Watch Rachel Maddow Highlights: Jan. 17

uh first of all i want you to see if you notice a pattern here i'm going to show you something and i want to see if uh see if you can sense some consistency over time here i'm going to put a date stamp in the corner of the screen so you can see when all of these happened but see if you can pick up on the pattern among them watch after ascertainment has been had that the certificates are authentic and correct in form the tellers will count and make a list of the votes cast by the electors after ascertainment has been had that the certificates are authentic and correct in form the tellers will count and make a list of the votes cast by the electors after ascertainment has been made that the certificates are authentic and correct in form the tellers will count and make a list of the votes cast by the electors after ascertaining that certificates are regular informed and authentic the tellers will announce the votes cast by the electors after ascertainment has been had that the certificates are authentic and correct in form the tellers will count and make a list of the votes cast by the electors after ascertainment has been had that certificates are authentic and correct in form the tellers will count and make a list of the votes cast by the electors after the ascertainment has been had that the certificates are authentic and correct in form the tellers will count and make a list of the votes cast by the electors notice a theme it's a script right it's always the same every four years whoever is acting as the president of the senate whoever the vice president is it comes time every four years for them to open up and count all the electoral votes and it's always the same i mean with you know one or two little word shifts here and there it's always the same thing after ascertaining that the certificates are authentic and correct the tellers will announce the votes cast by the elector they say the exact same thing every four years the words shift like a hair or two in either direction but it's always the same every four years until this last time this last time for the first time ever started off just like it always does but then it careened off in a whole new direction we've never heard before watch after ascertaining that the certificates are regular in form and authentic the tellers will announce the votes cast by the electors for each state beginning with alabama which the parliamentarians advise me is the only certificate of vote from that state and purports to be a return from the state and that has annexed to it a certificate from an authority of that state purporting to appoint or ascertain electors what was all that at the end all that stuff that the parliamentarian has advised you that was all new as far as we can tell nothing like that has ever been said at any one of these things but mike pence when he opened the electoral votes january 6 last year he added that whole new bit the parliamentarian has advised me there's only one document that counts as a certificate of vote from the estate and that certificate he says has annexed to it a certificate from an authority of that state that's all new language that we've never heard before in this context vice presidents always say the exact same thing when it comes time for them to announce the electoral college votes but when mike pence did it he added this whole new complicated clause saying the parliamentarian had advised him that only one certificate of electors could be counted from any one state it it had to have the explicit blessing of an authority of that state that was all new and and you know there's been some minor drama around the electoral college before in previous elections but no vice president ever before felt the need to get a parliamentarian's ruling basically giving him a clear legal way to assert that he doesn't have to count any forged fake set of electors that might have been sent into him alongside the real ones no vice president has ever before had to get some sort of language from the parliamentarian explaining that if two sets of electors were sent in from a particular state he was only going to have to count the one but mike pence had to do that which means vice president mike pence knew in advance of january 6 that republicans in multiple states had sent in forged fake electoral votes documents purporting to be the real electoral votes from those states even though they were not real we know he knew about it because we can see he had to maneuver in advance of actually conducting the vote count that day to get the parliamentarian to give him that language so he could justify not counting the fake votes reporter kyle chaney politico.com gets credit for catching this uh and catching it at an auspicious time it was 2 55 in the morning on on the night of january 6 last year 2 55 a.m january 7th the night after the capital had been attacked kyle cheney that night made note of how pence's language seemed to be different than all previous vice presidents had used for every previous electoral vote count mr cheney was totally right it's totally obvious once you lay down what pence said all that extra verbiage that pence added alongside the very austere almost exactly unchanging language from all the other times the vice president has done the vote count in modern times reporter kyle cheney figured that out based on the change language that pence used figured out that that vice president pence's office must have worked with the senate parliamentarian ahead of time to head off this stunt to head off this part of the plot to head off what republicans were trying to do sending in these forged electoral college votes which they did in fact not just fill out and keep they filled them out signed them and sent them into the national archives and to the united states senate as if they were real look at this um this was last week in florida they finally held a special congressional election to fill the seat of the late democratic congressman elsie hastings who died in april congressman hastings district is really democratic it was therefore always really likely um that they would that the district would be electing another democrat to succeed him i think that's probably why florida's republican governor ron desantis just refused to hold the election to fill that seat for as long as he possibly could as long as no election was held to fill the elsie hastings seat then democrats would be down one of their numbers in the united states house of representatives he held off and held off and held off that said there are rules about these things he did get sued to finally hold the election and finally we did get that election last week more than nine months after congressman elsie hastings died and like i said this is a this is a really democratic district the democratic primary for that seat was super hot and heavy tons of candidates a really close race ultimately i think the successful candidate in the democratic primary won the primary by only five votes five votes but even by that exceedingly narrow margin she did win the democratic primary which meant she was the democrat on the ballot in the special election last week and she won the general election she won the special election last week in an absolute landslide her name is sheila scherfules mccormick and she was the democratic contender for that seat she's got a great story actually she's the child of haitian immigrants her parents were a taxi driver and a maid she is now a lawyer and the ceo of a health care company and thanks to her blowout victory in that congressional election last week she's now the first haitian american ever elected to congress from florida only the second haitian american ever elected to congress ever like i said great story all because she just cleaned up in that race she got 79 percent of the vote in that election last week the republican who ran against her got less than 20 percent of the vote her margin of victory in that special election was almost 60 points just a complete blowout but because of where the republican party is right now and what they are now wired for that republican who ran against sheila sherpalus mccormick he's refusing to concede and is contesting the results and he's brought a lawsuit to try to block the result he said after the he said after election night quote i did not win so they say he recently told one cbs station in florida we'll have some stuff coming out that we've recently discovered dude lost this race by by 60 points he did not break 20 percent of the vote in a two-way race i didn't win so they say republicans now any race anywhere in the country any margin of loss doesn't matter why would they accept an election result unless they won why would any republican losing any election anywhere in the country from this point forward admit that they had lost concede and congratulate their opponent i think that's the way to get ahead in the republican party right now sheila's surface mccormick will be sworn in tomorrow on capitol hill her republican opponent whom she beat by more than by nearly 60 points he is not conceding that she won that race even as she is slated to be sworn in because republicans because that's the way the republican party works now they are a post-election party at the rally former president trump held in arizona this weekend one of the republicans who signed the forged elector document from arizona he spoke as one of the warm-up acts for trump because why not this is what a rally is like now for the presumed republican presidential nominee in the next election who won the election you're right trump won trump won we are going to fix 2020. i hope that we're gonna decertify 2020 how about you and no more are they going to be able to get away with this kind of deception this kind of fraud and illegal activity not only people in general but the election workers we want indictments of the election workers so that they don't continue to do this i've had several media outlets call me washington post cnn and they want to know why i was a trump elector donald trump won this election and i call upon the arizona legislature to vote to decertify the 2020 election [Applause] putting the people who signed the forged elector paperwork up on stage so everybody can cheer for them to get them warmed up for cheering for the former president i mean this this this kind of stuff does seem crazy like this seems like the whole vibe on the trump rally thing is like kind of low renting out there right but this is what it's like in the republican party right now this is how they are gearing up for the next election you know indict the election workers but it is working for them as planned even in the high rent districts i mean the new texas voting restrictions uh were like in many states they were passed on the pretext that all that election fraud that made the last election stolen that justified lots of new laws in texas to make it harder to vote in that state that's paying off already you saw the headline this weekend election officials in texas reject hundreds of ballot applications under the state's new voting restrictions quote election officials in one of the most populous counties in texas have rejected about half of the applications for ballots because of the state's new voting restrictions enacted by republicans last year texas republicans last year passed their bill establishing new limits on voting over the objections of democrats part of a wave of efforts led by republican-led states excuse me a wave of efforts by republican-led states to impose new restrictions many in the republican party echoed former president donald trump's baseless claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election in arguing for the new restrictions the county clerk's office in travis county the fifth most populous county and home to texas's capital of austin cited the new law's recent changes to id requirements in rejecting about half of the 700 applications for mail-in ballots they're throwing out half the ballot applications because the new restrictive voting law says they have to be because and you had to pass that voting restriction law because of all the the fraud decertify decertify it's working perfectly for them i mean it looks crazy to the rest of the country but it is working perfectly for them and what's to stop them what do you say to your constituents and voting rights advocates who are growing concerned if either bill isn't passed as we approach the 2022 midterm elections i feel sorry for those on the other side who didn't support this you know we're very clear our constituents understand where we are our constituents understand at all levels they understand victory they saw a black president elected because they voted and they stood in line for five to seven hours to vote you have heard the president himself say thank you majority whip clyburn thank you south carolina thank you black people for voting overwhelmingly to elect him that then got us our first female black asian american vice president our people know that our people understand that who should be afraid or those who won't stand up for voting rights so we're sending a clarion call and you can print this shame on you for not doing it black folks will vote no matter what so it's not what's going to happen to us it's what's going to happen to them it's not what's going to happen to us it is what's going to happen to them you can print that congresswoman joyce beatty is chair of the congressional black caucus that was her speaking last week about the fight to pass voting rights in congress and those who are on the wrong side of that vote in the wrong side of that history and her estimation and she joins us live now congresswoman joyce beatty chair of the congressional black caucus madam chair it's a real pleasure to have you here tonight of all nights thank you so much for making time no thank you so much for asking me to be on your show today is a special day with the nation watching the nation is watching and a lot of the nation i think is holding their breath about what's going to happen tomorrow uh we played some works words from um martin luther king iii from the march today held under that banner deliver for voting rights deliver being the operative phrase there do you think that the united states will deliver are you optimistic about what's going to happen tomorrow i don't know exactly what will happen tomorrow i know the nation is pained and frustrated because of what we've been going through you know we're looking at individuals who are not supporting reauthorizing the voting rights act and for republican presidents in a bipartisan fashion reauthorized it five presidents in our time have reauthorized it so tomorrow it will be on the united states senate to do their job the house we voted on voting rights more than three times this is not new for us but tomorrow you will see us standing and watching as history will be made and let me just say this for all those who don't support the freedom to vote john r lewis act they're obstructionists and it will be on their hands because our communities and all of those who know what we have to lose especially black and brown people have so much to lose that they will react but you won't keep us from voting and the senators should be scared about that because we know we don't cheat when it comes to elections we get out we stand in lines and no matter how they try to suppress the vote democrats and black and brown americans will vote you've talked about the congressional black caucus as being the conscience of the congress on issues like this and so many others i wonder if you can give us a little window into the strategic thinking um right now i mean the way that you have turned that question on its head the way you just did right now in the way we played that sound from you earlier speaking last week talking about how people who are opposing this are on the wrong side and they are the ones who need to worry about their futures in terms of how the politics of this will play out i know that you are thinking about this in terms of three steps down the road five steps down the road ten steps down the road if things do fail tomorrow in the senate if senator manchin and senator cinema decide that they want to be um they want they want to go down in history this way for this reason um is there a way you know under over or around that wall is there is there another way to approach it well you're absolutely right we have been strategizing and certainly as you said the congressional black caucus has been a leader in this six months ago i got arrested other members have been out there uh marching protesting writing legislation trying to work with those on the other side of the aisle and our two senators over there who are having some initial problems that they are having they're for the voting rights it is the big elephant in the room the filibuster but it reminds me of when martin luther king jr and fannie lou hamer and so many others were going across that edmund pettus bridge you know they didn't cross it the first or the second time they turned around and came back and strategized but then there was bloody sunday and they got it done i am saying to you we won't give up we will go back and we will go back and we will get it right because the voting rights act must be reauthorized so we'll go back and we'll recraft and we'll restrategize but we won't stop talking about it we won't stop fighting for it we won't give up and so i am hopeful that we will get there i am hopeful that we will have enough of the senators to do what's right you know someone said today if we had state rights in washington dc we wouldn't have this problem because we would have two senators who would be voting with us well we don't have that but we will see what happens tomorrow but there will be another tomorrow and another tomorrow [Music] so [Music] you

Channel: MSNBC

Views: 457,644

Keywords: MSNBC, MSNBC latest, Politics, News, mike pence, trump, trump pence, 2020 election, florida election, election results, gop, republicans, voting, maddow, rachel maddow

Id: ixJ83VK4QpY

Length: 20min 22sec (1222 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 18 2022