of. thank you very much. that is all in on this wednesday night. the rachel maddow show starts right now. good evening, rachel. >> chris hayes, if you ever wanted to write another book about the finance world and the stock market and wall street and its culture, i would i would p enough of those books to put you on "the new york times" best-seller list. you should write about that. >> you would create a subreddit that got a bunch of people to preorder my book and do to it what they did to game stop? that's a good idea. i could talk about this story for three hours. there's so much happening in it. it's fascinating. >> well, i am in the bubble with you on this one, chris. i want to hear you talk about it forever. thank you, my friend. much appreciated. and thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. this time four years ago, the ceo of exxon was starting his new job as secretary of state for america, for the united states. whose idea was that? the exxon ceo. as you may recall, it did not go

well. it did not go well for him. it did not even go particularly well for exxon, which was the biggest surprise. it did not go well for the united states of america. by the time reports surfaced that the exxon ceo had described the president as an f'ing moron at a meeting in the situation room and the secretary of state would not deny that he said it, it was even clear that his tenure was not going well for the administration. his tenure as secretary of state certainly was not good for the state department. really, it was just a bad idea all around that turned out even worse than you might have thought from the initial badness of the bad idea. one of the things that happened at the state department over the past four years under the previous president is that they basically stopped talking to the public or the press. i mean, at the u.s. state department, the usual practice going back to the 1950s was regular, almost always daily,

press briefings. under the last president, they just stopped doing that without ever explaining why. and it's a weird thing, right? i mean, this is the part of the u.s. government that's responsible for diplomacy, for the united states of america promoting its interests and getting america's way in the world by persuasion, right, by argument, by diplomacy, by talking other people and other countries into our way of seeing things. but under the last president, they just decided they would stop talking. they would stop trying to make any sort of public case for what they were doing. they would stop even explaining what they were doing. and instead, at the outset, this time four years ago, we learned that what they were going to try to replace that with were silent photo ops. journalists would be allowed into some room somewhere to see the secretary of state or some other state department official shaking hands with some other person silently, and the reporters who covered the state department were just supposed

to, like, silently observe that, and then, i guess, write a story about the handshake they were allowed to observe and not overhear and not ask questions about. they stopped doing the daily briefings, they stopped taking questions from reportings. they just staged these weird tab le duvaunte -- describe what you see. four years ago, with the weird start to the state department, the radical departure from the way the state department had always run, was seeing nbc's andrea mitchell not adapt to this new system. andrea mitchell has covered the state department inside and out for decades. she is the greatest state department reporter of all time. she was allowed in four years ago to be one of the reporters at the stupid silent photo op things that the trump administration was trying to do, and andrea was just not having it. she was like, no, forget this. you want me to stand here silently and observe you not

speaking and sitting next to somebody? no. we're reporters. we need to ask questions. you're the government. i'm going to ask you questions. >> mr. secretary, can you do your job with the kind of budget cuts the president has proposed? what does it say about the priority of diplomacy in this administration? >> thank you. >> do you think you'll have a deputy any time soon, sir? >> thank you. >> we're done. >> come on, guys. >> when do you think you might have a deputy? >> this way. >> come on. >> let's go. >> andrea, come on, guys. >> this way. >> out, please. out. >> andrea mitchell's been covering the state department for decades. all the staffers, the career staffers at the state department who know her are like, andrea, please, don't. apparently they're not taking

questions. andrea, please. you can almost hear andrea herself sort of crack up at the end there, like, seriously? we're doing this? are you kidding? that was four years ago. that was how the state department interacted with the public and the press, as of four years ago. no asking questions. you were allowed to observe the secretary of state silently sitting next to an official while you are not allowed to ask questions about what's going on, and you can base your story on that. that was four years ago. this was today. >> thank you very much. congratulations, mr. secretary. >> good to see you, andrea. >> president biden in his first phone call with president putin yesterday outlined some areas of agreement, such as the arms control agreement, the extension of new start. but at the same time, areas of concern, many of which involve russia. we're talking about solar winds' hack and ukraine, of course, the investigation, the assessment of interference in the 2020

campaign, but also, also the safety of alexei navalny. and so, i want to ask you, what are the red lines to which the united states would consider sanctioning russia, if there's any harm that comes to mr. navalny or to the protesters as they're being arrested? you know, how front and center is this issue to you of russian crackdown on the opposition and on human rights? >> well, thanks, andrea. as you know, we've already expressed our deep concern for the treatment of mr. navalny, specifically, and more generally with the human rights situation in russia. and it remains striking to me how concerned, and maybe even scared, the russian government seems to be of one man, mr. navalny. across the board, as the

president has said, we're reviewing all of these actions that are of deep concern to us, whether it is the treatment of mr. navalny, and particularly, the apparent use of a chemical weapon in an attempt to assassinate him. we're looking very urgently as well at solar winds and its various implications. we're looking at the reports of bounties placed by russia on american forces in afghanistan, and of course, we're looking at these questions of election interference. >> and you're not ruling out anything, if there's harm that comes to im? >> not ruling out anything, but we want to get this full review done and then we'll take it from there. >> newly sworn-in secretary of state antony blinken today briefing from the state department and taking complex questions from reporters on his first day on the job and giving them straightforward and, indeed, in some cases,

necessarily complex answers, which amounts to a radical departure from the way the u.s. government was run over the past four years, just by virtue of the fact that there's reporters there and they're allowed to speak, and here's government officials taking questions about what the government is doing and what its priorities are. i mean, that's the standard we had for generations before trump. under the trump administration, they just stopped doing everything. but now, apparently, we're going back to the way the government works. that's a u-y. that's a 180 back to a functioning government. not to mention the fact that the what new secretary of state, secretary blinken, is talking about here is our new president, joe biden, calling the president of russia and giving him a shove, for once, on a whole bunch of things. >> we can both operate in the mutual self-interests of our countries as a new start agreement and make it clear to russia that we are very

concerned about their behavior, whether it's navalny, whether it's the solar winds, or whether it's reports of bounties on the heads of americans in afghanistan. i have asked the agencies in question to do a thorough read for me on every one of those issues to update me precisely where they are, and i will not hesitate to raise those issues with the russians. >> i will not hesitate to raise those issues with the russians. pinch me. a weird thing about the previous president and russia -- there were so many weird things -- but one weird thing about it for we, the public, and those of us who work in the news business, is that over the past four years, every time president trump spoke with russian president vladimir putin, every time that we know of, we would learn about them having a conversation from the kremlin. it would be the russian government that told us that they had had a call or a meeting, every single freaking

time. it was russia that provided the first information, sometimes the only information, about communications between our president and theirs, which means and meant for four years that russia always got to put their spin on what exactly happened in those many, many contacts between our two presidents. under president trump, russia would always get to announce the call or the meeting. they would, therefore, get to put their spin on what happened in that call or that meeting. and then the u.s. government would go second, would go after them, and never contradict the russians' take on what happened, just go along with whatever they said. that's what it's been like for the past four years. but hello, new president. that is apparently not how we are doing that anymore. that clip that i just showed of president biden -- that was president biden on monday, telling the press, telling the american public in advance that he was about to have a call with russian president vladimir putin and that on that call, he intended to talk with him about a whole bunch of things that russia has done to attack us or

things that we otherwise really don't like about their behavior. he says, "i will not hesitate to raise those issues with the russians." then yesterday, just as he said it would, that call between biden and putin happened. president biden's first call with an adversarial foreign leader. and this time, we didn't have to learn about it from the kremlin first. this time, we learned about it from our own government first. not only did we get that word in advance from the president that it was going to happen, but when the call happened, the white house press secretary provided a summary of the discussion at the white house press briefing, which, hey, is a thing that happens every day now. wow. and then, in addition to that verbal summary of what happened on the call, our government provided a formal, written readout of the call, which says that president biden raised a number of matters of concern with vladimir putin. and i'll tell you in advance, the kremlin also put out their own readout of this call between biden and putin in which they mention none of these matters of concern.

in the kremlin readout, they made it sound like biden just called putin to talk about economic cooperation and mutual feelings on trade and kissy-kissy, everything's fine. that's the way the kremlin likes to characterize these discussions between the russian president and the american president. that's what they did for four years with every conversation with trump, and the u.s. government let them say whatever they want, took a back seat, never contradicted them, never put out our own take on the call. but since we are no longer that sucker government, because we are no longer being told as the american public that we need to take the kremlin's word for what happened in these calls, since we now have a functioning government and a functioning u.s. president who doesn't act like he's working for russia instead of for the united states, we know from our own government now that biden pressed putin on all this stuff, and it wasn't all just talk about mutual feelings and cooperation. biden pressed putin on matters of concern, including the solar winds hack, reports of russia

placing bounties on u.s. soldiers in afghanistan, interference in the 2020 u.s. election, and the poisoning of alexei navalny. it's the main opposition leader in russia. quote, president biden made clear that the united states will act firmly in defense of its national interests in response to actions by russia that harm us or our allies. what a difference. this weekend, huge numbers of russians braved subzero temperatures and a brutal police response to protest against vladimir putin, and specifically, putin trying to assassinate alexei navalny, the main opposition leader in that country, trying to assassinate him in a chemical weapons attack. they protested against putin then imprisoning navalny when he returned to russia after he recovered from that attempted assassination. this weekend, as thousands of russians protested against putin for that, there were reports that some of the protesters

ahead of the demonstrations, they got together online and worked on their english together, and specifically worked on their american pronunciation of their english-language ability, because they plan to tell the riot police in russia who are going to arrest them that they were americans. they planned to claim to be americans when they got arrested in the hopes that that might give the kremlin pause about how these arrestees would be treated once putin's security forces locked them up. think about that. they claimed to be americans, to call the question with their government of how they should be treated, to raise the alarm internationally as to what putin's doing to his own people. they were going to claim to be americans, try to put on american accents. all around the world, even in russia, after these four bizarre years of trump and putin, pro-democracy, antidictatorship protesters still think the united states will take their side. they still think that we are on their side. and maybe, once again, we are.

maybe we could be, once again. so, after a four-year interrigdum, the state department does daily briefings now, and after four years, the white house does daily briefings again now. today we got a briefing not only from the white house press secretary but from the biden administration's covid response team, direct briefing from jeff zients, the covid response coordinator for the biden administration, and also dr. anthony fauci and the new director of the cdc and other officials as well. the problem with this covid briefing for the public today was actually that there was so much interest from so many journalists trying to attend that they maxed out the number of attendees that could be part of this remote briefing. there were technical difficulties. presumably, they will work those out, though. they will have to, because they said they are going to do these covid briefings with the scientists answering on their own terms, without the president breathing down their neck. they're going to do these briefings on covid for the public every other day now from

here on out. today's wednesday. they did the first one today. hopefully, they'll work out the technical kinks, because the next one's on friday. today on climate, the president's global climate envoy, former secretary of state john kerry, and president biden's domestic climate czar, former epa administrator, gina mccarthy, they did a public press briefing, too. i mean, after the past four years, this is, like, almost hard to get used to. it is as if they are using the power and reach of the u.s. government to communicate with the public and the press about our nation's policy challenges and what the government is trying to do about those challenges. it's shocking! they're saying what the government is trying to do and why they're trying to do it. they are putting out at the podium the people in government working on these things so they can explain in their own terms what it is they're doing and why the government is approaching it this way. and then those people are taking questions from the press about

it, every time, multiple times per day, already. i don't even know what to do with myself. this was, apparently, absolutely impossible for the previous administration, because they were so busy, what? but we are one week into the new presidency, and here we are. keep up! your government wants you to know what they're doing. and on climate, it's interesting. we had, of course, senate majority leader chuck schumer here on monday night for that big interview on monday. and you may remember on climate that he said that he thinks that president biden should declare a climate emergency to give himself greater leeway to do more executive action on climate, declaring an emergency, you might remember, is the means by which president trump took money from the military to instead spend that money on the weird little bits of wall that he built between us and mexico. majority leader chuck schumer is suggesting that president biden should use similar authorities

to declare an emergency on climate so he can get more done on climate. schumer raised that for the first time in our interview here with him on monday night. he has since reiterated it, and he is calling on president biden to do that. i don't know if president biden will do that, but today, biden took a whole bunch of actions. he's stopping new leases for drilling oil and gas on federal lands. he's going to make the federal fleet of vehicles, which is millions of vehicles, be electric vehicles, which is potentially a huge deal in terms of the market and development of electric vehicles. they're going to reinstate and strengthen the obama administration's goals on emissions from cars and from power plants and from oil and gas wells leaking methane, which sounds like a niche thing, but it turns out to be a mammoth source of the worst kind of pollution for global warming. it's something on which the trump administration specifically gave the oil and gas industry a pass. the biden administration will not. biden is aiming at zero emissions within 30 years.

he stopped the permits for the keystone pipeline for tar sands oil from canada. he rejoined the paris climate deal. it's a lot. and we get to ask questions of the members of the administration who are assigned to implement these things. on capitol hill, u.s. senator sheldon whitehouse of rhode island has given a speech about climate on the senate floor every week for the past nine years. every week sheldon whitehouse gives a speech on the senate floor in which he urges that the climate is an emergency and that the u.s. government needs to do more and that we need to actually start leading the world on innovating and adapting and investing and confronting the climate disaster. every week for nine years he has been giving that speech. today he gave one of those speeches, he says, for the last time, because he says, finally, after one week in office, the u.s. government is finally actually starting to do it. and so, now he wants to be part of helping them do it. he no longer feels like he needs

to hechter them every week in the senate, telling them that it's time to wake up. we're awake. joining us now is cole davenport. she writes today at "the new york times" that the forces of raid behind president biden on this effort might surprise you, that some cases, oil and gas companies and carmakers are behind what the president is trying to do. coral davenport is energy and environmental policy reporter for "the new york times." ms. davenport, thank you so much for making time to be here tonight. >> of course. it's great to be with you, rachel. >> so, you've been on this beat for a long time. you have seen the ups and downs of the politics and the policy here. overall, what is your overall sense right now of how ambitious president biden is being? how high is he aiming? >> far higher than his former boss. until about two weeks ago, the

president who had done by far more than anything else on climate change, and indeed, had really put in place the first and only federal climate change policies in u.s. history was president obama. on his first week out of the gate, the targets that president biden has set on reducing carbon emissions are far more ambitious than the targets set by obama. again, you mentioned his key targeted zero carbon emissions -- net zero carbon emissions by the u.s. economy in 2050. that's 30 years. it means zero carbon emissions in 30 years. president biden also set a goal, sort of the halfway goal of zero carbon emissions just from the electricity sector by 2035. that's zero carbon emissions from electricity, from no more coal-fired power plants, in 15 years. that is a wildly ambitious goal. president biden, when he was campaigning, put forth the most ambitious climate policy of any

major presidential nominee. he's also set a goal of spending $2 trillion just on climate policy. so, in terms of the goals that he has set, and also the messaging that he's doing -- he did executive orders on his first day of office addressing over 100 environmental policies, putting in place dozens and dozens of the environmental policies that president trump rolled back, sending a really clear, powerful, intentional signal on day one. and then one week later, sort of ramping that up with additional signals. but it is -- so, that's a really big deal. it is very important to note, rachel, as you know well, executive orders are not policy. because he says he wants to do this, it doesn't mean that the u.s. is going to reach these goals. it doesn't mean, certainly, that the congress is going to appropriate $2 trillion.

those are really big hurdles, and it's not always clear, you know, sort of looking at the landscape right now, despite sort of setting these ambitious goals and sending these signals, i don't see how all of these are necessarily going to eventually get put in place. >> one of the things that made me want to talk to you specifically, coral, today, is the point that you made with your colleague, lease friedman in the "times," basically telling us to adjust our expectations in terms of where the interest groups and special interests and stakeholders may ally themselves here. you pointed out a fact that i think will be surprising to a lot of people, which is that it's actually supported by a lot of oil and gas companies, even the kind of crazy elements of the oil and gas industry, like the american petroleum institute, that the u.s. rejoin the paris accord. you described carmakers and some of the oil and gas companies as being actually in favor of biden

reversing some of trump's antienvironmental actions and in favor of some of the emissions standards, for example. i mean, i know that he'll have a fight with industry and with the advocates of industry on capitol hill for a lot of this stuff, but are our expectations on this little bit out of date in terms of where some of the stakeholders are going to come down on these proposals? >> yes. rachel, you mentioned the automakers, and that is something where, if you make a comparison to what president obama tried to do in the first couple of years of his administration and where the auto industry was, and now, you know, fast forward over a decade later, it's such a profound change. when obama was going to put into place -- and it's important to know, also, auto pollution is the single largest source of climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions in the u.s. so, what the auto industry does, what the automaker does and what kind of regulations the u.s. government puts on the auto industry are at the heart, they're the number one thing that the government can do in

terms of fundamentally lowering greenhouse gas emissions. so, when obama tried to do this, the automakers fought tooth and nail. necessary were absolutely, powerfully opposed. very clearly, we heard the message, this is going to hurt jobs, hurt manufacturing jobs. the reason he was ever able to put regulations in place -- obama was -- was that the auto companies went bankrupt and the u.s. had to -- the federal government had to bail them out. once they were sort of under the thumb of that bailout, they were willing to come to the table, kind of suck it up and give in, and kind of had to accept these regulations because that was part of the bigger picture. as soon as president trump came into office, he initiated rolling back those rules. we're now kind of back at zero on auto emissions regulations. but what is fascinating is that this time around, as biden said on day one, he is getting ready to put a lot of those tough regulations, tough, tough regulations, on fuel economy, on auto tail pipe emissions. five, possibly even six major

auto companies have signaled that they are ready to come to the table. this is ford, bmw, volvo, volkswagen, honda, possibly even gm. the ceo of gm, mary barra, has said we are willing to work with the biden administration on moving forward on electric vehicles. five of these companies have already made a deal with the state of california to abide by tough fuel economy rules that are pretty close to what the obama rules already were. so, this is a profound turnaround! this is the auto companies coming in on day one and saying we're willing to work with you, and they're not doing it to be altruistic, not because they love the planet. they're doing it because the market forces have shifted so profoundly in the last decade, that's where the market is going. some of these companies are already ramping up their construction of electric vehicles anyway because the market is demanding that, their customers are demanding that, the technology has transformed. you can get fuel economy, you can get these electric vehicles. and what biden is saying is, i'm

going to put these regulations in, but i'm also -- the government is here to help -- we're prepared to spend billions of dollars to install electric vehicle charging stations all around the country to take away sort of one of the biggest concerns of consumers. so, that is one example where an industry has really shifted very dramatically, and i think that will really change how this administration is able to move forward pretty quickly with putting tough, new auto pollution rules in place. that doesn't mean -- that's a big deal, it's a big change -- it doesn't mean everything else will go as smoothly, but it's a profound change. >> yeah, and it's, as you say, that could potentially be the biggest single impact policy in terms of our emissions, for those practicalities to change, the politics will have to follow. this is going to be -- this is totally uncharted territory. fascinating to watch. coral davenport, energy and environmental policy reporter for "the new york times." appreciate you being here tonight. this is fascinating stuff.

thank you. >> great to be with you. thanks again. >> all right. we've got much more ahead tonight, including new charges against still more alleged right-wing extremists. a very dramatic warning from the u.s. government about domestic violent extremism that's timed to some upcoming events. we've got more about that and much more. stay with us. that and much more. stay with us these folks, they don't have time to go to the post office they have businesses to grow customers to care for

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in 2018, "huffington post" set out to identify a guy who went online by the name vicky vaughan. he had a pretty big social media following and used it to sent out anti-semitic and nazi and white nationalist memes. he was also one of the most prolific amplifiers of russian disinformation during the trump/clinton 2016 election, when russian intelligence was operating twitter handles and various avatars online to try to accomplish their goals in the 2016 election.

this guy could really reliably be counted on to amplify those russian efforts. here's what "the huffington post" described him in 2018 -- "there was no mistaking ricky vaughn's influence. he had tens of thousands of followers and blending far-right propaganda with conservative messages on twitter made him a key disseminator of extremist views to republican voters and a central figure in the alt-right white supremacist movement that attached itself to trump's coattails. "huffington post" unearthed that this online persona, ricky vaughn, was a real guy named douglas mackey. he was from vermont, graduate of vermont's middlebury college. he worked as an economist in new york city and lived on the upper east side. when he was in his -- in 2016 -- this is a guy that was in his late 20s at the time. he was basically at the top of the white nationalist influencer world online. many thousands of followers -- and he was pushing out this mix of anti-semitism, straight-up white nationalism, russian

propaganda about the united states, and fervent support for donald trump. well, that was 2016, 2018. now today, in 2021, a few years down the road, this guy, ricky vaughn, aka, douglas mackey, has been federally charged with election interference, but not for the 2020 election. he's been charged for his role in voter disinformation efforts in 2016. why are they just charging him now? in a criminal complaint unsealed today by federal prosecutors in the eastern district of new york, prosecutors allege that he spread misinformation to deprive individuals, specifically, minorities who supported hillary clinton, of their constitutional right to vote. here's what the prosecutors say -- "as the election approached, mackey spread disinformation about the manner by which citizens could and should cast their votes during the election, conduct that constituted criminal infringement of the right to vote." fbi affidavit that's the basis of this criminal complaint

describes what he did -- "on or about november 1st, 2016, the day before he sent a tweet suggesting the importance of limiting black turnout, mackey tweeted a deceptive image. the picture featured an african-american woman standing in front of an "african-americans for the candidate" sign, in this case the candidate being hillary clinton." the complaint continues, "the deceptive image included the following text: avoid the line, vote from home! text "hillary" to 55925. vote for hillary clinton and be a part of history!" and the way you cast your vote for hillary clinton, particularly if you're a black person, is just by texting hillary clinton's name to this number. prosecutors say in this criminal complaint today that nearly 5,000 people actually texted the word "hillary" to that phone number on or near election day, nearly 5,000 people, because this guy, this anti-semitic, white nationalist trump online

influencer told them that's the way you vote if you're a pro hillary clinton voter. douglass mackey was arrested today in florida, charged with an election crime, for spreading election and voter misinformation online. the fbi said in announcing this case that it amounted to nothing short of voter theft. so, he's going to face trial. he's going to face repercussions for those allegations against him. but the government today made other announcements about political extremism that are interesting today in their timing and in their implications. the u.s. attorneys office -- sorry, the u.s. attorneys office in the northern district of california today, along with the fbi, announced charges against a 43-year-old man from napa county, california. they charged him for possessing five pipe bombs. investigators say they also seized at least 49 guns from his home. here's the fbi affidavit in his charges.

"based on his examination and tests, the bomb technician concluded that the suspect constructed five improvised explosive devices that were fully operational and could cause great bodily harm or injury, if handled improperly." he also found this, what was described as a white privilege card. let's see there. it says "white privilege card trumps everything," and the card number is 45, 45, 45, 45, as in donald trump, the 45th president. member since birth, good through death. and it wasn't just pipe bombs and the white privilege card and the 49 guns. what the fbi found regarding this man's plans is also illuminating. from the criminal complaint, it says, quote, text messages recovered from his phone indicate his belief that donald trump won the 2020 presidential election and his intent to attack democrats and places associated with democrats in an effort to ensure trump remained in office. those text messages said things

like "i want to blow up a democrat building bad, the democrats need to pay, let's see what happens. if nothing does, i'm going to war. democrats, twitter, et cetera. i hope 45, meaning trump, goes to war. if he doesn't, i will. the complaint says that his plans were to target california governor gavin newsom, the offices of twitter, the offices of facebook, and other places that he saw as tech or democratic targets. he was arrested. he's being held on $5 million bail, awaiting his federal court appearance. he's facing up to ten years in prison. right? homemade pipe bombs at the ready, ready to go to war for trump, wanting to blow up democrat buildings. against this sort of daily backdrop of reports like this, about the president's supporters, the department of homeland security today released a national terrorism bulletin. it's addressed to the public, warning us, the public, about rising threats of domestic

violent extremism. it warns of a, quote, heightened threat environment across the united states, which homeland security believes will persist in the weeks following the successful presidential inauguration. quote, information suggests that some ideologically motivated violent extremists with objections to the exercise of governmental authority and the presidential transition as well as other perceived grievances fueled by false narratives could continue to mobilize to incite or commit violence. it says domestic violent extremists may have been emboldened by the attack on the u.s. capitol three weeks ago today and may be emboldened to target elected officials in government buildings. homeland security's urging the public to be prepared and to report suspicious activity or worrying behavior or statements to the fbi. this is our country right now. and it has only been three weeks since the attack on the capitol.

republicans in washington are making clear that they don't want there to be any political consequences at all for the attack on the capitol. they do not want president trump to go on trial in the senate. for senators to decide whether the president should be convicted for the charge related to that attack for which he has already been impeached. that said, republicans don't get to decide what happens now. in the 2020 election, they were voted out of power, out of the white house, out of the senate, and out of the house. that leaves democrats to balance and make the decisions, to balance looking back and what they are trying to get done moving forward, but also to figure in the crucial factor of how regular people should be involved in this process, how their colleagues across the aisle can or can't be counted on to participate in the project of governing. we've got more about that, including that crucial piece about what the rest of us outside of government ought to be doing about this crucial

moment in american politics. that's next.

"indivisible" began as an online guide to resisting the trump agenda. now it's given rise to a growing movement. >> a rally put on by indivisible baton rouge was held today at the capitol. >> right now, indivisible charlottesville is holding an emergency health care rally. >> it was an explosive hour and 15-minute town hall in the county. >> 800 people packed into the york high school auditorium. >> just by watching the very end, you can tell how it all went. >> in 2017, when the republicans were in control of the white house and the house and the senate, just as democrats are now, republicans said that they were going to use their new power in washington, first and foremost, to kill the affordable care act, to kill obamacare. they were going to throw millions of people off health insurance. this was unpopular nationwide,

but they thought their base loved it, promised their base they would do it. they had full control of government. nobody had any reason to believe they didn't have the votes to do exactly what they said they were going to do. progressive organizers in 2017 responded, among other things, by pressing members of congress to hold town halls with their constituents. when that proposal from republicans was on the table. at those town halls, members of congress heard from their constituents all the reasons that was a terrible idea. grassroots mobilizations from groups like indivisible were key to stopping many of the trump administration's top policy priorities from becoming law over the last four years. public interest groups like indivisible have basically pushed for a sort of progressive discipline when it comes to influencing congress. and it was really effective from 2017 to 2021. now that democrats control the white house and the house and the senate, albeit by razor-thin majorities, what does that sort

of progressive discipline do in this environment, and how much of an impact can they have on whether the biden administration and the democrats in congress are actually able to get stuff passed? joining us now is ezra levin, co-founder of indivisible. ezra, it's really good to see you here tonight. thanks for making time. >> thanks for having me. >> so, we talked a lot over the past four years about how, even with democrats completely out of power, if members of the public were sort of organized and disciplined and thoughtful about how they tried to influence their own members of congress -- democrats and republican -- that it could have a really big effect on the legislative process. and i think that the jury is in, and the effect of groups like yours was significant in terms of stopping the republicans from doing some of their most conservative things and helping democrats get some stuff done. how do you approach -- how are you approaching now, this very new environment in washington

with biden in the white house and pelosi and schumer in control on capitol hill? >> oh, gosh, rachel, i'm excited now! we don't have to just be fighting against the bad stuff that has been happening for four years. we have this incredible opportunity! we actually get to get stuff done. but the basic tool available to us is the same tool that was available to us -- grassroots folks across the country -- in 2017. that is constituent power. that means if you are organizing locally, you're going to be focused on your two senators and your one representative, and saying, hey, i got you into office, i'm holding you accountable, i would like to see you get things done. and the anecdote i think of is 1933, fdr coming into office. he's got a big majority in the house, in the senate, a mandate for change, and a. philip randolph, a civil rights leader, a labor leader, comes into the oval office and asks for a favor, says hey, i want you to get any thing done. and fdr turns to him and says, you know, i agree.

now go out and make me do it. the reason why we will get things done in this era is not because we won in november or won the georgia election. that's not what creates change. the legacy of this era is going to be determined by the grassroots movement that push the elected officials to make that change. >> ezra, in terms of how the democrats are setting up their priorities, obviously, they're working on getting biden's nominees in place, they're working on covid relief, they're working on -- we saw this very ambitious climate rollout today. just talking with a "new york times" reporter about how almost unbelievably ambitious it is, compared to all previous presidents. you know, the first bill in the senate and the first bill in the house are democracy reforms, in terms of voting rights and other things to protect representative democracy. how are you guys prioritizing what you think should be done and done first? >> yeah, so, the name of the

game is legislation. legislation is what will define the era. so, i love that the first bill in the house -- hr-1 -- is the for the people act. i love that the first bill in the senate is the for the people act. that is a great first step. they're not law yet, though, right? we've got to pass hr-1 through the house. we've got to pass d.c. statehood through the house. we've got to pass the john lewis voting rights act through the house. then it's got to go through the senate and they've got to get it done. that is indivisible's number one priority. we all recognize that we started in response to trump. that's what we -- we picked ourselves up off the floor and we got to organizing to push back against the horrific trump policies that were coming. but we also understand that trump is a symptom. he is not the cause of the problems with our democracy. and if we're going to actually solve those problems, we've got to address the problems that allowed him to rise. and i think that's what things like hr-1, the for the people act, d.c. statehood and the john lewis voting right act do, and i

think that's a necessary step. it's not sufficient, but it is a necessary step. >> ezra levin, the co-founder of indivisible. i have a feeling we'll be talking a lot over the next few weeks as we see this first big push by the new administration and the new congress. ezra, thanks for being here tonight. >> can't wait to talk more, rachel. thanks. >> all right. we'll be right back. thanks. >> all right we'll be right back. these folks, they don't have time to go to the post office they have businesses to grow customers to care for lives to get home to they use stamps.com print discounted postage for any letter

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here's an update on something that i will warn you we are not going to leave it alone until we figure it out. we are still now waiting on word about what the new administration is going to do about kids who were taken away from their parents by the trump administration and still have not been returned. it's more than 600 kids in that situation. now, of course, there is a promise from president biden that he will figure out how to get those kids back with their families, but one week into the new administration, we still haven't heard what they're going to do or how they're going to approach it. that said, an unexpected and interesting development in this story today. whatever it is they're going to do on this front, we now know that first lady jill biden is

going to be involved in it. she, apparently, told a group of activists she met with this week that her chief of staff, her first lady chief of staff, is going to be working directly on the reunification of the families, and cnn reports today that the first lady, herself, is going to be giving input to the task force that they're going to set up to get this done. that will at least give whatever they do high visibility, to have the first lady involved in it. but of course, we don't know what they're going to do. we still need to know what the plan is. and we intend to find out. watch this space. and we intend to find out. watch this space

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do you believe it has been one week since the inauguration? time has no meaning. that does it for us tonight. i'll see you again tomorrow night. "way too early with kasie hunt" is up next. the farmt of homeland security issues a nationwide terrorist alert, warning on violence. will conspiracy theories fuel more attacks? plus, a possible alternative to convicting donald trump, as democrats weigh their options, the question is whether they can prevent him from holding future office, even if he's acquitted. plus, amateur investors do battle with wall street's 1%, driving up the prices of stocks that professional investors hav