the "rachel maddow show" start right now. >> thanks, my friend. greatly appreciated. happy to have you here. we landed a car on mars today. just a stunning example of what is possible when americans put their heads to the to do something truly grand, just an american feat of breo and it made your heart sing to see those first pictures beamed back from the surface of mars where we have our rover now. it's just amazing. we'll have more on that later in the show tonight. but meanwhile, here on earth, today, same day, same country, we still have not figured out how to keep lights on. hundreds of thousands of people in the great state of texas still without power. a disaster caused by a storm in texas is a catastrophe, not only because of the weather but because of the mix of the weather and texas' inability to prepare for it and inability to handle it. against the cold temperatures, demand for electricity is way up so people can heat their homes, but the energy supply in texas is simultaneously also way down with texas' very fragile energy infrastructure proving itself to be incapable of operating in the cold and generating anywhere near enough power to light up the state when demand is high, leaving millions of americans in texas would you power for days. no power means to heat. that has created dangerous conditions for millions of people. as of tonight dozens have died in texas. the electricity part of the problem is starting to resolve now, although still tonight the number of texans without power remains in the hundreds of thousands. some of them for four straight days now. even with improvements, they may not last with many very cold temperatures in the forecast. they may again have to kill power in parts of the state that have power now. part of the state that have power now may yet lose it. as regulators turn off, some neighborhoods that have power, they're anticipaing having to do that to keep strain off the unsupported grid in that state. texas managers saying if that does happen, they'll try to limit power outages to no more than 12 hours at a time. on top of what everybody's already been through, knowing that places with the lights on now may yet have the lights go off again is just beyond words. but this catastrophe with the power in texas, it is not a problem that can get fixed with the flip of a switch. the knock-on effects of depriving millions of people with power for days on end, those are baked in and is going to take a while to get out of those. it starts with water. 14 million people are under a boil water order. the facility that treats and cleans people's water is out of power. that means 14 million people in texas doesn't have clean drinking water tonight. that's basically half the state of texas and not having clean drinking water is a very dangerous and unsustainable problem. being told to boil your water when you don't have electricity to to power any means of boiling the water is ridiculous, insult on top of injury. it turns out people in texas with dirty, undrinkable water coming out of their taps in some ways are the lucky ones. one austin resident saying, "quote, i'm like great, you're telling us to boil water nobody's talking about the fact that i know one person who has water and i'm driving to get some. where are peoplesupposed to get water"? they've been bailing out toilets to get water and melting snow in outdoor fire pits. the only snow they have is the stuff that's on their lawns, that fell out of the sky. this is houston, texas, america's fourth largest city. people are waiting in line because somebody found water still coming out of that one spigot. thousands of people have dry taps. austin officials have told people in that city to be prepared to be without water potentially for days. one austin resident telling a local nbc affiliate that she stockpiled water last week just in case, filled up one of her bath tubs but she and her family have just a half case of bottled water left for the family. she said, quote, if we knew this was going to be one day or two days, that would be one thing. but not knowing and the possibility of extending longer makes it pretty hard to deal with because we do not know what to plan for. and beyond individual households in austin, it's not just household that use water, the crisis also is now a huge problem for the city's hospitals. last night st. david's hospital in austin had their water cut off. the hospital had to transfer dozens of patients to other hospitals last night. they discharged some other patients, just told them to go home. the ceo of the hospital says they need water to supply the boiler in that hospital. the boiler heats the hospital. losing water also meant they couldn't file the boiler, which meant the hospital was also losing heat. today they brought in a truck to feed the toilets so they can flush. this is a slow-rolling, unmitigated disaster in texas right now. this was southwest houston today. people waiting in line for hours in the cold to get propane. this was a line outside a fast food restaurant in austin. people don't just need propane. they don't just need water. they need food. this is the kind of line you're getting, stretching all the wave -- way down the block. some grocery stores were closed for days because they didn't have power. freezing temperatures have thrown a monkey wrench in the lines for everything. one woman said about her trip to target, quote, the store was out of meat, eggs be and almost all milk beforism -- before i left." people living in one of the largest states in the country are living with no electricity, no heat, no water, scrounging for non-potable water and for food. this has been going on for the better part of a week. it was not in the -- in the midst of that, it was not yesterday that governor abbott held a press conference to talk to people about that. "abbott provides few details on when texans' suffer will end as state's crises mount." it was reported that the federal government sent texas 60 industrial had much sized generators to help alleviate the strain on the electrical grid but explained those generators were sitting in a staging area in fort worth waiting for delivery instructions, along with 10,000 gallons of diesel fuel to power it. the federal government has been trying to help. the biden administration has declared a state of emergency in texas and oklahoma and louisiana, too. the president has authorized fema to provide hard-hit states with generators and supplies. he says they're ready to fulfill additional requests for assistance. in texas besides those 60 generators that were reportedly sitting in a warehouse in fort worth, fema has already sent texas hundreds of thousands of liters of water, tens of thousands of blankets and you hundreds of thousands of meals. joining me is john fenton, the acting administrator of fema. i appreciate you taking time to help us understand what's going on right now. thanks for taking the time to be here. >> and that's for having me on, rachel. >> first let me know if you need to set me straight, if i've said anything that's wrong here or out of date or if my reporting has misconstrued anything. second of all, i'd like to hear from your words what the scale of the fema response is right now. >> well, thank you. what's happened is a weather event started late last week that caused significant impacts to the roadways and then this last weekend started with cold weather and another event that has continued to last. and having single-digit temperatures along the texas area and most of the state, including the southern plains and now moving up to the eastern sea board. there's another of states affected but texas is one of the worst. it's so part south when you look at the building codes down there, it's really not made for temperatures that we see this low that happen that often. last time this happened is over 50 years ago. in addition to the cold temperatures causing significant impacts, it having collateral effects to the water and fuel systems and what we're doing is responding to those to help texas out. the president issued an emergency declaration this weekend that authorized us to direct the federal government to support the state of texas's needs it may have and we do have a very large warehouse in the texas area already but we're sending stuff over from atlanta and energizing a lot of our contractors and working with a lot of different groups that would bring assistance to the area to help those that are in need. >> i know that the president's emergency declaration allows fema, which is you, to coordinate disaster relief for all 254 texas counties. when it comes to coordinating relief, is fema focusing on direct aid to people who most need it, water, blankets, food, that kind of thing, or is that your coordination of relief also about working with texas power generating facilities and water treatment plants and other systems operators to get the systems back up and running? >> well, we're there to support the state of texas. they set the priorities where they want us to focus our resources and where we can provide assistance. so in this case right now we're providing resources directly to individuals through shelters, warming station, whether that be water, meals, blankets, cots, those kind of things. you talked earlier about the generators, we're providing to pump stations or other critical infrastructure to get those up and operational and we're bringing fuel in and other things. we provide funding to texas to help them bring in resources. so we could do help in all aspects from individuals to government entities to assist the state in helping the private sector if they need help to get their equipment up and running or resources need to be brought in that aren't there right now. >> administrator fenton, i'm going to ask you just to tell me bluntly in just in human-to-human terms, is the response working right now? i'm worried when i see reporting like we saw from that report at the "daily beast" today that fema has succeeded in getting generators into texas but they were sitting in a staging area this morning while we're seeing the human suffering in texas because people don't have access to power, they don't have access to all the things that are made possible, including heat, by access to power is this -- i understand the scale of what you're describing as the effort here, but is it working or are there problems here? >> well, this is a significant event to have single-digit temperatures to hit an area in the united states that's not used to seeing that temperature over a prolonged period of time, it's impacted many that are not ready for this type of event. so it's impacted a number of people across not only almost every county in texas has been impacted in this event, 20 million something plus people plus other states are impacted by this. and what's happened is there have been secondary events. not only the cold, and texas has tried to respond by putting up heating stations and opening shelters, by working to assist improving communications and those kind of things. but then you start to have the secondary events of water line breakages, whether it's in homes or main line breakages, which is now a collateral effect that we're dealing with. and up talk about the boil water notices and the need to provide water which is almost like a second event that's happened and it still cold and this is going to happen through the weekend. we're working with texas and the local governments to provide resources they need. individuals need to continue to heed the warnings of local government officials. don't expose yourself to the cold for long periods, check on friends and family and make sure that they get to warming safety if they need to. we need to make sure we don't lose any more lives here and start reenergizing getting the water and power because that will eventually make things better. as we do that, there will be significant damage from this event from those pipelines that we'll have to deal with for weeks ahead and make sure we're providing such water and other commodities to help those that need it most. >> well, i hear you on the scale of the response and what's needed in terms of the people of texas needing immediate relieve after four days shivering in the cold. i hope the scale of the response can quickly start to reach the scale of the need. robert fenton, acting fema administrator, thanks for helping us understand tonight and god speed to you and everyone in texas. >> thank you, rachel. >> let go to texas to harris county, the largest county in texas, the third largest county in the united states and includes the great city of houston. they did have some good news today. the county of -- harris county went from having 1.4 million people without power yesterday to having 20,000 people without power today. a large-scale restoration of power in harris county. having the majority of power restored in the county is a good step but the top elected official is warning tonight, quote, the lights are on for now in most of harris county but we are not out of the dark. she says most of us are still under boil water notices, we are facing another freeze tonight, meaning thursday night and we are dealing with shortages and price gouging. take steps to keep your family safe. joining us is the top executive in charge of a county of over 4.5 million people. i'm told the judge just got off the phone with the governor of texas. judge, thank you so much for taking time to be here tonight. i know you are in the middle of it. i appreciate this time. >> thank you. >> i just spoke with the fema administrator live just moments ago. he talked mostly about the scale of the challenge, expressing confidence that fema can scale up to support texas as a federal partner basically in this response. i still feel like the need that we are seeing in harris county and across texas it far outstripping the scale of the response in terms of government efforts, federally, statewide, locally. it just seems like it an overwhelming crisis. how are you feeling tonight and what are you hearing from the governor? >> it absolutely and has been an overwhelming crisis. i just actually recently got updated numbers on the hypothermia deaths, just the tip. iceberg, but seven very sad stories just here in the county as the fog of war settles a little bit and we get details. we've seen cascading impacts, water, carbon monoxide poisoning, roofs caving in, hospitals with low water pressure, all kind of issues. we take care of ourselves as best we can locally. we've got committed and creative emergency response professionals but part of my discussion with the governor is how we can together advocate for an emergency disaster declaration for the federal government and is this beyond local governments to adequately recover from. >> houston is one of the places where hospitals have been hit. i've read reports about pipes bursting in multiple hospitals. having no water pressure or flush toilets or clean anything in a hospital is a nightmare scenario. what can you tell us with that status in harris county? >> we lost power very early morning, about 1 in the morning, and that meant many of the generators that keep that water pressure going were down. that allows bacteria to seep in the water causing boil water notices. right now as about an hour ago we have 222 cities and municipal utility districts within harris county under boil water notices about, 3.3 million people who cannot drink their water. as the roads become less impassable, they can try and go out and purchase it. but again, we've got a lot of grocery stores that are not operating. many folks of course have missed a whole week's work, even amidst a pandemic. right now the main concern is the water situation. >> in terms of harris county's power supply, we did see power coming back. you were among the most prominent voices in the state warning even in a big, well-resourced county like harris county, that is not getting the county out of the dark, there may be additional power cuts, that the long-term turn around in this water crisis that you're describing may take quite a bit of time, even as the power is back on. for people who have friends and loved ones in harris county right now in and around houston in that part of texas, what should they expect in terms of ongoing hardship these next few days? it going to be another hard freeze tonight. >> we have to acknowledge the good news and being down to 22,000 homes without power is great. but i also am not in the business of raising false hope. the challenge was that the state agency, this -- they did not have enough power generation to sustain the crisis. their power plants came offline with the cold. we're about to see cold -- that extreme level of cold again. and so they may buckle again under that weather. we're about to see high demand again. they may buckle under that high demand. that is not an expectation that we have but i at least want to leave that possibility open that there may be some hiccups as these folks that very much failed for several nights get everything together and i don't want folks to be, you know, extremely alarmed if there are some smaller outages as we get out of this. now, the broader impacts we are helping to address as best we can, we're working with our community partners, it's all hand on deck. so i do think that things are definitely looking up, i know folks have been concerned. it has been a catastrophic, just tragic few nights and days for the community and we just need to recognize that like with any disaster, recovery takes a while. it's not perfectly smooth and there's going to be setbacks on the way to that progress. >> harris county judge lina hidalgo, god bless you and your colleagues. it's been a bunch of sleepless nights already and will continue to be as you try to address this crisis. stay in touch with us and let us know what we can do in terms of getting the word out to the national audience. good luck. >> thank you. >> i'll tell you, my colleague lawrence o'donnell will have much, much more on the situation in texas in the next hour. including -- and over the course of the night tonight at msnbc, we're staying on this. one of the things that is very worrying in texas, even in places where we're seeing the power come back on is the crushing emotional blow it's going to be when after the power finally comes back on in a lot of places today and tonight it may yet go down again with this fragile grid in texas and more cold water coming in tonight. but the access to clean water issue is going to take a long time to dig out of and it's very, very dangerous. keep texas in your prayers tonight. much more to come tonight. stay with us. much more to come . stay with us i'm super emma. but when we realized she was battling sensitive skin, we switched to tide plus downy free. it's gentle on her skin, and out cleans our old bargain detergent. so, she can focus on saving the world, with a little help from dad. tide pods plus downy free. safe for sensitive skin with eczema and psoriasis. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ (quiet piano music) ♪ ♪ comfort in the extreme. the lincoln family of luxury suvs. tonight i'll be eating a calzone from doughballs in aurora. 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i've never heard snoring... exactly. no problem. and... done. and now, save 50% on the sleep number 360 limited edition smart bed. plus, 0% interest for 24 months. only for a limited time. his name was carmine galante, but his mob nickname was "the cigar." he was almost never seen without cigar clamped between his teeth. in the 1970s, he rose through the ranks to become at one point the de facto chief of the benono crime family. in one of his drug related trial, they had a hard time keeping jurors on the trial after they kept getting calls threatening their lives and the jury foreman fell down the stairs injuring his back the best window into his upward mobility in the mob is the fact that upon being released from federal prison after a 12-year stint that ended in the early 70s, one of carmine galante's first acts after getting out of prison after 12 years was he blew up a mausoleum of one of his mob rivals who died while he was in prison. he was in prison and he never got a real chance to whack the guy while he was alive, so once he got out of prison, he whacked the guy at the cemetery where he already laid dead. he blew up his mausoleum. better late than never. that was 1974 i think and five years later in 1979, car mine, "the cigar" galante was eating at joe and mary's italian restaurant in brooklyn, eating with two other guys from the crime family and on that hot day in july in bushwick, brooklyn enter guys in ski masks carrying multiple guns and carmine and the others with him were killed. he was photographed dead at the scene of the crime with a cigar still clamped between his teeth. the man ultimately prosecuted for his murder are i kid you not, his name was whack whack. his name was bruno indilicato, his mother probably named him that to make it too sue per flus to nickname that young man and he was called whack whack and he was charged and convicted of that murder and the other two crime guys at that table that bay at that restaurant. each murder was treated as a consistent element of bruno's ultimate conviction on racketeering charges. what is racketeering? it means basically not just crime but crime as part of an organized enterprise. that's why they use it against the mob so much. considerably tougher penalties for crimes that get prosecuted under under that racketeering umbrella. here's the thing, though, mr. whack whack had a really good lawyer who argued although this looked like a an incredibly black and white case, mr. whack whack puts on a ski mask and shoots the cigar in a restaurant, but his lawyer was good enough to complicate the circumstances considered by the law to a considerable and lasting extent. his lawyer used that crazy case to force an entire 12-judge panel of the federal appeals court in new york, the second circuits to reckon for the first time in that case, in bbruno's case with the real specific legal definition of racketeering. racketeering had been used in the law for quite some time but it was that case that led to the first legal live tested specific rigorous definition of racketeering under u.s. federal law. that lawyer for bruno, mr. whack whack, the lawyer for him who turned that gangland, blood bath case into a legal landmark that still matters today, that changed forever the way racketeering is used in the u.s. federal law. he's still around. that lawyer as a prosecutor and then as a defense attorney litigated dozens of high profile crime cases. as a prosecutor he ran the appellate unit and criminal unit at sdny in two different stints in that storied u.s. attorney's office. with all of that experience as a prosecutor, he's now one of the highest profile big deal white collar defense lawyers at one of the fanciest law firms in new york, a firm called paul weis, and that lawyer just got a new job. "the new york times" reporting tonight earlier this month he was sworn in as a special assistant d.a., which seems like an unlikely at the state prosecutor's office in manhattan, he's taken leave from his very fancy private firm meech has upended his whole life, put everything on hold, sworn in with a special status and can work with state prosecutors in new york on precisely one case and that one case is the investigation in that office of the trump organization. this is the online going criminal investigation of former president donald trump and his business. it reportedly includes allegations of tax fraud, bank fraud, insurance fraud. it started with an investigation related to the hush money campaign finance felonies for which michael cohen went to prison and led prosecutors to describe president donald trump as individual one, an unindicted co-conspirator, that investigation by state prosecutors has since reported live expanded to include wider allegations about basically the president and his company allegedly keeping two sets of books for trump properties, including trump tower so they could defraud tax authorities and defraud banks by using two different sets of books with two different valuations for all of the trump properties. the case has recently generated more than a dozen subpoenas and financial forms for business and tax records. lower courts have ruled those subpoenas are valid and state prosecutors should get access to those documents. cnn and the "new york times" are reporting in depth on the mystery surrounding what's happening with those subpoenas and what's happening with that case in the united states supreme court right now. this new york state stregs of president donald trump is one of two live investigations. one is the criminal investigation that's just been opened into his conduct in georgia in terms of his pressuring georgia state officials to basically corrupt the election outcome in that state. the other is this new york investigation into potential financial crimes, tax fraud, bank fraud, insurance fraud. those new york prosecutors need the president's financial records in order to press this case and they need his tax records in order to press his case, they have issued subpoenas for the records, lower courts have said they should get them but since october they've been waiting on the united states supreme court to find out if they're getting those records. that have been subpoenaed. lower courts say they should. the supreme court is just sitting on it. the supreme court somewhat unexplicably sitting on that for four months now and is having material consequences for a live criminal investigation of the former president in new york, even as that new york's prosecutor's office drafts in new serious outside fire pop-upper to assemble that case against mr. trump, the supreme court is sitting on the documents they need for their investigation. meanwhile, the wheels of justice do keep turning. this, for example, is a peek at the fbi's main twitter feed even just tonight. the fbi multiple times per day now is churning out new basically digital wanted posters for people captured on tape taking part in the violent sacking of the capitol by the pro-trump mob that mounted that assault on the u.s. government on january 6th. they put out new pictures, new basically wanted pictures every single day. and the president's culpability for that grotesque crime remains at center stage, particularly as more and more of his followers get arrested and charged every day, so many of them telling the court after they've been charged the reason they were there is because they thought the president was telling them to be there. he stays at center stage as long as people are getting arrested and the fbi keeps asking the public for more and more help finding these trump rioters so they can get arrested. "the daily beast" is telling people at mar-a-lago he's worried he's going to be investigated and sued for the rest of his life. we reported earlier this week on the first civil lawsuit brought against the president for the january 6th attack, a suit brought by congressman bennie thompson, the chairman of the homeland security commit. i say it's the first lawsuit brought. i can tell you right now it will not be the last. joining us next, i'm here to say for the interview tonight, is the very high profile, very accomplished outside counsel who was brought in to help coordinate the impeachment trial of the president for the january 6th attack. his name is barry burke and he joins us for his first television interview since this all look down. i'm really looking forward to talking with him. that's next. t. op frequent heartn before it begins? heartburn happens when stomach acid refluxes into the esophagus. prilosec otc uses a unique delayed-release formula that helps it pass through the tough stomach acid. it then works to turn down acid production, blocking heartburn at the source. with just one pill a day, you get 24-hour heartburn protection. prilosec otc. one pill a day, 24 hours, zero heartburn. do you have a life insurance policy you no longer need? 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>> i feel there is certainly evidence that should be the basis for investigation of the president's conduct. he had knowledge throughout and he -- most crimes at the heart have lies. when you talk about the new york investigation, bank fraud, insurance fraud, tax fraud, those are all lies. we saw at this trial that the president was prepared to lie in order to interrupt our democracy, to try to prevent the peaceful transfer of power and lie in order to further incite an insurrection. i think all that conduct would be fair game. i do think in our country we generally give the benefit of the doubt to a former president and maybe if they engage in wrong doing we should not prosecute them after they leave office. i think given the president's extraordinary conduct is unconscionable behavior in causing over 140 police officers to be injured, people killed, our elected officials en masse so close to being in harm's way that he has lost that benefit of the doubt. i think you will see the commission look more deeply at some of the evidence that we have gathered but did not present at trial because we didn't need to and we'll see the criminal investigations go on and the other criminal investigations related to husband seeking to intimidate and threaten georgia election officials to find votes that didn't exist, the lies that would be the basis for a crime for anyone else if they did it in connection with bank loans or other financial transactions. i do think this trial opens that whole pandora's box for president donald trump because he engaged in conduct where he misused his power in such a forceful way and the harm was so great. and i walked the halls of the capital every day to the senate floor and pass the victims of his attack and people who suffered and are still suffered and people who committed suicide because they were so traumatized. i'm very proud to have worked with our house manager and lead managers to prove beyond any doubt that president donald trump instigated this insurrection, he did it for his own personal benefit to prevent the peaceful transfer of power and did it despite the great harm he was causing and with knowledge he was causing it. i think this changes everything. while we did not have all the senators who voted i think the way they knew they should have voted, i still think this will have a huge effect on the future of donald trump and the future of the republican party and i was humbled to have been part of it. >> this idea of the impeachment trial and including some you did not expect being a pandora's box for the future of this president cannot be overstated. barry burke, chief impeachment counsel to the house managers, thank you for your service and thank you for helping us understand it tonight. it's nice to see you. >> thank you. >> thank you, rachel. nice to see you. >> much more ahead. stay with us. uch more ahead stay with us all in on the sports sedan. lease the 2021 is 300 for $359 a month for thirty nine months. experience amazing at your lexus dealer. research shows that people remember commercials with exciting stunts. for thirty nine months. so to help you remember that liberty mutual customizes your home insurance, here's something you shouldn't try at home. insurance is cool. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ (judith) at fisher investments, we do things differently and other money managers don't understand why. 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