding citizens.
And what was fascinating to me was, in most of these mass shootings, these guns are obtained legally.
REID: Yes.
ROTERING: So, how are we answering law-abiding citizens, if these are law- abiding citizens who are getting these combat weapons and using them in our communities?
REID: And in the House hearing, there was also an attempt — there`s this — always deflection to try to find some other thing that we should focus on, rather than the guns out.
[19:55:00]
And, in that case, it was talking about Mexico and crime coming over the border.
This is how young David Hogg, who`s unfortunately had to live through one of these mass shootings, responded to them. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVID HOGG, PARKLAND SHOOTING SURVIVOR: … reiterating the points of mass shooters in your manifesto.
The shooter at my high school, antisemitic, anti-black, and racist. The shooter in El Paso described it as an invasion. Guess what? Those guns are coming from United States of America. They are not coming from Mexico. They are not coming from Mexico.
You are reiterating the points of a mass shooter, sir. Sir, you are perpetuating violence. You need to realize it`s not enough. A Democrat or Republican, stop these things now.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Go, David.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: And the reality is, Illinois is a textbook case of this. These are coming from America, Chicago, which Highland Park is a suburb of…
ROTERING: Right.
REID: But, in Chicago — the right loves to talk about Chicago — those guns get — come in from Indiana, where it`s easier to get a gun.
ROTERING: Absolutely. Absolutely.
REID: And so it`s hard for me to understand how people don`t understand the way you could stop this is, number one, to reduce the kinds of assault weapons people can get their hands on.
ROTERING: Exactly.
And so we banned assault weapons and large-capacity magazines in my city nine years ago, in 2013.
REID: Yes.
ROTERING: We know that Illinois is looking at similar legislation, and I appreciate that they`re moving in that direction.
But, absolutely, we are only as protected as the weakest gun laws in the surrounding states. We are only going to be safe when this is a federal initiative to get these combat weapons out of our communities.
REID: And the thing is, the kinds of young men — and it`s almost all — exclusively young men — who have very similar demographics are buying these weapons.
And I want to show you some of the ideas of the way that they`re being marketed, these weapons, these long guns. This is Daniel Defense. They have got things like a Santa Claus — and we`re going to put up — this is three for my producers. There it is, a Santa Claus, guns wrapped up in paper — in Christmas paper.
And they`re marketing these weapons, companies like Daniel Defense, to younger and younger and younger people. And you also have this sort of action-oriented, looks like a live video game, stuff on their Instagram. They`re actually triggering people who are very similar, and some of them wind up being mass shooters.
ROTERING: And what`s unbelievable to me is, we know, in the rest of the world, there are people who are also intrigued with this kind of a thing.
REID: Yes.
ROTERING: What`s the difference? They can`t get their hands on these weapons.
And so that was another point that was made repeatedly today by the Republicans, was, well, what about mental health? And, of course, we all want to put resources towards resolving mental health challenges. Well, what about this? What about that?
Stop with the what about, and let`s get it done. Let`s get these weapons off the streets. Then we can talk about what`s differentiating us as a country. But,right now, it`s so clear that it`s these weapons and the accessibility to getting them.
REID: Let me ask you how your community is doing…
ROTERING: Thank you.
REID: … because what you all went through is just — it`s shocking. And it makes little kids say they don`t want to go to a parade.
ROTERING: It makes a lot of little kids also afraid to leave their homes. It makes a lot of parents and little kids worried about going back to school in a month.
This is going to be a really long journey for a lot of us. We had counselors at our high school who were seeing over 1,200 people a day. And we know that this isn`t going to stop in a week. It`s going to be forever for several people.
We obviously are strong and supportive of each other. And we are so appreciative of the incredible work done by our police department. They were amazing, our fire department, the volunteers. So we are in the process of transitioning, I think, now to, how do we take a step forward? What can we do?
REID: Those of us who are outside the community, I think people feel so completely helpless in a lot of ways, because the United States Senate is not going to pass an assault weapons ban. They can debate it. It`s never going to go through.
Is there something short of that, that you think that Americans should be doing? Is it really just marshaling to vote in November to get a different Senate?
ROTERING: Absolutely.
I mean, to that point, I think there are folks who aren`t doing their jobs. Let`s think about why people go into government. Theoretically, it`s to protect the public.
REID: Yes. Yes.
ROTERING: It`s to serve the public.
If you can`t serve the public by changing the very laws that people use to get their hands on these guns, you`re not doing your job. You need to get voted out.
REID: Especially if you`re from a state like Texas. You have places — people like Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, who you would think, because of Uvalde, it would be urgent to them to immediately do something. They don`t want to do anything.
Mayor Nancy Rotering, thank you very much.
ROTERING: Thank you so much, Joy.
REID: Thank you. Really appreciate you being here, Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering.
Thank you.
And before we go tonight, I have to say one fun thing, one good thing.
Today is the second anniversary of THE REIDOUT, which was launched two years ago tonight, in part from my basement. So, a huge thank you to our amazing staff and crew.
Derbs (ph) is right here, Derby Werby (ph), right in front of me.
And most especially to our fabulous loyal viewers, we love you all. And here`s to many more.
And that is tonight`s REIDOUT.
Now, be sure to join us tomorrow night at 7:00 p.m., because we have special coverage of the prime-time January 6 hearing. It is going to be, at least what we think, quite impactful, potentially quite spectacular. This is the season finale, also.
Please tune in. It`s going to be Rachel and Nicolle and all of us and Ari, the whole team, and Chris Hayes, everybody.
But, for now, stay right there, because “ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES” starts right now.