Summary
January 6 fake electors scheme under scrutiny. False electors in seven states sent bogus documents to D.C. Multiple fake electors also appeared as plaintiffs in Sidney Powell`s kraken lawsuits. January 6 committee accuses four Trump allies of pushing election lies.
Transcript
ARI MELBER, MSNBC HOST: And there were new subpoenas coming from the January 6th committee. We just heard from two of the witnesses that committee is interested in. And next week, we will stay on the news for you.
I wish you a great weekend and hand it off to THE REIDOUT with Joy Reid starts now. Hi, Joy.
JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: How are you doing, Ari? Fascinating interviews, interesting seeing Boris Ephsteyn back on our air. He used to be on quite a lot for those who remember him from MSNBC Day side as a guest. Very good interviews, well done. Have a great weekend.
MELBER: Thank you, Joy. You too.
REID: Cheers.
All right, good evening, everyone. We begin THE REIDOUT tonight with more scenes of the apparent conspiracy planted in the weeks before January 6th. According to Politico, the select committee is actively investigating several illegitimate Republican electors who, in December of 2020, submitted forged documents that falsely declared Donald Trump to be the victor.
This happened in seven different states across the country with no legal authority. Pro-Trump electors, including many local party officials, tried to award their states electoral votes to Trump instead of Biden. And in five of those states, Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan and Georgia, they even vouched with their signature that they were duly elected and qualified electors, which they were not.
Now, these fake Trump electors are under renewed scrutiny, especially after the attorneys general of Michigan and New Mexico called for federal investigations into their conduct this week. More importantly, we`re learning that these weren`t isolated incidents that just happened, coincidentally unfold at the exact same time in the exact same way in seven different states.
The Washington Post and CNN yesterday confirmed suspicions that this attempt to falsify election results was part of an organized top-down scheme. As CNN reports, Trump campaign officials led by Rudy Giuliani oversaw the efforts to put forward the illegitimate electors, with Giuliani`s team coordinating the nuts and bolts of the process on a state- by-state level.
According to The Washington Post, the Trump campaign even scrambled to distribute draft language for the certificates that would later be submitted to Congress. That would seem to explain why most of the forged documents from these states appeared almost identical to one another, same language, same type face, same front size. Additionally, CNN has obtained audio from one of those fake electors in Michigan admitting that the Trump campaign directed them. This is the co-chair of Michigan`s Republican Party, Meshawn Maddock.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MESHAWN MADDOCK, CO-CHAIR, MICHIGAN REPUBLICAN PARTY: We fought to seat the electors. The Trump campaign asked us to do that under a lot of scrutiny for that today.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: And while Michigan`s attorney general, Dana Nessel, is awaiting a federal investigation, she didn`t hesitate to say that she has ample evidence to press state charges.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At this point, do you think that there is enough evidence, if you wanted to, to bring charges against these electors under state law?
DANA NESSEL, MICHIGAN ATTORNEY GENERAL: Absolutely.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: So, here is the thing. These people could eventually face state or federal charges of forgery or fraud for submitting false election documents. But in doing so reportedly at the direction of the Trump campaign, they were also laying the groundwork for an attempted end run around the Constitution. That`s because those seven forged certificates were the pretense that the Trump campaign thought it needed to throw out Biden`s legitimate electoral votes on January 6th.
It`s outlined plain as day in the infamous memos by Trump lawyers John Eastman and Jenna Ellis. Both cite the falsified alternate slates of electors as the basis for why Vice President Mike Pence should reject the official the results.
Now, Congressman Mark Pocan of Wisconsin is joining the growing chorus, asking the Justice Department to act. He said today, I urge Attorney General Garland to investigate these individuals in Wisconsin and any of the individuals in six other states who tried to connive their way into overthrowing an election by impersonating a member of the Electoral College.
And joining me now is Congressman Mark Pocan of Wisconsin and Maya Wiley, former U.S. Assistant Attorney and MSNBC Legal Analyst.
And, Congressman, I do want to start with you. You would like to see these allegations that we`ve now seen, they are a fact, actually, the submission of these false electoral documents charged as a crime by the DOJ. Please explain, or at least investigate it.
REP. MARK POCAN (D-WI): Yes, thanks for having me, Joy. Exactly. You know, we went through a violent insurrection on January 6th of 2021, but this, in many ways, is an insurrection done with the computer and some shady legal work, right? People were trying to pretend they were someone they weren`t. They were trying to circumvent the process and set it up so that Mike Pence could say, I can`t count these states, therefore, Donald Trump is president.
And now we`re clearly seeing the pieces of the puzzle that this was orchestrated by the Trump campaign and people knew what they were doing.
[19:05:06]
In fact, of the seven states, two of the states were smart enough to say, wink, wink, in the language that they knew that they weren`t really doing this but the other five states, including Wisconsin, outright lied, so it was a forgery, it was lie as a public official, and we need the Department of Justice to take action.
REID: It does seem kind of plain as day, Maya. I mean, here is another element. So, there are public documents that show that some of the names of the actual people who were submitting themselves as electors, who were not real electors, the same names appear as plaintiffs in some of the lawsuits. And these kraken lawsuits that were being put out by Sidney Powell, they`re being filed by Sidney Powell. You have a guy in Michigan, three electors matched the names, at least, matched those listed as plaintiffs in one of the Powell suits. In Wisconsin, the name of one fake elector matches a name that`s listed as a plaintiff in one of her suits. In Georgia, the names of five seem to match. One of those actually was reached for comments, one of those individuals who we were reached by our show pointed us to a statement from the Republican chair of Wisconsin who called the complaint frivolous and said the Trump electors were advised by legal counsel to keep their legal options open, as the congressman just said.
As you view this state of facts, does this feel to you like a coordinated conspiracy? Can all of this be coincidental?
MAYA WILEY, MSNBC LEGAL ANALYST: This feels very coordinated and feels very coordinated because there is actual evidence that we can see and hear. We already -- we just played play some of it, Joy, which is to have a ranking member of the Republican Party in Michigan saying that it was the campaign that asked them to do this is pretty clearly evidenced.
But, you know, the other thing is remember who Sidney Powell in particular is and in addition to being the person in a meeting with Donald Trump on December 18th around this executive order where he`s asking the president essentially to make her a special counsel in order to -- and have the secretary of defense seize all these voting machines to find this mythical fraud, she`s also the same lawyer along with other lawyers who a Michigan federal judge sanctioned and forced to pay $175,000 for the governor`s legal fees, for other legal fees because she called their lawsuit in Michigan on election fraud fantastical and she said in that opinion that their intent was actually create this very deceit to the American public to stave (ph) an opinion. There were no facts to support it. The same is true in Georgia. And as we heard, we even have Donald Trump himself personally calling the secretary of state in Georgia, asking to find 11,000 votes, and that`s in January. That`s after all this has happened.
So, there is a lot of evidence there that we know of and there`s more evidence that we don`t.
REID: We also not forget Lindsey Graham, a senator from a totally different state, in South Carolina, was also calling into Georgia and saying, hey, can you help us out on this election?
And, Congressman, speaking of that executive order, this is a copy, my printout of it, from Politico, that Politico uncovered. This is bananas. I don`t know another word for it. It alleges just an elaborate conspiracy. But this is a draft executive order, which takes this right into the White House, or at least those who do the planning around the president, is getting real close to the president here and executive order that would indeed, as Maya just stated, call for the seizure of voting equipment, alleging a vast international conspiracy to steal the election from Donald Trump. And you take that and it`s hard to imagine this was not a conspiracy that emerged from the White House.
What do we do about that? Because there doesn`t seem whole lot of -- if he had been able to do this, if this had been implemented, we`re talking about the federal government maybe arresting people, you know, charging people with crimes they didn`t commit, seizing voting machines. This is dangerous stuff.
POCAN: Yes, it`s kind of like some kind of a MAGA pyramid scheme, right, especially when you start showing all the interconnections of the same people doing this. Clearly, this was to set up what happened on January 6th. I mean, the president had invited tens of thousands of people to come to the White House that day, in the meantime, they were setting this other case up to, again, put out how fraudulent the election was and to actually seize equipment, which would really have made 1/6, I think, even more intense and probably more people would have came.
[19:10:00]
So, this is clearly Rudy Giuliani and My Pillow guy and you name whatever crackpot with the Trump campaign coming up with these crazy ideas to keep Donald Trump in office no matter what, which ultimately culminated in what happened on January 6th.
So, we have to get to the bottom of this. And, again, it may be one thing for people to be part of a violent insurrection on January 6th but it`s another thing when people in seven states falsely stated that they were electors as part of the same scheme, we have to have full accountability across all levels.
REID: And you did have Merrick Garland, the attorney general, say that they were going to pursue at all levels, anyone who is involved in the scheme. Let`s read a little bit of this executive order. It says, I hereby order -- and it wasn`t instituted. This is what was drafted. I hereby order, effective immediately, the secretary of defense shall seize, collect, retain and analyze all machines, equipment, electronically stored information and material records required for retention. The appointment of a special counsel to oversee this operation and institute all criminal and civil proceedings as appropriate. As you said, Sidney Powell had herself in mind for that idea.
You also have The Guardian reporting, this is The Guardian`s reporting, this is not NBC`s reporting, that allies of Michael Flynn were looking to find intel, to gather intelligence on members of Congress in order to move them, move them to back election audits in these key states.
I`m going to go back to you, Congressman. That sounds like extortion. It sounds like extortion to me, to bully at minimum members of Congress to go along with this.
POCAN: You know, the Republican Party is not a political party anymore, right? It`s a cult of an individual, Donald Trump. And Donald Trump acts like a mafia don. A mafia don would blush at how he operates. If you challenge him, if you don`t do everything he says, he`ll challenge you in Republican primaries. Look at how many of the people who challenged him on impeachment who are not running for reelection, because he acts in such a thug like way.
So, clearly, you know, this is what we`ve seen out of the Trump campaign and the Trump administration that clearly had a scheme to try to steal the election. They didn`t succeed, and that`s a good thing. But now, we have to get to the bottom line and figure out everyone who was involved at every level, whether it would be these electors, whether it would be the people who were part of 1/6 and who is involved with all of this.
And it`s important for our democracy to make sure we have this down. We have to give people confidence, full confidence in their vote. You know, the one thing you and I and Rudy Giuliani have in common is we have one vote. And we have to make sure that everyone knows that they have that equal ability to have a voice in this republic. And if they don`t, we really will be at risk.
REID: Yes, indeed. And, Maya, if Donald Trump is a mafia don, is he going to wind up only going down the way mafias dons typically have, taxes, because that`s what seems to be the most salient? Despite all of this, it seems like taxes are what is going to get him.
WILEY: Well, as you know, that`s commonly the case. I think the thing here that is so striking to me about what we`re seeing not just in the executive order but in that draft speech that also accompanied it, he did not give that speech. That speech was the speech that said, we have to move on now. He was to concede and he was going to denounce violence. And what we know from the public record is not only did he not give that speech, he went on to claim with no evidence whatsoever that the election was stolen from him and, remember, this call to the Georgia attorney general happens after, after there is a full hand count of those votes in Georgia, not based on the machines that are referenced in that executive order.
So, it does seem to me that while we don`t know what will happen, there should be no question that there has to be a very serious investigation of crimes, at least the crime of conspiracy to interfere with the work of Congress, if not sedition.
REID: It certainly looks like -- and just for the audience, this is what the January 6th committee is in receipt of, they have right now, talking points on fraud and election irregularities, presidential activity calendars and scheduled briefings. They`ve got a text for that January 6th speech where he was supposed to call for unity, a memo on a potential lawsuit against states that Biden won, a document containing presidential findings concerning election security and ordering various actions, a draft proclamation honoring Capitol police had never happened. It is vast and it leads right to the White House.
Congressman Mark Pocan, Maya Wiley, thank you both very much. Have a great weekend.
Up next on THE REIDOUT, the Republicans` dystopian alt reality, speaking of what we`re just talking about, pushing the propaganda that is -- get this - - it is Democrats, it`s Democrats who cannot accept electoral defeat as they create their owner election police to intimidate voters. You can`t make this stuff up.
Also, the uniquely disreputable role that Ginni Thomas plays in American politics, advocating for radical MAGA causes, many of which wind upping judgment by her husband, Clarence.
[19:15:06]
The Supreme Court justice has no obligation to recuse himself.
Plus, we have a great political panel to talk about protecting women`s reproductive rights as we get ready mark the 49th and maybe final anniversary of Roe v. Wade.
THE REIDOUT continues after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
REID: Remember when dystopian largely mean the type of literary genre, describing a very particular hellscape, things like The Hunger Games, The Hand Maid`s Tale, 1984, where women are host bodies, where politicians who aren`t elected, they just take office over the objections of the people, where books are banned, where citizens are manipulated by a cult-like political party.
Wait a minute. Are we still talking about literature or is this our actual political reality? That`s hard to say, right? That is because the Republicans are hell bent on gaslighting America and having its citizens question our reality.
[19:20:05]
Which is why Senator Fist in the Air pro-insurrectionist Josh Hawley is saying, without a hint of irony, that it`s the Democrats who don`t accept elections that they don`t win, and why Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who mango Mussolini pressured to find him enough votes to flip the election, is now saying the -- quote -- "Democrat Party is the party of stolen election claims."
[19:20:27]
And, by the way, Secretary, it`s Democratic Party. We see what you did there.
And now the kingpin of gaslighting, the dear leader himself, is saying that his taped Georgia coercion call was even more perfect than his call with the Ukrainian president, the call that, mind you, got him impeached the first time.
But as my dear colleague Rachel Maddow says, watch what they do, not just what they say, because the new dystopian play thing involves governors pitching special election police forces. That`s right, election cops.
Joining me now, David Corn, Washington bureau chief for "Mother Jones" and author of the newsletter "This Land," and Rick Wilson, former Republican strategist and co-founder of The Lincoln Project.
And, as a former Republican strategist, you have to go first, Rick Wilson.
I mean, this idea of having election cops, I first heard about it, of course, in Florida, because everything seems to start there, or Texas, naturally.
RICK WILSON, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Absolutely.
REID: He wants a $5.7 million basically personal police force of 52 election people who can, like, investigate crimes in security. This has now spread to Arizona, where a vocal Trump supporter`s lies about a stolen election -- her name is Wendy Rogers -- she has now filed legislation to establish a $5 million Bureau of Elections in the governor`s office with the power to subpoena witnesses and impound election equipment.
Georgia. David Perdue, who`s running for governor, former senator, he wants to create his own election police force.
What the actual hell is going on?
(LAUGHTER)
WILSON: Well, Joy, look, if Ron DeSantis is going to form his own electoral police force, he needs to start in The Villages, a Republican hotbed, where the only cases of voter fraud in the end of the 2020 election in Florida came from. And they were all Republicans. They were all Trump supporters.
But I`m going to promise you, if he does get his way with the legislature - - and he probably will, because they basically are like a trained dog for him right now -- what will happen is, they won`t be in The Villages. They won`t be in any anywhere there`s a Republican question.
They will be in communities of color.
REID: Right.
WILSON: They will be in Miami-Dade County. They will be in Palm Beach. They will be in Duval. They will be in Hillsborough.
They will not be out there looking for actual election fraud. They will be looking for ways to justify giving the dear leader, whether it`s deer leader Ron or dear leader Don, the boost they need, and using this as a method to intimidate primarily voters of color.
And this is exactly and explicitly what it is for. And I think it is a sign that the Republicans are going to build this system, no matter what we say or do about it, in these states where they have control. And it will be the thing that they say, "Oh, how dare you say we`re building a dystopian, bizarre authoritarian police state?" while they`re busy building a dystopian, bizarre authoritarian police state?
REID: Yes.
I mean, and the thing is, I mean, look -- and just to show you that Rick Wilson is not being hyperbolic, like, there used to be an election police force. It was called the Klan throughout the South. That`s who was intimidating voters. That is who was following voters. That is who making voters feel like they were literally under arrest if they were trying to go and vote.
So we have had this before, David. We`re just going to have another version of it.
DAVID CORN, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: And the Klan used to be tied into a lot of the white racist governments down there. It wasn`t like they were off on their own. They sometimes even had coups and took over hold state capitals and state governments. So they were an auxiliary arm of the government in a lot of Southern states.
Now, I`m tempted to say that this is like setting up a Ghostbusters unit. They`re searching after things that don`t really exist are a Big Foot patrol. But the point is, as Rick said, and as you pointed out, Joy, it is to intimidate. It is not to investigate, because they already have investigative units.
They arrested those three people in The Villages.
WILSON: Of course.
CORN: And what I -- the point, to tie this back into your earlier segment tonight, is that we saw in December and January of last year, and we`re learning about it now, there were fake electors they tried to put out.
There were fake draft orders, national security draft executive orders. There was -- all that is fake, and it didn`t hold water and it didn`t work. Now they figured out, we have to change the system. We don`t need to have fake electors anymore. We can have our own police force.
They are changing the law on how to handle elections in these same states as well and in other states as well. So, they are going. You say, we`re not going to have to come up with crazy ideas from Peter Navarro and John Eastman and Boris Epshteyn. We are going to have our own procedures that are passed and certified as laws are put into place by governors.
[19:25:00]
So, we`re going from the fake Donald Trump-ish reality TV way of running a coup to really doing it smart, from their perspective. That`s what is scary about this.
REID: And they`re learning, Rick, from the old Dixiecrats, the old Southern Democrats, right?
WILSON: Sure.
REID: Because, I mean, I think what people forget is that you don`t -- you don`t have to say, you can`t vote. They never did.
They always said, you can vote. You just have to tell me how many jelly beans are in this jar. You can totally vote. You just need to tell me how many bubbles are in this bar of soap. So I`m not saying you can`t vote. I`m saying you have to jump through these impossible hoops.
They`re just recreating that same system. They`re saying, sure, you can vote. I`m just going to say you have to have this I.D., but only this particular one that`s 50 miles away is the only place you can get it. Oh, sorry, it closes at 5:00 p.m. I`m sorry you`re not going to be able to pick that up.
WILSON: They`re trying, right.
REID: So, you can vote. But you`re not going to be able to actually obtain the I.D.
I mean, they`re pulling kind of the same old trick.
WILSON: This is -- it won`t be as crude and as obvious, but they`re trying to throw so much friction into voting.
They`re trying to throw all this sand into the machine, especially in communities that they don`t feel are going to be reliable voters for them. So they`re not going to bitch and moan about early voting in a red county. They`re not going to say, oh, well down in Southwest Florida, in Charlotte County, we better really crack down and make sure that these early voting things aren`t ballot harvesting or any of this other stuff that they love to throw out...
REID: Right.
WILSON: ... there as an imaginary demon these days.
But this is exactly the kind of mechanism that proto-authoritarian and authoritarian states set up. They want to say who can vote, when they can vote, how they can vote. When the votes are counted, they want to have a veto of that vote count at the end. They want to also say that they can bring criminal sanctions and try to intimidate people who are trying to go out and register voters.
They want to bring criminal sanctions with these organizations. You know who enforces the law? State attorneys enforce the law. They don`t need an election police force. This is a tool of intimidation.
And it is, frankly, a sign -- again, they don`t want elections. They would like 2024 to be the last election. They want to be like the Baath Party in Iraq.
REID: Pretty much.
WILSON: And they -- they have a thing called an election, but the dear leader gets 117 percent of the vote.
REID: Yes.
I mean, and, David, the thing is that they`re very good at messaging the opposite of that, and simply saying, we are for more voting. We`re for more easy -- it`s easier to vote. And they`re much -- I mean, Rick Wilson, he is one of the great ad men from the other side.
They`re much better at saying, in simple terms, the opposite, but making it sound true to their base. So, the messaging is part of the plan, and they`re good at it.
CORN: Yes, what`s wrong with identification? You have to use identification to get a bottle of beer, right?
I mean, they are good at coming up with points. And I think, in some ways, when we complain and we get worried about this, as we should, sometimes, it might sound hyperbolic. Are they really going to come in and start locking up people and coming out with guns drawn?
I don`t think that`s the point. I think the point is, if you`re thinking about having a registration drive, and the law has been changed, and there are people out there patrolling, you say, well, maybe I shouldn`t.
If there`s some confusion, and they say, we`re going to lock up people who show up with the wrong identification, or if you try to vote and you are a felon, even though we now say you can in this county, but you can`t in that county, people are going to say, I don`t know.
REID: Not worth it.
CORN: They got that person upstate, right?
REID: Yes.
CORN: So it`s all about creating disincentive and scaring people and raising the bar.
And this is where the parties break down, where the Republicans have said time and time again that it`s better when they have a smaller electorate. Now, usually, that`s -- they want to keep a particular piece of the electorate small.
WILSON: Of course.
CORN: But it`s not about saying, how can we make sure that more people vote than not?
REID: Yes. Yes.
CORN: They want it smaller. They want it tighter. And they want to disincentivize people and steer people away from voting.
REID: Yes.
And it`s been done before, the billboards that say, hey, you might get arrested if you come down where this vote is happening.
CORN: Right.
REID: But go ahead and come down if you want, but you might get arrested.
It`s been done before.
WILSON: Sure.
REID: No -- there are no new tricks.
David Corn, Rick Wilson, thank you both very much. Have a great weekend.
Still ahead: The U.S. Supreme Court is supposed to be politically neutral, right? But two recent dissents by Justice Clarence Thomas are raising questions about his MAGA wife`s influence.
And we will discuss that when we come right back.
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CLARENCE THOMAS, U.S. SUPREME COURT ASSOCIATE JUSTICE: I think the media makes it sound as though you are just always going right to your personal preference, so -- preference.
So, if they think you`re anti-abortion or something personally, they think that that`s the way you always will come out. They think you`re for this or for that. They think you have become like a politician.
And I think that`s a problem too. When -- I think you`re going to you`re going to jeopardize any faith in the legal institutions.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Well, we think that because it`s true.
With the Supreme Court`s approval rating at a new low, Justice Clarence Thomas last fall defended the court against the growing criticism that has become too politicized.
And that is pretty rich coming from Thomas, who, unlike any other justice, is married to someone so politically active on the far right, she might as well wear a Tea Party tricorn hat or become a QAnon YouTuber, a QTuber, as they like to call themselves.
Most people never heard of Ginni Thomas until 2010, when she left a bizarre hostile voice message for Anita Hill, the woman who testified credibly during Clarence Thomas` confirmation hearings about Thomas allegedly sexually harassing her when she worked for him at a government agency.
Since then, Ginni Thomas has been a vocal right-wing activist involved with the Tea Party movement and its public campaigns against the Affordable Care Act, which most famously came before the Supreme Court.
Today, she`s involved with several groups who have cases being heard by the court. And, as "The New Yorker"s Jane Mayer points out in a pretty epic article, the court appears likely to secure victories for her allies in a number of highly polarizing cases, on abortion, on affirmative action, and gun rights.
Throughout it all, Justice Thomas has remained on the bench, involved in the opinions in each of these cases.
Joining me now, Elie Mystal, justice correspondent for "The Nation."
Elie, my friend, let me just read -- you already know, but I`m going to read it for the audience.
This is the judges code, the U.S. judges code of conduct.
[19:35:00]
It says: "A judge shall disqualify himself or herself in a proceeding in which the judge`s impartiality might reasonably be questioned, including, but not limited to instances in which the judge or the judge`s spouse is known by the judge to have an interest that can be substantially affected by the outcome of the proceeding."
Why is -- why are Supreme Court justices, unlike every other federal judge, not subject to that code of conduct?
ELIE MYSTAL, "THE NATION": Yes, that piece of legislation that you read, that you just read, does not apply to the United States state Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court is the only court in the country that operates under no ethics rules, because, according to the Supreme Court, only it can punish itself. It is a bizarre loophole, you can argue, in our Constitution.
The only way to discipline a Supreme Court justice, if not self-disciplined by their buddies on the court, is through the process of impeachment, which, for reasons passing my understanding, we have not used against the Supreme Court justice since 1804, I believe.
REID: Yes.
MYSTAL: So, like that`s the baseline here, right?
The Supreme Court is not subject to any ethics rules. The unethical or questionably ethical or highly inappropriate behavior that Jane Mayer expertly -- and, honestly, if you haven`t read the article, Mayer talks like she has been following this couple for 30 years.
(LAUGHTER)
MYSTAL: It`s an amazing article.
REID: It is.
MYSTAL: But Ginni Thomas has been a problem for 30 years.
And the problem is not -- this is important to under -- to say, because I don`t want people to get it twisted. I would never come on your show and criticize a spouse of an important person for continuing to have a job. The spouses should still have a job, no matter how important their spouse is.
The problem is not that Ginni Thomas has a job. The problem is that Ginni Thomas is a crazy right-wing reactionary, who pins literal meddles on people before they show up in Clarence Thomas` courtroom.
The moral turpitude here, therefore, is not really Ginni Thomas. It is Clarence Thomas for lacking the moral character to recuse himself from situations where his wife has not only already taken a position, but already literally put her imprimatur of respectability on litigants in his courtroom.
It is Clarence Thomas who is letting the entire country down, while -- more so than then his wife`s desire to be a right-wing crazy person.
REID: You know, and the thing is, if you haven`t read the article, I mean, we`re talking about she does these -- her organizations have these, like, ceremonies where they honor people they think are defending liberty.
And the people she`s associated with through these various organizations include Ali Alexander, one of the guys who bragged that he was behind the so-called Stop the Steal movement, along with three congressmen who he named, people who have come before her on radical sort of ideas like the Muslim ban. That`s her person.
Next thing you know, that`s in front of the Supreme Court. She is actually involved in several of these things. She signed a letter. This is one of the things she did. She signed a letter from a conservative group to Kevin McCarthy saying that Liz Cheney and Kinzinger should be kicked off the House GOP Conference.
Miraculously, that decision to not block the release of Trump`s documents, her husband is the one guy who votes no. Everyone else votes, yes, said, yes, release the documents.
She`s involved with the January 6 people. I don`t even know how this is legal.
MYSTAL: Like, that`s -- like, you can`t make this make sense.
Way back on Wednesday, way back on Wednesday of this week, the Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration to release the documents requested by the January 6 Committee. The only justice dissenting was Clarence Thomas. Now, maybe he dissented because Clarence Thomas` entire brand is to be wrong all the time.
(LAUGHTER)
MYSTAL: There is that possibility.
But the appearance here is that the reason why he dissented is because his wife, Ginni Thomas, is all up in January 6. She posted on Facebook encouraging those people on January 6 on their special Clarence Thomas clerk web -- LISTSERV that they have. She`s been in the LISTSERV, like, pushing January 6 conspiracy theories.
She and John Eastman, who, also is under investigation, are on the same side on that LISTSERV against, like, other kind of normal Thomas clerks, who are just like, whoa, the whole insurrection thing, I don`t know, man.
Like, that is what she`s doing. So, when Thomas is the lone dissenter on these issues where his wife literally may be implicated in a plot to overthrow the government, and the man doesn`t recuse, like, make that make sense. You can`t make that make sense.
REID: Make it make...
MYSTAL: And so, partially, the other -- the other person that really deserves some blame here -- and I know, like, a lot of Democrats don`t like me to say this, but the other person who deserves some blame here is John Roberts, the chief justice of the United States Supreme Court.
REID: Boom.
MYSTAL: He could also be in a position to censure or punish Clarence Thomas for his refusal, again, to do the baseline moral character thing and recuse himself from situations where his wife in this case might be literally implicated.
[19:40:08]
REID: But he`s not going to do that, Elie, because, remember, he was a stalwart anti-Voting Rights Act lawyer in the Reagan administration. And he didn`t recuse himself before he gutted the Voting Rights Act that he`s been opposing since he was a young lawyer.
So I don`t expect him to do the right thing.
And, by the way, one other piece of note in this article, even Donald Trump called Ginni Thomas a wacko. That`s not me saying that. Donald Trump said she was wacko.
let me throw up your book here. If you all want more Elie, let`s put this - - come back on the camera for me, please. Here it is.
This is called "Allow Me to Retort." Here it is, "A Black Guy`s Guide to the Constitution." This is Elie Mystal`s book. I`m excited about it. You all, if you all can`t get enough Elie, get this here, before somebody tries to ban it in Florida.
MYSTAL: Got something for all those conservatives.
(LAUGHTER)
REID: They will try to ban this in Florida, so get it now, while you can.
(LAUGHTER)
REID: Elie Mystal, thank you very much.
"Who Won the Week?" is still ahead.
But first: Abortion rights opponents gather in Washington, as the Supreme Court appears poised, speaking of the court, to eliminate abortion protections for millions of American women. Poof. Gone.
Now, are we prepared for a post-Roe world? We will discuss when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:45:22]
REID: Tomorrow marks 49 years since the Supreme Court affirmed that a woman has the right to decide what she does with her own body.
But Roe vs. Wade might not survive to see its 50th anniversary because of the conservative wing of the court, which seems ready, even eager to overturn precedent and undermine a woman`s constitutionally enshrined right to life and liberty.
Today, anti-choice militants took to the National Mall to champion the demise of those rights. And they have reason to be optimistic. Not only does it look like the court will undo Roe in a few months, but Texas has already effectively banned abortion, with an assist from the High Court.
In September, a law was passed in Texas that bans abortions after six weeks and leaves enforcement of that law up to vigilante bounty hunters. Yesterday, the Supreme Court rejected a request from abortion providers that would have forced lower courts to expedite the review of their challenge of that law.
The conservative majority`s rejection of that request was, frankly, a cowardly, weaselly way to endorse the ban, which means that Texas women are still unable to exercise their legal right to choose.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who was joined by Justices Breyer and Kagan, excoriated the Texas law and the Supreme Court`s tacit role in smothering the federal right to choose.
She wrote: "This case is a disaster for the rule of law and a grave disservice to women in Texas, who have a right to control their own bodies. I will not stand by silently as a state continues to nullify this constitutional guarantee. I dissent."
Joining me now, John Walsh, national affairs correspondent for the nation and Gary Chambers, Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate from Louisiana.
Thank you both for being here.
And, Joan, to talk about this for just a moment, because we are looking probably at the end of Roe vs. Wade. We are one step closer to Gilead. Give us what that is going to mean practically and pragmatically for women in this country.
JOAN WALSH, MSNBC ANALYST: Well, Joy, I think it`s going to mean that women of means, wealthy women, some women in blue states are going to be OK, and women in red states, and especially poor women, women who can`t travel, are going to be out of luck.
There will always be abortion. The question is whether it will be safe and legal. And so I think this is really -- this burden is going to fall the hardest on women who don`t have the means to fight.
And what the court did was incredibly cowardly. But this is what legislators and judges across the country have been doing. They have been chipping away little by little and letting things stand and letting delays be just fine while women suffer.
And that looked like a big old party today on the Mall, because they know they have at least five justices who I think would strike down Roe. I don`t think they have six. I don`t think Roberts would go for it. But he -- I think he will go for the Mississippi law, which bans it after 15 weeks, which is a huge assault on Roe.
REID: Yes.
WALSH: So, I`m -- it`s not a good day.
REID: No, it`s not.
And in states like yours -- and welcome to the show, Gary Chambers Jr.
In states like yours, this is probably going to be one of the big incentives for Republicans to not vote for you, even if they like you in other ways. I mean, I have talked to Republicans who say their only issue is abortion. That`s all they vote on. They don`t care about anything else.
So how do you run for statewide office? You`re running against John Neely Kennedy, the sort of pretend Foghorn Leghorn, who is really a Rhodes Scholar and used to be Democrat. How are you going to run in a state where all a lot of voters care about is abortion?
GARY CHAMBERS (D), LOUISIANA SENATORIAL CANDIDATE: Well, actually, the reality is, we have allowed that narrative to exist, when it`s not true.
There are a whole lot of Louisianians who respect a woman`s right to choose. It`s our job to ignite that base, and make sure that those people are heard.
Right now, Shreveport is seeing a 70 percent increase in people coming from Texas to seek abortion because Texas women don`t have their rights protected any longer.
And so this is impacting the care of women in this state, as well as in Texas, and we`re going to see this Roe -- and, Joy, one of the major issues here is, men should not have any say in what happens in a woman`s body, in the entirety of her body.
There are no laws that prevent a man from doing anything that he wants to do with his body, yet a group of mostly men sit around and make a decision about what should happen with a woman`s body. And if the same thing were happening to men, they`d be doing much of what we saw January 6 at the Capitol in 2021.
And so what we need is honest conversation about this, so that people can mobilize in a real way in the state of Louisiana, so that the voices of women can be protected and heard.
REID: I`m going to disagree with you on one thing.
There is one way in which people are prevented from doing what they want with their bodies. You did an ad for your for -- for people who are not familiar with you, let me show you your opening ad on why you are running to the United States Senate.
Let`s talk a little bit, for those who have not seen it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHAMBERS: Since 2010, state and local police have arrested an estimated 7.3 million Americans for violating marijuana laws, over half of all drug arrests.
[19:50:07]
Black people are four times more likely to be arrested for marijuana laws than white people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: And, Mr. Chambers, that ad is 37 seconds long, because, as you said, it`s -- since 2010, state and local police have arrested an estimated 7.3 million Americans for violating marijuana laws, over half of all drug arrests. And, as you said, black people are four times more likely to be arrested.
And it notes that, every 37 seconds, an American is arrested for marijuana possession. That is telling men and women what they can do with their bodies.
But talk about the importance of that issue in your campaign.
CHAMBERS: For me, it`s a justice issue. It`s an equity issue.
And when you look at where we are as a country, there are 18 or 19 states where recreational use of cannabis is legal, right? And in the -- mostly the Southern states of America, there is still prohibition.
And in Angola penitentiary right now, there are people sitting in life sentences, 40-, 50-year sentences for what white man in California, Colorado, Illinois, New York, Virginia now are making millions of dollars for in other states today.
And so, when we look at this country, we have to have an honest conversation about equity and justice. And when we talk about this, this shouldn`t be controversial, right? There are many people in the professional world that smoke cannabis.
And one of the reasons that we chose to do this was because we wanted to say, you know what? We will strip the stigma off you...
REID: Yes.
CHAMBERS: ... and not pretend that there aren`t people that we know in all spaces that do this.
REID: Absolutely.
And, Joan, there is this question of control and who gets controlled and who doesn`t. And I feel like, whether it`s talking about the abortion issue, we`re talking about the cannabis issue, it`s kind of the same thing, that you have a certain kind of Republican that says there`s only one group in this country that should be not under control, should get to do whatever they want, should get to have whoever they want to vote for always get elected, always win.
And it`s white Christian men. Everyone else, under control. And that theme seems to be pretty blanket throughout the Republican Party. You wrote a great book called "What`s the Matter with White People?" which I think everyone should read.
(LAUGHTER)
REID: And you talk about that, this emergence of that kind of culture.
WALSH: Yes, and we also know what kind of hypocrites they are, Joy, because we know that, while they say no abortion, no drugs, no whatever, no sex before marriage, we have seen the hypocrisy of, they pay for abortions for their mistresses, they have mistresses, they do drugs, they get caught, they don`t get caught.
If they get caught, they get a slap on the wrist, they walk away. So it`s just -- it`s a horrible situation. And it`s only getting worse. I think Donald Trump has liberated people to kind of live their worst lives and try to tell the rest of us what to do.
REID: Yes.
WALSH: And I think that`s why he`s so popular with white men in particular.
REID: Indeed. Oh, no, absolutely.
And, Gary Chambers Jr., you`re running against a guy who`s gone from being sort of a liberal-ish Democrat to being this sort of weird kind of caricature of a Southern Republican. What`s your strategy against him?
CHAMBERS: Well, number one, we`re going to cut through the noise and talk to the nation and bring help to Louisiana.
The demographics of this state say that we can do exactly what Georgia has done. The state is 40 -- 30 to 40 -- 35 to 40 percent black or brown. We have a Democrat as our governor right now...
REID: Yes.
CHAMBERS: ... which is something that is often lost, the only Democratic governor in the Deep South.
REID: Yes.
CHAMBERS: And this is a winnable state.
What it is, is we need the country to take us serious. We need the Democratic Party to take us serious. We need donors from every corner of this country to take us serious, because John Kennedy, as you said earlier, he`s Senator Foghorn Leghorn.
REID: Yes.
CHAMBERS: He used to talk one way. Now he talks another way.
He used to be for raising the minimum wage. Now he`s not.
REID: Yes.
CHAMBERS: He used to be for more progressive things.
REID: Yes.
CHAMBERS: And he`s just an actor at the end of the day. And he`s catering to a racist base.
REID: Yes.
CHAMBERS: But I don`t believe that that`s the majority of Louisiana.
REID: I`m with you. The South is winnable, you all.
Joan and Gary are going to stick with us, because we are going to have them play our favorite game, "Who Won the Week?" right after the break.
Don`t go anywhere.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:58:12]
REID: All right, we made it, folks.
Let`s wrap this week up with some goodness. It is time to play our favorite game, "Who Won the Week?"
Back with me, Joan Walsh and Gary Chambers. Gary`s new to this game.
So, Joan Walsh, you have played it before. So, let`s start it off. Who won the week?
WALSH: I think Senator Raphael Warnock won the week.
And it`s because he got to wrap that impressive fight on the Senate floor for voting rights. And I think we learned that the nation has a new political leader, national leader, spiritual leader. And I think that that fight, even though it was lost in the end, thanks to Senators Sinema and Manchin, I think that that fight will energize people nationally and will energize people in Georgia, who`ve been, as you know, a little bit ticked off that they haven`t gotten the attention, that the issue hadn`t got the attention that it needs.
But I think that people will be reassured and energized. And he is someone to save.
Mr. Chambers, we want to see, pull him up there, but there`s somebody that has to absolutely be saved this year, and that`s Reverend Warnock.
He won the week.
REID: Here`s an idea. Put more Raphael Warnocks in the Senate. There`s one right here that you guys could add, if you all are interested in voting in Louisiana.
Who won the week, Gary Chambers?
CHAMBERS: I would say Reverend Stephen Green, LaTosha Brown, and Tamika Mallory, the advocates who have led the charge for voting rights on the streets of this country, Stephen Green and those who were arrested outside of the U.S. Capitol.
LaTosha Brown has gone all the way to Arizona to go to Sinema`s neighborhood and pull up. That`s the kind of energy I like. And I think that what they`re showing is that you can be on the outside and make noise to move the inside.
REID: Amen. Amen.
Well, I think both you guys are absolutely right. Both of those are excellent answers to "Who Won the Week?"
My answer is just a fun one. I just decided to go for fun, the NFL.
I am mad at the NFL. I don`t like what they did to Colin Kaepernick. But they did do one good thing. They got Jay-Z to be in charge of who does the halftime show, because I think they kind of won the week with the halftime show that`s coming up, Mary J. Blige, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, and Eminem. It is going to be a dope halftime show.
So, you may be mad at the game. I`m still mad at the NFL, but it`s going to be great halftime show.
Joan Walsh, Gary Chambers, thank you very much.
That is tonight`s REIDOUT.
"ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES" starts now.