Updated
Summary
Will former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows be President Trump`s fall guy for January 6? Security footage from Uvalde, Texas, reveals police inaction as children were being murdered. The ignorance about female anatomy from the very Republican lawmakers who are using congressional hearings to cheer on the post-Roe state abortion ban is examined. President Biden kicks off a trip through the Middle East.
Transcript
ARI MELBER, MSNBC HOST: And you can tell me what you think about any of it or who else we should have on from the music and culture space @AriMelber on any platform, @AriMelber or AriMelber.com. Who else should we be talking to in the culture? Let us know.
And keep it locked, because THE REIDOUT WITH JOY REID starts now.
JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: Tonight on THE REIDOUT:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CASSIDY HUTCHINSON, FORMER AIDE TO MARK MEADOWS: I perceived his goal with all of this to keep Trump in office. But when he began acknowledging that maybe there wasn`t enough voter fraud to overturn the election, I witnessed him start to explore potential constitutional loopholes more extensively.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Mark Meadows witnessed every aspect of the plot. And a new report says that Trump`s lawyers believe Meadows will be the fall guy. But what, if anything, will the DOJ do about Trump?
Also tonight, security footage from Uvalde, Texas, reveals more of the inexplicable lack of action by police as children were being murdered.
Plus, we will share some astounding ignorance about female anatomy from the very Republican lawmakers who are using congressional hearings to cheer on the post-Roe state abortion ban. One of the witnesses joins me tonight.
But, first, we start with the breathtaking body of work that the Select Committee on the January 6 attack has presented thus far, and it is damning. What we know, seven hearings in, is that Trump knew that he had lost. He was told so over and over again, that 81 million Americans preferred Joe Biden.
But Trump, who has spent his life bending, if not breaking the law, decided to take matters into his own hands. Surrounded by yes-men and what fellow Republicans called the crazies, Trump pursued three avenues to try to stay in power, first, the courts, a traditional and totally legal route, which bore no fruits.
Second, a mafia-style pressure campaign on swing state lawmakers, which had mixed results, and then, third, the violent route of inciting an angry mob to attack the Capitol to pressure Mike Pence and the so-called RINOs to play ball.
On January 6, those three strategies converged.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): Three rings of interwoven attack were now operating towards January 6. On the inside ring, Trump continued trying to work to overturn the election by getting Mike Pence to abandon his oath of office as vice president and assert the unilateral power to reject electoral votes.
This would have been a fundamental and unprecedented breach of the Constitution that would promise Trump multiple ways of staying in office.
Meanwhile, in the middle ring, members of domestic violent extremist groups created an alliance both online and in person to coordinate a massive effort to storm, invade and occupy the Capitol.
Finally, in the outer ring, on January 6, there assembled a large and angry crowd, the political force that Trump considered both the touchstone and the measure of his political power.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: The committee`s dragnet has been so methodical that it has exposed the potential criminal liability of individuals who aided and abetted Trump`s coup.
Those individuals include his Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, middling DOJ official Jeffrey Clark, and supposed constitutional lawyer John Eastman. The committee`s evidence is so strong that a California district judge accused Eastman of being aware that his plan violated the Electoral Count Act. Dr. Eastman, the judge said, likely acted deceitfully and dishonestly each time he pushed an outcome-driven plan that he knew was unsupported by the law.
Yesterday, we got a glimpse of Meadows` own criminal exposure, when we heard his assistant claiming that Meadows knew that he couldn`t sell the big lie, so he put his full force behind a constitutional loophole, even though he knew that people were armed, and that, as he himself said, things could get really, really bad.
Unfortunately, for Meadows, with Trump, no good deed goes unpunished. According to “Rolling Stone,” which spoke to eight sources familiar with the matter, members of Trump`s legal team are actively planning certain strategies around Meadows` downfall, including possible criminal charges.
The magazine is also reporting that Trump in recent weeks has casually mentioned in conversations with some of his longtime associates that he didn`t always know what Meadows was doing. Mr. Meadows just might be joining John Eastman on jettisoned island.
“Rolling Stone” also reported that the former president has begun distancing himself from Eastman, claiming he barely knew him. Three unnamed sources told the magazine that Trump`s legal team have advised the former president not to discuss Eastman in order to limit potential legal exposure.
[19:05:02]
Meadows is familiar with defenestration. He did try to overthrow John Boehner as speaker back in 2015. I just wonder if Meadows will do what he did back then with Boehner by getting down on bended knees, begging Trump for mercy.
Meadows is in this situation because of the committee, full stop. In fact, the committee`s work has been so thorough, revelatory and explosive, that it sometimes feels like they are showing the Department of Justice how it should be done. So what`s taking so long? Why isn`t the DOJ out front?
According to “The New York Times,” the shocking testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson was so profound that it jolted top Justice Department officials into discussing the topic of Mr. Trump more directly, at times in the presence of Attorney General Merrick Garland and Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco.
One of the most prominent and well-respected prosecutors in the country, Andrew Weissmann, wrote a critical opinion piece in “The New York Times” slamming the department`s bottom-up approach to investigating the January 6 insurrection.
He explains that their strategy is actually the wrong approach for investigating the January 6 insurrection, and that the public hearings of the January 6 Select Committee should inspire the Justice Department to rethink it.
Joining me now, Glenn Kirschner, former federal prosecutor and MSNBC legal analyst, Katie Phang, MSNBC legal analyst and host of “THE KATIE PHANG SHOW” on MSNBC, and Charlie Sykes, editor at large for The Bulwark.
Thank you all for being here.
I do want to start with you, Glenn, because you have this situation where it is clear that Donald Trump at some point on December — between December 18 and that meeting with all of the Looney Tunes and some members of his actual real governmental consulting — consultancy, the legal people around him, he realizes that there is nowhere else to go.
And he somehow decides, no, we`re just going to do a wild protest on January 6. That then happens. You see all the violence. Let`s play a little bit of this.
When he does that tweet, this is what immediately happened on social media. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TIM POOL, PRO-TRUMP YOUTUBER: And now Donald Trump is calling on his supporters to descend on Washington, D.C., January 6.
ALEX JONES, HOST, “THE ALEX JONES SHOW”: He is now calling on we the people to take action and to show our numbers.
MATT BRACKEN, RIGHT-WING COMMENTATOR: We`re going to only be saved by millions of Americans moving to Washington, occupying the entire area, if necessary, storming right into the Capitol.
SALTY CRACKER, PRO-TRUMP YOUTUBER: You better understand something, son. You better understand something. Red Wedding (EXPLETIVE DELETED). Red Wedding. There`s going to be a Red Wedding going down January 6.
(EXPLETIVE DELETED) you better look outside. You better look out January 6. Kick that (EXPLETIVE DELETED) door open. Look down the street. There are going to be a million-plus geeked-up armed Americans.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: More on far right responses. “Why don`t we just kill them?” was one of the posts, “every last Democrat down to the last man, woman and child. The average Democrat is a traitor. They do not care about election fraud. The punishment for treason is death. It`s time for the Day of the Rope. White revolution is the only solution.”
And they literally brought a rope, which we now know through Ben Collins` great journalism, that`s what Day of the Rope — that was sort of an indication of Day of the Rope.
Donald Trump did all of that. Donald Trump caused those people to say those things and post those things, not Mark Meadows. So how could it be that Mark Meadows becomes the fall guy, because everything he did was done for the president, for Donald Trump? How could Mark Meadows possibly be the fall guy, when all that stuff I just showed you is Trump`s doing?
GLENN KIRSCHNER, MSNBC LEGAL ANALYST: Well, Joy Mark Meadows can only become the fall guy if the Department of Justice lets him become the fall guy.
Should he be charged for his crimes? Absolutely. But does that mean the Department of Justice should stop at Mark Meadows? Absolutely not. Donald Trump is the hub of the hub and spoke conspiracy, which I have been talking about, including on your show, for a very long time.
Donald Trump is the hub from which all of these criminals spokes radiated. And we heard about this battle royal in the Oval Office with team normal, the folks that at least passed for adults in the Trump administration, the Cipollones and the Herschmanns, and team crazy, the QAnon crew, the Powells and Flynns and Giulianis.
And you could — you got the sense from listening to the evidence that everyone in the room knew there was absolutely no evidence supporting these absurd claims of election fraud. None of that mattered to Donald Trump, because, at the end of the day, it was by any means necessary. He was going to retain power.
So, in the early morning hours, at the conclusion at that of that meeting, he sent the tweet, setting the date for the Capitol attack. And all that was left was to try to violently stop the certification of Joe Biden`s win.
[19:10:00]
Meadows can`t take the fall for any of that. He bears criminal responsibility, but the buck, the criminal buck, has to stop with Donald Trump.
REID: Right.
And, Katie, if you`re Mark Meadows` attorney, at one point, per Pat Cipollone`s testimony, Meadows agrees with him that the election is over, agrees with him that there needs to be a peaceful transfer of power, that Trump needs to concede.
Meadows physically walks Rudy Giuliani out of the White House to keep him from going back into the mansion. Meadows understands — according to Cassidy Hutchinson, he understands reality. He is not Rudy Giuliani. He is not the Kraken lady. He understands reality.
At some point, she says he makes this turn toward looking for constitutional loopholes. He`s not doing that for himself. He`s doing that for Donald Trump. Donald Trump has this conversation the 5th of January, on the eve of the attack, with Steve Bannon, two calls, one in the morning, after which Bannon says, all hell is going to break loose. So he seems to know what`s going on.
He wasn`t talking to Meadows. He was talking to Donald Trump. And so if you`re Meadows` attorney, at what point do you stop defying the 1/6 Committee and start cooperating and maybe even take a walk over to the Department of Justice and say, look, if they`re going to throw me under the bus, I`m going to throw Trump under the bus?
KATIE PHANG, MSNBC LEGAL ANALYST: Well, the real question that needs to be answered is, is that conversation already happening with the DOJ, which we don`t know, right?
And anybody who`s a prosecutor will concede, there`s a lot of stuff that happens behind the scenes that we don`t know about. But the name of the game is leverage. Who holds the cards with the most leverage? And at this point in time, it is Mark Meadows.
He has his own independent exposure, let us not forget, for voter fraud allegations from North Carolina that had nothing to do with what`s going on.
REID: Correct.
PHANG: But the point that you made in the intro to this segment that makes most sense, there was a culmination 1/6 of several threads.
Pulling on each one of them is going to bear fruit. Some of those threads are stronger than others. I have yet to hear direct evidence linking Donald Trump to what happens. And what do I mean by that? We have nobody who has come forward and said, I hereby testify under oath that Donald Trump said this.
The tweet, in and of itself, is damning, but may not be enough for purposes of a conviction. Glenn would concede the following. Probable cause is not the same as achieving a conviction beyond that and to the exclusion of every reasonable doubt at a trial.
But the fake electors scheme is the one that has the most exposure for Donald Trump. And Mark Meadows can attest to that. Other people that don`t have as much baggage can attest to that. That is why that Fulton County investigation has more teeth at this point in time, which is also why all of those QAnon crazies still give exposure to Donald Trump, that as, we know, absolutely the intent of Donald Trump was clear.
He was told time and time again, there was no voter fraud. And that is exactly what will ultimately be the downfall for him. It may not be — I`m sorry to say — this may be an unpopular position to take, Joy — but it may not be the 1/6 event itself, the insurrection itself on Capitol Hill on January 6.
REID: Well, I mean, if that is the case — and I`m going to come back to Glenn on that in a minute.
But I want to get Charlie Sykes in here, because here`s the thing. If Meadows is exposed criminally, just based on what we know now, if the members of Congress who asked for pardons must feel that they are criminally exposed, if they asked for pardons, because they were in on those meetings that had to do with fake electors, if Lindsey Graham is now fighting against a subpoena in that Georgia case that you talked about, the Fani Willis case, saying that he shouldn`t have to go, and trying to pull all sorts of, well, I have got some sort of qualified immunity.
He was literally saying, hey, can you find a way to mess with the number of votes that you`re counting that might be helpful to the president? He`s exposed.
Charlie, help us understand why any of these people would be willing to take the fall and potentially go to prison and leave Donald Trump chilling in Palm Beach?
CHARLIE SYKES, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: Well, that`s the proposition we need to test, don`t we?
And that`s why you start — have to start bringing criminal charges. You go back to — I hate to keep bringing up Watergate, but a reminder, you had 40 members of the Nixon administration that were criminally charged.
You had John Ehrlichman, H.R. Haldeman went to jail. The attorney general of the United States went to jail. The White House counsel went to jail. The vice president and the president were forced to resign. In part, that was because you had an aggressive independent prosecutor. You also had a federal judge that squeezed these defendants for more evidence.
So that`s what`s going to have to happen. Look, nobody`s going to take Mark Meadows seriously as a fall guy, because, basically, he was just the toady in chief. He doesn`t have the kind of clout.
But he was in the room. And the more people that we have in the room who will tell you what Donald Trump said and did not say, the stronger the case is going to be. And I guess I want to disagree a little bit with Katie about no evidence linking Donald Trump directly to these various incidents.
[19:15:05]
We have the tapes. We have Donald Trump on tape down in Georgia. We have people who are describing conversations that take place in the Oval Office. And I just hope that we don`t get so numbed by the fact that this conspiracy took place in broad daylight to think, well, we don`t have anything.
Donald Trump called the mob. Donald Trump or pushed the lie. I completely, by the way, agree with Andrew Weissmann`s piece. Anyone who hasn`t read that should, because the point he`s making is, the Department of Justice needs to see this as an ongoing conspiracy, this hub and spoke.
And I think they will have a very, very strong case if they pursue that, if they learn the lessons of the Mueller investigation, which is, you must be aggressive. Leave nothing on the table. And that`s what I`m hoping is going to happen.
You said something a little bit earlier, Joy, that I wanted to underline. This committee really is putting on a master class for the Department of Justice. They are step by step laying out the road map for these criminal charges. And they are doing an absolute masterful job.
The question is whether or not Merrick Garland and his team are up to this kind of challenge.
REID: Yes.
And I wish we had more time. We`re going to come back. We`re going to bring you guys back, because we`re going to — we`re going to keep this debate going between Katie and Glenn, because I want to hear more about it.
But I just want to say one final word. The only reason Richard Nixon didn`t go to prison is because Gerald Ford pardoned him. He might have gone to prison with the rest of his people, but Gerald Ford got him out of jail. Let`s just remember that get-out-of-jail free card. Trump might not get that.
Thank you very much, Glenn Kirschner, Katie Phang, and Charlie Sykes.
Up next: the leak of security video from Uvalde school shooting and the very troubling new questions it raises about the police response.
THE REIDOUT continues after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:21:01]
REID: Emotions are running high in Uvalde, Texas, following the leaked release of surveillance video from inside Robb Elementary, as a deranged gunman took the lives of two teachers and 19 children.
According to Uvalde officials, the video was meant to be seen first privately by family members of the victims this weekend. It led to a heated city council meeting yesterday, where the Uvalde mayor attacked media outlets who published it, but got some pushback on where his anger should be directed.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DON MCLAUGHLIN, MAYOR OF UVALDE, TEXAS: The way that video was released today is one of the most chicken things I have ever seen.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The mayor said chicken. It was chicken (EXPLETIVE DELETED).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What about the cops? Are they chicken (EXPLETIVE DELETED)?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We`re going to handle that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You said that they did their job. Do you still think they did a good job?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Adam, I`m not going to get into an argument with you on that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Wow. We`re going to show you some of that surveillance video obtained and edited by “The Austin-American Statesman” and KVUE.
Now, given what we now know happened inside those classrooms, this video of what otherwise looks meandering, is actually infuriating. But we think it`s important for you to see. Not only does it show the shooter entering the school, facing no obstacles, but the utter failure of these law enforcement officials, law enforcement officers to act as teachers and students were dying in the classrooms and calling out for help.
Thirty minutes after the gunman entered the school, the first 911 call was made from inside one of the classrooms the gunman was in. Now, you can see in the video that there are multiple officers in the hallway, not only with a shield, but also with long guns.
The same young girl calls 911 again seven minutes later, and says multiple people are dead. Now you can see law enforcement with a second shield in the video. She calls again three minutes later, and even more officers are in the hallway, but still no action. She calls again at 12:16 p.m., this time telling dispatchers that there are eight to nine students still alive. And again nothing happens.
A different girl in the other fourth grade classroom with the gunman calls three minutes later, but hangs up when another child tells her too. At 12:21, shots are heard on another 911 call. And police actually move down the hallway. You can see how many officers are there with a variety of weapons and tools, but they still don`t enter the room that the gunman has been in for nearly 50 minutes.
There was time, however, for an officer to stop to use some hand sanitizer, clearly a priority.
At 12:36, the first girl who called 911 calls yet again, saying that the gunman shot the door. Less than 10 minutes later, she asked the dispatchers to please send the police now, not knowing that there was a whole contingent of officers, as you can see, literally right outside her room.
At 12:47, the girl repeats her plea for police to come in and save them. And then, finally, 77 minutes after the gunman entered the school, gunfire can be heard from police taking out the shooter.
Joining me now is Donell Harvin, senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation and former chief of homeland security and intelligence for Washington, D.C. He was also a first responder following the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary.
Donell, it`s always good to see you.
I want to walk back through this video with you, since you are a professional and I am just somebody outraged about watching that video. And so let me just play the first piece.
This is officers who are running away from the classroom where shots were fired. Walk us through what they did wrong here. What should they have done?
DONELL HARVIN, FORMER D.C. CHIEF OF HOMELAND SECURITY AND INTELLIGENCE: Well, they weren`t familiar with the with the landscape and they encountered heavy fire. They had no cover.
And so, at that point, you have a choice of fight or flight. They chose the flight. And they gave up that hallway. Once you give up that location to a shooter, to reenter that requires tactics that — and willpower that it appears they lacked for quite some time, before some other individuals decided to go down there.
[19:25:05]
REID: Let`s do another one.
This is officers. You can see the people in this video. You can see officers advancing on the classroom where the shots are coming from, and officers with long guns are out front followed by officers with shields.
Explain that and whether that is right or wrong.
HARVIN: Well, I mean, this is just general confusion at this point.
So, we have talked about — and I have been on your show several times — how the chief said he wasn`t in charge. That`s clearly the only truthism that we see that`s being spoken. It didn`t seem like anyone was in charge.
And so, generally, when you have a barricade situation like that with an armed assailant, and you`re waiting for shields, which the chief told us he didn`t have — he also said that he didn`t have long guns. We see that those are both not true.
The individuals going downrange, in this particular case, down the hallway, should be stacked up behind those shield bearers. That`s a typical basic formation that`s taught and tactics. That`s why you have the shields, not to run behind somebody in the back. And it just shows, just from looking at that video, that they weren`t organized.
You stack up behind two, three, four, deep if you only have one shield behind the shield bearer, and you have long guns behind that individual. So this just speaks of the chaos that you and I spoke about weeks ago. We just see that for our own eyes now.
And you don`t have to be a trained professional to see that, to be quite honest with you.
REID: Yes, I mean, if you did that in the military, you would lose all your men. Like, it doesn`t — it just seems — it`s strange.
This is a third one. Now, this is officers who you can see in the video ducking for cover when the final firefight begins with the shooter. We`re going to watch that now. So, they`re ducking for cover when there`s finally a firefight.
And I guess, at this point, the feds have arrived. And the feds are now doing the hard work. What do you see here? And what do you make of it?
HARVIN: Well, the fact of the matter is, you had individuals go down. And then it seemed like everyone that`s on camera was shocked that they were shooting.
Once again tells you that there was no command-and-control and there`s no coordination that they were making entry. All those folks that you`re seeing right now kind of milling around, trying to figure out what happened, should I go down, should I not, there`s no leadership.
This whole scene is devoid of command-and-control. What I think is interesting is that I will take the police chief at his word and the accounts that we heard that he was waiting for a SWAT team. And some individuals, apparently, federal law enforcement, decided to let their training and their instincts kick in and not wait for all those.
That wasn`t coordinated, it seems like, with the with some of the other folks downrange, and that`s why you have everyone kind of scrambling and ducking, being surprised that they were shooting.
I will also mention that, being that there was such a chaotic situation and no clear command-and-control, as the chief acknowledged himself, that those federal law enforcement aren`t necessarily beholden to a local. They see a situation. They`re there. They`re not in that chain of command of the local — state or local. And so they have the ability to take control on their own.
And it seems like that`s what they did. And that`s what saved more lives, because I think, had it been up for the chief, they would have been waiting around for who knows how long.
REID: Right.
I mean, and it does appear you can take Chief Arredondo at his word for some things. But some of the stuff he said was just actually not true or a lie. I mean, he said that they couldn`t get in those doors, that those doors were locked. Well, that certainly wasn`t true. The video shows that that ain`t true.
And if we could just put — just put one back up again, just showing the officers that are running down the hall. What a lot of Republicans are saying — and maybe show one and then maybe go to two. Maybe go from one to the other, if you could, to my wonderful director.
There is this saying that all that it takes is a good guy with a gun, that you can — if you have a good guy with a gun. If you could put up two for me, please.
There`s a lot of good guys with guns in this hallway. And they did absolutely nothing. So, how does — how does it play to say that all you would need to do is have like an armed security guard or an armed police officer in school? One security guard?
That`s, like, over a dozen, and they didn`t do anything. They were — as you said, they seemed fearful when shots were fired. And when it came to fight or flight, they chose flight.
HARVIN: Yes, I mean, a lot of good guys, a lot of good big guns, shields, armament, things that the teachers and the students didn`t have. One officer had a gas mask on. Not quite sure why.
And folks still want to arm teachers. I have said this before, and I will say this again. If the armed trained professionals are having difficulty meeting the needs and meeting the challenge of an active assailant, what would you expect a second or third grade teacher to do? It`s preposterous.
And we have seen this over and over again. There needs to be structural changes into how schools are secured, clearly. And this tape really speaks to a lot of those things that we — you and I have been speaking about for weeks.
[19:30:04]
REID: Yes. We see in the Parkland shooting that the armed guard also ran the other way. I mean, come on. Give me a break.
Donell Harvin, thank you very much for walking through that video with us. We really appreciate you.
And still ahead: women`s anatomy 101 from Republican lawmakers. No, no no, gentlemen, a woman`s stomach is not in any way involved in reproduction. I cannot believe I just had to say that.
We will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:35:05]
REID: During a Senate hearing about the impact of the Supreme Court`s decision to reverse Roe v. Wade, insurrection fist pumper Senator Josh Hawley clashed with law professor Khiara Bridges over inclusive language in the abortion rights movement.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOSH HAWLEY (R-MO): You have referred to people with a capacity for pregnancy. Would that be women?
So this isn`t really a women`s rights issue? It`s a what?
KHIARA BRIDGES, U.C. BERKELEY SCHOOL OF LAW: We can recognize that this impacts women, while also recognizing that it impacts other groups. Those things are not mutually exclusive, Senator Hawley.
HAWLEY: Oh, so your view is that the core of this — this right then is about what?
BRIDGES: So I want to recognize that your line of questioning is transphobic. And it opens up trans people to violence by not recognizing them.
HAWLEY: Wow. You`re saying that I`m opening up people to violence by asking whether or not women are the folks who can have pregnancies?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: So this gotcha line of questioning over what constitutes a woman, what defines a woman, we see it quite a bit.
It is political grandstanding around being anti-trans and criminalizing their bodies and health care needs, which is all tied to the fight for reproductive justice in this Post-Roe moment in America.
Similar to Josh Hawley`s bewilderment over what constitutes a pregnant human being, lawmakers across the U.S. seem to know very little, to almost nothing, about how abortion, pregnancy or even human bodies work.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): If a child is halfway delivered out of the birth canal, is it permissible haven`t to have an abortion? Would you support the right for an abortion then?
DR. YASHICA ROBINSON, MEDICAL DIRECTOR, ALABAMA WOMEN`S CENTER: I can`t even fathom that.
REP. TODD AKIN (R), MISSOURI: From what I understand from doctors, that`s really rare. If it`s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.
STATE REP. VITO BARBIERI (R-ID): Can this same procedure then be done in a pregnancy, swallowing a camera and helping the doctor determine what the situation is with the…
DR. JULIE MADSEN, PHYSICIAN: Mr. Chairman and Representative, it cannot be done in pregnancy simply because, when you swallow a pill, it would not end up in the vagina.
(LAUGHTER)
BARBIERI: Fascinating. That certainly makes sense, Doctor.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Ah, yes, that`s right.
These are the people, mostly men, who are in charge of legislating how women live in our own bodies, questioning medical experts and witnesses, mostly women, about what a pregnancy or an abortion is, as Congressman Jody Hice did at a House hearing today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JODY HICE (R-GA): Is there any instance of a woman giving birth to something that is not a human being, a baby, like a turtle?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: More on that truly bizarre hearing next.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:42:22]
REID: Political discourse around abortion care and its importance has devolved into some petty and offensive exchanges, let`s be clear, led by Republican men like Congressman Jody Hice of Georgia, who asked the president and CEO of the National Women`s Law Center, Fatima Goss Graves, if women could give birth to a turtle or a taco. Seriously.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HICE: Is there any instance of a woman giving birth to something that is not a human being, a baby, like a turtle, or, as our first lady suggested, a breakfast taco?
I mean, is there any instance where other than a human being has been born?
FATIMA GOSS GRAVES, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL WOMEN`S LAW CENTER: Well, there definitely are instances where people have stillborn…
HICE: It`s still a baby.
GRAVES: I guess the point is…
HICE: It`s still a person, is it not? It`s a question of personhood. That`s what I`m getting to.
And there is not an instance that I`m aware of anyone giving birth to something other than a person.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: And, see, now, that right there is just one example of Republicans` line of questioning at today`s House Oversight Committee hearing focused on the impact that Roe`s Reversal has had in states where abortion is or may soon be illegal.
One of the witnesses called to testify was Democratic Michigan state Senator Mallory McMorrow, who told Congress the situation in her state is dire, as a 1931 trigger law that would ban abortion, no exceptions, hangs in the balance.
Senator McMorrow joins me now.
Senator, I thank you for being here.
We have had you on before, because you have had the experience that many of these doctors, most of them women, have had trying to patiently explain to men who think that the stomach has some relationship to giving birth, and that, no, women`s anatomy, go back to seventh grade if you passed that, right?
And so I wondered if you could just speak to the frustration that you have had to have arguing with men who don`t really understand human anatomy about abortion rights?
STATE SEN. MALLORY MCMORROW (D-MI): I mean, all of this is just so insulting, and it`s flat-out gaslighting. It`s like Republicans never fathom that Roe would actually fall.
And they`re not at all prepared for this moment. And we came to testify to tell them about very real concerns that women and families and anybody needing to access abortion care are having right now. And they`re asking if women have ever birthed a turtle.
It is flat-out insulting to half of the population of this country. And it`s just absolutely disgusting.
REID: And it politically makes no sense, right, because they`re essentially arguing — they`re sort of arguing the unimportance, that women really don`t matter enough for you to even learn what women — what makes – – what women are, like, on what — how our bodies work.
[19:45:08]
But you can make these laws.
Talk about the law in your state. I mean, this is a 1931 law, when women barely had any rights over property, couldn`t open bank accounts on their own, no right to birth control. Like, women were essentially barely better than property. And that`s the law that`s going to come in?
Can you describe this law a little bit?
MCMORROW: Exactly.
And it`s even worse than that. This law was originally written in 1847, and was updated in 1931…
REID: There you go.
MCMORROW: … to make it a felony. So, providing an abortion is a felony in the state of Michigan, with no exception for age, rape, or incest.
But the way the language is written, it also includes self-managed medication abortion. So that`s not only doctors, medical providers. That`s women, girls. And the only thing standing in the way of that going into effect right now is a temporary injunction, which our Republican colleagues are currently spending taxpayer dollars to override to force the 1931 law into effect.
REID: You were asked today by Representative Jackie Speier about a procedure that you had when your IUD punctured your uterus, similar to that of an abortion.
Talk — if you don`t mind, and I hate to have to bring this personal situation up, but you were asked about it in the hearing today. Talk about that, and — because they are coming for birth control too, correct?
MCMORROW: Yes. And it is important to talk about.
So, after I had my daughter, I had an IUD placed, and that IUD punctured through my uterus. It`s a very rare occurrence, but I had to have it surgically removed and was scheduled for a laparoscopy and a D&C procedure in my hospital.
My hospital system, which is not religiously affiliated, immediately announced that they were going to operate under the 1931 law as soon as Dobbs came down, which means that a D&C is an abortion procedure. We have already had the University of Michigan say that they don`t know, in a post- Roe, world if they will be able to teach these procedures.
So we are getting very rapidly to a place where, if you need emergency medical care, you`re not going to be able to get it, even if you`re in a situation like mine. I mean, the ramifications are so broad.
This is D&Cs. This is ectopic pregnancies. This is IVF.
REID: Yes.
MCMORROW: This is — it impacts everybody.
REID: Yes.
And, I mean, the politics around this — OK, so let me just go through here. There`s a Michigan petition that has now 750,000 signatures for a November ballot initiative to enshrine reproductive rights in the state Constitution. That is good news that people are fighting back.
But we live in a world where an Ohio 10-year-old child had to travel into Indiana to get an abortion, because she was raped. And the response on the right on FOX News and in their newspapers like “The New York Post” was to essentially call that story a lie.
There`s now been an arrest in that case. The story was not a lie. When people won`t believe that a 10-year-old child has been raped, and essentially said that 10-year-old must give birth to the rapist`s child, I don`t know how you compromise with people who think that.
How do you deal with people who think like that in your state?
MCMORROW: We have to call it out. This is the frustration of just straight-up gaslighting for everybody who came out of the woodwork and said, this story was fabricated, it`s made up and it was a lie, in the same way that, throughout our hearing today, every time somebody brought up an ectopic pregnancy, Republicans argued, that`s not going to be affected, that`s not an abortion.
It is. We are telling them what is happening. We are telling them what the impact of Dobbs is. And they won`t listen because we don`t matter. And we have to make that explicitly clear to everybody who`s circulating this ballot initiative and everybody who`s going to the polls this November, that, if you are in half of the population that can give birth, you don`t matter to these people.
REID: They have made that very clear. They have made that very clear.
Michigan state Senator Mallory McMorrow, thank you for all you do. I hope you will come back. Thank you very much.
And coming up next: President Biden kicks off a trip through the Middle East, which has brought some memorable and sometimes bizarre moments for his predecessors.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:53:14]
REID: Presidential trips to the Middle East are often fraught with American leaders attempting to navigate complex geopolitics.
That is how we got those photo-ops of Donald Trump touching a glowing orb with Saudi royalty and even participating in their male-only ceremonial sword dance. And while Trump took his relationship with the Saudis to the extreme, even defending them after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, he is far from the only president who`s had to maintain a relationship with them.
It`s a challenge President Biden is facing as he embarks on his first Mideast trip as president. He arrived in Israel today, getting a briefing on Israel`s missile defense system and visiting Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Remembrance Center.
Tomorrow, he will meet with Israel`s leaders. And, on Friday, he will meet with the Palestinian president and then fly from Israel to Saudi Arabia, where things will get even more complex.
Biden took a strong stance on Saudi Arabia during his campaign, saying he wanted to make them a pariah. But with growing problems at home, and with Russia`s war in Ukraine affecting the world`s oil supply, he`s been put in a tough position.
In an op-ed, Biden noted that he released a report on the murder of Khashoggi and issued new sanctions, but stressed that — quote — “From the start, my aim was to reorient, but not rupture relations with a country that has been a strategic partner for 80 years” — unquote.
“As president” — I`m going to keep going — “As president, it is my job to keep our country strong and secure. We have to counter Russia`s aggression, put ourselves in the best possible position to outcompete China, and work for greater stability in a consequential region of the world. To do these things, we have to engage directly with countries that can impact those outcomes” — now unquote.
Join me now. Peter Beinart, professor at the City College of New York and editor at large at “Jewish Currents” and one of them my favorite people to be on television with.
[19:55:00]
Peter, it is so great to see you. You know I`m a super fan of yours. I will fan — I will not keep fangirling for the whole time.
But talk to me about this.
I mean, the thing about the — the thing about the Middle East is, it confounds every president, right? So you had the Israel piece, where you had Shireen Abu Akleh, who was murdered. You had Jamal Khashoggi, who was murdered, likely at the hands of the crown prince. These two countries kind of have us in a box, have most of our presidents in a box. Biden has now inherited it.
What do you make of the challenges he has to deal with in both countries, when one thing he ain`t doing is talking about these American journalists that were killed?
PETER BEINART, CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK: I think the problem with Biden`s Middle East policy is a little bit like the problems with his domestic policy.
He talks a lot in both cases about democracy. And I think he really believes in democracy. But he`s also wedded to a set of, I think, kind of outdated assumptions that prevent him from really fighting for democracy and actually end up strengthening authoritarians.
So he`s going to Israel. Israel is a vibrant, liberal democracy for Jews like me. For most Palestinians, it`s not. For most Palestinians, it`s more like a tyranny. Palestinians in the West Bank can`t become citizens of the country in which they live, even though they`re totally subject to its military. They can`t vote for the government that controls their lives. They need a military permission to travel around.
Biden should — there`s a place called Masafer Yatta right now, where thousands of Palestinians face expulsion from their homes. Their homes are all going to be demolished. And Israel can do that because they`re not citizens. Israel doesn`t have to pay attention to their needs.
Biden could go and say, you know what, we give Israel $3 billion. We don`t want our money being used for this. This is not democracy. This is not human rights, right?
So this is — similarly, in Saudi Arabia, he doesn`t need to talk about sending offensive weapons to Saudi Arabia after they have just wrecked Yemen and created one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the world.
We have to have a relationship with Saudi Arabia. We certainly have to have a relationship with Israel. But we don`t need to have unconditional hear no evil, see no evil relationship with them. If we do that, then we strengthen authoritarianism.
REID: And the thing is, what`s even more challenging for Biden is that all of this is happening while he`s saying all the right things on Ukraine, which is being subjected to territorial ambitions, something he doesn`t talk about when it comes to Israel and the Palestinians, and, like you said, which is being subjected to a vicious war, which is the situation in Yemen.
So both of the countries he`s visiting now, they sort of align — they could align with his rhetoric in Ukraine. But, because of the geopolitics, and especially the economics when it comes to the Saudis — let`s just be clear — he`s likely not going to do it.
BEINART: Yes.
And you know what? It hurts us. vis-a-vis Russia, it hurts us vis-a-vis China, because we go around telling countries, listen, the test of whether you really believe in democracy and human rights is whether you`re going to stand up to Russia`s illegal, brutal aggression in Ukraine.
And they say, huh, that`s funny, because we`d like an exemption this one, because you seem to have an exemption when it comes to Israel and Saudi Arabia, because the same human rights organizations that you cite to talk about what Russia is doing in Ukraine, they have also-called Israel an apartheid state, and yet you still give it unconditional military aid.
So that really undermines our efforts to promote human rights even in places like Ukraine.
REID: It is interesting because the — OK, I want to play a clip for you, because Biden isn`t aligned with this guy, but it is interesting to hear the way that people on the other side and the other party talk about the world.
John Bolton said something just so wild that we just wanted you to respond to it of anybody in the world. This is John Bolton about coups, coup d`etat.
(LAUGHTER)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN BOLTON, FORMER U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: It`s not an attack on our democracy. It`s Donald Trump looking out for Donald Trump. It`s a once- in-a-lifetime occurrence.
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: I don`t know that I agree with you, to be fair.
With all due respect, one doesn`t have to be brilliant to attempt a coup.
BOLTON: I disagree with that. As somebody who is helped plan coup d`etat…
TAPPER: Yes.
BOLTON: … not here, but, you know, other places, it takes a lot of work.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: This is literally a total dogleg. I`m going off-script here.
But you know everything. What coups has this guy done? Like, I don`t know.
(LAUGHTER)
BEINART: I mean, probably he`s referring to Venezuela, we think.
But, look, this is actually — the United States has been responsible for a lot of coups in our history. It`s something that, oftentimes, American politicians don`t like to talk about. But especially in Latin America…
REID: Yes.
BEINART: … we have overthrown a whole series of democratically elected governments because we felt they were not pro-American enough.
And what this galling about what Bolton did is that he`s so sure that he has total impunity from this, right, that no one is going to haul him in front of Congress and say, wait a second, what the hell are you talking about…
REID: Right.
BEINART: … that he can still go on the media and have these friendly conversations.
The International Criminal Court should be looking into this, except that the United States has tried to destroy the International Criminal Court. Now we need to revive it to try to work on Russia.
REID: Yes.
BEINART: But it`s the impunity that is really bothersome here.
REID: It is.
And, just as a global matter, all of these kinds of things don`t help our credibility around the world.
Peter Beinart, you`re great, thank you very much. I appreciate you.
BEINART: Thank you.
REID: And that is tonight`s REIDOUT.
“ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES” starts right now.