Updated
Summary
The United States Ambassador to Ukraine, Bridget Brink, is interviewed. The first January 6 Committee hearing is set for Thursday night.
Transcript
RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC HOST: Good evening, Chris. Thank you, my friend.
[21:00:00]
Much appreciated.
CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST: You bet.
MADDOW: And thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. Happy to have you here.
The new U.S. ambassador to Ukraine is going to be our guest, here live tonight. This is going to be her first live interview since taking her post and reopening the U.S. embassy in Kyiv. Kyiv, of course, a city that is now newly-being targeted with missiles but the Russian military. Heck of a welcome back to the city for the U.S. embassy, but Ambassador Bridget Brink is going to be joining us for an exclusive interview from Kyiv in just a few minutes here. I hope you`ll be here with us for that.
Back in 2010, the U.S. Justice Department arrested and indicted nine people in Michigan and Ohio and Indiana — nine people who were all members of a group that called itself a militia. And the indictment back in 2020 charged that these nine people intended to murder a member of law enforcement, possibly the family of a law enforcement officer as well. And then when lots of other law enforcement officers inevitably would come from all over the country to be there for the big public funeral that would result, this militia decided that they would mount a big attack on the funeral to kill as many law enforcement officers from all across the country as possible.
And in that larger attack that they planned on the funeral they plan to use not just guns but also IEDs. This was 2010. There by then had been years of extensive coverage in U.S. media about IEDs, about improvised explosive devices being used devastating effect against U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
And in particular, Iranian-supported militia groups in Iraq were using a sort of enhanced IED against U.S. troops, again to absolutely devastating effect. It was an enhanced IED that used a kind of shaped projectile that allowed these improvised bombs to penetrate armor. They were called an explosively formed projectile. It was a sort of super IED.
And in 2010, these militia guys in Michigan and Ohio and Indiana, according to prosecutors, prosecutors said in their indictment in 2010 that these militia guys exchanged information about not just IEDs but how to build those kinds of IEDs specifically, the kinds of explosively formed projectiles that were being used against U.S. troops by Iranian-backed militias in the Iraq war.
They exchanged information about how to build those kinds of IEDs. They amassed the materials they would need to build those kinds of IEDs, all so they could mount what they hoped would be a catastrophic large-scale attack on law enforcement at a high-profile public law enforcement funeral of a law enforcement member they intended to kill.
And they hoped the attack on that funeral and the ensuing casualties among U.S. law enforcement would be terrifying and destabilizing enough in the United States that it would basically set off a war here, a war that they intended to win. In addition to the bombs, the IED part of their plan, they also had a machine gun — they had a fully automatic machine gun and lots of other weapons and hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition that they had amassed and that they trained with to plan for this attack that they hoped would set it off at a large scale kind of way in the United States.
This group of people was arrested in 2010, and they were charged in federal court. They were specifically charged with seditious conspiracy. They were all acquitted, all of them. They even got all their guns back after they were acquitted, except for the machine gun that is, they got all their guns back.
That was in 2010. The indictment happened 2012, they were all acquitted. Prior to that, it was 1998. Seditious conspiracy charges brought against 14 members of a white power group that had amassed enough firepower to hold their — hold their own against a fairly considerable army. They had multiple machine guns and rocket launchers and anti-tank weapons.
They had grenades. They had land mines and several of the defendants in the 1998 trial were already known to have taken part in murder and in a big counterfeiting operation in which they were making counterfeit U.S. currency, also in armed robberies that were all designed to support and fund their overall plan to use terrorism and violence to so destabilize the United States that ultimately a war they were hoping a race war would break out and the U.S. government would be overthrown.
Prosecutors presented evidence that this group in 1998 had detailed plans that they had shared among themselves to assassinate a federal judge, as well as federal law enforcement officials. They even had plans to poison the water supply in mass — in major cities in order to cause mass murder that way.
That trial was brought in Fort Smith, Arkansas, in 1988, against 14 of these white power activists. They were acquitted, all of them.
And just like the guys in the Michigan case, the white power guys got their guns back too after the trial, at least the ones who weren`t already in prison for something else they got their guns back. Sedition is a crime in the United States. Seditious conspiracy and sedition are crimes. They`re very serious crimes.
But there are also crimes that have proven to be very, very difficult to get convictions for at trial and it`s an even more I guess high stakes thing than just the possibility of failing to get a conviction when you prosecute one of these cases, because it turns out, we know from recent history when you try to prosecute people for sedition, and this — the prosecution fails and the defendants get acquitted, these defendants tend to take that as vindication of what they were doing.
In the Fort Smith, Arkansas, trial for example — the one that was in 1998 — the defendants walked out of that courtroom absolutely triumphant that they had been acquitted. One of them told “The New York Times” that day, ZOG, Z-O-G, ZOG has suffered a terrible defeat here today. By ZOG, he meant the Zionist occupation government, because, of course, it was the Jews who they were really after.
One of the key witnesses in that trial later went on to commit mass murder at a Jewish community center in Overland Park, Kansas.
Sedition is a crime. Sedition is a serious crime, one with a 20-year prison sentence. Seditious conspiracy is a conspiracy to use force, to stop the U.S. government from carrying out its laws or to overthrow the government. Sedition and seditious conspiracy are crimes for obvious reasons, but in modern American life, the U.S. Justice Department has had a heck of a time actually securing convictions when they charge people with that crime.
And all of us who can observe that modern history know that, you can just see that in the history of modern sedition prosecutions, there`s all of these incredibly dangerous people charged with incredibly terrible things with incredibly damning evidence brought against them who are nevertheless acquitted because the crime is so hard to prove in court. We can all observe that just as citizens seeing when these high-profile sort of hair curling prosecutions are brought. We can all see it.
But you know who can really see it, prosecutors who work for the U.S. Department of Justice. They really know acutely how hard it is to get a prosecution in this sedition case. They know it even more acutely than we do because the acquittals in those big, high-profile, failed sedition cases, those loom very large in the history of high-stakes, highly charged, failed prosecutions by the U.S. Department of Justice.
Federal prosecutors know this history very well and they therefore know not to bring sedition charges lightly. And yet here we are. In January of this year, the U.S. Justice Department brought seditious conspiracy charges against 11 members of the oath keepers, a right-wing pro-Trump paramilitary group that played it allegedly played a key role in the violent attack on the U.S. capital to try to keep Trump in power on January of last year.
Since that sedition indictment in January, three different members of the Oath Keepers have pled guilty and started cooperating with police. In April of this year, there`s another guilty plea, another cooperation deal with a member of a different right-wing pro-rump paramilitary group. The so-called Proud Boys, and now today, five members of the proud boys have themselves been hit with seditious conspiracy charges.
And I know this may sort of feel like a continuation of that earlier story from January but I cannot underscore strongly enough how unusual it is and what a big deal it is at the U.S. Justice Department for sedition charges, for seditious conspiracy charges to be charged by the U.S. Justice Department.
I mean, in modern times, sedition charges are rare enough and a risky enough prosecution effort that there are literally books written about every modern case in which sedition has been charged by the government, because it is such a big deal when they do it, it is so rare and it is so high stakes.
[21:10:08]
I mean, if you`re under the age of 100, and you were going to go to work as a federal prosecutor for the U.S. Justice Department, it would be a pretty good bet that you would never see this particular charge brought against anyone ever in your entire career and yet now here we are. Sixteen people from two different paramilitary groups charged in two different sedition indictments in the space of six months, the Oath Keeper citizen seditious conspiracy indictment brought in January, now the Proud Boys seditious conspiracy indictment brought today, both related to the January 6 violent attack on the U.S. Capitol to try to overthrow the U.S. government, to try to prevent President Biden from taking office.
The fact that Justice Department prosecutors have brought these cases knowing the history of how difficult it is to secure a conviction in cases like this, the fact that they have brought these cases against two different groups over the course of six months implies a certain confidence on the part of the Justice Department about what a good case they`ve got. I really do think that by the Justice Department`s own history, prosecutors are sort of hardwired to not use these particular charges unless they really feel like they`ve got it dead to rights.
But now they`ve done it. They did it in January. They did it again today.
And this dramatic decision by the Justice Department comes at what is turning out to be a very dramatic time, right? The congressional investigation, and the January 6th attack, that is separate and apart from anything that the Justice Department is doing. The congressional investigation into the January 6th attack, they have no power to prosecute anyone. The most they can do in terms of potentially putting anybody behind bars is they can refer a case to the Justice Department for them to potentially prosecute but there`s no guarantee the Justice Department would follow their lead on it.
The congressional investigation into the January 6th attack is completely separate and apart from whatever the Justice Department is doing on its own steam. That congressional investigation is going to hold its first public televised hearing this week Thursday night, so the public can see what they have discovered about what happened on January 6th.
As first reported in “The New York Times” tonight and now confirmed by NBC News, one of the live witnesses who is expected to testify at the hearing on Thursday night is a filmmaker, a documentary filmmaker who was embedded with the Proud Boys with this paramilitary group that today was charged with seditious conspiracy.
This filmmaker was apparently embedded with them in in the days and weeks leading up to January 6th, including on the night of January 5th when he filmed this meeting in a D.C. parking garage between the head of the Proud Boys, the guy in the baseball hat on the right side of your screen there. He`s now indicted for seditious conspiracy.
And the goofy guy in the big hat whose back is to us here. He`s the head of the Oath Keepers, he is also now indicted for seditious conspiracy. These guys run two different pro-Trump right-wing paramilitary groups they apparently met together in this parking garage as seen in this footage the night before the January 6th attacks. The filmmaker who shot this footage is reportedly going to be one of the live witnesses at Thursday night`s prime time January 6 investigation hearing.
“The New York Times” also reporting tonight that another witnesses expected in that another witness who is expected in that hearing Thursday night is a female U.S. Capitol police officer who was assaulted during the attack on the Capitol January 6. She`s actually believed to be the first police officer who was physically attacked that day. She was reportedly attacked within moments of having some sort of communication, some sort of confrontation with one of the Proud Boys who has now been indicted for seditious conspiracy.
So she is expected to testify Thursday night, as is the filmmaker who was with the Proud Boys, in the days and weeks leading up to the attack, including the night before the attack when these two the leaders of — these two paramilitary groups apparently met. The January 6 investigation in Congress again is proceeding and is about to sort of show its work to the public, but they are proceeding independent of whatever is happening at the Justice Department.
In terms of what`s happening in the Justice Department, we have a lot of new information about what`s happening there in terms of criminal investigations and potential criminal prosecutions. More than 800 defendants who allegedly participated in the attack on the capital have been charged already. But in addition to those 800, there are more than other 350 people who are pictured on the FBI`s website even today, committed — pictured committing alleged crimes including assaulting police officers, people who are still wanted. More than 350 people still wanted by the FBI beyond the 800-plus who have already been charged.
[21:15:00]
But we now know that it is not just the grand jury or grand juries who are bringing those indictments of individual participants in the mob attack. There are apparently multiple federal criminal grand juries who are at work here. There`s the one that sent a subpoena to Trump White House official Peter Navarro last week for example.
And there`s the one that is sending out subpoenas and taking interviews related to the scheme to send fake electors for Trump to Washington, so the Electoral College would count Trump as winning in states that he actually lost.
The prosecutors who are investigating that part of the scheme working with a grand jury to investigate that part of the scheme have reportedly spoken with state officials in Georgia about the effort by Trump and his circle to pressure Georgia state officials to change the election result there to make it look like Trump won when in fact he lost. That pressure on Georgia state officials is, of course, already a matter of criminal investigation in the state of Georgia brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. That grand jury in that state criminal investigation is now handing out subpoenas and starting to hear from witnesses in their state level criminal investigation.
But on top of that, we now know that federal investigators are looking into the Georgia matter as well and interviewing potential witnesses to that end.
So we are about to get — we the public are about to get a big show your work moment from the January investigation that is being conducted in Congress. They have spoken with over a thousand witnesses. They have reviewed more than different documents. We are — we are told to expect not only a sort of multimedia presentation of what they have found but also live witnesses. This first hearing from the January investigation is going to be this Thursday. Our coverage of it this Thursday night here on MSNBC will start at 7:00 p.m. Eastern. We`re expecting the hearing itself to begin at 8:00 p.m. Eastern.
We also got confirmation from the investigation today that their second hearing will happen next week. They will start morning hearings next week. We had been told to expect that there would be a series of these of these hearings for the January investigation, some in prime time, some in the morning. The prime time one is this Thursday, the morning hearing starting next week.
We`re going to speak with NBC News presidential historian Michael Beschloss in just a few minutes tonight about the history of this moment, how — how rare this sort of thing is, how fraught it is to have this congressional investigation going to the public with its findings, with prime time hearings at the same time that the Justice Department is now putting out these major charges against alleged co-conspirators. The question of the president and his personal potential relationship to these seditious conspiracy indictments is, of course, one that looms very large now, given what has been reported in open source reporting about the president`s potential connection to both the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers and their machinations on January 6th, now that both of those organizations have been hit with sedition charges.
So we`ll talk with presidential historian Michael Beschloss about that coming up tonight, but I will tell you just logistically, one thing to note about these hearings in terms of making your plans to watch the primetime hearing this week and to stay up on these hearings as they continue through next week, we, of course, will be covering the January 6 committee hearings live right here on MSNBC.
As I mentioned, the first prime time one our coverage will start at 7:00 p.m. this Thursday night. I will be helping anchor that coverage joined by many of my colleagues including Chris Hayes and Nicolle Wallace and Joy Reid and Lawrence and Ari and lots of different folks from MSNBC will. It`ll be a team effort in covering the January 6th hearings starting with our special coverage this Thursday night at 7:00 p.m. Eastern.
But I also want to let you know in, n on top of that, not only are we going to be airing the hearings live here on MSNBC as they happen, so you can plan ahead, I want to, I want you also to know that all of the hearings are also going to be available on the podcast feed for this show, the hearings themselves, and the pre and post-hearing analysis that we`re going to be doing on MSNBC. You can get the audio of that in its entirety and for free on the podcast feed of my show.
So if you already subscribed to THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW podcast, thank you. You don`t have to do anything else. If you don`t already subscribe, just go to whatever podcast provider you use, type my name Maddow into the search bar, subscribe to THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW. It`s all free. You will find that at that podcast feed, we will have all of our normal content, the audio of this show for example. But also once the hearings start, that is where we are going to post free and in its entirety the audio of all of the January 6 committee hearings, plus the pre-analysis and the post-analysis when those hearings happen.
Boy, there`s a lot going on right now. We`ve got a lot still to get to tonight. Our live interview from Kyiv with the new U.S. ambassador to Ukraine is coming up right after this. We`ve got a lot to get to. Stay with us tonight. Good to have you here.
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[21:24:32]
MADDOW: It was less than three weeks ago that the United States reopened our embassy in Kyiv, in the capital of Ukraine. In February, just before Russia invaded Ukraine, our embassy and all its staff moved west, away from Russia, hopefully out of harm`s way, to the western Ukrainian city of Lviv.
But after Ukrainian forces successfully blocked Russia`s attempt to seize Kyiv, and Russian forces pulled back from Kyiv, three weeks ago, the U.S. decided to move the embassy back, back to the capital. And the flag was once again hoisted over the U.S. embassy there.
[21:25:04]
Because the U.S. embassy has reopened in Kyiv, it was worrying, presumably, for the U.S. government this weekend, when Russia started shooting into Kyiv again. Russia, this weekend, fired missiles into Kyiv for the first time in over a month. The Kremlin says, the missiles were targeting weapons shipments from abroad. Ukraine says the missiles hit a train repair facility.
But regardless, for the U.S. government, a new attack by the Russian Federation on Ukraine`s capital city raises questions about the safety of the U.S. embassy and the diplomats there now that the embassy has moved back to Ukraine`s capital.
Concerns about the embassy in Kyiv, of course, include concerns for the safety of the brand-new U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, who just arrived there a week ago. She is the first Senate-confirmed ambassador to Ukraine since former President Trump ousted the last one in 2019, under circumstances that eventually led to one of the times former President Trump was impeached.
Russia`s initial ambitions when they started the war in Ukraine really seem to be that they were going to invade and conquer the whole country. Ukrainian resistance and their defense of Kyiv appeared to foil that plan. It really had seemed like Russia was comprehensively scaling back its ambitions, to focus just on eastern Ukraine.
With Russian missile strikes on Kyiv, yesterday, though, is that a live issue again? We do not know.
But the fighting in the eastern part of Ukraine — Ukraine right now is no holds barred. It is by all accounts incredibly intense.
Yesterday, Ukraine`s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, visited the frontline of those battles in eastern Ukraine. He made a dangerous trip into a city that`s under heavy bombardment, and is at risk of being surrounded by Russian forces. He went there in person to support the frontline forces in the Ukrainian military.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy handed out medals to Ukrainian soldiers who are fighting Russian soldiers, street by street, and in bombed out cities, where control seems to be seesawing day-by-day, between Ukrainian and Russian forces.
And, of course, the stakes of who controls what are high. Russia is taking the areas it`s captured in the east and south of Ukraine. They`ve been moving to try and make those parts of Ukraine de facto part of Russia. They`ve given out Russian passports to local Ukrainian residents, as if they are Russian citizens now.
They`ve made the ruble an unofficial currency in those areas, as if that part of Ukraine is now part of Russia, and therefore trades in the ruble. They put up Russian flags on the street signs. They replaced Ukrainian TV channels with Russian state TV broadcasts. They`re acting as if those parts of eastern and southern Ukraine are part of Russia already.
Today, that new U.S. ambassador to Ukraine met with Ukrainian defense minister. She told him, quote: We will increase the unprecedented level of U.S. assistance. We will do everything possible to strengthen Ukraine on the battlefield.
Joining us now is the new United States ambassador to Ukraine, Bridget Brink. She joins us live from the U.S. embassy, in the Ukrainian capital city of Kyiv.
Ambassador Bridget Brink, I really thank that for being here tonight. I appreciate you making the time especially, given what time of the night it is right now in Ukraine.
BRIDGET BRINK, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO UKRAINE: Rachel, thanks so much. It`s great to be with you.
MADDOW: Let me ask you first about the decision to move the embassy back to Kyiv. Obviously, that is something that the Ukrainian government wanted, and that some other countries have done. The United States has done this just within the past few weeks. You`re just there within the past week.
Is it a physical danger to yourself and other U.S. personnel to have the embassy there, particularly with those missiles that we saw Russians shoot into the Ukrainian capital this weekend?
BRINK: Well, I would just say, diplomacy is risky. And we are here because we think it`s important, it`s in our national strategic interest to try to ensure that borders are not changed by force, and to do that job, in part, you need people on the ground.
So, myself and my team were very aware of the risks that are at play. We very much tried to mitigate them. President Biden, Secretary Blinken, we all have total confidence in efforts that they are making to mitigate those risks, and we tried to do it and I try to do it myself as ambassador.
But, when I heard on the Hill during my confirmation hearings was — from Congress, was a lot of interest in getting us back. I personally wanted to get back, and the president wanted us to be present.
So, I`m proud to be here with a group of very patriotic Americans and to represent the U.S. Foreign Service, the diplomatic arm of our government. We don`t fight with weapons. We fight with ideas and words. And my number one job here is to try to help Ukraine defend itself.
[21:30:03]
MADDOW: In terms of Ukraine`s ability to defend itself, I think that so many Americans who have been horrified by the invasion, and who are supportive of the people of Ukraine and what they are contending with in this war — I live in western New England, and in multiple states drive around this part of the country, I see people putting out Ukrainian flags in front of their houses. Not without their political messages or anything, just support for Ukraine.
I think because there is so much support for Ukraine in the United States, I worry that perhaps the U.S. government, that perhaps the U.S. media is telling the American people what they want to hear about Ukraine`s likelihood of succeeding in this effort and that we are more interested in hearing about Ukrainian bravery and Ukrainian success, and the Russians, you know, falling short of expectations than we are in hearing news to the contrary.
Is that fair to worry about that? And do you have a different view of how things are going in the war — now these 100 days into it?
BRINK: Yeah, that`s actually a great question. I mean, there is no doubt that due to Ukrainian bravery and ingenuity, the Russians have had to pull back and refocus on the east and the south of the country. It`s amazing. It`s remarkable. It`s a David and Goliath story, that`s in real life.
The president — the president is incredibly brave, and is leading his people in this resistance to this unprovoked aggression. But also, the average person on the ground is resisting as well.
So I think that it`s — what`s happening now in the east is the fighting, as your intro said, is very close, very difficult. Ukrainians are losing a lot of soldiers every day. It`s why it`s so important that we work with partners and allies to continue to provide as much security assistance as they need to prevail, to defend themselves.
And that`s what I`m doing on the ground, and working with, of course, Washington and then other allies and partners that are on the ground here in Kyiv. But, yes, this is going — I guess what I would say to the American people, and I`ve felt this overwhelming support, just for our presence, and for a team that is here, for our people, when I was back in, America I felt it obviously from the administration, but also from Congress, and also — you know, I`m from the Midwest, and I felt it from friends and family, that I grew up with.
So that`s great. I would just say this is not going to be easy, and it`s going to take some time. And I think it`s now very difficult battle in the east, and it`s more — now more important than ever that we continue to offer this support.
MADDOW: With the Russian Federation handing out Russian passports to Ukrainians who live in the east, with Vladimir Putin recognizing the purported independence of parts of eastern and southeastern Ukraine, with Russian occupying forces telling Ukrainians they need to trade in the ruble and replacing Ukrainian education and media outlets with those that are derived from Russia, it does seem like Putin is trying to make the Russian takeover of large parts of Ukraine the de facto way of life, in that part of the country. President Zelenskyy has talked about one fifth of Ukrainian territory now been occupied by Russian forces.
Is it the position of the U.S. government, that any diplomatic solution, any potential cease-fire has to respect the original integrity of Ukraine`s borders, or is it possible that Ukraine is going to lose large swaths of its territory in negotiations to end the war?
BRINK: Well, you`ve got it exactly right. This is part of the Russian playbook in terms of giving out passports and incorporating parts of countries into Russia. I mean, this is what has happened in Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Transnistria, among other places in this part of the world. So, it`s not surprising.
The United States as long recognized Ukraine — Ukraine, within its international borders. And we also have — we consider Crimea as an integral part of Ukraine. So, we are letting the Ukrainians decide when or how they will help negotiate. As President Zelenskyy said and President Biden also affirmed, all wars end in some kind of negotiation. But we`re supporting Ukraine as it fights right now to defend itself.
MADDOW: How important are the new advanced weapons that President Biden has approved sending to Ukraine?
I think from those of us who don`t come from a military background, we hear about, you know, anti-tank weapons.
[21:35:02]
We hear about artillery. We hear about howitzers. We`re now hearing about guided rocket systems.
As the type of weapons and the amount of weaponry that the United States sends continues to expand, is there something that we civilians should understand in terms of the enhanced capability that we are offering the Ukrainians by giving them these more advanced weapons that are newly arriving now?
BRINK: Well, they are very important, and it really signifies, I think, our support, because they are advanced weaponry. They also signify the way in which the battle has changed from what was required in Kyiv, in the capital, when there was fighting in urban areas, where now it`s fighting in the Donbas, which is the area in the east, and this very flat. And so, the fighting is basically artillery, and it`s from many — from far away — positions are far away from each other.
So this weaponry is more appropriate for the current fight. We also hope that allies and partners will also support Ukraine with this kind of weaponry, and we will continue our very, very close consultations with them in order to adjust the security assistance that we are providing to meet the needs that they have.
MADDOW: The United States ambassador to Ukraine is Bridget Brink.
Madam Ambassador, the whole country, obviously, is very acutely aware of you and your whole diplomatic staff there, the danger that you saw — that you all are putting yourself in to do this important work. Good luck to you. Come back anytime. We`d love to have you back on the show, and thank you for what you do.
BRINK: Thank you so much, Rachel. It`s really great to see you and be here.
MADDOW: All right. More news ahead tonight. Stay with us.
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[21:41:38]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HERSCHEL WALKER (R), GEORGIA SENATORIAL CANDIDATE: You know what, I`m going to say something. You know right now, I have something. They could bring me to a building that would clean you from COVID as you walk through this. As you walk through the door, it`ll kill any COVID in your body. When you leave, it`ll kill the virus. They don`t want to talk about that. They don`t hear about that.
SEN. RAPHAEL WARNOCK (D-GA): I`m Raphael Warnock, and I approve this message.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: That`s a new campaign ad from Democratic Georgia U.S. Senator Raphael Warnock showing his Republican Senate opponent pushing a mist — a magic mist that can clean you. He says he has this magic mist, he uses the magic mist to turn doorways into 100 percent cures for COVID. That is the kind of ad you can run when your opponent is Herschel Walker.
There`s a reason Mr. Walker refuses to show up — refused to show up for his primary debates when he was running to become the Republican nominee for Senate in Georgia. I mean, if your candidate accidentally veered into I have a magic mist cure for COVID right here and no one wants to hear about it, if your guy veered into that territory every time he got behind a microphone, you`d probably try to keep him away from a microphone too. We will see if he agrees to debate Raphael Warnock now that he is the Republican nominee for Senate in Georgia.
Herschel Walker really is the Republican Party`s nominee for Senate in Georgia which does seem kind of crazy. Then again, is that any crazier than the candidate Republicans chose for Senate in Pennsylvania? After all, that candidate has also been accused of peddling his share of snake oil cures for various real ailments.
Even how he ended up being the Republican candidate for Pennsylvania is still a mystery, the Republican Senate candidate, Mehmet Oz, in Pennsylvania is a man who is from Ohio. He has a home in Florida. He votes in New Jersey. He has no discernible connection to Pennsylvania whatsoever, but alongside Herschel magic mist Walker as the Republican Senate candidate in Georgia, the no connection to Pennsylvania guys who Republicans have picked to be their Senate candidate in that state as well.
Then again, is Mehmet Oz being the Republican Pennsylvania Senate candidate any crazier than the candidate Republicans chose as their nominee for governor in Pennsylvania? He, after all, is a sword-wielding election denier who has been subpoenaed by the January 6th investigation to talk about among other things his role in putting forth a fake slate of Trump electors from Pennsylvania even though Trump lost Pennsylvania.
With each new primary election this year, the Republican Party has made sort of increasingly wild choices for who their nominees are going to be to represent them in November`s elections. Well, tomorrow, we`re going to get more because tomorrow, there are primary elections in seven more states.
And if you are looking to see who might be the next list — the next guy on the list of this amazing cast of characters Republicans have been nominating this year, you may want to pay particular attention to Montana. Montana Republican congressional contender Ryan Zinke.
If that face is familiar to you, if that name sounds familiar to it`s probably because you remember him from one of his 18 gazillion different scandals during his time as Trump`s interior secretary. And I mean, when I say 18, it wasn`t 18 gazillion but it really was 18 different federal investigations involving Ryan Zinke during his time as a Trump cabinet member, like the time he spent $12,000 of taxpayer money so he could fly in an oil executive`s private plane, or the time he allegedly spent $139,000 taxpayer dollars on a set of fancy new doors for his office, $140,000 worth of doors, really? Or the time he overruled federal experts to block a Native American casino project right after he met with lobbyists from a rival casino giant, or the time he allegedly tried to get an executive from the oil company Halliburton to build Mr. Zinke his own micro brewery at a time when Halliburton had business before the Interior Department.
Ryan Zinke was — this is tough competition. Ryan Zinke though was perhaps the most scandal-plagued member of the Trump cabinet if you just look at scandals sort of by volume, in terms of the number of months he served versus the number of formal federal investigations that had to be opened into his conduct. Ryan Zinke really set some records. I mean, him and Scott Pruitt were kind of neck and neck, but Ryan Zinke was really something.
And tomorrow, Republicans are going to decide whether or not they`re going to make Ryan Zinke the latest in this year`s very long string of quite amazing Republican candidates for office. Again, seven states have their primaries this year — sorry, seven states have their primaries tomorrow. Watch Montana in particular if they`re bringing Ryan Zinke back, basically all bets are off.
Watch this space.
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MADDOW: At this time on Thursday, we will be more than a couple of hours into the January 6th investigations first big public hearing, and our coverage of that first hearing. Our special coverage is going to start at 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time on Thursday night. I`m going to be there along with a whole host of my MSNBC colleagues. We, of course, will be showing the full hearing alive.
I`ve covered many, many election nights. I`ve even covered multiple impeachments in the past. And I know those nights can be intimidating, and sometimes a little bit crazy. But when I prep for those nights, there`s usually some kind of long deep history we can look to, to at least make sure we understand how what we are covering now compared to similar events in our country`s past.
For this, though, for the January 6th investigation, I have to admit, I`m not a bit of a lost. When the assault on the U.S. Capitol, the underlying plot to stop President Biden from taking office, to stop the peaceful transfer of power. This is something where does feel like history is giving us some fresh material.
And now, we`ve got the congressional investigation about to show us their work, in terms of what they have discovered. And, at the same time, we`ve got the Justice Department in public facing actions, like new indictments, and in subpoenas that have been described to us by the recipients. We have all sorts of new information about how the Justice Department itself appears to be growing at multiple fronts at this topic, multiple different elements of those alleged crimes, including, now, two different big indictments for seditious conspiracy, which is something that is almost never happened in U.S. history.
It feels like fresh material from history. Given that, how do we prep? How do we make sure that we`ve got our heads on straight, in terms of what this investigation means for our country? How it measures of against the challenges we face before.
I don`t know. I`m calling in a pinch hitter right, now, to help us answer that question.
Joining us nigh now is our friend Michael Beschloss, NBC News presidential historian.
Michael, it`s great to see you, my friend. Thank you for being here tonight.
MICHAEL BESCHLOSS, NBC NEWS PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Great to see you. Great to be together.
MADDOW: Unprecedented is a word that I`ve been increasingly becoming allergic to. And I try not to use it in a wanton sort of way. That said, I feel like I need advice from you on what`s sort of historical parallels, historical analogies we should draw on, in trying to understand the importance of what we`re going to learn this week.
BESCHLOSS: Well, you know, take a look at American history. When did we see a coup d`etat by a losing presidential candidate, to take power even though he lost the election? Never happened before last year, 17 months ago tonight. That`s what happened with Donald Trump.
Did we see an attack on Congress in the Capitol by people trying to overthrow our democracy? It looks like, I haven`t seen anything like that.
1861, Lincoln fought the Civil War, but elections remained. 1932, we were at a terrible depression, but people did not turn to Father Coughlin or Huey Long, or dictators. Elections went on during World War II. Here, we are beginning to go off the rails.
And the other thing, Rachel, we talk about those hearings. Can`t wait to watch and hear what you have to say about it, earlier this week. The top time of Joseph McCarthy, and demagogue who was making false charges that there were communists all through the American government. There were hearings. Everyone watched, they saw that McCarthy was a fraud. He was marginalized.
1973, Watergate hearings, John Dean, mainly, but some others, charge that Richard Nixon was in charge of the Watergate cover-up, which he denied. Those hearings were watched by everyone, they in the tape show that he`d been lying. He was thrown out of office.
But, 2022, I hope that a lot of people watched these hearings. I`m not so sure. Also, we`re a little bit more unknown and that we earlier were in American history. And Americans, I think, do not realize, as they did for most of our time, that we`ve got to fight for democracy every single minute.
Plus, Republican leaders in `74 went to Nixon and said, you have to quit, you`ve gone way beyond the line. How antique does that sound tonight?
MADDOW: Well, one of the things that I feel like is not so much a wildcard, but at least sort of a looming presence in this whole discussion. Including, how these hearings are going to be received, and how we understand the importance of this moment as Americans, is what is going on with the Justice Department.
I mean, we now have two very rare seditious conspiracy indictments against two paramilitary groups that supported Trump. We`ve got more than 800 people indicted at the individual level for participating, but we also now have good public facing evidence that the Justice Department is looking at the plot, more than they are just looking at the individual perpetrators of the violence in person that day.
The Justice Department, potentially having a serious role here at turning this into a criminal matter. Do we have an experience of that interacting with a congressional investigation like this?
BESCHLOSS: Yes, Watergate is a perfect example, where there are people in the justice department, despite the fact that Nixon was president, who are looking into this, Henry Peterson, other prosecutors, that were working to some extent in tandem with the Watergate investigators, and also with the judge, John`s Sirica, who is early on to see this conspiracy.
So, the system works, but the system only works if we demand it. It could be we have a Republican majority in Congress this fall. If that, happens you may see Republicans in Congress wanting to cut the money to the Department of Justice to turn the lights out. We may be living in a different dimension.
So, all I`m saying, Rachel, is to all our friends watching us, this is a year we may lose our democracy, we may lose all sorts of rights. This is not a moment to sit on the fence. This is not (INAUDIBLE)
MADDOW: Michael Beschloss, NBC News presidential historian, Michael, thank you for your time. Much appreciated as always.
BESCHLOSS: Thank you, Rachel. Be well.
MADDOW: All right. We`ll be right back. Stay with us.
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MADDOW: All right. That is going to do it for us tonight. Now, it is time for “THE LAST WORD” with a great Lawrence O`Donnell.
Good evening, Lawrence.