All In with Chris Hayes, Transcript 08/20/15

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST (voice-over): Tonight on ALL IN -- DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: There`s a very big question as to the anchor babies. JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Anchor babies, as they`re described. TRUMP: Anchor babies. HAYES: From bad to worse. TRUMP: I`ll use the word "anchor baby." Excuse me, I`ll use the word "anchor baby." HAYES: Donald Trump`s ugly rhetoric spreads. REPORTER: Do you regret using the term anchor babies yesterday on the radio? BUSH: No, I didn`t. I don`t! Do you have a better term? HAYES: Tonight, the backlash from inside the Republican Party. Plus, Trump mimics executing an American POW. TRUMP: We get a traitor named Bergdahl, a dirty, rotten traitor. In the old days, bing, bong. HAYES: Tonight, Bowe Bergdahl`s lawyer responds. And the supposed deal maker that turns out to be less than meets the eye. The remarkable press conference from former President Jimmy Carter. JIMMY CARTER, FORMER PRESIDENT: I`ve had a wonderful life. HAYES: And an admission of hypocrisy after the Ashley Madison hack. JOSH DUGGAR: Let`s stand together for marriage. HAYES: Dan Savage will join me on Josh Duggar, when ALL IN starts right now. DUGGAR: Stand up for marriage. (END VIDEOTAPE) HAYES: All right. Good evening from New York. I`m Chris Hayes. And what started off as a pretty ugly immigration debate within the Republican presidential race has now gotten somehow even uglier thanks to the front-runner Donald Trump. After bursting into the race with warnings about Mexican rapists, this week, Trump put the issue of birthright citizenship, that`s the conferring of citizenship status of anyone born here, put that front and center, and now, using a deeply loaded phrase that`s offensive to many, "anchor babies", to describe American infants. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: Here`s what`s happening. A woman is going to have a baby. They wait on the border. Just before the baby, they come over to the border. They have the baby in the United States. We now take care of that baby, Social Security, Medicare, education -- give me a break. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: A press conference before Trump`s New Hampshire town hall last night, a reporter pressed him on his use of a term that many call dehumanizing. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) REPORTER: Are you aware that the term "anchor baby," that`s an offensive term? People find that hurtful. TRUMP: You mean it`s not political correct, and yet everybody -- REPORTER: Look it up in the dictionary. It`s offensive. TRUMP: Give me a different term. Give me a different term. What else would you like me to say? REPORTER: The American born child of an undocumented immigrant? TRUMP: You want me to say -- I`ll use the word "anchor baby." Excuse me, I`ll use the word "anchor baby." (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: While Trump rival Jeb Bush supports birthright citizenship, that meaning he doesn`t wan to repeal the 14th amendment, he conceded in a radio interview that something`s got to be done about those so-called anchor babies. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BUSH: If there`s fraud or if there`s abuse, if pregnant women are coming in to have babies simply because they can do it, then there ought to be greater enforcement. That`s legitimate side of this. Greater enforcement, so that you don`t have these, you know, anchor babies, as they`re described, coming into the country. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Asked about those comments at a press conference today, bush managed to both criticize Trump`s rhetoric and defend his own use of some of the same language. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) REPORTER: Do you think the term "anchor baby" is offensive? BUSH: No. No. I -- if there`s another term that I can come up with, I`m happy to hear it. This whole immigration debate is hurtful for a lot of people. Really hurtful -- I`m not talking about my family here, I`m talking about in general, when you just, you know, huge, just kind of a tidal wave of accusations or bombastic talk. There are a lot of people that share the immigrant experience, and when they hear this, what they hear is, you don`t think I`m part of this, you don`t think I`m part of this country. So, I think we ought to tone down the rhetoric a little bit, talk about solutions, and get on with fixing things in this country. REPORTER: Anchor baby, is that not bombastic? BUSH: No, it isn`t. Give me another word. REPORTER: The children born of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. BUSH: That`s not another word -- that`s a seven -- look, what I said was, it`s commonly referred to that. That`s what I said. I didn`t use it as my own language. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: On this question of a possible replacement phrase, Hillary Clinton offered a suggestion on Twitter. They`re called babies. Jeb Bush is by no means the only GOP candidate to take up Trump`s ugly language. Witness Bobby Jindal, himself a child of immigrants, and a direct beneficiary of birthright citizenship. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TV ANCHOR: Do you find that phrase offensive or not? GOV. BOBBY JINDAL (R-LA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: What I find offensive is Hillary Clinton, the left, when you look at those Planned Parenthood videos, they refuse to call them babies. They call them fetal specimens. Folks are too easily offended and they`re too politically correct. I`m happy to use the term, but the real issue here is we need to secure our border. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Even Marco Rubio, another beneficiary of birthright citizenship, who unlike Jindal, it has to be noted, opposes the repeal of the 14th Amendment, even Rubio tipped his hat to the anchor baby bogeyman. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Put that aside -- JOHN HARWOOD, CNBC: Is not birthright citizenship one of the things that makes America exceptional? RUBIO: Yes, I -- yes. And that`s why I`m not in favor of repealing the 14th Amendment. But what`s the flip side to have that argument? There`s a legitimate issue embedded within this debate. And that is, you have people coming to this country, expressly for the purpose of having children. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Trump`s venom is not just infecting the other candidates. Whether he intended to or not, his toxic approach to immigration is leeching out into the broader public. Take Iowa radio host, Jan Mickelson, who`s hosted a majority of the Republican candidates on his show, some multiple times, and is widely regarded as an Iowa caucus kingmaker on the right. Mickelson`s plan for the 11 million undocumented immigrants currently in this country -- slavery. (BEGIN AUDIO CLIP) JAN MICKELSON, WHO NEWSRADIO: So, if you are here without our permission, and we have given you two months to leave, and you`re still here, and we find that you`re still here, after we`ve given you the deadline to leave, then you become the property of the state of Iowa. And we have a job for you. And we start using compelled labor, the people who are here illegally, would therefore be owned by the state and become an asset of the state rather than a liability and we start inventing jobs for them to do. (END AUDIO CLIP) HAYES: Now you might hear that and say, well, really, who`s this guy? He said something I find odious. But even after standing by those comments in a follow up interview with Media Matters, Mickelson announced he`s getting a special visit on his show from another presidential candidate tomorrow. Tomorrow, Ted Cruz will be appearing on his show. And there`s the disturbing story to have two brothers in Boston, who allegedly beat up a homeless man because he was Hispanic. According to the "Boston Globe," one of them already has a past hate crime conviction for attacking a Moroccan man after 9/11. This time, police said the alleged attackers were inspired by Donald Trump. One of them reportedly told the police that Donald Trump was right. All these illegals need to be deported. Trump was asked about the incident last night in New Hampshire. This was his response. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: I haven`t heard about that. I think that would be a shame. But I haven`t heard about that. I will say, the people that are following are very passionate. They love this country. They want this country to be great again. And they are very passionate. I will say that. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Joining me now, Jennifer Palmieri. Great to have you here in New York City. JENNIFER PALMIERI, CLINTON CAMPAIGN: A delight to be here. HAYES: OK. What is your response to what is going on in the immigration debate on the Republican side? PALMIERI: I mean, the clip you just showed about these two brothers in Boston is like a little taste to think how disturbing it can be to have this kind of rhetoric coming from the Republican front-runner and then embraced by, you know, as you showed, at least, every Republican candidate that we`ve seen that`s been asked about it. HAYES: Well, Jeb Bush said, he -- in his defense, in that interview, which I should note, the Hillary Clinton campaign today texted people who could then text back, and then hear that Bill Bennett clip -- PALMIERI: You could text insult, yes -- HAYES: You could text insult, and they would call you back. So you want people to know what he said. PALMIERI: Right. HAYES: In that clip, he does say, "as people describe them". PALMIERI: But, you know, this is -- I think this is what we want to make sure voters understand about Trump being in the race, is that he may be -- he may be the most bombastic, he may be the most colorful, he may get the most attention, but the other candidates are happy to follow along with him. And they may be somewhat more moderate, as Governor Bush was maybe attempting to do. But fundamentally, they`re embracing that concept. They`re embracing the concept of anchor babies. And where does that lead? This is a pretty fundamentally core premise of what it means to be American. HAYES: To be clear, the Clinton campaign, Hillary Clinton, the candidate, is not in favor of repealing the 14th Amendment. PALMIERI: No, no, no she`s not. She thinks that they`re not anchor babies, their babies, and they`re not just babies, they`re American citizens. And it is -- it`s, you know, it`s pretty telling, it`s one thing to -- it`s surprising when you hear Republican candidates say that they want to repeal DACA, which means they want to put DREAMers in danger of being deported. But to want to go back to such like a core, you know, part of literally of our Constitution, to undo, and to play pretty fast and loose, just even with embracing this term, but to try and distance yourself from the actual policy, it shows how, I think, dangerously extreme this group of candidate -- crop of candidates is getting. The debate`s helpful that way, right? The debate we had a couple of weeks ago, I felt like they are -- they have been trying to maybe distance themselves from Trump or not, not be too closely linked to him. But you see them all on the same stage together and they may try to behave differently from him, but they all have the same policies. HAYES: But here`s where things get tough, right? It`s very easy in the relative sense for Hillary Clinton to tweet that out and take a stance in favor of not repealing the 14th amendment, right? PALMIERI: Yes. HAYES: But the substantive issue is, what do we do about the 11 million people there, there`s a comprehensive immigration reform bill, bipartisan, passed 70 votes in Senate, killed in the House. OK, Fine, Hillary Clinton`s president. The math looks exactly the same. She can say whatever she wants and have the best views in the world on immigration. You tell me the road from "A" to "B" so that the lives of those people actually improve given what the math is right now. PALMIERI: We think it`s going to be a big part of the campaign, and that the support of the country is overwhelming for comprehensive immigration reform. People do think we need to deal with it. They don`t think that deportation is a good solution. They do think we need to enforce the borders better. Hillary Clinton certainly agrees with that. We do need to do that as well. And you know, is the -- I hope that she`s elected president and I think that this is going to be a big -- you know, immigration was a really big issue in 2012. It was a big issue in 2008. I think it was bigger in `12. And I`m surprised to see it happening, but it may be even a bigger issue in 2016. And I think it`s a question, is the Republican Party going to try to - - if they`re going to continue to go down this path, I think they`re going to have hard time in the general election, not just at the presidential level, but in Congress as well. And, you know, so it will be part of the campaign. She`ll be advocating for comprehensive reform. And if you don`t get it, she has already put a lot of thought into what you can do to mitigate the circumstances for families if people aren`t separated, people who, you know, otherwise are -- HAYES: In terms of further executive action. That`s obviously not a great solution, but it`s better than the situation that we have now, where President Obama`s had to move to protect DREAMers. She has some ideas on how you can go further and protect their parents as well. People who are, you know, otherwise here, good, law-abiding citizens, working hard, trying to be Americans. HAYES: Bernie Sander`s response in a "New York Times" magazine article, an interview about Donald Trump surge in the poll says, not much, when you think of it, not much. I think Donald Trump`s views on immigration and slurring the Latino community is not something that should be going on in the year 2015. It`s to me an embarrassment to our country. Is there a distinguishing policy difference between Bernie Sanders, Martin O`Malley, and Lincoln Chafee and Hillary Clinton on immigration? PALMIERI: She has put forward a policy on how if we`re not able to get comprehensive immigration reform, how she would go further with executive action to try to protect, like, the parents of DREAMers, so that they can stay in this country. So, she has -- I don`t believe any of the other candidates have put out -- have articulated that. So, you know, she`s all about -- the woman is very focused on solving problems. And obviously, legislation`s ideal, but she has some good ideas. HAYES: OK. Let me ask you about the e-mails. Is there something you can do to make this stop? PALMIERI: I think -- is there something we can do to make Republicans stop trying to use -- HAYES: Well, not just Republicans -- it`s the press, right? People want -- there`s now the thumb drive has been turned over, the server has been turned over, the 300 plus have been flagged for possible review. Do you feel like you guys have done everything? Or is there a conversation that`s happening in that campaign office that says, we should do this and this will put a stop to it? PALMIERI: We think that -- I`ll tell you what we think that we should -- how we are handling it and how we think we should handle it, is that particularly in the last couple of weeks, and I think during August is a good time to do this, is to try to do more education. Because there`s a lot of coverage of this, and it`s very confusing. So, there`s a couple of things that we want to make sure that voters understand about this, because we understand that they have questions about it. It`s also true that they never ask Hillary Clinton about it. They ask Hillary Clinton about things that are going on in their own life -- HAYES: That I actually believe. But -- PALMIERI: It`s true. You can watch it not happen, because at town halls. But people have questions, it`s really confusing. This is what we want them to understand. She -- this was in keeping with what other secretaries of state have done, it was permitted under State Department guidelines at the time that she was the secretary of state. She has said if she would have to do it over again, she would do it differently. She thought this would be easier. It obviously was not. HAYES: Let`s be clear, this was a mistake to do it this way. PALMIERI: She has said that she would do it differently. She thought this would be or easier, it was not. And so, so that. HAYES: Right. PALMIERI: But classify -- misusing classified information, that`s a serious concern. So we want to make sure everyone understands, she treats classified information very carefully. She would never deal with it online. She dealt it with in hard copy, in meetings, et cetera. It`s not something that she would deal with on the computer. And State Department, as they have confirmed many times, she e-mails that were considered classified by the State Department at the time. What is happening now is because the e-mails are being made public, other departments, who think they have equities, are looking at these e-mails, and they are deciding that they think that this should be made -- that something should be classified, because of some concerns they have. But that does not change the fact that she was secretary of state, State Department -- (CROSSTALK) HAYES: Let`s explain that to people. That word, "equities," means nothing if you haven`t worked in the White House. (CROSSTALK) HAYES: So, when you do and do the State of the Union inside the White House, right, you have to go to all the departments that have equities. That`s people whose turf you`re on substantively, right? What you`re saying, other departments have seen some of that stuff and said, I`m not sure if that coming out of DHS or that returned to DOD should have had a different classification that meant that it shouldn`t have been out there, right? PALMIERI: Yes, they just are a different view. HAYES: OK. PALMIERI: There was a good example of this that was released yesterday, in an e-mail that we saw. State Department by a career foreign service officer, and specifically identified SBU, which means sensitive but unclassified -- HAYES: Yes. PALMIERI: -- said to Hillary Clinton and a number of career officials, they all received this on their classified system, so they all have the same situation that she was in. And another department came in later to say that they thought that that should be classified. So, we think we need to explain it. But understand, she`s going to testify at the Benghazi committee hearing in October. We`ll see how much of that`s about Benghazi. But then -- HAYES: Then we`ll on to the next thing by then. All right. PALMIERI: Well, yes, we don`t think the Republicans are going to stop attacking here, but we`ll handle that. HAYES: Jennifer Palmieri, good to have you. Come back. Definitely come back. PALMIERI: Yes. HAYES: Coming up, why the Republican candidates should move out of Donald Trump`s way of immigration, if they don`t want a repeat of 2012. Plus, how the bombshell report that meant the end of the Iran deal turned out to be less than it claimed. And the later, the information of 30 million users of the Ashley Madison dating web site just out there on the Internet comes a question, what are we supposed to do it with? We, journalists, those stories just ahead. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: Among the more despicable displays from Donald Trump last night was this. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: Take Sergeant Bergdahl. Does anybody remember that name? So, so this is the way we think. So we get a traitor named Bergdahl, a dirty, rotten traitor -- (APPLAUSE) Who, by the way, when he deserted, six young beautiful people were killed trying to find him, right? And you don`t even hear about him anymore. Somebody said the other day, well, he had some psychological problems. Well, you know? You know, in the old day, bing, bong, when we were strong, when we were strong. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: If you couldn`t follow that, that was a joke about summarily executing him. Bowe Bergdahl`s lawyer responded today on behalf of his client, who is being prosecuted by the Army, saying in a statement, "This is the lowest kind of demagoguery. Mr. Trump`s comments are contemptible and un- American. They are a call for mob justice." Bergdahl`s lawyer went on to point out his client is not charged with treason. The army prosecutors are planning on presenting no evidence that people died searching for his client and that Trump`s comments directly threaten his client`s right to a fair trial. He concluded, "No American should have to put up with unprincipled behavior, especially from a person seeking public office. Mr. Trump must stop vilifying this young man, who suffered five years of brutal captivity at the hands of the Taliban. He deserves to be judged on the basis of evidence rather than slander from someone who`s never worn our country`s uniform." When we come back, there`s new backlash to some of Mr. Trump`s other observations, this time from his fellow Republicans. Stay with us. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: He called for self-deportation of undocumented immigrants in 2012 and he won just 27 percent of the Latino vote in the presidential election. Now, voices in the Republican Party perhaps mindful of Mitt Romney`s fate are raising the alarm on inflammatory rhetoric from the 2016 crop of GOP presidential candidates. "Hill" pointed out today the former senior adviser to Mitt Romney called Trump`s immigration plan a Punji stake pit for other candidates", in reference to a common booby trap used in Vietnam. "And they should not fall into a trap of looking like they oppose reform." Earlier today, I spoke with Katie Packer Gage, who served as deputy campaign manager of the Mitt Romney campaign in 2012, about a piece she wrote back in June, headlined, "Don`t repeat Mitt Romney`s mistake on immigration." I asked her what message that piece was sending to fellow Republicans. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) KATIE PACKER GAGE, FORMER DEPUTY CAMPAIGN MANAGER FOR ROMNEY: I actually didn`t write that part of it. That was a headline that was assigned to the piece. Just to be clear. You know, I think that when I was trying to convey by the piece that I wrote is that some of these candidates, you know, they sort of lurch around, trying to, you know, chase the shiny object, during presidential primaries. And it can sometimes come back to haunt you in a general election. And I think it`s really, you know, applicable to what`s been happening in the last couple of days, with all this talk about repealing the 14th Amendment, you know, Donald Trump called the 14th amendment to the constitution unconstitutional. I`m not sure how that`s even possible. And I think, you know, it`s rhetoric that`s a big turnoff, not only to Latino voters, you know, that are a critical voting bloc in a general election, but also to women voters, who don`t like that kind of tone. And it`s problematic for us. And I just -- it was a caution, really, to our Republican primary candidates, you know, to be mindful of that. It`s not a particularly great primary strategy. And it`s a really bad general election strategy. HAYES: You know, there`s two ways of thinking about this. One is that it`s so early, all this stuff will be a distant memory by the time the general election sets in. And there are people who will say, hey, look, I remember when everyone was saying that the shutdown was going to be the death knell of the Republican Party in 2014. That didn`t work. And there`s another theory that says, no, this kind of rhetoric does lasting harm among voting groups. They hear it and it stays with them. Which of those, do you think, is a more accurate description? PACKER GAGE: Well, it depends on the situation. In the case of the shutdown, you know, the thing that sort of saved the Republican Party in 2014 was that the sort of specter of Obamacare was so bad, and the president was so unpopular, that it did sort of negate the shutdown, ultimately. But you can`t always count on getting that lucky and something really good happening for your party. And, you know, these media clips are going to live forever. We`ve already seen how quickly the Democrats and the Clinton campaign have turned around some of the comments by both Trump and Bush, and, you know, trying to associate Governor Bush with Mr. Trump. And, you know, it`s not something that you`re going to be able to run away from in a general election. And I think all these candidates just need to be mindful of, you know, the way they`re talking about these issues being something that can be a turnoff to certain key voting blocs. HAYES: One of the other things you discuss in the piece you wrote, which I think is an important thing to zero in on is, your research, your both polling research and focus group research suggests that the block of real sort of stridently hard-lined anti-immigration voters, even within the Republican Party, is smaller than you might think. It`s extremely vocal. It`s a group of people that are going to vote on this issue. It`s the number one issue for them. But, in terms of the numbers, the raw numbers of the base, it`s actually not that large. Expand on that a little bit. PACKER GAGE: Well, what we saw, and we were looking at early state primary voters in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, you know, all of those states. What we found is that it`s roughly about a fifth of Republican primary voters that are saying that this is a critical issue, that anybody that doesn`t, you know, speak harshly on immigration is, you know, not somebody that they can support. At the time we did this survey, most of those voters were going to Ted Cruz. They weren`t really voters that are available even to the other candidates. And so, you know, trying to lurch to the right on this issue is, you know, at best, you know, you get some applause from, you know, commentators and really hard right, you know, political entertainers, as I like to call them. But you`re not really attracting a broad swath of Republican voters, who really are saying that what they`re looking for is somebody that`s going to articulate a plan, that starts with border security, and that has some hurdles for those that are currently here and are undocumented before they can get to legal status. But it`s not a deal breaker for them to consider some sort of legal status for those millions of immigrants that are currently here illegally. HAYES: But, then, you know, what you just articulated, starting with border security, hurdles for people already here. I mean, you have described the bipartisan bill that passed the Senate with, you know, what was it, 70 votes, something like that, that died in the House. And it died in the house because that house caucus was quite beholden to the one fifth of the voters that you`re talking about. And that has been the kind of implacable logic of this issue, all the way back to McCain/Kennedy in the mid-aughts, which I covered as a reporter. That seems to be the problem, right, is that those who care about killing immigration reform, who care about this harsh rhetoric, care about it more than the voters who have other views care about it on the other side. PACKER GAGE: Absolutely. And that`s the reason we did this research in conjunction with the partnership for a new American economy to say, look, don`t be so afraid. This is a very loud, very local -- I`m sorry, very vocal minority within the Republican Party. And you can be for some kind of reasonable plan, and, you know, get support from a majority of Republican primary voters and also find yourself in a stronger position for a general election. And, you know, ultimately, you know, that`s what we want to see, you know, the Republican Party do, in the long-term. HAYES: It`s a real open question about, what happens in this process as it continues to unfold. Katie Packer Gage, appreciate your time tonight. PACKER GAGE: Thanks for having me. (END VIDEOTAPE) HAYES: Up next, President Carter`s truly heartfelt and touching truly heartfelt and touching press conference today about his cancer diagnosis. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CARTER: Hope for the best and accept what comes, you know? We -- I - - I think I have been as blessed as any human being in the world. (END VIDEO CLIP) (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JIMMY CARTER, 39TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES I`ve had a wonderful life. I`ve had thousands of friends and I`ve had an exciting and adventurous and gratifying existence. But now I feel, you know, this is in the hands of god, whom I worship. And I`ll be prepared for anything that comes. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Truly remarkable scene in Atlanta today, as the world watched former president Jimmy Carter speak publicly for the first time about his cancer diagnosis. The 39th president revealed that cancer has spread to his brain. Doctors discovering four melanoma spots after removing a tumor from his liver earlier this month. The 90-year-old Carter told a roomful of reporters he will undergo radiation treatment and he reflected on what`s to come. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CARTER: I`m perfectly at ease with whatever comes. I do have deep religious faith, which I`m very grateful for. And I was pleasantly surprised that I didn`t go into an attitude of despair or anger or anything like that. I was just completely at ease. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Carter said he initially kept the news of his illness from his wife of nearly 70 years, Rosalynn, who was in attendance today. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CARTER: Well, the best thing I ever did was marrying Rosalynn. That`s the pinnacle of my life. And we`ve had 69 years together. Still together. And -- so that`s the best thing that happened to me. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Carter said he would scale back his public schedule, but still plans on spending Sundays as he usually does. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CARTER: I plan to teach Sunday school this Sunday and every Sunday as long as I`m, you know, physically and mentally able, in my little church. And we have hundreds of visitors who come to see the curiosity of a politician teaching the bible. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Today, we saw a man of deep faith facing his own mortality with astounding grace, reflecting on his life`s work as an advocate for peace and justice. And in a blazer and blue jeans, Jimmy Carter remained true to form, humble and optimistic, demonstrating immense grace and courage. "I think I`ve been as blessed as any human being in the world," he said, "so I`m thankful and hopeful." (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: Yesterday, the Associated Press published a story that was greeted as an absolute bombshell, a bombshell so massive, it might just well kill the Iran deal, a story so explosive, it supposedly proved every one of the deal`s critics right. So what did that story say? Well, it said this. UN to let Iran inspect alleged nuke work site. Now because the story came from the AP, that headline appeared in hundreds of news outlets across the country and around the world. And it caused a major freakout among the deal`s critics on the right. Lindsey Graham released a statement saying, quote, "allowing the Iranians to inspect their own nuclear sites, particularly a notorious military site, is like allowing the inmates to run the jail." John Cornyn saying, "trusting Iran to inspect its own nuclear site and report to the UN in an open and transparent way is remarkably naive and incredibly reckless." Plenty of other congressional Republicans pounced as well as did a certain celebrity presidential candidate. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Have you heard about the secret deal that was cut with Iran, allowing Iran to inspect its own nuclear facilities? What do you think about that? DONALD TRUMP, REAL ESTATE DEVELOPER: I think it`s crazy. I think the whole Iran deal is the dumbest deal you can imagine. I think it`s going to go down as one of the worst deals in in the history of this country, maybe of the world. I`m not surprised to hear there are side deals. The White House doesn`t know what they`re doing. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: So some very interesting things have happened since the AP first posted that story, which concerned a single military facility called Parchin, which is not believed to be an active nuclear site. First, the AP removed most of the actual revelations in its story and alternate information, though many of the initial article`s claims were later reinstated. Then two senior U.S. officials told NBC news that, in fact, nuclear inspectors would be on the ground at the site to supervise the Iranians. And those nuclear inspectors said that claims that Iran would be conducting its own inspections were disturbing and misrepresent their work. And that`s just the beginning of the problems of the supposed blockbuster story that many now see as a deliberate attempt to kill the deal via misleading information leaked to one of the most respected news outlets in the country. A short time ago, I spoke to one of the few people who knows what`s really going on, Dr. Jeffrey Lewis. He`s a scholar at the Middlebury Institute of International studies in Monterrey and founding publisher of the arms control wonk website. He told me what has happened at the Parchin facility. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) DR. JEFFREY LEWIS, MIDDLEBURY INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL STUDIES: So, a long time ago, between 1996 and 2002, the Iranians did some work that was probably related to developing a design for a nuclear weapon. They took explosives and they used that to squeeze metal. And that`s an important test. So, that information got revealed to the IAEA. They`ve done an incredible investigation. They found the former Soviet scientist who had worked there. They got a bunch of documents, the guy had even published papers on his work there. And they basically said to the Iranians, hey, what`s up, like, the jig is up, we know what you`ve done, and the Iranians have been stalling to keep them out. So what`s finally happening is the Iranians are agreeing to answer questions and provide samples and photographs and actually let a group of IAEA officials in. HAYES: Now, the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Association, is the essentially policeman for the world`s nuclear nonproliferation treaty. They`re the inspectors. They were in Iraq. They`re the ones that monitor and inspect, right? Now, they are being... LEWIS: Yeah. HAYES: ...as part of this deal let into this facility in Parchin. The sense that one got from reading the initial AP was that the Iranians were going to be able to take their own samples and then just give them to the IAEA, and say, yeah, that stuff`s from Parchin. Is that what`s going to happen? LEWIS: Yeah, that sounds terrible, right? But, no, that`s not what`s going to happen. I mean, it`s a wonderful destructive leak. And you`ve kind of got to admire the people who did it. But as best I can tell, what`s going to happen is this. The Iranians have to answer questions about this facility. And the IAEA has already conducted an incredibly thorough investigation. And the last step of that is for the Iranians to submit some samples and to submit some photographs and video. The trick is, can the IAEA authenticate the photographs? And as I say, there will also be a site visit later. One thing that didn`t get mentioned, the reporter, George John, for AP, who wrote this just kind of said, well, it`s not clear how they`re going to authenticate it. Like, that`s a really important deal. And my understanding is, the IAEA is incredibly confident that they can authenticate the samples and authenticate the pictures. And my understanding is also that they briefed the U.S. about this, and we red teamed it at one of the national laboratories and that they`re confident. So we have a lot of armchair inspectors who think they know better than the IAEA. But, like, I don`t think they do. HAYES: OK. But just walk me through this. So you say, so it is true that Iran will hand over, from Parchin, some body of samples, videos, and photos. And they say, this is the stuff you`re asking for, here it is. The degree to which that strikes a layperson as an invitation at cheating, what I`m hearing you say, is that the actual investigators who have a body of data about this facility, whether the international ones or the American ones, are confident that they`ll be able to tell if the Irans are cheating when they hand that stuff over? LEWIS: Right. And, one of the things that was so frustrating about the AP stories, if you read the notes, the has now. He has made the notes that he took on the document available, it specifically says that the IAEA has a plan to authenticate the samples and photographs. And he just kind of says, but we don`t know how that`s going to happen. And it`s frustrating, because you think like, wow, if we had a real reporter here, maybe they would ask that question and figure that out, because it`s pretty important. And as I say, I think both the IAEA and the U.S. government are pretty confident that they have in place a solid technical plan to do that. But, again, let me say one more thing. There`s also a site visit. HAYES: There is going to be a site visit? Same IAEA inspectors will go to Parchin at some point? LEWIS: Yeah. The director general and the deputy director general who is the top inspector, they are going to go -- the Iranians are calling it a courtesy visit. I don`t care what the Iranians call it. They can call it anything they want. The point is, George John left that detail out of the story. I`m not sure why. HAYES: All right, so here`s what I`m hearing, just to sum this up. We`re talking about a body, IAEA here, who has already kind of doggedly uncovered some level of possible deception, possible untoward activity at this facility, has built up a level of data about it, know the facility well, have some sort of fingerprints for what was going on there, and they`re confident that they can use this methodology to satisfy their own questions about that facility. And the question is whether we think they`re the ones who are right about this or Lindsey Graham. LEWIS: I think that`s exactly right. And it`s worth noting, you know, a lot of this is effective, because people don`t know how IAEA inspections work. I`ve even say former IAEA officials say this has never been done before, even though it has. The South Africans submitted video, the Brazilians take their own photographs of their facility. There are procedures in place to do this. But it sounds bad, right. And then once it sounds bad the great thing -- and again, you`ve got to -- like, hats off to the people who figured this out. Now people can demand that the IAEA produce all of this confidential information to prove them wrong, which of course will destroy the IAEA`s credibility, because it can`t -- Vienna cannot leak like Washington and get away with it. HAYES: All right. Dr. Jeffrey Lewis, thanks for your time. (END VIDEOTAPE) HAYES: Still to come, as the first big name comes out associated with the hack of dating website Ashley Madison, it raises the question of what we as journalists should do with these revelations. Dan Savage is here to discuss, ahead. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: Breaking news tonight on Presidential candidate Deez Nuts, who as we told you last night is a fictional candidate who appears to be a 15- year-old boy in Idaho who filed with the FEC and who is polling at 9 percent among North Carolina voters in the new PPP poll. When he is presented as a third party candidate in the Hillary Clinton versus Donald Trump matchup. The New York Times political reporter, Trip Gabriel tweeting, "why did PPP include #deeznuts in three state polls? The name makes people laugh it`s a long election, its director tells me." Gabriel adds, PPP says they`ll be polling Deez Nuts nationally next week. Stay tuned for that. We`ll be right back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: Yesterday, the first big headline out of the hack of the infidelity website Ashley Madison appeared on Gawker. And because we were wrestling, frankly, with the journalistic ethics of what to do about it, I did not talk about it on this show, even though I have very little positive feeling, frankly, towards the person at issue. Today, that person issued a public statement, so it is now officially news. That person being Josh Duggar. Yes, that Josh Duggar, the oldest brother of the now canceled formerly hit TV show on TLC, "19 Kids and Counting," the Josh Duggar who just two months ago was embroiled in a scandal revolving around his molestation of minors, an offense never dealt with properly by law enforcement. And the Josh Duggar who was also a very vocal lobbyist for the conservative Family Research Council. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JOSH DUGAR, FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL: Yet the constitution protects Americans from having a new view of marriage judicially forced upon them. And only one other nation in this world has had a court impose the redefinition of marriage and we are standing today to say, let the people`s voice be heard and let`s stand together for marriage. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Yes, for marriage. Now, in response to the Gawker story that Josh Duggar had a paid Ashley Madison account, Mr. Duggar has released a statement, which reads in part, "I have been the biggest hypocrite ever. While espousing faith and family values, I`ve been unfaithful to my wife. The last few years while publicly stating I was fighting against immorality in our country, I was hiding my own personal failures." And as noted by several news outlets, including USA Today, the original statement from Josh Duggar since amended on his website, included the line, I have secretly, over the last several years, been viewing pornography on the Internet and this became a secret addiction. Now, there`s a real question about how the press will handle the additional revelations about who may have had an account with Ashley Madison and what do we make of Mr. Duggar`s admission, especially now the AP is reporting that hundreds of White House, Congress and Pentagon employees apparently used their work emails to register. I`m not quite sure what we should be doing with that information, so I`m going to call in an advice columnist. Dan Savage will join me next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: Joining me now, syndicated columnist and host of the Savage Lovecast, Dan Savage. All right, Dan, the Duggar news I think you have a pretty clear view on. What`s your take on that just to start out? DAN SAVAGE, HOST, SAVAGE LOVECAST: Well, I think outing is a brutal tactic. I wrote when the Ashley Madison hack news first broke a month ago, that I believe all of these people, the 33 million people whose data was compromised had a right to privacy. And I was -- I objected to the glee with which so many people greeted the news that all of these alleged cheaters -- not everyone who gets on that site intends to cheat, some people are just fantasizing. And some people who do cheat have cause to cheat. And there`s this glee that all these people are going to get their just desserts. And I was -- I pointed out that I thought that that was terrible, these people were private people and a right to privacy. Josh Duggar is not a private citizen. He is a public figure who has benefited politically and financially from attacking other people for their marriages, for their sex lives, for how they conduct themselves, for their alleged, in his opinion, immorality. And so, his morality is germane. And his hypocrisy makes him in this instance a legitimate target for an outing of this sort. HAYES: Yeah, I mean, he was also -- I mean, this was his entire profession, essentially, was scolding people about marriage and policing other people`s marriages and their morality. But then there`s going to be like, OK, so, the AP traced many of the accounts exposed by hackers back to federal workers, two assistant U.S. attorneys, information technology administrators in the executive office of the president, it goes on and on. It`s like, you know, we`re going to see the same thing happen that happened to the Sony hack. Is someone`s going to report it, then it`s going to be out there, and then it`s going to be news. SAVAGE: Then you report on the reporting, to get around, you know, not having the dirt on your hands from reporting it in the first place. HAYES: Right. But then it will be out there, right? SAVAGE: It will be. But how much are you going to advance it? And I have actually read one story already that I think got it right where I believe it was the AP contacted some people, a White House administrator and some other people in congress whose data was there. They were able to track them down. And they said they weren`t going to use their names. They weren`t going to name them, because they had not been accused of crimes. But then they added, and they are not elected officials, which says, you know, we have a double standard here. That elected officials in the United States don`t have a right to the same privacy an individual might. But I think an elected official who is not a hypocrite, who hasn`t attempted to politicize other people`s private sexual conduct choices, marriages, should not have their name put out there either. HAYES: This is what I think is so sort of dystopic about this is that I have watched as the stamp -- what I think is happening in our world through sort of hacks and social media, is that the standard that was once applied to say, the president of the United States, or public figures is essentially trickling down. We have this like trickle-down sense of who a public person is. Such that like, random people on the Internet get lit up all the time over stuff that, you know, could be private in another universe. And now we`re like confronting the next chapter of this, right? SAVAGE: And when are we going to have collectively the there but for the grace of god go I moment? OK, so I wasn`t on Ashley Madison. I wasn`t trying to cheat. But, maybe I`ve sexted. Maybe I`ve joined other websites or I have a fetish and I`m on a kink site or whatever it is. I`ve done things that if they were dragged out into the light of day, would make me look terrible, it would embarrass and humiliate me and compromise my relationships and my professional life. And just at some point, we all have to look at the Internet and think, you know what, we`re all compromised. We all need to give each other a bit of a break. And unless something really cuts to the heart of someone`s public life, unless it exposes them as a hypocrite and a liar, as Josh Duggar has been exposed, I don`t think that we should, even if we can`t keep it out of the media or off of Twitter or whatever, I don`t think that we should hold that up as proof that that person is unfit to serve or unfit to do whatever it is that they`re doing when their pants are on. HAYES: You know, the deeper point here is something you`ve written about a lot and I`ve really liked. And, you know, I`m someone who no one would identify as a social conservative, in my policy views. But in my personal life, I`m kind of a social conservative. I`ve been with the same woman since I was 19. We`ve been together 17 years. It`s the most remarkable, miraculous, transformational thing that`s ever happened to me. The relationship is completely formative. I cherish it with all of my being. And I want other people in my life to have that. You know, I`m constantly like needling my friends, when you going to - - you know? And at the same time, it`s like, my appreciation and love for that, for that kind of relationship, is precisely why all of this puritanical glee bums me out. Because it`s like, you need to give people the space to work their stuff out. Like, people -- like, monogamy is complicated and people need that space, so that things aren`t blown up and destroyed when they don`t have to be. SAVAGE: Exactly. You also need to give people the space to be able to forgive and continue on. There are people who want to stay with their partners who have strayed, who have cheated on them. There`s been an incident and they want to stay with them. And they find a lot of people who are in that position, who are the wronged party, they find it harder to patch their marriage up when their friends and family and coworkers all know about the affair and are shaming them for not leaving. Remember how Hillary Clinton was shamed in the `90s for not leaving Bill. And I don`t think anybody now looks at their relationship and says, yeah, she should have left him. People look at it and think, yeah, you know, that was a marriage that survived and should have survived and is valuable and they both seem to enjoy and love each other, in the way that they do. And marriages can survive an infidelity, but they`re less likely to survive it under the kind of pressures frankly that the Clintons faced when that was infidelity was revealed. HAYES: Focus on the log in your own eye rather than the mote in your neighbor`s, as it says in the bible. Dan Savage, thank you very much. That is All In for this evening. The Rachel Maddow show starts now. Good evening, Rachel. THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. END