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and this week. now it is time for "the last word" with ali velshi tonight. >> i wouldn't have given it another thought. your conversation with osha really interesting. if osha systematically went through every business in the united states with an inspection, if it were sort of routine, you'd get an inspection about once every 100 years. that's how badly funded it is. and there is, you know, there are real efforts particularly in the time of covid and immediately post-covid to wrap that up and it is being met with resistance from america's corporations. but if it ever matters, in the 50-year history of osha, it matters now that somebody is there to keep those rules safe. thank you for draug attention to that, rachel. >> thank you, ali. they very, very rarely do one of these temporary emergency rules. the last one they did was a asbestos decades ago. if they do one on covid, it will be a huge deal. thanks, my friend. appreciate it. >> it needs to be funded because it costs money to do that. have a great weekend. we'll see you on monday. breaking tonight, the treasury department has started to send qualifying americans their economic impact payments. some will receive those payments as early as this weekend. this is a big announcement at the end of a big week. >> the bill does one more thing, which i think is really important. it changes the paradigm. for the first time in a long time the bill puts working people in this nation first. >> changes the paradigm. how often have you heard that kind of thing? politicians often talk in hyperbole, but in this case it is not hyperbole, it's the truth. the american rescue plan does represent a paradigm shift in american politics. democrats learn from their mistakes and focussed on passing the biggest bill possible on their terms, which is actually almost unheard of. bipartisan negotiations on obamacare you will remember dragged on for months before democrats ended up passing it with no republican support at all. in passing rescue legislation to get out of the financial crisis, democrats and then vice president biden negotiated with republicans and ended up with a smaller bill, which history now shows probably hurt the recovery efforts. so this time, democrats were unapologetic about their goals. they loaded up the bill with policies that favored working bill over the rich and the result is legislation that comes pretty close to matching the seriousness of the crisis we face. and the biggest part of it, the american rescue plan is expected to drive down the nation's poverty rate from 12.3% to 8.3%. that means 12 million americans will be pulled out of poverty thanks to this american rescue plan. one bill did that. it was just last month when american airlines announced that it was sending furlough notices to 13,000 employees. within a few hours of congress passing the relief package the company released course. executives said, quote, to those who had received notices warning of furloughs, those are happily canceled. you can tear them up, end quote. ceo of united airlines made a similar announcement to 14,000 employees. that's 27,000 american workers who will keep their job thanks to this democratic legislation. amtrak has said hundreds of furloughed employees could be called back to work as soon as this month because of this legislation. local transportation authorities in new york and d.c. both said the package would protect against layoffs and service cuts. congress passed a law on wednesdayment and by thursday afternoon, tens of thousands of american jobs had been saved. that's not actually normal. that's not business as usual. it happened because of legislation that not a single republican in either chamber of congress supported. so what do republicans support? brace yourselves. republicans have decided to put their back into the estate tax. they believe that right now in this moment america's richest heirs need a break from taxes. millions are unemploymented, tens of millions are awaiting vaccine, and the estate tax is the hill that republicans have decided they're going to die on. pun intended. mitch mcconnell and half the senate republican congress this week released a bill to repeal the estate tax which applies to the estates of the richest americans after they die. i'm not exaggerating. only 1,900 estates were valuable enough to owe this tax in 2018. over 90% came from the top 10% of income earners. not only will this legislation not succeed, it won't even get a vote. republicans know this, and still they're eager to champion this proposal. ten million americans are out of work and senate republicans are championing the cause of millionaires and billionaires. what's more, it's the first item on their agenda, the first thing that they want to introduce. it is not the 50th agenda item. it is not the 100th. the primary focus for republicans right now as i speak to you is to give another tax break to the country club crowd. if fiddling with the estate tax in the midst of a pandemic and a recession is your best idea, you are clean out of good ideas. this move proves that today's republicans are devoid of ideas. we know that the gop has become the party of no, blocking anything and anything that could help working americans. when they're not the party of no, they're the party of nothing. decrying fake scandals about dr. seuss, pushing for hearings on conservatorships because of a britney spears documentary. i'm not making this up. and talking nonstop about the two stupidest words ever put together, cancel culture. this is not a party of ideas, which is really sad whether or not you are a republican. how wonderful would it be if the two parties could have substantive meaningful policy debates about the issues that matter and how best to address them. right now only one party is doing that. and you know what? they're not about to stop. >> if you take the pieces of this bill and broke it into all the pieces, every one of those pieces standing alone would be viewed as a significant accomplishment. but it's all the work you have done for years to try to get us there. this law is not the end of our efforts, though. i view it as only beginning. >> all right. leading off our discussion tonight sara nelson, president of the national association of flight attendants. and relevant to this particular discussion has been a flight attendant for 25 years. so this is a happy week for her. she's one of the country's premier labor leaders. christina greer also joining us. thank you for being with us on a friday evening. christina, let me start with you because one would assume there are political costs to being on the wrong side of things. at these moments like this, a recession, a pandemic, a moment to come together, one would assume there would have been some efforts on the part of republicans to at least join hands and say we're part of this. when we look back at it in 10 years or 15 years, we were part of the effort to extract us from this after the disastrous administration that got us buried into this over the last year. why are we seeing nothing on the part of republicans? how is it that the estate tax is their number one priority right now? >> right. first things first, ali, i am a daughter of a flight attendant. i just want to give a shout-out to all the men and women who protect us in the air. >> oh, wow. yep. >> but, ali, it befuddles us because so many republicans are so calcified in just working against democrats. and they know that their constituents actually want that. so they're worried about their primaries. they don't want their opponents back home to ever be able to say this person voted with the democrats. and we have seen political science literature, you know, track this quite significantly and substantively where especially white americans consistently vote against their own interests. they vote against health care when they need it. they vote against gun control when it's affecting their communities. there is no surprise democrats always have to start off their presidencies with some massive stimulus to get the country going back again because republicans take all of the money and these tax breaks that do not trickle down to the american people. they give them to the wealthiest americans who vote for them and then the democrats have to come and clean up. time and time again, this is the cycle we see with the executive elections every time we switch from republican to democrat and back to republican again. i think the republicans right now know that there are no electoral consequences for them at the voting booth for voting against the needs of their own people. as long as they can say i voted against democrats and i tried to make particular democrats one termers, they will be rewarded. >> fascinating about that. but thank you for the first few minutes of the show mentioning that the trickle down economics doesn't work. what does work, sara nelson, is something you and i have been talking about probably for a year. that is the idea that if you provide companies with the funds to keep their employees employed because whether it is your colleagues at flight attendants or mechanics or pilots or owners of the company, business suffered through no fault of their own and there is nothing they can do to goose it until this pandemic starts to end. so the bottom line is there is nothing trickle down about that. you need to give the companies money to keep people employed, and that's what we saw this week. >> we did this last march because we have 80% of the workers in the airline industry unionized, so we had enough power to say to the corporations you are not going to get this done without us, so you have to do it on our terms. even under trump and mcdonald regime, we were able to get a workers first package for the aviation workers that made sure that all of the relief went to our paid benefit, that there could be no reduction to our hourly rate of pay and we even put a cap of buyback bets. but it was only 1.25% of the cares act last march. and now these principles have been injected to the rest of this relief plan, and that's what congress has taken up, and that's what president biden is talking about. trickle down is dead and we're going to build from the ground up and get the relief to the working people. >> and yet, christina, the myth continues about the gop being the party of the working people. in fact, at the cpac conference ted cruz was talking about this. he said the republican party is not just the party of country clubs, the republican party is the party of steel workers, construction workers, pipeline workers, police officers, firefighters, waiters and way tress. but that's not how it's looking. >> at at all. i will paraphrase lbj where he said, then you can pick his pockets all day long. i think the republican party has done a great job of looking at their middle class and upper class voters to say, you are better than these immigrants. you are better than these people of color. they have been able to pass policies detrimental to the people in their own party time and time again. we saw that over the course of four years. so, yes, there are a wide breadth of diverse folks within the party economically, but all the policies of republicans over these past -- it's not even four years, these past 40 years have been working against the people in their party except for the folks in the upper echelon. so ted cruz can say that all he wants. this is a man that flew to mexico for vacation and was able to fly right back when he got busted. there is a lack of respect that republicans have for their own voters and republican voters don't see it time and time again even when those policies work against them. >> so, sara, we talked about the fact that you were on a committee, a biden-bernie sanders committee to blend some policies. but before that you were actually at the table as you said last march when you were talking to congress about the niche bill. i guess to the point that this bill was passed without any republican support and, hence, it was probably bigger than it would have been, what's the right approach now going forward? becausewy haven't got a $15 minimum wage in this country, all things that are near to your heart as a labor leader. how do democrats go forward? do they do what you did last march, try and sit down with republicans and car f out something that works or do they go really big, understanding they're not getting republican support at all? >> one thing i want to be really clear about is that we went to the table with the corporations, not necessarily with the republicans. and this was a democratic plan last march. and if it were not for nancy pelosi coming screaming back across the country to stop mcconnell's plan from going forward and shoring up and chuck schumer coming and bringing all the democrats together and stopping that corporate giveaway that mcconnell had put together, then we wouldn't have had those negotiations last march and we wouldn't have been able to fight for the workers first program that we have. we brought capital to the table. so what the president is doing right now is talking about the fact that he is labor's president and that he's putting workers first. and the fact that the democrats move quickly to get relief to the american people, this is very different than what we saw during the great recession. this is targeted at working people. this is actually getting to those steel workers that ted cruz was talking about. let's be really clear. this past month ted cruz did something that he's never done before. he was actually shamed into changing his ticket to come back to texas. he didn't even stand up for his wife or his father in the past when they were disregarded by president trump. >> right. >> but working people are starting to understand that they can hold their elected representatives accountable, and they're doing that and democrats understand that when they actually take action and get help in the hands of people, people are stronger, and they're also going to remember who helped them. this can't just be a battle of words and policies and academics. this has to be about truly getting help to the front lines. that's what this package is doing. it is going to make us stronger for those fights because we have to get this minimum wage passed. we have to do these things. you have to give people the understanding when they vote there actually is a result, and they're getting a result to them. and that will build more and more power. >> thank you to both of you for kicking us off tonight. we appreciate your time as always. have yourselves a great weekend. coming up arizona republicans put together more than 20 voter suppression bills. one arizona republican may have given the game away when he said, quote, everybody shouldn't be voting. arizona secretary of state katie hobs and voting rights attorney colin all remember will join us next. colin all remember will join us next taking metamucil everyday can help. metamucil psyllium fiber, gels to trap and remove the waste that weighs you down. it also helps lower cholesterol and slows sugar absorption to promote healthy blood sugar levels. so you can feel lighter and more energetic metamucil. support your daily digestive health. and try metamucil fiber thins. a great tasting and easy way to start your day. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ (judith) at fisher investments, we do things differently ♪♪ and other money managers don't understand why. 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(judith) our fees are structured so we do better when our clients do better. at fisher investments we're clearly different. so you're a small business, or a big one. you were thriving, but then... oh. ah. okay. plan, pivot. how do you bounce back? you don't, you bounce forward, with serious and reliable internet. powered by the largest gig speed network in america. but is it secure? sure it's secure. and even if the power goes down, your connection doesn't. so how do i do this? you don't do this. we do this, together. bounce forward, with comcast business. the republicans do have one policy idea around which they have united, stopping people from voting. not all people, some people. and many have tried to claim the motive behind this is stopping voter fraud, even though voter fraud is actually virtually nonexistent in america. but in arizona where republicans have put forward 20 bills against voting, one republican may have revealed the real motive. john cavanaugh said, quote, there is a fundamental difference between democrats and republicans. democrats value as many people as possible. republicans are more concerned about fraud, so we don't mind putting security measures in that won't let everybody vote, but everybody shouldn't be voting, end quote. say what? who exactly shouldn't be voting, you ask. well, fortunately he answers. quote, not everybody wants to vote. and if somebody is uninterested in voting, that probably means that they're totally uninformed on the issues. quantity is important, but we have to look at the quality of votes as well, end quote. the quality of votes. okay. for starters, if we are disqualifying people totally uninformed on the issues, then there is that qanon congresswoman from georgia. but there is no education bar that an american citizen has to clear to vote. people don't have to pass a test or prove their knowledge to vote. that, you recall, used to happen. that is literally the reason behind the voting rights act of 1965. that was not actually about how informed on the issues a voter was. so i don't know who john cavanaugh feels is uninformed today, but i'm pretty sure he's not talking about voters who vote for republicans. joining us now katie hobbs. also with us congressman colin allred, a champion of hr-1 and hr-4. welcome to both of you. secretary hobbs, you and i didn't talk that long ago. i didn't think we would have an occasion so quickly, but one of your lawmakers said the quiet part outloud. >> i love it when they do that. i served with john cavanaugh in the legislature for eight years. unfortunately this comment isn't surprising. it is pretty standard kind of thing that he says pretty often. >> congressman, you're a congressman, but you are actually an expert at voting rights and you have worked with this for a long time. i'm sort of puzzled. and i guess i'm glad that cavanaugh said it out loud because that's really the point. the point is the quantity of votes is not what we're looking for. something called the quality of votes is what we're looking for. but under the constitution, it is the quantity of votes. we are looking to make sure 100% of eligible voters can exercise their vote. it is not really a big philosophical argument. it is what we're trying to do. >> yeah. that's right, ali. this is why we have a constitution. it is not any individual's choice as to who will be able to vote or whose votes value the most. this is why these are called rights, and you have the right to vote. whether or not you are informed or not. of course that's not a determination that this gentleman can make. these are the same justifications that we heard in the era of jim crowe. you are seeing the greatest sweeping effort to restrict the right to vote since the era of the jim crowe days. this is an inflection point. if we don't do something, we may very well lose our democracy. i was on the house floor on january 6th when those insurrectionists tried to, you know, get