Transcript: The 11th Hour with Brian Williams, 12/1/21 – MSNBC

Summary

First U.S. case of Omicron variant discovered in CA. Jan. 6 Committee votes to refer ex-Trump DOJ Official Jeffrey Clark for contempt of Congress. Meadows reveals strategy for 1/6 deposition. Some GOP threaten shutdown over vaccine mandates. Scotus hears arguments over Mississippi abortion law that undermines Roe v. Wade.

LAWRENCE O`DONNELL, MSNBC HOST: My dear friend Holum Taylor (ph), and all of you K.I.N.D. contributors get tonight`s "LAST WORD." THE 11TH HOUR WITH BRIAN WILLIAMS starts now.

BRIAN WILLIAMS, MSNBC HOST: Well, good evening, once again. Day 316 of the Biden administration, the nation has been bracing for the arrival of this new Omicron variant. And this afternoon, the first U.S. case was indeed confirmed in a patient in the San Francisco Bay Area.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, CHIEF MEDICAL ADVISER TO PRESIDENT BIDEN: The individual was a traveler who returned from South Africa on November the 22nd. And tested positive on November the 29th. The individual is self-quarantining, and all close contacts have been contacted and all close contacts thus far have tested negative.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAMS: Dr. Fauci went on to say, this patient in question had received two shots of the Moderna vaccine but no booster as of yet and is experiencing mild symptoms. Fauci offered this to those who might be holding off on getting that booster shot.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FAUCI: People say, well, if we`re going to have a booster specific vaccine, should we wait? If you are eligible, namely six months with a double mRNA dose or two months with the J&J, get boosted. Now, we may not need a very specific boost. The mistake people would make is to say, let me wait and see if we get one. If you`ve eligible for boosting, get boosted right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAMS: Tomorrow, the President lays out his strategy to try to control and contain this variant as we head into the colder months. NBC News among those reporting. He`s going to extend the federal mask mandate for public transportation into mid-March. There`s much more on the potential impact of this new variant just ahead in our hour.

Also tonight, the January six committee is keeping the pressure on witnesses who refuse to comply with their subpoenas. Just a few hours ago, they voted unanimously to refer former Trump DOJ official Jeffrey Clark for criminal contempt of Congress, but the committee is also giving Clark one last chance to testify.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. BENNIE THOMPSON, (D) MISSISSIPPI JAN.6 SELECT COMMITTEE CHAIR: Around eight o`clock last evening, Mr. Clark`s attorney sent a letter to the committee, another in a long series of long letters stating that Mr. Clark now intends to assert his fifth amendment privilege even though Mr. Clark previously had the opportunity to make these claims on the record. The Select Committee will provide him another chance to do so.

REP. LIZ CHENEY, (R) WYOMING VICE CHAIR, JANUARY 6 COMMITTEE: We will not finalize this contempt process if Mr. Clark genuinely cures his failure to comply with the subpoena this Saturday.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAMS: Meanwhile, former Trump`s Chief of Staff Mark Meadows today revealed how he plans to handle his upcoming appearance before that same committee. Meadows has been resisting, asserting that he was following Trump`s claim of executive privilege. Well, yesterday the panel said he started complying with a subpoena for records and plan to testify but comments from Meadows today raise questions about just how much cooperating he plans to do.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARK MEADOWS, FORMER WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: The President has made it very clear that he is claiming executive privilege and not because he has anything to hide. I`m going to be honoring his executive privilege, is not something that I have the ability to waive. Even with my interview that potentially is coming up with the House. We`ll be talking about non privileged information.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAMS: We`ll see how that goes over. Even as he claims to honor his old boss, The Guardian in Great Britain was first to report this revelation from Meadows forthcoming book he reveals Trump first tested positive for COVID three days before that September 26, 2020 debate against then candidate Joe Biden.

New York Times and NBC News have since confirmed that initial positive test. According to the Guardian, Meadows writes, "Nothing was going to stop Trump from going out there." He ads "Trump received a negative result from a separate test just before the debate. But the public didn`t learn about Trump`s COVID case until the early hours of October 2." Today, the former president in a statement stayed on brand saying, "The story of me having COVID prior to or during the first debate is fake news." Which of course doesn`t answer the question of whether he had received a positive test before the debate.

By the way, tonight we`re just a little more than two days from a potential government shutdown. The deadline to pass a funding bill to keep things open is midnight Friday in the Saturday morning.

[23:05:01]

Washington Post, among those reporting tonight one faction of Republicans on Capitol Hill is trying to hold up efforts to vote on that bill over federal vaccine and testing mandates. Senate Majority Leader Schumer today urged Republicans to abandon their protest.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER, (D) NEW YORK MAJORITY LEADER: It`s always easy to shut down, to say you want to shut down the government something I care about, this one cares about that one, everyone did that we`d have chaos. We need to come together and keep the government open.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAMS: The House Freedom Caucus today appeal to Mitch McConnell in a letter asking that he helped them out by blocking any temporary funding bill that includes federal dollars to enforce vaccine mandates. McConnell appears to be resisting so far and has said a shutdown is not an option.

As all that was going on in Congress across the street in front of the Supreme Court building this morning, protests were underway as the justices sat down to hear oral arguments on the Mississippi abortion law, banning abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. For two hours, the justices questioned the legality of the statute and the possibility of letting it stand.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Viability, it seems to me, doesn`t have anything to do with choice. But if it really is an issue about choice, why is 15 weeks, not enough time?

JUSTICE BARRETT: It doesn`t seem to me to follow that pregnancy and then parenthood are all part of the same burden.

JUSTICE KAVANAUGH: If you think about some of the most important cases, the most consequential cases in this Court`s history, there`s a string of them where the case is overruled precedent.

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: Now, the sponsors of this bill, the House bill, in Mississippi, said we`re doing it because we have new justices. Will this institution survive the stench that this creates in the public perception that the Constitution and its reading are just political acts? I don`t see how it is possible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAMS: Most experts who were listening agreed the six conservative members of the court appear to lean toward upholding the Mississippi law. Should Roe versus Wade be overturned abortion could be severely restricted or banned right away in at least 26 states over half of our union.

With that, let`s bring in our starting line on this Wednesday night, Peter Baker, longtime journalist and author, Chief White House Correspondent for The New York Times, Sam Stein, Veteran Journalist and White House Editor at Politico, and Barbara McQuade, Veteran Federal Prosecutor, former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan. She worked with the DOJ during the Biden transition, is a professor at her alma mater University of Michigan Law School, who badly wants you to know they beat Ohio State, she co-hosts the podcast, Sisters in Law along with Kimberly Atkins Stohr, Joyce Vance, Jill Wine-Bank. Good evening, and welcome to you all.

Indeed, Counsellor, I`d like to begin with you, what signals did your trained ears pick up listening to oral arguments this morning?

BARBARA MCQUADE, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY: Well, Brian, I appreciate the chance for shock, because I think that`s the last left, I`ll be doing for a while in light of the arguments that we heard today. I think, you know, all ears were on some of the justices who might be swing justices, maybe Chief Justice Roberts, maybe justice Kavanaugh, maybe Justice Barrett, but all of them I think signaled very strongly an indication that they would be willing to uphold this Mississippi abortion ban after 15 weeks, which of course, is much more stringent than we had under Roe v. Wade, which is the pre viability standard of 22 to 24 weeks.

It`s not clear whether they`re willing to overturn Roe versus Wade, but I think they can effectively do that in this two-step dance that Chief Justice Roberts often likes to do. You know, we`re not going to overrule Roe v. Wade right now, we`re just going to uphold this Mississippi law. But we`re left without the kind of standard that we`ve had before. So essentially, it`s a -- all is fair game now for states on abortion laws.

WILLIAMS: Peter Baker, let`s talk about where this may be going with the help of something said on this network earlier by a frequent guest of ours NYU Law Professor Melissa Murray who clerked for Sotomayor, at the federal level.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MELISSA MURRAY, NYU LAW PROFESSOR: This has been a long game of the conservative legal movement for some years we have never allowed fundamental rights to be subjected to the whims of the Democratic process, to be subject to the whims of the majority. And if you think that gay marriage is not on deck after a day like this, then you are frankly completely delusional because yes, they are coming for that too.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[23:10:00]

WILLIAMS: So, Peter, if you would put today`s oral arguments and the comments Barbara just added to the conversation in the context of the long game, i.e., Mitch McConnell`s life`s work.

PETER BAKER, THE NEW YORK TIMES CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, no, that`s exactly right. This is the combination of a half century campaign on the part of conservatives to get to the point where they could overturn Roe v. Wade, or at least, you know, this right, a lot of the tenants of it, right? The big question that of today`s oral argument seems to be as Barbara said, whether or not they actually overturn Roe v. Wade, or simply allow the Mississippi law 50 weeks ago forward, signaling that they`re open to other states that want to restrict, even if not completely ban abortions going forward.

There has been an effort over years to build a court system, to put more conservatives on the bench through Mitch McConnell`s efforts. He obviously worked in tandem with Donald Trump. One of the few things, the two of them really worked well together on was putting conservatives in district courts, in circuit courts, and three seats on the Supreme Court.

Mitch McConnell, of course, was the one who held open that seat that Antonin Scalia vacated when he passed away in 2016, rather than let President Obama fill it in the final year of his presidency, arguing that they should wait until the election. But as a result of that, that seat went to Neil Gorsuch. And if Neil Gorsuch as a more conservative judge, ends up voting to over to uphold the Mississippi rule here or even overturn Roe v. Wade. That`s a startlingly different result than you probably would have had with Merrick Garland, who, of course, was President Obama`s choice for that seat.

If this is six, three takes, it may not make that big of a difference in that one seat, but it`s certainly, as you say, the culmination of a half century of work on the part of conservatives to get to this point where they could overturn or at least, you know, take out a lot of the fundamental tenets of Roe v. Wade.

WILLIAMS: Sam Stein, because so many of these nine justices are at time so nakedly political, I feel less gross asking a nakedly political question. And that is, this we heard the phrase over and over today, a lot of it on social media elections have consequences. Will the Democrats be able to convert this?

SAM STEIN, POLITICO WHITE HOUSE EDITOR: That`s a great question. The conventional wisdom would say, yes. The country, if you look at public opinion polls, still, by and large, supports the right to choose about whether or not you want to have an abortion, usually around a 60/40 percentage.

But you know, you can`t just judge things in that type of vacuum. What we`ve seen time and again, is that conservatives get incredibly more passionate about these types of fights than their liberal counterparts. We also have seen a change in sort of the voting dynamics in this country where what was sort of traditionally suburban women who were Republican voters have already drifted to the Democratic Party. Those are the types of people that would have had a backlash against Republican politicians than a court if they had overturned Roe v. Wade. Already, they are in the Democratic camp. So, I`m not totally convinced that this will rebound to the Democratic favor, we`d have to see, you know, both whether this is eclipsed by other issues like COVID, and the economy entering into the midterms. And of course, we have the decision, it`s up.

WILLIAMS: Barb, I never could have dreamed a switch in topic to 1/6 would be preferable subject but here we are. Let`s talk about Mr. Clark. They voted to hold him in contempt tonight, while also agreeing to bring him back and hear him out, I believe, on Saturday at a session where he may take the Fifth. Opinion seems split on whether this shows weakness or wisdom. Where do you come down?

MCQUADE: I think it`s wisdom, Brian, but you know, I think they have to proceed cautiously here. A Fifth Amendment privilege is a little different from the executive privilege that we saw with Steve Bannon. People have an absolute right under the Constitution to invoke the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

But there are certainly indications that Jeffrey Clark is kind of playing games here. As Chairman Bennie Thompson has pointed out, Jeffrey Clark did not assert the Fifth Amendment right back when he testified before the committee. He at least appeared for a deposition on November 5. And so, if this isn`t said simply a stall tactic, then I think this vote keeps the heat on him. It forces him to at least show up and go through question by question the issues on which he is going to plead the Fifth Amendment.

WILLIAMS: And Peter, back over to your bet, hard as it is to believe life in this White House and for this administration has changed once again in the past 24 to 48 hours with the arrival of this variant forcing the administration to scramble. It throws certainly a wrench in the national works when this nation has zero appetite for new restrictions?

[23:15:02]

BAKER: No, I think that`s exactly right obviously. President Biden came to office on the promise of getting a hold of this pandemic and getting us past it. Now, whether this Omicron variant is actually going to be as serious as some people fear, we don`t know yet. Obviously, it`s still a little early, there`s not enough data yet to tell us whether the current vaccines will manage to handle it, or whether or not this is something that`s going to require a whole new set of restrictions or responses, as you say. But if it does, it puts this White House once again, back in the position where it was months ago, trying to get hold the Delta variant, and make sure that people can, you know, be healthy, get vaccinated, find ways of avoiding that the changing nature of this pandemic, while not doing anything to hold back the economy that`s just begun to really take off again, after so many, you know, starts and fits. And I think that this for a White House is not what they want heading into the holiday season. We`ve already expecting a winter surge, even of regular COVID Omicron, just as one more, you know, uncertain factor on top of that.

WILLIAMS: Indeed. And Sam, speaking of uncertainty, the deadline for our government shutdown is roughly two days away. As a McConnell watcher, Sam, what`s your bet on McConnell? Does he do the right thing? Or does he joined the GOP nihilism caucus?

STEIN: I think they`ll have a very small shutdown, but to suspect that Joe Biden would sign a government funding bill and restricts his ability to fight the pandemic is ludicrous. Frankly, that won`t happen. And so, you know, this seems to me to be sort of traditional congressional theatrics to throw a stone saying, look, we`re going to stop all funding for the government unless you end these private mandates for vaccination. It`s hard to imagine that McConnell can wrangle 10 Republicans to eventually say, yes, we`ll allow this bill to go through.

WILLIAMS: So, Sam, backup just one second, a closing the seconds of this segment, you feel we will go to the brink and indeed, go officially to a shutdown period before pressure brings both sides together?

STEIN: It`s -- yeah, but I -- it`s possible they cut a deal before then. It`s not likely, but I would not be surprised, honestly, if we had a day or two of a government shutdown after which everyone comes to their senses.

WILLIAMS: Great. Thanks tonight to our starting line, Peter Baker, Barbara McQuade, Sam Stein. Thank you very much. I wish we had happier material to pass along.

Coming up, new, tougher travel restrictions just hours away. We`ll ask one of our leading physicians what more should be done to protect against COVID newest variant.

And later, the man who wants so badly to be Speaker struggling to keep his half of the House in order. While the other party works to avoid a government shutdown. Our political experts will zero in on the Republican dilemmas. All of it as the 11th Hour is just getting underway on this Wednesday night as a tree driven in from California lights up Capitol Hill.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:21:48]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. GRANT COLFAX, SAN FRANCISCO HEALTH DIRECTOR: We knew that Omicron was going to be here. We thought it would -- it was already here. We just haven`t detected it yet. So, this is cause for concern. But is also certainly not a cause for us to panic.

San Francisco is relatively well positioned to respond to variants. Our vaccine rate is high. More boosters are going to arms every day.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAMS: In a beautiful place where you can hold a news conference outdoors and December that was San Francisco`s Health Director with assurances today that the city is prepared for this new variant despite being the home to the only known so far U.S. patient.

But medical experts can see a lot is still unknown about the threat here. And to walk us through it all, we welcome back Dr. Nahid Bhadelia, an Infectious Disease Physician, Founding Director of Boston University`s Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases Policy and Research.

Doctor, so glad to have you. And I`m afraid, I`m going to launch a very broad question your way, what questions do we still need answers to considering it is so young and the lifespan of this variant just emerging, there will surely be new cases in the United States?

DR. NAHID BHADELIA, INFECTIOUS DISEASES PHYSICIAN: So, Brian, and I should start by saying that we probably will hear about a few more cases over the next few days. But having said that, you know, our sequencing has gotten better compared to a year from now. So even if it`s here, it`s probably not at high rates yet.

So, what do we know, I think the biggest concern is how many mutations this variant has? And that combined with some really concerning epidemiology from South Africa, one of the countries that sort of really sounded the alarm were both the cases have been going up, but actually also they`re seeing about a 65% increase in hospitalizations in the last week or so.

Now, the question here is that, you know, are they just seeing that because South Africa is under vaccinated, only 30% of their population has gotten vaccinated. But there is concern looking at even in the data of the last couple of days, that`s the cases are going up that we may be looking at a more transmissible variant, however, until we see this variant, sort of do the same thing and other communities and other, you know, in other settings, other vaccination rates in other countries, we won`t really know for sure about its true transmissibility.

Over the next few weeks, Brian, I think what we`re going to learn, right, in the next couple of weeks, you`re going to learn a bit more about the laboratory results that tell us a bit more about the effectiveness of these vaccines. And I think most people in my field, feel that based on these mutations, you may see some decrease in infections. And what you`re likely to see is increase in -- decrease in protection against infections, but that protection is probably going to be linked to how many doses of vaccine you had. So, if you had three doses, you had your booster, you`re most likely to be protected. Having said that, everybody, I think most people agree that there might still be very good protection against severe disease in that setting.

WILLIAMS: I want to see if you agree or disagree with the following. These are the comments this morning on CNBC by former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb, who full disclosure, is a member of the Board of Pfizer.

[23:25:06]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. SCOTT GOTTLIEB, FORMER FDA COMMISSIONER: There`s a presumption that the growth in cases in South Africa is comprised of this Omicron variant. But the reality is that they were having a mini-Delta surge, we don`t know how brisk before this emerge. We don`t know whether or not the increased number of cases that they`re seeing is this new variant. Think of all the variants that have emerged in the vaccine still demonstrated efficacy is no reason to believe that we`re going to lose them against this one.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAMS: Doc, do you agree with the central point he`s making there?

BHADELIA: Yes, which is that we still don`t know a lot of others epidemiology, right? A lot of this is observation and gathering up that data. And really, it is seeing what Omicron does in other settings. One other further example I`ll give is that there have been other variants like the Delta variant that haven`t taken foothold, that we were really concerned about a lot of these mutations that could have decreased the effectiveness of vaccines. But it is something to keep watching. But I take that also, as a lesson to see, look, there are multiple states in our union that have less than 50% vaccination, you know, Alabama versus Virginia and Mississippi, when we`re looking at vulnerability in the potentially in the face of a more transmissible, you know, variant. The best thing that we can do, if we`re not panicking and getting ready, right, best thing that we can do is to make sure we get those rates up, and that we continue that vigilance going into this winter surge.

WILLIAMS: Does the variant mean we have to change our behavior or return to our prescribed behavior? And I`m asking in light of, what I`m assuming as your support for an extended mask mandate on public transportation in this country into the spring into next March? Is this a way of not putting something new on us, but extending getting us back into what we know to be best behavior?

BHADELIA: I think we have to realize that, you know, the end of the pandemic is not around the corner, you know, this -- but we always knew this. We knew that before Omicron, we knew that we were going into a winter surge. And even from that perspective, leaving the variant out, Brian, I think, you know, in many parts of this country we`re already seeing in winter surge, and that`s before full-on holiday travel case numbers start to go up again.

And so, from that perspective, I think requiring masks, you know, and I would encourage people to wear a good quality mask as they`re travelling, doing testing and getting, you know, vaccinating and getting boosted before holiday travel is a way that we can ensure that those protections are in place.

I think that what I would say is let`s not panic. Let`s be concerned and let`s go back to what we know protects us. And that`s doubling down on those things that keep us safe from both getting infected and passing that infection on to others.

WILLIAMS: Our medical guest again tonight has been Dr. Nahid Bhadelia, our thanks as always for taking our questions.

Another break for us and coming up whatever the justices say, about choice, about abortion, the political fallout will be immediate and immense in a country where choice has been the law of the land for half a century.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:31:48]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, (D) MISSOURI FORMER U.S. SENATOR: I was a pro-choice senator that won statewide elections time after time in this state. They are not going to accept the in vitro fertilization is illegal in Missouri, or the morning after pill or exceptions for rape and incest, which they did not put in the Missouri law that is going to be galvanizing to Democrats in this country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAMS: To that end, one of our next guests writes this, "If Roe is reversed, then the political cold war over abortion will flare immediately into a roaring blaze. As if our politics needed more heat."

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Transcript: The 11th Hour with Brian Williams, 12/1/21 - MSNBC