Updated
Summary
Former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr says Donald Trump may have committed a serious crime. More information is released about the many classified documents Trump had at Mar-a-Lago. President Biden delivers a warning about the threat posed by Trump and his violent election-denying followers. The mayor of Jackson, Mississippi, discusses the safe drinking water crisis in his city. Trump allies are reportedly backing a massive voter eligibility challenge in Georgia in a blatant bid to disrupt the upcoming election.
Transcript
KATIE PHANG, MSNBC HOST: And stream new original episodes of the show on the MSNBC hub on Peacock as well.
“THE REIDOUT WITH JOY REID” is up next.
JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: Tonight on THE REIDOUT:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAM BARR, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: I, frankly, am skeptical of this claim that “I declassified everything.”
If, in fact, he sort of stood over scores of boxes, not really knowing what was in them, and said, “I hereby declassify everything in here,” that would be such an abuse, and that — and show such recklessness, that it`s almost worse than taking the documents.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Career Trump enabler Bill Barr is saying Trump probably committed a serious crime. Looks like Donald is in big trouble.
And, today, we learned much more about the many classified documents Trump stole and stashed at Mar-a-Lago.
Plus, President Biden`s searing and completely accurate warning about the threat posed by Trump and his violent election-denying followers.
And day five of a national disgrace, the state capital where the water isn`t safe to drink, and citizens are being advised to keep their mouths closed when taking a shower. The mayor of Jackson, Mississippi, joins me tonight.
But we begin tonight with a newly unsealed inventory that provides the most detail today of exactly what was seized during the FBI`s search of Mar-a- Lago last month. We already knew from the DOJ`s filing earlier this week that the FBI seized more than 100 classified documents.
But now we not only have a breakdown of those documents and where they were found, but what else was among them. Those classified documents included 18 marked top secret, 54 marked secret, and 31 marked confidential.
Even more alarming is the fact that 27 of those classified documents were found in Donald Trump`s personal office, including seven marked as top secret. According to the inventory list, some of the classified documents were found strewn around in boxes alongside newspaper clippings, articles of clothing and books.
Now, don`t forget this comes after one of Trump`s lawyers told the FBI in June that all the records that had come from the White House were stored in one location and that there were no other records stored in any private office space.
And a Trump custodian of records signed a statement that they had done a diligent search and found no further classified documents to hand over. You have to wonder how that person could have missed more than 100 classified documents in 15 different boxes and containers being kept in a storage room and in Trump`s personal office.
It was those very same boxes in the storage room that the DOJ noted during its June visit — quote — “The former president`s counsel explicitly prohibited government personnel from opening or looking inside, giving no opportunity for the government to confirm that no documents with classification markings remained.”
What`s also troubling is that the list shows that the FBI seized 48 empty folders, empty, marked classified and 42 empty folders marked return to staff secretary slash/military aide.
Something tells me that Trump would not have taken empty folders down to Mar-a-Lago. So what happened to all those documents? This all comes as federal Judge Aileen Cannon is still considering whether to grant Trump`s request for a special master to review what was seized during the FBI search for any documents that might be considered privileged.
Joining me now is Barbara McQuade, former U.S. attorney and professor at the University of Michigan Law School, and Marc Polymeropoulos, MSNBC national security analyst and a former CIA intelligence officer.
And welcome to the show, Mr. Polymeropoulos.
I have to go with — to you first, because the word that stood out to me in this new detailed list of what was found is empty,because it`s bad enough that Donald Trump took folders away from the government that said return to their classified settings.
The fact that they were empty, does that alarm you as much as it alarms me?
MARC POLYMEROPOULOS, MSNBC NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, Joy, the story certainly gets more interesting.
And the idea that there were empty — these empty files — or empty envelopes there leads one to believe that there is much more to be found. And you have to ask the question, what was in there?
I think that we don`t want to get too nervous right now, in the sense of — because we just don`t know what was in those documents. I think you have to take a look at the cover sheet. Were there file numbers on there? Can you go back and see exactly what was in there? Was it — was it information from our sources? Was it information from signals intelligence or perhaps even satellites?
But the notion of missing documents, that`s really — in the counterintelligence — counterintelligence arena, that`s the worst nightmare, because you then start assuming that things are compromised, rather than really trying to track down if it — if there was a spy in our midst or if we know exactly how something was mishandled.
This really opens things up to a lot of uncertainties here. And we just — we have to let the investigation continue.
[19:05:04]
REID: And as somebody who has dealt with our spies and dealt with the risky business of even collecting this information, what does it say to you that Donald Trump would have this stuff just thrown around, mixed in with clothing and magazines, as if it was in a junk drawer?
POLYMEROPOULOS: Well, look, it`s stunning malpractice.
And it`s something that I think really kind of gets to the gut of a lot of us who really upheld the rules for many years, whether you`re getting polygraphed occasionally, whether you`re locking your safe at night.
And, ultimately, for me, I was a CIA operations officer. So my job was to spot-assess, develop, recruit, and then handle an agent. And what is an agent? An agent is someone we recruit. It`s a Russian Foreign Ministry official. It`s a Chinese military officer. It`s an Iranian engineer.
And they put their lives in our hands. And there`s a sacred bond between a CIA case officer and the agent. And what is that bond? It`s, we`re going to keep your identity secret. So the notion that, potentially, the president of the United States and then the former president allowed this information to kind of go out into the ether and potentially be compromised, that`s really hard for a lot of us to take.
And it is going to make it potentially more difficult down the line to recruit — recruit agents. And that`s the lifeblood of our — my old organization.
REID: I would think so environment.
And, Barb, let`s talk about these lawyers for just a second. We know that now the lawyers who work for us, not the lawyers who work for Trump, have been interviewed, top White House lawyers Pat Philbin and Pat Cipollone. Both of them were two — they were obviously working for us. They were the White House counsels.
They were — the FBI has talked to them — or the grand jury, I should say, has talked to them. The concern here, I think, is not them, because they seem to be fairly straight shooters, even when it comes to the January 6 stuff. But Trump`s personal lawyers have over and over again represented that they personally saw to it that everything was turned over, that there was nothing left there.
And yet the stuff was so easy to find, it was just in his office. How is it possible that none of the custodian of records, his personal attorneys, or even the White House counsel and deputy White House counsel could not have known that Donald Trump had all of this stuff?
BARBARA MCQUADE, MSNBC LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, I think that probably explains the inclusion in the search warrant affidavit of the statute that makes it a crime to conceal documents as a form of obstruction of justice, to say and attest in a signed document, here`s the rest of it, in June, to return an envelope, and then for the FBI to come back two months later and find 30 more boxes?
We don`t know what the basis of their knowledge was that there were additional documents there. But, clearly, they knew things that either were unknown to these lawyers when they signed it or that they deliberately failed to disclose.
And I agree with you. I think one of the facts that was really important in the affidavit that was unsealed in part last Friday was the part that said they represented that this was due diligence, that they went through and they reviewed all these things.
And, in just a couple of hours, the FBI agents who showed up were able to find these 30 boxes of documents. And so I think these lawyers have some potential criminal liability. There is some privilege issue to work through here, both attorney-client and Fifth Amendment privilege, if they want to question these two people.
But I also think it`s very important to find out whether it was Donald Trump who made these representations to them when they attested that they had all of the documents back.
REID: I want to stay with you for just a second, Barb, because William Barr is no great creature of virtue. He lied to the American people about the Mueller report. He enabled Donald Trump in every way possible, and acted as if he was Donald Trump`s personal lawyer, and not the lawyer for the United States, which was his real job.
But even he said that every single aspect of this story is bad. If Donald Trump waved a magic wand over a big box a documents and said, “I hereby declassify it all,” he`s like, that`s even worse, because you`re supposed to notify each agency, well, hey, I`m declassifying this, this and this, because of those spies that Mr. Polymeropoulos used to run. You need to tell people that, hey, I`m declassifying stuff and making it not secret.
He said, it`s — that just having the documents at all is a crime. Even William Barr, whose whole purpose in government was to defend Donald Trump, has said, bad. And he said it on FOX.
At this point, is there any defense whatsoever? That`s two questions for you. Is there any defense whatsoever for having these documents? And, number two, is the fact that some of the folders were empty, in and of itself, evidence of concealment?
MCQUADE: So, first, is there any defense? None that is apparent.
Now there may be things behind those redaction bars that provide some defense or maybe that — some piece of the facts that we don`t know. But this declassification defense is an absolute loser. Number one, it`s imaginary. It could not have happened. It`s physically impossible.
But, number two, it doesn`t matter. It`s legally irrelevant to the charges listed on the search warrant affidavit that don`t require that the documents be classified. One of them is just that they`re government records. Another is that they relate to the national defense. And the third is that there was obstruction of justice here.
And, yes, Joy, I do think the fact that there are empty folders here does tend to make it more likely that charges will be filed. Back when Jim Comey explained why it was his recommended issue that Hillary Clinton not be charged for having an unsecured private e-mail server that did receive some classified e-mails, one of the factors that he looked at there was whether there was any willful disregard for the law or whether the documents had been stored in such a way as to demonstrate a carelessness for who might get a hold of the documents.
[19:10:23]
And there was no evidence of that, because she only shared it with other agency personnel. Here, the fact that they`re empty folders, that really suggests that they were stored in a very haphazard fashion. And maybe they have even been given away, sold. Who knows what`s happened to them? It`ll be important to get to the bottom of it.
But even if we never find out where they went, the fact that they`re empty does suggest a blatant disregard for the proper way of handling classified documents.
REID: And, Mr. Polymeropoulos, I would just like to get your own personal sort of feeling as somebody who was in this tradecraft. And this was your – – the thing that you did with — as a career.
To hear a politician like Elise Stefanik, who is the number three in the House Republican Caucus, to equate this to Russia hoax, to brush off and blow off the idea that Donald Trump could have endangered sources and methods that could have allowed one of our enemies to find, to track down, to harm people who were working for our benefit, for our national security, I just wonder, for you, just as a human being, how do you feel when you hear somebody say that purely for political reasons?
POLYMEROPOULOS: So, Joy, I mean, I think it`s repulsive. I mean, it goes against the kind of the core ethos of what we swore to do, obviously, upholding the Constitution, but in the intelligence business, which is to protect the intelligence the United States.
Intelligence — the CIA, we always consider ourself the nation`s first line of defense. And so, when you downplay incidents like this, I think it`s an insult to the men and women who, by the way, at the CIA and the intelligence community are apolitical.
I mean, my old colleagues just put their nose to the ground every day, and they`re doing their job and protecting America. But when you hear statements like that, again, it`s really — it`s really a gut punch, because it goes to the basic foundations of what we were doing at CIA.
And, look, the — I have to say one thing. When you hear the — some of the defenses from the Trump crowd that it`s only documents, I mean, I go back to go — I go back to the time of the atomic — the race for the atomic bomb. The Soviet Union got an atomic bomb because they stole documents. They had spies in the United States, penetrations in the U.S. government.
So the idea is just documents just doesn`t — doesn`t hold any water. And so, at the end of the day — and I have called for this many times before – – we have to let this — the DNI damage assessment go forward, because that`s how we`re really going to find out the degree in which either our agents, the heroes that I call who work for us overseas, or perhaps collection systems, like satellites or signals intercept systems, the degree of compromise.
And so let`s let the DNI do their job, and, of course, as the DOJ investigation goes on.
REID: And, Barbara, I will give you the last word here.
How — I think, for regular people, who think about shoplifters end up in jail, right, because they have candy in their pockets. And I think people are shocked at what Donald Trump has been able to get away with in his life.
Is there any way that Donald Trump gets away with this, because this seems like the worst possible thing, worse than all the other awful things that he did? And this isn`t alleged to have done. He admits he did it. He complained that the agents who went in and took those documents made them look messy on the floor, which is an admission that he took the documents, that he had the documents for 18 months.
How — is there any way this man gets away without being indicted for this?
MCQUADE: Well, again, there are certain facts that we don`t know that are behind those redaction bars.
But, based on the facts that we do know, there`s mishandling of classified information, national defense information, and some concealment of that. And so there`s absolutely what appears, from the facts we know, a violation of the law.
Prosecutors, though, then do engage in discretion, and they try to decide whether prosecution would serve no substantial federal interest. If not, then they should decline prosecution. And in these cases, what prosecutors usually look for are aggravating factors.
If somebody accidentally brings home one declassified piece of paper in their briefcase, there`s serious consequences for that. They may be fired, they may be disciplined, they may have their clearance pulled, but, typically, they`re not going to be charged with a crime for that, even though they technically could.
But here, with these aggravating factors, I think it`s going to be impossible to ignore.
REID: David Petraeus was prosecuted for having classified documents he wasn`t allowed to have. David Petraeus was somebody who served this country, put his body on the line for the United States, and he got prosecuted.
If he — if Trump doesn`t, there`s something very deeply wrong with our justice system.
Barbara McQuade, that`s on me, not on my wonderful guests.
Barbara McQuade, Marc Polymeropoulos, thank you both.
Up next on THE REIDOUT: As President Biden warns of the danger of MAGA Republicans, I was reminded of another time in the not-so-distant past when a major faction within the Democratic Party had to be quarantined for the good of the country.
[19:15:09]
THE REIDOUT continues after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: Now, I want to be very clear, very clear up front, not every Republican, not even the majority of Republicans, are MAGA Republicans. Not every Republican embraces their extreme ideology.
[19:20:04]
There are far more Americans — far more Americans from every — from every background and belief who reject the extreme MAGA ideology than those that accept it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: President Joe Biden last night did not hold back, slamming Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans for their attempts to undermine democracy.
The key word there being…
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: They don`t understand what every patriotic American knows.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: … call out the entire Republican Party in an attempt to appeal to the faction that is still normal, whatever size of a faction that might be, the ones who may be opposed to forced birth and overthrowing elections, or maybe just realize that so many within the party today have gone too far.
It is reminiscent of something that we have seen before in our country`s history. In 1948, after President Harry Truman ordered the integration of the U.S. military and began to address civil rights on the federal level, many Southern white Democrats were outraged, leading them to organize a breakaway faction known as the Dixiecrats.
The Dixiecrats were focused on keeping Jim Crow laws in place. Their campaign slogan was “Segregation Forever.” And in the presidential election that year, they nominated South Carolina Governor Strom Thurmond as their candidate. He lost, but carried four states and 39 electoral votes.
Those segregationist ideologies caused the Dixiecrats to quickly fail, so much so that, in 2002, Republican Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi was forced to apologize after saying this at Thurmond`s 100th birthday toast:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FMR. SEN. TRENT LOTT (R-MS): I want to say this about my state.
When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We`re proud of him.
(APPLAUSE)
LOTT: And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn`t have had all these problems over all these years either.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Mm-hmm.
In the same way that the Dixiecrats left the Democratic Party back then, President Biden last night is essentially trying to separate the MAGA cult out of the Republican Party.
He said, go do your own thing, be your own little faction, while Biden speaks to everyone else, Democrats, independents and normal Republicans.
Joining me now is Charles Blow, “New York Times” columnist, and David Corn, Washington bureau chief for “Mother Jones” and author of “American Psychosis: A Historical Investigation of How the Republican Party Went Crazy.”
So that means I got to start with you, David, because I guess the big question — and I — Biden is always Bidening. And one of the things about Bidening is, he`s the everybody`s included guy, right? And his whole thing is, he still wants to address the whole country. So it does feel like he was doing operation quarantine.
MAGA Republicans are like these people, the Steve Bannons, Roger Stones, Michael Flynns, Giuliani, the Paul Manaforts, the Trumps, those kinds of people, the — now, I guess, Elise Stefanik. Those people are in one camp, and there`s some faction of normal Republicans that are elsewhere.
How big are those two factions? Because it does feel like the MAGAs have kind of taken over.
DAVID CORN, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: First off, I think what Joe Biden did last night was difficult and not easy for a president to do.
He said there were millions of Americans — we don`t have a number — who are a profound threat to American democracy because they don`t abide by the rules of American democracy and want to see it overturned.
That said, I think he was being very charitable to the Republicans by saying the MAGA Republicans are just a bunch — a wing of the Republican Party. If it`s a wing, it`s the dominant wing. It`s the wing of — it`s the two wings of a dragon in some ways.
I mean, there is not a single Republican leader who has really come out who — to basically counter Trump and his election denialism and talk about his demagoguery and retained that leadership position.
You see what`s happened to Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, and you see Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy, well, bending the knee. So the party has completely controlled, and the apparatus by the people who are MAGA Republicans.
I know that Biden wants to try to make it seem that the MAGA Republicans are an aberration. But since you brought up my book, which comes out in 10 days, I will say — I will tell you that part of the story of the book is that this has always been a strong part of the Republican Party, encouraging and exploiting extremism.
Trump has done it to an extensive, extreme degree, but it`s always been there. And I think it`s really hard these days to separate the Dr. Jekyll from Mr. Hyde Republican Party. It`s really all Hyde.
REID: And, Charles, I have likened the Republicans` part — the Republican Party, the way that they have emerged now, to the Dixiecrats before. I call them Dixiecrat Republicans.
It`s a Southern-based party. It`s a party that is — purports things like White Replacement Theory, where they do the hardcore version that Tucker does on FOX, or they do the soft version of it, anti-immigrant, very anti- black people being able to vote. You just go down the list, it is sort of a Dixiecrat party.
And the question is, is it a faction or is it the party?
CHARLES BLOW, “THE NEW YORK TIMES”: Yes, I think it`s very hard to split that hair. And I think that Biden is doing is being a politician when he tries to do that.
[19:25:05]
When you look at how many Republicans voted for Donald Trump in the last election, it was north of 90 percent. When you look at a recent PRRI poll, 70-plus percent of people still have favorable — Republicans still have a favorable view of Donald Trump, and they want him to run again in 2024.
About a third of people think that there was something corrupt about the election. Republicans think that. About a quarter of them are QAnon nonbelievers.
I don`t know how you do this. I don`t think it`s actually genuine to say it. I think it is politically expedient. That is what he has to do. But I think that Democrats get kind of beat over the head and they kind of back away when they tell the truth.
The truth — telling the truth becomes a political sin. Barack Obama told the truth when he talked about people clinging to their guns and their Bibles. Hillary Clinton told the truth when he said — she said that there were deplorable people in the Republican Party supporting Donald Trump, and they were — he was exciting a lot of racism and misogyny and bigotry.
Those are true things. But Democrats get beat over the head because Republicans say, oh, you can`t say that about actual voters. You can only say that about people who are running for office. You`re punching down.
Actually, if you are supporting these people, defending these people, promoting these people — Nate Silver`s group found that, like — almost like 120 people running for office on multiple levels who deny the election. Many of those people won. You know why they won? Because Republican voters voted for them.
You do not get to be exempted from being called what you are when it`s the truth.
REID: And the thing is, the other question is, David, are there people inside the party — when the John Birchers came up, there were factions in the party that said, go away.
When the Dixiecrats were around, at a certain point from Kennedy on, they said, you know what, we`re not even going to play ball with you more. Go away. Go ahead and be in the other party if you want. And they sort of ran to the other side, the other party.
There doesn`t seem to be a faction, other than Liz Cheney, who also agrees with all of Trump`s policies — she voted with him 90 percent of the time – – who are saying, get lost.
CORN: Yes.
I mean, I get into this in the book. We can talk about that later. But the Birchers were not thrown out of the Republican Party for a long time. A lot of Republicans wanted to use that energy. Publicly, they wanted to distance themselves, but they wanted these people there.
You don`t — we know. We know what Mitch McConnell thinks about Donald Trump. We know that Kevin McCarthy blamed Donald Trump on January 6 for those few nanoseconds after the riot. We know these things to be true. We know that a lot of Republicans in town would like to see him leave and get back to being just plain old Mitch McConnell-type conservatives, right?
But they can`t do this. They don`t challenge him. When they have the chance to, they bend the knee to him. And so I don`t see an internal battle within the Republican Party.
REID: Yes.
CORN: No one`s going to challenge him from that crowd, if it exists, in a 2024 campaign.
REID: Yes.
CORN: It doesn`t — that fight doesn`t exist right now.
REID: And their version of moderate is Youngkin, who wants to ban book — he`s a book banner. And he`s like no Toni Morrison in this — in this state.
Charles Blow, David Corn, thank you both very much.
Still ahead: Jackson, Mississippi, Mayor Chokwe Lumumba joins me on the dire water crisis in his city and why the state has neglected this growing problem for years and years and years.
We will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:33:08]
REID: NBC News is exclusively reporting that retired NFL star quarterback Brett Favre has been questioned by the FBI after a Mississippi state auditor found that he received more than $1 million from the state`s welfare fund in 2017 and 2018 to deliver motivational speeches that he never even gave.
The state also gave $5 million of that money to build a women`s volleyball facility at the University of Southern Mississippi, where Favre`s daughter played volleyball. Favre declined to talk to NBC News, but his attorney says he never understood that he was paid with money intended to help poor children, and that he repaid the fees for the speeches. He has not been charged with or accused of any crime.
This is all part of a much larger fraud case, with a state auditor finding that the head of the welfare agency gave more than $70 million intended for impoverished children to wealthy individuals like Favre.
That is money taken away from children living in the poorest state in the entire country. Nearly 20 percent of Mississippi`s residents live in poverty. And the number is even higher, 25 percent, in the capital, Jackson, where more than 100,000 people have not had safe drinking water for days after flooding disrupted the city`s water system.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: People are fed up. They`re running to bordering cities who have clean water to just bathe. I honestly don`t even want to bathe my baby in Jackson`s water.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s sad. And I can`t even afford to move out of Jackson, so I have to stay here and deal with this.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This has been an issue for me since I came down here to Tougaloo College in 1991. I was always told not to drink that water.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: It`s a problem Jackson residents have faced on and off for years, with aging infrastructure that Jackson`s mayor says will cost a billion dollars to fix.
[19:35:01]
The state`s Republican governor, Tate Reeves, and other officials have repeatedly opposed efforts to fund water treatment upgrades. President Biden has said Reeves has got to act and sent the FEMA administrator to Jackson today to assess the situation.
And joining me now is the mayor of Jackson, Mississippi, Chokwe Antar Lumumba.
And, Mayor Lumumba, I think for a lot of people, just the idea, other than Flint, which we all know what happened there — they switched to a dirty source of water and essentially poisoned the city of Flint back in 2014.
What is going on in Jackson? Why is the water unsafe to drink?
CHOKWE ANTAR LUMUMBA (D), MAYOR OF JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI: Well, first and foremost, Joy, thank you for having me. And thank you for lifting this challenge up in my city.
I think what Jackson represents, what Flint represents are circumstances of divestment, underinvestment in communities that resemble ours. Far too frequently. This has been a challenge that we have been lifting up my entire time in office, but, more specifically, nationally, at least more than two years, saying that it`s not a matter of if these systems will fail, but when these systems will fail.
And so what the calculus comes to is that it amounts to humiliation for our constituents. It amounts to a poor quality of life. And we`re unable to reveal the simple dignity of having running water within homes to — for sanitary needs, to bathe or to drink.
And so we need to make certain that, when this falls out of the news cycle, that the work continues, and that we see it to its conclusion, that we have a water system that is sustainable, dependable and equitable, and serves the best interests of our residents in every way.
REID: I mean, just for viewers to just get a handle on this, I mean, we`re talking about a city, the capital city of Mississippi, of the state of Mississippi, in which people are being told to bathe with their mouths closed so that they don`t breathe in whatever is in the water.
Do you even have an assessment, have you been given an assessment of what`s in this water?
LUMUMBA: Well, first and foremost, the boil water notice, we have to go through a bit of history, because we had a boil water notice in effect prior to the flood.
That boil water notice was due to a high turbidity reading, which could be bacterial. It could be a high lime content. But the issue of that turbidity was resolved, in that instance, within a 24-hour period of time.
But then it took consecutive days of testing, which proved to be challenging, not only because having to have, out of 120 samples, a clear test for all of the 120 for two consecutive days. We would have one or two come up back poor. And then we contended with the persistent rain even before the flood, and you can`t test in the rain.
And we had flash floods that were happening. And then we had the flood itself. And then, due to the flood, that led to — that led to a bad chemistry of water coming into the plant, which meant that they could not push out that water due to their concern over that. And it dropped pressure levels across the city.
And so until the pressure can be restored, then the OK to start testing again can`t take place. All of this is part and parcel of a water treatment facility that simply is just not as loyal to our residents as the people who work there.
We have people who work there diligently who are looking over various components of failure, whether it`s the raw water screens, whether it`s the raw water pumps, whether it`s the U.V. light that is obsolete, whether it`s distribution lines into the water treatment facility, conventional side or membrane side.
All of these things have had an impact on our water treatment facility at given periods of time, and all of it has amounted to a challenge for our residents.
REID: And another challenge you have is your governor.
Paul Krugman wrote the following about your governor: “Back in April, Governor Tate Reeves, a Republican, announced that he was making an investment in Mississippians. By an investment, he meant a tax cut, rather than spending on, say, education or infrastructure. There are no easy answers to the problem of left-behind regions. But one thing is for sure. Imagining that tax cuts will bring prosperity to a poorly educated state that can`t even provide its capital with running water is just delusional.”
And I wonder if you would comment on Tate Reeves, because, under his administration, you have also had all these vast sums of money going to wealthy athletes, to wealthy people, just giving them money to make speeches and for a volleyball facility.
And I believe it was the previous administration that gave them that money. So that might have been — not been Tate Reeves. But what do you make of the statewide government, not just this governor, but the previous one, spending lots of money on wealthy people and lots of money on tax cuts, but not any money on infrastructure?
[19:40:04]
LUMUMBA: Well, as your package suggested, this has been a problem in the making for decades, not simply years.
These have been problems that, when I moved here in 1988 as a little boy, I remember the freeze of 1989 that debilitated our system. And there are far too many occurrences to recount of how many — of how we dealt with a challenge with water in Jackson.
And so I have been less than bashful. And I have been on the record of lifting up and speaking to the leadership and their necessity to act. And so my record is clear in saying and lifting these things up. But I do want people to appreciate the circumstance that I`m in today, right?
Today, where my residents don`t have water, today, where I have cried out for the state support, and, today, when there is a coalition that is on the ground, right, that is where my immediate concern has to be.
Now, I do believe that there is a time that we return and talk about why it took us so long to get here, that we return to the question of the fact that Jackson residents are worthy. They`re worthy of this support. And that`s what I want to lift up, is that my residents are worthy to not be dealing with the challenges that they have become accustomed to.
This is their way of life. This is what they know. And that is unacceptable on every end.
REID: Yes, indeed.
And I hope that you will come back, Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba. Please come back and update us on what`s going on in your city, the beautiful, wonderful, lovely city, one of my favorite cities, Jackson. Thank you very much, sir. Really appreciate you.
And coming up: Trump allies are reportedly backing a massive voter eligibility challenge in Georgia in a blatant bid to disrupt the upcoming election.
That story and more after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:46:32]
REID: As Republicans bash President Biden over his thoroughly accurate claim that Trumpism is a threat to American democracy, Trump and his minions are doing exactly that, threatening democracy, overwhelming county election boards just weeks until Election Day.
Bloomberg reports that the group VOTER GA is backing a mass challenge to voter eligibility in Georgia, a state considered to be ground zero in Trump`s efforts to steal the 2020 election, and 2024 too.
The group filed eight boxes on Monday containing more than 37,000 challenges to voters in Gwinnett County, a once solidly Republican area of suburban Atlanta that has voted Democratic since 2016. The group is backed by Trump`s super fan and overstock founder Patrick Byrne and Trump`s former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, the guy who took the QAnon pledge who twice pleaded guilty to the Trump staple of lying to the FBI.
The challenge will certainly overwhelm election officials just two months before the pivotal Georgia midterm elections, making it harder — surprise — for some registered voters to cast their ballots, because, of course.
Joining me now, attorney Gyasi Ross, who is also a member of Blackfeet Nation, and Democratic strategist Atima Omara.
And, Atima, I`m going to start with you first, because this seems like very blatant voter suppression happening in Georgia. How is that even — well, I know how it`s legal. It`s because they passed that Jim Crow law.
ATIMA OMARA, PRESIDENT, OMARA STRATEGY GROUP: Right. Right.
I was going to say that I feel like this is absolutely Jim Crow 2.0. And the reason I say that is because the original Jim Crow laws were designed seemingly on paper to be race-blind, but were actually weaponized by bad actors who were trying to intimidate, disenfranchise and demoralize black and brown voters.
Well, this law signed by Brian Kemp, who`s supposedly a champion because of the — democracy because he stood up against Trump, so he signed this law into effect that allows actors like Michael Flynn and all of his Trump allies to mass-challenge voter registration across the state of Georgia.
And what that does is drive all these electoral boards to a halt, because they`re going to do their due diligence in checking voter registrations. But, hey, here`s the kicker. Brian Kemp also has a state law that empowers him to remove those folks from running those electoral boards.
REID: That`s right.
OMARA: And what could actually happen when that happens? He puts people in place who are presumably folks who didn`t believe the 2020 elections were valid, and actually maybe start looking at these voter registrations and tossing them out.
And, coincidentally, they`re all black and brown people and some folks who dare to vote for Democrats.
REID: Yes, I mean, look, judging people and giving them a bly on having one good day is how people respected Rudy Giuliani for so long, because, on one day, on September 11, he did the right thing.
(LAUGHTER)
REID: It don`t mean nothing.
OMARA: One day.
REID: Gyasi Ross, it is ironic, my friend, that Republicans are in the South enacting a modern-day Jim Crow.
I mean, in Florida, they basically reversed a constitutional amendment that allowed people who had served their felony sentences to vote by putting a poll tax and arresting them with DeSantis` election police. You have got Brian Kemp doing this in Georgia.
And then they whine and cry because Republicans, who run the state of Alaska, had ranked-choice — decided to input ranked-choice voting, and Sarah Palin lost. And they`re like, outrage, voter suppression, voter suppression.
Your thoughts?
GYASI ROSS, ATTORNEY: Yes.
I mean, ultimately, it`s a means justify the ends situation, where Republicans want to have it both ways. They want to be able to complain about something that they — seemingly works against them, when, in truth, their messaging is just wrong. Their stances are just wrong. And they`re not resonating with American people, and, on the other side, want to say that this — what happens in Alaska, that this shouldn`t be a situation that — where it`s top three.
[19:50:20]
And, first of all, salute to the new congresswoman-elect…
REID: Yes.
ROSS: … as the first Alaska Native woman, person to be in the House of Congress for two months. Ultimately, we`re going to revisit the same process, the same disenfranchisement up there in Alaska, primarily of Native people, again in about two months.
But, ultimately, I just want to speak upon Georgia really quick. As a criminal defense attorney, whenever you have a system, a law that allows individuals, because that`s what this law allows — it`s individuals — to bring in and — bring in the rule of law and say, these people are doing something wrong, with absolutely no basis, no foundation for that, that it`s peak Karen.
It`s peak Karen behavior. And, ultimately, we know where that Karen behavior is going to go. As alluded to earlier, it is going to ultimately penalize. It`s ultimately going to chill black and brown folks from doing their constitutional duty and right. And that`s something we should always be wary of and fight against, Joy.
REID: Yes.
I know we`re going to do “Who Won the Week?” in a bit, but one of the candidates this week could have really been Mary Peltola, because it is really shocking that, in the state of Alaska that is — it`s an indigenous- based population, there`s never been an indigenous Alaskan person in Congress at all.
Let`s play a little clip of her last night when she was on with Alex Wagner.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARY PELTOLA (D), ALASKA CONGRESSWOMAN-ELECT: No other Americans are my enemies. It doesn`t matter what party you`re from. If you`re an American, you are not my enemy.
Steering away from the closed primary process, which has really shown us that that has created an environment where folks are trying to out-Democrat each other or out-Republican each other, to the point that we wind up with very extreme candidates, sometimes fringe candidates.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Let`s just give — Gyasi, let`s just give this lady her flowers, Mary Peltola.
What does that mean, do you think, that she — even if it was for two months, that she won?
ROSS: Well, I mean, first of all, she defeated an opponent, Sarah Palin, who had four times the amount of money that she had. So she`s doing something right.
Moreover, she`s a relative unknown, compared to her two Republican opponents. So, she`s doing something very, very right.
And, Joy, I just want to point out that another thing that congresswoman- elect Peltola does is — and I love this — is, she shows the diversity of indigenous, of Native thought and belief. A lot of times, on both sides, folks like to categorize, just like black folks, just like any other community, and say that we`re a monolith and we vote this way.
Peltola, she is a staunch supporter, as she should be, of reproductive rights, of right to abortion, access to abortion. But, at the same time, she`s also somebody who is a staunch supporter of the Second Amendment.
REID: Yes.
ROSS: So it`s just diversity and it`s complexity.
REID: Yes, absolutely. So we`re giving her, her flowers. Big up to her.
We`d like to have you on the show, congresswoman-elect. So, we want to — we`re going to be coming at you.
Gyasi and Atima are sticking around, because, guess what? Everybody`s favorite game to end the week — the way to end the week is coming up.
“Who Won the Week?” is straight ahead after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:58:25]
REID: TGIF. We made it, you all, which means it`s time to kick off the long weekend. It`s also time for, ah yes, “Who Won the Week?”
Gyasi Ross, Atima Omara are back with me.
Atima Omara, welcome to the show.
Who won the week?
OMARA: Serena Williams, a 40-year-old mom who unseated with the number ranked — number two-ranked player in tennis currently. She hadn`t even been playing a ton of matches before she came into what is going to be her retirement show at the U.S. Open. And, quite frankly, her performance on Tuesday, Wednesday night definitely showed that she has absolutely earned the title of the greatest of all time.
REID: You`re going to realize why I`m smiling about that, your picking up Serena Williams as your “Who Won the Week?” because that is an excellent pick.
Gyasi Ross, can you beat that? Who won the week?
ROSS: I cannot beat it, but I can match it.
(LAUGHTER)
ROSS: Serena Williams, Serena Williams, Serena Williams, bad, bad woman…
OMARA: Match point.
ROSS: … fashion maven, a mom, amazing, amazing, obviously, tennis player.
Listen to this, Joy, the most dominant athlete ever, ever in the history of sports. Let`s get it correct.
REID: Amen.
Well, let me tell you something. There`s one thing that has never happened. I have been doing “Who Won the Week?” a long time, you all. Never in the history of “Who Won the Week?” have all three people picked the same person.
But, tonight, for Serena Williams, it is game, set, match…
OMARA: Match.
REID: … because my pick as well happens to be Serena M-ing F-ing Williams, because she is the baddest in the game.
(LAUGHTER)
ROSS: Bad.
REID: Game, set, match, Serena Williams. You won the week.
Thank you, Gyasi Ross. Thank you, Atima Omara.
That`s never happened before in “Who Won the Week?” That`s actually kind of amazing. She literally won the week.
Maybe I should also make a runner-up Dark Brandon, because Dark Brandon is the runner-up for “Who Won the Week?” because he secondarily won the week, because Dark Brandon went off this week.
That is tonight`s REIDOUT.
(LAUGHTER)
REID: “ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES” starts now.