The time has now come to suspend my campaign. The General Election has begun. The race is set, now, it will be a rematch and we like that rematch. Donald trump Running Unopposed against President Biden. Tonight, a Special Edition of allin, Rachel Maddow and alex ragnar join me on bidens chances against candidate trump. As republicans try to erase the memory of his disastrous presidency. Are you better off today than you were four years ago . Then the big board on who will decide this election. Claire mccaskill at 6 00. I think america knows who donald trump is. The question is, who are we . Plus, a big announcement in arizona. Ruben gallego joins me for his First National tv interview since Senator Cinema dropped out, when the Special Edition of all in and starts right now. Good evening from new york, im chris hayes, thank you for tuning in for this Special Edition of allin on march 6, 2020 for what looks to be the unofficial official first day of the president ial General Election. Joining me right here in just a moment, first, lets start with a little brief trip down memory lane to four years ago exactly today, march 6th, 2020. Do you remember where you were on that day . We remember because we do a television show, it was the very last time we did an all in Live Audience show before the world shut down and, truthfully, between you and me should not have even done that one. Questionable call. We didnt really know. It was also a day when donald trump, let me jog your memory. The president of the United States in the hat to tour of the center for Disease Control headquarters to ostensibly comfort americans about his new novel coronavirus, that was already spreading like wildfire and had come into the shores of the u. S. It did not go well. I dont know if you remember this incident, but at the time there was that cruise ship, the grand princess, stuck in limbo off the coast of california after an outbreak of the virus was discovered on board, and it was an open question as to what should be done with the boat and its thousands of passengers and crew. Frankly, if it were up to me i would be inclined to say, leave everybody on the ship for a period of time and use the ship as your base. But a lot of people would rather do it a different way, when they do that, our numbers are going to go up. Remember that . The solution was, Tell Americans on a pestilential boat floating in the harbor should just stay there. In order to keep our numbers, like the Trump Campaign numbers, low. And that was the way this all works from then on. There was no pretense of compassion for those affected, their families who were on the boat sick, or concerned for public health, broadly, it was the numbers, the metric. Concerned about how the rising cases would look for him politically, plain as day, if the passengers would be counted toward the countries tally of active covid cases. Its worth remembering, trump already knew, this is key, we didnt know at the time, but now we do. He already knew when he was saying that exactly how deadly and disruptive the virus would prove to be. He privately admitted as much to Journalist Bob Woodward a full month earlier. It goes through air, bob, thats always tougher than touch. Touch, you dont have to such things but the air, you breathe the air and thats how its past. So thats a very tricky one, thats a very delicate one. Its also more deadly than even your strenuous blue. More deadly than your strenuous blue, hes saying that a month before it came on our shores. And would go on to say dozens of times that it was just like the flu. And that deadly negligence and callousness displayed by trump was emblematic, He Incompetently handled the entire pandemic which was a catastrophe, 1 Million People died. So i thought of all that today, when i heard the House Republican chair and trump toady ask this question. As Ronald Reagan famously asked us, are you better off today than you were four years ago . The answer for hardWorking Americans across the country is a resounding no. No, its a resounding yes, and it will be more of a resounding yes each day we go forward in this year. Its a resounding yes because we are not currently entering the pandemic phase of covid with a negligent president who is more interested in saving his poll numbers and saving lives. Of course as of today donald trump is effectively the republican nominee for president. For all intents and purposes the General Election begins right now and trumps entire Election Strategy depends on completely, utterly read conning what happened four years ago. On Annihilating 2020 completely from public memory. He is helped in that strategy by the fact we all want to forget what a disaster 2020 was, because it was a disaster, and it was a disaster worsened in many ways by donald trump. That moment four years ago today would only be the beginning of the most bumbling, incompetent, chaotic mismanagement of crisis since Herbert Hoover in the Great Depression nearly a century ago. A year that was shot through with nothing but chaos and turmoil, illness and death, abject economic destruction, donald trump tweeted as the country burned. That is why, we lived through this but lets go back for a second. That is why joe biden won the 2020 election. The promise of the Biden Campaign was the democrats and biden harris would restore someone to leadership who actually things about the Public Interest and whats best for the country, something he would restore bipartisan compromise and legislative accomplishment, who restore the economy by investing in Working Americans and rebuilding things from the middle out. And President Biden successfully managed the Vaccine Rollout and a return to public life. Our economy is stronger now than just about any expert predicted it would be before covid. That is thanks in large part to the massive Stimulus Spending on things like public and for structure, the white house ushered through Congress Sometimes on a bipartisan basis as biden promised during that campaign, sometimes on a partyline vote. Republicans cannot run against any of that. So instead they are trying a Campaign Slogan of Make America 2019 again. Listen to tim scott Celebrating Trumps Win last night. President trump spoke to the voters today across our country, republicans, democrats, and independents about the future, we go back to that future, 2017 to 2020. No, its not a threeyear term. 27, trump was president from 2017 to 2021, i promise you i was there. This is the whole game. Donald trump republicans want you to chop an entire year off the end of trumps term. As if he just gets his political mulligan for the catastrophe that was the end of his presidency. They want you to conveniently ignore the mass unemployment, the freezer trucks packed full of bodies. They want to ignore the final months of 2020 when trump attempted the first two in our countrys history, culminating in the deadly january 6 insurrection when he six and armed and violent mob on the capital to steal a free and fair election. Trump is now running to finish the job he started on january 6th, if he is elected he will pick right back up where he left off. Is not going to govern like its 2019. He will govern like its january 7th 2021. With me tonight, my good, good friends, Rachel Maddow and alex wagner, here on msnbc. Its great to have you here. I truly lost it when elise said that, i thought, are they really going to do this . Are they confident enough that they can pull off the are you better . It just seems like obviously even if you dont blame trump for the worst of the pandemic, were all better off. Even if donald trump had never been president , under joe biden right now you got the best job market since the 1960s, you got unemployment below 4 , youve got the best covid economic recovery in the world, you have more people with Health Insurance than ever before in american history, youve got Violent Crime at a 50 year low, if donald trump was still running as the former host of The Apprentice right now, telling people that the biden years have been awful, havent they, is a weird sell to a country that is experiencing life under joe biden that has all of the right economic metrics. So, you have to tell people, dont number 2020, i do think that Covid Walloped everyone. But, i went back and looked at my coverage four years ago, when i saw that you flagged this. What i was talking about four years ago was Nick Mulvaney at seatac telling everybody that the liberal media has made up Covid To Make Trump look bad. We could do that again, sure, put it back in there. I feel like you really hit on something that is not talked about enough, which is the way in which we as a country have not dealt with the trauma of covid. Its a seismic event in american life, and of course who would want to go back to the fear and death and disinfecting groceries . Classic trauma response. I made a photo album of that year because i was like, im going to want to forget this and i need to remember that we were masking outdoors, and in that same time joe biden ran for president. We cant forget that, because the weapons from that campaign are totally different from the lessons he needs to apply in this situation. I was on the Campaign Trail with joe biden. There were a lot of really mediocre events, and then there were none. Thats a good point. He is not a great campaigner. Hes been a really effective president. And the dissonance between those two things needs to be reconciled, in a year when hes got to be, hes got to be a better campaigner and hes got to do something that is incredibly complicated, which is to get america to remember what life was like in the rearview. We are not good at that in this country, we are really good at moving forward, not asking questions about the past, not reconciling the sins and transgressions and faults and just, go west young man. Nikki haleys campaign, one of the things she did was cut montages of Trump Presidency to remind people what it was like. I havent seen the Biden Campaign do that, that is something that can absolutely steal from her. Shes tried to remind people about what the chaos candidate was like and what the chaos presidency was like. Instagram reels of trump telling people to drink bleach, and the cdc had shaking their heads quietly, it is staggering, the mismanagement of one of the most seismically dramatic events in modern america. The other things, im torn on this because thinking about, i think weve extinguished 2020 from our memories in many ways, because it was traumatic. The other thing thats really important for the Biden Campaign is a vision of the future. I think to go back to what youre saying about, i could tell you the biden 2020 platform. It was to get covid under control. It was to then begin bringing the economy out of the depths, through investment in the middle class and through an infrastructure investment, and to rejoin paris and invest in clean energy and to restore our relationships. Thats what they did. They said they were going to do it, and they did it. I cant really tell you right now what the second term biden vision looks like yet. And i do think that, when you talk about elections about the future, americans are future oriented people, that strikes me going to the State Of The Union tomorrow which is an unveiling. Ive been thinking about how important that is. It makes the State Of The Union really important, i think that its always in an Election Year the kickoff of the incumbent president s re election campaign. Hearing the positive vision, rather than hears all the reasons you dont want the republicans back in the white house again. I think thats what were going to get. So, well see. But it has to be said that it has been a remarkable few years of republican policy, particularly with the Supreme Court, Reproductive Rights, whats the democratic agenda on Reproductive Rights . To stop the republicans from doing more of what theyve been doing. Can you articulate that in a positive way . Jade your verb tenses, but its about trying to stop what the republicans have done on Reproductive Rights and what theyre continuing to do, what the republicans have done and what theyre continuing to do on democracy and the rule of law, but there is a lot of stuff in terms of this very unusual Republican Party led by donald trump that the Democratic Party now exist to stop. To say we dont want to radically cashier who we are as a country to become a strongman authoritarian dictatorship. Go ahead. I tend to agree that the odor of republican mismanagement, and kneeling towards tyranny is so fragrant, i really feel like the Biden Campaign just needs to, the idea, i dont know im using that perfume, it stinks. Its so redolent, and these are, we talk about americans want breadandbutter issues, Bodily Autonomy is a very Kitchen Table issue. In a way. One of the things that happened in 22, 2022 which was fascinating which was there was this debate about the messaging. And a bunch of people said you need to focus on inflation. Its all people care about and you guys are talking about democracy, and joe biden did that big speech that was his big capper, and, just, reams of commentators being like, you are so out to lunch. Just a little bit of a weird condescending thing that real people dont care about democracy. And even one layer below that, workingclass people dont care about democracy. Elite, affluent, educated thing, i dont think thats true. I think all kinds of people care about democracy. That same debate is going to resurface and im curious how you think about it. The inflation argument, the Economic Growth argument, the jobs argument, the wages argument, purchasing power, having Health Insurance, not being one Health Crisis away from bankruptcy, Student Loans, all that stuff, biden has a great story to tell on all of those things. A better story than in 2022. And is a doublesided story, is what we are trying to do, what we have done, what we can brag about and look at what the republicans are doing. Why isnt there more Student Loan Forgiveness because the republicans have sued to stop it. All of those things have been against republican opposition. I think you need to talk about what youre offering but you also need to talk about whats bad about the other guys. On every economic metric he can do that. I want you to stick around for one more. Awesome. Rachel maddow, alex wagner, weve got more to talk about tonight including how this election will be decided and who is going to decide it. Well check in on that when we come back. Come back. Shingles is a painful, blistering rash that can last for weeks. Ahhh, theres nothing like a day out with friends. Thats nice, but shingles doesnt care 99 of adults 50 years or older already have the virus that causes shingles inside them, and it can reactivate at any time. A perfect day for a Family Outing guess what . Shingles doesnt care. But shingrix protects. Only shingrix is proven over 90 effective. Shingrix is a vaccine used to prevent shingles in adults 50 years and older. Shingrix does not protect everyone and is not for those with severe allergic reactions to its ingredients or to a previous dose. An increased risk of guillainbarre syndrome was observed after getting shingrix. Fainting can also happen. The most common side effects are pain, redness, and swelling at the injection site, muscle pain, tiredness, headache, shivering, fever, and upset stomach. Shingles doesnt care. But shingrix protects. Ask your doctor or pharmacist about shingrix today. Nikki haley and dean phillips dropping their president ial bid, the 2024 rematch between President Joe Biden and donald trump is set, barring some unforeseen change. Its worth remembering the last two elections were won on the margins, all elections are on the margins and polarized america. 2016 lost the popular vote by 1 million votes, was delivered by less than 78,000 votes across three key states. Biden b trumpian 2020