the oklahoma justices ruling said the lingering impact of the massacre does not fall within the scope of our state public nuisance statute and they rule the state can continue to profit from tulsa massacre related tourism without compensating survivors. today's dismissal marks an end to the quest to see justice in their life time, something i got to speak to ms. fletcher about last year. what does justice look like to you? >> well, everything is beautiful and rebuilt and restored. you know, we think it is just time now that we have justice on all of that to where we can live all our life. >> and that is the "reidout". "all in with chris hayes" starts now. tonight on "all in" day >> people are saying to themselves, where we better off four years ago or are we better off now and it wasn't even close. >> the greatest confidence game ever played. >> voters believe they were better off during trump's term than biden's. >> we are not better off today than we were four years ago. >> tonight, from crime to the economy and beyond how a political party led by a criminal is conning america. then -- >> you, you are working for a felon. a felon. >> the maga scandal machine and today's contempt about for the attorney general. and the senate push to do something about the ethics crisis in the supreme court. >> the highest court in the land should not and could not have the lowest ethical standards. >> when "all in" starts right now. good evening from new york, i am chris hayes. as we approach the first debate of a presidential election season, earlier than normal between joe biden and donald trump, it is clear that trump and the republican pitch to voters is fundamentally a con job. i mean that in the most literal sense. the term comes from so-called confidence man, fixtures in the late 18th and 19th century who swindled the victims with their confidence. right now that all's bravado is the defining feature of donald trump's attempt to win back the oval office. remember, this is the man who tried to destroy our constitutional republic live on national television and who utterly failed in overseeing the one national crisis he had to guide the nation through the pandemic. and yet trump and his surrogates are constantly telling voters to ask themselves a question, are you better off than you were four years ago? >> are you better off than you were four years ago? i don't think joe biden can run on the question of are you better off than you were four years ago. >> that is one question he is praying that he never hears. are you better under four years of joe biden were four years of donald trump. >> you know, people are saying to themselves are we better off four years ago or are we better off now and it wasn't even close. >> that, by the way, was all from the past week. we have been running a series on "all in" responding to that question because the events of four years ago were so shocking, unprecedented, and traumatic. i think a lot of people, i would say most people including myself, have blocked it out. again, i get it. i don't want to think about sitting inside trying to homeschool my kids or attending zuma for my dearly departed uncle or the images of packed hospitals and dying saying goodbye to their loved ones on ipads. of course the fact that most people don't want to think too much about 2020 is an enormous advantage for republicans and the trump campaign who are attempting to pull off this con job. their aim is to kind of magically replace her memory. to distract you from the fact that four years ago we were all living in the midst of disaster. >> tonight the country has reached another sobering milestone in the coronavirus pandemic, surpassing 2 million cases and this warning sign. hospitalizations are surging in many states. >> we will start our rallies back up now. we had a tremendous run at rallies. i don't think there has been an empty seat. i think one in texas. we are going to arizona. >> texas and arizona among nine states reporting a jump in hospitalizations, the best indicator of the viruses toll. >> we are really doing a financial comeback. the jobs numbers are fantastic. >> 1.5 million people filed front employment last week, almost 43 million since the pandemic began. >> i think the economy next year will be maybe the best it has ever been. we are already seeing the stock market going up, because you have a lot of smart people betting on exactly what i'm saying. >> a selloff from wall street amid new concerns about the continuing spread of covid-19. the dow plunging more than 1800 points, its biggest drop in three months. >> a very important time in our country. a lot of things are happening and i think when it all ends up it is going to end up very good for everybody. >> there is growing concern tonight that restricting restrictions is causing an increase in covid-19 cases. >> all lives are precious, not just the people infected by covid, but also the people who are being driven to this because of the lockdown. >> what is happening in some of those places. that shut down. the poverty rate is going up. what are people going to do if they don't have jobs to go to to earn a living in order to take care of their families? that is the main reason. all of these scare tactics, they don't work this time around. they will not work. >> i should note one week after herman cain made that appearance on fox news, he attended donald trump's indoor rally. a big, indoor rally in the midst of covid in tulsa, oklahoma and by the end of june he was hospitalized with covid and died on july 30 at the age of 74. naturally every time we do one of these segments i find that looking back at four years ago brings a lot of emotion. most people divide recent history into the before times and the after times, myself included. a lot of us feel nostalgia for the before times and that is exactly what donald trump and his allies are using to build their lie about what really happened. to erase our real memories and implant false ones. that is their project and it has been unnervingly effective so far. four years ago in june, 2020 while we were living through the pandemic donald trump's approval rating was 42%. and when a new poll, 47% of americans say they approve of the job that trump did as president. it is not much, but those five points are basically the margin of the entire election and they are accomplishing that through flat out lies about what is actually happening. take a listen to missouri senator josh hawley doing this today. >> he's going to run on his record from four years ago versus biden right now. gas under president biden, up 55%. groceries, up 40%. wages down 3%. that is the campaign. that is before we get to crime, before we get to the border. >> sorry, josh hawley. wages are up. average hourly earnings are actually up 17% from may, 2020 two 2024 in nominal terms, like groceries and stuff. wages have also outpaced inflation for the past 13 months as the washington post pointed out today. crime is way down. look at what has happened with the homicide rate. in 2020 when donald trump was president, he ushered in under his presidency the largest ever one year jump, spiking 30%. by 2023 the homicide rate had tumbled 19% to 5.3 per 100,000 people. new data shows the rate continues to drop dramatically, down another 20 -- another 26% in the first quarter from the same time period last year. gas prices, are, i will admit, overall higher than they were in the summer of 2020. why were they low then? no one was traveling anywhere. okay? that is why there were cheap gas prices. refrigerator trucks full of cadavers, yeah, the gas prices were low. and they spiked up in the early part of the biden administration with the war in ukraine, but they have been trending in the right direction and continue to fall even as the summer travel season heats up. grocery prices are coming down. not just with inflation which cooled to 3.3% today, but retailers are actually slashing prices on thousands of islands. -- of items. again, they spiked during the pandemic like they did everywhere in the world, but they are on the right trajectory now and all of this is happening under the incumbent, joe biden. and we are not losing thousands of americans per day to a deadly pandemic. we do not live in a nation in the throes of constant disorder. this time four years ago we were living through the televised murder of george lloyd and the protestant police response that followed while then president trump called for sending in troops. >> across the country was started as peaceful gatherings protesting the death of george floyd evolved into destruction. from new york, where police and protesters squared off in the streets, to portland where the mayor issued a state of emergency and a city curfew. >> the nation erupted into scenes of chaos. violence. and widespread destruction into the early morning hours. in some of the nation's biggest cities, the night spiraled out of control early. >> we had to run -- rubber bullets. my cameraman has been hit. we have also seen tear gas being used. here we go again. this is exactly what it looks like. >> oh. >> whoa. >> can you hear us? >> are you okay? >> reporter: we are surrounded by the police and you saw the way that they dealt with my cameraman. we don't know who they are targeting at the moment. >> i said you have to dominate the streets. you can't let that happen and we are doing it with compassion, if you think about it. we are dominating the street with compassion. >> all that happens under the watch of president donald trump. we cannot say or hear that and if he returns to power i am telling you it is a safe bet that we will return to trauma and chaos. she is a democratic strategist who served as an advisor for the 2020 campaign. they both join me now. doug, i wanted to talk to you because in some ways history and recent history is part of what is being contested in this campaign. the legacy of the first trump year, trump term, and particularly 2020, the four years ago in the famous formulation, as a historian and historian and presidential elections, how do you see it? >> i think january 6 is such a seminal event and for the days after it seemed like trump was toast. everybody was furious that insurrectionists, but lo and behold suddenly mitch mcconnell came back to trump and lindsey graham and they sort of built this coalition and what is it? it is really anti-federal government. that is what trump represents now. that is why we are seeing the american flag hung upside down by conservative justices. and biden is trying to be part of a tradition, presidents club, of all of the other presidents. you saw on june 6, where ronald reagan is. by then saying i represent all of this and trump is sort of the anti-federal government, anger over covid. and that people still feel that their lives became topsy-turvy and they are going to punish whoever the incumbent is. so it is hard for biden to get traction even though as you said, numbers on the economy are good. we are much better off. he has shown great leadership, but communicating that to the people when there is this much frenzy on social media and hatred toward the federal government, it is an uphill battle for biden to get reelected. >> i was thinking about 2010, the elections in which of course democrats lost. the tea party uprising. a lot of that was something similar was happening. which is people were frustrated with the aftermath of the financial crisis ushered in by the republican party. democrats were the incumbent party and they took it out against the democrats and it was sort of classic like we don't like the status quo because things are bad and they were bad, but the reason they were bad is because what had been passed on. there is something similar here where the things people don't like him a totally understandably, the shocks that came out of covid were not the doing of joe biden. subsequent administrations had to fix that and people still feel frustrated with the pace that is happening. >> it's interesting that you bring up what happened in 2010 because i think of the history of the democratic party. to clean up the miss of the republican party and as democrats clean up the miss they have to message against republicans who are acting as if they want the party that let estate into it. four years ago donald trump was telling people to drink leach to cure covid while he was having superspreader events. four years ago people were in their homes watching what you just did in a montage, but we were watching that every day for 24 hours, not knowing when we would see our loved ones and then trying to figure out who we were going to vote for when it comes to the president to get us out of this. you know, policy for people to feel it in their pocket books takes a very long time and while you mentioned some great reports for the biden administration, even the global economic report this week that said the global economy is strong because the u.s. economy is getting strong, but people are not feeling that yet. that is not the fault of president biden. that is the unregulated corporations that republicans are blocking anything democrats want to do around this. this debate coming up, president biden will have to figure out how to message that as well as the surrogates and people talking about this between now and election day so people understand how they are not feeling this, even though these historic numbers are bringing us back to a place that the american people really want to be. >> you know, doug, i think that before times nostalgia is powerful and i think there is another thing in play here and i would like to get your thoughts on it. my view of trump was always that this is a person who is so unsuited to the job above all else that if and when a crisis comes it will be the worst possible response and then covid happened and it was borne out. i think a lot of people think 2020 is a mulligan. it was a meteor that hit earth and they sort of blocked out the degree of insanity in the crisis management that happened that year and i wonder if you think it is possible to remind them or people are so resistant to thinking about it. >> i think you can and it is going to be imperative that joe biden reminds people, particularly during the upcoming debate with trump. trump has gone through so many legal jeopardy moments and years have gone by and we are running it on television all the time and you have the 34 felony conventions -- convictions. even when that happens some democrats were saying don't rub it in trump's base. of course you have to rub it in his face. you have to call him a felon. biden has struggled i think with messaging in the sense of this economy that has been building. he called it a transitory pain we were having at one point and then it was bidenomics. instead they have to lay out that our economy is doing well. yes, i feel your pain at milk, groceries, gas, but he has to be the happy warrior like fdr. at times he does that. i felt that when he was in france, talking about freedom and democracy, but other times he gets in a bit of a defensive crouch. you can't be gerald ford with whip inflation now buttons. you can't be jimmy carter, the malaise or crisis of confidence. presidents get reelected with a sense of victory and optimism and better times are yet to come and obama when he ran, he had the killing of osama bin laden which gave him the foreign policy credential that people clearly understood. the revenge of the 9/11 disaster. >> the sort of past versus future -- obviously you have two individuals, one is who is 78 and the other is 81. in some ways donald trump is the recent past and i do wonder if because the past four years have been so dramatic and disruptive, people want to go back in time and that is part of the allure. >> i think people want to go back in time when there was what they felt was more certainty. with covid there was such uncertainty. the racial unrest and then we saw january 6. hindsight is 2020 and for some reason some people as though they -- people feel as though they were better under donald trump. that wasn't the case. i think we have to make sure that president biden, and i hope his campaign is listening, that he simplifies his message. he has always been the comforter right next to president obama. be that president and then talk about the ways not only has it gotten folks out of this, but he will continue to do so if they give him four more years. along with a congress and senate to keep doing this work. >> alencia johnson and doug brinkley, thank you both. coming up, the hunter biden narrative backfires on republicans and now they are going after the attorney general instead. that is next. next. impossible. we're solving the meat problem with more meat. for moderate to severe crohn's disease skyrizi is the first il-23 inhibitor that can deliver remission and visibly improve damage of the intestinal lining. serious allergic reactions and an increased risk of infections or a lower ability to fight them may occur. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms, had a vaccine or plan to. liver problems may occur in crohn's disease. control of crohn's means everything to me. ask your gastroenterologist about skyrizi. ♪ control is everything to me ♪ learn how abbvie could help you save. why would i use kayak to compare ♪ control is hundreds of travel sites at once? i like to do things myself. i can't trust anything else to do the job 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spending... x marks the spot. do it all on the network made for streaming, and bring on the good stuff. donald trump and his henchmen in congress have for years chased joe biden's only living son hunter biden in what is to me a bad effort to use him to go after his father. yesterday hunter biden got convicted in federal court. the scandal machine has basically run out of fuel and now out of desperation republicans are demanding attorney general merrick garland release the audiotape of president biden's interview with special counsel robert hur. what? even the republicans already have the transcript. today they voted to hold the attorney general in contempt. congressman joe neguse of colorado is assistant democratic leader and member of the judiciary committee and joins me now. congressman, what was this all about? >> good evening and good to be with you, chris. unfortunately it is a sad state of affairs in washington, d.c. as extreme house republicans have once again found a way to weaponize what are very constitutional and serious tools that the congress has at its disposal. in this case, as you articulated, they pursued a baseless contempt resolution against the attorney general. by way of background as many of your viewers already know, the attorney general fully complied with the requests made by the congress. the department of justice produced over 90,000 pages of documents with respect to this inquiry. more by the way, chris, then the entire department of justice provided during the course of the trump administration and also produced the transcript itself of the president's conversation with the special counsel. the contextual reasons house republicans offered for purposes of the audio were clearly a smokescreen for what was a political exercise. they wanted audiotapes to use them for a campaign commercial and the attorney general cited a number of reasons why ultimately that tape could not be provided. the president invoked executive privilege and republicans in the house of course know that to be the case, but they proceeded anyway. unfortunately i think it is shameful and disgraceful and we will have to see what comes next in the clown show that they have perpetrated on the american people right now. >> you know, two things i want to note. the republican who voted against it said as a former prosecutor i cannot in good conscience support a position to score political points. the american people expect congress to work for them and solve policy problems. enough is enough. second of all i want to make sure that i have the events right. merrick garland appoints a special counsel to investigate the president. the man that he appoints is a republican who is a donald trump appointee in the justice department. this individual asks for an interview which the president voluntarily complies with i think for nine hours despite the fact that donald trump never gave an interview to robert mueller. he then uses parts of that interview to take political shots at him in the opening introduction. they release the transcript and all of this is deemed, what? partisan by the republicans? how far can you possibly go? the answer is nowhere. there is nothing you can do. >> that is the question and it is an open question. you articulated the timeline well. i would offer two amendments. one, this attorney general produced as you know the special counsel report in full, unredacted. very different compared to attorney general bill burr. i remember as we dealt with subterfuge with respect to the special counsel investigation and in this case the special counsel testified in front of my committee, as did the attorney general as recently as last week. this is a farce. house republicans know that. it is a way for them to up skate their lack of days for them to obfuscate their lack of an agenda. they prefer to spend time on these political games, which is unfortunate. >> it is not a coincidence the timing between hunter biden's conviction yesterday and this. this is the new york times reporting. mister trump who aggressively attacked hunter biden in the 2020 election has changed his mind about doing so now. trump said republicans needed to be careful not to go overboard because it could elicit sympathy and make people view the president as a caring father. so they spend years chasing this guy to the ends of the earth. they successfully, let's be clear, they basically successfully control this investigation. the prosecution happens and now it is like we've got to light a new fire because that one has burned out. >> look, in their view the circus must continue. their message is not resonating with the american people, so as a result they will continue pursuing political retribution at every turn and of course this is not the first time. they pursued seven or eight different impeachment resolutions at various points in the last 18 months against a variety of cabinet officials. they impeached secretary mayorkas. that was dispensed in the senate without a trial. the attempted impeachment of president biden failed. so i have no doubt that unfortunately these games are going to continue for some time. hope springs eternal that perhaps some in the republican caucus will do what representative joyce did today and ultimately speak truth to power and do the right thing and join us in getting back to the business of the house. >> congressman joe neguse, thank you for your time. up next, what happened in the senate when the democrats tried to introduce ethics to the supreme court. next. . my mental health was better. but uncontrollable movements called td, tardive dyskinesia, started disrupting my day. td felt embarrassing. i felt like disconnecting. i asked my doctor about treating my td, and learned about ingrezza. ♪ ingrezza ♪ ingrezza is clinically proven for reducing td. most people saw results in just two weeks. people taking ingrezza can stay on most mental health meds. only number-one 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the senate floor arguing why the ethics package should pass. senator, it is good to have you on. first, tell me what the act fix -- what the ethics package, what would it do? >> it is so straightforward, chris. it says they would have to have a binding code of ethics at least as strong as the house or senate has. what applies to the executive branch, what applies to other judges, what applies to members of the house and senate applies to the supremes as well. >> that is like what congressman raskin and ocasio- cortez were talking about. you could not do it as a senator. you could not do it as a mid- level engineer at the department of the interior and you could not do it as any other federal judge. >> chris, it is just phenomenal. think about what this looks like. it is mega yacht trips. indonesia. tuition for family members. luxury rvs. helicopter flights. you name it. $6 million of gifts over the last 20 years. here is the scenario. for an average person hauled into court and somebody sues you and you find out the person suing you has been going on fishing trips to alaska with the judge. would you think you are getting a fair shake? that there is any possibility of justice in that situation? the answer is absolutely not. that is a profoundly corrupt court and that is what we have today. >> i think, well, i don't know what the logic is but i think republicans say this is all partisan. the reason you are doing this is because you don't like the rulings in the court, you don't like the ideology, so you are trying to attack legitimacy to a road power for purely ideological and partisan reasons. >> certainly if republicans want this court to have the force that comes with integrity and respect of the american people, then they should be the first to step forward to clean up this miss. it is in fact a miss and certainly i believe that these justices on the right who were trained and selected by the federalist society to deliver power on a plate to corporations in america, are deeply, profoundly warping the constitution. in favor of corporations and against consumers and environmental laws and many other things. this issue of accepting massive gifts from people who have issues before the court, that stands on its own. separate from any dispute one might have. >> i want to redo something that sam alito said last summer in an interview with the wall street journal to a lawyer and a writer there. he said i know this is a controversial view, but i'm willing to say it, he says. no provision in the constitution gives congress the authority to regulate the supreme court, period. what do you think of that? >> it is called legislation and the constitution does give legislation power to the congress. it gives the ability to put a code of ethics on the executive branch. yes a president can veto it, but we can override that veto. certainly there was a sense of while the constitution said little about what the court system would look like, there were massive decisions made by congress to decide how the judiciary would be structured and run. so absolutely that does not pass any sort of common sense or legal examination. >> final question and quickly. on the question of having the chief justice come before the senate. he has basically blown off an inquiry from the chair of the judiciary committee who reached out to him. samuel alito has written to say i am not recusing myself. basically they are like, you are not the boss of us and we don't have to listen to anything you say. is that a tolerable equilibrium? >> it is not, because they are basically saying we have the right to be corrupt and you can't do anything about it and that deeply undermines a key institution in our country in which we need to have a sense of respect. a sense that it delivers the balls and strikes, as justice roberts once said in his confirmation hearings. right now we are getting profound conflict of interest and that is really sad to hear. chris, here is the thing. justice roberts, in running this court, he has to recognize that he is failing in his responsibility to run this court in a fashion which delivers fairness and a sense of integrity to the american people. >> one jeff merkley, inc.'s very much. we will be right back. if advanced lung cancer has you searching for possibilities, discover a different first treatment. immunotherapies work with your immune system to attack cancer. but opdivo plus yervoy is the first combination of 2 immunotherapies for adults newly diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer that has spread, tests positive for pd-l1, and does not have an abnormal egfr or alk gene. opdivo plus yervoy is not chemotherapy, it works differently. it helps your immune system fight cancer in 2 different ways. opdivo and yervoy can cause your immune system to harm healthy parts of your body during and after treatment. these problems can be severe and lead to death. see your doctor right away if you have a cough; chest pain; shortness 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hampshire primary and we were doing my show where we did so many msnbc shows that you're at jds tavern. in that very moment as i was speaking, in my line of sight, howard feynman sitting in a booth about to take a bite from a huge pastrami sandwich. the legendary political journalist was with us at all of those political moments on every primary, convention, everything in between going back more than 20 years. he was a near constant presence on msnbc, sharing reporting and insight from his career spanning four decades and seven presidents. >> you confess your weak spot up front, but then you turn it into a virtue and make what you hope is a dramatic and winning contest with your opponent. in this case as you say you cannot out flamboyant donald trump. you cannot be more, in many ways, irresponsible than donald trump. >> howard fineman was more connected in politics than just about any journalist has been. it was a force of nature who knew everybody in washington. i was so saddened to 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>> first and foremost, a ceasefire. first and foremost, a ceasefire. this is elementary. this is like when there was a ceasefire, hostages came back. now, -- they happen here and there, they are not a strategic solution to the problem of 120 people still kept in captivity. you know, during seven months of military operation israel succeeded in releasing seven hostages alive. this is, you know, a pace of one hostage a month. eight months, even. so 120 hostages would take ten years time. the hostages have no time. the sanitary conditions are nonexistent. the health is deteriorating by the day. physical and mental. and we must find a way to bring them back home as soon as possible. these are not, you know, these are not only young people, these are elderly people, grandfathers and parents and uncles and people that were taken from their beds at 7:00 a.m. on a saturday, you know, in their pajamas and barefoot sometimes, yeah. >> in the u.s., one of the things that people -- there has been kind of a joining of the notion of the war and the justness of it and doing it on behalf of the hostages. many people feel that the war is on behalf of the hostages, and people think that those, you know, who are calling for ceasefire are betraying them or forgetting about them. and you wrote this open letter that basically argued the opposite. and so for people that are -- people of good faith across the spectrum on this very contested issue, i want to hear your argument to them as a family member. >> sure, sure. first, again, a ceasefire. why? the thing that endangers the hostages the most right now, idf bombing. this has been from october 8th ongoing where my 9-year-old cousin's son was asked during an interview after he has spent 49 days in gaza captivity, he was asked what do you feel most about your grandfather still being there? without hesitation he answered the idf bombing. the idf bombing endangers the hostages, and the idf bombing, actually, we know about 14 hostages that were killed either by direct hit by the idf or, you know, as -- after an idf attack, the attackers needed to evacuate the space. they killed them, so you know, the military operation endangers the hostages. it got seven hostages out, 14, at least, dead, and this -- the whole military maneuver is not getting -- it's not for the hostages at all. it's not helping them. on the contrary, it gets them further and further away from the hostage deal, further and further away from getting united with their loved ones. because we know that the conditions for the hostage exchange or the prisoners exchange or whatever you want to call this, getting them back home is first, ceasefire. and by waging this war from day one, the israel government initiatives of this military operation is only keeping us apart, keeping us further and further apart. at the beginning it was only northern gaza, then it was rafah, and before that it was elsewhere, and we're just getting further and further apart from a solution to this problem, because the solution should start with a ceasefire. this is, you know, logical and basic. >> a spokesperson for the group of hostage, his uncle held by hamas in gaza. i can't thank you enough for making time for us. we're all thinking about you and your family. >> thank you very much. and we pray for the safe return of all of the hostages as soon as possible. this is a humanitarian issue. this is not some political issue, and people trying to make this a political issue, especially, the government trying to make this political. no, this is a humanitarian crisis. and everything should be done to get them back as soon as possible. thank you very much. >> that is all in on this wednesday night. alex wagner tonight starts right now. good evening, alex. >> 250 days, just unbelievable this is where we are. thank you, my friend, as always. so i want to start with a story that in any other universe would have absolutely nothing to do with politics or anything even approximating controversy. the kind of news we all used to read or hear and accept. but in the post-trump era, this