0 this giant, giant miami studio with some really hardworking technicians who probably want to go home. and, of course, i must thank bailey bolden, are fabulous hair and makeup artist, i assure you i do not wake up looking like this. and i'd also like to thank our the 11th hour regulars, your reporting, your knowledge, your perspective, make us better and smarter every single night. i want to thank you for your passion, your commitment and your friendship. and of course i am not going to sign off until i think every single one of you at home. our viewers. every day when we put the show together, we think of you. we think about what you want, what you need. you're an important part of the show. so, i wish absolutely all of you a very happy valentine's day to the 11th hour family. i am sending you all of my love, tonight. and on that note, i wish you all a very good night. from all of our colleagues across the networks of nbc news, thanks for staying up late with me. i'll see you at the end of the month. month. >> tonight on all in -- >> there are hundreds of train derailments. who is paying attention to the the stuff and trying to prevent it? >> the republican grievance machine wraps up over ohio. >> for the last couple of, years i have been warning about this crusade against white people. >> tonight, why you should not be surprised that america cannot solve nasa structure problems, but one of his major parties will not offer solutions and then, mike pence clams up to protect his imaginary presidential hopes, as another trump cabinet member makes it official. jamelle -- and five years after the nightmare in parkland, the mass murder generation suffers another senseless massacre in michigan. all in starts right now. good evening from new york, i'm chris hayes. when a party wins a new majority in congress, generally, what they want to do is hit the ground running. so far, republicans have not done that. after an interminable series of votes, is lurking back, they did finally elect kevin mccarthy speaker of the house, and earlier this month, credit where it is the, they did manage to kick congresswoman ilhan omar of the foreign affairs committee for reasons that there are not fully for right on. or from the, on issues of actual substance, they had nothing to show for the majority. as the new york times put it, somewhat diplomatically, six weeks into their majority, republican leaders have found themselves paralyzed on some of the biggest issues they promised to address as they pressed to win control of the house last year. quite simply, you might say that republicans are in disarray, and it really should not be this hard. this is governing on easy mode because republicans only controlled the house while democrats control the senate and why else. they don't even need to worry about passing something that can become law. it is literally all just messaging bills, and they somehow can't even do that right. at the running an interim campaign on inflation, gas prices and crime, they have done nothing to even symbolically address those issues. instead, they've turned congress into the legislative branch of fox news, holding these hearings about why their twitter accounts were banned or promising to investigate why a tv provider dropped news max. yes, you can chalk a lot of this up to the personality issue, the kind of people who excel in moderate republican politics, the fractiousness, calling the shots in a narrow majority. but that does not explain it. all i actually think there is something much deeper a plea. i have a theory here, and an illustration of that theory in action is on display right now in the reaction to the train derailment disaster and ohio. as you likely heard, as many covered in the program last night, a train carrying chemicals including the toxic chemical gas -- derailed near the ohio pennsylvania border earlier this month. that, in turn, started a fire and they had to do a controlled release of those chemicals, which blanketed the town of east palestine ohio in smoke. there are, as of today and continuing, really significant concerns about the accident leaving behind a lasting environmental disaster. many residents of the town of east palestine are complaining of health issues and understandably, fearful about returning to their homes. >> some living in the area still smelling strong chemical owners. now they're worried about the transparency about toxins looking in the local creeks and atmosphere and can potentially impact the area, and the epa says that the water supply is safe. residents are worried that homes with water may be at risk. residents say they want long term testing with the results publicly posted. >> the journalist of the new york republic interview people around, including a woman that -- for entering her to contaminated home. quote, after leaving, her eyes burned and etched, heard there was sort, and she had a rash, her husband and put her sisters had migraines. josie simpson, a lives near the site of the roman, as separate from a sore throat while her eight month old baby's suffered respiratory issues. after enormous public pressure, norfolk southern, the rail company that operated the train that derailed, announced a new round of financial assistance to benefit the impacted community today, but is pretty clear that a lot more needs to be done to the people of east palestine. this is where we come to the fundamental failure of the republican party right now. because republicans have had a lot to say on the incident. they've been talking about a lot, mostly trying to score political points at the expense of the biden administration. marjorie taylor greene, current leader of the republican party, voted to -- went on a somewhat bizarre twitter rant where she seemed to blame pot adult riddles for corrupting institutions. ohio republican senator j. d. vance, fresh on the job, blamed the bipartisan infrastructure bill for not magically solving the problem of the train derailment overnight. >> we've had hundreds of train derailments after we spent over a trillion dollars on infrastructure in this country. the fact that this is not getting obviously better is a major indictment of the people spending the money, and what they're spending the money on. >> that bill passed in november of 2021, the appropriation for the money, has not been spent, right? we have not been able to fix an entire nation's crumbling infrastructure. it's not clear that this was infrastructure going wrong to begin with. a number of republicans have also come forward to blame biden's high-profile transportation secretary pete buttigieg, including florida congressman byron donald. >> i don't even know why we take the buttigieg seriously at this point. this man, the only reason he's in his job is because of his intersectionality. let's be honest about the situation. he does not know what he's doing. he's a terrible transportation secretary. look, when the supply chains were being involved, nobody even knew he was there. >> he was on paternity leave when that happened, because his child was born. to be clear, donald is accusing buttigieg of only getting's job because he's gay, a gross smear. one podcaster took things a step further. buttigieg is out talking about how workers are two white for the last couple of years, i have been warning about this crusade against what people. people shrug their shoulders and say, oh charlie, why does that matter? i can tell you why it matters when there is a crisis now and the leaders hate working class whites, they're not going to scramble to save your life, they will lie to you and tell you to go back home while you are poisoned. >> by and tell you to go back home while your poisoned, sure, that's never happened to black people in this country before, yeah, let me check on the history, no, definitely never happened. okay, i am cherry-picking, particularly ludicrous examples, but there is a real thing that happened, right? a very real thing. real people, real impacted by a real disaster, tangible thing. whenever there is a problem or crisis, folks on the right got some one or some group that is not that you and maybe is the openly gay secretary transportation or fictional woke elites conspiring against white people, and i get it, republicans think that this is a very sound rhetorical political strategy, and i get why they are worked up about the issue. east palestine, a very white, rural working class place, the kind of town that donald trump and fox news tells you has been forgotten about from woke elites. when they say that it's been left behind, it's not entirely wrong. there is a nugget of truth there. it's also true that people to judge a secretary of transportation, that he is not the guy to take charge of regulatory railroads and legitimate criticisms about his job apartments, outside of his identity, is fair game. when you're in the administration or presidency, this is the stuff you had to answer for. there is a major train dormant on your watch, okay, so far, so good. there is a real problem, pete buttigieg is really the transportation secretary, but here is where all of the sudden, it ends. republicans can complain all day long, but what do you want to do? what do you want to do? they can't really offer any solutions because in the end, this is a classic story about corporate interest in regulation. we corporations like the rebel companies north of -- and the chemical companies, whose chemicals they transport, have every monetary incentive under shareholder capital woods to keep regulation light so they're cost a low and then if something goes bad, they can externalize the cost of disasters like this, right? the government, in turn, has a responsibility to push regulation, anyway, to prevent the burden of disasters like this falling on regular folks like those in a town of east palestine. for the bulls like myself, this is all pretty clear story. the solutions here are pretty clear. you should probably have better regulation. and stronger worker power. here's one example, right? for instance, there was an obama era train rules for cars carrying materials -- that was eliminated under donald trump, although it was eliminated with a assist under a small provision passed by congress and signed by obama. but the train lobby lobbied for and watered down the legislation. in this case, it was not the break-in, we think, there was a fire for the train derailed, but again, that's the kind of credential safety regulation you want to look like. okay, maybe we have to update safety regulatory standards on train cars like this. you can also make polluters pay for the cleanup cost, disasters caused by their products and services -- again, these are just too straightforward answers, policy answers, that will make people lives tend to be better or address the problem, but here is the, don't contemporary conservatives and the republican party can't offer those types of solutions. can they say, you know what, we need to regulate the railroad companies? no, are they going to say that? let's take it to the greedy companies, they can't do that, that's what lips want to do. conservatives are not ideologically disposed of those kinds of embers. more importantly, the entire superstructure of republican politics, including their donors, will not let them do it. no matter how much the service they pay to regular, working folks on their various podcasts, the party is fundamentally, fundamentally, when the chips are down, when it's trying to hit the road and govern, they're holding to the rich and corporate interest. there are conservatives watching this right now, who will see this clip and pray with me. i promise you. here is example under one, kevin mccarthy, the new speaker at the house. the top republican in the country, essentially letting his buddy, jeff miller, who is like a top corporate lobbyist basically help run the party. the guy was like running the war room behind a speaker vote. again, this is not a question of frederick. it's not a question of some parts and all that stuff. politics is about interest and power and who the government helps and hurts and what it does. so what the republicans really care about? there is a record here. what did they do when they have power? well, they had a trifecta, they had the white house and the house and senate, and they tried to repeal obamacare, which by the way, would have absolutely screwed over white working class voters. even tucker carlson, the fake populist, frozen food air, hold trump out for it. >> this bill has as one of its center pieces, a tax cuts for investors who primarily benefit people making over $250,000 a year, already done pretty well over the past ten years, as you know. a bloomberg and houses shows that counties that voted for you, middle class and working class counties, would do far less well under this bill dandy counties, the affluent counties. it seems like this is inconsistent with the message for the last election. >> a lot of things are inconsistent. >> perfect, perfect. we ran on and was grew over the globalists and help the local elites, but now you pass a tax cut for the rich and growing over the u in the, i don't get it. yeah, you just put your finger on the contradiction at the heart of a. all obama care repeal failed, so republicans moved on to plan b. again, what do you want to do with power? and it was the biggest tax cut since ronald reagan. they slashed a decor protects right, that is what they want to do. that was about it. that was the extent of the governing agenda. that's the problem with the modern republican party. who they are, who they claimed to are fundamentally us. because it is true, their base increasingly is rural, working class voters. folks who have real material needs, like the people of east palestine who cannot get to their home, they need to be met. but all they can offer them's culture war nonsense. the problem is that you're transportation secretary is gay, because their corporate maskers won't let them do anything to take on the big corporations or help workers or organized labor, and so what you get, you get a lot of tweets. you've got a page on the house republican website advertising all their members various podcasts. you can listen to all their pockets. look at that, they all got caucus, good for them. on those podcasts, they ruled against the liberal elites, but what you do not get is any, any real solutions for actual real working people. david pepper such as the chairman of the high ohio democratic party from 2020 to 2021. "laboratories of autocracy", a wake up call from behind the lines, the author of, he joins me now. first of all, i want to start with, we have seen some of the national coverage, but i am curious, what is going on in ohio and how this is playing out locally with governor dewine, the republican governor, who is very powerful and has near majority in the state legislator. >> until the day that there has not been enough information and that has been a problem. it's been that silence that's left a lot of questions out there, a lot of stories and photos, stories like the one you described from the scene. governor dewine, who is caught, it did have a press conference, counter to what j. d. vance said, governor dewine said he spoke to president biden a few days ago, and they were working together on the investigation. the epa is working together. dewine himself asked about the j. d. vance comments basically rebutted them live, but there is a lot of concern. the wine himself told the people of east palestine to use bottled water, not only if they have private walls but they are still in the city system. there is still a lot of concern, and my hope and advice to everyone but the federal and say is that the most transparency, the better. especially in a moment that you just described, work there is so much distrust. i think more transparency, the better, so that if the toll that things are getting better, they see enough that they believe amid all the crazy political stuff, you just described. >> let me play that moment. governor dewine, who had a press conference today, was asked about j. d. vance, said the biden administration was slow walking this. there has not been and asked him urgency decoration, so the president cannot make one less the governor ask. here is the response. >> senator vance has been critical of the biden administration, even democrats have been critical of the biden administration response. are you satisfied with the biden administration response? >> the president called me and said, i have not called him back after that conversation. i hesitate to do that. if we foresee a problem or anything, but i am not seeing it. >> okay, there is a stock analysts who looked at this and said, this looks back for norfolk southern, but they will be fine. they are probably going to have to pay this, this bank of america analysts, pay 40 to $50 million in a casualty charge. but in 2022, they generated almost 13 billion in revenue and three billion in profits. it's a drop in the bucket, 1. 7% of its profits. my question for you is, knowing the ohio gop as well as you do, do you think that the ohio gop is going to get tough on norfolk southern, like are they going to be the ones that aunt up safety or regulation? can we expect that from those folks? >> i mean, i wish the answer was yes, but we have a state like many word the state house is truly not run by the big interest. half the ohio press course today is not enough for the accident is. insisting that, he is looking over the biggest barber scandal in history, the state allegedly called first energy because another big corporation basically bought the state house. this is a case where i think if we will get better protections, it will come from the federal level. to your question earlier in the monologue about what do we do? i would recommend about what we do with joe biden in the state of the union. it just events and others say no one's doing anything, law, i say, let's pass a law that adds electronic breaks through the rails, that includes vinyl chloride as part of the high hazard chemicals. called their bluff, and then we can see if they made it or if they don't made it. the same way that joe biden did in the state of the union round security. i hope some of the regulations -- by the way, mike dewine also said that today, he thought it was troubling that this is not considered a high hazardous train, even vinyl chloride and other chemicals. in washington, let's solve the, call to question, and then we can see what they actually do about it. i don't think they will vote for it, like you said. at least call it out, take advantage of the opening they are leaving. >> yeah, 21st century real safety act. let's bring out some stuff on that and see if we can actually -- we can get people to pause their pockets and come vote on something. david pepper, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> up next, three candidates pulling in single digits plus a newly nicknamed meatball run, it's no short trump, but it's something. the 2024 challenger starting lineup after this. er this. before dexcom g6, my diabetes was out of control. i was tired. not having the energy to do the things that i wanted to do. before dexcom g6, i was frustrated. all of that finger-pricking and all of that pain, my a1c was still stuck. there is a better way to manage diabetes. the dexcom g6 continuous glucose monitoring system eliminates painful fingersticks, helps lower a1c, and it's covered by medicare. before dexcom g6, i couldn't enjoy a single meal. i was always trying to out-guess my glucose and it was awful. 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