What A Day - Coup And A Half Man

Episode Date: January 7, 2021

Violent mobs broke into the nation’s Capitol yesterday in a failed coup attempt, which was incited and encouraged by President Trump and many other Republican politicians who continue to reject the results of the election. By evening, lawmakers resumed their effort to certify the election.The two Georgia Senate runoff races were called for Democrats Jon Ossoff and Reverend Raphael Warnock. Organizers like Stacey Abrams worked tirelessly in Georgia to stop gerrymandering, disenfranchisement, and oppression in the state… their efforts continue to pay off.And in headlines: two detectives responsible for Breonna Taylor’s death fired in Louisville, police in Hong Kong raid the homes of pro-democracy figures, and Trump slams gig workers on his way out.

It's Thursday, January 7th. I'm Akilah Hughes. And I'm Gideon Resnick, and this is What a Day, where we didn't even get one morning to celebrate winning the Senate. I just don't get why they won't let us have nice things. I think we deserve nice things. Any ice cream now is just laced with glass. On today's show, Democrats formally win control of the Senate. Then some headlines. But first, the latest.

The storm in the Capitol to smash windows, to occupy offices, the floor of the United States Senate rummaging through desks on the Capitol, on the House of Representatives, threatening the safety of duly elected officials. It's not protest. It's insurrection. He ain't never lied. That was President-elect Joe Biden speaking yesterday. At this point, you've almost certainly seen videos and pictures of the violent mob that broke into our nation's capital in a failed coup attempt. Actions that were consequences of President Trump and many other Republican politicians encouraging and spreading conspiracy theories and the rejection of a Democratic election. And actions that appeared to go unpunished throughout much of the day, with local police claiming they arrested a paltry 13 people.

Give me a break. Weird that no one in a blatant act of insurrection, sedition, and treason got run over by a police cruiser, but sounds about right. As of now, officials say the Capitol is secure, with a curfew put in place across D.C. last night, and the National Guard deployed, and lawmakers restarted the certification process. But to get a sense of everything that we know and have seen up to this point, let's back up to how the day got started. Yeah, so yesterday was the day to certify the

presidential election results, and we knew going into it that the process was going to be anything but routine. We obviously didn't anticipate what ended up happening, but a number of Republicans, including Senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz, among their other colleagues, had said in advance that they were going to oppose certification of certain states. Then yesterday afternoon, as things got rolling, the White House released a statement from Vice President Pence, who has a ceremonial role over the entire proceedings. And in it, he confirmed that he did not have the, quote, unilateral authority to pick the winner of the presidential election, which was bad news to Trump, who had wanted him to do his dictatorial bidding. Then also the artist formerly known as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said this on the Senate floor.

If this election were overturned by mere allegations from the losing side, our democracy would enter a death spiral. We'd never see the whole nation accept an election again. He left out his own contributions to the death spiral. But the point is, from these two statements, this negating of the results was not going to happen despite the efforts of a lot of Republican lawmakers and the president. And also, earlier in the day, before all the chaos got started, Trump directly stoked this violent insurrection with a speech to his supporters in D.C. at a Stop the Steal rally. Yes, he did. He said, quote, we will never give up.

We will never concede. It doesn't happen. You don't concede when there's theft involved, end quote, as well as continuing to say that he hoped Pence would do the right thing and effectively steal the election for him. From there, a group peeled off from the event and headed to the Capitol complex. So at this moment, I had a bunch of other people immediately thought of this anonymous quote in early November in the Washington Post from this cowardly Republican official who wouldn't put their name on it. The quote was, what is the downside of humoring him for this little bit of time, referring to Trump? Well, if it wasn't obvious, today we got a good look at that downside.

This is the sound of the violent mob literally trying to bust down the doors of the Capitol building, tweeted by Slate's Jim Newell yesterday afternoon. So it's hard to tell what's happening from just that audio, but basically they broke through a window in the clip and we saw similar scenes elsewhere around the building throughout the day. And this is when stuff really got going. A large group was able to enter the building. We know in the past people have been arrested and worse there for much less. Pence and some other senators were taken to secure locations. Other lawmakers sheltered in place. There were images of guns drawn at one point in the House chamber. Some House members said they were told to put on spots. At least one civilian was shot and killed. And there were reports of bombs at the RNC and DNC, which officials were able to safely remove. And that is just some of what we saw, which we'll probably learn more about as time goes

on. Yeah, and we'll also probably be learning more about what led to this massive security failure to protect the Capitol from this chaos, which has been planned for weeks out in the open. My early estimate is that it was simply racism and police officers not wanting to arrest or brutalize their cousins. Yeah. Plus, the only thing Trump was able to do throughout all of this was say that the mob he incited should go home while adding in a weird video message, quote, we love you. You're very special. And quote, I know how you feel. End quote. A treasonous coward till the bitter end. Well, I hope the end comes soon.

Right. So throughout the day, he doubled down on Twitter, spreading more lies about how the election was stolen and how he won in a landslide. He's now in Twitter timeout with thousands of people pleading with Jack Dorsey to just pull the plug on his account already. But let's talk about some of the official responses that we heard to all of this. Yeah. So those same Republican senators who played footsie with a coup quickly condemned the violence in tweets, namely Cruz and Hawley. But there was also an image of Hawley appearing to triumphantly raise his fists as he walked past protesters. These are truly nakedly ambitious politicians who do a lot of reaping, but don't seem to like the sowing part of that equation.

Then there was Senator Mitt Romney, who was quoted lot of reaping, but don't seem to like the sowing part of that equation. Then there was Senator Mitt Romney, who was quoted as saying, quote, this is what the president has caused today, this insurrection, end quote. Then beyond the statements of condemnation, some Democratic House members came up with creative consequences for all of this. Newly elected Rep. Cori Bush said she would introduce a resolution to expel GOP members who had encouraged the broader attempt to contest the election. And Representative Ilhan Omar talked about introducing new articles of impeachment, which was an idea discussed by a number of Democrats. Yeah, that's a great start. And I'd also like some punishments for the people who were actually committing these crimes. But lastly, let's talk about how this all settled out as of last night.

Okay, so later in the evening, lawmakers went back to business, this time with armed guards present, escorting them to the chambers. We heard from many lawmakers yesterday evening about the importance of getting the certification proceeding done, despite the day's shameful events, or in some cases, because of it. Getting it done faster because there was this chaos. As the session resumed, several GOP senators who had originally planned to raise objections said they no longer plan to do so. So as we were recording at 930 Eastern, they are still in session. And by the time you hear this, they may have likely concluded. So that is DC. But Akilah, take us through what we learned out of Georgia since we last spoke. Yeah. So while Republicans staged an anti-America, anti-democracy coup at the nation's capital because they can't accept that they lost the last election, they also were losing another election. We can now report that the two Georgia

Senate runoff races have been called for Democrats John Ossoff and Reverend Raphael Warnock. And the icing on the cake is that the current vote tallies are outside the parameters for a recount so we can safely call them senators-elect. Here's some audio of Warnock and Ossoff speaking about their wins and what they mean. We were told that we couldn't win this election. But tonight, we prove that with hope, hard work, and the people by our side, anything is possible. May my story be an inspiration to some young person who is trying to grasp and grab hold of the American dream. At this moment of crisis, as COVID-19 continues to ravage our state and our country, when hundreds of thousands have lost their lives, millions have lost livelihoods,

Georgia families are having difficulty putting food on the table, fearing foreclosure or eviction, having difficulty making ends meet. Let's unite now to beat this virus and rush economic relief to the people of our state and to the American people. Yes, that would be amazing. But we, you know, we would be remiss if we didn't mention the organizers. You know, they've been working tirelessly for decades, like literal decades, to stop the gerrymandering, disenfranchisement, and oppression that has made winning in the state virtually impossible. And with help from Stacey Abrams, who instead of moping about being cheated out of governorship, moved to organize as well, and all of the amazing

people who donated to various Vote Save America initiatives, the people have finally, truly been heard. The record turnout is proof. The defeat of richer opponents is proof. And honestly, a state that went blue for the presidential and both Senate seats, specifically for a Black reverend and a 33-year-old Jewish man after a dark history of lynchings and slavery and Jim Crow and segregation and a failed war on drugs, it feels like change is actually on the doorstep. It certainly does. And I also think there's one other thing I need to mention here. Jewish mothers are going to be calling and asking, what have you done at the age of 33? Look at John. He's a senator. It's going to happen. And let's talk about what this means for Democrats going forward. For one, they'll take over committee leadership positions and Biden's nominees and judges will hypothetically have an easier time getting confirmed.

Yeah, I mean, practically speaking, Democrats now control the Senate, the House of Representatives and the presidency. And in the Senate, Vice President Kamala Harris will be the tie breaking vote. So that means Democrats will be able to control what legislation gets brought to the floor for a vote. And it looks like, you know, we got Mitch and did not die trying. So good for us. There's a lot to get a jump on. You know, we could see the relief bill that delivers $2,000 checks to individuals since soon-to-be Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said that would be the first order of business.

And when it comes to big transformative legislation, that's going to be tough. With centrists like Joe Manchin and Republicans standing in the way, there will likely be a lot of compromise to anything that gets passed. It's also possible, though, that Dems will use the budget reconciliation process to pass laws, which only requires a simple majority rather than the full 60 votes. So we'll dig in more on all that in the coming days and weeks and months, but it is a historic week for many reasons. We can hold space to be happy for the change that's come to the South and the hope it inspires for future elections, and be endlessly disgusted by the acts of domestic terrorists in the nation's capital. Multitudes. And that's the latest. It's Thursday, WOD Squad, and for today's temp check, man, the past 24 hours have been a whirlwind.

Like we've said, it started with high highs, followed by extremely low lows. So Giddy, my question for you, how are you feeling? Uh, okay. So Giddy, my question for you, how are you feeling? Okay, I am, you know, deeply distressed by everything in the Capitol for any number of reasons. You know, how it happened, why it was allowed to have happened, what that actually means in terms of the future of these things happening, if you allow them to occur. But, you know, I'm trying to take it in stride. I do think that there is an incredible opportunity in the next year or two to actually really focus on what is in front of us, which is a lot, clearly a lot of hard shit. But in in that time, I think now that the Senate is there,

I think some things can get done and it's time to get it done. So same question, Akilah. What has this whirlwind meant? Okay, so I feel like I have several feelings. The first one is just like a visceral disgust. And it's like, it's just all the hypocrisy that I had to sit through all day. Like this whole summer, we have Republicans, you know, in public with no mask on,

happily showing up on Hannity to say that any black person that says their lives matter and walk down the street as a thug and they're violent and, you know, they should be thrown in jail. And if you loot, you shoot, et cetera. And then we see, you know, this group of people who are, again, not wearing masks, breaking into a building like a federal building armed. And, you know, and threatening people to the point where there's a lockdown within the building and the senators and, you know, House members are running for their lives. It's just it's shocking to me.

There is a deep hypocrisy to how white people are treated by police versus black people. And I don't think that I need more examples of that. I think I'm tired of seeing it. And so that's just, you know, immediate disgust. At the same time, I feel super gaslit. Like, I grew up in America. My family's been here since slavery times. Like, I'm from the South. And so, you know, there is a part of me that knows the ugly truths about America,

but also there were truths that proved to be false about how great this country was, how much opportunity there is, how, you know, you can disagree with your neighbor and still be patriotic. I'm not seeing that. And I think that it is a hard lesson to continuously unlearn the idea that like, you can be proud of where you're from because like this country needs to do a lot better for me to be like, I'm really proud of us. I'm not proud. I just live here. That's how I feel. And I think that that's just been a really major factor for me all day is like, I grew up in a place that, you know, everyone knows all of the words to the national anthem and everybody loves the 4th of July. And, you know, we came together after 9-11. I mean, you know, obviously that's not true, but like there was this feeling of that. And I think that it seems like the further we go into life, the less, you know, we can feel any good feelings about where we are.

And I think that that's just an overwhelming disappointment. And then I guess like my final feeling is just this exhaustion at all of the lunacy. Like why is it that 70 something million people voted for a failed businessman, failed reality star host, loser of a man. And now they listen to all of his words. Like they mean anything, all of these delusions, all of these blatant lies, all of these, you know, skirting of the truth, all of the conspiracies. Like, it's embarrassing to me. I'm tired of hearing about it. Like, grow up. If you, if you, like, the willful ignorance in this country is a disease.

And so, like, seeing that on display with newly elected officials still trying to make this whole the election was stolen bullshit happen is just mind-boggling and infuriating and so like that's where i'm at it's it was hard to do the show today i hate when the show is hard we have fun here usually and i'm like i don't want to talk i just want to like fucking scream yeah yeah i mean we can scream for for the rest of it as far as i'm concerned we gotta tell these people the headlines at some point we can scream for the rest of it as far as I'm concerned. We got to tell these people the headlines at some point. We can scream all the headlines. No, I feel you on the embarrassment and shame front. Because it is like you do grow up with this sense of, oh, there are ties that bind, right?

Like, oh, everything that is different is easy to overcome if we have an American flag outside of our house, basically, and light fireworks. And America gets better and better. This, like, idea that we just, like, you know, we learn from our mistakes and move forward. Not we just, like, go further and further to hell. Yeah. And it's hard to let that sit and understand, you know, what could or could not come next might not be the most positive thing in the world. But I mean, to bring it back to our other glass half full type situation,

at least, at least there is a shot of getting people some amount of help for the most immediate problems coming up. And that's the only thing that I'm like, all right, well, at least, at least we got a chance. It could not work, but at least there's a chance. Right. And I don't want Democrats to be shy about taking the chance. Well, you know what? I think that this is a, this is as far as the temp check can go. So just like that,

we've checked our temps. I'm heated. All right. That's where I'm at. You know, stay safe. Like use that anger if you're feeling anger. Hopefully don't stay in sadness if you're sad. And we will be back

after some ads. Let's wrap up with some headlines. Headlines. Osgrove fired 16 rounds into Taylor's boyfriend's apartment and didn't turn on his body camera. Detective Joshua Janes requested the search warrant that led to the raid. As a reminder, neither of the officers were charged for Taylor's death in a grand jury hearing handled by Kentucky AG Daniel Cameron last year. The city's police department also announced its new police chief yesterday. Erica Shields was formerly the police chief in Atlanta, but she stepped down last year following the fatal shooting of Rayshard Brooks by one of her officers. Shields will be the fourth person to lead the police force in Louisville since Taylor's death. Hey, did you see that video of that older woman being helped down the stairs while she was trying to coup the government by police?

Because that's all I can see when I hear these stories about these corrupt cops who will murder black people. Well, let's keep talking about police. Police in Hong Kong arrested and raided the homes of over 50 pro-democracy politicians and activists yesterday. It's one of the largest crackdowns to be facilitated by a controversial national security law China passed last year. People detained in the mass arrests are being accused of trying to overthrow Hong Kong's government by holding unofficial primaries for an upcoming election, which was postponed due to COVID. Critics see this move by the government as an attempt to further squash any existing opposition to the territory's now largely pro-mainland China government. Hong Kong's legislative body already has been through mass resignations and disqualifications of most of the pro-democracy

lawmakers. The raids provided yet another example of how Hong Kong's autonomy is slowly diminishing. Trump's Labor Department just made it easier for businesses to classify workers as independent contractors, releasing a new rule yesterday that would make those workers ineligible for benefits like overtime and minimum wage protection. He contains multitudes of bad. Labor advocacy groups oppose the new rule, which the Economic Policy Institute says could cost employees $3.6 billion annually in lost pay and benefits. Labor Department officials framed it as a path to more freedom, which presumably

refers to the freedom of tech CEOs to buy second airplanes and private islands. Rideshare companies used a similar argument last year to help pass California's Prop 22, which now lets them bypass state law and pay workers as contractors. The effects of Prop 22 are already being seen in California, with the state's biggest grocery chain moving to fire its unionized staff of delivery drivers in favor of third-party app-based drivers.

God. The Labor Department rule won't take effect until after Biden takes office and he'll have a few ways to impede it. But meanwhile, Uber has already signaled their intention to campaign for Prop 22 style laws across the U.S. Oh, horrific. Another one of America's most sacred buildings has been breached. Burglars reportedly attempted to rob Dr. Dre's house in Los Angeles on Tuesday night, soon after the news broke that he was getting treatment for a possible brain aneurysm. Dr. Dre is okay, per an Instagram post he sent out late Tuesday night.

He said, quote, I'm doing great and getting excellent care from my medical team. Sources confirmed to the LA Times that Dre's condition is stable. As far as his house goes, the four guys who tried to kick Dre while he was down were quickly arrested and reportedly didn't even make it inside. So I guess he has better security than the U.S. government. But those are the headlines. That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, kiss Georgia on a map and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading and not just strongly worded statements from

Republicans like me, what a day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe. I'm Akilah Hughes. I'm Gideon Resnick. And let's not give up on 2021. It's, um,

it's, you know, I want to, but I'm not gonna. There are no other years that we can pick. I wish we could. I wish we could. I wish we could. Yeah, we're stuck with this one.

That's just the way it is. What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It's recorded and mixed by Charlotte Landis. Sonia Tan is our assistant producer. Our head writer is John Milstein and our executive producers are Katie Long, Akilah Hughes, and me. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka.