Mick Mulvaney who held several positions in Trump`s administration including Chief of Staff as well as former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin met with the January 6 Committee. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) joins Hayes to talk about Trump White House officials meeting with the January 6 Committee. New York Times emails reveal details of the Trump fake electors plan. Politico`s Renato Mariotti and Betsy Woodruff Swan join Hayes to discuss Mark Meadows` involvement in the January 6 investigation. After Joe Manchin and Chuck Schumer`s outmaneuvering of Senate GOP, Republicans` exact revenge is punishing U.S. War Vets suffering the after-effects of toxic fumes. Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) joins Hayes to discuss why the new Climate Bill is such a big deal.

JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: Thank you. I want to update you on 19-year-old Olivia Julianna`s efforts to raise abortion funds after she was the target of a revolting verbal attack by Matt Gaetz. Olivia joined me on the "REIDOUT" last night. At that point, she had raised $330,000. 24 hours later, she is up to $1.1 million. Congratulations, Olivia. Keep fighting. And you are welcome back to celebrate getting to that million. Truly amazing.

That is tonight`s "REIDOUT". ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES starts right now.

CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST (voiceover): Tonight on ALL IN. Pompeo, Mnuchin, Mulvaney come on down.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Were you asked to come in or do you volunteer to come in?

MICK MULVANEY, FORMER WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: I was asked to.

HAYES: Tonight, the snowball effect of testimony as Trump`s cabinet goes in for committee interviews. New questions about the cooperation of Mark Meadows. And Congressman Jamie Raskin on the new agreement to begin the transfer of evidence to the Department of Justice.

And how Build Back Better took a sudden detour down the country roads of West Virginia?

STEVE DOOCY, HOST, FOX NEWS: Joe Manchin caved.

LAURA INGRAHAM, HOST, FOX NEWS: The Manchin betrayal.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s obviously a double-cross by Joe Manchin.

SEN. JOHN KENNEDY (R-LA): Joe flip-flop like a bank catfish.

HAYES: Senator Brian Schatz on how Joe Manchin may have just saved us all.

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This bill would be the most significant legislation in history to tackle the climate crisis.

HAYES: When ALL IN starts right now.

HAYES (on camera): Good evening from New York. I`m Chris Hayes. While the dominoes continue to fall in the ongoing investigation into January 6, today, Mick Mulvaney who held several positions in Donald Trump`s administration, including Chief of Staff, testified before the January 6 Committee.

During his time as Chief of Staff, you might recall, Mulvaney played a key role in the ex-president`s corrupt plot to hijack American foreign policy as part of the quid pro quo bribe to aid his campaign by manufacturing dirt on his opponent. That was, of course, the subject of Donald Trump`s first impeachment.

In the final months of the Trump administration, after the ex-President ousted him as Chief of Staff, Mulvaney served as a Special Envoy for Northern Ireland, and he jumped off the Trump train at the last second, resigning from the post in the wake of the insurrection on January 6. Since then, Mulvaney has tried to remake himself as a straight-shooting news analyst. He`s been closely following the committee`s investigation regularly tweeting his commentary.

He recently praised the guilty verdict and Steve Bannon is contempt of Congress case saying, "There is no argument the Bannon could ever have had executive privilege.` And as he arrived to the Capitol for his interview with the committee this afternoon, Mulvaney told NBC News that he was there of his own volition and plan to speak truthfully.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can I ask what you plan to tell the committee today?

MULVANEY: The truth. How about that for a start?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And were you asked to come in or did you volunteer to come in?

MULVANEY: Oh, I was asked to come in.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You`re asked to come in.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Subpoena or no?

MULVANEY: I was just asked to come in.

HAYES: This comes as we`re learning there`s another Trump official who recently spoke to the committee for the first time. ABC News reports that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin sat down with the committee for a transcribed interview. Mnuchin`s testimony could be particularly interesting since he was reportedly involved in those discussions about the possibility of invoking the 25th Amendment as a vehicle to remove Trump from office in the wake of January 6.

So, it certainly seems like committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney was correct when she said that the dam is breaking at the last hearing.

REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): In the course of these hearings, we have received new evidence, and new witnesses have bravely stepped forward. Efforts to litigate and overcome immunity and executive privilege claims have been successful and those continue. Doors have opened, new subpoenas have been issued, and the dam has begun to break.

HAYES: I think when you see Mulvaney or Minuchin testifying, there are two ways to reasonably react to those developments. One way is that the committee really is making progress. They are still actively investigating. It really is the case they have picked up momentum from all the testimony they revealed over the course of those eight public hearings.

The other reaction I had is frustration. I mean, how are these people just talking to the committee now? People like Mick Mulvaney and Steve Minuchin, how could they have sat back silently for 18 months? They could have reached out of their own volition, right, to the committee affirmatively and tell them what they knew. They did not. And as infuriating as it is, it actually demonstrates the way the strategy the committee has used to get to the truth is working as intended.

The Committee understood from the beginning they were never going to get the truth for most of Trump role based on a feeling of civic or patriotic duty. But they could probably eventually get to the truth if those people felt a combination of fear of defying the committee and an incentive to tell their side of the story so that someone else`s side was not the final word. It`s a strategy often used in cases against the mob or terrorist cells. You start with lower-level people. You work your way up to the leaders.

The January 6 Committee hired people with that kind of background, investigators and attorneys with experience studying organized crime, terrorism, cryptocurrency and financial crimes, as well as several former federal prosecutors. And as the New York Times reported back in February, they had been borrowing their techniques and playing aggressive tactics typically used against mobsters and terrorists.

Communities also employed a classic journalistic tactic that Bob Woodward among others are famous for using. Think of it this way, if there are five people in a meeting the White House in an administration, you just need to get the count of one of them. Once the other four find out that that one person has spoken, well, suddenly they will want to tell you their account too, because they don`t want to let another account stand that might make them look bad.

Former Clinton adviser George Stephanopoulos wrote about what it`s like to be subjected to the "Woodward Treatment." He flashes a glimpse of what he knows, shaded in a largely negative light, with a hint of more to come, setting up a series of Prisoner`s dilemma in which each prospective source faces a choice: Do you cooperate and elaborate in return, you hope, for learning more and earning a better portrayal for your boss and yourself? Or do you call his bluff? If no one talks there is no book. But someone, then everyone always talks."

As a January 6 Committee has been doing their work using these tactics, we`ve seen a group of people rushed to talk, rushed to the microphones and to declare themselves part of Team normal. They want to go on the record for reputational reasons to show themselves in the most positive light possible. And as distorted and incomplete as the team normal-team crazy narrative is, and we`ve banged on about that quite a bit, these people who are going to the committee to let them know that they weren`t in the boot camp are actually providing material useful information.

Like for instance, White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, a long hold-out but his name came up enough times and public hearings. And then there was this direct public entreaty from Vice Chair Liz Cheney.

CHENEY: The American people have not yet heard from Mr. Trump`s former White House Counsel Pat Cipollone. Our committee is certain that Donald Trump does not want Mr. Cipollone to testify here. Indeed, our evidence shows that Mr. Cipollone and his office tried to do what was right. They tried to stop a number of President Trump`s plans for January 6.

We think the American people deserve to hear from Mr. Cipollone personally. He should appear before this committee, and we are working to secure his testimony.

HAYES: I remember watching that and thinking that`s an interesting gambit. I`m not sure that`s going to work. But it kind of did. The committee did finally subpoena Pat Cipollone in the last month and then he spoke to the committee about a week later. Then after Cassidy Hutchinson`s bombshell testimony, committee chair Bennie Thompson made an even more forceful appeal to reluctant witnesses.

REP. BENNIE THOMPSON (D-MS): I want to speak directly to the handful of witnesses who have been outliers in our investigation, the small number who have defied us outright. Those whose memories have failed them again and again on the most important details, and to those who fear Donald Trump and his enablers, because of this courageous woman and others like her, you attempt to hide the truth from the American people will fail.

And to that group of witnesses, if you`ve heard this testimony today and suddenly you remember things you couldn`t previously recall, or there are some details you`d like to clarify, or you discovered some courage you had hidden away somewhere, our doors remain open.

HAYES: You discovered some courage you had hidden away somewhere. That`s a great line. After that appeal, according to committee member Adam Kinzinger, some people did swiftly answer that call.

REP. ADAM KINZINGER (R-IL): Every day we get new people that come forward and say, hey, I didn`t think maybe this piece of the story that I knew was important but now that you guys are -- like, I do see this plays in here.

HAYES: When you work from the bottom up as this committee has, sometimes those people on the lower levels still know a lot like Cassidy Hutchinson. When she was willing to step into the spotlight and tell the world what she knew and made a lot of people look bad, and all of a sudden, a lot of those people wanted to get their accounts on the record.

The many other investigations that Donald Trump has been subjected to, he has managed to maintain a kind of code of silence among his circle, preventing their increase from ever really gaining steam. But right now in this investigation, that does not seem to be working.

Congressman Jamie Raskin is a Democrat in Maryland and sits on the January 6 Committee. Congressman, first let me just ask you about your understanding of what does appear to be considerable momentum even many months into this of cooperating witnesses and what`s driving it.

REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): It`s like a waterfall of truth at this point. I mean, just as there was a dynamic of lies and deception by Donald Trump starting with the big lie, we have turned that around. And when you have more than 1000 witnesses coming in and telling you what had happened, it`s the tiny handful of people who are either lying or refusing to participate who begin to feel very nervous about the situation because we`re filling in all the details of what took place.

So, I would agree exactly with the various dynamics that you identified. I would add one more which is that a number of people out there have seen Trump`s loyalists say certain things. For example, I remember when Jared Kushner was asked about the threat of Pat Cipollone to resign. And he said that he essentially chalked that up to whining on his part.

RASKIN: And that could not have endeared himself to Pat Cipollone who had not testified yet. And so, they`re basically seeing the way that there`s a tiny group of people circling the wagons around Donald Trump, and they`re willing to throw everybody else under the bus to mix that metaphor.

HAYES: Yes. I think it was Jared Kushner who said something like, they were always threatening to resign over something. I was just focused on the pardons. There are -- there are a few people -- there`s one prominent individual who I just want to play this clip, because there`s always this question -- I mean, look, I think people have a duty to tell the truth. There`s also the, you know, the authority of the committee, which is -- which is a question and whether people are coming voluntarily or subpoenaed.

Mike Pompeo who was not directly, I think, involved, as far as I know in the -- in the run up January 6 and the aftermath but was we think, according to reporting, involved in those 25th Amendment discussions. Here`s what he had to say about his back and forth with the committee earlier. Take a listen.

BILL HEMMER, HOST, FOX NEWS: Can you confirm that you`ve been talking with the January 6 Committee?

MIKE POMPEO, FORMER U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: We`ve had discussions with them about potentially appearing before them, trying to make sure we understand what it is they`re asking for. As I always did when I was in service to America, I`m happy to cooperate with things that are fair and transparent, and deliver good outcomes for the American people.

HEMMER: So, today, you`re a no.

POMPEO: You mean on testify? We`re trying to figure our way out. I want to make sure the American people get the full story of the things that happened in the Trump administration.

HAYES: I don`t really know what to make of that. How should I understand that answer?

RASKIN: Well, I think that there`s a rapid flight away from Donald Trump. I think most people can read the writing on the wall that he`s going to end up isolated and shamed and embarrassed and people don`t want to be in his company at that point. So, I think more and more of them may want to just establish some kind of objective factual record about where they were in these events.

I mean, obviously, everybody`s got to think about his or her own reputation when you`re in the neighborhood of somebody like Donald Trump.

HAYES: There are some significant holdouts to subpoenas. So, some of them have been referred, some of them have not been referred. And I speak, of course, with colleagues of yours who have been subpoenaed, Kevin McCarthy, Scott Perry, Jim Jordan, Andy Biggs, and Mo Brooks. All of them, to varying degrees both in reporting, sometimes vary much in the public record because of things they actually said involved with, you know, promoting the big lie, involved in meetings around the possible strategy on January 6 to overturn the election.

Where is the committee? How are you thinking through the profound sort of constitutional question here about what to do about your own colleagues` non-compliance with Congressional Committee subpoena?

RASKIN: Well, again, we`re calling on everybody to do his or her civic duty, his or her legal duty, his or her constitutional duty, his or her patriotic duty, and come forward and tell the truth. To the extent that people are still recalcitrant and, you know, refusing the authority of Congress, then we have to consider what different options are available to us.

Obviously, we don`t want to go in the wild goose chase of a lot of litigation with people. We have little time left. But we are still urging them to come forward. And, you know, with members of Congress, there`s the possibility of going outside. There`s also the possibility of staying inside Congress and using the processes that we have available to people who are not living up to their responsibilities.

HAYES: Final question for you is about news today about a deal -- a template deal struck, I think, between the Department of Justice and the Committee. Now, this has been the source of some conflict, some tension, some I think resentment, at least as it`s bubbled out in reporting on this and some blind quotes. A formal path to share investing in material with the DOJ, the chair said today, how important is that?

RASKIN: Well, I think it`s important that we have a working relationship which is an arm`s length relationship, obviously, where, you know, they`re able to request of us the things that they want and the things that they think are necessary. And, you know, the closer we get to the end of our work, the easier it is for us to do that.

But we obviously have been able to tell a pretty comprehensive story to the American people in the Congress because we`ve not turned over, you know -- you know, facts to other avenues where they could get out.

HAYES: Interesting. Congressman Jamie Raskin, thank you for your time tonight. I appreciate it.

RASKIN: Thanks for having me, Chris.

HAYES: Still to come, it was all part of the plan. How fake electors and the pressure on the vice president were part of the same plot to steal the 2020 election from Joe Biden. Next.

HAYES: There was a time in the aftermath of January 6, and it seemed like there were multiple independent coup plots. There was the pressure campaign of Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the election in his ministerial role on that day on the sixth in the Capitol. There was also the fake electoral scheme, which was an effort from Republicans and seven states won by Joe Biden to kind of meet with their own group of people saying they`re electors and sign documents and send them to the Capitol on the sixth.

Now, thanks to previously undisclosed emails obtained by the New York Times, it is clearer than ever that those two plots are actually part of the unified coop plot. An Arizona lawyer working with the Trump campaign wrote to a campaign adviser saying, "We would just be sending in fake electoral votes to Pence so that someone in Congress can make an objection when they start counting votes and start arguing that the fake vote should be counted."

Now, the Times has an incredibly useful new piece putting the full fake electoral scheme into clearer context. One of the reporters behind that explainer, Katie Benner, Department of Justice Reporter for the New York Times. Katie, it`s great to have you. So first, maybe just give me your version of the one-minute description of what the fake elector plot was.

KATIE BENNER, DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE REPORTER, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Sure. So, this is a bizarrely complicated plot. But at the end of the day, there are people who are close to Donald Trump who had -- you know, who they understood that in 1961, during the Nixon and Kennedy election, there had been an alternate slate of electors submitted to Congress by Kennedy just in case this very tight recount in Florida -- excuse me -- in Hawaii flipped and it turned out that in fact, John Kennedy had won.

So, what happened is there was an alternative slate of electors submitted, and at the end of the day, because the recount did ultimately go to Kennedy, Nixon himself who was presiding over the Senate in his ministerial role, he decided to submit the slate of electors for Kennedy because that who has -- who has actually won that recount.

Now, what Trump`s allies has decided was that set a really important precedent that you could have an alternate slate of electors teed up just in case something happened with recounts in critical swing states. They identified several that they felt that if they flipped for Trump, Trump could win the election. And there were a couple of avenues that this could -- you know, this could take, but most importantly, is they felt that they could submit the slates of alternative electors and then create the circumstances by which those electors would officially be submitted later on.

HAYES: Right. So, we should just be clear here that there`s a key distinction, right, which is that in 1960, that Hawaii recount was actually super close.

HAYES: Like, really, really close. Right, exactly. Like one of those like, Florida kind of situations, right? Florida in 2000. And that it was not yet completed, right? So, there was this genuine uncertainty that hangs over the whole process. In this case, that`s just not the case in the states. Like, particularly in a place like Michigan. I mean, it was a huge margin in Michigan. But you know -- by the -- you know, when you`re talking about closed states, tens of thousands of votes.

BENNER: Right. And, of course, what was happening is that you saw Trump`s allies using a variety of methods to try to get those states to recount their votes including pushing claims of election for thought that the Justice Department official said were completely untrue. We saw Justice Department official trying to control his superiors into sending a letter to Georgia claiming there was fraud, and that they should, you know, convene a special, you know, state election -- you know, convenience, you know, a special session of their state`s legislature in order to try to figure out whether or not to push through, again, an alternate slate of electors.

And so, you`re completely right. They were not waiting for a close recount. They were actually trying to create the circumstances that would allow them to officially submit the Trump electors. And when they couldn`t do that, they thought that maybe Mike Pence could use his mysterious -- ministerial roll or actually abuse it in order just to reject the Biden`s slates out of hand.

HAYES: Right. And that`s where these two kind of come together, right? And you really see it. I mean, I think that email, which is just a remarkable document -- later, that same lawyer, I believe, says like, we should probably use alternate electors rather than fake collectors. It sounds a little better. Here`s where you see the two plots come together, because ultimately, in that 1960 example, again, when that was like an actual sort of good faith playing out of the system, Kennedy -- you know, Nixon in his ministerial role is the one who says like, actually, this Hawaii one is correct. We`ve got the results.

So, here, it`s like, well, if we create -- if we kick up enough dust, and we just like, throw this stuff against the wall, then Mike Pence would be like, oh, either, I`m ruling for the Trump electors, which would have been like the full coup attempt or basically like, well, who`s to say we`ll kick it to the House or we`ll send it back to the state, right?

That`s where creating this kind of uncertainty with the fake electors then gets kind of passed over to Pence for a pretext to do a thing that he didn`t really have constitutional authority to do.

BENNER: Right. And you saw Pence`s own lawyers and advisers telling the Trump campaign, telling Trump`s allies this was completely illegal. You saw many people telling Trump and his allies that this was completely illegal. And it`s interesting that you bring up that line about Congress because at the time -- same time that all this was happening, Trump`s allies were really pressing members of Congress, especially in the Senate, to join Trump`s allies in the House to object to the electoral count. So, they were actually it seems trying to also tee up members of Congress who could create that objection.

HAYES: And then there`s a sort of -- final question here, which is about the investigation of the Department of Justice. It`s been striking to me that this aspect of the investigation seems to have gotten quite far. We know there are subpoenas, there`s even Arizona lawmakers who are part of this. Why -- I mean, it does seem like there`s a fairly clear colorable claim for a crime if you submit a document swearing to a thing that`s just not true, which all these people did.

BENNER: Well, yes. So, that is against the law, which is one of the reasons why the Department can address that, you know, active of potential criminality, and look at all the people who are involved. And we also saw - - you know, we don`t know what the Justice Department is doing on this front. We`ve seen a couple of different moments where we`ve seen Donald Trump himself tied very explicitly to this plot where he -- where he himself was actually working on it, particularly when rusty Bowers testified before the J6 Committee that Trump himself called him and asked him to do -- to do this, and that Bowers refused because he said that was against his oath of office and that he would not.

HAYES: Yes, that`s a great point. That is -- that is new testimony that we got that shows it was directly coming from the individual Donald Trump himself in trying to further this although stymied by Rusty Bowers to his credit.

Katie Benner, as always, a pleasure. Thank you very much.

HAYES: Still ahead, embarrassed they got outmaneuvered by Chuck Schumer and Joe Manchin, Senate Republicans lash out at sick veterans. Plus, the January 6 Committee has Mark Meadows` text messages. The DOJ has his phone records. So, just how much trouble is Trump`s chief of staff is? Next.

HAYES: All right, so what`s the deal with Donald Trump`s chief of staff Mark Meadows? We know is subpoenaed by the January 6 Committee back in September 2021. Two months later in November, Chairman Bennie Thompson announced that Meadows was cooperating with the committee. He handed over approximately 9,000 pages of records including text messages leading up to and during the January 6 attack. Then, oops, all of a sudden, following month, Meadows stopped cooperating with the committee, refused to give a deposition.

That month, the House sent a referrals the Department of Justice that the Department of Justice hold medicine, criminal contempt to charge him the way they have with Bannon. We now know from The Washington Post who spoke to two people familiar with the matter that in April of this year, "Justice Department investigators received phone records of key officials and aides in the Trump administration, including his former chief of staff Mark Meadows." And then last month, the DOJ announced they are not charging metals for contempt. So what`s going on here? Could it be that Mark Meadows is cooperating with DOJ and that`s what resolves these weird contradictions?

Betsy Woodruff Swan is a national correspondent for Politico. Renato Mariotti is a former federal prosecutor, legal affairs columnist for Politico Magazine. And they both join me now. Renato, let me start with you just about this pattern and as someone who worked as a prosecutor in federal -- in the Department of Justice. Like, what it looks like from the outside, how to make sense of this so much strange set of facts around Mark Meadows.

RENATO MARIOTTI, LEGAL AFFAIRS COLUMNIST, POLITICO MAGAZINE: I think, you know, Mark Meadows definitely tried in the beginning to start cooperating with the committee in hopes of avoiding the fate that Steve Bannon is facing. And I think, definitely there was a very orchestrated plan to try to make it difficult for the Justice Department to prosecute him.

Since that time, my sense is that he`s been carefully evaluating the situation and considering whether or not there`s a potential case against him, whether or not it doesn`t make sense to cooperate. If ultimately, he thinks the DOJ could make a case against him, of course, he`s going to cooperate. I think the reality is, he`s loyal to Trump but he`s loyal to himself first and foremost.

HAYES: Yes, I mean, we have this Rolling Stone reporting from a few weeks ago in which Trump`s inner circle increasingly views Meadows is likely fall-guy for the former president`s attempts to overturn the 2020 election. Members of his legal team are actively planning certain strategies around Meadows` downfall, including possible criminal charges.

Betsy, what is your understanding of the Meadows situation in total? Like, how we`ve ended up at this point in which Meadows was cooperating, he wasn`t -- he hasn`t been referred, DOJ has his phone records?

BETSY WOODRUFF SWAN, NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT, POLITICO: I think it all comes down to the fact that Meadows has a very, very, very, very seasoned criminal defense lawyer, George Terwilliger, who was one of the most senior Justice Department officials during a prior Republican administration, who`s been a fixture of Washington crisis and legal crisis management for many, many years, and who just knows how to handle these types of situations to the best -- to the most strategic way possible.

And that`s how you find, and I think in the case of Meadows, that he was able to, to kind of satisfy everyone. You have folks like I believe a member of the Select Committee, a former staffer of the select committee have said that Meadows was their star witness, even though he withheld all sorts of things that they wanted really badly.

Public comments like that are the sorts of remarks that make DOJ maybe think two or three or four times about charging someone with contempt. The other piece of this to remember is that it`s likely there were some very deep sighs of relief in the Biden White House Counsel`s Office when DOJ declined to charge Meadows. That`s because the House is more likely than not, we don`t know, but more likely than not to flip to Republicans.

When Republicans do take the house, they`re going to do exactly the wrong plane what Democrats are doing right now to Meadows. And if DOJ had set a precedent that even a White House Chief of Staff or a former White House Chief of Staff is not off limits for Congress, it just would have resulted in dramatically higher levels of anxiety, shall we say, in the current West Wing.

HAYES: Yes, that`s an interesting point. Although I do think the former here is legally relevant, right? I mean, the sort of nature of the privilege claims are about the sort of need to get advice and that`s a sort of like a real-time thing. It`s not, you know, post facto necessarily that important although, you know --

SWAN: It`s not identical, but it would have been a big step closer.

SWAN: What I think -- if I can just pop in -- one thing that I -- one thing that I find really weird is DOJ declining to charge Dan Scavino. We`ve had hours and hours and hours of congressional testimony. The Select Committee has revealed so much material from so many senior White House officials indicating they`ve gotten cooperation from all sorts of folks. It`s been crickets in terms of any video footage or any emails from Scavino himself, very different from the level of cooperation at least that is publicly known regarding Meadows. And DOJ still chose not to charge him. That`s the piece that I find to be even a little bit more of a head scratcher here in terms of the way the Justice Department`s handling this.

HAYES: Yes, that is a really great point that I had not even thought about until you just raised it. I sort of forgotten about the Scavino part of this. Of course, it`s also the case, Renato, right, like, we`ve seen people like Flynn, for instance. And they played this, I think, to kind of embarrass him, I think sort of justifiably so. you know, you can come in and just plead the fifth and everything. I mean, that`s basically what Eastman did. It`s what Jeffrey Clark did. It`s what Flynn apparently chose to do. He even pleading the fifth on the question of do you believe in the peaceful transfer power in American politics?

But on the privilege question, Renato, there`s some reporting tonight the DOJ is preparing their lawyers to sort of go directly at this in terms of subpoenas for witnesses and documents relevant to their criminal inquiry that`s happening right now. What do you make of that? How big a hurdle is that going to be? The committee obviously has had to wrestle with that, but they don`t have the firepower DOJ does.

MARIOTTI: Yes, I think that`s a very different situation. In a grand jury circumstance, it`s much, much easier for the DOJ to overcome executive privilege than it is for a congressional committee. In fact, there`s very solid precedent on that point from the Clinton era. So, I think the DOJ is likely to do succeed there. And I`m not so sure that the Pence witnesses are all that adverse to DOJ on this point.

In other words, I wouldn`t be surprised that the sources of these New York Times Washington Post articles recently weren`t the Pence witnesses and or their attorneys. Pence and Trump I think are at odds right now. And so, I wouldn`t be surprised if they`re actually happy to get to provide testimony as long as DOJ gives them cover.

HAYES: Yes, no, I think that`s probably -- I think that`s a totally defensible intuition. I think that the question is the next set of witnesses, you know, if they want to go to Cipollone and folks like that, they`re going to have to overcome to that. Betsy Woodruff Swan, Renato Mariotti, thank you both.

HAYES: Coming up, Senate Democrats pull a legislative fast one on Senator Republicans. Republicans exact their revenge by screwing sick veterans. I`m not making it up. The truly incredible sequence of events next.

HAYES: The huge Inflation Reduction Act climate deal was announced yesterday genuinely good for a whole bunch of reasons. One of them though, by no means the most important, just being the share politic as well. Let`s just take a moment with that. Republicans got badly outmaneuvered by the Democrats, badly.

It all started last month. Democrats revive negotiations on a long-stalled climate and social spending package that would also reduce health care costs. It would only need 50 votes to pass, right? This is the reconciliation vehicles so it only need 50 votes. It had been kind of dead and moribund and they were bringing it back. They`re going to try to get it done.

In response, Mitch McConnell said, oh, well, then if you do that, I`m going to block this bipartisan bill we all agree on which would increase domestic production of computer parts, particularly microchips. Then Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia appeared to once again for like the 10th time, kill the Democrats Build Back Better deal on his own. Lots of headlines announcing it was kaput, a lot of anger, rage even directed at Joe Manchin from Democrats and people who care about a habitable climate.

And so, ultimately, Mitch McConnell got his wish. He threatened the Democrats, if you revive this, I will block this bill. And the Democrats, Joe Manchin killed it. And so, Republicans thought they won. So, yesterday, the Senate passed the computer chip bill called the Chips Bill, broad bipartisan support, 64 to 33.

Then, just four hours later, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Manchin announced, well surprise, a new climate and social spending plan that would increase green energy subsidies, close tax loopholes for the wealthy, and lower the cost of prescription drugs among other provisions. Genuinely very good and surprising, and Republicans were furious.

INGRAHAM: How did it get bollixed up? Was that a misfire by McConnell? What happened there?

SEN. TOM COTTON (R-AR): Well, it was obviously a double cross by Joe Manchin. You know, just two weeks ago, we`ve said he wasn`t going to support a bill like this. But you know, Laura, he`s been saying for months that he wouldn`t support so many of the provisions in this bill. He`s called them gimmicks or smoke and mirrors budgeting. But now, he`s going to apparently support all of them.

HAYES: Double crossed by Joe Manchin. Poor Tom Cotton. McConnell said he would block the Chips Bill if Democrats started negotiating a new Build Back Better Plan. So, they waited until right after the Chips Bill passed and announced in secret they had actually hammered out a new plan.

Republicans were not happy. They throw a temper tantrum. But here`s the craziest part of the story, right? So, they`re like all angry, they feel like they got played, so they`re like looking around with their anger, who to take it out on. And what they did was, I`m not making this up, they decided to punish U.S. War Vets suffering the after-effects of toxic fumes.

Because there was another bipartisan bill they were going to vote on yesterday, broadly bipartisan, that Republicans blocked. They blocked a bill to help with health care for veterans who are exposed to cancer- causing toxic fumes in Iraq and Afghanistan that came from burning piles of waste known as burn pits. It is a bill, I might add, that was not controversial, it previously passed the Senate with 84 votes just last month. It had to be voted again because there were some rewrites.

So, again, Republicans get played, they`re so mad at Democrats, they just like went out there onto the floor and they just like blocked this bill. Screw you. A bill that provided much-needed, bipartisan supported health care for veterans suffering the effects of burn pits. And then Republicans celebrated.

Just watch this video of Republican senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Steve Daines of Montana fist bumping on the Senate floor as Steve Daines` no vote was being read. We`ll show them those vets whose lungs have the effects of toxic fumes they inhaled while fighting our wars. It`s truly shameless stuff.

Today, television host Jon Stewart, who has been a champion on this issue, right, for the vets that are fighting for this legislation, the burn pit legislation, was at the Capitol. Listen to what he said.

JON STEWART, COMEDIAN: Every minute of delay is a minute that a veteran who fought for this country and their families and their caregivers suffer and die. How are these people human? Where`s the -- where`s any sense of decency from any of them? 42 Republican senators.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Today was supposed to be a celebration, right? We see so many veterans here in DC.

STEWART: Yes, just -- it just makes the gut punch that much more devastating is that these people all came down here so that they could finally tell the men -- their constituents are dying and they`re going to get it done in the recess. You know, tell their cancer to take a recess. Tell their cancer to stay home and go visit their families. This disgrace. If this is America, first America is (BLEEP).

HAYES: It is a disgrace. And Jon Stewart will be joining my colleague Mehdi Hasan next hour on this network to share more of his thoughts on that. The Democrats announced a plan full of popular provisions. Republicans responded by blocking a bill to help veterans who were exposed to horrible toxic fumes and got cancer and other illnesses. Mitch McConnell and his fellow Republicans chose peek over people.

HAYES: The one crucial must-pass piece of legislation for the Democratic Party, indeed for the planet, while the Democrats control the presidency and both chambers of Congress is a climate bill that will get the country on track to meeting its emissions goals per the Paris Climate Agreement.

It has looked for a long time like that was not going to happen largely because Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, obviously a coal state, seemed like he could not get to yes on any deal. But surprisingly, that all change about 24 hours ago and Manchin himself along with Chuck Schumer, Senate Majority Leader announced a compromise with fellow Democrats on an Inflation Reduction Act that has a huge climate provision.

And there`s some good stuff in there, including $370 billion for clean energy and energy security incentives for electric vehicle production, $20 billion in federal loans to build new electric vehicle factories, $30 billion in tax credits to accelerate -- and this is really key -- production of solar panels, wind turbines, batteries and mineral processing.

Now, it`s not over until it`s over. We don`t know if it`s going to pass. And we`ve been here before, like, way more times than I care to admit. But if this bill passes, it would be I think the most significant climate legislation in American history. The big question I have is, was the Democratic Chair of the Senate Special Committee on the Climate Crisis as surprised by the Schumer-Manchin deal as the rest of us? Luckily that person is here with us tonight.

Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii, welcome. What do you know? How did this happen?

SEN. BRIAN SCHATZ (D-HI): Well, we never gave up. We were obviously very frustrated at the announcement. I guess it was just about two weeks ago that the deal was dead. But almost immediately after that, we started to get some signs of life again. Of course, Senator Manchin was pretty public about, hey, I haven`t left the table, even though it sort of sounded as though he had.

But I took him at his word, and we kept talking. And then they were very good about not letting anybody know, including me, that Joe and Chuck Schumer were talking, I had a better inkling than most that the deal was not completely dead, but I can`t tell you that I was terribly optimistic. I told my staff, I gave us a 20 percent chance of passing something, but that`s because I`m an endless optimist. That is my affliction.

But yesterday afternoon, I come out of an Indian Affairs hearing, I had turned off my phone, and I went, is this real? So, they kept it under wraps really nicely. I was in touch with Manchin and Schumer pretty much daily, but over the last 48, 72 hours, they got real silent. And I couldn`t tell if that was bad news or good news.

HAYES: Well, that is -- that`s a wild story, actually, that they kept it that close. You know, I have felt from my own perspective that you sort of grade these two years of unified Democratic control pass fail. And it`s if you pass climate legislation, that gets us on target -- to the to the Paris emission goals. You pass, and if you don`t you fail. It`s a failure. Like, I really -- I truly believe that. And I thought you guys were headed towards failure, all of us, I mean, since we all have a stake in this, because we all live in the planet. How -- what is your grade on this?

SCHATZ: Oh, on this bill, I think it`s like an A-minus. I think it`s very good. I mean, if I could have written it myself, it would be twice as big and it would have a lot of other things. But from an emissions reduction standpoint, think of it this way. This gets us 40 percent of the way to the -- to our targets, which is a 40 percent reduction in emissions by 2030.

So, sometimes when you do emissions reductions targets, you just put it way out in the future, because you kind of don`t know how you`re going to get there and you can set a big lofty goal but not be accountable to it. 2030 is coming right up, 40 percent of our way to the 50 percent goal. The previous bill that had died last year that was --- that we used to call Build Back Better only got us 45 percent of the way there. So, this is slightly worse, but not a ton worse.

Most of the heavy lifting from an emissions reduction standpoint is the investment tax credit and the production tax credit for wind and solar. And then all of these investments in clean energy manufacturing are going to be really key because we now all understand supply chains are going to be everything in the next couple of decades, not just for clean energy, but for our economy overall.

So, we`ve got to build our own domestic supply of the necessary materials and the ability to manufacture these things. And most of these jobs are going to be high-paying union jobs.

HAYES: There`s some concern a little bit just quickly about that. I mean, there`s provisions that, for instance -- I think the tax credits only apply to things that are like the batteries, the minerals of which are not coming from China and Russia. There`s a little worry that maybe those constraints are actually going to make it difficult to live up to the promise here. What do you think about that?

SCHATZ: Yes, I think it`s a challenge I`m going forward. We had this difficulty with the fact that the polysilica (PH) coming from China, and then manufactured in Southeast Asia, we weren`t sure if it was in compliance with the laws that we have now in terms of human rights.

So, all of these supply chains are going to have to get sorted out. And I can`t promise you that we`ll never have any glitches but that`s the thing. It`s a $370 billion investment in literally changing the way the economy works for the better. That is going to upend some things, but mostly in a positive way. And as you know, Chris, the planet is on fire. We have no choice at all about this.

HAYES: Senator Brian Schatz, I agree. Thank you very much for making time tonight.

HAYES: That is ALL IN on this Thursday night. "MSNBC PRIME" starts right now with Mehdi Hasan. Good evening, Mehdi.