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All In with Chris Hayes - Season Episode 78
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00:04Good evening from New York. I'm Chris Hayes. Thank you for joining us tonight for this special
00:07two-hour edition of All In. As this Memorial Day weekend comes to a close, we are now entering
00:12the homestretch of the midterm primaries, which means we are almost there, almost at the point
00:19where we know exactly what the playing field is going to look like into those November elections.
00:23Now, a huge missing piece of the puzzle is going to be filled in Texas tomorrow, one of the most
00:27watch races in the entire country. That's where incumbent Republican Senator John Cornyn
00:32appears to be, according to latest polls, headed for a primary loss in the Republican primary in a
00:36runoff against Penn Caxton, the Trump-endorsed, almost comically scandal-ridden state attorney
00:42general. And it's a race that could give the Democratic nominee, James Tallarico, a better
00:47shot at that Senate seat come November. We're also starting to get a clear overall picture of the
00:52context of these midterms as Donald Trump's approval rating hits a new low for his second term. In fact,
00:57in some polling averages, he's below any polling he's ever had across both terms, and that includes
01:02the week after January 6th. In this one, just 31 percent, according to polling by the American
01:07Research Group late last week. Democrats have a wide lead over Republicans on what's called a
01:12congressional, a generic congressional ballot. You ask people if they're going to vote for the
01:16Democrat or the Republican. It's 11 percent in the latest Siena New York Times polling. That poll has
01:21been one of the most reliable and best over the last few cycles. So those are excellent numbers
01:27for Democrats. In an ordinary election year, they would be in blue wave territory. But you've got to
01:32look at the asterisk, right? Because thanks to the off-year, unprecedented, widespread, multi-state
01:38gerrymandering arms race that Donald Trump explicitly started and that Republicans acceded to and are
01:45following, there are a net total of six fewer competitive House seats for Democrats to contest.
01:50Now, it might not matter in their quest to win back the majority. For that, they only needed to flip
01:54three seats. But a 30 or 40-seat landslide victory is a lot harder to achieve under these conditions.
02:01Again, thanks to Republican governors and Republican state legislatures changing their own maps in the
02:06middle of the decade to create more Republican members of Congress. When it comes to the Senate a year
02:12ago, I think it's fair to say the consensus view among people that really watch elections very closely
02:16was that the Democrats' chances to retake the majority look pretty slim.
02:21They have gotten considerably better over time. So they need to pick up a net total of four seats for
02:26it to happen. Probably the best shot at a pickup is in North Carolina. That's where Republican Tom
02:31Tillis is retiring, so you don't have an incumbent. You have a very popular former governor, Democrat Roy
02:36Cooper. He's never lost a statewide race in the state of North Carolina, I think over four or five
02:40cycles. He holds a commanding lead over his Republican opponent right now. Of course, that's
02:46not enough, right? To win the Senate, Democrats absolutely need to win several toss-ups. North
02:51Carolina is the first. The second one, you would say, in order is Maine. And Maine has proven
02:56difficult. Democrats have tried and tried again. Senator Collins should be vulnerable. Of course,
03:00Maine has voted against Donald Trump multiple times. Five-term incumbent Republican Senator Collins
03:05faces a surprisingly stiff challenge from the anti-establishment Democratic nominee, Graham
03:10Plattner, who basically came out of nowhere, declared, and very few people had heard of him, knew he was,
03:15took on the Democratic governor of that state, basically beat her so badly that she left the
03:21race. He's now the nominee. That race is one that many progressives, including Senator Bernie Sanders,
03:26who's an early backer of Plattner, think could be a blueprint for Democrats taking back power in
03:30Washington. Senator Bernie Sanders is an independent of Vermont. He caucuses with the Democrats.
03:34Grant Plattner is Democratic candidate for the Senate from Maine. They have been out together
03:40as part of the Fighting Oligarchy Tour. They have an event tonight after our show. It's good to see
03:44you both, gentlemen. Mr. Plattner, let me just start with you. Today, of course, is Memorial Day.
03:50People are observing. There's people barbecuing, and there's people commemorating folks and thinking
03:54about what this day means. And obviously, someone who's served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan,
03:59someone who's spoken incredibly movingly, I have to say just personally, very movingly,
04:03about your experience of that, of being in those wars, just how you're feeling and what you're
04:08thinking about today on this Memorial Day. Yeah, well, thanks for having us, Chris. And this
04:14morning, actually, Senator Sanders was gracious enough to honor the town of Sullivan, Maine,
04:20which is my hometown, to join us at our Memorial Day event. Memorial Day is always a complicated day,
04:28I think, for those of us who saw a lot of combat. It's a day where we want to remember,
04:32and we need to not forget those who made the ultimate sacrifice. But as you mentioned,
04:38it's also a day which a lot of people in our society treat as like a holiday.
04:41And that's always a little complicated, I think, for those of us who remember our friends who we
04:47lost. It's also, quite frankly, at this day and age, a reminder that the best way for us to honor
04:54those who have sacrificed for this country is to not create more opportunities for government to
05:00waste people's lives, like we are seeing in the war in Iran. I very much believe that we need to
05:07take moments like today and realize that we have a resource in this country, and the young men and
05:13women who are willing to serve it, and it cannot be squandered lightly. And I very much believe that
05:18we need to build a politics in the future that takes it seriously enough to not start wars like
05:24Iraq or Afghanistan or what's happening in Iran, and realize that the best respect that we can show
05:28is by only using it in times when absolutely necessary.
05:32Senator, you've spent a lot of time on the Veterans Committee in the United States Senate,
05:38and Veterans Services and Health Care has been an issue that has been very, very
05:42front and center for your career in the legislature, both in the House and the Senate.
05:47Your thoughts, particularly as we get some news that maybe or maybe there isn't a deal to end
05:52the kind of frozen conflict with Iran right now?
05:57Well, certainly, I hope that there will be. The problem is we have a president who lies all of
06:03the time, and it's hard to know what is true and what is not true. But, you know, going back
06:09to what
06:09Graham just said, I am thinking about my generation, where we experienced the war in Vietnam, 59,000
06:17plus young men died. Many more died after they came home on the streets with drug addiction, etc.
06:26And that was a war based on a lie, as was the war in Iraq. And we need a foreign
06:33policy
06:33which is designed to improve life for people all over the world, to do our best to make sure
06:39that we do not have these never-ending wars that we're now seeing in Iran, and which honors
06:45and respects the men and women who are prepared to sacrifice their lives to make sure that they do not
06:52have to put their lives on the line in wars that should not be fought.
06:57The title for the event, the tour, Senator Sanders, that you've been on, called the Fighting
07:01Oligarchy Tour. This is one of those stops. I think one of the people I think that you would
07:08consider an oligarch, and I think probably fits the textbook definition, would be Jeff Bezos. Of
07:14course, you know, one or two richest men in the world, depending on what the stock is doing that day.
07:18And there's been an interesting debate that's opened up about taxes, about tax fairness,
07:22particularly different Democrats have had different proposals about tax fairness. And
07:26I want to play something he said about his own tax verdict and get your response, Mr. Plattner,
07:32and yours, Senator Sanders. This is what he had to say about the idea of doubling his taxes and
07:37that it wouldn't really help very much. Take a listen.
07:40If people want me to pay more billions, then let's have that debate. But don't pretend,
07:46you know, that this, that that's going to solve the problem. You could, you could double the taxes
07:51I pay, and it's not going to help that teacher in Queens. I promise you.
07:58Mr. Plattner, what do you think of that?
08:01Oh, I think it's abjure nonsense. I think that's what somebody says when they don't want to see
08:06their taxes go up. There's absolutely no question that if we target the wealth where it has been
08:11hoarded, frankly, for decades at this point, and we pull it back into our system and put it into
08:17social programs like health care, like child care, like paying teachers what they are worth.
08:22We will absolutely improve the lives of working Americans and quite frankly, improve our society
08:28as a whole. It's I think what he is pitching is propaganda. It's meant to protect himself and
08:34protect his crony friends. And we're going to come after them for it.
08:40Senator, he also pivoted to an idea of like cutting taxes. No one in the bottom 50 percent
08:45would pay any taxes. There's been a lot of Democrats, interestingly, proposing things along
08:50that line, big exemptions at the bottom. I think Senator Booker has a version, Senator Van
08:54Holland, people I think who talk about this progressive. Congresswoman AOC has come out
08:59against it, saying, look, the best way that we build a kind of society and tax system that works
09:05for all is that everyone's paying in and everyone's benefiting more like what we see around Social
09:10Security, Medicare, more we see in Europe. Where are you on that?
09:14Well, what I know is that today we have more income and wealth inequality than we have ever had
09:21in the history of this country, much worse than the so-called gilded age. And I know that at a
09:27time
09:27when the top one percent owns more wealth than the bottom 93 percent, when people like Bezos and
09:34Musk own more wealth than, you know, so many Americans combined. Musk himself owns more wealth
09:40than the bottom 53 percent of American households. Meanwhile, the effective tax rate of billionaires
09:46is lower than that of a nurse or a truck driver. So, of course, we need to demand that the
09:54wealthiest
09:54people in this country, the billionaire class, start paying their fair share of taxes, which is why
09:59I've introduced legislation calling for a five percent annual tax on the wealth of billionaires.
10:06That's less than one thousand Americans. And, Chris, if we do that, we raise enough revenue
10:12to provide a three thousand dollar check for every man, woman and child in families under one hundred
10:19and fifty thousand. We can put make sure that everybody who is thrown off of health care by Trump
10:25gets reinstated and we could do enormous things for the American people. The point is, there is so much
10:32inequality right now that taxes transform life for the working class of this country, which is right
10:39now struggling to pay the bill. Mr. Plattner, you're trying to make the case to the folks in your home
10:44state of Maine to to vote out of five turn incumbent, someone who's been a real I think it's fair
10:50to say
10:50an institution in Maine life and comes from a sort of political family and has been there for a very
10:55long time, probably has name recognition north of ninety nine percent. I think it's fair to say in Maine
11:00who has beaten back other challenges. Why do you think what is different this time? What what is the case
11:08for why Mainers should turn away from someone who has been such an institution in that state through
11:14Democratic and Republican institutions? Well, I mean, quite frankly, because as an institution,
11:20she has overseen the deterioration of material conditions for working people in this state.
11:26I mean, where we are today is worse than where we were when she entered the Senate. We have fewer
11:32hospitals. We have fewer schools. Housing has become an abject nightmare for younger people in the
11:37state. And we have seen people living on fixed incomes, see their benefits continue to stay small,
11:44while the pace of everything else goes up. She has been in the U.S. Senate through all of this.
11:49And more importantly, she has votes on her record time and time again that show that she is not willing
11:57to go out of her way to either stand up to Donald Trump, stand up the Republican Party or stand
12:03up on
12:04behalf of the working people in her state. She had a charade for a long time that she was an
12:09independent.
12:10I think that charade is very much come to an end because of the reality that we're living in.
12:16But it's not going to keep the people that support her from dumping in as much money as they possibly
12:21can. The billionaire backers of Susan Collins, they know the stakes of this race. Any road to a
12:27Democratic Senate goes to the state of Maine. They're spending accordingly. And I will say for
12:32those watching, if you want to help out, Graham for Senate dot com. We can really use it.
12:37Senator, your thoughts as someone who's known and worked with, you know, I mean,
12:40obviously across the aisle, but you're, you know, you're one state over. You've known
12:43Susan Collins for a long time. What do you think about Mr. Plattner's chances?
12:51Well, I think Graham is going to win. And I think he is going to win because the people in
12:56Maine,
12:57the people in Vermont, people all over this country understand that right now the economy
13:03is totally rigged. So what's going on right now, people on top have never, ever had it
13:08so good. While working families struggle or elderly people can't afford their prescription
13:14drugs, while young people, everything being equal, will have a lower standard of living
13:18than their parents. So what kind of economy is that? And the people also understand, as Graham
13:23just said, that the political system, campaign finance, totally rigged. Does anybody in their
13:29right mind think that it's a good idea for our democracy that billionaires can pour unbelievable
13:34amounts of money to defeat candidates like Graham or other progressive candidates around
13:39the country? That's a corrupt campaign finance system and nibbling around the edges and
13:45establishment politics and a little bit of this and a little bit of that. We're beyond
13:49that right now. The system is broken. The system is corrupt. The system is dominated by the
13:55billionaire class. People want real change in Maine, in Vermont and all over this country.
14:01That is why Graham is going to win. You know, I saw an article yesterday. We were starting to get
14:06some of the money filings for for these independent expenditures. Right. Who are the biggest donors
14:10in this cycle? Mark Andreessen, who is a big right wing tech guy, who is one of the most sort
14:17of
14:17like zealous boosters of AI and right wing politics and says things on podcasts like no one should
14:25ever engage in self-reflection. It's an actual thing he said. It's a real quote. He is. He's
14:33actually the number one donor in this cycle so far. I think it's one hundred and fifteen million
14:37dollars he's given so far. And Senator Sanders, let me just the last thing for you, because you've
14:41been spending some time talking and thinking about AI in ways I found interesting. I've watched
14:45some of your videos. I've listened to some of what you said. The Pope, first American Pope Leo,
14:48had a very interesting address on AI, sort of talking about the possibility and the peril of
14:53it, comparing it to the threat of a biblical tower of Babel. How do you think about that interest as
14:59it sort of lingers and over this campaign? I think it's a huge issue. I think every American
15:08should be thinking, what does it mean when the very wealthiest people in this country,
15:14Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Ellison, and others, are spending hundreds and hundreds of billions of
15:22dollars to develop and implement AI and robotics? What does it mean when Jeff Bezos is putting
15:29together a hundred billion dollar fund to quote unquote automate factories? What it means is that
15:35tens of millions of jobs in the next decade will likely be disappearing. And what happens to the
15:42working class of this country then? What it also means is that we have to worry about our politics,
15:49putting stuff on television where people or on social media, people will not know the difference
15:54between what's true and what is made up and false. We got to worry about the existential threat,
16:00Chris. The scientists tell us that as AI becomes smarter than human beings, it can become independent
16:06of human control with potentially catastrophic results. It is a huge issue. And the billionaires
16:12and big tech say, hey, we don't want any regulation. And Trump says, we don't want any regulation.
16:16Let us do whatever we want. The hell with what happens. Well, I think the American people disagree.
16:21It's an issue of great importance in this campaign. In fact, final little note is that last week,
16:27they're going to put out their first ever regulation on it, which is going to be voluntary.
16:31And the president's number one AI man, David Sachs, called him at the last minute
16:34because industry didn't want it. And they canceled it, lo and behold. So that did not get an issue.
16:39Musk did as well. Yes. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, main Senate candidate Graham Plattner here
16:44on this Memorial Day. And they will be doing that rally later today. I appreciate you gentlemen
16:48making time for us on this day. Thank you. All right. Ahead, Robert Malley, who worked on negotiating
16:56the joint deal with Iran and the Obama administration, the one Trump ripped up.
17:01He's going to talk about the ongoing mess in Iran next.
17:07To commemorate Memorial Day, Donald Trump showed up to speak at Arlington National Cemetery in the
17:11midst of the completely unnecessary war that he started.
17:16In two wars recently, we've lost a total of 13 service members in Venezuela,
17:22which was a complete and total victory. We lost no one. In Operation Epic Fury, we lost 13 wonderful
17:30souls, wonderful special people. These incredible men and women gave their lives to ensure that the
17:37world's number one state sponsor of terror will never have a nuclear weapon. Oh, and they won't.
17:44We are three months into this war. And yet again, it is completely unclear where things stand.
17:48You might have seen that on Saturday, Donald Trump announced we were close to reaching a deal.
17:52Iran responded saying no deal is imminent. We've done this maybe five or six times already.
17:56Negotiations are definitely happening. So there's real action happening behind closed doors.
18:02They're underway in Qatar. But we've seen negotiations before. And we've also seen
18:08celebrations of imminent deals before. And we've also seen those deals fall apart before.
18:12Now, the most important aspects of any deal, including basically two prongs, right? Opening the
18:17Strait of Hormuz, which is the main pain point for the global oil and fertilizer and chemicals industry
18:23and the future of Iran's nuclear program, as well as Israel's war in Lebanon. All of that remains
18:28unclear. Robert Malley was the lead negotiator for President Obama on the only deal that ever got
18:34struck between the United States government and Iran since the Iranian revolution. That was the 2015
18:39Iran nuclear deal. That's the one that Donald Trump ripped up. He also served as a U.S.
18:44special envoy for Iran under President Biden. And he joins me now. Rob, thank you on this Memorial
18:49Day for joining us. I can't think of a better person to talk to about this because you're the
18:53only person you're one of the only people who's sort of been at the table doing this.
18:57And I feel utterly lost as to where things stand, because, as I said, you know, we've seen
19:03reporting on this. There clearly are negotiations happening. But then it gets walked back and lots of
19:09contradictory information. As someone with the expertise you have, where do you evaluate things
19:13standing right now? You know, Chris, I wish I could help you. I'm about as confused as you are.
19:18But I'd say, listen, we're probably closer to deal than at any time since this unlawful,
19:23unnecessary, unjustified war was launched. And but it's complicated and it's complicated for
19:28at least three reasons. One, then no direct talks. And whenever you have a third party that's
19:34mediating, that third party tends to try to present a brighter picture, rosier picture to
19:39each side. So then when they come down to details, they could see that maybe there was some
19:42misunderstanding. Second reason is if you were wrong, would you trust anything coming out of
19:47the mouth of the president of the United States who twice before ordered military strikes in the
19:52middle of negotiations? And third, related to the second, you have in the White House the most
19:56mercurial, erratic president in history. And so he may change his mind as he's done already
20:02at least three times in the last 24 hours. So I think a deal is within reach. But until we
20:08get
20:08there, we won't be there. And even when we get there, you know, there'd be a lot of critics on
20:13the
20:13U.S. side and particularly and precisely maybe on the Iranian side as well that will try to sabotage
20:18whatever is achieved. Well, I should have mentioned also on the Israeli side. Yeah, I mean, it should.
20:24So right. So there's sort of three things here, right? There's the there's opening the Strait of
20:27Hormuz. There's the status of the nuclear program and how that's which was
20:32that part of it was the thing that the the JCPOA that you helped negotiate was sort of finally
20:38very, very laser focused on and had a whole bunch of very complex, sophisticated technical,
20:44you know, parts of it to make sure that the program was supervised. And then there's Israel's
20:49continuing war in Lebanon against, you know, what they say are Hezbollah threats to them. Right. But
20:55but have amounted to an occupation of a significant part of the country.
21:00It seems to me that the Hormuz, it looks like the way this is going is they need to open
21:06Hormuz,
21:06which was open before the war. And it says something about the leverage or the success
21:11of the operation that the thing they seem most urgently trying to negotiate is to get back to
21:17a status quo ante that was caused by their own war and then to kick everything off a little bit,
21:22which is how I read the kind of prongs of the deal as reported.
21:27And I think you're exactly right. And I think that that's why this deal could have been reached.
21:30Well, we shouldn't ever have been there in the first place. As you said, without the war,
21:34they wouldn't have closed the Strait of Hormuz. And now we're fighting over opening the Strait.
21:38I mean, yes, listen, if there's a deal, I'll be the first to applaud it. But it will be an
21:42incredible indictment of this unjustified war, which has caused huge damage, less to us,
21:48a lot to the rest of the world, which is paying for high energy prices,
21:51shows in fertilizer, inflation, et cetera, et cetera. So, you know, nothing will justify
21:55the war. I still will be welcoming a deal if President Trump can achieve one. But as you
22:00said, the main accomplishment at this point would be opening the Strait of Hormuz, which
22:05is extraordinary. It will be open with greater control by Iran. That's no doubt. I mean,
22:10they've now discovered a weapon they always possessed, but they hadn't used. But the war gave
22:15them this ability now to decide if they want to open or close the Strait of Hormuz, impose some kind
22:20of fee for ships that are going to go through it. So that seems to be where the most of
22:25the flesh of
22:26whatever deal is going to be achieved in the coming days. And then kicking the can down the
22:31road on the nuclear farm, maybe with some broad principles. And yes, the principle about Lebanon
22:37there, I admit, allow me to be skeptical. I think even if the deal says that Lebanon is part of
22:43it,
22:43I suspect Israel will find any opportunity, any pretext to continue bombing Lebanon and claiming
22:51that they are facing a threat. And I don't know what Iran or the United States will do about it.
22:56But
22:57it is at this point one of the three prongs of the deal. I think the two that they're going
23:02to
23:02struggle over are going to be the status of the Strait of Hormuz and how much detail is going to
23:08go
23:08into this memorandum of understanding concerning the nuclear deal. Yeah. And we should say that
23:14multiple Israeli politicians, ministers, both in the government and opposition, have basically
23:19very strenuously objected to Israel being subject at all of this, that they reserve the right to do
23:23whatever they want to do and feel they need to do in Lebanon and they're not going to sign on
23:27to this.
23:28So that's I mean, that's a whole other thing. We should just note in case people have been paying
23:31attention to this, because I do find this like, again, you kind of got to get your sort of dark
23:35humor where
23:35you can. It's it's illegal under international law to toll international waterways. In fact,
23:40it's actually a pretty central and important premise of the free movement of ships. So you
23:46can't put a toll on Strait of Hormuz compliant with international law. It sounds like what they're
23:49going to come up with is what they're going to call a fee, possibly even. And I do love this
23:53detail
23:53and environmental fee for crossing the Strait of Hormuz that will essentially amount to tolling a
23:59waterway in some tension and contravention of international law. And that was never even on the table
24:05before the war started. Exactly. I mean, again, we could spend hours the sort of dissecting how
24:11absurd this war was, and it would be amusing. Again, it were not for the fact that many people
24:16around the globe are suffering immensely. But yes, it's it's a it was a war about nothing that's going
24:20to end up costing the U.S. more than it's going to cost others, but or not all others, but
24:26at least
24:26it's going to cost it in terms of having to agree to some degree of Iranian control over the Strait
24:31of
24:31Hormuz that didn't exist beforehand. And, you know, let's not forget that, you know, the big critics
24:38of the of the JCPOA, and I don't want to relitigate that deal, was two things. One, that it allowed
24:44Iran to continue to enrich at some point at some level. And second, that it didn't address other
24:48activities that Iran was engaged in missiles, drones, support for regional allies. No deal that
24:55people are talking about now would entail Iran giving up its enrichment completely. And we're not even
25:00talking about those other aspects of Iran's conduct. So those who are critics and saying all we need is
25:05more sanctions, all we need is a war. I mean, this has to be some reckoning. There won't be any,
25:10but they should really look into the mirror and say, what have we been advocating and what did we get?
25:15You and Ben Rhodes and Jake Sullivan and Barack Obama and all the folks that were working on that,
25:20I think, are entitled to a little bit of a, you know, not victory lap. I don't know what you
25:26call it,
25:26because it's sort of, it's too dark to call it a victory lap, but we should be listening to the
25:31folks who won this the first time. Robert Malley, thank you so much for being here.
25:37Ahead, another huge protest today at an ICE dissension center where a bunch of DTs have gone
25:42on a hunger strike. An objection to the conditions and a number of New Jersey politicians, including
25:47the governor and members of Congress, have tried to visit them and been denied access. One of those
25:52members of Congress will join me right here next. There's a huge hunger strike underway at one of
26:00the imminent immigrant detention centers as part of Donald Trump's mass deportation operation. That
26:04strike started four days ago at the Delaney Hall detention center in Newark, New Jersey. You might
26:09remember that from months ago when members of Congress tried to visit. Some were arrested. One of
26:16them was being charged now. But this hunger strike began following complaints of being served rotten food
26:21and spoiled food and getting inadequate medical care inside that facility. A large group of
26:26protesters gathered outside the facility over the weekend. Today, the state's governor,
26:30Mikey Sherrill, Senator Andy Kim, Democratic members of Congress joined the protests.
26:35Congresswoman Annalalia Mejia, a Democrat in New Jersey, who was recently elected in a special
26:39election, was among the elected officials at Delaney Hall today. She joins me now. It's good to have
26:43you here.
26:43Thank you. Thank you for having me.
26:44Just so people remember, right, Delaney Hall is where Roz Baraka and several members of Congress
26:50you know, showed up and were denied access. And there was like a tussle with the DHS people.
26:56Well, they were mistreated. I was actually there at the time.
26:59Oh, were you there for that event, too?
27:00Yes. In fact, I was an organizer and an activist at the time before joining my now colleagues in
27:06Congress. And I could tell you that the level of aggression that I saw that day and the level of
27:11aggression that I was seeing today is pretty much the same is a level of just it's actually so
27:19surprising to see essentially government employees mistreat the American people who are simply trying
27:25to visit family members or mistreat representatives of our government who are simply trying to do our
27:32duty in overseeing a federal facility.
27:34Can you give us context for I know I've been reading some of the reporting that's come out,
27:38both sort of eyewitness testimony and others who have interviewed other folks who have either
27:42anonymously or got on the record about just how bad it is in there and what initiated the hunger
27:46strike?
27:46Well, there was a letter that was was essentially squirreled away, I guess, where where detainees
27:54were so concerned about the conditions, so concerned about the lack of health care and the inadequate
27:59food that they snuck out a letter to make sure to send out essentially an SOS. Last week, myself,
28:06Congresswoman LaMonica MacGyver and Congressman Robert Menendez went and visited the facility to
28:12see if the conditions that were detailed in that letter were in fact true. When we spoke to people,
28:17it was our worst fears were confirmed.
28:19You were inside the facility.
28:20Inside the facility. I was able to speak to a woman who had had a miscarriage and had not had
28:25proper
28:27postnatal care. There was a young woman who was pregnant, gripping her stomach, complaining of
28:33pain. Again, no medical care. And there was a gentleman who had slipped and fallen. He had such
28:38a tremendous head injury that he had lost hearing from an ear and was complaining of chronic headaches.
28:45And he was threatened because he wanted to go to the hospital to get a CAT scan. And this is
28:50on top
28:50of the complaints that the food is either rotten or inadequate or frozen, or just a level of lack
28:58of care towards human beings who aren't criminals.
29:01Yeah. I mean, we should be clear, not that anyone in a prison would deserve this at all. No one
29:06deserves to be treated like this, but it is not a prison. These people have not been convicted of
29:09anything. There's no, like, this is a detention facility for folks that are under, you know,
29:13civil infractions. They've been picked up. We should also mention Congresswoman MacGyver,
29:19of course, is facing federal charges and to her credit has now gone back to this facility multiple
29:23times.
29:24She's incredibly brave. This is a, this Congresswoman who, as you could see, she's also expecting
29:29has been diligently working on behalf of her, her constituents. She has many constituents that
29:37whose family members have been detained. I will also say that one of the surprising things is that
29:41this runs counter to even, um, the administration's, uh, dictate that people self-deport. There are
29:49individuals there who have signed self-deportation agreements and they're still being detained
29:55months after. So I want to just stay on this for a second. Cause it's really important. One of the
30:00things the administration has said is, well, if you just leave, then you don't have to go through
30:05this hell on earth. They have people in there who have said, I want to go, let me go and
30:09are being
30:10held there now for months in these conditions who are saying you win. I'm gone. Yes. There are people
30:16who are pleading. I walked in there and there were folks who were pleading for, they were asking that
30:21I please help them get their passport, that they were willing to buy their own ticket, that they
30:26have family members who would pick them up right now. And so that they can go home and they're just
30:32languishing here. And then on top of that, you have young people. I spoke to this one young woman,
30:37an 18 year old who was picked up in April and is set to graduate in June. Her school was
30:43willing to
30:44allow her virtual learning so that she could complete her high school degree. And she was
30:50denied even the courtesy of an education. So just across the board, the treatment that individuals
30:55are receiving is just so egregious and un-American. I guess one last thing is, I mean, you know,
30:59Democrats have, are not funding huge parts of VHS, right? I mean, they, they, they have sort of
31:04withdrawn from the supplemental. We can't give this level of funding to a rogue despotic agency
31:10that is more beholden to this authoritarian like president than the constitution here. How could
31:16we fund an entity, whether it's, it's, um, you know, whether it's ice or CBP, how could we give
31:23additional money to entities that have turned their guns on the American people who are not upholding
31:28due process equal protection? It would be dereliction of duty, uh, for members of Congress to continue
31:34to fund this warlike machine on the American people. Congresswoman Ana Lilia Mejia, who was at,
31:39uh, that, uh, detention center today. Thanks for being here. Thank you. Ahead, the return of Jim
31:44Crow in South Carolina was truly at stake in tomorrow's big vote in that state. We're going to talk all
31:49about
31:49it. That's next. Early voting begins tomorrow morning in South Carolina's midterm primaries,
31:58which means that nearly 1 million people will start casting their ballots in a district.
32:02Republicans are about to wipe off the map under orders from Donald Trump with little assist from
32:06John Roberts Supreme Court. Tomorrow, the state Senate is expected to hold a final vote on a, again,
32:12gerrymander map. Just reset here. This never happens. No one ever did this except one time before a car
32:18robe and George W. Bush back in Texas, like 20 years ago. But that's the only example. Donald
32:22Trump has had everyone, all the Republican states do this, right? Just out of nowhere. We're going to
32:27read redistrict. The gerrymander map would eliminate South Carolina's only majority minority congressional
32:32district represented by, of course, legendary James Clyburn. Congressman Clyburn is the only Democrat
32:37in the state congressional delegation. He's the only one who isn't white. If the bill passes as soon
32:42as tomorrow, Clyburn almost certainly, I mean, it's essentially guaranteed, will lose his seat. And the votes
32:47of hundreds of thousands of his constituents, particularly his black constituents, will be
32:51diluted. MSNOW reporter Maya Eaglin spoke with voters in the district about what this new map
32:57would mean for them and how they plan to fight back.
33:00To me, it's not fair. And we're not going to let that happen. Simple as that. We're just not going
33:08to let
33:08that happen. I believe that, okay, you can draw lines on a map, but you cannot erase a community that
33:21wants
33:21be heard. And we want to be heard and we will be heard. Do not allow frustration and aggravation to
33:30decide
33:32what is going to happen to us. It's not a gift. We've paid for this. Several folks have paid for
33:41this.
33:41I agree. It's bigger than Republican, Democrat. It's bigger than, you know, it's bigger than Clyburn and Trump.
33:48I like to think of our democracy as, it's going to outlast Clyburn. It's going to outlast Trump,
33:58hopefully. I agree. The dilution is definitely diluting minority vote. What would it mean to have
34:04a different person representing you all? That person would have to get to know us all over again.
34:12My needs as a farmer, as a rural person in South Carolina, as a female farmer in South Carolina,
34:18look different than, um, what somebody in a city is going to need or care about or want. Exactly.
34:25And so I feel like we need a voice. Um, we don't want to be lumped in. We shouldn't be
34:30lumped in
34:31with the, with a group that, um, you know, through no fault of their own, just don't,
34:37their needs are different. Yes, their needs are different, whether it be you were talking
34:42about black, white, Republican, Democrat, male, female, um, rural or city. Um, we have our
34:51own needs here and I don't, I worry that they wouldn't be
34:59brought to the forefront, like they need to be if Clyburn, um, gets pushed out.
35:08Jelani Kops, the staffer at New Yorker, Dean of the Columbia School of Journalism,
35:11Amanda Littman's Democratic Strategist and president and co-founder of Run for Something.
35:15You may both join me now. Good to have you both here. Um, Jelani, obviously the sort of
35:20seismic kind of historical context of this, uh, as this takes place,
35:24what's going through your mind as you're listening to those constituents talk about?
35:27I mean, one, that is the most fundamental, you know, basic democratic even reason to
35:36say this is a bad idea that we should have people who represent communities who are part
35:40of those communities, understand those communities. Uh, and the argument against the kind of, you know,
35:45eccentric gerrymandering that we've seen is that you wind up lumping together communities that are
35:49dissimilar and you have like competing interests within a district that in an ideal world,
35:55I really wish there's no way to convey how much I wish we lived in a world where those were
36:00the
36:00preeminent concerns. Yes. Right. They, they are not. Uh, and the other part of it is that it took me
36:06back to being frustrated again with the Supreme court ruling that says that partisan gerrymandering is
36:13fine, but racial gerrymandering is it because the entire way that African Americans were even
36:18enfranchised, the 15th amendment was, was a partisan measure recognizing that if you gave the right to
36:27vote to former slaves, they were not likely to vote for the same party as the former slave holders.
36:33And so that was the origin of this with all the disfranchisement that went through the Jim Crow era.
36:38I mean, sure it was racist and was white supremacist, but it was also part of the mentally
36:42part of this partisan, right? In both directions. I mean, I'm, I'm doing research right now and I've
36:46been immersing myself in reconstruction and like, you know, the battle Liberty place in 1877 in New
36:51Orleans, in which there's basically a kind of like attempted, a sort of armed coup, right?
36:55To take over the government from the, the sort of biracial, multiracial Republican party.
37:00That is right. It's purely partisan. And in fact, they shoot a lot of white people
37:04because the white people are the Republicans. Like it's like, so it's, it is racial of course,
37:08but it's the, the lines are drawn around the partisan fight. Yes. Wilmington, 1899,
37:13same deal, right? The same deal. You know, one of the things I was thinking about as I was
37:17watching that, Amanda, Ari Berman sat there in that seat and he made this, this thing that stuck
37:21with me and we're talking about what they did in Tennessee, where he said Memphis, which they
37:25just broke up. He said, Memphis has had his own congressman since 1926. And of course it has.
37:30When you think about it, it's like, you look at a map of Tennessee. It's like, there's natural,
37:32there's Memphis. It's like, of course, Memphis is going to have a member of Congress
37:34because Memphis has a political community of interest that they're going to want to
37:39represent in New York, in DC. And now that's gone. You know, I think a lot about the fact
37:44that there is Senate majority leader in South Carolina is not voting for this. Like they
37:49understand that spoke against it, spoke against it, like tried to punt on it, got pulled back in,
37:54said Trump called him multiple times. They know this is incredibly risky politically. They're diluting
37:59these votes and diluting black representation and black voters like voices to what I think
38:04is supposed to be what are plus 11 districts across the state based on Trump's performance
38:09in 2024 and maps based on the 2020 census, which we know were wildly under counting across the country.
38:15I think this is both egregiously racist and very politically stupid.
38:20Yeah. I mean, that's, you know, we've, we've had people on, uh, who have said the Texas
38:24one is a real dumb, they call it a dummy man, right? Where you gerrymander so much,
38:28you dilute your own vote and you sort of take away the advantage and in a way of election,
38:32uh, you, you fall. But it's also like, I want to play what, uh, Congressman Clyburn had to say,
38:37because one of the things that's so maddening here, right? Again, when you know the history is
38:40like, we're talking about the states that have the highest percentage of black voters,
38:43right? Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, um, that are now looking at, you know, no black
38:50representatives or maybe one or two throughout that whole area. Here's what center, uh,
38:54Congressman Clyburn had to say. Why is it okay to have a 75% white district and that's not racial?
39:06If you have a 45% black district, that is racial. I think that justice Roberts is going to take
39:15his
39:16place alongside some other infamous justices like, uh, Taney, uh, who gave us the Dre Scott decision.
39:27So, I mean, listen, when, when you start talking about historians, uh, historically, uh,
39:32Chief Justice Taney, his reputation is, is infamous. Yeah. You know, that is no one goes to the Supreme
39:37Court hoping to, you know, aspiring to Chief Justice Taney's reputation. Uh, and of course,
39:43like implicit in that was Taney, uh, famously noted in that, that, uh, phrase, uh, that the
39:49constitution, uh, there are no rights, uh, that a white person, a Negro has no rights that a white
39:54man is bound to respect. Uh, and you know, that kind of encapsulated the jurisprudence that went
40:00with that era. Uh, and so that's really, really kind of harsh language coming from the congressman
40:05and understandably. So I want to show the map here, Amanda, because we had, um,
40:09I had, uh, Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries on the other day. And I think,
40:14you know, one of the things that they're managing is both outrage about what's happening,
40:18avenues to push back both in the courts. There's talk about, you know, calling for black athletes
40:22to boycott the SEC, which I think is pretty interesting. Um, talk about like the soft underbelly,
40:27like get them where it hurts. Uh, but, but also I think he also is balancing that with being like,
40:35don't despair. We need to flip three seats. These people are the presence of 31%. We're 12 on the
40:41generic ballot. We have a message photo focused on change and affordability and pushing back against
40:45us. And they can't basically, they can't stop us. And I, how important do you think sort of
40:51balancing that is in terms of what voters are hearing and what also like volunteers and donors
40:55and things like that? You know, I think you have to balance the fact that this is absolutely going
40:59to incite people to show up to vote who are furious that they are trying to be silenced.
41:02And I do think we have to be honest with people, even if we flip the house, which
41:06odds look likely in spite of all of this, they're not going to pass gerrymandering reform over the
41:10next two years, which really reinforces the need to control state legislatures this year,
41:14because they're absolutely going to try to redraw those maps ahead of 2028 and 2030.
41:19So I absolutely agree with Jeffries. Like we got to win the house. We cannot demoralize people,
41:23but we also got to think at least a little bit more long-term like the Republicans have been doing
41:27for the last 40 years, which got them to this point.
41:30We should also note, as we talk about South Carolina on this Memorial Day, Memorial Day
41:33starts in South Carolina in Charleston with a bunch of black folks, formerly enslaved people
41:38who went to a grave in sort of disrepair of the Union soldiers that had fought on behalf
41:45of the Union to put flowers on the graves, to clean up the grave. That's the origin of this
41:49Memorial Day starts in the state of South Carolina, and it starts at the graves of Union soldiers
41:53being tended to by the folks who were liberated by that, by that war. Amanda Littman, Jelani Cobb,
41:59thank you both for being here.
42:01From the latest effort to stop Trump's slush fund to the big primary vote in Texas tomorrow,
42:05which man, is that going to be something to watch? There is so much more ahead on the second
42:09hour of this special holiday edition of All In. We'll be right back.
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