Transcripts For MSNBCW All In With Chris Hayes 20191030

Ukrainian president delivers extremely disturbing testimony and republicans move into attack mode. Some people might call that espionage. Plus new reporting on how the president is fleecing his own campaign and donors. And as deliberate black outs and raging wildfires continue, trying to explain the climate nightmare in california. That cannot be a new normal. When all in starts right now. Good evening from new york. Im chris hayes. For just the fourth time in all of american history, house representatives will formally proceed with a formal open impeachment inquiry into the president of the United States. The House Resolution to be voted on this thursday reveals the scope of the inquiry as it proceeds into a public phase. This was the Statement Issued by the four House Committee chairs leading the probe. Quote, the house impeachment inquiry has collected extensive evidence and testimony. And soon the american will hear from witnesses in an open setting. The resolution introduced today in the House Rules Committee will provide that pathway forward. The resolution provides rules for the format of open hearings in the House Intelligence Committee including staff led questioning of witnesses, and it authorizes the public release of deposition transcripts. The resolution also establishes procedures for the transfer of evidence from the Judiciary Committee as it considers potential articles of impeachment and it sets forth Due Process Rights for the president and his counsel in the judiciary proceedings. The evidence weve already collected paints the picture of a president who abused his power by using multiple levers of government to press a foreign country to interfere in the 2020 election. Following in the footsteps of previous impeachment inquiries, the next phase will move from closed depositions to open hearings where the American People will learn firsthand about the president s misconduct. Thats the statement. And that news comes on a day when lawmakers heard closed door testimony from one of the most damning witnesses yet if not the most damning. His name is Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman. In fact, he still has that job meaning he works for the white house. And one of the reasons why his testimony is so damning is because hes the first person to testify before the committee who was listening in on that infamous phone collin which the president after withholding much needed military aid pressed the ukrainian president to manufacture dirt on biden and the dnc and provide ammunition for discredited Conspiracy Theory about the 2016 election. Vindman witnessed the crime that donald trump already admitted to with his own ears. In his Opening Statement Lieutenant Colonel vindman said he found trumps Pressure Campaign so disconcerting he reported it twice internally. Quote, i did not think it was proper to demand a Foreign Government investigate a u. S. Citizen. I should tell you Lieutenant Colonel vindmans hearing began this morning at 9 30. He is still in there now. That is more than ten hours of testimony. Some of trumps allies are already trying to discredit him, an army Lieutenant Colonel who served on multiple overseas tours and awarded a purple heart after he was wounded in iraq. And they cannot defend the president s conduct at the heart of this matter. If trump and his coconspirators really did not do anything wrong as the president claims, if there really is nothing to see here, it would not be the case that virtually every single action they took was to try to conseal and cover up what they were doing and had done. They would not have moved the record of the infamous ukraine call to a secure server. They would not have tried to quash the whistleblower complaint. They would not have strangled the criminal referral in the department of justice. Trump appointee gordon sondload would not have avoided putting anything into writing. Remember when he infamously texted the ambassador to yeah crane bill taylor, quote, call me . They knew what they were doing and conseal it all because they were conscious they were committing wrongdoing. Now despite their best efforts the whole story is about to be told right out in the open. Im joined now by a member of one of the committees running the impeachment process jamie raskin. Lets start, congressman, what does todays resolution introduce and the vote on the committee, what does it mean . It gives us the procedure for closing out the investigation by the Intelligence Committee by moving into the open hearing phase. So going from the closed door sessions and the depositions that have been taken to calling witnesses to come forward to speak in open session for everyone to see. And then it lays out the rules for that and we needed to make a change so we could have questioning by the professional counsel, by the staff and thereby to replace the five minute rule which is familiar to people which works in a lot of contexts but doesnt really work here. It also sets forth the procedures that will govern the Judiciary Committees completion of its investigation. So essentially the Intelligence Committee, oversight, foreign affairs, ways and means, anybody else who believes their fact investigation has produced evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors will turn it over to the Judiciary Committee. It will be the Judiciary Committees job through hearings and analysis and so onto develop the articles of impeachment if we find theres sufficient evidence to merit the writing of such articles. But it looks like everything is headed in that direction. Am i correct the resolution discusses the ukraine matter, what is your understanding of the scope as delineated by the rules and resolution that the democrats have introduced . The rules resolution just talks about high crimes and misdemeanors and impeachable offenses. Obviously were still in the thick of the fact investigation. In the phase thats being run by the Intelligence Committee assisted by oversight and foreign affairs, and so were still in the middle of that. So were still discovering things on a daily basis and there are more witnesses coming in. But we are getting ready to move to the open hearing phase, which i know the public is eager for and were all eager for all of america to hear this story directly from people who were involved in it. Is there a time line attached to this, or this just happened when it happens in terms of the House Intelligence Committee wrapping up what they feel they need to do . Theres no timetable thats built into the resolution or any of the rules. I think that a very clear picture that emerged of events of the president s shakedown of the Ukrainian Government to extract political information, true or false on domestic political opponents. He held up 391 million in Foreign Military assistance that we voted for ukraine, which is a besieged foreign ally resisting russian aggression in order to make that happen. And we saw the confession on tv by chief of staff mulvaney basically bragging about the quid pro quo saying thats their mode of doing business. But theres lots of other objective corroborating evidence. We have the contemporaneous telephone records and memorandum that was produced by the white house. We have some ambassadorial Text Messages from ambassador volker that confirmed also what was going on. And now we have the witness of ten different witnesses who have come forward to testify about this. And amazingly we have these remarkable Public Servants both military and civilian who have devoted their lives to this country who are defying the obstruction of the white house as the president does everything in his power to try to sweep it under the rug and to keep the evidence from coming to light. But we are intending to completely resolved to see that the public understands exactly whats taken place. Final question, one of those individuals Lieutenant Colonel vindman who was before the committees today, how would you character his testimony . Completely credible, very strong witness who was firsthand party to a lot of the critical events. This was a decorated war veteran who was injured by an iud when he was in iraq. He has devoted his life to the service of our government and our country. And we keep meetings witnesses like this who are really the face of Public Service in america, not what were seeing out of the white house, which is all about take the money and run and get rich quick. This president has abused the office of the presidency and i believe hes converted the presidency to an instrument of selfenrichment and political selfadvancement. Thats a complete thwarting of the design of the constitutional framers. Our founders wanted the president to be someone who had undivided devotion to the congress and American People, not to making money and not to getting reelected and certainly not to putting the government of the United States to personal uses. All right, congressman jamie raskin, thank you for being with me. For perspective how lawmakers are dealing with this in the senate i want to turn now to claire mccaskill. First, whats interesting today to me after trump tv and a few others started going after credibility, vindman suggesting he had dual loyalties, Mitch Mcconnell and other Senate Republicans were unwilling to go there. Which shows me in some ways the incentives for senators some who are sitting in states up for releection are quite different. What do you make of it . There are two things going on here. I think there are some republicans beginning to see the writing on the wall. Chris, you have corroboration after corroboration of a set of facts pretty damning. And then you have some republicans who are beginning to realize that this could go badly. If you cant really make a legitimate argument about process and the facts are what they are, then youre stuck with having to defend that its okay to do what this president did, and they know its not. So i think really when fox went after this Lieutenant Colonel, i think that was a moment where a bunch of them the hairs on the back of their neck began to stand up and go uhoh, we better be careful here, this could come back and really hurt us. You served two terms in a United States senate in a state that was trending a red republican direction in the time you served there and had to straddle the structural polarization that defines the country with our own principles in the democratic party. For folks like Cory Gardener and Susan Collins and Martha Mcsally of arizona and tom tillis, how are they thinking . They feel a bit like i felt when kennedy resigned. Thats a great comparison, yes. They know that this vote and this debate is going to be brutal for them in their home states. And i would throw jody erntz in there, too and even cornyn of texas. I think there are states going to be at play here. And they are going to be really torn because some of these have primaries. Martha mcsally is a good example. On the other hand, if they criticized this active military man in his dress blues who only came before Congress Today for one reason, he believes the National Security of our country was at risk, it had nothing to do with donald trump, nothing to do with helping democrats. It had to do with his assessment about the danger to National Security. And anybody when goes after this guy i think is in political trouble. You know, when i covered capitol hill as sort of full time reporter one thing i learned is no one wants to take votes they dont need to take. You want to take a vote as a politician and get on record if something you want to pass thats important to you, if theres money that needs to be appropriated. But theres no one in the senate i think are psyched they have to vote on the president s conduct. Is that fair . I think it is fair and i think there are probably a lot of people tucking on mitchs coat right now and saying cant we find a procedural vote instead of a substantive vote we have to make . Well, i didnt think there was sufficient evidence to proceed to a final vote. I think there will be all kinds of games that will try to be played, but the most important thing is that the house has now removed one of their major arguments, and it was phony was an argument somehow the investigative phase should be public, and now were going to have public hearings, have people with their hand in the air taking the oath. Were going to have the facts laid bare in front of the American People, and this is going to get worse for these guys especially in the purple states. Its not going to get better. Claire mccaskill, thank you for your time tonight. Let me start by playing what kicked this off as i understand it which was a sort of fascinating moment right after the president released his call notes. He dragged the Vice President into it. Even the Vice President has been intimately involved in bilateral relationship with ukraine from the jump. Take a listen. I think you should ask for vp pences conversation because he had a couple of conversations also. I could save you a lot of time. Theyre all perfect. Nothing was mentioned of any import other than congratulations. That was a month ago. Where do things stand inside the white house . Well, almost three weeks ago, three weeks ago tomorrow the Vice President said hed have absolutely no problem with any transcript of his conversations with president zelensky being made public. Yet ever since what weve learned, my colleague and i i have learned is theyve been growing through a rigorous kind of debate where there are a bunch of people who think that they should not release the transcript because of a number of reasons. One, you know, theres concern that it could backfire in the way that some people think that releasing the president s transcript of the zelensky call backfired. They think it was a mistake that it fueled the impeachment inquiry instead of tampering it down. And theres concern interestingly that if you were to stack up the Vice President s conversations with zelensky and the president s conversation that it wouldnt make the president look very good or as good. It wouldnt be the perfect phone call that he said he had. So those are the arguments against releasing, and there are people who think it should be released because theyre like, look, were getting a bunch of incoming, all this negative testimony coming out of capitol hill. And we dont have a any real good tools to fight back. And this could be one of them. We could put this out there and show theres no there there. And people around the Vice President are interested and keen to do it because it could clear his name so to speak. That is fascinating. Obviously the Vice President is intimately involved in this. We know it was likely understood on the ukrainian side to pertain specifically to the bidens. It seems to me theres a deeper meaning here. Is it the case they didnt do this thing are they saying there was no quid pro quo, we didnt hold up investigations into our political opponents or is it the case yes, we did it and thats fine . And it seems to me the white house cant quite decide which it is. And youve seen that in their messaging. They cant decide really anything that they want to stick with in terms of messaging. We saw them shift to focus on the process and criticize that and then the president says i dont want to talk about the process. I think what you just talked about and the fact they have not decided yet on this and officials told us theyre still discussing whether or not and the white house is reviewing whether to release white house pences transcript really underscores theres no overarching strategy and theyre struggling to put something together that can defend the president against an impeachment inquiry that frankly is moving really fast. And any time they talk about are we going to get a war room together or bring in some new people, the impeachment inquiry takes a new term, so theyre not out ahead of this in any way. Next, a key impeachment witness testifies saying he was on that call between trump and ukrainian president and he raised concerns about it twice. Congressman Debbie Wassermann schultz was in the room and she calls it disturbing and joins me in two minutes. E calls it disturbing and joins me in two minutes im your cat. Ever since you brought me home, that day. Ive been plotting to destroy you. Sizing you up. Calculating your every move. You think this is love . This is a billion years of tiger dna just ready to pounce. And if you have the wrong Home Insurance coverage, you could be coughing up the cash for this. So get allstate and be better protected from mayhem, like meow. Democrats emerged from todays deposition by Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman saying it was extremely extremy disturbing. Thats a quote. Last night after we got off air journalists acquired vindmans statement and yet its another damning account of the president s actions towards ukraine. We also learned a lot about the previously and unknown Lieutenant Colonel vindman. Vindmans family immigrated to the United States from ukraine when he was just 3 years old. If youre wonder if he has an identical twin brother, he does. He has a masters degree from harvard, served multiple overseas tours as an infantry officer including a combat tour to iraq where he was awarded a purple heart after being wounded. And also served on the National Security counsel as a ukraine expert and Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman was so disturbed by what he personally witnessed by the president and his flunkies he twice reported his concerns to the National Security counsels lead attorney. He sums up the problem really well, quote, i did not think it was proper to demand a Foreign Government investigate a u. S. Citizen. Vindman also raises serious questions about the testimony of Eu Ambassador gordon sondland. Remember in his opening remarks sondland said, quote, i recall no discussions with any state department or white house official about former Vice President biden or his son. In vindmans Opening Statement today he describes a white house meeting with ukrainian officials where, quote, ambassador sondland thats the guy who said he didnt do this mfsz the importance ukraine deliver the investigation into the 2016 election, the bidens and burisma. I stated to ambassador sondland his statements were inappropriate, and that such investigations were not something had the nsc was going to get involved in or push. That testimony seems quite problematic and remember vindman testified for more than 10 hours. Joining me now is the Congress Person who attended vindmans deposition today and called him a credible witness, democratic congresswoman Debbie Wassermann schultz of florida. I understand mr. Vindman, the Lieutenant Colonel, just ended his testimony. How would you summerize what you learned from him today . Lieutenant colonel vindman besides being an incredible patriot and really one of the significant assets our country obviously has defending us was really extremely credible. You could see his integrity really just came right through. He was very earnest and committed to making sure that rules are followed, and he was clearly very deeply offended and disturbed by the events that he witnessed, the pressure that that was clearly coming directly from the president through the you know, through the whole process to essentially get investigations of the president s opponent and withholding foreign aid in order to make sure he could benefit himself politically. So he followed his chain of command as hes supposed to do and reported his concerns. You said earlier that House Republicans were trying to, quote, back door the Lieutenant Colonel into revealing the whistleblower. There was reporting it got very heated, there were a number of heated exchanges between you and republican colleagues. Chairman adam schiff i think just came up to the cameras and talked about. Take a listen to what he said and i want to get your read on that room. The president would like to punish the whistleblower. The president s comments and actions have jeopardized the whistleblowers safety. And the president s allies would like Nothing Better than to help the president out, this whistleblower. Our committee will not be a part of that. What happened in there today . Well, i think with every passing witness the walls continue to close in on the president , and we have more and more corroborating evidence that draws a direct line right through Mick Mulvaney up to the president himself with repeated witnesses indicating that there was a direct, essentially, pressure from the president s the transcript of the president s call with zelensky from Mick Mulvaneys own admission they withheld foreign aid in order to insist on investigations taking place. You have the Text Messages from ambassador taylor with ambassador sondland, and today the more corroborating testimony. So i think the republicans are honestly beginning to panic. They are losing on the substance, and so theyre going after the process. And then today they tried to do everything they could to really fill in the blanks through the back door by asking Lieutenant Colonel vindland individual names, for him to name names and people he had spoken to in the Intelligence Committee. Essentially their goal was to by process of elimination try to figure out who the whistleblower is, even though he had said he didnt know who it was. It seemed to me based on the rofrting the white house and republicans probably do know who it is. Are you worried about the identity of this individual being kept a secret as is statutorily essentially guaranteed . We have to keep this whistleblowers identity a secret. We have the responsibility to make sure we can get to the bottom of what is a massive abuse of power by the president in order to benefit himself politically and personally. And quite frankly watching what the republicans did to this patriot today, repeatedly insisting, trying to insist he may name names in the Intelligence Community to try to get to the bottom of who the iswhistleblower is and out that person to satisfy their desire to please the president is appalling. All right, congresswoman Debbie Wassermann schultz, thank you very much. Just ahead senator chris murphy says theres a key detail missing. He explains what it is. Y detail missing. He explains what it is erty mutul customizes Home Insurance, so theyll only pay for what they need. Your turn to keep watch, limu. Wake me up if you see anything. [ snoring ] [ loud squawking and siren blaring ] only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Skip to the good part with alkaseltzer plus. Now with 25 more concentrated power. Nothing works faster for powerful cold relief. Oh, what a relief it is so fast republican senators have arrived at a talking point to give them shelter midst the brewing impeachment storm. The senate will likely hold a trial on the removal of the president they are like jurors and cannot part it. Senator Lamar Alexander of tennessee, same thing. Id be a juror so i have no comments, and senator tim scott of South Carolina says he does not need a strategy for impeachment because, quote, i may be a juror someday. This line allowed Senate Republicans not to have to undertake the ever basing ritual of House Republicans to enforce the president s conduct or lie about the process. The juror line only by senators time not an out. Here to talk about this is senator chris murphy, democrat from connecticut, long been one of the most invested in the u. S. Ukraine relationship. Senator, let be start on that. One of the strike things about Lieutenant Colonel vindmans testimony according to reports is his concern is that should ukraine accede to the coercion from the president , it would create a kind of backlash in domestic politics that would vishiate longstanding politics in ukraine. This is whats missed about the details of the Corruption Scandal is this was a moment when ukraine needed american support the most. You had a new president , president zelensky who had run on trying to reconcile in some way, shape or form with russia. He needed to reach out to russia to try to do a deal and he needed the United States to play bad cop at that moment. He needed us to be tough. And instead he signaled weakness. We had a president telling zelensky to go work it out with russia and suggesting our relationship was all about domestic american politics. He likely got an agreement with russia that was much weaker than the one he could have gotten if america had been with him unconditionally, and weve signaled to everybody around the world now if you get in bed with everyone in the United States you might be a pawn to domestic politics. Essentially condemning the house procedure for investigating the president , it seems like thats fallen apart, didnt get the entire republican caucus. Do you think thats now put to bed . What do you make of that effort . I frankly think it was a signal how weak support is, that all he could get them to rally around was an objection to the process. In fact, many of them are very disturbed by the facts of this case. They are always under pressure to do right by the president. But the best they could manage was some complaints about who was in the room and who was out of the room because these republican senators really dont want to have to actually address the fact there was no clearly a quid pro quo, an offer of u. S. Support in exchange for political interference. Now that nancy pelosi has taken off the table most of these complaints about process, itll be very interesting whether republicans are willing to offer quarter to the president on the facts. Do you think republicans have said im a juror on this proceeding, i will be a sitting in judgment before the trial, do you have confidence all your colleagues are generally able to keep an open mind and assess things in that role should and when they come to you . I think its probably half and half. I really wanted to get that answer for myself. Theres a certain percentage of republicans in the senate who really are deep state conspiracy theorists, really do believe that donald trump is fighting a righteous battle against those trying to undermine him from within and there are probably another 25 republican senators who are deeply disturbed at whats happened here and maybe in the end they dont pull the trigger on an Impeachment Vote but dont want to signal right now they condone or enforce this kind of behavior. I want to ask you about a few topics. One is the house just passed a resolution acknowledging the Armenian Genocide taken by the turks against the armenian population there. Its been the subject of tremendous controversy and consternation because the academic consensus on this is crystal clear. Turkey absolutely hates this, views it as a red line. Its been squelched year after year. This happens because the u. S. Congress is mad at the turkish government. What do you think about it, would you like to see something similar in the senate . I think youre right, this is historic fact. Theres also been sufficient support naming this as a genocide, which it is. But the reason we havent moved forward is because there were equities that administrations told us they were trying to balance with the turks. And if we pass this then the turks ultimately wouldnt do what we asked on other fronts. You really cant make that argument any longer. They arent listening to u. S. National security interests so there really isnt any reason any longer to deny reality, deny history and deny some closure to the armenians who know exactly what happens in that space years and years ago. Final question after the death of al baghdadi in that raid in idlib by American Special forces with the aid of the syrian sdf and kurds and iraqis as well, what do you see right now as the kind of huge point for where the region goes in the wake of that particularly since the turkish militias have come in and russia and turkey have kind of cut a deal, the u. S. Is going to guard the oil fields . What happens now . I think the risk is always that we come under this belief that we can defeat terrorism with special operators and bombs and drones, right . In fact, we kill one and two more appear. This is Political Movement first and foremost. And what i worry about is that the further destabilization, the short run of syria and whats happening in iraq today as the Central Government is coming under syrias protest as isis is regrouping may in the long run be a boom to isis. And so i think we are always at risk of thinking theres a military solution to a terrorist group of isis and if you dont reveal longterm stability in baghdad, a place weve emptied out of american diplomats under the Trump Administration, then youre going to have just a very short won victory here. Weve got to reinvest in diplomacy. Especially in iraq right now trump is doing the exact opposite. Ahead, Campaign Money is flowing into the president s properties and pocket. We now know exactly how much. Well tell you ahead. Plus tonights thing 1, thing 2 starts next. Plus tonights thing 1, thing 2 starts next. Re rheumatoid arthr, month after month, the clock is ticking on irreversible joint damage. Ongoing pain and stiffness are signs of joint erosion. Humira can help stop the clock. Prescribed for 15 years, humira targets and blocks a source of inflammation that contributes to joint pain and irreversible damage. Humira can lower your ability to fight infections. 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You never saw trump tv so afraid. And thats thing 2 in 60 seconds. N 60 seconds. So he can use less water to grow crops. At bayer, this is why we science. Asbut when your team is always dealing with device setups, app updates, and support calls. You can never seem to get anywhere. Thats why Dell Technologies created unified workspace, powered by vmware. A revolutionary solution that lets you deploy, manage, support and secure all your devices from the cloud. So you can stop going in circles, and start moving forward. Get the perfectly grilled flavors of an outdoor grill indoors, and because its a ninja foodi, it can do even more, like transform into an air fryer. The ninja foodi grill, the grill that sears, sizzles, and air fry crisps. The president got a brutal dose of reality this week when he showed up at a stadium filled with 40,000 americans who were not, not on one of his carefully curated maga rally crowds. Of course the folks over at trump tv then had to go through comical links to try to explain away the giant crowd booing a wildly unpopular president. Reading the swamp boos america, hilariously argued this was a good thing for trump. Her guest a conservative b. S. Drifter who apparently thinks we live in north korea wanted to punish the crowd. The fact is they should hold those fans accountable. You dont boo the president. You may disagree with him. You may think that hes not what you wanted, but you dont boo him. You show respect to him. Hold them accountable . Just a small reminder that basically the whole point of america is that you can boo the president. But at least willing to acknowledge the booing actually occurred because the straltagy over the morning show trump tv and friends is to pretend it never happened. Their coverage of the game started with a piece of video where the booing was largely inaudible and move to a moment to the game. The president and first lady got there right around the time it started and stayed there for a pretty long time. They were greeted with mixed reaction but they were out there smiling, waving to everybody in the crowd. I do want to tell you there was a moment during the game last night that went pretty viral. There was a man walking down the steps carrying two beers, one in each hand and literally the home run ball bounced off his chest. Wanna go to the gym . Ahh, its too expensive. Actually, our Unitedhealthcare Medicare plans have renew active. A gym membership and more at no extra cost. No excuses now. Renew active. Only from Unitedhealthcare Medicare. With moderate to Severe Ulcerative Colitis or crohns, your plans can change in minutes. Your head wants to do one thing, but your gut says, not today. If your Current Treatment isnt working, ask your doctor about entyvio. 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With just less than two weeks ego in the midst of the ongoing impeachment inquiry the Trump Administration announced a decision to award trump with a summit at his doral, and tonight the president hosted a House Republican fundraiser at guess where yes you guessed it, his own trump hotel in d. C. And comes after he held another fundraiser at another one of his properties in chicago where he was greeted by sign carrying protesters. This has become such a common occurrence it doesnt really break through his news anymore. Since trump launched his 2016 bid, quote Trump Campaign affiliated committees have funneled out 16. 8 million to trump owned businesses and at the bulk of the spending at his properties. And just the basic cost for a room at trumps d. C. Hotel is nearly triple its average rate on november 7th which just happens to be the night in the middle of a two day Senate Republican retreat there. Its not the government paying for this. By the way its also the case the president constbtantly dires public money through the trips and not to mention the air force stop overs at his scotland property. But it is still pretty darn corrupt to have a party that raises money from donors and deals in a piece of the action from the president s own bank account from the president s own arrangement. The people getting soaked here are the donors themselves and they dont seem to object. Just because they dont mind pay offs to a sitting president doesnt mean its all acceptable or appropriate. Thats kind of the story of the presidency writ large, isnt it . Just because the president s backers have no problem with his open, aggressive and egregious corruption doesnt mean we should. Ve and egregious corruption doesnt mean we should exxonmobil is growing algae for biofuels. That could one day power planes, propel ships, and fuel trucks. And cut their Greenhouse Gas emissions in half. Algae. Its potential just keeps growing. 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Pg e, the Utility Company that powers much of Northern California preemptively shutoff power starting last week to more than 900,000 customers an attempt to prevent new wildfires from sparking which itself left millions of people without power. The state has ended up with something that looks the worst of both worlds. The situation is so bad that as the Washington Post reports, quote, the Weather Service forecast office in los angeles oised an extreme red flag warning which technically isnt in the agencys lexicon, only the red flag warning is but is intended to indicate the heightened risk. The hardest hitters are those with the lowest resources. As one gardener put it what can i do, i need the money, i need the work. The question for policy makers and citizens is this unavoidable or is there something to be done so this does not become the permanent status yo . Here with me now a staff writer at the atlantic who wrote, quote, the experience of californians this week frustrated, needlessly inconvenienced and saddled with aging infrastructure built for the wrong strerchry, so i want to start with the sort of causes here. Obviously wildfires happen in california. Youve got the dry months, the winds. Youve got exposure that isnt the fault of Climate Change or even the Utility Company, but why is this so bad and what is pg e doing at the source of it all . What were seeing now is the same thing weve seen the last few falls. It kind of feels like every month ending in r. We have these big wildfires in california happening. Whats happening now is the rains are delayed. So basically when the winter rains show up, that kind of ends the fire season in california. The longer they wait to arrive the dryer and dryer things get. And its like the night is darkest just before dawn. Like the atmosphere and the environment will continue to dry out as the rains wait longer and longer to arrive. And then simultaneously the conditions that are producing the extreme red flag environment, the santa ana winds that are kind of in record breaking territory and coming up through the mountains and going through the hills and just keeping everything really dry and the santa ana winds and the conditions to start a fire and what actually generates the ignition is almost always like people doing something even as simple as, like, chopping a piece of metal too early or having a wet piece of metal scrape against the other or the infrastructure people need to live in a place which is pg e. Pg e has recently declared bankruptcy. They had to pay out billions because they were responsible or acknowledged responsibility for the camp fire last year, which you noted was one of the most deadly natural disasters that happened anywhere in the world last year, if im not mistaken. It was certainly the most destructive in terms of dollar amounts. I guess my question is is there anything you could do, is there some failure of pg e here, or is it just the fact this is what it looks like as california gets hotter and dryer as we enter this era . Yeah, its a great question. And i would say after a day of reporting its not entirely clear. So they could for instance bury every big power line. You know, the kinkade fire in Northern California thats still raging seems to have been started by this Long Distance transmission line. Or theres this hiccup in it at the same time it started but it seems to be what happened, so they could bury just a ton of electrical wires, and then you dont have the kind of conditions for ignitions youve had recently where the winds that create you know, the wind blows over a power line basically and it hits a dry tree or grass and you get a fire. But buried power lines are really expensive. So it costs 2. 3 million for each mile of buried power lines as compared to like 800,000 of above ground line. So its quite a price difference and infrastructure and just expensive in the u. S. Period, but its very expensive if you bury it. I think the second question is could we be governing utilities better . Should the regulators be exercising more power . Pg e is a private utility, so should they be forcing, you know, shareholders to be spending more money on preparation, adaptation . They i think they could be. Certainly more money needs to be sent. The question is like we people that do not have a wealth of ideas how to improve its one of the most important challenges, actually, of the next 20 years. Thank you very much. Thank you for having me. In case you missed it well be back this friday with a brand new run of our special audience shows. You can be in that audience. Ti tickets are available for this friday november 1st swez tas we the following three fridays. Plus if youre in chicago we just released some extra standing room its going to be amazing. You can tickets for that at msnbc. Com withpodtour. Good evening, chris. Thanks, my friend. Thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. They sent him and his wife dead rats in the mail. This is from the resentencing filing that his lawyers ultimately made on his behalf. Quote, mr. Arbel was indeed threatened. He and his wife received a number of dead rats on various occasions in the mail. He was treat said as a target as much as a coconspirator perhaps because he was an outsider and