MSNBC "All In with Chris Hayes" - Transcript: "Joe Biden and the choice facing Democratic voters."
Interview
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HAYES: Within the last few hours, you had another Democrat who came out in favor of an impeachment inquiry into President Trump. California Congressman Pete Aguilar is the 24th House Democrat to do so in the eighth day since Robert Mueller supposedly disappointing testimony. The total number of Democrats favoring an impeachment inquiry is now up to 117, nearly half the caucus. Other recent additions also include the vice-chair of the House Democratic caucus and four committee chairs including Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel who is close to Nancy Pelosi and not coincidentally happens to have a primary challenger. When Pelosi was asked back in June what she will do if a majority for caucus ends up supporting an impeachment inquiry, Pelosi dismissed the question saying it`s not even close in our caucus. We`re now in a five-week recess in which all of the members of Congress will be hearing from their constituents and if just one more Democrat comes out in favor of opening an impeachment inquiry, that will then be a majority of the House Democratic caucus supporting it. And at least one Congressman Jared Hoffman of California thinks that "week of September 9th, that`s when I predict solid majority of the Dem caucus will publicly support impeachment inquiry a tipping point. So when Congress comes back in September, impeachment may be a very pressing issue on Pelosi`s leadership. Joining me now, Democratic Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal of Washington. She a member of House Judiciary Committee which said in court filings last week the committee is conducting an investigation to determine whether to recommend articles of impeachment. Are you surprised or not by the two dozen or so folks that have come forward in the wake of Robert Mueller?
REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL (D-WA): Not surprised. I really thought that this was going to happen. I thought Mueller did what he needed to do. I think anybody who has read the Mueller report knows it`s damning. But what we needed to do was have Robert Mueller there to reinterpret the Mueller report from what Bill Barr lied about and said it was and make sure that we got those facts on television. And I think when we did that, I knew I had been talking to my colleagues, and you know, I think he did exactly what he needed to do and I think Chris you`re going to see even more people coming forward. As you know from the court filing, from the court petition we did on Friday, we are in the midst of an impeachment inquiry. Part of that inquiry, part of that process is being able to consider real articles of impeachment that we might even have to draft ourselves if we`re going to recommend it to the full House for a vote. And so there`s some confusion. People think that Nancy Pelosi isn`t on board with this, but in fact, Nancy Pelosi has green-lighted this strategy. We`re all in the same place.
HAYES: OK, that`s interesting. I just want to zoom in on that for a second. So there`s a few different ways to do this, right? The committee could take -- the House could take a vote opening an impeachment inquiry and then refer to Justice Department -- justice -- Judiciary Committee. The Judiciary Committee could take a vote opening an inquiry just among themselves and open inquiry or you could just sort of start doing it and see where it goes.
JAYAPAL: That`s right.
HAYES: And then no one has to take a vote on it. And my -- I guess my understanding is you guys are in the third thing now.
JAYAPAL: That`s correct. That is right. We are in the third thing. We see the Mueller hearing as an inflection point, a watershed, whatever you want to call it. It was the moment when Robert Mueller said Donald Trump has not been exonerated, Donald Trump has -- there is significant evidence, ten counts in his report. We went over five in the committee hearing of evidence of obstruction of justice. We went through each of those. And Robert Mueller clearly said that these are serious issues, election interference. We didn`t deal with that one as much. That was really the Intel committee, but that hearing was also very compelling. And so I think we have what we need in front of us. Now what we did in the court filing is we said we are using -- we are asserting our highest article one powers which includes consideration of articles of impeachment. So there you go, no flare, no bang but we are in the midst of the impeachment process.
HAYES: Another thing that I think just tipped over to Majority Caucus support in the House is the Medicare for all legislation which you`re author of, co-sponsor of, sponsor of. You have an op-ed today responding to what you felt like were misleading things that were said in the debates about Medicare for all. What does it mean I guess that half the caucus is now on that bill?
JAYAPAL: Well, I think it`s just once again shows that this bill, this idea Medicare-for-all, this plan, 120-page plan in our House bill, Bernie Sanders bill in the Senate, this has tremendous support. Remember, Chris, that we have now had for the first time in the history of the House of Representatives three hearings in the House of Representatives. We have an unprecedented labor coalition. The polling is actually -- you know, one of the things I take on in the article is a lot of the myths and misrepresentations that are out there. People say oh the polling goes down, people want to keep their private insurance, people love their private insurance. No, that`s just not true. People don`t love their private insurance. What they love is their doctor and their hospital. And so once you say in the poll, if you could keep your doctor or hospital, would you support leaving the private insurance. And then the numbers go up higher than even before.
HAYES: OK, but that`s the -- first of all, you can`t guarantee you`re going to keep your doctor in hospital, right, because doctors change and they might -- I mean, in some ways it`s a promise no one can keep.
JAYAPAL: No, no, no. But that`s the whole point. With the current private insurance plan, every time you move a plan which means you lose a job, you gain a job, whatever happens, you have a different insurance plan, you have to see whether that plan has your doctor or hospital right?
HAYES: Yes, correct.
JAYAPAL: With Medicare for all, that would not be the case because there is no in-network or out-of-network hospital or doctor.
HAYES: There`s no such thing as networks.
JAYAPAL: Right. And so what you have is a consistency where you do keep your -- now, I suppose if your doctor retired, they decided not to practice anymore, sure.
HAYES: Yes, that`s what all I mean. Like your hospital might shut down. No one can tell you with a straight face that they can predict the future about what your health care is going to be like. That`s my only point.
JAYAPAL: Well, but that`s -- I don`t know that that`s true. What we`re saying is the prediction is you will have stable health insurance, guaranteed health insurance, and the doctors and hospitals that you like are no longer decided by a private insurance company, right. You have more choice. You don`t have a surprise billing where you suddenly go to the hospital for an emergency cancer treatment or surgery or whatever it is and then -- now literally I just heard this from a constituent yesterday, stories all the time, a $40,000 bill. What are you supposed to do? In my op-ed in the Washington Post, Chris, I mentioned that half a million people filed for bankruptcy in one year because of medical costs. I mean, the most popular health insurance plan is GoFundMe. So I think that when we talk about this vision, we have to understand that this is a healthcare crisis. And we have to talk about the current situation before we talk about -- and what people are paying right now average of $20,000, if you have employer health $28,000 for that plan.
HAYES: Let me just say this. I`m just going to say this as a final -- as a final note. I`ve covered two huge healthcare fights, two huge ones, the ACA and attempting to repeal the ACA. And all I will say is that it`s much harder to change things than to keep things. That is -- the one thing I have noticed in the -- this is just indubitably the politics of the thing. It`s a harder thing to change the status quo than to keep the status quo and the people that learn that the most are the Republican Party that thought they had this in the bag with unified control of government and took two different runs at repealing the ACA which used to be unpopular and found out that actually, the status quo went out. Congressman Pramila Jayapal --
JAYAPAL: Yes, but here`s the -- here`s the big difference, Chris. I mean, they didn`t have a plan that they were proposing when they were but repealing. They had nothing to replace it with.
HAYES: They did. It was just bad.
JAYAPAL: Well, it wasn`t really a plan. I mean, they just have been stripping care away and I think you got a look at how good -- you know, how we have to have a vision so that we can provide universal health care for everyone.
HAYES: All right, Congressman Pramila Jayapal, thank you very much.
JAYAPAL: Thank you.
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