the first felony sentencing for a a foot soldier on the capitol attack. tonight, why isn't the justice department prosecuting the leaders who inspired him. that is infrastructure votes begin why, is the white house waiting to act on voting rights. i'll ask james clyburn. plus the texas lawmaker who fled his state to stop voter suppression, test positive for covid in d.c.. -- joins me live from quarantine. in my exclusive in a -- an america's sluggish response to climate change, and how to turn it around. when all in starts right now. good evening from new york. i'm chris hayes. we just got the names of the people that house minority leader kevin mccarthy imported to investigate the january 6th insurrection. three of the five members that he chose, voted to overturn the election results.

pennsylvanian arizona, including congressman jim jordan of ohio. according to a new book by washington post reporter's, was called out by a potential committee colic. as the guy who did this. the guy responsible for the january 6th attack on the capitol, and now that guy is going to possibly sit on the committee to investigate what happened. these are reportedly the five that mccarthy is chosen. there are a couple things we do not know when. speaker of the house nancy pelosi first announced this select committee, one of the things she said was that she would have veto power over the appointments. so right now it's unclear whether or not she will use or give these members the okay. people who actively voted against democracy and the day of the capitol riot. that's something to watch. we'll talk more about that with congress and james clyburn just a little bit later in the show. generally if you feel a sense of déjà vu, as you survey the landscape of american democracy, the politics in this moment, you are not alone. i feel it to. we have very much been here

before. there are so many ways in which the first year of the biden administration harkens back to the first year of the obama ministration. that's despite the fact that we generally see george w. bush, donald trump is kind of optics ends of the spectrum of modern public politics. both biden and obama came to office after republican -- desecrated the rule of law, opposed all efforts to -- left the country in historic countries. huge crushing problems that had to be solved immediately. that is what barack obama inherited on january 20th, 2009. that's what joe biden inherited on january 20th 2021. and because the similarities between these two, there's been a lot to learn. there are lessons, about how to pass a democratic agenda, there are lessons about obstruction. senators mitch mcconnell's jew, nature whether you can trust him. there are lessons about the importance of tangibly

improving peoples lives as fast as possible. but one of the biggest lessons, when the occupies isn't this day, it's about accountability, the rule of law, and what happens to people who transgress. today, we saw the very first sentencing for january six ryder, who is convicted of a felony. this is a first. his name is paul hotchkiss, 38 out of tampa florida. he pleaded guilty to obstructing an official proceeding, when he entered the capital building, carrying a trump 2020 flag. he made his way into the senate chamber, any took selfies there. he received eight months in prison, significantly less than the 18 months prosecutors asked for. we will talk a little bit more about what that sentence and what it means. overall, when you step back, the fbi in the department of justice of done an admiral job in this massive investigation in the wake of the insurgent. i remember on january six zero watching, live as the people destroying the capitol, just escaped. they all got away.

thinking, they may be a little hard to find. but the fbi and doj did a very good job attracting these people, down building cases and bring in charge against them. there are more than 500 people have now been arrested. but, in some ways, bringing count ability to those people, people like paul hutchins, is the easier thing for our justice system to do. a much harder thing is dealing with the powerful people at the top. today we also learned that the department of justice will not prosecute donald trump's former commerce center near, for lying to congress. you may remember this episode. we covered it a bunch. it was so agree just even at the time. he testified in congress that he decided to add a question about the citizenship status of folks, to the census, after the department of said that was needed to enforce the voting rights act. federal voting laws. please you have to add the sentence. the truth was essentially the opposite. ross admitted he started thinking about the issue, and

then reached out to the doj to suggest the request ending the question. could you semi aircrafts just at the question because i wanted the question. anyway the effort was unsuccessful. but the supreme court will do 2019 that they couldn't exclude the citizenship question on this consensus. mostly they will because the whole thing was so shoddy. and obviously manipulated and deceitful. it was a pretty blatant attempt to intimidate immigrants and reduce the representation in the census. wilbur ross, you remember him, 83 year old multimillionaire, most notable for falling asleep in meetings and wearing $60 slippers. the wilbur ross is of the world often escape accountability. we've been here before. before barack obama became president, he said he would hold people account for the war crimes the united states authorized and then committed during the bush administration. and i do not use that term lightly. there were orders to allow torture and like waterboarding in other things, that were clearly a violation of can

geneva convention in domestic law. he was clear eyed about that in the transgression. also the political reality of prosecuting formal officials. >> we are still evaluating how we are going to approach the whole issue of interrogations, intentions, and so forth. and obviously we're going to be looking at past practices. i don't believe that anybody is above the law. on the other hand i also have a belief that we need to look forward, as opposed to looking backwards. >> forward not backwards. that would be an important slogan at that time. warcrimes had been prosecuted in the wake of the abuse -- the most interest in recorded document or crime in the bush. here's 11 u.s. soldiers were convicted in crimes related to the abuse. captured those infamous photos. former reserves shoulder was

sentenced to three years for prison in her role. but remember nothing ever happened as secretary defends donald rumsfeld, who authorized the use of interrogation techniques, that multiple reports found that led to this. that was the pattern. in the question the beginning of the obama administration, was that power of pattern going to change. the answer is, it did not. i think the reason is the compounding crises, in the fixed amount of political capital, the obama administration decided not to prosecute the engineers of the regime. at the time i thought they should have. in hindsight i still think they should have. but i want to give them their due. you can oversimplify easier call these things are. there's a reason the people are hesitant to prosecute members of the government, particularly for talking about prosecuting political issues of the other party once you take power. there are political reasons for that, the blow back, and rule of law reasons for that.

he definitely do not want to end up in the locker upcycle were each who cesspool him integration jails members of the previous, one in a never-ending tit-for-tat, which is the thing that happens in many countries. but, but, but. when the law is violated, to torture people, when it's violated by the people interested by the power to uphold enforce the law, there must be accountability for that. and there was essentially a man in the bush administration. the guy who wrote the torture member, tenure faculty of berkeley, just chilling, goes on cable news, teaches. hey. and there's a direct line between lack of accountability and the world we find ourselves in now. yes donald trump was impeached waist and yet he sits in mar-a-lago giving interviews, very sensitive person entirely and completely fixated, and upending american democracy having tried and failed ones

already. he's focused. he knows what he wants to do again. they tested out all the weak parts in the fence. they're going to come for the fence again. yes he is still being investigated. but the he tried to form a coup six months ago. i don't know what's to tell you, that's what's waiting in the wings. that's what's being hatched. it's being plotted. obviously in front of all of our faces. listen to what the man says. -- rain in the new york times, those at the top, who encourage inciting the insurrection of january, six should face accountability, the same way that more than 500 rioters now well. and yet here we are again, they remain untouched. we have one of the authors of that piece -- elizabeth goldman, former democratic congressman of new york, served on the judiciary committee, which voted to impeach richard nixon.

she's author cheating justice, how bush and cheney attacked the rule of law and plotted to avoid prosecution, and what we can do about it. let me start with you. maybe you can give your argument as you wrote in the times about why you think prosecutions at the top, who that means in the means by which it should be done and why it's important to do. >> what we actually wrote about wasn't exactly prosecutions. what we wrote about was essentially this process, we are by when a member of the government, an employee get sued, the attorney general is required to certify, whether the conduct was engaged in within the scope of of his employment. this all comes up in the context of congress and will brooks from texas, behavior on january six. where he advocated that people can gaston said a whole lot more things, stirring up that crowd that went up and did what it did, and he has now been

sued by congressman swalwell along with a number of other people. and he has asked the attorney general to certify that he was acting within the scope of his employment. so that he in fact as a congressman who stirred up the trouble, on january 6th, i to be defended by the united states. defended in the sense that they step in, and substitute themselves the united states government, as the defendant in the case. and he is immunized by that process. the article we row essentially says clearly attorney general garland should not certify indeed he should conclude that brooks was not within the scope of this employment. if you think through the consequences of what would happen if he did so certify brooks would be off scot-free. and essentially you would've opened the door for trump and others to make the same claim.

but things they did were also within the scope of employment. we are pretty optimistic that he will do the right thing. but we felt it was important to make this point in the article. >> just to clarify my imposition before which i apologize before. there's a variety of ways accountability can be have. here there's a civil suit right now. here arguing against the government certifying his incitement as part of the normal course of business. or underneath his official duties. to give him a kind of protection. have the government defend him. that would be the department of justice going out of its way to shield him. there's other questions about whether the department of justice should be more aggressive, and actually wielding whether prosecutorial powers or others like something on the wilbur us chris. i get how thorny that is. i get that prosecutions for misleading or perjury to congress or not that common. roger stone obviously was convicted of that. i understand the hesitancy

there but at the same time, it does look like a purity for people at the top a little bit. when you think? >> absolutely. it's not so hard to stop and think about an attorney general of the united states richard cline deeds. he was prosecuted in pleaded guilty for misleading congress and lying to congress. and he was convicted. he served a suspended sentence. but there was accountability. there was no question that he wasn't going to be dealt with. because the evidence was very clear about that. in the nixon administration, and watergate. what you had was. accountability. yes nixon alternately was pardoned. but he was indicted in an coconspirator. top members of his administration. attorney general john mitchell, went to prison.

his top aides went to prison. a substantial prison sentences. we had accountability, four top people in office, what has happened to us? i was a prosecutor in brooklyn. if i ever said i'm going to look forward not backward, when people committed murder, or rape, or robbery. or burglary. i would've been out on my ear in two seconds. because if you don't hold people accountable for the crimes, then you trivialize the crimes and you also when it comes to high officials, set a double standard. high officials can escape and others don't. >> i am all for accountability. i agree with the idea of accountability. but i think it's a little bit simple-minded to equate the situation after watergate, after what attorney general now has to deal with in the trump administration. what happened after watergate

was a republican administration, cleaning up its own mass. we have the worst president in the history of the country, who is probably also the most corrupt. who left the country in a complete mess. and the justice department is working overtime to deal with a lot of the things that have been done. the domestic terrorism issues. prosecuting the people involved in january six. cybercrime, all sorts of things they are doing, and there's really a question of how much energy, that is appropriate for this justice department now. to be putting into prosecutions, that are going to be viewed by 20% or 30% of our population. and is political in nature. even though they're not. even though they would be totally justified. these are hard calls. and i think you need to recognize, the garland in the department only have so many bullets.

so the idea that they're making hard judgments, which i think they are difficult. and maybe sometimes they are not going far enough, but it's not an easy thing, to just say go prosecute everybody. they'll be a price. >> i'm not saying they should go prosecute everybody. and saying we've studied standard and it wasn't a republican administration that cleaned up itself, it was a special prosecutor. the special prosecutor's office that prosecuted the case. i'm just saying, when you have a high level official, who appears there was sufficient evidence to require the inspector general to forward that document, to congress, i mean i'm sorry to the justice department, and say they are considered prosecution, when we don't go forward in that case, you better have a good explanation, because otherwise it suggests favouritism. and what does it say to the other 80% of americans, who are

concerned about seeing that justice is done to people who commit crimes in high places. >> i think that both of these, both of these, i think the reality is the gravity that pulls and all of this, it is the political capital that donald spoke to. that's unfortunate from a justice perspective has been very warping in the, pass will continue to see that is the case. thank you both. that was great don't go anywhere. my interview with congressman james -- about the members of the sedition, caucus being appointed the january six, committee and whether the white house is doing enough in the fight for voting rights. congressman joins me next. rights. congressman joins me next.

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they talk about the issues or passion about things they want to seem done, it can seem like every issue they talk about it is a priority, but the flip side of it means that nothing is a priority, if everything's priority. at the end of the day politicians, particularly those in power, have to make choices. what do you do first. when you martial political capital for. what's the sequencing. in the case of the biden administration, it's pretty clear at this point, that infrastructure, the total package, both cara connally and more traditional infrastructure, that that is the priority, they are actively negotiating, two separate pieces of legislation around those priorities, the one bipartisan deal they struck, one which is going to through reconciliation, and they want them done now.

they have a full court press, senator schumer pushing for procedural votes and both of those tracks this week. and now appears might be delayed although that's been back and forth. sense infrastructures happening now and all the energy and focus on political capital is being spent on it, other legislation like voting rights protection, electorally form, just is naturally moved further down the line. both in a time sense in a priority sense. that being said, senate democrats on the roads, committee held a field hearing on voting rights and atlanta georgia today. it's the first field hearing in 20 years. and it focus specifically on georgia's absurdly new voting law. jagger's man james clyburn, is the number three ranking democrat in. the house he endorsed biden, when it seemed like biden's campaign might be. flaying that endorsement helped him with south carolina, essentially the nomination after that. he's advocated the president, and senate democrats work behind the seems to carve out an exception to the filibuster,

to pass voting rights protection. he joins me now. first i wonder if you agree of my read of the prioritization right now. of the legislative agenda. of this democratic administration right now. >> i think you've got it right. i'm not sure you had a raid on the subject matter. to me voting is the top priority. whatever we're talking about in politics. that means it'll be voted on first. voting remains the top priority with us. all the other things are secondary if we can't get people to the polls. >> part of this comes back to the map in the senate, reconciliation, i think you've been very compelling on the idea that they're already carve outs for different things, that can't be filibustered, that they should be in that category,

i just wonder if you've had feel like you've had more conversations are made in the progress of the argument, to the people that will need to agree with you, to get your resolution. >> well, i think i made progress with a lot of people. i'm not too sure how much progress i made with two people particularly, in that's the two senators, who seemed to be ready to filibuster no matter what. i'm still working with them, and i think i am making progress, we will see,. >> there's a big announcement in the house today, that minority leader announcing the five members that will serve on the january 6th select committee. it's notable, that three of these members, including joining quite notoriously, that jim jordan voted, along with three of those members, to

other members, voted against joe biden, to essentially overturn the election, in line with what donald trump wanted, and what the mob wanted. i wonder if you think that should be disqualify missing on that committee? >> personally i would think so. but politically, i can understand what mccarthy is doing. i do not agree with it. i think we ought to be serious about this. i'm not too sure how serious some of these people are about where we are in this country, and when we need to do, to preserve this democracy, for our children and grandchildren. it would be a shame for us to inherit good hard work that's gone into building this country, and what it is today, to allow ourselves, to see into an attacker c, which is what some people seem to want. that's not what this country is

all about. and i don't think that we can be serious about preserving it, if we don't put people on these committees who are serious about finding out, what really happened, why it happened, and what we should do about it. >> over the weekend we observed the anniversary of the passing of john lewis, your colleague in front for many years, civil rights icon who was at the forefront of the passage of the voting rights act that finally turned america into a true functioning multi racial democracy for the first time in its history. how do you think about his legacy, at this very perilous and fraught moment, as we're fighting over whether we're going to remain a multi racial democracy? >> thank you so much for mentioning that. john rich and i first met and october 1960, we became fast friends. we had no idea back then we would end up serving in

congress together, but throughout those years, and voter education, he ran the voter education project, in the entire southern region. when i was doing the same thing, down in charleston. voting is very important to us. i never made that kind of sacrifices, that john made. i practice nonviolence. john internalize nonviolence. he became the rely kind of this movement. that's why upon his death, i redirected to the floor, and asked to rename hr4 the john are lewis voter education act. and it would be a shame, for us to honor him with the ship as we just did over the weekend, to honor him with a likeness at the state of georgia is going to set up here, to the capital.

all of that, and all i ever wanted, was for people who looked like him, to have access, so it makes this country what it is. and it would be a shame for us to go through all of these and not pass the voter registration education act. that's what we need to be doing, that's what john lewis would want more than anything else. and i would hope, that over everything else, they would do that. but i do remember, this six months after that march, which was back in march 1965, that the following august, august 6th, lyndon johnson signed the 1965 voting rights act, less than a year later, he was

ousted, and so these kinds of things -- [inaudible] [inaudible] >> thank you for coming on congressman. i want to put a pin and say i'd like to hear more about what's that 1960 meeting, young john lewis was like. so i'll have you back and we can talk about that. congressman thank you very much. >> i look forward to. thank you. >> next, my interview with one of the texas democrats who's fled the state, and just tested positive for the coronavirus, after getting vaccinated. to make a break for cases after this. r cases afte this

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have talked at length about texas republicans of trying to force through some of those restrictive voting registration in the country, texas governor greg abbott calling a special -- to flee the state to break

quorum, which is break glass way of stopping a bill, to stop the vote. 50 those democrats traveled to washington d.c., where they met with vice president kamala harris, as well as democrats to advocate for stronger voting protections. this weekend, a twist, three fully vaccinated democrats who tested positive for covid-19, the numbers now six. here's the thing, the vaccine has proven in clinical trials and the real, world unbelievably effective in stopping transmission and hospitalisation death. but not perfect. as community transmission rises, more and more virus around there, and you massively expand the number of exposures, with a new more contagious variant, the number of people who are not vaccinated, you will just as a matter of math, expand the number of fully vaccinated people who end up catching the virus. texas state representative, is one of those texas democrats who traveled to washington, he tested positive for covid, he

joins me now. first, how are you feeling? >> chris thank you for asking, i'm feeling okay, i have a mild grade fever, i'm a good spirits. i think i'm recovering pretty well because. >> what was your reaction when you got a positive test. >> it really freed me out. i woke up on sunday morning, it was a typical sunday morning, i had my coffee, i read my news. i spent some time on the yoga mat. and i was getting ready for staff, meeting in as a practice we take a rapid test before we get in the room together, mine came out positive, i couldn't believe it, it's never happened we before. waited 15 minutes, did it again. i felt like 1000 bucks, i had no idea, had i not had that meeting that morning, i probably could've gone the entire day, before testing in the afternoon, in would not have known that i was positive for covid. >> did you start to have symptoms soon after? >> a little bit of a sore

throat, i think really the worst of it, is i had some fever. but a couple of tylenol every six or seven, hours and that seemed to take care of that. among them, and i worked all day sunday. i worked all day today. i'm now virtual, but my work is not finished. it still continues. and i think i'm going to come out of this okay. i'm grateful i was vaccinated. i'm grateful i would never want to have covid, if i'm going to get it, this is the way i want to get it. >> yes. i mean some people, folks are confused about, this and i think there's some that are just aggressively stupid, are aggressively liars. attempting to say that, oh if there's a breakthrough case of covid, in a vaccinated person, then what good is the vaccine. if someone who got vaccinated, and they got a breakthrough case, what do you tell people, who are maybe hesitant about vaccines. are worried about the efficacy. about how you feel about the decision you made? >> i would tell them, talk to someone who had covid that was

now vaccinated. and then talk to someone like me. if there was no such thing is a rapid test, i would think that i had some allergies, or maybe a slight cold. because that's exactly what it feels like, i talk to one of my house colleagues, this morning. who spent a number of days in the hospital, said it was the worst illness of his life. he would never want to do it again. i wouldn't want to relieve that experience, and i'm thankful that we have this vaccine. who have berry is obviously no joke. so for everybody who's in america on the fence, i would get off that fence and get vaccinated, in for those naysayers, i don't want to tell you, but being in icu, being on a ventilator, i don't think anything i can say will change your mind. >> texas state representative -- there in the indefinite future. i hope you feel better. thanks for making time tonight. >> thank you chris.

>> there is a lot more to the story of those texas democrats, tune in later tonight for an msnbc special event, lawrence o'donnell and jonathan kaye part will be joined by many more democrats to join about the fight for homing rights her home state, and in our nation's capital. who's an incredible hour plant, watch it alternate at 10 pm eastern. next, looking for the helpers in place for covid is striking hardest. they plea to get vaccinated, as missouri saw the worst coronavirus outbreaks of the country, that's right after this break. country, that's right afte this break

springfield news later is the biggest newspaper covering springfield missouri. it's been around since the 1800s. yesterday the paper, did something that caught my eye. and it's time when nearly all the surge in covid cases from the country stems from those unvaccinated, the springfield news later published his front page story, from the city's health director, please get vaccinated. piece also included a push from various community leaders,

claiming -- who said quote, vaccines are key to finishing the fight against covid and saving lives. i've been vaccinated and encourage everyone to get vaccinated as well. despite the wide availability of vaccines, missouri right now, particularly parts of southwestern missouri, we have seen a significant increase in covid cases. and hospitalizations over the last several weeks. just 40% of the states fully vaccinated, numbers the same green, county where springfield is located. distorted or efforts in parts of the states to encourage vaccinations, but some places because a vast team hostility, it's not even an option. low vaccinated shannon county, 135 miles east of -- anti vaccine sentiment so by a clinic is offering private rooms for patients who don't want to be seen getting shot. here is the editor and chief of the springfield news leader, he is responsible for the front page at the top of the segment, he joins me now, thanks for having you on tonight. can you just tell us about your town in what's going through right now.

what things look like in terms of the virus right now? >> i think what we have been seeing, is the delta variants kind of colliding with our relatively low vaccination rates, so we're seeing hospital climbing, the health officials here been raising the alarm, in an increasingly serious way, for the past couple of weeks. as capacities getting maxed out and they've had to call and additional nurses. a range for additional equipment. and stressing that there is a very straightforward way to address the situation, which is to get more people vaccinated, >> how did this issue come together. where did the data come from? >> i had the ideas i was leaving work, one night and looking at our weekend budgets and stories that we had planned.

and it felt like we are coming up on another one of those inflection points, kind of like that second week of march, we're all the sudden we were making plans to work remotely. march of 2020. when we all went to remote work, and so i actually ruined date night with my wife, working through the idea for that front page, and having her help me brainstorm, people that we might try to get for that page. we've been noticing that the public health leaders, who were kind of banging the drum, we're not necessarily getting through to some of the people who are either outweigh opposed, or hesitant, or reluctant about getting the vaccine, for one reason or another. we knew that there was increasingly fairly broad destruction of folks who are encouraging vaccination, so i had the idea of let's get as many of these folks as we can. who are encouraging vaccination, for a number of reasons. and, show folks who are on the

fence, that there are a lot of people, maybe some they identify with, who are encouraging vaccination, and maybe people will see somebody that they trust, that they identify with. and that might make it a little bit of a difference. >> do you, this is a hard thing to assess, but you're embedded in that community, do you think that as this variant spreads, people maybe start to think differently about vaccination? and protecting themselves? >> i do. we've already seen that. we the health director, actually the other day tweeted that, well we have cases rising, they also have the best week for vaccinations that they've had since may. just last week. so there's some indication that folks are changing their minds. and it seems to be really a case of, finding that one way,

that it touches home for somebody, maybe somebody they know. talks to them about getting vaccinated, or somebody they know ends up in the hospital, which would be the worst-case scenario. but we're really seeing folks have a wide range of reasons, for being reluctant and so we're trying to reach them firm or variety of ways. >> thanks for your work. and thanks for making time tonight. i appreciate it. ahead with the climate crisis on our doorstep. i'll talk was secretary of energy, about how fast invite away asked is ready to go to take action. secretary granholm joins me next. y granholm joins m next

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of america's very sluggish, and holy and aggregate response to climate change, the energy transition, is that there's a whole lot of low hanging fruit, that we still have not picked. here's just one example. according to the epa, more than

100 years of drilling for fossil fuels have left 3 million abandoned oil and gas wells across the u.s., and more than 2 million of them are unplugged. plugging your capping those wells, means they would no longer emit greenhouse gases, which would cut emissions significantly. back in april, nbc's reporter went to report on these unplugged oil wells. >> you can smell that. with infrared cameras, you can see. it dangerous gases spewing from abandon oil and gas wells. that's methane. yes it's something. >> it's 30 times more powerful than carbon dioxide, in tripping he in the atmosphere, and it's just coming out of this, well and you would have no idea that's even there. >> you can't see it with the naked eye. >> again these wells are just open, spewing this invisibly all the time, not to produce actual fuel. just for no reason. capping these wells is just one

part of the biden infrastructure proposal that's making its way through congress. one of the biggest advocates for that legislation is the secretary of energy who joins me now. i didn't actually know a lot about this provision until i started to do a deep dive. it does really seem like a no-brainer. >> total no-brainer. in fact the president in his original proposal, had put 16 billion dollars, and to be able to do this, democrats like, it republicans like it, it's got bipartisan support. why has not been done earlier i do not know. we really need to take care of this, that greenhouse gas that they're referring to, is methane. hugely powerful and causing climate change. >> one of the things i think is appealing about, this is that 16 billion dollar proposal is in the bipartisan part of the bills that are now working their way through. it would employ folks that work on oil rigs, pipe banners, the kind of people that normally do

drilling, it would give them jobs in the industry they're trained, for that would essentially do the opposite of drilling. >> exactly. you'd add on to that, abandon minds, same thing. you could put mine workers to work, getting paid good union wages. to be able to cap the minds, that they know very well, similarly on the oil and gas side. it really is huge, it's a small number inside the bipartisan framework, but it's a hit you have a outsized impact, in terms of climate change. >> just zoom out for a second, we've been talking about this bill, and the climate aspects of it for weeks. it seems there's two questions. how much can we deploy the current technology we have, which is really a money question. and when do we get the frontier of what we can do with what we can do with the technology we have, which is an innovation question, i wonder out --

huge respect research aspect to it. >> the department of energy is the solutions department, we have 17 national labs, that are breaking ground and all sorts of clean energy research. for example, chris in the past couple of, weeks we've been out to earth shots, which are big hairy are dishes goals to cut the cost of hydrogen, to cut the cost of storage energy storage, batteries for utilities. we have a goal of cutting the cost of solar and a half yet again. solar is the cheapest form of energy on the planet. that's on the technology side. of course you have to deploy all of these technologies. in the d.o.e. has funds to be able to do that in our loan programs office. we are pressing the envelope on both ends. deployment as well as technology.

it's interesting you mention storage. that does seem to be, there's a lot of places we have to play protect that's underutilized. as we deploy that more and more, the storage, solving the storage question, particular and solar, which is there during the, day and not at night. solving the and scale seems like one of the biggest challenges in this space right now. >> cracking the code and how you can create clean, dispatch-able power, is really the endgame. every country is looking for this. certainly if we can crack the code, because solar is so cheap. the next cheapest form of energy is wind, those are both so cheap but they don't come exactly when you need them. if you can store that energy and dispatch it when you need it, it would solve an enormous amount of problems. our goal was to cut the cost of that big storage, by 90%. honestly we can see this happening, even as we speak,

because the cost of storage already has dropped significantly. >> when you mean when you think about scale here, will kind of dollars do you mean. at some level when you think about this stuff it's expensive, all of its expensive we're talking tens, hundreds of billions of dollars. when you talk about the comics of climate disaster climate mitigation, or even we spend on defense, it doesn't seem like out of the realm of possibility. >> the average amount we have spent over the past five years to clean up after these climate disasters, is 125 billion dollars every year. that keeps going up. in the eighties it was like 17 billion. we are seeing an exponential increase not just in climate disasters of course but the cause for cleanup. we can do nothing and sit back and continue to watch that happen, but then we continue to spend way more than what we're talking about in this

infrastructure package, or in the reconciliation package. we have to address climate change. natalie is the weston fire, our hair should be on fire about this. we have 181 days left in this term of this presidents administration. we feel a huge sense of urgency. when i say 181 days i'm excluding weekends. we can solve at least take a huge chunk that would put us on the path to get to the presidents goal of getting 100% of our energy from clean sources by 2025. >> final question for. you it's a kind of legislative tactical one. how much these conversations, it does seem like it's an all hands on deck push from the biden administration right now. both on the bipartisan package and the reconciliation package, moving them together, the timing on this vote for the bipartisan package is up in the air right now, but are you in regular contact? is the cabinet, is everyone in the administration talking to folks on the hill to try to keep moving this? >> oh yes. it is an all effort, all

cabinet members, or talking to their committee chairs. everyone is talking to the people they know, but also the ones they want to persuade. everyone has something, a different perspective to bring on it. you better believe we are in touch with people all the time, the white house in the cabinet. and we are going to bring this across the finish line, when wear the other. >> it's funny, when legislation, there's a point following these legislation, fights where you feel that the decision has been made by that it's going to, passing and everything revolves backwards around that. i feel like i'm starting to see that, congeal above that does not mean that it will, but i can feel that it it's intensifying in terms of the people i'm talking about. energy secretary, thank you so much for making time today. >> you bet chris, thanks for having me on. >> that is all in, on this monday night. the rachel maddow show starts right now. good evening rachelow start right now. good evening rache

it's special live hour with the democrats who walked out of the texas legislatorwalked out o the texas legislator preventing texas republicans from passing draconian new voting restrictions. at least for now. they could have gone anywhere outside of texas. they chose to come to h