Updated
Summary
All major broadcast networks will air the January 6 Committee live hearings but not Fox News. Conservative lawyer George Conway joined Hayes to discuss how America got its own right-wing propaganda channel. NBC`s Steve Kornacki, at the big board, breaks down all the races to watch on this primary night. Michigan widens investigation into voting system breaches by Trump allies. Matthew McConaughey, a native of Uvalde, Texas, makes an emotional plea for gun reform at the White House. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) joins Hayes to talk about the gun violence in America and what Congress is doing about it.
Transcript
JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: Anyway, Jason Johnson, I`m jealous. Take me to Comic- Con with you. Thank you very much for being here tonight. That is tonight`s “REIDOUT.” I will be going to Comic-Con with you. I`m not even playing. I`m going. ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES is going to be next but I`m going to Comic- Con y`all. Just watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST (voiceover): Tonight on ALL IN. New witnesses announced, new January 6 details keep coming. But the primetime hearing will not be televised on Trump TV.
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Fox and Friends, they treat us great. I just wonder fairness.
HAYES: Why the Fox News Channel has chosen to shield viewers from the truth about Trump what it means for American democracy.
Plus, why Michigan State Police seized voting machines as the investigation of system breaches by Trump allies widens.
Then, a high profile appeal for federal action to curb gun violence on behalf of a grieving community.
MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY, ACTOR: These are same green Converse on her feet that turned out to be the only clear evidence that could identify her after the shooting. How about that?
HAYES: And as polls begin to close, Steve Kornacki is here with all the latest on another big primary election night, when ALL IN the starts right now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES (on camera): Good evening from New York. I`m Chris Hayes. Two nights from now, the January 6 Committee will hold its first public hearings live in primetime to lay out the evidence to the entire nation of the plot to overthrow an American presidential election by conspiracy and violence.
And most of the nation will be able to watch those hearings. We of course will be covering the hearings right here as well all major broadcast networks but not the viewers of Fox News. That channel made the announcement it will not be airing this Thursday`s hearing live, but it will be counterprogramming with its usual pro-Trump pundits and providing its own laundered version of coverage after the fact. It is both a predictable and cowardly decision.
One of the many reasons Fox may not want to cover the hearings is because the plain facts of the day are just so morally indefensible even, I suspect, to most Fox viewers. Donald Trump encouraged his supporters to violently disrupt the peaceful transfer of power and showing that could make Fox viewers feel bad. And Fox is not in the business of making its viewers feel bad. Nor is it in the business of giving its viewers the unvarnished truth, especially when it comes to Donald Trump.
The last time the network did that, it faced the closest thing to an existential threat to the scene in its history. You might remember, on election night, it was Fox News first among the networks that correctly called Arizona for Joe Biden. That was big because if put him over once other states started to come back and the Trump campaign was furious. Trump`s son-in-law Jared Kushner called Fox`s owner Rupert Murdoch to demand the network retract the call. It did not.
And Trump supporters who did not want to hear their guy lost started tuning out. They turned to competitors to the right like One American News and Newsmax, organizations that were more than willing to push Trump`s big lie of a stolen election, no matter how preposterous the theories to support it. And for the first time in its life, basically, Fox faced a real challenge from its right. Because you know what, its viewers didn`t want to hear that Joe Biden won the election. They wanted to hear from conspiracy theorists spouting outlandish excuses for how the election was stolen.
Trump himself wanted to hear the same thing, of course, began touting Fox`s competitors. And in December 2020, a few weeks after the major outlets called the election for Biden, Fox News even lost in the ratings to Newsmax, to Newsmax for the first time ever. Let me tell you something, I know a thing or two about this business. That seemed to really spook Fox, and I mean really spooked them.
So, that may be one reason why the network does not want to acknowledge January 6. It didn`t happen. Then of course, there`s also the fact that many of the network stars are central to the story. They are principals in it. Fox anchor Sean Hannity was texting with Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in the days leading up to the insurrection.
In December 31, a week before the insurrection, Hannity texted Meadows, “I do not see January 6 happening the ways he`s being told. After the sixth, he should announce he will leave the nationwide effort to reform voting integrity. Go to Florida and watch Joe mess up daily. Stay engage. When he speaks, people listen.” Isn`t that funny Sean Hannity giving like a pat — like, attaboy, time to exit the stage.
Now, we should know how to defend his tax by arguing he is not a journalist, which manifestly is not, but just a talk show host. But this is the good news for Fox viewers. This Thursday, they can change the channel over to the hearing and still see all their favorite primetime anchors because they are going to be part of the show.
[20:05:05]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): Multiple Fox News hosts knew the president needed to act immediately. They texted Mr. Meadows, and he has turned over those texts. “Mark, the President needs to tell people in the capitol to go home. This is hurting all of us. He is destroying his legacy,” Laura Ingraham wrote. “Please get him on TV. It`s destroying everything you have accomplished,” Brian Kilmeade texted. “Can he make a statement? Ask people to leave the Capitol,” Sean Hannity urged.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: So, you can see why the January 6 story might be a little embarrassing for Fox. Their hosts are not just observers of the story. They were participants. They were begging and pleading for Trump to stop the insurrection. They were mortified just like everyone else who wasn`t storming the Capitol or Donald Trump.
But there`s also a larger reason here, of course, at play, why they might not want to cover the hearings. In modern American politics in the last, I don`t know, 70 years, there are essentially two big comparisons for monumental opinion-shifting televised hearings.
Up first, there were the McCarthy army hearings. Now, back in 1954, you probably know the contours of the story, but the specifics are interesting. Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin was basically mad with power, right? He was this right-wing demagogue. His high profile investigations into alleged communist subversion of the U.S. government had made him this overnight star. And his position chairing the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations made him arguably the most influential politician in the country.
But McCarthy`s ego and demagoguery and paranoia got the best of him. And he went after the U.S. Army, of all places, for alleged communist sympathy. This is in 1954, OK. In return, the Army began investigating allegations that McCarthy`s right-hand man, committee lawyer Attorney Roy Cohn had abused his position to request special favors for a buddy who had been drafted into the army.
So, the Army held hearings. So, this clip comes from June 9, 1954. The Army Council, a man by the name of Joseph Welch, had just been grilling Roy Cohn about these accusations when McCarthy just decides to go after one of Welch`s employees, a kind of tit for tat. But that employee was not about the hearings, had nothing to do with it whatsoever. This is just McCarthy trying to bully Welch, right, just picking one of his employees and going after her in public, accusing the private citizen of being a communist. And Welch finally snapped at McCarthy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOSEPH MCCARTHY, FORMER U.S. SENATOR: May I say that Mr. Welch talks about this being cruel and reckless. He was just baiting; he has been baiting Mr. Cohn here for hours, requesting that Mr. Cohn, before sundown, get out of any department of the government anyone who is serving the Communist cause.
I just give this man`s record, and I want to say, Mr. Welch, that it has been labeled long before he became a member, as early as 1944.
(CROSSTALK)
JOSEPH WELCH, FORMER CHIEF COUNSEL, U.S. ARMY: Senator, may we not drop this? We know he belonged to the Lawyers Guild, and Mr. Cohn nods his head at me. I did you, I think, no personal injury, Mr. Cohn.
ROY COHN, ATTORNEY: No, sir.
WELCH: I meant to do you no personal injury, and if I did, beg your pardon. Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: That`s it. That`s the moment, right? You may have heard those words. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you no decency left? That moment might as well have ended McCarthy`s career. By one account, 16 million Americans are watching that night. That`s more than a quarter of the total number of voters who had voted in the last election. Some 80 million watch the hearings in total, which was half the number of all Americans of all ages.
Later that year, McCarthy was censured by his colleague for his conduct during this hearings, and his reign was effectively over. That`s the power that live televised hearings can have. And it`s worth noting, of course, of Roy Cohn, the man who witnessed his own downfall or his boss` downfall firsthand during those hearings would later serve as close confidant and mentor to none other than Donald Trump.
Now, two decades after the McCarthy hearings, the nation again turns its eyes to live gavel to gavel coverage this time for the Nixon Watergate hearings. The three commercial networks aired them as they happened first altogether, then in a rotation. PBS reared them unedited at night. Listen to how PBS justified that decision at the time.
[20:10:18]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JIM LEHRER, JOURNALIST: We are running at all each day because we think these hearings are important and because we think it is important that you get a chance to see the whole thing and make your own judgments. Some nights we may be in competition with the late, late movie. We`re doing this as an experiment, temporarily abandoning our ability to edit to give you the whole story however many hours it may take.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: It`s a bold decision, the one that allowed the country by some estimate 80 percent of Americans to watch the Watergate hearings unfold real time to hear discussions about how President Richard Nixon`s inner circle conspired to break into the Democratic headquarters and then covered it up.
Like this testimony from Jeb Magruder who served on the infamous committee to reelect the president.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When did you first begin planning to cover up?
JEB MAGRUDER, POLITICAL OPERATIVE, REPUBLICAN PARTY: Well, I think there was no question that the cover-up began that Saturday when we realize it was a breaking. I don`t think there was ever any discussion that there wouldn`t be a cover-up. At least I was not — I did not participate in any discussion that indicated anything else except that at one point where we possibly thought that I might volunteer to become the key figure in the case.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A historic decision to go forward with this plan was followed with another historic decision to cover it up without any great debate or discussion of the matter?
MAGRUDER: That`s correct, sir.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Richard Nixon`s approval rating dropped by 17 points in the months after those hearings, according to Pew. It continued to drop over the next year until Nixon ultimately resigned on the threat of impeachment. Again, the live televised hearings were a major contributor to Nixon`s downfall. That`s something that was no doubt observed by Nixon`s media consultant, a man by the name of Roger Ailes.
During his tenure in the White House, Ailes wanted to launch a news network that would be explicitly pro-Republican message to help Nixon defend Nixon in the media. And while he didn`t get his wish at the time, Ailes eventually went on to create Fox news a few decades later.
And now, Donald Trump has what Richard Nixon and Joe McCarthy did not, a major news network that will run interference for the ex-President in real time no matter what he does. And Fox has apparently decided the best way to shield Trump from the embarrassing truth the January 6 Committee will reveal in its hearings is to simply not cover them at all.
George Conway is a prominent conservative lawyer, former member of the Republican Party. George, good to have you on tonight. What do you — what do you think of this decision, as unsurprising as it may be, the calculation behind it and what it means?
GEORGE CONWAY, CONSERVATIVE LAWYER: Well, I mean, it`s a simple calculation of economics and what they`re — what they`re selling to their viewers. I mean, Fox News and Sean Hannity have both said that Sean is not a journalist. And what this decision shows is that Fox News is not a news organization.
News organizations broadcast hearings that are important to the — to the life of the country, the importance of the history of the country. That`s why as you pointed out, the Army-McCarthy hearings were broadcast, the Watergate hearings were broadcast. There was the — there was — the Iran Contra hearings were broadcast. And Fox news broadcast the Benghazi hearings, which weren`t all that important.
But they`re — but they`re refusing to broadcast this hearing, which these hearings — which involve essentially an attempt to overthrow democracy, which is more important than what McCarthy`s red baiting, more important than Iran Contra, more — certainly more important than Benghazi. And so, you know, Fox News is basically saying we`re not in the news business, we`re in the opinion business and we`re just going to put Laura and Sean on TV and we`re not going to talk about it.
We`re going to talk about as little as possible because it makes our viewers uncomfortable and unhappy.
HAYES: I`m curios. You know, you`re someone who spent your life in Republican Party, conservative movement, politics and law, sort of prior to Trump but very much I would say a member in good standing of the to the extent there`s like a conservative establishment. People talked about you possibly being the Solicitor General of the United States, you`re very esteemed and respected lawyer and oral advocate.
Given that that`s the world that you have lived your life in, right, how do you see people in that world`s posture towards these hearings a year and a half after the event happened? Because I tend to think like, yes, of course, the hardcore MAGA people don`t want to hear it, they want it withdrawn. It doesn`t seem to me there`s some non-trivial number of people who are open to being reminded, slash persuaded, of just how awful this was.
CONWAY: That`s right. I mean, it was — I mean, I`m not an expert on polling but right after January 6, there were half of Republicans said to Trump for some responsibility, at least, for January 6. And even earlier this year, and I just recently saw a poll that said that, although that the numbers have declined, they`re still 10 to 11 — 10 to 12 percent of the people who who think that Trump is solely responsible, and another 20 to 30 percent of Republicans that think he is partially responsible.
And so, those people — you know, I think those people are going to want to hear a little bit more, and hopefully, they will tune into all of the other channels that will be broadcasting this live.
[20:15:43]
HAYES: Yes. There`s this question, right, about the media environment that takes place in the political culture that we have which is, given how sort of balkanized viewership is, given how hard it is to capture attention and focus at one place, whether you can have something like what you saw, you know, Iran Contra, Watergate, Army-McCarthy hearings. What do you think?
CONWAY: I think it`s a lot harder now. Absolutely, it`s a lot harder. Media fragmentation, there`s less people are watching national news than ever before. More people are getting their news from Facebook in all — of all places, and it`s tougher to get all of this to seep through and that`s a problem for our democracy. But I must say, I mean, all — what I think we need the January 6 Committee hearing — the committee to do is tell us frankly what they already have.
They don`t — they may need new bombshells maybe to bring some more viewers in, but they`ve already got — we`ve seen it over the last 17 months evidence — incredible evidence of a multifaceted criminal conspiracy. And I think the point that needs to be made to the public who may not have been paying attention as this evidence has come out in dribs and drabs over 17 months, is that it wasn`t just about the violence, the horrible violence they saw on Capitol Hill that day.
This was something that was building for months, it had many strands. And frankly, even if there had not been violence on January 6, it still would have been a significant — a serious criminal conspiracy to obstruct the electoral vote count.
HAYES: Do you think there are people — is there any place to be — again as we revisit this moment, which to me feels like a make or break kind of moment — Michael Luttig is interesting because I think he`s someone who, you know, has a somewhat similar profile of yours, like a real star of conservative legal circles. He was a — he was discussed as a possible Supreme Court nominee at one point. He was a federal appellate judge. Mike Pence consults him, right, at one point to find out like, can I do this? Luttig says no. They`ve been talking about possibly calling Luttig as a witness.
I mean, does someone like Michael Luttig still have gravity and authority to speak to conservatives, Republicans, people that want to ignore this or move on or pretend that they weren`t part of, complicit in, or just looking the other way at an attempt on the life of American democracy?
CONWAY: I think Luttig is going to be an absolutely fabulous witness. I`ve spoken to him about, you know, our mutual kinship in feeling — in being sort of like a bit, I guess, sort of feeling like we`ve been abandoned by the rest of the right. But he has — he is as strong an advocate as you could ever find for, you know, about the danger that we face right now in American democracy, particularly about what we face in 2024.
And he has absolutely a great deal to say about what happened with the Vice President on January 6. And the Vice President, Vice President Pence deserves a lot of credit for turning to Mike Luttig and getting the right answer and standing up for the rule of law that day.
HAYES: All right, George Conway, as always, thank you for making time tonight. I appreciate it.
While Fox News won`t — Fox News won`t be airing the first public hearings of the January 6 Committee, you will be able to watch them live right here on MSNBC. The coverage is starting at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday. And tomorrow night, we will be previewing those hearings in a two-hour special, An American Coup. That starts at 8:00 p.m. Don`t — make sure that you check it out.
In the meantime, we`ve got action tonight. Steve Kornacki is here. Polls have just closed in two states, and he`s standing by at the big board to break down all the races to watch on this primary night. Don`t go anywhere.
[20:20:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: We`ve done Election Day in seven states. At this hour, polls have just closed in two of them, New Jersey and Mississippi. They remain open in Iowa, South Dakota, Montana, New Mexico, and California. There are some interesting races to watch in South Dakota. The incumbent governor there who we`ve covered quite a bit, Kristi Noem, is facing a challenger from her right, though she is expected to remain the nominee.
After the 2020 census, Montana, which has seen population growth, got a second house seat for the first time since 1993. Ryan`s Zinke who`s the former at-large congressman from the state and Trump`s Secretary of the Interior, is running to represent the western portion of the state.
And in California, races that we talked about last night, billionaire lifetime Republican named Rick Caruso is running to be mayor of Los Angeles as a Democrat, though many are skeptical of his supposed change of politics. And in San Francisco, voters will decide if they want to recall District Attorney Chesa Boudin just two years into the job.
Steve Kornacki is an NBC National Political Correspondent. He joins me at the big board. Steve, what are you looking at tonight?
[20:25:02]
STEVE KORNACKI, NBC NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Yes, well, as you say, we`re starting to get some results in here. New Jersey, you`re seeing Tom Malinowski, Democratic incumbent. This is just the Democratic primary here. He`s obviously overwhelmingly winning this. But the interesting thing here is Malinowski, one of the most endangered Democrats in the House. This district, you can see in 2020, voted for Joe Biden but it was a very close race.
Obviously, it`s shaping up is a tough Midterm environment for the Democrats. Malinowski has been in some trouble with the Ethics Committee for failure to disclose some stock trades as a congressman. The question here has been who when he draws a Republican opponent.
And you see the votes starting to come in here. It`s still early, but this is what national Republicans want to see. They believe that Tom Kean Jr., the son of the former governor of New Jersey, Tom Kean, the former chairman of the 9/11 Commission, they believe he`s their best candidate. He nearly beat Malinowski two years ago in the early returns.
You see he`s got scattered opposition. There was some question here about whether he might be vulnerable to a challenge on his right, but in the early returns, Kean leading here. So, worth pointing out, this is one of the seats, one of the top seats Republicans think they can flip in the House across the country in 2022.
But you mentioned here, obviously, a bunch of other states voting tonight, and it`s 11:00 tonight that the action I think is really getting kick into gear and that`s in California. You mentioned the two kind of marquee races out there. There`s the recall in San Francisco of the DA Chesa Boudin. How do we expect this to go down? Well, in California, they`ve been getting mail-in ballots here for the last few days, few weeks. They count them or get them ready to count ahead of time. We may know in the first hour when the polls closed 11:00 p.m. Eastern time, 8:00 p.m. Pacific time. We may know in the first hour the fate of Chesa Boudin in that recall election.
And as you mentioned, in Southern California here, if nobody gets 50 percent in this Los Angeles mayoral primary, Karen Bass, Rick Caruso, they`ve been leading by far in the polls right now, if nobody gets 50 percent, the top two would advance to the runoff. The runoff would be held in November. So, the expectation here is we could be headed towards a runoff. But it would be very interesting to see the dynamic between those two candidates as the vote comes in tonight in the city of Los Angeles.
By the way, we get a preview of some general election. California will be huge this fall in terms of control of the House, but the way they do the primaries in California, it`s unique. It`s an open primary. Democrats and Republicans run on the same ballot together, the top two candidates, regardless of party, advanced the general election.
There are two incumbent members of Congress we`re keeping an eye on here in California tonight because there is something of a question of whether they will advance to November. One of them you`re seeing right here. This is in the Central Valley of California, David Valadao, Republican incumbent. Why could he be in trouble in this primary? Well, it`s a heavily Democratic district and Democrats in the district appear united behind a state legislator named Rudy Salas.
Valadao voted to impeach Donald Trump after January 6, and he`s drawn — you can see there`s another Republican in this race, Chris Mathys. The Salas campaign has actually been running ads that essentially are trying to promote Mathyse. It`s a very interesting race to watch.
Overall, this is a Democratic-leaning district. Valadao barely won it in 2020. And again, voted to impeach Trump. So, there`s some interesting, unusual dynamics in this race. We`ll be watching this one closely when it comes in. And one other incumbent here, somewhat similar dynamics, Young Kim, freshman Republican, one of the first Korean-American women ever elected to Congress. She`s also facing a challenge from the pro-Trump right. Democrats, including her opponent here. A Democrat — potential Democratic opponent have tried to promote Greg Raths here, the pro-Trump Republican.
So, again, an interesting dynamic in this open primary. There are going to be you know, probably eight congressional districts we`re going to be watching closely in November in California. But tonight, these two in particular, we`re watching because those incumbents have a little bit of reason to be antsy, and maybe a little bit nervous heading into these final hours, Chris.
HAYES: Yes, that`s really interesting. We should note, of course, back in in 2018, when the Democrats had that big night, a big part of the net seats they picked up that night were in California in those seats in Orange County, in particular, they netted about plus 10 I think out of California ultimately in 2018, and in those Jersey suburbs where Malinowski, and Congressman Kim, and a few others also won those seats.
So, those are key battleground regions this time to watch around. Steve Kornacki, thanks a lot.
KORNACKI: Thanks, Chris.
HAYES: Coming up, why the Michigan State Police have seized voting machines they say we`re infiltrated by Trump loyalists. I`ll talk to the Secretary of State to find out what exactly is happening there right after this.
[20:30:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: In a whole lot of ways, the state of Michigan was integral to the 2020 election and also to Trump`s Big Lie. Those two were related. The ex- President targeted that state as a part of his ploy to subvert the election. Remember his attempts to pressure — remember the Michigan election board, to sending Rudy Giuliani to the state to make the case the election was stolen and that wild and bizarre hearing. Ultimately, President Joe Biden beat Trump in Michigan by nearly three percent. Like, he won that state pretty handily, actually, given how close the other states were.
Well, now, 90 minutes later, we`re learning that Michigan State Police have warrants to seize voting machines along with records related to the 2020 election from several municipalities. According to Reuters, the warrants stem from “the largest known investigation into unauthorized attempts by allies of former President Donald Trump to access voting systems. The warrants include equipment and records from at least three towns in one county.
And joining me now is Jocelyn Benson. She`s the Michigan Secretary of State, which means she is in charge of administering and overseeing elections there. This caught my eye when I saw this story today. First, I guess, can you tell us what this — what is the nature of this investigation, what this is all about?
[20:35:29]
JOCELYN BENSON, SECRETARY OF STATE, MICHIGAN: Well, thanks for having me, Chris, and for shining a light on our work here to really get to the bottom of what`s going on. The bottom line is in Michigan is illegal for third parties to have unauthorized access to our voting machines. It is illegal for many reasons, in part, because we need to secure voting machines prior to every election, and we have won this August.
So, I asked the A.G., our State Attorney General to investigate all attempts to illegally gain access to election equipment in Michigan to determine first if the equipment can be used in subsequent elections, and also identify those not who have just broken the law, but to see if there are connections and coordination between what`s happening in our state and other states, and ensure that we seek full justice and accountability for anyone who is trying to access our machines.
HAYES: So, just to be clear here, the concern is this is — this is post- election, right? This is not anyone going in, you know, changing votes or hacking the machines. This is an attempt by people sympathetic to the big lie or believed it or who were pursuing it for whatever reason to get into the machines to find some like smoking gun evidence that like it had been stolen from Donald Trump, is that right?
BENSON: Exactly. And the important thing is that we know after hundreds of audits in our state, state and local risk limiting audits, that there is no evidence. We have full confidence in the results of our elections. So, ultimately, what is happening, we surmise, is an attempt not to jeopardize future elections, but to undermine faith in our system by finding things claiming that they are somehow evidence of inaccurate election results, wrongly claiming that and using that — and we`ve seen this happen in other states — to continue to keep this misinformation out there as a way of causing people to question the results of the election, as you mentioned, and ultimately delegitimize the winners of the past election and potentially future elections.
HAYES: Yes. So, we`ve seen in Colorado, I believe, there`s one election official, local Republican or county election official who we know granted some access to someone else to go into the machines in pursuit of some evidence of some tampering. This is a state that was not particularly close, by the way, we should note. What evidence is there? I mean, what`s the predicate for this? Like, did you get a tip? Like, why?
BENSON: Well, first, I think it`s important to note that the vast majority of clerks in our state are following the law and are refusing these illegal attempts to access. And that`s indeed how we found out about them. We work in partnership with over 1500 clerks in our state to ensure if and when these attempts are made to illegally access our voting machines or other election equipment, that they work with us to protect their systems against those attempts.
So, by and large, that`s what has happened here. And really what we`re looking at is, to what extent there were attempts, and is there coordination between those attempts. But we`ve also found that the attempts have, by and large, been blocked. And so, I have mostly confidence in the security of our equipment, but that hasn`t stopped folks from trying to gain that access in order to potentially claim something that they don`t understand that they`re finding is evidence of wrongdoing when in reality, the evidence is non-existent.
I`ll also emphasize though, we believe in transparency, right? So, we have accuracy testing, full public accuracy testing prior to every election so that citizens with good — acting in good faith can have confidence that the machines are accurately working.
And so, the challenge is to balance that transparency with protecting against efforts to — from bad actors to unauthorizely access our machines.
HAYES: But the — but the bad actors — I mean, it`s just like a local MAGA activist who`s gone to the clerk to be like, hey, let me jump into your election machine right quick just to see where they took all those votes for Brandon and make them President. Like, how is that happening?
BENSON: I think for this to be happening on such a large scale in our state and potentially other states suggests that it`s actually more coordinated than that. And just as we seen nationally coordinated attempt to undermine our elections in 2020, of which Michigan was one of several targets, I believe we`re seeing again a potentially nationally coordinated effort to attempt to seize access to voting machines in an effort to undermine the public`s faith in the process and make people feel as though something is untoward happening.
So, you know, this is what we`ve been dealing with for years in our state and other states, and I anticipate we`ll continue to see it evolve in the months ahead.
[20:40:02]
HAYES: Yes, it`s a tricky business because the undermining of trust is itself part of the aim other than, you know, promoting the big lie or subverting an actual outcome. Jocelyn Benson, thanks for time. I appreciate it.
BENSON: Thanks for having me.
HAYES: Still to come, Matthew McConaughey, a native of Uvalde, Texas makes a powerful appeal at the White House today. We`ll bring you an extended portion of his speech right after this.
[20:45:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: Before he became a movie star, Matthew McConaughey grew up in Uvalde, Texas. His mother actually taught kindergarten about a mile away from Robb Elementary school where 19 children and two teachers were murdered. Since the attack, McConaughey has met with the families of the victims and many other people in the community whose lives were shaken by it.
Today, he met briefly with President Joe Biden on how to keep our communities safe before appearing at the press briefing where he delivered a moving tribute to the victims of the attack as well as an impassioned call to action.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MCCONAUGHEY: Maite wear green high top Converse with a heart she had hand- drawn on the right toe, because they represented her love of nature. Camilla has got these shoes. Can you show these shoes please? She wear these every day, green Converse with a heart on the right toe. These are same green Converse on her feet that turned out to be the only clear evidence that could identify her after the shooting. How about that?
Maite wrote a letter. Her mom said if Maite`s letter could help someone accomplish her dream, but then her death would have an impact, and it would mean her dying had a point and was it pointless that it would make the loss of her life matter.
The letter reads, marine biologist, I want to pass school to get to my dream college. My dream college is in Corpus Christi by the ocean. I need to live next to the ocean because I want to be a marine biologist. Marine biologist study animals and the water. Most of the time I will be in a lab, sometimes I will be on TV.
We need to restore our American values and we need responsible gun ownership, responsible gun ownership. We need background checks. We need to raise the minimum age to purchase an AR-15 rifle to 21. We need a waiting period for those rifles. We need red flag laws and consequences for those who abuse them. These are reasonable, practical, tactical regulations to our nation, states, communities, schools, and homes.
Responsible gun owners are fed up with the Second Amendment being abused and hijacked by some deranged individuals. These regulations are not a step back. They`re a step forward for civil society and the Second Amendment. But people in power have failed to act. So, we`re asking you, and I`m asking you, will you please ask yourselves? Can both sides rise above? Can both sides see beyond the political problem at hand and admit that we have a life preservation problem on our hands?
So, we got a chance right now to reach for and to grasp a higher ground above our political affiliations, a chance to make a choice that does more than protect your party, a chance to make a choice that protects our country now and for the next generation.
HAYES: We got a chance. There has been renewed pressure in Congress to pass new gun laws in the wake of these mass murders by gun. Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota is part of that effort take action. She also met with Matthew McConaughey. And she joins me right here next.
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GARNELL WHITFIELD JR., SON OF TOPS SHOOTING VICTIM RUTH WHITFIELD: I ask every one of you to imagine the faces of your mothers as you look at mine, and ask yourself, is there nothing that we can do? Is nothing that you personally are willing to do to stop the cancer of white supremacy and the domestic terrorism it inspires? Because if there is nothing, then respectfully senators, you should yield your positions of authority and influence to others that are willing to lead on this issue. The urgency of the moment demands no less.
My mother`s life mattered. My mother`s life mattered. And your actions here today would tell us how much it matters to you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Today, former Buffalo Fire Commissioner Garnell Whitfield, Jr. pleaded for the Senate Judiciary Committee to take action after his mother, Ruth, was murdered in the Buffalo grocery store along with nine other people last month.
Tomorrow, the House Oversight Committee will hear from a number of witnesses connected to the Buffalo and Uvalde mass murders, including an 11-year-old girl who “smear herself with her murdered friend`s blood to play dead and stay alive during the Uvalde attack.”
Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota serves on the Judiciary Committee that held a hearing to examine violent extremist threats. Earlier today, she also spoke at the Gun Violence Memorial honoring the 45,000 lives lost to gun violence each year and she joins me now.
Senator, we have been getting periodic updates about this bipartisan group of senators. Chris Murphy has been talking to the president. What is your sense of where things stand right now?
I`m not sure we have the Senator.
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SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN): Chris, I can. I just — it cut out there, but I can hear you now.
HAYES: We`ve been we`ve been getting updates about the bipartisan group of senators meeting to talk about some kind of reforms in the wake of these two awful mass shootings and 20 other shootings just since then, and counting in which multiple people have been shot by weapons. What is your sense of the state of play right now?
KLOBUCHAR: First of all, I think anyone that sees those pictures of the little girl as Matthew McConaughey so beautifully pointed out, the green tennis shoes, the confirmation dresses, the kids with their sports uniforms. This has hit America as it has many, many times but for some reason, and maybe it is just the complete massive number of these mass shootings in one weekend, 13, that people want to see action.
And one of the interesting things about McConaughey, actually, is that he has been able to transcend politics. I was with him last night with a number of Republican senators. And we talked about the fact that we have to move forward. And I have a lot of faith in Chris Murphy in leading this effort to find that common ground.
Is it going to be everything that I want? I`d like to see an assault weapon ban. I don`t think we`re going to see that right now. And that`s something we`re going to deal with at the — at the ballot box. But some kind of background checks that we were so close to getting before, something with extreme risk orders, the 18 to 21-year-olds.
When you look at the last two shootings, you just heard that man talk about his mother, or the dad that went to get a birthday cake for his little kid and never came home. Both of the shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde, they were about 18-year-olds who are targeted with the ads on the internet, who go out there, wait till their 18th birthday, and go and buy an assault weapon when they can`t even get a beer.
And so, at the very least we should be changing that age. So, those things are all being discussed right now, Chris. And I just think moving forward, doing something where not every one of these Republican senators is catering to the NRA is going to be really important for this nation.
HAYES: Yes. What you just said is something I keep thinking about, which is that it`s truly deranged in the United States of America, an 18-year-old cannot buy a mango white claw but can acquire a weapon designed to maim and kill at the scale that these weapons are in, in many, many, many, many, many states.
Do you think — I guess the second question on this is there`s always the concern that these kinds of things are a kind of rope a dope strategy by McConnell. And we know — we saw that with bipartisan infrastructure, which I think was actually sort of successful in its own way, which is like, if you OK talks, then you can space out the momentum, then public attention moves on, and then you can just drop it when people are paying attention to something else.
KLOBUCHAR: You got to always worry about that for good reason. And you`re a student. You know that no one`s going to agree to a study, right, to something that means nothing. We have been trying for years to do something on the extreme risk corridors or what is also known as red flags, I think it`s a better way to describe it as Lucy McBath does in her bill, extreme risk corridors.
I`ve been trying for years to close the boyfriend loophole, which is a major cause of death of women in domestic violence, homicides. These things are on the table. So, I just want to move forward right now. The American people want us to get something done. But obviously, we need to do more. And that is going to keep being a topic of discussion, because sadly, when you look at these assault weapons in the hands of people that shouldn`t have them — I come from hunting state, Chris. And I`ve always noted people that, you know, he doesn`t need an AR-15 in the deer stand.
And so, I believe that we can move forward as a nation and I just refuse to lose hope on this. And that`s why I`m encouraging my colleagues to go forward. And I`m glad that people are still at the table, honestly.
HAYES: Yeah. And I do think public attention has some role to play here. So, we will do our part in that respect. Senator Amy Klobuchar, always good to talk to you. Come back soon, please.
KLOBUCHAR: Thank you very much, Chris. See you later.
HAYES: Speaking of this topic, this week, on my podcast, I spoke with Ryan Busse. You may recognize that name because he was on ALL IN in the wake of the Uvalde shooting. And he`s a guy who spent his entire career working inside the gun industry, watching it get more and more radical before he just finally had enough.
He walked away, to dedicate his life to working against them. And in that conversation, we talked about the road back from here, what a failure to act means for the future, not just a gun control, but also our democracy. The podcast asked which I host weekly is called Why Is This Happening? You can check it out wherever you get your podcasts. I think you`ll learn a lot from that conversation.
That is ALL IN on this Tuesday night. “MSNBC PRIME” starts now with Ali Velshi. Good evening, Ali.