Updated
Summary
One of the biggest, most overwhelming themes from the January 6 committee`s first two public hearings is that everyone knew the election was not rigged but none of them stood up and spoke the truth publicly. On Monday, we heard from former Georgia U.S. Attorney B.J. Pak in the hearing saying, he resigned rather than go along with the big lie which is admirable and noble. The January 6 Committee may have postponed tomorrow`s hearing, but they were hard at work teasing what we`re going to see on Thursday. In South Carolina, two House Republicans face tough primary challenges after standing up to Trump in different ways.
Transcript
JOY REID, MSNBC ANCHOR: Right.
MATTHEW DOWD, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: And we have to get those people loud.
REID: Yes, they have to — we have to — its indifference. Indifference is what can kill our democracy even more than the third.
DOWD: We have to lead them — we have to lead them not follow them.
REID: Absolutely. I agree. Matthew Dowd. I always agree with what our buddy says. He`s so smart. Thank you. That is tonight`s “REIDOUT.” ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES starts now.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC ANCHOR (voiceover): Tonight on ALL IN.
WILLIAM BARR, FORMER ATTORNEY GENERAL: I told him that the stuff that his people were shoveling out to the public before or bulk was bullshit. I mean that the claims of fraud were bullshit.
HAYES: They all knew and didn`t say anything at the time.
BILL STEPIEN, TRUMP CAMPAIGN MANAGER: I didn`t mind being characterized as being part of Team normal.
HAYES: Tonight, what we`re learning about the complicity of the people surrounding Trump as he peddled his big lie.
REP. ZOE LOFGREN, (D-CA): I think we can see the plot unfolding here.
HAYES: Democratic committee members Zoe Lofgren and former Republican committee staffer, Denver Riggleman join me tonight. Then —
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL, (R-KY): For myself, I`m comfortable with the farm work.
HAYES: A big endorsement for the bipartisan gun proposal. Senator Chris Murphy is here on that. Plus.
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You have the chance to dump these grandstanding losers and replaced it with two rock-solid America First champions.
HAYES: It`s Election Night in America and another big test of the Trump brand when ALL IN starts right now.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HAYES: Good evening from New York. I`m Chris Hayes. One of the biggest, most overwhelming themes from the January 6 committee`s first two public hearings is that everyone knew the election was not rigged. All of the people around Donald Trump other than a select tiny little batch of a few, they all knew there was no big lie, or that the big lie was a big lie, that there was no fraud. They talked about it amongst themselves. Some of them even said it directly to Trump.
But the other big theme is that nobody really did anything about it. None of them stood up and spoke the truth publicly. They all, in their own quiet way, went along with his lie. And in that way, they are all essentially his accomplices. They knew what was happening was wrong. That is very clear. But they played along. Even if they resisted internally, even if they didn`t want to get their hands dirty, they helped to perpetuate Trump`s plan to overturn the election, which depended on convincing his supporters the election was fraudulent. They did nothing to prick that bubble in public. Committee Member Congressman Zoe Lofgren, who will join us shortly explain this at yesterday`s hearing.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LOFGREN: Former President Trump`s plan to overturn the election relied on a sustained effort to deceive millions of Americans with knowingly false claims of election fraud. All elements of the plot relied on convincing his supporters about these false claims. Mr. Trump`s claims of election fraud were false, that he and his closest advisors knew those claims were false, but they continued to peddle them anyway.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Among those closest advisors, of course, Attorney General Bill Barr. He used his very powerful platform to push claims of election fraud beginning even before the 2020 election.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARR: But elections that have been held with mail have found substantial fraud and coercion. For example, we indicted someone in Texas, 1700 ballots collected. He made — from people who could vote, he made them out and voted for the person he wanted to.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Now, just to be clear, that claim that there`s more fraud, which is what he`s implying in elections, the mail-in ballots is complete bunk, nonsense. Not true. Barr, the top law enforcement official in the country went on air and said that before the election, and he let Trump go on spreading the big lie for weeks after the election. And after Joe Biden was declared the winner, in fact, Barr waited until December to make any public comment rebuking Trump`s claims of fraud. And when he did that, he did it in a little quiet voice.
On December 1, he finally told the AP not on camera, not on Fox News, not straight looking into the television, to date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have affected a different outcome of the election. What a profiling courage. Good work, Bill. A few weeks later in his resignation letter, Barr had nothing but praise for Trump and the investigation news allegations of fraud. “I appreciate the opportunity to update you on the department`s review of voter fraud allegations in the 2020 election and how these allegations will continue to be pursued.
At a time in the country so deeply divided is incumbent on all levels of government and all agencies acting with the purview to do all they can to assure the integrity of elections and promote public confidence in their outcome.” He continued. I am greatly honored that you called on me to serve your administration. I am proud to have played a role in the many successes and unprecedented achievements you have delivered for the American people.
[20:05:00]
Earlier this year, Barr, after all this even said he would still vote for Trump if he`s the nominee in 2024. But as we`ve now seen over the course of two hearings under oath and testimony to the January 6 committee, Barr knew it was all lie.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARR: I told him that the stuff that his people were shoveling out to the public or bulk was bullshit. I mean that the claims of fraud were bullshit. They`ve wasted a whole month on these claims on the Dominion voting machines and they were idiotic claims. I told him that it was — it was crazy stuff and they were wasting their time. I thought boy, if he really believes this stuff, he has — you know, lost contact with — he`s become detached from reality. My opinion then and my opinion now is that the election was not stolen by fraud.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: You know, when I was growing up in New York City, there`s a phrase we use called down the block tough. Down the block tough was like someone got in your face, you kind of like meekly sort of got away from them and then when they were down the block you`re like, yes, what? Bill Barr down the block tough like, look at all the swagger in that room. Wow, this is nonsense. Idiotic. Where was that in November, December, Bill? You could have given one interview saying all that. One interview. Barr was not alone. Members of Donald Trump`s own family. His daughter, Ivanka, son-in- law, Jared Kushner, could have stood up and sounded the alarm. But they went along with the ex-president and his lies until the very end.
As Maggie Haberman reports in New York Times, Ivanka Trump`s colleagues have recalled her being among those urging White House staff members on election night to fight even as it became clear that her father would most likely lose. Her husband, Jared Kushner, was also a senior advisor in the White House and attended several meetings about post-election strategy with a range of political and West Wing advisors, as well as lawyers like Rudy Giuliani. But they both admitted to the committee, again, under oath when forced to in testimony we finally got to see over the past few days, they knew it was all nonsense.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. LIZ CHENEY, (R-WY): This is the president`s daughter, commenting on Bill Barr`s statement that the Department found no fraud sufficient to overturn the election.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How did that affect your perspective about the election when Attorney General Barr made that statement?
IVANKA TRUMP, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE ADVISOR: It affected my perspective. I respect Attorney General Barr, so I accepted what he sent was saying.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you ever share, Mr. Kushner, your view of Mr. Giuliani — did you ever share your perspective about him with the president?
JARED KUSHNER, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE SENIOR ADVISOR: I guess, yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tell me what he said.
KUSHNER: Basically, not the approach I would take if I was you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Oh, you know, not the approach I take. You do you, boss, father-in- law. Personally, I`m not into the hang Mike Pence situation but you know whatever you do. Chief of Staff Mark Meadows also stuck with Trump to the bitter end as Susan Glasser puts the New Yorker “without Mark Meadows, January 6 might never have happened. He served as the matador for the former president`s election lies.” And by — again, by the end of December 2020, Meadows also like the rest of them because they have functioning brains was clear-eyed about the truth according to Trump campaign lawyer Alex Cannon.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CANNON: I remember a call with Mr. Meadows where Mr. Meadows was asking me what I was finding and if I was finding anything. And I remember sharing with him that we weren`t finding anything that would be sufficient to change the results in any of the key states.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When was that conversation?
CANNON: Probably in November — mid to late November. I think it was before my child was born.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And what was Mr. Meadows` reaction to that information?
CANNON: I believe the words he used were so there`s no there there.
HAYES: There`s no there, there. And the final stretch before the election, this is back in I think around the summer, Donald Trump hired a new campaign manager guy named Bill Stepien. And he played a very active role in that short period of time. Tim Miller writes in The Bulwark “Stepien didn`t just take some arm`s length consultancy. He chose to sit in the big boy chair as the man-child responsible for getting Trump four more years in power.” In his testimony, the committee, Bill Stepien tried to distance himself from the crazier Trump advisors, and he said he believed Trump was not being honest after the election.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEPIEN: There were two groups of family, we call them kind of my team and Rudy`s team. I didn`t mind being characterized as being part of Team normal, as reporters, you know, kind of started to do around that point in time. I didn`t think what was happening was necessarily honest or professional at that point in time sort of that. That led to me stepping away.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[20:10:00]
HAYES: Again, could have blown the whistle, could have called a reporter, could have given an interview, could have tweeted something, and he claims to have stepped away but Stepien still raking in a ton of cash from Trump for spreading his lies as the consultant for the Trump packing campaign. Where`s that paycheck getting signed, Bill? He`s also consulting for the woman Trump wants to replace January 6 committee, Vice-Chair Liz Cheney in Wyoming congressional seat because Cheney would not go along with a lie.
Now to be clear, at least I seem ungrateful, I am glad that most of the people around Donald Trump were on Team normal as Bill Stepien puts it. It`s a good thing that most of the people in his inner orbit would not really put their shoulders on the wheel to destroy American democracy. So, kudos, I guess. But all of them Bill Barr, Ivanka, Jared, Mark Meadows, Bill Stepien could have said something publicly at the time.
On Monday, we heard from former Georgia U.S. Attorney B.J. Pak in the hearing, he resigned rather than go along with the big lie which is admirable and noble. But again, he also could have said something. All of these people had a platform. They could have just spoken the simple truth publicly, not one of them did. Bill Barr, kind of — in a — “to an AP reporter.” And so Trump supporters, well, they believe that Trump burrow was united behind the big lie. They believe what they were told to great consequence as Liz Cheney laid out in Monday`s hearing.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHENEY: Hundreds of our countrymen have faced criminal charges. Many are serving criminal sentences because they believed what Donald Trump said about the election and they acted on it. They came to Washington DC at his request. They marched on the Capitol at his request.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: And they repeated Donald Trump`s lies practically word for word in the Capitol on January 6.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I know exactly what`s going on right now. Fake election. They think they`re going to — see us at the bar boat with countless — Biden office. Do you think — (INAUDIBLE).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, sir.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On the day?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let it be early. We will except for — can`t really trust software, Dominion software all over.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We voted, and right in the top, right-hand corner of the Dominion voting machine that we use, there was a W Fi symbol with five bars. So that most definitely connected to the (INAUDIBLE) without a doubt so they stole that from us twice. We`re not doing it anymore. We`re not taking anyone. We`re standing out, we`re here. Whatever happens, we`re not laying down again.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: All of Donald Trump`s accomplices hold some responsibility for what happened on January 6. Imagine if they had come forward during his second impeachment trial. Even if they didn`t have the guts or courage in the moment, the fortitude, there`s a chance they could have done it a few weeks later, could have affected the outcome. There is a chance that Donald Trump could have been convicted, I believe that I`m barred from running for office again, if those people again, did the minimum thing they just told the truth out loud, out loud. It very well could have completely altered the trajectory of American politics.
Denver Riggleman is a former Republican Congressman of Virginia who no longer considers himself a member of the Republican Party. He`s also a former senior staff member for the January 6 committee, and he joins me now. Great to have you on, Sir. I am curious in the course of your investigation, if just how — as you came into this knowledge and the investigators came to this knowledge of how unanimous the view was inside Trump`s world, the correct view that he had lost? What did you make of him? Do you expect that? What do you make of that as you — as you learn that?
DENVER RIGGLEMAN, FORMER REPUBLICAN CONGRESSMAN: Well, you know, I learned it pretty quickly, Chris. You know, being on the committee and on the staff, we get to see data that other people do not earlier in the process, as a senior technical advisor, I was able to see things that you know, started and I`ve said this before, it started with the amusement. But it sort of went to sort of horror, and how many people were sort of pumping this craziness into the tribe right, into the individuals that were around President Trump.
However, as it — you know, it`s a very lonely time and a very isolated time when I was out against Q anon and the conspiracy theories and stopped this deal even on the floor of Congress because a lot of the individual Republican Congressmen and Congresswoman, Chris, they would say, Denver, that`s your right, but there`s no way that we can — we can go out and say this because our polling just doesn`t support it. And I think what should really concern the American people and what concern me and the things that I had to learn because I don`t know what`s in their heart, Chris, what I had to learn is that sometimes politics and morality are mutually exclusive.
[20:15:00]
And if you want to — if you want to keep your job, if you don`t want to be isolated, if you have a lot of fear, if this is sort of your lane, is to be a Republican tribe member or you know, it could happen on the other side, too. But what I`m saying is that I think individuals start getting lost in keeping their career rather than service. And when I saw this, it really became quite concerning to me.
HAYES: Yes. I mean, you`ve got these sorts of three buckets to me, right? So there`s the people that are either, for whatever reason, true believers or just sort of malevolent actors who are actively furthering the coup. And again, that`s — it`s probably about 10, folks. I mean, I think we — you know, you could Michael Flynn, and Sidney Powell, Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Jeffrey Clark of the Department of Justice, like it`s not actually that many people. There`s a much larger category of people who know but are silent. And that to me is like so striking, no, but are silent as the dominant ethos of everyone around this entire accelerating disaster for months — two months.
RIGGLEMAN: Yes, but that crazy, you know, you had those individuals you talked about like, Mike Flynn, Sidney Powell, Rudy Giuliani, Eastman, Clark, you can go down the island-wide, Michael Lindell, right, we can talk about, you know, the sort of — you know, the glue sniffers, right? But the issue that you have, though, is that the base was driving that crazy. So middle management, executive, looking at the president of the United States, this is an individual that was completely bought in. So now, there`s the squeaks — so now you have these squeaks, right, where ignorance is sort of leading the way, but it`s monetized and weaponized.
HAYES: Right.
RIGGLEMAN: And, you know, and that`s the issue, Chris, is that it`s not just — I don`t know, people can concentrate, you know, on the individuals that we`re pushing, you know, the big lie that might lead to the big fraud, right, the big grift. You can look at the individuals that we`re afraid to speak up but the real problem that you had is the — just the metastasization of crazy that was going on in the Republican base. And you know it was — it was — it was Ronald Reagan crib from Josh Billings, I actually note it down for you, Chris. He says it isn`t ignorance that causes so much trouble it`s folks knowing so much that isn`t so.
HAYES: Right.
RIGGLEMAN: And it was Josh Billings from the 19th century. And that`s the issue that you have, Chris is I don`t know what`s in these people`s hearts but I think that fear of just losing jobs, throw them and that was a priority over the country and that should concern a lot of individuals out there like me and you.
HAYES: Well, at the end, right? I mean, I want to play this clip from Stepien because one of the things I think has been very clear from the committee`s work is, this wasn`t a staff problem. This was a principal problem. And the principal that mattered was Donald Trump. And this flowed down from him. No one was talking him into this. No one had sold him on this idea. This was him directing it from the top down. And Stepien is very clear about that. About, you know, between Team normal and Team abnormal, like which team Donald Trump is on. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEPIEN: My recommendation was to say that the votes were still being counted. It`s too early to tell, too early to call the race. It`s you know — we are proud of the race we`ve run — we run.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And did anybody who was a part of that conversation disagree with your message?
STEPIEN: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Who is that?
STEPIEN: The president disagreed with that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: There`s no way around that. Like he`s going to be who he is and he did what he did and he`ll do it again I think if he has a shot, and I just — I think the Republican Party and the American people would all have been much better off if more people had spoken out then when there was an opportunity during that second impeachment trial is my belief.
RIGGLEMAN: Well, Team normal was team quiet. You know, it`s — I`ve talked about the bar fight analogy and I`ve been in the field, Chris, we could talk about that another day. But I`ve been in a few bar fights. It`s the guys who sit on the corner and jumped in right as you`re getting your ass kicked, you know. And, you know, that`s the — that`s the problem that we have is that we have these guys that were late for the national bar fight between facts and fantasy.
And if at some point we don`t have a national trust, we don`t have people in politics that are willing to stand up and serve through facts rather than serve through I would say pandering to a base that has been radicalized through hyperbole and outrage and apocalyptic conspiracies and you know, things like stopping the steel that was just pumped into a sort of the Republican base. We`re going to have a real problem. And I know a lot of people are smelling blood in the water, right? The two hearings were fantastic. They were — they were really well done. Of course, I`m going to say that because they`re but they were well done.
HAYES: Yes.
RIGGLEMAN: They were facts-based, but facts-based isn`t going to matter. 10s of millions of people think that the deep state that, Chris, that me and you are playing around in a basement, you know, trying to harvest blood for Adrenochrome, that`s a difficult thing to overcome.
HAYES: Yes.
RIGGLEMAN: So I think they smell blood in the water, Chris, but people need to be careful.
[20:20:00]
Individuals might be getting brave now. They might be coming out now after being quiet for so long. But Trump isn`t going away. And I think we have to — we have to be even more diligent to create a facts-based way forward.
HAYES: Yes. Point of fact, I am allergic to Adrenochrome just if anyone is asking. Denver Riggleman, thank you very much. Appreciate it.
RIGGLEMAN: Thank you for having me.
HAYES: Coming up, the January 6 committee may have postponed tomorrow`s hearing, but they were hard at work teasing what we`re going to see on Thursday. Check this out.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ERIC HERSCHMANN, FORMER WHITE HOUSE LAWYER: Now, I`m going to give you the best free legal advice you`re ever getting in your life. Get a great F-ing criminal defense lawyer. You`re going to need it. And then I hung up on him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Like a Scorsese script, Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren on that explosive new testimony next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:25:00]
HAYES: We were supposed to have three hearings for the January 6 committee this week. We had one yesterday, of course, another plan for tomorrow on an afternoon hearing Thursday. But tomorrow`s hearing has been postponed by the committee, which said IT staff needs more time to put video exhibits together. However, we did get one heck of a teaser, as we call them the bids from the committee, about Thursday`s hearing. Brand new testimony from a Trump White House lawyer describing a conversation he had with the key or a key cooperator, John Eastman, the day after January 6.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HERSCHMANN: Eastman, I don`t remember why he called me he`s in a — or he texted me or called me wanting to talk with me and he said he couldn`t reach others. And he started to ask me about something dealing with Georgia and preserving something potentially for appeal. And I said to him, are you out of your F-ing mind? I said — I said, I only want to hear two words coming out of your mouth for now on, orderly transition. And I said I don`t want to hear any other F-ing words coming out of your mouth no matter what, other than orderly transition. Repeat those words to me. And I treated him —
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What did he say?
HERSCHMANN: Eventually, he said orderly transition. I said good job. Now I`m going to give you the best free legal advice you`re ever getting in your life. Get a great F-ing criminal defense lawyer, you`re going to need it. And then I hung up on him.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HAYES: Did you take the Justice bat off the wall at that point or not? When does that come into play? Notably, despite the Trump White House lawyer`s advice to hire a criminal defense lawyer, Trump, Eastman, and their fellow coup plotters have not been criminally charged for their role in trying to overturn the election. Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren is a Democrat from California. She sits in the January 6 committee, and she led much of yesterday`s hearing. Congresswoman, it`s great to have you. Let me start with just the — some of the scheduling of back and forth. The — explain to us why tomorrow is postponed and how we should understand that affecting the rest of the hearings?
LOFGREN: Well, I don`t think it`s going to have much of an impact. It`s — we had a lot of hearings compressed together and there were logistical problems that are going to be avoided by kicking one of the hearings over the next week. And it will have to be the one tomorrow because witnesses for the Thursday hearing, you know, we`re immovable so it`s not much of a story.
HAYES: I see, OK. But just — you said something key there, which is at that hearing will just move it`ll be rescheduled, we`re not losing a hearing. It`s going to happen next week.
LOFGREN: Correct. No, it`s just going to be postponed.
HAYES: Right. And there`s no reason that again, not to stay on this longer than necessary but the last question, there`s no reason that I should think like, oh, there`s something going on, they learned a new thing or witness backed out, etcetera.
LOFGREN: Well, you know, we`re constantly learning new things but this is primarily logistical.
HAYES: Primarily.
LOFGREN: I`ll just leave it at that.
HAYES: OK. Well, we learned a lot yesterday, and that bit of sound we saw tonight that was previewed of — I think it was in the White House Counsel`s Office, that of Herschmann —
LOFGREN: Herschmann, yes.
HAYES: Herschmann talking about a John Eastman. That looks like that will be part of the focus on the next hearing, which is, the efforts to pressure Vice President Mike Pence specifically, is that right?
LOFGREN: Yes, that`s right.
HAYES: And then he — and the witnesses, we expect, I think, the Vice President`s chief counsel, and also the judge that he consulted, who is a very, very known quantity in conservative circles, Michael Luttig.
LOFGREN: Right. The vice president, but Eastman had been Luttig`s clerk. And his advice was sought. And the judge was very clear that Eastman`s theories were not valid. Let me just put it that way. And as we know, Judge Carter in California and evidentiary case, reached a conclusion that Eastman and the former president more likely than not had engaged in fraud and criminal conduct, but Luttig is not going to testify to that, that`s it was a different judge.
HAYES: Where do you see things after these first two hearings in terms of your expectations for the level of breakthrough attention, news that you had broken? Obviously, you`re in a difficult environment attention-wise. I think you`ve all been very clear-eyed about presenting a coherent story. I think it`s been very effective myself. What is — what grade are you giving yourselves at this point?
LOFGREN: Well, I`m not giving myself a grade, because that`s always up to the teacher, in this case, the audience, the American people. But we`re doing the best we can, not only the investigation, but laying out the facts and the evidence that we found in a way that`s coherent, we hope, understandable and credible, we hope.
As yesterday, the witnesses are primarily Trump World witnesses, because they were the ones who were there, who had — who saw and were able to report. And that is going to be true pretty much for most of our hearings, because it was Trump world that was available to see what was going on.
And because of that, you know, I`m hoping that people who believe the president`s lies will be able to see, this isn`t — you know, this is his allies, his people that are telling the truth now.
HAYES: Yes, it struck me, there`s a long period of time in the last year, and that was devoted to kind of doing two things at once. One was demonstrating that the people inside knew it was a lie, but also just a debunking of a lot of the lies.
I mean, the — you know, the going through the various theories, and I wonder how intentional that was for most at home.
LOFGREN: It was intentional.
HAYES: Yes, tell me about that decision.
LOFGREN: Well, I mean, there are people — I mean, to this day, we know from polling, who think that, you know, maybe the election was stolen, a large number of Republicans think that.
So, how do they think that? There are all these theories and it turns out, honestly, when Attorney General Barr announced that they were going to investigate election fraud, I was very suspicious. But I do understand from his testimony, now his thinking behind it, and it may be that he was right. Who, you know, having these theories uninvestigated, these claims just fed them.
And so, even if it was a crazy claim, he assigned them to a U.S. attorney. And they investigated, for example, as he mentioned, the guy — the wild claim that there was a truckload full of ballots. You know, as Rich Donoghue said, maybe the truck driver believed it, who knows.
But they interviewed the people who loaded the truck, and who unloaded the truck and it wasn`t true. And so, that was important. Not only that they investigated it, but we could explain what happened so that the American people can find out and also that they told the president, it wasn`t true and how it wasn`t true. So, I think it`s very clear.
HAYES: Yes, that was very comprehensive and thorough and striking the degree of thoroughness. I thought it was really fascinating aspects to that hearing.
Congressman Zoe Lofgren, thank you for your time.
LOFGREN: Anytime.
HAYES: It is primary night in America, polls have already closed in some states. We have the one and only Steve Kornacki standing by the big board right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:37:40]
HAYES: We`ve got Election Day in four states today, polls are closed in Maine and South Carolina. They remained opened in North Dakota and Nevada.
One of the themes of today`s elections is they feature a number of big lie supporters, including former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt. He`s running for the Republican Senate nomination, he pushed false claims, there were thousands of court improper votes in the state during the 2020 election. He`s since secured endorsements from both Donald Trump and the conservative Club for Growth.
Meanwhile, in South Carolina, two House Republicans face tough primary challenges after standing up to Trump in different ways.
In the first district, incumbent Congresswoman Nancy Mace is facing Trump endorsed challenger Katie Arrington former state rep. who has endorsed the big lie of stolen election.
Trump slammed Mace as “disloyal” because she voted to certify the 2020 election and to hold Trump strategist Steve Bannon in contempt of Congress.
In South Carolina`s seventh district, incumbent Republican Congressman Tom Rice is facing his own Trump backed challenger, with State Representative Russell Fry, who claimed the 2020 election was rigged just before securing his endorsement from Trump.
Rice was one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump after the January 6th attack on the Capitol.
Steve Kornacki is an NBC News National Political Correspondent joins me at the big board now. Steve, what do you got?
STEVE KORNACKI, NBC NEWS NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we got about a third of the vote in, Chris, in that seventh district of South Carolina. The numbers are grim for the incumbent Representative Tom Rice, you see him running almost 20 points behind his Donald Trump backed challenger state legislator Russell Fry.
Again, about a third of the vote in here, you see Fry is leading every county that`s reported out votes here. Fry is leading, just take a quick tour of the district here.
You know, he`s absolutely crushing it, we`re in the PeeDee part of the district here. Rice is getting slaughtered here, third place. You can see in Dillon County what`s been reported so far, third place. In Darlington County as well.
That`s Barbara Arthur, another candidate. She says she was inspired to run because of Rice`s vote to impeach. What`s going to determine this right now is where I just highlighted Horry County, half the votes are going to come out of Horry County. This is where Myrtle Beach, where Conway is.
And what you`re seeing right now, this is just the early vote. This is the early in the mail vote that you`re looking at here. So, what`s yet to come in as the same day vote.
And the really troubling thing for Rice is that elsewhere in the district, Fry has been doing better, that six points better on the same day vote than he has on the early in the mail vote.
[20:40:08]
So, there`s an opportunity for Fry if what we`re seeing elsewhere in the district holds in Horry County, which is half the district to watch this number where he`s at 47 right now to watch that tick up as the same day comes in.
And the issue is simply this, if he can get to 50 percent. Remember, there`s a 50 percent rule in South Carolina. If Fry can get to 50 percent, he wins out right. It`s all over. Tom Rice is out of the job.
But Rice right now is trying to keep Fry under 50 and force this thing into a runoff. You see we just got a few more votes somewhere else there. But Rice right now the name of the game is just survive tonight to somehow hold Fry under 50, get this to a runoff.
But even if he does that, you can see the kind of lead that Fry is building early. And again, you just look at the other Republicans who are in this race. These Republicans have all spoken out against races vote for impeachment. They`ve said it inspired them to run. It`s one of the reasons they got in the race.
So, even if Rice can get to a runoff, the potential for consolidation behind Fry by the supporters of these other candidates seem strong.
In the first district, you set that one up as well. Here`s Nancy Mace about 21 percent of the votes reported the incumbent here, she`s being opposed by Trump back Katie Arrington. Mace is leading by about 10 points.
Again, take a look at where the vote is coming in right now. What`s happening is Mace is running up numbers, good numbers in Charleston County here and take a look in Berkeley County, Arrington actually just got a big batch of votes there to put her in the lead.
One place that looms large, we have no votes yet from Beaufort County, I think this could end up being determinative in this thing.
But again, overall, Mace leading by 10 points right now, there`s that key county yet to come and the suspense in the seventh district just checking to see if more votes are in.
The suspense in the seventh district right now is how is Fry going to do as we get more votes from the Myrtle Beach area? Could he actually get close to 50 percent and outright win? Or is Tom Rice going to live to fight this thing out into a runoff two weeks from now?
But either way, those are very, very bad numbers, obviously for an incumbent Republican in a primary like this.
HAYES: All right, Steve Kornacki, thank you very much for that.
The Senate reaches a bipartisan deal on gun reform, the first one in decades. We have Senator Chris Murphy who negotiated it tonight to tell us what`s in the deal and how he got it done, just head.
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HAYES: Global economy is under enormous strain which has to do with several historic factors including global pandemic and a land war in Europe.
Inflation is high across the world just about everywhere, because there was a huge supply shock from first to COVID disruption, and then Russia`s invasion of Ukraine, which made everything worse, especially oil and gas prices.
It`s been nearly 50 years since we`ve seen high inflation and oil prices like this. Back in 1979, five years after the second Arab oil embargo, the Carter administration took steps to reduce the country`s dependence on foreign oil, in part because U.S. leaders wanted to rely less on countries in the Middle East for energy. Here we are half century later with fundamentally the same problem.
Republicans are demagoguing the same nonsense saying President Joe Biden is killing domestic energy production even though that`s more like the opposite of the truth. The U.S. has been selling more oil products as a nation than we are buying.
Look at the top right. That is where we are today, near the highest levels since at least the 1950s. To his credit, Biden also ran on taking the harder line on major oil producers Saudi Arabia, after Saudi Crown Prince had a Washington Post journalist murdered for the sin of writing critical columns.
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JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I said at the time, Khashoggi was in fact murdered and dismembered. And I believe in the order of the Crown Prince.
And I would make it very clear, we were not going to in fact sell more weapons to them. We were going to in fact make them pay the price and make them in fact the pariah that they are. There`s very little social redeeming value of the — in the president government in Saudi Arabia.
And I would also, as pointed out, I would end the subsidies that we have and the sale of material to the Saudis who are they`re going in and murdering children and they`re murdering innocent people, and so, they have to be held accountable.
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HAYES: All good points. We should definitely distance ourselves from the Human Rights violating Petro states.
Now, well, since Saudi Arabia controls the oil, and we need oil prices to go down, the administration is putting all that aside.
President Joe Biden is traveling to Saudi Arabia next month to have a bilateral meeting with a man who is believed to have personally ordered the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi Crown Prince.
50 years later, and we`ve not learned very much at all, really hope 50 years from now we are not still doing this.
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SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): For myself, I`m comfortable with the framework. And if the legislation ends up reflecting what the framework indicates, I`ll be supportive.
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HAYES: Big show of support from Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell today for a bipartisan deal on a gun safety legislation. A group of 20 senators led by Democratic Senator Chris Murphy and Republican Senator John Cornyn agreed on the framework for the bill over the weekend, includes better background checks, provides funding for states to enact so called red flag laws, which allows courts to keep guns away from people who are a threat to themselves or others.
The bill is still being drafted and still faces substantial Republican opposition, but Majority Leader Chuck Schumer says he`s hopeful to get it passed before the Senate goes into recess at the end of next week.
Joining me now is one of the architects of the bill and its framework, Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut.
Senator, I feel almost nervous talking to you because it feels like you jinx it in some way. So, why were you able this time to arrive at a framework where the last several years when this has been tried, particularly in the wake of truly horrific acts of mass gun violence that has proved impossible?
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SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D-CT): Yes, I can`t, you know, count the number of times you and I have talked on the air after one of these mass shootings and it all felt absolutely hopeless. It felt like Washington was going through the motions. And I was glad to have the opportunity to talk about my anxiety and frustration with you. But that`s about all we were able to do, is just process our grief on T.V. and on the Senate floor. This is different.
Why is it different? I`m still trying to figure the answer to that question out, I think part of it is that the public just is at a different level of anxiety and fear right now.
And when members went home over the course of the Memorial Day recess, they actually came to the conclusion that this time, they really couldn`t do nothing, but they were going to pay a pretty big price if they did not.
And then, you know, I do also think that, you know, our approach was different this time, we — you know, very quickly said, listen, we`re, you know, not going to argue about things that can`t get 60 votes, we will get right down to the business of trying to find what can pass and it was surprising to those of us in the room myself, Kyrsten Sinema in particular that the list was longer than we thought. And it actually expanded over the course of negotiations.
So, I think the public made the biggest difference. But I also think that, you know, our willingness to really just zero in on 60 was important.
HAYES: Two aspects legislation as I was going through the framework, at least as reported were closing the so called boyfriend loophole, which is something that I`ve had multiple conversations with multiple Democratic senators on for years, as well as straw purchasing, which is a huge issue. And I don`t know what the devil of the details of those are. But tell me those two and how significant you think they are?
MURPHY: Well, I think they`re very significant. I think there`s a lot of people saying when the deal came out that it was sort of bigger than folks had expected. And that is probably due to those two provisions, which weren`t really in the reporting as we are negotiating.
The boyfriend loophole is a big deal, right? Because right now, if a man beats up his wife, he is prevented from buying a weapon. But if a man beats up his girlfriend, that`s not a prohibited class of offenses.
And so, you have domestic abusers who are still able to buy guns, you have actually boyfriends who are subject to restraining orders against that girlfriend, still being able to buy guns.
It`s not — it`s almost sort of too generous to call it a loophole. I mean, it`s just a giant gap in the law. We`re closing it.
Second, very surprising to people that straw purchasing, which is when somebody goes in and buys guns at a gun store for somebody that is actually prohibited from buying guns is a criminal. That`s not a federal criminal offense, and it`s just a paperwork violation.
So, the way that you unwind these gun trafficking rings, is to go after the straw purchasers and use the potential serious federal criminal offense so that they turn in the folks who are putting them up to it.
So, law enforcement will tell you that one of the greatest ways that we stop the flow of illegal weapons into our cities is to crack down on these trafficking straw purchasing rings. And that provision, which we were trying to get in law for 20 years allows us to do that.
HAYES: OK, I don`t want to sound paranoid, but by I`ve heard this from other people. Is there some catch here? Is there some like nefarious, like devils clause in there that something terrible in there? Is there going to be like, money for mandatory like, you know, gun ranges in every neighborhood or something? Like, am I missing something here?
MURPHY: I mean, listen, there may be demands upcoming but, no, this time, the demand from Republicans was a big investment in mental health. And, you know, they knew that I had always been reluctant to pair these two issues together, because I do worry about stigmatizing people with mental illness. And I don`t think the gun violence problem is primarily one of mental illness.
But you know, the Republicans were willing to come to the table on billions of dollars in new investment in mental health. And, you know, who are we to say no to that?
So, the price this time around, again, I think just because of the pressure from constituents and voters was, you know, one that we could bear.
HAYES: Yes, that`s interesting. I should know that, I mean, the term mental illness, it`s like referring to everything from, you know, a hangnail to pancreatic cancer as physical illness, like, there`s a lot. That category obscures as much as it clarifies.
But yes, it does seem like there`s real investment there. And whether that`s because of how they want to wriggle (INAUDIBLE), that money is going to be real.
Senator Chris Murphy, thank you so much for joining us, and I appreciate it.
MURPHY: Thanks a lot.
HAYES: All right. That is ALL IN for this evening. Guess what, folks? A special Tuesday edition of the “RACHEL MADDOW SHOW” starts right now. Good evening, Rachel.
RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC HOST: I did not mean to blindside you with the fact that I was going to be here on Tuesday night this week.