MSNBC "All In with Chris Hayes" - Transcript: Interview with Pramila Jayapal

Interview

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HAYES: Here`s the thing, Democrats on the Capitol have been working alongside a sizable faction of Republicans who seem intent on risking their safety and making excuses for the mob to threaten their lives.

And Democrats on Capitol Hill seem pretty sick of it. Now openly acknowledging you cannot just, you know, do business with someone, especially when they are potentially a danger to everybody who works in that building.

Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, Democratic Washington is the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and she joins me now.

I don`t want to over psychologize here, Congresswoman. But there`s an aspect of it covering Congress night in, night out for six months, where like, there`s just something deeply toxic and unresolved in the building you work in, which is that a violent mob stormed that Capitol, threaten the lives of the people inside, a significant number of colleagues then voted with them to overturn an election and are making excuses for them.

And yet, every day you guys go in and just like pretend everything`s OK. And it doesn`t seem like it`s going great.

REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL (D-WA): It`s not, Chris. And you know, I`ll tell you, I was just on the floor tonight with a colleague, a Democratic colleague, and I think we`ve all kind of had it because there is this -- I mean, the country has to reckon with what happened on January 6th, and there`s this giant gap between our colleagues who are saying it didn`t happen, and that there are tourists, as you heard Jamie Raskin questioning him about, and we know that it happened. We were there, it was real. And we are trying to get real work done for the American people.

We`re not only trying to get to the truth about January 6th, and what happened and who was involved, so it can never happen again. But we`re also trying to legislate for these multiple crises that Americans are facing across the country.

Americans need childcare, they need health care. The eviction moratorium is going to expire on Saturday and there are going to be millions of people that are homeless.

And meanwhile, our Republican colleagues are passing motions to adjourn just for the heck of it and delaying everything that we`re doing and refusing to vote for the things that really will change Americans lives.

HAYES: Yes, there was a day-long temper tantrum on the mask guidance, which, again, today I can -- I mean, I guess I could be like, I understand, thinking, oh, well, this is unjustified or being annoyed by it. But just you know, I don`t know, suck it up (INAUDIBLE).

But also, you`ve got -- I mean, you know, you`ve all -- you`ve also got, I think 100 percent of Democrats are vaccinated. McCarthy says number of 85 percent today, which would put you about 65 percent of Republicans. It`s like, you know, that`s another thing where it would be good for everyone to get vaccinated there. But here we are again.

JAYAPAL: Well, instead of passing motions to adjourn, what if they just went and got a shot? What if teachers got vaccinated? It would take less time, and then they wouldn`t have to throw little temper tantrums on the floor.

But this is more serious than even them, right? I mean, their behavior and their lies about January 6th, about COVID, about masks, about vaccines are fueling a rise in cases across the country, which is fueling a rise in deaths across the country, which is fueling the need for us to wear masks.

We`ve been vaccinated, but we are supposed to say OK, you guys, you know, not only aren`t getting vaccinated, you`re not telling your constituents to get vaccinated, and you`re fighting with us about masks when lives are at stake. And January 6th lives were at stake.

And so, yes, the anger about the environment in which we`re operating here and we`re forced to operate, which at the end of the day, harms our democracy, harms our constitution, harms the American people is incredibly difficult. You can certainly sense the frustration.

HAYES: I`m going to hold you for another second. Two more quick questions for you. One is about McCarthy pulling Republicans off the select committee that you are on, which is select committee about economic inequality and economic disparity.

[20:35:09]

HAYES: And this was I think, in protest of Pelosi`s -- the speaker`s decision to block some of the members he named to the Select Committee about one-six. But my thought watching yesterday was like, well, it sort of went better without them. I mean, isn`t this kind of a plus for you guys on the committee?

JAYAPAL: That`s kind of my thought to to be totally frank, because, you know, we want people who are committed to the truth, we want people on the Select Committee on January 6th that are committed to the truth. And there are two Republicans on there, if Kevin McCarthy can`t put people on there that are committed to the truth, that`s the way it is.

And here on this Select Committee on inequality, we want people who are committed to the truth that there is extensive inequality, the worst inequality we`ve seen since the Great Depression in the United States.

And if they can`t even bring themselves to be on a select committee about that issue, then I think they`re showing their cards. They`re not going to do it for anything.

HAYES: Final question quickly, bipartisan infrastructure framework has been announced in the Senate side. The Congressional Progressive Caucus of which you`re a member in leadership, if I`m not mistaken, put out a statement --

JAYAPAL: The chair -- the chair.

HAYES: We`re not, we`re -- chair, right, yes. So, we`re not -- you guys put out a statement saying, look, we`re not -- we`re not yes votes on this until we`re guaranteed that other parts of the agenda are going to happen. How -- what`s the communication like right now? What the state of play?

JAYAPAL: Well, we said three months ago -- the Progressive Caucus said three months ago that we were not going to vote for any bipartisan deal unless there was a reconciliation deal that had our five priorities and it passed.

And so, we are in the same place. We`ve barely seen this bipartisan bill. It was decided on by four percent of the entire Congress.

And so, unless we see the reconciliation bill passed with our five priorities, we`re not going to be able to move the bipartisan bill forward.

HAYES: All right, Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, that is useful for when I talk to Secretary Buttigieg. Thank you so much.

JAYAPAL: Thank you, Chris. Take care.

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