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All In with Chris Hayes, Transcript 09/22/15

Guests: Bernie Sanders, Michael Brendan Dougherty, Kerry Kennedy, RobertCosta, Sabrina Siddiqui, Tony Dokoupil

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST (voice-over): Pope Francis meets the president on American soil for the first time. Tonight, the pomp, the pageantry and the politics of the papal visit. Then, the fight on the right to stop Trump intensifies. AD NARRATOR: Trump wants us to think he`s Mr. Tell It Like It Is, but he has a record and it`s very liberal. HAYES: Ben Carson`s anti-Muslim rhetoric turns into a fund-raising bonanza. BEN CARSON (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Our traditions have a Judeo- Christian base. HAYES: Plus -- UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Diesel in Latin means dirty. HAYES: Volkswagen confirms its clean diesel deception is now a massive global fraud. And the politics of prescription drugs. MARTIN SHKRELI, TURING PHARMACEUTICAL CEO: You know, we needed to turn a profit on the drug. HAYES: Breaking news from the CEO of a drug company who jacked up costs of a life-saving drug. SHKRELI: It is still underpriced relative to its peers. HAYES: When ALL IN starts right now. (END VIDEOTAPE) HAYES: Good evening from New York. I`m Chris Hayes. And after months of buildup and anticipation, one of the most electrifying figures on the planet has begun, his first visit to these United States. Pope Francis has come to America. He began his six-day three-city tour this afternoon landing in a white Alitalia jet nicknamed Shepherd One, to ruckus applause at Joint Base Andrews outside Washington, D.C., where he was given a jubilant red carpet welcome. He`s greeted on the tarmac by President Obama and the first family -- a gesture so rare -- Mr. Obama has only done it on one other occasion. The nation`s first Catholic Vice President Joe Biden was also in attendance to welcome Pope Francis, along with some members of his family. Also on hand to greet the pope, four Catholic school children from the Washington D.C. area selected by the Vatican, offering the 78-year-old pontiff flowers. An honor guard was part of the occasion, as well as a high school band at one point performing Pharrell Williams` song "Happy." The crowds invited to gather nearby breaking out into chants, shouting at times "Francisco". No speeches were given and Francis departed the scene in a hatchback Fiat and was driven to what serves as the Vatican`s embassy, where he will be staying while in Washington. Today was a rather modest kickoff to a whirlwind highly choreographed six-day trip that has triggered an unprecedented security effort across three cities, including New York and Philadelphia. Francis will celebrate masses, preside over the first canonization on American soil, meet with President Obama at the White House and become the first pope to address a joint meeting of Congress. And it is that address that is likely to be the highlight of the pope`s visit to the nation`s capital. Francis was invited by John Boehner, a Catholic himself who today tweeted the view from the speaker`s balcony where Francis is expected to greet well-wishers. The speech will be attended by lawmakers, dignitaries and their guests. And now, many are anticipating what the pope will speak about. Francis has devoted much time since becoming pope to the issues of income inequality, immigration, poverty, climate change, even American relations with Cuba, which sparked criticism from prominent Republican Catholics, including those hoping to be the next president. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I hope I`m not like going to get castigated for saying this by my priests back home. But I don`t get economic policy from my bishops or my cardinals or from my pope. GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R-NJ), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The fact is that his infallibility is on religious matters. Not on political ones. Joining me now, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, who will be at the joint session of Congress to hear the pope speak on Thursday. Senator, you issued a very enthusiastic welcome to the pope that struck me as more than pro forma, genuine enthusiasm. And it struck me as a perfect encapsulation of this pope`s appeal that a Jewish man from Brooklyn by way of Vermont is as enthusiastic about the pope as you are. Why you`re so excited he`s here? SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Look, I think Pope Francis has played an extraordinary and brilliant and courageous role on this planet over the last several years. You know, he is one of the important religious leaders in the world. And he is dealing with issues that very few people in Congress are prepared to deal with. He is talking about the morality of whether or not so few should have so much and so many should have so little. He`s talking about the dispossessed, the lonely elderly people all over the world who don`t have enough to survive, the kids who are unemployed, the people who sleep out on the streets. He is talking about what is going on in the world today, the -- he calls it the idolatry of money, the worship of the millionaires and billionaires. The belief that what life is about is just accumulating more and more money and forgetting about the children who are hungry or the workers who are making $7.25 an hour. So, he is just bringing forth a moral statement which says that we have got to change the way we do things. And I am just deeply impressed by all that he`s doing. HAYES: This recalls your really fascinating speech at Liberty University just I think it was last week when you talked about kind of a moral framework for thinking about inequality and social justice issues. What do you make of your colleagues` reaction to the pope? Because some of the things he`s talking about have this kind of polarizing effect in the context in domestic politics. And we`re seeing that kind of ripple out as he comes to Capitol Hill this week. SANDERS: Well, obviously, you know, I disagree with the pope on a woman`s right to choose and I disagree with the pope on issues of gay marriage. But -- and our Republican friends kind of gravitate to him on those issues. But I think the fundamental critique is he is making of the hyper-capitalist society that we are seeing globally is something that is striking a strong resonance in the hearts of a number of the progressive members of the Congress and we applaud him very much. HAYES: The pope has made a major effort to bring climate change and the challenge to the front of mind. He issued an encyclical called "Laudato si", which is about essentially the moral theology behind the imperative as commanded by God to steward the planet in the face of climate change. How important is that voice in this debate? SANDERS: Chris, it is hugely important. It really is. I think it is helping us very significantly turn the tide. When you have the leader of the Catholic Church telling us that we cannot continue to destroy God`s planet and that we have got to move in an aggressive way to transform our energy system away from fossil fuel, that is a profound statement which I see already having a significant impact on the debate. HAYES: Today, Hillary Clinton issued her stance on Keystone, the Keystone Pipeline, of course, which has been the target of a lot of climate activists that would bring dirty fuel from Canada down to the U.S. It`s something you`ve opposed for a long time. Today, Secretary Clinton came out against it. Your reaction to that news? SANDERS: Well, you know, I`m glad that she did. And I would hope that everybody understands that you can`t be serious about climate change and the need to combat climate change when you are approving the excavation and transportation of some of the dirtiest fuel on earth. So, this is an issue we have been talking about for a very, very long time. And I`m glad the secretary came on board. HAYES: Yes, might have even been two popes ago I think this whole thing got cooked up. (LAUGHTER) HAYES: Bernie Sanders, Senator Bernie Sanders, thank you so much. Really a pleasure. I`ll be talking with you again later this hour. So, stick around for a Sanders sandwich. SANDERS: Thank you. HAYES: All right. Joining me now: Michael Brendan Dougherty, correspondent at "The Week", and Kerry Kennedy, president of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights and Advocacy Organization, author of "Being Catholic Now." Ms. Kennedy, the pope is tremendously popular. Eighty-six percent of Catholics, 65 percent of non-Catholics view him favorably. And yet, he`s also somewhat polarizing in certain circles. This is George Will talking about "Pope Francis embody sanctity but comes trailing clouds of sanctimony." George Will, an expert on that, "With a convert`s indiscriminate zeal, he embraces ideas impeccably fashionable, demonstrably false and deeply reactionary." What do you make of the fact he seems massively appealing and also somehow polarizing? KERRY KENNEDY, AUTHOR, "BEING CATHOLIC NOW": Well, I don`t think he is polarizing to the masses. You saw the poll in "The New York Times" today. He`s got 91 percent approval rating. I mean, he -- people across the globe, Catholics, non-Catholics, Catholics who left the church, love this man. And they love him because he cares about the issues that are so important that are facing our globe today. He cares about poverty. He cares about people who are hungry. He cares about people who are struggling. And that`s his real message. He`s really -- he`s revolutionized the Catholic Church with this incredibly positive message of the acceptance and having a big tent and everybody`s invited. And no more ostracizing people on the margins. Everybody is here. And let`s care about those who are really struggling. HAYES: So that`s Michael, basically why I like this pope. I`m in that group of people that finds him -- I`m a sort of fallen away Roman Catholic, raised in the church, father was a Jesuit seminarian. I like the pope for all those reasons. But it strikes me, you know, there`s kind of two roles of pope. There`s the public facing role that Ms. Kennedy is describing, which is kind of like the Dalai Lama in some ways, this sort of international moral figure. And then there`s a guy who runs the Catholic Church. My sense is traditionalist Catholics like yourself, I think it`s fair to say, aren`t crazy how the pope has been doing that role. MICHAEL BRENDAN DOUGHERTY, SENIOR CORRESPONDENT, "THE WEEK": Right. I mean, listen, he is an almost frighteningly popular, especially for a man who`s throwing under this thunderbolts at the entire system of Western capitalism and the oppressors across the entire globe, many of whom he`s meeting, technically. He`s meeting people on the tarmac that have tremendous power. He`s popular because of had his critique of power. But on the day to day running of the church, yes, I mean, some Catholics like myself are looking at a synod on the family coming up in Rome and are worried about, you know, the fate of the faith afterward if there`s going to be some kind of a compromise on doctrines around marriage or, you know, we worry about the effect of the annulment reform as a sort of Catholic no fault divorce being snuck past us. HAYES: So, this is an important point, Ms. Kennedy, which is that, you know, all the social issues that I think folks who are non-Catholic particularly, or even sort of loosely Catholic pay attention to. There`s also these sort of doctrinal issues. And Michael brings up this point about, you know, whether we`re going to see actual doctrinal reform. I mean, what is your sense of that or where Catholics are about that? KENNEDY: Well, in the first place, think it`s great he`s throwing those arrows at greed and you know capitalism gone awry. We need somebody to do that. We need a moral leader to say that we need to protect our planet and stop fossil fuels that are destroying humanity and having the worst impact on people who are the most poor from Bangladesh to Mexico and to the wildfires in California and across this globe. So, I think that those are all very, very positive changes, but I think that it`s not that -- he`s not popular because he is critical. It`s he`s popular because he`s uplifting. HAYES: Right. KENNEDY: And because he`s positive and because he`s telling us we can all work together. And that we all have a role to play, and it`s a very, very positive message of getting, you know, going to God, being close to God and close to spirituality because of our humanity -- HAYES: And it`s precisely -- KENNEY: -- and not because of the accumulation of material goods. HAYES: It`s precisely that is that has traditionalists scared, because of his charisma and because of his popularity and because of his uplifting message, the idea that we would start to see actual doctrinal changes in these sort of core theological pronouncements about the family, that he could pull it off. DOUGHERTY: Yes, of course. I mean, he`s going -- he`s been getting unbelievable press, you know, in a way like Pope Francis can say things that you know, might make your skin crawl if Benedict said them. KENNEDY: But these are changes that need to happen. You see, that is why he`s popular because the American Catholics, Catholics across the globe say, well, why are we so so tough on people who are trying to get -- Catholics who are trying to get divorced who may be in relationships that are completely inappropriate, where a woman is being beaten up and she can`t get an annulment? And she can`t get remarried and she can`t leave her husband? That just makes no sense. And I think he`s heard that. And said, well, maybe we should look at changing that. And you know, it`s not that he`s saying we shouldn`t -- saying that abortion is OK. He`s just saying, that`s not the most important thing I want to talk about right now. HAYES: Right, this question of emphasis -- KENNEDY: We`re talking about stopping greed. Not about abortion, abortion, abortion. And that`s a positive message. HAYES: This question -- KENNEDY: Let`s everybody come together. HAYES: This question of emphasis, obviously, is a huge one and a huge part of his reception. Michael Brendan Dougherty and Kerry Kennedy, thank you very much. Still to come, we`ll have more from my interview with Bernie Sanders. Stick around for that. Plus, for the first time since his campaign launch, Donald Trump is seeing a real decline in the polls. We`ll see how he`s handling it. Here`s a hint: it`s not pretty. Later, Volkswagen admits there are massive systematic fraud that`s even larger than we though. The deception that impacts 11 million cars ahead. That story and more, ahead. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: Remember back in July when a San Diego man got bitten by a rattlesnake and his bill went viral. Todd Fassler was charged $153,000 for treatment including astounding more than 83 grand just for pharmaceuticals. Coming up my conversation with Bernie Sanders what to do about out of control prices and the story of the hedge fund manager-turned- pharmaceutical CEO who just hours ago reversed course after a massive outcry over his decision to raise the price of a life-saving drug 3,000 percent. That`s ahead. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: The Republican race for president is at a crossroads. After months dominating the coverage and the polls, Donald Trump is playing sustained defense for the first time in his campaign, competing for headlines with his two closest rivals Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina, and confronting what now appears to be a downward trend in his poll numbers. You see the red line at the top cresting and then heading downward in the "Huffington Post" polling average. Unless that reverses course, it looks like Donald Trump may have passed his peak. Now, for a guy whose entire campaign has largely become about how his campaign is a winning campaign, the big question has been just what Trump would do if he started to truly falter? Today, we have at least part of an answer. Donald Trump lashes out. Last night, he tried to reignite his war with FOX News, launching a string of attacks on Twitter. "O`Reilly Factor was very negative to me in refusing to go to post the great polls that came out today, including NBC." "FOX News for me!" "I`m having a really hard time watching FOX News", he later followed up. And, "Rich Lowry is truly one of the dumbest of the talking heads. He doesn`t have a clue!" Well, Trump retweeted lots of supportive responses for his followers which I`m sure made him feel better. This latest ploy for attention doesn`t seem to getting the widespread traction it might have just two weeks. Then, there`s his response to the Club for Growth, which launched a couple of tough anti-Trump ads in Iowa last week. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) AD NARRATOR: Trump wants to us think he`s Mr. Tell It Like It Is, but he has a record and it`s very liberal. He`s really just playing us for chumps. Trump, Just another politician. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Trump`s attorney has now written the Club for Growth a cease- and-desist letter, accusing the organization of libel and threatening a multimillion dollar lawsuit. Nevertheless, the Club for Growth appears unbowed, saying in a statement, "Tough guy Donald Trump starts whining when his liberal record is revealed. Trump`s own statements prove that our ads are accurate. They will continue to run. We suggest that Donald Trump grow up, stop whining, and try to defend his liberal record." Now that Scott Walker has somewhat surprisingly dropped out and called on the rest of the field to team up against the current front-runner, we may be seeing a lot more defending and perhaps more whining from Mr. Trump. Joining me now, MSNBC political analyst and former DNC chair, Howard Dean, and Robert Costa, national political reporter for "The Washington Post." Robert, the Club for Growth went after Donald Trump. They`ve been feuding. They didn`t like the fact he wanted a small section of hedge fund managers to pay higher in taxes. Do you -- what do you make of this cease-and-desist letter? Is he really going to sue? ROBERT COSTA, THE WASHINGTON POST: He may. He`s been litigious his entire career. I`ve spoken with Trump`s operation. They`re ready to take on Club for Growth. They believe he`s being portrayed in an inaccurate fashion. HAYES: You know, Howard, it strikes me the hardest part of campaigning, particularly early on is surviving. It`s easy to look like you`re doing the right thing when you`re winning, right? I mean, this has always been -- like Trump really has just, if you put up that trajectory, it`s basically been on a decline. The test comes in any campaign, and this was the true of Barack Obama. I remember in 2007, people were saying this guy is dead in the water. He`s nowhere in Iowa. HOWARD DEAN, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Right. HAYES: It`s true of Hillary Clinton on the eve of New Hampshire. It was true of Mitt Romney who was also counted out. John McCain, John Kerry. That`s the real test of a campaign. DEAN: It is a real test. And we`ll see how he does. I can tell you what`s not going to go anywhere is a libel suit in the United States of America. HAYES: Against a negative ad -- against a negative ad that in the spectrum of negative ads is maybe a two out of scale of 10 of viciousness. DEAN: Yes, I mean, that`s not going to happen. I think this is fascinating. You`ve got the three front-runners now, Trump, Carson and Fiorina. I`m not sure any of them have an organization. If you don`t have an organization, you cannot win in Iowa, I don`t care where you are in the polls because you`ve got to get your people to the polls. And that requires one-on-one with staff and voters. HAYES: Yes, Robert, is your sense that Fiorina particularly who has had a polling boom since the second debate, is your sense there is a framework, there`s a ground game in place in places like Iowa or New Hampshire for her? COSTA: It`s something she`s working on building it. If you look at Fiorina`s campaign so far, where she`s had momentum is on the ground. She has some grassroots following, but she does not have a large operation. What she does have is a super PAC that`s well-funded. That has propelled her forward. Now it`s time for her to balance out the hard dollars in the actual campaign with that super PAC money. Trump does have a ground game in Iowa. He`s building out around the country. But Fiorina is trying to catch up at this point. HAYES: When you were running, you didn`t have this weird sort of super PAC campaign divide. DEAN: Right. HAYES: And one of the things, one of the lessons I think we learned from Scott Walker yesterday is super PAC is not enough. You`ve still got to have a hard money campaign operating and functional that pays the bills. DEAN: The same with Rick Perry. These are two legitimate candidates who with significant -- HAYES: With tons of super PAC dollars. DEAN: And tons of super PAC dollars. They couldn`t raise money on their own. I actually think they`re both casualties of the Donald Trump boom. I don`t think we`ve seen the last casualties of the Donald Trump boom. They had no oxygen when they needed it, which is the summer before the election. HAYES: Robert, do you have a sense of the capacity of the Trump campaign to actually act like a campaign and change direction or do things to alter if it continues to be the case that his polling average declines? COSTA: I spoke to Trump at length yesterday. And I asked him about, do you need a second act in the fall? Is there a way your campaign needs to evolve? He says he`s not going to drop his blunt persona. He is who he is. He doesn`t surround himself with strategists. He has a operations guy Corey Lewandowski who advised him and helps build out his network. Trump believes, though, that he needs to do more outreach. If you look at his schedule for later this month in October, he`s going to meet with Hispanic leaders. He`s going to meet with evangelical leaders. He knows he needs to build his own relationships within the conservative movement to keep his campaign moving. HAYES: Yes, we`ve been hearing a lot from him about the evangelicals. He brought a bible to an event. I mean, there is an understanding -- I mean, the question is, what`s the ceiling on Donald Trump`s support? It`s higher than I ever thought it was. But I also think it`s lower than 50 percent. DEAN: He`s done with Hispanics. He can meet with as many leaders as he wants to. He`s done with him. His numbers were 22 percent in the polls, 7 percent worse than Mitt Romney and most people believe that is what did Mitt Romney in. So, he might, as well forget it, because no matter what he does with conservative Hispanic leaders, people are not going to forget about the way he talked about Hispanics all summer long. Actually, what happened in the last campaign was you talk about immigrants all the time and aim your remarks, at Hispanics, every immigrant in America hears that. Not one single immigrant group except for Vietnamese Americans voted Republican the last election. That`s extraordinary. HAYES: Cannot unring the bell. Howard Dean and Robert Costa, thank you both. COSTA: Thank you. HAYES: Still to come, how Ben Carson`s claim he would not support a Muslim president becomes a huge financial boost to his campaign. That is ahead. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: Ben Carson appears to be digging himself deeper and deeper into the hole he first created with the revelation he would not support a Muslim in the White House, arguing today he wasn`t singling out Muslims specifically but anyone who puts their religion before their government. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CARSON: I think anybody regardless of their religion, if they are willing to embrace the values and principles of America and our Constitution and subject their beliefs to the Constitution, I have no problem with that at all. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: There may be a simple reason that Carson still won`t quite entirely back down. His anti-Muslim comments have reportedly helped him raise lots more campaign cash with the head of his super PAC telling "The Washington Times", "We sent out an e-mail to Carson supporters and we`ve never had an email raise so much so quickly." The controversy has exposed a pretty deep vein of anti-Muslim bias among certain conservatives who view an Islam itself as fundamentally incompatible with American democracy. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CARSON: What about somebody who is of a faith that does not traditionally separate church and state, that traditionally has a theocracy, that traditionally treats women in ways different than we do, treats gays in different ways that we do, subjugates other religions? Obviously, that would not be something that would be consistent with American values and our constitution. There`s no question that our constitution and our traditions have a Judeo-Christian base. There`s no question about that. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: A lot of assumptions in there. Carson`s campaign manager told the Associated Press, quote, "while the left wing is huffing and puffing over it, Republican primary voters are with us at least 80/20. People in Iowa particularly are like, yeah, we`re not going to vote for a Muslim either." That seems to be born out in a new poll of Iowa Republicans from public policy polling, liberal leaning firm, only 49 percent said it should even be legal to practice Islam in the United states, while 30 percent said it should be outlawed altogether and 21 percent weren`t sure. I`m joined now by Sabrina Siddiqui, political reporter for The Guardian U.S. Sabrina, I wanted to talk to you because the other day we were going back and forth on this on this I think on Twitter and talking about the president is not a Muslim, and you said something like every time I hear this, all I hear is someone saying my kids can`t be president. Like how are you -- what is your reaction to the last three or four days of this news cycle? >> SABRINA Siddiqui, THE GUARDIAN: Well, I think that Ben Carson actually answered the question that a lot of reporters have failed to ask of these candidates and these politicians when they focus on President Obama`s faith in particular, which is the so what question? So what if a candidate for president was a Muslim? Are we implying that that`s some kind of disqualifier. And in Ben Carson`s case he did unequivocally say in the beginning no, I would not advocate that we have a Muslim in charge of this nation. And I think that, you know, while I don`t have kids of my own at this point particular point in time, the question that a lot of Muslim families across America face as Americans is what do we tell our kids? Are we then raising our kids in a country where we can say you can be anything you want to be but you can`t be president of the United States? HAYES: What do you make of -- I think there`s two ways of understanding this polling, say, the public policy polling or the reaction to Ben Carson`s his statements. There`s a lot of bigotry in the Republican base, or that this is essentially kind of symbolic answer that people give pollsters because they`re frustrated with Barack Obama or the status quo or liberals like myself. SIDDIQUI: Well, look, the polling has shown consistently without question, there is a vein within the Republican Party that has very negative attitude towards Muslims. And a lot of this does stem from the kind of conspiracy theories that Ben Carson is using as the basis of his argument, conspiracy theories that were trumpeted in the last presidential election too by Michele Bachmann, by Herman Cain, that there`s this secret effort to try and bring sharia law to the United States, that the Muslim Brotherhood is infiltrating the Obama administration as we heard last week in the event with that there already training camps here in America where Muslims are actually training to attack us here on American soil. I mean, the party leaders have not actually silenced these voices and they haven`t denounced these conspiracy theories, that`s what`s given the fodder not just to the likes of Ben Carson but stoked the paranoia that you`re seeing within the base. HAYES: Yeah, I mean, and one of the things that I find most remarkable about this is one of the most sort of explicitly not theocratic but someone who seems the most ambiguous and ambivalent about the relationship between the constitution and the bible is himself Ben Carson who when asked a question about the supremacy of each of those documents sort of equivocated. He now is turning around and saying well you wouldn`t want someone who is theocratic, you wouldn`t want someone who puts their faith supremely over the constitution even going so far and this is something you see from folks criticizing Islam talking about well, Islam doesn`t treat gays well. This is someone himself who wants second class citizenship for gay Americans. So, it`s a pretty head-spinning thing to watch unfold. Sabrina Siddiqui, thank you so much. SIDDIQUI: Thank you. HAYES: All right coming up, Volkswagen is caught intentionally engineering their clean diesel cars to trick emissions tests so they seem clear than they actually are. It`s an amazing story and that`s next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: Amidst the pomp and circumstance of the pope and the 2016 election, it`s very easy to lose sight of the fact that we may be looking at what might be the largest systemic corporate fraud in the history of the global corporation, a crime scene affecting cars on roads around the world. Under pressure from the APA, Volkswagen has admitted that their clean diesel cars have been systematically proactively engineered to deceive emissions testing. Those cars actually spewing out far dirtier emissions than they were registering on those tests. This was an intentional design engineering choice involving type EA 189 engines two liter engines. The original disclosure involved about 500,000 cars in the U.S., and that was bad for Volkswagen. Their stock plummeted, the Justice Department conducting criminal a investigation. New York`s attorney general opening his own investigation, a congressional House committee holding hearings. But then it got worse because. You see, because it wasn`t just 500,000 cars in the U.S, no, it was 22 times that amount. Yes, Volkswagen admitting the deception involves some 11 million vehicles worldwide. Company is setting aside the equivalent of half a year`s profit, 6.5 billion euros or about $7.3 billion to cover the expected costs of this mess. And here`s the kicker, this was not some ancillary feature of the car, the entire selling point of these diesel engine vehicles in the U.S. was that they were clean diesel. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it`s beautiful, but aren`t diesels dirty. UNIDENITIFIED FEMALE: Yeah, that`s true. Oh, that used to be dirty. This is 2015. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, no, no, no, listen to me, Terry (ph) diesel in Latin means dirty. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I`ll prove it to you. You`re going to ruin your scarf. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Look what she`s doing. UNIDENIFIED FEMALE: See how clean it is. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s not dirty but you still have a dirty mind. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Both Volkswagen American`s CEO and Volkswagen`s worldwide chief executive have apologized and vowed to uncover what happened. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And in my German words, we have totally screwed up. We must fix those cars, because we prevent this from ever happening again and we have to make things right. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Joining me now, Tony Dokoupil, MSNBC national reporter, host of Greenhouse on Shift. You`ve been doing great work on this. OK, here`s the thing, corporations cover stuff up all the time. There was Vioxx, there was the GM ignition thing, even tobacco companies with, you know, link to cancer. They discover a bug, they cover it up. This is not that. TONY DOKOUPIL, MSNBC: This is different. Typically companies find a defect and then they lack the courage to acknowledge it and fix the problem. This is actually an abundance of courage. In 2009, Volkswagen was trying to get into the U.S. market. It was trying to beat Toyota. Emission standards come down. And at some point, the company made a decision. They said we can make a fun car or we can make a legal car. And we`re going to choose through this device to make the fun car and screw the emission standards. If you`re a republican, if you think the EPA goes too far and stuff like this, this is almost like a heroic act by Volkswagen. They got in a room, and they came up with a cheating machine, they didn`t move numbers around, a machine that beats federal regulators in Washington. HAYES: Because they basically say look, we`ve got this diesel car. And it`s got great pickup. And we want people to have the vroom of the diesel, right, but everyone knows diesel is dirtier, right, so they come up with this thing, they go, clean diesel. I remember looking at this car. I was going to buy this car, OK. I was looking at buying this car. And you read all the stuff on the website. They`re like, no, no, no everything you know about diesel is wrong. And it turns out they had software implanted to fool the emissions testers. They had to actively decide to do this. DOKOUPIL: Oh yeah, this is not an accident. This is -- guys got in a room, the smartest engineers they had, and they had to design a cheating machine. We`re used to accounting fraud, financial fraud, move some numbers around, make something up on a computer. This is a device constructed in the headquarters of Volkswagen to deceive on a mass scale, and particularly to deceive the EPA, which is going farther than any other regulatory body in the world to try to knock down these terrible chemicals which do terrible things to people. HAYES: OK. So, how does this get discovered? DOKOUPIL: It gets discovered in a great way. So, it`s like they almost got away with it last year. Was Volkswagen`s most profitable year. The CEO came on one year before this scandal erupts. He`s doing great. HAYES: People love these clean Diesel cars. DOKOUPIL: They love them. The review is coming up at the end of the month and then this chain of events happens out of Europe. Former EPA officials are doing some tests on diesel engines out there. One thing leads to another, they team up with guys at West Virginia University, California regulators hear about it and they bust Volkswagen. Volkswagen tries to deny it for a year compounding the problem, right. They don`t just admit it. HAYES: So, they`re confronted and they say wait a second, wait a second. It looks like you`ve got something going on inside your car software wise that is essentially masking the severity of the emissions. DOKOUPIL: Right. So, California regulators did a baseline test and they said, wow, the cars look great and then West Virginia researchers did a road test and they`re like, oh, that`s weird, 40 times more pollution comes out when the car`s on the road than when the car is in the federal test. HAYES: Wait a second, 40 times? DOKOUPIL: 40 times more -- up to 40 times more nitrogen oxide, which is a major component of smog which causes bronchitis and emphysema. This case in a way reminds me of the salmonella peanut butter case. You know, that guy got 28 years. We might see criminal charges here. They knowingly put on the road something that pollutes, puts a dangerous chemical into the air. That is courage. It`s not a lack of courage. HAYES: What is going to happen next? I mean, can you recall 11 million cars? DOKOUPIL: They have to make a plane. They have about a year before the EPA is going to start pressing them. The big question is how much money piles up here? You know, they`re on the hook for up to $18 billion from the EPA alone. There`s also going to be a Justice Department probe. They`ll face a criminal fine. Individuals may go to jail here. The Justice Department has been saying we`re not just going to get you the company. We`re going to get specific people. HAYES: Unreal. We`re going to continue to monitor this. Tony Dokoupil, thanks a lot. DOKOUPIL: Thank you very much. HAYES: Still ahead, more from my interview with Bernie Sanders. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: In many ways so far the 2016 presidential campaign has been focused on the distaste and mistrust voters have for Washington, for Washington insiders, a shorthand for the city and the messy sometimes corrupt and venal political system that gives Americans the impression that D.C. is this den of iniquity filled with amoral climbers and self-dealers. And while there`s more than a kernel of truth to that -- I`ve seen it firsthand -- the stereotype ignores the legions of bright, exceptional, committed individuals who go to the nation`s capital to work very hard to try to make our country a more perfect union. And one of the most exceptional examples of those kinds of individuals was Jake Brewer, a White House staffer who served as a senior technology adviser. Brewer spent his career trying to use the tools of technology to make our democracy more humane and more accountable, more transparent. He was a true believer, a perpetual troublemaker in the best sense, and it is why is it was something of a miracle that he was working in the White House itself. Before working at the White House, Brewer along, with journalist Jose Antonio Vargas, co-founded Define America, an organization focused on fixing our broken immigration system. "Jose was the gay Filipino brother I never," wrote Brewner in 2011, "and I was the white American heartland brother he never had." This past Saturday Brewer`s life was tragically cut short when his bike crashed in Maryland during a ride to raise money for cancer research. Jake Brewer was only 34 years old. In a statement, the president wrote simply put, "Jake was one of the best. And those who worked with him and knew him agree." He leaves behind his wife, author and journalist Mary Katherine Ham, a frequent contributor at Fox News, along with her 2-year-old daughter Georgia and a child on the way. So, the next time you hear someone talking about how terrible Washington is and all the people that work in it, do yourself a favor and take a moment and remember Jake Brewer. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: Late breaking news tonight with the CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, now infamous 32-year-old former hedge fund manager Martin Shkreli announcing he is reversing course after coming under tremendous criticism for raising the price of a life saving drug 5,000 percent. The drug Daraprim is used to treat an illness called toxoplasmosis, which can hit people with HIV and cancer particularly hard. After buying rights to the 62-year-old drug last month, Turing Pharmaceuticals raised the price from $13.50 per pill up to $750 a pill taking the the total treatment cost from around $1,000 up to $63,000. Daraprim costs can very little to make, and the massive price increase prompted protests from infectious disease specialists and outrage online. But Turing CEO Martin Shkreli was defiant in the face of widespread criticism tweeting out Eminem lyrics about giving the media the middle finger, feuding with online critics and calling a journalist who questioned him a moron. In a series of interviews, Shkreli said profits from Daraprim would pay for development of a new and improved version of the drug even though doctors said the current version worked just fine. He also argued new, much higher price point wasn`t actually so bad. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MARTIN SHKRELI, CEO OF TURING PHARMACEUTICALS: The companies before us were actually just giving it away almost. The price per course of treatment to save your life was only $1,000. And we know these days modern pharmaceuticals, cancer drugs can cost $100,000 or more, where as these drugs can cost half a million dollars. Daraprim is still underpriced relative to its peers. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Tonight, with growing criticism, Shkreli backed down telling NBC News he would lower the price of the dug. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SHKRELI: It`s very easy to see a large drug price increase and say, gosh, those people must be gouging. But when you find out that the company is not really making any money, what does that mean? It`s easy to want to villainize people, and obviously we`re in an election cycle where this is a very tough topic for people and it`s very sensitive. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Skreli`s reversal comes just hours after Hillary Clinton, who today announced a new plan to lower prescription drug costs, accused Turing Pharmaceuticals from engaging in price gouging of desperate people. And it`s not just Clinton, when we come back, my interview with Bernie Sanders on his efforts to reign in drug prices, which began long before this story broke. Don`t go anywhere. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: And joining me now Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders. Senator Sanders, Martin Shkreli, who is the former hedge fund titan who made a lot of news with this price increase just a few days ago, just announced that he is reversing course. He`s going to lower the cost of Daraprim. We don`t know back down to what. What`s your reaction to the news? SEN. BERNIE SANDERS, (I) VERMONT: Obviously what these guys do is so outrageous when it gets into the public eye and people perceive these huge, huge increases in medicine that people desperately need, these guys have got to back down. What we have right now, Chris in the whole pharmaceutical industry is nothing less than an outrage. Our people are paying the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. You had it the three top companies making $45 billion in profits last year. And the industry spends something like $250 million last year in lobbying and campaign contributions. These guys get away with murder. It`s time we stopped them. HAYES: So there`s this trend happening that this is one part of, right? Which is drugs that are older drugs and out of patent -- this isn`t a patent issue. Other sort of secondary buyers coming in, buying a kind of monopoly of the distribution channels and then jacking up prices. This is something that you and Elijah Cummings have been looking at and working on legislatively. What is the solution? SANDERS: Well, the solution is for the government basically to step in and say excuse me, unless there is a rational reason, like you cannot get the compounds and the substances you need to make the drugs, you just cannot jack up the price to any level that you want. And there are a number of mechanisms we have that we can deal with. But bottom line here is, what we have got to do are several basic things. Number one, Medicare Part D needs to negotiate prescription drug prices with the pharmaceutical industry. The Veterans Administration does it. Medicare doesn`t. That is pretty crazy. Second of all, as somebody who is not a great fan as you know, of unfettered free trade, it is amazing to me why we can bring lettuce and tomatoes in from Mexico but distributors and pharmacists can`t bring in low cost prescription drugs from other countries around the world. That`s pretty crazy and just speaks to the power of the pharmaceutical industry. We move forward in those two areas, we will substantially lower prescription drugs for the American people. HAYES: So I just want to be clear, those two methods that you just noted of lowering prices overall, this is bulk negotiation for Medicare Part D, which is a huge drug buyer and easing restrictions on importation of cheaper drugs, the third one -- the first one you said was the government stepping in and saying you can`t do this. I mean, pharmaceutical companies, other people say, well, that`s not the way America works, right. I mean, we`ve got a free market. I can charge whatever the market will bear. What`s wrong with that? SANDERS: Well, what`s wrong with that, one -- listen to this -- out of five patients in this country who gets a prescription from a physician can`t afford to fill it. So you get people who get sicker end up in the hospital because they can`t take the medicine, can`t afford the medicine they need. And this includes cancer patients. You know, there have been oncologists now signing letters saying we can`t treat our patients. So, if you`re talking about human health and at the end of the day, if you`re talking about trying to control high health care costs, of course, we`ve got to regulate the price of drugs. Every other major country on Earth does it. We don`t. That has got to end. HAYES: There were a lot of reports when the Affordable Care Act was being crafted about all the back channel communication between the White House, the bill`s sponsors in congress and big pharma, essentially finding ways to bring pharma to the table to make sure they would not oppose the bill, because they saw it as a death blow politically. Is this the cost of that essentially? I mean, do you think pharma got off scot-free in Obamacare and that`s what we`re seeing now? SANDERS: What you described to the best of my knowledge is in fact what happened. But this goes way beyond the Affordable Care Act. Back in 1999, Chris, I was the first member of the congress, I was in the House then, to take Americans over the Canadian border and they were women mostly who had breast cancer issues, suffering from breast cancer. They bought drugs that they needed in Canada for one tenth the price that they had to pay in Vermont and in America. Do this has gone on for a long time. Let me be clear, pharmaceutical industry, maybe along with Wall Street, is the most powerful lobbying force in Washington. They never lose. They never lose. And that is why our people are paying outrageously high prices. And we need to bring the people together and say sorry, this has got to end. HAYES: Pharmaceutical companies will make this the following argument, and you see this all the time, in fact, Mr. Shkeli made this argument about Daraprim, which is basically we take our margins, we sink it back to R&D. We have the most innovative R&D pharmaceuticals here in the U.S. Everyone else is essentially drafting off that innovation. That`s why they can offer lower prices. What`s your response to that? SANDERS: Well, my response is among other things, they spend more money on marketing and advertising than they do on research and development. Second of all -- and one of the aspects, one of the things in my bill demands this, we really don`t know what they mean by research and development. You`re thinking, oh, they`re working on cancer and schizophrenia. That is not necessarily the case. It could be a me too drug that is in every sense similar to a previous drug. We don`t know what they spend their money on. We do know that they are enormously profitable, spend a fortune on lobbying, and campaign contributions. HAYES: All right, Bernie Sanders. Thank you very much. That is All In. 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