off to the reid out with joy reid. hi, joy. >> hi. i want to come up with an ice cream flavor. i don't know if y'all know but at our family we normally name our christmas trees. we've had tree-rethra franklin in the past. we had tree-yonce snowl es so i'm ready for this. >> all i'm going to say is r-e-s-p-e-c-t to aretha franklin. we begin on this friday night with what is shaping up to be another appalling abuse of power by the trump era justice department. the "new york times" has detailed how under trump the doj subpoenaed data from apple related to accounts belonging to at least two democrats on the house intelligence committee. the two democrats happen to be some of trump's most vocal critics. committee chair adam schiff and member eric swalwell.

their aides and family members including a minor were targeted, too. the records were sought as part of an investigation into leaks of classified information. let's just say trump was never shy about who he thought was spilling his business. >> schiff is a big leaker. >> we'll have a committee meeting and he'll leak all sorts of information. you know, he's a bad guy. i think adam schiff is the biggest leaker in washington. you know that. i know that. we all know that. i've watched adam schiff leak. he is a corrupt politician. he's a leaker like nobody has ever seen before. they ought to stop the leaking from intelligence committee. if they don't stop it i can't imagine people aren't going to go after them and find out what's happening. >> this isn't the first time trump shredded our institutions in an attempt to hunt down his enemies and snuff them out. this was a thing with him as it is with all autocrats real and wanna-be. this is a big deal. unprecedented in this country and arguably worse than anything

richard nixon did. the "new york times" has called it a nearly unheard of move outside of corruption investigations. with former congressional officials saying they couldn't recall an instance in which the records of lawmakers had ever been seized in this way. the investigation started under attorney general jefferson beauregard sessions. remember him? it was unsuccessful. kicker, the dead end probe was revived under william barr after he replaced sessions as attorney general a year later. doesn't it feel like the danger warning arrows always point back to barr? trump's hand, the one who lied about the contents of the mueller report, who personally ordered the violent dispersal of lawful protesters so trump could pretend to know what holding a bible feels like and whose chilling fantasy distaupe ya allows unlimited presidential power. that william barr whose duty as he saw it was to serve as trump's faithful protector even when testifying before congress. >> has the president or anyone at the white house ever asked or

suggested that you open an investigation of anyone yes or no please, sir. >> the president or anybody else. >> it seems you'd remember something like that and be able to tell us. >> yeah, but i'm trying to grapple with the word suggest. i mean, there have been discussions of matters out there that they've not asked me to open an investigation but -- >> perhaps they suggested? >> i don't know. i wouldn't say suggest. >> hinted? >> i don't know. >> inferred? you don't know. >> she was going to run out of synonyms there. today top democrats in the senate are calling for barr and sessions to testify under oath. moments ago we heard from microsoft saying they, too, received a subpoena related to a personal e-mail account in 2017. a microsoft spokesperson said they were prevented from notifying the customer for two years due to a gag order. as soon as it expired they notified the customer who it turns out was a congressional

staffer. joining me now is matthew miller former chief spokesman for the justice department and my other guests. you know, nixon has been invoked and so you have that perspective as, you know, whether or not, just how unprecedented this is. this is completely unprecedented. nixon did wire tap reporters but even he never took on doing something like this to a member of congress or to their families, their staff, to a minor. this goes way beyond department of justice policy. it is not illegal because they used the means of getting a subpoena through a grand jury. so it wasn't illegal but it is a violation of department of justice policy. and i am very happy to hear the inspector general is going to do an investigation and get to the bottom of this. it also looks like political, abuse of power, because so far all we know is that only

democrats were subpoenaed, their records. it didn't go to any republicans. there was an unsuccessful and now barr is saying i never knew about those subpoenas. well, shame on him if he didn't. he's running the department. that is something he had to know about under doj policy. so it is ridiculous and it doesn't pass the red face test for him to say i didn't know about it. >> yeah. matthew, there is a lot of frustration on the hill right now. you know, you've had now this interesting sort of new information that's come out and this is, you know, just reporting that we have internally a former justice department official who tonight is saying for our own pete williams he never approved subpoenas for members of the house intelligence committee in a leak investigation. he is saying any metadata was for a single house staffer and then that staffer's phone records, anyone associated that he called might have been involved. that is just one person saying it. there are a lot of questions here which to me begs the question of why there wasn't already an inspector general

investigation on our new attorney general arriving in his job. there is now going to be an internal investigation, chairman schiff, one of the targeted lawmakers has said he has been unable to get biden administration officials to give him details about anything. there is a lot of frustration that there is only now an investigation out of this. what do you think? >> let me say i'm not surprised, it wouldn't surprise me at all if the attorney general only found out about this very recently. i can tell you, having been at the justice department at the beginning of a new administration, it is months and in some cases years before you find out about wrongdoing that happened under the previous administration especially when there is such widespread wrongdoing. i want to make a prediction we'll be finding out about things that the sessions and barr justice departments did wrong not just for the rest of the year but probably the rest of the biden administration as new things come to public light. i think what has to happen going forward is there has to be transparency from the justice department.

look, if you told me that in pursuit of this leak investigation the justice department looked at everyone that had access to this classified information, and sent subpoenas to all of the internet service providers and phone companies for their phone and e-mail records, the metadata associated with them including members of congress from both parties, i would tell you that sounded overly aggressive but it didn't sound partisan. i've had serious questions about that investigation. i think it was a wrong call. it wouldn't sound like a partisan witch hunt. the problem you have here is when you see it only targeted at democratic members. unless they had a very specific reason, if they can produce information that shows that they had a lead that told them there was someone on the house intelligence committee responsible for this leak and that is why they sent a narrowly targeted subpoena that would be one thing. in the absence of that information and when you pile on top the president repeatedly calling for his enemies to be targeted by the justice department, it means we have to get to the bottom of what happened. the doj inspector general has to get to the bottom of what happened and congress has to work to get information out of

the department. the department needs to comply and turn that information over. >> matt, some of the people involved in this are still working in the doj. do you think once this investigation is completed those people should no longer be working at doj? >> i think it is too early to say. these are career public servants and their jobs are to find leaks. without knowing any more information about how they acted, i think it is too early to point fingers at them. it is the job of the leadership at the top of the department to set the direction and set the direction of these investigations. if it were for example that the career public servants were just following information where it led, that would be one thing. if they were told by their superiors, you know, why don't you have a look at adam schiff, eric swalwell, that would be a very different thing. before we point fingers at what i expect are pretty good career prosecutors i want to know more information. >> malcolm, let me read you house intelligence chair schiff's statement out today and he said the incident must be viewed in the context of the systemic politicization of the justice of the department and

its mission and other flagrant abuses. the attorney general needs to do a full damage assessment of the conduct of the department over the last four years and outline all of the accountability and mitigation necessary to protect the public going forward. what stands out to me, malcolm, and i don't know if it does to you is this was a closed investigation by the previous attorney general that william barr seemed to reopen and he was known for being extremely partisan and believing the president should have unlimited power. one little piece here from the "new york times," some cases in the probe had nothing to do with leaks about trump and involved sensitive national security information. one of the people briefed in the case has said barr's overall view of leaks that some people in the department eventually see the inquiries as politically motivated this is how autocracies operate essentially, no? that the president can essentially order his hand to the king to investigate anybody he wants. >> sure. we've seen this happen throughout the entirety of the trump administration. bill barr was specifically brought in to kill investigations, to make things

go away, to politicize the justice department. you know what i find fascinating here, joy, and i know i'm speaking for the laymen on this panel. we have two brilliant lawyers here. lawyers have too much comedy amongst themselves. you know, they talk about where they went to school, they discuss openly all the time what firms they work for and they always give everyone benefit of the doubt. you cannot give that white house benefit of the doubt. we know they were politicizing many, many different subjects. let me tell you something. as someone who has actually collected intelligence, you know, that's come up either incidentally or targeted, i'm certain that collecting the metadata of this is probably the least of what we're going to find. here is what i recommend. i'm saying this again as a layman. the justice department staff needs to understand that this tree needs to be shaken. all of the things that they suspected might have been dirty

over the last few years, they should walk into the office of the ig and say, hey. i know this is an investigation. it didn't get to the attention of attorney general garland. but you might want to look at this. because i suspect that the justice department using career prosecutors who keep their mouths shut, who actually go through the day-to-day business, was probably a lot more politicized than we think of. just like a russian prosecutor general. the only thing missing here is the internal government intelligence agency like dhs that may have been doing things in support of these operations. >> you know, jill, the concern here is that barr, even more than sessions, really broke the department of justice and turned it into an -- a sort of personal law firm for the president. and that garland is not being aggressive enough about turning it back. that he is such an institutionalist he is more about protecting the staff and sort of you know incremental change. that he is not looking through the books more aggressively

enough. what do you make of that assessment? >> i think there are some things he has done extremely well. his speech today about voting is really good use of the department's resources and increasing the number of people who will be enforcing voting laws that currently exist while extolling congress to pass both the senate bill and the john lewis bill. but there are some things that are questionable decisions of his that i would wish he wouldn't have done in terms of continuing to keep from the public the office of legal counsel memo that was supposedly guiding barr toward a decision. there are a number of things like that. the decision to continue to defend donald trump in the e. jean carroll defamation case, things where he is trying to look neutral and not political to the point where it is too much like what comey did to hillary clinton. i think there are some things we

need to look at but i do think we have to give him the benefit of the doubt in terms of not bringing cases. it takes time to build these cases and to find out, to investigate them. so i'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and to keep encouraging him, though, to do exactly as you're saying, to be more aggressive and not to continue to follow the policies that were set by donald trump's administration when they did all sorts of things right. i just want to point out also that they classified information that was the subject of this leak was declassified by the trump administration. so it is not even important stuff. >> right. >> it should not have been a continuing thing that barr brought back after the original prosecutors said, there's really nothing here. we can't link anything to these people. so drop it. that is what they should have done. >> and the thing that worries people i think, matt, is that the lack of aggressiveness means that, you know, barr won't be

held to account. if he broke laws or violated the law in some way in his tenure and donald trump as well. i think that is the concern is that the institutionalists will let them all get away with it. >> you know, it is really tough at the department to get the balance right. i can tell you on the inside there is a culture there always pushing you to defend the presidency. the president, executive branch at any cost to keep things secret. i think at times he has leaned too far in that direction. at other times for example the media subpoenas that have caused so much consternation over the last few weeks are public because the justice department i assume by merrick garland's decision went and notified the press after the barr department kept those secret for years. so there are times where they are putting information out and i think they'll have to do more of that. and as it comes to accountability, look. the hardest, the thing that everything wants is accountability. and we look over and over again where are we going to find it? i think hoping for criminal liability is a high bar to set. it's going to be very hard to

prove bill barr committed a crime. there are a lot of things you can do to abuse your power as the attorney general that aren't actual crimes. so in the absence of criminal accountability if we can't have that if it doesn't exist the way we get accountability is transparency. at least the public can see what happened. we can have a record to try to ensure to the best of our ability it never happens again. >> malcolm, i'll give you the last word on this. i sort of think of the previous administration as a regime because they behaved like one. when these regimes are allowed to get away with anything they want including open, naked corruption, like what we're seeing emerge day after day as revelations about the way they operated including bill barr, what are the consequences of that generally? >> you know, i am a big believer in the, it's all going to come out school of thought with regard to the trump administration. it's just you have to understand they don't care if it comes out after the 2022 election. while they're litigating these things, their lawyers are arguing these things, while the

attorney general is being as slow and deliberative as possible, they understand that institutionalists are the kinds of people they want in there. let's just look at, you know, robert mueller for example. because they know they can manipulate the politics around these things. by tomorrow morning they'll be all over the news media saying that this is the same, this is nothing worse, you know, nothing more than what barack obama did spying on donald trump and creating these false kwifl ensies. look, just because a previous attorney general did it, we have an attorney general who literally covered up the breast of the statue of justice, doesn't mean we should maintain that tarp over the institution. tear it down. make it public. the attorney general himself should be announcing these things. >> it is all going to come out. i think that is a good mantra for the previous administration. matt miller, jill winebanks, malcolm nance thank you all very much. coming up next on "the reidout" you can't impeach him this time.

what will congress do about this latest revelation of trump's abuses of power. plus the consequences of the big lie. political leaders and their families are still threatened with death for speaking out against trump and the election theft lies. guess what democrats? fighting back works. case in point the walk out by texas democrats over the voter suppression bill there. i'll explain. also, remember this cringe worthy moment during a previous presidential visit with the royal family? now unmistakenly the bidens are bringing dignity back on their first presidential foreign trip. "the reidout" continues after this. [sfx: rainstorm] ♪♪ comfort in the extreme. ♪♪ the lincoln family of luxury suvs. every day unilever does good for communities across america. ♪♪ every squeeze every smile every drop

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>> very, very serious. i've gone to all of the folks in charge of the various agencies and i've actually called the justice department to look into the leaks. those are criminal leaks. >> trump directing his justice department to spy on democrats is entirely disgraceful, it is

not remotely surprising just as he told america he had asked the doj to investigate leaks he also frequently broadcast his willingness to abuse his power. >> i have said i'm going to stay away from the justice department so i've wanted to stay away. that doesn't mean i have to. i don't have to. i can get involved. i want them to do their job. i will get involved and get in there if i have to. our justice department which i try and stay away from but at some point i won't. i have an article 2 where i have the right to do whatever i want as president, but i don't even talk about that. you know, the saddest thing is that because of the president of the united states, i am not supposed to be involved with the justice department. i'm not supposed to be involved with the fbi. i'm not supposed to be doing the kind of things that i would love to be doing. >> i'm joined now by former missouri democratic senator clair mccaskill and charlie sykes editor at large of "the bulwark" and, claire, this warped view of power donald trump had was bad enough.

he didn't understand politics. he just thought being president was like being king. that would be bad enough. but to have someone like that believed basically the same thing is actually frightening. we sort of -- not even sort of -- we really dodged a bullet when it comes to autocracy. your thoughts. before you give your thoughts let me give adam schiff his thoughts then yours. this is on the rachel maddow show last night. >> that is i think a terrible abuse of power. it violates i think the separation of powers. but it also makes the department of justice just a fully owned subsidiary of the president's personal, legal interests and political interests. and that does such damage to the department. it is hard to express just how shocking and an abuse of power this really is. >> that is congressman adam schiff. your thoughts, claire? >> well, we now have bill barr and jeff sessions both saying

publicly they did not know about this. that they did not know that the power of the department of justice was used to snoop on and go fishing amongst a myriad of staff, members of congress, and their families and even a minor child. so now we have a really scary situation. if they're telling the truth, which hopefully the congressional investigation will find out, then we have people in the department of justice that did this without the sign-off of the top levels of the department of justice. now, that's when -- this is the moment, joy, we're all worn slick by scandal -- but this is the moment where the republican members of congress have to do a gut check and say, wait a minute. this isn't about donald trump overstepping power. this isn't about the republican party or the democratic party. this is about the fundamentals of our constitution in terms of protecting the equal branches of

government. and if the republicans on that judiciary committee want to ignore this, when you have both barr and sessions saying they don't know, i don't want to hear another word from them about the over reach of big government. you know, they all love to be righteously pontificating about the over reach of big government. this is the definition of an un-constitutional over reach of big government. so they have to shut up about the over reach of big government if they're not going to step up and participate in subpoenaing all of the information and ruining the careers and finding people to prosecute who actually carried out this policy. sorry. i got carried away. >> no. you're absolutely -- your righteous indignation is very much appropriate. now it shall meet my doubt. because here's the problem. i'll throw this to you. claire is obviously right, right? i remember when there was the whole controversy during the bush 2 administration about the

government going and using back door ways to get into the internet to do metadata searches on americans and the outreach was bipartisan left and right people were outraged and disgusted by it. but now what you have is this fealty to trump. we've played a lot more trump than i normally play on this show just to be honest but here he is again, another little clip. you all remember when he said this. this is trump. >> what they did to me whether it's surveillance or much stronger term because i believe it was a much stronger term than that, and a lot of other people, too, nobody politicized the justice department more than barack obama. >> i mean, malcolm nance in the previous segment predicted instead of doing what claire just said which is the right thing to do, what republicans are going to do is repeat that and say, no. what we really want to investigate is who was spying on trump. >> yeah. and first of all, republicans have already done a gut check and we know how that's turned out. look, i actually don't think that the focus should be on the

department of justice here. the focus should be on the abuse of power by the president of the united states. and how close a run -- how close this thing was to autocracy. look, i think congress needs to do three things. three things need to happen. number one, they need to have aggressive investigations into this o i think that will happen. number two, i do think that one of the things we've learned over the last four years was that the guard rails protecting us from an imperial presidency were incredibly weak. we had a norm busting president who showed how much of our system was based on the honor system. so i think we need to have a presidential accountability act that perhaps they could call the never again trump act that would strengthen congress's ability to hold a president accountable, would strengthen the safeguards against nepotism, would reign in the pardon power, require more financial disclosure from the president, and would prevent the kind of interference in an obstruction of justice that this

president has done. now, that is not, unfortunately, going to be sufficient. so in addition to the investigation, in addition to legislation that will actually strengthen congress's role vis-a-vis the president, i do think that quite frankly the justice department needs to revisit whether or not it is going to hold donald trump criminally accountable for his actions unless donald trump faces legal consequences. then i'm not sure we will ever reign in this run away presidency. so, yes. investigate. we need to legislate. i also think that we need possibly to revisit the question of indicting. remember when bob mueller was asked the question, when he was testifying, and he said, why they could not indict a sitting president, he was directly asked, can you indict someone after they left the presidency? you remember his answer? it was a one word answer. he said, yes. so we need to focus on what we just experienced, a president of

the united states who was prepared to abuse his power, who in fact may run again and just imagine what a second donald trump term would be like if he was completely unchecked by legislation, public opinion, or congress. >> it would be for life. i don't think he would ever leave. claire, here is the challenge is that the idea of the unitarian executive is not exactly new. dig cheney believed in it. we saw manifestations of it during bush 2. the presidency has been getting more and more powerful and congress has been pretty willingly creding so much more of its constitutional authority to presidents for decades and then you get somebody who says i have article 2 that means i can do whatever i want. you kind of get the ultimate nightmare. it is sort of the logical nightmare because of where the presidency has been going. is it too late to try to reign in the presidency? charlie is right. if it's trump or if it's someone like him, if josh hawley gets in there, imagine what somebody

more intelligent than trump could do with that kind of abuse of power. >> first of all, it wouldn't be hard to get somebody more intelligent than trump. that is a pretty low bar. >> fair. >> but here's the thing. i actually believe that one of the reasons congress has ceded so much power is because congress has become so dysfunctional. unless and until the members of congress decide to start legislating again, to actually weighing in. now, in the trump administration congress blocked his funding for the wall. by the way, that wouldn't have been possible if republicans had supported funding the wall in the senate but there was a huge number of republicans in the senate that didn't want to fund that wall. the president did it anyway and suffered no consequences. you're right, joy. this has been a march toward unfettered, unaccountable power in the presidency.

this incident ought to be the spark that really wakes up the republicans and makes them realize that if they don't speak up now they really are beginning to come completely irrelevant in this. what good is having power if you can't do anything with it because you have a presidency that is totally -- has totally usurped yours? >> the worry, charlie, this is sort of late stage bolshesim which i think is a great description of what the republican party is, '70s era. they seem to be willing to cede all the power to an autocrat to hold on to whatever little fifedoms they think they'll get. it looks to me like the republican party is too far gone to walk back because they know they have to win with minority rule. they know they can't win a majority of the popular vote so they'll keep trying all of these ways to do minority rule. how do you end up with anything other than an autocrat if another republican wins? >> i do think this republican party may be too gone.

again, to put this in a little bit of historical context, conservative republicans have been warning against the imperial presidency for decades. right? they have been warning against government overreach as senator mccaskill mentioned. this was a tenet of their faith that the centralization of power was dangerous and the dangerousness of the constitutional order including checks and balances and their willingness to go along with all of the norms donald trump broke. their willingness to surrender to this march of the presidency and you're right this has been happening under democrats and under republicans. you know, the long trajectory here has been congress ceding its power, the presidency becoming more and more powerful. if you don't have a republican party that is even willing to give lip service to reining in this out of control executive we are in a very dangerous situation because they are all in on this and there is no willingness or appetite i think to push back if in fact you do get a second trump term or if

you get somebody like josh hawley or, you know, other trump wanna-bes who in fact have the same view of the presidency that donald trump has and that the mitch mcconnells and kevin mccarthys are apparently willing to ratify. >> yeah. i am assuming what they'll do is try to do the whole reason in the presidency when it is a democrat, joe biden, and let the presidency run wild if they get another republican because that seems to be the way things are going. it is tom nichols. let me give him credit for the late stage bolshevism thing. claire mccaskill, charlie sykes, thank you both. have a great weekend. before break, a quick congratulations to darnella frazier the minnesota teen who recorded george floyd's murder last summer. she has now been awarded an honorary pulitzer prize for her video which spurred protests against police brutality around the world. well done, darn ella. you are a brave young woman with a bright future. up next tonight's absolute worst. stay with us.

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the oxford definition of terrorism is the unlawful use of violence and intimidation especially against civilians in the pursuit of political aims. i want you to keep that in the back of your mind while i tell you about new reporting from reuters that details the torrent of truly disturbing trump inspired texts, voice mails, and e-mails that election workers and top officials have received as a result of trump's fraudulent claims of a rigged election. more than a dozen people provided reuters with evidence that included threats of hanging, firing squads, torture, and bombings. one of the targets was the wife of the georgia secretary of

state brad raff ens burger. you'll recall trump urged him to find enough votes to overturn his loss in georgia which is illegal. she provided reuters with some of the text messages she received shortly after the election. one warned you and your family will be killed very slowly. another warned keep opposing the audit of fulton county's 2020 election ballots and somebody is going to have an unfortunate accident. at one point the family went into hiding after someone broke into their daughter-in-law's house. that same night the oath keepers a far right militia group that has supported trump's bid to overturn the election were found outside the home. violent threats were also made to lower level election workers. here is one recording of many that the fulton county elections director received. >> you fleed to get your act together or people like me will really -- go after people like you. it's -- there will be a riot i think somewhere. >> these violent threats have gone national.

katy hobbs arizona secretary of state is getting death threats to this day because of her opposition to the fraudulent and dangerous election review happening in her state. arizona has become the big lie mecca hosting delegations of republicans from georgia, alaska, colorado, and virginia to name a few looking to spread these legally dubious, un-democratic side shows to their own states. yesterday wisconsin republicans announced they were sending a delegation to arizona. the trip will be paid for by a group called voices and votes run by, wait for it, former trump administration official and current oan host christina bob and the oan white house correspondent. they are also hoping to fund -- helping to fund the fraud-it in arizona. also, arizona state republicans gave the far right fringe network the only live stream of the show. today attorney general merrick garland announced he would expand the justice department's voting rights unit vowing to scrutinize those audits and onerous republican voting laws recently passed.

>> we are scrutinizing new laws that seek to curb voter access and where we see violations we will not hesitate to act. we will apply the same scrutiny to post election audits to ensure they abide by federal statutory requirements to protect election records and avoid the intimidation of voters. finally, we have not been blind to the dramatic increase in menacing and violent threats against all manner of state and local election workers. >> meanwhile the trump backed big lie which is still coursing through the veins of the republican party and all of you still drinking the kool-aid of election lies y'all are the absolute worst. thankfully some democrats are fighting back though and scoring some wins. i'll show you how after the break. all the cash back new card members earn at the end of their first year automatically woo! i got my mo-ney! it's hard to contain yourself isn't it?

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republicans have launched an all out assault on democracy and with the stalled prospects for passing the for the people act and the john lewis act it sometimes feels like we're powerless to fight back but not so. independent journalist points out texas democrats successfully fought back against a terrible suppressive voting bill by walking out. now republicans say they're going to remove sections of the bill that would have limited voting hours and would have allowed texas judges to void an election based on dubious evidence. meanwhile, in the u.s. senate chris murphy of connecticut points out the d.c. democrats are not at the mercy of republicans tweeting, why let republicans decide the size of an infrastructure bill when reconciliation is a perfectly legitimate process used unapologetically by the gop when they were in power to do a bill that will actually make a difference? it is not cheating to use the rules. here's the question. when will senate democrats actually stand up for democracy? i'm joined by jason johnson professor of politics and

journalism and let me go to you first. what happened in texas is what you would think could happen in theory in d.c. that democrats just said no. walked out. denied a quorum. now you have republicans saying oh, whoa, whoa. it was a typo. the idea a judge could overturn an election is abominable. one of the guys who wrote the bill calling his own provision abominable. the message to me is the bullies tried to take your lunch money. give 'em a good slapping around and they leave you alone. >> well, joy, that is completely true. i could go into all sorts of discussion about how tough people are in texas but they really are sending a message to democrats in washington, d.c. for all the times the democrats can take a knee and selfie from doing sit-ins and wear the cloth at the end of the day they haven't showed an ability to fight when it comes to serious issues. that fighting should begin

within their own caucus whether manchin or feinstein they need to surround these folks on a regular basis and say this is what we're going to do, how it's going to happen. otherwise there will be consequences for you in a way that is going to make you very uncomfortable. that is where the fight needs to begin. we already know where the republicans are. the democrats seem to have this difficulty of herding cats on issues that should be very easy for every single one to appreciate and for their constituents to benefit from. >> susan, it seems to be really mainly senate democrats in d.c. because you look in georgia, stacey abrams. democrats fight like hell around the country. they don't play around. val demmings is not weak. it seems there is something going on with senate democrats. just tell me as a republican strategist at one point how long would it have taken republicans to put all of the stuff they wanted on a reconciliation bill without having any conversations with 20 odd democrats in a get things done caucus or whatever they call themselves? how long?

eight seconds? nine seconds? ten? >> under ten. but you know what else they would have done by now because they already in essence did it they would have gone up the filibuster. >> hello. >> let's not forget when it came to the supreme court in october last year, the senate majority leader then, mcconnell, who sometimes still we see as acting more like a leader than chuck schumer which is a separate issue, he changed the rules for a lifetime appointment to the supreme court. you don't think he would do that next tuesday if he could? i mean, so right there, it's nice to say that, yes. playing by the rules is not cheating. play by the rules but use the rules to your advantage. because that's where we are right now. the other thing i would consider is, putting stuff up for a vote. you know what? you want to see how bipartisan works? bipartisanship works if you're joe manchin?

put up sr-4 which doesn't really exist yet because the house hasn't introduced it this session but if they did see how many votes you get. what are you going to do with 54? so now what are you going to do? >> right. >> now reintroduce it or try and get rid of the filibuster? that is the problem the democrats have right now is thas have right now. they're not forcing the issue every single time. and that's exactly what the republicans -- >> and doing it on tv. now they're hemming and hawing. they're warning biden not to compromise omit gaiting climate change in the bill. you have ed markey saying no climate, no vote. i ain't voting for it. you're having this in the democratic caucus. they're negotiating against themselves. i don't understand why they're bothering to do that. do you? >> no, no. i don't. this is one of the reasons democrats continue to fail.

they get these amazing opportunities and then they fail to actually do what their constituents ask them to do. and this is the thing it doesn't just have to do with reconciliation. it has to do with negotiation and judges. i was saying this during the 2020 election. if you want to look at the long term strategy of the republican party, it has always been voter suppression and judges. rather than sending vice president harris down to the border, you know, joe biden should have said, do you know what, vice president harris? you're a brilliant lawyer. i want you to go through every single judge that donald trump got into office. look at their applications with a fine tooth comb and let's impeach any of them that forgot to cross an i or dot a t. that's what an he will powered president would do. get rid of the long-term impediments to democracy that mitch mcconnell has been putting together for 20 years. they won't have power for that long. we don't know what happens in

2022 but democrats think they have this forever runway to get some guy hired. i am okay >> maybe that's true. as em, two things. judges and tax cuts, right? and voter suppression. three things. and as chris hayes has said, they have the advantage being able to filibuster everything they hate but pass everything they like, meaning judges and tax cuts through with 50 votes. i don't understand how we've wound up in that situation. how do we get out of it? what would a republican do, please? tell us. >> here's the thing. those are fine. what do they really want in they want to win with. those things, they win. that's what they're looking for. that's the difference. they want to win and they are saying, i can win with voter suppression. i can win with judges and i can raise money with tax cuts. that allows me to win. >> to win. >> and you know how democrats win?

pass all that stuff that you said you're going to pass when you were running. if you pass all that stuff, i don't care. pass it! that's how you win. up next, the bidens meet the windsors. meeting with royals and other world leaders at the grand opening ceremony of the g-7 conference without causing any embarrassments. what a difference a year makes. the shocking normalcy on the world stage, next. ext.

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isn't it great to have a normal president? one who doesn't fill with you anxiety every time he does anything? that's what we saw today in the united kingdom. the first couple joe and jill biden arrived. greeting prime ministers boris johnson and his wife with a covid friendly elbow bump. the leaders of the world's

advanced economies posed for their custom family photo. if everybody looks more relaxed even while socially distanced it is because you know who isn't there. and president biden's diplomacy looks a little more familiar along with some familiar pomp and circumstance. the first lady met with kate, the duchess of cambridge, visiting a school, a class of 4 and 5-year-olds stressing the importance of early childhood education. hard to imagine the really i don't care first lady doing that. the big surprise came as 95-year-old queen elizabeth joined leaders for a reception on climate change along with her son and grandson. the queen center stage, president biden seated to the right, no jockeying from position from the american president this visit. the british embassy released the photo speaking with the first couple at the royal reception and there the looks of it, enjoying. they. with the g-7 and with her family, it's a departure from her first meeting with the

former president. the queen greeted him and he promptly broke protocol by walking in front of the royal monarch. he brought his ill fitting formal ware and his four adult children at a banquet they had no business attending. looming over president biden's trip is the meeting with president putin. >> even now, i believe the former u.s. president mr. trump is an extraordinary individual, a talented individual. otherwise, he would not have become u.s. president. president biden, of course, is radically different from trump because as he career man. he spent virtually his entire adulthood in politics. a different kind of person and it is my great hope that yes, there are some advantages, disadvantages but there will not be any impulse-based movements on behalf of the sitting president. >> meanwhile the greatest indication that it is a knew worldwide order, there is no diaper clad baby trump bloonl. but there is the biden and boris

blimp. advocacy groups floated them holding hands in swim trunks in their national flags. "all in" with kris hayes starts -- tick, tick, tick, in like ten seconds, now. tonight on "all in" -- >> they ought to investigate adam schiff for leaking that information. he should not be leaking information. >> abuse of power play on a scale we may not have seen before. >> this is the type of stuff that vladimir putin does to alexei navalny. >> donald trump's doj is caught spying on political opponents. tonight, what we're learning one day later. the urgent need to hold all the former president's men accountable with one of trump's targets, congressman eric swalwell. then as merrick garland vows,

what we know that the conspiracy charges from