Formalized a deal that cements their control of the United States senate. President biden and his colleagues have made it clear that on covid relief, they have zero interest in waiting on republicans. Yesterday democrats pushed forward with a motion to pass bidens 1. 9 trillion covid package with or without republican support. Mitch mcconnell called the move totally partisan. Which is rich coming from a guy who used the exact same tool to pass a 1. 5 trillion tax cut for the rich. Youll notice that republicans love to wave the word unity like a bloody shirt when they criticize democrats. You know whats better than fake unity, action, action that helps people. Thats the job of governing. In many ways, were now down to just one governing party. This morning speak nancy pelosi and Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer led a congressional tribute to Brian Sicknick who died during the insurrection last month. Each day when members enter the capitol hill, this temple of democracy, we will remember his sacrifice and others that day who fought so hard to protect the capitol and the congress. That somber tribute stood in stark contrast to the other big story coming from the capitol today, the utter crackup of the gop. House republicans are currently going at each other over their support for donald trump in a closeddoor conference meeting. In one corner is liz cheney who defended her vote to impeach the president. In the other are all the members who supported overthrowing the will of 81 million americans. Another topic is what to do with Marjorie Taylor greene. Not one to infuriate a core constituency of his party, Kevin Mccarthy, issued a statement late this afternoon insuring that he gave her a stern talking to. He left the punishment, however, to democrats. The congresswoman remains unrepentant. Just like every single other person, yeah, i have said things i shouldnt say at some time or another. I dont think i have anything to apologize for. America, and more importantly, the Republican Party, has faced this predicament before. Back in the late 1950s and 60s, the far right fringe group was the John Birch Society cofounded by the father of the Koch Brothers along with robert welch. The society became so influential, it endorsed Barry Goldwaters candidacy for president and Voters Association of him with them arguably helped bring it down. Remember, extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. Apparently extremism, it actually is a vice. Unlike mccarthy, conservative leaders like richard nixon, William Buckley, despite their anticommunist zeal, rallied to boot them out of the party calling them nuts who were devoid of conservative ideals and they chased them out, or at least they quieted them down. They opposed adding fluoride to the nations water supply, saying it was a mass medical treatment and most of the United States government, including dwight d. Eisenhower, were under secret communist mind control. Today mother jones is reporting that greene was a moderator of a group that pushed racist memes and championed the John Birch Society. She proclaims her hate on social media, a modern day bircher. Joining me now is david jolly, and david corn, Washington Bureau chief for mother jones and the journalist behind that scoop on the q congresswoman. I will start with you david corn. So, today you had actually the speaker of the house refer to Kevin Mccarthy as q california because he just wont rein this woman in. Were hearing that Marjorie Q Got A Standing O when she gave a speech. Are we basically back to the John Birch Society moment here for the gop . We are, but it seems to be the flip side of that moment. As you noted in your great setup when the birchers were producing these crazy Conspiracy Theories about dwight eisenhower, that the Civil Rights Movement was controlled by the communists, the big thing was this is all a Giant International Cabol and even ronald reagan, conservative champion, feared that the John Birch Society was tainting the Conservative Movement making them look like wackos and making it harder for republicans to win elections. Buckley, who was the godfather of Modern Conservativism and reagan drummed the birchers out of Polite Company when it came to the gop and the Conservative Movement. 50 years later, we have a similar situation except the leaders of the gop are not doing that. You have donald trump who has endorsed a lot of Conspiracy Theories and its all the same thing. Its about the deep state, liberals being the enemies of the nation, paranoia and fear, get rid of the u. N. Its exactly the same thing, youll see many of the exact same themes that the birchers were promoting. Now, though, 50, 60 years later, you dont have the heads of the Republican Party trying to push the birchers to the society. Theyre embracing these ideas and Kevin Mccarthy is saying i cant do much about this because the party has become a radicalized base that believes a lot of the stuff thats been fed to it. Its like the 60s but backwards. Right. Exactly. David, you were a part of this party. During the 1960s and going into the 1970s, its not as if the people who pushed the birchers out were not also ultra right conservatives, right . Ronald reagan who opposed medicare and thought it was some sort of communist plot that was going to destroy the United States of america, right . You had William Buckley who opposed the civil rights act. These were not people who were, like, not conservative. Liz cheney is a far right winger who has almost a perfect voting record with trump. What has happened is the speaker said theyre going to give the keys to greene. She has the keys already, does she not . She certainly does. David jolly. Yeah, so, she certainly does. And youre peeling back an important nuance in the politics of this right now. These are not debates on the left right ideological spectrum. If you look at todays democratic party, in november there was a debate between the moderates and progressives about who bore responsibility for the november losses. We see the debate over procedure, should they use reconciliation and go to 51 votes to get bidens agenda passed. Those are traditional conversations and debates that are had within parties. These are not ideological left right debates in todays republican parties. These are debates over fundamental values of democracy. Was liz cheney correct in Admonishing A president for inciting a violent insurrection against the United States . Is Marjorie Greene right or wrong for elevating Conspiracy Theories that the fbi has suggested could be a threat to our own security here within our shorelines . Those are debates within the Republican Party. And democrats are having debates over ideology, values and frankly theyre losing that debate in the eyes of the american people. And it strikes me, alex, what the response of republicans to these questions about whether or not Marjorie Q Greene is dangerous, their response is ilhan omar, shes a muslim. Thats bad. Youve got now not only Marjorie Greene herself tweeting images of representative omar who they fix on along with aoc. You have a lawmaker, republican member of the house pushing to swap out the democratic push to get greene expelled and swap in congresswoman omars name in there and that is sponsored by five republicans inside of the house including Ronny Jackson who used to be the white house doctor which scares me. It goes on and on and on. Its all about the one congresswoman. Youve been down in this district talking to her voters. Are they just worried that that lady is in congress, not that their congresswoman is there . I spent the day in the 14th District Of Georgia which is, of course, Marjorie Taylor greenes Congressional District and i was talking to one of the republican chairs about how theyre grappling with this moment. I will say, there are a lot of ethical and logical pretzels that theyre tying themselves up into. But they want to make this a false equivalence. Democrats tolerate outlandish comments in their caucus, why cant we . This is an issue of cancel culture, liberal overreach once again. Marjorie Taylor Greene is a fighter for us and she deserves to stay on the committees in congress. Thats the way they think they win this. They say greene was elected to congress to not pull any punches and were going to let her do that. The more they can get away from space lasers starting wild fires and parkland being a false flag, the firmer territory theyre on. You see that argument laid out in the pages of the wall street journal, you see it coming from the Minority Leaders desk. They want this to be about the democrats trying to cancel conservative thought and conservative speech because thats the only way you get past the insanity of what Marjorie Taylor greene has endorsed in the recent past. And i think that is the Perfect Point to make, david jolly. This has been the big argument in conservativetism. Its not been about conservative ideas. Its been about that. Its been about the culture saying you cant say x. You cant use the n word if youre not a rapper. You cant disparage muslims because people cancel you. You get canceled if youre racist. Thats what they care about. They only care about these culture things. Looney tunes people can be speaking on College Campuses without getting protested. Thats all they care about. Joy, there are millions upon millions of americans in the flyover states who feel that their values are disrespected by the political establishment, right, whether thats right or wrong, that is a motivating influence that informs their politics. Republicans have seized on that but in a very dangerous way. They have lit a match to it and abandoned all reason and truth. I go back to this abandonment of reason and truth as such a critical matter. This is a National Security test for republicans in this moment. The fbi has said it is not the rise of nationalism. We have always had nationalism in our politics. It is the spread of disinformation that is most of thing motivating their actions. Thats the disinformation on which Marjorie Greene has staked her platform. Shame on Kevin Mccarthy. I guarantee you today that Kevin Mccarthy did not admonish Marjorie Greene. He counseled Marjorie Greene on how to get through this moment. Kevin mccarthy needs Marjorie Greene. Marjorie greene does not need Kevin Mccarthy. Hes going to do what he can to help her through this moment. Thats exactly right. How much into the socalled establishment did this group, this Facebook Group that Marjorie Greene was hosting dig . She isnt some aberrant figure inside politics. Donald trump wasnt an aberrant figure and hes been promoting Conspiracy Theories for years. Birtherism got him into the job in the first place. To david jollys point, john boehner wanted the tea party despite a lot of the hatred and some of the Conspiracy Theories they were pushing. And you have Conspiracy Theories about jewish space lasers and john f. Kennedy jr. Being killed in a mysterious way. You see this ready this appeal to violence with memes and other things that are on this facebook page. Thats as important if not more important than her nutty ideas. You know, and, alex, that is what strikes me. There are all of these writeups about the end of bircherism. It was going to inspire extreme radicalism on the right which were they could devolve into Conspiracy Theories. When you walk through that district, how pervasive is the kind of thinking that were seeing among marjorie green . I suspect its more pervasive than we would like to think . I think its probably a multistep process, right . Just from talking to the number of folks in this sphere that i have, fox news is often the entry, the gateway drug, and theres social media and social media feeds that spin up some of the lunatic theories of the far right fringe. When theyre sanitized into peoples own facebook feeds, it becomes real. It speaks to the animating factor in republican circles right now which is fear and paranoia. When you add news tidbits to that, you can get spun up in this untethered web of at reality. Thats whats happening to people who are otherwise normal People Living in the world, right . And as david jolly points out, the break between the reality of facts and figures and the paranoid rabbit hole into which a 33 to 40 of this country has fallen is the work of the 20th century and the work of Republican Leadership if they have any hope of saving their party. When you cannot explain the cultural change and why this panel doesnt look like it used to in the 1960s and somebody who is a congressperson or seems authoritative tells you its because even if they say its because of lasers, after a while, you start to believe it. Its wild to watch it happen. Alex wagner, david jolly, david corn, thank you all three very much. Today Pete Buttigieg took the oath of office as the nations first lgbtq confirmed cabinet secretary. His husband held the bible. Fellow History Maker and Vice PresidentKamala Harris administered the oath. Pete buttigieg will join me tomorrow for his first interview since becoming bidens transportation secretary. Oh, and, yes, we will talk highspeed rail. Up next, the democratic Senate Majority gets their gavels. Senator Raphael Warnock joins me on what the new powersharing agreement means for the democrats gobig agenda. And south dakotas governor looks at the flaming wreckage of her covid policies and says, this is all fine. We did have tragedies and we did have losses but we also got through it better than virtually every other state. No, no, no. Not even close, governor. Back with more of the reidout after this. Man whats my safelite story . My truck. Is my livelihood. So when my windshield cracked. The experts at Safelite Autoglass came right to me. With service i could trust. Right, girl . Singers safelite repair, safelite replace. Yesterdays thinking is done new ideas we have a ton so keep pushing forward toward a better world for everyone. Make a different future start different at godaddy. Com announcer do you want to reduce stress . Shed pounds . Do you want to flatten your stomach . 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Democrats finally have full control of the United States senate after a powersharing agreement was reached by party leaders. That should have happened two weeks ago after georgias newest senators, Raphael Warnock and jon ossoff were sworn in. But, of course, mitch mcconnell, in a final power play before shrinking back into his shell as the Minority Leader held up the procedure hoping he could extort concessions to weaken the democrats hand. That failed. And now democra