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All In with Chris Hayes, Transcript 08/25/15

Guests: David Folkenflik, Cristina Beltran, Mike Tomaky, Lizz Brown,Rebecca Traister

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: But let`s say he`s president and he knows it`s wrong. He`s going say, "No, no, no, we don`t want that. Ford we`re going to charge you a tax." Because the way you do it, that`s what you say, right? And then he`s going to be hit by his lobbyists that gave him millions. He`s got $134 million, $140 million. I don`t have anything. I don`t want anything. I don`t want money. I`m just taking little small contributions for people -- a woman sent $7.32, and I was -- with a beautiful letter. No, it`s amazing. I like that because that`s like an investment. (APPLAUSE) That adds up to the fuel for the plane for a trip to Iowa. Okay? It all does. But who cares. I don`t want that, because I don`t want to be controlled. Last week, you`ve heard me say this. I turned down $5 million by a big lobbyists, not a bad person. Tough guy, not a bad person. But when he gives me five, he`s not doing that because he thinks I have beautiful hair. It`s not that bad. And it is my hair. Ann, is it my hair? It is. It is. People don`t know that. I proved that, you know, in Alabama. It was really hot, it was raining and I took off my hat and everyone said, "It really is his hair. It`s weird." I don`t have to do that tonight. But, you know, so we -- we would go over and the lobbyists would say, no, no, we gave you millions of dollars, Mr. President. And you owe it, let them have them what they want. So then you got the lobbyists, and they`re going to say, after about ten minutes he`s going to say, I can`t really do that, they really helped me in my campaign. With me, they`re going to call me because I know all these guys but they never did anything because I don`t want their money. I turned the money down. I turned down so much money. I feel like such a stupid person. No, it`s true. First time in my life I feel stupid. Guys give -- are offering me millions, Don, I`d like to give you a million. I`m telling you, $5 million I could have it right now, I turned him down. I go back and say, "Do you think I`m doing the right thing?" How about -- I`ll just do a vote. How about I take all this money and promise, I swear to you, that I won`t do anything for these people? What about that? No? That`s what I thought. I feel so stupid but you know what? That`s the way it has to be because I think one of the things they like about me is nobody`s going to buy me. Nobody`s going to buy me. (CHEERS AND APPLAUSE) And -- all right, so after about 10 minutes, Bush goes out and he says. "All right, you can build your plant. Build it. How dare me? It was so terrible I even thought about doing that because you contributed money." OK. Me, different. I`ll call them up and say, "Got to go. I don`t want you in Mexico." I love Mexico. I love the Mexican people. I have thousands of Mexican people that have worked for me over the years. And even to this day thousands -- I mean, I love the Hispanics. The spirit, I love them. They`re incredible people. But we have leaders that can`t compete with their leaders. Their leaders are too smart. So, I would say to the head of Ford, "Sorry, I`m not going to approve it. You`re going to pay a tax where every car and every truck and every part that comes across that southern border you`re going pay a 35 percent tax. OK? That`s what`s going to happen." (CHEERS AND APPLAUSE) And this is to too easy. I don`t need the killers. I`ll get them anyway but this is too easy. This is like -- forget it. This is taking candy from like that beautiful little baby, OK? So easy. So what happens is they`re going say, "No, no, no" and they`re going to have people call me. But these are people that I didn`t take any money, I didn`t take anything, I don`t want their money. So, they`re going to have people call me and I`m going say, "Get out of here." And I if know them they`ll be friends of mine maybe, I`ll say, "I`m not interested." And I would say, let`s say this whole process starts at 12:00 noon. I would say by 4:00 in the afternoon the head of Ford will call me and say, "Mr. President, we`ve decided in the United States." That will happen. OK? That will happen. (APPLAUSE) If they`re really tough, they`ll wait to the next day, but I guarantee you by 5:00 the next day they`re back. And that`s what we need. We need jobs. We can`t keep giving out our jobs. You know, college debt -- I go all over now and I see the vets are mistreated in this country so badly. (CHEERS AND APPLAUSE) So badly. Oh, believe me. You know, they did a poll. I`m like the most popular person with the vets. You know I built the Vietnam Memorial in downtown Manhattan. And the vets like me a lot. And they did a poll and people were shocked. And they said, why were you -- would you be shocked? Because I`m going to take care of the vets. The other one, college. College debt, it`s out of control and I go around and I see students -- and, by the way, you see what`s happening with the colleges? I mean, you talk about like what they`re doing, the prices of these colleges, the way they`re rapidly raising and students are borrowing money from different people but also from the government. It`s the only thing the government makes money on, college students. It`s true. CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST: All right. That right there. That is Donald Trump in Iowa speaking to a -- at turns enthusiastic and bewildered crowd of supporters, enthusiastic when he talks about locking down the border, how he can`t be bought, bewildered when he gets into the details of his contract negotiations with NBC which was an extended early riff in the speech. This is, what you are just seeing, this -- what has become the Trump stump speech. A person who is kind of flying by the seat of his pants early on as now done what all good politicians do, which is work out his material over and over again and see what works. He`s at a campaign rally in Dubuque, Iowa. He was introduced by conservative firebrand Ann Coulter, author of, of course, "Adios, America." Just before taking the stage at the press conference with reporters, Trump got into an exchange with Univision anchor Jorge Ramos. Take a look. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: Excuse me. Sit down. You weren`t called. Sit down. Sit down. Go ahead. JORGE RAMOS, UNIVISION: I have the right to ask a question. TRUMP: No, you don`t. You haven`t been called. RAMOS: I have the right to ask a question. TRUMP: Go back to Univision. Go ahead. Go ahead. RAMOS: You cannot deport 11 million, Mr. Trump. You cannot deport 11 million people. TRUMP: Go ahead. (CROSSTALK) TRUMP: Sit down, please. You weren`t called. RAMOS: I`m a reporter and I have -- TRUMP: Go RAMOS: I have the right to ask questions. I have the right to ask a question. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: That was "go back to Univision" is what you heard, although you would be forgiven if you thought you heard another phrase. After being booted from the room, Ramos was ultimately readmitted and got a chance to press Trump at length about immigration policies. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: If you come across for one day, one day, and you have a baby, now the baby is going to be an American citizen. There are a great -- excuse me. There are great legal scholars at the top that say that`s wrong. We`re going to do in a very humane fashion. Believe me, I have a bigger heart than you. We`re going to do it in a very humane fashion. In Nevada, did you see the poll of the Hispanics in the state of Nevada? Did you see -- excuse me. Big Hispanic population. I wiped everybody out, Hispanic. I won the poll. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Joining me now, NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik, author of "Murdoch`s World: The Last of the Old Media Empires", Sam Seder, MSNBC contributor, host of "The Majority Report" podcast and a participant in our fantasy draft, and Christina Beltran, director of Latino studies at New York University. Where to start? There was a lot today. I mean, there`s a lot going on to this. I find this phenomenon at terms fascinating and dramatic and also deeply unsettling. The Jorge Ramos moment was on the deeply unsettling category. "Go back to Univision", as Jorge Ramos is symbolically deported from the room, we might say. Your reaction? CHRISTINA BELTRAN, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY: It`s amazing. I mean, Donald Trump could not be assaulting and offending the Latino vote any more if he tried. HAYES: If you set out -- if you said to yourself, I`m going to wake up in the morning -- BELTRAN: It`s a mission to ruin this for the GOP. So it`s important to realize how important Jorge Ramos is. HAYES: Yes, give us a little context here. BELTRAN: Jorge Ramos is sort of a combination of Anderson Cooper and Walter Cronkite for Spanish-speaking media. So, he`s a huge deal. So, this is going to get enormous play among Spanish-speaking media viewers, and Latino voters, who just know about Jorge Ramos, because he`s a very big celebrity figure here. HAYES: My understanding is that his evening news broadcast has more viewers than the combined English language evening newscast on the major networks. BELTRAN: It`s enormous. DAVID FOLKENFLIK, NPR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: It`s certainly often tops in many of the top markets across the country. And the other thing about Jorge, as he said to me last fall, is he expected the race for both parties but even the Republican party primary to come through Univision. He said they are going to have to come for the Latino vote. They`re going to have to come to us here. They`re going to have to sit down and talk to us respectfully. He didn`t feel that was sufficiently done in the past. It`s certainly not happening now from the front-runner. HAYES: Well, and he did -- I mean, we should say he was let back in, they had a very long extended exchange it was slightly maddening because only Donald Trump was mic, so it was like sitting in a bar where you only hear one side of a bad political argument. SAM SEDER, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: Well, you know, the thing is, though, you have to go back to who does Donald Trump care about right now? HAYES: Yes. SEDER: And Donald Trump cares about the Republican primaries. And so, the real question is how much of a bump does he get from this? And the other point is that the other candidates can`t seem to put themselves in a position where they will benefit from this. Because they are just as much bound by what Trump does as Trump is on some level. They can`t go to Univision now and try and say, like, I`m the candidate who you can vote for because they`re afraid of what the Republican base is going to say if they go and do that. HAYES: Let`s also give context here. The approval rating among Trump -- Trump brags there`s this one -- I`ll say off ramp poll from Nevada whose results have not been replicated that appeared to show him leading among Hispanics. One poll. Here is the latest polling, I believe this is Gallup, this is approval ratings. These are, I think, use to feel see. That`s the plus/minus on how far over or under water. At the top you see Jeb Bush up 11 points, 11 percent more favorable than unfavorable. At the bottom you might be surprised to see Donald Trump who is 51 points underwater with Latinos. And then today, he was introduced by -- let me read this because he praised Ann Coulter`s book, told everyone to go by it. I`m quoting now from "Adios America", "America is helpless against criminal culture being foisted upon us by immigration from third world. Identity theft, credit card scams, Medicare food stamp fraud, tax rebate theft and staged crash insurance scams, these are not Native American habits." BELTRAN: Yes, this is the most -- it`s incredibly criminalizing discourse. And what`s interesting is, I think Donald Trump actually believe that he thought if he made a distinction between undocumented illegals and Mexicans who love him. Apparently they love him. He thought he could make that distinction because he said, "I will give Mexicans jobs. They`ll love me because I`ll give them jobs," which if you think about it is interesting because he`s characterizing Mexicans not as people with families and feelings but as bodies that labor. HAYES: Right. BELTRAN: Like at his best he understands Latinos as subjects only -- HAYES: Well, that`s how he understands -- BELTRAN: Only instrumentally. SEDER: I don`t think he`s saying that for the sake of Latinos. I think he`s saying that for -- HAYES: Assuaging the consciences of the voters who don`t want to be seen as mean spirited. SEDER: And that plus 11 that Bush has in the Latino community probably costs him double that in the rest of the Republican primary voters. I mean, there`s no coincidence that Trump is -- that Bush is going in that direction even though he`s doing okay with Latino voters. FOLKENFLIK: I think in some ways, one corollary in the way you think about this is think of it like cable. You`ve got 17 channels, maybe some will drop out. There`s a lot of narrow casting but if Trump can drive a truck down a certain lane with enough folks, he`s saying this is not my demographic. HAYES: I`ll cross that bridge when I come to it. So, Trump is sort of -- part of what he is doing in the sort of -- as the kind of like world wrestling entertainment heel, right? Like you have to have constant conflicts. So he`s beefing with -- he`s calling Mexican immigrants nasty names, beating Jeb Bush, he`s also beefing with the most powerful man in all of conservatism, if that`s the world, Roger Ailes. It`s been about two weeks since Donald Trump made peace with FOX News chair Roger Ailes over Trump`s allegedly unfair treatment at the first Republican debate. Last night, the FOX host who bore the brunt of Trump`s attacks, Megyn Kelly, was back on air following a week and a half vacation. Trump apparently live tweeting the show, like you do, had this to say, quote, "I like the `Kelly File` much better without Megyn Kelly." Perhaps she can take another 11-day unscheduled vacation. Minutes later, Trump retweeted a post from a supporter, "The bimbo back in town. I hope not for long." Now, on a call in to the Howard Stern show this morning, Trump seemed to think everything with FOX was status quo, even passing on Stern`s request to rate Megyn Kelly`s physical appearance. (BEGIN AUDIO CLIP) TRUMP: In the old days, I would not have minded answering that question. Today, I`ll take a pass. HOWARD STERN: Now that you`re going to be president, right? TRUMP: Nowadays I`ll take a pass. ROBIN QUIVERS: That could follow you. TRUMP: See, Robin, you learn with age, right? You learn with age. STERN: But I have a question -- you know what you could do? You could tap on the phone the number and then -- you know what I`m saying. OK, here`s another question. TRUMP: You know, it`s fine. I mean, it`s fine. And FOX has been fine. Roger Ailes is an amazing guy. STERN: As long as I got you, though -- TRUMP: They`ve been very fair. (END AUDIO CLIP) HAYES: But before long other FOX News personalities were taking to Twitter to condemn Trump`s tweets about Kelly last night. Then something almost unheard of happened -- a written statement by FOX chairman and CEO, Roger Ailes. "Donald Trump`s Trumps surprise and unprovoked attack on Megyn Kelly during her show last night is as unacceptable as it is disturbing. Megyn Kelly represents the very best of American journalism and all of us at FOX News Channel reject the crude and irresponsible attempts to suggest otherwise. I could not be more proud of Megyn for her professionalism and class in the face of all of Mr. Trump`s verbal assault. Donald Trump rarely apologizes although in this case he should." Trump fired back with a statement of his own, "I totally disagree with the FOX statement. I do not think Megyn Kelly is a quality journalist. I think her questioning of me despite the polls saying I won the debate was very unfair. Hopefully, in the future, I`ll be proven wrong and she`ll be able to elevate her standards to a level of professionalism that a network such of FOX deserves." And here`s where it gets good, "More importantly, I am pleased to see the latest polls from Public Policy Polling showing me at a strong number one with 35 percent in New Hampshire, the Monmouth University poll showing me at number one with 30 percent in South Carolina. It was also just announced I won the prestigious corn kernel poll in the Iowa state fair by a landslide", referring, of course, to the highly scientific method where Iowa fair-goers place corn kernels in a mason jar to denote their candidate of choice. At his press conference tonight, Trump also declared a winner in his renewed battle with FOX News tonight. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: All you have to do is look on the internet and see who people favor. But it`s a very small element in my life, Megyn Kelly. I don`t care about Megyn Kelly. But I would not apologize. She should probably apologize to me. But I just don`t care. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Where is this -- what is going on? FOLKENFLIK: Well, there are two ways to interpret this one and I think both have some purchase. One of which is that you can look at Roger Ailes and this is not the train he`s used to. HAYES: Right. He`s the bully. He`s not the bullied. FOLKENFLIK: He`s expected a degree of deference particularly publicly from key players in the Republican Party and conservatism. They`ve got to kiss his ring. He doesn`t have to kiss theirs. He`s not used to this. And it`s not that he came out defending Megyn Kelly when Trump bashed her in the beginning. It`s when Trump questioned his judgment by taking after her so much when he has -- when Roger Ailes has staked the franchise on her so publicly. He said Roger Ailes should fire Frank Luntz sort of public opinion teaser out for them, and Ailes doesn`t like that stuff. He stayed silent. At this point, too much. The second way to look at it however, is a little bit, you mentioned WWF, it`s a little like a wrestling match, where ratings at FOX go up when they have Trump on. Sean Hannity has enjoyed his best ratings. On the weekends, they`ve enjoyed it. HAYES: And the fight is, the fight is, this is all ratings. This is all ratings. FOLKENFLIK: So, he talks about his poll numbers going up. Roger Ailes can look at his ratings numbers, usually low in the summer time, and they`ve been higher than normal. HAYES: Here`s the most precious commodity in America in the year 2015, it`s the most precious market commodity, it`s the most precious political commodity, attention. Attention is the most fought over commodity, it`s more valuable than real estate, it`s more valuable than money, the most valuable thing, it is a thing people are competing for right now at every moment for your eyeballs. And that`s true in politics and it`s true in the market and we`re seeing them intersect in this crazy summer of Trump. And here`s the thing that I love. For years if you criticized FOX and say you guys got that wrong or that was a racist thing you said they say, "Hey, forget about it, look at our ratings." And now Trump is saying to FOX, "I don`t care, look at my ratings, look at my polls." SEDER: You know, it`s interesting. Having been in several different media companies, it really does feel like this morning there was a mini- revolt, where you had all the hosts -- HAYES: Yes, agreed. (CROSSTALK) SEDER: -- saying, hey, look, you have to do something here because you`re starting to lose everybody. FOLKENFLIK: I don`t think any of those guys on the morning show you get Brian Kilmeade going after Donald Trump, even as many, gently as he did. He`s not doing it unless he knows the big boss wants that. HAYES: That`s the question. I couldn`t tell. (CROSSTALK) FOLKENFLIK: Sean Hannity won`t be freelancing on this. You might have somebody like Bret Baier, you might have Bill O`Reilly. (CROSSTALK) BELTRAN: But what`s also incredibly sad just to remember this fact is the free stock market not the same thing as a good democracy. HAYES: No. BELTRAN: And this is incredibly bad for our democratic life. I just -- as a political scientist, I just want to say so bad for democracy, so bad for an intelligence -- immigration is a critically important question full of -- HAYES: But I disagree that because -- (CROSSTALK) BELTRAN: We`re not having that conversation and I don`t think this is helping us have that conversation. HAYES: I disagree with that. Donald Trump is running in a crowded primary and talking to what a plurality of the Republican primary voters want. That is democracy. BELTRAN: He`s giving them what they want. HAYES: That is democracy. BELTRAN: That`s a certain kind of democracy. HAYES: My point is Donald Trump -- (CROSSTALK) BELTRAN: That is not politics, whether that`s actually democratic politics where we think about important issues intelligently -- HAYES: Sure. OK. Donald Trump you can say a lot of things about but you can`t say he`s detached from the desires -- BELTRAN: He`s a populist. HAYES: Yes, and that existed long before cable news. Everybody go read "All the Kings Men." David Folkenflik, Sam Seder, Cristina Beltran -- thank you all. SEDER: Thank you. HAYES: Still ahead, the Bernie Sanders surge in the polls passing Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire. Plus, the growing speculation over a Biden candidacy, what that will do to the Democratic field. But first, Jeb Bush and Donald Trump both want it to be a two-person race. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Mr. Trump believes that you can just round people up. TRUMP: Jeb Bush doesn`t have a clue. Doesn`t even have a clue. (END VIDEO CLIP) (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: Dow dropped late today by 200 points after an earlier 400 point rally, adding to a week`s worth of bad news on Wall Street. All of which has provided by an opportunity for tremendous amount of economic nonsense coming from many quarter, including the assertion from many presidential candidates like Donald Trump and Scott Walker and Chris Christie that China is the real enemy we must fear. But what these past few days show is that the really scary thing, the thing we should be worried about is not necessarily a big, strong, growing China, though that presents its own challenges, the really terrifying thing to contemplate is a weak, shrinking chaotic China, one that is spiraling downwards. So much so that even a slowing economy in China could affect the global market. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JOSEPH STIGLITZ, NOBEL LAUREATE: A lot of people worry that China is like a bicycle that you have to ride it at a certain speed and if you go lower -- and what`s the critical number -- if you go lower than, say, 5 percent, they start worry about it wobbling. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Yes. It`s the wobble that should worry folks. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: Former Republican Governor Jeb Bush struggling in the shadow of Republican frontrunner Donald Trump now seems to be playing a slightly different game. He is now directly attacking Trump for putting forth an unrealistic proposal on immigration. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BUSH: Mr. Trump believes you can just round people up and that it`s an easy thing to do because he`s a successful and he`ll just have successful people do it and it will work out. Well, the problem with a Trump plan is it`s not a conservative plan and it`s not practical. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Bush`s attacks started last week in New Hampshire, continued yesterday along the border with Mexico in Texas and earlier today in Colorado. "The New York Times" suggests this change in tactics has two goals, to dilute Mr. Trump`s support proving he is not a genuine conservative and to show a wary Republican Party that Mr. Bush is enough of a Street Fighter to survive a nasty nomination contest. Just about an hour ago in Iowa, Donald Trump made it clear he is more than up for such a battle with Jeb Bush. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: Jeb Bush doesn`t have a clue. Doesn`t even have a clue. If I weren`t in this campaign, Jeb Bush would not be talking about illegal immigration. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Joining me now: Chris Jansing, senior White House correspondent for NBC News, who`s been covering the campaign. Chris, do you get a sense of how much Jeb Bush is choosing these battles or they are being chosen for him because he doesn`t really feel like he`s throwing his back into it when he`s attacking Donald Trump. Or maybe that`s just the register that he attacks in. CHRIS JANSING, NBC NEWS SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes and yes is the answer to your questions. Look, Donald Trump is driving this. I don`t think there`s any question about that. The one thing he`s said that is true is that, you know, he`s really pushing this immigration debate. Having said that, I think we have seen, at least those of us who have been covering Jeb Bush, I started before he officially announced, I was with him I think five days in Europe and over in Miami when he announced and a number of times since then. This is a different guy. Some people have really seen this as kind of a turning point in his campaign and I don`t know that I disagree with that. This is somebody who surveyed the Republican field. Nobody thought Donald Trump was going to have the staying power. They`ve had to adjust. And so, Jeb Bush has made his choice. He`s going to get tougher but he wants to draw that contrast. He thinks in both style and substance, he wins if people pay attention and certainly, both stylistically and substantively, they are very different generally and certainly on the immigration issue, Chris. HAYES: Yes. I mean, stylistically, you have Trump calling him low energy, making fun of his seersucker suit. I mean, is this kind of weird - - kind of bullying rhetoric. But -- JANSING: Well, but it`s also uncanny. He seems to know how to get to people, because I tell you that Jeb Bush does not like being called a low energy guy. This is someone who`s prided himself on 16, 18 hour work days six days a week. So, there is a certain kind of talent, can I call it talent there? HAYES: Yes. JANSING: For finding people`s sweet spot. HAYES: Yes, bullies tend to be talented at that. Here`s the thing, you`ve got a situation though and I think if you`re making a smart tactical decision by Jeb Bush, I think there are people that love the idea of people thinking of this race as Donald Trump and Jeb Bush. If those are the two alternatives, if that`s the choice that`s forced on a Republican primary electorate, they think they get the bigger half of that. They`re probably more worried in longer run terms about Kasich and Walker and other people like that. I think they recognize an opportunity in front of them and I think -- and Trump recognizes the same thing, which is both candidates benefit from this being a Trump/Bush two-person race. JANSING: You are 100 percent right, at least from my perspective. I see a positive to this and a negative. The positive is that he does like that comparison. He does like that after seeming as though all of the oxygen was being sucked up by Donald Trump that he`s now getting some of it, he`s getting some of the play, his sound bites are going on television and on radio and on cable. So, that`s a good thing. There was also a big concern about donors. I talked to a couple of big Republican donors who haven`t committed yet. Look, they want to put their money with the winner. They were getting nervous about Jeb Bush, thinking he was holding back too much. So that helps him. But it also pushes him to sometimes make the mistakes of put himself in a corner like we`ve seen with this immigration issue, somebody who could have probably stuck to the script, as a more moderate Republican and then finds himself in this issue where has he offended Hispanics? Has he offended Asian Americans? Suddenly, then, the Democrats in general and Hillary Clinton in particular feel like they`re benefiting from this because they have something to go after. HAYES: Chris Jansing, thank you very much. Still ahead, as rumors about a possible Biden candidacy peaked, the current leader of the Democratic field in New Hampshire speaks up. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I have known Joe Biden for many years. We served in the Senate together for six years and you`re not going to find a guy who`s more decent than Joe Biden is. (END VIDEO CLIP) (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: Shocking report from The Washington Post today explains how a particularly vulnerable part of the population can be and how it can be preyed upon. The headline "How companies make million off lead-poisoned poor blacks." And here`s how it works. In the wake of children getting poisoned with lead paint, often because of slum lord malfeasance, there are lead paint lawsuit settlements, many of those are structured settlements, agreements often delivered monthly payments across decades to protect vulnerable recipients from immediately spending the money. Unfortunately, that has spawned a highly aggressive largely unregulated secondary market in which companies come in to buy the rights to those years and years of payments for a lump sum -- a lump sum far less than the value of those payments, no matter how you slice it. Here`s a classic example from the report detailing the deal a lead paint survivor named Rose in Baltimore, Maryland made in one of these companies. Monthly payments of nearly $1,000 a month for 35 years or 420 would have totaled $573,615. The present day value of that is about $338,000, still a huge amount of money. However Rose sold it all for less than $63,000. The money she would have gotten was sold for a mere pittance. Now, it`s a free market, right? People are free to make bad deals. Well, here`s the thing, many with lead poisoning, including Rose, suffer from actual cognitive impairment because of the lead poisoning. The secondary market of buying those structured settlements adversely affects scores of lead paint survivors. It is not adequately regulated. And here`s the kicker, in a seemingly unrelated story today, we learned that the housing chief for Maryland`s Republican Governor Larry Hogan wants to loosen that state`s lead poisoning laws because -- hope you`re paying attention -- mothers might be motivated to poison their children to get free housing. Yes. That is the idea of Kenneth C. Holt, secretary of housing community and development, that`s what he told an audience at the Maryland Association of Counties summer convention: a mother could just put a lead fishing weight in her child`s mouth and take the child in for testing and a landlord will be liable for providing the child with housing until the age of 18.. Pressed afterward, Holt said he had no evidence of this happening, but said developer had told him it was possible, a developer. This is an anecdotal story that was described to me as something that could possibly happen, Holt said. It appears that Mr. Holt might want to direct his attention towards real life. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: The days and weeks of unrest following the shooting death of Michael Brown we learned many things about the city of Ferguson. And one of the things was that for years the people living in the St. Louis suburb have been living under an amazingly predatory policing and municipal court system, a system that essentially viewed them as a revenue source rather than as citizens. For example, in 2013, municipal courts in Ferguson issued more arrest warrants for non-violent offense, mostly traffic violations, than there were people living in Ferguson. In December of 2014, over 75 percent of the people living in Ferguson were wanted by police, mostly for minor traffic violations. That astounding nugget comes courtesy of a scathing Department of Justice report released in March of this year. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENITIFIED MALE: Officials also say the report accuses police of targeting black and poor drivers to raise revenue. 85 percent of motorists stopped were black. Officials say the Justice Department probe found that Ferguson overwhelmingly charges African-Americans some 67 percent of the population with minor or petty offenses that cause crippling debt, loss of home, and jobs. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Ferguson`s, quote, "constitutionally deficient municipal court system" according to the DOJ, may have been somewhat an outlier in its systematic cruelty. But it brought attention to the broader issue of people across the country trapped in a cycle of warrants, fees and jail time all for minor, non-violent offenses. Now a Ferguson municipal judge has taken the extraordinary step to address that issue, basically wiping the slate clean for thousands of people, withdrawing some 10,000 arrest warrants and working to find alternatives to jail for people who cannot pay fees and fines. (BEGIN VIDOE CLIP) JUDGE DONALD MCCULLIN, FERGUSON MUNICIPAL COURT: We figure that this is an opportunity for them to make a fresh start. They won`t have a warrant. The cases will still be on the books and they will be given a notice to come to court, but they don`t to do it under fear of arrest. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Joining me now, Lizz Brown, St. Louis based attorney and columnist. And Lizz, I understand that you know the Judge McCullum fairly well? LIZZ BROWN, ATTORNEY: I do. He gave me my first job out of law school. So, I know Judge McCullin very well. HAYES: So it`s a pretty -- I mean, it`s not amnesty as the term is derogatorily used in the context of immigration, but it is a kind of jubilee, which is the biblical term for wiping out of debts, right. I mean, it is basically wiping clean a slate for a huge swath of people. BROWN: Absolutely. And it demonstrates also how justice can occur if you have the right person in office. This is a judge that was appointed not too long ago and he replaced the disgraced judge Brockmeyer(ph). And Judge Brockmeyer(ph) in September also attempted to do an amnesty program for Ferguson citizens that had warrants, but his was completely different and it didn`t work. One of the things that Judge Brockmeyer did was he waved the warrants but you had to come in or you had to call to get your warrant recalled. And during the time he had these amnesty programs the phones in Ferguson were shut down. So you couldn`t call, you couldn`t get it. And so this judge, Judge McCullin demonstrates that you didn`t have to do any of that, you can wipe it clean. And the interesting and the most important piece for me that Judge McCullin is adding to this Amnesty program is, when people got warrants issued for them, the Department of Revenue was able to take away their driver`s license. People not only had warrants, they couldn`t drive because their licenses were removed. Judge McCullin is reissuing, ordering that those licenses be reissued. It`s remarkable. And it shows what justice can happen when you have the right person occupying the position. HAYES: Well, it also speaks, it seems to me, from talking to people there and from watching all this unfold is partly it`s the kind of political upheaval in the wake of Michael Brown`s death and the unrest that followed. I mean, you know, here`s the warrants issued for thousands of people in 2013 across Missouri, and you will see that Ferguson has -- I mean, it`s not -- there`s nothing even close. It`s in its own universe. And this was just something that was just happening, grinding on, day by day. BROWN: That`s right. That`s right. HAYES: And, you know, we all know what changed in Ferguson, what changed in Ferguson was the shooting death of Michael Brown and the protests that followed. Can you imagine any of this happening without those protests? BROWN: Agitation is what brings change, Chris. And that`s what happened as a result of the killing of Mike Brown, it agitated and it forced the change that needed to occur with respect to these warrants. So, no, it would have happened but for the agitation that occurred as a result of the killing of Mike Brown. HAYES: Can you imagine something more systematic? BROWN: No. HAYES: It seems to me this is one judge. BROWN; And intentional. And absolutely intentional. Again, when you compare and contrast Judge Brockmeyer (ph) to Judge McCullin, Judge Brockmeyer (ph) could have dismissed all of these, too Judge Brockmeyer (Ph) could have reissued your driver`s license. He chose not to do that. So, again, it shows what happens when you have to right lawful person concerned about the citizens in office. HAYES: What is going to be really interesting is Ferguson has come to depend upon this as a revenue stream. It is a significant portion of the budget. I`m wondering if we`re going to see political reaction to it, a kind of backlash brew in Ferguson. How is this being received by citizens there? BROWN: Citizens are very pleased about this and it`s going to be very difficult for a politician to try to unring the bell, Chris. I mean, this is the future. This is the forward movement. You cannot rely upon, you cannot engage in predatory conduct on citizens to raise revenue. So the city of Ferguson is going to have to figure it out in these new terms, on these new terms and these new times. HAYES: That is going to be its own political battle I predict. Lizz Brown, thank you for joining me. Still ahead, we`ll put a Biden candidacy meme to the Democratic race for 2016 as Bernie Sanders continues to climb in the polls. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BERNIE SANDERS, 2016 DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We are gaining. And I think what the polls seem to indicate is that Hillary Clinton`s support seems to be receding a bit. But we`ve got a long way to go. (END VIDEO CLIP) (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: Lots of folks in the media, including us here at All In had a good laugh when GOP presidential candidate Marco Rubio was seen on tape last week hitting a little kid in the head with a football. To be fair, it`s still pretty funny. Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is not laughing. Yesterday in New Hampshire he took the press to task for its coverage of Rubio`s errant pass. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SANDERS: The American people want a discussion on the real issues. They don`t really care that Marco Rubio threw a football and hit some kid in the head, not one of the great issues facing our society. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Not the only interesting thing he had to say in New Hampshire. When he comes back, Bernie Sanders weighs in on Joe Biden. That`s next. (END VIDEO CLIP) (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: More good news for Bernie Sanders today out of New Hampshire with a second poll showing him in first place in the first of the nation primary state. Sanders stands at 42 percent in New Hampshire in the new poll, followed by Hillary Clinton at 35 percent. No other candidate is in double digits. It is the second poll this month to show Sanders leading Clinton by 7 percentage points in New Hampshire where Sanders is viewed favorably by 78 percent in the Democratic electorate, according to the new survey. The Vermont senator, who had a rally in Seattle shut down earlier this month by Black Lives Matter activists last night secured the endorsement Cornell West who tweeted, quote, "I endorse brother Bernie Sanders, because he is a long distance runner with integrity in the struggle for justice for over 50 years." Hanging over the Democratic race of late has been Vice President Joe Biden who is actively considering what would be his third presidential run and who is polling at around 12 percent nationally despite not having entered the race. Biden has reportedly been grappling with whether he can put together a viable campaign apparatus at this relatively late date as well as what impact a presidential run would have on his family. Asked about a potential Biden run in New Hampshire yesterday, Sanders spoke kindly of his former senate colleague, though he noted the two men have divergent views. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SANDERS: I have know Joe Biden for many years. We served in the senate for six years and you`re not going to find a guy who`s more decent than Joe Biden is. What I promise Joe if he decides to get into the race is that I will, as I have done up to now, run an issue-oriented campaign. Joe`s views, I suspect and know, on a number of issues are different than mine. What impact it will have on the race I honestly don`t know. I mean, I wish I could tell you but I don`t. Will it help or hurt me? Will it help or hurt the Hillary Clinton, I just don`t know. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Sanders has been a genuine phenomenon in this race. His success has effectively created a kind of two-candidate dynamic in which front-runner Hillary Clinton has had to grapple with genuine pressure from the left and Clinton has adopted both rhetoric and policy positions on a range of issues that have been more liberal considerably than many expected six months ago when she entered the race. And it seems fair to assume the threat posed by Sanders has had at least something to do with that, perhaps a lot to do with it. If Biden`s enters the race, that dynamic that has been propelling progressive ideas to the center of the Democratic primary, that might immediately change. It changes in a way that may not be welcome the by those who favor those progressive ideas. When we come back, we`ll look at the potential impact of a Biden candidacy on the Democratic race as well as talking about just how nasty that race could become. Stay with us. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: Joining me now, Rebecca Traister writer at large of New York magazine and Daily Beast columnist Michael Tomasky, editor of the journal Democracy. All right, so I -- Rebecca, let me start with you. My general feeling is the more the merrier. I like democracy, I like political conflict, I think political conflict is good. Get in, Joe Biden, get in Lincoln Chafee, get your primary on. REBECCA TRAISTER, NEW YORK MAGAZINE: I wish they weren`t all the white guys getting in. I said from the beginning. Yes, I agree. HAYES: But that`s part of the principle, right? Like, everyone. TRAISTER: Everyone, yeah. No, no, no. Yeah. HAYES: That said, the thing I said up there, it does seem to me there is a sort of interesting dynamic that has evolved in which Bernie Sanders is a credible challenge certainly New Hampshire, perhaps beyond that, he`s polling way behind in Iowa, but who knows what happens. There is this interesting dynamic in which there seems to be almost kind of a bidding war for the left`s vote. TRAISTER: Who thought that would happen? HAYES: And I do worry from a sort of substantive, my own sort of ideological position what Biden`s entrance does to that? What do you think of that? TRAISTER: You should worry. I completely agree with you. I mean, no, look, I`m with you. Welcome, Joe Biden. Welcome, everybody. I`ve been in favor of a competitive primary. I think the timing of this is odd and perhaps not strategically useful to either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders in so far as it`s late August. He`s not going to make a decision until September. These things start in January. This is a -- it`s -- you know, I`m not sure how much time it gives us to sort out what Biden stands for, and I`m not sure what Biden stands for that`s credibly different from the centrist nightmare of what Hillary might have stood for, although now she`s moved left. So what is he going to do, run to the right of her? That seems like a bad idea. HAYES: That actually is the thing. Mike, there was one line from one of Biden`s people anonymously talking about the coalition he was going to put together and it was like this bizarre thing about it was going to be -- oh, there it is, Reagan Democrats, Jews and LGBT base that largely credits him pushing Barack Obama into supporting gay marriage and Rust Belt voters. I was like what are you talking about? And also the Reagan voters made me think maybe he thinks there`s actually space on the right of Hillary? And that would be strange in terms of the dynamics of the race. MIKE TOMASKY, THE DAILY BEAST: You know I think, Chris, that he probably means that or as a cultural and symbolic thing than an ideological thing. He`s from Scranton and he`s got that working class Catholic thing going so I think he probably means that more than actual specific economic positions that one would readily identify as centrist. I would bet that he would try to go find space on the quasi-populist left because that`s where the action is. He`s not going to get anywhere saying, you know, I want to uphold the Bob Ruben legacy. HAYES: Or, you know, deficits are the problem. But the problem -- Rebecca... TRAISTER: But that`s not where his career has been, right. He`s not going to find an easy entrance on that left, especially in the climate where we`re talking about economic populism, about mass incarceration. He wrote the crime bill. HAYES: Right, but Hillary -- maybe Hillary also is -- you know, has adopted a bunch of positions that, you know, either are at odds with sort of previous things that she had said, or are just not tethered to the trajectory that you would have necessarily expected from her as a New York Senator in the aughts. And that hasn`t seemed to stop her. TRAISTER: Right, but -- so he`s just going to take the same path? I mean, this is again where I see -- I don`t understand what the different is, what the substantive challenge to Hillary is from Joe Biden. HAYES: Well, but Mike, you talked about it getting nasty in a column you wrote for The Daily Beast. Why did you -- what do you mean by that? Why do you think it would get ugly fast? TOMASKY: Precisely because there aren`t many credible policy differences between the two. So he`s not going to have a markedly different economic program I don`t think. He`s not -- he doesn`t have a markedly different foreign policy history. They both voted for the Iraq War, for example, and Biden for four years has been part of the sort of mainstream very centrist mainstream foreign policy establishment as these things go. So what`s he got? He has one argument against her and that argument is about her trustworthiness and about the emails and the foundation and everything. So is he really going to enter the race and go into -- launch into that kind of attack and use basically Trey Gowdy talking points to go after Hillary Clinton? I mean, that`s a weird idea. HAYES: And something that Sam Stein said on this program last night was talking to Biden people who talked about -- and I think this was -- this isn`t a crazy idea that Hillary Clinton actually is a -- an imperfect messenger of a message on economic populism and inequality, which is probably true -- may or may not be true -- but also there this a guy named Bernie Sanders who is, whatever you think of Bernie Sanders, the perfect messenger. I mean, the guy has literally been saying this for 40 years in public life. He has run race after race, talked to voter after voter, is filling stadiums on a message about the haves and have notes and the concentration of wealth and democracy. TRAISTER: And Joe Biden is just as imperfect as Hillary when it comes to economic populism. Joe Biden voted for the Hyde amendment. Joe Biden represented the credit card industry in Delaware. Joe Biden -- he has those same imperfections and Bernie takes that -- does it better as you say. HAYES: Do you think he`s going to get in, Michael? TOMASKY: No, I actually don`t. That`s where I you would put my betting chip today. I think he`s positioning himself -- and this much I think is very smart. He may be positioning himself for a situation in which there is some very serious Clinton problem, Clinton scandal, not scandal around quote marks but actual scandal, and in which case he could be the contingency white knight candidate that the party establishment would rally around. But I don`t think he`s going to run against Clinton. HAYES: What do you think? TOMASKY: I don`t know. HAYES: You can`t say that, we`re on cable TV. TRAISTER: I actually agree with Mike. I don`t think he`s going to run. HAYES: That`s where I lean too. I think it`s very hard for someone to think about stopping a career in public life when he has served as long as he has. And I think part of this is that. And I also think what Michael said about contingency. Rebecca Traister, Michael Tomasky with a very brief and instructive tutorial on the use mention distinction. You can go look that up. That is All In for this evening. The Rachel Maddow show starts right now. Good evening, Rachel. THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. END