the capitol. >> that as the congressional investigation edges closer to trump, mitch mcconnell says, keep digging. >> i think that what they're seeking to find out is something the public needs to know. >> and nearly two years into covid, the official report on how trump deliberately undermined the response. >> slow the testing down, please. >> but "all in" starts right now. good evening from new york, i'm chris hayes. today a new document out of the u.s. district court in washington, d.c. revealed a very interesting development in the investigation of the january 6th insurrection. this document concerns the case of one of the hundreds of people who stormed the capitol that day, a man named brandon straka. he's a relatively well-known figure in certain right wing pro-trump politics, you see him there. he's a self-described former liberal who founded a campaign, he calls walk away, as in walk away from the democratic party and into the arms of donald trump. now, in january straka was indicted on three charges related to his actions at the capitol, including impeding a law enforcement officer and disorderly conduct. he later entered into a plea agreement, promising to cooperate with prosecutors by turning over evidence and being interviewed. now, straka was scheduled to be sentenced next week, but instead today prosecutors and straka's lawyers jointly filed this motion. and that motion asks for a 30-day delay because straka has turned over new potentially significant information. quote, on december 8th the defendant provided counsel for the government with information that may impact the government's sentencing recommendation. additional will i the government is requesting additional time to investigate information provided in the final pre-sentence report. brandon straka is one of the few people involved in the insurrection who is of interest both to the department of justice and to the congressional committee investigating january 6th. in fact, the committee has asked the national archives for documents and communications relating to him, to straka, from the trump administration's records. now, as we've learned more and more over the past year, about what happened on and in the lead-up to january 6th, it's become clear there are kind of two categories of people who were involved on that day, right? there are the people who were in donald trump's inner -- and there were people who were a bit more removed, like those who helped plan the rally that preceded the insurrection, dunst stockton, and jennifer lynn lawrence who i interviewed on this show the other night. those three are cooperating with the january 6th committee. all of those people, those closer to trump, and those in the outer circles, all of them appear to have been smart enough not to commit the federal crime of storming the capitol live on investigation. brandon straka is the exception. because he was there. he was in the crowd on the steps of the capitol. he recorded what he saw and what he said. >> they're going in, they're saying we're going in. we're going in. the people are going in. look at this. go, go. take the shield. take the shield. take it. yeah, they're pumping the gas now. >> take the shield, take the shield, that's him yelling that, documenting it. now, the extent there was official planning and programming around the insurrection, that guy, brandon straka was also involved in the official events that were going on. he spoke at a rally the afternoon before the 6th, riling up the crowd. >> patriots. welcome to the revolution. we, ladies and gentlemen, are a problem for the media in this country, we are a problem for the democrat party, we are a problem for the rhinos who wanted to lay down and hand over this election to joe biden and the democrats. help me tell them right now, we're not going away. we're not going away. we're not going away. we're not going away. >> that was a promise they made on january 5th, that they were not going away, they didn't go away the next day. straka was scheduled to speak at the capitol on january 6th. he's this interesting key figure who is essentially at the intersection of the two activities on that day. there's the legal first amendment protected protest that happens at the ellipse, and people assembling to say they think donald trump should be president, that's legal, and then the illegal violent coup attempt when they invaded the capitol and that's what makes this such a big deal that he is cooperating. that rally on january 5th, where straka spoke, was a fully legal demonstration as was the january 6th rally at the ellipse. all that was protected free speech. where it veers off course into criminal activity, of course, is when the mob, including brandon straka in that, i have to say, very nice coat, descended on the capitol, and there is a really interesting question that's been developing that has to do with how the decision was made to sick the mob on the capitol. donald trump, of course, sent them, instructed them to go. he did it on camera in front of all of us at the rally at the ellipse. >> we're going to -- we're going to walk down pennsylvania avenue. i love pennsylvania avenue. and we're going to the capitol. >> whether or not to do that, to tell the crowd to go to the capitol, he would go on to say he would go with them, though he didn't. whether or not to send the crowd to the capitol in that moment was, we have learned, actually a matter of great debate among the people planning the events on january 6th. that's at least what rally organizers, dustin stockton and jennifer lawrence told the congressional committee and told me earlier this week. >> what we revealed to the committee is that there was an internal conflict that was ongoing inside the organizer groups about what the program and what the day on january 6th should look like and we kind of lost that battle, and we didn't realize we lost that battle until president trump told people to walk down to the capitol and we had put several events in d.c. together before. we knew the kind of logistics it took to do that safely. the marshals, the security, the stage, the sound. all the things you have to do to be able to safely manage a crowd of that size. and we knew that wasn't in place. >> so they knew it was unsafe to do that, and they knew it was a bad idea to do that and they knew there was no security to do that. and then they find out, this is their -- what they say, in that moment the president's decided to do it. so some people involved in the planning raised the red flag about the idea of going to the capitol. they spoke up and they said it was reckless and possibly dangerous and then it was debated. it wasn't just a spur of the moment thing or it wasn't something that had been undercontemplated. they debated and they were overruled. we know from documents that chen chief of staff mark meadows wrote a weird email on january 5th indicating the national guard and i quote in his email here would be present at the capitol to, quote, protect pro-trump people. if you put this together it sure looks like trump and his allies, including meadows, were contemplating the scenario in which the mob marches to the capitol and pro-trump insurrectionists might be clashing with counterprotest es in the streets, hence the protect the pro trump people and now we've got a guy who was there, who was involved in the lead-up to the insurrection, on stage at the rally the day before, who breaks into the capitol and who's cooperating with federal government, and who says, and has said on tape, the plan all along was to go to the capitol. >> yesterday, a lot of us got up very, very early. we went to this event in which donald trump spoke. the plan was always to go to the capitol. we were going to march from that event, which was at the ellipse, the plan was always to march from the ellipse to the capitol. and there was going to be another rally. i was one of the speakers slated to speak at the capitol. >> well, turned into a rally inside the capitol. and, of course, leaves open key questions. whose plan was it to march, how did that plan come about, and who knew about it? kyle cheney, a senior affairs reporter, will bunch, the national columnist of the philadelphia enquirer, how close it came, why it failed. and they both join me now. kyle, let me start with you. you've been doing great reporting on this beat that i've been following very closely. your takeaway from straka's role and the document filed today in court? >> well, it has to be something significant because, you know, prosecutors don't usually make a big show of, we have to wait -- they requested a 30-day delay in his sentence and that's not a small amount of time to assess the impact of the information he provided. so it's very cryptic. it could be a lot of things, it could be information that helps them arrest somebody else, next to him on the steps. you know, or it could be, as you laid out very well, something about the mind-set of the organizers that may border on not just the justice department's investigation, but also maybe the january 6th committee's investigation, you know, when donald trump said we're going to go to the capitol, that inspired a lot of people in that crowd to go. they weren't necessarily planning to go. so the fact that he said that, whatever his mind-set was, actually did drive a lot of people to go, and so if there was someone out there saying our plan was always to go, i was going to speak and there was a very set order of events to this, he may have some awareness given his connections to all the people involved. >> we should note for the time there are people going to the capitol, already sort of, you know, knocking over barriers before trump tells them to. so some of that had started beforehand, but then there's a huge wave in the -- you know, over that period of time, and one of the things that happens, and you write in this column, which sort of caught me in an interesting way, is there's no one else there around. and that meadows email, which appears to contemplate the possibility of counterprotesters. it appears to contemplate other people being there. we know from a lot of testimony of folks who haven't been indicted. fears they would clash with antifa. that never happens. you laid out a theory there was an anticipation that would happen and actually those clashes were part of what they conceived of as an important part of what they wanted to happen that day. >> the mark meadows email that was unearthed is so critical to understanding the whole day. as you said, why would the national guard be on stand by to protect pro-trump protesters? it wouldn't be to protect them from the capitol police. it would have to be to frequent them from some kind of threat which would be leftist counterprotest e. if you go back and look at the timeline, trump and his inner circle spent months building up the threat from antifa, starting in the summer of 2020, when he talked about them as a terrorist organization, one thing i just went back and revisited recently is, on january 6th, the day before the insurrection, trump released several things about antifa. he tweeted about them and he released a memo urging the government to step up its efforts against antifa. this is when he's supposed to be packing up the white house to go to mar-a-lago but he's still focusing on antifa and i think he was trying to pump them up. there had been -- leftist and right wing protesters as recently as december 12th in d.c. and they had the expectation that would happen again. what was a turning point on january 6th is what didn't happen, a big campaign on the left, even a hashtag, don't take the bait. and no leftist protesters at all stayed up that day. >> showed up that day and the clashes they expected didn't happen and the national guard froze like a deer in the headlights. instead of -- without this mission to fight against antifa, they didn't act for three hours. >> yeah, and just to go back to you, the point you made, and i'll come back to you in a second, kyle, to follow up. people forgot there was a weird trial run for this whole thing that happens in december, december 12th, which was the million maga march where you end up that evening with a bunch of proud boys, like marauding around d.c., and clashing in some cases with antifa folks, in like street fights, you get enrique, the proud boy who burns the church sign. that kind of like street fight political brawling, which we don't necessarily associate with like a particularly healthy democracy, that's happening on the evening of december 12th in small -- far fewer people, i mean, the idea of a note of that, you know, times ten, times 100, is sort of an awful thing to contemplate, but i think a possibility that was in the minds of all the people, at least in the trump world, that were planning this. >> right, and, you have to go back to -- remember the other big revelation this week, which is the 36-page power point presentation that was circulating up on capitol hill and, you know, the most chilling part of that is the idea that trump could declare a national security emergency and, again, there has to be a pretext. it could have been -- it could have been street fighting. it could have been the two pipe bombs that didn't explode at the dnc or the rnc, but, you know, we don't know what would have happened if there had been some kind of pre-text that the white house could have blamed on the left how they would have responded, or how the national guard would have responded. >> kyle, you wrote a piece that i thought was really interesting and relates to the revelations we had this week which had been quite a few, mostly thanks to the meadows documents, about what this committee, the jan 6th committee learned from impeachment. the hearings in contrast will be free of the on screen bickering delay tactics that marked the 2019 hearings. there's a unity of purpose here to this committee. it's bipartisan, but people are united in what they're trying to achieve. it's been impressive in terms of what they've been able to get done. >> it's true, and i say in the piece that, you know, one of the -- maybe the most weighty decision of all that could influence the outcome here is the fact -- he was angry that speaker pelosi vetoed two of his picks to sit on the committee so he pulled everybody out and it turns out that may be the best thing that happened to them. now, they are all driving in the same direction, almost never happens in a congressional investigation. no fights over who to subpoena. they're all on the same page, essentially the same mission. and they're not trying to build a counternarrative, build in opposition and we don't see this. this is a rare case study in what happens in congressional committees, they're all united to get to the same place, which they almost never are, and that's why if they do succeed they may have to have -- to thank in a way. >> kyle cheney, will bunch, that was great, thank you both. first, he found out they were texting, his chief of staff behind his back on january 6th and more heartbreaking news for donald trump. for the fox news praise. financial picture. a plan with tax-smart investing strategies designed to help you keep more of what you earn. this is the planning effect. i thought i was managing my moderate to severe crohn's disease. then i realized something was missing... ...me. my symptoms were keeping me from being there for her. so, i talked to my doctor and learned humira is the #1 prescribed biologic for people with crohn's disease. humira helps people achieve remission that can last. and the majority of people on humira saw significant symptom relief in as little as 4 weeks. humira can lower your ability to fight infections. serious and sometimes fatal infections, including tuberculosis, and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened, as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. tell your doctor if you've been to areas where certain fungal infections are common and if you've had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flu-like symptoms or sores. don't start humira if you have an infection. be there for you, and them. ask your gastroenterologist about humira. with humira, remission is possible. learn how abbvie could help you save on humira. ♪ ♪ ♪ hey google. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ hey lily, i need a new wireless plan for my business, but all my employees need something different. oh, we can help with that. okay, imagine this. your mover, rob, he's on the scene and needs a plan with a mobile hotspot. we cut to downtown, your sales rep lisa has to send some files, like asap! so basically i can pick the right plan for each employee. yeah i should've just led with that. with at&t business. you can pick the best plan for each employee and get the best deals on every smart phone. small businesses like yours make gift-giving possible. you can pick the best plan for each employee 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. as i close out this year i thought it was super important to reiterate just how fortunate we were to have had a president like donald trump for four years. >> you were working as hard as you did when you were in the white house, except you play a little golf more. that you're keeping an insane schedule, seven days a week, you really don't stop. >> you just don't stop, donald. you've heard the term rhinos, republicans in name only. it's a common epithet trump uses to attack republicans who are not sufficiently groveling, like those two are towards him. tonight we've coin add new phrase. these people who suck up to trump night after night, debasing themselves and increasingly humiliating, but behind the scenes loathe and bad mouth him. tacos, trumpers on camera only, pronounced with a short "o," and two fox news contributors abruptly resigned their position citing tucker carlson's conspiracy laced special about the january 6th insurrection. the two men quit their contracts rather than remain complicit in the disinformation campaign. one of them, jonagoldberg is out with a new piece explaining his departure, laying the blame on fox personalities who privately disparage trump while publicly singing his praises. i know that a huge share of the people you saw on tv praising trump were being dishonest. i don't merely suspect it, i know it, because they would say one thing to my face or in my presence and another thing when the cameras and microphones were flipped on. while some of fox's more prominent opinion hosts are true believers, the duplicity was on display this week when laura ingram and sean hannity were frantically texting mark meadows during the insurrection to get trump to call off the violence even as they defended his conduct on the air. quote, mark, the president needs to tell people in the capitol to go home. this is hurting all of us. he is destroying his legacy. laura ingram wrote. please get him on tv. destroying everything you have accomplished, ryan kilne texted. quote, can he make a statement, ask people to leave the capitol, sean hannity urged. >> now, that really craven duplicitous have it both ways attitude extends all the way to the top of the republican party, for instance, senator minority leader mitch mcconnell who both reporting suggests and just, oh, my shunch is, i think i have a nagging feeling is a taco, who privately loathes the former president. here he is twice this week speaking approvingly of the committee investigating the insurrection, a committee i should note he lobbied fellow republicans against. >> were you personally in contact with mark meadows that day, and other white house officials to urge trump to do more? >> i was not. but i do think we're all watching, as you are, what is unfolding on the house side. and it will be interesting to reveal all of the participants who were involved. we're watching the investigation that's occurring over in the house. reading about it, like everyone else. and it will be interesting to see what facts they find. it was a horrendous event, and i think that what they're seeking to find out is something the public needs to know. >> olivia beavers covers congress for politico. the last sentence was so revealing, both what i think mcconnell believes, but also the sort of sheer cowardice of the efforts he took to block the committee from actually happening, or at least even a different version than this would have been, a joint committee, a special committee which he lobbied against to say this is something the public needs to know is of course the imperative for the entire thing that he lobbied against in the senate. >> exactly, well, you know, the bipartisan commission had a lot more support in the house, and were generally by republicans than the one that we're seeing with this january 6th committee. what's interesting is his new take as you pointed out. he was against the commission and we understand that this is because he didn't want something coming out during the election where republicans were forced to be responding to trump constantly, but now that this committee is doing the work anyway, he's saying, yes, of course you want to know and we do know that mitch mcconnell was very angry at donald trump after january 6th. and so this is sort of his way of lending grievance with his suggestion he wants to know what's coming out, even if he did not want responsibility for what was going to come out of the commission if senate republicans supported it. >> mcconnell strikes me. i found the jonagoldberg piece -- a huge swath of republicans and conservatives talk all kinds of trash behind the scenes about donald trump. who they think is a buffoon and an idiot and a menace and a million other things and then come before the cameras and they kiss up to him. that's not true of fox news personalities, it's true of members of congress, and members of the u.s. senate, like 100% true, and i know that you have been a party to that, i am sure, as everyone in washington has been. >> yes, i mean, i talked to republicans all the time, it's part of my job. and they say things privately that are wholly different publicly. why, they don't want to incur the wrath of donald trump. they don't want the party apparatus to turn against thimm. they don't want to have a primary opponent but what they're doing is, is having this sort of different kind of private versus public projections, and it's creating a very different false sort of suggestion of where the party actually is in terms of their support of donald trump. will they support him? absolutely, because to not support him is also politically detrimental to them. i've seen that for years. >> i want to be clear about this. there's is certain amount of, that's just politics. people will say things in private they won't say in public. and people can be cynical or they make decisions about what they're going to spin. that's all sort of in the normal. the level of dishonesty is distinct from everything else. i talk to politicians off the record and there's a difference between them saying a thing to you, and then turning around to the cameras and saying the opposite. you know, that is -- there's a level of fundamental dishonesty and duplicity, and two facedness that's core to how the republican party operates, at least part of it operates around donald trump, that i have never encountered around other things in my life as a political reporter. >> i think all you have to do is look at some of the republicans who are some of the most forceful donald trump critics. if you look back in the day mark meadows was not on board with donald trump, and how the political tide, they saw that he was going to be president, they were changing face and being very pro donald trump person, and that's not just mark meadows. it was a lot of the house freedom caucus reluctant to support him and now they will basically support whatever donald trump is pushing for. there was a large change in the party and it just goes to show that in politics people will morph and transform and do what they think is possible to survive politically in many, many cases. >> with no ethical boundary, which is a thing that's striking to me. and no -- as someone with a -- on nar -- olivia beavers, as always, a pleasure, thank you. >> thanks, chris. the official report on what we all saw with our own eyes as trump deliberately botched the pandemic response. 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. ♪ when it comes to autism, for our family. finding the right words can be tough. finding understanding doesn't have to be. together, we can create a kinder, more inclusive world for the millions of people on the autism spectrum. go to autismspeaks.org 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. feel stuck with credit card debt? move to sofi and feel what it's like to get your money right. ♪ move your high-interest debt to a sofi personal loan. you could save with low rates and no fees. earn $10 just for viewing your rate and get your money right. ♪ and get your money right. i was injured in a car crash. i had no idea how much my case was worth. i called the barnes firm. when a truck hit my son, i had so many questions about his case. i called the barnes firm. it was the best call i could've made. your case is often worth more than insuran call the barnes firm to find out i could've made. what your case could be worth. we will help get you the best result possible. ♪ the barnes firm, injury attorneys ♪ call one eight hundred,est resul eight million ♪ if you, dear viewer, are feeling a sense of covid de ja vu, people are having flashbacks to the pandemic. any state that is not yellow has had cases rising, most of them. new york state and where the pandemic first took hold and was first most brutal two years ago, in that state the number of positive cases hit a new record. and we're seeing the same thing happen in some ways, cancellations, broadway shows cancelled, the nfl has postponed three games scheduled for this weekend after a surge in cases among players, the lot of the surge that's happened, there's two different surges, the delta and then the omicron. what we've seen throughout the pandemic, when cases rise, hospitalizations follow and increases in states across the country from connecticut to south carolina. many of the other spikes that are happening in the northeast right now, at least in cases, are driven by the new omicron variant. we should point out that the u.s. is behind other countries like the uk where omicron became the dominant variant overnight, and omicron charts look unlike other charts, okay, this is an example. like there's just nothing like this we've seen in the pandemic before. it's a different thing. look at omicron shoots straight up at the end of the chart, that's the red line, overtaking the delta variant in just days, and there are numerous charts in countries undergoing omicron outbreaks that look like that, denmark, for example, the uk also recorded its highest number of daily covid cases since the beginning of the pandemic, despite the higher vaccination booster rate. the imperial college london found the risk of reinfection with omicron variant is more than five times higher, shown no sign of being milder than delta. so that's the bad news, it's just -- it is what it is, it's out there. i will say this, though, and i am someone who's obsessively consuming this information, after all that, there's quite a bit of hopeful data out of south africa where the variant was first identified and where we think one of the first omicron outbreaks happened. this chart is from the south african department of health and it shows deaths among hospitalized patients and omicron, which is what the fourth wave, the gray line there, those are the gray bars, right, those gray bars, which are deaths, of hospitalizations, are two-thirds lower in the country's omicron wave. you see how those gray bars, much lower, a great signal, this is real data, this isn't studies and labs, the actual patients they've actually had. so we can hope that holds true here as omicron takes hold, that's because hospitals in many places are already understaffed and overwhelmed with the delta variant. while there continues to be huge holes in a response to this pandemic at every layer from strained health care system to big lines for testing happening in new york right now, it is also, i think, important to realize, because i've been seeing people say, this is just like 2020, that it is quite different. we really are better equipped this time around as we go into this new wave. more than 72% of adults in this country are fully vaccinated, over 200 million people, good reason to believe the vaccination will be a good protection against severe illness, particularly if you are boosted, more than 31 kt p of adults have gotten a booster, which really helps against omicron, and if you haven't gotten it yet i would urge you to get it immediately. both numbers need to be higher but there were no vaccines two years ago, no vaccines, no immunity anyone thad with previous infection, we were a naive population. one of the reason we can see the cases go up right now with omicron is because we have eyes on the virus in a way we didn't back in march of 2020. we have surveillance because we now have testing infrastructure in place. we have rapid tests. yes, they should be free, and available to all. new york city is going to mail out, i think, about a million but we've got pcr tests. all of these are getting overwhelmed as happens in an outbreak but we have testing capacity that gives us a sense of what's going on. we have quality masks, we know how to take steps to keep ourselves safe, masking in big indoor settings, for instance, at home rapid tests, if you can get them before you go to an event. also, another really important difference between now and 2020 is there's not a sociopath in charge of the country anymore. donald trump is not in charge anymore. we knew his attitude to the pandemic was shockingly bad but tonight the official congressional investigation into his administration's response to this pandemic is out, and the details are absolutely gob smacking. one of the committee members behind that report joins me next. but there is one van equipped to handle them all. for over 120 years, mercedes-benz vans have been built, upfitted and ready to go. because we believe dreams - should never stay that way. for people living with h-i-v, keep being you. and ask your doctor about biktarvy. biktarvy is a complete, one-pill, once-a-day treatment used for h-i-v in certain adults. it's not a cure, but with one small pill, biktarvy fights h-i-v to help you get to and stay undetectable. that's when the amount of virus is so low it cannot be measured by a lab test. research shows people who take h-i-v treatment every day and get to and stay undetectable can no longer transmit h-i-v through sex. serious side effects can occur, including kidney problems and kidney failure. rare, life-threatening side effects include a buildup of lactic acid and liver problems. do not take biktarvy if you take dofetilide or rifampin. tell your doctor about all the medicines and supplements you take, if you are pregnant or breastfeeding, or if you have kidney or liver problems, including hepatitis. if you have hepatitis b, do not stop taking biktarvy without talking to your doctor. common side effects were diarrhea, nausea, and headache. if you're living with hiv, keep loving who you are. and ask your doctor if biktarvy is right for you. only a month into this once in a century pandemic, house speaker nancy pelosi put together a select subcommittee to look into the federal response into the coronavirus. in the past 20 months examined the government's response to the crisis more than 800,000 people in the united states are dead from covid. a lot of those deaths were continuing to be avoidable, particularly in the early part had the trump administration had a plan but every turn of the way it seemed like donald trump was doing everything in his power to make the situation worse. >> in light of these studies the cdc is advising the use of non-medical cloth face covering as a voluntary public health measure. you don't have to do it. they suggest it for a period of time. but this is voluntary. here's the bad part, when you do testing to that extent, you're going to find more people, you're going to find more cases. so i said to my people, slow the testing down, please. develop immunity over a period of time, and i hear we're close to 15%, i'm hearing that, and that is terrific. that's a very powerful vaccine in itself. today the committee released a report on its findings and we're learning more about how much of the chaos can be traced directly back to the trump administration's handling of the virus, including evidence of the administration's, quote, deliberate efforts to undermine the nation's coronavirus response for political purposes, which included efforts to reduce the amount of testing and championed a dangerous herd immunity strategy among other failures. the democrat of illinois and a member of that subcommittee, investigating the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic and he joins me now. congressman, i wonder if you can just start by laying out the sort of key findings of your committee in this report. >> thank you, chris. not only did the trump administration not prepare for covid, even when he they knew about it, not only did they pursue quack solutions to covid such as getting everyone to take high driving while intoxicated -- hydroxychloroquine, they politically interfered with the judgment and decision-making and guidance given by the cdc, you mentioned the testing guidance where they basically altered testing guidance in august 2020 to reduce the testing of asymptomatic people even though that was contrary to science. dr. deborah birx said the reason was to obscure how rapidly covid was spreading through our society, and, of course, that had deadly consequences. >> yeah, the whole idea was to, you know, he says it there, to be -- he doesn't like the fact the numbers are going up. he thinks it reflects poorlien of his political prospects and the way to do that is to stop testing so that the numbers will be lower so he has a better chance of reelection which seemed to guide, as your report found, and saw in realtime, guide everything at every step. >> that's right. but of course covid ultimately shows up in hospitals, it shows up in infections, it shows up in deaths. regardless of whether donald trump decides to test less for covid, that doesn't mean that covid goes away, and unfortunately it led to perhaps thousands of more deaths than would otherwise have been the case had we tested asymptomatic people, quarantined people who had covid, and, of course, treated those away from those who had not had covid. >> i want to go through some of the findings here, just to put them all out, that they block -- immediate appearances we know that happened with nancy -- sought to sidestep the cdc to finalizing guidance, weakened cdc's testing guidance. instructed career scientists to destroy evidence of political interference, pressured the fda to authorize ineffective coronavirus treatments. we know from whistle-blowers resigning that that's the case. this, i think, is the most -- the sickest, darkest, most despicable episode. when scott atlas got -- was hired into the white house, and championed a herd immunity strategy, in which the solution was to get everybody sick with covid, have the weak die off, and the survivors have antibodies, and have it over and done with, and if that had happened we would have had hundreds -- we would have had hundreds of thousands of more deaths than we had because state, local governments kept social distancing guidelines, tried to keep people alive until a vaccine came, but what did you discover about that episode? >> well, what we discovered that is that scott atlas talked about this on fox news and really after he did that he was hired by president trump to help lead our covid pandemic response and as you mentioned, this herd immunity theory would have led to hundreds of thousands, if not millions more deaths. it was enunciated in something called the great declaration which by the way a lot of these quacks still believe in, and they are remorseful about it. they don't apologize for it. they still think that this is the way to go, and i think people should know that as they make choices about who to hold accountable, and whether to elect people back to office who still subscribe to that nonsense. >> you guys found -- dr. deborah birx at this point is at her wits end with these people, atlas and herd immunity folks, there's an email from her in august of -- 25th of 2020, when atlas is holding a round table on herd immunity. i can't be a part of this with theme. they are a fringe group without grounding in epidemics. i'm happy to go out of town or whatever gives the white house cover for wednesday. this is her basically sidestepping it, although she doesn't come out at the time to blow the whistle on this. >> francis collins, wrote an email around that same time saying we need to do a takedown of this theory publicly, however, neither of them did that, and that was, in my opinion, regrettable. i think it would have helped had they come out publicly, and said what they felt. on the other hand truth tellers were silenced throughout the government. i wasn't just the two of them, and i think that this is what happens when you have politics infecting science. chris, when you have politics guiding what science should not otherwise be dictating in terms of guidance, judgments and decision-making with regard to our health, that is a very troubling, troubling issue. >> congressman roger christian worthy who served on the subcommittee, thank you very much. >> thank you, chris. are you fed up with constant attempts to appease one particular yacht owner from west virginia? a possible solution to the legislative gridlock, next. for your full financial picture. with the right balance of risk and reward. so you can enjoy more of...this. this is the planning effect. ♪ ♪ cases of anxiety in young adults are rising as experts warn of the effects on well-being caused by the pandemic. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ hey google. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ if you smell gas, you're too close. leave the structure, call 911, keep people away, and call pg&e right after so we can both respond out and keep the public safe. one of the most important things you can do is to make sure you call 811 before you dig. calling 811 to get your lines marked: it's free, it's easy, we come out and mark your lines, we provide you the information so you will dig safely. there's a lot of frustration right now among democrats and progressives in washington and across the country that president joe biden's big climate and build back better act, is being postponed until next year, most of that frustration redirected at senator joe manchin and senator kyrsten sinema, both of whom seem to have run out the clock. manchin in particular, at this moment, i mean democrats working to please manchin and after months of negotiation it's not clear he will come around. back in july, democrats announced $3.5 trillion program full of major agenda items, really good programs joe biden ran on. manchin, the crucial 50th vote in the senate said no, we need to get the price tag down to 1.7 trillion, 1.75 and democrats said okay, king manchin, we will bring it down. so kept all the priorities more or less in the bill but shortened the amount of time they would be in effect which reduces the cost. manchin says that doesn't work either, calling it a shell game. instead, they want democrats to pick fewer priorities then fund them for a decade, which would effectively make them permanent and we're now in a situation where everyone wants to tear their hair out. listen to senator bernie sanders, one of the architects of that original bill and the chair of the committee described his frustration on this show yesterday. >> you got two people saying you know what, if you don't do it my way, i don't care what the president wants, i don't care what 48 of my colleagues want, it's my way or the highway and that, i regard as arrogance. you can disagree, i have disagreements 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. >> okay. but here's an interesting take. weirdly enough, what manchin now appears to be advocating here actually lines up with a growing critique i've been seeing emerging from progressive observers of legislation worried that the current version, with all these different pro grams for temporary amounts of time, will ultimately amount to not much in the medium term because it will be just destroyed by incoming republican congress, these people in the argument, why not focus on fewer legislative priorities for longer periods of time. in the latest piece for slate, jordan weisman argues prioritizing fewer items making them permanent is a much more reasonable way to go ensuring the safety net of the longer term. joining me now is weissman, senior editor for slate. so just take manchin out of the equation. back when democrats had to deal with the idea of how do we get a $3.5 trillion bill to 1.75, one of the choices we take a lot of the stuff we want, paid universal leave, universal pre-k, which includes elder care, obama care fixes, expanded medicaid benefits, climate spending, but reduce the amounts of time. what's the problem with that? >> well, i think one easy way to think about it is just imagine what would have happened in 2017, or 2018. if obama care had been set to expire. right? if the aca had not been permanent. do you think we would still have the affordable care act today? i think chances are not. the reason that program survived was because you needed a majority of senate republicans to vote to repeal it and, as a result, you know, john mccain was able to give his thumbs down and that was that, you know, the aca is with us to this day, and very popular. if that, pretty much just collapsing on its on, that would have been it, john mccain would not have been able to save it, it would have disappeared and i think that's the example people have in the back of their head, yes, fewer programs permanently, for longer. >> so if you say look, we'll have a paid family leave program and it will go for three years, then afterwards have to be renewed, the theory is that it will be so popular, it will be impossible for republicans not to renew it. you don't necessarily buy that. >> right, i mean, that's kind of the line i've heard over and over again for advocates for these different programs and some people in congress. and, you know, it's a judgment -- i don't objectively know that they're wrong. i don't think anyone objectively knows who's correct here, you know, you're speculating about the future, but, you know, the republican party, or many members of the republican party have shown themselves willing to repeal very popular legislation and, you know, when donald trump was president, he took all sorts of unilateral action to try to essentially tear down the affordable care act, even though it was very unpopular to do so. at a scenario where donald trump is president again, do you think he will care much if joe biden's childcare program lapses and creates chaos? i think not. >> of course the problem is, then, you have to make choices and cut stuff. and there are promises made on the campaign, and also good stuff, like america doesn't have paid leave. it's the only country in the eocd, one of the only countries in the world, that doesn't have official federally mandated and paid maternal leave and i think it's painful for people to contemplate cutting things because it sets up this hobbsian choice between priorities. >> it's wretched, that's what makes this conversation so difficult for moderates, center left, to progressive, is most of the stuff in the bill is pretty good. nobody wants to be the person that says, you know, it's time to cut, you know, home care for the elderly and disabled or let's not improve public housing in america. it feels terrible to be the one to say that, but in the end, joe manchin is the 50th vote and it is also possible to create a pretty good bill that does a lot of these things permanently. in my piece, i outlined one potential example where you could preserve a lot of the child tax credit expansion. you could do child care and pre-k, do fixes to obama care subsidizes and essentially, pick another policy, you know, could throw in medical care. >> for a good amount of time and they would not die in the next republican congress. check out the piece on slate.com, jordan weissman, thank you for your time tonight. that is all for the week, the rachel maddow show starts now, good evening rachel. >> good evening, chris, have a fantastic weekend, my friend, much appreciated. happy to have you here. it was may, 2019 when michael cohen was ordered to report to prison. mr. cohen of course had worked for years for donald trump at his real estate business. when mr. trump turned to politics,