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All In with Chris Hayes, Transcript 04/15/15

Guests: Lynn Sweet, Nick Confessore, Terry Rozema, Alexis Goldstein, DanPrice

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST (voice-over): Tonight on ALL IN -- (LAUGHTER) HAYES: The Hillary Clinton experience continues in Iowa. HILLARY CLINTON (D), 2016 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We need more people with money in their pockets to buy more fruit, to go bowling. HAYES: Tonight, Hillary made actual news today. We`ll tell you what it was. And "Hillary for Millennials" episode 3. Why she once felt the need to apologize to a country superstar. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I must tell you, Tammy Wynette is hopping mad. HAYES: And meet the patron with a $2 million toy train set. Your 2016 billionaire scouting report is ahead. Then, my interview with the Arizona police chief defending his officer for ramming a suspect with his car. And as minimum wage protests erupt across America, I`ll talk to the CEO setting his company`s minimum wage at $70,000 a year. ALL IN starts now. (END VIDEOTAPE) HAYES: Good evening from New York. I`m Chris Hayes. Hillary Clinton made actual real bona fide news today, announcing a new position on a divisive national issue. It was Clinton`s second day on the campaign trail. She was in the caucus state of Iowa, with reporters taking any opportunity to hit their deadlines. That`s Peter Nicholas of "The Wall Street Journal" sitting in a field with his headphones and a laptop open. Clinton started her day at Tremont Grille, a local diner of Marshalltown, where she chatted with owners, along with activists and small business owners. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CLINTON: Great to be here. Hi, how are you? Hello, everybody. (CROSSTALK) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I farm in Northern Iowa and I`m the first woman president of the National Corn Growers Association. (INAUDIBLE) (LAUGHTER) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I hope it`s good omen. CLINTON: I hope so too. Life treating you OK? UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Good, good, good. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I`m having a good time, it is so much -- UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Of course, it`s fun. CLINTON: It is fun. I`m back, I came before, I love it. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Clinton then toured a food distribution company in Norwalk, Iowa, and conducted a small business roundtable. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CLINTON: Unfortunately, the deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top, and we need to reshuffle the cards and begin to play a different hand -- a hand that includes everybody. So when are you open? When is your bowling alley -- you know, I`m going to be in Iowa a lot much. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: As for that news I mentioned earlier, Clinton`s campaign today said the campaign supports marriage equality and hopes the Supreme Court will come down on the side of same sex couples being guaranteed that constitutional right. With Supreme Court preparing to rule on same sex marriage, Clinton`s message may seem like a no-brainer for a Democratic presidential candidate. But it actually reflects an important shift. Clinton came out in favor of same sex marriage in 2013. But until now, her position has been that individual states should decide if marriage equality should be legal. Now, she`s calling on the Supreme Court to rule it a constitutional right for all. Meanwhile, in the absence of clear competition for the nomination. Clinton continues to rack up endorsements. As of today, 64 percent of sitting Democratic senators, that`s 28 out of 44, have endorsed her. She`s also secured endorsements from 65 Democrats in the House. Joining me now, MSNBC national correspondent Joy Reid, straight from the Clinton campaign trail in Iowa. All right. Here`s my first question, Joy -- the marriage equality news strikes me as significant if not unexpected. But again, this is a genuine shift in position. It was not the position she has normally, and also a pretty important thing to say in advance of the Supreme Court ruling. JOY REID, MSNBC NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: No, absolutely, Chris. And I think what you`re seeing is this wholesale recalibration of the entire Hillary Clinton brand from new Democrat to the left. She`s trying to get closer to the Elizabeth Warren brand, and that constituency. In addition to that, you`re also seeing this recalibration away from some of the Bill Clinton quite frankly legacy, because you`ve already had "don`t ask, don`t tell" go down. You know, Bill Clinton is also the president who signed DOMA. So, you`re having Hillary give herself a kick off from that part of Bill Clinton`s legacy. And you know what? As you said, these are the positions she needs to have in a Democratic primary. HAYES: You know, to the extent that it`s discernible, I wonder what you feel like the atmosphere is there in Iowa, because I feel like there`s a certain -- we called it the other day when she announced like both the news and opposite of news, right? It`s been priced in to the stock so long, to use the metaphor. It wouldn`t have moved it in any direction. You know, if in some sense, I think there`s a media frenzy, and an eye rolling about the pro forma nature of it. I wonder if on the ground people are excited that Hillary Clinton`s in town? REID: Yes, I mean, it`s interesting, because I think -- you know, if you start with the most cynical and work your way back, well, start with the press and work your back, I think that you definitely have a fair amount of, OK, we knew this was coming. But I have to tell you, in the room when Hillary Clinton was at this town hall at a community college yesterday in Monticello, the tiny little town of 3,500 people. Even the most cynical part of that room were like, you know what, this was pretty smart, and she did a good job. She was very personable, very self-effacing, very on message. One of the things that has been different this year than -- versus 2008, this woman is on message, she sticks with her, I`m going to be a champion for Americans and sticks with her middle class message. Now, if you go then to other side, to Iowa voters who are very savvy shoppers, they know what they want to hear. They`re accustomed to being catered to and getting to meet all the candidates, they know they`re going to get courted by everyone -- what we`ve basically heard was a lot of people saying, (a), it will be great to have a woman president, that was universal, whether people liked Hillary Clinton or didn`t like her. You didn`t hear a lot of spontaneous talk about things like the e-mail. That was something if you brought it up, people might have talked about it, people weren`t bringing it up. But for the most part, what I heard was openness to what she had to say. People were not coming at this cynically at all. People were saying, you know what, I`m open to her, I want to hear what she has to say. HAYES: Yes, and that`s -- I mean, the strangeness here, of course, is mostly borne out of the fact that you have someone who is as big a figure in national politics as exists next to and including the president of the United States, doing the thing that every candidate does, which is these small retail events in Iowa. And those clashing together is the producing some of the "Veep"-like nature with these interactions, which do really seem like downright out of the HBO series. Joy Reid, always a pleasure. Thank you. REID: Thank you, Chris. HAYES: All right. There are legions of people, legions, who hate Hillary Clinton. And the reasons they hate her are wide and deep and often, frankly, bizarre, and idiosyncratic and inscrutable to say the least. Take for instance this gentleman, captured by MSNBC reporter Alex Seitz-Wald who on a weekday just got a sign made up that reads "I bet Monica could handle two e-mail accounts", and decided to hold that sign in a field in Iowa. It`s a throw back to the era we`ve been revisiting each night this week with our "Hilary Clinton for Millennials" series. And tonight, we have a brand new episode for you, stand by your man-gate. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) BILL CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT: I have acknowledged wrongdoing. I have acknowledged causing pain in my marriage. I have said things to you tonight, and to the American people from the beginning that no American politician ever has. HAYES (voice-over): January 1992, questions surrounding Bill Clinton`s personal life were dominating the news cycle. Both the candidate and his wife agreed to sit-down for a post-Super Bowl interview with "60 Minutes" that almost ended Clinton`s quest for the White House. It would turn out the most memorable sound bite of the interview wouldn`t come from Bill Clinton, it would come from Hillary. Tonight`s episode, stand by your man-gate. With the Democratic primaries in full swing, America was learning more about a woman named Gennifer Flowers. TOM BROKAW, NBC NEWS: No one wanted this presidential campaign to get sidetracked by stories of an extramarital affair. But, tonight that`s what happened as a result of allegations against Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton. HAYES: Flowers told a supermarket tabloid she had an affair with Clinton. A day after Clinton "60 Minutes" interviewed, Flowers called a news conference. GENNIFER FLOWERS: Yes, I was Bill Clinton`s lover for 12 years. And for the past two years I have lied to the press about a relationship to protect him. HAYES: And while the Clinton campaign had hoped the 60 minutes interview would later rest any questions about the flowers affair, it may have only added fuel to the fire and created its own side controversy. Driving the news cycle that week was Hillary Clinton`s rigorous defense of her husband. H. CLINTON: I`m not sitting here as some little woman standing by my man like Tammy Wynette. I`m sitting here because I love him, and I respect him, and I honor what he`s been through and what we`ve been through together. And, you know, if that`s not enough for people, then heck, don`t vote for him. HAYES: That interview was watched by tens of millions of people. And not everyone was happy about it. BROKAW: Well, among those watching was Tammy Wynette herself. Mad as hell it turns out. HAYES: The country music star whose best known song was referenced by Hillary Clinton was not pleased with the newfound attention. Wynette wrote a letter telling Mrs. Clinton that she had offended every true country music fan and every person who`s made it on their own with no one to take them to a White House. Who could broker a peace agreement between the two? As Wynette`s husband would later recall, it was, of course, Burt Reynolds. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He called and he said, these people are friends of mine, please have Tammy talk to Hillary. I said, OK. For you, I`m going to do that. So I put Tammy on the phone. HAYES: But things didn`t end there. BROKAW: The country singer demanded an apology from Mrs. Clinton, and today she got one. HAYES: Hillary Clinton sat down for a prime time interview to tell the nation just how sorry she was. INTERVIEWER: Here`s a question you tried to deal with the other night. Why are you standing by him? And your reply was something to the effect you`re not some little woman just standing by her man like Tammy Wynette. And I must tell you, Tammy Wynette is hopping mad. H. CLINTON: And I`m sorry about that, and I apologized to Tammy Wynette if what I said offended her. But I would not feel as strongly as I do that he is the right man to be president in this country at this time if I personally believed anything other than that. So, my standing by him or for him -- INTERVIEWER: You are standing by him? H. CLINTON: Well, of course, we`re married. HAYES: Bill Clinton, of course, would go on to win the presidency. Hillary Clinton proved herself to be unfazed by all the scrutiny, prepared for all the battles ahead. H. CLINTON: Anything they throw at us, I hope they realize we`re not going to roll over and play dead. I think what you do is continue to be as honest as we can with the American public and to remind folks that people who live in glass houses shouldn`t throw stones. (END VIDEOTAPE) HAYES: Joining me now, Lynn Sweet, Washington bureau of "Chicago Sun- Times". She covered Hillary Clinton during the 1992 campaign. And, Lynn, we`ve been doing these every night, and looking at all those archival footages of Hillary Clinton. And something that stuck out to me is just how -- what a -- for lack of a better word, what a bad ass she is. I mean, she`s so outspoken, she`s so sharp, she`s sort of -- you know, going back and forth with Dick Armey, making a Jack Kevorkian joke, there`s a certain kind of a like serious incredible spontaneity to her. And then you also see how the press dealt with that spontaneity which was like creating Tammy Wynette scandals. LYNN SWEET, CHICAGO SUN-TIMES: Well, I think, keep in mind everyone - - this is before anyone had even heard of the TV show "Survivor". Now, I think Chris the thing here is, this was the first exposure to a lot of people of Hillary Clinton, her story wasn`t known. It`s interesting in the context of her running against the president, exactly if this will be a factor or not. But one of the things we learned early on, and she learned early on, is that people were hanging on every word he said. And people were paying attention. HAYES: And this is -- had is a process that extends past Hillary Clinton, but I think it`s largely true for everyone, this extends to Mitt Romney, I think it was true in some ways and Barack Obama. I remember you were the one who asked Barack Obama about Skip Gates at a press conference getting stopped outside his house, he answered very early in his presidency, he answered very honestly, the next thing you know, he`s got a beer summit with a police officer. And you can kind of tell from then on, he`s been much more hedged and conservative, small c, in how he talks about things, people understand you can create a whole weeks worth of stories if you`re too honest. SWEET: Well, I think he knew that even before that July 2009 press conference, when I asked him about that question. That was just something he didn`t think through. One of the things that`s hard for people on the public stage every day, including you, is that you have to be careful because sometimes it may be a few words away from creating a controversy that you had not intended to. But what Hillary Clinton was doing back then in the `92 campaign was juggling a lot of stuff. She was dealing with some problems with fidelity on her husband`s front and we will know more to come in the next few years. And she was trying to feel more -- feel exactly where do I fit in in this campaign? What`s my role? And perhaps foreshadowing something that Michelle Obama would have when she was trying to help her husband in the 008 campaign, what -- I don`t want to create a problem. I want to be a help, not a hindrance. HAYES: You don`t want to create a problem. You find out very quickly that the crazy rules of being a candidate or candidate`s spouse. And also, you want to be yourself, because you`re a fully actualized human being. You`ve got to go out there and talk about how great your husband is. SWEET: Well, any of us who are speaking in public right now. I don`t want to be too much of myself, because you can`t -- you have to watch what you`re saying. But what is interesting now for the millennials, those 18 to 29-year-olds is I`m curious to see how much of this they will see as interesting, but minor history, or not part of the Hillary Clinton story, that they find is something they want to know about. HAYES: I think that`s going to be very interesting too. Lynn Sweet, thank you for being here. SWEET: Thank you. HAYES: Well, still ahead, the premiere of ALL IN`s billionaire scouting report, our guide for the billionaire`s bankrolling, 2016. Tonight, we`ll introduce you to the owner of a custom-built $2 million toy train set, who wants to make Ted Cruz`s presidential dreams come true. Plus, we`ll talk to the CEO who decided to make the minimum wage at his company, $70,000 a year. Stay with us. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: Today is the 150-year anniversary of Abraham Lincoln`s death. After being shot by John Wilkes Booth while attending a play at Ford`s Theater in Washington, D.C., he died the following morning, that was this morning, at 7:22 a.m. And last night, and this morning, hundreds of people gathered around Ford`s Theater for a around the clock commemoration of his assassination and death. Without Lincoln, of course, without Lincoln ever occupying that office, there is no Union, there is no United States and what Ulysses S. Grant would call one of the worst causes for which people fought slavery may well have triumphed. We`ll be right back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: If you`re going to run for president in this day and age. You`re going to need a few things. Obviously, you`re going to need a Web site, URL, you want to secure that. You`re going to need some staff, and, you know, volunteers, probably some yard signs at some point. But you`re also going to need more than anything else, billionaires. Yes, in the post-Citizens United age, you need people with lots and lots of cash to fund your super PAC. And so, today, we`re introducing a new and recurring series here, know your billionaires, a scouting report of the men and women behind the candidates you`ll see glad handing in Iowa. And that`s both parties. Joining us to help us go through the scouting report is Nick Confessore. He`s a political reporter for "The New York Times", specializing in money and politics. Great to have you here. NICK CONFESSORE, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Good to be here. HAYES: All right. So, I think that this is one of the most fascinating aspects of this campaign. It was sort of true in 2012. But now, it`s fully flourished in 2016. Particularly on the Republican side, because there`s a "Game of Thrones" thing happening. Let`s talk first about Robert Mercer, he`s backing Ted Cruz. He`s believed to be the main donor to one of the Keep the Promise super PAC. He`s co-CEO of Renaissance Technologies. He has a $2 million model train set, and he also is in a real war with the IRS. Isn`t he? CONFESSORE: That`s correct. His hedge fund is basically under investigation for the way it borrows money and the way it did transactions to allow it to avoid paying $6 billion in taxes, which is quite a tax bill. This firm is also, by the way, co-founded by a big Democratic super PAC donor, Jim Simons, who`s a big giver to Democrats on this. HAYES: And I imagine, they`re sort of be hedging their bets, right? They sort of giving -- CONFESSORE: I can`t think of hedging better than these two guys at this firm. HAYES: And this has also been key for Ted Cruz because some of the early press around him was a sort of question, like, did he have the big money backers to go far? And in Mercer, it seems he has at least one really strong person. CONFESSORE: That`s right. I mean, look, there are three pots of money now in campaign politics -- small donors, medium big donors, people who write these campaign checks, and then super PAC billionaires. HAYES: Yes. CONFESSORE: And the question was, could he get any of that middle group, which is the bread and butter for campaigns, to get behind him. HAYES: Right. CONFESSORE: And the truth is, if he has the grassroots fund-raising and he has a couple billionaires -- HAYES: You don`t need it. CONFESSORE: He may not need the middle group. HAYES: The middle class of donors is getting squeezed like the middle class everywhere. CONFESSORE: That changes the game substantially. You only have a few of these guys and super PAC truly on top of it. HAYES: Let`s talk about Norman Braman. He said this about his support for Marco Rubio. My support will be very, very substantive. He`s a former owner of the Philadelphia Eagles, owns Braman Motor Cars, 23 franchises. Also someone who`s got a lot of money, and, in a world in which Jeb Bush has lined up and tied up a lot of dollars, a key asset from Marco Rubio. CONFESSORE: Exactly, and also an ambassador in the Florida community which is rich with donors for Marco Rubio. So, again, what we`re going to see with guys like Braman is not just one candidate or two candidates with big super PACs, but probably five or six or seven candidates who will each have super PACs backing them, that have 10, 20 million dollars thanks to guys like Braman. HAYES: That will allow people get survived early losses. CONFESSORE: That`s right. HAYES: That will allow people to go deep in this primary. If there`s a guy that`s going to write you $20 million in checks or fund you, you can survive some early round losses. CONFESSORE: That`s right. It`s not as good as candidate money that you can control. But it`s a lot better than no money you don`t have. HAYES: I want to talk about Jose "Pepe" Fanjul, who also appears to be backing Marco Rubio. He`s been a key Rubio fund-raiser. A Cuban sugar mill magnate, featured in 2006 doc, "The One Percent". Marco Rubio hugged him right after he was making a speech about bartenders and maid. He`s a key player, particularly in the Cuban community there. CONFESSORE: That`s right. And look, here`s a guy that has a substantial and specific vested interest in policy, which is sugar and subsidies and agriculture policy. HAYES: Right. CONFESSORE: And he`s going to put all this money to candidate. You have as the single issue donors, or at least donors with a pronounced particular interest and these candidates need them badly to get to the first couple rounds. HAYES: We should note, there`s lots of billionaires lined up behind Hillary Clinton. They`re much less out front. We know Tom Steyer is a big Democratic donor. There`s a bunch of big Democratic billionaire donors, they`re less out front at this point because they don`t have to be because they don`t have to set up the rival super PACs. CONFESSORE: That`s right. There`s no primary, there`s no competition, and the Democratic PAC has not started raising any money yet, we haven`t seen how big it will get. If there`s any Democratic candidate that can get donors to pony up at this scale, Republicans have already. It`s Hillary Clinton. HAYES: We`re going to dig into those folks too as they start coming forward. Nick Confessore, thank you very much. CONFESSORE: Anytime. HAYES: All right. Last night, we showed you the shocking dash cam video of an officer ramming a suspect with his car in Arizona. Tonight, we`ll talk to the chief of police there, who says his officer did the right thing. That`s next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: I`ll be joined in a moment and joined by the police chief of Marana, Arizona. It was one of his officers who`s seen in newly released dash cam appearing to deliberately run down an armed suspect with his car. I want to first show you that video in full context. Warning, the video is disturbing, the language is graphic, the suspect survived the incident. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) (EXPLETIVE DELETED) OFFICER: You don`t want to do this. You don`t want to do this. OFFICER: I`ve got a male, Hispanic male. He`s a gun to his neck. And he`s now walking southbound toward the next block from Burlingame. I`m staying back in a distance. OFFICER: Put the gun down, just put the gun down. OFFICER: Unit from (INAUDIBLE) road, keep everybody away. One round just went out into the sky. It`s definitely unlocked now, it`s definitely loaded. Units be prepared. OFFICER: 10-4, is the suspect shooting or did you shoot? OFFICER: Negative, did not shoot. Unit right there, just stand off, stand off. Stay off. Stay off. OFFICER: Oh! Jesus Christ, man down. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Again, the suspect, 36-year-old Mario Valencia, survived that crash, spent two days in the hospital before being booked into the jail. He now faces multiple felony charges. The officer driving the police cruiser, that rammed the suspect, that`s not the voice you heard, Michael Repeko (ph), was cleared of criminal wrongdoing by the county prosecutors office, placed on administrative leave for three days following the crash, but has since returned to work and is currently under administrative review, according to police. And joining me now is Marana, Arizona, Police Chief Terry Rozema. Mr. Rozema, can you explain whether the kind of thing we saw in the video, ramming a suspect is something that police are trained to do, told to do as an option in situations with the suspect who`s armed and dangerous? ROZEMA: I think that`s a great question, one I`ve been asked quite a bit over the last day or so. And the fact of the matter is, it`s not a technique that`s trained. What officers are trained to do is to end a threat that poses deadly -- a deadly threat, and in this particular situation, officers are also trained to use whatever means are at their disposal to be able to do that, and sometimes a vehicle can be used. It`s not unprecedented. I would say it`s unusual, but it`s certainly not unprecedented. HAYES: Again, you can see from that tape, this is a really difficult dynamic, dangerous situation. The suspect is, you know, threatening to kill himself, he fires in the air. So, this is a difficult situation for any police officer trying to deal with it. It`s striking to me, though, that the officer who`s in the car, who we hear throughout that interaction seems to be asking sort of asking for patience. And then you can kind of hear some exasperation from him when his fellow officer -- Officer Pico does ram the suspect. He says Jesus Christ, man down. What`s your reaction to that? ROZEMA: Yeah, you know, I think that`s a great point. And again another one that`s been brought up throughout this. And one of the things that people have to understand is that the officer that`s making those comments is not referring to the officer behind him when he`s telling the officer to stand off, stand back. He`s talking to the officer`s at the other end of the street. And is he shocked when the officer comes around him? Yeah, because he didn`t know he was there. So, just like anybody who`s watching the video for the first time, it takes your breath away. And there`s no doubt that it took the officer`s breath away. I look at the video, I look at how we deployed -- I look at our tactics and there`s a number of issues not even so much with the use of force, but how close we got to this guy who has a high-powered rifle. So we placed ourselves in some pretty bad places tactically that we`ll address, we`ll talk about so that we can get better. But yeah, the officer certainly was shocked and you can understand his shock when this thing happens. HAYES: Finally, just quickly, are you satisfied that this was -- you can say it`s appropriate use of force, but was this the right thing to do in this situation? ROZEMA: I absolutely believe it was the right thing to do. You have a guy who was acting erratic. He`s not obeying commands. He has a high- powered rifle. People say he wasn`t posing a threat, but he absolutely with that gun in his hand, he`s posing a threat to anybody that he`s come across. And to the traffic that`s in the area. He`s a quarter mile away from the I-10. Vehicles are going past there. All he has to do is raise the weapon and start firing. And we`re at a huge disadvantage. He`s just steps away from -- 15 seconds away from entering one of the businesses and if we don`t do something and somebody gets hurt, then clearly we`re answering a different question about why didn`t you save my loved one? So I`d much rather be answering the question of -- did you use force a bit little too early as opposed to waiting too late and having innocent lives in danger? HAYES: That question right there I think is something that hangs over a lot of these interactions, something we need to keep investigating. Police Chief Terry Rozema, thank you very much for joining me. Appreciate it. ROZEMA: Thank you so much, Chris. HAYES: We told you earlier this week about another police dash cam video the Chicago Police Department does not want you to see, from an incident where a teenager was shot 16 times by an officer and killed. Now, All In has learned exactly what that video shows as the city approves a $5 million settlement for the teen`s family, all the details ahead. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The fight for a $15 minimum is not just a fight about higher wages, it`s a fight about morality. It`s a fight about decency. It`s a fight about dignity. It`s a fight about whether everyone in this country is going to be, if they work full time are going to have a decent job. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich joins demonstrators today at a McDonald`s in Oakland calling for a $15 minimum wage. Organizers, like Yes IU (ph) said protesters planned for more than 200 cities and colleges across the country. You saw someone on Twitter talking about 5,000 people in Chicago. Part of the Fight for 15 movement. It was the largest action yet in the effort to raise the minimum wage and unionize workers in the fast food and service industries. Protesting and striking minimum wage workers have really shaped the political conversation around income inequality, a conversation that is now somewhat remarkably happening in the presidential campaign on both the Republican and Democratic sides. The movement seems to also work its way into the thinking of the 1 percent themselves. Last June, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein told CBs This Morning, that income inequality is, quote, "responsible for the divisions in the country." More recently, their CEO Dan Price, who runs a credit card processing company in Seattle Called Gravity Payments. Price, who after reading a study on happiness, decided to over the next three years raise the salary of even his lowest paid employee to a minimum of $70,000 a year. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DAN PRICE, CEO, GRAVITY PAYMENTS: Everyone in here, you might be making $35,000 a year right now, but everyone in here will definitely be making $70,000 a year. And I`m super excited about that, so ... (APPLAUSE) (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: The New York Times points out Price would pay for the wage increase by cutting his own salary from nearly $1 million to $70,000 and using 75 to 80 percent of the company`s anticipated $2.2 million in profit this year. Now, I spoke with Dan Price earlier, and I began by asking him whether this was all kind of a publicity stunt? (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) PRICE: You know, the opinion that I care about most is our clients, right. And those were the ones that have been with us for the last 12 years that we`ve been in business. It was just one client at a time for us, our success. And -- but, really our whole business is based on values, and treating other people the way you want to be treated, doing business to serve rather than just to make money. And so, you know, it`s just one more step on that evolution of us kind of growing up and being a big kid company. HAYES: but this is not -- there`s not some -- this is not some con job? I`m not going to hear six months from now, oh, yeah, those raises never happened and like, he paid himself in bonuses and didn`t actually -- you know what I mean? PRICE: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it would be tempting, right? I mean, I didn`t -- there wasn`t really anything forcing me to do this, and I think that`s one of the things that people kind of have to get their head around. But in my opinion when you lead, you might have short term risk, but you have medium and long term success that goes with it. And so for us, you know, pushing on something like this, and kind of leaning into something like this will pay dividends over the long run. HAYES: I read about you looking at the happiness research as part of what triggered your coming into this decision. And it`s fascinating, right, because what the happiness research says is that you can redistribute money and create a net gain of happiness, right? From the person you`re redistributing from who actually gets happier, to the people you`re redistributing too, right? PRICE: Well, you know, I`m not so sure about that. There`s probably a correlation there. And I think you can assume a cause and effect. I think what`s clear is that once people make $70,000, $75,0000, $80,000 a year or more, they stop having to make sacrifices that have an emotional cost on them, and that emotional cost distracts them from what we`re passionate about, which is helping small business owners succeed, saving them money and reducing their headaches when they have to accept credit cards. And if I`m thinking about how to make ends meet, how to make rent, how to just fill up my tank of gas, I`m going to be distracted from my passion. HAYES: Now, that`s broadly applicable too, right. There`s been some interesting research at the lowest end of the payscale around a minimum wage in what`s called an efficiency wage, right. So, there`s prediction from the macroeconomic model that you`re going to have this problem, this dead weight loss when you raise the minimum wage. And when that didn`t materialize, people actually looked and said, actually, you know what, you get less turnover because people stick around longer. Do you think there`s broader sort of social policy lessons here? PRICE: You know, I think when you reduce inequality in every way, whether it be a micro level one company or macro level across the economy, you`re going to see positive impacts that you would have never predicted. And I think when you increase inequality, you`re going to see negative impacts you would have never predicted. HAYES: There are these folks out there today striking and demonstrating for $15 minimum wage. We have a rising inequality in both directions, right? We have got the top going up, we`ve seen wage stagnation not just at the bottom, but all through. What do you want to see happen outside the pretty remarkable decision you`ve made in your company? PRICE: So, my pipe dream is that we actually have a private capitalist solution for this, that we and others prove that actually we`re going to win, and we`re going to make more money and do better business because of these steps. And we actually preempt the need for a minimum wage. I`m not saying that a minimum wage will never be necessary, but how great... HAYES: A higher one. I mean, obviously we have one now. PRICE: Yeah, yeah, a much higher one. But that haven been said, it might be necessary if we as business owners don`t step up. In my own city of Seattle, we have the highest minimum wage in the U.S., $15 an hour. And I think it`s because people didn`t step up, it was hard. We`re trying to solve it. The thing that I worry about with the $15 minimum wage, does it impact the person making $50,000? Do they go to $60,000 with a $15 an hour minimum wage? I think we don`t know the answer to that. And something like this I think is more flexible and it fixes the solution. It almost preempts the politics and everyone loves it. HAYES: Right. Well, that`s the question, though, right, is like how many -- we can talk in six months and see if anyone else has taken the bait where you are. It`s really nice to have you here. PRICE: Nice -- thanks for having me. (END VIDEOTAPE) HAYES: The ripoff scandal at one of the nation`s largest for profit college companies ahead. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: Earlier in the show, we brought you episode three of our new series, Hillary Clinton for Millennials. If you didn`t see it, or if you haven`t seen episodes one or two, you`re really missing out. So, we put them up on our Facebook page. That`s facebook.com/AllInWithChris so you can do binge watching, which they couldn`t do back in the 1990s. It`s seriously worth it. Back in a moment. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: Two big payouts in the city of Chicago, the first a reparations package for the victims of one of Chicago`s most notorious police commanders John Burge. Over the course of two decades, from the early 1970s to the early 1990s, officers under Burge`s command tortured more than 100 people, most of them African-American, into confessions. Today, an ordinance was formerly handed to the city council of Chicago, to create a $5.5 million fund for the victims. Also today, the city council unanimously approved a $5 million settlement for the family of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald. McDonald was shot and killed by police in October. At the seen of the shooting, a police union representative told the media that McDonald was armed with a knife and that, quoting from the Chicago Tribune, officers got out of their car and began approaching McDonald again telling him to drop the knife. Pat Camden, a spokesman for the fraternal order of police said. The boy allegedly lunged at police and one of the officers opened fire. McDonald was shot in the chest. Now, an autopsy done by the city medical examiner appeared to contradict that version events, showing instead that Laquan McDonald had been shot 16 times in his chest, neck, head, back right leg and both arms. According to the Chicago Tribune, the city`s top lawyer, Steven Patton, said the officer who fired all 16 shots has claimed he was in fear for his life. Now, as we reported on Monday, there is dash camera footage that shows the shooting. We here at All In filed a request under Illinois freedom of information law, for that video. That request was denied. And it has not been released to the public. But the lawyers for Laquan McDonald`s family have seen it. And one of them described what he saw in that footage to All In. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) JEFFREY HOLLAND, ATTORNEY: The video shows Laquan walking southbound down the middle of Pulaksi, which is a four lane street in Chicago, two lanes going northbound, two lanes going southbound. There are squad cars visible in front of him and also squadcars behind him. The dash cam video is from one of the responding units which was trailing Laquan approximately 20 to 25 feet behind him. The shooter`s squad car is visible as it drives past Laquan and parks in the middle of Pulaski behind another squad car. Two officers then exit that vehicle with their guns draw. At that point, Laquan begins to walk away from the officers on a southwest angle towards the sidewalk. What Laquan is about 12 to 15 feet away from the officers, the width of an entire lane of the southbound traffic, one officer begins shooting. Laquan immediately spins to the ground and the video then shows that the officer continues to shoot Laquan multiple times as he lays in the street. 16 seconds pass from the time Laquan hits the ground until the last visible puff of smoke rises from his torso area. An officer then approaches Laquan, stands over him and appears to shout something as he kicks the knife out of his hand. (END VIDEOTAPE) HAYES: Now Laquan McDonald`s family has not seen the video and according to their lawyers they don`t want to see it. They released a statement today saying in part "we look forward to the day when the officer responsible for Laquan`s senseless murder is held accountable in a court of law. Only then will justice truly be served." Now that officer, according to a police spokesperson, told the Chicago Tribune, has been stripped of his police powers and is currently on paid desk duty pending the outcome of the probe in the shooting. Laquan McDonald`s family and their lawyers have agreed not to release the dash camera footage to the public while there`s still an ongoing joint state and federal criminal investigation of the shooting. The city of Chicago`s top lawyer Steven Patton told All In that the last thing that any of us want is to do something that might interfere with or compromise the pending investigation by prosecutors, but we are confident this video will be released at the appropriate time when their investigation is complete. We of course will keep following the story as it continues to develop. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ANNOUNCER: We build confidence. We teach skills. And we unlock potential for better careers and better lives. This is the promise we keep to our students, our graduates, our employees and our families. So together, we can build stronger communities. We are 15,000 strong supporting more than 80,000 students across North America. We are Everest, Heald and WyoTech. We are Corinthian Colleges. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: For years, Corinthian Colleges IInc. has been accused of luring students in with false promises and profiting off predatory student loans. And now the federal government has dealt the for profit college operator a major blow. The U.S. Department of Education is fining Corinthian almost $30 million, cutting some of its access to federal student aid and barring its Heald college chain from enrolling any new students, alleging that Heald inflated job placement rates as part of its pitch to prospective students. The department found almost 1,000 examples of misrepresenting placement rates at Heald College campuses. In one case, a campus allegedly classified a 2011 graduate of an accounting program as employed in the field, based on a food service job she started at Taco Bell in June 2006. In a statement, a spokesman for Corinthian called the government`s conclusions, quote, highly questionable and unsubstantiated. But this is just the latest in a series of troubles for Corinthian Colleges, which brought in more than $1.6 billion of revenue back in 2013. As much as 85 percent of their revenue from federal student aid. Last June, the Department of Education restricted Corinthian`s access to federal aid, forcing the company into an agreement to sell 85 of its campuses and eventually close 12 others. The consumer Financial Protection Bureau later sued over Corinthians lending practices. And just two months ago, they reached a settlement to forgive $480 million in private student loan debt. Many Corinthian students still hold outstanding federal debt, however. And now a group known as the Corinthian 100 has gone on strike, refusing to pay back loans they say the federal government should forgive. When I asked Education Secretary Arne Duncan last week whether he`d agree to forgive the Corinthian students` debt this was his response. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ARNE DUNCAN, SECRETARY OF EDUCATION: We continue to be very concerned with these issues. We have met with some of these young people as recently as the past two weeks. And we`re going to continue to look at the very closely to see what the right thing is to do not just in this situation, but more broadly. HAYES: I mean, that`s a nonanswer, but your answer is you are looking into whether you should... DUNCAN: We are looking at of this very, very closely, and again talking to young people who have been negatively impacted. And for me it`s not just about those individuals, it`s about where you have bad actors for far too long they were allowed to just do what they wanted. We`ve tried to be very, very clear that we will not tolerate. And whatever political pushback we get, we`re fine with that. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Joining me now Alexis Goldstein, former vice president of Merrill Lynch, now an activist with the Debt Collective, that`s the group that`s helping to organize the Corinthian 100. Alexis, great to see you. So, I guess respond to Arne Duncan who seemed to leave the door open and then in a statement today from the Education Department in this fine they kind of gestured towards maybe there was going to be something for all these Corinthian students who are holding debt? ALEXIS GOLDSTEIN, DEBT COLLECTIVE: I mean, I think it`s really a Band Aid on a gaping, hemorrhaging wound at this point. The alarms have been sounding for a decade about Corinthians malfeasance, their predatory behavior, their fraud. And the Department of Education has finally acknowledging that it existed. But let`s not forget that last year they facilitated a sale to a debt collector. And Secretary Duncan mentioned on your show he invoked the name of the students. He called them young people. It`s important to remember many of these are adults. They are mothers, they are grandfathers, they are grandmothers, they are veterans, they are not just young people. And they are folks who are trying to get a better life and were scammed by a college that was enabled by the Department of Education for years. And we are -- we have seen -- they`re facing 200 lawsuits. And now the Department of Education is finally admitting that something was wrong here? But we really need them to take the next step and to actually forgive the debt of these students who have essentially been thrown off a cliff. HAYES: So let`s just be clear here, first of all we should all say nine attorneys, state attorneys general say the federal government should forgive the debt. But just to be clear, the entire business model of Corinthian couldn`t have existed without the federal government. I mean, 85 percent of the revenue that`s coming in is coming from federal student aid. I mean they are -- the student is basically, just the kind of vehicle by which they can access the federal student aid dollars. GOLDSTEIN: And they can get up to 90 percent of their money from federal student loans. And they can get even more than that if they target veterans, which we know them to have done. For example, in the California attorney general`s lawsuit they were found to have unlawfully used military logos in some of their advertising in order to bring in more veterans because then they could get GI Bill money. HAYES: Well, here`s I guess here`s the question, right -- I mean, I don`t have a representative from Corinthian here, so let me just sort of speak up on their behalf, right. I mean, there`s a certain buyer beware aspect here. And there`s also a degree to which the tangible benefits of an education are unquantifiable. If you take out a loan and you go and educate yourself somewhere, they cannot control that institution, whether you get a job or not, right? GOLDSTEIN: But this is an institution that has broken the law. They face 200 lawsuits, you know. And these are students that have more debt than Ivy League educated students have. And in fact, Corinthian College spent more money lobbying than Harvard spent lobbying. And they don`t give these students, who are pursuing vocational degrees, which is something that President Obama has gone out and said that people should pursue vocational, technical training, they don`t get the skills that they need to become paralegals, to become medical assistants. They`re trained in 15- year-old technology and can`t even get jobs at Best Buy when they get computer systems degrees from Corinthian. So, there has just been vast fraud for far too long under the Department of Education`s watch. And if they want to right the wrongs, the only thing that they should be doing right now is forgiving this debt and heading the calls of those nine state attorney`s generals and lawmakers as well. 13 senators have called for the same thing. HAYES: Does the Department of Education have the power to wave away that debt? GOLDSTEIN; They absolutely do under the Higher Education Act. HAYES: All right, Alexis Goldstein, always a pleasure to see you. Thank you very much. All right, 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