that's going to do it for us tonight. now it's time for "the last word with lawrence o'donnell." good evening, lawrence. >> it was wonderful to see the glee in your eyes at the beginning of your hour, knowing you had breaking parliamentary news to deliver to america about

the mysterious workings of the united states senate, and getting into it with adam jentleson. >> i knew you would appreciate me doing that, because you're as much of a dork about these things as i am. but having adam talk me down and explain what it means in practical terms was good. because i was giddy. >> the idea of three reconciliation bills this year, most years they don't have any. these are not -- they're just not things that are used all the time. so here we are, this is unprecedented. and it's going to be exciting to watch. >> and it also means that they're going to have to think about legislation and legislative priorities in a very

different way. if you're honest about the prospect of getting ten republican votes, it's never going to happen on anything. that means they now know it's not just one more reconciliation bill, it's three more. that means they need to think about their priorities in terms of what can be passed in a reconciliation bill. only a specific kind of legislation. the democrats have an opportunity, but they need to make some changes quickly to make sure they take advantage of this. >> it is going to require masterful legislative technique. but chuck schumer, i have to say, i'm in awe of what he's already pulled off with the ruling by the parliamentarian. >> when we got to news on it, i was like, oh, that's the ace up his sleeve. that's why he keeps saying he has ways to get things passed. we knew it was something that he wouldn't explain. here it is.

this is what was coming. >> yup. thank you, rachel. >> thanks, lawrence. >> thank you. today, the blue wall of silence around police work in america was broken. it was broken under oath in the murder trial of a police officer by the police chief, who fired that officer within hours of watching a video that was posted on social media by a 17-year-old girl who bravely recorded that video. in decades of covering trials of police officers on homicide charges or in wrongful death lawsuits, i have never heard testimony like we heard today from the minneapolis police chief. usually covering it up is much more common. we've heard police chiefs make excuses for police officers in unjustified uses of deadly

force. that's much more common than what we saw today. we've heard police chiefs make absolutely no comment whatsoever in cases like this. just be part of that silent blue wall. that's what we have come to expect. we have not heard a police chief come forward as an important witness for the prosecution in a nationally televised murder trial of a police officer. chief arradondo testified that the first video he viewed was from a permanent police camera that captured the action from a certain distance. and there was not enough detail in the video for the chief to be alarmed by what he saw. and then hours later, the chief heard about another video. >> probably close to midnight, a

community member contacted me and said, chief, almost verbatim, but said chief, have you seen the video of your officer choking and killing that man at 30th and chicago? once i heard that statement, i just knew it wasn't the same milestone camera video that i had saw. and eventually within minutes after that, i saw for the first time what is now known as the bystander video. >> so around midnight, the minneapolis police chief saw the video recorded by 17-year-old darnella frazier, showing derek chauvin's knee on george floyd's neck for what we now know to be

9 minutes and 29 seconds. it was on the basis of that video that the chief fired all four officers on that video. and today, chief arradondo said that derek chauvin should have taken his knee off of george floyd's neck after the first few seconds. >> when do you believe, or do you believe as to when this restraint, the restraint on the ground that you viewed, should have stopped? >> once mr. floyd, based on my viewing of the videos, once mr. floyd had stopped resisting, and certainly once he was in distress and trying to verbalize that. that should have stopped. there's an initial

reasonableness in trying to just get him under control in the first few seconds. but once there was no longer any resistance, and clearly when mr. floyd was no longer responsive and even motionless, to continue to apply that level of force to a person, proned out, handcuffed behind their back, that in no way, shape, or form is anything that is by policy, is not part of our training, and is certainly not part of our ethics or our values. >> the first few seconds derek chauvin's knee was on george floyd's neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds, and according to the police chief's testimony today, that was more than 9 minutes too

long. you will be hearing that phrase in the prosecutor's final arguments to the jury, the first few seconds. everything beyond the first few seconds was, according to the police chief, a violation of minneapolis police department's rules and ethics and values. >> so is it your belief, then, that this particular form of restraint, if that's what we'll call it, in fact violates departmental policy? >> i absolutely agree. that violates our policy. >> what was sadly on display today in the courtroom was the constantly recurring fact that police training does not work. police training did not work for derek chauvin. derek chauvin ignored all of his police training when he had his knee on george floyd's neck. we heard today that police training requires police officers like derek chauvin to

provide first aid to anyone in their custody who seems to be in physical distress. we watched derek chauvin refuse to do that for 9 minutes and 29 seconds. the emergency room physician who was the first to see george floyd in the hospital said george floyd might have survived if derek chauvin had taken his knee off of his neck and administered first aid. >> it's well known that any amount of time that a patient spends in cardiac arrest without cpr markedly decreases the survival rate. about 10% for every minute that cpr is not administered.

>> every minute counted. police officers are trained to know that every minute counts. police training was completely wasted on derek chauvin and the other three officers who have been charged in george floyd's murder. the minneapolis police rule book stresses something, that derek chauvin appears to have never once thought about. during those 9 minutes and 29 seconds. the sanctity of life. >> can you please read the first sentence under paragraph "a"? >> yes. sanctity of life and the protection of the public shall be the cornerstones of the mpd's use of force policy. >> what does that mean? >> of all the things that we do, as peace officers, for the minneapolis police department, i

mentioned that thousands of calls that our men and women respond to, it is my firm belief that the one singular incident we will be judged forever on will be our use of force. so while it is absolutely imperative that our officers go home at the end of their shift, we want to make sure that the community members go home, too. so sanctity of life, that's the pillar for our use of force. >> leading off our discussion tonight, kirk burkhalter, and mark claxton. i don't like to say retired with men so young, we'll see former new york city police detectives. your reaction to what you thought was the most important evidence revealed in the trial today.

>> well, the testimony, thank you, lawrence, first of all. the testimony by the chief was incredible. something you alluded to, sometimes you can train certain things, other times you can't. leadership starts from the top, and zero tolerance starts from the top. what you saw today was a police chief, a leader of the police department, taking accountability and presenting himself as an extremely credible witness. and explaining why that police department should have zero tolerance for these actions. i think he came off very well for the jury. and the prosecution should be pleased with his testimony. further, i believe this goes a long way to beginning the healing process between the police and communities and so forth. having a leader like this take accountability, not hedge words or dodge any answers. but answer questions directly, not be evasive.

and to show that he is accountable for what his officers do. >> mark, there were so many things on display in the chief's testimony today. including for me one of those moments of community policing. he found out about the darnella frazier video not from anyone in the police department. he said someone in the community called him and said, have you seen the video? and that was the video that changed this chief's understanding of what he was dealing with. >> i tell you what, chief arradondo showed himself not just to be an anomaly, but a unicorn. when you can display that level of professional integrity. i think it's important for people to realize that this just didn't start at the trial point. at the beginning, from the very beginning, chief arradondo has been consistent in his outrage

and disgusted about the death of george floyd. he penalized the police officers almost immediately upon finding out, then he took the necessary steps to begin the reform process in the department itself. he is the professional standard, and as i indicated, the unicorn. to show just how open he is to the processes of community policing, he even referred to procedural justice in his testimony. which is a cornerstone of just about every reform process that is out there. so here you have a true professional who represented the standard in law enforcement. really demonstrating what integrity and honesty is all about. and his history is very telling about who he is right now. his history of struggles within the very agency that he now heads is very important and telling about some of the

positions, the principled positions that he's taken. >> professor, the chief phrased something in a way i've never heard before in relation to police work. he used the phrase body of work. something that we use in the arts, that we could use in other careers. and he talked about how police officers cannot, will not be judged on their body of work. they will be judged on their worst day of work. that's something they have to accept going into this line of work. i don't want to be judged by my worst day at work. and i can live in a profession where i probably won't be, and i'll probably be more likely to be judged on a body of work. but that's not a luxury that police officers have. >> not at all, lawrence. you're absolutely correct. and this is something unique to the policing profession. the chief touched on this. quite often, there's only one opportunity to make an

impression with a member of the community. it's usually just that one time, a police officer pulls you over to issue a summons or that you call 911. often, that's how you are judged. so imagine if that interaction is negative, the police do not have an opportunity for multiple bites at the apple. i think that's what the chief was trying to get across. he mentioned the initial contact with the public. and this lack of judgment based on the body of work, but on that one incident. many will say that's unfair, but that's the nature of the beast, that's the job, and that's always been the job. >> thank you both very much for joining us tonight and starting us off. really appreciate it. >> thank you. >> my pleasure. >> thank you. coming up, it's going to be a year like no other in the united states senate. the senate parliamentarian will allow the democrats to do more

than one budget reconciliation bill this year. which means they can pass those other bills with only 51 votes. now it's a matter of just convincing all 50 democrats and holding them together to pass the biden infrastructure bill. that's next. rwhelming you? breathe more freely with powerful claritin-d. claritin-d improves nasal airflow two times more than the leading allergy spray at hour one. [ deep inhale ] claritin-d. get more airflow. when it comes to autism, finding the right words can be tough. finding understanding doesn't have to be. together, we can create a kinder, more inclusive world for the millions of people on the autism spectrum. go to autismspeaks.org . .

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in breaking parliamentary news, the senate parliamentarian has ruled that senate democrats can pass two more bills this year with a simple majority vote, paving the way for president joe biden's infrastructure plan to pass with 51 votes. the parliamentarian ruled that chuck schumer can use the budget reconciliation process twice more this year. something we've never seen before in the senate. in a statement, chuck schumer said the parliamentarian's

opinion is an important step forward, that this key pathway is available to democrats if needed. to pay for his $2 trillion infrastructure package, president biden is proposing increasing the corporate tax rate to 28%. today, he was asked if that would drive corporations to other countries. the president correctly told reporters that there is no evidence of that. >> the tax was 36%, it's now down to 21%. and the idea that that is bizarre, we're talking about a 28% tax that everybody thought was fair enough for everybody. the idea is, you have 51 or 52 corporations in the fortune 500 haven't paid a single penny in tax for three years.

come on. get real. >> the president was off by one point when he said 36%. it was 35% from 1993 until the trump tax cuts of 2017, which heavily favored corporations. many of which were already paying zero in federal corporate income tax. today, janet yellen called for a global corporate tax rate that would stop countries from trying to compete by lowering corporate tax rates to try to attract new business. >> we're working with g-20 nations to agree to a global minimum corporate tax rate that can stop the race to the bottom. >> joining us now, congressman tim ryan of ohio. a member of the house appropriations committee, and chair of the legislative branch subcommittee that oversees the

capitol police. thank you for joining us tonight. this is big news not just for the senate, but for the house. the house has to pass the infrastructure bill first. and you have to know whether you're working with a reconciliation bill, because it has to be a reconciliation bill going through the house first. >> yes. that is correct, lawrence. and we can get into the parliamentary and budgetary weeds here. but this means that we can do what we want to do with the investments into the american people, period, end of story. these investments that needed to be made decades ago and now president biden, now with this ruling on reconciliation, we're moving in the right direction. and the american people are going to see a significant change in their quality of life over the next several years because of the investments that we'll be able to make. and in the house, we'll be able to kick it off and make those

investments. i think across the spectrum within the democratic caucus, we'll have significant support for it. >> there's a quote from a republican staffer in the senate reacting to this today. saying, this is an abuse of the process and clearly not what reconciliation was designed to do. but they're going to go forward anyway. and i agree, it is an abuse of the reconciliation process, as it was designed. but this comes after years of abuse in the senate by mitch mcconnell forcing the democrats into this position because there's no other way to govern in the senate now. >> yeah. here we go. they don't have to abide by the rules when the republicans are in charge. deficits don't matter when republicans are in charge. then the democrats come in, and they want everybody to do it differently and not take the advantage. and, look, we're in a position

now where we're at a cross-roads in this country. we're either going to make these investments that need to be made. everybody across political parties knows we need to invest in the roads, the bridges, the broadband, distance learning, telemedicine. i think the economy could be ready to explode if the public investments are made. if not, china will be dominating us. they're dominating us in 5g, and in the electric vehicle market. so president biden is saying, if we don't make these investments, we won't be able to compete. and one other point, he's setting aside about 40% of the dollars that will go to disadvantaged communities.

communities of color, rural america, and places like youngstown, ohio. we need the broadband. we need a public investment if you're going to lure these companies in new york and silicon valley looking for lower cost centers in places like youngstown or somewhere in ohio, we had better have the infrastructure and quality of life. a clean river, a business incubator, this needs to happen. and president biden is delivering on the promise that he made. >> congressman tim ryan, i know you're thinking about running for senate in ohio next year. are you ready to make an announcement? >> no, i don't want to step on any story about who wins the final four tonight. we'll let it ride for now. but you'll be one of the first to know. >> congressman, thank you for

joining us tonight. coming up, congressman matt gaetz said, you'll see more drip, drip, drip of leaks into the media. end quote. about him. michelle goldberg has been following all the leaks. she will join us, next. allergi'e scary. spraying flonase daily stops your body from overreacting to allergens all season long. psst! psst! all good ♪ (car audio) you have reached your destination. (vo) the subaru outback. dog tested. dog approved.

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it's alright for it to take whatever it takes for you to be ready. hi mom, ready for your shot? yes, i've been waiting for this day. we just got what? vaccinated. we just got vaccinated! let's get you there. let's get to immunity. today, in an op-ed for the right wing newspaper the washington examiner, congressman matt gaetz said he's not resigning. and promised there will be more negative stories about a federal investigation of gaetz involving his conduct with a 17-year-old girl. he denies he violated any laws. he wrote, you'll see more drip, drip, drip of leaks from the corrupt justice department and others. he mentioned nancy pelosi, bill

clinton, andrew cuomo, the cheney political dynasty, and hunter biden. but he still did not mention the unnamed woman, who he threw into this story that way. >> i can say that you and i went to dinner about two years ago. your wife was there, and i brought a friend of mine. you'll remember her. she was threatened by the fbi that if she wouldn't cop to the fact that i was involved in a pay for play scheme, there would be trouble. >> tucker carlson said i don't remember the woman you're speaking of or the context at all. today, a former member of gaetz's staff said fbi agents knocked on his door wednesday of last week. today, he denied any knowledge

of improper conduct by congressman gaetz. >> i don't have any specific knowledge of the information or any facts involved with the investigation. >> joining us now, michelle goldberg. just when we think we've seen it all by way of possible political scandals, along comes matt gaetz. >> yeah. this could really be an entire season of some sort of hbo prestige drama, directed by the coen brothers, right? it's not just that you have sex trafficking, political scandal -- [ inaudible ] this incredibly violent and sordid figure in florida politics. you have on this sort of tangential thing to possibly extort gaetz and his family.

and when you hear about the way the fbi is conducting this investigation, you know they're questioning so many people close to matt gaetz, you get a sense of how possibly a pair of fraudsters could understand this is going on, and that there was an opportunity here. but there's a whole, bleak novel's worth of twists and turns here. >> on the first day of this scandal, jim jordan tweeted, i believe matt gaetz. no one has followed him in that direction in the republican party. and the word tonight is that gaetz will not be asked to resign unless he is indicted. and then, you know, getting a congressman to resign is still up to the congressman. >> he still has marjorie taylor greene on his side.

it's interesting between the way republicans have to handle these things and democrats have to handle these things. obviously, the democrats, andrew cuomo has been able to stick out his scandal so far, and some people in statehouses. but if you have a hint of scandal, much less a panorama of scandal like this is, on the democratic side, there's a lot of pressure to leave. on the republican side, there's this guy, scott, who fired a gun, who pulled a gun on his ex-wife, who pressured his mistress and his wife to have abortions, to prescribe drugs for patients of his that he was involved with. he's a doctor. he's still there. the republican tolerance for

misbehavior is extraordinarily high. so i think things will have to get quite bad for gaetz before there's real pressure on him to live. >> nancy pelosi kicked anthony weiner out of the house of representatives. no investigation, nothing, after a couple of embarrassing tweets first emerged. and we now know that more people should have kicked weiner out of their lives. but that's how that was treated. >> right. and you have situations that are in no way similar to this, like al franken, others. the democrats, they see the behavior of their caucus as a reflection on them. maybe republicans do, too. but they just don't care, as they've shown over the previous four years. they approve of kind of

egregious sexual misconduct and degradation. something that is worth keeping in mind, we've learned that matt gaetz showed naked pictures of some of the women that he's alleged to have slept with, or some women that this other guy is alleged to have provided to him. he showed pictures to people on the house floor. at one point there was a reprimand. but certainly nobody spoke out or told him this was inappropriate. >> michelle goldberg, we'll wait for the leaks matt gaetz is promising us. thank you for joining us. and coming up in tonight's episode of defendant trump, professor laurence tribe will tell us what he thinks are the most powerful lawsuits pending

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and lasts so much longer. enjoy the go with charmin. guaranteed to fit or your money back. and now for tonight's episode of defendant trump, our next guest wrote an op-ed in the boston globe that the capitol police have the best case against donald trump. the lawsuits filed by two capitol police officers directly against donald trump for their pain and suffering when the trump mob attacked them on january 6th, to the lawsuits filed by two members of congress against donald trump for inciting the insurrection. professor tribe finds the police officers have a simpler and more

emotional case as described. officer hemby was crushed by the doors trying to hold the insurrectionists back. over and over he tried to tell them that the doors opened outward, and pressing him into the door would do no good. but they screamed, fight for trump, stop the steal, and various other slogans as they struck him with their fists and whatever they had in their hands. things were being thrown at him, and he was sprayed with chemicals. a surge slammed officer blasingame against a column. and people were yelling into his face, calling him the n-word repeatedly and throughout the attack. he lost count of how many times

the racial slur was hurled at him. he is haunted by the memory. the trump mob made it very clear for the juries in these cases who they were fighting for. >> fight for trump! fight for trump! fight for trump! >> invade the capitol building! let's take the capitol! >> take the capitol! >> take the capitol right now! >> joining us now, laurence tribe, university professor of constitutional law emeritus at harvard law school. he's won 35 cases in the united states supreme court. thank you for joining us. i've been eager to get your analysis of these police officer

lawsuits, because they're a kind of less legally complicated sort. this teams like a much more traditional tort after an injury suffered because of someone else's reckless conduct. >> exactly. the lawsuits filed by the congressmen, including representative swalwell and representative thompson are very strong. they rely on laws going back to the civil war era. and the question of whether members of congress have what is called standing to file suits of that kind is going to be at least somewhat complicated. here, it's very simple. everyone knows about assault and battery. you don't even have to go to law school. what you've described is classic intentional tort.

assault, battery, ramming people, spraying them with poisons and pepper spray. crushing them against the wall. all at the command and direction, these lawsuits plausibly allege, of the president of the united states. who was riling up this mob. so it is very clear that these officers were hurt, they were hurt as a result of the assault and battery incited by the president. and there's no question about their standing. there was this kind of a strange tweet by some horrible person following the president, saying that they don't have standing. in fact, they'll be lying in a pool of blood. the fact is, because they were bloodied and battered, they have obvious standing to claim that they were the victims of a presidentially directed assault and battery. these lawsuits also rely on some rather simple local d.c.,

district of columbia laws about fomenting a riot and causing mayhem. very simple laws. and the basis of the lawsuit is, the officers are citizens of maryland. donald trump is a citizen of florida. it's what is called a diversity suit. the very earliest kind of jurisdiction that congress created back in 1789, very simple lawsuit. and the simplicity of it is part of its great strength. >> and this lawsuit, this same lawsuit is available to at least about 140 capitol police officers who were injured that day. they could file similar lawsuits, similar claims, some of them would be assigned different dollar values by juries if they get to juries. >> right. >> you could have a bankrupting

amount of these kinds of lawsuits being filed by just capitol police officers alone. >> right. unless some of the capitol police officers happen to be citizens and residents of florida. which i very much doubt. but all of the others could file suits just like this. and they all seek not only compensation, though they don't glamorize it, but compensation for the harm, plus punitive damages to punish the president for what he did. and to deter future presidents. so these are very standard lawsuits. and i can imagine that the emotional as well as legal appeal of these lawsuits to a garden variety jury will be very large. so when you combine the lawsuits

that are also strong brought by members of congress with these suits, it's hard to see how the president will not be held accountable. and i think that is good for the future of this country. >> and the challenge is getting them to the jury, past dismissal and all of that. it's common in civil lawsuits, once you're past any dismissal hurdles, and it's clear your case is going to the jury, the defendant tries to make a settlement agreement, to try to avoid the jury's decision on this. and it would seem that a washington, d.c., jury would be willing to exact an enormous price possibly from donald trump in a verdict like this. >> i think that's right. and settlement talks are not going to get anywhere before discovery. discovery will happen as soon as the attempts to toss these lawsuits out at the threshold fail. that means that a guy like

donald j. trump will finally have to testify under oath in a deposition. as well as others will have to testify. i think these lawsuits are really going somewhere. and i think that it's about time. >> time. >> professor thanks very much for joining us tonight, we greatly appreciate it. >> thank you lawrence. coming up, bandits, that's what one contributor is calling donald trump's fundraising operation that tricked him into allowing the trump campaign without his knowledge to repeatedly withdraw money directly from his account. no one could be less surprised by this than tim o'brien who has studied donald trump's financial operations for decades. he joins us next. you can check your glucose with a painless, one-second scan. and now with optional alarms,

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donald trump lied about campaign fundraising from the beginning to the end of his

political career. >> we have much more money than we had last time going into the last two months, i think double and triple, but if we need anymore, i would put it up personally. whatever it takes, we have to win. >> that was donald trump lying in september of last year that he would self-fund the final weeks of his re-election campaign. now the trump campaign fundraisers are called bandits in a "new york times" report showing how donald trump tricked his contributor into unwittingly allowing withdrawals by the trump campaign. bandits, a californian who made a $990 online donation via wynnred. i'm retired, can't afford to pay all that money.

another in oklahoma city contrikted $500 and discovered the campaign was withdrawing $500 a week without his notice until it was depleted and frozen. tim o'brien is senior columnist for bloomberg opinion, author of "trump nation," don't even try to look surprised, you've been writing about this for years. but $120 million at issue, lot of it refunded already. donald trump apparently one of the single biggest people complained about as fraudulent online fundraising presence last year. >> yeah, we could not see any of this coming before the became president. a casino that purported to cater to high rollers when it was extracting nickels and dimes

from pensioners and old ladies. ran a tv show but in the real world a serial con artist. gets into the presidency, doesn't separate from his business interests. end of the presidency runs a scammy legal defense fund, and lo and behold engineers a fundraising scheme of the people he's claiming to defend in the real world in which they're duped into making weekly payments and monstrously grotesque grifter moment they're doubled and get thousands taken out of their pockets. gop has been bragging about the fact that they don't need corporate america, which has a

growing distaste for the way gop rolls because they can build a new future on small dollar donations. this is what they're doing, people they're relying on for those donations they're fleecing. not doing anything on the policy front to protect folks, raise the minimum wage, family leave, you name it. a cultural war in the real world and separating them from their wallets at home. >> and in 2015 donald trump's foundational lie that he would pay for his campaign himself. what he launched the campaign saying. he abandoned that lie almost as quickly as he said it. tim, i was getting the trump fundraising emails up until january 5th, only stopped after the insurrection at the capital. fight the steal fundraising campaign went on up to january

6th. >> and there were multiple emails going out sometimes each day. >> yeah. >> trumps discovered this. he went into the presidency, i think fully seeing it as money-making opportunity. but wasn't until he lost the election he realized he could use the traction with his voters to line his pockets infinitely. i don't think it's going to stop. this is just installment number two. going to see this happen in another way, and if it's not trump doing it, will be the gop because they're increasingly beholden to the way that he cultivates a cult of personality and then tries to fundraise off of it apart from policy. >> and donald trump's very aware of how weak the federal election commission is on enforcing exactly how you can and cannot spend the money that's raised through these campaign apparatus. >> don't anticipate fec

officials knocking on the door at mar-a-lago to run an audit how he's using the hundreds of millions he's grifted off his supporters. nothing getting in the way of him doing this. >> thank you tim. "the 11th hour" with brian williams starts now. good evening, i'm ali velshi in for brian williams, day 76 of the biden administration, following several important developments on the pandemic and the president's infrastructure plan. but first more critical testimony in the murder trial of former minneapolis police officer derek chauvin. jurors heard from the emergency doctor who tried to save floyd's life and from police chief arradondo. asked at what point should the restraint against floyd had