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What they did should be a problem for them. They should be being investigated. And nearly a hundred people, still, missing in florida after the collapse of a 12story Condo Building. The latest on the desperate searchandrescue effort when all in starts right now. Good evening, from new york. Im chris hayes. You know, its the kind of thing we really do not see happen often, anymore. This afternoon, the president of the United States, President Joe Biden, walked out to the white house driveway. Surrounded by democratic and republican senators. To announce they have a deal. A big, bipartisan, legislative deal on infrastructure. This reminds me of the days we used to get an awful lot done up in the United States congress. We actually work get bipartisan deals. Bipartisan deals means compromise. Are you confident that you are going to have all the democrats support in the senate . Im not confident of anything. Now, were going to get into the details of the deal, which includes 579 billion in new spending on new projects across the country. And a somewhatcomplicated twotrack strategy, in which democrats would, also, pass a supplemental package alongside that. In fact, i am going to talk to senator chris murphy of connecticut about all of that, in just a moment. But first, i just want to take a step back to put this deal in context with the very strange politics of this particular moment. Back in the beginning of february, you know, after the insurrection. And and sort of, taking in the aftermath of the election. I published this piece in the atlantic. In which, i made the argument that the Republican Party was radicalizing against democracy, even as it was moderating on some core elements of policy. And the events of the pastfew days have, i think, borne out that thesis. I mean, remember. Just48 hours ago, i was sitting at this desk, talking to you, right . Senate democrats attempted to expand voter access. To create a, kind of, nationwide floor of votingrights standards. And that bill, the for the people act, faced uniformtotal opposition from republicans. Who used the filibuster to block it. Not a single republican would vote to even start debate on the bill. And senateminority leader Mitch Mcconnell made it clear that theres, basically, nothing democrats can do to, ever, get anyrepublican support on any part of that bill. Certainly, not on things, like, for instance, changing the standards for partisan gerrymandering. Or even reinstating the parts of the votingrights act that the John Roberts Supreme Court gutted. Lets keep in mind, this is the same Voting Rights act which was last reauthorized in 2006 with a massivebipartisan majority in the house and a unanimous vote in the senate. In fact, the person who got all the republican senators to vote for it was thenmajority whip, Mitch Mcconnell. That same votingrights act now faces essentiallyimplacable republican opposition. So, thats what i mean by radicalizing against democracy. And were watching this radicalization happen at the state level, of course. Where republicancontrolled governments are passing restrictivevoting laws. Multiple states are now trying to follow arizonas lead and launch an audit of the 2020 election results. In fact, new polling get this shows 46 of republicans, almost half, believe it was appropriate for republican legislators in states where joe biden won to just ignore the popular vote. And to try and assign their states electoral votes to donald trump. That is about as radicalized against democracy as you could possibly get. Now, two days later, what do we have . The white house driveway. We have an oldfashion, sausagemaking Infrastructure Deal announced on the white house driveway with a Bipartisan Group. Including, 11 republican senators. How do we make sense of this . Well, the Republican Partys ideology on core matters of governance has dissipated into incoherence. I mean, really, core questions about political economy, specifically, right . Free enterprise and the market. Are so detached from the actualmaterial interests of its base. Those policies that they have been championing, forever, right . Tax cuts for the rich. Youreonyourown economics. Theyve become so unpopular. They have been surely, but slowly, walking away from it all, at least in rhetoric and messaging. Because heres the thing. They theyve lost the ability to rile the the base. The current base. The trump base. They have lost the ability to rile them up on those core issues, anymore. It doesnt work. The base doesnt care. I mean, compare that, right, to where we were 12 years ago. And the unrelenting backlash against the obama stimulus. Which came, in response to the great recession. In 2009, the american recovery act, which was less than a trillion dollars, was passed with zerorepublican votes in the house. The bill that was supposed to be about jobs, jobs, jobs, has turned into a bill thats all about spending, spending, and spending. Do you know that, in this porkulus bill, it has been learned, in addition to everything else, Illegal Immigrants will, also, be given checks . I look at this as smother the private sector in terms of a stimulus package. I dont see this as a stimulus package. And if if you think you are going to get your way out of this recession by all kinds of social programs, welfare programs. Youre just going to make it much worse. Right . The immigrants getting free checks. Welfare. Social programs. Look at barack obama just spending that money around. Okay. Compare that to, back in march, when joe biden signed the covidstimulus package. Right . Because for the second time, in two transitions, a democrat had to take over from a republican, right . So applestoapples comparison. Right . Norepublican votes. I have barely heard a word from republicans about that package, twice as big as the stimulus. Nearly 2 trillion package that passed on a partyline vote in the senate more than three months ago. I havent heard a word, except to praise aspects of it they want their constituents to take advantage of. What riles up the Republican Base, now, is fear of multiracial democracy. Cancel culture. George floyd protests. Black lives matter. Censuring dr. Seuss. Criticalrace theory. A constant, constant, moral panic about the threat of those other people, who either do not look like you. Or do not share your values taking power and wielding power, the way that they dominate the institutions of American Life outside of politics. Thats what its about. That culture war. Whose culture it is, whose america it is, is what the base cares about. They could give about inflation or taxes or even welfare. I mean, all this stuff thats been tried and true, republican reactionary rhetoric for literal decades. All the Rhetorical Fire has moved away from a deficit and on to some random, School Superintendent in maine after his district failed to denounce White Supremacy after the murder of george floyd. Now, those are the kind of lines republicans cannot cross. But spending on infrastructure . Whatever, no problem. Then, of course, we got to talk about the obvious, right . The additional, glaringlyobvious aspect of all this. When you compare the firstsix months of the last democratic president s administration, to this one. Barack obama faced total opposition, on the right, from the outset. Now, joe biden has faced a lot of opposition, too. But there is just no universe, as someone who covered this from washington, d. C. , up close. In which 11 republican senators would have come out, posed on that driveway, to strike a deal like this with barack obama in his firstsix months in office. No universe. The hatred of barack obama was so boiling hot from the base. The base doesnt hate joe biden. And weve seen it over and over, since the campaign. When tshirt vendors at trump rallies couldnt sell any derogatory joe biden shirts. Barack obama . The Hillary Clinton stuff, however . That, still, sold like hotcakes. Huh. Boy, look at those three faces. Barack obama, Hillary Clinton, and joe biden. Now, what could it possibly be about joe biden that does not inspire the same visceral ire of the Republican Base . That doesnt render him toxic and threatening, in the same way as those othertwo figures . Joe biden. The 78yearold, white man, is not a Living Embodiment of the existential threat that the Republican Base fears. And that existential threat. That fear, of the country being governed by people, other than them, broadly construed, thats what they really care about. The rest . They couldnt care less. Senior adviser to senator bernie sanders. Formerly Senior Adviser to Democratic Senate leader harry reid. And they both join me now. Faz, lets talk about your view of this, as someone who was working in democratic staff circles back in those days. Like, do you agree that, that picture in the driveway was an impossibility under obama . And, for some reason, is not now . Yes. They certainly made it almost impossible for obama because of the way in which they demonized him, personally. And thats, i think, what you are driving at. That that was not an individual that they could ever strike a deal with. Right . They kind of tore him down to the point where, if you ever did anything with obama, it would just be toxic. And so, i tend to agree with a lot of your thesis there, chris. I think the only thing i would quibble with a little bit is if you look at the state level, right . We are trying to differentiate republicans here. If you look at the state level, they are certainly cutting snap benefits. They are cutting employment benefits. They are still engaged in that kind of ideological struggle against the working class. But you are right. That at the national level, they are still adhering to trump ideology and taking their keys from a trump party. Theyre still not like they dont want a broadsafety net. Like, all of that Vestigial Ideology is there. But i think what happened, jennifer, barack obama the firstblack president. You know, the tea party was talking about the deficit but thats not what they were talking about. But, you could you can nicely fuse, the concerns of the donor class and the Chamber Of Commerce with the base. And say deficit and spending, and everyone got it. Like, oh, the immigrants are going to get checks. Trump sort of pried those apart and just like talk about the you dont like immigrants and all that spending stuff. Hes, like, detached the signifier from it and now its hard to get it back. I think thats exactly right. Listen. The republicans, still, engage in donor maintenance. Thats why they wouldnt raise taxes even on [ inaudible ] that pay zero taxes. They arent going to go near that but thats not the base. Those are the donors. Yep. Those are Corporate Overlords who keep them afloat in election cycles. Youre right. They dont really have much to say about anything else. And although they opposed, 100 , the American Rescue plan. Again, on this kind of oldstyle thinking. As soon as it passed and became very, very, very popular, they started touting it, as you said. They couldnt say enough about good things about the restaurant revitalization program. They were telling their constituents to get out there and get the getting, when its good. So, i think there is some schizophrenia on listen, theyre not going to give up on deregulation because, again, thats their Corporate Overlords. They are not going to give up on tax cuts for the rich. And lets, also, remember there are a whole slew of social issues, on which they are even worse than they used to be and i would say abortion is one of them. Absolutely, yep. They are criminalizing abortion, in state after state. You can say that is part of the State Apparatus but really, thats the federalRepublican Party, as well. So its a really mixed bag but if you want to put that in the bin of cultural issues that are going to light the base on fire. I guess, you could slot it that way. But on guns, for example. On womens rights. Yep. Theyre nomore moderate than they ever were. I totally agree with all of that. On sort of this core political economy, like government spending. I mean the thing i keep thinking of. Again, we have got this big this big spending package today, right . I mean, the thing i am thinking about, faz, we did a thing with sherrod brown. There is a world of republican reactionary politics that i, myself, have covered as a younger reporter. They would be talking about it, all the time. It would just be this constant welfare shaming. They are sending checks. Everyones going to be lazy. And its just not there, anymore. And i think i mean, and i and i i think its been taken out of their arsenal, partly because the base wants the checks. Yeah. Well, right. We suffered through the pandemic. Inequality. I mean, if you just look, from obama to now, the inequality suffered by people is far more painfully real in peoples lives. And so, it isnt going to be as easy to get out there talking about Welfare Queens and exactly. You know, people on free rides, et cetera, et cetera, when they need that schoolmeal program. And they need that childtax credit. They need that unemployment benefit, just to get by. Its not going to be easy politics for them. They have become far more detached on Economic Issues from where their people are. And you are right to say donald trump brought up populism on Economic Issues to to that party, that i think they are still trying to grapple with and figure out how to deal with because it doesnt naturally flow with their ideology. So instead, you have them trying to figure out how to extract things out of joe biden. Will you do a gas tax . Will you impose some of our conservativeprivatization schemes . How about how about we get you to be the trojan horse to try to push our conservative agenda . Jennifer, quickly, the other part of this is what i said in the end there. Like, joe biden, i consume a fair amount of rightwing media. He does not inspire rage and contempt the way obama and Hillary Clinton did. Just flat out. Its pity, he is a bumbling, old man. Hes not competent. But its not rage and contempt. You cant get lock lock him up chants going and that makes a big difference, too, i think. It absolutely does. And you could attribute some of that to longevity. A lot of people know him. But in point of fact, you are exactly right. He is an oldwhite guy. Hes not come with a foreignsounding name. And so, they take out their venom on women of color who have been nominated for appointments in this administration. Those people, they will demonize. Those people, they will go for but not joe biden. Yeah. Compare the coverage of the Vice President , the president , its very, very, clear faz and Jennifer Rubin. Thank you, both. So we are still going to talk about the deal, right . There theres been something bothering me today because im not sure what to make of the deal, itself. Which i sort of talked around in that first block. You have seen, he and this group of bipartisan senators have reached a deal on infrastructure. But i cant actually tell if this is a huge win for the democrats. Or if they just got rolled by republicans. 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So todays bipartisan Infrastructure Deal is is a strange move, in certain ways, because it appears as if, either, President Joe Biden and the democrats are just massively rolling the Republican Party. Or they are massively getting rolled. I cant figure out, yet, which is which. All right. Let me explain. Back the last day of march, right, the white