Government and the 2020 race for president gets under way amid a Global Climate in crisis. How dare you. When all in starts right now. I want nothing. Good evening from new york. Im chris hayes. Its been quite a year in u. S. Politics, a one that began which saw three close allies of the president sent to prison and now ending with an historic impeachment. We also saw the rise of young activists focused on climate, gun safety, the arrival of a diverse and historic class of democrats, and by the way one of the most uncertain democratic president ial primaries in a generation at least. Weve got a lot to cover in the next hour. We begin tonight with the investigations into the president and his allies which could fill a whole show or week of shows by themselves. It was only this year saw the release of the Mueller Report, prison sentences for michael cohen, Paul Manafort and roger stone and most recently a criminal probe into trump lawyer rudy giuliani. Not to mention the impeachment of an american president. Joining me now to discuss maya wylie, an msnbc legal analyst. Offered the forthcoming book break them up and philip bump, National Correspondent for the washington post. I want to just start with the people in the president s orbit just who have pleaded to or gone to prison because of felonies. And i came up in chicago politics and this patterns very familiar if youre around corrupt machines. First a donor gets nicked and then maybe they turn or they dont and then the chief of staff and then before you know it, the people around the corrupt politician are all pleading or going to jail and then the politician goes down. And ive seen this play out numerous times with the corrupt. And its amazing how just the basic fact of how many people are in the president s inner orb bit in prison doesnt really scan. This is crew he assembled himself. This is not a bunch of people who were working together and some corruption filtered out through them as they worked there. He picked them all. And part of the reason he picked them all, people should remember, in 2016 the republican establishment was saying no thanks to donald trump. So he was sort of left picking up odds and ends where he could. This is what he got. Now i think some of that is coming home to roost. Because he was pushed out by the Republican Party, he ends up with people who lead down this path. I think he ends up with people who are going to walk the path with him. Thats right. I mean, this is him m. O. I mean, i agree with you certainly on how who he assembled and how and we know that Paul Manafort worked very hard to work for free for him. Right. In order to advance his own economic interests. But this is the way donald trump operates. And its the way hes always operated. And we also know one of the things thats different is he was dangling pardons to people. Yep. As they were being implicated and in danger of indictment, and that is not something we typically see out in the light of day when politicians, friends and relations are being implicated in crime. Thats a great point. And we also know from rick gates, one of his court filings, there was an offering of monetary compensation from a joint defense fund. We think a violation of the law. Sort of a very gray area. But these patterns are not unfamiliar patterns to people who have studied corruption and crime in politics. No, i was really glad that you brought up chicago or look at oligarchic systems throughout the world. Because sometimes i think we look at this and say, oh, hes so original. Right. Actually its actually really banal. Yes. This is, like, corruption 101. Selfdealing. Surrounding yourself with people who will carry water. Lying. Confusion. Confusion is definitely a friend of corrupt regimes. What is different is that, first of all, we dont have a federal government investigating statelevel corruption. Yep. We instead have a president and the tools that we have to deal with a president who is as corrupt as these other regimes are really different and were still finding our way with these tools. This is such an important point because, again, to go back to this context. Again, this was a very formative experience for me, it was sort of my first years reporting when george ryan went to prison in illinois, he was the governor, right . What ends up happening in those situations is the feds come in, right . What ends up happening is there is this sort of other authority there that has a kind of, like, professional incentive, right . If you nab a corrupt politician youre doing a good job as a federal prosecutor. They have they come in. Theyre the ones that clean it up. Its not like the local prosecutors are cleaning it up. Theyre too imbedded in the system. Thats precisely what the federal prosecutors are there for. We dont have that situation here. Not only do we not have that, but i think one of the formative figures of this year once history looks back at it is attorney general william barr. Great point. And all the things william barr has done to shield President Trump through the Mueller Report, to shield President Trump through the release of the Inspector Generals report which looked at what the fbi had done in 2016. All these ways barr sort of opted as the opposite of intent of a federal agent. Thats right. Which i think is going to be very, very significant. We have to accept were so used to the federal government coming in and saving that weve kept looking for versions of that. Yes. In mueller. In the impeachment investigation. Which i strongly support. But instead, we have to understand that actually the tables are turned and we should be looking to states, and actually, i think the press is a little complicit in this. Thats interesting. The press should be asking questions about state a. G. S and what they are doing about local d. A. S. We shouldnt wait until mueller comes out to say, hey, the d. A. In manhattan, cy vance, are you doing your investigation . Thats going to go for the Supreme Court next year. One of the things were seeing is many states have been starting investigations and they were starting them in the context of the mueller probe. We know that the attorney general for new york had been cooperating with mueller in his probe and they were certainly sharing information or at least its suggested that they were. But i dont think theres any question. I mean, weve seen already what the new York State Attorney general has done with regard to trumps corruption with his charity that he used as a personal political piggybank. Right. And he has now had to fork over a substantial fine. Hes had to close the charity. And he cant open another one. And by the way, his children served on the board. So this is another instance in which also the familys implicated. But this is the president who brought litigation saying that there could be no criminal investigation of a sitting president. Yes. That is an astounding, astounding assertion. And to your point, right, that is a those are both thats a state a. G. Who ha closed down the foundation. Its a manhattan d. A. Who is going to be for the Supreme Court. I think also part of what happens here, right, and this is a point not a novel point, the sum total of news and scandal adds up. Were doing this yearend show. People play this game all the time and it can be lame but im going to do it anyway. If a woman wrote a firstperson essay in a prominent magazine in the third year of obamas tenure saying that barack obama had raped her in a dressing room, that would be the only news story for that year. The only one. I think its fair to say. It certainly would be a yearend review show. That happened with donald trump this year. E. Jean carol writing first person on the record. Not that it matters for her credibility saying that donald trump raped her in the dressing room of Bergdorf Goodman and it just we covered it on the show for a bit and it gets thrown into this, like, maelstrom throw it on the pile of Donald Trumps scandals. Yeah, i mean, thats absolutely true. And i cant argue with that. I think one of the things that i heard someone point out, and i wish i could remember who, but there doesnt exist on the left the same sort of churning machinery to keep these things elevated and to probe and dig. Though nonsense on top of it. It just didnt exist. All these things do fade out on the right. Look what happened with the fbi probe. The right has been chewing on Text Messages for more than two years. Thats a great point. That simply doesnt exist on the left. And i think thats part of the reason why these things tend to pass quickly. Well, we also, unfortunately, have a country that voted where some people, not 3 million more voted for hillary clinton, we know. But a lot of people voted for donald trump despite the fact yes. That he had a public tape, audio showing him talking about sexually assaulting women. And, you know, thats remember, thats when all the republicans started backing thats right. The Lindsey Grahams were like not my candidate because everyone thought that was the line you couldnt cross, except he crossed it and that is atownin astounding. Yeah, the scope of what trump has done both personally and using his power of the presidency yes. And the extreme cruelty and inhumanity of it can be very overwhelming. Well, and it also starts to feel like, you know, its like the old saying about, you know, dog bites man is not news. Man bites dog is news. If the man keeps biting the dog that ceases to be news, too. The whole point of man bites dog it makes news because it is unexpected and novel. At certain point, woman accuses president of sexual assault, isnt almost an impoempirical s. 19 women. Lots more to discuss, including the man who puts his fealty to donald trump above his duty to the nation as attorney general, wibblliam barr, as phillip mentioned and the year in trump corruption right after this. Ion right after this complaining about the russia investigation last year donald trump reportedly lamented the fact that he did not have an attorney general who would protect him above all else. Asking top officials, quote, wheres my roy cohn. This year he got his wish. Bill barr was sworn in as attorney general and quickly became clear he was there to protect the president no matter the cost. Undercut his own departments Inspector General. When the i. G. Debunked a trump Conspiracy Theory and generally behaved far more like the president s personal lawyer than the nations top Law Enforcement officer. Phillip, you mentioned this in the last segment. It, to me, is one of the most cops constituental things that happened this year and one of the most worrying, deeply and profoundly, which is the person who is the head of the nations Law Enforcement apparatus is just not trustable as any kind of independent arbiter of good faith. Oh, yeah, he earned an impeachment inquiry. I mean straight up. Thats highly unusual in our system, although technically it applies to civil officers. You dont typically have a situation where a cabinet member seems like they should be investigated for purposes of impeachment. But between all the things you listed, and im just going back to that whistleblower complaint, right . So shocking to have an independent Inspector General appointed by trump, by the way, doing that persons job and saying credible evidence and this is urgent, and its under the banner of national security. And for barr to be somehow engaged and then the incredible finding that congress should not see the complaint yes. Even though theres no theres no confidential information it, by the way. Which is a finding the department of justice helped find. And that on top of his spinning of the Mueller Report itself, which was deeply troubling, then getting on an airplane and flying around the globe to uncover dirt for the president s reelection as attorney general. Yeah. Shocking. And then in the ukraine example, remember, that if donald trump had a legitimate concern about corruption going through the channels of Law Enforcement and letting the fbi do its independent apolitical job would have been the right yep. Tool. Thats not anything that william barr has done. And lets just add because i cant let this show go by without adding it. His statement to the Federalist Society about policing. Gentleman. Yeah. And that people may not get Police Protection if they complain about Police Misconduct is unacceptable. Law enforcement honor prize where he gave that speech. Barr has long been a very troubling more than troubling, an awful authoritarian, proincarceration figure, but what he has done now is so beyond the pale that i agree that we need impeachment investigation, and i Hope Congress investigates him. But also a real rethinking of the structure of power in the a. G. s office. I mean, remember 2006 when george bush yes. Fired six u. S. Attorneys . And i remember this moment because it was actually so cheering how everybody was outraged. Yep. Totally outraged. Like you cant do that. You absolutely cannot politicize this. So i actually think that, unfortunately, this is an area where the norm has so profoundly been broken that we have to look towards 2021 and look toward the future and say we cant allow this kind of abuse to happen again because it so undermines the rule of law in this country. You know, thats a great point about sort of the role that Public Opinion plays in sort of enforcing some of this. Thats gone because i think 40 of the country will go along with whatever the president did. There is one exception this year that was really important. The president attempted in broad daylight to award himself an enormous multimillion dollar government contract. You said before that corruption is banal. This is the most banal corruption in the universe. It happens all over the place all the time. Awarding yourself or your family or cronies a government contract is the lifeblood around the world and throughout the ages. I love Mick Mulvaney coming out to announce this with the pretense it had been an exhaustive search process and they looked everywhere, but the only place it would work is south florida in the middle of the summer. Take a listen. And it became apparent at the end of that process that dural was by far and away, far and away the best physical facility for this meeting. In fact, i was talking to one of the advance teams when they came back and said, what was it like . Mick, youre not going to believe this, but its almost like they built this facility to host this type of event. Yeah. I mean, look, the remarkable thing about that moment, of course, is that Mick Mulvaney came out to make that announcement about dural and ended up confirming that there was quid pro quo. That was the same day. Literally the same press conference. Yeah, i mean, im very curious. There was an immediate and sharp reaction to the announcement about dural. It very quickly got wound back down. I am curious if it had happened outside the context of ukraine, would the response have been the same . Im skeptical it would have. Part of the reporting is that members of congress on the house and senate were like, we dont need this right now. Youre about to get impeached. Are you out of your mind . There are these things called procurement laws. We can criminally violate them and we have a president who apparently doesnt think he has to Pay Attention to any laws, criminal or otherwise. He has always used his office in the three years hes been there to advance his business interests. Its call corruption and he does it all the time out in plain view. There have been over 2,000 instances of trump enriching himself, and there has been pushback at occasional moments. And i think what we should learn from that, one, is to never stop speaking to the public about how corrupt this president is. We cannot give up on that. And second, its not going to work every time. Right. Hes stuffing his pockets. This was so bald faced. And i just love the Mick Mulvaney, like, just the that they that it was so bald faced but they also had to, like, have this theatrical, we looked high and low and east and west, well, the president s property is where we should do it. Thank you all so much for being here. That was great. Once begun, this year has been one of the worst on record for the climate. Activist and actress jane fonda joins me to talk about the worldwide effort to change that. Next. Next this is something i find myself saying at the end of every year, but sadly it is true once again. 2019 was one of the worst years for the climate on record. Carbon emissions are up globally. The paris targets are being mixed and the world is sliding toward catastrophic warming. The one source of good news is the vibrancy of the Global Climate movement which is also setting its own records and which shifted the political conversation around the world. Here in the u. S. Climate protesters have taken to direct action on the capitol every friday this fall and winter. The woman who started this ritual called fire drill fridays is the legendary actress and activist jane fonda and she joins me now no pla. Nice to have you here. Good to be here. Can you tell me the origins of this action . It was over Labor Day Weekend and i read naomi kleins new book that included descriptions of gretta thua thunberg and new information about what she was saying. Greta being on the spectrum and saying nobody behaving like they should in a crisis. Our house is on fire, come on, folks. Get out of your comfort zones. So i called up the head of green peace usa, andy leonard, im going to move to d. C. For a year. I thought ted at netflix would give me a years hiatus. Turns out i only had four months. I thought i was going to camp out in front of the white house. Discovered that was not legal. So with the advice of annie and bill mcgibbon of 350. Org and naomi klein, we decided every