Updated
Summary
Steve Bannon goes on trial for contempt of Congress. The Secret Service faces a deadline to hand over deleted texts tomorrow from the day of the insurrection to the January 6 Committee. The Texas House of Representatives releases a report condemning the Uvalde school shooting response. The status of the war in Ukraine is updated. The reversal of Roe v. Wade shines a spotlight on some of the existing state laws that also strip women of their privacy and freedom.
Transcript
JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: Tonight on THE REIDOUT:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ADAM KINZINGER (R-IL): Steve Bannon is an agent of chaos. Steve Bannon, in his own words, believes you have to basically burn the system down to rebuild it and fix it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Steve Bannon on trial in the first of several major developments this week related to the Capitol insurrection.
And, right now, the Secret Service is getting ready to hand over subpoenaed text messages, as the January 6 Committee gets ready for Thursday`s prime- time hearing on the 187 minutes when Trump did nothing to quell the violence.
In Uvalde, Texas, it was 77 minutes that police, hundreds of them, did nothing as children were being murdered. What a damning new report reveals about policing in Uvalde and beyond.
But we begin with a day in court for Steve Bannon, the right-wing podcaster and one-time adviser to the twice-impeached former president. His trial for contempt of Congress got under way today. Jury selection wrapped just a short time ago, after two-last minute attempts by Bannon`s team to delay the trial, including an offer to testify before the January 6 Committee.
Narrowing the jury pool from the 22 eligible jurors will resume tomorrow. Bannon faces two misdemeanor contempt charges for his refusal to comply with an order to turn over records to the committee.
True to form, after today`s proceedings wrapped, the podcaster said he`s looking forward to tomorrow. Then he attacked the committee`s work.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEVE BANNON, FORMER WHITE HOUSE CHIEF STRATEGIST: I think we would have better — been more productive if we had been on Capitol Hill in front of open mics addressing the nation with exactly all this nonsense, this show trial they have been putting up on Capitol Hill. It`s nothing but a show trial.
It`s time they start having other witnesses then give other side — other testimony, other than what they have been putting up. So we will see you here tomorrow morning. I want to thank the judge. Thank you, everybody.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Oh, color me shocked.
Now, in his offer to testify, Bannon did not offer to turn over documents. And, last week, the committee laid out two key reasons why he is on their witness list.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. STEPHANIE MURPHY (D-FL): The committee has learned from the White House phone logs that the president spoke to Steve Bannon, his close adviser, at least twice on January 5. The first conversation they had lasted for 11 minutes. Listen to what Mr. Bannon said that day after the first call he had with the president.
STEVE BANNON, FORMER WHITE HOUSE CHIEF STRATEGIST: All hell is going to break loose tomorrow. It`s all converging. And now we`re on, as I say, the point of attack.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: The committee is also seeking other communications from January 5 and 6, subpoenaing the United States Secret Service over deleted text messages from those two days. The agency has been asked to provide the committee with those records by tomorrow.
Those deleted texts could provide key information from witnesses to the former president`s behavior, not the least of which is that alleged altercation between Trump and two Secret Service agents in an SUV described by former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson.
In the meantime, the committee is ramping up for a blockbuster prime-time hearing on Thursday, focusing on the former president`s 187 minutes of inaction, as the mob laid siege to the Capitol.
One of the members leading Thursday`s hearing, Republican Adam Kinzinger, said the committee will fill in those blanks.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KINZINGER: This is going to open people`s eyes in a big way. The reality is — I will give you this preview — the president didn`t do very much but gleefully watch television during this time frame. We`re going to present a lot more than that.
But I could only imagine, as — I mean, I knew what I felt like as a U.S. congressman. If I was a president, sworn to defend the Constitution — that includes the legislative branch — watching this on television, I know I would have been going ballistic to try to save the Capitol. He did quite the opposite.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: The other member leading Thursday`s hearing, Democrat Elaine Luria, who, like Kinzinger, is also a military veteran, said the committee will provide a minute-by-minute accounting.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ELAINE LURIA (D-VA): And not only was it a situation of not doing anything. At one point, the infamous tweet, we know, at 2:24, he actually egged people on by saying, Vice President Pence didn`t have the courage to — quote, unquote — “do the right thing.”
I look at it as a dereliction of duty. He didn`t act. He had a duty to act. So, we will address that in a lot of detail.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[19:05:05]
REID: Luria also said the panel will present more testimony from former White House counsel Pat Cipollone and new witnesses that we haven`t heard from.
In yet another sign that the committee is zeroing in on the former president`s inner circle, especially in the lead-up to the 6th, the committee will interview Garrett Ziegler, a former aide to Trump adviser Peter Navarro, tomorrow.
Now, that`s relevant because the members of the so-called team crazy, Michael Flynn and Sidney Powell, showed up at the White House for that December 18 meeting to push their voter fraud story time. Well, that aide, Garrett Ziegler, escorted them in.
As a result, Meadows revoked his guest-admitting privileges. In the wee hours of the morning following that meeting, the former president sent out the now infamous “Be there, it will be wild” tweet, summoning the mob to Washington the 6th, all the more reason that the former president should be concerned about his legal liability, even as he`s reportedly preparing to announce a 2024 presidential run.
According to a new “Rolling Stone” report, he is planning on running to run away from his legal troubles with various criminal probes. In recent months, Trump has made clear to associates that the legal protections of occupying the Oval Office are front of mind for him, four people with knowledge of the situation tell “Rolling Stone,” adding: “Trump himself seems to acknowledge potential problems. He said something like: `Prosecutors couldn`t get away with this while I was president.`”
With me now, Paul Butler, professor at Georgetown law school and a former federal prosecutor, and Kurt Bardella, adviser to the DNC and the DCCC.
Thank you both for being here.
And I will start with you on this first, Paul, because it does seem that Donald Trump, he may not be the brightest bulb in the fixture, but he understands that he is much less likely to be indicted if he is a candidate for president. The already cautious Merrick Garland would probably, probably not go after him if he were running.
Or am I getting that wrong?
PAUL BUTLER, MSNBC LEGAL ANALYST: Well, what you`re getting right is that Trump is trying to play Garland by speeding up his announcement about running for president.
Then, if Trump is prosecuted, he will say it`s the Biden administration going after him to help Biden win reelection. Merrick Garland should not fall for that. The attorney general will make the decision about whether to prosecute Trump, in consultation with career lawyers in my former squad, the public integrity section of the United States Department of Justice, based on the guidelines that they use in every case.
Joy, running for president is not a defense to a crime. If Trump is not held accountable in criminal court, the message sent is that a president can commit the most serious crimes, even sedition, and get away with it.
REID: And that is the challenge, right?
Of course, Kurt, Donald Trump doesn`t care about the law or anything like that. He hopes that he can get back in office and clear away everything by taking control of the Justice Department, like he tried to do before.
But I wonder if he`s got to be wondering to himself, who`s loyal, right? I`m just thinking about the people who were in that meeting, so these key meetings. December 18 is the one where they said the so-called crazies were there. That is Sidney Powell, Michael Flynn, the Overstock guy who Pat Cipollone was like, who were you, and some others, Rudy Giuliani, of course, who were in there were people like Eric Herschmann, Meadows, Cipollone, and Herschmann reportedly being very clear that this was all bananas crazy, and that it shouldn`t be done.
He`s got to be wondering who`s loyal. I mean, so far, Trump`s people have stuck with him. I mean, you had Peter Navarro decline a pretty decent plea offer. He could now face more jail time because he wouldn`t take a plea. And I guess Trump has to be wondering, how many people are like that, maybe hoping he gets back in office and pardons them?
KURT BARDELLA, DNC AND DCCC ADVISER: Well, that`s clearly the plan, right?
I mean, everything that we`re seeing from Donald Trump world right now is about trying to regain the reins of power, so that he can pardon himself and his accomplices for his crimes.
And, as Paul just said, running for president doesn`t exonerate you from your crimes. It`s not a cloak or a shield that can be used. What needs to happen is, the prosecutors need to just gather the evidence and decide whether they have the goods to charge him or not, and make that decision independent of any of the political theater that we`re going to see.
Donald Trump, Steve Bannon, these people, they are not shy, they are not afraid to try to weaponize the campaign process in order to keep themselves out of prison. Steve Bannon has made it pretty clear that that`s his play for this entire time.
That`s why it`s so important, with this trial beginning of his contempt of Congress proceeding, that there is accountability, because if there actually is accountability, if Steve Bannon ends up going to jail, that will tell every single person who thinks that they`re going to stand by Donald Trump they`re going to have to rethink, because I don`t think there`s anybody who`s actually willing to spend one day in jail for Donald Trump, because we know, with Donald Trump, loyalty is not a two-way street.
He would throw all of them under the bus to avoid any kind of accountability. You have to think that it would probably be the same if the shoe were on the other foot.
[19:10:00]
REID: Yes, I mean, they should ask Michael Cohen how that normally works out.
Let me ask you about that, Paul, because Steve Bannon came out there, made a very bravado statement, which obviously was aimed at an audience of one, at Donald Trump, of him saying, yes, let me get in there and do my theatrical stuff, which the Justice Department ain`t going to do, which the committee ain`t going to let him do.
If you`re the prosecutors looking at Steve Bannon as somebody who maybe he was in on it or maybe wasn`t in on the planning for the insurrection, but he sure as hell did seem to know that all hell was going to break loose. And he said that the day before.
BUTLER: Yes, so if Bannon had done what anybody else would legally be required to do, show up and tell the truth, the House investigation would have been advanced.
We already know Bannon and Trump spoke twice on January 5. It was after one of those conversations that Bannon said, all hell is going to break loose. And we know the Bannon was in the insurrection war room on January 6.
But, at this point, Joy, the trial is not about trying to force Bannon to cooperate. Now prosecutors just want Bannon punished for deliberately ignoring a congressional subpoena.
REID: Let`s talk about the Secret Service, because these are the other people who there are these stories, this reporting that there were some very MAGA-like wings inside of the Secret Service, really, really ultra, ultra loyalists to Trump.
This is what Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren had to say about what they`re looking for in terms of that deadline tomorrow for the Secret Service to turn over data.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ZOE LOFGREN (D-CA): We need all the texts from the 5th and the 6th of January.
I was shocked to hear that they didn`t backup their data before they reset their iPhones. That`s crazy. I don`t know why that would be. But we need to get this information to get the full picture.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: You know, and, Kurt, it is surprising, I think, to a lot of people that anyone would take risks with their careers, with potential prosecution for this guy.
But you have now questions about whether the Secret Service or someone therein deleted data, deleted texts. That just seems completely unhinged as an idea, given who Donald Trump is and his lack of loyalty to anyone.
BARDELLA: Yes, I mean, I would encourage everybody watching to go check out — “Washington Post”`s Carol Leonnig has an amazing book about some of the scandals of the Secret Service, an agency, frankly, that`s been riddled and plagued with scandal after scandal after scandal.
I don`t think it would shock anyone who`s familiar with her work and her writing that there are certainly people within there that are capable of doing something like that, basically destroying evidence, obstructing Congress, lying about it.
The committee needs to get to the bottom of this. The Secret Service certainly should comply immediately with the congressional subpoena. And if they don`t, then it does beg the question, well, why? What are they trying to hide?
And the idea that anyone that`s this close to the president and anyone that`s responsible for the safety and security of the president could potentially be involved in destroying evidence related to a domestic terrorist attack in the United States Capitol should send shivers up anyone`s spine. That is a very terrifying prospect.
I hope that`s not the case. I hope that the evidence will bear out and show that there is a reason why certain things have been done or a reason why data may not be where they think it is. But if that`s not the case, that needs to be exposed, and it needs to be dealt with.
REID: And, Paul, we have gotten the tease, the Liz Cheney tease, that maybe we will find out on Thursday who the witnesses are who got these calls from Trump.
It looks like alleged potential witness tampering was going on. There seems to be so much that the Department of Justice could be digging into. And we don`t know the level of their investigation.
What we do know is that Fani Willis is not playing any games. She has now subpoenaed — his name is Representative Hice. He was one of the people who was at the December 21 meeting at the White House. He`s one of the people who has — was apparently discussing what to do about the Georgia election and how maybe Trump could steal it.
His lawyer is claiming that any contact that he made with Georgia officials about the election results was part of his job in Congress, it was part of his oversight role as a member of Congress. That doesn`t seem like that`s going to wash with Fani Willis. And I`m wondering if at some point these members of Congress and the Senate — thinking of Lindsey Graham — ought to be worried about her.
BUTLER: You know, certainly Lindsey Graham needs to be worried about her.
He went to Georgia. He`s directly implicated in that case in which Donald Trump committed a crime in Georgia on audiotape. And so I frankly doubt if any House members are going to be held accountable by Merrick Garland, but our nation turns its lonely eyes to the district attorney of Fulton County, who, even if Garland doesn`t bring Trump to justice, maybe she will.
REID: It is it is hard to believe — it`s hard to believe, Kurt, that, in a sense, Donald Trump, it feels like he has more to fear from the district attorney in Georgia than he does from Merrick Garland.
[19:15:02]
And I just wonder — I know you talk to a lot of Democrats. What is the level of frustration at this point among D.C. Democrats with the Department of Justice?
BARDELLA: Well, I think you have to almost go back and look at what happened to Hillary Clinton to fully appreciate why so many Democrats are frustrated right now with just the overall investigative and law enforcement process that`s played out when it comes to Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, who, of course, didn`t commit a single crime at all, has never been found to be committing any crime of any kind at all.
Yet the mere appearance of it pretty much detonated her presidential campaign at the 11th hour because of the FBI. And here we have Donald Trump, who has committed crimes on tape, and isn`t really trying to hide that fact or conceal it, and he`s still walking free without any real consequence or accountability.
It just kind of — it`s mind-boggling at this point, Joy.
REID: Yes.
BARDELLA: It`s like — I remember the quote that he gave. He could just go out and shoot somebody in the middle of Times Square and nothing would happen. It`s like, wow, that`s kind of bearing out right now.
REID: Apparently true.
BARDELLA: Again, I hope, ultimately, that`s not the case.
REID: Yes.
BARDELLA: I hope that he is held to account. And that will be the ultimate way we evaluate this period of time.
REID: Your periodic reminder that all of the committee can do, as much great investigation — investigative work as they`re doing, is issue a report. It`s up to the Department of Justice if he`s going to be held accountable legally.
Paul Butler, Kurt Bardella, thank you both very much.
Up next on THE REIDOUT: the damning new report on the Uvalde school massacre and what it tells us about the major unaddressed problems with policing in America.
The REIDOUT continues after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:20:40]
REID: Systemic failures and egregious, poor decision-making, that`s the conclusion from the damning preliminary report from a Texas House committee investigating the May 24 shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde.
Perhaps the most egregious failure is the fact that there were 376 law enforcement officers on site as teachers and children lay dying, with no one from law enforcement making a move on the shooter for nearly 73 minutes.
I`m going to say that again; 376 good guys with guns were present and did not stop one bad guy with a gun. As “The Texas Tribune” points out, it was a force larger than the garrison that defended the Alamo.
The report details how no one took command. And what was glaringly clear was that law enforcement first responders — law enforcement responders failed to adhere to their active shooter training, and they failed to prioritize saving the lives of innocent victims over their own safety.
Following the report, the Uvalde mayor released bodycam videos from officers at the school that day. While some shows school law enforcement outside helping to evacuate children out of classroom windows, it also showed those in the hallway right outside the classroom where the shooter was waiting and waiting, seemingly unsure of what to do.
It even shows the much criticized Uvalde school district police chief, Pete Arredondo, not trying to break down the door, but rather trying to negotiate with the shooter.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PETE ARREDONDO, UVALDE, TEXAS, CONSOLIDATED INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT POLICE CHIEF: Let me know if there`s any kids in there or anything? This could be peaceful.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: We also learned from the bodycam footage that at least some of the officers were aware that children inside that classroom were alive and calling 911 for help.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
911 OPERATOR: We do have a child on the line.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, what was that?
911 OPERATOR: It`s going to be room 12.
He is in a room full of victims, full of victims at this moment.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: And yet it still took these officers — it still took these nearly 400 officers more than an hour to take out one shooter.
And here`s where the disconnect kicks in, because we`re led to believe from TV shows and movies that the role of the police is to bust in and save the day. But more often than not, in the real world, what actually happens is that police in these situations go to their training, which is to prioritize self-preservation.
In another example, today was the start of the sentencing trial for the government in the 2018 Parkland school shooting in Florida, where 17 students and staff members were killed. Now, if you recall, there was an armed school resource officer present that day. But, when the shooting started, he ran in the opposite direction.
Now, what also happens in most cases is it often the threat has been clear before law enforcement even arrived at the scene, like what happened last night in Indiana, where a gunman who opened fire in a mall, killing three people in the food court, was shot and killed by a civilian.
And then there are all the situations where there`s no actual threat, where police do not hesitate to use their weapons, as appears to be the case with Jayland Walker, where eight Ohio police officers emptied their clips into Walker as he ran away from them after a brief high-speed car chase following a traffic violation.
Now, police claimed that he shot at them from his car, but they haven`t produced any evidence of that. And this weekend, we learned that the medical examiner somehow failed to test Walker`s hands for gunshot residue. So all we have is the word of the department, which, let`s face it, has an interest in the outcome.
What we do know from the medical examiner`s report is that the unarmed 25- year-old DoorDash driver suffered 46 gunshot wounds, 46.
Texas State Representative James Talarico joins me now, along with former Detroit Police Chief Ralph Godbee.
Thank you both for being here.
And, Representative Talarico, I want you to start, because this situation of having more law enforcement officers than the forces at the Alamo, but seemingly completely confused as to what to do, standing around, milling around, they did manage to threaten to arrest people outside, including parents who were trying to go in and do it and go in and go into the room and go into the classroom.
[19:25:08]
But they didn`t do the thing people expect. What do you make of this report and its results and its findings?
STATE REP. JAMES TALARICO (D-TX): Joy, I am so full of rage at this story, at this report.
I was a middle school teacher before I ran for office, and my students were just a little bit older than those babies in Uvalde. This report shows that Uvalde had everything Republicans claim we need. We had hundreds of good guys with a gun.
We had hardened security. We had a reduced number of doors. The only thing those students and those teachers in Uvalde didn`t have was sane gun policy. We as a country are not an outlier in school security. We`re not an outlier in mental health.
We are an outlier in the number of readily accessible weapons of war. And until we address that, we`re never going to protect our children and our educators. I — as a teacher, I can say that nothing will ever change, nothing, until we love our children more than we love our guns.
REID: There`s been a lot of criticism of the governor, of Greg Abbott, including your fellow state Senator Roland Gutierrez.
And this is what he had to say about Governor Abbott. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STATE SEN. ROLAND GUTIERREZ (D-TX): Since day three, he hasn`t been back to Uvalde, and he`s refused to ask for any kind of accountability here.
And he`s done nothing but shut — put obstacles in this district attorney and other people that he`s put in place. He didn`t go to any single funeral. He never has come back.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Essentially accusing him of sort — of sort of shading the truth. He did lie initially.
He came and did this fancy press conference festooned with police officers all around him and told a story that turned out not to be true, and hasn`t been to a single funeral. Your thoughts about the governor`s response?
TALARICO: Joy, you know me well, and I try to be careful with what I say.
But Texans are dying, the kids in Uvalde, the teachers in Uvalde, the hundreds of Texans who died during the blackout last year, the Texans who died needlessly from COVID-19 because our governor chose to open bars too early in the pandemic.
Greg Abbott is the greatest public safety threat in our state. He is the greatest public safety threat to Texans right now. And so we need to elect Beto O`Rourke our next governor. And I don`t say that as a Democrat. I don`t say that as a member of the blue team. I say that as a Texan, who wants to see my constituents, who wants to see my neighbors kept safe.
That`s what`s at stake in this election. This is beyond party politics. This is about public safety in every sense of the word.
REID: Right.
And I want to bring you in here, Chief Godbee, because the thing that — we talked about this on a call this morning — I`m going to take you guys inside our conversations — is that — let me read you this. “Rolling Stone” correspondent Jack Crosbie wrote something about what police officers actually really do.
He says: “The issue, that their jobs often have nothing to do with serving or protecting civilians. The police`s ability to prevent crime is basically zero. They can only respond to it, which happens to be part of their job they`re worst at. The part of their job that police are good at is projecting physical force onto whichever elements of society the state deems to be undesirable. In nonacademic terms, that largely means they`re good at beating up on people who annoy them or harassing people that local governments want to minimize.”
I mean, that`s — and he made that to say the police aren`t bad at everything, but police are really good at projecting force in — on civilians who are not really a threat to them. That is what happened in Uvalde. Outside of the school, they were pushing people around.
Inside, when it comes to facing gunshots, police don`t really do that, right? I mean, only like 1 percent, 2, 3, 4 percent of what the police even do is responding to violent assault in which they can get shot.
RALPH GODBEE, FORMER DETROIT, MICHIGAN, POLICE CHIEF: Joy, that article, again, is probably a similar article in describing what the state of policing is in America.
Joy, there is a saying we had when I ran recruiting in the early `90s. Some people are meant to call the police. Some people are meant to be the police. And you got a lot of people here that were probably meant to be the police and never, ever should have a badge or a gun.
The hypersensitivity to perceived threat over the actual response to actual crime committed is so disproportionate. And it goes to training. It goes to who we select as police officers.
Unfortunately, Detroit, we buried today Loren Courts. He ran to the danger, killed with a semiautomatic weapon. That is the best of policing when we respond, and we respond in that way. But, unfortunately, Joy we just don`t see that en masse. And we have to look at policy. We have to look at laws.
There`s a level of cowardice here and just mishandling of this situation, that you talk to police executives across the country, police officers, it is literally embarrassing, I mean, somebody`s getting hand sanitizer.
[19:30:07]
How do you have the cognition to think about germs on your hands when you have children literally being slaughtered in the midst of 367 police officers, and no one`s in charge?
Since September 11, 2001, the NIMS, National Incident Management System, it dictates how you handle a scene when you have multiple issues going on. Nothing was followed. The protocols after Columbine with active shooters, you engage the shooter. You eliminate that shooter as quickly as possible.
Everything that could have gone wrong went wrong. And Texas has a lot to answer for relative to that. And that goes to the leadership. The governor can`t put that on anybody else. He has to own this, because he`s the one — he`s the one that`s holding the steering wheel. And yet he`s the one that gave the bad information.
Joy, just so many things that are embarrassing relative to what an appropriate response should have been to the shooting incident in Uvalde.
REID: And I want to just point out the Texas spends $8.7 billion, they spent in 2019, on policing. The question is what you`re getting.
And just last — very, very quickly, because we`re really out of time, Chief Godbee.
In the case of Indiana, this — as of July 1, it`s a constitutional carry state. Police know that, if they`re going into a situation, they could be facing with their 9-millimeters, they could be facing somebody with an AR- 15. Police know that they are sometimes outgunned.
And so firefighters are trained to like run into a burning building. Police officers are not — the training isn`t to run into the fire of an AR-15. Police will shoot the same — they saw a flash in the car with Jayland Walker and just started all letting off, right?
We have a disconnect in what we think police do.
GODBEE: It`s a complete disconnect.
And we`re not superheroes. And we have to stop projecting as such, and it goes directly to gun laws. That`s the common denominator. It is the — if we don`t ban assault weapons, we`re going to keep getting the same results and police officers are going to be very reticent to engage in active law enforcement.
REID: Exactly.
Texas state Representative James Talarico, Ralph Godbee, thank you both very much.
We will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:36:59]
REID: There is a lot going on in the United States and around the world, especially in Ukraine, where Vladimir Putin continues his violent assault on innocent civilians.
One of those victims, 4-year-old Liza Dmitrieva, who had Down syndrome, was filmed by her mom walking to speech therapy just moments before she was killed by a Russian missile in the city of Vinnytsia. An open coffin funeral for this tiny child was held on Sunday. Her mother, who was wounded, remains in intensive care.
The family did not tell her that Liza was being buried Sunday, fearing it could affect her condition. The priest overseeing her burial openly wept and said that eternal hell awaited those who murdered Liza.
The Ukrainian city far from the front lines was considered relatively safe until Thursday, when those Russian missiles killed at least 24 people, including Liza, and two boys ages 7 and 8. More than 200 were wounded.
Putin`s brutality is not slowing down. Earlier today, Ukrainian officials said that Russian targeted shelling killed at least four civilians and wounded 13 more. The Russian military has declared a goal of cutting off Ukraine`s entire Black Sea coast, effectively strangling its ability to control key ports that are central to its economy and the world`s supply of grain.
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned Ukraine that any resistance would result in a — quote — “doomsday scenario.”
Meanwhile, the dictator behind all this violence, Vladimir Putin, is set to meet tomorrow with Iran`s supreme leader and the new president in a bid to shore up ties with one of America`s older adversaries.
I`m joined now by Igor Novikov, former adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
And thank you for being here, Igor. Been too long.
And I want to just get from your point of view, because the sense was that Russia went through a period of just extreme, naked brutality and war crimes, to be blunt. And then I guess, from way outside looking in, it`s like the war kind of settled into a horrible stasis.
Where are we on the level of extreme brutality and awful stasis?
IGOR NOVIKOV, FORMER ADVISER TO UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT ZELENSKYY: Well, Joy, it`s turned into terrorism.
It`s not even a war anymore, because I thought I have seen it all, but seeing that little girl kind of pushing her stroller, and in that video, she`s asking her mom, “Mom, where are we going?” and then seeing her dad in the street like 30 minutes later, that just broke my back emotionally.
To me, she`s that girl in the red dress from “Schindler`s List,” right? And we have to remember that her killer is not only Putin or the soldier that pressed the button. Her killer is hypocrisy.
So kids in Uvalde are dying. Kids in Vinnytsia are dying. Kids all over the world are dying. And it`s just like it`s a war between people who care about children living and those who don`t.
So, that`s — at the moment, we`re seeing just pure brutality. I mean, there`s not much happening at the front lines. There`s fighting, but it hasn`t escalated too much. So, even some claim that there`s an operational pause.
[19:40:00]
But, at the same time, we`re seeing those acts of brutality on a daily basis. Like, a few hours ago, they have sent a few missiles and hit Odessa in Southern Ukraine, hitting civilians again.
REID: Let me read you a little bit of — this is a “New York Times” piece.
This is by Tatiana Stanovaya. And she`s a nonresident scholar at Carnegie.
And she writes that Putin thinks he`s winning. He thinks that his track to victory is controlling Eastern Ukraine, forcing Kyiv to capitulate by accepting Russian demands that can be summarized as the de-Ukrainization and Russification of the country. Capitulation and exhaustion would force the collapse of a weakened government and building a new world order, where pro-Putin Western democracies redeem Russia and overlook its atrocities.
That sounds like the talk of a madman. Inside of Ukraine and in the government, what do you think — who are they negotiating with at this point? Because it doesn`t seem like he is in his rational mind?
NOVIKOV: Well, at the moment, negotiations aren`t happening.
So, obviously, people want to believe in diplomacy, but, like, to understand Putin`s endgame, let me give you a good example.
Imagine, like, a mass shooter, right, with a loaded gun walking into school, killing everyone. And if you don`t stop him, he`s going to move on to the next. He`s made up his mind. So there are only two potential outcomes.He runs out of bullets, or he is stopped.
So, in a sense, like, you have to understand that what Ukraine is facing. And that`s why we keep calling on the world to kind of designate Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism, to give us the weapons needed to stop him, because, unfortunately for everyone, he`s not going to stop here. He`s a madman with — he`s going to keep going until he runs out of bullets or until he`s stopped.
REID: Finland is now joining NATO. Obviously, NATO got bigger as a result of what he did.
And this is what he had to say. And this is the foreign minister. He said he thinks the mood in Ukraine changed to very bitter after the worst human rights violations of the Russian military. And, of course, it`s clear that, at some moment, the war will end. But he thinks it`s also very clear we have to maintain our support.
I mean, there is a sense that Russia can never redeem itself, but they now also have Iran, which reportedly is thinking about selling them things. I mean, they`re not completely isolated. Is there some other thing that Europe or the West could be doing?
NOVIKOV: Well, I mean, we need to get everyone behind Ukraine united.
And, obviously, all over the world, there are examples of people who just don`t care or people who support Russia openly. I mean, it just blew my mind that, like, literally a few days ago, for example, Tucker Carlson said, I don`t care about what happens, what Putin does in Ukraine.
And he`s a father of four. Like, look, I`m a father, and it`s just — to me, it`s horrible. Any — seeing any kid die is a tragedy. And that`s not the world we should be building for our kids.
But, unfortunately, there are many people in the world who just don`t care, people who want to go about their daily lives and make — try and pretend that it doesn`t concern them.
Well, let me remind you, Russia is full of billboards all over the country that says Alaska — Alaska is ours. So that`s how it started for us. And that guy`s not going to stop, unfortunately.
REID: Yes, well, you did mention somebody who doesn`t — he demonstrably doesn`t care about pretty much anything or anyone.
Igor Novikov, thank you very much. We really appreciate you.
And up next: The reversal of Roe v. Wade has shined a big, bright, glaring spotlight on some of the existing state laws that also strip women of their privacy and freedom.
We will be back in a second.
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[19:47:47]
REID: In the few weeks since the elimination of Roe, the utterly harrowing dystopian outcomes are already crashing down; 44 states now prohibit abortions after a certain point in pregnancy.
And more bans are expected in the coming weeks. The bans are extreme, making no exceptions for rape or incest. And — now, brace yourself here — Idaho Republicans have rejected an amendment to their party platform that would have allowed abortion to save a pregnant woman`s life.
In post-Roe America, women are denied not just abortions, but reproductive medicine and care. A woman told “The New York Times” that a hospital declined to perform the standard surgical procedure when she had a miscarriage. This was after the restrictive abortion law took effect in Texas.
Instead, the hospital sent her home with instructions to return only if her bleeding filled a diaper more than twice — more than once an hour. Women of childbearing age are getting denied access to medication because the medicine can cause miscarriage or ectopic pregnancy. We`re talking vital, necessary medication for heart conditions and cancer and lupus.
The right`s obsession with subjugating women sends the clear message that women are not to be trusted to make decisions, even about their own bodies and their lives, which is why many other policies continue to seize their options, such as some doctors requiring a husband`s consent to get your tubes tied.
Back in 2020, a woman`s story about needing her husband`s consent for tubal ligation went viral, but it`s not as rare as you think. Some private hospitals are still enforcing it. And just last year in Iowa, House Republicans unsuccessfully tried to advance a requirement forcing women to obtain permission from their husbands to receive a hysterectomy.
For those Republicans who failed sex ed, that is a surgical procedure to remove the uterus, not the stomach.
Meanwhile, in Missouri, women who are pregnant cannot get a divorce. That is because courts cannot finalize or grant a divorce until after the child is born in order to establish paternity and custody.
The Missouri attorney elaborated further to “The Riverfront Times” — quote — “Missouri divorce law does not see fetuses as humans.”
[19:50:05]
Huh. Now, what are Republicans always calling a fetus, though? Oh, yes, that`s right, a person.
Up next: how Schrodinger`s is fetus is being used by the Republicans to implement their ultimate vision, total control of women`s bodies and how we live in them.
Stay with us.
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: So, leaders of the NAACP, together, we have fought hard to move our nation forward.
And yet we must recognize there are those who are fighting to drag us backward, extremist so-called leaders, who are attempting to undermine our democracy and assault our most fundamental freedom lives.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[19:55:01]
REID: Today, Vice President Kamala Harris alluded to Republican-led efforts to restrict abortion access, making the point that they want us back — and I mean way back to when no one but white landowning men were free and full citizens of America.
Joining me now is Ria Tabacco Mar, director of the ACLU Women`s Rights Project.
And thank you so much for being here.
And I want to go through this, because this weekend was very illuminating in learning some of the things that women literally cannot do on our own.
The case of the woman who was denied an abortion, and she had had a miscarriage, the one I read in the open is one, in the previous block is one. Here`s another. This is a Texas woman who was denied a miscarriage, per CNN. Texas abortion law prevented her from getting timely miscarriage care. She carried her dead fetus for two weeks, until she found a doctor who would help her.
Now that — she and her husband are contemplating moving away from Texas, away from their extended family just to try to get pregnant again, because she`s afraid to get pregnant in Texas. The previous case that I read about, that I spoke about earlier was a woman who was told she needed to fill two diapers with blood. That`s how much she needed to bleed before they would treat her.
Are there any legal protections for women who seem to be essentially being told, you`re going to have to be darn near dead before we`re going to give you an abortion to treat a miscarriage?
RIA TABACCO MAR, DIRECTOR, ACLU WOMEN`S RIGHTS PROJECT: The answer is yes, Joy, but we know that Republican-led states are fighting those protections tooth and nail.
What we have heard is an onslaught of horrific stories in the last three weeks. And what I need you to understand is the suffering that you have just described — and I use that word suffering, because that is the word that the dissenting Supreme Court justices who resisted overturning Roe, that is the word they used, right?
Closing our eyes to the suffering will not make it go away. And we will not close our eyes. That is why we need to tell these stories. The Biden administration has told states, look, when someone shows up in the emergency room and they are experiencing a complication, a pregnancy loss, serious condition, infection, sepsis, even death, you have to treat those patients.
And what we have seen the states do, we have seen the state of Texas sue the Biden administration, claiming, hey, we don`t have to do that. We want the right to deny someone lifesaving medical care.
REID: And the end of Roe has sort of eliminated some of the other limitations to women`s rights, I mean, the fact that, in Missouri, women cannot get a divorce if they are pregnant until they give birth to the child, because Missouri views a fetus as alive for the purposes of restricting abortion, but not alive for the purposes of getting a divorce.
It`s like Schrodinger`s cat, right? As somebody on Twitter brilliantly said, it`s Schrodinger`s fetus. It`s alive only to the extent that it can limit women`s rights. How can those two things both be true?
TABACCO MAR: Well, it`s possible to separate that fight for abortion from the subjugation of women.
I think you put it perfectly in the intro, Joy. This is about subjugating women. This is about subjugating our bodily autonomy and our ability to live our lives as full and free humans. The Supreme Court wants to take us back to 1868. They said that in the opinion, right? This is not me making things up.
This is six members of the United States Supreme Court saying, we think the proper way to interpret the Constitution is by looking to who had rights in 1868. Well, guess what? Some people have always had the right to determine when and where to form a family, who to marry, when to have children, right? Those people were not us. They did not include the majority of us.
And so now the question is, who among us will be able to hold on to those rights that we have enjoyed for the last 50 years?
REID: This Missouri — I want to note here that Missouri Governor Mike Parson on Thursday said that he will not call a special session to pass legislation to protect access to contraceptives and the ability to treat ectopic pregnancies, because he really actually doesn`t care about that.
Yet, in Mississippi, the speaker saying that he would not allow abortions for a 12-year-old incest victim, that that would — no, that he`s — they`re going out there to have the baby.
Last question to you. Marco Rubio has said he would like to now have child support begin at the moment of conception. What kind of legal mine fields could that open up?
TABACCO MAR: I think this proposal is absolutely too cute.
It`s Schrodinger`s fetus all over again, this idea that, somehow, actually banning abortion is going to help women. But we know that`s not how we help women and that`s not how we further freedom, right?
It`s about trusting each of us to make the right decisions, the decisions that are right for us, not leaving that up to the government.
REID: And the bottom line is, if you did that, then what would happen if there was a miscarriage?
You get through the pregnancy, you have gotten the child support. Or what if the person is an abuser? That would mean — I mean, would that person then have a right to visitation of the fetus? Because that means visitation of the woman, right?
TABACCO MAR: I mean, Marco Rubio wants to invite the state even further into surveilling women`s lives.
And we know who that`s going to fall most harshly on. It`s going to fall on black women, other women of color, poor women, women who are already subject to so much state surveillance, state scrutinization of the way they run their families. We don`t need to invite the government into our families anymore.
REID: And I highly doubt that there are a lot of men out there that are relishing the idea that the government should — could begin garnishing their wages at conception, regardless of how they pregnancy turns out.
Marco Rubio says, you need to start writing checks. So, let`s see how that works out and if they even try to enforce it.
Ria Tabacco Mar, thank you very much.
And that is tonight`s REIDOUT.
“ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES” starts right now.