it was not the first trump administration scandal it was certainly, certainly, certainly not the last but in terms of permanent damage done to humans, in terms of the severity of the damage deliberately done to humans, the trump administration, no matter what else they do, they will never, ever get out from the shadow of the fact that they really did, as a policy and a deliberate practice, they really did take little kids away from their moms and dads. it will never not be true that we all lived in a time when the white house ordered the

forcible, systematic removal of children from their parents at the border they outfitted the kids with little mylar blankets and a lump of padding that was supposed to qualify as a mattress, and they told him to sleep on the floor behind chain-link fence alone, in federal detention, without their moms and dads. thousands of kids taken from their parents by the u.s. government with the u.s. government having no plan in place on how or when to get those kids back to their parents. when we realized that our government was doing this, when we realized that the trump administration had ordered this, there was a deafening roar of public utcry, and the trump administration eventually stopped the child separation policy well, at least they said they stopped it since the trump administration announced that supposed end to the child separation policy, more than 1,000 more kids have been taken away from their parents at the southern border

and put into u.s. government custody separate and apart from their parents. child separations are still happening. they are just happening in the shadows now, without the administration admitting that this is still their policy no matter what else happens in this administration, whether this administration lasts four more months or four more years, history will always remember this, right? this is a foundational, moral catastrophe that will stand alone in the history books even alongside the covid catastrophe, even alongside all of the other things that have happened over these 3 1/2 disastrous years but even though that decision to take kids away from their parents deliberately, even though that decision to do something systematically that none of us on our worst day could ever imagine doing personally on a human level to a young child, right you can't imagine yourself ever

being dark enough, right ever having an evil enough impulse to take a living kid away from their parent who is trying to hold on to them, to separate them indefinitely with no way to get them back. you can't even imagine that in yourself no matter, whatever else you've done in your life, you couldn't do it. but our government ordered it, and they did it systematically, and that will never, ever be alongside anything else they've done but even still, with that standing alone, there have been weird, almost perverse offshoots of that story in terms of the behavior of the trump administration and its appointees now, one of them we covered pretty extensively on this show when it first came to light. it was about a specific trump appointee, an anti-abortion activist named scott lloyd who was put in charge of the office of refugee resettlement. scott lloyd had been a lifelong anti-abortion activist that's all he'd ever done in

life he was therefore an odd choice to lead the office of refugee resettlement for one thing, he had precisely zero prior experience of anything having to do with resettling refugees, so why should he run the refugee resettlement office? for unexplained reasons, they gave him the job anyway, and once he was installed there in 2017, mr. lloyd decided that he would use the power of his office, the fact that people in custody under his authority were essentially under his control -- he would use that power to block a teenage rape victim, who was living alone in a shelter run by scott lloyd's office -- he tried to use the fact that that gave him power over her to block her from obtaining abortion because she wanted to get an abortion so she would not be forced to bear the child of her rapist. he decided he would block that now, in this country, it does not matter if you are a refugee. it doesn't matter if you are not american by birth.

it doesn't matter if you are here as a legal immigrant or otherwise. under our constitution, everybody is guaranteed a constitutional right to obtain an abortion if they want one and in the case of this 17-year-old girl who had been raped, she wanted one. but this trump appointee, scott lloyd, who knows why he was in this job in the first place? he decided he would use his power to block this girl from getting it, right? he's the guy in charge of this agency that has all these kids living in its custody. he decided he would use that power to take it upon himself to block any young woman under his purview from getting an abortion for any reason, starting with that 17-year-old girl who had been raped and in the end, that 17-year-old girl sued, and she won, and she was able to get the abortion and the lawsuit around her case turned up something else about the way the trump administration was running this operation and this guy scott lloyd they had

put in charge of all these young people "the new york times" was first to break the news that scott lloyd had instructed his staff at the office of refugee resettlement, that they should give him a spreadsheet every week listing one by one, individually, girls who were in the custody of his agency who were pregnant. that spreadsheet eventually became public thanks to a foia request, and when it became public, it was revealed to all of us that not only was scott lloyd keeping tabs on every pregnant young woman in his agency's custody, he was tracking all the girls' menstrual cycles as well i should tell you he was tracking these girls' periods after acourt told him that he needed to stop interfering in these girls' medical care decisions. even after that court order telling him to get out of these decisions, to get out of the middle of this, he kept tracking their periods anyway, individually, girl by girl, month by month because that's

what he was into and i know this is dark stuff. i mean it was rough reporting all of this frankly the first time around. it's one of those things that, like, you know, you come to work and hope there's no new developments on that story but the reason i'm bringing it all up again tonight is because now we have arrived at the next chapter in this same story and i'm not going to dance around it. i'm just going to say it, and i guess we should have seen it coming but, still, it's a shock a nurse who works at an i.c.e. detention facility in georgia has just contributed to a whistle-blower complaint she says that in her time working at this i.c.e. detention facility -- it's a detention center in irwin county, georgia -- she says that immigrant women at that facility have told her they have routinely been sent to a gynecologist who has performed unnecessary procedures on them,

including hysterectomies just to underscore that, the allegation here is that this is a federal facility, and they have been sending immigrant women in their care, in their custody, to a doctor who was removed their reproductive organs for no medical reason and without them consenting to it. let me read you some of the passages from the complaint here, which was written on behalf of that nurse as well as some of the women detainees. it was written by an advocate group called project south i will tell you in advance, although you can probably see it coming, that it's a little bit upsetting. all right. from the complaint, quote, a detained immigrant told project south that she talked to five different women detained at the irwin county detention center between october and december 2019, five different women between october november, and december, 2019 over that three month period, five different women who had had a hysterectomy done. when she talked to them about the surgery, the women reacted confused when explaining why

they had one done. the detainee said when i met all these women who had had surgeries, i thought this was like an experimental concentration camp it was like they're experimenting with our bodies. the nurse who contributed to this whistle-blower complaint explains it like this. quote, everybody this doctor sees has a hysterectomy, just about everybody. he's even taken out the wrong ovary on one detaned immigrant woman. she was supposed to get her left ovary removed because of a cyst. he took out the right one. she was upset. she had to go back to take out the left and she wound up with a total hysterectomy she still wanted children. so she has to go back home and tell her husband she can't bear kids she said she was not all the way out under anesthesia and heard the doctor tell the nurse that he took out the wrong ovary. the nurse said she and her fellow nurses, quote, questioned among ourselves, goodness, he's taking everybody's stuff out that's his specialty he's the uterus collector. she says, quote, i know that's ugly is he collecting these things or something? everybody he sees, he's taking all their uteruses out or he's taken their tubes out.

what in the world? according to this nurse, this whistle-blower, she alleges in this complaint that on several occasions, women told her that this doctor performed hysterectomies, he removed the uteruses of these refugee women for no medical reason without their proper informed consent. and this nurse, the whistle-blower, talked about it today with my colleague, jacob soboroff watch. >> the ladies would put in to see the gynecologist for whatever reason, and they were wanting to be seen for, and they were having hysterectomies they would come back oftentimes and question why did i have to have a hysterectomy? i didn't have an answer. >> they would ask you directly >> why did i have to have a hysterectomy nobody explained this to me. i didn't know i was undergoing this i had one lady to tell me that she was a young girl if she had known that she was going to have a hysterectomy, she wouldn't have went.

>> you're quoted in the complaint as saying, that's his specialty. he's the uterus collector. is that how people refer to this doctor >> that's how the detainees referred to this physician they referred to him as -- i had a detainee that asked me, what is he doing, ms. wooden, collecting all of our uteruses and i just looked at her puzzled because i didn't have an answer. >> i almost don't know what to say hearing you describe this. as a nurse giving care to these inmates, how do you process this what is this like? >> you -- you're in awe because you don't have -- you don't have a valid answer for them. it's mind-blowing and it's mind-boggling. when you get in your vehicle after a 12-hour shift and you cry yourself home and you're the only one in the vehicle asking why, what is going on, what is

happening, i don't have an answer, why is nobody not hearing them or taking them, so to speak, seriously, i don't have an answer so shift after shift, then it gets to be where you don't want to report to work because you don't have an answer you don't have a reason, and they're going to ask you why. >> what happened to the women that you spoke with who had these hysterectomies do you know? >> a lot of them were deported back to their countries. i don't know if they transferred others to other facilities >> do you think what happened to the women that you spoke with is going to happen to other women in the future? >> me personally, if there's not a change, there's not going to be a change. if there's not any correction, there's not going to be any correction if there are not people like

myself that are brave enough to have a voice for other people and not be so afraid to speak out, a lot of people desire to speak out but are afraid of losing their job i spoke out. i was demoted. so i was made the example of a whistle-blew because i love to do what i love to do and if it was my son or my daughter, my mother or my father that was in that situation, then i would want somebody to speak out on their behalf as well. >> you obviously know the detainees well inside irwin. what would be your message to them today >> my message to the detainees today would be all hope is not lost that things last for only a short while. but there is a beacon light, and there is a light at the end of the tunnel i apologize on behalf of irwin

county detention center for what goes on concerning them in the facility and i understand totally, not in that situation, but i understand totally what it feels like to be overlooked and neglected, just not neglected in silence >> i should tell you that these allegations from this whistle-blower are not isolated complaints nbc news has spoken to four different lawyers who represent women who were detained in that federal facility in georgia who are making similar claims. according to nbc's reporting, one of the lawyers represents two women who were detained at the facility who say they received hysterectomies that they believe may have been unnecessary. another lawyer represents a woman who says she went to this

doctor's office for an exam. the exam left her with bruising. an attorney for the doctor against whom these allegations have been made says his client, quote, vigorously denies these allegations and will be cleared of any wrongdoing when the facts come out i.c.e., immigrations and customs enforcement, refused to comment on the allegations from those lawyers who spoke to nbc news, but they have released a statement tonight in response to the allegations in the whistle-blower complaints. it says, in part, these accusations will be fully investigated by an independent office however, i.c.e. vehemently disputes the implication that detainees are used for experimental medical procedures. the health, welfare and safety of detainees is one of the agent's highest priorities according to i.c.e. data, since 2018, only two individuals at irwin county detention center were referred to certified credentialed medical professionals at gien co-logical and on stets rickle health care

facilities for hysterectomies. whether or not the women were referred for hysterectomies or not, more than two women are saying they got them, and more than two women are telling lawyers as part of this complaint that they don't know why any got them and that they don't think they needed them joining us now is jacob soboroff, msnbc correspondent and the author of "separated: inside an american tragedy" which is the seminal book on the child separation policy that i think is relevant context here thanks for making time to talk about this reporting i know it's been a really busy day. >> thank you so much, rachel, for having me here >> so you had this remarkable interview with this whistle-blower, this nurse who has worked at this facility in georgia. chris hayes was also able to talk with her live along with her lawyer in the last hour. but to be clear, as compelling as her story is, her first-person story is, the allegations aren't coming solely from her, right? there are things that other people and that other lawyers for other people have declared as part of this complaint that would seem to back up what she's

saying >> yeah, i'm glad you brought that up. for us it was important to corroborate the allegations in this whistle-blower complaint from ms. wooten. i wanted to speak with her myself, which obviously i did. but also to corroborate the allegations of the migrants who were detailed in the whistle-blower complaint so julia and i spoke to four different lawyers today, and every one of them has said that they had a client who had contact with this doctor where they were told one thing and ultimately they were -- they came out of this either having a procedure or being recommended to have a procedure that was deeply invasive and of course at least in two of those cases, the hysterectomies took place. and one of those lawyers even told us they went to the detention facility, complained about the treatment from this doctor, but no change was ever made >> and to be clear, the complaints here from these women and their lawyers who are speaking on their behalf is essentially that they -- not that they never should have been

sent out to see a gynecologist but, rather, that whatever was going on with them, they did not understand that the treatment was going to be a hysterectomy and then in some cases, the allegation here is that the hysterectomies, whether or not the women consented to them in the first place, they were not medically necessary. >> no, that's right. and there are other allegations of other procedures including pap smears where women were told you've got ovarian cysts or cancer and that turned out not to be the case but those procedures happened anyway i do want to say, rachel, at the time we published the article, we went to the facility itself, la salle corrections corporation, which owns and operates the irwin facility for i.c.e., and they didn't have anything to say to us. but we did get a comment before we came to air, and i'd like to read that to you if that's okay as well. >> please. >> they wanted us to let everyone know that they say they adhere to performance-based standards and la salle corrections has a strict zero tolerance policy for any kind of

inappropriate behavior in our facilities and takes allegations of such misstraemt seriously our company strongly refutes these allegations and any implications of misconduct at the icdc but, you know, that goes against what we heard from at least one of the attorneys today, which was when these allegations came up from the clients, she went to the correctional facility. she told them they didn't want her patient continuing to see that doctor. and patients continued to see that doctor as ms. wooten details. and this statement they considered him the uterus collector is graphic, is hard to listen to, but that's what they're talking about according to ms. wooten inside this facility, and she's not the only one saying so. >> jacob, what should happen here legally in terms of this complaint? obviously she's casting herself as a whistle-blower. there is significant corroboration for the worst of the allegations that she's making i.c.e. is saying that this will be investigated. the facility is saying that

whether or not it's investigated, they deny that any of this happened the doctor is saying essentially the same thing what do you expect to happen in terms of this being looked into, in terms of these women's claims being investigated and potentially there being accountability here? >> so the office of the inspector general, the department of homeland security will open an investigation the office of civil rights and civil liberties within the department of homeland security will look at this as well. they were copied essentially on the complaint. what i think this gets to, one of the lawyers said to me, which i really want to underscore here, is that while she didn't think that this is a conspiracy, a large conspiracy by the government necessarily to have these procedures on these women, it is emblematic of systematic lack of oversight for medical care and also just well-being and welfare of immigrants in immigration detention as well as you mentioned what happened with scott lloyd.

with family separations, we didn't know what was happening because we couldn't see inside these facilities this particular example is uniquely heinous if the allegations ultimately are proch to be true but it's one of many examples in this system where immigration detention is a place where people come to seek refuge, seek asylum, but are subjected to prison-like conditions where they have virtually no recourse when something like this happens, or at least that's the way that they feel obviously the government would say differently, and of course their lawyers would disagree >> yeah, prison-like conditions and worse. i mean the -- i know there's a reason that i.c.e. put their denial in the terms immediately about whether this is human experimentation on these essentially powerless detainees and refugees i understand why they went right at that because of the way that resonates with all of us who know any history here. but the fact that this is part of the government where we're training people who are working even at a remove, working for the u.s. government to treat

human beings the way that immigrants and refugees have been treated, it's just -- i mean it's on all of us in terms of what the government is saying we stand for and what they'll do in our name. >> there's no doubt about it, rachel it's why it's important that we talk about these stories i know these are hard stories to talk about, but these are real human beings undergoing what is alleged to be truly, truly horrific treatment at the hands of a so-called medical professional that's why now the department of homeland security will be forced to investigate this. we've heard the top officials in congress on the hill also call for investigations as well and so now that has to play its course. >> msnbc correspondent jacob soboroff jacob, thank you so much for your reporting on this and helping us put it in context i really appreciate it >> thanks, rachel. >> all right much more to get to in the news tonight. stay with us

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when supporters of president trump convened in freeland,

michigan, a few days ago for one of his no masks required rallies, people had to drive up to that event and line up to get into that event alongside this truck, a sound truck playing this sound watch. >> i wanted to always play it down i still like playing it down i wanted to always play it down. i still like playing it down i wanted to always play it down, always play it down. i still like playing it down i wanted to always play it down. i still like playing it down i wanted to always play it down. i wanted to always play it down. i still like playing it down i wanted to always play it down. i still like playing it down. >> the democratic party sent this truck to trump's michigan rally at the end of last week, playing on a loop the sound of president trump speaking to bob woodward about coronavirus "i wanted to always play it down i still like playing it down." the visuals on the side of the truck listing the number of

americans -- can you cut the sound on that, please -- listing the number of americans dead from coronavirus and the number of businesses closed over that out-loud loop of the president admitting he plays it down even just playing it here while i'm trying to explain something else, it kind of gets inside your brain and won't let you go. that was late last week. then this weekend the president held another rally, this one indoors with thousands of people the only indoor event in the whole country with thousands of people and no masks required right now. the only events of that kind in the whole country because of the pandemic are the president's rallies. the president was asked by the "las vegas review journal" about the coronavirus risk of him holding this big indoor rally. he told them, quote, i'm on a stage, and it's very far away, and so i'm not at all concerned. the president thinks he'll be fine he gets tested whenever he wants. he's up onstage away from all the other people there with no masks, you know, chanting and shouting and screaming and

breathing on each other. so they'll infect each other he doesn't worry about that. he'll be fine. he's far away from them up on the stage. since then, bob woodward has released more tapes of the president talking about coronavirus. in addition to the initial tapes that were provided to the "washington post." and i know you've seen the reporting on this in terms of what's in woodward's book and what the president told him about coronavirus, but it really is something to just hear him say it, to hear him admit it when even now he is -- even this week he is holding no-mask events and telling people it's no big deal, and it will go away like magic and kids are immune and all the rest >> it goes through air, bob. that's always tougher than the touch. you know, the touch, you don't have to touch things, right? but the air, you just breathe the air, and that's how it's passed and so that's a very tricky one. that's a very delicate one it's also more deadly than your -- you know, even your

strenuous flus, you know, so this is deadly stuff now it's turning out it's not just old people, bob it's not just older -- >> yeah, exactly. >> it's plenty of young people well, i think, bob, really, to be honest with you. >> sure. i want you to be. >> i wanted to -- i wanted to always play it down. i still like playing it down this thing is a killer if it gets you if you're the wrong person, you don't have a chance. >> yes, yes, exactly >> so this rips you apart. >> this is a scourge. >> it is the plague. and bob, it's so easily transmissible, you wouldn't even believe it >> that's the president speaking in private it's so easily transmissible, you wouldn't eve belien believet it's the plague. this rips you apart. if you're the wrong person, you don't have a chance. this thing is a killer if it gets you that's him in private talking about what he actually knows and then in public, you know, he's putting thousands of people inside indoor rallies, making

fun of masks and social distancing >> they have you can't have political rallies. that's because of me because if biden were here, it would be about three people do you ever see him with his little circles, the circle you know why he puts the circles? because he wants to be like correct with covid but it's not really -- because they can't get anybody to fill up a room, so they put these big circles he can't get anybody to fill -- nobody wants to go oh, boy. you know, the fake news -- look at all those people back there, the fakers [ audience booing that's true. >> that's the way the president is campaigning on covid. it's no big deal don't wear masks we should all get thousands of people together for rallies, including indoors. don't obey stay-at-home orders or shutdowns anybody who's doing that and trying to pay attention to the ways you're supposed to behave to not transmit covid, they're

just wusses. they're lying to you that's not really what they mean that's how the president's campaigning on covid the biden campaign, though, now has the gift of being able to campaign on covid using the president's own words against him, both with stunts like that soundtrack playing the president's remarks that he wants to play it down, i always like to play it down but also with new ads like this one. >> the president caught red-handed lying about coronavirus, publicly saying -- >> children are almost immune. >> secretly saying the truth. >> this is deadly stuff. it's not just old. plenty of young people >> millions of jobs lost and 190,000 americans dead you took an oath to protect our citizens mr. president, these deaths are on your hands. it's time to put america back in the hands of a president who will protect the country and tell us the truth. >> i'm joe biden, and i approve this message >> we are hitting the home stretch of the campaign. we're less than 50 days out now. voters in six or seven states, i

think, can already start sending in their votes if you can do that already, you should vote early this year if you can. but this is a live beast both in terms of the way it plays in the election and everything else i mean this is something that is upon us every day in ways that are still unpredictable. today, for example, the lsu football coach just sort of casually announces that most of that entire top-ranked football team has contracted covid. most of the whole lsu football team up in maine, a story we've been following about one wedding held in maine last month where they didn't follow crowd size restrictions and people didn't wear masks as we reported a couple weeks ago, that wedding has been identified as the source of largest covid outbreak in maine. that outbreak is still spreading out across the state it's now blamed for at least seven deaths in the state, none of which are among people who actually attended the wedding. it's all people who the wedding attendees brought the disease home to and then their family

members and associates spread it at their workplaces, including at a jail in maine and a senior living facility that has now had multiple deaths. the pastor who conducted that wedding and who subsequently appears to have brought home a pretty good-sized covid outbreak to his church in maine, that pastor is continuing to hold in-person, indoor congregate services while the outbreak that he appears to have caused in his own church is spreading through his congregation and why is he doing that because he thinks it's all a hoax in south dakota, for which most of the national headlines these days are about the republican attorney general of the state killing a man with his car on the hawaii and reporting it to the local sheriff as him hitting a deer and not a person -- i know the local press in south dakota is meanwhile focused pretty intently on the fact that south dakota now has one of the worst per capita infection rates in the country. south dakota's new case rate has recently been roughly quadruple

the national rate of new infections while the state's republican governor, kristi noem, continues to say that she doesn't believe the so-called experts about masks, so she won't require them in the state and she recently admitted quite cheerfully to taking $5 million of the federal covid relief money for her state and instead spending it on tourism ads for south dakota come visit south dakota. our covid new infection rates are quadruple the rest of the coin, and our country's the worst in the world, and we don't wear masks our governor thinks it's not really happening, so ditch the mask and come play on the side of the road here i mean that's what they spent their covid money on they spent $5 million in covid money on tourism ads because the governor doesn't think it's that big a deal meanwhile the south dakota infection rates are like highest or second highest in the country. the pandemic is a live and well, and the news about it is flabbergasting in some new way every day. and we are about to hit the terrible milestone of 200,000

americans dead from this thing and i don't know if it will make a difference in terms of the country making its choice between trump and biden, but the response to covid at the federal level continues to not just be bad. it's getting worse and in out-loud, obvious, public ways just tonight in a town hall thing with abc news, the president tried and kind of failed in his attempt. he wasn't able to spit it out, but he was trying to endorse the idea of herd immunity for the united states, which in the absence of a vaccine is the idea of basically letting everybody get infected >> and you'll develop -- you'll develop herd -- like a herd mentality. it's going to be -- it's going to be herd developed, and that's going to happen. that will all happen >> herd mentality. herd mentality you mean herd immunity that's what you're pursuing for us as a country, and you don't even know what it is and you think it might be the

same thing as herd mentality tonight one of the stories that we're following is a new decision by the trump administration about coronavirus that will blow your mind it involves two multi-billion dollar companies, and that story is next. state-of-the-art technology makes it brilliant. the visionary lexus nx. lease the 2020 nx 300 for $339 a month for 36 months. experience amazing at your lexus dealer.

my wife and daughter had been killed in an automobile crash, and lying in the bed were my two little boys. i couldn't have imagined what it would've been like if i didn't have insurance to cover them immediately and fully. forty years later, one of those little boys, my son beau, was diagnosed with terminal cancer, given months to live. i can't fathom what would have happened if the insurance companies had the power to say, "the last few months, you're on your own." the fact of the matter is health care is personal to me. obamacare is personal to me. when i see the president of the united states try to eliminate this health care

in the middle of a public health crisis, that's personal to me too. we've got to build on what we did because every american deserves affordable health care. i'm joe biden and i approve this message. [horns honking] ms. robinson: we're ready! ms. zamora: ¡estamos listos! ms. duncan: we're ready! ms. williams: we have missed you so much. ms. zamora: we're with you every step of the way. narrator: making our school buildings safer. ms. williams: no one wants to be back in the classroom more than teachers. mr. hardesty: but we all have to be safe.

ms. robinson: we take great pride in making sure all of our students achieve. ms. duncan: remember to wear your mask. ms. robinson: wash your hands. ms. zamora: and stay safe. narrator: because the california teachers association knows quality public schools make a better california for all of us. her name is tin ai she was a refugee who fled to the united states in 2007. shrtly after coming to this country, she got a job at the jbs meat processing plant in greeley, colorado. that is where she worked for over 12 years until late march when she contracted covid. tin ai's daughter says that at the time, she was coughing and feverish her symptoms eventually got bad enough that ms. aye went to the company's clinic to be checked out. when she got to that clinner, her daughter said the clijic told her she just had a normal cold so they sent her back to

work but within a few days, ms. aye was so sick she had to be admitted to the intensive care unit at the local hospital while she was there, her daughter gave birth to a son, tin aye's first grandson, a grandson she would never get to meet shortly before being placed on a ventilator, tin aye called her daughter and said, i feel really bad that i couldn't see my grandson i really want to see him after that, her daughter says she cried and hung up the phone. she didn't have time they were rushing the surgery for her, rushing to get her on the ventilator because she couldn't breathe anymore tin aye was one of six workers at the greeley, colorado, meatpacking plant who ultimately died from covid. one workplace, six deaths. but this was obviously not a crisis confined to just that one plant in colorado. we covered this story from the beginning as cases started to just skyrocket at meat processing plants all over the country. there's nothing inherent about meatpacking as an activity that spreads the virus. the reason these plants proved to be such wildly efficient transmitters of the virus among

their workers was because of the working conditions there, which is something defined by the companies that run these places. and what made them so efficient for this covid epidemic is the fact that the workers were working in conditions in which the meat plants found them to be efficiently arrayed, packed together in very close quarters for very long shifts with no way to stay away from each other, and in the early weeks and months especially, no way to safely mask up or protect themselves and so anybody infected in that plant very quickly infected everybody else at facilities like the smithfield plant in sioux, in logan's port, indiana, more than 1,000 infections were ultimately tied to a tyson's food plant in that town. by early may, four plants in iowa had racked up 16,000 cases among them there were outbreaks in nebraska and minnesota, and wisconsin and nearly every other state where these plants operated.

and yet very early on we saw efforts on the part of the federal government and states themselves to force these meat processing facilities to stay open no matter the human toll, and in some cases against local health authorities telling them they had to shut down as a danger to this day, we have strong reason to believe that the cdc's scientific guidance that was ultimately issued for the smithfield plant in sioux falls, we have reason to believe that scientific advice my have been purposely watered down by the trump administration to try to keep the meat industry happy later we saw republican governors in multiple states crack down on people's ability to even know about outbreaks in specific meatpacking plants by hiding that data and not letting it be announced when they had multiple people testing positive at individual plants as egregious as all of that has been over these past few months, now something has just been -- there have been two new revelations in the last several days that have put even me back

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♪ jails and prisons, senior living facilities and nursing homes, and meatpacking plants. if you want to put a bull's-eye on the work environments in which you as an american worker are most likely to get covid infected on the job, it has been this same stark list from the beginning. in the meatpacking industry itself, so far more than 42,000 people, 42,000 meatpacking workers have tested positive at least 200 of them have died despite that, federal regulators this week issued their first finds of any kind to these facilities for not keeping their workers safe in this epidemic. more than 200 people dead, and the total fines assessed against meatpacking companies are less than $30,000 combined. less than $30,000 in fines split between two meatpacking companies that between them had

something like $66 billion in revenue last year, jbs and smithfield despite the deaths of multiple employees of the jbs plant in greeley, colorado, despite the casualties of the smithfield plant in sioux falls, south dakota, both of those companies say they plan to contest these meager, tiny little fines that have been handed down against those facilities by osha then on top of that, there's stunning news that propublica was first to report yesterday that has to do with the executive order president trump signed earlier this year ordering that all meatpacking plants had to remain open. it now appears that that executive order was actually first drafted by the meat industry itself. he just signed it. in fact, just one week before the order was issued, the meat industry's trade group sent top administration officials a draft executive order bearing striking similarities to the one the president signed despite the fact that their very own workers were on the front lines contracting this disease by the thousands, they were the

ones who were running the government response ordering that those plants had to stay open anyway. and hundreds of people died. joining us now is debbie berkowitz, director of the national employment law project's worker health and safety program she previously served for six years as chief of staff and senior policy adviser at osha during the obama administration. ms. berkowitz, thank you for making time to be with us tonight. i appreciate you being here. >> i'm happy to be here. thank you. >> let me just ask if the way that i've put this strikes you as the right way to approach this or if you think that i might be looking at any of this the wrong way around is this the appropriate context and the right way to understand sort of the scale of the problem here versus the scale of the attempted correction >> oh, yeah, totally i mean this is stunning, rachel, and you got this right this is an industry that decided to thumb its nose at the guidance, the basic guidance the

centers for disease control put out in late march, that the way to mitigate the spread of covid-19 was six feet apart and social distancing, and they just decided not to do it and they decided that they would just keep their plants going every other industry was changing, rearranging, restructuring. so many of our businesses were closed to protect workers and protect members of the community from the spread of covid but this industry kept on going. and then after -- and in these plants, more meatpacking workers died in these two plants in the last couple of months from covid than died in the whole meatpacking industry like a year ago. and in these plants, they got this teeny citation. it's like less than a slap on the wrist, which is sort of a -- like a get out of jail free card, and it's sort of signals to the industry it's okay. there are no consequences for you failing to protect, you know, the safety and health of these vital, essential workers

who are giving us and producing, you know, the meat and poultry that we eat. >> there was a powerful editorial in the greeley tribune, which is home to greeley, colorado, the jbs plant where so many workers died i thought they made an interesting point that i wanted to put to you as an expert on this it's about the idea of the size of the fine effectively being worse than -- the small size of the fine being effectively worse than no fine because that essentiallytells the company that they're going to be able to do stuff like this and never face anything even in the worst circumstances. the editors of the greeley tribune say, there's nothing nice to say about the actions taken by osha when it chose to levy a $15,000 fine on jbs months after six greeley plant workers and a corporate employee died from covid. jbs recorded a net revenue of $52 billion last year. that means this fine is worth

0.00003% of last year's profits. it's the equivalent of fining someone making $50,000 a year 1 1/2 cents. their point is that jbs is actually -- even as they're contesting the fine, they must be welcoming this because if this means this is the worst that's going to happen to you, this is carte blanche for them to do anything they want to their workers. >> right it's not going to offer any protection to workers, and in fact i think workers now are totally more terrified in the meat and poultry industry than they were before this because now the industry knows there's no consequences for them not providing safe conditions. there are no consequences for the meat industry forcing them to work shoulder to shoulder, elbow to elbow eight hours a day to produce meat. and, you know, we talked to the local unions there, and they were totally stunned but really the message that has gone out from this administration is workers, we agree with the meat industry

you guys are expendable. and it's just, you know -- and, you know, these workers are, you know, solid, you know blue collar workers who really support our economy, and the law is very clear that companies have too protect them, except in this administration when -- and this is very different than any other republican administration where if there were bad-acting companies or industries that cut corners on safety, you know, osha would go after them ronald reagan issued one of the highest fines in the history of the agency to a meatpacking plant in dakota city, nebraska, now owned by tyson foods it was $5.7 million. and osha decided here that they probably really didn't even want to issue a citation, but they gave one they only gave one teeny citation to check a box. okay, we did enforcement but in the end, rachel, as you

said and as the greeley paper said -- and they're right -- this actually is going to do more harm than any good because it's like if you're speeding and you get a speeding ticket of 50 cents rather than $150, you're going to like, oh, i could get like 30 of these i'll just continue to speed. and i think that's the message to the industry. just keep on keeping on. you don't have to protect your workers. >> debbie berkowitz, former chief of staff at osha, now the director of the worker health and safety program at the national employment law project. ms. berkowitz, thanks for being with us and helping us understand this. it's good to have you here. >> thanks so much, rachel. >> all right we'll be right back. stay with us t service. >> tech: we'll come right to you. ♪ upbeat music >> tech: you'll get a text when we're on our way. >> tech: before we arrive, just leave your keys on the dash. we'll replace your windshield with safe, no-contact service. ♪ upbeat music >> tech: and that's service you can trust when you need it the most.

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that is going to do it for us tonight it's two weeks from the presidential debate from the first debate between president trump and biden. do you believe that's only two weeks from now ah eat your wheaties. stay hydrated. i'll see you again tomorrow night. now it's time for "the last word with lawrence o'donnell. good evening, lawrence >> good evening, ray chemical. stay secey abrams is going to jn us a little later in the hour about voting, of course. and she's a producer of a new documentary about voting and all the struggles involved in voting now with voter suppression and the title, listen to this title. the title of her documentary is "all in.