Transcripts For MSNBCW All In With Chris Hayes 20200121

Virginia today . All in starts right now. Good evening from new york. Im chris hayes. The third impeachment trial in the history of the nation to possibly remove the president of the United States from office is about to begin. Late today Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch Mcconnell released the highly anticipated resolution regarding how the trial of donald trump will proceed in the senate. And its clear that he wants to move very fast while also delaying any consideration of those pesky witnesses or testimony until after opening arguments. At 1 00 p. M. Eastern time tomorrow, mcconnell will formally introduce the organizing resolution thats what its called which Chuck Schumer is already calling a cover up and nothing short of a national disgrace. The document that lays out the rules for the start of the trial will be taken up tomorrow and after the introduction of the resolution, there will be up to two hours of debate and then most likely democrats led by schumer will introduce an amendment calling for document production and testimony. Then a debate and vote. A chance of more amendments and the senate moving into closed session. It is likely going to be a long and interesting day. Now, mcconnells organizing resolution four pages long allows each side 24 hours to present their opening arguments. Thats precedent. That was proem procedure in bill clintons impeachment trial. Quite a remarkable twist. Mcconnell is mandating each side only gets two days per side to make their case. Two days to make 24 hours worth of arguments, side uses all their time, theyll be looking at four straight marathon 12hour days of opening arguments starting wednesday and lasting through saturday. The man at the center of this trial, the person whose fate is in the hands of the senate, the president of the United States, he left the country this afternoon on the eve of his trial. He went to davos, an event he skipped last time during the shutdown. At the capital today trump was represented by his defense team who went to the senate for a sort of walkthrough ahead of the trial. In a 171 page brief this morning they also made clear they want the trial over very quickly. Trumps legal team calling on the senate to, quote, swiftly and round thely condemn the house articles of impeachment. Now, this brief, reply brief that the president s lawyers put together, its a pretty breath taking document as all the documents from the white house have been throughout the entire impeachment saga. The degree of opposition and obstruction that the white house and its lawyers have deployed in the face of impeachment has been, lets be really clear here, totally unprecedented. Andrew johnson didnt do it this way, Richard Nixon didnt do it this way, bill clinton didnt do it this way. This is a whole new level as the house said in the impeachment articles in the history of the republic, no president has ever ordered the complete defiance of an impeachment inquiry or sought to obstruct and impede so comprehensively the ability of the house of representatives to deny high crimes and misdemeanors. They are in keeping with the theme. Offering a trumpian claim, the president did absolutely nothing wrong. They also suggest it doesnt matter if trump did exactly what the house said he did because they claim neither article of impeachment is a violation of the law. That is not the standard for impeachment. Even if it were, the Government Accountability office found just last week the administration did, in fact, violate the law by withholding that ukrainian aid. Perhaps the most troubling argument that the president s lawyers make is the unnerving suggestion that convicting the president , which would be the first time in American History and requires 67 votes, if that happened, that would be unconstitutional because they argue the articles of impeachment are just too broad. Quote, with at least four independence bases alleged for abuse of power article 1 invites conviction if as few as 18 senators agree an algleged act occurred in abuse of power. In the unlikely event they vote to impeach as president , whatever happens this week, we are on the cusp of a sustained public airing of the president s alleged crime. Something this country has only seen once a century. Remarkably, a new poll finds a slim majority of the nation, 51 wants trump removed. They want him convicted and removed and barred from ever Holding Office ever again. Im joined now by senator Chris Van Holland who is a democrat of maryland. First your reaction to the fourpage organizing resolution Mitch Mcconnells office has distributed today. Well, chris, its good to be with you. And when Mitch Mcconnell, senator mcconnell said he was going to work in lockstep with the president , we now have the proof in this resolution, and thats why youve seen the president s lawyers tweeting their approval of this resolution because it tries to speed this through in the dead of night and changes the rules relative to the clinton provisions in dramatic ways. We all heard senator mcconnell over and over tell the country that he was going to follow the clinton model. Well, he doesnt follow that with respect to the time allocations in terms of how you spread it out. But theres also a very interesting provision in here that says all the evidence thats already been collected by the house of representatives does not enter into evidence and the trial from the beginning. It would go in at the end. And only then by motion, which means only by majority vote, which is an outrageous change from what the clinton trial proceedings were. And it means two things possibly, but all of them are troubling. Tell me what you think the two things are because im confused. There seems something fundamentally backwards here, which is theyre going to start the opening arguments and leave the question of what the evidence is unresolved until after. But you can only make arguments based on what the evidence is. It seems like in a trial they resolve that first usually for precisely the reason that you have to figure out what evidence youre using to make your arguments. Well, thats exactly right. Theyve got it backwards. So here are two of the concerns. Lets say the house managers want to show videotapes of the sworn depositions of dr. Fiona hill or ambassador taylor. Are the republicans now going to object on the grounds that that hasnt been entered into evidence . And then if you look at the flip side, what it means is the president s lawyers are not bound in any way by the facts in the record. They can makeup their own they can makeup their own stuff. They can misrepresent the facts because they dont have to abide by what was in the record. And then at the end of the day, they can vote the senate could theoretically vote, according to this, to say, well, were not ever going to enter into evidence all of the important findings by the house of representatives. So when Mitch Mcconnell told the country he was going to follow the clinton model, he thoroughly misrepresented the facts. This is a dramatic departure. Well, so, walk me through tomorrow. Chuck schumer came out and spoke to cameras before he excoriated these proposed rules. Tomorrow theres going to be a bunch how do you understand whats happening tomorrow and what inflection points will arise tomorrow on the first day in terms of votes and amendments and opportunities to change this basic framework that mcconnell announced today . So, what will happen tomorrow is senator schumer will offer amendments right up front to allow witnesses and documents where they normally come into the trial at the beginning, right, before as part of the normal trial proceedings you would call your witnesses, you would get your documents. So senator schumers amendments to the mcconnell resolution will call for making changes that allow for those witnesses. That will be the first test of whether republicans want to allow witnesses. Now, we know from what senator mcconnell is saying, that hes got his members in lockstep at that juncture, which means that the moment of truth will come later in the trial on this motion that is set up in the resolution on whether or not to have any new witnesses and get new documents. And that will be the moment of truth as to whether or not republican senators want a fair trial or not. I know this is a little technical, but i do understand. That moment of truth as Mitch Mcconnell designed it is to be after these marathon opening arguments. My understanding of what his strategy here is, have them rush through the opening arguments and basically vote nothing more, than move to vote as quick as possible. Is that your read what hes trying to steer this towards . Yes, he wants to ram this through as quickly as possible. Require that the house managers make their arguments without the benefit of any additional fact witnesses. Again, witnesses that we know the president blocked from testifying in the house. And then have this vote on witnesses. Mcconnell, of course, hoping that the senate will vote to reject any witnesses. The reason this provision is in there at all is probably because some of his members, at least at this point, were a little nervous, saying right from the start they wanted a sham. And so thats why he set this up later on. But make no mistake, mcconnell has tried to stack the deck in this resolution to try to ram this through and as fast as possible. Final question for you. About witnesses, obviously there are four individuals democrats have asked for. Most notably john bolton who the white house seems desperate to stop from testifying. Republicans responded if youre going to call witnesses, were going to call witnesses including perhaps joe bidens son hunter biden. What is your feeling about that threat or rhetoric from your republican colleagues about calling other witnesses like hunter biden . Well, of course, hunter biden is a total sideshow in all of this, right . We know he has no knowledge of the president s actions to essentially blackmail ukraine, say that were not going to give you this aid which the gao found to be unlawful in terms of his withholding that aid, in order to get them to interfere in our elections. Hunter biden knows nothing about any of that. So we really should be considering these witness and the witness request on the merits as to whether or not they have factual material knowledge of whats in the articles of impeachment. Chris, the first question is going to be whether republicans even request those witnesses. We have requested these four fact witnesses. We have requested documents. They made no indication they think its a good idea for them to call hunter biden. Senator chris van haul antd, thank y holland, thank you for being with me tonight. I want to turn to the senator who worked on this a lot in the development of the house. Do you share your colleagues feelings about the mcconnell organizing resolution senator van holland just talked about . Yes, i do, chris. Theyre perpetrating a fraud on the American People. We did the investigation leading to the articles of impeachment which are, remember, like an indictment. And we had more than 100 hours of closed door depositions. We had 30 hours of public testimony. We had 17 sworn witnesses, all of whom told different aspects or overlapping aspects of the exact same story, which was the president s shake down of ukraine to do his political dirty work. And theyre supposed to have the trial. Their trial should be much longer than what we did. We just got enough evidence, overwhelming evidence of the president s culpability. Theyre just trying to wave a wand and make the whole thing go away. It really is a fraud on the American People. At this point we need the American Public to rise up, to tell the republican senators to do their job and to live up to their constitutional oath to office. This is something youd find in putins russia or dutertes philippines. This question about the evidence, i thought it was interesting. My understanding, and again, im not quite sure i have this 100 correct. Please correct me. The negotiated resolution negotiated by the republicans during clinton admitted the house record into evidence to begin as a kind of default step. Here its going to be a vote for it after the arguments start, is that your understanding . Whats significant about that . Well, thats what mcconnell is calling for. Understand the difference here. In the clinton case, all of the witnesses had already testified, but donald trump has blockaded bolton and mulvaney and blair and duffy, and so on. So those are people who should be called right now as a case of first impression, right, to get them to come forward. The comical thing is that all of the evidence indicts the president. There is not a shred of evidence that suggests this is a case of mistaken identity or that the president has an alibi or whatever. He has the ability to send forth all of these eyewitnesses and they wont do it, and yet they claim there is not enough evidence. In there is not enough evidence, hes got the witnesses under his thumb. So today the president tweeted about that they didnt want john bolton and others in the house, which i dont think is factual. They were in too much rush. Now they want all of them in the senate. Not supposed to be that way. We have this story from the Washington Post which i thought was fascinating. Trumps lawyers, senate gop allies work privately to ensure bolton doesnt testify publicly. It goes through a bunch of game planning theyre doing over there, truly astounding things, throw in a classified session if he does come forward. They seem very determined, all of them, to make sure john bolton doesnt testify. What is your read on that . My read is what tom pain would say, which is everybody use their common sense. People who are innocent whose conduct was perfect and absolutely perfect would want all of the witnesses to come forward. This president is doing everything in his power to bury the evidence. They never turned over a single subpoenaed document and hes doing whatever he can to gag all of the witnesses within his control. So were looking at perhaps the guiltyest president there has ever been. The question is whether were going to stand up and defend our Constitutional Order or let him get away with this. The this president essentially has tried to pull the wool over americas eyes and pull a curtain down over the executive branch and say were not giving you anything. That is a categorical obstruction of congress. We cannot let president s engage in corrupt and criminal activity all over the world to corrupt our elections and then to deny congress the ability to investigate and to deny the American People the truth about the character of their own president. Its totally antithetical to the constitutional design. Congressman jamie raskin, thank you for your time tonight. Thanks for having me. Mitch mcconnell plans to take the impeachment trial into the dead of night. Where is the fight on calling witnesses . The latest strategy in two minutes. whistling whistling doprevagen is the number oneild mempharmacistrecommendeding . Memory support brand. You can find it in the vitamin aisle in stores everywhere. Prevagen. Healthier brain. Better life. One of the only consistent thing a large durability amount of americans believe is the senate should have witnesses in the impeachment trial. That keeps being what the Public Opinion data show. Today a cnn poll, support for new witnesses at 69 , that includes 48 of republicans. We still do not know how that shakes out in the actual trial. Were going to talk about that. That would appear if four republicans join democrats, they will have enough votes to call witnesses. Republican senators Susan Collins of maine and Lisa Murkowski of alaska have both indicated they are inclined towards calling witnesses. I am very likely to vote for Additional Information, but first i want to hear as i did last time each side present its case. Ive got to open my mind to both sides, to what has been presented to us. And if there is more that i need, i will vote to, to accept Additional Information by way of additional witness, by way of additional documents, by way of additional deposition. Meanwhile other republicans seem intent on threatening a kind of escalating witness for witness, tit for tat. Former National Security advisor john bolton or others are, in fact, called. Senator rand paul said if democrats call witnesses and they are prepared to call all witnesses, including joe bidens son hunter biden. Here to talk through how the various calculations are being made right now up on the hill, Michael Steele and Elizabeth Holtz man, congresswoman on the Judiciary Committee when they voted to impeach president Richard Nixon. Also author of the book, the case for impeaching trump. Michael, let me start with you. S as you think about. So mcconnell is one of his powers is shamelessness. The merrick garland, you cant do that. I dont care about right. Im going to do what i can do. Right. Thats what these rules makes the rules work for himself. Right. The question, though, hes got to hold the caucus together on all these procedural votes. Right. What do you think the calculation of gettable or persuadable if there are republican senators on this question . The various people ive talked to in the last few weeks, there probably is about five, maybe six who could be gettable. I mean thats my question. The question is what do you have to do to get them . And thats always the trick. You listen in the leadin to murkowski and collins. It sounds reasonable. If you provide the kind of information i need, i think i can go along with that. Thats not how the pressure works inside the caucus. So the fact of the matter is it has to be something powerfully overwhelming, something that is inextricably damaging to the president. Really clear, beyond what we already know, which a lot of people think is damaging. Bolton seems to check those boxes, right . Bolton checks those boxes and it is why they are working overtime to put the lockdown on bolton because the last thing they want put it in your book, baby because at that point its all over. We dont need you coming out now and testifying in front of the country under oath. And thats a whole different scenario. Thats to me, the bolton issue, the reason it is 57 s i different category, we know from people around him he was disapproving of the, quote, drug deal. D, hes in the club of like conservative right wing republic. Hes been working with these people and talking to these people for 20, 30 years. And e, hes willing. What do you think . Well, i think, of course, bolton is a critical witness. I think the others that the democrats have asked for are critical witnesses. And i think thats why the republicans are working overtime, mcconnell, to squelch this. We are seeing a massive cover up. Theres no other word for it. If you look at the history here, even the clinton impeachment, there were depositions taken and witnesses called. Of course, they had already been called before. Here, the key witnesses have been shut up by the president and we will have no impeachment power. We will have no president ial accountability in the future if any president can do what trump has done, which is say, oh, you think i did something wrong . Prove it. And you know what, im not going to let you prove it, and thats the story. And thats not going to work. You know, it just reminds me think of the nixon impeachment which was the gold standard. The house judiciary never went to court to get documents, never. All of a sudden they vote for impeachment, bipartisan vote. Then the smoking gun tape comes out and the republicans position now is, oh, you didnt do your homework. We have something to consider. So that was vital evidence. It changed the country was for impeachment at that point, but it made impeachment totally inevitable and here the republicans are saying, no. Vital evidence, there could be a smoking gun. John bolton could be the smoking gun. Mick mulvaney could be the president broke the law, i watched him do it, he should be impeached. Thats the downside cataclysmic risk. Im not saying thats what hes going to say. He might try to exonerate the president. Even in trying to exonerate him, he could persuade four of those senators to make the move. Thats the longer term play here. Look, we have this thing on lockdown. If we stick together and ram it through we have the critical vote done. We dont need anything softening the vote. What they have to worry about is more evidence is going to keep coming out as it has. And all of them, in my opinion, are going to be embarrassed if they dont do the right job. Because were just seeing the tip of the iceberg. Its melting. We also dont know what john bolton has, which again, like you say, put it in the book, maybe he comes out and gives a big interview a week after to someone. Hes writing a book. The embarrassment factor is huge. Very quickly, last note, if the senate agrees to allow the house of representatives or senate to subpoena witnesses, the witnesses shall first be deposed. Theyll decide after deposition witnesses shall testify pursuant to the impeachment rumz, which i think is interesting because they dont want this sort of makes some sense to a certain extent. They dont want to roll the dice on someone coming to the senate the first time. They want to know what theyre going to say. They want know what theyre going to say. They can use gadgets. This is National Security, therefore we clamp it down. But can they censor whats going to thats ream i the critical thing. If youre Mitch Mcconnell, dont start to pull any threads because you dont know where its going to lead. Keep it tied together. Hes already weaved it as tight as he can get it. Thank you for being here. Coming up, the Top Republican on the House Committee has some explaining to do, a deep dive into the lev parnas connection next. 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Ready to treat differently with a pill . Otezla. Show more of you. The information we now have from lev parnas, Rudy Giulianis indicted associate, sheds new light on devin nuness role in the scheme. The scheme to denigrate and fire Marie Yovanovitch and dig up dirt on the bidens and prove a debunked insane Conspiracy Theory that somehow ukraine systematically meddled in the election and not russia, all of those avenues of pursuit have not been the obsession of donald trump and Rudy Giuliani and his hinch men. There is a whole group of conservatives working alongside them. At the center of it all is congressman devin nunes. We first got a window into his role in the scheme when the House Intelligence Committee where hes the lead republican, released phone records that showed nunes spoke with lev parnas last year. The night he went on fox news and claimed he just didnt remember the guy. Did you ever talk to this guy, les parnas or whatever his name is . Its possible. I havent gone through my phone records. I dont recall that name. I remember the name now because hes been indicted. But why would cnn rely on somebody like this . You know, ill go back and check all my records, but it seems very unlikely that i would be taking calls from random people. Yes, why would someone rely on lev parnas for anything . But then lev parnas spoke to Rachel Maddow and revealed he coordinated and worked with an aide of devin nunes named derek harvey. I was shocked when i was watching the hearings and saw devin nunes up there, there was a picture where derek harvey was sitting. I texted my attorney, i said, i cant believe this is happening. Because . Because they were involved in get being all this stuff on biden. Derek harvey had several interviews. Now the evidence to back all that up, House Democrats on friday released a trove of Text Messages between, guess who . Lev parnas or whatever his name is and derek harvey, nuness aid. In fact 100 over the course of a few months. They arranged meetings like this one in april, at trumps d. C. Hotel. They discussed setting up skype interviews with harvey for multiple ukrainians. They traded stories about Marie Yovanovitch. There were multiple mentions of conservative writer john solomon being fed stories by lev parnas and Rudy Giuliani. Something that seemed to irritate harvey who wrote on april 3rd, quote, any documents for us . Are you going to keep working for solomon . Harvey even floated a crazy Conspiracy Theory about the clintons, where u. S. Foreign aid would get grafted bayou cranian officials. So a lot of contact between lev parnas and derek harvey, aide to devin nunes about a lot of stuff. By the way, after the interview with Rachel Maddow when he revealed the involvement, nunes suddenly remembered him. I remember going back and looking where i was at the time you can do that now. You know where you physically are. Checked it with my records, and it was very clear. I remember that call, which was very odd, random, talking about random things. I said great, just talk to my staff and boom, boom, boom. So random. Joining me for much more on this, andrew, congressional reporter for political covering all the new evidence from lev parnas. What do we know about the working relationship between parnes and this nunes aide . These messages, chris, appear to show derek harvey was depp yu advertising parnas to set up calls in europe and in ukraine, the same exact mission that Rudy Giuliani was on this entire time. The secondmost important take away i think from this is that derek harvey appeared to be sending devin nuness Contact Information to lev parnas two days before those call records showed that devin nunes and lev parnas were in contact with each other. Mr. Harvey appeared to be the go between at least between these two men. This isnt you get a random call, you say talk to my staff. It appears the other way around. The staff did the leg work and then the staff member shared the contact info to talk to the boss. Thats apparently what happened according to the dates we matched up and Text Messages that came out on friday. I have to play this clip from one of the house intel impeachment hearings where Eric Swalwell sort of called out this whole thing. You know, nunes is sitting there, this is ridiculous. Hes at least his staff is a party to what the whole scheme was. Heres swalwell calling it out. Take a listen. Are you aware of yesterdays daily beast story reporting the indicted ukrainian lev parnas has been working with Ranking Member devin nunes on mr. Nunes overseas investigations . I have no knowledge of that. Mr. Chairman, you have been falsely accused throughout the proceedings as being a quoteunquote, fact witness. Now, if this story is correct, the Ranking Member may have actually been projecting and, in fact, he may be the fact witness if he is working with indicted individuals around our investigation. It does seem that nunes may know quite a bit about this scheme. Yeah, thats exactly right. So it at least raises the spectre or the possibility that a member of congress was involved in the very effort for which President Trump was impeached. It wasnt really an avenue that was explored by the House Intelligence Committee during the impeachment inquiry. Its kind of an awkward and touchy subject when for at least for chairman schiff when his own Ranking Member is the subject of it and it was, i know, a very tough decision for them to ultimately release these records that were provided by at t as part of the investigation showing that there were calls between devin nunes and lev parnas. Chairman schiff himself has been very hesitant to directly comment on this because, you know, i at least presume he fears it would further fray their relationship, which is at this point in tatters. Andrew, thank you so much for your reporting and joining us tonight. Thanks, chris. Still ahead, thousands who took to the street on mlk day in favor of guns coming up. Thing one, thing two is next. Managing type 2 diabetes . Dimitris on it. Eating right and getting those steps in . On it dimitri thinks hes doing all he can to manage his type 2 diabetes and heart disease, but is his treatment doing enough to lower his heart risk . [sfx glasses clanking. ] sorry. Maybe not. Jardiance can reduce the risk of cardiovascular death for adults who also have known heart disease. So it could help save your life from a heart attack or stroke. And it lowers a1c jardiance can cause serious side effects including dehydration, genital yeast or urinary tract infections, and sudden kidney problems. 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Then i have an article 2 where i have the right to do whatever i want as president , but i dont even talk about that. You have article 2 and you have many other things. Thats the other thing. If you use your rights, if you use your power, if you use article 2 its called obstruction. Also some day you ought to read a thing called article 2. Read article 2 which gives the president powers that you wouldnt believe. Of course article 2 does not give trump unlimited powers. The guy just got impeached because he doesnt understand that. The weird thing is we have documented evidence trump on one occasion did read part of the u. S. Constitution, not any part, article 2. The problem is he had a really hard time following it. And thats thing 2 in 60 seconds. S. We know that donald trump has a tough time sticking to the script. When he was inducted into the hall of president s at disney world, he wanted to add a line to his robot to say how america invented the sky scraper. Then i could add a thing or two i know about, right . Disney rejecting the idea that a sky scraper wasnt an invention, just a taller building. The weirdest looking of all says nothing about big buildings. And will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the constitution of the United States, so help me god. Good lord, thats weird. That brings us to the time trump actually read that constitution. According to a new book, a very stable genius six weeks after the election an hbo documentary is being put together in which the u. S. Constitution would be read start to finish by various american leaders. Trumps part on article 2 gave him some trouble from the book. Trump grew irritated. Its very hard to do because of the language here, trump told the crew. Its very hard to get through the whole thing without a stumble. He added, its like a different language, right . Trump tried again. Its like a foreign language. But much like the disney robot, trump did finally power through it. How much he actually absorbed, i think we all know. Each state shall appoint in such manner as the Legislature Thereof May direct a number of electers equal to the state might be entitled in the congress. Also you ought to read a thing called article 2. Read article 2 which gives the president powers that you wouldnt believe. This commutes been pretty rough, huh . Its great actually, ive been listening to audible. Its audiobooks, news, meditations. Gotta go hey you know, i do think its weird youve started commuting when you work from home. Ill be in my office. Download audible and start every day off right. My hands are everything to me. But i was diagnosed with dupuytrens contracture. And it got to the point where things i took for granted got tougher to do. Thought surgery was my only option. Turns out i was wrong. So when a hand specialist told me about nonsurgical treatments, it was a total game changer. Like you, my hands have a lot more to do. Learn more at factsonhand. Com today. Theres a big day on the campaign trail for two reasons today. One, this is the last free day for members of the senate who are running to replace President Donald Trump before the impeachment trial which will keep them essentially pinned to their desks for a lot of time. It is also, of course, Martin Luther king day. A big day in the civic life of the nation and the life of the political party. In columbia, south carolina, they marched together arm in arm through the streets of the naacp king day at the dome. That event ended at the statehouse that flew a Confederate Flag and continued flying the flag until 2015. Thats the democrats commemorating Martin Luther king. The current president of the United States made a quick trip in d. C. , tweeting, it was exactly three years ago today, january 20, 2017, i was sworn into office. So appropriate that today is also Martin Luther king day. Africanamerican unemployment is the lowest in the history of our country by far. That tweet was sandwiched between him whining about impeachment and supporting a gun rally in richmond, virginia, where a completely different scene was taking place. Well talk about what happened there next. You make time. When you can. But sometimes life gets in the way, and that stubborn fat just wont go away. Coolsculpting takes you further. A nonsurgical treatment that targets, freezes, and eliminates treated fat cells for good. Discuss coolsculpting with your doctor. Some common sideeffects include temporary numbness, discomfort, and swelling. Dont imagine results, see them. Coolsculpting, take yourself further. Save 100 on your coolsculpting treatment. Text resolution to 65190 to learn more. You ever wish you werent a motaur . Sure. Sometimes i wish i had legs like you. Yeah, like a regular person. No. Still half bike half man, just the opposite. Oh, so the legs on the bottom and motorcycle on the top . Yeah. Yeah, i could see that. For those who were born to ride, theres progressive. Yeah, i could see that. mom vo we got a subaru to give him some ato reconnect and be together. And once we did that, we realized his greatest adventure is just beginning. vo welcome to the most adventurous outback ever. The allnew subaru outback. Go where love takes you. Thousands of protesters gathered in richmond, virginia, for a Second Amendment protest. Including a one handbag per month purchase limit a universal background check requirement on gun sales and requiring localities to ban guns in parks and public buildings. All three of those measures passed the state senate and will proceed to the house of delegates before being sent to the governors desk. There are also proposals to ban semiautomatic rifles along with the red flag law aimed as temporarily restricting people deemed a danger to themselves or others from possessing weapons. Both of those efforts stalled. That didnt stop 22,000 people from turning out in opposition to these laws. State officials were very concerned in the runup to todays rally, hoping to prevent a repeat of the 2017 charlottesville Confederate Monument rally where a rightwing activist murdered a counterprotester. The good news is that no one got hurt today of no one discharged their weapon, the result of what appears to be good Law Enforcement work last week when the fbi nabbed several after another terrorist group. Law enforcement Officials Say they planned on attending the rally and they were in possession of a functioning automatic rifle. But the fact of this kind of event is that yes, its peaceful protest, First Amendment protected speech, but its heavily armed people marching. Dont you dare enact your policies, if you do we will use these guns against you. Joining me now is will summer of the daily beast who was on the ground at that huge rally today and former head of the department of Justice Civil Rights Division in the obama administration. Let me start with you, l. What was the scene like today . You saw it was quite a lot of folks and very heavily armed. You know, i saw countless assaultstyle rifles, folks with one guy had a giant sniper rifle. As you say, it wasnt violent, but at the same time there was a lot of militias out there, heavily armored as well. There was sort of this message that if necessary, these people do have weapons. Anita, youre someone who has worked in civil rights law most of your career. Obviously, like, peacefully assembly is protected under the First Amendment, even if you dont agree with people. I guess i struggle with the implied message of armed folks, and sometimes the explicit message is that, like, we will use these if you try to enact like your laws. I mean, i think theres no question. When you look at those images and watch the tv screens of mostly white men marching, armed to the hilt, the level of intimidation and fear that that can stoke is terrifying. And actually, what the virginia legislator was enacted by the people. The outside influence of on so many state tomorrow will be the 10thyear anniversary. You have got this kind of smaller minority of folks that can come out and look like that and intimidate folks and go really trying to intimidate legislators from enact liking the will of the people. Will, there were some groups that didnt come. Or there were fears about violent groups coming and actually starting something. This case of the fbi interrupting this plot by these folks in the base seem to me to pass by a busy news week last week. But it was quite an important arrest they appear to have made. Right. They arrested a couple other folks also involved in this group who allegedly had other violent plots, obviously this group, the particular folks here were planning on allegedly going to richmond and starting something. More broadly, this was seen as potentially as the kickoff to a new civil war or like the second american revolution. The group that organized this rally, they posted video saying this might start the boo ga loo, which is a farright term for a second civil war. Obviously the base is an outlier in terms of violence, but this idea of a second civil war and violence over these gun laws is pretty main street amongst the people at this rally. Theyre showing a wink, wink, nudge nudge term for a second civil war and a Martin Luther king reference in a pretty despicable way. This sort of weird fantasizing about a second civil war, i have watched it in the last several years move from certain very fringy parts of online rightwing culture towards more main street parts of rightwing culture. I mean, i think that is what we have been witnessing in the last several years is the emboldening of white spremg supremacists coming out of the wood work. Its what we saw in charlottesville in 2017 when literally White Supremacists were marching with their hoods off. And we have a president who has con dont understand this kind of behavior. The intentionality of having this kind of march on Martin Luther king day, on a day that is supposed to be a day of pause to remember a man who stood for peace, who was fight for justice, i think is, as you said, despicable, its insulting. But its also terrifying and it really is, i think, kind of a reminder that as much as we kind of think of these images of civil rights people marching on the bridge facing, you know, statesanctioned violence, you know, and suffering and losing their lives on this stuff, this is kind of a very evoctive, i think, scary moment for us to kind of juxtapose this kind of these kinds of images with the kinds of images in the work that civil rights leaders are doing today. And i cant forget it theres a weird version of the Civil Rights Movement in that they were chanteding this thing we will not comply, this weird echo we shall not be moved, which i first started seeing when beto orourke was running for president and he talked about a gun buyback, and that has become a main street idea that you cant actually move on certain Gun Legislation because there will be blood shed and civil war. The people wont comply. Right, exactly. You know, there was a big guillotine they brought out in the streets. So, i mean, thats pretty straightforward. Theres kind of this idea that even though, you know, the voters in virginia voted in the democrats and it was pretty clear they were going to do gun control measures, this group, including plenty of people from outside virginia who came in, theyre sort of suggesting even though theyre not in political power, theyre going to take some sort of action if these gun control builds go forward. Will, you noted go ahead. You know, what is striking to me right now is that youve got this kind of fear and intimidation of after an election where virginia legislators made clear they were going to act on common sense gun reform. But you also have an active agenda right now where people are relying on these tactics of fear and indemnifications and relying on voter suppression. You have a Republican Party right now that is actively trying to use voter suppression, fear and intimidation to prevent the will of the people from getting enacted into policy. And i think were at this critical moment in 2020 where were going to see these forces at play more than ever this year, and it will be incumbent on all of us to be mindful and to keep our eyes on the prize as dr. King used to say, and to make sure that we can actually preserve and fight for the soul of our democracy and ensure people can actually vote, ensure people arent going to be intimidated from actually, you know, getting their policies passed. I think this is a critical moment. Will summer and have a knee at a gupta. That is all in this evening. The Rachel Maddow show starts right now. Thanks for you at home for joining us. Exactly one year from now on january 20th, 2021, whoever twins next president ial election oop will be sworn in as president of the United States. President trump was sworn in three years ago today. Either he or somebody else will be sworn in one year from right now. And what better way to celebrate the occasion than by kicking off the Senate Impeachment trial of President Trump tomorrow. Kind of the numeralolojy. If the president is not removed from office through this impeachment process, if the senate doesnt convict him on one or more articles of impeachment and remove him from