Multiple leg injuries and was undergoing surgery. Were awaiting word on exactly how this happened. Obviously well keep you updated with any new details. The other major story today comes to us from washington, d. C. , where 48 days since the insurrectionist attack on the capitol that led to the death of three Police Officers we had our first Public Accounting of the Security Preparations and failures of one of the most significant historical dates in modern american history. Until this point, we had heard nothing from the people responsible for defending the capitol on that day. But today the acting chief of the Metropolitan Police department, former u. S. Capitol police chief of the former senate sergeantatarms and the former house Sergeant At Arms all testified before a joint Senate Committee hearing. Those last three men all resigned following the attack. Coming into this hearing we did not have consensus on the timeline of events or during the attack and we do not have one still. We still do not know exactly what happened. Steven sund, who was the u. S. Capitol police chief during the attack blamed former house Sergeant At Arms paul irving and former senate sergeantatarms Michael Stenger for the sluggish response. Quote, i notified the two sergeantatarms by 1 09 p. M. That i urgently needed support and asked them to declare a State Of Emergency and authorize the National Guard. Sund said. I was advised by mr. Irving that hed need to run it up the chain of command. Now, irving pushed back against sunds account saying he did not recall speaking to him at that time, had no record of any phone calls or Text Messages from sund and never said he had to run sunds request up the chain of command. Instead of reaching an agreement about what went wrong so we can stop Something Like this from happening again, those men were apparently quite focused on saving what is left of their reputations after this catastrophic failure we all watched on national television. And speaking of Reputation Saving senator ted cruz fresh off that now notorious and probably not all that relaxing trip to cancun who led a push in the senate to overturn joe bidens election, to deny him the seating of electors and voted to do that even after the attack, had this to say about preventable behavior. This hearing is nonetheless productive for analyzing the Security Decisions and Law Enforcement decisions that were made realtime and for learning from them what can be done differently to ensure that an attack like that never again occurs. Yes, senator, were all trying to figure out who is responsible for this so it never happens again. His colleague josh hawley, who was the first sitting senator to announce formally that he would object to certifying the Electoral College votes, therefore making that day a big day, a point of interest, right, the last possible stand for the trumpists. The senator who infamously raised his fist in salute to the crowd the day they stormed the capitol. He was outraged today when a reporter asked if perhaps he was complicit in this attack. Senator, what do you say to your fellow senators and to americans who believe that you are complicit in this attack . Thats outrageous. I would say its absolutely outrageous and an utter lie, and no one i think who knows all the facts alleges such a thing. I mean, actually, im one of the people who knows the facts. Lots of people who know the facts do allege precisely that, senator. In fact, the idea that either of those men, cruz and hawley, who not only pushed the big lie that the election was illegitimate but actively acted to overturn the democratic process, who Made January 6th The Big Showdown Day where they could do it, where they could stop joe biden from becoming president. The fact they were allowed to participate in the hearing is what strikes many as truly outrageous. Wisconsin senator ron johnson did vote to certify bidens election but he has also been one of the chief spreaders of Conspiracy Theories around the election. And attack on the capitol. He did not hold back today, my word. Reading a factfree rightwing blog entry into the congressional record. A very few didnt share the jovial friendly ernest demeanor of the great majority. Some obviously didnt fit in. And he describes four different types of people. Plainclothes militants, agents provocateurs, fake Trump Protesters and undisciplined uniformed column of attackers. I think these are the people that probably planned this. Fake Trump Protesters. Senator skrons says Agent Provocateurs and fake Trump Protesters among others are responsible for the attack. After all of the evidence we have seen in the literally hundreds of Charging Documents. Someone should show senator johnson the Charging Document of, for instance, this alleged insurrectionist, jose padilla, who was charged with Felony Counts of obstruction of Law Enforcement and assault on a Law Enforcement officer with a deadly or dangerous weapon and allegedly wrote on facebook theres a lot of memes and posts flying around saying people who were fighting last night were antifa provocateurs et cetera. I just want to say that as a firsthand observer of every point of last night that it was not antifa. They were patriots who were trying to restore the republic after being attacked by the cops who struck first. Even those who broke the windows next to the doorway of the capitol were patriots trying to find a way to turn the flanks of the cops. This is a consistent theme. Trump supporters who stormed the capitol are really angry because republican politicians and Conservative Media who are supposed to be supporting the trump administrations cause, are giving credit for all their hard work to antifa. Its a lie the trump and his supporters are not responsible for the attack. Its already canon in much of the gop. You see it in the polling. Trump himself tried this lie out as the attack was happening in a phone call with House Minority leader Kevin Mccarthy as a Republican Congress Herrera Beutler recalled. When mccarthy reached the president january 6th and asked him to publicly and forcefully call off the riot the president initially repeated the falsehood that it was antifa that breached the capitol. Mccarthy refuted that and told the president these were trump supporters. Thats when according to mckarthdy the president said, well, kevin, i guess these people are more upset about the election than you are. He goes right from theyre not my people to, well, maybe you should listen to them. You know, in 1951 political philosopher Hannah Arendt wrote in her book The Origins Of Totalitarianism wrote the masses have reached the point where they would at the same time believe everything and nothing. Think that everything was possible and nothing was true. And the profoundness of the cynicism is sort of the point of the totalitarian subject. Oh, its antifa. No, its patriots. No, its antifa. Who knows . But for a trump supporter to look at a saef people in maga gear and trump hats and be like yes, thats antifa, thats concerning. But to have a u. S. Senator who is on the committee charged with overseeing the security of the capitol pushing that lie . While two others who were part and parcel of why that day happened act shoktd they could be accused of such things that is illustraive of the broader state of one of the two major parties in this country. Democratic senator jeff merkley participated in todays hearing on the january 6th insurrection. And he joins me now. No Cutaway Cameras at this Committee Hearing, but what is it like as a fellow senator to read into the record this nonsense, this lie about who was responsible when everyone who was around knows who did it . Chris, we had this powerful opportunity to finally hear from some of the key managers of Capitol Security, the chief of police, the sergeantatarms of the senate and the house. And then to have these colleagues try to turn this hearing into lets perpetuate the big myth, the big myth that this had nothing to do with interrupting the vote to prevent trump from failing to become president of the united states, to make sure that joe biden didnt become president , it just its astounding. And it shows the challenge we have in america where social media and Cable Television can get stories out in kind of the trump bubble, media bubble, that is so hard to break into. Have josh hawley or ted cruz ever apologized for what they did on that day . Absolutely not. Not to my knowledge. If they whispered an apology in anyones ears, it certainly isnt something that was shared in the Senate Committee. What is it like to have them there as these sort of ostensibly disinterested, you know, i dont know, judges in a hearing or investigators, as it were, when you know, that date became that date, it became the site of this largely because of trump but partly because those senators announced they were going to make it a contest, they were going to force these votes, they were going to draw it out and they were going to fight and thats what the crowd wanted them to do . You know, ive had echoes of the Impeachment Trial because there we had the senate as jurors but some of the jurors were foekd who had perpetuated the big lie, led the effort to have other senators join them and there they were today in the same hearing room continuing to provide the cover story as if they had no involvement or engagement and kind of like this is an asteroid arriving from outer space rather than something they had participated in, trying to prevent the peaceful transition of power to a duly elected president. Its a very strange and haunting moment. Something i could never have imagined growing up in oregon and thinking about how the different branches of government work to make checks and balances on each other and people of integrity and competency proceeding, could never have imagined this happening here. We just have to keep pushing back and try to put adults back in charge. I felt somewhat frustrated by todays hearing, because i feel like i dont actually have that much clearer of a picture. There is obviously a fair amount of Blame Shifting and score settling and its a complicated situation, and im not really in a great position to sort of secondguess the judgments of these individuals. Its not my area of expertise. Did you have the same feeling, that we didnt actually we left with not a ton of clarity. No, absolutely. The basic message that the group of them were presenting was this was an intelligence failure, we were thinking this would be like the million Maga March In November and the second one in december, and we didnt have any indication it would be any different, and those didnt become violent when they were in front of the Supreme Court, so why would this one become violent . And second of all, that when they reached out to get approval from the pentagon to send the National Guard, the pentagon slowwalked it. Those were the two main messages they were conveying. But heres the thing. There was an fbi report the day before reporting on far right extremists saying this is the moment to stop joe biden from being elected and ensure trump will be elected, that we will fight to the death to make that happen, that there will be blood on the ground, that we must smash windows and smash doors. And that intelligence, when i asked the chief of the capitol police, did that get into your hands, he said no, it was delivered to a sergeant who delivered it to our intelligence unit, but it never got to me. You would think a manager, the head of the team, would say, im supposed to make sure that the channels of communication for important facts get to me so we can make strategic decisions, and that didnt happen. And thats on me because i was in charge. But there was no sense of any of these individuals saying, yeah, i should have done better, we should have drilled, we should on different strategies where we didnt drill. We should have had more training. We should have had more equipment at a previous point in time. Very little sense that any of these individuals were accepting responsibility for mistakes. And it also points to my mind the need for some larger commission of inquiry. Because the timeline of the pentagon and the National Guard is still unclear. We have reports about several officers who have been suspended for possible actions that day. Again, none of this is in one place with information that we know and i think we all need to see it. Senator jeff merkley who is on that committee and in that hearing today, thank you very much. Thank you. Did you happen to see this image . This is what it looked like when freshman Republican Congresswoman Lauren Boebert just zoomed into Committee Hearing the other day. That is not a standard zoom background behind her. Thats custom made. Thats actually her background. Do you notice Something Different with the bookshelves . Not just a stockpile of weapons sitting behind her. There is a deeper meaning to this image. An implicit threat too. Ill explain right after this. Stick around. They have businesses to grow customers to care for lives to get home to they use stamps. Com print discounted postage for any letter any package any time right from your computer all the services of the Post Office Plus ups only cheaper get our special tv offer a 4week trial plus postage and a digital scale go to stamps. Com tv and never go to the post office again. Its been unclear for some time what exactly it is that donald trump jr. Does. But like his father he does like to make content. This week he posted a video of himself ranting about Teachers Unions while pointedly standing in front of a wall of guns. The whole thing had a here are my thoughts from my bunker vibe. But as weird as this image is, its kind of becoming a trend on the right. Republican congresswoman Lauren Boebert, owner of shooters grill in rifle, colorado where guns are welcome and seemingly encouraged on the premises, has built her political identity around guns. Boebert vowed to carry a glock around d. C. And on capitol hill. She released a video to make sure that we all knew it. Last thursday she zoomed into a virtual congressional hearing with just a mess of guns piled on the bookshelf behind her. Ar15 style rifles, a handgun, just laying across a bunch of books. Boebert, whos raising four young boys, tweeted that the guns are not in storage but are, quote, ready for use. Apparently she just leaves them out because she fears she may need to fire multiple rounds of ammo at someone who comes into her den. Lots of people immediately noted that the use of guns in that way as props and the implicit threat that comes with them has a long, not necessarily great history among various movements around the globe. Osama bin laden for one liked to pose in front of the a bookshell with a gun prominently displayed. The Irish Republican Army would display guns in its Propaganda Posters and its murals. Cuban revolutionaries. They posed with guns all the time too. And no single side of the spectrum has a monopoly on this aesthetic. You can see it all over the world. It is unquestionably the aesthetic of armed struggle, of revolution or insurrection. A movement or faction that puts images of guns, a celebration of guns front and center in its political aesthetic is a movement thats engaging in something other than what we might call the normal rhetoric of elected democratic politics. You cant escape the meaning of it. It communicates that they are committed to or at the very least open to the possibility of violent overthrow of the government or the existing order. And now the Republican Party, it seems like its becoming common and unremarkable. You remember Marjorie Taylor greene posed with this gun in her campaign ads next to democratic members of congress. She wears a mask reading Ancient Greek for come and take them in the halls of congress. Thats been used for a bunch of reasons but in her case the implied message seems to be if you try to take away our guns well start shooting. Over decades the right has built up this entire ideology around the Second Amendment rooted in frankly the ridiculous idea that the u. S. Government itself denied itself a monopoly on legitimate use of force because the founders had gone through revolution themselves. And the history just doesnt bear that out. Its not true. Not now. And not during, for instance, the Whiskey Rebellion way back in 1794 when arent George Washington got in his old uniform and got on a horse and sent in troops to violently suppress a violent tax protest. Many republicans are now signaling they retain the right to use violence to overthrow the government at any time, that thats actually the core of part of their political principles in the Second Amendment and theyre willing to brandish that claim as a threat in pursuit of their political aims. And its not some academic thing, right . Right now the threat of violence and menace hangs over our collective political life. From the armed protests at the Michigan State house last spring which included men who the fbi says Plolt Edplotted to kidnap the democratic governor to the violent insurrectionists on january 6th, some of whom vowed to kill any lawmakers who wouldnt do their bidding. Its become increasingly standard for the most Hardcore Devotees of trump and his faction to at the very least wink at the notion that theyre ready to hurt anyone who gets in their way. Sometimes the threat is all too real. Heres one example. Last year an antifeminist attorney who described himself as a trump volunteer murdered the son of a federal judge, ester salas, nearly killed her husband using a gun. Salas was the target. The killer had also been tracking Supreme Court Justice Sonia sotomayor. You know, we were screaming Daniel Hold On and dont leave us. And then i just as i think about that day i just realize i was watching my only child 235id away. Shannon watts is the founder of Moms Demand Action. Critical of the way republicans use guns for political gain. With me is david jolly who used to be a republican member of congress from florida and he left the party back in 2018. Shannon, politicians will often through my life as a political reporter pose with guns in different ways. John kerry in a duck blind and joe manchin shooting a bill. And theres a certain a lot of americans really like guns. They cherish owning them for sport. There seems to me a different thing happening in that Lauren Boebert pose that says Something Different. Its communicating Something Different. What do you think its doing . You know, its intimidation. Pure and simple. Right . Thats the point of having these guns behind them. Theyre not saying, you know, we are here to demonstrate our freedom. They are there to threaten our freedom. And thats particularly alarming given that just a month ago we had armed Insurrectionists Storm The Capitol and they had enough live ammunition to shoot every member of the house and senate five times. So this has nothing to do with selfdefense. This is a dangerous trend that really started on the internet years ago. I mean, you may remember, you had Moms Demand Action volunteers on your show in 2014 who were having lunch and these armed men in texas pulled guns out of their cars and sort of tried to intimidate them while they were having lunch and it was an international story. And now that behavior has become mainstream in many ways because of the nra. You know, it is at worst about owning the libs and it is becoming more and more about causing a second civil war. And really thats why passing stronger gun laws has never been more important. Yeah, the sort of semiyotices of it, the meaning of it david to me is really enes escescapab. I think the people that are really into guns are just like this is a thing that i love, this is my hobby or this is this object that i think is super cool, its protected by the First Amendment, its an expression of my but if you show up at my kids Little League game and you just happen to be sporting the gun you really like, were all freaking out. You cant separate the two. Look, id say its more dire than even that. The danger were seeing among todays republicans, the examples you just gave, is the direct correlation between the imagery and a target. Like donald trump jr. Talking about Teachers Unions. Marjorie Taylor Greene with her imagery of the squad as shes holding The Automatic weapon. With Lauren Boebert its this defense against the big government. And january 6th we saw a willingness to tackle that government. Thats where the danger of the Republican Party moving from a party of Less Government to one willing to undermine and kneecap and tackle the government while leaders of the Republican Party are embracing this imagery of the Second Amendment. Thats where its so dangerous because that gets us to a world in which the Oklahoma City bombing happened. And chris, theres two major deceits that republicans practice. The first is they conflate fundamental rights with absolute rights. Laura boebert did that in her rant before the Natural Resources committee. She suggested that owning guns and taking them into the capitol is an absolute right. Thats not the case. All of our fundamental rights have certain restrictions including the Second Amendment, including the first with speech, religion and so forth. The second deceit republicans practice is they know that theres no legislation that would pass the house and be signed by President Biden that would take away Gun Ownership from lawabiding rightful citizens, their ability to own guns. They reframe it around this issue of freedom that democrats want to take your freedom. And that is a powerful drug that theyre peddling in this imagery that theyre presenting. Right. And then theres this sort of ideology there too which we saw in michigan we saw it in richmond. Richmond was part of the beginning of this. Thats when thousands and thousands of gun owners converged on the capitol with their guns. Right . And again, its a protest and its nonviolent. But when thousands of people with guns converge on a capitol that sends a certain message. And shannon, it feels to me its gone from we like guns because were into hunting or Target Practice to i need it for selfdefense to no, i actually want to retain the right to overthrow the government finally and that seems like a more and more mainstream idea at the core here. Absolutely. It is the logical outcome of allowing Gun Lobbyists to write our nations gun laws for decades. Again, Moms Demand Action has been sounding the alarm on this. We would have marches and rallies and go to restaurants or stores and see people open carrying which is largely unregulated in over 40 states in this country. And again, years ago when i started doing this the nra called open carry downright weird. And then they changed their mind and started to support it. And really the nra has led us to this moment. Right . They never miss a moment to say the skys falling and the only way to stay safe is to shoot at it. And because at the end of the day this is, again, not about selfdefense, this is about enriching Gun Manufacturers and Gun Lobbyists and for too long they have had so much sway over our lawmakers and our laws. David, theres polling that shows 39 of republicans consider Political Violence can be justified. Now, of course context for that. You can argue that there are some circumstances, the warsaw ghetto, for instance, where its justified. But thats a pretty high number. And were also just living in the aftermath of a big act of Political Violence on the capitol to try to stop the peaceful transfer of power. Chris, this is the reallife danger of where the Republican Party is today. The first step in justifying violence is delegitimizing your victim. And by republicans suggesting that the government is not legitimate, that the elections are not legitimate, it more easily justifies violence by people who would consider taking this into their own hands through the use of firearms. That is the danger with which republicans are flirting. Shannon watts and david jolly, that was a great discussion. Thank you both for your time. Thank you. Coming up, in the face of a statewide emergency you might remember texas senator ted cruz hopped on a plane to mexico. Beto orourke, on the other hand, got to work. And beto joins me next. Just one week after the Texas Electrical grid known as ercot failed and left millions of texans without power during freezing winter storm a full third of ercots board handed in their resignations. Not one of them actually lives in texas, by the way. While people literally froze to death In The Dark Last week Texas Attorney general ken paxton traveled to utah to talk about an Antitrust Lawsuit against google. Senator ted cruz dipped to cancun with his family before being shamed into cutting his trip short. He flew back on thursday. As he flew back on thursday new york congresswoman alexandria ocasiocortez launched a fundraising drive for texas. Within two hours of announcing her fundraising effort she pulled in 325,000 of donations. Days later she was on the ground in houston volunteering with some of her texas colleagues in the house and ultimately raising 5 million. Former texas congressman beto orourke has also been stepping up to help his fellow texans. His organization powered by people has raised over a million dollars. Hes been going door to door checking in on folks, helping connect them to various resources. And beto orourke joins me now. First i just wanted to get a sense from you of how things are there. I know the weather got a lot warmer. Power came back. A bunch of people still with water issues or water damage. Whats it look like there . So chris, tonight im in the Rio Grande Valley and i was in an Unincorporated Community called hargill, about 1,000 residents there. They lost power for four days. Luckily they have that back on now. But theyre still under a boil water notice, which means they cannot drink what comes out of the tap. So along with other volunteers we were distributing water there. Folks are recovering. Theyre getting their lives back to normal. But they are deeply frustrated, as are millions of texans across the state. Weve been to san antonio, austin, up to the rural part of north texas in Raines County where its eight days and counting now where some communities still do not have wow. Water. And i think everyone understands this is not a natural disaster, it is a manmade one. And the men who made it are still in power and have yet to be held accountable for it. And folks want answers. Yeah. You could feel, you know, in my conversations with texans through last week this kind of dual sense of ive got to bear down and get through this and figure out a way to not have my pipes explode all over my house and make sure my elders are, you know, warm. But like a rising rage coming up in everyones throats really across the political spectrum of like how in gods name is this the situation in texas. Its interesting. We were in this small Community Called point, texas in Raines County in the northern part of the state yesterday. And i think its pretty reliably red. In fact, one of the people who volunteered with us had a trump make America Great again mask on as we were distributing water. But its interesting. His dad lives on a property that doesnt have Running Water anymore because of the power outage and the failure of the local water utility. And theyre drawing water from the pond on their property to drink. And he said i used to be concerned about covid, now im concerned about cholera. And this is happening in the 21st century in the wealthiest country on the face of the planet in the Energy Capital of north america. A government has completely failed us. More than ten years of Deregulation Decisions made not to weatherize or provide for excess capacity or connect us to the rest of the Electrical Grid has left people out and on their own and has accounted for at least 30 deaths just in the greater houston area. And as you know, an 11yearold boy who died in his trailer home, an 8yearold girl who died next to her mother of Carbon Monoxide poisoning and many other deaths and probably many more than we will ever know about. And none of them but none of them had to happen. And as you said at the introduction, you know, folks want to blame ercot or think that if the Board Members resign then this issue is over. It is not. The folks who made these decisions are still in power and we need to make new decisions and potentially have new people in those positions of public trust to make them if were not going to have this again, especially considering that weather events like this because of Climate Change are going to become more frequent, more severe and unfortunately theyre going to be deadlier going forward. We have to change course. What do you see as the fallout politically . I mean, youre saying theres anger and that this isnt just about ercot, there are Policy Decisions made at the state level. What does that look like and how do you ensure this isnt one of those things where people kind of quickly forget about it and move on to other things . I think because of the great reporting that youre seeing in texas and by National Outlets such as yourself. Folks are connecting the dots. They recognize that Governor Abbott appoints to the Public Utility Commission that has the Regulatory Oversight responsibility and power when it comes to ercot. They realize that every member of the Texas Railroad commission, which regulates not railroads but the oil and gas and Energy Industry in texas, have responsibility for the development and transmission of our Energy Resources that were completely stalled out over the course of this storm. And people want answers and they want accountability and they want to know that this is not going to happen to them again. The worst part about this of course has been the loss of life. But you mentioned the broken pipes, which have then produced, you know, flooding in peoples homes, mold on their drywall that has to be pulled out. So far the most expensive storm in texas history. And then to add insult to injury you have rate payers who signed up for variable pricing Electricity Plans who got bills for 17,000. A School Teacher with a 10,000 onemonth Electricity Bill that is in no way her fault. And she should not have to pay it. No. Thats up to the State Government that failed her. That seems like a layup for texas politicians of any ideological stripe. We should note the president is going down to houston on friday to survey the aftermath. Former texas congressman beto orourke in the Rio Grande Valley. Thanks for make something time for us tonight. Thanks, chris. Ahead, the cancel culture wars are so important to republicans, it is the theme of this years cpac. America uncanceled. So its sure to be a shame if they had to cancel a speaker after uncovering some old tweets, wouldnt it . Yeah, thats next. Dnt it . Yeah, thats next. [ ] think you need to buy expensive skincare products to see dramatic results . Try olay skin care. Just one jar of microsculpting cream has the Hydrating Power of 5 jars of a prestige cream, which helps plump skin cells and visibly smooth wrinkles. While new olay retinol24. Provides visibly smoother, brighter skin. For dramatic skincare results, try olay. And now receive 25 off your purchase at olay. Com brand power. Helping you buy better. Its time for the ultimate sleep number event on the sleep number 360 smart bed. Can it help with snoring . Ive never heard snoring. Exactly. No problem. And. Done. Dont miss the final days to save 50 on the sleep number 360 limited Edition Smart bed, plus zero interest for 24 months. Ends monday. With half a million americans dead from the pandemic and millions still out of work and hungry conservatives have focused in on the biggest problem facing america. Cancel culture. We understand it. We understand their cancel culture. Were not letting them cancel culture us at all. Do you have a functioning First Amendment when the cancel culture only allows one side to talk . Were witnessing the cancel Culture Purge being kicked into overdrive here. Cancel culture is a real thing. It is very real. This cancel culture is so dangerous. And we have to push back. This is the number one issue for the country to address today. The number one issue for the country to address today. He said that like a week ago. The menace of cancel culture is so important, its felt so intensely, that the whole theme of this years conservative cpac conference, the premier event for american conservatism, is America Uncanceled. Of course the definition of cancel culture has always been really slippery. Almost every workplace, organization, Political Party or even conference of conservative activists has some lines about what kinds of speech it thinks are acceptable and what kinds just arent. Mostly conservatives are mad that nonconservatives are drawing lines that they just dont agree with. You can probably see where this is going. How long do you think it took the America Uncanceled conference to themselves cancel someone . Cpac posted this tweet at 4 18 p. M. Yesterday. We have just learned that someone we invited to cpac has expressed reprehensible views that have no home in our conference or organization. The individual will not be participating at our conference. And with the canceled speaker going unnamed there that could have referred to, well, any number of cpac speakers whove expressed reprehensible views. Thats sort of the whole point of cpac. It turns out the America Uncanceled organizers canceled a rapper named young pharaoh. This is him on the archived version of cpacs page pushing to his social media which contains posts saying judaism is not real along with antisemitic views. Young pharaoh had been scheduled to speak on sunday afternoon just one hour before cpacs keynote speaker, a man who was canceled by the voters of america who reportedly said he would only appear if his former Vice President didnt. Young pharaohs comments were too reprehensible for cpac but the man whose words helped incite an insurrection at the capitol, he gets the keynote. When we come back, as we pass 500,000 lives lost to the pandemic, a look at how many might still be with us if it werent for the failures of president trump. Thats next. Esident trump. Thats next. Dont settle for products that give you a sort of white smile. Try new Crest Whitening Emulsions for 100 whiter teeth. Its highly active Peroxide Droplets swipe on in seconds. Better. Faster. 100 whiter teeth. Crestwhitesmile. Com these folks, they dont have time to go to the post office they have businesses to grow customers to care for lives to get home to they use stamps. Com print discounted postage for any letter any package any time right from your computer all the services of the Post Office Plus ups only cheaper get our special tv offer a 4week trial plus postage and a digital scale go to stamps. Com tv and never go to the post office again. Tonight congressional leaders gathered at the steps of the capitol to commemorate the half million americans who have now died from covid19. Even though cases are now trending down week, still losing over 1,000 People Per Day on a weekly average. 2,000 just recorded today. And its always worth remembering, important to remember, it did not have to be this way. Choose two examples. The u. S. And south korea, for example, both recorded their first covid cases on the same day, at the end of january last year. South korea immediately rolled out largescale testing and Contact Tracing and strong messaging on masks. The u. S. Did not. Heres a chart showing new deaths attributed to covid since the pandemic began. The blue line is the united states, deaths soaring, peaking throughout the year, and the pink line on the bottom is south korea. If the u. S. Had followed the same trajectory as south korea, if we had the same number of deaths per capita, we would have lost about 10,000 americans instead of 500,000. And while it is impossible to truly know how Many Americans would have been saved if the Previous Administration had taken the pandemic seriously, its pretty clear their actions caused irreparable harm. The people who wanted to deny that this is something that this was serious, when you get a signal from above that it might not be, then you dont do the kinds of things you need to do. I mean, i still have flashing in my mind those scenes of when we were trying to tell people to really be careful and avoid congregate settings and used to see on television at night people crowded at bars inside, no masks. I mean, that was just asking for trouble. And in fact thats what we got. A lot of trouble. President joe biden of course is trying to undo the damage, to bring the pandemic to a close. By vaccinating the population but just basically doing everything the last administration didnt like, you know, setting an example and wearing a mask, asking americans to social distance, not listening to junk science. I think theres a growing awareness that Injecting Bleach into your system doesnt do it for you. Im being you know, think about all the ridiculous things and there is online still, there are those who are the vaccine deniers. Deniers. And telling all these stories that arent true. Its going to take a lot to change the trajectory that has unfolded in america over the past year. Here to talk about what went so wrong, what needs to be done to make it right one of joe bidens Transition Covid president ial Advisory Board president of the he will Global Health council loyce pace. Its great to have you. We talked about south korea in the intro. But south korea was an aplus student. They had one of the best responses in the world. And in fact throughout the pacific, across governments with different forms and institutions, vietnam, singapore, taiwan, hong kong, china and japan, south korea, australia, new zealand, they all did a really good job. Thats right. But even if you compare us to the European Union or canada, where do we stack up . Where is the u. S. In our response if you just look at these sort of atlantic countries . Yeah, chris, i can appreciate the laundry list of countries that really were ahead of us in their own response. And i think its important to step back and not just look at the 500 the milestone that we hit yesterday with 500,000 deaths, which is just heartbreaking and infuriating, but even just think about what that means in the scope of the rest of the world, right . The u. S. Actually is taking up, or accounting for 20 of global deaths and 25 of cases. That makes no sense given we arent even 5 of the worlds population. So in addition to the countries you mentioned, you know, you do have a host of others that have demonstrated frankly that leadership matters. And that its critically important that no matter what you know, you have to do right by the people youre serving. And thats frankly what we didnt see in this past year with this pandemic. How much should we think about this theres a few things that make america exceptional. Distinct here. One is donald trump was president. Then theres the nature of americas general baseline health, particularly Health Inequities that were there before donald trump, and the degree to which americas Public Health infrastructure is not that good. Where do you apportion those different points of blame . Yeah. No, i wonder if we spread the blame sort of equally across each of those because this certainly was a problem before 2020 when the pandemic was upon us. We know that Health Disparities were a thing regardless of what happened in the past year. And so youre absolutely right. Our solution has to be focused not only on correcting the mistakes or placing any blame. We have to really do back and really dig deeply into the roots of this very problem and understand how it turns out, how we ended up with rates of hospitalization and deaths two and three times that in certain communities, particularly in black, brown, indigenous communities. Thats unconscionable. And we see that trend actually worldwide where black and brown folk are suffering and struggling with the impact of this. I just want to ask you, though, is that a sociological factor or is that a Policy Leadership Factor i think its absolutely tied to policy. We know that Public Health is of course scientifically based on its own, in its own right, but we are powerless without the policy. Right. And without political leadership. I guess i mean do you think its Policy Specific to the u. S. Covid response or broad i mean, you know what i mean . I agree with you its clearly policy, right . We make choices to have racial inequities in this country. We make them every day. But those racial inequities and the fact they put people on the front line in so many ways, whether it was the work they had to do or the comorbidities that were produced by the environments in which they lived and the access to health care they had before or if it was like the guy at the top was saying Injecting Bleach was the solution and telling people to get out there like they were warriors. Yeah. And i think its both and, not either or. Its really hard to choose one or the other. And the leadership or the lack thereof was not helpful. Lets be clear. Right . We really needed our government, people from the very top on down, to step up. And im grateful frankly for the career staff who really held the line who really made sure people had correct information. Because misinformation is a real thing were fighting against now and its harder to catch up when all of that is out there. Its also critical now theres a plan for not only Vaccine Distribution but testing and tracing. This is what other countries did right as well. You had even the uk, which struggled in its response frankly, when these variants emerged the fact that they were actually able to identify them and address them is critical in that those are the types of systems we didnt already have in place before now and were just playing catchup. And those systems, i think were going to hopefully get to a point where we have Vaccination Suppression at some point this summer. But we know there will be next fall and winter there will be ways in which we have to battle it and were going to need those systems in place then particularly. Absolutely. And i would even say, you know, we dont really quite understand the virus fully to know that we have even that long to wait. Thats a good point. Thats why were still saying its critically important to practice those Public Health measures regardless of where we are in the calendar or even in our trajectory with vaccines. Because its changing before our eyes and particularly until we can catch up its going to continue to beat us. Yeah. Thats an important point, and i dont want to like we got it, just hold on. Its like the end of a car ride where youve been fine for the nine hours and now the last 125, 20 minutes seem unbearable. A lot of people are in that state but its just a consistent amount of discipline and messaging we need. I understand people are tired too. I do this for a living and i am exhausted. Not just because of getting up every day and trying to fight this but because i too miss my friends and family and i too wish it were all over. We do have a ways to go. I have faith that we can continue to stand strong and understand that weve made it through tough times before frankly as a country, we pride ourselves on that. And i know it sounds rather cliche but we can do it. Hang in there. Loyce pace, thank you so much for making time. Come on back. That is all in for this evening. The Rachel Maddow show starts right now. Good evening, rachel. Good evening, chris. Thank you, my friend. Much appreciated. Thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. A lot to get to this hour after what has been a really busy day in washington, lots of movement on President Bidens cabinet nominees today, on the covid relief effort. Just one of those daysar when it just seems youre trying to watch a dozen different storylines at once. But The Main Event of the day at the u. S. Capitol, which is still under lockdown, surrounded by thousands of National Guard troops in the wake of the january 6th attack on the capitol, was that today was the first investigation, today was the first congressional hearing into what happened that day, what went pro trump violent mob to storm the capitol building, interrupt the certification of the election, and come within just steps of the lawmakers in the building that day, whose blood the mob was crowing for. Today, two Senate Committees took testimony from the officials in charge of the Capitol Security that day. I should tell you, well speak to the chairs of both of those committees this hour. The witnesses at todays hearing were the acting chief of the d. C. Metropolitan police who took over that job just four days before the january 6th attack. As well as three officials who resigned in the immediate aftermath of the attack