education edges closer to trump, mitch mcconnell says, keep digging. >> i think 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. >> when "all in" starts right now. fweef from new york i'm chris hayes. today a new document out of the u.s. district court in washington, d.c. revealed an interesting development in the january 6th insurrection. this document concerns the case of one of the hundreds of people who stormed the capitol that day with, a man named brandon straka. he's a relatively well-known figure in certain white wing president trump politics's, self described former liberal who founded a program walk away 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 work with prosecutors turning over evidence and being interviewed. he was scheduled to be sentenced next week. instead today prosecutors and straka's lawyers jointly filed this motion and that motion asks for a 30-day delay because straka has turned of new potentially significant information. quote, on december 8th, the defendant provided counsel for the government with information that may impact the government sentencing regulation. additional little, they are requesting 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 asked the national archives for documents and communications related to him, to straka, from the trump administration's records. as we have learned more and more over the past year about what happened on in the leadup to january 6th, it's become clear there are kind of two categories of people involved on that day. right? there are the people in donald trump's inner sank item like steve bannon and former chief of staff mark meadows, suspended by the committee, remain steadfastly loyal to the former president and there were people a bit more removed like those who helped plan the rally that preceded the insurrection. people like elly alexander, justin stockton and jennifer lawrence who i interviewed on this show the other night. those three i mentioned are cooperating with the january 6th committee. all of those people, those closer to trump, 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 television. 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. e saw and what he said. . >> yeah, take the shield, take the shield, that's him yelling that, documenting it. now, to the extent there was official planning and programing around the administration, that guy was involved in the official events. 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 tr 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 in the going away! we're not going away! we're not going away! >> that was the promise on january 5th, that we're not going away. they, in fact, didn't go iaway the next day. straka was to speak at the capitol on january 6th. he's an interesting key figure essentially at the intersection of the two activities on that day. there is the legal, you know, first amendment protected protest that happened at the ellipse and people, that's legal. then the illegal violent coup attempt when they invaded the capitol. and that's what makes such a big deal that he is cooperating. that rally on january 5th where straka spoke was a fully legal demonstration after the january 6th rally. all that was protected free speech. we're years off course into criminal activity, of course, is when the mob, including brandon stack ka in that i have to say very nice coat descended on the capitol. there is a really interesting question developing. it has to do with how the decision was made to stick 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, remember he would go on to say he was going to 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 justin stockton and jennifer lawrence told the general committee and me earlier this week. >> what we revealed to the committee is that that 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 caulk u walk down to the capitol. 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. >> sure. >> the stage, the sound. all the things i have to do to be able to safely manage a crowd of that size and we knew that wasn't in place. >> they knew it was up safe to do that and they knew it was a bad idea to do that, they knew there was no security to do that. then they find out, this is what they say, in that moment the president's decided to do it. some people like stockton and lauren raised the red flag about going to the capitol. they spoke up and said it was dangerous and it was debated. it wasn't a spur of the moment thing or something undercontemplated. they debated it. they were overruled. we also know from do you means that then chief of staff mark meadows turned over to the january 6th committee meadows wrote a weird e-mail january 5th indicating the national guard would be present at the capitol protect pro-trump people. when you put this together, it sure looks like trump and his allies, including meadows were contemplating a scenario in which the mob marches to the capitol and pro-trump insurrectionists might be clashing in the streets to protect the pro-trump people. now we got a guy that was there, involved in the leadup to the insurrection, who was on the stage there at the rally the day before who breaks into the capitol and who is 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 gentleman to be another rally. i was one of the speakers slated to speak at the capitol. >> well, it turned to a rally inside the capitol. of course, this opposite key questions. whose plan was it to march? how did that plan come about? who knew about it? a senior affairs reporter wrote about brandon stack ka and the potentially significance information, will bunch, a theory, how often ur trump's jump a 6th coup plan worked, how close it came, why it failed. they both join me, kyle, you have been doing great reporting on this feat i have been following closely. your take away from straka's role and the document filed today in court? >> it has to be something significant because prosecutors don't make a big show, they requested a 30-day delay in sentence. that's a smart amount of time to assess the impact. it was crypted. it could be at love things. it could be information that helps them arrest somebody else next to him on the steps. or it could be as you laid out very well something about the mindset of the organizers that may have ordered the justice department investigation but the january 6th committee investigation. when donald trump said we're going to go to the capitol, that inspired a lot of people in that crowd to go that weren't necessarily planning to go. the fact that he said that, whatever his mind said was actually did drive a lot of people to go. so there was someone out there saying you plan was always to go. i was going to speak, 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 at the time there are people already going to the capitol, already sort of you know knocking over barriers before trump tells them to. some of that had started beforehand. then there was a huge wave over that period of time. one of the things that happens, will, you write in this column, which sort of caught me in an interesting way is, there is no one else there around and that meadows see mail, which appears to contemplate the possibility of counterprotesters, contemplate other people being there. we know a lot of folks indicted about antifa, they were going to clash with antifa. that never happens. you sort of layout a theory there was an anticipation that would happen and actually those clashes archbishop part of what they conceived of as an important part of what they wanted to happen that day? >> yes, absolutely. you know, that mark meadows see mail unearth released this week is so critical to understanding the whole day. because as you said, why would the national guard be on standby to protect pro-trump protesters? i mean, it wouldn't be to protect them from capitol police, it would be against some threat, which would be leftist counterprotesters. if you go back and look at the time line, trump and his inner circle spent months building up the threat from antifa starting from the summer of 2020, he talked about them as a terrorist organization. one thing i went back and re-visited recently january 5th the day before the insurrection, trump released several things about antifa. he tweeted about them and released a memo ordering the government to step up efforts against antifa. this is when he was supposed to be packing up the white house to go to mar-a-lago. he is focusing on antifa, he was trying to pump them up. because there had been street clashes between leftists and right wing protesters as recently a december 12th in d.c. i think they had every expectation it would happen again. what is such a turning point is what didn't happen, there was a campaign on the left, a #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, just to go back to that point you made. i'll come back in a second. people thought there was this weird trial run for this thing that happens in december. december 12th, which is the million maga march. that's where you end up that evening with a bunch of proud boys maraud around d.c. and clashing in some cases with antifa folks in like street photon dynamics, with the proud boys, who burns the church sign like that kind of like you know 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, which far fewer people. the idea of a note of that you know times 10, times 100 is a sort of awful thing to contemplate. i think a possibility that was in the mind of all the people, at least in the trump world that were planning this. >> right. you have to go back to remember the other big revelation this week, which is the 36-page power point preparation that was circulating up on capitol hill and you know the most chilling part of that is the idea that trump can declare a national security emergency. again, there has to be a pre text. it could have been street fighting. it could have been the two pipe bombs that didn't explode at the dnc orb rnc. 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 i thought was interesting and relates to some of the revelations this week, which have been quite a few, mostly thanks to the meadows' document about what this committee, the jan 6th committee learned from impeachment. the hearings in contrast will be free of the on the screen bickering, delay tactics that marked the 2019 hearing. there is a real unity of purpose here to this committee. it's bipartisan, but people are united in what they are trying to achieve. so far it's been impressive in terms of what they have been able to get done. >> it's true. i say in the piece that you know one of the maybe the most weighty decision of all that can influence the outcome here is the fact that gop leader mccarthy decided not to the participate. he was anger speaker pelosi vetoed two of his picks, jim jordan and jim banks. he pulled everybody out. it turns out that may have been the best thing that happened to them. now they are all driving in the same direction. it almost never happens, there is no fight. they may debate them. they're all on the same page essentially same mission and they're not trying to build a xournt narrative, building opposition. we don't see that. that's become a rare case study in what happens in congressional committees are all united to get to the same place, with i they almost never are and that's why if you succeed, they may have mccarthy to thank him with. >> that's great. thank you both. first, he found out they were texting his chief of staff behind his back january 6th. now, there is more heart breaking news by his favorite friends on fox for all their lavish praise in public, they have been insulting him on friday. that taco friday next. y next >> snacking can mean that pieces get stuck under mike's denture. but super poligrip gives him a tight seal. to help block out food particles. so he can enjoy the game. super poligrip. do you take aspirin? plain aspirin could be hurting your stomach. new vazalore is the first liquid-filled aspirin capsule clinically shown to cause fewer ulcers than plain aspirin. vazalore is designed to help protect... releasing aspirin after it 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donald. you heard the term rhinos, right, republicans in name only, it's a common epithet trump uses to attack republican who's are not sisht sufficiently grovel eling like those two. people suck up humiliating in cringe inducing ways, behind the scenes, tacos, trumpers on camera only pro noupsed with a short o. you may recall two weeks ago two fox contributors resigned citing host tucker karlsson's conspiracy-laced special and quit the contracts in the disinformation campaigns. now one of them joel goldberg is out with a new piece explaining his departure which lays the blame on fox personalities who privately disparaged trump, i quote them here, i know that a huge share of the people you saw on tv were praising trump were being dishonest, i 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 microphones were flipped off. the prominent hosts are true believers, it was on display early this week when we learned that laura ingram and sean hannity were frantically texting trying to get trump to call off the violence even as they defended his conduct on the air. >> quote, mark, the president need 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. he's destroying everything you have accomplished, ryan killmeade texted. quote, can he make a statement, ask people to leave the capitol? sean hannity urged. >> now that really crave around duplicitous it have both ways attitude extends all the way to the top of the republican party. for instance, senate leader mitch mcconnell reporting suggested oh my hunch is, i think i have a nagging feeling as a taco who privately loathes the former president. here he is twice this week speaking approvingly of the committee investigating the insurrection, a committee he lobbied fellow republicans against. >> were you personally in contact with mark meadows 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 the participants who were involved. >> we are 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. >> i thought that last sentence is so revealing both of what i think mcconnell believes but also the sort of sheer coward ice, i'm editorializing here, of the efforts he took to block the committee from actually happening or at least a different version than what this would have been, a joint committee, a special committee question he lobbied against, to say this is something the public needs to know, of course, is the imperative for the entire thing he lobbied against in the senate. >> exactly, well, i know, the bipartisan commission had a lot more support in the house and more generally by republicans than the ones we are seeing with the january 6th committee. what is interesting you pointed out, he was against the commission. he understand this is because he didn't want something coming out during the election where republicans were forced to be responding to trump constantly. now that this committee is doing work anyway, he is saying, yes, of course, we want to know. we do know mitch mcconnell was very angry with donald trump after january 6th. so this is his way of lending credence with what the suggestions 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 jana goldberg piece refreshing, he says something everyone knows, which is not a huge swath. republicans and democrats talk behind the scenes about donald trump who thinks is a buffoon, an idiot and a menace and come before the cameras and kiss up to him. that's not just true of fox news personalities, it's true of members of congress and the u.s. senate. like 100% true. i know you have been a party to that i am sure as everyone in washington has been. >> yes. i thank you to republicans all the time. it's for my job. 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 entire party apparatus to go against them. they don't want a primary opponent what they are doing is having a different private versus public projections and it's creating a different 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 debt victimal to them. but they will groan and moan and say i can't believe they're doing this. i seen that for years especially want to be clear, that's just politics, people, politicians will say things in private they won't say in public. it's the says i case people can be cynic am or make decision of what they will spin. that's all in the normal. but the level of dishonestly is distinctive from anything else. i talk to politicians off the record. there is a difference between them saying a thing to you and turning around to the cameras and saying the opposite. you know, that is, there is a level of fundamental dishonesty and duplicity and two-facedness that is core to how the republican operates, the republican party operates around donald trump that i have never encountered around other things in my life as a political reporter. >> 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. when /* when they saw political ties were changing and he was going to be president, they were suddenly being a very pro donald trump person. that's not just mark meadows. it was a lot of the house freedom caucus reluctant to support him. now they will basically support whatever donald trump is pushing for. there was a large change in the party. it goes to show that the politics, people will morph and transform and do who what they think is possible to survive politically in many cases. >> yeah with no ethic am boundary. which is the thing that's striking to me and no, i mean, as someone with a high degree of moral narcissim and no concern for their fellow integrity, which is the thing i think people should 'concerned about. that's just me editorializing. as always, a pleasure, thank you. >> thank you. still ahead, the damming official report on what we all saw with our own eyes as trump deliver itly botched the pandemic response coming up. with vicks vapoc drops. ♪♪ all the gifts you really, really, really, can't wait to unwrap. ♪♪ joy. fully. ♪♪ ♪ joy. ♪ully. 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pandemic first took hold and first was most brutal nearly two years ago, in that state the number of positive cases hit a new record. we are seeing some happening, the nfl and rockettes and a surge in cases among players. a lot of the surge that's happened, two different surges, a delta and omicron. but what we've seen when cases rise, hospitalizations follow. you can see increases in states across the country from the connecticut to south carolina. many of the other spikes happening in the northeast right now, at least in cases are driven by the new omicron variant. we should point out the u.s. is behind other countries like the uk, where omicron became the dominant seemingly overnight. omicron charts look like other charts. there is nothing like this it's a different thing. look at omicron shoot straight up overtaking the delta variant in just days. there are numerous charts in countries overgoing omicron updates that look like that, denmark, uk recorded the highest since the beginning of the pandemic. that's despite a higher vaccination to booster rate than us here in the u.s. a new study by imperial college london found the risk of reinfection is more than five times higher showing no sign of being milder than delta. so that's the bad news. it just is what it is. it's out there. i will say this, though, i am someone who is obsessively consuming this information, through all of that, there is quite a bit of hopeful data out of south african where the variant was first identified and the first omicron outbreaks happen. so this chart is from the south african department of health. it shows deaths among hospitalized patient%. omicron, the fourth wave, the grey line there, those gray bars which are doubts of hospitalizations are two-thirds lower in the country's omicron. see how those grey bars much lower, that's a great signal. this is like real data. this isn't studies, this is the actual patients they actually have. so if we can hope that holds true here as omicron takes hold, i think if hospitals and many places are under staffed and overwhelmed with the delta variant, while there continues to be humidity holes in our response in every level to big lines for testing happening in new york right now. it is also i think important to realize, i have been seeing people say, this is just like 2020. it is quite different. we are better equipped this time around as we go into this new wave. more than 72% of adults are fully vaccinated. we got good reason to believe vaccination will be a good protection, particularly if you were boosted. more than 31% of adultles have got an booster, which really helps against omicron, if you haven't gotten it, i would urge you to get it immediately. night and day compared to no vaccines, right, two years ago, no vaccines, no immunity anyone had, nothing. we were a naive population for this virus. one of the reasons 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, we now have testing infrastructure, rapid tests, yes, they should be free, all new york city will mail out a million. we also got pcr tests, all of these are getting overwhelmed as happens in an outbreak. we do have testing capacity that gives us some sense of what's going on. we also 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 but to an event. also, another really important difference between now and 2020 is there is 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. tonight the official congressional investigation into his administration's response to the pandemic is out. the details are absolutely god smacking. one of the committees behind that report joins me next. commd that report joins me next. cough cough sneeze 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>> what we discovered is scott atlas talked about this on fox news. 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 barringtop declaration. by the way, a lot of these quacks still believe in it. they are not remorseful about it. they don't apologize for it. they think this is the way to go. and i think people should know that if they make choices about who to hold accountable and whether to elect people back to office who subscribe to that nonsense. >> debra birx at this point is at her whits end. there is an e-mail in august 25th of 2020 when atlas is holding a roundtable on herd immunity at the white house. i can't be apart of this with these people who believe in herd immupts. they are a frivenge group without grounding in epidemics. i am happy to go out of town or whatever gives the white house cover for wednesday. this is her basically side stepping it. she doesn't come out at the time to blow the whistle on it. >> right. also frances collins, by the way, wrote an e-mail around that same time saying we need to do a takedown of this theory publicly. however, neither of them did that that was in my opinion regrettable. i think that it would have helped had they come out publicly and said what they felt. but on the other hand, you know, truth-tellers were silenced throughout the government. it wasn't just the two of them. i think that this is what happens when you have politics infecting science, chris. when you have politics guiding what science should 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 to have served on that subcommittee, thank you very much. >> thank you, chris. are you fed up with constant attempts to appease one particular yacht owner of west virginia? a possible solution to legislative gridlock next. ion to legislative gridlock next. with downy infusions, let the scent set the mood. feel the difference with downy. before discovering nexium 24hr to treat her frequent heartburn... claire could only imagine enjoying chocolate cake. now, she can have her cake and eat it too. nexium 24hr stops acid before it starts for all-day, all-night protection. can you imagine 24 hours without heartburn? ♪ you've got to try a little kindness ♪ ♪ yes, show a little kindness ♪ ♪ just shine your light for everyone to see ♪ ♪ and if you try a little kindness ♪ emergency planning for kids. we can't predict when an emergency will happen. so that's why it's important to make a plan with your parents. here are a few tips to stay safe. know how to get in touch with your family. write down phone numbers for your parents, siblings and neighbors. pick a place to meet your family if you are not together and can't go home. remind your parents to pack an emergency supply kit. making a plan might feel like homework, but it will help you and your family stay safe during an emergency. there's a lot of frustration right now among democrats and progressives in washington and across the country that president joe biden's big claim climate and build back better plan is being questioned. manchin and sinema have been seeming to run out the clocks. democrats and democrats have -- republicans have been working to please manchin. there were really good programs that biden ran on. manchin, the crucial 50th vote in the senate said, no, we need to get this price tag down to 1.7 trillion, 1.75. and democrats said, okay, king manchin, we will bring it down. so they kept all those priorities more or less that were in that bill, but they shortened the amount of time that they would be in effect, which reduced the cost. king manchin said that does not work either. he called it a shell game and budget gimmick. instead he wants democrats to pick fewer priorities and fund them for a decade, which would effectually make them perfect. now we're in a situation where everyone wants to tear their hair out. listen to senator bernie sanders, the charity of the budget committee, he described his frustration on this show yesterday. >> you got two people saying if you don't do it my way, i don't care what the president wants, what 48 of my colleagues want, it's my way or the highway. that i regard as arrogance. you can disagree. look, 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 you also actually lines one a growing critique i've been seeing, emerging from some progressive emergers of legislation who are worried with the current version with all these different programs for temporary amounts of time will ultimately amount to not that much in the medium term because it will destroyed by an incoming republican congress. these people have been making the argument why not focus on fewer legislative priorities for longer periods of time. jordan weisman argues that prioritizing fewer items makes more sense for the long term. jordan, i liked your piece and i've seen other people make it even before manchin said it. left take manchin out of the equation. back when democrats had to deal with the idea of how do we get a $3 trillion been down to 1.75, one. choices was we'll keep what we you want pre-k, elder care, obama care fixes, expanded medicaid benefits, climate spending but we'll reduce the amounts of time. what's the problem with that? >> well, i think one easy way to think about it is to just imagine what would have happened in 2017 or 2018 if obama had been set to expire. do you think we would till have the affordable care act? i believe not. you needed a majority of are senate republicans to repeal it. john mccain was able to give his thumbs down and the aca is with us to this day and is very popular. if that program had been lapsing on its own, that would have been it. john mccain would not have been able to save it. it would have disappeared. i think that's the example people have in their heads, fewer programs permanently for longer. >> if you say we're going to have a paid family leave program and go for three years and afterwards it's going to be renewed, the theory is it will be so popular it will be impossible for republicans not to renew it. you don't necessarily buy that? >> that's what i've heard from some people in congress. i don't objectively know they are wrong. i don't think anybody objectively knows who is correct here. you're speculating about the future. but, you know, the republican party has shown -- or many members of the republican party have shown themselves willing to repeal very popular legislation. when donald trump was president, he took all sorts of unilateral action to try and essentially tear down the affordable care act, even though it was very unpopular to do so. do you think donald trump is going to care much if joe biden's child care program lapses and creates chaos? i think not. >> the problem then is you have to make these choices and you got to cut stuff. and there are promises made on the campaign and there's good stuff. america is one of the only countries in the world that doesn't have official federally mandated maternal leave. it sets up this hobbsian choice between different priorities. >> it's wrenching that's what makes it so difficult from moderates to the center left to progressives. all the stuff in this bill is pretty good or most of the stuff is pretty good. nobody wants the person who says it's time to cut home care for the elderly and disabled. or let's not improve public housing in america. it feels terribling to the one to say that but in the end joe manchin is the 58th 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, fixes to obama care subsidies. >> for a good amount of time and they would not die in the next republican congress. jordan weisman, thanks so much for your time today. >> that is "all in" for the week. the "rachel maddow show" starts now. >> it was may 2019 when michael cohen was ordered to report to prison. mr. cohen of course worked for years for donald trump at his real estate business. when mr. trump turn to politics, mr. cohen became this popular person to mr. trump. helping trump cover up