Nothing for the wall. Tonight, the new balance of power facing the president. Tomorrow we will bring to the floor legislation which will open up government. And just how long will the trump shutdown last . How long are you willing to keep the government shut down then . As long as it takes. Plus mitt is tough. Hes smart. Hes sharp. What to make of senator romneys preemptive attack. He was endoing me. I wasnt enforcing him. As Elizabeth Warren enters the fray so im in this fight all the way. Tonight, my interview with another democratic president ial hopeful, putting Climate Change at the center of a potential run. All in starts right now. Good evening from new york. Im chris hayes. It is a new year, but the same old trump shutdown. The partial Government Shutdown that donald trump engineered and explicitly claimed credit for, heck, even bragged about, has now dragged on for 12 days. For 12 days, 800,000 american citizens have been furloughed. Or forced to work without pay. But after two weeks after increasingly desperate flogging for 5 billion for a border wall that he promised us mexico would pay for, the president s still painted into the very same corner. Are you willing to come up and give him some of this money for the wall. No. Because apparently thats the sticking point. No, nothing for the wall. Were talking about border security. Nothing for the wall but that means its a nonstarter. We can go back and forth. No. How many more times can we say no . Nothing for the wall. Nada, nothing. Instead of trying to solve the problem or lets just be clear, simply endoring the senate bill that passed with broad republican support two weeks ago, the president is digging in. Today, he presided over a bizarre Cabinet Meeting in which we held court like the loudest guy at the bar without concern for truth or accuracy or any discernible throughline. In front of him, for some reason, there was a large game of thronesstyle poster featuring trump posing dramatically. The very poster he used back in november to announce sanctions on iran. I guess he just thinks it look cool or likes to look at it. Later on, trump had congressional leadership come to the white house for supposedly negotiation that by all accounts went nowhere as well as a briefing from Homeland Security secretary. Durbin adding, i quote, it was preposterous. Heres what happened today. Heres what happens tomorrow when everything will change for this president and the country. Around noon, nancy pelosi is ex. Ekted to be elected as speaker of the house and usher in the new reality in washington. House democrats will not be able to pass legislation into law on their own. Since republicans still control the senate and the presidency. But after two years in which republicans have obstructed efforts to hold trump to account, the democratic majority will have the power to conduct real oversight. They will be ablesubpoenas, to generally investigate an administration thats largely avoided any kind of accountability from conch y kind of accountability from conc congress whatsoever. It will be the first big fight. Democrats finally taking power, there will be many more fights to come. Joining me now, a man who spent 14 years in the house before being elected to the senate two years ago, senator chris van hollen, democrat of maryland. Senator, recent news just now, Mitch Mcconnell saying the bill that will pass out of the house tomorrow, reopen in the government, is doa. Whats your reaction . Mitch mcconnell can say that. Im sure tomorrow after the house passes that bill, mitch will say hes not going to take it up, but hes going to have a hell of a time explaining how it is that he refuses to take up a bill that came out of the house thats virtually identical in many ways to the bill that passed the senate with a big bipartisan majority just before the break. Two weeks ago. And as the shutdown goes down, hes going to have to answer to a lot of republican senators who are going to feel the pressure back home. And just saying that, well, donald trump told me not to bring it up is not going to be a very satisfactory answer for many of them. Heres the question. Do republican senators feel pressure . Is that i mean, one of the weird things about the way that our political dynamics work is that its unclear to me they do based on the ways in which they vote and sort of act together and the levers of the media that actually affect them. Well, ive heard, actually, over the break from a number of republican senators who are hearing especially from their Small Business contractors who do business with the government. Huh, thats interesting. So some of them dont care so much about federal employees, although its a reality that 80 of the federal employees in this country actually work outside of the washington metropolitan area. They work in places around the country. But the folks who are really getting squeezed and who will never be made whole after the shutdown are a lot of these Small Business contractors. And so ive heard from a number of republican senators about that predicament. And, again, what the house is planning to do is send over two bills, one will say, okay, lets isolate our disagreement to the department of Homeland Security. Lets pass a bill to keep it open until february 8th. And have a negotiation. But for goodness sakes, the other eight departments of government that have nothing to do with the wall or Homeland Security right. Why are we going to keep those shut down, why are we going to deny the American People these services, keep 600,000 federal employees o ut of work and with no pay . Thats going to be a harder and harder question to answer. You were there in the house, i think you were in leadership, actually, back in 2006, which is the last time democrats took a majority in the house. It was the first time nancy pelosi ascended to speaker. Shes now reascending. Something not many people have done in american history. What did you learn, what did nancy pelosi learn from that time around in terms of thinking about how it works this time around . Well, i think there are a lot of lessons. The house now has the ability to take the initiative on two fronts. Right . First of all, as you were saying in the intro, you get the gavel. And that means the power to hold a hearing. I mean, think about it, democrats now if they want to have a hearing, they couldnt have it in the house. Theyd be relegated to the basement. Right . To have their rump hearing that no one paid attention to. Now they have the gavel. They have the power of oversight. Theyll also have the power of initiative, being able to pass legislation like Electoral Reform and Campaign Finance reform bill. Now, its very true that will have a hard time in the senate, but it will give us in the senate, democratic senators, an opportunity to call upon Mitch Mcconnell to bring up that legislation. It will show the American People not only what were against and making it clear we want to stop trump, but also that we have a positive agenda. And so shell be rolling that out. I will say, chris, that one difference, of course, between now and 2006, is in 2006, democrats also won a majority in the senate. Right. So they were able to have both houses right. Moving in tandem. Well, also someone whos been in the majority and the minority, i was reading some interesting quotes, sort of fun quotes today from members who were about to go in the minority for the first time which is a significant part of the republican caucus. Whats your advice for them or what changes . How does the shape and the culture of capitol hill change when a house changes hands . Well, i can tell you, its always an honor to be in either house, the house or the senate, but the worst place in e worst place in c congresso to be is the the majority, when they can keep party cohesion, keep party together, can do what they want. Paul ryan, Speaker Boehner before them, who couldnt control their far right wings and, therefore, were not able to get a lot of stuff done. I believe nancy pelosi and the democrats will be able to seize the initiative. Theyll be able to pass out of the house lots of important legislation. And then the question goes back to what you were asking. What is the impact of that on republican senators . Yeah. There are a lot of republican senators up for reelection in two years. In 2020. And well have to see whether or not their loyalties will continue to lie with trump, which is where they lie in primaries, right . Theyre all scared to death of trump supporting someone in the primary. But ultimately, they got to get into a general election and going allin with trump on things like the Government Shutdown and other things that will be coming up in the coming months will probably be a losing strategy for them in many of those states. Going to be very interesting. Corey gardner in colorado comes to mind. Thats threw. Top of that list. Senator chris van hollen, thanks for being with me. Good to be with you. Joined now by chris lou. Conservative columnist, mona sharon who worked in the white house under president reagan. I want to start with the, what happened today at the Cabinet Meeting which is bizarre, though were acclimated to if. It was 90 minutes of, its like a guy, you encountered this guy before in public transit, a bar next to you, at a party who wants to tell you how the world works. Here was one of the strangest parts of it to me, attorney general whitaker with this obsequious performance before the president to kick off what he had to say at the Cabinet Meeting. Take a listen, chris, i want to get your response. Sir, mr. President , i will start by highlighting the fact that you stayed in washington, d. C. , over the holidays, giving up christmas with your family, new years with your family, trying to bring an end to this shutdown and security to our southern border. You have demonstrated your dedication to delivering on this critical issue for our country and for the American People. Chris, you were a former cabinet secretary. Is this what Cabinet Meetings are usually like . I convened 17 cabinet members during the first time for president obama. If one of us, whether staff or cabinet, had ever done Something Like this, we would have been merilessly mocked by president obama and in the trump administration, this gets you the job of attorney general. I was in the Cabinet Meeting we had after we got Osama Bin Laden and president obama, who deserved a lot of credit, wasnt lauded this way. With each one of these Cabinet Meetings, they get more and more bizarre. Theres a personal part of this, mona, too, the mattis move which i think did genuinely anger or upset a bunch of republicans and a not kind of lip servicey way. This is what he had to say about mattis which i thought was a striking illustration of the president s world view. Take a listen. Whats he done for me . How has he done in afghanistan . Not too good. Not too good. Im not happy with what hes done in afghanistan. And i shouldnt be happy. I mean, i wish him well. I hope he does well, but as you know, president obama fired him and essentially so did i. Whats he done for me . Right. And dont you love that, and essentially. Thats about as close as we get to i am lying. Thats a good point, yes. Look, honestly, you do wonder, do they keep the barf bags underneath the table there at those Cabinet Meetings . Its just beyond belief the lack of selfrespect. Now, admittedly, this is already the b team and some of them are c team, but that is the part look, mike pence used to be a long time ago. Look at what he has become. Its a really lamentable display, im sorry to say. Theres also, i think seven cabinet positions are currently filled with someone in an acting role. Theyre staring down this theyre in the middle of a shutdown. They got pelosi and the democrats taking the house tomorrow, chris, unclear, like, whos staffing the place and whos running the place and what exactly the plan is here. The plan is to have a huge poster of the president in the middle of the cabinet room table so that everyone can admire it. Chris . No, and you didnt even include all the comments. The crazy comment he made where he said, you know, i could have been a great general as well. I seem to recall a conflict called the vietnam war that he made a lot of efforts to get out of. And so, yes, we could have just we could do an entire show on crazy moments that came out of this Cabinet Meeting. Heres the thing about this. Like, hes still the president and congress is going to take over oversight power tomorrow. The government is shut down. Whats evident, mona, hes painted into a corner. Theres nothing to be done other than wait for them to come around or give him some way to save face. This, you were asking about the changeover of control to the democrats, what this will mean. And in one way, it actually works to the president s advantage. Right . For the first two years, he didnt have a foil right. In congress. He chose the press. The press became the big foil. Not putin. Not china. Rather the american press. All right. Now he does have the foil. The democrats in congress. This is kind of in his comfort zone. Hell beicknames, belittling comments and have these kind of televised meetings and hes very comfortable in this mode. Its kind of like the tabloid fights that hes been engaged in for decades in new york. So, in that sense, he may be enjoying it and may be very comfortable. Its also the case, chris,s that its kind of unburdening if you dont care about the functioning of government to play out the tabloid spectacle that monas describing. Its exactly right. Senator van hollen explained it well. There are 800,000 federal workers who are furloughed or working without pay. Youve got countless other Government Contractors who wont get paid. Its the Government Services that arent being provided. Its not only the National Parks that are now overflowing with garbage, apparently, and youve got home loans, farm loans, not going out the door. Passport applications being slowed down. Look, most of what happens in government isnt partisan. Right. You would hope that regardless of party, you would want to make sure that Government Works effectively. Thats why any of us come in to public service. The fact he has so little disregard for this that hes willing to basically sink a quarter of the federal government for a wall thats not going to do anything shows how little disregard he has for government. All right, chris you know, theres a pattern in each one of these shutdowns which is republicans tell themselves and tell the country, oh, no one cares about the government shutting down and, oh, only essential workers need to report to work. Well, why isnt that the case every day . And on and on. And then as it drags out, people begin to feel the pain. Right. Americans are not at antigovernment as the Republican Party or at least the strongly ideological base is. Eventually, they feel the pressure to reopen it. Anything can happen. It strikes me that that pattern is likely to reassert itself. The president was sort of thirsty for a deal just a few days ago, so well see what happens. Chris lu mona charen, thank you both for being with me. The president says hees prepared to keep the government closed over the border wall, however long it takes. That in two minutes. I am a family man. I am a techie dad. I believe the best technology should feel effortless. Like magic. At comcast, its my job to develop, apps and tools that simplify your experience. My name is mike, im in Product Development at comcast. Were working to make things simple, easy and awesome. We are now in the 12th day of the current Government Shutdown. It is a partial shutdown. It was happening over the holidays, a period when people take time off. So the effects for a lot of americans were relatively eay to miss. In have been eyecatching headlines. Garbage as chris lu just mentioned is starting to pile up in washington, d. C. The New York Times reports the shutdown is devastating native American Reservations that depend an federal money for health care and food. Just yesterday, i talked to a guy working for tsa was who working on new years day but hadnt gotten paid since the government shut down. Most things are going to start compounding and getting worse. Two weeks with no paycheck is one thing. Two months, quite another. After meeting with President Trump at the white house today, nancy pelosi said she would pass legislation to pass unanimously out of the Republican Senate to open the government, legislation that does not include, crucially, wall funding, but in the weight of the shutdown squarely on trumps shoulders. Were asking the president to open up government. We are giving him a republican path to do that. Why would he not do it . I asked him directly, i said, mr. President , give me one good reason why you should continue your shutdown of the eight cabinet departments while we are debating our differences on Homeland Security. He could not give a good answer. Joining me now, democratic congressman jamie raskin of maryland. Is that my understanding, congressman, tomorrow youre going to pass legislation for eight departments other than the dhs and basically say lets do that and cordon off the dhs question . Well, right. What is the argument for closing down the departments of state, of agriculture, of interior, of justice, of commerce, of hud and so on . Everybody agrees that theyve got nothing to do with this conflict. It all comes down to Homeland Security. Lets pass a special bill dealing with Homeland Security, and we can take it up again in four weeks. Well have time to debate it. But otherwise, this looks like just a completely petulant outbreak of obstructionism by thely just trying to ruin the inauguration of the new house and everything we wanted to do. They were sort of spinning it that way. Although im not quite sure i buy that. I mean, what does it matter if terms of the inauguration . You guys are going to get the gavel one way or the other. Well, right. The whole thing makes no sense. Its irrational. Look, donald trump had basically agreed to drop his ridiculous demand for a border wall, which, you know, the people of texas dont want. There are so many landowners down there who are saying that it will be tied up for years in Eminent Domain lawsuits because they dont want their backyards taken away from them by the government. The idea this is a solution is just absurd. But, you know, hed given up on that and turned on fox news and saw ann coulter and the rightwing commentators blasting him then he took it all back, so suddenly it became urgent again. So were looking for some serious, responsible people on the republican side to say this is not the way to run the government. What were giving them is bills they endorsed either unanimously or by 90 so theyve already been for these pieces of legislation. Lets go ahead and pass it. We can isolate the problem. Then we can continue the debate for a few more weeks about the wall. Well, heres the thing about the wall. Like, i dont even understand what were debating anymore because the president you know, the wall is this sort of constantly moving metaphor. Lindsey graham called it a metaphor. The president has reinvented the concept of a fence several times through, you know, its a wall you can see through, which is a fence, then he says its not actually that, its just border security, like, do you understand what the actual fight is over . Is it the 5 billion . Is that the fight . Well, yeah, of course, the 5. 7 billion is really 35 billion because it doesnt make sense so spend 5. 5 billion on a project for one year. Unless you go ahead and complete it. Right. Youre right. Its rearranging the silverware on the titanic. Weve got this monumental challenge of Climate Change, which the rest of the world is talking about. Record forest fires. Drought. Hurricanes. Extreme weather events like no one has ever seen before. This is what we should be focused on. Instead, were talking about this stupid medieval wall which everybody across party lines thinks is ridiculous. And were asking the Republican Leadership to step up right now and help us get back to the business of government. We want to reopen the government. And then weve got legislation to reopen the democracy by getting rid of gerrymandering, by opening up the Campaign Finance system, by arming peoples Voting Rights so they cant be taken away again. Those thats the first sort of affirmative i mean, after getting the Government Back and running, thats the first sort of affirmative slate of legislation that the House Democrats are going to pursue, right . Correct. But there are other, you know, multiple emergencies facing us as a people. You know, we are in a gun crisis here where tens of thousands of americans are being lost every year to firearms and 97 of the people want a universal criminal and mental background check on all firearm purchases. If we put it on the floor, we can pass it overwhelmingly. Well have republican support even. If they allow it on the floor in the senate, it will pass there. Weve got to go ahead and do that. We got to deal with Climate Change. We got to deal with Prescription Drug prices. By giving the government the power to negotiate in the medicare program. The same power that its got in medicaid and v. A. These are things that are practical problems we used to know how to solve and can do it but got to get all the obstructionism and nihilism out of the way. Have you served in the majority before . In the Maryland State Senate where we abolished the Death Penalty and passed Marriage Equality and, you know, passed the toughest gun safety law in america. But not in the house. Ive only been in the house for one term. I cant wait until tomorrow comes. Yeah, exactly. What are you most looking forward to . Well, you know, one of the things that struck me when i got to d. C. From annapolis was we were voting on all these bills, very big things like repealing the Affordable Care act, without so much as a hearing. Now, think about that. Yeah. The hearing is the heart of the legislative process. Thats when you collect the data, you collect the facts. You get lots of views coming from lots of different perspectives and even the people who introduced the bill learn about it and improve it. But they got rid of hearings in the Republican Congress. For the most part, we were voting on bills, constitutional l amendments like the balanced Budget Amendment that never had a hearing before, so i pushed very strongly and im proud to say its in the rules package for a provision saying that no bills will go through the rules committee to the floor unless theyve had a hearing first. I mean, its a pretty basic thing. But im excited that were actually going to be involved in real legislative process instead of just mobilizing everybody into partisan camps. Yes. Spoken like a true legislator. The thing youre most excited for is hearings which you have the right job if thats the case. Ill go in on the rules committee. I cant tell you how excited i am about that. Congressman jamie raskin, thank you very much. My pleasure. Mitt romney returns to his old position on donald trump as he enters the senate. Not that old one. The other old, old one. Next, mckay coppens and haley byrd on what they make of senator romneys shot at the president. Mitt romneys feelings about donald trump over the years have been a real roller coaster ride. Back in 2012 when running for president , romney did a whole event when he collected the endorsement the of americas most prominent birther. Four years late weren the shoe was on the other foot and romney was on the sidelines while trump was running for president , romney turned into one of trumps harshest critics. Think of Donald Trumps personal qualities. The bullying. The greed. The showing off. The misogyny. The absurd thirdgrade theatrics. Donald trump is a phony. A fraud. His promises are as worthless as a degree from trump university. I mean, wheres the lie, right . After donald trump won the election, there was the same guy. That guy. The guy you just saw in the clip, thats him, thats mitt romney breaking bread with the president elect in hopes of becoming a secretary of state. And then later, when romney decided to run for senate in this cycle, he was more than happy to accept the president s endorsement. Now, one day before being sworn in as senator, romney is flipflopping yet again publicly denouncing the president s character in an opped for the washington post. The thing is, romney is actually not that different from most of his party. Particularly establishment, which has both embraced the president and condemned him when it was convenient and ultimately did little if nothing substantive to stop him. The question now is whether romneys opped represents a turning point among his cohort or more business as usual. For more on where things standing im joined by mckay coppin sprngs latest piece is on romneys noisy arrival in washington. And congressional reporter, ha l, ey byrd. Haley byrd, reported on the congress and knows every day in the Republican Congress youre faced with questions about the president. What do you think of romney, this being his opening gambit . The fact he wrote the on sed opped is unique. Most dont say this about the president not having the requisite character when you get down to the Practical Applications of this opped, what romney says sounds exactly like what paul ryan said for the past two years. Which is, im not going to comment on every tweet. Right. I will speak out if something egregious happens. Like if the president sides with putin over the u. S. Intelligence community in front of the entire world. But, you know, im going to go about my business as if this was any president. And that is just a common refrain among a lot of republicans in the senate. So it doesnt really represent a drastic shift. I mean, you have jeff flake and bob corker both leaving and those were two of President Trumps most outspoken critics in the senate. You see romney maybe filling one of those positions as someone who will speak out when something when the president makes a misstep, but its not totally out of line with what weve seen for the past two years. I think haley nails it there, i think, mckay, part of me, this read very cynical, him being like, hey, donting a me about the tweets, i know the guys a jerk. Dont wear me down. Im mitt romney, im here to vote with the Republican Party for the wall so stop asking me about that stuff. Well, so i think that when romney one of the interesting things about this is that romney actually did not plan and up until pretty recently to make this big splash as he came to washington. Ive been talking to people close to romney for the past year as he ran for senate out in utah and his kind of strategy, his thinking coming into washington, is his victory in utah was a fore gone conclusion. His idea was going to come here and be on relatively good terms with the white house. He wanted to come here. Kind of not be necessarily be a trump foot soldier but showed he was open with working with the president on issues where they had common ground. He writes in the piece that december a bunch of developments in december that alarmed him. What im told is the one that most concerned him was the departure of jim mattis which i think a lot of republicans have viewed as sort of the last buffer keeping the president in line. But, yeah, i think that he that romney is coming to washington now recognizing that theres no way to kind of escape the trump vortex. Theres no way to, you know, duck and dodge every question about trump. And so hes setting a baseline, saying this is where im at on trump, and im going to answer some questions, im not going to answer every question. This is also basically more or less what hes been saying throughout the past year. Right. As he ran for office in utah. Getting relatively Little National media attention. Hes basically just repeating those talking points now on a National Platform as hes coming into the senate. Knowing, by the way, i think this is important, how the president would react to this. Right . I think that romney wrote this knowing that trump trump takes everything personally. That he was going to internet this as an assault on him. And this meant they were not going to be good friends. I think that ship has sailed probably. Maybe. Look, he obviously thought back in 2016 that he could mend fences when he right. After the election when he had that dinner. I think romney probably has now learned his lesson from that and decided to assert at least some modicum of independence. The other part of this, just the sort of perfect capsule study of the Republican Partys relationship with donald trump over the last five years, honestly, five, six years, is heres the head of the rnc, her name is ronna mcdaniel. She responds to the opped, for an incoming republican freshman senator, like, whos this guy . Barely heard of the guy. To attack realdonaldtrump. What the democrats and media want is disappointing and unproductive. Ronna mcdaniels name is romney mcdaniel, niece of the freshman republican senator. This, to me, feels like a baroque expressions of frailty that the donald trump Republican Party demands. Sure. Thats her job is to speak for the party. And support the president. And thats what romney said in response to this. He said Something Like, you know, it would have been less civil if we were, you know, at the thanksgiving dinner table talking about this. Its unique and also just like seeing the party structure, the response to romneys opped was, like, double bing down, oh, mayb we con somehow block a 2020 primary challenger though that ship has sailed because they would have had to change the rules in 2016. There was this response especially defenders in congress. Rand paul held a press conference about the opped which was interesting to say the least. Part of it is so weird, theres like this witchcasting, theres this aggrievedness, mckay, you have sprub ca republi are you on my case about the guy i support and vote with whos the most powerful person in the world who i think and you think is a psychopath . Like, whats the problem . Why are you in my face about it . Its like, thats why because thats why. You just said it. And romney has the same m. O. Here. Well, i think part of the kind of animosity that other republicans have toward romney over this is because as ha lerks s ha ler haleyks y kind alluded to earlier, all the republicans in the senate, not all, most of them said similar things to what romney wrote, at least in private. They kind of all believe the same thing about donald trump. Romney happens to come from a state where its kind of an idiosyncratic red state. 64 of voters in it utah told the Associated Press recently that they want to see romney stand up to trump. Right. Right. He has a lot more latitude than most republicans in congress do to kind of assert his independence. And i think a lot of them, frankly, hold have some disdain for that. Theyre theyre angry about that. Thats right. Theyre jealous he gets to, like, say publicly what they all say privately. Right. Theyre mad at all of us who ask them questions about it. Mckay coppin, haley byrd, whos a phenomenal, phenomenal reporter whose work i read and been following and currently on the market if im not mistaken. If you have anybody watching this and youre an editor, snap her up. Youre an idiot if you dont. Thanks, chris. Ahead, the 2020 democratic field emerges. Ill talk to one president ial hopeful whos staking his campaign on Climate Change. Washington government james inslee ahead. Plus tonights thing 1, thing 2, starts next. Cvs pharmacy. Ed gets copays as low as zero dollars on Medicare Part d prescriptions. Ed gets labels clear as day. And, lily. Lily gets anything she wants. Ed knows he could just have us deliver his prescriptions. But whats the fun in that . Switch to cvs pharmacy. Thing 1 tonight, you can tell one of the things donald trump likes most about being president is when he gets to force a roomful of people to listen to him explain how the world works. As noted here before, its like we elected the guy at the end of the bar to be president and now were all stuck in the bar with him. When i became president , i had a meeting at the pentagon with lots of generals. They were, like, from a movie. Better looking than tom cruise and stronger. I think i would have been a good general, but who knows. Im the only person in the history of our country that could really decimate isis. If another administration came in instead of this administration, youd be at war right now. Youd be having a nice big, fat war in asia. And it wouldnt be pleasant. I know more about drones than anybody. I know about every form of safety that you can have. Look, look, when they say the walls immoral, well then, you got to do something about the vatican because the vatican has the biggest wall of them all. If the Supreme Court rules that president obama was wrong, which they should, because by the way, if he was right, then ive been given tremendous power. Can you imagine me having that power . Wouldnt that be scary . Were at the bottom of this incredible room, i said, this is the greatest room ive ever seen. I saw more computer boards than i think that they make today. That went on for, im not kidding, more than an hour and a half today. And he went from that great room to another great room in the west wing basement. Thats thing 2 in 60 seconds. No, youre not crazy, that was a very, very long 60 seconds. Now, where were we . Right. There was a time when the super secure room in the white house known as the situation room was a place where president s did Real National security stuff like manage the response of september 11th of monitor the Osama Bin Laden operation. But in the trump administration, the situation room seems more of a kind of catchall space. Its where john kelly famously fired omarosa, not from the apprentice, from the white house. Were here to talk to you about leaving the white house. Its come to my attention over the last few months that theres been some pretty, in my opinion, significant integrity issues. Today, the president used the situation room for another stunt team maneuver, a meeting with congressional leaders, a briefing from dhs designed as a lastditch attempt to convince chuck b and nancy that we really need a wall. Did not work. Senator durbin came out calling it, quote, preposterous and according to bloomberg trump actually said out loud to Chuck Schumer that he couldnt cave on the shutdown now because, quote, i would look foolish. Well, maybe its a little late to be concerned about that . We were at the bottom of this incredible room. I said, this is the greatest room ive ever seen. I saw more computer boards than i think that they make today. If we organize together, if we fight together, if we persist together, we can win. We can, and we will. Youve probably heard by now that senator Elizabeth Warren has made it official, she will be running for president in 2020. Youve also likely heard a lot of the by now standard punditizing about what it all means with various hot takes about whether she can avoid being pinned as unlikable. Or whether her drinking a beer in her kitchen was sufficiently authentic. Or whether because she didnt run in 2016 shes missed her moment. Now as someone in the business of covering and analyzing american politics, i am genuinely sympathetic to the ways in which the insatiable demands for content means a fair amount of shallow quick takes on optics and electability, what have you, but i want to offer some advice to you, the viewer and voter and really out loud to myself as a kind of new years resolution, as we enter the president ial campaign. Ignore that nonsense. Seriously. 2016 represented the political media Industrial Complex addicted to the spectacle and personal drama and it is our job, all of our job, to do better this time around. So, while there will be plenty of reasons to legitimately scrutinize the political successes and failures of various candidates, their messages, strategies, approaches, inconsistencies, what should count most for us doing the covering and for you out there make bing the decisions about who to support and vote for ultimately is what the candidates world view is, what their platform calls for concretely, how theyve conducted themselves in the past as a window into how they might be in the future, and what we can best find out about their mettle and their judgment. Who will they fight for, what will they fight for . Can they be trusted to do what they say . Everything else is noise. And trust me, there will be an awful lot of noise in the next 22 months. Were committed to try to turn down the din and listen and ask and get questions and answers about what matters. Tonight, you can hear directly from warren about what her vision for the country is in just a few minutes when she appears for an exclusive interview with my colleague, rachel maddow. And just ahead, a democratic governor whos planning on putting the single most important challenge of our time at the center of his possible campaign. I will talk to him about it next. When senator Elizabeth Warren announced her president ial Exploratory Committee for 2020, she pointed out how Big Oil Companies are destroying the planet. Today, she supports the idea of a Green New Deal to tackle our climate crisis, economic inequality and racial injustice. That makes her the first major candidate to support a platform being pushed by a variety of figures, including incoming congresswoman cortez, designed to combat Climate Change while stimulating the candidate. Candidates such as Bernie Sanders and cory booker have shown their support for a Green New Deal. In short, a commitment to big, fast, bold action on climate is becoming a threshold issue for democrats running for president. It appears someone has come along who appears to bank his candidacy on the issue of saving the planet. Joining me now is the governor of washington, who may run for president with a special focus on Climate Change. Governor, there are lots of issues, as you have to oversee lots of issues as governor. You know you have to do a lot of Different Things at once. Why Center Climate . Well, to govern is to choose. And right now, we know to a scientific certainty that we are the first generation to feel the sting of Climate Change. And we are the last generation that can do something about it. In order to succeed in that regard, i am convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that we need a president who will say firmly and with great conviction this is the paramount duty of the united states, in that it has to be the first and foremost effort of the next president. I intend to do that if i were given that opportunity. This has to be the first thing we have to do. It has to be the guiding principle of all of our policies. And we have to rally the country to a higher purpose. And by the way, we know we can do that. We know we rally the country to beat fascism in world war ii and send a man to the moon. We can all be heroes here. But we need a certain trumpet from the white house, who will organize our energies to in that regard. And if i were president , that is the first thing i would do. And we need president to make that commitment. Yeah, the trumpet matters, but prioritization matters more. So i want to be clear, there are 12 Million People who are out of status immigrants who dont have status right now. Theres the daca recipients, theres the spector of gun violence, a Health Care System thats still quite broken, theres inequality. What youre saying the first and most important priority, the thing to focus on out of the game, which is the one that will get the most support, is climate . That is correct. Without defeats Climate Change, nothing else longterm is possible for the future of our children. Now, look, we have had wonderful success in my state, first Net Neutrality rules, best Voting Rights rules, best paid family leave, huge increase in the minimum wage, big transportation package when they cant build a birdhouse in d. C. I would like to bring that to the entire nation. But we have to focus and govern on the existential threat that now faces us, which is also not just a matter of great peril, but a matter of great promise. There is no better way to connect with people in the midwest, in smaller communities, to help them grow jobs in their economicty challenging circumstances, than to show them the job creating opportunities that we have demonstrated in my state, that are making carbon fiber in moses lake, small town. Making solar power in lynn, washington, this is a jobs message, perhaps first and foremost. But we need a president who will show a vision for that type of optimistic future, and they need to do that out of the chute. This is not going to be easy. Lets talk about your state. Theres been a lot of successes on emissions and carbon. But there is a setback in a referendum that was put to the voters, which was essentially a kind of carbon fee on Big Oil Companies. It was put directly to the voters, and it lost in a liberal state where youre popular, where these ideas are not anathema. What does that say to you about the politics of this issue still in the year 20182019 . It says we need to use different tools. Thats interesting. We have lot of tools in the toolbox. Does that mean carbon toxs are politically toxic and dead . Not necessarily. I wouldnt take anything off of the table. But as of this moment, today we adopted new emission standards. Were going to adopt 100 green grid law. We intend to make net zero homes and intend to give to outlaw super pollutants. So we elected ten new legislators in my state, all of whom are committed to working with me to defeat Climate Change. I believe by next spring, youll see washington continue the path of defeating Climate Change. By the way, we have had real success. We have a multibillion wind industry, because we passed a renewable portfolio standard. We have these jobs were creating in small towns. This is a story of success in my state, and we have blown up the republican myth that if you focus on clean energy, it will hurt your economy. I have the best gdp job growth in net wage growth of any state in the united states. So were bullish on this effort. Do you take lessons also from whats happening in france and macron where one of the precipitating policies for the protests and violence thats spread throughout the country was a gasoline tax, which was part of a vision towards Emission Reduction . Yes. The lesson is, this is not easy. Look, if we were made out of sugar candy, we might quit and go home. But Climate Change is not going anywhere, and neither are we. We intend to adopt the optimistic, technologically oriented vision of this nation, to adopt the multiple policies that can lead Economic Growth in our country. Were doing it in my state. Were going to continue to do it. We just need a vision of success in the white house that fits the cando spirit of america. And were going to grow jobs by the millions when we do that. So this is a good year. Its going to be a good year in my state and better in 2020, when we elect a president who will say the pair mount duty of this nation is to rally ourselves to do what we have done in the past, which is to lead the world. What kind of scale are we talking about, when you talk about mobilizing on the order of defeating fascism, youre talking about an enormous program of gdp and you had to mobilize society, there were huge amounts of government command and control put over the economy. What is the scale when you say the stimulus of 700 billion, or the new deal was x percentage of gdp, what are you thinking . Well, we did sort of a first installment in the stimulus package years ago, 90 billion into clean energy, which was a small down payment of something that needs to be larger. Much larger, right . Much larger. Were going to have to be much larger than that. But we cant be dissuaded by republican rhetoric. They were all deficit hawks until they passed a 1. 5 trillion deficit in their tax cut. We know we can finance this. There are multiple ways to do it. But when you think about the scale of this challenge, realize this several decades from now, we are going to have to have a Transportation System that largely is based on electricity, rather than gas lean and diesel. That is going to require hiring millions of people to restore our new types of transportation infrastructure, which were doing today in my state. Were going to have to have buildings that dont use energy. Frankly, were building those net zero homes and buildings today in my state. Were going to have to have manufacturing facilities to build batteries where we have been having oil fields. That requires massive transformation, and its going to grow jobs, just like the apollo project did. Thats why i named my book the apollo project. Final question here, do you support abolishing the filibuster . You know, im going to have to get back to you on that. I certainly did when i was in the house. But as president , im going to defer to our next meeting when we can talk more about this, chris. Im curious about your answer, because a lot of the things are going to be tough with that 60 vote threshold. In case you missed it, we kicked off the new year with a brand new episode of our pod cost. We hear from you our listeners. This week we released our mailbag episode where we answer your burning questions with a special guest appearance by one tiffany champion, who you know and love from the podcast. You get to hear her actual voice. We have a lot of big plans this year. Great new guests and we also have the possibilities from road shows. A lot of you have been telling us where you are and whether you would come out to a road show. That is all in for this evening. Tonight, the dawn of a new era for donald trump. No end in sight for the Government Shutdown. Neither side backing down. And just hours from now democrats take control of the house. Plus, criticism of trump from within his own party as mi
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