Updated
Summary
Trump WH Counsel Cipollone testifies to 1/6 committee. Biden issues executive order to ensure abortion access. Former Japanese PM Shinzo Abe assassinated. Elon Musk files to terminate Twitter deal.
Transcript
JONATHAN CAPEHART, MSNBC HOST: Thanks for — Eugene Daniels, thanks for joining us tonight. That is tonight`s “LAST WORD”. I will see you this weekend on the Sunday shows starting at 10 a.m. Eastern here on MSNBC. THE 11TH HOUR with Stephanie Ruhle starts exactly now.
STEPHANIE RUHLE, MSNBC HOST: Tonight, Pat Cipollone spends his entire day behind closed doors being asked questions about January 6, and not taking the Fifth. Why one of our next guest says the former White House attorney is no hero.
Then Elon Musk`s $44 billion Twitter takeover terminated, let the litigation begin.
And as the President tries to protect abortion access, the devastating impact, the Roe reversal could have on the country`s already strained foster care system. THE 11TH HOUR just getting underway on this Friday night.
Good evening once again, I`m Stephanie Ruhle. The January 6 committee has now heard from one of its highest profile witnesses, and according to one member, they learned some new information. Today, Trump White House Counsel Pat Cipollone testified in a marathon seven and a half hour session that was videotaped. Well, under oath, he answered the panel`s questions about January 6.
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REP. ZOE LOFGREN, (D) CALIFORNIA JANUARY 6TH COMMITTEE: Mr. Cipollone, did appear voluntarily and answer a whole variety of questions. He did not contradict the testimony of other witnesses. And I think we did learn a few things which we will be rolling out in hearings to come. He was candid with the committee. He was careful in his answers. And I believe that he was honest in his answers.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: I know you can`t get into specifics, but can you say if you learned any significant new information, new information from him?
LOFGREN: I think a few things, yes. And when we put this all together, I mean, obviously Tuesday is going to be an important day for the committee and I think the country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RUHLE: Tuesday is when the committee holds its next meeting. Many expected the hearings to wrap up by the end of this month for The Washington Post now reporting that the panel is rethinking that schedule. The Post says hearings could go beyond next week as more Republicans have come forward and are expected to continue doing so. And they could go into August or even beyond. Congressman Lofgren, who you heard just a moment ago was asked about that schedule earlier today.
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LOFGREN: There`s so much information coming in still. And so you know, we`re trying to fly the plane while building the plane to some extent.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
LOFGREN: And we want to make sure that we have a full and complete report and hearing and so that`s — those are the issues and all the balls in the air.
RUHLE: Fly the plane while building it. That is not simple. Lofgren also told MSNBC that Cipollone did not take the Fifth during testimony.
The Washington Post also reports that Donald Trump is now considering sending a letter to his former Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, saying that he is waiving executive privilege. It would potentially clear the way for Bannon to appear before the Jan. 6 Committee. He was of course charged with contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with the subpoena and is set to stand trial on July 18.
Meanwhile, it has now been two weeks since the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade. Tonight, the White House announced it is taking steps to protect abortion access. President Biden signed an executive order to ensure the availability of medication and emergency contraception. During remarks at the White House earlier, the president condemned the Supreme Court`s ruling.
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JOE BIDEN, (D) U.S. PRESIDENT: What we`re witnessing wasn`t a constitutional judgment, it was an exercise in raw political power. We cannot allow an out of control Supreme Court working in conjunction with extremist elements of the Republican Party to take away freedoms and our personal autonomy. The challenge is, go out and vote. Well, for God`s sake, there`s an election November, vote, vote vote, vote.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RUHLE: Biden, however, was a whole lot more upbeat today when it comes to talk about the June jobs report. The economy added 372,000 jobs last month, while unemployment stayed at 3.6%. Wages climbed by just over 5% but inflation is still running at a four decade high.
Also tonight, the assassination of Japan`s former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has sent shockwaves through Japan and around the world. The nation`s longest serving Prime Minister was shot and killed while he was giving a speech at a political event.
[23:05:00]
This afternoon President Biden visited the Japanese embassy in D.C. to pay his respects.
With that, let`s get smarter with the help of our leadoff panel tonight. Peter Baker joins us, Chief White House Correspondent for The New York Times. Barb McQuade is here, a veteran federal prosecutor and former US Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan. She worked with the DOJ during the Biden transition. And as a professor at the University of Michigan School of Law. And Maria Teresa Kumar is here. President and CEO of Voto Latino, also an MSNBC Contributor.
Madam McQuade let`s start with you. Cipollone, he was with the committee for what was essentially an entire workday almost eight hours. How nervous should Trump be? That`s a long time.
BARBARA MCQUADE, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY: It is a long time, Stephanie. And as we heard he did not assert privileges. And that`s probably in part because they had agreed beforehand in the negotiation about the four areas he was going to talk about, meetings with members of Congress, meetings with John Eastman, meetings with DOJ in what he referred to as the Murder Suicide Pact, and the events of January 6 itself. And so for eight hours, they talked about those four things. That suggests to me that they got a lot of detail, we heard people say that he was helpful, that he was careful, and that we would see some video next week. So it sounds to me like he did provide a great deal of information that has got to be helpful to the committee.
RUHLE: Helpful. But I know earlier you said this man is no hero, explain.
MCQUADE: Well, you know, would have been nice to hear some of this back when Trump was on trial for impeachment. If he had information, he was very sanctimonious in defending Donald Trump. He was his chief defender at that impeachment. And in fact, he had the audacity to talk about how important it was to respect the sanctity of elections, because the people who elected him president. Let the people decide who they want to have President, don`t undermine that choice by impeaching and convicting the president. And then yet he knew he had stood silently by in the face of this attack on the election just a few weeks earlier. So would have been nice to hear some of this back then, as opposed to waiting until now.
RUHLE: Peter Baker, almost eight hours, and he didn`t take the fifth. That is a lot of meat in those meetings and Cipollone talk, and I mean, eight hours, given that there`s got to be a lot more threads to pull, do you really think these hearings are going to wrap up next week?
PETER BAKER, THE NEW YORK TIMES CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, it`s a great question, they`ve already indicated that that may not be the case. One thing we`ve seen is, you know, continuing in a flow of new information and new people coming in to talk or offer more information than they had previously, that could extend obviously the hearings later into the summer.
You know, it`s — they`ve done an incredible amount of resources committee 1000, interviews on 140,000, documents and piece of paper. I mean, that`s a lot of information. We`ve only seen the tip of the iceberg in the hearings we`ve seen so far, they`re obviously trying to be very judicious in what they edit into show us. That`s obviously a complaint by the part — on the part of the Trump side saying it`s too selective, we`re not getting the full story. But in any case, they are, you know, choosing what to show the public in order to tell a story without getting lost in the details. So I think that, you know, they may go beyond this week, but they`re trying not to flood the zone with a lot of extraneous detail to try to shock the public, I think by providing the best of the information they`ve come up with. Pat Cipollone, obviously was in the room for some of the most key and critical moments.
RUHLE: Maria, we`re four months out from the midterms, can you give us a sense of how aware voters are about the hearings? And are they taking them into consideration, and I do not mean, hardcore Democrats will — who were already planning to vote, let`s go beyond?
MARIA TERESA KUMAR, VOTO LATINO PRESIDENT & CEO: So the fact that you — what we do know is that when the opening of the hearings, we had over almost 25 million Americans tuning in, and the way they have constructed these hearings, is so that they are chippable. So you`re not having to watch them live, but you can take them piece by piece and become highly shareable. That is where we should, you know, one of the reasons that I think that this has become so sensational is that it has an afterlife after the beginning of the hearings.
And let`s be honest, a lot of the folks that are right now testify, they are individuals that are basically peeling back the layers of the onion, and it`s becoming more of a movie, and people want to fill in and understand what`s happening. Cassidy has just said last week, she was a phenomenal witness because she was someone that was considered an assistant, someone that was a fly on the wall. Someone had that had real meat on the bones of what is happening. One of the reasons why Cipollone felt that he was compelled to come and testify. And I think that we`re going to see more of that. And I do think that voters are paying attention. It`s also one of the reasons why I believe that these hearings are going to surpass more than just next week because they want the public engaged.
[23:10:10]
We`re going to be getting into August and August, everybody goes on vacation. So they want to figure out how do we continue having these threads so that the midterms, when everybody`s paying attention to politics, right after Labor Day weekend. There`s still something to be talking about when it comes to the January 6 hearings. And I do believe that one of the things that we`re hearing, we`re starting to hear from the Vice President`s office and we`re starting to hear from the President himself is that it`s not just about the issues coming into the 2022 midterm elections. It`s about democracy. Do you want to fight for democracy at the ballot box?
RUHLE: Does it sound like the voters that you talk to are more than engaged though, right? People could be interested in it like it`s a movie but is it affecting people in a way that maybe they`re going to vote when they weren`t motivated before? Maria?
KUMAR: I don`t think it`s going to motivate them to vote, but I think it`s making them — hello, can you hear me? I don`t know if it`s going to make them vote. I think what it`s going to make them do, Stephanie, is engage. I think a lot of times what we`re seeing from the Republican side is that they want to have the conversation for the midterms to be around to play inflation, around gas prices. We`re seeing gas prices go down, we`re seeing a job security increase. And so now the Democrats have an opportunity to say, look, what is on the ballot box is not just a gallon of gas, what`s on the ballot box come November is going to be very much a little democracy, we saw for a president who did an attempted coup. We are seeing now the issues, for example, in Wisconsin, where they`re trying to take away the ability for voters to vote as easily as possible, whether it`s taking away ballot boxes or increasing measures to prevent a valid and fair free election. And so I believe that you`re going to see a lot of Democrats pivot and explain that to the American people. And as a result, you`re going to see people paying much more attention again, not just what about inflation, but recognizing that democracy is absolutely on the ballot in November.
RUHLE: I want to talk about inflation and the jobs before we do though, Barb, talk to us about Trump potentially considering waiving executive privilege over Steve Bannon, right? On its surface, people are saying, holy cow, we could hear from Steve Bannon, what does this mean? But Steve Bannon is Trump`s closest homeboy, listen to his radio show, listen to him on any media platform that he goes on. He is still deeply tied to Donald Trump. Trump would love for him to speak.
MCQUADE: Yeah, this is not about any, you know, quest for the truth. This is a last ditch effort to provide a defense for Steve Bannon, I think so. You know, he has long claimed that the reason he couldn`t cooperate with the committee and testify is because the privilege — the executive privilege was not his to waive, it belonged to President Trump.
In fact, we all know, and courts have decided that the privilege belongs to the sitting president that is Joe Biden, who has waived it, it does not belong to Donald Trump. But as long as they can keep this fiction alive, Steve Bannon can say, well, I thought I couldn`t testify. And not until July, did Donald Trump ever waive it? And so now, I realized I have to go testify, so I`m ready to go. It is a last ditch effort for defense in his criminal case. And if he ever does testify before the January 6 committee, I think all you can expect is disruption, falsehoods. All kinds of things to just destroy the effort that they have underway there.
RUHLE: Peter, let`s talk the economy because today`s jobs report that very strong jobs report, private sector jobs now at pre-pandemic levels shows that we are not in a disastrous economy like Republicans would like you to believe, we`re in a complicated one. Because the jobs market is so strong. Employers are paying people more. People have the ability to quit because they know they can find another job. The economy is running very hot and that is a good thing. Because it`s running so hot, that`s why prices keep going up and up. So inflation is a complication. Can the Biden White House start to explain this in a way that it connects with people because until now, when you`re looking at prices, whether it`s at the gas pump, where I want to remind our audience prices are going down or at the — or at the grocery store, people are furious and upset about inflation, not realizing it`s part of the economic recovery.
BAKER: Yeah, look at the President went to Cleveland this week to talk about the economy. You`re going to hear him talk about some more. He`s going to the Middle East next week, Saudi Arabia in order to basically push for more oil on the market, even though they`re trying to downplay that. And it is a central theme for the president these days. But it is hard to communicate that, you know, it is — people have jobs, if you want a job, you can get a job these days, for the most part that unemployment of 3.6% that the wage growth went up about 5.1%, if I remember correctly over the last year according to this report, but it`s hard to compete with what you see when you`re at the pump which is still very high even though it`s starting to come down a little bit and still very high in the grocery store. It`s hard to compete with that very tangible pocketbook impact that people are seeing.
[23:15:11]
And the question is whether or not anything can change between now and November. You know, there is some hope on the part of the administration that more oil will be put in the market by the OPEC plus nations in the next month or so, might begin to pull down price of oil even further, price of gas even further. But inflation is stubborn. And the question about this report today is does that encourage the Fed to ratchet up interest rates even more in order to try to rein it back. And that`s the — that`s this the downside of an otherwise positive jobs report.
RUHLE: And most likely, the Fed will raise interest rates, which is the idea so they can curb inflation. And because the job market is doing so well, they`ve got the flex to do that. Unfortunately, for Democrats, the midterms are four months away. And when the Fed raises rates, it does induce short term pain.
I want to move on to abortion. Maria, what do you think about the President`s executive order? Is this just a first step? Or are we going to see more?
KUMAR: I think, first of all, the fact that the President use the pen to communicate his message of where he stood on abortion is a very big deal. It is communicating to the public. One of the challenges that this administration has had to particular, Stephanie, is that they are doing very big things, whether we`re talking about gun reform, or whether we`re talking about infrastructure, but it`s not getting into the crowd of the American people. They don`t reveal the recovery. And they don`t give the Biden administration, any sense that they should take credit for it.
My hope, and this is what we`ve been talking about for a long time here in Washington, is that individuals use this opportunity within the administration to encourage him to use the power of the executive order even more, not just on abortion, but to look at it as on climate change, to have the conversation for perhaps on immigration on student loans. Because at minimum, again, it gives him the opportunity to speak to the media, to the American people directly about what his priorities are, because we have to recognize that there are two members of his own party in the Senate that are not — that are preventing him from passing a lot of his key mark legislations. At least this way he can communicate what his priorities are, and make it the problem with the court. Who did that so well? Trump. When Trump was present, he signed executive orders all the time, the majority of them never made it into fruition. But it stuck in the psyche of his public and of the people that he wanted to mobilize as if he was doing something.
RUHLE: Those famous sharpies and if the President does want to take a look at immigration is just one of the top things to consider when you think about the labor shortage, we`re facing immigration reform could impact that.
Peter, before we go, I`ve got to ask you about the assassination of former Japanese PM, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. What do we know about his legacy and his relationship with the U.S.?
BAKER: Yeah, Shinzo Abe was a was a critical transformational figure almost in Japan, he served eight years in two different occasions. His father was a foreign minister, his grandfather was a prime minister. He`s a big figure in Japan, he was the longest serving Prime Minister in Japanese history. And he really began to move Japan away from something of the post-World War II passive, pacifist, you know, status that it had in the Pacific. He made Japan more of a player, a little bit more militant, as far as some of those critics were concerned as he tried to make it more of a nationalist force. But he was well respected by a lot of people in the region as an important figure. He was — he managed to keep close with President Trump where most other world leaders were not able to do it.
And I think his assassination is a very frightening moment, not just for Japan, which obviously has very little gun violence, so to see that as shocking, I think it`s a frightening thing for leaders across the world because history shows that assassinations and political violence tend to have a contagious kind of quality to it. So I think you`re seeing a lot of nervousness now in Washington and capitals around the world.
RUHLE: All right. Peter Baker, Barbara McQuade, Maria Teresa Kumar, thank you so much. We covered a lot on this Friday evening.
Coming up next, the world`s richest man says he`s backing out of his deal to buy Twitter, but it`s not really that easy. Isn`t like canceling a dinner reservation. David Gura is here to explain.
And later, what the end of Roe means for our already strained foster care system? We`ll talk to someone who knows the problems foster parents already face and what might be next. THE 11TH HOUR just getting underway on this Friday night.
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[23:24:21]
RUHLE: He says he has terminated the deal, Elon Musk now backing out of his $44 billion agreement to purchase Twitter. In a filing today he said the platform was in breach of multiple provisions of its sale agreement, including his request to share information about fake accounts. Here`s what the company`s board chair had to say about that. “The Twitter board is committed to closing the transaction on the price and the terms agreed upon with Mr. Musk and plans to pursue legal action to enforce the merger agreement.”
So let`s discuss and bring in our dear friend David Gura, Business Correspondent for NPR. David, Elon Musk win his right to due diligence, he said let`s just get this sucker done, does he have a case now saying I don`t have all the information you deceived me?
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DAVID GURA, NPR BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: So experts say he has a very difficult case to make. And we know that baked into this deal is a $1 billion penalty if either side were to walk away from the deal as was constructed, but safe to say, many 1000s of dollars per hour of legal work have gone into constructing this agreement. They`re really written carefully. And Twitter seems to be pretty confident that they have a case here to make that he can`t just walk away from this deal.
And going back to what Elon Musk has been sort of agitated about or riled up about, are the existence of bots and spam accounts and fake accounts on Twitter. Well, experts will say this is something that Twitter has been frank about, has talked openly about for many years now. It`s part of the sort of quarterly earnings reports that they give, sort of what accounts are fake and what a real. So he`s been on the lookout for new information here. And it`s unclear if he`s found anything new.
Now, Twitter has cooperated with Elon Musk over the last couple of months since this deal was announced. They gave him access to what`s known as the firehose, which is just this incredible mass of data, 500 million tweets per day of real time data that he can go through to look for what`s real and what`s not. It`s unclear how he and his team have done that, Stephanie, but the argument that he`s making is a difficult one, he`s going to make the argument presumably in court in Delaware. And experts say that there`s only been one incident in history where someone has made the kind of argument that he`s made, that there`s been this kind of material admission, omission and won that case. So it seems like a very difficult hill for Elon Musk to climb.
RUHLE: But here`s what he can do, slowly this, be antagonistic in court, and they`ve got a public company to run, how difficult to place is Twitter in here. Elon can tie them up for ages.
GURA: Yeah, he is a very wealthy man, the wealthiest man as a matter of fact, on Earth. So he has resources to do this. And this has been a concern from early on since he began taking a stake in Twitter and announced this deal. What are his intentions, actually, and so yes, this could play out in a protracted way in court in Delaware over a very long period of time. And the question is, where does that leave Twitter at the end of all of this? And we`ve seen the stock price, of course, suffered tremendously since Elon Musk took his first stake. It`s down more than 20% now. People have pointed out, this is really what Twitter has going for right now, is this takeover deal from Elon Musk?
So the company itself, Steph, is just not in great shape right now. We`ve seen a hiring freeze, put in place by the CEO. There`s been reports of very low morale within the company as well. So it very well could be worse than a shell of a company has all of this plays out. And again, this could take many months for that process to play out in its entirety.
RUHLE: OK, how about where`s the SEC on all of this? What Elon Musk has done at best is unorthodox at worse, there could be SEC violations all over the damn place?
GURA: So I did a lot of reporting on this because it really presents kind of an interesting case study in the SEC`s efficacy right now. The SEC of course has been around since after the Great Depression. It`s designed to patrol and make safe the markets and go after big figures like Elon Musk, but he has accumulated so much wealth, there`s just this yawning disparity, Steph, between what kind of fines the SEC could levy against someone like Elon Musk, that would make a difference. Is a fine of $100,000, for instance, on filing the late form, really going to do anything to change Elon Musk`s behavior. And consensus, it isn`t. So we know that the SEC has taken an interest in what`s happening here. It`s like less than a parking ticket. It`s pocket lint. It`s worse than that.
So we know the SEC is interested. We`ve seen another filing the SEC asking questions about Elon Musk`s approach from the beginning here. It`s unclear what they might do or what they will do about this. But it certainly opens him up to scrutiny. And I should say, he`s someone who`s expressed outright and open disdain for the regulator for long time. Of course, he got into hot water with them when he announced on Twitter a few years back that he`d secured funding to take Tesla private, turns out that funding hadn`t been secured by Elon Musk to do that. So he paid a fine of $20 million. He`s settled with the SEC on that front. And in recent months, he`s gone to court to try to get that settlement thrown out. A judge said that couldn`t happen.
So there`s a history here, there`s an outright dismissiveness of the regulator that`s, you know, that presents another problem as well. When you have somebody of the means that Elon Musk has just sort of flouting the law, flouting norms, floundering flouting through the role of regulators, what does that say for how we`re protected as investors as consumers, and how people of his wealth, of his means are regarded in this economy?
RUHLE: And quickly before we go, you mentioned morale at Twitter is very low, what happened to all those executives who when Elon Musk announced his intention to buy the company, they had fits, they quit, they were never coming back. They quit. They`re not with the company and now he`s not taking it over. What`s going to happen to them?
GURA: I mean, they`re out of luck, and I think so many people here have been put in a really bad position. I want to say one last thing before I go, as this is playing out yes and legal filings being sent back and forth but it`s also playing out in a very strange way at this high level conference that`s taking place in rural Idaho right now. Allen company that`s kind of secretive investment bank invites all of these billionaire moguls to what`s known as Summer Camp for Billionaires.
[23:30:16]
Elon Musk is there along with a lot of Twitter executives who still have their jobs, including the CEO. There`s been a lot of talk about just how awkward that might be. I spoke with a source earlier today who said he`s seen both executives not interacting with one another but they`re both on the grounds of this resort is about 300 people in total.
Elon Musk is supposed to speak tomorrow to this audience, Sam Altman of a venture capitalist is going to be interviewing him on stage. And so we may learn at that moment, Steph, just sort of a bit — get a better sense of what Elon Musk`s intentions were here. We started out talking, you and I just about sort of what they might have been and what he might look condition, he might leave this company and I think the hope is, those who are there at this closed door conference, we`ll see if anyone talks afterward. Learn anything new from Elon Musk about what he`s thinking and what how he hopes to proceed here now that this filing has been made.
RUHLE: Yeah, everyone else at that conference is thinking what the hell? How is this guy allowed to behave the way he does publicly on Twitter all day, every day when everyone else there knows if they ever did that, they would be in serious hot water. David Gura, thank you so much, I really appreciate you joining us tonight.
GURA: (Inaudible), absolutely.
RUHLE: Always great, flattering norms is understatement.
Coming up, with Roe overturned, America is already overwhelmed when it comes to our foster care system, now is going to brace for a whole lot worse. Our next guest is going to share her experience, when THE 11TH HOUR continues.
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[23:36:18]
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BIDEN: Now, the most extreme Republican governors and state legislatures have taken the court`s decision as a green light to impose some of the harshest and most restrictive laws seen in this country in a long time. These laws not only put women`s lives at risk, these laws will cost lives.
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RUHLE: The executive order signed by President Biden this afternoon protects access to medication abortions, and emergency contraception as well as patient privacy. It also offers legal options for both patients and providers. Those safeguards are hugely important, but they`re still not going to reach everyone dealing with an unplanned pregnancy or complication. As author Sarah Sentilles warns, the already strained and broken foster care system is about to get even more overwhelmed.
Here to share her experience with the system, Sarah Sentilles. It is the subject of her new book, Stranger Care: A Memoir of Loving What Isn`t Ours.
Sarah, people are thinking abortion, that Roe versus Wade, but they`re not necessarily thinking about the knock on effects of these bans. Can you explain how it`s going to affect the foster care system?
SARAH SENTILLES, “STRANGER CARE” AUTHOR: Well, I think there is a lot of talk about this idea that somehow ending abortion is going to increase the number of children who are placed for adoption. But that`s not what`s going to happen. Women who are — and people who were forced to carry their pregnancies to term, most of those people are going to choose to parent. What is going to increase is the number of children in foster care.
I think I`m a licensed foster parent, and in my training, I was told that the child welfare system prioritizes children, and I know that there`s a ton of amazing and skilled social workers across the country that work hard to try to support kids and families. But in my experience, trying to care for a child in foster care and her mother who was trapped in that system as well, that rhetoric isn`t true. We`re not a country that prioritizes families and children. And all you need to do is look at the foster care system to see that that`s the case.
RUHLE: All right. Well, here`s the thing though, every state`s foster care system is different. And now every state`s abortion laws are different. How worried are you that this broken system is really going to get worse because of this?
SENTILLES: I am really worried I`m most worried about the fact that this is really going to affect kids and families, I`m afraid that the end of accessing — of access to abortion is going to swell the already overburdened foster care system.
On any given day in the United States, there`s over 500,000 or nearly 500,000 children in foster care. One and three children will interact with Child Protective Services before they turn 18. And so without access to the pro-child, pro-family social services, then I just think that our country is going to face even more children coming into care.
RUHLE: Here`s what`s on my mind, many of these states that are banning abortions already have very minimum social safety nets. What kind of support system should these states provide if they`re going to force people to give birth?
SENTILLES: Well, it`s really interesting because ending abortion is framed as if it`s pro child. But despite the way he`s talked about, it`s not like forcing someone to carry a pregnancy to term is not at all pro-child and it`s not pro-family. What is pro-child and pro-family is to create policies that keep children safe. And you can think there`s this long list of policies like universal access to universal health care, preschool, childcare, living wage, affordable housing, DACA, good treatment of asylum seekers, mental health services, I could go on and on and on. And the reason I could go on is because we don`t really care about kids in our country. If we cared about children our towns, our cities, our communities, our policies would look very different.
[23:40:06]
RUHLE: You`ve written a lot about racial disparities in the foster care system, will the end of Roe make that worse?
SENTILLES: I think so. I think, you know, in the same way that ending Roe is going to have a disproportionate effect on poor people and on communities of color, the foster care system also has disparities and outcome. There`s no evidence at all that, for example, black families abused their children any more than white families. But black children are more likely to come into foster care, more likely to be forced to stay and to fall in foster care, and more likely to be abused while they`re in foster care than other children. So I`m really concerned about the increase in children entering foster care is also going to increase the racism that happens there and the disproportionality that happens to children there as well.
RUHLE: Sarah, you sounding the alarm is hugely important. People don`t necessarily realize all the complications associated with a move like this. Sarah Sentilles thank you for your work. Thank you for your book. We look forward to reading it.
Coming up next, it was a short workweek, but it was long on anger and anxiety. Historian Jon Meacham is here to help put it all in context, and maybe even give us a little bit of hope, when THE 11TH HOUR continues.
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[23:46:07]
RUHLE: Seven more American families began burying their loved ones this week after a gunman opened fire on a fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Illinois. Their grief is yet another tragic reminder of a particularly dark time for us in the U.S. Since June, the Gun Violence Archive has counted 90 mass shootings with 25 in just the first week of July, then Monday`s tragedy only added to growing feelings of anger and hopelessness and of course division within our country.
That`s why we wanted to end this week with our friend historian Jon Meacham, his new book, “And Then There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle” will be published in October. He is also informally advising President Joe Biden.
Jon 90 mass shootings just since June, at least 220 killed just over the Fourth of July weekend. Is America even equipped to process this kind of grief or even worse, have we grown numb to it?
JON MEACHAM, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: I do worry about the numbness. I think it was Stalin who said that a single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic that we can lose perspective, when these numbers which are mind boggling come at us again and again and again. And that puts a particular burden on us to remain alive to the issue and not become numb.
It`s an unfolding American tragedy. And it is largely an American tragedy. And it`s something that if we can save one life, if we can stop one mass shooting with a piece of legislation, if either in the federal level or in the States, it is worth it. Because, you know, to save one, what if it`s your kid? What if it`s your spouse? What if it`s your friend? And I don`t think — I think that many times we let the perfect be the enemy of the good. And I do hope that there is a, like civil rights, like so many social movements in the country.
Progress is very, very slow. And I think the reason for that is that this is a human undertaking. I know you`re a better person than I am. But I know that if I do the right thing, 51% of the time, that`s a heck of a good day. And I don`t have all that many of those. And the country`s not unlike that, because of democracy is the fullest manifestation of all of us, of our appetites and our ambition, but also our moments of grace and kindness. And we have to do all we can to make the grace and kindness prevail, just often enough to make the struggle worthwhile.
RUHLE: You know, I believe that wholeheartedly. Jon, one of the reasons that we`ve grown so numb, is losing faith in institutions. At this point, public faith in our institutions has had historic lows. Can we even begin to rebuild that trust, is it possible?
MEACHAM: It is possible. It`s going to be incredibly difficult. This is an hour for active, engaged citizenship. I was thinking just the other day, you know, when I was born, folks a little bit older than me and a little bit younger than me. We were born were the story of the triumph of the American system in the 1930s. The triumph of the democracies over fascism in the 40s, the prosperity of the 50s, the civil rights movement, the push for voting rights, these were stories where our institutions, our public life, did in fact prove commensurate with our highest hopes.
[23:50:03]
The lived experience of my children who were all born after the turn of the century is very, very different. It begins with September 11, the war in Iraq, which is based on false intelligence, the economic crisis of 2008, the long war in Afghanistan, and centrally the election of Donald Trump, and the very dark and unfolding implications from that January 6, you know, for a lot of young people, public Life is a series of these kinds of Hobbesian dark moments. And so it puts a particular pressure, I think, on telling the story of a country that can work.
And we need to be very careful. I want to be clear, there was never a once upon a time in American history, and there`s never going to be a happily ever after, right? You are disenfranchised until 1920. That`s when the 19th Amendment enfranchised women in the country. The durability of slavery, the durability of segregation, the unfolding issues of equity are all questions that are not somehow there`s not somehow this moment, if we could go back to that all would be well.
But I do know this, that if people are honest, if people are honest about a moment, they would like to go back to it would be a moment where we expanded the possibilities of the country, as opposed to constrict them. There`s a great story about Lyndon Johnson after the Bloody Sunday, he calls George Wallace up to the Oval Office. And he sits him on the couch and Wallace sinks down and Johnson looms over him. And he says, George, what do you want people to say when you`re gone? Do you want him to say George Wallace he hated or George Wallace he built? And I think we all have to ask ourselves that question every day. Do we want to be seen as people who closed off — who closed ourselves off from modernity, who withdrew from public life or do we want to be people who built bridges instead of walls?
RUHLE: I think we want to be bridge builders. Before we go, I do want to ask you about Boris Johnson`s departure. Can you make any comparisons to Donald Trump and where we are with the GOP right now?
MEACHAM: Well, it transatlantic comparisons are tricky. But it does say that Johnson`s fold does say that history catches up with you. The public appetite for scandal, and isolationism, bombastic behavior can wear out. I`ve been wrong about Trump for years now. I thought it would fade more quickly. Joe McCarthy lasted for years. You know, the Wallace campaigns, that moment did not reach the presidency itself.
But I do think at some level Johnson`s fall suggests that anger is perennial, but it`s hard to sustain. And in the end, people do want their countries to work. They want their countries to work for them. And I do think that if we work hard enough, that in fact, we can make ourselves look back on this moment. And see it is a time where we built as opposed to hated.
RUHLE: Jon, whenever you come even if we are talking about the darkest of times, you always give us hope, it is so good to see you. Thank you for joining us tonight.
MEACHAM: Thanks Steph.
RUHLE: Jon Meacham.
Coming up next, it may be one of the last places you`d expect to see one of the world`s most popular sea creatures. You`re going to need to stick around for this, when THE 11TH HOUR continues.
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RUHLE: No one you see is smarter than he. The last thing before we go tonight, dolphins take Manhattan. We love dolphins. We spent hours on dolphin watching cruises. People pay big money to swim with dolphins. We named National football teams after them. And yes, we watch TV shows about them. So imagine the excitement now that more of our bottlenose friends are being spotted in the Hudson River of all places.
The Wall Street Journal noted the occasion with this headline, “Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Pods of Dolphins — New York Welcomes New Immigrants.” According to the journal people did not believe their eyes at first. Anthony Obas was hanging out with a buddy on the lower Manhattan waterfront when he spotted a pair of fins cutting through New York`s East River. His first thought, are those sharks? His second thought, is that the marijuana he had just smoked? Well, he may have been high, but those in fact, were dolphins. He was right to be surprised given the Hudson rivers long standing reputation as one of the dirtiest rivers around. We didn`t see many dolphins, but thanks to decades of conservation efforts, the river is cleaning up its act and doing a whole lot better. And these marine life appearances are a very good sign.
In fact, in New York City Department of Environmental Protection spokesperson tells the journal the Hudson is now cleaner than at any time since the Civil War. So if you happen to be in New York this weekend head down to the river bank and keep your eye out for dolphins. They will be waiting for you. Isn`t that awesome? Very awesome. See, there we go. Little dolphin action.
On that very good, very enjoyable night, I want to wish you a very good night and a very good weekend. From all of our colleagues across the networks of NBC News, thanks for staying up late with us. I will see you next week.