national security nightmare in the senate -- >> is doing great damage to our military. >> i object. >> a national security suicide mission. >> -- >> -- i object. >> vote individually on this american hero -- >> reserving the right to object. >> tonight, dysfunction in the age of the maga minority, and then, as a massive new air salt on gaza, senator chris murphy on his call for israel to change course. and why was a particularly bad day for the republican front runner as his other adult son snaps on the witness stand, when "all in" starts right now. good evening from new york, i am chris hayes. when the lone solitary republican in the senate is actively undermining the military readiness of the entire country, as the country finds itself in the midst of some of the most intense and acute global crises in recent memory. two wars, one between israel and hamas, and the russian invasion of ukraine. and it is incredibly important and precarious moment, we have an unprecedented absence of the key pentagon officials needed to administer the u.s. armed forces. and that is all thanks to literally one dude. one guy. you probably know, alabama republican senator tommy tuberville. tuberville is using the arcane rules of the senate to single-handedly block about 400 separate nominations to keep military vacancies in a hopeless crusade to get the biden administration to restrict abortion access for service members. today, senate leadership was able to get a few key nominations through, including a second in command to relieve the commandant of the marine corps, who is currently hospitalized after working 18 hour days to cover the extra work left behind by tuberville 's blockade. but getting around tuberville's blocking it is time consuming. it would take months of around the clock voting to circumvent him and confirm all the vacant positions. and to be clear, these are not controversial nominees. it has basically nothing to do with the nominees. each vote, if it eventually makes it to the floor, garners near unanimous support. even tuberville's republican colleagues have lost their patience. last, night we witnessed a remarkable scene on the senate floor, where senate republicans tried to bring over 60 nominations, and senator tuberville individually blocked each and every one. >> i ask unanimous consent, let the senate proceed to executive section for the consideration of the following nomination. executive calendar number 236. lieutenant general gregory -- to be general. >> is there objection? >> none present. >> the senator from alabama? >> i object. >> the objection is heard. >> it went on like that all night for hours. and tuberville's obstinance led to some of the most thrombolytic legislating i've seen in a while. usually, that is a very composed, boring body, the senate. and we will play you some more of that seen on the senate floor in a moment. because, again, it was raw and fascinating. but before we do that, i think it is important to put senator tuberville's located in its proper context. because, you might say to yourself, this guy just one crank. and he is. but in many ways, he is also more than one crank. he is the embodiment of everything that is broken down about american politics in this mulga maga era. the defining feature, the core principle, and maga-ism, is the belief that trump, trump's base, and trump's allies should be in charge, whether or not they have the votes to do so. rule or ruin. it is sheer hostility to democracy, in the belief and rule by a minority faction instead. because they are the ones who should be calling the shots. trump's political ascendancy, of course, started because he won an election with 2 million less votes, thanks to a quirk in the constitution, the electoral college, that allowed him to rule over country despite losing an election in any other sense. the larger republican party apparatus around him, similarly committed to minority rule, where states like wisconsin, north carolina, ohio and others, using their power to gerrymander themselves into a position where they can override the will of their own voters statewide. and once they have accumulated that power, they block every attempt to make it easier to vote, so they can further limit the democratic process. now, of course, the ultimate bloody culmination of the anti democratic republican movement was, of course, the 2020 election and its aftermath. it was no longer an abstraction or a belief. it was put into practice. donald trump were sounding we lost reelection by 7 million votes. he was rejected by the voters. and then he attempted to overturn that loss with the first attempted coup in american history. and since then, it has only gotten worse. the coup mentality has become the dominant ethos of the republican party, a litmus test more stringent than any other. it is what caused the unprecedented leadership crisis. because, when this small faction deposed kevin mccarthy, having extracted a promise from him during the 15 ballots to make him speaker, that one person could bring up the vote to effectively fire him -- that was the same principle play, a tiny minority, a radical faction of the republicans in the house, able to throw the entire chamber into chaos for three weeks out of personal vanity. they did not care that they were just eight of them. no. we should tell everyone what to do. as the daily beast reports today, at least one of the republicans who were able to collectively oust mccarthy just did it for the attention. according to a former staffer for south carolina's nancy mace, quote, she saw the votes on the board and said, if it, i'm just going to vote for, it just so i can go on tv and talk about it. mason showed up in the capitol wearing the scarlet letter a on her shirt which, incidentally, makes you think she actually didn't read the book. that brings us to the u.s. senate, we are the logical conclusion of this anti-democratic principle is playing out before us. in this case, a single u.s. senator. not a faction of eight. a single u.s. senator has brought the personnel, the most powerful military, possibly, in human history, to a grinding halt, so that he individually can impose his particular hard right antiabortion politics to the folks that serve in the armed services. and this is key. this is in spite of the fact that tommy tuberville does not have the votes to do this in the normal means of business. like, if he wants to do this, he could pass a bill. but he can't, because he does not have the votes. so, instead, he's taking the entire pentagon hostage, and we have been waiting for republicans to do something about it, since he is, of course, one of their own. last night, they finally reached their breaking point. >> the hold responsible, effectively, 300 nominated patriots who ought to be pinning on a star or another star right now, hold them professionally responsible for this and, by extension, to undermine the safety and security of the american people during this perilous time just does not make any sense to me. >> as simply a, in my opinion, an abuse of the powers we have a senators, they say if there is something we vehemently disagree with, that we are going to use that power to hold up the promotion of over 350 men and women in our military. >> we are going to look back at this episode ended just be stunned at what a national security suicide mission this became. >> there is a reason this has not been done this way for a couple hundred years. no matter whether you believe it or not, senator tuberville, this is doing great damage to our military. i don't say that lightly. i just hope we don't do this routinely. because if this is the norm, who the hell wants to serve in the military when your promotion can be can based on something you had nothing to do that with? >> i watch hours of that and -- no one is really watching. it was all in c-span. they are genuinely furious. and the question, obviously, on the mind of many republican senators seem to be, how did we get to this point? and i have an answer for those senators. the answer is, we got here because donald trump. donald trump anointed tommy tuberville as his choice in the alabama republican senate primary. that is why tommy tuberville is a u.s. senator, full stop. that is the complete -- i just gave you the complete explanation. he was a retired college football coach. he was handpicked for the role of senator by donald trump, and the rest of the party just followed along. so, it does not matter how few votes you, have as long as you are close to don't, trump and as long as you have his support you can impose your will on the entire country. senator is chris murphy a democrat of connecticut. he serves on the foreign relations committee, and subcommittee on the middle east. he joins me now. i was, i guess, at one level weirdly gratified to see your republican colleagues expressing the level of frustration that, i think, this situation demands. i am not sure what will come of. it but what do you make of what your colleagues did last night? >> yeah. i think you are right to point out the longer story here. republicans are lying in a bed that they made for a long time. the things republicans support don't enjoy majority consensus in this country, whether it be restricting abortion rights, restricting voting rights, giving guns to criminals. and so they are reliant on a host of anti majority in practices, and tricks, in order to get their way. one of them is holding up nominees on the floor of the senate. another is forcing policy into the judicial branch, we are majorities don't hold sway. so, unfortunately, this is an expected result of a republican party that has just gotten used to supporting positions that the majority of americans and support. now, here is the thing. republicans were, i think, right to go to the floor last night and make a steak. i am glad they did. but they will have a chance next week or the week after to do something about. this we can actually change the rules of the senate to disempowered tommy tuberville, into bunch these nominees -- these promotions -- together, 50 at a time, or 100 at the time. if we do, that we can get them all done in a day. and they will have a chance to sort of put their both vote where their mouth is, and get this done rather than just complain about. >> that's a good thing for us to look for. the question of military readiness, we sounds a little bit like jargon, or whatever -- is the u.s. military, of course we already. it's an enormous bureaucracy. but, i am looking at the map and there is rumblings, now, about the war between israel and hamas widening out. we have u.s. service members, obviously, in the region. they can be targets. the u.s. could be drawn into it. how cute a problem is this in a really, like, specific where we are right now way? >> yeah. so, let's be clear about who has to come before the united states senate for a senate approved promotion? it is only the top leaders. >> right. >> so, you are talking about the people who were making decisions about how we defend ourselves. a about the attacks that are being waged against by iranian proxies in the middle east -- the people who are sitting and working with israel on their targeting decisions inside gaza. and when you have 350 to 400 of our most senior military leaders who have not been promoted, when you have 350 to 400 vacancies in our top posts, of course that has an impact. and in the middle east, i think, at last count, it was about 15 major posts vacant in a part of the world that is on the verge of absolute explosion. that is a national security crisis. there is just no doubt about it. and to lindsey graham's point, it also is not an invitation for anybody else to sign up to serve in an all volunteer military. it has an unquestionable impact on recruitment. >> on the question of you just talked about u.s. service members who may be engaged with the israelis on targeting decisions. when the hamas attacks happened on october 7th, quickly thereafter, i think i had you on the program. we talked a bit, and i ask you about civilian casualties in the densely populated area. the basic macro story is clear to everyone. you have airstrikes in a densely populated area, nowhere for refugees to go. and you talked about the sort of tragic inevitability of civilian casualties and they need to minimize them, basically, is what he said to me. today, he releasedteme in which he said the following. the cuent rate of civilian death inside gaza is unacceptable and unsustainable. i urge israel to immediately rensider its approach and shift to a more delibera, proportionate counterterrorism campaign, surgically targeting hamas and islamic jiha leaders and terrorist infrastructure while more highly prioritizing the safety of civilians in accordance with the law of our incomplete armed conflict. why did you issue that statement? >> there's no doubt israel has the right to defend itself, and there's no doubt that is hamas responsible for the civilian casualties because they had themselves, their weapons, the infrastructure inside civilian buildings. mosques, schools, and hospitals. but israel does have a responsibility to weigh the cost to civilians against the ability to target hamas leaders. and i think when you were talking about 1000 palestinian civilians being killed -- 3000 children -- there is no way but to come to the conclusion that the cost to civilians has been too high, and that israel has to reconsider the way in which it balances its desire to go after and get hamas, and the damage being done to civilians. the moral cost is just too high, when 3000 palestinian children have died. but the strategic cost is too high as well. because, as we learned in afghanistan, when you are too casual or too permissive about civilian casualties, that ends up being recruitment material for the very terrorist groups who are fighting. and so, for me, it was important for me to today to say, we have reached a point at which the rate of civilian harm here is too high for israel to sustain, for the world to sustain. and it's time for them to change course and be much more targeted in their decisions about when they go after terrorists in civilian, heavy civilian population centers. >> i want to give you a sort of argument that i have heard israeli officials made, and speaking to things specifically naftali bennett, who is an israeli politician, who is asked by an israeli interview in about these casualties and something along the lines of, i can't believe you are asking me about, this we are fighting nazis here, and i've made similar points made by members of the unity government and netanyahu, and they basically say, this is existential, is akin to the nazis, and no one second guess the allies when they firebombed resident did what they had to do to win the war. we nd ourselves. and how do you question the position we are in. >> yeah. well, listen, i think there is a lot of second-guessing about the decisions that the military's have made in the past. and i referenced the second guessing that we are still undergoing in our operations of afghanistan, where we killed tens of thousands of civilians, and it ended up hurting, us not helping us. i think everyone admits here that there is going to be some level of civilian casualty. this is war. but, when you were talking about 1000 civilians being killed, and 70 united nations aid workers, 3000 children, ultimately, that prices just too high. and i don't think it effectuate themes of the israeli military. i think, in the end, it may end up strengthening hamas, not eliminating them. so, both from a moral standpoint and from a strategic standpoint, i just think it is time for the israelis to rethink the strategy. i don't think they should stop going after hamas. i just think they need to be more targeted in the decisions 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time after eric testified he had never worked on the trump organatn statement of financial condition, quote, end quote, didn't know anything about it until recently, eric acknowledge he was aware of them as far back as 2013. new york times investigative reporter susanne craig was in the courtroom today. she, of course, one of pulitzer prize for that remarkable reporting on donald trump's financial dealings and tax avoidance schemes. and she joins me. now it is wonderful to have you here. don jr., it seemed to me, his testimony -- he seemed to have a fairly plausible case that he did not actually know what was going on. >> you kind of wonder how much he was around. he did sign off on the number of documents that indicated that he knew about the statements of financial condition, and other things, but he's just less involved in the day-to-day operations of the company. but he is a fiduciary, and he -- statements. but you definitely -- eric was the one who is running the company in his father's absence. an