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All In with Chris Hayes, Transcript 01/05/15

Guests: Dan Dickers, Peter Moskos, Sally Ball, Sam Seder, Jason Bailey

CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST: Tonight, on ALL IN: MIKE HUCKABEE (R), FORMER ARKANSAS GOVERNOR: As much as I have loved doing the show, I cannot bring myself to rule out another presidential run. HAYES: Huckabee throws in with Jeb, as Chris Christie gets flagged for a holding in Dallas. But as the 2016 scramble begins in earnest, there`s one headline today that can doom any Republican. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nobody thought this would happen. HAYES: Plus, the mayor of New York makes a stunning announcement as the NYPD continues to turn its back. Then, Hollywood history repeats itself. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You`ve got one big issue, I`ve got 101. HAYES: The real reason the movie industry is attacking "Selma". And, as Louis Gohmert prepares to unseat John Boehner -- UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Doesn`t sound like John Boehner is too worried about the threat. HAYES: -- our all-star roundtable gives their predictions for the 114th Congress. ALL IN starts right now. (END VIDEOTAPE) HAYES: Good evening, from New York. I`m Chris Hayes. And it is the first workday of the New Year which means it`s officially the beginning of the presidential season. And while the financial markets were panicky today, the real story of 2016 could be very different than what political insiders are expecting. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) HAYES (voice-over): It`s 2015, which means it`s the official kickoff to the 2016 presidential season. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The 2016 presidential campaign hitting up already. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The list of Republicans who are publicly a 2016 White House run is getting longer. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They`re moving closer and closer to making decisions, earlier and earlier. HAYES: Since Jeb Bush announced he will actively explore the possibility of a 2016 run last month, he`s added to the injury. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The former Florida governor is cutting ties to all of his board memberships as he explores a presidential bid. JONATHAN CAPEHART, THE WASHINGTON POST: The moves by Jeb Bush sort of galvanize other people to start making moves. HAYES: Like Mike Huckabee. Over the weekend, he walked away from a lucrative contract with FOX News. HUCKABEE: There`s been a great deal of speculation as to whether I would run for president. And if I were willing to absolutely rule that out, I could keep doing this show. But I can`t make such a declaration. SPORTS ANNOUNCER: And it`s DeMarcus Lawrence. HAYES: Meanwhile, Chris Christie`s happy dance has some ruling out his candidacy even before it starts. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Chris Christie hugging like a giddy school kid. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I looked on Twitter and a lot of Giants fans and Eagles fans say, how can you do this? Christie`s brother ripping the online critics. But was that a hug or was that like a Noogie headlock? Was there a kiss on the top of the head there? HAYES: But if you`re truly looking for signs of which candidate is the one to watch in 2016, look no further than this. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oil prices are still sliding. Crude oil is below $52 a barrel right now. A new five-year low. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Gas prices have now fallen for 102 straight days. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is really significant savings for consumers. HAYES: It`s not just oil prices. It`s the entire economy. The unemployment rate during October and November of last year is the lowest since July of 2008. As of November of last year, the economy had added over 2.6 million jobs, putting 2014 on track to be the strongest year for job growth since 1999. Consumer confidence, it`s at the highest level in eight years. Meanwhile, the president`s approval rating is slowly ticking upward, reaching a 16- month peek in late December. All of this is starting to create a pretty powerful political force, one that can make converts out of the biggest skeptics. DAVID SIEGEL, WESTGATE RESORTS CEO: I`m 74 years old. I`m the founder, president, CEO of Westgate Resorts, the largest, privately owned timeshare company in the world. HAYES: People like David Siegel, CEO of Westgate Resorts. You may recognize him as the co-star of a documentary that chronicled his quest to build a $75 million home with his wife. At the time, the most expensive home in the country. Two years ago, Siegel warned employees about what a vote for Obama could mean for their jobs. Quote, "The economy doesn`t currently pose a threat to your job. What does threaten your job, however, is another four years of the same presidential administration. If any new taxes are levied on me or my company as our current president plans, I will have no choice but to reduce the size of this company." And, yet, today, instead of mass layoffs, Siegel is handing out raises. As of the first of this year, he`s raised his company`s minimum wage to $10 an hour, after what he described as, quote, "the best year in our history". So, if this year`s economic trend lines continue, what everyone will be talking about in 2016 is the economy and not an awkward hug. (END VIDEOTAPE) HAYES: Joining me now, Ezra Klein, editor in chief of Vox.com, MSNBC policy analyst. So, Ezra, I think what is driving people`s ideas about the political season taking shape or even the next Congress has to do with kind of the last political moment we had, which was this moment of, like, dyspeptic bad mood. And I think there`s a genuine chance the trajectory continues in such a direction we`re dealing with just entirely new terrain economically by the time 2016 rolls around. EZRA KLEIN, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, VOX.COM: I think the bad mood in politics is going to remain believe pretty powerful. But I agree with what you`re saying about the Obama administration. I think another way to think about this is actually to go back to 2012 and think about what Mitt Romney was promising to do. Prior to Romney winning the nomination, Michele Bachmann was talking about $2 a gallon gas. People laughed at her. I laughed at that. It seemed completely impossible at the time. Mitt Romney talked about, I believe, it was 4 percent growth he was looking to get. We`re now at 5 percent annualized growth as of last quarter. We`ll see what the entire year looks like when we get there. He was talking about getting unemployment under 6 percent. We are at a moment in the Obama presidency where if Mitt Romney had won the election, he would have proven his proposition. HAYES: That`s right. KLEIN: He would have fulfilled everything he said to do to be not just a success, but a wild one, to have succeeded in all of his kind of very ambitious, economic campaign promises. And I think what`s so fascinating about this is it happened without any of that agenda. HAYES: Right. KLEIN: Now, my read on this is that presidents are just not as important to the economy as people like to believe. But, nevertheless, like this by any political definition is a moment of wild success for whoever gets the credit for it. HAYES: That`s exactly right. And I agree with you. Paul Krugman had a column just about this, about the degree to which we sort of assign credit or blame to the economy to the person in office. But we do know from research, right, from the political science literature, is that presidents are, particularly in re-election years and in election years of a new president in terms of the incumbent party, that`s the standard that they`re judged by whether fairly or not, and that`s what totally orders the political terrain upon which the battle is waged. KLEIN: If this were one year from today, if this were 2016, Hillary Clinton would be about forward to -- not about, would be a ways toward the election. But if it continued on, Hillary Clinton would be looking to carry 42 states, right? If you can have this kind of economy, whoever is coming out of the incumbent party, the party that is going to get credit, as you said, that is the president`s party, they get everything. The blip in that political science research, if you`re Hillary Clinton strategist, what you`re terrified of is the economy peaking too soon. HAYES: Yes. KLEIN: Because the other thing all of that research tells you is that the economic growth a year before an election does not matter, it does not heavily affect voters towards the election. What matters is economic growth in the year of the election. We are now at a moment in the economy where the fundamentals look incredible. I mean, the fact -- the incredibly low energy prices and there should be some self-fulfilling energy effects beginning to take hold. So, it looks really good. It looks like it can continue. At the same time, this recovery has already lasted longer than your average post-war recovery. HAYES: That`s right. KLEIN: So, there is -- if it continues, Clinton is in great shape, but it could turn around at some point. HAYES: And having lived through the crisis, which now sort of remarkably is six years ago, but having lived through it, you always feel a little bit like you`re standing only the bow of the Titanic, right? Which is what is the iceberg that we`re not seeing. Today, you know, there`s worries about Greece. There`s worries that oil price go too low, that you have financial instability in Russia. So, that`s the other thing, which is as we start to talk about the jockeying between Huckabee and Chris Christie is there some possible event out there in the horizon whether positive or negative that completely upends and overwhelms whatever jockeying happens this early on. KLEIN: Right. I mean, you think about where we were at this point in the 2008 cycle, right? I mean, you can look back and see all the incredible stress from the financial sector. You can look back and see all the antecedents and the president`s for the financial crisis. But at that moment, it didn`t look like the context of the `08 election is the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression. We sit here now and, as we say, we have no idea what will happen. But it is worth saying that this is not one of those expansions at the moment that is coming out of thin air, right? When you see energy this low, that is a really powerful thing. I mean, we -- people talk all the time about the Bill Clinton`s incredible success in the `90s. A lot of that success was built on cheap energy. People don`t love to talk so much about these kinds of less sexy drivers of the economy. Not innovation and great new ideas, but just -- are we getting shale gas out of the ground? But this stuff really matters and it matters in a very big way. HAYES: Ezra Klein, thank you very much. KLEIN: Thank you. HAYES: Speaking of that, what is happening in the oil markets is basically unprecedented in our lifetime. In a way, it`s like the bizarro world version of the `70s oil embargo. Middle Eastern oil producers cut off exports to the U.S. The result was a massive spike in gas prices, ridiculously long lines at gas stations and huge, almost hugely overwhelming political pressure and damage. Today, the price of crude has dropped below $50 a barrel for the first time in five years. Since June, look at that chart, the price of oil has slid by 50 percent, which has impacted the price of gas and, according to the "Associated Press", low gas prices are responsible for pushing four-year car sales to what`s likely to the highest level since 2006. The cheap oil has greater ramifications beyond cheap gas. Take an oil- producing country like Russia. Because of rapid drop in oil prices, a country like Russia that heavily relies on oil sales is seeing less foreign money coming in, which, along with U.S. sanctions is helping drive down the value of the ruble, helping to prompt warnings, notably from Russia`s former finance minister, the country is facing a, quote, "full blown economic crisis." Drop in oil prices also affecting corporations. Last month, Chevron sent a letter to Canada`s Energy Board saying the company has announced it`s put its arctic drilling plan on hold, quote, "indefinitely". This after Chevron paid over a hundred million Canadian dollars for the drilling rights. Around the same time Chevron made this announcement, Goldman Sachs came out with an analysis that found almost one trillion dollars with a T in investment in future oil projects currently at risk. Given the role energy plays in our economic life and the price of oil continues to drop, will it completely reconfigure the way the world operates? Whenever I have a question like this, I go to my friend Dan Dicker, oil trader, author of "Oil`s Endless Bid". OK, there`s so much I want to talk about. First of all, you eve got this crazy thing happening today which is that the financial markets are now panicked that oil is dropping too low. Like, what does that mean? DAN DICKER, OIL TRADER: It is, in the short range, as we said, a terrific boost for the economy. And Mr. Obama is having quite a good start to the year, a lot better than Mr. Putin, they would say. His currency is not going down. In fact, part of the probable with oil, or, in fact, part of the problem with oil are in fact what`s causing oil to go down is how strong in fact the dollar has become, much of what happened today was based upon another spike in the price of the U.S. dollar. So, we have a lot of economic factors that are running into the price of oil. I`ve isolated five of them. The good point of this, at least if you`re thinking after 2016, is that it doesn`t look like four of those five are going to turn around any time soon. HAYES: So, you`re saying we could be in some kind of quasi permanent, near-term status equilibrium? DICKER: And I say it`s not sustainable in that you cannot get it out of the ground for what it`s selling for today. HAYES: Right. DICKER: So, ultimately, you`re going to have a supply issue. But as those supply issues don`t really matter much, I`ve spoken with you many times, as the fundamentals seem to matter less and less, those financial inputs seem to matter more and more, those financial inputs that I could list for you, four of those five seem to be staying on track for a long extended period of time. So you`re going to have cheap energy prices for at least the next six months to a year, at least. HAYES: So, I want to talk about whether that`s good or bad from the perspective of the health of the planet and carbon and from that perspective. But, before that, what is Saudi Arabia doing -- explain to me what Saudi Arabia is doing differently, because my sense is that they`ve done something fairly dramatic in how they`re dealing with this round of price plummeting. In the past, they would come in, and cut supply, rescue the price, push it back up. This time, they`re saying no. DICKER: And I think what they`ve done is a master stroke, to tell the truth. I think it`s honestly just been a bold step. It will make OPEC again important in the far term. In the near term, of course, it makes them irrelevant. But, for right now, the Saudis can withstand the low price of oil better than just about anybody on the planet. They`re breaking prices somewhere around $10 a barrel, as supposed to most of the shale place in this country, which are closer to $60 a barrel. And you have, for example, oil sands which is also upwards to $60 a barrel. HAYES: OK, wait. I think I understood this the first time actually. So, the Saudis are basically saying, yes, let it drop. And all of you people who are getting more difficult to recover oil in the tar sands in Canada, in the shale field in North Dakota, which is harder to get and more expensive to get out of the ground what we`re getting, let it drop below the point where it`s economic for you and then you guys start to feel the pain and then you`ll come running crawling back to the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. DICKER: Exactly. You become the swing producer. We`ve a very small, but a very long term glut in this marketplace for the last two years, which the Saudis clearly recognized. Based upon a very undisciplined drilling for shale wells here in the United States, we`ve increased our production by 5 million barrels over the last five years. Now, that needs to come out, or at least a good piece of that has to come out of the market before OPEC can reassert itself as the important player in the oil game. HAYES: This is like the Simpson`s episode when Homer Simpson finds Bart with cigarettes, or he`s basically smuggling them, and he says you have cigarettes, I`m going to sit here and make you smoke every cigarette. That`s an old parent trick, right? To kind of get someone, turned them against smoking. It`s the Saudi Arabians saying oh, you want to sell oil? You want to sell oil? Go ahead, sell oil. DICKER: Exactly. They`re going to beat them at their own game. You`ve already seen quiet a lot of consolidation that has begun inside the oil space. Rigs that are going to drop off of the shelf. There`s going to be less production. Less money spent, as you point out, getting oil, finding new oil. HAYES: That`s what`s so fascinating to me. From the environmental perspective, I think your first blush thought is, the higher the price of oil, the better. People consume it less. But from the investment perspective, when oil this cheap, you`re not getting people pouring billions of dollars recovering hard-to-recover oil. DICKER: Well, I would push back a little bit on that. There are places when you cut back. We call that scalability. So, that`s why we`re talking about the shale players all the time. A couple of million dollars and you spot a well. HAYES: Right, very marginal. DICKER: And it only takes a couple weeks for it to come out: and, in fact, it goes bad in a year or a year and a half. Places like the tar sands, they invest billions of dollars. HAYES: And they`re looking very, very long term. DICKER: And they`re looking very long term, very difficult for them to scale back, at least in the short term. So, in fact -- HAYES: Let`s see. All right, Dan Dicker, thank you very much. DICKER: Thanks, Chris. HAYES: All right. The mayor of New York held his first press conference today since some police officers turned their backs to him again, as he delivered a second eulogy for an officer killed in the line of duty. His surprising remarks about that, ahead. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: I will admit it, I`m a sucker for anything that has a headline like "predictions for the new year." So, in that spirit, I`ll be joined by an illustrious panel as we make our predictions with the 114th Congress. Let`s hope they`re more accurate than this guy, but that is pretty rough. Stay tuned for that. Plus, why Hollywood is trying to destroy the film everyone is talking about, ahead. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: All eyes on New York Mayor Bill De Blasio today, giving his first press conference of the days immediately following the murders of two NYPD officers on December 20th. In his first public appearance since scores of police turn their backs on him again today at the funeral yesterday for Officer Wenjian Liu, even after NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton specifically asked them not to. The mayor has taken dreading the spotlight under the past few weeks as he`s come under brutal attack by New York`s police unions, today`s press conference was probably one he looked forward to, because today, he got to announce what appears to be a major victory for the very policies that helped kick off an NYPD backlash. De Blasio ran for office on a pledge to reform policing practices in New York, especially stop and frisk, the controversial tactic that resulted in the disproportionate number of people of color being patted down and interrogated by police for often arbitrary reasons. And despite all the warnings that changing the policy would result in a skyrocketing crime, and a return to the dangerous New York of the 1970s, the mayor today got to announce that overall crime dropped 4.6 percent in 2014, the first year of his term. Over the last year, the total murders, robberies and burglaries in New York fell to their lowest rates in a decade, all while the number of police stops continue the plummet for the third year in a row. The percentage of arrests using force fell to a ten-year low. While the policy changes originated at city hall, De Blasio was very careful to credit the police themselves for the drop in crime, heaping praise on the NYPD. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO (D), NEW YORK CITY: This is the world`s greatest police department. There`s no doubt about it. I`ve said it many times and I never have any fear of contradiction when I say that statement. It is the world`s greatest police department. I`ve traveled all over the world and people speak reverently about the NYPD. They want to learn from the NYPD, they want to visit this building, talk to its leaders, learn about its technology, its strategies. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Meanwhile, as the mayor continues to run a city-wide experiment in police reform, members of the NYPD appear to be running an experiment of their own. For the second week in a row, officers cut back drastically on police activity in the streets of New York, arresting half as mm people and writing more than, get this, 90 percent fewer summons than in the same period a year ago. While the police unions denied coordinating a work slowdown, "The New York Post" has reported the slowdown is yet another public protest against Mayor de Blasio. There`s no evidence that it`s affected the crime rate, which continuing its downward trend. And by, quote, "turning a blind eye to some minor crimes and making arrests only when they have to, as "The Post" put it, the NYPD has effectively ended broken window policing, the policy of cracking down on small infractions, under the theory it prevents more serious crime. And by ending broken windows, the police are actually giving the protesters exactly what they`ve been demanding. Joining me now, former Baltimore police officer, Peter Moskos, author of "Cop in the Hood", now works at John Jay, where you cover broken windows. You write about policing. First of all, let`s just start with the crime stats. I mean, let`s just be clear. People said, if you -- I mean Ray Kelly said it, Mike Bloomberg said it. All the officialdom of New York said the reason crime continues to fall, the reason crime is so low is because of this tactic or we stop people in the street, we question, we frisk them. If you get rid of that, all hell will break loose. This is only one year, but the mayor I think gets to say at the end of this year, that`s not true. PETER MOSKOS, FMR. POLICE OFFICER: It didn`t happen. At some point, it would be nice to hear a few people say actually, you know what, maybe I was wrong. But I think the analogy I like to use is it`s not letting the lid off of this boiling caldron of urban decay. To some extent, we`ve turned off the heat. Maybe what was effective policing in the `90s, in 2015, we have to look for different, different strategies. It`s a different city. But even I`m a little surprised, given that drastic numbers that we have and yet see any uptick in crime. But, great, this is the reality we`re in now. So, let`s pat ourselves on the back and we`ll go from here. HAYES: Right. What`s the understanding? One of the things, I think, I was I always was curious about was the perspective of the frontline police officers in New York towards the practice, right? Because there was some who didn`t like it. They feel there`s a quota system. Obviously, some participated in the lawsuit, but ended up getting large parts have ruled unconstitutional, but a lot of your officers say, basically agree with this theory, if we stop doing this, crime will go up. MOSKOS: Yes, and I started hearing from student police officers of mine that basically, the quota pressure kicked in a little less than a decade ago. They said the tail is starting to wag the dog. So, anything that gets away, and, of course, quota is illegal. They`re called productivity goals. But still, officers saw them as quotas and they felt they had to produce these numbers. And so they weren`t making stops based on their skill, based on reasonable suspicion. But I also want to mention, you know, the mayor and Bratton said today broken windows is going to continue. And I think often people sort of don`t quite understand. Broken windows is not writing tickets for everything. Broken windows is a problem-solving approach. To say you, as a member of the community, what makes you afraid? This is what we`re going to focus on. HAYES: Right. MOSKOS: It does focus on the little things but intelligently and using discretion. So, in some ways, now, we have a clean fleet almost, if you want to be an optimist. HAYES: So, one of the data points presented today was also that the percentage of arrests from stop and frisk is going up quite significantly. So, you`re pulling people over less randomly, which is what drove people crazy. It felt like an indignity. It felt like they weren`t living in a democracy. It was like I`m walking down the street and it`s like, you, here, come here, I want to pat you down. Well, I didn`t do anything, right? MOSKOS: Yes. HAYES: What we`re seeing is that arrests are going up because cops are presumably using some sort of judgment in a better way that`s producing that. MOSKOS: That`s exactly it. I mean, look, we train cops. We pay cops. We have to expect them to be professional. We have to expect them to behave at police funerals. We also have to understand that, by and large, know how to do their job. If we give them the tools and we give them support, they`re going to make smarter stops. So, yes, that was called the hit rate on arrest related stop. It has to increase and it has increased. So, these are all good signs. HAYES: What -- the biggest thing to me is that you`ve got this intense politics around crime. In New York City, we`re seeing it, we`re at this boiling conflict point, right? And you have people very frustrated with the way they feel that they`re policed. The cops are frustrated with the mayor. And yet, at the heart of this is this massive drop in crime that I feel like it`s being revealed that people don`t understand why it happened, right? Everyone has their theory and everyone who is part of it thinks the thing they did is the thing they did was the thing they did, and if you take that away, we`re back to the bad old days, and that just may not be true. MOSKOS: It is amazing what is the most significant criminal justice happening in New York, maybe the nation in the past 50 years in this crime drop, to go from 2,200 murders a year to just over 300, and we don`t know what happened for sure. That`s what the next book is going to be about. But don`t hold your breath for it, but it`s coming. HAYES: Well-teased, Peter Moskos. Thank you much. It`s always a pleasure, man. Thank you. MOSKOS: My pleasure. HAYES: All right. In light of all the grief that Chris Christie is getting for his unapologetic love for the Dallas Cowboys, I`m going to present the rules of sports fandom, next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, you may have seen that image because he`s getting a lot of flak for his performance at last night`s wild card game between the Dallas Cowboys and Detroit Lions. After the deciding play that sealed the Cowboys` victory, the camera captured this moment in the box of team owner Jerry Jones. Now much ridicule has been directed at Christie for the awkward-missed high-five and the orange sweater, seen here, which has apparently been his good luck charm that he`s worn to every one of the last five Cowboys games he`s attended, all of which the team has won. Well, as well as the questionable ethics of accept lucrative gifts from Jerry Jones, who is a whole other story. But I will say this, the most scurrilous, unfair charge from which I stand here today to defend Chris Christie is for being a traitor for rooting for the Dallas Cowboys as opposed to the Jets or Giants who, of course, play in his native New Jersey. A little over a year ago, Christie himself explained his Cowboy`s fandom this way. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CHRIS CHRISTIE, GOVERNOR OF NEW JERSEY: My father was a Giant`s fan. And I used to remember watching them when I was 8, 9 years old. And every Sunday he`d watch the Giants and yell at the TV set. And I used to think to myself why do I want to root for a team that makes you angry? So, I decided not to and the Cowboys were really good back then and I liked Roger Staubach. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: To which I say amen. And to Chris Christie`s haters, back off. These are the rules of sports fandom. It is not a betrayal to not root for your hometown team. For instance, yours truly was raised in the Bronx, not very far from Yankees stadium. And I am a Cubs, Bulls and Bears fan because my father from the north side of Chicago raised me as such. I`ve been that way my whole life. There is no shame in rooting for teams outside of your hometown. But here is the other part of this rule, once you choose in childhood, you cannot change or deviate. That`s the other part of the rule. You must suffer, as I have. Of course, the Cubs are perhaps the most finely engineered machine for producing human misery ever known to man. And, Chris Christie, well, he`s suffered, too. Perhaps no team in the NFL have created more heartache and disappointment for fans as the Cowboys have in recent years, a team that has a knack for always being tantalizingly close to possible excellence only to revert to mediocrity when it counts. Christie has said so himself. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CHRISTIE: I`ve been a Cowboys fan the whole time. And when the Cowboys are losing the last game of the year the last three season not to make the playoffs, there`s nobody getting on social media giving me a hard time about being a Cowboys fan. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Now if Christie had suddenly abadonded the Cowboys to root for the Giants in the years they were Super Bowl champs well, then, you could hurl all the invective you wanted. But all the available evidence shows that not to be the case. So, to Chris Christie`s haters on this point, back off. I firmly and proudly stand with Chris Christie. And also at least in general spirit, though not int specific word choice, his brother, Todd, who somewhat questionably took to Facebook to say, quote, "all of those non-Cowboys fans who have have their panties in a ringer because the governor of New Jersey is a Cowboys fan, get a life," all caps. Now, that`s as far as the fandom concerns go. However, I will also say this, if you`re thinking of who you want to hand the nuclear football to, I think it`s totally fair and reasonable to take this scene into account.] (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, in the south, there have been thousands of racially motivated murders. We need your help. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Dr. King, this thing is just going to have to wait. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It cannot wait. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You`ve got one big issue, I`ve got 101. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Selma it is. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: There is one movie that everyone in Hollywood, and outside of Hollywood, is talking about and it is Selma. The rarest of Hollywood films directed by a black woman, a film getting rapturous reviews from critics and audiences. I, myself, was a recipient of several texts this weekend from people who were in tears after seeing the film. But it has been branded as controversial in the last few weeks, accused of villainizing President Lyndon B. Johnson needlessly and a contradiction to the actual facts of the matter. In a The Washington Post op ed, former Johnson aide Joseph Califano wrote, quote, "the film falsely portrays President Lyndon B. Johnson as being at odds with Martin Luther King, Jr and even using the FBI to discredit him, as only reluctantly behind the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and as opposed to the Selma march itself." This and other criticism, including a milder critique by historian Mark Updegrove has set off a conversation between what actually happened between LBJ and MLK in the runup to the famous Selma march and the fight for the Voting Rights Act. But in a piece for Flavorwire.com, Jason Bailey pulls back the curtain on what is really going on here with the new supposed controversy over Selma. He writes, quote, "and what does Mr. Califano demand in exchange for this betrayal? An amendment of the film? An on-screen correction? A public apology? Nope. The movie should be ruled out this Christmas and during the ensuing award season. That line which ends Califano`s editorial is a rare, but a transparency, because that piece and the furor that has accompanied it is not about correcting the record, it`s about keeping Selma from winning Oscars." Now, the campaign for Oscars has become quite possibly one of the dirtiest political campaigns of our times. Hundreds of millions at stake. And as Bailey points out it seems every time historically-based film has a shot at an Oscar, claims of inaccuracy surface. The go-to attack used to knock such a film off its pedestal. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The controversial film Zero Dark Thirty opens nationwide. Did the Hollywood producers skew the story to fit an agenda? UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Does it tell a misleading story? UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But is Hollywood`s Lincoln in line with history? ANDERON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Some crew members actually say the portrayal of Captain Phillips as a hero in the film is wrong, claiming his actions were actually reckless. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: So maybe the attack on Selma it just shows how much its rivals fear it as an Oscar powerhouse. And joining me now is Jason Daily who wrote that piece for Flavorwire where he is film editor; also author of the book, "The Ultimate Woody Allen Film Compendium." I thought this piece was great and I felt like I was seeing through the matrix when I read it, because you point out I mean time and time again a film is -- gets serious Oscar talk, it has some historical basis and the attacks start on its historical accuracy. JASON BAILEY, FLAVORWIRE.COM: You can set your clock to it. I mean -- and timing in Hollywood is never accidental. When you look at this particular story -- you know the Politico piece runs December 22. The Washington Post op-ed runs December 26. As someone who writes commentary for the internet, I can tell you that is not the week that you put our your hot takes. Now, maybe that`s timed to the limited release of the movie on December 25, or you can note that on the follow Monday, the 29th, nominating ballots go out from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. And on that day, like clockwork, Variety, Hollywood Reporter, Deadline Hollywood, Entertainment Weekly, all have pieces about this new controversy. And suddenly... HAYES: So it`s on the day that the nomination ballets are going out that the headline about the film isn`t incredible work, people love it, it`s is it wrong, is it... BAILEY: Right. Exactly. For a month, there`s been guild screenings, there`s been critic screenings and all everyone`s talking about is how incredible the movie is. This movie is great, give it all the Oscars. And what`s the Don Draper line, when you don`t like what`s being said change the conversation. And suddenly, this Monday, when it`s time to nominate Oscars, the conversation is have you heard how controversial Selma is about how it gets history wrong. HAYES: Well, let me play naive for a second. BAILEY: Okay. HAYES: And I`m just playing naive, I`m not [inaudible]. Do people really, like, plant negative stories about -- BAILEY: Oh, my god. HAYES: Other oscar films that they`re competing against? BAILEY: Oh, it`s -- when we call it award season campaigning, that`s a deliberate word choice. And it is very much like a political campaign. It first of all can cost as much as at least a congressional campaign. HAYES: So they`re hiring consulting firms, spending millions of dollars-- BAILEY: Oh, yes. HAYES: People are doing opo (?), right? I mean there`s oppler reaseach? BAILEY: Yes. Research, they`re out at screenings, they`re out at parties. They`re not just talking up the film that they`ve been hired to push. They`re talking down the films that they`re competing against. HAYES: And a great example you have in here is "Beautiful Mind" which I had sort of forgotten that there was a controversy-- BAILEY: Giant. HAYES: That was like one of the... What happened with that though? There`s this huge dump on "Beautiful Mind". BAILEY: This was -- in 2001, and Universal was giving a very hard push to the film. Ron Howard had never won an Oscar before. And suddenly, there was a post on the Drudge Report about how elements of bisexuality and anti-semitism had been expunged from that script and it was very inaccurate. HAYES: Well, let me just insert myself here to say those stand in incredibly different moral categories, but continue. BAILEY: Exactly. And the rumor is, the reporting was, that a consultant, a freelance consultant for Air Max Films which had films competing against "A Beautiful Mind" that year, pointed an L.A. Times writer to that Drudge Report post and suddenly that was in the L.A. Times and suddenly that had become the conversation about "a Beautiful Mind" that year. HAYES: So and John Nash who is the mathematician at the heart of that that he had said anti-semitic things or been an anti-Semite and that had been sort of taken out of the movie. There was also the "Lincoln" campaign was really concerned and also, I think, tied to knocking down its Oscar choices. BAILEY: Absolutely. Yeah. That was actually, that was a huge year because he had "Lincoln" that year which all of the sort of presidential historians came out of the woodwork to talk about the discrepancies in that. That was also the year with the "Zero Dark Thirty" controversy which really sort of put the skids on that film which had been seen as very much a front runner and ending up, you know, Kathryn Bigelow didn`t get best director and so forth and so on. Ultimately, played it very safe that year and went with, you know, with "Argo" which had significant factual inaccuracies of its own. HAYES: Well, that gets to the point here, right? Which is anyone who makes a film based on history is going to necessarily, as a sort of narrative, definition, right, is going to open themselves up. BAILEY: Absolutely. Look, we can have the conversation about the difference between documentary and docudrama. We can have the conversation about historical fact versus historical fiction. I think it`s a boring conversation, but we can have it. But if we`re going to have it year after year, we should at least understand where that conversation started. And the conversation didnt... we`re not having this conversation about Unbroken because Unbroken is probably not going to win best picture. We`re not having it about Big Eyes because any nominations. HAYES: So this to you, the fact that this controversy sort of says to you people fear this as an Oscar powerhouse... BAILEY: Absolutely. Absolutely. You know they... and in some ways, I guess it`s an encouraging sign that the film is being considered important enough to put this kind of op-ed effort behind. HAYES: It also occurs to me -- it is -- there is something about, you know, as long as they spelled your name right, I mean, you -- Selma is everywhere. I mean, it is everywhere. So, you know, maybe controversy also drives some people out to actually see the film. BAILEY: Hopefully so. HAYES: Jason Bailey, thanks a lot. BAILEY: Thank you so much for having me. HAYES: All right. What will happen when John Boehner faces a re-election for House speaker tomorrow and other Capitol Hill variety predictions ahead. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: Are you, dear viewer, already putting off your resolutions for 2015? Here`s a fun little procrastination enabler, a random prediction bot brought to you by The Guardian entitled 2015 will be the year of the insert trend here. The bot will, quote, "automatically collate any prediction about 2015 from news headliens and copy every day, no matter how terrible, plausible or obscure it may be." Earlier, one of my producers got this possibly ominous prediction, at least those of us in the business, 2015 will be the year of disruption in cable television generated from this article. My predictions for the new congress ahead. You can play with the prediction bot during the commercial break. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) REP. LOUIE GOHMERT, (R) TEXAS: The numbers are 25 to 33 percent are ready to abandon the Republican Party, they`re so fed up that we`re not fighting for what we said. And if we don`t show them that, it`s going to devastate this country. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: That was Texas Republican Louie Gohmert earlier today explaining why he is deciding -- he has decided to challenge John Boehner`s bid to keep his job as a speaking of the house in the new congress. Both Gohmert and Florida`s Ted Yoho announced their candidacy for Boehner`s job this weekend. At least 10 members of the GOP caucus have vowed to oppose the speaking in tomorrow`s leadership vote. This comes after the holiday week controversy involving the number three Republican in House leadership Steve Scalise who admitted he had spoken in 2002 to a group of white supremists founded by former KKK leader David Duke. Scalise apologized last week and Boehner stood by, prompting this from the White House. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Who they choose in their leadership says a lot about who they are, what their values are and what the priorities of the conference should be. Mr. Scalise reportedly described himself as David Duke without the baggage. So it`ll be up to the Republicans to decide what that says about their conference. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: After the Scalise story broke, there were calls from some conservatives with big platforms, including right-wing radio heads Sean Hannity, Mark Levin fore Boehner to be swept aside. The good news for Boehner is that his challengers don`t have enough voters to pose a real threat, at least it doesn`t appear that way. He`s wildly expected to win a third term tomorrow as speaker. But, the conservative groundswell against Bohener, at least in the chattering classes, is just another reminder that his speakership has, more than anything, been about trying to manage a right-wing base that has little interest in listening to what he has to say. And if what we had seen over the last week is any indication, that faction may be now feeling more emboldened than ever. Why not? Big wins in the last mid-terms. And that all raises if question just what exactly is our new Republican conference, with its vocal faction of far right rabble rowsers, have in store for us? Our round table, including some bold predictions for the new congress is ahead. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: We`re back. Joining me now, Sam Seder, host of Majority Report and MSNBC contributor; Molly Ball, national political writer for The Atlantic, and former RNC chairman and MSNBC contributor, Michael Steele. And Michael, I will begin with you. Your predictions for this congress? I just want to be clear, we`re holding everyone to these. If you`re wrong, you`re going to be humiliated and played on a constant loop. MICHAEL STEELE, FRM. RNC CHAIRMAN: You mean worse than being RNC chairman? HAYES: That`s right, exactly. STEELE: Can it get any harder? HAYES: Exactly. STEELE: No, let me tell you, I think that what you`re going to see is starting out of the gate this week, a lot of aggressive push on XL pipeline, you`re going to see trade legislation slags, you may even see some regulatory reform legislation that a number of folks in the White House are not interested in, but some Democrats, quite frankly, are. So, this is going to be a very interesting early push. And I think that`s going to set the tone, at least try to set the tone, for Republicans in the first 100 days of this new congress. HAYES: Sam, you were just nodding your head to trade legislation. I think -- and Michael, we were sort of in contact with all of you guys earlier. And there`s some overlap in medical device taxes and trade -- fast-track trade authority, which is really a about American democracy, I think, because I actually it`s pretty clear that`s what was on the voter`s minds when they went to vote in 2014. SAM SEDER, HOST, MAJORITY REPORT: Of course. I actually think the trade -- the fast track is going to be the most interesting debate, essentially, because you`re going to have on the left in Elizabeth Warren has started to talk about fast track authority. But on the right, you`re starting to see places like World Net Daily saying like you cannot give the president authority and then, you know, maybe some insanity following it. But so that`s real. So... HAYES: You might get a sort of left-right coalition that fights that. SEDER: Exactly. And that`s going to be, you know, beyond that, I think the Republicans, I think -- if they push anything, it`s going to be some type of like standing committee oversight over Benghazi scandal or something, I have no idea. But, I really don`t think they have much of an agenda beyond Keystone XL. HAYES: I also think -- I think the medical device tax -- I think the president will -- the medical device tax is part of the Affordable Care Act. You`ll never guess who hates the medical device tax, the medical device makers, Molly Ball, hate the medical device tax and have been very vocal about it. And it seems like the kind of thing that by -- there`s some bipartisan desire to get rid of it thanks in no small part to the medical device makers. MOLLY BALL, THE ATLANTIC: It`s really a shocking thing isn`t it, that that industry will come out against something like this? But there is a lot of bipartisan support for getting rid of the medical device tax, partly because of that kind of lobbying, but also partly as a symbolic effort to do something about the Affordable Care Act. Everyone says they want to fix it, want to tweak it, want to do something with it even if they don`t want to repeal it. So that`s something that they can say that they have done, even if it probably doesn`t have much impact on your average American who is, according to Republicans, suffering mightily under the weight of the Affordable Care Act. HAYES: Well, that`s what`s -- I mean, first of all we should say there`s some unlikely allies for getting rid of it -- Al Franken in Minnesota, Elizabeth Warren in Massachusetts, both states with huge medical device industries, we should note. So there is -- you know, there`s a chance that happens. SEDER: And we got the doc fix vote coming up some time, I think, in the spring. And I think that`s a time where you can see something like a must- pass bill like the doc fix, something like that gets larded up. HAYES: For those watching and are saying what is the doc fix, let me briefly explain what the doc fix is, the rates that doctors are reimbursed under Medicare and Medicaid are basically expire all of the time. And if they`re actually let to expire, overnight the rates at which they will be reimbursed would drop by 25 percent and it would be madness. And so what you have to do, is they keep kicking the can down the road where they have the doc fix where they say okay, another six months youe paid at your current rates. That`s the doc fix. Michael Steele, I`m going to say this, my prediction -- I`ve got two predictions. One is, there will not be an Affordable Care Act repeal bill that gets out of both houses and lands on the president`s desk. Do you agree? STEELE: No. HAYES: You disagree? STEELE: I think there will be. HAYES: Really? STEELE: Yeah. I think the general thinking is to send from the House to the Senate a full repeal bill, have the president veto it and then come back with the medical device as a partial on the health care act. HAYES: All right, I`m putting this on the board. Chris Hayes says no bill repeal bill gets the president test, Michael Steele says one does. My other prediction, Molly Ball, we have seen a really unprecedented leveling of federal spending in the discretionary budget and it`s largely been becuase of the budget control act that happened after the debt ceiling standoff in 2011. It is an anomaly. People should understand, it`s not like Republicans as a sort of historical matter have restrained the growth of spending. They didn`t under George W. Bush, they certainly didn`t under Ronald Reagan. My prediction is that with Republicans in control in the Senate, we will see spending start to go up again. What do you think, Molly Ball? BALL: Well, it is an interesting irony that you point out when you talk about these changes to Obamacare, whether it`s the doc fix, which increases reimbursements, that`s more federal spending, or repealing the medical device tax which, again, that tax brings in revenue, that`s going to increase spending; or, you know, getting rid of those Medicare cuts that everybody says that they hate, all of those things end up increasing the deficit by increasing the costs, the pricetag of Obamacare. So I think that that is not too farfetched. HAYES: What do you think? I think this is the year that the budget control act, that that structure gets scrapped and we get something... SEDER: I`m not -- I don`t think they`re going to go that far, becuase you know 2016. Because you`ve got guys like Ted Cruz in the Senate who this is a perfect issue for them to stake a -- exactly. And so they`re going to be -- you know, there`s not much I think the Republicans really can do. You know, Keystone XL is one of those things where everybody can agree, because it`s a completely made up issue and frankly it`s really just one for the base. I think you`re going to see stuff for the base, that`s why I think I would agree that you`re going to see a repeal of the Affordable Care Act at least get through both houses. HAYES: So you agree with Michael? SEDER: Yes. HAYES: And Michael, do you think you`ll get a Keystone bill out of both houses that lands on the president`s desk? STEELE: Yes. yes. In fact, I think you`ll see that the first salvo on that by the end of this week, Chris. And then it`ll work its way very quickly to the other chamber and the president will have it. The Republicans really want to make an early statement that this is about governing, this is about Republican governing over the next year and, of course, leading into 2016 without potential nominees. HAYES: Most hilarious thing would be the president vetoing the Keystone XL bill, which is you know billed to lower gas prices and gas prices continue to plummet that very day. Sam Seder, Molly Ball and Michael Steele, thank you all. That is All In for this evening. The Rachel Maddow Show starts right now. END THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. END