tv The Reid Out MSNBC January 27, 2021 4:00pm-5:00pm PST
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♪♪ good evening, everyone. we begin tonight's "the reidout" with a republican party that is increasingly divorced from reality. they claim they're being silenced but won't condemn dangerous conspiracy theories when they appear on national cable tv. they've called for healing but harbor extremists within their ranks and cover for them. when it comes to the deadly attack on our capitol, they want to forgive and forget. really?
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unbelievably, the republican message as we go to air tonight is that the capitol insurrection that left five people dead, including a cop who was beaten to death by the maga crowd who chanted "hang mike pence" and brought a noose in case they caught him, all fueled by the former president of the united states is still -- it's not worthy of an impeachment trial. indeed, given the chance to vote yesterday, all but five republican senators affirmed that they are ready to absolve the florida retiree who is still their boss in his role of provoking that deadly siege. never mind their own lives were put at risk. they say, don't worry about it, we should all just move on. >> democrats are wasting the nation's time on a partisan vendetta against a man no longer in office. >> they beat him up before he got into office, they're beating him up after he leaves office.
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at some point give the man a break. move on. >> how easy would it be, sean, for joe biden to say it is bad to impeach a president after they leave office, enough already with donald trump, let's look forward. >> it will divide. it is like opening up a wound and throwing salt in it. that is not a healing process. >> i think it is retribution, and i think it's a waste of time and so to coin a phrase, i think it's time to move on. >> uh-huh. but as we're learning today, these domestic terrorists, they're not moving on. far from it. today the department of homeland security put out a bulletin. it says that they could continue to mobilize, to incite or commit violence. in other words, what happened
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just three short weeks ago on january 6th could happen again and republicans still want to, quote, move on. and yet remember benghazi, there are ten highly politicized investigations into that tragedy in which four people died which spanned more than four years and found zero evidence of any actual scandal even after 11 hours of testimony from former secretary of state hillary clinton. in fact, the final probe took longer than the investigation into 9/11 which cost 3,000 americans their lives. then there were the republicans like house members moe brooks and jim jordan and senator ron johnson and ted cruz, they sound familiar, who vowed to immediately impeach hillary clinton if she won the 2016 election over -- wait for it -- her emails. there's the blinding hypocrisy of the old guard republican senators who voted to let trump off the hook yesterday.
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among them, 12 were in the house or the senate in the late 1990s and voted to impeach or convict bill clinton for lying about a sexual affair. and there's insurrection ringleader senator josh hawley, literally trying to cancel millions of ballots cost for joe biden. well, he has been complaining that his voice is being silenced, that he's being canceled by a liberal mob. but he's been delivering that message on national television. >> sean, we've got to stand up and say, we will not bow down to the mob. i'm not going to be intimidated by the liberal mob. i'm not going to be silenced. i'm not going to be canceled. i refuse to bow down to the mob and they are literally losing their minds because i won't do as i'm told to do. i don't answer to the left wing mob. it's time we had more people who stood up and said i'm not going to take my directions from the mob. >> i too have been canceled and
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silenced by the liberal mob and now i will continue to talk on my prime time television show. that brings us to what is both a political problem and frankly a media problem. there are extremist voices inside today's republican party that as a media matter, we'd actually like to ignore. why give them any oxygen, right? but these are no longer just fringe movements and fringe people. they have fused with the normal politics of the republican party and at this point they are coming to define the politics of the gop itself. that even includes people like marjorie taylor greene, the newest qanon curious republican congresswoman from georgia who has embraced the same claims that are fueling right-wing extremists. yesterday cnn dug up posts that show her support for assassinating the speaker of the house and other democrats. a post from 2018 revealed that greene embraced the conspiracy
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theory that hillary clinton sexually assaulted a child, fileted her face, wore her face like a mask, and then drank her blood. i can't believe i just said that. another video to emerge shows her harassing david hogg, a survivor of the parkland shooting. >> if school zones were protected with security guards with guns, there would be no mass shootings at schools. he's a coward. he can't say one word because he can't defend his stance. there's no defense for taking away guns. >> a child that she's screaming at in the street. joining me now steve schmidt and nicole hannah jones. steve, i have to -- so what
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occurs to me, steve, is that the problem with the republican party, your former party, is not that whatever it is that is in their ideas base attract extremists, it's an extremists are a portion of their ordinary base. if they cut off white nationalists and white supremacists and extremists and people might be violent, they're already a minority party. in their mind, these people are constituents, the proud boys, these are constituents to wit, kevin mccarthy who is leader of the house minority isn't trying to rebuke marjorie taylor greene. he's putting her on committees and saying i'll talk to her about the fruit loop stuff that she's saying. and he is on his way to go meet with his old boss, the former president in florida instead of tending to the needs of his constituents who need covid
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relief. am i wrong about this? the extremists are the base. >> indeed, you are not wrong. let's look at this. we have an autocratic cult of personality in this country that if there is an election, its floor would be 40%. the leader of that movement is donald trump. we saw an incited mass storm the capitol, rip down the american flag, raised a maga flag, murder a policeman, kill five people, we watched that happen. but that's not enough. you need the propaganda, the liars for prophet on fox news, oan who have poisoned these people with their lies and conspiracy theories for power, for profit. but that's not enough. you need the cynical elites, the people that had the country's greatest privileges extended to them, josh hawley, yale law school, professor at oxford, a
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clerk to the chief justice of the united states, ted cruz, harvard university, kevin mccarthy who told his members it was an easy vote, it was easy to vote to disenfranchise after the votes of millions of black americans had been certified in the states, that they would be nullified for the purposes of installing the loser into the executive branch as the president against the popular will of the people of the united states which would have ended the american republic and it's 244th year. all of these elements, the financiers of it, the people who have written the checks, it takes all of it. what it is in its totally is an autocratic fascistic movement. the proud boys, the fascistic proud boys, the white supremacists, the white nationalists, the people that the neo-nazis celebrate, all of
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this, storming the capitol, they're in open alliance with them. it's part of the coalition. they accept them as having a seat at the table. they have fused this conservativism and it doesn't believe in democracy. liz cheney at this hour is the conservative leader of the house of representatives in the republican minority of the house conference, that's the democratic conference, that's what she leads. kevin mccarthy is going to mar-a-lago to kiss the ring of the leader of the movement. obedience and loyalty is all that's required. he remains in charge. matt gaetz has declared trump the forever leader of the republican party and the leader
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of the america first movement, like the america first movement that preceded it 80 years ago. that movement is a fascist movement. it is an enemy of american democracy. we need to wake up and understand that. >> and the thing is, nicole, look poland has this, this regurgitating fascism, the marine le pen party in france, south africa has remnants of this, the white nationalists who ran that country, fled the country when mandela was elected. it's not like this is that unusual. what is interesting here is that this -- it might be true in other countries as well, there is a group of very wealthy people who benefit from keeping that movement alive. i want to -- here is tucker carlson defending qanon believers. here he is. >> no democratic government can
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ever tell you what to think. your mind belongs to you. it is yours and yours alone. >> it belongs to people who manipulate people on facebook. here's lou dobbs on a fox affiliate. >> think about it. they lost in 2008. they lost in 2012. they would have lost in 2016 and they did lose this year because the republican party forgot who was the true leader. >> who the real leader is, the true leader. you have rupert murdoch who has a whole industry built around this calling enforced conformity a straight jacket on sensibility, too many people have fought too hard, freedom of speech, freedom of speech. i could go on and on. aren't we trapped in this
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vicious cycle because there are people who truly believe it and there are people who make money off of it? >> absolutely. and i just have to say, this is not new in the republican party. i have only ever known in my entire life this republican party. ronald reagan starts his campaign on states rights. it's where three civil rights workers were murdered fighting for black people to have voting rights in mississippi. this is the party of mitch mcconnell posing in front of a confederate flag. it's a party of birtherism, of the muslim ban, of accusing barack obama of being a muslim. it's the party of voter suppression. so i'm somewhat -- i won't say shocked. but it is interesting to watch all the people trying to now separate themselves from that element of the republican party that's been the only republican party i have ever known and i'm 44 years old. there's always been an acceptance of that fringe
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element, of that white resentment politics. and that's not saying every republican is racist. but they certainly were willing to overlook racism or get in bed with racist to pass whatever larger agenda they were interested in. we shouldn't be surprised about being here. if you look at back in the 1960s, the kkk and the white citizen's council were after the same thing. the white citizen's council got upset when the kkk would get so violent that it would no longer allow that plausibility deniability. that's where we are right now. what we saw on january 6th, what donald trump has done, he's are a moved that have a near of respectability from a party that has long signaled white resentment. so this is what we have now. and this is a party that is not sought to expand democracy, that, again, i'm 44 years old, as long as i can remember,
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sought to restrict democracy, sought to pass voter suppression laws, sought to make voting more difficult for black people, brown people. now this distancing and saying, oh, now we see this party trying to overturn black voters, that happened under obama, that happened in 2016, that happened with shelby. this is not new. >> and the thing is -- first of all, it's fake news. you're 44. i don't believe you. steve, we've had this conversation back and forth. i have with republicans. this is the creep, right? nicole is right. 12 years after the death of mlk, that's when reagan did his state's right speech. that was a dozen years after king was dead and the democrats have had this too in the past.
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democrats used to have them in their party and this white interests party politics has jumped from the dixiecrats into the gop. and someone like reagan who was smart about politics was like, i need those people. there are moments when the parties have each said i need those people. isn't this just sort of the natural outgrowth of saying we're not going to cut those people off. even the qanoners get us to a plurality. >> i think it's unfair to compare ronald reagan to donald trump and impose ronald reagan into this moment in time. i think that announcement in mississippi and i think that other aspects are a shame on his legacy when it comes to race relations. but the fact of the matter is, in this moment in time, it is not the case that it is ever happened before what happened on the night of january 6th. even at the height of jim crow, there was never an action by the
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united states congress to assert a power that after the fact, after votes were counted in a certified election, and those were largely black votes, that those votes can be discarded, that they could be nullified by vote of the congress. that's the principle that 147 white members rose in defense of. and that's the question that -- >> we're -- you're absolutely right. we're out of time. it's a great debate. but i would argue that we've had moments like that in tulsa, oklahoma, we've had moments like that in north carolina. for black folks, we've had moments like that going all the way back to when we finally got the right to vote. i think it is fair to say that donald trump took it to a different level and turned it into a cult. it's a great conversation. thank you, both. up next, minority leader
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mitch mcconnell -- speaking of the guy who stood in front of the confederate flag and said i love dr. king -- he took a long, long time to admit that joe biden won the election. a long time. now he's doing his level best to block everything that 81 million americans voted for. so what does that mean for the biden agenda? former senate majority leader harry reid himself joins me next. plus, florida's covid disaster. its vaccine rollout infested with inequity and incompetence. the miami-dade mayor will join us next. don't go anywhere. l join us next. don't go anywhere. don't worry, julie... coughing's not new.
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his legislative priorities of getting another $1,400 into your bank account as the pandemic rages on. not so fast. the democrats to enact their agenda on the economy or health care or climate change, they have to get the republicans to limit their use of the filibuster, the 60-vote supermajority requirement to move most legislation. one grim reaper stands in their way proving that a slow walker never changes his shell. >> if the democratic majority were to attack the filibuster, they would guarantee themselves chaos, destroying the filibuster would drain consent from this body to a degree that would be unparalleled in living memory. >> joining me now is former senator and former senate majority leader harry reid of nevada who i would argue -- i'm not biased because of his last name -- is one of the greatest senate majority leader that we have ever had. senator, thank you so much for being here. >> my pleasure.
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>> so you're former deputy chief of staff, he wrote in the "new york times" that the supermajority threshold associated with the filibuster emerged in the jim crow area when it was used to stop civil rights and only civil rights legislation. that has been to be true. the clinging to the filibuster by this southern senator, mitch mcconnell, in your view, is there anything about it that is honestly about moderating legislation or is he just playing games? you dealt with him. is he just playing games to try to destroy the presidency of whatever democrat is in office? >> mitch mcconnell got the name grim reaper because he deserved it. he is somebody who has killed so much legislation. he's turned the senate into a manufacturing site for judges. that's all they did during the time that he was in power. it is too bad.
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i think it is -- i have written op-ed pieces. i let anyone who will listen to me, i tell them, not a question if the filibuster is going to go away, it's only a question when it will go away. you cannot have a democracy that takes 60% of the vote to get anything done. a filibuster is going to go away. it is nothing that helps the country. it doesn't help states. it doesn't help individuals. it is on its way out. it's a question of when it goes. >> and you did take action as senate majority leader to nuke the filibuster at least for the -- the cabinet nominees for president obama were being held up, they were holding up judges at the federal level, everything -- >> joy, we -- >> go on. >> they filibustered for the first time in the history of the country the secretary of defense. the secretary of defense was a republican senator. they filibustered anything they
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could. they couldn't go after unions head on, so they went after the national labor board. so the reason i changed the rules with the help of my democratic caucus is because it's the only way we could get it done. as a result of that, obama's first term as president during one of the -- his first congress, it's the most successful congress in the history of the country. had we not done that, we would not have obamacare, the most important and clear-cut change on wall street in the history of the country, the dodd/frank bill, women being paid the same as men. so i -- people said reid shouldn't have done that. i did that because it was good for the country. and as i look back, one of the best things i ever did. to show how shallow the republicans are, what did they do the first -- i had -- the
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supermajority to approve a supreme court justice. first chance they get, they reduced it to a simple majority. they're insincere and the grim reaper has his name that he deserves. >> would you recommend that democrats push to add two more states so that they have more voting power, meaning puerto rico, if they vote for it, and the district of columbia? >> joy, i have been -- when i first came to the senate those many, many decades ago, i stated publicly and i was in favor of d.c. becoming a state. and as years went on, i said, i have no problem with puerto rico being a state. but i had been for statehood for d.c. forever. and how can we as a country have the federal enclave treated differently than the other 50 states. it's not right. >> yeah.
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when you presided over the united states senate, there was a tea party that came along as a result, in my view, of the black president being in the white house. there was a lot of race mixed up in that. now it's qanon and really bizarre people that the republican party is beholden to. how would you deal with a republican party that has that and insurrectionists in it if you were majority leader now? >> you know, the -- when obama was elected, mcconnell and his republicans met together and they came up with two things, number one, obama would never serve a second term. they failed miserably at that. the second thing they decided to do, oppose everything he tried to do and they stuck with that for sure. as a result of that, we had to change the rules. i'm so happy we did. as a result of that, barack obama will go down as having the most successful congress in the history of the country. barack obama changed the world
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and i'm glad that i had a little bit to do to help him do that. >> i think you had more than a little bit to do with it, senator. my final question, if you had a vote, you would say nuke the whole filibuster right now? >> filibuster is going away. it's not a question if, it's a question when. the filibuster is nondemocratic. it's been used to the disarray of the congress and certainly it hasn't been anything that has been helpful to the american people. it's got to go. >> former senator harry reid, making it plain as always. we miss you out here in public life, sir. thank you very much. we appreciate your time tonight. thank you. and still ahead -- that's a great man right there. still ahead, the state of florida provides a chilling example of how the covid crisis should not be handled. oh, you're going to want to see this. we're talking florida. don't go anywhere.
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no problem...and done. and now, save $1,000 on the sleep number 360 special edition smart bed, now $1,799. only for a limited time. in a reversal from the previous administration, americans are once again hearing from the country's top health experts on the fight against the pandemic. the white house covid response
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team held its first public briefing this morning promoting their efforts to expedite vaccinations while warning that the crisis could get worse before it gets better. >> our case rates remain extraordinarily high and now is the time to remain vigilant. if we continue on the current trajectory, the cdc's most recent national ensemble predicts that 479,000 to 514,000 covid-19 deaths will be reported by february 20th, 2021. >> we are taking action to increase supply and increase capacity, but even so, it will be months before everyone who wants a vaccine will be able to get one. >> and with no prior national strategy, the vaccine rollout has proven to be a challenge across the country. and, of course, if you are florida's governor, ron desantis, according to him, you've done everything perfect, everything right. and the only problem is coming
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from the federal government, at least now that it's in the hands of the democrats. that doesn't explain why the rollout there included hundreds of senior citizens sleeping outside overnight in lines hoping for a vaccine. thousands of floridians finding their vaccine appointments canceled and one nursing home choosing to give doses meant to its residents to wealthy donors inside. while florida has administered 1 1/2 million vaccinations, when you break down the numbers of who has been vaccinated, it shows the truth of the racial inequity that desantis has allowed in the state. that is next. (burke) at farmers, we know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two. like how nice it is to switch and save on your auto policy. but it's even nicer knowing that if this happens...
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administered to black floridians. that's less than 5% of vaccines going to a demographic that makes up 17% of the state population. desantis has applauded his partnership with publix. 16 of the stores has a larger percentage of white population compare today the state as a whole. in only three of those counties is the black population larger. joining me now is mayor daniella levine cava, bernard ashby and luther luke campbell, legendary hip-hop icon and founder of luke records who gave us 2 live crew. i want to start with you madam mayor, miami-dade county has nearly 162,000 vaccinations but only 10,620 of those have been black miami-dade residents.
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i want to alert you to this "miami herald" headline, the wealthiest zip codes are the most vaccinated for covid-19 and each of them were among the county's 20 wealthiest zip codes. what's going on? >> the majority of this vaccination is going on at state-run sites. a small percentage has come directly to the county. and jackson memory hospital has launched an effort to eradicate that difference. they moved up to 11% of the vaccinated people and heading to 17% which is our countywide population. we've been working with them and identifying community organizations, church groups, other that can sign people up directly to make sure that we have a more equitable -- but the early stages of this rollout were all about just speed and, you know, that speed doesn't cut
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it. when you go for speed, you're going to get people who have better access to the internet, better access to the hospitals and, obviously, this is not the way to build an equitable rollout. >> but was it originally based on speed? it seems to me that i've heard stories, you know, on local networks and on other cable networks about senior citizens driving down to jackson memorial to get vaccinated and heard disturbing stories about wealthy people being able to jump the line ahead of people who are in nursing homes. is this a case where in florida you can buy the vaccine easier than you can get it if you are poor or underserved? >> yeah, i can only tell you, joy, that at the county sites, nothing like that was going on. we had a small portion of the vaccine. it was highly, highly, you know, regulated to be fair. now there's rules. only florida residents.
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we had vaccine tourism going on. people promoting it in foreign countries to fly in for a special package before we were allowed to ask for residency. now we're looking at do people actually live in florida and that's an important part of the equation too. >> let me go to you -- to the doctor here, dr. ashby. as a clinician, how severe is -- let's be honest -- the screw-up in the state of florida and whose fault is it? >> hello, joy. as a proud florida boy, it's an honor to be on with uncle luke. i'll leave it there. but the entire pandemic from start to finish has been mishandled and governor desantis has shown a clear pattern of choosing the big business and profits over people's lives.
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and mayor cava mentioned the issue of vaccine tourism. that was incredibly disrespectable to the floridians who live here. you had tourists actually coming here, skipping the line, above -- before actual floridians. and so that issue among others indicates a pattern where our leaders were choosing profits over the people. and basically, you know, this is a time for us to have a fundamental reckoning with the health care system and our country where we need to understand that folks who are marginalized, folks who are dying at the highest rates need to get resources allocated to them. we talk about black lives matter in the context of criminal justice. if folks only knew what goes on in the health care system, they will understand that black lives don't matter in the health care system and that needs to change. >> uncle luke, thanks for being
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on. we're hearing stories outside of florida and has somebody who lived there for 14 years, it's alarming to me. i hear from friends of mine that the vaccine is being targeted to places like palm beach, where the former president lives, where a lot of wealthy former new yorkers have moved, white counties, and the governor is using the vaccine as political patronage. what are you hearing on the ground and what concerns you the most? >> what concerns me the most is it's a failed system. they had no plan in place. when you have commissioners and you have mayors and you have the governor just -- let's use publix, for example, what you just rolled out. there's no publix in the black community. when you roll out a plan, you have no intentions of targeting african-americans. and if there's any kind of rollout in miami-dade county, you can't have 2% of
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african-americans being vaccinated when you have over 51% of whites getting the vaccination. it is an overall problem. if the governor gives miami-dade county a hundred vaccines, what do you do with them? what do you make sure you do with them? you go into the hardest-hit areas. you don't go and put out a fire and put water around the fire. you go directly to the fire where is the most hardest hit people? our people, our seniors. these officials can get on the phone and do robocalls to our seniors, they know where they're at, when it's time to get the new vote. but all of a sudden nobody can find the seniors which is a travesty right now that is going on in miami. it's everybody. it's miami. the state of florida. and there are systems that work.
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nobody wants to hear the system. in maryland, there's a system called my vax, they're using it. in st. louis, they're using my vax. the problem is, government don't want to come together and everybody don't want to face the facts that they just screwed it up. >> and, you know, madam mayor, it's a good question, there's a limited number of vaccines that are given out. why aren't those vaccines being targeted directly through black churches, to senior citizens. i could name half a dozen of them in miami-dade county alone? >> the state has started doing that as well as jackson. that's not how it started and we have to make up for lost time. clearly this was done in a way that was not conscious of the needs for equity. but we -- that's what we need to do. and that is in fact what is happening. we're working through non-profit organizations, we're working through the churches and we
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added the telephone. everybody has the telephone now so you don't have to rely on the computer. but really, we started in miami-dade county with our public housing senior residents. we have a mobile service, we went to them. these are people that were not going online or making calls. these are the most vulnerable, the poor residents of miami-dade county that were under our supervision. with the limited supply we had, we prioritized them. >> sure. is that the way you've seen it, dr. ashby? is that how it feels to you? >> well, i can attest to that. in my practice in particular, my black patients, the only ones that actually got the vaccines were through the church because if you called jackson, if you call any of the hotlines, they cannot get through at all. and so, you know, we have to get past the fact that there's vaccine hesitancy. once i educate them, we deal with the issue of access. and that's a travesty. but i appreciate mayor cava for
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targeting those populations and getting the vaccine to them, but we have to do better. >> we have to go. uncle luke, can you call the governor. he does talk to famous people even if they're people of color. give him a call since you're a famous person. he won't take your call. appreciate you all. adults who believe in science are finally back in charge of america's climate response. the first white house climate adviser ever gina mccarthy joins us next. when you drive this smooth, you save with allstate
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this is hal. this is hal's heart. it's been broken. and put back together. this is hal's relief, knowing he's covered by medicare from blue cross blue shield. and with coverage you can trust, backed by over 80 years of healthcare expertise, we'll be there when it matters most. this is medicare from blue cross blue shield. this is the benefit of blue.
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and voice solution for just $64.90 a month. plus, for a limited time, ask how to get a $500 prepaid card when you upgrade. switch today. today is climate day at the white house, and which means that today is jobs day at the white house. in my view, we've already waited too long to deal with this climate crisis and we can't wait any longer. that's why i'm signing today an
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executive order to super charge our administration's ambitious plan to confront the existential threat of climate change. it is an existential threat. >> today president joe biden signed multiple actions as part of his plan to combat climate change, a plan he pitched eisenhower or f.d.r. style, tying it directly to the goal of creating new jobs. the actions include elevating climate change to a national security priority, suspending new leases for natural gas and oil development on federal lands and water, and directing the government to rely on science. think about that. in their decision making. it's a 180 degree turn from the science-denying previous administration which rolled back more than 100 environmental protections directly damaging the planet. and joining me now, gina mccarthy, white house national climate adviser and former epa administrator. congratulations on your new job. it's very important for the planet. you know, i always feel like if aliens ever really exist and come and attack us, it's because we destroyed the planet.
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that would be our punishment. talk about where we're starting. how much damage was done over the last four years? >> it's changing the way we live and have to protect ourselves. we can all see it. it's very easy to see from the hurricanes and the forest fires. but it doesn't mean we stop there and say, well, this damage happened and let's give it up. i mean, this is about recognizing that climate change is the existential challenge. it is the public health challenge of our time. and right now people are hurting so desperately from covid-19, from all the economic devastation that that's brought to us, and it's also all about look at who is getting hurt the most. so we have an opportunity here on climate if we start acting today, which is what that executive order was about, bringing the whole of the federal government to the table to say, we are going to do better. we are going to build back better. we're going to invest in infrastructure that's going to
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grow jobs. we're going to build a civilian climate -- what do we call it? civilian climate corps so we can move and get youth out into our communities, making sure we're adapting and being resilient, and making sure that our forests are managed and trying to cut back on those forest fires. we are going to invest real money in environmental justice communities because if you're a person who has been looking at managing pollution and cutting it all her life, you would see who is most at risk and it's the same communities that are at risk of covid-19, and now in the crosshairs of climate change. it's the marginalized, disinvested in, overburdened communities that have been systemically damaged by racism. and this is our moment, joy. this is our moment to bring all those crises together and actually tackle it at the depth
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and breadth that science is telling us. >> well, and you know, you look at the list of things that were included in this action today. you know, directing federal land and government to conserve at least 30% of federal lands, suspending new leases for gas and oil, directing federal agencies to rely on science, et cetera. it sounds a lot like the green new deal. our own geoff bennett reported today, it's not the green new deal in name, but those like a.o.c. who have been pushing for that, they said make it about jobs. make it about employing people and finding people who dug for coal and saying we'll switch you over into these great new paying jobs. isn't this the next step of the green new deal? >> they both share an essential truth. they both focus on the science. they both look at the reality of the climate threat, and they both then turn and say, how do we turn this into an opportunity to build the kind of future we want to hand to our children. so there is definitely a
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commonality. and the great thing about president biden was during his campaign he brought unity task forces together. i was on one with a.o.c. we worked together to find common ground. that's what he's asking this country to do now. let's think big, let's be bold. let's not think about the past. let's think about the future. let's be hopeful again. and for crying out loud, respect the science. >> and, you know, i don't know if you've seen these ads where the keystone x.l. people are trying to glom onto you all and they're using build back better as their slogan, too. do you expect a fight from companies like them? or is there some way you're going to try to incorporate them? >> well, i think the real trick here is to recognize that we are in a transition, but we really don't want to leave workers behind. the whole idea is to grow jobs in communities where people need them and to grow clean energy jobs that are, that are both
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good-paying and union access jobs so we can bring everybody around. it's not just the environmental justice communities or the urban areas that we're thinking about. it's really about all those communities that are experiencing difficulties with the shift already from clean energy. and so we need to make sure that there's a place for them. there's a job for them. if you look in this, we don't just do a core of program for young people. we look at putting miners and others whose jobs may not any longer be there now because of shifts by nature, clean energy is great for us, it's cheaper so it's shifting. but they need a place to go and we're looking at opportunities for them in oil and gas fields, to close the mines that have been left behind, to close the wells that were never closed. they're spewing pollution all the time. use the skill sets. keep them at home. have their identity intact.
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>> well, i wish, i wish we had lots more time. gina mccarthy, you're great. i endorse that cool rachel maddow hair style you have there, too. congrats on the new gig. this is the reid out. don't go anywhere. a.o.c. will be on with chris hayes. she's our first lead up guest. "all-in" with chris hayes starts right now. >> tonight on "all-in." >> in my view, we've already waited too long to deal with this climate crisis. we can't wait any longer. >> the biden white house goes big on climate. tonight, congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez on what today's executive orders mean and how her green new deal will help make this moment happen. then, major new indictments of organizers of the capitol hill riot and major new questions about the members of congress still doing trump's bidding. plus, straight talk from the covid biden team.
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