Updated
Summary
What tactics are team MAGA using to try to keep people quiet in the January 6 investigation? Florida`s don`t say gay law takes effect, causing havoc in schools and fear among LGBTQ teachers. Nicolle Wallace discusses an event to raise money for the victims of Putin`s aggression in Ukraine. New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham discusses the fight to protect abortion rights.
Transcript
KATIE PHANG, MSNBC HOST: You can watch it Sunday at 7:00 on MS — excuse me — on NBC and at 10:00 p.m. Eastern here on MSNBC.
You can also catch me on “THE KATIE PHANG SHOW weekend mornings at 7:00 a.m. Eastern right here on MSNBC. And stream new original episodes of the show Thursdays and Fridays on the MSNBC hub on Peacock.
Please enjoy safely your holiday weekend.
“THE REIDOUT WITH JOY REID” is up next.
JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: Tonight on THE REIDOUT:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I would have wiped the floor with the guys that weren`t loyal, which I will now do, which is great. I love getting even with people.
But I will — I will…
CHARLIE ROSE, TALK SHOW HOST: Slow up. You love getting even with people?
TRUMP: Oh, absolutely.
If given the opportunity, I will get even with some people that were disloyal to me. I mean, I had a group of people that were disloyal.
(CROSSTALK)
ROSE: But how do you define this loyal?
TRUMP: They didn`t come to my aid.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Long before he was president, Trump was already acting and talking like a mob boss. And after this week`s explosive testimony from former West Wing aide Cassidy Hutchinson, we`re learning about the mob-like tactics team MAGA is using to try to keep people quiet.
Also tonight, Florida`s dystopian don`t say gay law takes effect, causing havoc in schools and fear among LGBTQ teachers.
And later, my friend Nicolle Wallace joins me to talk about a major television event she is leading this weekend to raise money for the victims of Putin`s aggression in Ukraine.
But we begin tonight with a journey back in time to an era when a Republican actually took on mob-style tactics. Like most Americans, you probably don`t know a lot about Thomas E. Dewey, other than this infamous photo prematurely and incorrectly declaring the then-governor of New York president over incumbent Harry Truman in 1948.
Long before that, Dewey made his name as a special prosecutor, targeting the era`s most notorious figures, like Irving Wexler, AKA Waxey Gordon, a notorious bootlegger and a name that may sound familiar to “Boardwalk Empire”
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: Nucky Thompson, Johnny Torrio, Rothstein, Waxey Gordon, they have problems, they come to us.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: Exactly where we don`t need them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Well, in 1933, Waxey Gordon`s problem was that he was being prosecuted for tax evasion by Thomas Dewey.
“The New York Times” reported that he was in custody when his trial open because witnesses against the beer racketeer received threats. In fact, Dewey told the court: “Most of the witnesses we call have been thoroughly intimidated.”
Now, Dewey won that case, presenting more than 100 witnesses to put Gordon away for paying just $10 in taxes in 1930, evading hundreds of thousands of dollars in income taxes. So why is Waxey Gordon`s prosecution relevant today?
Well, the House January 6 investigation is not a mob prosecution, but the way that it`s playing out is revealing lots and lots of mob-style tactics, including allegations of possible witness tampering and intimidation.
At the end of Cassidy Hutchinson`s testimony last week, Vice Chair Liz Cheney gave two examples, including this one:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): This is a call received by one of our witnesses — quote — “A person let me know you have your deposition tomorrow. He wants me to let he`s thinking about you. He knows you`re loyal and you`re going to do the right thing when you go in for your deposition.”
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Now, lots of journalists, including myself, wondered who the witness was who was being tampered with, since it was not stated at Tuesday`s hearing?
Well, NBC News has confirmed that that veiled warning was sent to Hutchinson. Two sources say that she was contacted by someone attempting to influence her testimony.
And a source familiar with Hutchinson`s deposition says the person referenced at the beginning of that message was former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. Meadows, through a spokesman, has denied that he or anyone in his camp attempted to influence Hutchinson`s testimony, but a reminder, he could always just answer the committee`s subpoena and say that under oath.
There`s also the question of why we even received this public testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson. Former Trump White House official Alyssa Farah revealed on Thursday that she is the one who put Hutchinson in touch with Liz Cheney.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Trump world was assigning lawyers to a lot of these — these staffers who themselves don`t have big…
KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST: Wait. Assigning lawyers?
FARAH GRIFFIN: Well, I should say covering the costs of lawyers for people who don`t have big legal defense funds to themselves…
(CROSSTALK)
HUNT: Wow. So they were paying Cassidy Hutchinson`s lawyer?
FARAH GRIFFIN: Is my understanding. You would have to confirm that. But she had someone, Passantino, who — Stefan Passantino, who had been in the White House Counsel`s Office, is still aligned with Trump world.
She did her interview. She complied with the committee, but she shared with me: “There is more I want to share that was not asked in those settings. How do we do this?”
[19:05:05]
And in that, she got a new attorney of her own.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: In fact, MSNBC has confirmed that, according to financial disclosures, the Trump Save America Political Action Committee was making regular payments to the firm of a lawyer representing Hutchinson, until she changed attorneys about a month before testifying.
Her current lawyer, Jody Hunt, is, by the way, a longtime ally of former Trump Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who Trump chased out of the job for refusing to fire Robert Mueller. The new attorney served as Sessions` chief of staff.
And joining me now is Joyce Vance, professor at the University of Alabama School of Law and a former U.S. attorney, along with Tim O`Brien, senior columnist for Bloomberg Opinion.
Thank you both for being here.
Joyce, I`m going to start with you.
Explain where the line is between reaching out to a witness and saying, hey, our client really loves you, and he`s always following what you`re doing, and I just want to let Trump reads those transcripts.
Where does that become witness intimidation and a crime?
JOYCE VANCE, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: Well, like all things, it`s a matter of degree. Joy.
But the federal statute that makes it a crime to intimidate or tamper with a witness is very broad. It covers, for instance, an unsuccessful attempt to keep a witness from testifying.
It covers any effort to have a witness not fully disclose or disclose false information or hold back some relevant details. So, when you look at this in context, and think about whether that e-mail or those communications constitute a threat, you don`t have to look just at that single communication alone.
You can look at the entire course of conduct in regard to how witnesses have been treated, how the inquiry into January 6 has been treated by Mark Meadows in this instance, perhaps by the former president.
And DOJ will have every incentive to take a close look at this situation, because, ultimately, the justice system is about getting to the truth. And when you have people who engage in this sort of effort to intimidate, particularly a relatively young witness, to remind her that she need not cross a line, that she might get in trouble if she crosses that line, even absent some sort of an explicit threat, this could amount to witness intimidation under the statute.
REID: And to stay with you just for a moment, Joyce, because the — her former employer, or somebody associated with her former employer paying for her lawyers, that, in and of itself, is not a crime or not improper, right?
But do you see something suspicious in the fact that she came forward only after changing lawyers, away from the MAGA lawyers, to a different set of attorneys, and that that prompted her to come forward? Do you then detect that — because it sure did feel like Liz Cheney was implying that there was something criminal going on, that she keeps on making that implication, like she`s screaming to the Justice Department about it.
And that did — I did notice that last week, that that was one of the things that happened. She switched lawyers.
VANCE: It looks like what you see in organized crime cases, Joy, where you will see someone who will not cooperate with the government, who will stick to a story that doesn`t make sense.
And then, sometimes, you will see them sort of have an awakening. Sometimes, the new lawyer comes first. Sometimes, there`s some signaling that they`d like to have a new lawyer, and that`s arranged. So, this feels familiar to me.
And I have to tell you that the context makes me very uncomfortable to think that I would compare this sort of situation instinctively to something that I have seen in cases involving organized crime. But it`s tough to draw any other sort of a conclusion here.
REID: And it`s hard — well, it`s easy to do it, Tim O`Brien, if you`re familiar with Donald Trump, who has a long history of sort of being around sort of mafioso-style people.
Let me play Michael Cohen real quick. This is Michael Cohen describing the way that Trump behaves and the way he behaved, including toward him. He was Trump`s lawyer at one time.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAEL COHEN, FORMER ATTORNEY/FIXER FOR DONALD TRUMP: I was looking at the text messages and the communications that Liz Cheney put up, and the words were all the same: You are loved, right? You are in our corner. Remain in our corner. We will take care of you.
ARI MELBER, MSNBC HOST: What is he saying when he says he`s on you, thinking about you, looking at you?
COHEN: Yes, it`s — he`s trying to be like a mob boss. He`s throwing his arms around you and telling you you`re protected. I`m the president of the United States of America. I`m the most powerful man on the planet. Either you stay on my side, or you will suffer from my ire.
And that`s exactly what happened to me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: And, Tim, in this case, the — at least the reporting is indicating that it wouldn`t necessarily be Trump, but it`s Meadows sort of acting in the guise of Donald Trump, saying, the boss, he reads transcripts. He knows what`s going on.
And it`s sort — it`s allegedly Meadows, who does deny it. And then there`s also this sort of MAGA attack, sort of swarm attack on this 25-year-old young woman.
[19:10:04]
It sure does feel mob-like.
TIM O`BRIEN, SENIOR COLUMNIST, BLOOMBERG OPINION: Well, in Donald Trump`s case, Joy, it`s not just metaphorical.
Donald Trump`s original business partners in Atlantic City were mobbed up. He intersected with the mob, quite literally, throughout his entire business career. He told me he openly admired mobsters like John Gotti. He talked to me on a number of occasions about how, when Gotti came under pressure, he made sure everyone around him walked the line, and he didn`t flinch in court, and he never cried.
Trump spoke glowingly about that. And he has a long history of trying to intimidate anybody who doesn`t allow him to get his own way. He went after various mayors of New York when he didn`t get zoning he wanted. In Atlantic City, his lawyer there was the uncle of Don McGahn, his White House counsel, Paddy McGahn, who was plugged into the regulatory structure in Atlantic City, and would pound away at that when Trump wanted his own way.
And then remember, when he began running for president, he went after Judge Curiel in the Trump University suit, impugning his objectivity because he was — quote, unquote — “an immigrant,” which he wasn`t, but Trump went directly at him.
During the impeachment process, when Marie Yovanovitch was testifying, Trump began tweeting directly at her during her testimony. Robert Mueller`s investigation was replete with instances in which Trump was publicly signaling through his Twitter feed what he expected out of his minions.
You should be like Roger Stone, and keep quiet. Don`t be like Michael Cohen and spill the beans. All of it at the time, I think, was also directed at Paul Manafort, who was under investigation and ultimately imprisoned.
And then he rolls into this situation, which he`s actually never faced before. He has gotten away with trying to strong-arm people and corrupt legal and regulatory processes his whole life. But now he has the full force of a congressional committee scrutinizing his behavior, and I think the distinct possibility the Department of Justice, weighing this evidence and coming after him for obstruction of justice and witness tampering.
At a minimum, I don`t know how they don`t go after some of the people around him fairly soon. Some of this is tea leaf reading. I have been, I think, aggressive in suggesting that there`s ample evidence for the Justice Department to take action. But I think — I think what`s happened with Cass Hutchinson`s testimony is, you have more and more evidence linking Trump directly to these instances.
And if Mark Meadows was acting as an emissary or Trump in signaling that he expected someone to toe the line for Trump, I would be curious as to the extent to which he was operating independently, and not at the direction of Trump.
And I think filling in those blanks, fleshing out the fact pattern, and really figuring out how this operated is going to be a core thing, I think, for someone outside of the January 6 Committee to take on. I think it`s a Justice Department issue.
REID: Well, exactly.
And, Joyce, I mean, here`s the thing. There`s a lot more at stake here, first of all, this young woman`s security. She has to deal with her own security issues. This is a young person. But you have also got people like Pat Cipollone, who`s got to make some decisions about whether he goes under oath.
And he`s now indicated that he`s willing to speak behind closed doors with the committee. What does he say under oath vs. what he might — Trump might want him to say? You have got these two Secret Service-related folks that – – Cassidy Hutchinson told a story about something that happened in an SUV. They could come forward. And they`re — people around them are saying, well, they`re going to refute it, but, under oath, are they willing to lie about it?
Are they willing to lie to Congress under oath, which is a crime? So this is more than about just what they`re doing to Cassidy Hutchinson, right? And the Justice Department must be taking a look at all of this and the way people ultimately testify.
VANCE: Well, you`re right.
And I think it`s smart to divide this out into the two separate buckets. One is this witness intimidation bucket. But one is the substantive narrative that Cassidy Hutchinson tells in her testimony. She`s a really interesting witness, particularly when you`re talking to the court of public opinion, where, when you`re the January 6 Committee, she really casts a broad narrative that gives us more insight into the way the former president behaved around January 6 than just about anything else that we have seen.
REID: Yes.
VANCE: But when you get to DOJ and you`re thinking about prosecuting a case, a lot of her testimony is hearsay. It puts pressure on these other guys, like Pat Cipollone, to come in and testify.
It`ll be awfully interesting to see what they say.
REID: Yes, very much so, under oath. You may not want to lie under oath, if you don`t want to go to jail.
Thank you, Joyce Vance, Tim O`Brien. Thank you both. Really appreciate you both.
O`BRIEN: Thanks.
REID: And up next on THE REIDOUT: What can be done to protect reproductive rights? President Biden meets with Democratic governors on that critical issue today.
[19:15:06]
One of those governors, Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico, joins me next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
REID: The Supreme Court`s decision to strip women of their constitutional rights continues to send devastating shockwaves throughout the country.
This morning, the Ohio Supreme Court denied an emergency request to block that state`s ban on abortion after six weeks, before many women even know that they`re pregnant.
[19:20:03]
The state`s Republican attorney general has made clear that women`s rights to liberty and privacy are not guaranteed in that state`s Constitution. And it doesn`t look like Ohio Republicans will stop there.
Republican state Representative Jean Schmidt, who earned the sobriquet Mean Jean for her attacks on a veteran during her tenure in Congress and for calling childbirth due to rape an opportunity for women, told a radio host that it is time to consider outline all contraception, just so you know where they`re going with this.
Today, President Biden hosted a roundtable discussion with Democratic governors on how they`re protecting reproductive rights in their states. And they called on President Biden to deploy federal resources.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. KATHY HOCHUL (D-NY): Mr. President, we`d ask that you consider your ability to use federal facilities. What am I talking about?
Veterans hospitals, military bases, and other places where the federal government controls the jurisdiction in some of the states that are hostile to women`s rights.
GOV. ROY COOPER (D-NC): Unlike Governor Hochul in New York, our Republican legislature is not going to amend the Constitution. But this Democratic governor is going to hold the line to protect women`s reproductive freedom in our state.
GOV. MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM (D-NM): I think that our Indian Health Service clinics could be another effective vehicle. I will tell you that they`re — I have been reached out by a number of sovereign nations, who I think would be very supportive and interested.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Progressive Democrats want Biden to be more aggressive in defending reproductive rights.
During the meeting, the president reaffirmed his support for nuking the filibuster in order to pass legislation that would enshrine Roe into law. However, he pointed to one big problem caused by two people.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Ultimately, Congress is going to have to act to codify the — Roe into federal law.
And as I said yesterday, the filibuster should not stand in the way of us being able to do that.
But, right now, we don`t have the votes in the Senate to change the filibuster on — at the moment.
The choice is clear. We either elect federal senators and representatives who will codify Roe, or Republicans who will elect — the House and Senate who will try to ban abortions nationwide, nationwide.
This is going to go one way or the other after November.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: A new Associated Press poll finds a growing percentage of Americans calling abortion and women`s rights priorities for the government in the wake of the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
In a new development, both women and pro-choice — both women with pro- choice and anti-choice views on abortion are equally likely to prioritize the issue. Now, historically, that has not been the case.
With me now is New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham.
Governor Lujan Grisham, thank you for being here.
And the polling is all pretty one-sided here. There`s a new All In Together/Emerson College poll that shows women, younger women, younger Hispanic women, younger black women, pretty significant shifts toward serious concern over Roe v. Wade, and more and more interested in voting in the midterms.
So I think that`s happening. But it`s clear that voting in November is not going to do much for people right now. How did the president respond to some of you — your and your fellow governors` ideas for things that the president could do administratively right now?
GOV. LUJAN GRISHAM (D-NM): I think he was incredibly proactive about that, which is why he was prepared to talk about federal resources, public health investments.
He highlighted the FDA rule which upholds telehealth access to contraceptives, including Plan B. Those are important, critical places for them to already be to support states like New Mexico and Democratic governors want to make sure that we`re ensuring access to abortion and abortion care, but that we`re also dealing with family planning in a productive way and protecting a woman`s right to have access to contraceptives.
So he — I thought that was effective. And he heard loud and clear. There`s more that they can do within the federal government and their power over any number of clinics, facilities, and funding to make sure that women and families know where there are safe havens, where they can go, and how we might pay for those travel costs and related supports for women and their families.
REID: Elie Mystal and other legal experts have said that one of the things the president could do — and you heard Governor Hochul say — of New York say, that making federal facilities, facilities over which the administration has control, VA hospitals, military bases, available for women to access abortion care in states where they have made it illegal.
Is that something that the president indicated he was open to doing?
GRISHAM: I felt like he was open to every single one of our ideas.
He did indicate that some of their early review indicated that they may have some barriers that they have to overcome. He wasn`t specific about that. I mentioned that Indian Health Service is yet another clinical space where we could provide access into other states like Oklahoma that have — and that also protects minority women. And states like Oklahoma have several local rural Indian Health Service clinics and hospitals.
[19:25:20]
REID: There have been some pushback, though, on — from indigenous tribes on calls to open abortion clinics on federal lands.
Indian Health Services clinics, where most indigenous people go to get medical care, they`re banned from performing abortions because of the Hyde Amendment. The clinics are very much underfunded. They`re already underfunded. And people are already sort of underserved in terms of what they`re able to receive.
Is this something for which the administration indicated they`re willing to add more money? And how will tribal sovereignty rights be protected, given that the Supreme Court just undercut them?
GRISHAM: Right. Absolutely.
And so making sure that sovereign nations, particularly on this issue, and with a reduction in sovereignty rights by the U.S. Supreme Court here, they would get to weigh in and decide, as they should.
And when you pointed to younger women and minority women, I will tell you that Native American and Hispanic and African-American women in New Mexico were critical to our ability to repeal an antiquated criminalization of abortion and abortion care services just last year in anticipation of reductions to Roe v. Wade protections.
And, ultimately, what`s happened is now no constitutional rights to abortion and abortion care services. So, I think it actually highlights their independence in that way. And while I didn`t get a specific endorsement of the federal funding concept here, he didn`t say no. And I think he did hear loud and clear.
If we need more primary care doc access and more primary care services to women in general, putting an infusion of money that should stay in the wake of Roe v. Wade into IHS clinics and services is the way in which you would ultimately garner parity, which has long been an argument by sovereign nations that I absolutely would support and can`t imagine that any Democratic governor would stand in the way of that.
REID: And is your state, which still has the right to abortion enshrined, it hasn`t got rid of it, prepared to absorb women from neighboring states, financially prepared and in terms of facilities, to begin absorbing women from the non-free states who will be pouring in potentially to New Mexico?
GRISHAM: Right.
Well, so far, we have been able to do that. And our private providers have done an incredible job recruiting volunteers, doing private fund-raising, and they`re going to keep doing that. We`re going to certainly weigh in, in any way that we can with our public health funds and our state funds. We`re going to ask for federal funds.
I can`t guarantee that access, safe, legal, unless we`re willing to expand and deal with that influx of women.
REID: Yes.
GRISHAM: And that was really the case that governors made today to the president, that this is going to have to be a partnership between the federal government and state to assure that that access is real.
And I felt like we have a strong commitment to do that.
REID: I cannot believe that, in the year of our lord 2022, we`re talking about free and essentially state property states for women. Unbelievable where we have retracted to in this country.
But thank you for all that you do, New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham. Have a wonderful weekend.
GRISHAM: Joy, you keep making that statement. I got a 7-year-old, soon-to- be-7-year-old granddaughter.
REID: Yes.
GRISHAM: And she deserves that we fight like mad to secure equal rights for everyone.
REID: Yes.
GRISHAM: And we focus right now on Roe v. Wade.
REID: Amen. Amen. Thank you very much, ma`am. Really appreciate it.
GRISHAM: Thank you, Joy, all right.
REID: And coming up next — cheers.
And coming up: Republican officials in Texas and Florida are leading the charge to rewrite American history and turn education into state propaganda. It would be comical, if it weren`t so doggone dangerous.
We will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:33:47]
REID: Florida wasted no time making a sharp turn from Pride Month.
Today, its don`t say gay law went into effect, limiting LGBTQ issues and gender identities from being even discussed in the classroom. We`re hearing reports of teachers being instructed not to wear rainbow clothing and told to take down family photos of their husbands and wives.
This chilling reality is part of a wave of blatant attacks on education, such as new training, also in Florida, led by Governor Ron DeSantis, who has spent nearly $6 million to train public school educators on how to teach his particular right-wing brand of civics.
Several South Florida high school teachers told “The Miami Herald” that the new initiative is infused with right-wing Christian nationalist ideology. They expressed alarm over the training`s mission to censor, propagandize or sugarcoat history.
“The Miami Herald” also reviewed hundreds of pages of training material from the first training at Broward College in Davie. Slides included President George Washington and Thomas Jefferson being critical of slavery, yet making no mention of the fact that each of these men held hundreds of human beings in bondage and bred them like cattle, while doing literally nothing to bring this scourge of slavery to an end.
Joining me now, Florida state Senator Shevrin Jones and Texas state Representative Jasmine Crockett.
[19:35:01]
Shev, I`m just going to let you start, Senator Shevrin Jones. Go ahead and tell us how the first day of don`t say gay and the new civics education in Florida is going.
STATE SEN. SHEVRIN JONES (D-FL): Well, first, thank you for having me, Joy.
I think you can only imagine how it`s going right now. Orange County currently has already set their rules and have sent those rules out to their teachers on how they should operate under this new law, the don`t say gay that we have colloquially called it.
And what we`re seeing is that they have told the teachers that they cannot have safe space stickers in their classroom, that the teachers can`t have rainbow flags in their classroom, nor can they have pictures of their significant others on their desk.
But even to take it a step further, we see what`s happening as far as the civic education. And you have the Hillsdale College, which is a Christian institution, which are training teachers. And teaching from this conservative Christian ideology and focusing solely on the theory of originalism and a misrepresented view of slavery also does a disservice to students, because they are not being taught the whole truth or from a different perspective.
And do we really want our students to be taught a curriculum that misconstrues history? Are we really being honest with students by telling them the same founders of our nation who bought, sold and owned human slaves were actually against the practice?
That`s not factual history. They`re trying to whitewash history, and we have known that for quite some time.
REID: Yes, I have to read this.
This is “The Miami Herald.” This from that same “Miami Herald” story. And it says a 12th grade government and economics teacher in Fort Lauderdale High — at Fort Lauderdale — at Fort Lauderdale High — sorry — said: “Facilitators at this training emphasized that most enslaved people in the country were born into slavery, and that the colonies didn`t buy nearly as many enslaved people during the transatlantic slave trade as has been portrayed.”
So, essentially, Shevrin, state Senator Shevrin Jones, they`re saying that the reason you shouldn`t feel so bad about slavery is they were just being born and bred into slavery. They weren`t being bought from Africa. That`s better.
JONES: Well, I can tell you that the institution of slavery proved to be a very difficult issue for the founding fathers to navigate, they all having been born into a slaveholding society where the morality of owning slaves was rarely questioned.
But they never did anything about it. And the fact that you start misconstruing slavery and saying that this was some type of peaches and cream that black folk went through, involuntarily we come into this country, and now you`re trying to sugarcoat it, that`s not accurate history.
What we are doing right now right here within the state of Florida and across the country is, the Republicans speak about socialism, they speak about communism, and they speak about indoctrination, but they are doing the very thing that they blame Democrats for doing.
REID: It is — the name of it is called authoritarian socialism. It`s roughly what they used to do in the Soviet Union.
JONES: Absolutely.
REID: Let me play Michigan state Senator Dayna Polehanki. And she describes this as happy history. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEVE SEN. DAYNA POLEHANKI (D-MI): I am tired of white legislators, like the senator from the 15th District, the senator from the 22nd District, lecturing black people that the United States is post-racial, we`re done with race.
The Beeler bill is yet another in a long line of happy history bills introduced by Republicans across the country which are designed to terrify teachers into avoiding any meaningful discussion about racial discrimination, on pain of losing their jobs or causing school funding to be without.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: This — to give you some examples of this, state Representative Jasmine Crockett, Wisconsin School Board members just dismissed a book about Japanese American incarceration as being unbalanced.
The members said that including the book would require perspectives from the U.S. government, saying you didn`t have enough perspective to talk about incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II.
And then your state, which is the big daddy of rewriting history in their education book — in their schoolbooks, Texas Education Board just rejected a proposal to call slavery involuntary relocation when it is being taught to second graders, involuntary relocation.
(LAUGHTER)
REID: They just narrowly missed that one. How did they ever say no?
(LAUGHTER)
STATE REP. JASMINE CROCKETT (D-TX): It is really sad, what we`re experiencing.
And, seemingly, it`s those states where we`re seeing this great growth in diversity where definitely there are a select few that say, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, we may end up in the minority. And, in fact, white folk are in the minority in the state of Texas. And so now it`s like, well, let me change what the rhetoric is around exactly what happened here, right?
And doing it in the state of Texas, where we have more African-Americans than any other state is that much more of a slap in the face.
But let me talk about one thing that you just kind of touched on a little bit, and that`s our CRT bill, or what they called it. They called it a CRT bill. And so, in that bill, basically, there was this fear for teachers about whether or not they would actually be incarcerated, whether they will be fined, or whether they could potentially lose their jobs.
[19:40:12]
And so as this bill went into effect back in September, there were actually some school districts that ended up in hot water because they said, well, we`re supposed to teach both sides of the Holocaust.
And they said, wait a minute, wait a minute, that wasn`t what we were trying to do, now. Now, we were just talking about the black folk and slavery, right?
And so they didn`t specify slavery itself, because they did not want to necessarily just point out what happened to black folk. They wanted to make it seem like all historical things. And so it`s interesting that they continue to pick on black folk, which, to me, tells me how much respect, or lack thereof, that they have for us.
But they definitely pumped their brakes when it came to talking about the Holocaust.
REID: Let me — the reason that this matters is that Texas, Florida and California, there`s such big states. They`re called adoption states for textbooks.
And, nationwide, fewer than half of all states adopt textbooks at the state level. Among those that do, Florida, California and Texas are the largest markets. So it`s typical for publishers to adapt their materials specifically for those states, sometimes editing texts in response to critiques from state reviewers. So, that`s the reason that this matters.
To come back to Texas and you, state Representative Crockett, the Texas attorney general, the things that happen in Texas tend to travel outside of your state. He is now saying that he would defend an old sodomy law. Texas was the plaintiff in the law that overturned sodomy laws that used to exist in the United States until very recently.
He`s saying he would defend that. And so the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas has said, send me a law. Send me a case where we can overturn those bans on sodomy laws. Are sodomy laws coming back in Texas?
CROCKETT: If it`s left up to certain people, they will, that`s for sure, absolutely.
I mean, you saw what happened in Texas. They went after trans children. We have had this longstanding fight going on in the state of Texas. We talked about the trans legislation this session. But if you go back, we were at the beginning. We started off with the bathroom bill.
And so I absolutely anticipate that they`re going to go after LGBTQIA rights in general. That`s one reason that I kept saying, listen, you may not care about repro rights, but there`s some right that you do care about, and they are going to go after it.
REID: Yes.
CROCKETT: And we all saw that Clarence Thomas was hinting at a number of different landmark cases that he was itching to touch. He didn`t mention Loving, but he mentioned a lot of other cases.
REID: Oh, he wasn`t hinting. He sent out a giant Bat Signal saying, send me cases, so that we can continue to take people`s rights away. He has a whole long list of people he wants to go after.
CROCKETT: Yes.
REID: Florida state Senator Shevrin Jones, Texas state Representative Jasmine Crockett, thank you both.
“Who Won the Week?” is still ahead.
But, first, my friend and colleague Nicolle Wallace joins me to talk about what`s going on in Ukraine and a really, really big television event this weekend to raise funds for the people affected by that ongoing war. Very excited about this.
We will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:47:58]
REID: WNBA star Brittney Griner was back in a Russian courtroom today for the start of what can only be described as a sham trial.
She`s been held since February after being arrested in a Moscow airport, allegedly in possession of cannabis-derived vape cartridges. As the Associated Press reports, fewer than 1 percent of defendants in Russian criminal cases are acquitted.
Griner`s family, the sports world, and her fans are all pushing for President Biden to increase pressure on Vladimir Putin to release her.
Meanwhile, Putin is having a bad week with the announcement by NATO formally inviting Sweden and Finland to join the alliance. That will add more than 800 miles of land border with Russia, more than doubling the defensive bloc`s existing borders.
All of this comes as Russia continues its unrelenting attacks on civilian areas in Ukraine. The latest assault was on residential buildings in a coastal town near the port city of Odessa, killing at least 19 people, including two children, and injuring at least 38 others, according to Ukraine`s security service.
Joining me now is my friend and anchor of “DEADLINE: WHITE HOUSE,” the cannot-miss show I never miss, Nicolle Wallace.
(LAUGHTER)
REID: And she`s executive producer of an amazing special on NBC this Sunday at 7:00 p.m. called “Ukraine: Answering the Call” that will raise money for the victims of Russia`s war in Ukraine.
So, I already know the answer to all this, because, of course, I watched your show earlier and saw your interviews about it. But tell those who for whatever reason missed it because they crazy where this idea came from.
NICOLLE WALLACE, MSNBC HOST: So, listen, you and I have armchaired the demise of our own democracy.
And, for some reason, that made me feel more pain watching the war in Ukraine, where they were living their lives, they were getting in their steps and juggling work and life 126 days ago. And their heinous, autocratic neighbor Russia came in, illegally and without any pretense, upended the lives of not just the military, but every civilian.
[19:50:03]
Most of the — every day, there is an attack on a civilian target. And we grope around for some area of consensus in this country. And we don`t even agree on the importance of living in a democracy anymore here.
So there was something about Ukraine. And support for Ukraine is in the 90s. There are not that many things that we all — we don`t even have that number of support in our country for protecting our own democratic traditions.
REID: True.
WALLACE: So, there was something about working on this one thing that maybe unites people who don`t otherwise agree.
So I said to my husband, do you think I could do like a We Are the World? And I don`t know anything about music, and I don`t know anything about that kind of television.
And I started making calls. And one call led to another. And it miraculously came together.
REID: It`s really exciting.
I mean, you`re going to have the president of Ukraine. Volodymyr Zelenskyy is going to address Americans during this special. You just mentioned one of my favorite things of all time, because I`m from the olden days. And We Are the World, I believe, was when I was in either junior high or high school, but it was epic.
I mean, we`re talking about Michael Jackson. We`re talking about like all the greatest performance of his time.
Tell us some of the performers that are going to be there, because this being a We Are the World type of special makes it really extra special.
WALLACE: So, we wanted — first of all, everyone we asked is not in the show, but no one said no. We were working on an eight-week timeline, which just simply didn`t work for everybody.
But there will be perform — there`s a stunning performance from Jon Batiste, a beautiful performance from Brandi Carlile. Brad Paisley will sing “Amazing Grace.”
REID: Oh.
WALLACE: And it just gives me chills thinking about it.
There`s a wonderful Broadway ensemble. The music is really magical. And then there are people from music, from film, from television who all come in and really deliver the messages and tell the stories, the way we do on our newscast.
But there`s something about reaching people on a Sunday night, when they`re not sort of armored up for the news, where we hope the stories — we were in Ukraine filming for about four weeks. And there are some beautiful stories. There`s a rapper who`s now on the front lines, a filmmaker who`s on the front line.
So, just putting a face and a human side to the people fighting and, tragically, in many instances dying to save their own democracy.
REID: Yes, I mean, Ukraine has shown us valiance in a way that we really haven`t seen since like images of World War II. I mean, they are truly valiantly fighting for their freedom.
We hope that we can just get a little bit of that spirit here to fight for our democracy. And I think it`s great you`re going to highlight it.
But I heard a really fun story that, did you come up with this idea while you were in the drive-through with your kid like going to get food? Is this true? This is a rumor.
WALLACE: I was at the Chick-fil-A drive-through on our way to a baseball game or practice with my two dogs.
And my husband and I called Brad Paisley. And he was on speaker in the car with dogs barking and my son protecting his chicken from the dogs, and sort of shouting through the car: “Hey, how would I do We are the World?”
And Brad is one of the nicest human beings. And so he said: “Oh, call my friend David Wild.”
And I started making calls in the car, because you know how it is, right? We`re always juggling, and so, whenever you have a minute…
REID: You`re car is like an office.
(LAUGHTER)
WALLACE: Totally.
REID: And fries falling everywhere.
OK, very important question before we go to break. Which dipping sauce? It`s very — this is an important question.
WALLACE: Totally. There`s only one answer, Chick-fil-A sauce.
REID: OK, the — it`s the red sauce. The red sauce is the — is the only sauce that matters.
We`re going to hold onto you. This is almost a kidnapping now.
(LAUGHTER)
REID: I`m keeping Nicolle. We are going to have Nicolle for the first time play “Who Won the Week?”
I cannot hear who she thinks won the week. So stay right there. We will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:58:30]
REID: OK, are you all ready for the long weekend? I will likely be asleep for much of it, other than watching Nicolle`s special and my favorite shows on MSNBC.
But before we go, it is time to play — ah, yes — “Who Won the Week?”
Back with me is the great Nicolle Wallace, host of “DEADLINE: WHITE HOUSE,” must-see TV on MSNBC.
Nicolle Wallace, tell us, please, who won the week?
WALLACE: I picked — I was so nervous about this, Joy. I thought about it all day, longer than I spent prepping for my own show.
(LAUGHTER)
WALLACE: I picked Liz Cheney with a standing ovation at the Reagan Library.
I mean, that is like Mecca for Republicans. And that standing over O. among a sea of Republicany Republicans is a bad omen for MAGA world.
REID: You know, what`s interesting is, there are Democrats who voted for Obamacare and then lost their seats. And, to me, they`re the most heroic Democrats, because they didn`t care. They`re like: This is good for the country, and I`m going to do it anyway.
And she has distinguished herself as saying: Come for me. You want to try to take my seat, do it.
WALLACE: Yes.
REID: But I`m going to do the right thing.
OK, I understand that you might have a who lost the week. You are — so, you`re a game-changer. So you might be a “Who Won the Week?” game-changer too.
Who is your lost the week?
WALLACE: I think the entire testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson was a swift kick in the rear end from Liz Cheney`s sensible flats to one Pat Cipollone.
(LAUGHTER)
REID: Yes.
WALLACE: And I think his efforts to stay Trumpy will fail miserably.
REID: My “Who Won the Week?” is the January 6 commission.
But, also, I wore the jacket in honor. Cassidy Hutchinson…
WALLACE: Yes.
REID: … she`s got more courage than every man she worked for.
Wore the white jacket in honor.
Cassidy, young lady, you may be young, but you got cojones, sister, much more than Trump or any of his minions.
WALLACE: All of them.
REID: Nicolle Wallace, thank you, my friend.
WALLACE: Thank you, friend.
REID: Cannot wait for your special. Cheers.
WALLACE: Thank you so much.
REID: All right, that is tonight`s REIDOUT.
Any time.
Be sure to catch “Ukraine: Answering the Call” this Sunday 7:00 p.m.
“ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES” starts right now.