Oh, my goodness, all the networks. Wow and how the word unity is being weaponized for a covid rescue bill when allin starts right now. Good evening from new york. Im chris hayes. The second impeachment of donald trump is now formally in the hands of the u. S. Senate. As the first president to be impeached twice, also becomes the first expresident to face an impeachment trial. This was the scene moments ago as the house impeachment managers walked over to the senate with the single article of impeachment charging donald trump with incitement of insurrection for his role in the january 6th assault on the capitol. Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye. All persons are commanded to keep silent on pain of imprisonment while the house of representatives is exhibiting to the senate of the United States an article of impeachment against Donald John Trump. Resolved, that Donald John Trump, president of the United States, is impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors and that the following article of impeachment be exhibited to the United States senate. In his conduct while president of the United States and in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of the president of the United States and to the best of his ability preserve, protect and defend the constitution of the United States and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the lawes be faithfully executed, Donald John Trump engaged in high crimes and misdemeanors by inciting violence against the government of the United States. Wherefore, Donald John Trump by such conduct has demonstrated that he will remain a threat to national security, democracy, and the constitution if allowed to remain in office and has acted in a manner grossly incompatible with selfgovernance and the rule of law. Donald john trump thus warrants impeachment and trial, removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States. Tomorrow the senate will be sworn in as jurors in that trial. The trial itself will begin the week of february 8th. Alas the lead impeachment trial jamie raskin joins me live for an exclusive interview in just a moment. The leader of the senate, Chuck Schumer told my colleague Rachel Maddow what he expects to see in the trial and shares his own experience in the attempted insurrection. A Police Officer, a big flap jacket and a big automatic machine gun across grabs me nicely by the collar, senator, we have to get out of here. Youre in danger. I was 30 feet away from those sons of guns. 30 feet away from these nasty racist bigoted insurrectionist. Someone told me even during the civil war no Confederate Flag flew in the capital, even during the civil war. Could you hear them . Yes, yes. Now we have the trial and make no mistake about it, President Trump will stand trial and there will be a vote on his guilt. I hope he is voted guilty. The trial will be done in a way that is fair, but with relatively quickly. The evidence is all out there. Who is the witness . The entire American People. We all saw what trump did. That fullsit down interview with Chuck Schumer is coming up in the next hour in the Rachel Maddow show. Dont go he anywhere. Now every single day brings more evidence of the danger and threat posed by the i think recollectionists at the capitol earlier this month. The direct incitement of violence and the event was culmination of his months long openly engagedin plot to seditiously overrule a democratic election and instead install himself in power against the will of the American People. The article of impeachment is chiefly about that incitement. That is what he did after nothing else worked. His halftime act to stop the legitimate election to go forward was to instruct his followers to go up to the capitol. And when he told them to go to the capitol, they understood exactly what he meant. Take a listen to this new video uncovered by just security in their analysis of the evidence of incitement at the capitol. Now it is up to congress to confront this egregious assault on our democracy. And after this were going to walk down and ill be there with you were going to walk down [ cheers and applause ] were going to walk down, anyone one you want. But right here were going to walk down to the capitol [ cheers and applause ] were going to walk down to the capitol yeah [ cheers and applause ] yes. Go down to the capitol the capitol building. Take the capitol take the capitol take the capitol take the capitol take the capitol take the capitol right now take the capitol yes its pretty clear what was going on there. Were going to go down to the capitol, storm the capitol, invade the capitol, take the capitol right now. They understood. Remember those instructions to his adoring crowd came just a few days after the former president tried to bully the georgia secretary of state to fraudulently fabricate votes for him. We have now learned just a few days after he attempted this insane coup within the department of justice, his plan to fire the acting attorney general, replace him with a lackey who believed in the former president s alternate reality in order to get the department of justice to start using the legal muscle of the u. S. Government to push the president s seditious plot. That episode is now the subject of investigation by the justice departments inspector general. But not much has changed. No one is out of the woods. Donald trump is off twitter and back at the maralago omlette bar, but there have been no retractions or mea copa from the faction of american politics that currently is just under 50 faction. That faction, the Republican Party, the part of it that aligned itself with sedition in the house and the senate, the danger remains. Thousands of National Guards, troops are staying in washington, d. C. Because of threats to members of congress as the impeachment trial itself looms. A very real serious threat. The mob in the capitol on january 6 chanting, hang mike pence, was just one minute away from coming face to face with the former vicepresident and his family. What do you think they would have done . What do you think they would have done if they ran into congresswoman alexandria ocasiocortez. She talked about her life being threaten. And some prominent dinner heir scoffed, a man at the capitol ryan is being charged after threat nipping to threatening to assassinate the congresswoman. This radicalized force that wants to undo the countrys democratic rule of law is as present as it ever was, in some ways impeachment the rarest of opportunities, very rare opportunity indeed in which a party can formally attempt to exile that seditious faction. Congressman jamie raskin of maryland is the lead house impeachment manager. You just heard him reading the article impeachment on the senate floor and he joins me for an exclusive interview. Congressman, its great to have you with us. Lets start i guess with the history thats being made and why its important. Youve seen some republicans try to say, look, hes out of office now, so theres a lot going on. Why do we need to do this . And what is your answer to that . Chris, thank you for having me on. This was, as we have argued and as we intend to show, the worst president ial crime against the republic in american history. And the violence was terrifying and overwhelming. Five people died. A Police Officer hit over the head with a fire extinguisher. Police officers beat up, grabbed, pushed, shoved, jostled. We went through some extraordinary thing that day. What America Needs to understand, of course, wednesday, january 6, was not some random arbitrary date chosen by the president and the organizers of this rally. This was the day that congress met in joint session, the house and the senate, to count the Electoral College votes that had been certified by 50 states and the district of columbia. So this was the very last step in the ratification of the popular vote which went more than 7 million votes for the biden harris ticket and the Electoral College vote, which was 306232, the exact margin actually that trump had won by back in 2016 which he declared to be a landslide. So this was the last opportunity. And as we find out more and more every day, the president was willing to use any means, unlawful, lawful, lawless, violent, whatever, he was willing to incite insurrection against the United States in order to nullify the actual Electoral College vote that was to be counted and to try essentially to derail that election and to get himself reinstalled as president of the United States. And so that is a ghastly crime against the republic. One thing that i want to point out, chris, is that impeachment is not nearly so much about the past as it is about the future. The framers of the constitution put impeachment, conviction and disqualification from further federal Office Holding in the constitution to protect the republic, to preserve the constitution. Thats why its in there. President trump or any other trump who is impeached and convicted does not spend a single day, a single hour or a single minute in jail. It is not a criminal prosecution. It is a protective civil action to guard the republic against someone who has committed high crimes and misdemeanors against the people and proven himself to be a danger to the country. That remedy you mention, which is in the constitution and also in section 3 of the 14th amendment, of course, crafted by members of congress in the wake of the worst insurrection and rebellion the country ever faced that is the confederacy its very clear in that part of the 14th amendment which you cite and the article and in the impeachment language that this disqualification idea is present throughout the architecture of the constitution precisely for this reason. And it strikes me that its an interesting counter to the democratic argument that was made, the last impeachment trial, well, theres going to be an election in nine months. Do you want to do this . That isnt at issue here, is it . We were founded a a constitutional democracy. We overthrew monarchy in the idea the government belongs to the king or one man or one man and his friends. According to the framers vision, those of us who aspire to and attain to Public Office are nothing but the servants of the people. And the minute that we violate our constitutional oaths and begin to usurp the government for our own purposes and commit high crimes and misdemeanors against the government, that is the moment that we forfeit our Public Office. Nobody is a constitutional right to be there. And the framers wanted to create a lot of ways to separate ourselves from people who were a danger to the continuation of republican rule. And thats why we have a republican guarantee clause. Thats why we have a peaceful transfer of power. What happened on wednesday, january 6, was a direct attack on the peaceful transfer of power under the constitution. You refer to danger here, danger in the sense of to american constitutional democracy, but there is physical danger as well. You noted five people died. The more information we learn, particularly the moment mike pence a minute or two pulled into a chamber before that mob comes up and may have set upon him. We have an individual now being charged who said he was going to assassinate a. O. C. What is the sort of sentiment among you and your colleagues in both parties, i would say, about what happened there and the sort of firstperson effect of it, and how that affects the proceedings were going to see . Well, ill quote two of my republican colleagues, representative cheney, liz cheney from wyoming, said that the president summoned the mob, assembled the mob later said he incited the mob. None of this would have happened without the chain of events that he set into motion. And everything is due to what he did set into motion. She said it was the worst betrayal of office in american history. But ill also quote Lindsey Graham who i believe i saw said either the day of or the next day, they could have had a bomb. We all could have been killed. And that was my reaction, you know. Chris, i had my daughter with me and i had my soninlaw who is married to my other daughter with me that day. They were, you know, several hundred feet away outside of the house chamber. We all could have been killed. That mob that broke through all the windows and ran over the cops and muscled their way in and beat people up, that mob did not go through metal detectors. Did not go through security screening. And a lot of them were armed. Final question for you. I know that you lost your son tommy at age 25 just shortly before january 6th. What you and your family wrote about him, i found profoundly moving. I know a lot of people who have dealt with depression, loved ones in their lives found it profoundly moving and i know this has been just a brutally difficult period for you. I just wanted to offer my condolences, all of our condolences and ask how you and your family are doing. Well, thank you, chris. I have been carrying tommy raskin very close to my heart, and all of his friends from Blair High School in Montgomery County and the college at Harvard Law School have rallied behind us, as well as hundreds of thousands of people across the country who really saw the magnificent spirit of tommy raskin. And weve been collecting extraordinary essays that he wrote, and i hope well be publishing them soon. A lot of them were already online, a lot of his poetry, a lot of his plays. But also weve got a bunch of unpublished things, including, you know, papers he wrote during school and in addition to everything else, he was magnificently funny and lighthearted. And so anyway, we want to get these out to people. But thank you for your condolences, chris. We feel a little bit better each day and we feel a little bit better each day that the people rally to defend our republic against this monstrous attack on the constitution and the people. All right. From one father to another, i just, i just cant imagine what it is to do what youre doing right now and thank you for all that youve done. Congressman jamie raskin, the lead impeachment manager for the house. Thank you so much, sir. And thank you for having me, chris. Tonight even as thousands of National Guard members remain in our nations capital, republican officials continue to spread the dangerous lie that inspired the january 6 attack. Thats next. These folks, they dont have time to go to the post office they have businesses to grow customers to care for lives to get home to they use stamps. Com print discounted postage for any letter any package any time right from your computer all the services of the post office plus ups only cheaper get our special tv offer a 4week trial plus postage and a digital scale go to stamps. Com tv and never go to the post office again. New years resolutions come and go. A 4week trial plus so give your business a d more than resolutions. Give it solutions, from comcast business. Work more efficiently with fast internet and advanced wifi. Make your business safer with powerful cybersecurity solutions. And stay productive with 24 7 support. Make this years resolution better solutions. Bounce forward with comcast business. Get started with a powerful internet and voice solution for just 64. 90 a month. Plus, for a limited time, ask how to get a 500 prepaid card when you upgrade. Switch today. The trumpfueled attack on the capitol happened almost three weeks ago. President biden was sworn in last week. But there are still thousands of members of the National Guard protecting the capitol and as many as 5,000 are now expected to stay there throughout the impeachment trial because the threat remains. Yesterday a federal judge blocked the release of erik munchel, seeing him carrying plastic handcuffs after a search of his home turned up, and i quote, approximately 15 firearms, assault rifles, sniper rifle with a tripod, other rifles, shotguns and other ammunition. Heres what that looks like in one place in case youre wondering. Thats what a guy who assaulted the capitol had in his house. Despite the lie donald trump won the election, state parties seem to be embracing it even tighter. This is really wild. In the last few days you have the texas gop telling people to follow them on gab. They call it home to terrorist plots hiding in plain sight. Also the texas gop repeating a slogan the q anon conspiracy, we are the storm. Official from the hawaiian gop after the people who threatened the capitol said, quote, the people who describe the q fiction were motivated by a deep and sincere love for america. They promoted a Youtube Vlogger who is a holocaust denier. The Republican Party passed a formal resolution and this is real saying, quote, there is growing evidence the violence at the capitol was a false flag operation in a frightening parallel of the february 1933 of the german flag. There were members in the capitol during the assault. The president said to go to the capitol. But if republicans need incentive to stop spreading conspiracy theories about a rigged election beside the fact those lies led and will continue to lead to violence under our democracy, they need not look any further than Donald Trumps own lawyer Rudy Giuliani who today was sued by the Voting Machine Company he has been publicly disparaging for months for 1. 3 billion, with a b dollars. Senate Minority Leader Mitch Mcconnell finds himself in the precarious position of trying to balance his partys swing of radicalization towards democracy and cutting ties with donald trump. The new yorker chief washington correspondent in her latest piece titled, why mcconnell dumped trump. She joins me now and is the former head of the New Hampshire gop Lincoln ProjectJennifer Horn had a front row seat to her partys embrace of dangerous lies and she joins me as well. There are sort of two ways to look at the Republican Party right now just a few weeks after the capitol riot and after in the biden era. Ill start with you, jane. The Mitch Mcconnell sort of chamber of commerce k street republican establishment way of looking at it. How is mcconnell attempting to navigate this . Well, i mean, hes basically been described to me as like one of those cartoon characters whos got 1 foot on each side of an everwidening divide. And on one side is the pluticrats of the party who provided the money, the wing hes most comfortable with, and on the other side are the populists who provide the base, the trump base. And they have together formed a coalition that has been a Winning Coalition for the Republican Party, but either one by itself can probably not get you over 50 of the votes in this country. And so hes been trying in a kind of deal with trump through the last four years to keep it together in this coalition and its cracking. So hes trying to figure out his way in there, and hes very wiley. Plays the long game. Hes famous for it. Its what he called his memoir the long game. Hes trying to figure out how do you keep this together so that he can get back the majority in the senate in 2022. Yeah, i mean we should note that mcconnell was someone who put a lot of oxygen into this same lie that he then turned around and said the people were fed. He could have, the normal thing to do would have been on the day the networks called joe biden the winner, put out a statement, i congratulate joe biden now its time to move on. He did not do that, quite notably. Weeks and weeks went by pumping air into this thing. Weeks and weeks. Weeks and weeks. Then right before he sort of turns around and lets the inaugural committee, he gives the speech, it took a long time. Part of the reason he was doing that, jennifer, is the grassroots of the Republican Party are the people of the texas gop, we are the storm, and the arizona gop that passed a resolution censuring like cindy mccain and every other doug ducey, the republican governor and the other that said its like that is the who the grassroots of the Republican Party are the people who stormed the capitol in a lot of ways, or at least sympathetic to them. No question about it. Its these are the same people who just reelected mcdaniel without an opponent running against her. In New Hampshire just this past weekend, reelecting the same allin trump leadership that had been there the past four years. Its incredibly discouraging for someone like myself who invested so much of my time and passion and emotion into what i thought was this great party of principle and leadership to see since the election what we see from this party is not that they want to put trumpism behind them and rebuild a better future. Even without trump they are fully embracing what is certainly the most antidemocracy, most Dangerous Movement weve seen in our country in my adult lifetime and thats what they seem to want to build the future of the Republican Party on. This is such an important point, jane, because it gets to the sort of feedback. Trumps on twitter and hes, like i said, hes at maralago, like who cares. Hes not pulling the strings with his tweets. But youre just now seeing what a demandside problem it is. It is a demandside problem. Trump won the primary because the base of the Republican Party likes that stuff. It likes the muslim ban. And it likes strong men and opposition to democracy and conspiracy theories. That demand hasnt gone anywhere. Thats the demand Mitch Mcconnell has to cater to and the Republican Party will continue to cater to unless something profound changes. Like you said, this is who Mitch Mcconnell did cater to for four years and more dangerously after the election after trump lost, he continued to play footsie with that lie that trump was portraying that he won. So he you know, when you make a faustan deal, theyre hard to get out of. The Republican Party has said they could control trump and the forces he unleashed. Theyre beginning to realize they might not be able to control him. Thats where mcconnell is right now. I think thats clear. You have rand paul this weekend, rand paul basically defending this big lie. Everyone is doing this too cute by half thing. Im looking into it, im asking questions, yada yada. Theres no definitive aside from mitt romney, to his credit and mcconnell to a certain extent, jennifer, the basis to me the sort of threshold question is renounce and apologize for lying to people about the election and accept its legitimacy. Right. And until that happens, were still in the same nether world. Absolutely. I dont give Mitch Mcconnell any credit at all. He very much led the charge on this for too long. You know, what were seeing happening in the senate right now is they are beginning to approach another impeachment trial. All of this that we have confronted for the past year, 400,000 lives lost and a dangerous violent attack on our democracy at our capitol, putting the lives of our elected congressmen and women at risk, all of that could have been avoided had the republican members of the senate stood up a year ago and done the right thing then. Absolutely true. I should say the only people that have renounced and retracted are essentially media figures who are facing lawsuits from Enterprises Like dominion and others who under that penalty have gone before the camera to say, we were wrong about that. Thats it. So maybe well see Rudy Giuliani do that soon, but that doesnt apply to members of one of the two major american parties. Thank you very much, jennifer dont hold your breath for that. Im not. Thank you both. Thank you. Great to be with you. Next, a major setback in the Biden Administrations vaccine rollout. They still dont know how much vaccine they have. Ill talk to former Coronavirus Task force member olivia troy how that could be after this. Ous honest bidding site. An ipad was sold for less than 24; a playstation for less than 16; and a 4k television for less than 2. Go to dealdash. Com right now and see how much you can save. Remember, shipping is always free. Why walgreens . With save a trip refills that let you pick up all your prescriptions all on the same day. We make filling your medicare prescriptions. Go like clockwork. So you can get back to what youd rather be doing with trump out of office a week and foreign members of the administration speaking freely, were learning a lot more about the deadly negligence that was the trump Coronavirus Response. Of course, much of it was happening in plain view. In an interview over the weekend, former Task Force Coordinator dr. Deborah birx gave a stunning account of just how disengaged the administration was as the virus took hold. You said you were just one. You were coordinator of the task force. What do you mean you were just one . There was only one fulltime person in the white house working on the Coronavirus Response how is that possible . Well, thats what i was given. So what i did is i went to my people that ive known all through the last years in government, all 41, and said, can you come and help me . I was able to wicker together a group of volunteers who really helped me. A group of volunteers. Thats what birx said she had to confront the once in a century pandemic. While its been asked why people didnt speak up sooner, which i think is a pretty good question, its also the case that there were some reasons they may not have. Consider the story dr. Anthony fauci told the New York Times over the weekend. One day i got a letter in the mail. I opened it up and a puff of powder came all over my face and my chest. He described the gravity of the experience this morning. There were only three possibilities. Either it was a hoax, which i was hoping and praying it was. It was anthrax, which would require my taking, you know, 30 to 60 days of cipro, or it was risin which means i was dead. There was a point until the fbi and hazmat people figured out what it was, it was a very difficult period. It turned out to be the hoax. Many people charged with protecting lives were at times in fear of their own. Today we are learning more from the Biden Administration the shell of a plan they inherited if you can call it that as the cdc director announced, the u. S. Government doesnt know how much vaccine the country has. One of the people who did speak out, an adviser to mike pence, served on the white house Coronavirus Task force and before resigning in protest of trumps flatout disregard for human life and she joins me now. I want to get your thoughts on birx in a second because as i was watching those clips i was thinking of you a lot. But first on this, just these basic sort of logistical things that it just seemed were not done, like creating an infrastructure for vaccine tracking and delivery. It just looks like they just never did that. They just thought, well, the companies will ship it to the states and then theyll handle it. Right. I think it was a halfbaked plan. It was all about lets develop the vaccine, lets use this as a Success Story for the administration. The one thing that were going to hang our head on and it will come to fruition. Unfortunately you saw the president was angry when it didnt come to fruition before the election because he wanted to take credit for it. But then nobody thinks about the aftermath, right, the implementation plan, the amount of monumental work that this takes to actually distribute this in a very efficient and quick manner. And i saw this firsthand when it came, for example, the remdesivir distribution. That was botched on day one from the very beginning. I dont know if youll recall that, but it was dr. Birx who had to actually manually go through with the doctors on the task force and figure out how they were going to rectify it. It was awful. Wait. I dont understand that. The remdesivir was one of the first therapeutics that showed some promise unlike the crazy hydroxychloroquine, you know, fantasy. And what happened . It was shipped to the wrong hospitals. It was shipped to the hospitals that didnt need it. And it was awful. And we had to fix that. The following week. I lived all of this, chris. Most of it unfortunately firsthand, and that is why i eventually cant help but speak out whatever cost because somebody had to tell the truth about what was happening so that this would not continue and possibly continue into another four years. Well, and dr. Birx and dr. Anthony fauci and many others i think made the calculation that it was better for them to be in the room and doing what they could rather than taking the route you did. You were one of the very few who did, and i guess when you listen to dr. Birx, what do you think about that calculation she made . Yeah, it was very emotional for me, ill be honest, to watch her in that interview. I certainly saw the things that she faced internally. I saw her she faced some very challenging situations. I shared an office with her for a while and, look, im the person that actually was brought into a room at some point when she first started and she was coming into a nowin situation, even more so than i think she even realized because i was told that i was to watch her, that she was not to be trusted because she was a Matt Pottinger hire. Now, i dont know how to explain what that felt at the moment to then here is someone who dedicated her public career and Public Service to h. I. V. Im very familiar with dr. Birxs work. She is a known figure in that space and shes brought in to run this response because shes a medical expert. Here i am as a homeland adviser saying youre asking me to spy on this woman that im sharing an office with, who is on our team when we know that this pandemic is about to be out of control. We know that people are going to get hurt. And this is where the focus is . These are the dynamics that she was facing and it was, you know, im glad to see her finally be somewhat free and coming forward and speaking candidly that she would have been i hope she would have been more blunt in her interview, but i also know that is not her style. She doesnt speak publicly. She doesnt talk to the media. Thats just not who she is. I want to quickly show you this, her talking about the data pollution that was evident to all of us watching and get your response. Take a listen. I saw the president presenting graphs that i never made. So i know that someone or someone out there or someone inside was creating a parallel set of data and graphics that were shown to the president. You cant do that. You have to use the entire who was doing that . To this day i dont know. I know now watching some of the tapes that certainly scott atlas brought in parallel data streams. I dont know who else was part of it. How does that track . I remember that day because dr. Birx was really angry and she had actually confronted me and said, do you know who created those graphs . Did you work on that . And i said, well, you know that there has been an effort to manipulate the data to downplay this virus, and so i can only control what the vp, somewhat control, i would say, what the vps slides said. Honestly there were times when he would end up with some crazy slide that i didnt know where it had come from. It had come from the communications team. And i operated on facts and he knew that. So i would literally run down the stairs in the west wing to her office, shut the door and show it to her and say, did you make this . And she would be like, no, i thought you made it. I said, no. So then we would both run around trying to figure out who did. I mean, this is the chaos and of this response. So it doesnt matter when youre trying to do the work and youre trying to do the right thing. Youre just never going to be able to counter that. Olivia troy who is sharing an office with dr. Birx amidst all this. Thank you very much for your time. Ahead, republicans are vocal in their calls for unity so long as it means democrats do whatever republicans want. What unity really means and the stakes for the president s covid relief bill just ahead. s covid relief bill just ahead these folks, they dont have time to go to the post office they have businesses to grow customers to care for lives to get home to they use stamps. Com print discounted postage for any letter any package any time right from your computer all the services of the post office plus ups only cheaper get our special tv offer a 4week trial plus postage and a digital scale go to stamps. Com tv and never go to the post office again. President biden today signed an order reversing the ban on transgender individuals from serving in the u. S. Military, a ban that donald trump had ordered via tweet back in 2017. What im doing is enabling all qualified americans to serve the country in uniform, transgender personnel if qualified in every other way can serve their government in the United States military. Now, this is a unifying action by biden, both literally because americans like Kathryn Schmid can serve with their units, be united with them. A broad swath of the country, 71 of americans according to a poll, support transgender people serving in the military. Thats not how texas republican john cornyn sees it. He said sarcastically, another quoteunquote unifying move by the administration . Well, yeah. Cornyn is announcing that bigotry against transgender people is a core value for his political coalition, and it is offensive to them to see the government do otherwise. And its a perfect encapsulation of bad faith from republicans when they attack joe bidens calls for unity. What theyre trying to do is say literally anything you do that offends our base is your betrayal of a promise of unity which is preposterous, made more preposterous by the fact their party is increasingly run at the Grassroots Level who, to pick just one example today from the hawaii gop, do things actively from the holocaust denier. It is true, the country is polarized. There are lots of divisions, thats true. There is also something approaching unity in a bunch of big stuff. A lot of things a majority of americans support. For example, sending people who needed 2,000 checks. Even republican senator josh hawley who you may have last seen raising a fist to the insurrectionists said that was a good idea. Indeed, a poll last month found 72 of trump voters thought the 600 covid stimulus check was too small. Joe biden, his fellow democrats, want to send people more money. They also want broader Economic Relief which, again, wildly popular. 82 of americans want biden to prioritize more Small Business aid, 69 want an increase in unemployment benefits, 69 also want aid to cashstrapped state and local governments. So, yeah, its a really divided country. Its hard to get support for basically anything. And guess what . The first agenda item President Biden is trying to push is something people like. So lets unify behind the thing that is really popular. And thats next. New years resolutions come and go. So give your business more than resolutions. Give it solutions, from comcast business. Work more efficiently with fast internet and advanced wifi. Make your business safer with powerful cybersecurity solutions. And stay productive with 24 7 support. Make this years resolution better solutions. Bounce forward with comcast business. Get started with a powerful internet and voice solution for just 64. 90 a month. Plus, for a limited time, ask how to get a 500 prepaid card when you upgrade. Switch today. Unity also is trying to reflect what the majority of the American People, democrat, republican, independent, think is within the fulcrum of what needs to be done to make their lives and the lives of americans better. You know whats extraordinarily popular with the majority of americans right now . Giving people money who need it. Poll released a few days ago nearly 80 of americans want the Biden Administration to prioritize another round of covid relief checks. Separate poll released today almost 60 of americans want the checks to be 2,000 on a monthly basis which is a lot and it comes with overwhelming bipartisan support from 70 of democrats, 53 of independents, nearly half of republicans. Want to bring in someone well versed about the president s plan, heather boucher, the Economic Council of advisers. Its good to see you, heather. What is your argument . No one sort of forthrightly is coming forward making this argument strenuously, but the best argument i can see against this package is its too much and were going to err on the side of doing too much. We should wait and see if we need something this big. Yeah, and i mean, its such its such a misguided argument, i think, given the economic moment that were in and ongoing covid crisis, right. As you just said, the American People see that we are in a crisis, that people need money to weather this storm, and they need the stability of knowing what that policy is going to be. So we need to act quickly and act with intention to make sure that people and firms are made whole until we get through this crisis. And i mean, its great to see this bipartisan polling that shows that this is really what the American People want. What does quickly mean in this context . Well, you know, there was a package that was passed in december that extends some aid over the next couple months. But what people really need is that certainty. You know, if you listen to the business news, you hear a lot about, you know, how uncertainty is bad for business, it makes it hard to make decisions. Thats exactly whats happening right now for millions of American Families and firms that dont know what the policy is going to be. And yet we all know that because of the covid crisis, because of the recession it has caused, we actually still need monday toy go out to people. We need extended unemployment benefits. We need these direct payments, we need food stamps and a whole list of other things. I mean, importantly, we need money for the covid relief to open schools and Day Care Centers and everything so that we can all get back to work, so we need that certainty and we need to know it now. I mean, schools right now are struggling with, you know, opening and staying open and they need to know what kind of resources theyre going to have from the federal government. But not to press you too much because you dont control the legislative calendar, but i mean, is that, you know, we need this in two weeks or we need this in two months. I heard jen psaki talk about things expiring in march. Youve been around politics on capitol hill for a little while, that things move slowly there. Im worried about a mismatch between the time line of the legislators and the time line of the current crisis. We have a couple weeks before the impeachment hearing starts. Thats a time to start getting to work on this important business of governing. And, you know, a bunch of these extended benefits do expire in march, but thats right around the corner. Now, congress, you know, ive been here a long time and they like to take things right up to the edge, but i think it would be better for the economy if we could make this decision and get this package moving as quickly as possible. It seems to me like there is a lot of lessons that have been learned in democratic policy circles from 2009 the last time a democratic president took over control of both houses amidst a plummeting crisis. What are the lessons that youve learned . Well, one of the biggest lessons is that the dangers of doing too little far outweigh the dangers of doing too much. We saw in 2009 we did not do enough to address the recession and as a result we saw families continuing to struggle for years and years. Those at the very top of the Income Distribution saw their wealth come back quickly. The rest of the American People saw high unemployment lingering. They saw their wages not growing as fast as they should have. And although it was the longest economic recovery in u. S. Recorded history that ended with the covid recession, you still saw wages not coming back as fast as we would have liked. So that is because we didnt act quickly enough in 2009 and 2010. We have that opportunity now. Lets address the crisis in front of us. We know the dangers of not doing so. Do you think theres been a broader ideological shift . I think theres specific lessons from democrats, but its striking to me. Donald trump, josh hawley, Bernie Sanders and most of the democrats trying to get supplemental checks. Raphael warnock and jon ossoff running in a swing state who were hammering home on this question down the stretch because they thought it was a political winner for them. Definitely. I mean, this is it was President Trumps idea to give folks 2,000 checks. 44 House Republicans voted for it. Just a few weeks ago. Yeah. So certainly theres a deep sense that this is something thats popular, but i think it stems from the fact that 2020 has been so rough for so many families. Folks have lost their jobs, theyve lost hours, theyve had added expenses. And we know, we all know that our friends, our neighbors, people in our community, they need this help and the support that this money really can make a huge difference. Its also meteor from space nature of the crisis in some ways, right . No one thinks everyone just got really lazy all of a sudden, right . The structure, we all know why whats happening. Heather boucher, thank you so much for making time tonight. Thanks, chris. That is allin on this monday night. The Rachel Maddow show starts now with the exclusive interview with exclusive Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer. Thank you for playing the clip. It made more news than i thought it was going to. Awesome. To. Thank you. Thank you for joining me this hour for my interview with the new majority leader of the United States senate. This will be senator schumers First National tv interview since taking that allimportant top job. The incitement to insurrection article impeachment against President Trump of course passed the house earlier this month with the largest bipartisan majority of any impeachment article that has ever passed against any president ever. Well, tonight, at 7 00 p. M. Eastern, we all saw the nine house impeachment managers bring that article from the house over to the senate, and that is the formal start of the senate putting President Trump on trial. The senate at that trial will now decide whether or not to convict President Trump on that