Updated
Summary
Russian forces bombed the capital city of Kyiv in Ukraine while U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was there for talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Ilya Yablokov joined Hayes to talk about Russia`s propaganda machine and the second phase of the war in Ukraine. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene still doesn`t recall she advocated for martial law to stop the peaceful transfer of power before the inauguration of Mr. Biden. Today, President Joe Biden said he is considering some form of large-scale student debt forgiveness, a promised he campaigned on. Moderna is asking the FDA to authorize its Coronavirus vaccine for all children under 6 years old.
Transcript
JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: People should pay attention to this because this is what the old Soviet Union did. This is what Communist China does. This is what they do in Cuba. This is not what we`re supposed to be doing in America. Libraries are great. They`re the greatest place on earth. And we should have — they should be open and free to our children. And what they`re doing, that`s grooming. That`s what I call grooming.
State Representative John Ray Clemmons and Sharon Kay Edwards, thank you. That is the REIDOUT for tonight. “ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES” starts now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST: Tonight on ALL IN.
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The cost of this fight is not cheap. But caving to aggression is going to be more costly if we allow it.
HAYES: The White House announces massive new aid as bombs fall in Kyiv during a visit from the U.N. Secretary-General. Tonight, the ominous signals from Russia as we approach a dangerous crossroads in Ukraine. Then —
REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR-GREENE (R-GA): I don`t recall ever advocating for martial law. I think — I don`t know if you have that up on the screen right now because I can`t see it.
HAYES: What we know about the other members of Congress allegedly implicated by Marjorie Taylor-Greene as a January 6 Committee seeks interviews with more Republican members.
And Mitt Romney enters the debate over student loan forgiveness with bribery allegations.
SEN. MITT ROMNEY (R-UT): If you`re looking for free stuff you don`t want to pay for, vote for the other guy.
HAYES: I`ll explain why Mitt`s outrageous attack is actually a good development when ALL IN starts right now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Good evening from New York. I`m Chris Hayes. It`s hard to think of a more insanely flagrant violation of the basic international order than bombing a city while the U.N. Secretary-General is there on a peacemaking mission. Well, that`s exactly what happened today.
Russian forces apparently bombed the capital city of Kyiv in Ukraine while U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was there for talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Ukraine`s foreign minister is condemning it as a heinous act of barbarism.
It`s quite a provocative act of violence as this war enters its new phase. Because, well, remember, it was not supposed to be like this. And not just according to me, according to Putin. Russian President Vladimir Putin was very clear from the beginning, this was not going to be a war.
Back in February, he gave a long speech where he called it “a special military operation,” with the made-up justification of liberating Russian loyalists in the country`s east and de-Nazifying the country. In fact, Russia even made it illegal for the press in that country to call it a war or an invasion, which in turn caused the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta to move operations to Latvia, after it received multiple warnings from government officials over its accurate coverage of the war as a war. The final straw came after the state banned the publication of an interview that Russian journalist conducted with President Zelenskyy.
Now all of this was done on purpose even though it seems almost bizarre and paranoid. Like, if you`re waging a war, people are going to know about it, right? Because here`s the thing, Putin chose his language very carefully. Even though he`s obviously an authoritarian leader without any real political opposition, the fact is, public opinion still does matter. And war, total war and mobilization for it are costly endeavors. They often require extremely difficult unpleasant sacrifices from people.
The Putin wanted to have it both ways, right? That was the plan here. He wanted a quick, strategic blitzkrieg to take out Zelenskyy, to encircle Kyiv and install a more favorable government, and then Russian troops could return home triumphant with some sort of puppet regime next door and without much change in the day to day life of the Russian people. All of nice and tidy special military operation.
Obviously, that didn`t happen. In fact, you know that Putin even promised that Russia would not conscript troops to be deployed into the conflict. And then, the Defense Minister actually had to come out and admit that wasn`t true that conscripts were taking part in the invasion and some had been captured as prisoners of war.
Now, Russia`s special military operation as again, a quick in and out operation that doesn`t require conscripts, that requires no sacrifice, that failed entirely. That`s clear. They took unbelievable losses. According to one recent estimate from the U.K. Defense Secretary, Russia has lost 15,000 soldiers so far. That is equivalent to the total Russian losses during its 10-year losing war in Afghanistan.
And as we said before on the show, you can`t spin away the death of your son when his body comes back from the war. To say nothing to the fact that Russia is now largely isolated on the world stage as a result of the invasion, crushing sanctions, leaving civilians unable to access basic financial services.
It doesn`t matter if you call it a war or special military operation if you know you can no longer use your Visa or MasterCard to ride the metro. And there`s no end in sight. Right now, the conflict is escalating, not winding down. Ukraine is using the immense weapons to support its receiving from the U.S. and E.U. to fend off a Russian assault on the eastern part of the country.
[20:05:09]
And so, Russia and Putin basically faces a fork in the road, de-escalation or doubling down. Does Vladimir Putin try to find a way out of this? Does he use his current control of territory in the East stretching up from Crimea, which of course, he sees in 2014, all the way up almost to Kharkiv to negotiate some kind of settlement where Ukraine seeds the Donbas to the Russians or declares it some quasi-independent federated region, something like that. Or does Putin decide that he has done as much as he can with this special operation framing, but now needs to start preparing for total war? There are some really troubling signs that it may be the latter.
As the Center for European Policy Analysis reports, “Russia`s military believes that limiting the wars initial goals is a serious error. They now argue that Russia is not fighting Ukraine but NATO. If true, this is a serious escalation. Putin would need to get the Russian people on board. And to that end, many observers of Russian media have been noting over the past two weeks or so, very ominous signs precisely along those lines.”
As one expert from the RAND Corporation notes, “Russian television has been flooded with statements urging escalation as part of an existential struggle. Russian state media which is under strict control, of course, is selling line that NATO and the West are instigating World War III and that Russia needs a massive war effort in response.” Take a listen to one commentator on Russian state TV accusing Western allies of causing a large war on Tuesday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (text): Russia remains and will remain open to the world and is fundamentally brining three things to the world order. The first is honesty, the second is peace, and the third is safety. All of these colleagues are trying to create a large war. They, in actuality, have already started it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: You can also see this kind of grim fatalism. And I want to play this alarming bit of sound from one of Putin`s top propagandists. This aired on a very popular Russian political program on Tuesday night.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARGARITA SIMONYAN, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF OF RT (text): You know, I recently took part in a conversation, and one of the experts said that there are two paths, either we lose in Ukraine, and give everything up, or World War III starts. And I asked him, what path do you think is more realistic? Personally, I think the more realistic path is of World War III. Because knowing us, knowing our leader, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, knowing how everything is set up here, this is impossible. There is no chance that we will cross our arms and say, oh, it didn`t work out. We thought we would defend Donbas, bring order, demilitarize and denazify, but something went wrong. It didn`t work out, so sorry, we`ll go back. This just cannot happen. The most unbelievable thing, that this will all finish with a nuclear strike, appears to me to be more and more likely than any other path that events will develop along. This is to my horror, on the other hand. On the other hand, this is the understand that this is what it is.
VLADIMIR SOLOVYOV, RUSSIAN TELEVISION PRESENTER (text): But we will go to heaven.
SIMONYAN (text): Yes.
SOLOVYOV (text): And they will just crook.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: This is what it is. It`s all racing towards nuclear Armageddon. This being the possibility of nuclear Armageddon, because Putin will not, cannot, we Russians cannot accept defeat. I mean, she says it all very clearly, right? I mean, even in that state TV propaganda, there she is essentially admitting it didn`t work out, right?
And so the question becomes, what does this rhetoric from Russian media translate to on the ground? Is it just bluster or does it reflect how people are feeling on the ground? In the past, there was almost something reassuring, at least about a month ago, right, or two weeks ago, in at least the way the Russian military seemed willing to cut its losses. But increasingly, least according to state media, that appears less likely than once did.
So, when you hear things like that, we hear state media saying, well, we can`t quit now, what does the next phase of this world look like? What is Vladimir Putin willing to do? A big part of that depends on what the Russian public will ultimately abide.
I`m joined now by Ilya Yablokov a lecturer of Journalism and Digital Media at the University of Sheffield in England. He`s the author of Fortress Russia: Conspiracy Theories in the Post-Soviet World, recently wrote an opinion piece in The New York Times about the five conspiracy theories that Putin has weaponized.
As someone who is a close monitor of Russian media and the sort of discourse, I guess first question is what do you take away from the messages now being sent on Russian state media about this conflict?
ILYA YABLOKOV, JOURNALISM AND DIGITAL MEDIA LECTURER, UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD IN ENGLAND: Hey, Chris. I think it`s very important to know that it`s all like a game. It`s the game for the Kremlin, it`s the game for propaganda bullhorns to say that the nuclear war is coming to prepare the population for the worst.
But I have been studying these guys for many, many years. And I can say that I don`t think they are ready to die themselves. It`s all about saber- rattling. It`s all about corruption and cynicism. So, when they say these things, they certainly want to play the line of hardliners in the Kremlin that tried to push Vladimir Putin for the harsh measures even for using the tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
But at the same time, I believe its parts of this gamification of the war that was created in Russia thanks to the propaganda.
[20:10:47]
HAYES: Well, that — I mean, that`s sort of what I`ve been trying to parse here, right, because at a certain level, they almost sound — I mean, the Russian state TV like that, like, there`s something that`s somewhat familiar about it. I mean, we have our own versions of propaganda here. It doesn`t look like a North Korean news broadcast, right?
Like, it`s got these pundits and they`re giving — they`re giving their takes, and some of them are kind of spicy. And I can`t tell how much of this is the kind of demagoguery of just chest-beating, and we will never bow down, and how much of it is strategically aimed at driving– preparing a populace for something truly awful to come.
YABLOKOV: But think about that. So, there are people in Russia who consume this content, and who totally believe that. So, for them, whatever they say, it`s going to be truth, like absolute truth. They believe every word these guys say. So, at the same time, there is a spread of these memes, these videos online, and another dozen million believe that or at least hear that and think about the worst scenarios. The other part of the population is scared. And this is another message that the population should get that we are super crazy, and don`t — do not mess with us.
HAYES: Right.
YABLOKOV: Do not start a revolution. Do not start any outbreaks inside the country. But it`s also about you guys who consume this information from the outside and this is the message for you. You should be aware because we are crazy enough to do that.
HAYES: Right.
YABLOKOV: So, start a conversation with us. This is the message to the United States too.
HAYES: That`s very — that`s really interesting. And an interesting component of this because obviously they know that, you know, everyone is watching at this point. I`d like you to talk a little bit — you wrote — you wrote about the sort of conspiracy theories and the kind of lies, a sort of Russian nested dolls of lies that happen, including the — you know, Putin getting asked about a fake quote by Madeleine Albright was actually made up by Russian state media.
What — it`s striking to me that even in a place where Putin has as much control as he does, concern about public opinion does seem to be a little bit of a binding constraint and limiting factor. That there was a reason that this was not declared total war, there was a reason there was a story about a special military operation. Do you think there`s worry from the Kremlin Putin about expansion, whether the populace is prepared for that?
YABLOKOV: I think the main worry now is what to do with the wave of propaganda that being unleashed by — in the last two months, right, by the Kremlin, by the TV. It is very important, you correctly noted, that public opinion is one of the major elements of every authoritarian regime. So, Vladimir Putin was very careful playing with public opinion and was listening to the public opinion.
But also there is a kind of another side of this game. They also need to convince the people what is good and what is bad. So, at the moments, all these words about special military operation but not the war, nuclear war but that the special military operation, again, this is to try and to calm down the population. The population, kind of at least those who are super loyal to the Kremlin, let`s say 35, 40 percent. They must feel they`re still protected. They must feel that there is a certain perspective that is not so grim.
And this is — this is the message that the Kremlin sends. Everything is going to be fine. Everything is under control. Just to remind you a couple of days ago, even yesterday, Vladimir Putin made the statements in front of the MPs when he said four times that everything goes under control. That`s the message. You should — you shouldn`t really question whatever happens.
HAYES: But what`s interesting about what we played is that at least seems to tacitly acknowledged that it hasn`t gotten according to plan. I mean, when she says, you know, well, we thought we`re going to go on the Donbas and we`re going to denazify, and we`re going to liberate blah, blah, and that didn`t work out, there`s — at least at that level, there is some information getting and through at some level to the people Russia that like the quick operation that was going to denazify Ukraine and return triumphant, like that didn`t happen. That has to be, I imagine, understood at some level in Russia.
[20:15:13]
YABLOKOV: It is understood, but then what are you going to do with that?
HAYES: Right.
YABLOKOV: So, independent media closed. You need to make an effort and install VPN to get the access to the independent or kind of the other sides of this war. Then it`s not the majority of the population that wants to make that effort. And you`re also afraid. You are intimidated by the police and by the counterintelligence. That is extremely powerful these days. And it`s been supported by the Kremlin for many, many years.
So, what are you going to do? Like, you are under control and you`re under pressure. So, do you really want to question what is happening or you really want to just survive what is happening? So, for many decades, for the Soviets — for the Russian Empire, population was actually surviving. So, it is one of the skills.
HAYES: Ilya Yablokov, thank you so much for sharing your expertise tonight. I really appreciate it.
YABLOKOV: Thank you.
HAYES: Tonight, the January 6 Committee plans to call on Republican lawmakers to testify and sets a date for the first public hearings. And will Marjorie Taylor Greene spotty memory bolster the fight to keep her off the ballot this November? That`s next.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GREENE: Well, those are reportedly my text messages. I think if people read them for themselves, if those were my text message, they clearly say that I wasn`t calling for that, actually said that something I don`t know about.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:20:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you advocate the President Trump to impose martial law as a way to remain in power?
GREENE: I don`t recall.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, you`re not denying you did it, you just don`t remember?
GREENE: I don`t remember.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you aware of any other congressional — elected congressional representatives advocating for martial law to stop the peaceful transfer of power before the inauguration of Mr. Biden?
GREENE: I don`t remember.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: It`s been six days since Republican Congressman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia testified she cannot remember if she or her Republican caucus mates were advocating for martial law a few days before President Biden`s inauguration. For my part, I remember, I didn`t do that. But you know, we`ve all got different memories.
Now, it has been three days since we got the leak of thousands and thousands of text messages to Donald Trump`s chief of staff Mark Meadows that confirms she was well, doing exactly that. “In our private chat with only members, several are saying the only way to save our republic is for Trump to call for martial law.” Several members are saying and martial law spelled incorrectly.
That text has put the Republican Party in such a bad spot that even Fox News` Laura Ingraham who will ignore January 6 headlines at any cost felt she had to bring Greene on her show to clear it all up.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LAURA INGRAHAM, HOST, FOX NEWS: So, you didn`t advocate —
GREENE: Right now, there`s —
INGRAHAM: You never advocated martial law — that President Trump should use martial law to stop, you know, the transition of power. You never advocated for that, did you?
GREENE: I don`t recall ever advocating for martial law.
INGRAHAM: I thought it was kind of an unfair hit on you because you said several members were and then they use that to say you were. And I just wanted to give you the chance to tell us one way or another whether you thought that President Trump — and you know asking for martial law would be a good idea.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Laura, one host to another, I feel your pain there. You are working hard to make that segment work. But even with those softball questions teed up, like, work with me here, Greene never said whether she advocated for martial law, and also which other members of Congress she was talking about the text, which would of course be the natural question. Like, who was talking about it? She just said I don`t recall. I don`t recall.
That`s not the end of the issue though. Today, the chair of the January 6 Committee, Congressman Bennie Thompson of Mississippi announced the committee will request testimony from several Republican leaders including three House members who`ve already declined to participate.
Ron Fein is the legal director of Free Speech for the People, the co-lead counsel on the challenge to Marjorie Taylor Greene`s candidacy that led to her testimony last week. And he joins me now. Ron, good to have you on. And maybe you could just set the context for the lawsuit that led to that exchange on the stand about martial law before we get to the relevance of these texts. What is the lawsuit? Why is she on the stand there?
RON FEIN, LEGAL DIRECTOR, FREE SPEECH FOR THE PEOPLE: Thanks, Chris. There`s a provision of the United States Constitution that says that anyone who took an oath to support the Constitution, but then broke that oath and engaged in insurrection is ineligible to serve in public office.
And we at Free Speech for People, on behalf of a group of Georgia voters, filed a state candidacy challenge to Marjorie Taylor Greene`s candidacy for Congress. And that`s what brought us to that hearing where she was compelled to answer questions under oath.
HAYES: Now, there have been similar suits in different jurisdictions in North Carolina against Madison Cawthorn. That suit has essentially, I think, been thrown out. Basically, the judge said you don`t — you know, judges can`t block people under this provision of the Constitution. That`s not the case. In your suit in Georgia which is going forward.
What is the relevance of this text to your mind to what standard of proof you have to show for her to be barred from running for office?
[20:25:04]
FEIN: Well, first, Chris, I just want to clarify that the case in North Carolina against Madison Cawthorn is actually under appeal and we`re –we got that on fast track.
HAYES: Right, of course.
FEIN: So, that`s moving forward in that appeal. But in terms of the text message, we have actually gone back to the judge, even though the hearing is over, and move to supplement the record. And we pointed out two things. First of all, this just adds to her complete lack of credibility.
Throughout that hearing on Friday, she claimed not to remember anything that made her look the slightest bit guilty, although, of course, she had supposedly a perfect memory for what she thought would be helpful to her. But secondly, it also shows that the insurrection didn`t entirely end on the early morning hours of January 7. Rather, it continued at a low simmer perhaps right up until the moment of the inauguration.
HAYES: What do you think about the hedge they`re using that like, she says — you know, she said to someone after — you know, she`s been read the text, and now she says, well, I`m not going to confirm it. But if you remember what I said, I said, I don`t know about all that. They`re just talking about that. Does it make you curious about who was talking about it?
FEIN: Absolutely. And we did ask her in that hearing if she was aware of any other congressional representatives that were urging the President to declare martial law. And furthermore, she wasn`t just sharing this as an observation, like, I happened to notice this happening. She said, I want you to tell him. So, she was affirmatively passing on that suggestion to the Chief of Staff to the President of the United States.
HAYES: Would a member of Congress 11 days after a violent insurrection has taken place on Capitol Hill, after people have died, after a noose has been constructed on the Capitol lawn and people have chanted hang Mike Pence, after all that`s happened, members of Congress urging advocating the implementation of martial law so as to stop the peaceful transfer of power. To your mind, would that clear the bar for the constitutional provision that you`re suing under?
FEIN: Well, even if it didn`t, on its own, it certainly doesn`t in combination with everything else. Marjorie Taylor Greene had been advocating since well before then that there could not be a peaceful transfer of power. She had called for the execution of Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House. And the day before January 6, she gave a signal in essentially a code word to violent extremists that it was going to be 1776 all over again, meaning overthrowing tyrants with violence.
So, when you combine that with her call for a martial law after the insurrection was over, the case is very clear that she engaged in insurrection.
HAYES: I know in North Carolina, you mentioned where the judge said — issued a ruling saying, look, we can`t strike Cawthorn from the ballot, that you`re appealing that decision there. So, that`s on appeal there. What are the next steps in the — in the Georgia case?
FEIN: We`re going to be filing a post-trial brief on Friday, midday. And then the judge has some time to issue a decision. He said he`s going to issue it in about a week afterwards. Then after that, it goes to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger who can either approve it or reject it. And then after that, it can be challenged or appealed to the Georgia state court system.
HAYES: Oh, that`s interesting. It`s going to go through Raffensperger.
FEIN: That`s right. That`s part of the Georgia legal framework that it goes through the Secretary of State there.
HAYES: Well, that`ll be very, very interesting to watch Ron Fein, it`s a really interesting lawsuit. I think that provision of the 14th Amendment is a pretty important one. And it`s interesting in the year of 2022 to see it getting a workout. Thank you very much.
FEIN: Thank you.
HAYES: Still ahead, President Biden says a decision on student loan forgiveness could come in the next few weeks. What that would look like and the millionaire senator who thinks it`s a bad idea after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:30:00]
HAYES: After some truly crazy and dangerous years in politics, there`s something oddly comforting about a good old-fashioned policy debate. Today, President Joe Biden said he is considering some form of large-scale student debt forgiveness, a promised he campaigned on that many, many advocates have pressured him to keep. And a lot of Republicans are not happy about it.
Senator Mitt Romney of Utah slammed the idea calling it a bribe. He tweeted, “Desperate polls call for desperate measures. Dems consider forgiving trillions in student loans. Other bribe suggestions: forgive auto loans, forgive credit card debt, forgive mortgages, and put a wealth tax on the super-rich to pay for it all. What could possibly go wrong?”
Romney started trending after posting that with many people pointing out he may not be the best messenger on the issue considering the quite privileged life he`s led. For example, Romney`s five sons, of course certainly would not have needed to take out student loans having a multimillionaire for a father. And of course, neither did Mitt, the son of a very, very successful auto executive and former governor, although that has not stopped the Romney`s from trying to make it sound like they have endured some tough times.
In 1994, Mitt`s wife Ann Romney gave an interview to the Boston Globe where she described their hardscrabble college years. “You have to understand, I was raised in a lovely neighborhood as was Mitt. And at BYU, we moved into a $62 a month basement apartment. I didn`t have money to carpet the floor but you can get remnant samples, so I glued them together, all different colors. It looked awful, but it was carpeting. Neither one of us have a job because Mitt had enough of an investment from stock that we could sell off a little at the time. The stock came from Mitt`s father.”
[20:35:07]
Just practically Dickensian just huddled there in the basement, the carpet samples, selling off the stock from his father. Here`s the thing. Most people don`t have stock sales from their dad so they can sell off to survive. So, clearly, look, there`s a remarkable level of rich guy out of touchiness on display here. I also think Mitt Romney is wrong on the merits.
But this is a refreshing conversation. I mean, Mitt Romney is a conservative Republican. He doesn`t want student debt to be forgiven. He`s part of a policy debate going on right now. It`s a fairly real issue that exists in the real world. It`s not like he`s out there claiming Hugo Chavez`s ghosts changed election totals in Maricopa County or talking about which religion we should ban from entering the country, or riling up a moral panic about how critical race theory is infiltrating our schools and affecting our kids` minds.
It`s not an argument about whether we should have a liberal democracy in which people actually choose their own representatives, or if Donald Trump should just be declared MAGA chief for life. For years, our politics had been denominated by that kind of stuff, conspiracy theories, gross, disgusting, demagogic, and vocations of culture war, bigotry, direct frontal assaults to democracy.
So, for all his faults, I would take 50 Mitt Romney`s in the Republican caucus, offering up infuriatingly out of touch takes on students — like, student debt forgiveness over the crop of people we currently have. And we will hash out that real substantive debate on student loan forgiveness next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:40:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: I am considering dealing with some debt reduction. I am not considering $50,000 debt reduction, but I`m in the process of taking a hard look at whether or not there are going to — there will be additional debt forgiveness. And I`ll have an answer on that in the next couple of weeks.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: President Biden campaigned on canceling some student loan debt. And after more than a year of pressure from activist, he says you will soon make a decision on what to do about this huge issue. Now, tens of millions Americans hold over $1.6 trillion in federal student loans. Biden does have the authority to use executive action to cancel that debt.
Up to now, he`s been extending the pause on student loan payments that has been in place since the beginning of the pandemic. But the debate about a longer term solution finally seems to be coming to a head and conservatives are definitely rendering — readying their attacks.
Jeff Stein is a White House Economics Reporter at The Washington Post where he covers the student debt debate and other policy issues. And he joins me now. Jeff, just to sort of set the context here, right? So, the pause on payment starts during the pandemic as part of the emergency measures. It`s been extended multiple times by the Biden administration. The reason I think that we`re seeing this issue surface now is as the legislative agenda looks very murky with Manchin in Sinema in the Senate, this is something that legally they can do essentially with — by a presidential order. Is that correct?
JEFF STEIN, WHITE HOUSE ECONOMICS REPORTER, THE WASHINGTON POST: Yes. And I think the broader political context in which you`re putting this is absolutely critical. Because if you ask people close to the White House, and I think senior people in the White House, they will not say that this is necessarily the most — we`ll get into the progressivity arguments here, but I`m not sure that they would say that this would be their top one or top five economic policy priorities.
They came in wanting to do transformative things about child poverty, housing and poor neighborhoods, climate change, but those issues are completely stalled by Joe Manchin and Senate Republicans. And so, this is as you said, one of the few areas where they can act on their own, and they`re running up against the headwinds that people and particularly young voters feel like they have not delivered on key promises. And this is one area where they can maybe make some headway.
HAYES: Now, there are arguments — you know, let`s talk a little bit about the arguments and sort of policy circles on this because obviously, I think, you know, J.D. Vance, Mitt Romney, Republicans think this is bad. And I think there`ll be fairly uniform in that as well in all conservatives and conserve media. There has been internal debate in the Biden administration and his circle among people in the left, even in the Democratic primary about the sort of substance of it. What are — what are the sort of main points of contention on that?
STEIN: So, the main question that you hear is, is this progressive? You know, is that — you know, does the Econ speak for it? Does this help people at the bottom or does it help people at the top? And to get into that debate, you really have to understand that student borrowers, right, people who have high amounts of student debt are more likely to have very small amounts of wealth or really know wealth, actually. More than half of student debtors have low levels of wealth.
And where it gets complicated is that even though that`s true, student debtors are also likely to have above average levels of income. Like, it`s intuitive when you think about the fact that people take out student debt to get jobs in the labor market that pay a higher premium.
But when you look at these complicated economic debates about whether this population is deserving of the relief, it`s very clear that these are people who aren`t — you know, tens of millions of people who are really struggling, really suffering, and in, you know, by the wealth metrics are quite poor in terms of the country overall. And also, I should point out, more likely to be Black and Brown because, you know, they come from families about generational wealth.
At the same time, Republicans will say and what even some conservative Democrats will say, is that in aggregate, people who go to college are more likely to have higher earnings potential in the market and therefore are not necessarily the best recipients of this money. And in response to those concerns, we can report that the Biden administration is looking at income thresholds at which they can set amounts below which only people would qualify and people above a certain income threshold would not qualify.
[20:45:20]
HAYES: Right. Because when you had sort of invoke — and Pete Buttigieg has been arguing against this in the primary, right, was like, the Harvard doctor, right? I went to Harvard Medical School. I took out hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loan debt. And now the government is going to like write me a check or wipe it all away. I don`t — you know, I`m a — but I`m a Harvard-educated doctor.
And it does seem like there`s pretty easy mechanisms, whether it`s the amount of debt that you`re dealing or income threshold. We should note also, one of — about a third of 18 and 29 year olds have student loan debt that that goes down as you sort of go up in the — in the age progression. But it does sound like this sort of question of how to both I think from a policy substantive standpoint and a political backlash standpoint, figure out a way to do it so that they are not delivering some bounty to, again, a very small set of people that are, you know, doing very well and have a lot of debt.
STEIN: I think one of the frustrating things about covering this is there`s this like, what world are we living in? What`s the — what`s the alternative here? I talked to some people today who are saying, you know, this doesn`t do anything to arrest the long-term costs of college. It doesn`t do anything for people with Pell grants.
And, you know, you take that kind of thing back to the White House. And their point will be look, we`re trying. It`s — this is what we`re trying to do through Congress. And we understand that this is not a policy that will, you know, necessarily completely evade the concern that Buttigieg has.
You look at even the implementation of an income threshold is going to be complicated because it`s based on prior year income. So, if you, you know, went to a nice college, had zero income, and then you come out of it with debt, and then you have a high job, that`s not going to be reflected.
HAYES: Right.
STEIN: High paying job, it`s not going to be reflected. Those stories will exist, but there will also be tens of millions — 44 million people have student debt. The numbers have just exploded into a national crisis. We went from $400 billion in 2006 student debts, as you said, 1.7 trillion. And so, those are — those are real concerns. And the fact that we can`t address the macro questions about college costs, does not necessarily mean that we should not take the action or that the administration shouldn`t take the action that they can.
HAYES: Yes. Two more points. I mean, one is that — and Elizabeth Warren has pointed this out in the program. There`s a lot of people — and they`re, again, disproportionately Black and Brown who had the worst of both worlds, which is student debt of no degree, right? There`s a lot of people who took out loans for degrees. They were unable to finish for whatever reason. So, they don`t have the, you know, the four-year college degree earning premium, but they have the debt. That`s a really bad situation. And those are not particularly like, in the aggregate, privileged or well-off folks.
And the last thing I`ll just note is a bunch of — there`s a bunch of governors doing like gas tax holidays and stuff like that. And I was reading that news today, and it struck me that like, unlike the student debt conversation, no one is like, well, what about people don`t have cars? Are they going to be upset if you give me the gas tax holiday?
Like, it`s so interesting how much this is the reflexive framework for this policy debate, but when you talk about like gas relief, it`s obviously like, yes, if they don`t have cars, they don`t get the benefit. Anyway, that`s my self —
STEIN: You`ll see them on the military — no, no, but you know, if you cover the military spending debates, and there is, you know, frankly, very little discussion of what budget that now amounts to over $7 trillion over 10 years in defense would do for inflation.
HAYES: Right.
STEIN: We have some numbers, the Committee for Responsible Federal Budget suggested that this would have an overall macroeconomic impact of $250 billion, which is substantial, but you know, not with — you know, outside of what Congress is already looking at for other policies.
And more to the point, just to make a wonky point on the inflation question. The current, you know, Republican argument that this will set off inflation is complicated by the fact that the current pause on student loan payments overall is really what`s driving inflation. Knocking off the principle long term is not necessarily going to affect that, especially if the — if the payment moratorium comes off in August.
HAYES: Right. Jeff Stein, thank you. That was very clear in an important area of debate. Thanks a lot.
STEIN: Thanks.
HAYES: Coming up, there are still nearly 20 million Americans who are ineligible to get the vaccine. There`s news that could be changing. What vaccinating kids five and under would mean for school, for work, and fighting the virus, after this.
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[20:50:00]
HAYES: Today, we have news that parents of children under five have been waiting anxiously for including parents on this show. Moderna is asking the FDA to authorize its Coronavirus vaccine for all children under 6 years old, the first pharma company vaccine maker to have a vaccine ready for that age group.
Roughly 18 million youngest Americans are the only population group not yet eligible for vaccination. But the pathway be complicated because so far Moderna`s vaccine has been cleared only for adults unlike the Pfizer vaccine, which is authorized for use in children from five to 17 years old. Moderna has already requested authorization of its Coronavirus vaccine for six to 17-year-old. And a spokeswoman said it would submit data supporting and updating those requests in about two weeks.
Dr. Julie Morita served in the Biden Transition Team Coronavirus Advisory Board. She`s former Commissioner and Medical Director of the Chicago Department of Public Health. It`s great to have you on. First of all, as someone who has been spending a lot of time thinking about COVID, a public health person, do you find this encouraging news as I think many parents do?
[20:55:19]
DR. JULIE MORITA, MEMBER, BIDEN TRANSITION CORONAVIRUS ADVISORY BOARD: Hi, Chris. Yes, it`s good to see you. As a pediatrician, and also, as a parent, this is a moment that we`ve all been waiting for. It`s been a long time. We haven`t really been able to protect our little ones. And it`s great to see this first step in terms of getting ready to have a vaccine that may be authorized for use in our little ones.
HAYES: So, we`ve had a several runs of this and clinical trials, right, that have not produced efficacy equal to the efficacy that we saw in clinical trials for older folks, right? And this has led to us not having a vaccine. The Moderna, the company`s vaccine, the Moderna vaccine is different than the Pfizer one which is already being used for younger people, not in that under 6 group.
Moderna is proposing a two-dose regimen for children up to 6 years old, include using 1/4 the strength of adult dose. Pfizer and BioNTech are working on a three dose regimen for those 6 months or 5 years at 1/10 the strength of the adult dose.
This is I understand that kind of naive question, but just — I`m going to ask it anyway. Why does it seem so hard? Like, at some intuitive level, right, I want to say like, well, you could just reduce the doses. We also do a lot of childhood immunization generally. So, like we know how to immunize child — children. Why has this taken so long and seem to be so difficult to get?
MORITA: I think the first thing to think about children is that they`re not just many adults. And so, their immune systems react very differently to vaccines than adults do. And so, as a result of that, you can`t just take a dose of an adult vaccine and then just reduce it based on the weight of a child. You really have — there is a little bit of guessing in terms of how big the dose should actually be to allow adequate protection but minimize the side effects. So, those kinds of things really are difficult.
The other thing is the mRNA vaccines are a whole new kind of vaccine that we haven`t used previously. So, though we have many, many different childhood vaccines, this is the first mRNA vaccine that we`re using to children.
HAYES: Do you think the policy so far — I mean, the FDA has gotten some criticism about this, right? Some people think that they should have let the Pfizer — basically allowed parents to make the choice, even if the efficacy threshold wasn`t what they wanted it to be with the Pfizer proposal. And they`ve been stalling. What`s your sense of how they`re navigating that?
MORITA: So, as a person who — I used to sit on the ACIP or the advisory committee to the CDC. I`m very familiar with these processes that are used to evaluate and review vaccines. And so, what I really want to see is have the FDA have a chance and have their advisory committee have the chance to review the full data, not just the data that are released in the press releases, but the full data to really look at the safety and the efficacy of the vaccines before they`re approved. And then I want CDC`s Advisory Committee also to have the opportunity to review the data before the recommendations are actually made.
So, I think it`s a little early to be talking about what which vaccine should be given first or which ones should be approved first. I think the data needs to be given to the FDA and also to the CDC so those decisions can be made.
HAYES: There`s also obviously an intense social context this is happening in. And I think there`s sort of a whole gamut of parents. I`m a parent of a child under six. There are a lot of parents out there, I think, who are not going to vaccinate their kids. They`re sort of vaccine skeptical. Then there are people who are vaccinated themselves and vaccinated even older kids, but maybe a little hinky about younger kids for whatever reason. And then there are those who are like, can`t wait to be able to do that and have that peace of mind. And you wonder how much that social context is weighing on the policymakers` ear?
MORITA: Yes, I think that that that shouldn`t be weighing. And what we really want is for the sciences to be evaluating the data, looking at the safety and efficacy. And then once those vaccines are approved, really working with the community to understand, get those people who want the vaccines vaccinated right away, and then work with the people who have questions, the people who are hesitant, understand what their concerns are, and then also make sure these vaccines are adequately accessible to all.
Not all parents can take time off of work. Not all parents can get a vaccine during the week. They might need to have weekend clinics, making sure that the vaccines are accessible so everyone can take full advantage of the vaccines when they are actually approved.
HAYES: What is the timeline looking like here?
MORITA: Well, at this point, the FDA has received the vaccine — Moderna vaccine, some of the information — they`ll continue to get additional information. My understanding is FDA actually has scheduled their advisory committee in June. So, the FDA advisory committee reviews the data, makes it — approves the vaccines, then CDC`s Advisory Committee usually meets shortly thereafter to make a recommendation.
HAYES: Yes, it could be summer. I think that wouldn`t be — again, if the data is there and there`s reasons scientifically to think this is safe and effective, there would be a lot of peace of mind from that for some folks. Dr. Julie Morita, thank you very much.
MORITA: Thanks for having me.
HAYES: That is ALL IN on this Thursday night. “THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW” starts right now. Good evening, Rachel.