Updated
Summary
NBC: 1/6 witness Trump tried to contact was White House support staffer. 1/6 Committee: next hearing to focus on Trump`s response to Capitol riot. Steve Bannon trial begin on Monday. Sen. Graham escalates fights against subpoena. New footage of Uvalde school shooting released.
Transcript
LAWRENCE O`DONNELL, MSNBC HOST: Congresswoman Cori Bush gets tonight`s “LAST WORD”. THE 11TH HOUR with Stephanie Ruhle starts now.
STEPHANIE RUHLE, MSNBC HOST: Tonight, breaking news about the January 6 investigation, who President Trump tried to call after a committee hearing amid new fallout from the latest revelations, and what we`re learning will come next?
Plus, new outrage and anger in Texas after your video from inside Robb Elementary shows the delayed response from police.
And red hot inflation hits a 40 year high, what it means for the midterms and beyond as THE 11TH HOUR gets underway on this Wednesday night.
Good evening, once again, I`m Stephanie Ruhle. We have got brand new information this evening about the January 6 committee accusing former President Donald Trump of trying to contact a witness in the investigation. NBC News has confirmed reporting that the witness was a member of the White House support staff. At the end of yesterday`s hearing, Liz Cheney said the matter had been referred to the Justice Department. This afternoon, the Committee`s Chairperson was asked about Cheney`s comments.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you going to hear from this witness?
REP. BENNIE THOMPSON, (D) MISSISSIPPI JAN.6 SELECT COMMITTEE CHAIR: I would doubt it. You know, we`re concerned obviously about the witness and we want to put that witness unnecessarily?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is it your opinion that there`s enough evidence to say that there was an attempt to intimidate these witnesses?
THOMPSON: Well, from my vantage point is highly unusual to do that. And that`s why we more or less, put that in the hands of the Justice Department.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And this was just one missed phone call from the former president?
THOMPSON: That`s all that I`m aware of.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RUHLE: As for its future plans, the panel has not ruled out additional hearings later this summer. We will be hearing more public testimony one week from tomorrow. One committee member says next Thursday`s hearing will focus on what Trump himself was doing when the Capitol was under attack.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. PETE AGUILAR, (D) CALIFORNIA JAN. 6 SELECT COMMITTEE MEMBER: Specifically about the time period, the 187 minutes within the White House, what the President was doing, and how he could have played a role in preventing more violence, if he had merely gone to the briefing room and asked people to leave the Capitol.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RUHLE: It comes as Trump ally and former strategist Steve Bannon is set to go on trial Monday for contempt of Congress. He is now ready to cooperate with the January 6 investigation or says he is after defying a subpoena for testimony and documents. But the committee says Bannon needs to produce those documents before they agree to engage with him.
Bannon is also making yet a another run at the government to try to get them to delay his trial. This is happening just days after the judge denied his first request. Bannon says yesterday`s hearing will make it impossible to find an impartial jury.
Meanwhile, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham has escalated his battle to avoid testifying to a Georgia grand jury. They`re investigating possible interference in the 2020 election from the former president.
Back then Graham called some state officials to ask them to re-examine certain absentee ballots after Trump last. Today. He asked a federal court to reject a subpoena from the prosecutors in Georgia and that Judge put the subpoena on hold and told prosecutors to respond by Monday.
Also tonight, the latest data shows inflation now at a new 40 year high 9.1%. We`ll have much more on that ahead.
But first, I want to get smarter with the help of our leadoff panel and dig into politics. Carol Leonnig, Pulitzer Prize Winning Investigative Reporter with The Washington Post, Barbara McQuade, a Veteran Federal Prosecutor and former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan. She worked with the Department of Justice during the Biden transition, and is now a professor at the University of Michigan School of Law. And Judd Legum, who have wanted on this show for weeks, founder and author of the political newsletter Popular Information. He is the guy who follows the money.
Carol, I have got to start with you on this witness that former President Trump tried to contact this person was a member of the White House support staff. So first, explain to me what a support staff mean? Support staff, is that like chief of staff, or is that an assistant or an assistants assistant? Because that says something if Trump himself is digging down the org chart and dialing for dollars?
CAROL LEONNIG, THE WASHINGTON POST INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER: Steph, you`re exactly right. Your detector for problematic phone calls by the former president is right on. It`s really — what we`re hearing — what our wonderful Washington Post reporter team and that has been working on January 6 committee what they`re hearing is that this person was a support staffer as NBC has reported, may still be at the White House and was someone who the committee as you know, from Benny Thompson`s comments, was somebody they were talking to, didn`t plan to present as a witness, but somebody who could corroborate some of Cassidy Hutchinson`s startling bombshell allegations, most especially the idea that the President threw a dish and catch up at the wall when his Attorney General told him, hey, guess what, you did not win the election. We`ve investigated it. And all of these allegations are baloney.
[23:05:52]
But honestly, Stephanie, the most interesting thing about this phone call is twofold. One, the President makes it after somebody else in his team, contacts Cassidy Hutchinson. And the whole hearing with Cassidy was put — was essentially rushed, because there was this idea that she felt a little threatened by a phone call, but from someone in Trump World, saying they knew she would be loyal, she would stay loyal. And the bizarreness of the second call is the President makes it, the former president makes it to someone he doesn`t normally contact but happens to be talking to the committee about corroborating information in Cassidy Hutchinson`s account. And that is not a one off, that doesn`t feel like an accident. It doesn`t approve obstruction of a congressional proceeding. It certainly doesn`t prove a crime. But it sure raises questions about why in the world, the former President is talking to someone who can corroborate what was the most sensational and stunning element of some of the testimony that we`ve heard so far?
RUHLE: Well, let`s talk about those questions, Barb, because Liz Cheney said, what happened to that witness has now been referred to the Department of Justice, what could they be looking into? And what could potentially Trump be in trouble for, Department of Justice doesn`t look at things for sport.
BARBARA MCQUADE, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY: No, not at all. There is a federal crime, for a person who intentionally interferes with a witness for a corrupt or wrongful purpose. It`s a 21 year felony, it`s a very serious crime. And so if they could prove a case that he was reaching out to this person to try to influence or intimidate that person into not telling the truth, that could be a crime. As you mentioned, you know, a phone call alone is not enough. But if you look at all of this surrounding evidence, you might be able to raise a reasonable inference that there was a corrupt intent here.
If you can couple it with the calls made to Cassidy Hutchinson, along with this, and are there any other witnesses who have been receiving similar calls, all of that would be important, which is why the Justice Department would need to do a fulsome investigation, and not charge simply on this one phone call.
I also find it interesting that Liz Cheney is saying this out loud. You know, you don`t have to tell the world that you`ve referred to the Justice Department, you can just quietly call them and say this thing has happened, would you please investigate? And it says to me that she`s trying to achieve two things. One, she wants to tell Donald Trump that they`re onto it, to him. It maybe it`s a shot across the bow to tell him to back off, not cut off, man, we know what you`re doing.
It also is a subtle message to the American public, that Donald Trump`s getting scared. He knows that we`re on to some very serious allegations here. And he feels the need to ask witnesses to be quiet or to interfere with them, which is what prosecutors refer to as evidence of consciousness of guilt. So I think the announcement may be just as valuable as any investigation that ensues.
RUHLE: Then Carol, based on your reporting, do you think there are all sorts of people out there that could speak but they haven`t because Trump`s put the kibosh on it?
LEONNIG: Well, that`s a pretty big speculation, but it`s very plausible to me based on, you know, in reporting around the Trump administration, people have joked and said, you know, this was the leakiest, weakest White House in history because people were always talking to reporters. But in this setting, you may remember, there were a lot of people during the impeachment proceeding who felt nervous about Trump`s power, Trump`s ability to ruin their reputations, his ability to fire them in humiliation, and a lot of them kept their mouth shut about what was really going on behind the scenes. So I think it`s plausible.
But I want to hit another note that Barbara mentions about the additional witnesses that may have information. There may be additional witnesses who have information about why Donald Trump made those calls and why someone in his orbit who`s now been described as linked to Mark Meadows, the former chief of staff. There may be people who know why that reach out, happened.
[23:10:15]
They were next to the former president when he said, OK, we got to take care of this, or you have to do this for me to communicate to Cassidy. We don`t know but it is now because Liz Cheney has tossed it out there, the Department of Justice would be pretty, I would say, let`s try to choose this adjective correctly, the Department of Justice would catch a lot of hell if they didn`t look into this more deeply.
RUHLE: Carol, you know, the Secret Service very well, you wrote a whole book on them. Last week, after Cassidy Hutchinson testified, there was a buzz out there that a member of the Secret Service, Anthony or NATO, he was going to come forward, he was going to refute what Cassidy said yet — that`s to my knowledge, I haven`t heard anything, what`s going on with this guy?
LEONNIG: Well, how lucky that I made a phone call in my car before I came here to my kitchen about that. My understanding, Steph, is that the Department of Homeland Security, which is the parent agency for the Secret Service. Secret Service is housed in the Department of Homeland Security. Their top lawyers have been negotiating with the committee about how Tony Ornato, Bobby Engel, a former head of the President`s detail, also a witness to what happened in the suburban that day when there is an alleged assault on a secret service agent, the detail leader himself and the Limo driver who`s really the driver of the suburban, that they`re negotiating with the committee staff about what are the terms for having them come in and answer questions about that alleged in altercation, that alleged lunge for the steering wheel that Cassidy said Tony Ornato described to her upon his return and was very unsettled and unnerved.
But I have to tell you, you know, with withdrawal dripping that this has not been resolved whether or not they are going to come forward and give their information a date has not been set, the terms have not been agreed upon. So again, I hate to say stay tuned.
RUHLE: Judd, do you know of anyone that committee spoke to who has emphatically denied President Trump`s involvement said he hasn`t done anything. I mean, the best I`ve seen or the most I`ve seen or the Michael Flynn`s of the world who have pled the Fifth dozens and dozens of times. But is there anyone who has out and out refuted that Trump has done any of what the Cassidy Hutchinson`s of the world have said he did?
JUDD LEGUM, FOUNDER & AUTHOR POPULAR INFORMATION: Well, I think most of the people who have that posture, and you seem to be aligned with Trump have taken the position to ignore the subpoena. Certainly, that`s where Steve Bannon finds himself, Meadows and others. They feel very comfortable talking about Trump`s innocence outside of the committee setting where they`re not under oath. But they do seem to be hesitant to come into the committee. And so I think that`s really the situation that we have. Now, where you see that the people who are coming forward who are willing to speak under the penalty of perjury are implicating the president, if not in crimes, at least as far as his central involvement of both in the actions that day on the lips, but then also what took place later at the Capitol.
RUHLE: OK, Barb, then you`re our lawyer. If you are in a position to clear the president, why wouldn`t you sit down and do it under oath?
MCQUADE: Well, you`re absolutely right, Stephanie. I mean, they know they have some criminal exposure here. And they`re concerned. It may be that no charges are ever filed, because the Justice Department isn`t able to put them together. But anybody can see that there is criminal exposure here. And so a person can`t just take the Fifth because they don`t feel like answering the questions and they want to protect someone else. You have to have a well-grounded fear of criminal prosecution. And I think based on all the things that we have seen, there is absolutely the case of that, as you say, there`s nobody out there screaming that this is all a misunderstanding, or a fabrication that none of these things happened. Whether they amounted to a crime, I think is what the Justice Department is putting together, but it seems like a strong case can be made and I agree with you, I don`t hear anybody out there refuting any of these allegations in a meaningful way.
RUHLE: Judd, let`s talk financing. Based on your reporting. And what you`ve seen through these hearings?
[23:15:03]
Where is there a clear through line for who truly financed what went down on January 6, you had people come from all 50 states, taking off of work, flying, driving, taking buses, trains, staying in hotels, was there any central force that really financed it all?
LEGUM: Well, the woman who appears to be in charge of putting together the money was a woman named Caroline Wren. She was a top fundraiser for President Trump during his campaign, she reportedly was talking about raising up to $3 million to finance the events of that day. We know that a significant chunk of that money, which was solicited by Wren, presumably on the behalf of the President came from Julie Fancelli, who was an heiress to the public supermarket fortune, she donated at least $650,000 to various groups, and that money was parked in various nonprofit groups, presumably to try to obscure where the money was coming from and how it was being spent.
So we do know that so far, it`ll be really interesting what the committee comes up with, based on their subpoena power, and all of the documents that they`ve been collected. I expect to hear some of it in this next hearing, because a lot of the groups that was — were involved, like turning point USA, which is a right wing group for younger people, you know, they don`t have to disclose any of their donors. They raise millions of dollars and don`t have to disclose their donors. So a lot of the sources are also unknown. We know we they were involved. We don`t know who was funding their involvement.
RUHLE: It`s interesting. If you were to give some big donation to a lawmaker to a political group, why would you want it to be a secret? Carol Leonnig, Barbara McQuade, Judd Legum, thank you all for starting us off tonight. There`s so much more I want to get into. We`ve got to move on. Please come back soon.
When we come back, just when you thought it couldn`t have been worse, it is. I`m going to take you to Texas, disturbing, disturbing new video from inside Robb Elementary is sparking even more outrage and fury, when you think about the police response, what the community is saying tonight, what the country is saying.
And later, as inflation hits another high, how young voters see the economy and what`s going to get them to the polls in November and beyond. THE 11TH HOUR just getting underway on a Wednesday night.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[23:22:26]
RUHLE: Tonight, there was more outrage after horrifying video was released from inside Robb Elementary School during the massacre that took place in Uvalde, Texas. The 77 minute video was obtained and edited by the Austin American Statesman and KVUE. It published days before the state plan to release it to families and then to the public.
I`m going to show you short clips from that video without the audio. But I need to warn you, this footage is disturbing. I think it`s devastating. It`s after the gunman enters one of the classrooms. The first burst of gunfire is heard. A few minutes later, officers arrive in the hallway and you do see them rush toward the classroom. But then they stop.
There`s another burst of gunfire. Then you see law enforcement race back down the hallway. After that more officers arrive. The video shows them, some of them heavily armed in body armor helmets and protective shields. But they`re just standing in the hallway. Not approaching the classroom filled with young children again, for more than 40 minutes. What were they doing? Apparently, besides applying hand sanitizer, some of them they were waiting for orders.
It took more than an hour for the gunman to be taken down after police first arrived. And do not forget two teachers and 19 children were killed that day. Uvalde City Police have not responded to a request for comment from NBC News on that video. The Statesman defended its release saying this, “We have to bear witness to history and transparency and unrelenting reporting in a way to bring change. But there were some families that felt blindsided by it. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BERLINDA IRENE ARREOLA, GRANDMOTHER OF UVALDE, TX VICTIM: It was disturbing. It was the worst thing that I could possibly see.
GLORIA CAZARES, MOTHER OF UVALDE, TX VICTIM: It`s going to be in our social media forever. And not just us, it`s for our kids, our kids at home, this just brought us right back to that day one.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RUHLE: Other members of the community are angry furious at police and they are demanding more answers.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DANIEL MYERS, UVALDE, TX PASTOR: What`s the cover, Mr. Mayor? What`s the cover? What are they covering up? That they didn`t do nothing where everybody knows that 19 innocent children, 19 crosses with the with the two teachers. That`s obviously they didn`t do anything.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RUHLE: I want to bring in Sergio Martinez-Beltran, he has been all over this story for the last seven weeks, he`s a Texas Capitol Reporter at NPR, the Texas Newsroom.
[23:25:09]
First, I want to ask you this video. Have you seen it and heard it with the audio that most of us I know, I couldn`t listen to the audio, but have you seen the whole thing?
SERGIO MARTINEZ-BELTRAN, TEXAS CAPITOL REPORTER, NPR`S THE TEXAS NEWSROOM: Unfortunately, we have been able to see the video, you know, primarily thanks to our colleagues at the Austin American-Statesman, and KVUE who published this footage. And, you know, even though we can watch it muted and we can turn the volume down. It`s so hard to watch. You know, I think that`s something that it`s one of the hardest things I`ve done in my career.
RUHLE: What did you hear? Explain it to us, what`s in this video?
MARTINEZ-BELTRAN: You know, this video is about 82 minutes long, and it covers from the moment, the 18-year-old gunman crashes his truck outside, Robb Elementary, all the way to when police breached a classroom where he had been. You know, it`s hard to watch, because we can also see the gunman, making his way into the school, turning down a hallway and then starting to shoot the classroom.
We can also see that police response, which is, I think the most important thing here, because of the magnitude of this tragedy, we see police like you mentioned rushing towards the door. And then when they hear and they receive fire from the shooter, they run back. And then they waited and waited. And we see police officers pacing back and forth. We see them on their phones, we see them talking to each other, but not going closer to the classroom.
And we`ve see — we`ve heard many, many narratives right from the government, including that the commander on scene believe that the classroom door was locked. And he also believed that they needed more ammunition, more firearms. But this video shows that law enforcement responded they had long guns, they were wearing body armors some of them had shields. So they had arguably what they needed to go in and kill the shooter.
RUHLE: Do you see or hear any children?
MARTINEZ-BELTRAN: There is one part that is very, very difficult. And I think was the part that moved me the most, one point in the video, you can see a student walking towards the same hallway, seconds before the shooter fires the initial rounds. As you can see the child stopping for a few seconds before turning on running away. And, you know, this is when humanity kicks in. We can think about our kids, about our nieces, our nephews and seeing that fear in this kid. It`s important to note too, that the Austin American-Statesman and KVUE, they muted the audio, especially when we were hearing, I mean that we cannot hear children screaming or children at all, because they`ve muted the audio. And they also blurred the identity of this kid that ran away. But it was very hard to watch that part as well.
RUHLE: Now, the mayor has criticized the Austin American-Statesman for publishing it. But why didn`t the city do it sooner? This happened over seven weeks ago.
MARTINEZ-BELTRAN: That`s a question we`ve all been asking. We`ve been asking with the Department of Public Safety. We`ve been asking the mayor, we`ve been asking Uvalde District Attorney Mitchell Busbee, everyone, anyone who can hear us members of the press and also family members, family members have been asking the same thing. We want to see the video. We want to see transparency.
And you know, yes, Uvalde mayor blasted reporters for publishing the video. But it`s important to note that family members have been asking for transparency since the day of the shooting. They`ve been asking the government to show them something to help them heal by being transparent. And the government has not given them that. And so, you know, it`s — this video is one of the first real pieces of evidence of the shooting. It was not provided by the government at this point. It was the reporters that the media who ended up publishing it. So they still haven`t received that piece of information from the government.
RUHLE: So they the mayor has criticized how the video has been released. But law enforcement has given no comment to what was actually in that video and what those police officers were doing just standing around.
Sergio, thank you so much for covering this. It is massively important. We need you there.
Coming up next, soaring inflation hitting a 40-year high. We`re going to look at how the economy is impacting younger voters and what it could mean for the midterms when THE 11TH HOUR continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[23:34:39]
RUHLE: The White House playing defense today after a another red hot inflation report. Inflation rose by a whopping 9.1% in the month of June, which was well above expectations, thanks to food and energy costs. President Biden today called the numbers, “unacceptably high,” but also out of date because of a recent decline in gas prices.
[23:35:00]
With us tonight for more, founding partner at PUCK and Co-Host of Snapchats Good Luck America Peter Hamby, also John Della Volpe joins us, Director of the Polling Institute at the Harvard Kennedy School of Politics and author of Fight: How Gen Z is Channeling Their Fear and Passion to Save America.
Peter, what do you make of the administration`s argument here? I mean, to say, this isn`t good data. This isn`t a good report. We all know, the report is from last month. It`s always that way. But this same White House was, A, OK with the jobs report last week, which was also from last month.
PETER HAMBY, HOST, GOOD LUCK AMERICA: Yeah, I mean, we don`t know. I mean, it`s been two weeks, since the end of last month, gas prices have been going down for three weeks straight. I mean, it`s not a terrible argument. But, you know, they`re, you know, what`s the old saw if you`re explaining or losing? I mean, the administration is now parsing data about the Consumer Price Index. The public doesn`t care about that. They care about the cost of gasoline and the cost of groceries at the moment. And the administration needs to do more, need to work with Chuck Schumer to get certain things from Congress at the moment. You know, they just feel like you said, in the teaser, they are just playing defense right now. And they`re just trying to climb out of the quicksand here.
RUHLE: John, we`ve said it before inflation is a global problem. And when you actually look at the U.S. versus other countries, it`s like we`re the best house on a bad street. But does that matter to voters? That sure, it`s about here, but it`s worse elsewhere?
JOHN DELLA VOLPE, HARVARD KENNEDY SCHOOL DIRECTOR OF POLLING: No, it matters to voters every single day that oftentimes they spend, you know, the drive from their house to the work rather than, you know, that takes — it takes them, they`re spending a couple of hours of their first couple hours of pay, right and the effect that it has on individuals every single day. But surprisingly, Stephanie, this election cycle is different, I think, because the despite the fact that inflation does not seem to be tamed in the last year, the Republican advantage and most of the generic ballot tests that we see is actually dissipated. You know, over the last several months.
You know, when we look at February, Republicans had twice the advantage that they have today. So unlike other cycles, I`m not so sure that inflation is as correlated with the ballot as I once was.
RUHLE: Peter, you`ve got a new piece in Puck titled, Out with The Olds, all about Gen Z. Is their issue, they like Democrats or Republicans, or is it that they don`t think either party or who is running either party represents what they want, what they care about?
HAMBY: It`s a little bit of both. And this gets to what John was just saying. There`s seems to be a difference between the approval rating of the President and the party in power, and the generic ballot test for November, young people Gen Z in particular and John just did an amazing study with the Walton Foundation and murmuration on this, uphold it, measure Gen Z sentiment. People under 18, as well, which is pretty rare in polling. And look, they say in focus groups, they say in polls, they voted for Biden, because he wasn`t Trump, there`s not a lot of affinity there for the Democratic Party, Gen Z. And younger millennials in particular feel like they`re being deprived of certain liberties, whether it`s reproductive rights, you know, gun violence, voting rights, identity issues, but they don`t feel like the Democratic Party has delivered for them. I mean, Biden`s biggest accomplishment, you could argue is the infrastructure bill. That`s not something that`s very salient to a 19-year-old, who`s not going to see the long tail outcome of that for many years to come.
And so I think when they head into November, this is gets to your question, I think young people will still vote albeit not at the rate, certainly of 2020. And maybe not as high as they did when they turned out in 2018, when a huge amount of young people voted in a midterm election. But the choice on the ballot is very important here. Young people might like their progressive, they skew progressive, they might not like Joe Biden, but when they see the contrast in a place like Pennsylvania, for example, between Josh Shapiro and Doug Mastriano. That choice gets to their existential fears about the future of our democracy, and what it can do for them. And so I think John is right that people will show up and vote. The generic ballot is closer than the Biden approval rating would suggest. So we`ll see. I mean, I think young people feel like especially Gen Z, they can`t afford not to vote.
RUHLE: John, do you think young people are going to be motivated this November?
DELLA VOLPE: I don`t think there`s a question about, Stephanie. Before the Lido leak, before the January 6 hearings in the Harvard poll that we released in April, we saw roughly the same number of young people said they would vote relative to 2018 which was a historic milestone and midterm elections.
[23:40:08]
But what we need to remember is that this generation of young voters, Gen Z`s and younger millennials, they`re fundamentally different than the younger voters from the MTV generation, from 1986 through 2002, that period of time, the youth vote only favored Democrats by one point. At every election since then, the youth vote has favored Democrats by 20 points, on average, they are the ones responsible for flipping five states from red to blue and electing Joe Biden, and a Democratic Senate. And this is a fundamental voting bloc of the Democratic Party, and unless they can show and match the passion, and the urgency that this group of voters are showing, by protesting, by engaging in a variety of different activities around gun violence and reproductive rights and climate, et cetera. Unless they can see that creativity and that pattern match by folks in Washington D.C., it`s going to be a huge opportunity lost, specifically for Democrats this November.
RUHLE: But then how do you square that, Peter, with the fact that so many Gen Zers simply do not have faith in our political system, and that could mean they`re going to stay home?
HAMBY: I mean, it is a conundrum. I was in a focus group the other day for Sarah Longwell`s podcast, the focus group for the Bulwark, and it was with a bunch of Gen Z Democrats and then a separate one with Gen Z Republicans.
John has a Harvard poll from last year that bears this out. One of the young man in this focus group said he thinks there might be a civil war in this country, in the next 20 years. And I believe a third of young voters in the Harvard IOP poll late last year said something similar. They think democracy is fraying. They`re scared for their future. But at the same time, like that`s why again, they say they can`t afford not to vote. You know, they might have a dim view of politics. Certainly a dim view of Joe Biden, the New York Times poll this week found that 94% of Democrats under the age of 30, think Joe Biden should not run again, which is a terrible number for Joe Biden.
His numbers among every age demo, his numbers are the worst among voters under 30. It`s remarkable at the same time, I do feel like school shootings, climate change, the abortion rights, sorry, the Dobbs rolling, young people are more likely to say that older people that abortion will have an impact on their vote this November. So they — John and I have talked about this a lot. Young people feel like they`re slowly being deprived of their liberties, their access to democracy opportunity, and so they don`t like conventional politicians. They don`t identify as partisan, but at the same time, they feel like they have a duty to participate and vote.
RUHLE: And protect their rights. Peter Hamby, John Della Volpe. Thank you for joining us tonight. I really appreciate it. Good to see you both.
HAMBY: Thanks, Steph.
RUHLE: When we come back, despite billions and billions of dollars in court settlements, America`s war with opioids is still raging, whether real battle may need to be fought in Washington, the co-author of the new book, American Cartel tells us why when THE 11TH HOUR continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[23:48:03]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, (D) FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: I hope we can work together this year on some bipartisan priorities like criminal justice reform and helping — and helping people who are battling prescription drug abuse.
DONALD TRUMP, (R) FORMER UNITED STATES PRESIDENT: In the last Congress, both parties came together to pass unprecedented legislation to confront the opioid crisis.
JOE BIDEN, (D) U.S. PRESIDENT: Tonight, I`m offering unity agenda for the nation. Four big things we can do together in my view, first beat the opioid epidemic.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RUHLE: For decades, American communities have been torn apart by prescription opioids. In February several drug companies and distributors agreed to pay a $26 billion settlement. But those billions cannot erase the years of suffering or bring back 1000s of people lost to drug overdoses. But as the new book American Cartel points out, “The drug companies accepted no responsibility to the epidemic and denied any wrongdoing. The announcement of the settlement didn`t damage any of the stock prices of the Fortune 500 companies. In fact, they rose that day for each of the companies by 3% or more.”
With us for more, Sari Horwitz, four time Pulitzer Prize Winning Investigative Reporter at The Washington Post. She also co-authored American Cartel: Inside the Battle to Bring Down the Opioid Industry, which was released just yesterday.
Sari, thank you for writing this. Thank you for your reporting. How does that settlement compare with the profits these companies made off opioids? Because looked at in isolation $26 billion sounds like a big number, but it`s not.
SARI HORWITZ, THE WASHINGTON POST INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER: Thank you for having me, Stephanie. That`s such a good question. This was a historic settlement, but these are Fortune 500 companies they bring in hundreds of billions in revenue, their multibillion dollar companies this is not going to hurt their company line.
[23:50:09]
You know, this is the story that people don`t know about the opioid epidemic. They — when people think of the opioid as epidemic, they think of Purdue Pharma, they think of the Sackler and OxyContin. But it`s so much bigger than that. As we write in our book, it`s — and as you mentioned, these companies, it`s a constellation of companies. Some are small, some are large, some are household names, like CVS and Walgreens and Walmart, and Johnson & Johnson, and some we`d never heard of Mallinckrodt. And these companies fueled the deadliest drug epidemic in American history. And they basically shipped and distributed 100 billion pills, pain pills, addictive, dangerous narcotics across the country.
RUHLE: You wrote that in terms of these pills, flooding communities, in some places, there were more than 150 pills for every man, woman and child in a community, how to communities, how do these regions even recover from that?
HORWITZ: You know, it`s so shocking, Stephanie. We went to many places, southern Ohio, West Virginia, New England, and they are really struggling still, with addiction, and so much death. Thousands and thousands of people have died in the opioid epidemic. And what`s really jarring to me and to my co-author, Scott Higham, was that we would talk to all these people about their pain and their grief and their struggle. And we contrasted that with the 1000s of documents that we were able to obtain internal emails, internal memos from these companies. And the companies clearly knew what was happening. They knew exactly where their pills were going. And employees in these companies that I mentioned, actually laughed about it. They mocked the addicts, they joked about addiction. And we were able to get internal emails that showed, for example, company employees passing around a parody of The Beverly Hillbillies being song from the sitcom that we know from back in the 60s, and they had changed the words to make fun of those pill billings.
It was really shocking, Steph, to see, and such a jarring thing to see compare compared to the pain that we saw, and the grief that people are still suffering in so many places across the country.
RUHLE: You know what`s jarring to me, you wrote that the DEA lost this war, not to drug cartels, but to lobbyists and lawmakers. How did this happen?
HORWITZ: Well, we tell that tale through a particular DEA agent named Joe Rannazzisi, and he was run — he had been there for 30 years. And he was running the division, that polices the pharmaceutical industry, and he started going after these companies with the tools that the DEA has. And the companies that were breaking the law and shipping illegal amounts of pain pills into communities, he started shutting down their warehouses, finding the millions of dollars, and the companies started fighting back. They hired lobbyists in Washington, they hired, you know, high price lawyers. And they basically tried to change a law successfully in Congress that made it at the height of the opioid epidemic made it harder for the Drug Enforcement Administration to go after them. And then they went after Joe Rannazzisi and basically forced him out of government.
And Stephanie, the reason this can happen is the revolving door of Washington, the drug companies were able to lure with high salaries, DEA agents and people from the Justice Department to work for them. And with them on their side knowing so well how the DEA works, they were able to succeed in blunting the efforts of our government to go after them.
RUHLE: And the lives of people across this country. Sari, thank you so much for your reporting. Thank you for this book. I encourage everyone out there to read it. It is important. Sari Horwitz, thank you.
HORWITZ: Thank you, Steph.
RUHLE: Coming up, in a world where the Internet rules a call to action to do some good when THE 11TH HOUR continues.
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RUHLE: The last thing before we go tonight, Elon Musk`s missed opportunity. Every night, this show tries to help people get better and smarter to be kind and to use this space as a force for good. Our hope is that others especially those with huge influence will do the same. That`s why when I saw Elon Musk, Founder of Tesla, world`s richest guy, father of at least nine sent a trolling tweet that about hookers and cocaine. I got to thinking, with so much influence, why wouldn`t this person rise up and be a force for good, he has millions of followers and young people worship him, including my own teenage sons.
Last year he shared with the world that he has Asperger`s, it was vulnerable. And it was inspiring, which is why it baffles me that a man literally on top of the world would ever waste his time punching down. He may have more money than anyone on Earth. But he doesn`t have more time than you or me or anyone. So why waste his, why not spend the earned influence and capital he has to lift people up? Rather than behave like a bully? He`s an unconventional guy. And there are tons of good reasons to break tradition and change the game. But I see absolutely no reason to give up on common decency.
If anyone can do this, if anyone can actually unite us to do good it might actually be Elon Musk. And now, I know that last night I sat here and I closed the show asking you not to get distracted by the Trump musk sideshow. And yet here I am, 24 hours later, still talking about that guy. But I would argue in this case, it is always a good time to call for decency, please, let`s just try.
And on that note, I wish you all a very, very good night. And from all of our colleagues across the networks of NBC News, thanks for staying up late with us. I will see all of you at the end of tomorrow.