Transcripts For MSNBCW The Last Word With Lawrence ODonnell

Now, and when you come back okay . Come on. I might go get a beer. Ill see you in a minute. Fair. Thank you, rachel. See you soon. Rachel is going to join us to discuss her book later in this hour. Laurie garrett will also be joining us after rachel tonight to report the latest developments on the Coronavirus Vaccine and what it means to you. And well be joined once again tonight by Rebekah Jones, who appeared on this program in june after she was fired from her job in the Florida Health department for trying to tell the truth about what the coronavirus was doing to the people of florida. Yesterday morning, her home was raided by Florida State police with guns drawn. Guns drawn. Guns that Rebekah Jones says were aimed at her children. Because Florida State police were investigating a possible crime that might have been committed using a computer that they suspected might be in Rebekah Jones home. It was horrifically bad police work. And well tell you why when Rebekah Jones joins us at the end of the hour and gets tonights last word. Well, today the United States Supreme Court crushed donald trump, and i mean crushed him. Unanimously. All three of the trumpappointed justices joined their six colleagues to deliver donald trump the most legally insulting possible response to a trump lawsuit brought to the Supreme Court that itself was an insult to the intelligence of every member of the court. When donald trump was desperately rushing to fill Ruth Bader Ginsburgs seat on the court, he said then that he needed that ninth justice in order to rule in his favor in election cases so that he could hold onto the presidency. We need nine justices. You need that. With the unsolicited millions of ballots that theyre sending, its a scam, its a hoax, Everybody Knows that, and the democrats know it better than anybody else, so youll need nine justices up there. Youre going to need nine justices up there, meaning he was going to need nine justices up there to outlaw millions of mailin ballots. Thats what he was saying he was going to ask them to do and he did. Thats donald trump saying, i know im going to lose the election with voters, but once i bring a case to the United States Supreme Court to throw out millions of mailin ballots, thats how ill win my second term as president of the United States. Donald trump planned to do that, donald trump thought it was in the bag. Because he put three of those justices on the Supreme Court. Today the United States Supreme Court refused to even consider, even hear or consider a case brought to invalidate millions of mailin ballots in pennsylvania. Donald trump was expecting his United States Supreme Court to issue an historic opinion invalidating pennsylvanias mailin ballots and instead instead he got this. This piece of paper. Im not sure if the light can show you this correctly, but its this tiny little piece of print here. Thats the whole thing. This is the Supreme Courts way of saying, you are out of your mind. It is an order from the Supreme Court. It does not have any justices names attached as the authors of the order, which means it is a unanimous order of the United States Supreme Court. And it simply says the request to hear the case by the Supreme Court is denied. They dont even bother to give a reason for the denial because the case itself is so preposterous, so insulting to them, that anyone would try to bring such a case to the Supreme Court, denied. Two hours before the Supreme Court issued that denial to hear Donald Trumps case about pennsylvania ballots, donald trump publicly called on the Supreme Court to save him. Lets see whether or not somebody has the courage, whether its a legislator or legislatures, or a justice of the Supreme Court, or a number of justices of the Supreme Court. Lets see if they can do what everybody in this country knows is right. Yes, it was a number of the justices of the Supreme Court. It was all of them. And it turns out the Supreme Court did have the courage to do what everybody in the country knows is right. In fact, it didnt take any courage at all, it was simply following the most elementary legal principles, which donald trump knows nothing about. Donald trump stood at the microphone today, and with the words you just heard him say, he insulted the United States Supreme Court by publicly asking the justices to corrupt themselves for him, and then they insulted him right back by doing the right thing and doing it in one sentence. And this insult exchange between donald trump and the Supreme Court, including the Supreme Court justices who donald trump thinks he owns, occurred on safe harbor day. Happy safe harbor day. Its not a day we usually notice, but it is a date set in 19th century federal law that says that all states that have certified their Election Results six days before the Electoral College meets cannot have those Election Results overturned by congress when the Electoral College presents its results to congress in january. In other words, joe bidens election as president today officially entered the safe harbor of federal law where it has become absolutely impossible legally to undo joe bidens Electoral College victory. Now, that has actually been impossible all along since joe biden was declared the winner by nbc news and other news organizations on november 7th, but the safe harbor just makes the impossible all the more impossible. The lawyer who was leading the charge in Donald Trumps frivolous lawsuit attacks on the election spent safe harbor day in the hospital being treated for covid19. Perhaps in his hospital bed, someone read to Rudy Giuliani the one sentence, unanimous order by the United States Supreme Court, not just denying Rudy Giulianis claims, but in the courts circumspect way, essentially calling everything Rudy Giuliani has been up to utterly insane. A group of lawyers and law professors which includes law professor lawrence tribe are asking bar associations to discipline Rudy Giuliani and other lawyers for making provably false claims in and out of courtrooms about the election. And on this safe harbor day, the people who will be president and Vice President of the United States of america in just 43 days formally announced the leaders of their administrations Team Fighting the coronavirus, including californias attorney general xavier becerra, director of health and human services, and dr. Anthony fauci continuing in his role. And also serving as president elect bidens chief medical officer. While donald trump was asking the Supreme Court to corrupt themselves today, Vice President elect Kamala Harris said this. Over thanksgiving, we called front line workers who are on the lines of this pandemic just to thank them. We wanted to express our gratitude and our nations gratitude for everything they have been doing, for every sacrifice they have made. That day i spoke with two registered nurses, maureen in pennsylvania and talisa in illinois. They shared stories that weve all heard. Weve all heard the stories about grandmothers and grandfathers, loved ones and friends spending their last moments alone. Weve all heard about nurses and physicians who are physically and mentally exhausted, trying to keep up with everincreasing case loads. Those on the front line who say to each other its not a matter of when its a matter not of when but when they will get the virus. So its a matter of when and not if theyll get the virus. This is what they are saying to each other every day. Weve all heard about Health Care Workers without the supplies and equipment they need to care for patients and save lives. So today we have a message for talisa, maureen, and all americans. Help is on the way. President elect joe biden reminded millions of people in America Today that the other thing donald trump wants the United States Supreme Court to do is to take their health care away. Were in the midst of this deadly pandemic that has infected almost 15 million americans. 1 out of every 22 people in our country, often with devastating consequences of health. At this very moment, what is the Outgoing Administration asking the Supreme Court to do in the United States Supreme Court . To repeal the entirety of the Affordable Care act when we need it most. A law thats on the front lines against the pandemic. It protects more than 100 million americans who live with preexisting conditions, which will increase now including those with lung scarring and consequences from covid19. It provides coverage for more than 20 million americans who get the care they need if theyre showing symptoms of covid19. The law that fulfills our moral obligation here in america, health care is a right for all, not a privilege for a few. As all of you know, i know that out of our collective pain, were going to find collective purpose to control the pandemic, to save lives, and to heal as a nation. Leading off our discussion tonight, White House Correspondent for the pbs news hour and msnbc political analyst, yamiche alcindor, and joyce vance, former u. S. Attorney for alabama and professor at the Alabama School of law. She is an msnbc contributor. Yamiche, let me start with you. We heard Vice President elect harris talk about she and joe biden calling front line workers heroes on thanksgiving day. And we have reports that what donald trump has been doing, spending his time probably on thanksgiving day also, is thinking about how big his pardon list should be. The contrast between these administrations is starker than anything weve ever seen before between two, an outgoing and incoming administration, but just the concept of the Vice President elect, the president elect are spending their thanksgiving day that way, and the force that that actually gives to that statement that she made when she said, help is on the way. That is underscoring the message of the Biden Harris Transition Team with president elect biden making the case that americans just need to hang on a little bit longer for him to get into office. That was what he told me when i said, what would you say to americans, especially immigrant americans, who are worried about america, worried about democracy . He said, hang in, im on my way. I will say today was a big contrast on the split screen where you had joe biden rolling out his health care picks, talking about the fact that this needs to be a collective effort by americans to wear masks, to social distance, to fight this virus like a patriotic duty. Then you have the president trying to take credit for the vaccine development, trying to take credit and basically wanting to be praised that hes going to get some doses, knowing that his Administration Reportedly passed on millions of doses. Also when he was questioned about why the biden Transmission Team wasnt invited to this vaccine summit, because obviously joe biden is going to be the one tasked with distributing the vast majority of these vaccines. The president , President Trump, said, well, we dont know which administration is going to be in office next year. What we do know, of course, is that joe biden is going to go into office. So while joe biden was pledging to be straight with the american people, he said, im going to always tell you the truth. President trump was once again lying to the american people, making the case that the election is not decided when, of course, it has been decided. And joyce, we know who the president is going to be in 43 days. Donald trump clearly knows it. But he got a very clear message from the United States Supreme Court today that getting that ninth justice in there before the election so that she could rule in his favor in election cases is not exactly the way it worked out in the Supreme Court today. It was a succinct message that the Supreme Court delivered. This is a permissive appeal. The court is not required to hear it, and they clearly told the president and his allies that they were not interested in pursuing these appeals. We know the reasons for that. They come too late. Substantively theyre deficient, theyre not making any arguments that are valid. But i think it was nice for americans who have had reason to doubt the court over the last four years to actually see the court stand up for the rule of law when everything was on the line. This is a reaffirmation to all of us in many ways that our institutions that have been stress tested over the last four years will weather that storm, that we have work to do, but as Vice President elect harris said, help is on the way at this point. Yamiche, axios has expected a kind of pardon festival that ive been expecting from trump for years. They said, trump isnt just accepting pardon requests but blindly discussing them like Christmas Gifts to people who havent even asked, sources with direct knowledge of the conversations told axios. One source felt awkward because the president was clearly trying to be helpful but the adviser didnt believe they had committed any crimes. This is possibly Donald Trumps way of trying to say to the american people, look, the democrats are just going to attack everyone here. All these people, so i have to issue 300 pardons, and in his mind, maybe, the ivanka pardon and the donald junior pardon and the donald trump pardon of himself will be in some sense shielded or clouded by maybe a couple of hundred more pardons. There are two ways to look at this. The first is the way the critics of the president are looking at it, and that is, of course, President Trump acting like hes guilty of something, and acting like the people around him have been involved in some sort of conspiracy, whether its financial, whether its political. Hes trying to preemptively protect people who may have done something wrong. Ive been talking to Michael Cohen who points out that the president is an unindicted coconspirator. Of course, there are supporters of the president who say hell be the target of some sort of witch hunt, some sort of hoax investigation that is going to hurt him, but the president has been saying all those things when, in fact, the things hes been calling hoaxes have been very, very real. So in some ways its almost the president s guilty conscience starting to play out in public. Joyce vance, before we go, let me get your reaction to nbc news reporting tonight that outgoing alabama senator doug jones is at the top of the list in the biden shortlist of possible attorney general for the post of attorney general in the biden administration. Well, the reporting tells us that president elect biden has had no shortage of talented people to consider for the attorney general role. Doug jones, who i worked for when he was the u. S. Attorney in the Northern District of alabama during the clinton administration, is very talented. He obviously has experience as a u. S. Attorney, but he was also a line prosecutor for many years and worked as a defense lawyer. So he has that 360degree worldview that we need from an attorney general. He also is relatively unique and maybe poised for the moment where criminal Justice Reform is important because he commands respect from both Law Enforcement and the civil rights c