Of the mehdi hasan show tonight, gop dysfunctions, driving us towards a Government Shutdown. Even House Republicans are pointing to figure at one man, Kevin Mccarthy. Plus, the white house just created the First Ever Office devoted to curbing gun violence. I will speak with former Gun Violence Activists turn gen z congressman maxwell frost. And, covid rates are on the rise, again. My conversation with americas doctor, Anthony Fauci. Good evening. At this moment, we are about six days away from a potential Government Shutdown. The first, since the start of 2019. And its a shutdown that we are facing, because House Republicans are completely dysfunctional, behaving in a pathetic way, and pushing for a completely meaningless shut down, because they want to burn the whole place down. Those are not my words, those are the words of House Republicans themselves. We are, completely dysfunctional. There needs to be a realization, that you are not going to get everything you want. And, just throwing a temper tantrum, and stomping your feet, frankly not only is it wrong, its pathetic. This is going to be a meaningless shutdown, if it were to occur, and it would absolutely impact peoples lives. We need to make sure that we keep the government open, and we get this deal done. Its frustrating, in the sense that i dont understand how and having a debate on that. [inaudible] that doesnt work. That last person there, accusing republican members of the house of trying to burn the place down, is their leader, Kevin Mccarthy. The house speaker, i say purportedly, because is he really in charge . Is he really the, leader or is he the sign, or the speaker in name only . If you recall, it took five days, and a whopping voting back in january, for mccarthy to finally claim the speakers gavel. That debacle represented the first in a century, that required more than a single round of voting, to elect a speaker. And the process was riddled with mayhem, with namecalling, and even a testy altercation on the floor between Freedom Caucus troll matt gaetz, and mccarthy ally michael rogers. We were inches from out and out congressional fister cuffs. The early while days of mccarthys reign have extended throughout his entire tenure, to the point that some republicans are so tired, so fed up with, him that they long for, of all people, nancy pelosi. Speaker pelosi, for instance. I will give you, i dont agree with her, ever, hardly on anything. But, she was pretty successful in the way she did it was, she put it in issue outs for the caucus, she met with them, she got a, she figured out what they wanted, and then they put it on the floor, and they passed it, and they rallied around it. A lot of work goes into that, but we are not seeing that, i am not seeing that work right now. When you are right, you are right, congressman. We are not seeing that right now. And, who is to blame for that. Well, since january, we have been treated to a great deal of speculation about whether or not farright extremist turned mccarthy ally and can make kingmaker Marjorie Taylor greene was the shadow speaker, The Real Speaker behind the scenes. But it turns out, its matt gaetz, the aforementioned congressional troll. This one florida congressman, this one florida man, if you will, along with a very small handful of fall farright burn him all down, allies has brought the work of the people s to a screeching halt. And he has done so, while emasculating, demeaning, humiliating or Kevin Mccarthy at every turn. Kevin mccarthy has put us behind the eight ball. Kevin was lying, there is no other way to put it. This is just kevin deflecting from his own failures. He has been reckless, and unhinged, and rattled. And on wednesday, we learned precisely why gaetz launched this chaos campaign. He admitted he is merely doing his dear leader Donald Trumps bidding. Trump wants the Government Shutdown, and so, the government will be shut down. Why exactly he wants this, is unclear. Some have suggested, and trump himself has implied, that this could derail his trial, for the investigations into donald trump. The federal criminal proceedings, and the work of the council, are exempt from Government Shutdown. So, good luck with that. Do you know what will be impacted though by the gop governme shutdown . Millions of americans pocketbooks, for starters. Part of the white house, all activity in Military Personnel in all Law Enrcement Officers will be at work, and will receive no pay. 10,000 kids will lose access to start, and there will be no new smalbusiness loans. Travelers will likely be with massive delays, in American Ports and airports. And the fda will be unable to conduct food safety inspections. This isnt a joke, even if matt gaetz thinks this is all wonderful and hilarious. The gop cult is willing to deliberately inflict financial pain, harm, on ordinary americans, including their beloved military. Because one, they have a useless leader in congress and to, their de facto party leader, the real boss of the gop, it is on trial for multiple crimes, and is having a tantrum. Joining me now to discuss all of this, and more, our molly jongfast, host of the fast politics podcast, and a Special Correspondent for vanity fair. Tim miller, an msnbc political analyst, writer at large at the bulwark, former republican calm and author of, why we did it, a travelog from the republican road to hell. And bryan tire wear cohen, an msnbc contributor, and a host on youtube. Thank you all for joining me tonight. Tim, take a look at this quote from republican congressman mike simpson this ek quote, we always get the blame. Name one finally shut the government down, and we havent gotten the blame . My, what path us. I almost feel sorry for the house gop, do you tim . No. Well, you are getting a congressman, because it is your fault. Well thats a weird concept for some people to understand. They dont even have a point to this shut down. And here is the thing mehdi, back in the tea party era, the last, will not the last, time the one of the reasons i was about to do this rigmarole. At least of stance of, the republicans are making argument that we had to get our budget in, line that we were spending too much, that the purpose of this was to try to help get us closer to a balanced budget, to deal with the debt service. Theyre not even making that argument anymore. If they were making that argument, its not credible, because they just spent the entire Trump Administration spending, spending more and raising deficits more than either obama or biden. And so, they have no coherent arguments to avoid getting the blame for. This and you know, the other congressman from your intro, who was saying that nancy pelosi is just really good at this. You know, im happy to praise and give nancy pelosi present but i really think the big difference was not Nancy Pelosis strategic, i think it was that Nancy Pelosis caucus wasnt filled with nihilistic lunatics. I mean, thats Kevin Mccarthys problem, its not like he isnt trying. You know, hes got a lot of flaws, but its all he is not trying to come up with a bill that could pass his conference. He just cant, because he is dealing with the people that are vaping at beetlejuice the musical, and. Professional trolls like that cadence. Like, he has people who arent serious about governing, and thats the main issue here. Thats all very true. Brian, first off, first time on the show, great to have you all in the show. Earlier, i touched on some of the ways that this increasingly likely shutdown will harm real americans. And dont get me wrong, it is fun to watch mccarthy flounder. But this will have devastating effects on millions of americans. And, i just feel like we are not talking about that enough, that it is not some abstraction, this is real. Totally. And, i think this also does kind of put on full display, what we are looking at right now with this Republican House majority, is the exact same margin of the democrats had just a few years ago, when they had control of government. And if you look at the difference in what democrats were able to actually do for the american people. I mean, democrats with this razorthin majority, rebel to pass the American Rescue plan, pass the inflation reduction act, past the first Gun Safety Bill in three decades, pass the chips act, pats passed the pact act. And it goes on and on, the republicans had the exact same majority, and they cant even keep the government open. If that is not a testament to just how much of a failure it is what republicans do take control of government, i dont know what is. And yet, they still have majorities and house, which tells you so much about how molly, i truly never thought i would see the day where republicans are, effectively, expressing the style just for the pelosi era. And yet, mccarthy has so bundled this process, back gates and the Freedom Caucus have made it so miserable for him, you have conservatives on television, complementing the former speaker, asked him and i were just discussing. I feel like we are in a Twilight Zone right now. I mean, this is very different, as tim said, two previous attempts at a shutdown. Well i mean, he is also, remember we have had leaves rules about we had to, he had two this week, which is a very unusual. And, definitely this has been very good for Nancy Pelosis, legacy. You know, this idea that actually. I think tim is right, this caucus is completely crazy, and he only has a four seat majority, which is a very slim majority. But we saw that nancy pelosi was really careful, when she would vote, and she made sure that she had the votes before she took anything to the floor. Which, i do think, you know, you have a woman in that job, and she is going to be a lot more careful. And i mean, we have seen this, i think this is a little bit of a feminist fencing in some ways. But i mean yes, mccarthy is kind of, he is kind of a mess, and i dont think that these republicans. By the way, i dont think matt gaetz has some grand plan, with some speaker in the background. I mean, i dont think, i dont think the only person who has been suggested with steve scalise, and now he has said, and he is a mccarthy guy. And so, i dont think theres any plan, here on where theyre going to go with that. Thats weird, i would have thought republicans always have a clearly laid out plans. Tim, lets flip pivot just a bit here. American media has a particular weakness for highlighting horse race matters, over substantive issues, when it comes to political coverage, i think its fair to say. Weve got a great example of that this weekend. Today, in fact, you have a lot of the chattering glass freaking out on twitter, over this laughable, i would argue, abc Washington Post poll. Outlier, is the polite phrase, weve suggested among other things that trump is ahead of biden with young voters by 20 percentage points, if you believe, that i have a degree from from university for you. Meanwhile, very few people are lking of the fact that trump called for the execution of outgoing joint Chief Of Staff chairman general mark milley. And i just wonder, is there any better, is there any more ideal description of how messed up our Media Coverage is, that we focus on ridiculous polls, and miss out on the actual substance, which is one of the guys in those polls a suggesting a general should be executed . Yeah i mean, sitting congressman paul gosar, wasnt that long ago, saying completely outlandish claims. So no, look i, understand having a democratic, or even a former republican, a democratic allies who are concerned about donald trump, or pundits, getting a little nervous about a poll, even if it is an outlier. You know, given the stakes of the race, and just given the horrors that would come with a second trump term. And so, i do understand why some political media times to want to. Discuss that but i totally agree with your critique, that it feels at times that there is an absence of discussion for the deep detailing, the horrors of because it is not like he is hiding it. I mean, he is running by saying that he wants to be the retribution, that he wants to target political foes, and he wants to completely make wholesale changes to the way that the federal government works, and eliminates federal workers, and on and on and on. And so, i do think that there can be a balance sometimes, between obsessing over outlier, polls versus discussing the substance of the stuff that trump is putting forward. Yeah, and it does massive damage to our democracy, and our understanding of politics. Brian, a moment ago, you just eloquently laid out all of the things that democrats did when they had a majority. And yet, i feel like a lot of people in our media dont do that, they dont just say okay, here is what one party is pitching, heres what one party is done, here is what the other party is, pitching here is where the other party is done. Instead, there are these abstract, Up In The Air discussions about whos up, whos down whos old, whos not what do voters in the diner thank. And no actual substance of. And you know that jay rosen has this line about the stakes, when you talk about the stakes in the race. So when you are reporting on a poll that shows trump of, put aside the fact of the trumps nonsense but if he is up by trump ten points, what does it mean to have the candidate who is leading by ten points, who by the way, wants execute americas top general. Yeah, i mean he has already come out and said basically what he wants his next turn to be. And to tims point, we focus so much on the horse race, but Dawn From Has come out and promised that a donald trump term will be more of this retribution of this political opponents, he has promised it will be more restrictions on abortion, although now he is trying to pivot to the general. He has some friends for womens reproductive rights. And that dawn from is the Common Center when it comes to reproductive rights, america comes to abortion in america. When he we have all of the benefit i guess you could say, of looking back in retrospect, and seeing that adult from presidency brought, see with donald trump present and to make that decision, to make that determination, without having to guess. Yeah. Just one more to you, brian. Thursday, were looking at Impeachment Inquiry Stuff happening on the eve of the Government Shutdown. That, again, we talk about the abstract terms of impeachment, good, impeachment, that. Rather, this is a deliberate strategy by republicans to throw as much dirt in the biden states that he looks as bad as trump come the general, does it not . Of course. What republicans have basically done with this whole Impeachment Inquiry is shown proven that they dont have evidence to back that. They will keep throwing the stuff because they know all they need is the Impeachment Inquiry itself to serve as a predicate to then be able to look forward and say joe biden has done that, joe biden has done, that this pieces on fox news, all the republican operatives will come out and say, look, there is an Impeachment Inquiry. If there is smoke, there must be fire somewhere. What we havent seen in any of this is a modicum of evidence tying joe biden to Hunter Bidens influence talents came. Theres nothing of that. That doesnt matter to the republicans because all they need is the optics of wrong doing. That is exactly what they got with the same peach meant inquiry, even though there hasnt been evidence and we wont see any evidence. But, brian, you have it all wrong. They need an Impeachment Inquiry to find the evidence. For the impeachment. That must be. It im sure that all of that evidence is that any moment now. Im sure goalpost will not be shifted again. Molly, this week, lets pivot again. A lot to discuss. This week, new jersey senator, bob menendez, democrat, was indicted on bribery charges. Some astonishing charges, including photos in the indictment of gold bars and cash stuffed in his jacket. Charges he denies. So far, the only member of the Upper Chamber to call on him to resign from the senate has been john fetterman. Rather striking when you consider that 30 plus Democratic Senate crap democrats called out for a scandal that wasnt criminal. How does dick durbin speak earlier today, emily . A person who is accusing titled to the Pursuit Mission of innocence. Responsibility of the governor to prove that case. In terms of resignation, thats a decision by Senator Menendez and the people of new jersey. I feel like, once again, molly, just a dereliction of duty from top Senate Democrats. John fettermans right away saying that he should resign. But he should resign. I think there has been a call from a lot of new jersey democrats, including congressman andy kim who is going to primary menendez. I think democrats largely look the [inaudible] i dont think doing the right thing yet. I mean not just a leadership, molly. Lets not be polite here. There are 51 Senate Democrats. One has come out to call for resignation. Even people like e