Updated
Summary
New evidence on Trump White House plot for Pentagon to overthrow election where a White House aide let in Michael Flynn and Sidney Powell to a meeting in December. The former Trump White House strategist walked out of the first day of his criminal trial for defying House January 6th probe. Democratic strategist Juanita Tolliver and a veteran of the Biden White House Cameron Trimble join THE BEAT with Ari Melber to talk about the GOP lawmakers floating revoking the rights to gay marriage in the wake of Roe. The U.K. issues the first-ever red warning for extreme heat. Congress will consider the assault weapon ban by this week.
Transcript
NICOLLE WALLACE, MSNBC HOST: Thank you so much for letting us into your homes during these extraordinary times. THE BEAT WITH ARI MELBER starts right now.
Hi, Ari. Happy Monday.
ARI MELBER, MSNBC HOST: Happy Monday. Thanks, Nicolle. And welcome to THE BEAT. I`m Ari Melber, reporting live from Washington today where we have a special show for you tonight on this first day of Steve Bannon`s criminal trial. We`re seeing this first sketches of the twice indicted Trump aide in court with clues about the process as he faces up to two years in prison.
Former prosecutor John Flannery joins me here in Washington in person tonight, and we`ll hear directly from a top economic figure in the Biden White House, Brian Deese. Plus, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Gene Robinson and author David Corn, both here on set with me right now. So we would argue that it is a big show, or as good as any show we can bring you.
And we begin right now with the news about a new witness going to face this House January 6th probe tomorrow. It`s a Trump White House aide who went so rogue he was punished for sneaking coup plotters into the White House. He worked for Peter Navarro, the now indicted aide who pushed to overthrow the election, and if you watch THE BEAT you may recall a little bit about Mr. Navarro`s aide, Garrett Ziegler, because we`ve reported on his role before. We even asked Mr. Navarro about it.
Ziegler is the one who snuck in the people that had that Trump lawyer Pat Cipollone so mystified. Ziegler is the one who lost his guest privileges over it, and Ziegler is the one who had his own boss disowning his actions because even Navarro wanted no part of that military voting machine plot.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PAT CIPOLLONE, FORMER WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL: The first thing I did, I walked in, I looked at him and said, who are you?
GARRETT ZIEGLER, FORMER AIDE TO WHITE HOUSE ADVISER PETER NAVARRO: I waved in General Flynn and Sidney Powell on the 18th, on the Friday night of the 18th.
CIPOLLONE: I didn`t understand how they had gotten in.
ZIEGLER: For which Mark Meadows` office revoked by guest privileges. I could no longer get people into the complex after that.
MELBER: Was it wrong for your aide to facilitate that meeting?
PETER NAVARRO, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE ADVISER: I have no comment. I had no knowledge. He was working off the reservation. It was not at my direction. And it`s unfortunate that he`s got implicated in that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: Well, he may be implicated but Ziegler will now testify as his former boss there avoids doing so, and this could yield new details about the people pushing Trump to go farther and abuse power through that attempted idea of getting the military to grab voting machines or work along with Sidney Powell. The testimony also comes as the committee makes other progress like getting new evidence that`s supposed to come from the Secret Service as soon as tomorrow.
And then there`s this week`s final scheduled primetime hearing which will bear down on how Donald Trump failed to act or combat the insurrection real time, and that, taken together with these other hearings adds to the evidence that Trump really welcomed this as the foreseeable or intended result. And that was the result that occurred as agents were trying to protect members of Congress, sometimes with guns drawn, congressional leaders were repeatedly pleading with Trump to act in real time, saying he effectively helped the attack, according to the committee now, by freezing out what would have been a stronger federal response. The committee members say they have more evidence on that exact failure on the 6th.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): I`ve spoken to the president. I asked him to talk to the nation and tell them to stop this. This is not who we are.
REP. ADAM KINZINGER (R-IL): We have filled in the blanks.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I wanted everybody who was objecting, I want the president, I want everybody out in front of those protesters as they were storming the Capitol to be there and stay stop.
KINZINGER: This is going to open people`s eyes in a big way.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: Well, keep your eyes opened because we`re joined as promised by Eugene Robinson and David Corn, who`s also author of the upcoming book” American Psychosis: A Historical Investigation of How the Republican Party Went Crazy.” And we`ll be talking about that in the future, David.
But, Gene, you look at the evidence coming through, it seems this committee is getting its work done, and they`re hearing from people, even sanctioned White House veterans, because not talking to them is worse.
EUGENE ROBINSON, THE WASHINGTON POST COLUMNIST: Yes. Not talking to them is definitely worse. You know, the idea of something being too crazy for Peter Navarro is just cosmic, right. I mean, that is insane. Pretty much the definition of insane.
[18:05:02]
I think this hearing this Thursday should be a blockbuster ending for now of the public hearings, and of course the big question that we all have is, what is Merrick Garland doing with all this? What is the Justice Department doing? Is there a parallel Justice Department investigation? If so, where`s it heading? If not, why not? That`s the question.
DAVID CORN, MOTHER JONES WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF: Yes, you know, the hearing on Thursday night will get to what I think is the central core issue. It cannot be denied that Donald Trump did nothing. We were all there. We all were watching.
MELBER: Yes.
CORN: We know what he did. There`s no controversy or controverted fact here. And so why did he not do this even though we know people begged him to do it? Because this was his last chance to grab power illegally. And so filling this out, getting more of a TikTok as we call it in the business, and what he did and what he didn`t do, Pat Cipollone, you know, we have previous testimony tried to get Trump to do something and was told, he wasn`t interested in doing this.
This is a dereliction of duty. You can put aside everything else. He thought that maybe he won. He thought maybe there was fraud. He thought the Justice Department should do something. He thought the — you know, the Georgia state election officials should find him 11,780 votes. He thought all this. But when it came down to it, when law enforcement officers were at risk right over there, he did nothing because he wanted to take advantage of this.
So everything aside — I mean, this is the problem with Trump, right? All his scandals are scandals upon scandals upon scandals. And they sometimes start blotting each other out. But this should get to that knob of it on Thursday night.
ROBINSON: Yes, I agree. It gets right to the heart of Trump`s malfeasance, misfeasance, and criminality, frankly, on January 6th. I mean, he inspired the mob. He sent them off to the Capitol, and did nothing to call them off. As he watched on television as they invaded, sacked the Capitol, threatened the members of Congress, threatened his vice president, threatened to hang his vice president.
It`s just astounding that this actually happened, right over there, as David said, but it did happen. And I think that will be cast into stark relief on Thursday.
MELBER: Yes, and as you both say, if you believe that something was a riot that got out of control, which is a possible interpretation of events until other evidence overtakes it, you say, oh, this is out of control. Let`s get it back under control. Let`s stop something that we didn`t mean to have happened.
You can have a car accident, where you say, oh, my gosh, what a tragedy. We had a car accident. Or you can have someone who attempts to murder someone with a car.
ROBINSON: Right.
CORN: Right.
MELBER: There are different scenarios, right?
ROBINSON: Right, exactly.
MELBER: If at the moment of impact you get out of the car and you call 911, right, or you take actions to rescue, that may go to our understanding whether it was accidental or not, whether it goes out of control. Here the president is in the position to do more than call 911.
ROBINSON: Yes. Yes.
MELBER: He`s the darn president. He can walk up to the lectern and call people off in public. He can do things in private.
What does it mean, Gene, that we`re going to learn, again according to people under oath, that reportedly he didn`t do anything in private to get help?
ROBINSON: He didn`t do anything. He`s the president. He can call out the National Guard, he can call out any resources he wants to call out to stop this insurrection at the Capitol, and he did not want to. And if you need any evidence of the state of mind, well, we`ve heard a lot of that in the hearings. You know, go back to December 18th and the unhinged meeting in which he wanted to listen to Sidney Powell and General Flynn because at least they were fighting.
You know, at least they were willing to fight, even though what they were saying was completely ridiculous and as I said before, insane.
CORN: It`s the extent of the outrage that makes it almost impossible, I think, for the nation to absorb. Here was a president watching a crisis unfold, and whether you`re a Republican or Democrat, whether you`ve been a Reagan fan or an Obama fan, it`s almost inconceivable to believe that any previous person sitting in that office, at least in modern times, would sit on their hands and do nothing.
Not only did Trump do nothing, I think the evidence is going to bear that he wanted this to be happening. Now whether it was premeditated, it goes to what we`re talking about the car accident, or not, whether he really meant for this to happen when he sent them to the Capitol.
MELBER: Yes.
CORN: Knowing they were armed, or not, once it`s happening he seized the political advantage because everything at that point, the unhinged plot, trying to get the Justice Department to do his bidding. All that hadn`t worked out by this point. They tried it, they attempted it. It all failed. All that was left was stopping the certification and the Mike Pence play.
[18:10:01]
And even if Mike Pence isn`t going to do anything and, you know, stop it, here this may do it on its own.
ROBINSON: Exactly.
CORN: This is what Rudy wanted to happen. And so Trump I think is savvy enough to see this and made a decision. He made a decision to let it happen.
ROBINSON: Yes. I absolutely agree, and I think that`s what the evidence shows. He sat there and did nothing when he could have stopped it, and it`s very clear. In fact, we`ve heard the testimony. When he finally, later in the afternoon said, OK, we love you, I love you, but everybody go home, we heard one of the insurrectionists testify the other day, he said —
MELBER: Yes, I thought that was powerful.
ROBINSON: He said, yes, I saw that, I went home.
MELBER: Right.
ROBINSON: I said, yes.
CORN: We were there because he said be there.
ROBINSON: Right. He told us to be there.
CORN: If he says go home, we`d go home.
ROBINSON: Right. We went home.
CORN: And what I think the — what we`re waiting to see on Thursday night is whether there`ll be other testimony from other people around him, whether family members or advisers, who tried to get him to do something, and he didn`t. I think, you know, whether there are a few more beats on, whether from, you know, Ivanka or others.
MELBER: Yes.
CORN: Where there`s been some reporting that there was, you know, we know that Pat Cipollone, according to Cassidy Hutchinson, went in and tried to get him to do something and then came out and said, he`s not interested.
ROBINSON: Right.
MELBER: Well, that is the reason why there`s so many people who don`t like this story for Trump. It`s because the facts actually do work, and that this was a physical event. You know, there were aspects of other probes, you covered the Mueller probe, where some of it did feel, even if that`s not a fair characterization, you could see how — you could feel the people like it happened somewhere else.
What was the there there? This was an attack on our actual Capitol. And you shouldn`t need a thought experiment. You shouldn`t need to say, what if it was al Qaeda or what if it was BLM? Well, it turns out Trump fans were the danger and so the fact that he was open to that, et cetera, as we say, whether it was omission or more, is damning. I`m almost out of time, but last word, Gene.
ROBINSON: Well, remember the Capitol police officer who testified that she was slipping in her colleague`s blood on that day on the Capitol. Scores of police officers, Capitol police, Metropolitan police were injured. Several died in the wake of this, either by suicide or by causes that seemed to be linked to the insurrection. A protester was killed during — I mean, there were consequences. That cannot be denied.
MELBER: Yes.
ROBINSON: This wasn`t somewhere else. This was right here.
MELBER: No. Well, this is why it`s so important when you`re going to the primetime hearing and again, when we talk about consequences, you also have accountability which we`re going to cover the Bannon trial here. So I want to thank both of you for kicking off our coverage here on THE BEAT in Washington, Eugene and David.
We have our shortest break right now. 60 seconds and we come back with an update on Bannon`s criminal trial, jury selection and John Flannery`s here. We`re back in one minute.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MELBER: The criminal trial of Trump aide Steve Bannon begins today. Now this is a striking fall for the man who ran Trump`s only winning campaign ever, who amassed millions of dollars as a banker and right-wing provocateur. You see Bannon heading into court, and now that`s where he`s stuck, facing a jury of his peers, deciding whether to convict him on charges carrying as much as two years in prison.
These are the first sketches we`ve seen. And this trial is the worst and farthest that Bannon has gone in our criminal justice system. During the Mueller probe he cooperated from the start and avoided any major problems. Back in 2020 he was indicted on charges that he defrauded Trump donors but evaded that trial with a pardon from Donald Trump. And this is all linked, because that pardon only came after Bannon`s intense and extreme support for efforts to overthrow the election to try to keep then President Trump in office.
And that reprieve came at the literal last minute, leading to January 20th headlines like this. “Trump Pardons Steve Bannon, Lil Wayne in Final Clemency Flurry.”
[18:15:03]
Yes, Trump`s final pardons may seem like some sort of odd bunch, but they all have Trump`s self-interest in common. The president at the time was focused on rewarding his own loyalists like Bannon, caught up in the January 6th plotting, or transactional payoffs to celebrities or people that Trump thought would somehow help him or garner him attention.
But there is no pardon looming for Bannon now as he starts this trial today. And he`s gone from maneuvering this kind of probes to claiming he`s defying them to now at the last second, as we saw in the last week, trying to cut a deal to avoid today`s unavoidable judgment day.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRIAN WILLIAMS, FORMER MSNBC HOST: Steve Bannon remains in the news. He is cooperating with the special counsel and will be interviewed by Mueller`s team.
MELBER: You were witness of fact to the investigation regarding obstruction, or collusion, or both?
STEVE BANNON, FORMER CHIEF STRATEGIST TO DONALD TRUMP: I think I`m a witness of fact for all of it. I think I`m a witness of fact for all of it. So then to Capitol Hill, right, a couple of times, so, you know, I`m a witness of fact up there also.
We`re going to go on the offense. We`re tired of playing defense. We`re going on the offense on this. And stand by.
SHEPARD SMITH, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Now in a stunning turnaround, the diehard Trump ally and political operative is offering to testify to the January 6th Committee.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Steve Bannon goes on trial this morning in Washington, facing charges of contempt of Congress.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: That brings you all the way back up to today. Those offers of last- minute partial help, well, they didn`t forestall today`s beginning of this criminal trial, and we can tell you a little bit about what we`re learning. Both parties have now agreed on 22 qualified jurors. Tomorrow they narrow the pool down to 12 and alternates, although many today were struck for fairness reasons along the way. And we can tell you about that.
Jurors who said under questioning they already thought Bannon was guilty. Another who had said he just wouldn`t believe anything Mr. Bannon says. And another who criticized Bannon`s preposterous threat about, quote, “going Medieval on his enemies.” Each of those jurors struck because they had strong views that might get in the way of an impartial ruling.
Now Bannon is legally presumed innocent. He`s entitled to face jurors who have an open mind. And the prospect of prison, well, this may push Bannon to comply even further given that he`s been wavering and trying to find some way to argue that maybe he does want to cooperate after all. But even cooperation does not end this trial. That`s a key legal point.
We`re going to get into more of them with former federal prosecutor John Flannery live here in studio on this and the wider accountability push when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[18:22:09]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BANNON: We`re going to go on the offense. We`re tired of playing defense. We`re going to go on the offense on this. And stand by.
SMITH: Now in a stunning turnaround, the diehard Trump ally and political operative is offering to testify to the January 6th Committee.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: Offer not accepted because it wasn`t a full offer. And we`re back with former federal prosecutor John Flannery covering what is this first day of the criminal trial of Mr. Bannon. And emphasized it in the past he has found occasion to cooperate, he has found occasion to evade, makes a big difference if you know the incumbent president.
JOHN FLANNERY, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Right.
MELBER: It appears the jig is up. What is today about?
FLANNERY: What it`s about is we`re piercing that veil of these powerful omnipotent people who thought they could do anything in their arrogance, and he`s already on notice that his defenses are not going to hold up. The judge is not going to allow them, because they`re not real defenses. And so he`s at risk to be the first of the inner circle to go down. And even though it`s going to be jail time or a suspension or something, there`s blood in the water. That`s the way I see it.
MELBER: Really striking, and he`s just, we`re told, walked out of the court. And we covered the jury selection today.
FLANNERY: Right.
MELBER: Most people as you know on day one of their criminal trial don`t give a lot of public remarks.
FLANNERY: Right.
MELBER: But, you know, some of these folks are different.
FLANNERY: True.
MELBER: We`re not going to give excessive attention to this, but I do endeavor to show his side. I did mention he`s legally presumed innocent. We mention that at all trials. And I want to show briefly what he just said leaving the court. Let`s take a listen.
FLANNERY: Sure.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BANNON: Would have been more productive if we`ve been on Capitol Hill in front of open mics addressing the nation with exactly all this nonsense, the show trial they`ve been putting up on Capitol Hill. It`s nothing but a show trial. It`s time they start having other witnesses and give other side — other testimony other than what they have been putting up.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: So fact check, we`re not covering his criticism of a different proceeding. He is doing something we`ve seen before, trying to put somebody else on trial. But what does it tell you that he is continuing here on day one to try to at least put out in the public realm the idea that he wants to testify, which we heard from committee members last week who said, well, he hasn`t provided the documents, he hasn`t fully cooperated in the anyway.
FLANNERY: Right. Well, he had the chance to cooperate. It`s kind of a — his defense isn`t working in court, so he`s selling it to the public, even though it`s not going to be allowed in court, which is, I just — I just can`t wait to get to a microphone and talk about what I knew and what happened. But he hasn`t done anything to do it.
And I think part of the defense is going to be, you know, we didn`t think the date was firm, that we had some wiggle room on that. Well, you know, before they passed the resolution, you know, maybe Bob Costello`s counsel could have called up the general counsel and said, hey, what are you doing that for? We`ll be there in the afternoon, but they didn`t do it.
So just like that juror said, you know, I don`t significantly believe anything he says, and that`s why he was kicked off the jury.
[18:25:05]
Well, there`s got to be a lot of others by the time this jury is over will come to the same conclusion based on the evidence in the courtroom.
MELBER: By the way, do you want to give us a refresher on voir dire because —
FLANNERY: Sure.
MELBER: The best way I could say it, if a juror says something reasonable, they`ve seen someone lie, so they no longer believe them.
FLANNERY: Right.
MELBER: On the one hand that`s a reasonable view to hold. They`re being honest under voir dire, under that type of question.
FLANNERY: Right.
MELBER: On the other hand, in fairness to any defendant, I`d say this for any defendant including Mr. Bannon.
FLANNERY: Right.
MELBER: That person does not belong on his jury. Explain.
FLANNERY: Well, the theory is that we want something that doesn`t exist, which is somebody that doesn`t even participate in the world around them and hasn`t seen the cover to cover coverage of him, Bannon, saying all the things he`s said. And so some of them may be remaining silent with views of their own that we may find out in the verdict, or not.
MELBER: But we would hope that they keep the open mind. If they are shown evidence that someone they might not like did not commit the crime. They got to be open to that evidence.
FLANNERY: Well, yes. But the theory of how a juror is impartial. And what happens in the world are two different things. And the D.C. jury is going to be very different than the one in the middle of Indiana. And he said before a D.C. juror that is as close as possible to the heat that comes out of this controversy, and who Bannon is.
MELBER: As a practical matter do you think that bodes ill for him?
(LAUGHTER)
FLANNERY: Is that a rhetorical question?
MELBER: I ask all kinds of questions.
FLANNERY: That`s a good question. I would say that, you know, I do better betting on this than the Irish lottery. That`s for sure.
MELBER: OK. Well, let me show you what DOJ is saying because he really has struggled. As they were running out of time, their arguments got worse and worse. And one of the arguments they`ve made relates to this, which is, oh, oh, my gosh, we need more time. Everyone is going to hold it against us, et cetera. And this is what the court has responded. They say basically, we don`t accept the defendant`s invitation to introduce the jury pool, quote, extraneous information about the defendant not previously known.
The defendant`s concerns are likely overblown, defendant is Bannon, but if they are not, voir dire will bear that out. In other words, if it takes longer to find people who, as you put it, are a little less informed in D.C.
FLANNERY: Right.
MELBER: Or have an open mind, so be it. What is his remaining defense then? Because it`s two counts of hiding the evidence of what he did on the 6th and not testifying, and all he`s coming back with is, at the last minute I kind of offered to testify but still didn`t, which I should say again is different than if he pulled off a seated deposition.
FLANNERY: Right.
MELBER: Legally it`s not supposed to absolve him of this. It doesn`t —
FLANNERY: No, but it would penetrate.
MELBER: But it would help.
FLANNERY: It would help. The voir dire — I don`t know if the judge exclusively conducted it. This is always a battle between attorneys and some judges.
MELBER: Yes.
FLANNERY: But it goes like this. So and so says, you know, I don`t really trust that guy. And the judge says, well, can you put that aside and not rely on that and give us a decision? So what they must be hoping for is a jury nullification, meaning despite the instructions they get from the judge and the things that they`re told is the law that they should follow, that they say, no, we`re going to ignore the law. They don`t say it out loud, but when they go back and they deliberate, that`s what they come back with.
That`s what they`re hoping. And I think you and I are more likely to levitate than that`s going to work in this case, but that`s one of the hopes of a defense attorney in a case that`s difficult like this. And Bob Costello —
MELBER: Just to be clear, to slow you down. You`re saying they would hope that 1 out of 12 jurors in there, the Bannon team, would just say, you know what, I`m not going along with this. But you`re saying that because neither of us have Yoda`s powers they`re unlikely to levitate —
FLANNERY: Well, some days I do. Yes, some days, I have those powers.
MELBER: OK. I got to fit in a break. It`s love to see you on set, in person, sir.
FLANNERY: It`s good to see you. Yes.
MELBER: Thank you very much, John Flannery, joining us.
FLANNERY: Thank you.
MELBER: Up ahead, why Bernie Sanders is saying what some in the Biden White House won`t, that they have had it with Joe Manchin and his moving target negotiations.
Speaking of the White House, I`m going to tell you, a lot of people going through a lot of economic pain right now. We`re going to hear directly from the person President Biden put in charge of part of his economic response tonight.
And by the end of the hour, Ted Cruz is backing up Clarence Thomas in ways that has Republicans on edge and freaking out. We`re going to get into that and human rights by the end of the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[18:33:53]
MELBER: We are back with our special Washington show and we have a Washington panel with me in the room. Democratic strategist Juanita Tolliver and a veteran of the Biden White House Cameron Trimble. You see the pin. We`ll get to that by the end. But we start with the hard news. Republican Ted Cruz has actually been following Justice Clarence Thomas` lead from that decision gutting Roe v. Wade.
You remember when we talked about this when the decision first came down. Thomas argued in writing that was not joined by the whole court that he thinks the Supreme Court should next rollback decisions on same-sex intercourse or sodomy as it was called in the wall in the law and marriage equality. So, Cruz is citing the marriage part of this, a ruling called Obergefell to say it should next be on the chopping block.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): Obergefell like Roe versus Wade ignored two centuries of our nation`s history. Marriage was always an issue that was left to the states. I think that decision was clearly wrong when it was decided. It was the court overreaching.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: Overreaching. Here we are. Your thoughts on what this means from Ted Cruz who seems to be taking his cues from Clarence Thomas. I just want to emphasize in the Roe ruling, they say we`ll stop right here we promise. And then Thomas comes in the side and says, no, actually, there`s a lot of other stuff we want to do.
[18:35:00]
And I don`t really care what you call it. It used to be called sodomy under the law, but it basically we`re getting into people`s bedrooms, private lives, marriage equality, your response.
JUANITA TOLLIVER, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: It`s about privacy and autonomy and I think Cruz is trying to one-up the extremist tone of the GOP right now. We know that Thomas did write that in his concurring opinion. But remember, that was also on the draft that was circulated, that was rumored to be authored by Alito.
And so, this, I think, does embody what we know to be the energy of this court and what they`re going to be pushing for next, even though Thomas was the only one to say it. And I think Cruz of course, with 2024 visions is trying to appeal to Republican voters by saying it. He`s going on the record here. But the one thing that gets under my skin about this truly is he says two centuries.
I`m like, sir, that doesn`t bode well, for anyone who looks different in this country or lives, and in any way, they choose to. And so, I`m like, how far is Ted Cruz going to take this? How far is the Republican Party going to take this, knowing that they`ve worked to erase basic history or different cultures or LGBTQ individuals?
MELBER: Yes. And Cameron, you`ve worked in the Biden White House, that`s a place where everybody`s working hard, but dealing with these larger, systemic issues, I mean, the Supreme Court does set the law of the land. I`m just curious what you think here of Cruz sort of backing up the right flank of the court?
CAMERON TRIMBLE, POLITICAL STRATEGIST: I think two things. One, this is clearly a chance for Ted Cruz to kind of throw some chum in the water as he heads into 2024. But in addition to that, we`ve been encouraged this week that the House looks like it`s going to take up a bill to really protect and codify same-sex marriage.
But elections have consequences and this is a classic example of taking an inch and taking, honestly, two miles. But they`re also at risk of really alienating a lot of American voters, as they come into this — as they come into this midterm election.
MELBER: Yes, I wonder what you think Juanita about marriage equality also being something that at one point in time was actually unifying. There`s data that showed that conservatives and self-identified Republicans under 30 were like, fine. It was written by a Republican-appointed justice.
It`s not to say, oh, everything was so great a couple years ago, but at least on this issue, it would have seemed to be a breakthrough. And there are some Republicans, certainly in the business sector who would not want this to be their priority, their focus right now.
TOLLIVER: It would have been a breakthrough. But look at how far the GOP has fallen, let it be yet another marker of how extreme they`re going. And I think Democrats should lean on that narrative in the midterms. Talk about this as yet another benchmark or milestone that the GOP is looking to institute, or is another way again, for them to infringe on bodily autonomy and basic privacy rights.
MELBER: Yes, very important and that`s sort of a big issue here in America. I want to bring on a different topic that matters here. In any summer in America, we`re in a hot, muggy place. But this matters all over the world, which is this heatwave. You got Europe facing record temperatures here. 1,000 deaths reported here in Spain, and Portugal.
Here`s today`s fire danger map, what you`re looking at. The extreme danger areas. Another way to look at it, Buckingham Palace had to cut short its famed guard ceremony. As people were given water. I mean, this is the way we live now. The U.K. also, for the first time ever issued what`s called a red warning for these extreme temperatures up to 106 degrees. There are experts who now say European cities are as hot as the Sahara Desert.
As the great reggae band, the Third World put it, you know, it`s hot when it`s 96 degrees in the shade. So how about 106 degrees. While the song says some may suffer, some may burn and one day my people will learn. Meanwhile, we are living through very real climate change for anyone who is willing to face the science or just the actual temperature we`re living through. I mixed the serious with some bars, if I may.
TOLLIVER: Naturally.
MELBER: Naturally. This doesn`t seem like, the don`t look up, you know, early in the plot, what where`s the asteroid, whatever. It`s here, it`s now. What do we do with this and do you think that the heat itself will ever melt some of the science obfuscation?
TOLLIVER: Look, I hope that people see this as the evidence they needed that we need to take immediate action. And remember, we`re just coming off the hills of Manchin reneging on climate portions over a reconciliation bill that he was critical in negotiating and getting passed. But now he`s reneged on that. So, he needs more evidence.
Well, here`s your evidence, and I think Senator Sanders was right to take him to task this weekend talking about what`s at stake because it`s not about Republicans and Democrats it`s about our planet. And this is a global public health emergency at this point, that without investment, without response will lead to even more deaths.
TRIMBLE: I mean, consequences no coincidence. We are — we need to push for aggressive, aggressive emissions, banning — went also I would say the other big thing that is coming up is it`s getting harder and harder to ignore. I think the American people are — and people around the globe are really unified and realize like we`re living through this. And this is really like affecting the wildfires. Well, that we`re filming in California and all the way to the U.K.
[18:40:00]
TOLLIVER: And it`s going to affect our economy too, right? Like the same thing that folks are trying to protect. Apparently, that`s Manchin`s line anyways, about the economy and inflation. That will have negative implications if the climate continues to change as it is.
MELBER: I mean, you work for this president, what`s he must be thinking about Joe Manchin?
TOLLIVER: Be honest. Come on.
TRIMBLE: I will say this. The president, the White House if from the campaign all the way through now they`ve been aggressively pushing — aggressively pushing to fight back on climate change. I think it`s a top- tier issue. It is a national security issue. It is an economy issue.
MELBER: Juanita, you could tell when they go back into the full political mode. I will say this.
TOLLIVER: This is fine line. It`s a fine line. Right? Like, and we know that the president has been very sensitive about how much and is spoken to, but at this point, he`s like, I`m ready to take action. I`m ready to take executive action. I`m excited to see what he puts forward and hopefully, it delivers some material change because at least it seems that the president recognized that Manchin is not his guy to pull through any bit of his agenda at this point.
MELBER: Right. And we`re also seeing — when you see people dying of this heat, as I mentioned, you get out of the mode of, oh, this is business or long-term planning. And you just say no, this is like, as you said, safety national security. Since I did give you a hard time about the talking points. I will say that people do sometimes bring bars and wisdom to the show, but I believe you have synced a Lauryn Hill bar consequences, no coincidence from last ones with a large Lauryn Hill L-Boogie pin.
I don`t know how well everyone could see it but it`s right there and it is a solid item. So, shout out to that. I got to get in one more topic here, which is action in Congress. A lot of talk when you look at the guns problem about whether or not we are facing anything, is anyone going to act on this? The House thing of assault weapons ban for the first time in two decades, let`s take a listen.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have 213 co-sponsors of the bill, the highest number we`ve ever had. I`m continuing to work with the remaining members of our caucus and many Republicans to try to get additional votes and the president has called for it. These are weapons of war that are designed to kill as many people as quickly as possible.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: And Fox News of all people in all places has a poll that does find here a huge majority that actually supports the ban on assault weapons. I`m curious, what you think Juanita because this is an intractable story. We all understand that. But sometimes it melts into saying, oh, there`s no action, nothing`s being done.
In fact, if they hold this vote, that is major action to deal with guns in the House, and then it comes back to whether there`s ever going to be up or down votes in the Senate or not something that goes back to Obama demanding.
TOLLIVER: Yes, look, this vote matters. This vote matters not because people don`t think it`ll get through the Senate. But this vote matters because it will get Republicans on the record for opposing basic legislation that will save lives. I think Vice President Harris said it just this weekend — we have lost too many people. I`m thinking about the children Uvalde. I`m thinking about the people at the parade on July 4th in Illinois.
I`m thinking about the people in Buffalo at Tops. I`m thinking about any person who`s lost their lives because of assault weapons seemed to be the weapon of choice for these mass murderers. And we have children dying, people dying every single day. This type of vote, I think makes it politically toxic for Republican to oppose this.
And I want them to also put it up for a vote in the Senate, get this to a vote, even if it`s a procedural vote to show how hardline Republicans are against us. Even though as Fox News poll shows 63 percent of Americans want a ban on assault weapons.
TRIMBLE: This is a — this is definitely an issue that clearly energized the president. He — last week he had hundreds of gun rights — I`m sorry, gun violence victims at the White House. And he pushed for it. He pushed forward in 1994 and led the — and led the assault weapons bans. He made that promise again, that you saw how it energizes, as you saw how it kind of really pushed him forward.
So hopefully, this is something that we can just get some common-sense laws. I mean, these weapons of war — even in State of Delaware was able to pass assault weapon ban recently.
MELBER: Right. There has been some steps on the state level and you do see that push for action and how so we wanted to also get thoughts on that. Cameron and Juanita, thanks to both of you. Coming up, Bernie Sanders picking up on what we were just discussing. The push to get Manchin to change gears. We have Biden`s economic guru live next.
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[18:49:11]
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JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We`ve gone from an economy that was shut down to an economy that is leading the world and economic growth.
BRIAN DEESE, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL: It`s the single most important thing economically right now is to take decisive action.
BIDEN: I`m taking inflation very seriously and it`s my top for domestic priority.
DEESE: Not only is a recession, not inevitable, but I think that a lot of people are underestimating those strengths and the resilience of the American economy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: That economy is on so many people`s minds right now. And there you have the president and one of his chosen handpicked economic gurus, Brian Deese, directs Biden`s National Economic Council. He`s a longtime Democratic appointee. Working to the Obama administration. Welcome back.
DEESE: Thank you for having me.
MELBER: Let`s start with rising prices, inflation, and then the wage gap, which are all big issues that I know you say the president cares about. But Americans, we got one — one piece here compare it to CEOs, CEOs of top companies made 18 million last year going up over 18 percent in what they`re paid, which is double the inflation rate, while average worker`s pay actually fell over two percent. Is that fair? What are you guys trying to do about it?
[18:50:00]
DEESE: Well, look, as you point out, this has been a challenge for decades in our economy. And President Biden, part of what animated him to run for office was to try to build the economy from the bottom up in the middle out, as he says, which means really focusing on the wages and the economic opportunities of typical American families.
One of the notable markers of this economic recovery has actually been that wage growth has been the strongest for those at the bottom of the income bracket. The bottom 40 percent of wage earners have seen wage gains of the likes that they haven`t seen in recent memory. Now, obviously, the challenge is, we have to get prices under control so that price increases don`t eat up all of those wage gains.
But for some of those low-income workers, particularly in areas like hospitality, and retail, you`ve seen wage gains fast enough to significantly outpace inflation. So, what do we need to do? One, we need to get prices under control, particularly around things that affect typical American families like gas prices.
We`ve seen some progress on that front. But the other thing we need to do is we need to really prioritize tax reform, because part of what is going on behind the elements here is that we`ve got a tax system that isn`t actually working to generate the revenue that we need to invest in priorities. And it`s also creating incentives for companies to do things like move production and move their own processes overseas, rather than investing here in the United States.
MELBER: And then you`ve got kind of a tough job because of all the data and all the different stuff going on. I just want to put up one very simple piece of conflicting outlook. You mentioned the jobs in the Biden administration has touted that, and look, you got 372k new jobs, this continues.
And people say, oh, great, but the conflicting sign here is you have the GDP going down, you have the supply chain problems, you have inflation we just discussed. Are we headed for a recession or the policy version of that question? Are you and this administration preparing for a recession?
DEESE: Well, let`s start by where we are and I think you just pointed out that in the last three months, the economy has created about 400,000 jobs a month. The unemployment rate 3.6 percent, we`re seeing areas of strength in the labor market that we haven`t seen in decades, manufacturing, 545,000 manufacturing jobs are real resurgence. So, we`re seeing labor market strength that we haven`t seen in recent memory.
And if you look forward, you can say well, is a recession on the horizon, I mean, here`s an interesting way to look at it. If you look back historically, in the three months before a recession has occurred, you`ve seen job growth is less than one-third that we saw in the last three months. So, the labor market is not operating in any way, like we are either in a recession, or we are headed there anytime soon.
As we look forward, what we`re really focused on is our businesses continuing to invest, our consumers and households continuing to spend, and do they have the capacity to do that and drive our economic growth forward. And on that point, we have seen extraordinary resilience in this economy. You know, we`ve been through an energy shock as a result of Putin`s invasion of Ukraine. We`ve been through multiple waves of COVID.
And through that, American businesses and American consumers have continued to power through. And I think if we make some of the right policy choices here over the next set of weeks, we can help try to actually drive that transition in a way where we`re not giving up, actually.
MELBER: Well, that gets us to the next point, we got to touch on it. We raise it earlier in the hour. I`m talking about basically, Joe Manchin, you`re talking about policy choice, you could talk about negotiation, but it seems to keep coming back to him. Here`s what Senator Sanders is saying.
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SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT): People like Manchin, Sinema — Sinema, to a lesser degree, who are intentionally sabotaging the president`s agenda. What the American people want. What a majority of us in the Democratic caucus want. Nothing new about this. And the problem was that we continue to talk to Manchin like he was serious, he was not. This is the guy who is a major recipient of fossil fuel money, a guy who has received campaign contributions from 25 Republican billionaires.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: Does Senator Sanders have a point? And on the recent standoff on climate, which relates to economy, obviously, at the end of the day, did Senator Manchin just not have any ideas about what he wanted to do because he was given a great deal of leeway and he just as the senator put it, didn`t prove to be serious about negotiating?
DEESE: Well, as we sit here today, our most significant question is, what can we get done on behalf of the American people particularly to lower prices? And the outlook right now is that we have the prospect to get some very significant things done. Let me be specific. We`re hoping that as soon as tomorrow, the Senate could bring up legislation that would provide billions of dollars to invest in building domestic semiconductor manufacturing capacity.
As you`ve talked about another, the lack of computer chips has been one of the key elements that has dried up — driven up costs across the economy including for things like cars. We have a chance to pass that here in the short term. It`s long overdue, but if we did that, that would make a real difference.
[18:55:00]
MELBER: But should we — and I say this respectfully. Should we understand that when you don`t want to say anything about Senator Manchin because you don`t have anything nice to say?
DEESE: Look, when — what I`m focused on here is policy and what we can get done — what we can get done right now. And it`s not just on semiconductors. We can make progress on healthcare, we can make progress on bringing down the cost of prescription drugs, we can make progress on making sure that 13 million Americans don`t see their insurance premiums spike up here in a couple of months, and we can make progress on climate.
You know the right way to do this is to provide long-term incentives to invest in lower carbon source of energy here in the United States. So, we manufacture more of that. And whether that`s hydrogen or carbon capture and sequestration, or wind and solar to provide that long-term certainty. The best way to do that is to pass legislation. But you`ve heard the president say that if that`s not going to happen, he is going to move forward and he`s going to use the tools that he has.
So, we`re focused on how we can actually drive results and it all goes back to the underlying economic theory, which is we know that people out there typical middle-class families, they`ve seen a lot of opportunities like in the job market, but they have real challenges, some things like costs, how do we bring it back to their lives.
MELBER: Well, in a way we`ve kind of pulled together a bunch of issues from today, even in just the hour we`ve had, because you`re talking about economy, climate, inflation, justice or pay equity. And then what do you do down there on the Hill which I get your roll, you got a tough job. So, I always appreciate you taking the question sir.
DEESE: Thank you for having me.
MELBER: Absolutely. Brian Deese from the White House and we will be right back.
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