december. the new normal under climate change when "all in" starts right now. good evening from new york. i'm chris hayes. donald trump is the only u.s. president to be impeached twice, and while he has always had loyalists and sycophants in congress, his first impeachment over a threatening phone call he made to the ukrainian president asking him to dig up dirt on the bidens is when his republican attack dogs really began to close ranks around him, at least in the way we've come to think of them. there's a particular telling anecdote. back in 2019, in the middle of that first impeachment, donald trump was unhappy with the way his press coverage was going. he thought republicans were not doing a good enough job counterprogramming his impeachment hearings. in a meeting with the right wing house freedom caucus on october 22nd, then president trump reportedly said something to the effect of, quote, we need to be tough because democrats are fighting dirty and have been fighting dirty. we try to take the high road in general, but maybe it's time to take the gloves off. republican congressman matt gaetz of florida, who is one of trump's most self-debasing simps in congress, heard the boss' call to arms and the next day congressman gaetz and dozens of his republican colleagues stormed a secure room in the basement of the house, where an impeachment hearing was being held. most did not have clearance to be in the area, and they brought cell phones and other smart devices, which are strictly prohibited. and they were demanding, quote, transparency, but it is clear the real purpose of the stunt was to put on a show for an audience of one, to let donald trump know that they were willing to fight for him on tv. did i do it good enough? was this okay? to take the gloves off. the group ordered pizza, and they ate fast food and generally made a circus of things, and lest you believe for a moment this was a genuine spur of the moment protest, congressman gaetz actually issued a press release the day before, still available on his website. as press releases often do, it contained guidance for where the media should station its tv cameras. that's what, of course, this is really all about. performing outrage on tv so that donald trump would like them. gaetz's press release also included a list of rsvps including congressman jim jordan of ohio and then-congressman mark meadows of north carolina. both men are die hard trump supporters, so their presence does not come as much of a surprise except here's the thing. they both sat on the house oversight committee, okay? that's the committee that was conducting that -- the committee that was allowed to be in the room. they already had access to the hearing they were crashing to complain about a lack of access. >> it's finally reached a boiling point where members just said they are so frustrated at the idea that they can't be a part of this and see what's going on, and so we're at a standstill here. we'll see what happens with today's -- today's witness. >> again at the time, congressman jordan was actually the ranking member of the house oversight committee. he was already part of the process he was crashing. but, again, the most important thing was to please donald trump, to let him know that, i'm fighting for you. and in fact, we later learned that trump was made aware of the entire sham protest ahead of time. i'm sure he thought, nice job. a few months later as a reward for his blind support, trump appointed mark meadows to be the white house chief of staff, and jordan and his freedom caucus buddies now had a direct line to the white house. and together over the next year, meadows and jordan worked behind the scenes to engineer a coup and keep donald trump in power. as "the new york times" reports in a piece today, meadows, jordan and a handful of others, quote, moved well beyond words and into action. they bombarded the justice department with dubious claims of voting irregularities. they pressured members of state legislatures to conduct audits that would cast doubt on the election results. they plotted to disrupt the certification of january 6th of biden's victory. jordan accused democrats of causing chaos in mail-in ballots. after the election, he worked hard to try and steal a free and fair election, to overall the will of the voters and end american democracy as we know it. jordan huddled with top trump staff at campaign headquarters. quote, the group settled on a strategy that would become a blueprint for mr. trump's supporters in congress. hammer home the idea that the election was tainted, allowance legal actions. in december of last year, a month after joe biden was declared the winner. jordan was still arguing that trump should not give up. when asked if trump should concede, jordan told a reporter for cnn, quote, no. no way, no way, no way. we should still try to figure out exactly what took place here. and as i said, that includes, i think, debates on the house floor potentially on january 6th. ah, yes, january 6th. go get 'em. because on january 6th, jordan of course was one of 147 members of congress who voted not to seat the electors, to fire the voters and install themselves as the deciders of an election. and since then, news about jim jordan's active involvement in fomenting the coup has been trickling out. he admits to having spoken to donald trump once after the january 6th insurrection, but there are reports they had multiple calls that day. what did they talk about? just watch what happened when local reporter just tried to press him on the exact timeline. >> first off, yes or no? did you speak with president trump on january 6th? >> yeah, i mean i speak -- i spoke with the president last week. i speak with the president all the time. i spoke with him on january 6th. i talk with president trump all the time. i don't think that's unusual. i would expect members of congress to talk with the president of the united states when they're trying to get done the things they told the voters in their district to do. i'm actually kind of amazed sometimes that people keep asking. of course. i talk with the president all the time. like i said, i talked with him last week. >> on january 6th, did you speak with him before, during, or after the capitol was attacked? >> i'd have to go -- i'd -- i -- i spoke with him that day after, i think after. i don't know if i spoke with him in the morning or not. i just don't know. i'd have to go back and -- i mean i don't -- i don't -- i don't know that -- when those conversations happened, but -- but what i know is i spoke with him all the time. >> that seems entirely on the up and up, doesn't it? knowing all that, republican leader kevin mccarthy still put that guy, jordan, or tried to put that guy on the committee investigating the insurrection, the guy who worked directly with trump to sow doubt in the election, the guy who spoke to him on the day of the insurrection itself. congressman liz cheney, who sits on the committee, elaborated why his appointment would be problematic. >> i think that congressman jordan may well be a material witness. he's somebody who was involved in a number of meetings in the lead-up to what happened on january 6th, involved in planning for january 6th, certainly for the objections that day as he's said publicly. so he may well be a material witness. >> yesterday we learned even more. congressman jordan admitted that on the day before the insurrection, on the 5th, he forwarded a text message from a right-wing lawyer to mark meadows with guidance to have mike pence simply throw out the results of the election on the 6th. up until the very end, he was actively plotting a coup with the white house. and he's not alone, most definitely not. there are about 2,000 texts that mark meadows turned over to the committee, many of which are from lawmakers about how to overturn the election. but this is what years of blind loyalty to donald trump gets you. congressman jordan may very well be a material witness in a congressional investigation. mark meadows has just been held in contempt of congress. there may be a referral. there will be a referral to the justice department because he's now refusing to cooperate with the same congressional investigation, something jim jordan wants you to know he is very upset about. >> mark meadows is our former colleague. he is a good man, and he is my friend. and this is -- this is as wrong as it gets. and i think deep down, everyone knows it. but your -- your lust for power, your lust to get your opponents is so intense, you don't care. >> lust for power? lust for power? that dude, that guy you saw, tried to install a ruler over the will of the american people. that's lust for power. meadows is now reportedly on the outs with trump. more on that in a moment. the committee is continuing its investigation, getting a lot of cooperation. just today it subpoenaed a man named phil waldron who briefed mark meadows and members of congress on truly bogus election fraud theories leading up to january 6th. he's the guy who put together that powerpoint presentation called election fraud, foreign interference, and options for 6 jan. as long the subpoenas keep coming, jim jordan may want to refresh his memory of when he spoke to donald trump. luke brow water was on the byline for that piece i cited. ashley parker is the white house bureau chief for "the washington post." >> luke, let me start with you. you know, we saw what they were saying in public, but there was a lot of effort being undertaken by this group to sort of further any kind of theory they could that would result in the election not actually being called for joe biden and counted and made official. >> yes, that's right, chris. so i think what we hopefully demonstrated with this piece was that for at least a half dozen congressmen -- and the number may be more -- the claims of election fraud went beyond just sort of grandstanding in the halls of congress or at press conferences. there were concrete actions they were taking, planning, sending emails, putting pressure on different people to try to do something about that, to try to effect donald trump remaining president even though he had not been selected by the voters. and so we laid out a timeline basically starting shortly after the election where these plans get going, and they lead all the way up to january 6th. as you highlighted in your intro, the email -- i'm sorry -- the text message that is forwarded by jordan just the day before advising that mike pence should throw out the vote of legitimate electors and part of the plan was to have this fake slate of electors be the ones to replace them and seat president trump for another term. so we tried to lay that out in as much detail as possible, and hopefully the readers' understanding of these events were illuminated some. >> the point you make in the other reporting about bombarding the department of justice, we know the department of justice is getting a lot of incoming at this point. they're getting it from meadows. they're getting it from trump and others. we've got reporting that shows, you know, that the u.s. attorney in atlanta, right, is being told that he's got to go find some cases. so it's interesting members of congress are doing it as well because not isolated. you say this in a piece you wrote about the committee's scope, that according to one prominent witness, investigators are interested in the relationship between freedom caucus members and political activists who organized stop the steal rallies before and after the election. nobody, committee chair bennie thompson said, is off limits. ashley, in terms of meadows, who you wrote about today, there's two things that are striking here. one is that he seems to be an activity participate in this. you know, there would always be these sort of john kelly stories that would come out, that john kelly was sort of like yes-bossing trump and trying to like, you know, steer away from things. i never know the degree to which those were true. but in this case it seems like meadows is a fully passionate, active participant in these actions at every step of the way as far as what we know from what you and others have reported. >> that's exactly right, and it's important to note that the traditional role of the chief of staff is that of a gatekeeper. there's a well known book on chiefs of staff called "the gatekeepers." but meadows in many ways was the exact opposite. he was a gate opener, as it were, to the president and to the west wing, and it was very clear that he was sort of this conduit and hub or conspiracy theorist for misinformation and for the people who are peddling them. at a certain point, we reported that the the people in the president's orbit who sort of felt a little uncomfortable with this -- and that wasn't all of them, but there were some who after the election started distancing themselves from the administration. the common refrain became "go to talk to meadows" because they knew meadows was the type of person who would be at the very least be a sounding board and listen to this. and in some cases as luke documents, as we have documented, he would pass it on. >> yeah. >> you know, there were senior administration officials who would get what they believed were sort of very problematic voicemails from these conspiracy theorists, and the voicemails would begin, hey, meadows gave me your number and told me to call. and that was the role that meadows was playing. it was less chief of staff and more chief enabler. >> you laid this out well in the piece. i want to read from part of it. michael pillsbury said meadows was eager to enter the oval office to present trump with a new theory, knowing trump was hungry for any tidbits that would help him claim victory. he was trying to please the president. he was living and breathing to serve trump. we know for instance, when you talk about this gatekeeper, it's really important. take a step back. everyone in the world wants to get to the president of the united states with their pitch, with the idea they're selling, with the bill they want, the tax cut they want, right? everyone. the chief of staff is the bouncer who says, like, you can't come in here because otherwise it's madness. and otherwise, you get people talking to the president who are like, i have this theory that an italian satellite beamed into the voting machines and hoovered out a bunch of votes, and in fact that's the kind of totally nuts thing that we have mark meadows emailing the justice department about to look into. >> yes, that's correct. i mean it was twofold. in some ways, mark meadows is a bet of a conspiracy theorist himself. >> right. >> you know, we're told from other people that he actually believed that there might be some merit to the idea that there was actually foreign interference in the elections, and not in terms of sort of, you know, russian misinformation but in terms of an italian defense contractor working with the cia to switch votes from trump to biden, which i should be clear did not happen. >> yes. >> so part of it is he was personally open to bits of it. the other part is, again, he was a supplicant trying to please then-president trump. what trump wanted, he wanted to hear these things. trump and you mentioned john kelly, his previous chief of staff, they clashed because john kelly says if you're going to call the president, go through the white house switchboard. and the president wanted to dial people late at night from his cell phone. and meadows again wanted to do what the president wanted. so that meant making the west wing sort of this "star wars" style bar of whoever wanted to come in and get to the president. >> yeah. you got sidney powell and overstock.com dude and michael flynn. we saw it all. the cameras caught them going in with their presentation, whatever the nuttery of the day was. luke broadwater and ashley parker, both great, great pieces of reporting in today's respective papers. thank you. if you watched the show last night, you saw my interview with two of the organizers of the january 6th rally at the ellipse, who are now cooperating with the house committee's investigation. now, there was a lot in that interview, but there was one specific moment i want to return to about pardons. daniel goldman is here to talk about that and the news that roger stone plans to plead the fifth. all that and more, next. oh my goodness... wow, look at all those! you get hungry for more and then you're just like, “wow, i'm learning about my family.” yeah, yep. which one, what'd you find? lorraine banks, look, county of macomb, michigan? look at grandma... hey grandma! unbelievable. everybody deserves to know who they are and where they came from. ohhh...cool. this whole journey has been such a huge gift for our family. ♪ at intra-cellular therapies, we're inspired by our circle. a circle that includes our researchers, driven by our award-winning science, who uncover new medicines to treat mental illness. it includes the compassionate healthcare professionals, the dedicated social workers, and the supportive peer counselors we work with to help improve - and even change - people's lives. moving from mental illness to mental wellness starts in our circle. this is intra-cellular therapies. small businesses like yours make gift-giving possible. now, comcast business has an exclusive gift for you. introducing the gift of savings sale. for a limited time, ask how to get a great deal for your business. and get up to a $500 prepaid card with select bundles when you switch to the network that can deliver gig speeds to the most businesses. or get started with internet and voice for $64.99 per month with a 2-year price guarantee. give your business the gift of savings today. comcast business. powering possibilities. back in october, journalist hunter walker first reported on an alleged blanket pardon offer made by republican congressman paul gosar of arizona to a pair of conservative activists who helped steve bannon start that organization, we build the wall. you may recall that's an organization which raised tens of millions of dollars from trump supporters in order to privately fund a portion of privately constructed border wall. congressman gosar's chief of staff reportedly implied that if this pair of organizers continued staging rallies for donald trump around the country, including the huge ellipse rally on january 6th, that would help their chances of getting a pardon. earlier this week, hunter walker revealed those sources to be dustin stock son and jennifer lynn lawrence. the two were subpoenaed by the committee investigating january 6th and are now cooperating. in fact, we had them on this program yesterday where dustin basically confirmed the core facts reported in "rolling stone". >> you had a phone conversation with paul gosar's chief of staff, right? >> we did talk to tom van flan, yeah. >> yeah. and he said paul gosar had been talking to the president specifically about pardons? >> correct, yes. >> okay. so in a conversation with you in which he's praising your work organizing the rallies, he also tells you that the congressman had a conversation with the president of the united states about pardons, correct? >> mm-hmm. >> yes, that -- that did happen. >> okay. tic-tac-toe. there we go. for his part, congressman gosar has called the claim false and defamatory, adding that the allegations came from, quote, people i have never met, which is clearly not true. here is congressman gosar in a photo with the pair. maybe he doesn't remember it. stockton and lawrence have not been charged with any crimes, but we should note that in a general sense, that pushing pardons is not something that's outside the norm for gosar. in fact, gosar himself admitted he wrote a letter in support of a pardon for steve bannon. in august, 2020, steve bannon was arrested and charged with embezzling some of the money he duped trump's base into donating for that we build the wall project. and donald trump did go on to pardon him in the final 24 hours as president. and that pardon did not sit well with one dustin stockton. >> of course trump pardons the one guy, like of the guys who were indicted, who has all the money and political connections to fight it. the triple amputee war hero who wasn't a lawyer, wasn't a political operative, brian cole fash, who started it, we brought people like steve bannon and kris kobach, and we feel really bad at this point, but we brought them in to protect brian as he did this project. and yet the one person who still got the charge -- or it's not one. there's two other guys too. but brian in particular got left out to dry. >> donald trump left someone out to dry? oh, my god. that guy, by the way, brian cole fash is under indictment, faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted. didn't get a pardon. another person pardoned by donald trump who was also subpoenaed by the committee is one roger stone. he is set to appear before the committee tomorrow where he reportedly plan to invoke his fifth amendment rights. daniel goldman joins me now. there's some other context here when we're talking about pardons, and we're talking about stone. it's pretty remarkable. here's a guy who basically gets his sentence commuted in the fall in the run-up to the election, essentially like sprung from prison by donald trump effectively to go out and get back out there doing whatever roger stone stuff he was up to. he's around january 6th. we know that. you know, he's in d.c. there's pictures of him meeting with people. we don't know the level of his involvement. and then he gets a pardon, a full pardon subsequent to that. and that itself is just like a fairly remarkably corrupt fact pattern before you even get to anything else. >> yeah, we were saying that at the time, chris. i think i was talking to you about what a sort of naked corrupt effort it was by donald trump. and roger stone admitted it. roger stone, when he got the commutation of his sentence, said that donald trump knows what i know, and i didn't talk. it was implicit if not explicit admission that he was receiving this pardon in return for not cooperating. now what are we looking at with steve bannon in this case? as things are unfolding and steve bannon was integrally involved in the planning for january 6th, it puts a slightly different gloss on the pardon that bannon received a couple weeks after january 6th, before donald trump left office. so we know that he's willing and able to do this for his cronies because he did it with roger stone, and then he did it again with steve bannon. and i wonder to what degree that influenced steve bannon to defy the subpoena from the january 6th committee. i have no information about it, but, you know, once you start to see patterns and you know that someone as corrupt as donald trump is in the mix with all this power, it's not a far leap to think that may have had something to do with it. >> so he's saying that he's going to plead the fifth, which is interesting. i want to read this piece that nbc think published. in a non-criminal proceeding, which of course this is, the invocation of privilege is limited to those circumstances in which the person invoking the privilege reasonably believes his disclosures could be used in a criminal prosecution or could lead to other evidence that could be so used. but of course in practice even if that's the law guiding it, in practice you have an absolute right not to answer questions under the fifth amendment. >> well, you don't have an absolute right just not to answer questions. you have to believe that the answer to those questions may tend to incriminate you. the problem is and what a lot of witnesses will say is, i don't know what your investigation -- >> right. >> -- is unfolding. i don't know what other people are saying, so i don't know how you will use what i say, and so therefore it could incriminate me in a way that i can't anticipate. so they broaden out the scope of the fifth amendment. but the thing that jumps out at me about taking the fifth amendment and john eastman, the lawyer, is also purportedly going to do that, is it's somewhat of an admission that there could be something of a criminal nature wrapped up in this. and that just then leads to the question of what's going on with the department of justice? if these people are going to take the fifth in front of the january 6th committee and therefore they're not going to get their testimony, they're taking the fifth because they think that -- or they're getting advised by their lawyer that there's something criminal afoot here. there may be, not that there necessarily is, but that it could incriminate you with the department of justice, not with the january 6th committee. so it jumps out that, wait a minute. maybe this is something that is a little bit bigger than, you know, a congressional committee and needs to be looked at by the department of justice. >> well, i think that's true prior to this. the other thing i would say here, i think it's really important jury instructions, it's sort of a bedrock principle that juries do not draw an adverse conclusion by a failure of a defendant to testify in their own behalf. that's incredibly important and sacrosanct. that right is there for a reason in the bill of rights. but that doesn't extend to like how we publicly perceive these people. like, you know, your reputation is not governed by constitutional law. if you, john eastman, want to say, i'm a humble law professor, but i think that i have some criminal exposure, like everyone in the -- you know, just onlookers gets to draw their own conclusions about the measure of the man that is john eastman, i think. >> yeah. well, you can extend that even further. first of all, if you want to know what it means to take the fifth amendment, just ask donald trump who once famously said, only crooks take the fifth. but for someone -- while there is -- for someone like john eastman, let's take as an example, while there is no adverse inference in a criminal proceeding, there can be an adverse inference in some sort of civil proceeding. that happens a lot because if you take the fifth, then in a civil proceeding, they can assume that what you would have to say would not be helpful to you. but john eastman has another problem, which is his bar license. if you take the fifth, you are indicating that something you say could incriminate you, and that's going to get him in trouble with his state bar association. >> daniel goldman, as always, great pleasure. thank you very much. >> thank you. coming up, have you noticed the weather? december heat waves, massive windstorms, an outbreak of deadly tornadoes. the unbelievable scenes unfolding all across the country, next. d 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came along with extreme winds. in kansas, gusts reached up to 100 miles per hour. tornadoes reported in minnesota, nebraska, and iowa, leaving a trail of destruction. that's just days after 90 people were killed by tornadoes in arkansas, illinois, and kentucky. wildfires kicked up by wind spread smoke across kansas. and while this area of the country is no stranger to severe weather, this storm was absolutely unheard of for this time of year and broke all kinds of records. >> official warnings stretching to at least five states. thousands bracing for cover as a massive storm wave pushes through the country. the unprecedented storm first landed in southern california on tuesday. record-breaking rain quickly turning the l.a. river into raging rapids. >> with a record low pressure storm, a lot of heat, a lot of moisture, that sets the stage for severe weather that we have never seen this late in the season. >> we're talking record warm temperatures, but it's also going to be coming along with a lot of wind. >> this was a historic storm system. des moines, iowa, in particular, their highest non-thunderstorm wind gust and their warmest december day on record. >> on the same day. >> on the same day. and we're in the middle of december. >> quite a december day, one we haven't seen in history here. pretty intense storm system moving through. >> record high temperatures. our high today is 63 degrees. keep in mind the previous record was 52 set back in 1923. 1923 was 98 years ago. >> they broke it by 11 degrees. 11 degrees. 63 degrees in december. now, you can really see the intensity and diversity of this weather in this just one map showing the advisories, watches, and warnings for colorado on wednesday. you got snow, wind, fire, avalanche, and blowing dust across the state. that almost feels like an onion graphic, but that's the actual cbs denver warning about what's going on in the state. and that's our increasingly extreme reality. we, of course, should not be seeing tornadoes whipping through the midwest in december or temperatures in the 60s in minnesota and new york. that's not normal. none of it is. but that is the reality of our present and future as we continue to live with the impacts of a rapidly changing climate. rachel cleetus joins me now. rachel, first i guess i just want to start with a "what on earth?" you know, for a long time i think there was a little bit of trying to get to people about things are changing, and because of the way that we perceive climate and because it's slow, it took a while. but i do think that when you see this, we've reached a kind of tipping point just in awareness where everyone understands if it's 55 degrees in st. paul, minnesota, in december, like something is deeply wrong. >> yeah. scientists have been warning us about this for decades. that as our carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels increase in the atmosphere, they're leading to these temperature increases. and as temperatures rise, we're going to start to see really extreme kinds of weather. and the unfortunate reality is those warnings are not coming true all around us. wherever you live in the country, this year you have seen some kind of extreme weather, whether it's the wildfires in california, the extreme drought that gripped much of the southwest and the midwest, hurricane ida that swept through from louisiana all the way up to new york and new jersey, casting a deadly path of destruction. the heat waves that we've seen, record heat waves in many parts of the country, including in the southwest. this is just unprecedented. it's abnormal, and we should never get numb to this because it is taking a deadly toll. we've seen thousands of people die this year because of weather-related disasters, where there was the extreme heat waves that we saw in the pacific northwest or people who died because of hurricane ida. the heat, the storm, and the deadly rain that came with hurricane ida. and what we need to understand about this is none of this would happen without our human-caused emissions that are fueling and driving climate change. climate change is here. it's now, and we're all experiencing it. >> you know, one thing about this that i think is -- and i agree, you know, we've covered extreme weather on the show. one of the things i think the last few days that feels distinctly uncanny and kind of science fiction-y to me is in other cases, you have a particularly severe wildfire season, but we know wildfire seasons happen a certain amount, and then the wildfire season might extend, or severe drought. this feels so fundamentally wrong, like as opposed to an intensification of the phenomenon we're used, which is like hurricanes come through the gulf in the fall, tornadoes in december just feels like wildly off the map wrong. the kind of constellation of weather we're seeing at an almost visceral level feels even more severe than some of the other weather disasters we've seen. >> yeah. the reality is climate change is coming at us in so many different kinds of ways, and they're colliding. we don't get to experience this as one single thing happening in one place at one time. we're seeing them collide in time. and this is what we can expect even more of if we fail to sharply curtail our heat-trapping emissions. we do still have choices, and it's critical that we embrace them now because we can see that the alternative, we're just at a little over a degree celsius temperature increase, global average temperature increase since pre-industrial times, and this is already our reality. we simply cannot take this risk much more further. >> yeah, and one of the lessons of the pandemic is that you want to -- you know, moving early is better than moving late. the window for moving early early has been essentially closed, but we have a $550 billion of climate investment which is insufficient to the task but would be the largest ever in the country's history. >> absolutely. >> that's sitting in the bbb bill, which has now been kicked to next year. i mean i don't know any other, like, creative way of saying, like, we absolutely need to pass this, but we just absolutely do. >> we have to embrace this. we have to grasp this opportunity. so that build back better act you mentioned includes many provisions that would help kick-start a clean energy transition, one that we desperately need. we need to get off fossil fuels. we need to embrace wind, solar, electric vehicles, more electric-charging infrastructure. we need to do this in ways that every community benefits. so a lot of communities have been left behind in the past. black and brown communities, indigenous communities particularly. we need to make sure we're doing this in a fair way that benefits communities everywhere in the country, creating good-paying union jobs as we do it. but that huge opportunity is there in the build back better bill. let's jump and get it. >> yeah. >> and right now what we have is a congress that seems so dysfunctional. we've got an entire party that's sitting on the sidelines as this really important opportunity -- let's remember, climate change is affecting red states and blue states. >> yes. >> it is not a partisan issue. >> no. it's coming for everyone, and you're right. basically 50 u.s. senators have just basically said we're doing nothing about this. it's up to the other 50 to get their acts together to act. rachel cleetus, thank you very much. coming up, the fight to protect america's workers. bernie sanders packing his bags, heading to the kellogg's plant in battle creek, michigan. there's some big news developing on that very important strike. he will join me here first coming up. ♪ "how bizarre" by omc ♪ no annual fee on any discover card. ♪ ♪ your plain aspirin could be hurting your stomach. vazalore... is the first liquid-filled aspirin capsule clinically shown to cause fewer ulcers than plain aspirin. try new vazalore. aspirin made amazing! ho ho ho! not again. oh 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pod episodes. you'll be able to find them wherever you get your podcasts along with many other great conversations i had this year on everything from the minimum wage to ufos. we'll be right back. feel stuck with student loan debt? move to sofi and feel what it's like to get your money right. ♪ ♪ move your student loan debt to sofi— you could save with low rates and no fees. earn a $1,000 bonus when you refi— and get your money right. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ and get your money right. aloha! isn't this a cozy little room? sorry your vacation request took so long to get approved, so you missed out on the suite special. but lucky for you, they had this. when employees are forced to wait for vacation request approvals,it can really cramp their style. i'm gonna leave you to it. um, just— with paycom, employees enter and manage their own hr data in a single, easy-to-use software. visit paycom.com and schedule a demo today. at intra-cellular therapies, we're inspired by our circle. a circle that includes our researchers, driven by our award-winning science, who uncover new medicines to treat mental illness. it includes the compassionate healthcare professionals, the dedicated social workers, and the supportive peer counselors we work with to help improve - and even change - people's lives. moving from mental illness to mental wellness starts in our circle. this is intra-cellular therapies. so last week the president of the united states, joe biden, fired off a warning to a private company, kellogg cereal, which has 1,400 employees out on strike and told them do not try to replace those workers. permanently replacing striking workers is an existential attack on the you know upand its members' jobs and livelihoods. i strongly support legislation that would ban that practice. for over two months, the workers at four kellogg cereal plants had been demanding enhanced benefits of pay after working longer hours during the pandemic. the companies created a two-teared wage system which offered lower pay and benefits. last week members rejected a contract negotiated by their own union. today senator bernie sanders wrote this opinion piece for fox news titled kellogg's strike, workers must get our support. in the first line of the piece he announced his plans to head to battle creek, michigan, tomorrow. late this afternoon we got news the union has now reached another tentative deal. this means members will meet tomorrow to discuss the deal and vote on the new proposal on sunday. senator bernie sanders, the chair of the senate budget committee, joins me now. good to have you on, senator. why do you feel this is important enough to go out to battle creek tomorrow for? >> because it is a struggle against the kind of corporate greed, chris, that we are seeing all over this country. it's the same old story. this is a company that last year made $1.4 billion in profit. a company that can afford to provide $12 million in compensation to its ceo. and meanwhile, the reason it made this money is because during the pandemic, these workers, unbelievably, they were working 50, 60, 70 days in a row, sometimes 12 hours a day, in order to feed america. i talked to a guy there who worked 120 days in a row. can you imagine that? that's totally insane. so these workers literally put their well-being, their families, their lives on the line in order to feed america, in order to keep the company going, and then the company's response was to the strikers, well, we're going to cut all of your health care benefits. so you've got workers out there with no health insurance now. we're going to bring in replacement workers. oh, yeah, i know you have worked for me for your whole life. maybe your dad, your mom worked for me. that's the case there. people have devoted their entire adult lives to kellogg's and now they're prepared to replace them. and then on top of that, they're planning to ship 275 more jobs to their plant in mexico where the starting wage is 97 cents an hour. so what kellogg's is doing, the rich get richer, the ceo does fine, dividends are high, and yet workers are giving up their lives in many respects. i don't know what it's like to work 120 days in a row. >> yeah. i want to just emphasize something you said there because i think it's an important part of the story. you said it's the same old story. it is in many ways the same old story, but there is something new here, which is a year and a half ago when the whole world, i mean literally the entire world, millions of people were on essentially stay-at-home orders, millions of people in this country, people go to the grocery store once a week to feed their family when you couldn't go out and do anything and there was food in the aisles. the reason there was food in the aisles is because there were workers at the grocery stores showing up during the midst of the pandemic and at the other end of the supply chain in battle creek, michigan, or wherever there were people in the factory day in and day out in the midst of a pandemic making sure that food got made. these are literally those people who fed the country during the pandemic. >> they were called appropriately so heroes. these are heroes and heroines feeding us, working insane hours and now because they want better wages, they want to end this disastrous two-tier wage system by which younger workers earn substantially lower wages and benefits than older workers. these workers are standing up for the younger generation. real solidarity, doing the right thing, and the company responds in an incredibly abrasive and outrageous way. so i am proud. these people are really heroes and heroines. they are incredibly courageous. what they are fighting against is what we are seeing all over this country during the pandemic. when thousands of workers died because they had to go to work in order to feed their families. the billionaire class made huge amounts of money so i am proud to stand with these workers and their union tomorrow. >> you are standing inside the capitol where i hear your voice reverberating off the marble, so i have to ask you as well about what looks like what will be the end of the year without the build back better agenda passing out of the senate. there is multiple interpretations of the ongoing conversations with joe biden and joe manchin. president joe biden and co-president joe manchin, about whether this is going to happen. and i guess there are two ways to interpret it. one is joe manchin is essentially acting in bad faith and kicking the can until it can die. and the other is the fact he's still talking and the fact he's still engaging in details means there's an actual negotiation ongoing. which of those two are your interpretation? >> let me just say this, and i hope everybody in america understands it. you've got 50 people in the republican caucus. we have gotten no support from them to lower the cost of prescription drugs, to expand medicare, to include dental, hearing, eyeglasses. no support from them for child care, for housing, which is all in this build back better plan. no support to deal with the existential threat of climate change. so you've got 50 republicans who are not prepared to do anything for the environment or working families. you have 48 people in the democratic caucus who is prepared and a president of the united states prepared to think big. you have two democrats who in my view are acting like republicans. and to me, i respect other people's points of view, but i do not respect the arrogance of any member of the senate who says, you know what, i'm going to torpedo this entire bill, supported overwhelmingly by the american people, who are sick and tired who are paying out outrageously high prices for drugs. kids and families not enjoying decent child care. you've got two people saying if you don't do it my way, i don't care what the president wants, what 48 colleagues want, it's my way or the highway. that i regard as arrogance. i have disagreement, as you well know. you fight for your ideas but you don't say my way or the highway, and that i feel very strongly about. >> we'll see where we end up, whether we're on the highway or not. senator bernie sanders headed to battle creek, michigan, tomorrow. thank you for making time for us pr you depart. appreciate it. >> thank you. >> that is "all in" on this thursday night. "the rachel maddow show" starts right now. >> thank you, my friend, much appreciated. thanks for joining us this, how happy to have you here. a lot of news breaking late in the day. it started off as a normal news day but things got busy late in the afternoon and into this evening. in the midst of this supreme court-led juggernaut against abortion rights, this near certainty that their forthcoming ruling on a case they just heard is going to be the ruling that overturns roe versus wade, tonight we got a big announcement from the fda. tonight the fda announced a new rule change around abortion pills. now, it used to be the case that if