THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW
November 11, 2014
Guest: Chris Murphy, Kevin Eckstrom
RACHEL MADDOW, HOST: And thanks to you at home for joining us this
hour. Sources now tell NBC News that President Obama has nominated to be
the new attorney general of the United States, Loretta Lynch, federal
prosecutor, she will not get a confirmation vote any time soon. The
democrats control the Senate right now. Democrats will continue to control
the Senate through the lame duck period until the new Congress is sworn in
January under the rules of the Senate right now. Anybody short of a
Supreme Court Justice can be confirmed with a simple majority vote in the
Senate. Democrats have a majority. There is no known democratic
opposition to Loretta Lynch becoming the democratic attorney general. So
if the democrats put her up now for confirmation, she would be confirmed,
in all likelihood as attorney general of the United States. But
apparently, they`re not going to do it.
A top-ranking democratic Senate aide telling NBC News today that they
will not put Loretta Lynch`s confirmation up for a vote during the lame
duck session because, according to the democrats, there just isn`t enough
time. The lame duck session is short. They say it`s a lot of work to
confirm somebody and so they don`t plan on doing it. They don`t even plan
on trying to do it. That puts the confirmation of President Obama`s
attorney general nomination in the hands of this nice man, Kentucky
republican Senator Mitch McConnell who will take over control of the United
States Senate in January. Who here thinks it bodes well to President
Obama`s nominees to help Mitch McConnell in charge of whether or not they
get confirm now? Raise your hands. I can`t see your hands. Everybody who
thinks that Mitch McConnell in the republicans are going to happily confirm
President Obama`s nominees, especially for really high profile, really
controversial jobs.
Raise -- I can`t see any, raise your hands up higher. I can`t sigh
see any of your hands at all. Anybody? But that is apparently what
democrats are going to do to Loretta Lynch and to this nomination for
attorney general. They`re going to hand it over to Mitch McConnell. Let
him do it. Because as they say, there`s no time to do it in the meantime.
Can`t possibly be done. The lame duck session is very, very, very busy.
For example, when Congress comes back tomorrow for day one of the lame duck
session, the House put out this very imposing document about what they`re
going to be taking on in the lame duck. As you can see, there`s the
Clifford P. Hansen Federal Courthouse Conveyance Act. There`s something
Darrell Issa wants to do which is called the government reports elimination
act.
There`s also, how could I forget, reauthorizing the national estuary
programs. Now, I bow to no one in my appreciation for our nation`s
estuaries. But this is not actually a chop a block schedule. This is not
actually them running full out. Can`t squeeze in another vote. We know
it`s important, but there`s just no time. And it`s not like the democrats
don`t realize how much time really is available in a lame duck session.
And how much you can get done if you try. After the first midterms in the
2010 elections, the democrats lost a chunk of their majority in the Senate,
they lost control of the House to the republicans in those 2010 midterms.
But, after that midterm election in 2010, they came back for the lame duck
session. And frankly, nobody thought they were going to get anything done.
But they ran that short little lame duck session to Congress like a whirl
wind. They got more done in that lame duck session than anybody would have
guessed or anybody would have believed.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAKE TAPPER, ABC NEWS: The President thinks that funding the
government, passing unemployment insurance extensions, don`t ask don`t tell
repeal, the dream act, tax cuts and stark all can be done in the next --
ROBERT GIBBS, POLITICAL ADVISOR: Yes.
TAPPER: Good luck.
GIBBS: Well, thank you. Again, you`ll have a lot to cover.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: He did have a lot to cover. We all had a lot to cover. The
list of stuff that they passed in that lame duck session after the last
midterm in 2010, didn`t exactly match what that reporter Jake Tapper put to
Robert Gibbs that day at the White House. But the list of stuff they did
pass is actually longer and even more unbelievable. They kept that lame
duck session going for 18 days but for 26 days, and over the course of
those 26 days, they passed a tax cut compromise, imagine that, they
extended unemployment insurance. They repealed don`t ask, don`t tell.
That was during the lame duck act. On the same day, the President signed
the don`t ask, don`t tell repeal sent to him by the lame duck Congress.
That same lame duck Congress, ratified the START treaty, the nuclear treaty
with Russia, and still that same day, Congress passed a bill providing
health coverage for the 9?11 first responders. Plus, they passed a big,
broad, new food safety bill, landmark food safety bill. And to put a
cherry on top, they also found time to impeach a federal judge.
So to have the same Democratic Party come back after the next midterm
and say, you know, there isn`t really time to do anything in the lame duck
this year, maybe the estuary thing, that`s probably all though. Probably
all we have time for. I mean, really? What about 1998? That was the
republicans that time. They came back after that election and decided to
handle the tiny little procedural matter of impeaching the president of the
United States. After that, the midterms, the republicans came back and did
that in the lame duck session. But not before their House Speaker Newt
Gingrich resigned, and not before the guy who was supposed to replace Newt
Gingrich as house speaker, he resigned too. All in the lame duck session.
All in very, very, very dramatic fashion.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. BOB LIVINGSTON (R-LA), SPEAKER-ELECT: I will vote to impeach the
president of the United States. And I ask that this case be considered by
the United States Senate and that other body of this great Congress uphold
their responsibility to render justice on these most serious charges. But
to the President, I would say, sir, you have done great damage to this
nation over this past year. And while your defenders are contending that
further impeachment proceedings would only protract and exacerbate the
damage to this country. I say that you have the power to terminate that
damage and heal the wounds that you have created. You, sir, may resign
your post.
The House will be in order. And --
And -- the House will be in order.
And I can only challenge you in such fashion if I am willing to heed
my own words. To my colleagues, my friends and most especially my wife and
family, I have hurt you all deeply and I beg your forgiveness. I was
prepared to lead our narrow majority speaker and I believe I had in me to
do a fine job. But I cannot do that job. Or be the kind of leader that I
would like to be under current circumstances.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: And so he resigned. So, that was a rather jam-packed lame
duck session. House republicans forcing through the impeachment of
President Clinton, House Speaker Newt Gingrich resigning. The guy set-up
to replace him. I mean, Newt Gingrich resigned in the midst of those
historical election losses that the republican suffered that year. And he
had this huge ethics problems looming over him, as well. He resigned as
House speaker after those elections. The new guy who was going to be the
new house speaker, Bob Livingston, he resigns, as well, in a surprise
announcement on the floor of the House confessing to his own sexual
misconduct and he resigns right then and there after calling for the
President`s resignation. At that point, they had to find another house
speaker. Denny Hastert? Who`s he? Hey, Denny, you`re the new speaker.
Guess what. Stuff happens in lame duck sessions. It`s a will session of
Congress. I mean, estuary bills gets reauthorized, right? But bit stuff
happens too.
And they`re talking about now, oh, there`s only 15 days in the lame
duck session before the end of the year. Only working days, 15 working
days for this Congress? That`s like half their workdays for the whole
year. And yes, that is kind of hyperbole, but not that much hyperbole.
They don`t work at all. They`re going to work for 15 more days, they could
move mountains compared to what they`ve been doing. For whatever reason,
though, democrats in the Senate have decided that this lame duck session,
while they are in charge of the Senate and the Senate has some stuff to do,
they will not even try. Top of the list, they will not even try to get
President Obama`s attorney general nominee Loretta Lynch confirmed while
they have the power to do so.
There have been as yet, no substantive objections raised to the
Loretta Lynch nomination by anyone. But democrats not pushing the vote
will give republicans plenty of time to come up with something.
Republicans, of course, have been insisting on this. Republicans have been
insisting ever since President Obama nominated Loretta Lynch that she not
get a vote until they are in control of the Senate. Naturally, they don`t
want anything to happen until they`re in control. But democrats don`t have
to agree to that just because republicans are asking for it. I mean,
democrats could listen politely, hear those republican demands say, no, and
then hold the confirmation hearings on Loretta Lynch, confirm her as
attorney general and she would become attorney general. That`s within
their power to do. But they`re not. So, instead, who knows? Who knows
what becomes of that nomination. Who knows what happens next.
The republicans start off with a win before they`re even in power.
And the Loretta Lynch nomination is not the only substantive matter that`s
out there pending right now. Today, as you know, is the 11th day of
November. Which means that in much of the western world today is Armistice
Day putting that marks the end of fighting in World War I. We celebrated
in this country, and I do mean celebrate it, as Veterans Day. Memorial Day
is the more somber day holiday. Right? Memorial Day is that day that we
honor people who have given their lives serving this country. Veterans Day
is the day that we honor and recognize and say thank you to, and, yes,
celebrate, everybody who has served their country. This is the day that we
celebrate every veteran. It is a celebratory holiday. Tonight, there`s a
big concert on the national mall in Washington which is a celebration of
the troops and a salute to the troops and veterans. Lots of restaurants
and businesses today get free stuff to anybody who can prove their veteran.
Veterans today can get free pancakes at IHOPs and a free coffee at
Starbucks, and visit to the buffet at golden corral. Veterans Day is a day
to celebrate and honor and thank everybody who has served. Vice President
Joe Biden today was at Arlington National Cemetery for Veterans Day and he
spoke in moving terms about both veterans and military families.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VICE PRES. JOE BIDEN (D), UNITED STATES: The English poet John Milton
once wrote they also serve who only stand and wait. They also serve who
only stand and wait. When our son Bo, a major in the Delaware National
Guard was deployed to Iraq for a year, my wife, who is a professor, would
leave early for school and I`d get up and I`d walk into this little kitchen
in the vice president`s home. And, without fail, I`d see her standing over
the sink with a cup of coffee in her hand mouthing a prayer that the wife
of the adjutant general of the Delaware National Guard gave her. You`ve
all done that. You spouses. You moms. You dads. You children. When
they were deployed, there wasn`t three hours that went by that they didn`t
cross your mind. You all know what it`s like. And we owe you. We owe you
as much as we owe your sons and daughters, your husbands and wives. As
every adversary in every age who has ever come up against you has learned.
American warriors never bend, never break, and never ever, ever yield.
(APPLAUSE)
And that`s why, as I tell every foreign leader I encounter, there`s
never ever been a good bet to bet against the United States of America
because we have you. God bless you all. And may God protect our troops.
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: Vice President Joe Biden speaking on the occasion of Veterans
Day today at Arlington, Arlington National Cemetery. Defense Secretary
Chuck Hagel is the first enlisted combat veteran in the first Vietnam
veteran to serve as defense secretary in our country. And Secretary Hagel
spoke today at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall. Secretary Hagel`s
remarks were shorter and sort of more to the point, as he always is. But
they did make a very, very timely point at the end. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHUCK HAGEL, DEFENSE SECRETARY: The wall reminds us to be honest in
our telling of history. There`s nothing to be gained by glossing over the
darker portions of war, the Vietnam War that bitterly divided Americans.
We must openly acknowledge pass mistakes. And we must learn from past
mistakes. Because that is how we avoid repeating past mistakes. The wall
reminds us that we must never take the security of our country for granted.
Ever. And we must always question our policies that send our citizens to
war, because our nation`s policies must always be worthy, worthy of the
sacrifices we ask of the men and women who defend our country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel today speaking today at the
Vietnam memorial. We must always question our policies that send our
citizens to war. Our nation`s policies must always be worthy of the
sacrifices we ask of the men and women who defend our country. Always
question our policies.
One of the things that are pending right now before the U.S. Congress
as they come back tomorrow, the day after Veterans Day to start this lame
duck session of Congress, one of the things that`s on their plate
immediately is a formal request that President Obama made of them on Monday
of this week. President Obama announced that he wants to deploy another
1500 Americans to the fight against ISIS in Iraq. He says, that`s what the
Pentagon since they need, he says, that`s commander in chief, he supports
that request, but he will not actually start that deployment and call up
those troops and send them until Congress votes on it. Until Congress
finally for the first time weighs in on this current U.S. military fight
against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Which they so far have completely dodged.
The President wants Congress to authorize that military operation. He
has a certain amount of leeway to authorize that on his own as president
under the War Powers Resolution but that time is basically up and Congress
now needs to authorize it. But it`s also directly asked for Congress right
now in this lame duck session to fund this military operation. It`s been
underway since August. So far, it`s costing $8 million a day. Plus, he
wants to double the number of troops that are in this fight. Congress`
input on that so far, has been confined to essentially commentary as
private citizens, and making political ads. But as Congress, they have
done nothing as Congress, nothing.
Since the President made his formal request yesterday, one republican
senator has said so far what he thinks of the request, the newly-elected
republican senator from South Carolina Tim Scott, Senator Scott doesn`t
sound too positive about it. He tells FOX News that he sees this request
from the president as a blank check. You`re welcome to fill the checkout,
sir. You`re welcome to write an actual check. In fact, that is what you
are being asked to do. That`s the job of the Congress. Still unclear
whether Congress will vote on this. So far the only reaction from
republicans is that they don`t like the way that the President is asking
them to vote on it. They`ve been very comfortable for months now, not
voting on it at all or debating it at all or authorizing at all. But they
are back tomorrow. A day after Veterans Day. And they`re being asked to
weigh in specifically on our country sending more of our citizens to war
and to funding the ones that are already there and the ones who are set to
go. What will they do?
Joining us now is Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut. Senator
Murphy, it`s nice to have you here. Thanks for your time tonight.
SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D), CONNECTICUT: Yes. Thanks for having me.
MADDOW: So, you have said clearly that you want Congress to have a
debate and hold a vote on military action against ISIS. Do you think that
will happen though?
MURPHY: I think it has to happen. And I think there`s a growing
recognition on both sides of the aisle that it must happen. In the lame
duck session. Mainly for two reasons. One, it`s impossible at this point
to ignore the constitutional imperative. The constitution in article one
grants war-making power to the United States Congress and the United States
Congress only. There is no existing authorization that permits this
president to essentially deploy another several thousand troops to fight an
enemy that has not been named yet by the United States Congress. And, so,
we have a constitutional responsibility. But, second, Secretary Hagel
referenced, it is incumbent upon us as a nation to make sure that we do not
go into war, that we never go into war divided. We have a responsibility
as Congress to debate this. And to authorize it so that we`re standing
together. Now, I may not in the invoke for this authorization if it`s open
ended.
But if the executive is been holding off on bringing an authorization
to Congress because it`s hard, because it might not pass, then actually
that`s the reason why it must come before Congress. Because the worst
thing to have happen is for the President to authorize a major new
deployment of troops without the support of the Congress, which is
representing American people. I think we`re going to vote on this. I
think we`re going to start taking up on the Foreign Relations Committee
this week. And I agree with you, that I think there`s more that we could
do, but this is pretty important.
MADDOW: The point that you just raise there about how people might
vote on it, indeed how you might vote on it, depending on how it`s phrased
and what`s specifically is been authorized or funded, I feel like that`s
this really important black hole in this argument because the assumption is
that Congress is unwilling particularly before an election to take any hard
vote that might have partisan consequences. That might somehow divide
people in a way that made one party look bad or one party uncomfortably
look good or that might split a party. It`s not clear to me, at all,
somebody who watches these things pretty closely, that there is any
expected contour of how this vote would go. If I had to predict how this
vote would go, either in numbers or attaching votes to personnel, specific
personnel, I couldn`t do it. Does it seem clear to you that you would know
how the vote would go?
MURPHY: No, I don`t. In part because we don`t know what the vote
language of the authorization would be. But, listen, this is part of a
large-scale, long term abdication of foreign policymaking by the Congress
to the President. Foreign policy is hard deciding when to go into war.
Especially in this new global order where there aren`t well defined
enemies, it`s hard. And so, it`s easy for Congress just to punt and say,
well, the President will take care of it. And if it goes wrong, we`ll
criticize. I think, that`s largely why Congress didn`t weigh in on Libya,
because it wasn`t an easy call when we wanted to have our hands clean, if
it didn`t go well. But that`s not actually how the constitution says it`s
supposed to work. You know, what the President is likely going to ask for
is an open ended authorization. He`s only the president for two more
years. I largely trust President Obama when it comes to setting policy in
confronting ISIS. But I`m not sure who the next president is going to be -
- that maybe more than anything, is the reason why democrats should step up
and put some constraints on this authorization. Because this is a war that
is likely going to outlast this particular president and we don`t know who
comes next.
MADDOW: Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, your comments on this
are both news making and also very clarifying in terms of what the stakes
are. Thank you very much, sir. I appreciate it.
MURPHY: Thanks, Rachel.
MADDOW: Thanks. All right. We`ve got a lot more ahead tonight,
including a strange vote counting process that is still going on in one big
part of the country, some very unexpected numbers popping up from some
still unresolved races. And lots more ahead. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MADDOW: There is a federal governments and then there are, the 50
state governments. And a lot is left to the state governments to do
themselves, just like, you know, run that state`s prisons, or set state tax
laws, pave the roads, fund the schools. You know, a lot happens at the
state level. But states are part of something larger as well. They have
to follow the constitution of the United States, for example. States can`t
do things that defy the federal constitution even if they want to as a
state. The states also can defy federal law.
But then there`s Arizona. Arizona just got in some of the late
results from last week`s election. And one of the races that was too
closed to call on election night has now been decided as an Arizona ballot
measure that will the state of Arizona just basically declare independence
from any federal law that they don`t like. So, there`s the United States
of America, and then just above that, there`s the United States of Arizona,
who does what they want. It`s kind of how things are in Arizona right now.
In Gilbert, Arizona, which is on the outskirts of Phoenix, that`s a very,
very conservative part of the state. We`ve been watching this controversy
unfold. Where in the Tea Party majority on the local school board in
Gilbert decided that they wanted to rip pages out of the Honors Biology
textbooks that were being used in the district`s public high schools. The
crime those textbooks committed is that they mentioned the word abortion.
The textbooks are just dry, clinical textbooks.
They don`t take a position on abortion, they simply say that it exists
as a medical procedure. And so the conservatives on the local school board
decided they would fix that by tearing out the relevant pages of the
textbook. One of the school members explained, quote, "The cheapest, least
disruptive way to solve this problem is to remove the page." But then an
interesting thing happened on Election Day. Gilbert, Arizona voters voted
to oust the Tea Party majority on that school board that had decided to rip
out the pages of the textbook. The new majority on the school board is
still conservative. It`s a very conservative area. But the new majority
generally opposes the practice of ripping through facts out of students`
textbooks. So, since we first learned about the ripping pages out of the
textbook plan in Gilbert, Arizona, a few things have happened. First, I
should tell you, we posted the pages online that the school board was
planning on ripping out of the Honors Biology books. So you could see the
pages that they wanted to sensor. And so, Arizona HonorsBiology.com.
Arizona Honors Biology students can get back the pages that their school
board was going to rip out and throw away from their books.
Second, as I mentioned, the local voters of Gilbert, Arizona, on
election night, they voted out the Tea Party majority that had decided to
rip out the textbook pages. That`s why there`s interesting question about
whether or not the Tea Partiers on the school board will go ahead and do it
anyway, right? Whether they will go ahead and rip out the pages on the
textbooks, before the new school board gets sworn in and seated in January.
The ACLU of Arizona this week wrote a letter to the school board basically
warning them to not do that with their lame duck period. I`m warning them,
that if they decide to go ahead and rip those pages out of the books, the
ACLU says they would be destroying public property and it would be against
the law. There were apparently local rumors that one of the Tea Party
school board members, this week was going to personally start going after
the textbooks. She denied the rumor. But the ACLU has warned everyone off
that kind of plan anyway with this letter to the superintendent. So now
we`re sort of on the edge of our seats. We`re at the edge of our biology
lab stools wondering what`s going to be the fate of the textbooks in the
school districts with the outgoing majority wanting those pages ripped out
and the incoming majority not wanting those pages ripped out.
And now, in the meantime, new thing. We on the show have obtained and
have been able to preserve online for eternity or until I forget to pay the
bill one month, we have obtained and have posted online the pages from the
other textbooks. The other boring, normal, High School biology textbooks
that the Gilbert, Arizona school board wants to sharpie over or better yet
just rip out. The first pages we posted were from the first book we knew
they wanted to tear apart. They`re from the Honors Biology textbooks.
That was the first one that we knew the school board wanted to sensor. Now
we have obtained and have posted the pages from the AP biology textbooks
which the school board also wants to sensor. It`s a whole different book.
They wanted to rip these pages out too. You`ll see the pages when you go
to ArizonaHonorsBiology.com, they`re lovely in their boring biologiness.
So, if you want to brush up on how our babies made and how
contraception works and all that stuff, at a tenth grade level, be my
guest. And now if the Gilbert, Arizona School board does decide to go
ahead with a stealth plan to start ripping the pages out of Science
textbooks, now I think with these news pages that we have obtained, now I
think we have got it covered. I think we have now covered online all of
the books they want censored. So, High School kids of Arizona, if they do
steal the stuff out of your books, ArizonaHonorsBiology.com is where you
can get it again. Arizona may be conservative, but Arizona, you really are
still part of the United States and you really can`t pretend some parts of
biology don`t exist because they make you feel uggie. I mean, you can try.
But, really, you cannot get away with it.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MADDOW: There has been an important demotion in the news, a very high
ranking official has been busted down to the minor leagues, for offenses
that you will remember from the news when I described them. Nobody ever
thought there were going to be consequences for this guy, but now, there
are. He has been demoted majorly, actually in sort of historic terms. And
that story is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MADDOW: OK, it`s April, 2004, middle of a presidential election year,
right? And all of a sudden, the media takes a profound interest in the
Democratic presidential candidate`s plans for Easter? Quote, "Politics
cloud John Kerry`s Easter plans", "John Kerry`s communion controversy",
"John Kerry`s Catholic problem."
A sudden cause for concern about John Kerry`s Catholicism stemmed from
a campaign stop in Missouri a few weeks prior when the Catholic archbishop
of St. Louis announced that if John Kerry were to seek communion in town,
the archbishop of St. Louis would refuse to give it to him.
Before Senator Kerry came to town, the archbishop told the press,
quote, "I would have to admonish John Kerry not to present himself for
communion. I might give him a blessing or something." Or something.
This was the run-up to a presidential election in the United States.
And this Catholic archbishop makes a big public point saying that one of
the two presidential candidates should be denied the sacraments of his
faith because of his politics. But that was kind of the M.O. of this
archbishop, this very, very political archbishop.
That intervention of a presidential campaign happened in 2004. In
2007, he made another big public protest when he resigned from a hospital
board in protest because he disagreed with a concert being held to benefit
the hospital. He resigned in protest specifically at one of the performers
at the benefit concert.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FATHER RAYMOND BURKE, ARCHBISHOP OF ST. LOUIS: My concern involves a
fund raising event which was to take place this coming Saturday at the fund
raising event, the featured artist will be Sheryl crow. It is unacceptable
to the church that it`d feature any person who is in such grave error
regarding the natural moral law and the church`s teaching.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: Sheryl Crow was too publicly, politically sinful for
Archbishop Raymond Burke of St. Louis. So when the organizers of that
hospital benefit refused to cut Sheryl Crow from the benefit concert event,
Archbishop Burke resigned as chairman of the hospital`s board. That was
2007. So, it`s 2004 with the John Kerry thing, 2007 with the Sheryl Crow
thing.
And then in 2008, President Obama was elected. He was inaugurated in
2009. And a few months into his presidency, Notre Dame invited the new
president to speak at graduation and to come receive an honorary degree.
Archbishop Raymond Burke lost his mind about that. He reprimanded Notre
Dame as a college saying that any honor they gave to President Obama would
be, quote, "the greatest scandal."
And then, a few months later, when Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy
passed away, Archbishop Raymond Burke said that Ted Kennedy should never
have been given a Catholic funeral. The archbishop went out of his way to
say he would have denied Ted Kennedy a funeral in his faith because of what
Archbishop Burke thought about Ted Kennedy`s politics.
Now, at the time of all of this, the pope was the very conservative
Pope Benedict. And Pope Benedict liked Archbishop Raymond Burke
apparently, at least he rewarded him, it appeared, for his agro
conservative politics here in the United States. He brought Archbishop
Burke to Rome to become America`s highest ranking Vatican official. He
made him effectively the chief judge of the Vatican Supreme Court.
And Pope Benedict made him a cardinal. So, he`s no longer an
archbishop. Now, his Cardinal Burke. With his new roles and his
responsibilities, I should tell you, Cardinal Burke, one of the things
people known for is that he was entitled to wear all of the ceremonial
regalia that his position entailed. But you certainly don`t have to wear,
just because you have that position, he actually showed so much interest in
the most elaborate robes and outfits that his colleagues at the Vatican
finally asked him to please tone it down in terms of what he was wearing.
Cardinal Burke rose to power by being the guy in the Catholic Church
who was willing to be the most interventionist in electoral politics from
the conservative side. He did that here in the United States, and for
years, both here in the United States and in Rome, he was rewarded by the
church hierarchy for doing that.
But, now, Pope Benedict has resigned. And since Pope Benedict
unexpectedly resigned about a year and a half ago, the new pope, Pope
Francis, has spent the past year and a half running things quite
differently from his predecessor. You might have heard something about
him.
Well, now, those changes have come home to the highest-ranking
American at the Vatican, to Cardinal Raymond Burke. Pope Francis has now
removed Cardinal Burke from his post at the Vatican`s highest court. He is
instead moved to a job that is most notable for its lack of any meaningful
responsibilities.
He`s no longer the supreme court at the Vatican. As "Washington Post"
put it, quote, "It was as if Chief John Roberts had been sent to call balls
and strikes at a little league game."
The Catholic Church is 1.2 billion members strong. It has been a
remarkably political entity for most of the time that it has existed.
Cardinal Burke has spent much of his career using conservative politics and
conservative intervention into American politics as the means of his
advancement in the Catholic Church.
Does his very public demotion now signal a fundamental shift in how
the Catholic Church wants to operate in American politics? Or how it
doesn`t want to?
Joining us now is Kevin Eckstrom, editor in chief for the Religion
News Service.
Mr. Eckstrom, thanks very much for being here. I appreciate your time
tonight.
KEVIN ECKSTROM, RELIGION NEWS SERVICE: Good to see you, Rachel.
MADDOW: So, I`m a Catholic. I`m a lifelong Catholic. But I`m not
sure I always understand the church hierarchy and what the titles mean and
all of the different orders and all these things. How big a demotion was
this for Cardinal Burke?
ECKSTROM: As big as they get. This is like President Obama coming in
and telling John Roberts from the Supreme Court, you know, I don`t like
your style. I don`t like how you do things. And frankly, I don`t like you
very much. So, you`re out of here. You`re fired.
It is as big a fall for somebody in Cardinal Burke`s position as it
probably possibly could be.
MADDOW: What about the new job that he`s in? Is the new job that
they have put him in an unimportant job?
ECKSTROM: Not really. It`s a ceremonial job. I mean, the Knights of
Malta, they`re a charitable organization that does good work and are
important to the life of church. But, on a day-to-day level, it`s -- you
know, there is no comparison.
He`s the patron. So you know how the Prince of Wales is the patron of
all of these different charities of Britain? That`s basically what his job
is now in Rome.
MADDOW: In terms of Pope Francis and actually previous popes as well,
is it a known thing? Is it a thing that happens that popes do stuff like
this to cardinals, to the princes of the church, in a way that essentially
functions as a public reprimand? So, people, even who just follow the
secular news realized that something big and political has happened here.
ECKSTROM: Well, I mean, typically, you know, a pope gets to bring in
his own cabinet. There`s nothing unusual about that.
But typically, how it works is, you know, they`ll allow a cardinal to
kind of age out of position. Or they`ll transfer to another job or another
semi-important post.
But Cardinal Burke is only 66 years old. He`s got another 14 years of
power before he basically hits retirement age in the Vatican. So, he`s
being pulled out of the game very, very early. And he`s deemed very, very
publicly.
You know, the great story of this is his demotion has been sort of
rumored for weeks. And a reporter caught up with him at the big senate
they had in Rome a couple weeks ago to talk about contraception and divorce
and marriage. And the reporter asked Cardinal Burke, I hear you`re about
to be demoted, is that true? He said yes, it is. And they said who told
you? And Cardinal Burke shot back, well, who do you think?
MADDOW: Wow.
ECKSTROM: So this comes straight from the pope himself, which I think
adds even more significance. This was not a mid level management
reshuffle. This was a very public firing.
MADDOW: In terms of Cardinal Burke and I guess particularly in his
career as archbishop in the United States, he was interventionist in
American politics, as a conservative into American politics. Does --
should we read anything into this in terms of how Pope Francis wants the
church to relate to electoral politics? Is this a let`s get out of this
business? Or is this a message that he wants to be interventionist in the
other direction? Or is this unrelated?
ECKSTROM: Well, it`s a little bit all of that. You know, it`s
important to remember, when Cardinal Burke was transferred to Rome, he was,
in some ways, exiled from the American church because a lot of American
bishops didn`t like his politics and didn`t like his intervention with John
Kerry and Sheryl Crow and all the others. They thought he was giving a bad
name to the U.S. church so they wanted him out of here. So, they sort of -
- they got him to Rome -- convinced the pope to send him to Rome so that
they get him sort of out of their hair.
I think, you know, it does send a subtle message about the church and
politics. But what it really sends is from Pope Francis, a message that
he`s going to get what he wants and it doesn`t matter who he has to fire in
order to get it.
You know, he was -- Pope Francis has been talking about opening up
communion to divorced and re-married Catholics. The one man really
standing in the way of all of this, he was the head of the court that
decides was such things, was Cardinal Burke.
MADDOW: Ahh, got it.
ECKSTROM: So what this is, this is a power play. And it`s a very
powerful power play by pope to say that he`s going to get what he wants and
he`ll do what he needs to do to get it done, and it`s a signal to every
other bishop in the world that if you want to be a part of this
administration, you`ve got to learn how to play ball with this pope.
MADDOW: Kevin Eckstrom, editor in chief for the Religion News Service
-- usually, sports metaphors don`t help me. But in this case, turns out
that`s exactly what I need. I really appreciate it, Kevin. Thanks very
much. I appreciate it.
ECKSTROM: Thanks, Rachel.
MADDOW: All right. Just ahead, a story I have been obsessed with for
quite a while now and it keeps getting more and more mysterious over time.
Perhaps you can help me figure it out. That`s ahead.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MADDOW: That mysterious story that I`m obsessed with is still to
come. That`s the next story. But I have an election update for you in the
meantime.
One week out exactly from Election Day, there`s still an unresolved
and still unfolding situation in the great state of Alaska. On election
night in Alaska, the governor`s race there was too close to call. The
incumbent Republican Governor Sean Parnell and the independent candidate
challenging him were separated by only 3,000 votes. That was part of the
drama.
But there`s also drama in the U.S. Senate race. Incumbent Mark Begich
trailing his Republican opponent by about 8,000 votes. Mark Begich did not
concede that race. He said at the time because there were too many ballots
that had yet to be counted, that yet to come in. And, you know, that`s
often the refrain of the trailing candidate, right?
And with 8,000 votes between them, it kind of looked like Mark Begich
was trailing by enough that he really ought to cut bait. Why isn`t he
conceding?
Well, check this out. Usually counting up all of the uncounted
ballots well after Election Day means tallying up maybe few thousand
absentee ballots, even in a big well-populated state. In Alaska, which
doesn`t have all that many people, it`s not a few thousand votes they`re
waiting for. It`s 50,000 ballots that they know of so far, might be more.
There are 50,000 ballots that have yet to be counted in Alaska. And
that means nobody knows how these two big important races are going to turn
out. And we may not for a while. But they`ve counted over 200,000
ballots, 50,000 still haven`t been tallied.
We spoke to the Alaska Division of Elections, and they told us that
they`re going to continue to count. They`re continuing counting until a
week from tomorrow, November 19. But if they`ve got 50,000 at least still
to go, this is going to be a long and tense process. Watch this space.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MADDOW: This is an airboat. I have never been on an airboat, but I`d
love to someday. They basically put a big airplane style propeller on the
back of a flat bottom john boat that lets you navigate through water in
which you would otherwise definitely get stuck.
In the airboat, the propeller is all above water, so even in really
shallow swampy water, you turn on the fan, zip around wherever you want,
wrestle the alligator and you`re done. Very cool. An airboat is a very
cool thing.
But then there`s the airboat that lets you not just zip around the
swamp, it lets you fly, because you strap the propeller to your body
instead of to a boat. You put on a parachute and hey look, you are flying
without a plane. I had never seen that technology, that kind of low tech
jetpack technology before I saw these guys do it over a nuclear power
plant. This is in France a couple of years ago.
Dude straps the giant freaking propeller to his back, lays out his
parachute, runs for it and takes off into the sky. Then he fly himself
without an airplane all around over the top of the nuclear plant. And then
he eventually lands inside the nuclear plant. But not before he drops a
big scary smoke bomb on to the top of one of their reactors.
This was a Greenpeace stunt a couple of years ago. The idea was to
show that France was not taking security seriously enough at its nuclear
plants. It was a couple of years ago.
Now, something else is going on that is less gee wiz and more spooky.
Over the past few week, at least 19 times, drones have reportedly been
spotted flying over nuclear plants in France. Small drones. The nuclear
energy operator in France admits that more than a dozen times in the last
month, unidentified drones have been seen flying over their facilities.
And apparently it`s not Greenpeace. At least Greenpeace says it isn`t
them this time. They`re usually pretty happy to face the consequences and
take responsibility for stunts like this. This time, nobody is claiming
responsibility.
These new drone flights have apparently happened mostly at night. It
happened at multiple nuclear sites, but there`s no definitive list of where
it`s happened. Maybe more than the 19 that had been reported.
The government says the drones haven`t done any harm, but there are
reports now that French police have been given authorization to shoot the
drones down if they can. It`s kind of spooky enough on its own, right?
Here`s the spookier thing. So, this has happened at least 19 times,
at all these different sites all over the country. So, you think OK,
there`s an activist out there who`s handy with a drone the way the
Greenpeace activist was with the airboat, paraglide, paramotor thing.
It turns out, this can`t just be the work of one guy or one person.
At least once, "The Guardian" newspaper reports there were four separate
drone flights at four different nuclear facilities all at once, four
simultaneously in different places.
"The Independent" also reports that the drones being used are not your
typical toy drones. They`re said to be more complex helicopter-style
drones that have pretty powerful engines that can fly for miles. They`ve
reportedly been fitted with searchlights of a kind that can be linked to a
camera.
So, the French government has so far tried to deflect attention from
this mystery by reiterating these drones don`t pose any threat to security
at plants, but the French parliament announced that they`re holding public
hearings on this starting later this month. The police are investigating
this as a criminal matter. A few days ago, there did seem there was a
break in the case when three people got arrested near the nuclear plant in
possession of a model airplane, but apparently the police cleared those
three people of any connection to the other drone flights. They were just
people with a model airplane in the wrong place at the wrong time.
While the French police were desperately trying to figure out who`s
flying fleets of high-powered drone-coptors into the airspace above their
nuclear plants for weeks now, including four of them simultaneously at
different sites, with no clue as to who`s doing it and what their
intentions are.
We sometimes close this show with something we call a moment of geek.
This is like a moment of geek eke. They`re investigating this thing now.
They`re holding hearings. We`ll let you know more as we learn more.
Now, it`s time for "THE LAST WORD WITH LAWRENCE O`DONNELL".
Good evening, Lawrence.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY
BE UPDATED.
END
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