good evening. i'm mehdi hasan. we talk a lot on this show about democracy being in peril, and after the week we've just had, make no mistake, american democracy is certainly in grave danger. but sometimes it feels like we're talking about all of this in an abstract way. so let's talk about specifics tonight. let's look at arizona, a swing state that helped joe biden win the presidency. a state that democrats hadn't won at the presidential level since 1996. a state that in 2020 got two democratic senators for the first time since 1952. so how have arizona's republicans responded to these democratic victories? by trying to make it harder to vote, of course. meet gop state senator kelly townsend, who as chair of the senate committee on government, has broad discretion over which bills get to advance out of that committee and which get to die a slow and painful death. she's behind four of the more than two dozen bills that arizona lawmakers have submitted to make significant changes to the state's voting system. a flurry of legislation in the new session that would -- here we go -- require voters to show proof of citizenship in federal elections, either fingerprints or naturalization papers. or a passport. right now proof of citizenship is only required in arizona state elections. also measures that would make it easier to launch a recount would prohibit same-day registration, and would ban schools and cities from using mail-in ballots. sorry parents who have to work. you just don't love your kids enough. also on the list to get tossed out, drive-through voting, something that proved wildly popular and useful during the 2020 election. see ya. convenient drop boxes for mail-in ballots should you be lucky enough to qualify for those, they'd only be located in official election facilities. and here's a doozy. images of all ballots could be made public. so basically every state and every citizen in the state of arizona could potentially be this guy for those of you old enough to remember the 2000 florida recount that decided the election between bush and gore. another arizona gop lawmaker wants ballots printed on special paper. so there's no money for universal pre-k or eyeglasses for seniors. but, sure, let's spend taxpayer money on ballots that have holographic foil and watermarks and invisible ultraviolet microtext. another bill wants electioneering, those people who make one last appeal for a candidate outside a polling place, arizona republicans want to make that a felony. right now it's just a misdemeanor. why not make it a capital crime? we could televise it as competition like "the hunger games." look, the reality is there was no major election fraud in arizona in 2020. even a so-called audit by the republican-backed cyber ninjas found that joe biden won. in fact, the weirdly named florida-based firm that conducted that highly partisan review of maricopa county for the arizona republican party recently folded after a scathing report from government officials. it's also being fined $50,000 a day for refusing to turn over documents of its so-called audit in a public records request. look, we probably didn't even get to all of the ways that arizona republicans are trying to crack down on voting rights in that state. but, hey, we're only an hour-long show. arizona, as the experts say, is ground zero for the republican war on democracy. and so you'd think that the senior senator from arizona, a democrat, would be doing everything they could to stop it. then again, the senior senator from arizona is kyrsten sinema. yesterday, sinema's state party voted to censure her. her colleague, vermont senator bernie sanders, said this morning that it was the right thing to do. >> you have 19 republican states that are moving very aggressively into voter suppression, into extreme gerrymandering. some of these states are doing away with the powers of independent election officials. they are moving in a very, very anti-democratic way, and it was absolutely imperative that we change the rules so that we could pass strong voting rights legislation. all republicans voted against us. two democrats voted against us. that was a terrible, terrible vote, and i think what the arizona democratic party did was exactly right. >> so kyrsten sinema's own party in arizona has spoken out against her filibuster vote, censuring her. senator sanders has now spoken out, calling their actions exactly right. the question i have tonight is why hasn't president joe biden done the same since wednesday's showdown that may have been preordained in terms of republican votes against the bill but was downright embarrassing for the democratic caucus? for a guy who fashions himself as a negotiator and a champion of the greatest deliberative body in the world, it seems that joe biden doesn't take his cues from lbj. both sides don't need to come away happy from every negotiation, and not every interaction needs to happen behind the scenes. president biden at this point should let the country know he's angry with kyrsten sinema, that he's open to a primary challenge against her in 2024. in the same week that kyrsten sinema was blocking voting rights legislation and publicly backing the damn filibuster again, republicans in her own state were introducing more and more bills to crack down on voting rights, crack down on free and fair elections. does she not care? either way, shouldn't there be political consequences for her? i'm joined now by arizona congressman ruben gallego, who said he's been approached by fellow democrats on capitol hill about mounting a primary challenge to senator kyrsten sinema. congressman, thanks for being on the show tonight. as an arizona democrat, do you support yesterday's censure vote against senator sinema? >> look, what happened yesterday was the voice of a lot of arizonans. i think people get this idea there's a bunch of fat cats that just stick around and vote for these. these are mom and pop. these are grandmas that go walking in the summer heat of arizona. these are people that trusted kyrsten sinema for many, many months, and many, many years trying to get her elected. a censure basically says we're against what you just did, senator sinema. you know, they have a voice, and they're really mad. this is the only way they could do it. so at the end of the day, i hope that she actually understands that and she actually listens to that because that is the one thing she clearly has not been doing. >> will the censure be effective or purely symbolic because my sense of kyrsten sinema is she doesn't give a flying tumbleweed what the arizona democratic party or anyone else thinks of her. she's already spinning this as evidence of her independence. >> look, she doesn't really care about arizonans, period. we don't hear from her. she doesn't come back to the state. she doesn't have open town halls. the whole time that she basically sunk the build back better agenda and was negotiating for pharmaceutical companies, she never spoke to arizonans about why she was taking those types of actions. so will it make a difference? i don't believe it will make a difference to her, but it does make a difference to arizonans to know they're able to give their opinions and she won't meet with them to hear their opinion. >> it's open knowledge now that you've been asked to run against her in a primary, that you're considering running against her in a primary before the 2024 election. when are you going to decide if you will be running against her? >> i'll definitely be making that decision in 2023. i'm focusing on 2022. we do have to get our other good -- our other democrat elected in senator mark kelly. we need to get other members of congress elected at the statehouse to stop these crazy bills from happening. as soon as that's done, i'll sit with my family and make a decision in early 2023. >> so the question i have, though, is a lot of people say, well, primary her, primary her. apart from the problem, as you say, it's not until 2024, so it doesn't actually put any pressure on her right now, what about the argument that says if she's primaried, she'll just defect it the republicans? what do you say to people who say you should. primary on that basis? >> well, she wouldn't defect to the republicans. she couldn't get out of a republican primary to save her life, and the republican party in arizona is based on good standing, is based on how close you are to donald trump and how qanon loving you are. that's how you win a primary. as conservative as she is, i don't think she's a moderate, i think she's conservative, i don't think she can come out of a republican primary, nor do i think she could even run as independent. she either has to work with the party that got her elected, the people that brought her to the dance, and work with us to actually pass legislation to save, you know, our democracy, or decide that she has to, you know, stand for an election and see what happens. >> congressman, should president biden have taken an earlier stand, a much earlier stand on voting rights, on the filibuster, on democracy, beyond just speechifying, specifically trying to pressure these two senators, joe manchin and kyrsten sinema, especially kyrsten sinema where there is some leverage? >> i don't know what conversations actually occurred between the president and kyrsten sinema and joe manchin. i know there was a lot of conversations going back and forth on the build back better agenda. i know there was side conversations always happening regarding voting rights. it would not be fair for me to make that determination. but also at the end of the day, it shouldn't be the president that has to be putting this pressure or actually, you know -- she should be listening and talking to her constituents. had she actually gone and meant in a nonscripted way with arizonans, they would tell you they're worried about january 6th, about what happened and the bills that are happening. >> to be fair, and you know arizonans better than i do. but we've had plenty of arizona voting rights activists on this show. they say we've done our bit. we've asked her in the streets. we got police called on us. we've tried to get a town hall with her, a meeting with her, and we've campaigned. we've gone on hunger strikes. but we want leadership from the white house, and there is an argument from voting rights activists that this white house spent far too long on a build back better bill that didn't even get passed and came very late to the filibuster democracy argument. president biden giving a very good speech and coming out against the filibuster for voting rights in atlanta earlier this month but far too late for this process to have worked. >> again, you know, i don't know the conversations. but we can't just let them off the hook. >> no, i'm not asking about conversations. i'm asking you as a prominent elected democrat, what do you make of the strategy of your party and the leader of your party to come so late to this debate? all of 2021, people like me have been shouting about the threat to democracy, and joe biden comes along and starts saying let's get rid of the filibuster in january 2022? >> i truly believe the vice president and the president actually believe and understand the danger of this, and i think they did all the work they're supposed to do. i think what's also important for us to understand, you know, these two senators have agency. we can't just give an excuse well, everyone else didn't do their jobs. no. these are adults. these are people that have opinions, by the way, counter to the filibuster in the past. actually, just a month ago, they voted to exempt the debt limit from the filibuster. so that's where we need to focus. we need to make sure that the people understand that senator sinema and senator manchin purposely torpedoed this and we should hold them accountable by whatever means we can. >> so, congressman, not just our democracy that's on the line. it's also from a purely political perspective, the president's own agenda. today's nbc poll has 72% of americans believing the country is headed in the wrong direction. gallup shows political party preference in 2021 shifting from democrats being up nine points to favoring republicans by five points. those surveys together would seem to be a pretty damning indictment not just of a democratic party that controls the white house, the senate, and the house, but also of the democratic party's future in a midterm election year. how do you turn it around? if the president rang you tonight and said, ruben, what should i be doing that i'm no doing, what would you say to him? >> number one, pass an agenda, a build back better agenda that is actually going to impact directly people's pockets. you have to go back and sit down with sinema and manchin and say stop messing around. give me the bare bones. what's going to happen? if that's not going to happen, then use your executive orders to be able to do a lot of work that would really help every american every day. number two, we need to start taking a victory lap. you know, we're about to break out of covid. i think we're going to be finally free of a lot of, you know, the threat of covid. our economy is going to pick up. i think everyone is going to be going back to work and back to schools pretty soon. it's time for us to take that victory lap and actually, you know, go out there and message that. the fact that the united states has one of the largest -- it is the biggest booming economy in the world is totally responsible because of the vice president and the democrats, right? certainly once we get out of the omicron variant, there's going to also be a direct correlation to inflation going down, and that's again when we go back with the victory lap. we've done great things. we've saved this economy. we've gotten shots in people's arms. we've gotten families back to work and kids back to school, and the democrats are responsible for that, and we should brag about that. >> i'm all for good messaging, bragging even. i've heard the prediction about covid being over before. i hope you're right this time. thank you for your time tonight. i appreciate it. >> have a good one. still to come, one tiny alabama town is being financially propped up by tickets. and aggressive policing. it's an outrage. as ukrainians brace for the unknown, is there any way to avoid a russian invasion? that's next. that's next.ta tell people that liberty mutual customizes car insurance so you only pay for what you need, and we gotta do it fast. 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[a vulture squawks.] oh boy. only pay for what you need. ♪liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty♪ as a business owner, your bottom line only pay for what you need. is always top of mind. so start saving by switching to the mobile service designed for small business: comcast business mobile. flexible data plans mean you can get unlimited data or pay by the gig. all on the most reliable nationwide network. with no line activation fees or term contracts... saving you up to $500 a year. and it's only available to comcast business internet customers. so boost your bottom line by switching today. comcast business: powering possibilities. we have some breaking developments on the russia/ukraine front this evening. the u.s. state department has issued a do not travel warning for ukraine due to growing fears of a russian attack on the country. nonessential staff and families of american embassy personnel have been asked to leave ukraine. joe biden is also considering deploying thousands of u.s. troops and military assets to the baltics and eastern europe, but not to ukraine itself. meanwhile the uk's foreign office put out a statement saying they've uncovered a russian plot to install a pro-kremlin leader in ukraine, a claim russia has denied. we know there are more than 100,000 russian troops at various locations surrounding the border with ukraine. president biden has pledged some assistance but says the u.s. won't militarily intervene, not with booted on the ground if russia invades. of course there's still a glimmer of hope for a diplomatic solution, but we need to understand what putin actually wants and what we, the west, might be getting wrong. joining me now is a professor of international affairs with the new school, the author of multiple books on russia and putin, and the great granddaughter of former soviet premier nikita khrushchev. i want to start by asking you did it need to come to this? could all of this have been avoided? >> well, thank you for inviting me. i'm not sure anymore. if you asked me on friday, i would have said yes. but you're asking me today, and i do not know. it could have been. i mean i guess the december conversations, the three conversations with nato, that conversation between u.s. and russian diplomats, and then with the europeans seemed to have been designed to avoid this. but as we see, it actually got much, much worse. so diplomacy not only didn't work, it exacerbated things although i think there were diplomatic efforts kind of a weird way designed because every time diplomats would come out of those meetings, supposedly calming down tensions, in fact they would immediately make statements that would only increase tensions and on the ground as well. so i don't know. it seems to me that both sides -- both countries are completely stuck in demanding things that they demand. russia, as we know, demands nato not being expanded towards ukraine although actually now putin got worse what he wanted for because now ukraine is being even more armed than it would have been under nato auspices. and for the americans, unless the russians take the troops away from ukraine, we are essentially not going to negotiate. now, there are many more russian troops than originally were there in december. >> so let's talk about mind-sets. there's a school of thought that putin wants to reclaim ukraine and somehow get back to the glory days of the soviet union. but i want to quote to you an article that you wrote recently in which you point out according to a 2020 poll, although 75% think the soviet era was the greatest time in their country's history, meaning what russians want is not to revive the ussr but to preserve their country's status and influence. where does ukraine and russia controlling ukraine fit into that with russians as a whole, not just vladimir putin? >> well, and putin actually responds to that frame of mind. ukraine and russia were originally -- kind of they have the same origins. so both countries are jostling for the primacy of who came first and how they existed and which one was the most important part. so it still continues, and it has been going on for not just with putin. it's been going on for centuries. i'm sure on your show and on msnbc repeatedly, we see this conversation happen that ukraine even was called in the russian language is called small russia. so it's attached to the big russia essentially. so that conversation historically continues, but also it's worth remembering that for putin, it's a special case because in 2008 when georgia, another former soviet republic, now an independent country in the caucuses and ukraine in 2008 were promised that they one day would become nato members. putin said to george bush, george, ukraine is not even a real country. ukraine was part of poland. some of it was historical lands that belonged to russia. so he seems to be forcing that notion that ukraine not only part of the russian sphere of influence, it's actually russia itself. >> yeah, and i just wonder again, trying to broaden out beyond putin because we hear so much about vladimir putin in our media. it's also when we hear about nato, for example, it's not just vladimir putin who is saying nato shouldn't be at our borders. it's very much russian conventional wisdom, is it not, that nato should not be at russia's borders? if we put up a map of what nato looked like in 1978 compared to what nato looks like today, it's very, very different. the change has been massive. does your average russian citizen have reason to be concerned? are they concerned? >> well, they weren't -- it doesn't even have to be '78. it can be '97 which putin says we want to go back to, 1997. but russians are concerned, and i think the more the united states has this kind of rather non-diplomatic rhetoric coming from the diplomats, the more russians are convinced that they are in fact being threatened. all of this is a pretense to undermine russia once again, that language, we want to be a strong and powerful country. and that actually excuses in many ways for the russians, putin's buildup on the border. i don't believe he is going to invade ukraine actually. i like your headline, you know, how to avoid the war. i think one of the ways to avoid the war is not to talk about the war as if it's already happened. so i don't think he will, but i think the level of animosity, even if it comes down soon enough or not soon enough, the level of animosity has increased, and i think the european stability is going to undermine without the war as well. >> so i hope you're right. i 100% hope your right and there isn't a war, there isn't an invasion. is there a way for both sides, the quote, unquote, the west, the u.s., nato, its allies, and putin and russia to walk away from this with both sides claiming victory, without a war? >> well, i think with a war, nobody will claim victory with a war, and i do hope that -- >> no. to avoid a war, is there a way that both sides can walk away diplomatically claiming victory? >> yes, but i think we actually lost this because it was badly done diplomacy, and i think it's getting hotter by the minute. but i still hope that they would be at least lavrov and blinken promised us more conversations. and i do think that as long as they're talking, bombs are not going to be flying because that's the beauty of diplomacy. as long as diplomats are talking, the military still stands still. >> we can only wait and see what happens. i hope you're right. nina khrushchev, thank you for being with us tonight. appreciate it. >> thank you. coming up, believe it or not, we don't get to decide a global pandemic is over just because we feel like it. do you know how many americans are still dying every day from covid-19? i'll break it down for you in 60 seconds. but first, richard lui is here with the headlines. good evening to you, mehdi. some of the stories we're watching for this hour. talks among western government officials. afghan civil society representatives and the taliban are now under way in oslo, amaid a deteriorating humanitarian situation in afghanistan. the closed door meetings will be taking place over the next three days. this trip marks the first time since the taliban took over the country in august that their representatives have held official meetings in europe. in northern california, over 500 residents were told to evacuate their homes in the big sur area as a brush fire straed -- spread through the mountainous coastal region. the blaze, which started in a rural area in monterey county, has burned at least over 1,000 acres. as of saturday evening, the flames were 20% contained. and in one beijing district, authorities are conducting mass covid testing as cases rise before the 2022 winter olympics. the government told people in areas of the chinese capital deemed at high risk for infection not to leave the city after 25 cases were found in the district and 14 elsewhere. more of "the mehdi hasan show" right after this short break. break. fight back fast with tums chewy bites. fast heartburn relief in every bite. crunchy outside, chewy inside. ♪ tums, tums, tums, tums ♪ tums chewy bites amazing. jerry, you gotta to see this. seen it. trust me, after 15 walks... gets a little old. ugh [sfx: radio being tuned] welcome to allstate. ♪ [band plays] ♪ a place where everyone lives life well-protected. ♪♪ and even when things go a bit wrong, we've got your back. here, things work the way you wish they would. and better protection costs a whole lot less. you're in good hands with allstate. click or call for a lower auto rate today. time now for what i like to call the 60 second rant. this week it's on covid. start the clock. on friday, journalist bari weiss went on bill maher to say she was done with the pandemic. >> we haven't gotten back to normal, and it's ridiculous at this point. >> oh, it's ridiculous, is it? on the same day that weiss and maher were complaining about our obsessive focus on covid-19 and urging us all to move on from the pandemic, 3,506 americans died from covid. that's a higher death toll than on 9/11. in fact, that's the highest covid death toll since last winter and one of the deadliest days of the pandemic so far. and it isn't just deaths. hospitals are full. three out of four of them nationwide are under high or extreme stress. in utah, they're hospitalizing unvaccinated under-fives, including babies. the people who should be complaining right now are our overworked and burned-out health care workers. but, no, it's never them moaning about the pandemic. it's the bari weisses and bill mahers and tucker carlsons of this world. as journalist alex pareene pointed out, the people in the press and on social media complaining the loudest about covid-19 restrictions are at this point people for whom covid-19 is just a thing they are sick of hearing and thinking about. my young children have handled this pandemic more maturely and less childishly than the likes of bari weiss, who i'm sorry can't go to as many indoor parties that she'd like to. meanwhile, another one or two americans died from covid in the time you've been listening to this rant. [ buzzer ] a small town of 1,200 in alabama has a big policing problem. it's a crazy story, and i'll explain after the break. plus did you know "the mehdi hasan show" is available as a podcast? now you can listen to the show on the go anytime. listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. your podcasts. over two hundred and twenty five million dollars to charity. you can get a car from any company, but none will make a difference like subaru. (jeff) thank you. (bonnie) thank you. (robert) thank you. subaru. more than a car company. (vo) america's most reliable network is going ultra! with verizon 5g ultra wideband now in many more cities so more businesses can do more. mike's bike shop! downloading up to 10 times faster. whoa! is that already... (mike) yeah. 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in 2018, the town began building up its police force, going from one full-time officer to eight with six more on the way according to posts from the department's facebook page. all that for a town of just over 1,200 people, making for an average of one police officer for every 144 residents. that's more than four times the national average. according to one recent study, these officers have been keeping themselves busy. financial audits reviewed by al.com show that revenue from fines and forfeitures went from $187,000 in 2019 to a staggering $610,000 in 2020. that accounts for 49% of that small town's ballooning annual budget of over $1.2 million. what could justify this drastic increase in policing? certainly not an increase in serious crimes. in 2018, the year before this police surge, the town of brookside didn't report a single assault, burglary, or homicide to the state, not a single one. it's the same story for 2017 too. so, no, the answer is quite clearly greed, not crime, and a lust for power. how else could you explain the story of victoria brumlow? she was pulled over and ticketed for driving in the left lane of the local interstate. not for speeding or texting on her phone or something that might have actually put herself and other drivers at risk. simply driving in the left lane. she was one of over 400 people the brookside p.d. ticketed for driving in the left lane between 2018 and 2020 according to al.com. if all this sounds like a police state nightmare, may i remind you that a riot-controlled tank, the s.w.a.t. training that brookside's officers have gone through and the not one, but two drug-sniffing dogs the department have but don't need don't pay for themselves. joining me now is carla crowder. she's the director of the alabama applecede center for law and justice. thanks for coming on the show tonight. in an interview with alabama.com, brookside police chief mike jones, who has run the department during this massive surge in police recruitment, he told the website about the money that they're making from ticketing people. quote, i see a 600% increase. that's a failure. if you had more officers and more productivity, you'd have more. i think it could be more. despite everything we just laid out, it's still not enough for this guy. >> it is so disturbing, and, you know, you laid out the data brilliantly. but behind that data are real human stories. alabama is the seventh poorest state in the country. so many of those people that racked up tickets, they can't pay them. they probably have had their licenses suspended, maybe their cars towed. the impact on low-wealth people across this state is devastating when these kind of policing for profit schemes perpetuate. >> and the district attorney for jefferson county, which is where brookside is located, has said that anyone driving out that way can, quote, fall into a black hole when it comes to the financial entanglements that come from getting ticketed in brookside. when you look at what's happening here, do you think that's just basically the goal of brookside police, to ticket so many drivers that it's just easier to pay the ticket rather than fight it in an overcrowded courtroom? >> oh, absolutely because it costs a lot to hire an attorney. so people just kind of give up and think, you know, we can scrape together cash from underneath the sofa cushions, maybe sell something to pay off this debt. what we determine, appleseed has done a lot of research on this issue. we surveyed 1,000 justice-involved alabamians back in 2018. a lot of folks who get these kind of tickets unnecessarily, many of them committed new crimes. 40% of justice-involved people in our state actually committed crimes to pay off their debt. so brookside is, you know, this phenomenon on steroids. sadly, these kind of cases happen on a pretty regular basis. yes, in alabama, in other places in the country as well. >> that is well said and well reminded that this is a story about brookside, but it could be multiple other towns, small towns across america where the police act in this way with no real oversight. i think you made such an important point there. instead of keeping the community safe from criminals, they are basically forcing people to turn to crime to pay unpayable and unjustifiable debts, which is an outrage that the police are creating new crimes in order to make money. i have to ask, though, is there anything that can be done? we talk about that piece that i read. it talks about lawsuits, about a local republican candidate for office getting involved. we mentioned the d.a. a moment ago. what can actually be done to change this? >> this is an opportunity for the state of alabama to make public policy decisions that are smart, to not wait for federal intervention. already the department of justice is suing our state over unconstitutional prisons. so we are hoping that the state legislature, which is meeting now, will step in and pass some laws like ending the suspension of driver's license for unpaid court debt or reining in how much municipalities can rely on traffic tickets. you know, in missouri, after ferguson, that's what happened. municipalities should not rely on traffic tickets for half their budgets. so there are smart state policy decisions that can happen here, and really importantly, states need to fund government through fair taxes and not through preying on motorists, and those kind of reforms need to happen in alabama and elsewhere. >> you mentioned taxpayers. of course alabama is exactly the kind of place where republican politicians try and rabble rouse by saying the democrats are going to defund the police. in this case, that would be a wise move that would benefit even republican voters. i mean why would anyone think that a tiny town of 1,200 people with no crime needs a kind of -- what was that? a s.w.a.t. vehicle, a tank that we saw there? >> right. they're writing tickets to raise money to pay the salaries of more police to write more tickets. nobody is safer because of this. >> it is absolutely ridiculous, and i appreciate you coming on the show to talk about it. i'm just -- i'm just still so annoyed by it. i'm glad we could cast some light on it. i'm glad that such great reporting was done by local reporters. i hope something gets done now because it's an outrage. carla crowder, thank you so much for your time tonight. i appreciate it. >> thank you so much. next, just because donald trump is gone, the saudi war in yemen and the humanitarian crisis it's caused there still deserves your attention. stay with us. stay with us caught in early st, it's more treatable. hey, cologuard! hi, i'm noninvasive and i detect altered dna in your stool to find 92% of colon cancers even in early stages. early stages. it's for people 45 plus at average risk for colon cancer, not high risk. false positive and negative results may occur. ask your provider if cologuard is right for you. 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"the new york times" reported blinken emphasized the u.s. commitment to help gulf partners improve their capabilities to improve against threats from yemen. the state department in a statement adding he has underscored the importance of mitigating civilian harm. mr. blinken condemned the attacks on monday, asked about the saudi-led attacks on friday, the state department declined to comment. declined to comment. secretary blinken has put out multiple statements and tweets condemning the houthis over the past year. yesterday, the state department released a readout of the call blinken had which he condemned the january 17th houthi attack on saudi arabia and the uae that struck civilian sites in the uae and killed and wounded civilians. now, i'm not saying we shouldn't condemn the attack on the uae which happened on monday. we should. innocents were killed and they have committed plenty of war crimes in this conflict. but the vast, vast majority of the killings and the war crimes have been carried out or caused by the saudi-led coalition. on that human rights groups are in agreement. we don't arm or support the houthis. we do arm and support the saudis. the biden administration pushed for arm sales to saudi arabia. which was backed by a vote in the senate 67-30. when trump did stuff like that, we were outraged. when biden does it backed by 21 senate democrats, we're suddenly okay with it? it seems whichever party is in the white house, innocent yemen people die. innocent kids, too. there has to be accountability. yemenese lives matter. in 2020, "the new york times" reported that the state department's legal office reached a startling conclusion. top american officials could be charged with war crimes for approving bomb sales to saudis and their partners. if i were in the state department, i would be freaking out about my potential for liability. a yale law school professor and defense department lawyer told the times. so, look, if members of this biden administration don't care about the immorality of this war, maybe they should care about their own legal liability. and at the very minimum, if they can't force the saudis to end this barbaric and inhuman war, at least stick to what they promised and end our involvement in it. is that too much to ask? coming up at the top of the hour with ayman mohyeldin, peter strzok joins to weigh in on the justice department's handling of january the 6th at 9:00 p.m. eastern on ayman. we'll be right back after this short break. short break. but america is just as beautiful on the 4th of january or february. stripped of its leaves but not drained of its color. no one experiences a true american winter the same way but those with the confidence and capability of the all new 2022 grand wagoneer will remember the adventure as long as they live. kim is now demonstrating her congestion. save it slimeball. i've upgraded to mucinex. we still have 12 hours to australia. mucinex lasts 12 hours, so i'm good. now move! kim, no! mucinex lasts 3x longer for 12 hours. >> woman: what's my safelite story? >> vo: my car is more than four wheels. it's my after-work decompression zone. so when my windshield broke... >> woman: what?! >> vo: ...i searched for someone who really knew my car. i found the experts at safelite autoglass. with their exclusive technology, they fixed my windshield... then recalibrated the camera attached to my glass so my safety systems still work. who knew that was a thing?! >> woman: safelite has service i can trust. >> singers: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace. ♪ (judith) in this market, you'll find fisher investments is different than other money managers. 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[daughter] slurping don't pay for water. pay for clean. it's got to be tide. thank you for watching. we'll be right back here next sunday at 8:00 p.m. eastern. this coming week, i'll be on msnbc at 11:00 p.m. hosting "the 11th hour." 7:00 p.m. on peacock. now it's time to and it over to my friend ayman mohyeldin. before i go, i have to ask, did you see rfk jr. this afternoon in a d.c. anti-vax mandate rally. he made a tortured comparison suggesting that people could hide from the nazis but americans are powerless to hide from vaccine mandates. have a listen. >> even in hitler, germany, you could cross the alps into switzerland. you could hide in an attic like anne frank did. >> that is a ridiculous and offensive anti-semitic remark to make. it minimizes the holocaust? does he even know what happened to anne frank? >> it is so troubling on so many different fronts. let me read for you what the auschwitz memorial said in response to this. it wasn't just him, robert f. kennedy jr. and his comments. you had people there comparing fauci to hitler. you had people that were holding up signs of the yellow jewish star of david that the nazis made jews wear during the concentration camps and throughout the holocaust. it was absolutely offensive. this is the tweet from the memorial. exploiting of the tragedy of people who suffered, were humiliated, tortured and murdered by the totalitarian regime of nazi germany including children like anne frank in a debate about vaccines and limitations during a global pandemic is a sad symptom of moral and intellectual decay. . and i just -- there is nothing better for me to say. i think that tweet sums up where we are as a country. wouldn't you agree? >> i think moral and intellectual decay is a perfect description of where we are as a country. i have to say it is not just these anti-vaxx mandate types. who are disproportionately on the right. rfk claimed to be liberals. but it is not just them. as i pointed out on my show earlier, there are also quote, unquote liberals, centrists. the bill mahers of this world. i'm done with covid on a day when three and a half million americans died from covid-19, kids made orphans, babies in hospitals in places like utah. yes, and it's a sad statement of affairs when we have more than 5 million people around the world, dead. and people are saying that they are over covid because they can't socialize. or their life a bit inconvenient. >> you want to know what privilege looks like a mint? >> what's that? >> i said, you want to know what privilege looks like? that's what it looks like. >> great show mehdi. thank you. enjoy the rest of your evening. >> and good evening at home. breaking news out of the