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Republicans are terrified\u2014with good reason. 

Utah Sen. Mike Lee went viral this week when he sputtered earlier that one of the new voting rights bills making its way through the House was \u201cwritten in hell by the devil himself.\u201d And Lee\u2019s GOP colleagues didn\u2019t exactly knock the notion down. 

\u201cThey should be scared of it,\u201d Rep. Eric Swawell, the California Democrat, tells Molly Jong-Fast on the latest edition of The New Abnormal. \u201cWhat we saw this past election in Georgia and Arizona \u2014states that have historically made it harder for African-Americans and Latinos to vote\u2014was that when you expand access to the polls, Democrats can win. And so I'm sure it was not comfortable for Georgians and Arizona leaders to certify the results for Joe Biden and [Sens.] Mark Kelly, [Raphael] Warnock and [Jon] Ossoff.\u201d 

\u201cBut instead of doing the right thing and standing on the integrity [of the election], they're learning the wrong lesson,\u201d Swalwell adds. \u201cWhat they're doing now is they're going back and saying, \u2018Well, we don't ever want to do that again. We don't ever want to certify a Democratic victory. So let's just change the rules... Let's get rid of early voting. Let's get rid of Sunday voting, which benefits the faith-based communities of Georgia. Let's make it a misdemeanor if you pass out food or water to a long line.... And that way we can protect ourselves from another Democratic victory.\u2019\u201d 

\u201cIf we do not pass HR1 and HR4\u2014the two voting rights bills\u2014you will see this institutionalized across the country, and the results will be devastating,\u201d he continues. \u201cHR1 gets rid of the dirty maps of redistricting, gerrymandering, and the dirty money. It strips down to the studs as much as you can legislatively the Citizens United ruling. HR4, The John Lewis Civil Rights act really puts back in place what's called pre-clearance\u2014requiring approval from the courts before you can move polling places or purge voter rolls. And so if there was ever a reason to break the filibuster, which was put in place to block voting rights, it would be to advance both voting rights. It's almost a perfect completion of the circle.\u201d

Then, Justice Democrats spokesperson Walid Shahid talks about how President Biden can avoid the traps that snagged Obama. And Carl Zimmer\u2014a top science reporter for the New York Times and author of Life\u2019s Edge: the Search for What It Means To Be Alive\u2014joins Jong-Fast to discuss the pandemic, and the botched response that we are only now beginning to counteract.

\u201cPeople knew this was coming for 20, 30 years, and yet we didn't prepare well enough,\u201d he says. \u201cIf you look at countries like Nigeria or Senegal, and look at their case rate, their death rate, and all the rest, they have done incredibly well. And, and I was recently listening to a Nigerian disease specialist, talk about why this is. And one reason is that they'd been through Ebola and been through other outbreaks. They know what a virus can do when it goes berserk. And so they coordinated very early lockdowns and everyone was on board and they had good, consistent public health messaging. They didn't have a lot of money, they didn't have a lot of resources, but they were coordinated and effective. And I think we could learn a lot from them. And we should also look to ourselves and say, \u2018well, why did we in the United States that makes such a spectacular mess of it.\u2019\u201d

If you haven't heard, every single week The New Abnormal does a special bonus episode for Beast Inside, the Daily Beast\u2019s membership program. where Sometimes we interview Senators...

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