Updated
Summary
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in an interview with “The Atlantic” says that the urgency for aid in Ukraine is high and that Putin has created a more brutal Russia feeding the people of Russia with lies. Missouri State Representative Ian Mackey delivers a powerful speech to confront an anti- trans bill from Republican Representative Chuck Basye who has a brother that is gay. 100 new text messages from Mark Meadows are in possession of the January 6th committee.
Transcript
MEHDI HASSAN, MSNBC HOST: That does it for us tonight. Rachel will be back here on Monday. Now it`s time for “The Last Word” with Lawrence O`Donnell. Good evening, Lawrence.
LAWRENCE O`DONNELL, MSNBC HOST: Good evening, Mehdi. And here is the thing I don`t get about that particular version of fasting because whenever I`ve done very short-term fasting, it never gives me more energy. It never makes me more lively as it appeared to do.
HASSAN: I suspect Mr. Tahhan, Zack, who I`m hoping to speak to this weekend, I suspect he`s a kind of guy who is energetic 24/7 regardless of whether he`s eaten or not.
O`DONNELL: That`s the muted — that`s the fast and muted version of him. Can`t wait to see your discussion with him.
HASSAN: Thanks Lawrence.
O`DONNELL: Thank you Mehdi. Thank you. Well, we`re going to begin tonight with the words of two remarkable and brave politicians. They are rare finds in the world of politics because they are not 100 percent dependent on speech writers, in fact not at all. They both speak from the heart and the mind in truly beautiful combinations of intellect and determination.
The first is President Zelenskyy who has given his very best interview yet, by far, to “The Atlantic`s” Jeffrey Goldberg and Anne Applebaum who knew exactly where to focus their interview. One reason it is President Zelenskyy`s best interview is that there were no cameras present. He said he was more relaxed without TV cameras when he was speaking with his interviewers.
We will consider what President Zelenskyy had to say in our first segment tonight. And in our second segment tonight you will meet a member of the Missouri House of Representatives. His name is Ian Mackey and he represents a district in St. Louis. He believes he could never have gotten elected to the Missouri town where he grew up because of the strong anti-gay prejudice in that community.
He brought his life experience to the floor of the Missouri House this week. And when he argued against the Republican bill that could limit transgender participation in school sports, no one could possibly have written the speech that he delivered.
That speech by Ian Mackey was something that did not have to be written. He did not have to write it himself because it just poured out of him in a controlled, righteous fury that is a painful and beautiful thing to behold. It is, I guarantee you, the best and most moving speech of this week in American politics and in most weeks of American politics.
We will bring you that speech in our second segment tonight and Ian Mackey will join us as a guest on this program for what I hope is the first of many appearances.
And Presidents Zelenskyy`s best interview ever with “The Atlantic,” he said he feels like Bill Murray and it is at moments like that in this fascinating interview that you realize, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is more fluent in American popular culture and for that matter, British popular culture than any other president in the world, possibly even including Joe Biden.
President Zelenskyy told “The Atlantic,” “I like new questions, he said. It is not interesting to answer the questions you already heard. He is frustrated, for instance, by repeated request for his wish list of weapons. When some leaders ask me what weapons I need, I need a moment to calm myself because I already told them the week before. It`s Groundhog Day. I feel like Bill Murray.”
Later, President Zelenskyy`s staff followed up that answer with a very specific list of Ukraine military needs now, artillery, multiple launch rocket systems, armored vehicles, tanks, air defense systems, military aircraft. President Zelenskyy says that the leaders of the countries he is asking to supply weapons do not feel the urgency level he feels.
“They just live in a different situation. As long as they have not lost their parents and children, they do not feel the way we feel. He makes the comparison to the conversations he has with the extraordinary defenders of Mariupol, the besieged port city where 21,000 civilians may have been killed so far.
For example, they say we need help, we have four hours. And even in Kyiv, we don`t even understand what four hours are. In Washington, for sure they can`t understand. However, we are grateful to the U.S. because the planes with weapons are still coming.”
President Zelenskyy showed more of his work history in entertainment and comedy in this interview than in any other previous interview. Before he became president of Ukraine, his film and television production company had offices in Moscow as well as Ukraine, and viewers in countries all over the region.
[22:04:59]
But now, he says Russians are completely cut off from any information that could change their minds about what Vladimir Putin is doing, including comedy. President Zelenskyy said, people he used to work in Russia, people he knows in Russia, have changed, “become more brutal.” That surprises him.
He said, “It`s the North Korean virus. Putin has invited people into this information bunker, so to speak, without their knowledge, and they live there. It is, as the Beatles sang, a yellow submarine.”
President Zelenskyy said that people cannot survive without a sense of humor. “Without a sense of humor, as surgeons say, they would not be able to perform surgeries to save lives and to lose people as well. They would simply lose their minds without humor”.
In the best direct question asked of President Zelenskyy, the reporters asked, is Putin afraid of humor? “A very much so,” Zelenskyy said. “Humor, he explained, reveals deeper truths. Jesters were allowed to tell the truth in ancient kingdoms, he said, but Russia fears the truth. Comedy remains a powerful weapon because it is accessible. Complex mechanisms and political formulations are difficult for humans to grasp. But through humor, it`s easy; it`s a shortcut.”
There are times when President Zelenskyy can only laugh at the absurd things that Vladimir Putin and his ally, President Aleksandr Lukashenko of Belarus, say about Ukraine. “Putin and Lukashenko, they make it sound like some kind of political Monty Python.”
President Zelenskyy says that, eventually, the Russian people and new Russian leaders will have to do what Germany did after World War II. “Zelenskyy says, they are afraid to admit guilt. He compares them to alcoholics who don`t admit that they are alcoholic. If they want to recover, they have to learn to accept the truth. Russians need leaders they choose, leaders they trust. Leaders who can then come in and say, yes, we did that. That is how it worked in Germany.”
President Zelenskyy said this Easter weekend will be different in Ukraine. “People usually pray for the future of their families and their children. I think that today they will pray for the present, just to save everyone.”
With the Russians planning for attacks in eastern Ukraine on Easter weekend, President Zelenskyy said, “I cannot understand how a Christian country, the Russian federation, will be killing people on these very days. This is not Christian behavior at all, as I understand it. On Easter, they will kill and they will be killed.”
Leading off our discussion tonight, Jelani Cobb, staff writer for “The New Yorker” and professor of journalism at Columbia University. He is an MSNBC political contributor. Also with us, Fintan O`Toole, columnist for the “Irish Times” and the “New York Review of Books.” He is the author of “We Don`t Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Modern Ireland.” Professor Cobb, let me begin with you and what we learned in this new Zelenskyy interview about the man and about the way he is approaching this greatest challenge of his life or the lives of any president.
JELANI COBB, MSNBC POLITICAL CONTRIBUTOR: So, I mean, I think you are right in saying, you know, it`s quite an astounding interview. You know, we have seen him speak passionately and compellingly and to articulate the cause of the Ukrainian people in many formats and many forums now. But to hear him or to read him in this format gives you a real sense of how nuanced and thoughtful and intelligent he is as a leader.
O`DONNELL: And Fintan O`Toole, I was struck by his comparison to Germany post-World War II and Germany`s clear admission of guilt, and changing its direction in a way that the world could be confident that it was no longer Nazi Germany. That is rare. That`s a rare outcome at the end of conflicts that one side says, we were wrong. It seems like an outcome we can hope for, but not very soon in Russia.
FINTAN O`TOOLE, COLUMNIST, THE IRISH TIMES: I think, of course, Lawrence, that is true. You know, the — Americans know this too, you know, which is that when people buy into lies, when they buy into absurdity, when they buy into all the things that Zelenskyy, you know, so brilliant in articulating this kind of incredible stupidity of what Russia is expecting people to believe.
But if you do believe this, if you buy into that stuff, it becomes very, very hard to admit then that, you know, you were the fools.
[22:10:01]
That all of this was just complete nonsense. And that it was not just nonsense, but it was toxic, dangerous nonsense that was killing your own children. I mean, how — can you imagine what it`s like to be a decent person in Russia? And we have to remember that the vast majority of people in Russia are decent human beings, just like us.
You know, to have your son or your daughter out there in Ukraine. And they`re all telling you, you know, this is where we`re kind of hunting Nazis and then, you know, it dawns on you some time. That, you know, this is all a lie. And what if your son or daughter dies for that lie? It is very, very hard psychologically, I think, to get yourself to a point where you admit that that`s what happened. So, it may take a whole generation in Russia, I think, for that truth to dawn, sadly.
O`DONNELL: And Professor Cobb, this was —
COBB: Lawrence, can I — can I echo —
O`DONNELL: Go ahead. Please, go ahead. Yes.
COBB: I mean, I think it`s really — that`s a really important point. Because when we look at it, there`s instance after instance in which we`ve seen tremendous atrocities. They were simply denied. You know, the people just said, we never did it. The Japanese did that in Nanking where there were 500,000 Chinese slaughtered in the cause of World War II.
The Turks in Armenia. The United States at the end of the civil war. The American south, you know, denying what the war was ever fought about. And what you find is that those kinds of calcified lies only serve to facilitate later acts of tremendous aggression and inhumanity.
I mean, Russia did it before. The Soviets did it with the Katyn Forest with 20,000 Poles who were slaughtered at the end of World War II. And so what we are seeing now is not unique, but it is tremendously dangerous.
O`DONNELL: And Fintan O`Toole, your latest piece for “The Irish Times,” you looked at this threat to democracy, which this war is, Vladimir Putin trying to crush his neighboring democracy and you make the point that this is a phenomenon that we are seeing around the world. That this challenge — this challenge to democracy is not just there.
And you`ve isolated — you`ve isolated a cause that is new to me and very compelling, when you say that the molten core of this crisis of democracy is that capitalism itself has gone feral. Capitalism has evolved to be at least as compatible with oligarchy and autocracy as it is with democracy.
And that takes me back to the days when the walls were cracking and when there was so much optimism in the United States in the foreign policy community, especially because finally, Levi`s and Coca-Cola were making their way into the Soviet Union and they felt, well, the clock is ticking on the regime.
Once the Soviet citizenry, and also in China, once they get a taste of these amazing fruits of American capitalism, they are going to want that life for themselves, therefore, presto, democracy. It turns out, we have discovered something else.
O`TOOLE: Very sadly, we have, you know. We just — and this is really very profound, I think because for hundreds of years really, you know, a lot of the political theory and the philosophy of what does it mean to be modern was basically saying, look, if you are going to have capitalism, you have to have the rule of law, which means you have to have an independent judiciary.
But also you have to have some kind of democracy because people have to consent to the law. And then also you have to kind of have a free flow of information and truth because, actually, capitalism needs innovation, it needs science, it needs, you know, people debating things and coming up with new ideas.
And what we`ve found really is the collapse of that idea. And I completely admit that I bought into it too. I mean, I completely believed 15 years ago, you know, that there was an inevitability about the way in which China would develop and Russia would develop. And now what we`re seeing of course is the false China and Russia have become more autocratic, more authoritarian, more repressive, more brutal.
And they are still functioning, you know, as kind of quasi-capitalist societies very well. And so we have to ask ourselves is, you know, what`s gone wrong with our idea of how capitalism works. And I think it goes back to a very basic thing, you know, which is that a lot of people are very, very happy to make an awful lot of money and have no responsibility towards society.
You know, if you just take the very simple thing of why were the Russian oligarchs able to hide their money and create this vast offshore Russia in the west.
[22:15:01]
They`re able to do it because they were exploiting system that we created to allow our, you know, super rich people to hide their money and move it around and have it through shell companies where nobody could really tell what the beneficial ownership of these places was.
So, we ourselves and our — the corruption of our sense of a responsible capitalism or a capitalism that is kind of rooted in the common good I think has contributed hugely to the creation of these monsters that now really threaten democracy itself.
O`DONNELL: And Professor Cobb, there is no better public manifestation of this contorted version of capitalism in Russia, and the version that exists in China, than these massive mega yachts who are getting kind of handcuffed in harbors around the world`s.
These Russian billionaire yachts that are being seized. And now homes in the south of France and — I mean, it seems when you look at this that the one place that Russian billionaires never want to be is Russia, given where they have all their residences and all of that. But that is the public manifestation of this weird twisted version of capitalism for some in Russia.
COBB: Sure. But I mean, I think we`re letting capitalism in the west off the hook. I mean, anybody who spent any time looking at the relationships at the third world nations to the so-called first world nations in, you know, we are the raw resources for all those capitalist production has happened, in the United States.
I mean, look at the history of the U.S. relationship with Haiti. We wouldn`t think that Russian capitalism is so atypical. As a matter of fact, Russian capitalism just kind of looks like the most brutal and non-cosmetic version of capitalism that we saw in the 19th century.
They haven`t decided to give it a facelift and make it appear to be more egalitarian than it is. And so I think that we have to be very clear, you know, that what we don`t — what we`re seeing in Russia is really — should not really be surprising to us.
O`DONNELL: Professor Jelani Cobb and Fintan O`Toole, thank you very much for starting off our discussion tonight.
COBB: Thank you.
O`DONNELL: Thank you. And coming up, we`ll have more on the situation in Ukraine later in the hour with a live report from Ukraine. And next, Ian Mackey will join us after we show you the breathtaking speech that he delivered in the Missouri House of Representatives this week. That is one of the most powerful and moving statements I have ever heard in the legislative chamber anywhere. It will be my honor to introduce you to Representative Ian Mackey, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:20:00]
O`DONNELL: If I could change one unchangeable thing in American politics, I would ban all speech writers. And then politicians would have to tell us what they really think without professional writers doing it for them. Our next guest will have no problem with that.
Ian Mackey, a St. Louis Democrat, is a member of the Missouri House of Representatives. He delivered a speech this week that is the most eloquent and most moving speech of this week in American politics and maybe this year. No one could have written this speech for Ian Mackey and he didn`t have to write it for himself. It simply burst from him in a controlled mix of pain and strength and truth and hope.
You have never seen two minutes and 13 seconds of speech making like this. Republican Missouri State Representative Chuck Basye has a history, some might say an obsession, with introducing anti LGBTQ legislation. Last year, when he was defending one of his bills, he told a story about his brother who is gay. On Wednesday night, in the Missouri state, State House Representative Ian Mackey began his remarkable speech in opposition to the bill by reminding Basye about his brother.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. IAN MACKEY, MISSOURI STATE REPRESENTATIVE: Do you remember your remarks on the floor last year when you brought this up?
REP. CHUCK BASYE, MISSOURI STATE REPRESENTATIVE: I would — you`d have to give me a specific. I mean, I made a lot of remarks last year.
MACKEY: Sure. So, I recall a story you told about your brother.
BASYE: Okay.
MACKEY: And I remember you said that your brother called or that your mother called you, I believe, to tell you that your brother had some news that he was afraid to tell you.
BASYE: Okay.
MACKEY: And your brother wanted to tell you that he was gay, didn`t he?
BASYE: He was expressing that to the family and he thought that we would hold that against him and not let my children be around him.
MACKEY: Why do you think he thought that?
BASYE: I don`t know. It never would have happened, I`ll tell you that. My kids at that point in their life adored my brother.
MACKEY: Can I tell you, if I were your brother, I would have been afraid to tell you to.
BASYE: Well, I`m sorry.
MACKEY: I would have been afraid to tell you, too, because of stuff like this, because this is what you are focused on. This is the legislation you want to put forward. This is what consumes your time.
[22:25:01]
I would`ve been afraid to tell you to. I was afraid of people like you growing up. And I grew up in Hickory County, Missouri. I grew up in a school district that would vote tomorrow to put this in place. And for 18 years, I walked around with nice people like you who took me to ball games, who told me how smart I was.
And they went to the ballot and voted for crap like this. And I couldn`t wait to get out. I couldn`t wait to move to a part of our state that would reject this stuff in a minute. I couldn`t wait and thank God I made it. Thank God I made it out, and I think every day of the kids who are still there, who haven`t made it out, who haven`t escaped from this kind of bigotry.
Gentleman, I`m not afraid of you anymore because you are going to lose. You may win this today, but you`re going to lose.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O`DONNELL: And joining us now is Missouri State Representative Ian Mackey. Thank you very much for joining us. I just saw this video a few hours ago and we went into overdrive to try to get you to be with us tonight.
Tell us about the moments leading up to that speech and what brought you to that point to decide to deliver those remarks? I think we have a problem with Ian`s connection. Go ahead Ian. Can you hear me?
MACKEY: Sure. Sure. So, yes. So, yes, so the — you know, that was — and this is an issue we knew we were going to end up debating at some point this year. This is an issue that, of course, has been brought up in legislations around the country. And leading up to this, we saw that Representative Basye had filed this amendment on a relatively unrelated bill pertaining to elections in our state.
And I has asked the floor leader if he wouldn`t mind walking over to Representative Basye in asking him to stand down on this. This was an issue that wasn`t related to elections. This was a time where we didn`t want to have this fight.
We were working pretty cohesively in a bipartisan way as a body that afternoon. The floor leader went over and talked to Representative Basye. He tried to ask him to step down like he was contemplating that. The speaker wanted this to go ahead, however.
And, you know, I`ve had private conversations with Representative Basye before the speech, before this moment on the floor where I made it clear that, you know, if we were going to do this out in the open, if we were going to do this in public, if this was something that we were going to debate on the floor, that it was going to get deeply personal, and that it was going to be a serious moment.
And that, you know, this is something that I thought we should keep off the table. This is, you know, an issue that poisons the well. Representative Basye and I work on so many issues together in a bipartisan way that is productive for our state. And this issue just poisons the well.
And so, you know, I tried several times to avoid this discussion and avoid this debate, but at the end of the day, that wasn`t my call. And so what happen happened.
O`DONNELL: You moved from Hickory County, Missouri to St. Louis. I think you couldn`t possibly have been elected in Hickory County according to what we heard about Hickory County today. And you talked about in your speech, you think every day about the kids who are still there in Hickory County, the kids who haven`t made it out, who haven`t escaped from this kind of bigotry. What do you want those kids to know about what their future can be?
MACKEY: You know, I do think about them every day. Every single day, I think about them. And, you know, whether they are in Hickory County or Dallas County or Barry County or some other rural parts of our state or of our country, you know, I want them to know that there will come a time, there will come a time where they will find people who accept them, where they will find people who love them.
And you know, I have immediate family members who were supportive and who loved me, and who welcomed me and who took me as I was. But, you know, and like I said to Representative Basye, I had folks who outwardly were kind and supportive, but who we know, when asked to decide the course of public policy chose to treat me as a second-class citizen.
Just know that there are so many places where that`s not the case. And please, before you do anything else, wait and reach out for help. There are so many resources. There are so many people who want to help. There are so many people who want to be there for you, and just let them.
And just know that there are people in public office, people I work with in the state of Missouri, people all across the country who are doing everything they can every day to make sure that your rights are just as equal as Representative Basye or anyone else`s.
[22:29:59]
O`DONNELL: What were you feeling when you — in those two minutes and 23 seconds that we just saw where you were summoning up your entire life experience for this moment?
MACKEY: You know, it is something I have talked thought about saying for a long time.
It is something I`ve told several people privately. You know, it is something I talked to friends of mine about. Acquaintances and friends who grew up in similar situations and circumstances.
You know, I served with people who have been through this. And you know, I asked these kids and their families to come to the capital, over and over and over. I begged them to come and share their stories.
And I — you know, I tell them that I know it is hard. And until that moment I did not realize just how hard it really is because that was my time to tell my story. And I realized that I finally took a little bit of my own advice. I realized the impact it had. And I hope that it inspires so many more people — kids and parents out there to do the same.
O`DONNELL: Missouri state representative, the Honorable Ian Mackey, thank you very much for joining us tonight. And thank you very much for delivering those important words to the Missouri House.
MACKEY: Thank you, Lawrence.
O`DONNELL: Thank you.
And coming up, 100 new text messages from Mark Meadows are in possession of the January 6th committee and they show that even Mark Meadows did not believe the crazy stuff that Rudy Giuliani was saying about the election on television.
That is next.
[22:31:38]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O`DONNELL: — saying, “Unequivocal support for you to exhaust every legal and constitutional remedy at your disposal to restore Americans` faith in our elections. Stay strong and keep fighting, Mr. President.”
Now, that might sound like Mike Lee cheerleading Donald Trump`s attempt to illegally overturn the election, but it wasn`t. Senator Lee consistently communicated the need to produce real evidence for real legal challenges. There is no indication that Senator Lee really believed there would be any real evidence for any real legal challenges.
Congressman Roy echoed that approach, texting Meadows, “Approach the legal challenge firmly, intelligently and effectively without resorting to throwing wild, desperate haymakers or whipping his base into a conspiracy frenzy.
On November 19th, when an obviously deranged legal team of Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell held a wild, lying press conference with Giuliani`s dripping hair dye, producing the biggest headlines, Senator Lee texted Meadows, “I`m worried about the Powell press conference. The potential defamation liability for the president is significant here. Unless Powell can backup everything she said, which I kind of doubt she can.”
Meadows responds, quote, “I agree. Very concerned.” So, there is Mark Meadows saying that he is very concerned about the crazy Trump lawyers on TV.
Congressman Roy texted Meadows after that press conference, saying, “We need substance or people who are going — or people are going to break.
Three days later, Congressman Roy texted Meadows again. “If we don`t get logic and reason in this before November 30th, the GOP conference will bolt, all accept the most hard-core Trump guys.”
With no evidence of voting irregularities anywhere in the country, on December 31st, Congressman Roy texted Matthews (SIC), the president should call everyone off. It`s the only path. If we substitute the will of states through electors with a vote by congress every four years, we have destroyed the electoral college.”
On January 3rd, Senator Lee texted Meadows, “I know only that this will end badly for the president unless we have the constitution on our side. I would love to be proven wrong about my concerns. But I really think this could all backfire badly.”
Then on January 6th, during the attack on the capitol, Congressman Roy texted Meadows, “This is a crap show, fix this now.” Meadows responded, “We are”. That, of course, is a lie. Donald Trump and his White House chief of staff did nothing to stop or turn back the attack on the capitol.
Senator Lee and Congressman Roy then voted to uphold Joe Biden`s electoral college victory in the vote on January 6th.
[22:39:49]
O`DONNELL: Joining us now is John Heilemann, host of the “Hell and High Water” podcast from The Recount and co-host and executive producer of Showtime`s “The Circus”. He`s an MSNBC national affairs analyst.
And John, you got 100 new texts to read today. What is your reading of the new Meadows texts?
JOHN HEILEMANN, MSNBC NATIONAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, hey Lawrence. My first thing is, you know, Mark Meadows, man, he got a lot of text messages from a lot of loopy people over the course of that period or actually election through January 20th. I mean, you got Ginni Thomas coming in one door and these guys coming in the other.
You know, I agree with you that, you know, there has got to be — when grading Republicans in this period, one unfortunately has to use a sliding scale. And so both of these two gentlemen we`re talking about here — Chip Roy and Mike Lee — ended up in the right place. I — we should give them credit for that. They ultimately ended up seeing before January 6th that the crazy had taken over. They were urging caution and they ended up voting the right way on the election.
I still think, though, you know, it`s a little bit rich for them to claim that they were 100 percent free of any blame here, given that you have got Mike Lee, who claims to be an eminent kind of constitutional scholar. He was pushing Sidney Powell immediately after election day. And it wasn`t like Sidney Powell just turned out to be crazy, you know, later on after the press conference with Rudy Giuliani. She had been pretty crazy for a good period of time before that.
And yet both these guys were urging Sidney Powell in the door and then when they get sick of Sidney Powell, they turn to John Eastman, who turns out to have been, you know, as problematic, in certain ways, as problematic as Sidney Powell. So I think, you know, what we see here is we saw a lot of Republicans and even some of the ones who ended up in the right place, where in those key days after November 7th when Donald Trump may be, if the whole party had said to him on November 8th, 9th, or 10th, said listen, you lost. There is nowhere to go with this. Maybe he would`ve had a different outcome.
But it seemed like a lot of people, even those who ended up in the right place they said were in those crucial early days after the election, telling Trump that maybe there was widespread fraud and that maybe he should mount serious, vigorous, legal challenges even though there was really no evidence out there as we later learned of any kind of fraud.
O`DONNELL: One thing that neither one of them say in their texts is there are no rules in war. That is what Clarence Thomas`s wife said to Mark Meadows. She was clearly advocating criminal, anything, whatever you want to do, break any law.
HEILEMANN: Right.
O`DONNELL: These guys were never advocating breaking any laws.
HEILEMANN: Correct. That`s an — again, an important distinction for sure. And I don`t want to put them totally in the same bucket with Ginni Thomas, who is also espousing all kinds of crazy QAnon conspiracy theories. These guys are not talking about detention in Guantanamo Bay for Joe Biden or for members of the media.
So, no they are not in the same category as Ginni Thomas. They`re more responsible than that. And again, we should all give them credit for having ended up in the right place on this.
But I do think there was a kind of mass psychosis that took over across the Republican Party in those immediate days after the election was called. In the immediate days after the election when, rather than kind of urging probity and calm on Donald Trump`s part, there was a lot of frenzy going on across the ideological spectrum within the Republican Party, that gave Trump I think kind of — you know, look, he didn`t need much license Lawrence, we know Donald Trump was going to do what he was going to do on some level.
But I do think there were an awful lot of people pushing him down path that turned out to be one that, being Trump, he could never put the brakes on once he started down it.
O`DONNELL: John, one of the fun things that`s happening in Washington since the Meadows material was order handed over to the committee, is everyone who texted Mark Meadows knows who they are. And everyone whose texts are still —
(CROSSTALK)
O`DONNELL: secret, they all know that they`re still secret. But they also all know that they`re all going to come out. Every one of their texts is eventually going to be out there.
HEILEMANN: Yes. And you know, there are a lot of nervous people in Washington tonight, Lawrence.
They are just waiting for when is the moment the hammer is going to drop, you know, imagine there are a lot of Republicans who aren`t looking forward to that day.
I got to say — I want to ask you this question, though because I was thinking about it earlier today. You put this story — this story with Meadows, and an increasing sense that Meadows was the repository of — I mean, I don`t know White House chiefs of staff that have that much — had given their phone number out in —
(CROSSTALK).
O`DONNELL: Yes.
HEILEMANN: — text messages that this wide array of people. You know, I can`t think if you put this together with the Meadows voter fraud thing we have seen in recent days, do you not think it is getting pretty clear that Mark Meadows has surpassed HR Haldeman as the worst White House chief of staff of our lifetime, maybe ever?
O`DONNELL: Well, I mean it is a four way tie, with the Trump White House chiefs of staff. It`s really, the Trump White House made that an extremely difficult call. And we`re going to have to deliberate on that another night.
John Heilemann, thank you very much for joining us tonight., Really appreciate it.
And coming up — we will get a live report from Ukraine and a report on the Russian state media`s reaction to the sinking of that Russian warship. That is next.
[22:44:59]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O`DONNELL: Russia has sent a formal diplomatic note warning the United States to stop supplying Ukraine with weapons or risk, quote, “unpredictable consequences”.
[22:49:48]
O`DONNELL: A senior administration official told the “Washington Post”, “What the Russians are telling us privately is precisely what we have been telling the world publicly. That the massive amount of assistance that we have been providing our Ukrainian partners is proving extraordinarily effective.”
A senior Pentagon official has confirmed that the Russian warship was sunk by Ukrainian missiles this week. Russian defense officials initially said a fire broke out on the ship, causing munitions to explode.
And then Russia said the ship sank in stormy seas, while being towed back to shore, but there was no storm. And now the Russian state television is saying there really was a Ukrainian attack on that ship.
(VIDEO CLIP FROM RUSSIAN STATE TV)
O`DONNELL: We will have more on what is being said on Russian television with Russian media analyst Julie Davis in a moment.
Joining us now is NBC News correspondent Ali Arouzi in Lviv. Ali, what is the situation there tonight?
ALI AROUZI, NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Lawrence. You can probably hear the loudspeaker and the air raid siren has been going off behind us now. And that has been happening a lot more regularly after the embarrassment the Russians suffered after their flagship Moskva was sunk. The biggest warship to have been sunk since the Second World War.
And the Ukrainians said that they were expecting retribution from the Russians and that revenge came in the early hours of the morning on the outskirts of Kyiv, when they hit a missile factory.
And Lawrence, it was not just any missile factory. It was a missile factory that produced the Neptune anti ship missile that sunk the Moskva, a symbol of Russian military might.
Now that asset is sitting at the bottom of the Black Sea. And the Russians are saying that they are still going to target Kyiv and strategic locations in Kyiv.
And then this morning they hit Kharkiv, they hit a residential area in Kharkiv, killing seven people. Amongst the dead a seven-month-old child.
And also 900 dead bodies have been found in Bucha. The entire area has been called a crime scene.
O`DONNELL: Ali Arouzi, thank you very much for your reporting, and please stay safe this weekend. Thank you, Ali.
Joining us now is Julia Davis, columnist for the Daily Beast and creator of Russian Media Monitor. Julia, thanks to the video you just gave us, one of the amazing moments in the middle of that is when one of the speakers says, what are we waging right now? The host has to say, Russian special military operation.
And of course, the guest wants to call it war and says it is worthy of war.
Is that a typical example of what is being seen out there? And apparently that show is telling Russians that, yes, Ukrainians sank a Russian ship.
JULIA DAVIS, “THE DAILY BEAST”: Yes, exactly. And they are all getting kind of tired of having to repeat that tired line about a special military operation. They know very well that this is nothing less than a war.
And on other state TV media channels, there was not a single person that bought for even one second the defense ministry`s lame story about a fire and a towing and a storm.
From the get-go they all addressed it as the Ukrainians sinking their warship. And there is something very poetic about sinking Moskva and it certainly did not go over well with them.
[22:54:46]
O`DONNELL: But that is surprising. We are of the impression that these people on TV are not allowed to speculate and — that they are not allowed to say anything that is not the Russian line, the government line. And the government line was, no, there was a fire of a strange origin on the ship.
DAVIS: It`s kind of hard for them to argue that when their own defense ministry obviously knows what happens, which is why they bombed the missile factory, which on state TV was explicitly described as retaliation against the Ukrainians.
So, I think that even at the Kremlin they realize that this was a ludicrous cover story. In addition, they are trying to build up the mood for the public to understand their retaliatory — or so-called retaliatory — measures they are getting ready to undertake. And are preparing them for increasing brutality.
O`DONNELL: Julie Davis, thank you for joining us tonight and thank you for monitoring Russian TV for us. We really appreciate it. Thank you.
DAVIS: Thank you Lawrence.
O`DONNELL: And we will be right back.
[22:55:57]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O`DONNELL: We are out of time. See you Monday.
“THE 11TH HOUR WITH STEPHANIE RUHLE” starts now.