All In with Chris Hayes, Transcript 10/02/15

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST (voice-over): Tonight on ALL IN -- BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I will politicize it because our inaction is a political decision that we are making. HAYES: For the second time in two days, the president goes all in on gun safety, as Jeb Bush shrugs his shoulders. JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Look, stuff happens. There`s always a crisis. And the impulse is always to do something, and it`s not necessarily the right thing to do. HAYES: Tonight, gun safety 2016 and the do-nothing defense. DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You`re going to have these things happen, and it`s a horrible thing to behold. HAYES: Then, the Republican house of cards continues to crumble. REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R), CALIFORNIA: I did not intend to imply in any way that that work is political. HAYES: Senator Bernie Sanders on his record fund-raising. And another ALL IN exclusive. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They`re making billions of dollars right now. And they can`t make sure you`re safe. HAYES: Documentary filmmaker Josh Fox on his new movie "Gas Work." UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I lost one of my best friends and one of the best hands I`ve ever seen on all fields. HAYES: When ALL IN starts right now. (END VIDEOTAPE) HAYES: Good evening from New York. I`m Chris Hayes. Tonight, the U.S. flag was lowered to half staff above the White House and on all federal grounds around the country in honor of the nine people murdered yesterday at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon. The 45th school shooting in the current calendar year, the 294th mass shooting according to the broadest definition of that term. The nine victims are Lucero Alcaraz, age 19, Quinn Glen Cooper, age 18, Kim Saltmarsh Dietz, age 59, Lucas Eibel, age 18, Jason Dale Johnson, age 33, Lawrence Levine, 67, who was a teacher at UCC, Sarena Dawn Moore, age 44, Treven Taylor Anspach, age 20, and Rebecka Ann Carnes, age 18. Law enforcement officials at the press conference read statements from some of the victims` families, including one from the family of Quinn Cooper who had just started at UCC. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SGT. CARI BOYD, OREGON STATE POLICE: Quinn was only 18 years old. He had just graduated from Roseburg High School in June. Yesterday was his fourth day of college. Quinn was funny, sweet, compassionate, and such a wonderful, loving person. He always stood up for people. Quinn and his brother Cody were inseparable. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: We`re learning more about the gunman, 26-year-old male, who was also killed yesterday. Contrary to prior information we received, officials now say he was a student at UCC and was enrolled in the class where the shooting took place. Picture emerging of him is as yet another deeply lost young man who decided for whatever reason he wanted to murder people and was able to get the means to do it. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CELINEZ NUNEZ, ATF SPOKESPERSON: So far, we`ve recovered 13 weapons. Out of those 13 weapons, we currently have in custody six were recovered at the school, seven were recovered at the shooter`s residence. They were all purchased legally. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: And so, here we are again. As President Obama put it in his powerful statement last night, another mass shooting in America. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) OBAMA: Somehow this has become routine. The reporting is routine. My response here at this podium ends up being routine. The conversation in the aftermath of it. We`ve become numb to this. We collectively are answerable to those families who lose their loved ones because of our inaction. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: With that mass shootings and gun control landed front and center in the 2016 presidential race. Today, across the board, Republican candidates endorsed the status quo on guns. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I always find it interesting that the reflexive reaction of the left is to say we need more gun laws. Criminals don`t follow gun laws. Only law-abiding people follow gun laws. MIKE HUCKABEE (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We always have this discussion about the particular weapon. We`ve got a human behavior problem. We`ve got a problem with uncivilized savages. GOV. JOHN KASICH (R-OH), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don`t believe that gun control would stop this. I think they have very tough gun laws in that state. DR. BEN CARSON (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You`re not going to handle it with more gun control because gun control only works for normal law-abiding citizens. It doesn`t work for crazies. CARLY FIORINA (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Before we start calling for more laws I think we ought to consider why we don`t enforce the laws we have. TRUMP: You`re going to have these things happen, and it`s a horrible thing to behold. Horrible. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: At a forum in South Carolina today Jeb Bush`s comments on the shooting raised a few eyebrows. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BUSH: We`re in a difficult time in our country, and I don`t think more government is necessarily the answer to this. I think we need to reconnect ourselves with everybody else. It`s just -- it`s very sad to see. But I resist the notion, and I did -- I had this challenge as governor because we had -- look, stuff happens. There`s always a crisis. And the impulse is always to do something, and it`s not necessarily the right thing to do. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Talking to reporters later he tried to clarify what exactly he meant by stuff happens. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BUSH: Not related to Oregon. Just clarity here. Let`s make sure that we don`t allow this to get out of control. There are all sorts of things that happen in life. Tragedies unfold. Sometimes you`re imposing solutions to problems that doesn`t fix the problem and takes away people`s liberty and rights. And that`s the point I was trying to make. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: At a press conference this afternoon President Obama was asked for a response to those comments by Jeb Bush. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) OBAMA: I don`t even think I have to react to that one. As I said last night, this will not change until the politics changes and the behavior of elected officials changes. And so, the main thing I`m going to do is I`m going to talk about this on a regular basis. And I will politicize it because our inaction is a political decision that we are making. The reason that Congress does not support even the modest gun safety laws that we proposed after Sandy Hook is not because the majority of the American people don`t support it. I mean, normally politicians are responsive to the views of the electorate. Here you`ve got the majority of the American people think it`s the right thing to do -- background checks, other common sense steps that would maybe save some lives -- couldn`t even get a full vote. And why is that? It`s because of politics. We can`t sort through and identify ahead of time who might take actions like this. The only thing we can do is make sure that they can`t have an entire arsenal when something snaps in them. We`ve got to make a decision, if we think that`s normal, then we have to own it. I don`t think it`s normal. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: All right. Joining me now, Brian Doherty, he`s senior editor of "Reason" magazine, author of "Gun Control on Trial." Also author of a fantastic book called "Radicals for Capitalism," which is the best 500-page history of libertarianism that you`ll ever read. BRIAN DOHERTY, REASON: Six hundred. HAYES: So, Brian -- 600, right. So, Brian, this -- I want to play this Donald Trump sound too because I actually felt there was a real consistency in Republicans today, in some sense is real honesty. And I would like the conversation to be even more honest. Here`s Trump talking about this. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: I watched his statement and I understand exactly what he`s saying. But no matter what you do, guns, no guns, it doesn`t matter, you have people who are mentally ill and they`re going to come through the cracks. We have mentally very unstable people. And that is going to lead -- and you know, it`s not politically correct to say. You can have the best security. You can have the best everything. But people are able to get in and do this terrible -- just terrible damage. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: What do you think of this argument, Brian, that basically there is nothing you can do, this sort of -- look, there`s terrible things that happen in the world and this is one of those things that`s a terrible thing you that can`t do anything about. DOHERTY: That is more or less my stance, actually. And I`m glad you used the term honesty because I think President Obama last night in trying to use his bully pulpit to get across a national sense of sorrow, which is the right thing to do, he made implied promises about what politics could do that we now know are not true. You`ll note last night at least didn`t say anything specific about the common sense gun safety laws that he thinks could prevent tragedies like this. And we learned today that the guy was able to buy all those guns legally. He did not have anything in his background that would have prevented him from legally owning them. And every horrible, monstrous mass killer, before they actually start using the gun, has been a law-abiding citizen. So, the only kind of laws that actually would have stopped things like this are, (a), laws that actually somehow made every gun in the United States disappear, which I don`t think is either possible or constitutional. Or two, some sort of "Minority Report" type thing where if we know in the future you`re going to do something horrible we stop you. So, it actually is honest to say there wasn`t anything the laws could do and I don`t think Obama proved different. HAYES: OK, so we`ve got -- we talk about these conversations, there`s mass shootings, there`s gun violence in general, right? Just to lay the empirical groundwork here, right? The U.S. is an uncommonly violent place compared to other countries of similar wealth development-wise. It has way more gun deaths. Way, way, way -- that`s us, by the way, on the top of that line. Way, way, way more gun deaths per 100,000. So these are just the facts about America, right? It also has way, way, way more guns. I mean, it has more per capita guns than basically anywhere in the world. Yemen and Iraq, right? So, the question then becomes is that a problem we want to deal with? I mean, that to me is a real question, right? Like we lose 30,000 people a year in this country to gun deaths, 10,000 are homicide, roughly 20,000 suicides. And the question on the table I think really at the boot of it is that a thing we shrug our shoulders at, or do we see that as a policy problem we actually want to fight? And I think people like yourselves and the Republican candidates say it`s just not a policy problem, it is the price of freedom. DOHERTY: To a certain extent that`s true. Of course we do not want to see a world where lots of people are getting killed by guns. And it`s interesting to look at the overall correlation. We`ve got lots of guns, we`ve got lots of gun violence. But if you look at the time series, as I know you know, as there have been more guns in America over the course of the last 20 years, up until the most recent FBI report, the actual murders and crimes committed with guns are going down. So there`s no -- (CROSSTALK) HAYES: There`s all crimes going down in that period, just to be clear. DOHERTY: Right. Yes. HAYES: But that`s the question -- DOHERTY: Which just means that the guns don`t equal the crime. HAYES: No. But clearly -- well, you can see that clearly there is something that happens in America with respect to gun violence that is exceptional. I mean, it is empirically an exceptional nation vis-a-vis gun ownership and gun violence. And I think if people want to make the argument that we should embrace that exceptionalism, we have a Second Amendment and we are exceptional, we are exceptional in gun ownership, exceptional in gun pride, and exceptional in gun deaths, then make that argument, but that is the argument, isn`t it? DOHERTY: Well, it is not embracing it to state that there is no conceivable public policy solution that actually would stop it. That`s not the same as shrugging your shoulders and saying, this is great, or shrugging your shoulders and saying oh, I wish this would just go on. But it`s worth -- when you`re talking about in political terms, it`s worth actually acknowledging what could we do politically to stop it? HAYES: Right. DOHERTY: And Obama`s speech again last night is a perfect example of it. He could not say anything in his talk of common sense -- HAYES: Right. But there`s a question between -- DOHERTY: -- that would have had any effect on Oregon at all. HAYES: Really what we`re talking about here, Oregon, these mass shootings become flash points for the broader issue, right? I think there`s always a policy argument, a specific instance, it`s often the case that a given law might not be what would do it, right? But drunk driving in America, right? Like we decided that like a lot of people were dying from drunk driving, we should implement some stuff. It didn`t turn America into a police state, right? The idea of stop it to me seems a straw man in the sense that at the margins there are things we can do just like at the margins pool deaths in Florida, where someone fell into a pool and died and they proposed a law that required fences around pools that Jeb Bush signed. Right? Like that`s just the way policy works. Sometimes you can overreact, as in 9/11, endorsed, but that`s the way policy works. DOHERTY: The drunk driving analogy is very interesting because drunk driving essentially, it`s like we`ve all got cars, right? Cars are very dangerous things. The vast majority of us use our cars for purposes of pleasure and business. Drunk driving essentially to cars is the analogy to shooting someone with your gun, right? That`s taking the useful thing and misusing it. So, we already make it illegal to misuse the gun, right? In the same sense we make it illegal to misuse the car. But that doesn`t apply to the vast majority of car drivers and gun owners -- HAYES: Right, but -- DOHERTY: Enormous majority, including, by the way, the enormous majority of convicted non-violent felons or people who`ve had psychiatric care who we prohibit across the board. It`s such an outlier problem that policy solutions are very difficult to see. HAYES: I will also note it`s much harder to get a car than a gun. Brian Doherty, thank you very much. Joining me now, Charles Pierce, writer at large and political columnist for "Esquire." Charlie, what do you think? CHARLES PIERCE, ESQUIRE: The heck with it, let`s all get a beer, huh? I mean, you know, we have a Bill of Rights. And every freedom we have in the Bill of Rights comes with a consequence. We have a First Amendment, so we have porn. We have a Fourth and Fifth Amendment, so occasionally the unpopular defendant gets off or is acquitted. And we have a Second Amendment, so we have the semi-monthly massacre. That`s not what the framers had in mind, I don`t think. HAYES: I agree. I mean, what do you think, though, about this specificity argument that you see now? And I mean, you know, this is a familiar cadence. Where the mass shooting happens and then it`s well, how did he get the gun? He got it legally and he would have passed background checks. And so, see, your preferred solution wouldn`t have stopped this particular tragedy. PIERCE: Well, I mean, there were not -- I mean, there were enough red flags about Adam Lanza that he probably should have been kept away from firearms. There were enough red flags around the guy in Colorado that he probably should have been kept away from firearms. But the point is, can`t we make it a little harder to kill dozens of people at a time? Isn`t it in our national interest to make it just a little bit more difficult? HAYES: I don`t think there is anyone on the Republican side who seems to be buying this. On the other side, Hillary Clinton seems to be actually putting a flag in the ground. I talked to Bernie Sanders last night about this issue. And he was forceful about his sort of limited set of reforms. Here`s Hillary Clinton. Take a listen. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Every time there`s another massacre Republicans and the NRA say now is not the time to talk about guns. Yes, it is. But more than talk, it is time to act. But Republicans keep refusing to do anything to protect our communities. They put the NRA ahead of American families. It is wrong, and we need to make every politician who sides with them to look into the eyes of parents whose children have been murdered and explain why they listened to the gun lobbyists instead. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Charlie, you think this is going to be a real 2016 issue or are we just going through the gruesome motions in the wake of horror and tragedy? PIERCE: Well, that`s sort of up to the candidates, isn`t it? Certainly it`s not going to be an issue on the Republican side because they all feel the same way. There`s not a single outlier. So, it probably won`t come up there. I wouldn`t be surprised if Bernie Sanders gets dinged in the debate not only by Hillary Clinton but by Martin O`Malley, who`s also taken a strong, you know -- a strong position in favor of gun control. But you know what, Chris? It`s funny. Historically, you know what the most effective strategy to get gun control was? It run -- it was conducted by the Black Panthers in California. HAYES: Right. PIERCE: Who open carried and scared the people in California so badly that Ronald Reagan signed a gun control law. HAYES: The language of futility that we`re hearing from Republicans today reminded me, the stuff happens, reminded me of this quote from Donald Rumsfeld in a very different context. Take a listen. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONALD RUMSFELD, FORMER DEFENSE SECRETARY: Think what`s happened in our cities when we`ve had riots and problems and looting. Stuff happens. But in terms of what`s going on in that country, it is a fundamental misunderstanding to see those images over and over and over again of some boy walking out with a vase and say oh, my goodness, you didn`t have a plan. That`s nonsense. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: This was the horrible disorder after we, quote, liberated Baghdad, got to Baghdad, and the reaction to the rioting was stuff happens. And I thought of that today when I saw that Jeb Bush quote. PIERCE: Yes exactly. Except the vase the kid was carrying was worth about $100 million. No, I think there`s another thing, Chris, that we have to address, and that is -- and it was sort of mentioned by Secretary Clinton when she spoke, is this culture of paranoia that the National Rifle Association inculcates in its members. When the president in 2013 signed his executive orders, we didn`t hear from the political right that they disagreed with his -- the subject of his executive orders. We didn`t even hear really that he, quote/unquote, "overstepped his constitutional bounds". We heard fascist. We heard tyranny. We heard Steve Stockman, a congressman from Texas, call for impeachment. And we`ve got a whole bunch of people in this country who have been convinced that the president, who has done very little on gun control, is going to kick down their doors. Now, I keep hearing all the time about the responsible American gun owners. Well, if there are that many of them, it`s time for them to take their movement back. HAYES: All right. Charlie Pierce, thank you very much. Coming up, the increasingly messy GOP battle for the House as Speaker John Boehner exits. Plus, presidential candidate Bernie Sanders pulling nearly even with Hillary Clinton. In the last round of fund-raising, Bernie Sanders talks about his chances. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Wastewater plants, levees and dams. (END VIDEO CLIP) (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: After several days of uncertainty, it looks as if folks here on the East Coast for the most part no longer have to worry about a direct hit from Hurricane Joaquin. The latest forecast from the National Weather Service says Joaquin is expected to pass well east of the coast of the U.S., which brings the various American models used to forecast the storm in agreement with the European model, which was the first to predict Joaquin would head out to sea. As Nate Cohn points out in the "New York Times" today, it was the European forecast model that also correctly predicted Sandy`s path. Three years ago, the European model anticipated far in advance Sandy`s unusual left hook into New Jersey. Now, even though Joaquin is expected to spare the East Coast a direct hit, it remains an extremely dangerous storm. The hurricane is hammering the central Bahamas with powerful winds, torrential rain, and thousands of people are without power. And the U.S. Coast Guard is looking for a cargo ship with 33 people on board that was last heard from yesterday morning near Crooked Island in the eastern Bahamas. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: The House GOP caucus tonight is teetering on the edge of full- blown chaos. Last Friday, in an unprecedented move, John Boehner said he was resigning the speakership, seemingly falling on his sword in order to avert a government shutdown over GOP intransigence on Planned Parenthood funding. And while Boehner did temporarily avoid a shutdown over the objection of more than 60 percent of his caucus, it wasn`t for long. Congress only funded the government for an additional ten weeks, setting up another possible shutdown in December. And Boehner`s resignation solved none of the problems that prompted him last month to compare himself to both a garbage man and a prisoner. In fact, things only seemed to be getting worse. On Tuesday, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, the man who was supposed to be the next in line for the speakership, infuriated Republicans when he appeared on FOX News and seemed to finally admit what Democrats had long suspected, that the House Select Committee on Benghazi, which has now been operating for 512 days, longer than investigations into President Kennedy`s assassination, Iran Contra, and Watergate is essentially a political operation to damage Hillary Clinton. McCarthy tried to walk back his comments last night. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MCCARTHY: Point -- the point I was trying to make, and I want to be very clear about, this I wasn`t saying that committee is political. That committee is solely to get the truth out. What happened within the truth, you found out about a server. This committee`s sole purpose is to find the truth, why four Americans were killed that night. And that`s the work they have done. That`s the hearings they have done. They`ve been -- they`ve been applauded by all sides of the aisle. So it was never my intention to say that. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: But the damage was done. McCarthy`s gaffe prompted calls for Boehner to finally disband the Benghazi committee and it also handed a huge gift to Hillary Clinton ahead of her scheduled testimony before that same committee on October 22nd. Those comments also provided an opening for fellow Republicans interested in taking McCarthy down. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) REP. JASON CHAFFETZ (R), UTAH: Those statements are absolutely inappropriate. They should be withdrawn. Mr. McCarthy should apologize and I think he needs to express how wrong it was. It was never the intention. It`s not what we`re doing. And I think the statement is totally wrong. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: That was Utah Republican Congressman Jason Chaffetz last seen using a bogus chart to try to score political points during the Planned Parenthood. Now, "Politico" is reporting that Chaffetz plans to join Daniel Webster, the current congressman, not the old tiny guy, in challenging McCarthy for speaker over questions over whether McCarthy is a strong enough leader to unify an increasingly divided and unwieldy GOP caucus. The fight could get pretty ugly and the reward for the winner is a whole bunch of headaches. In addition to trying to rein in a stubborn far right caucus and avert a government shutdown, the new speaker face`s a prospect of a vote to avoid the debt limit by November 5th in an effort to avert the first ever government default and avoid a U.S. credit downgrade. No easy task in an era when conservatives will use every available tactic, no matter how potentially dangerous and disastrous to get their way. Joining me now, John Bresnahan, he`s Capitol Hill bureau chief for "Politico", one of two reporters who broke the story that Chaffetz was planning to run for speaker. John, is this essentially a protest candidacy or are things coming unbound enough so you can see a path for Chaffetz or someone other than McCarthy to win this vote? JOHN BRESNAHAN, CAPITOL HILL BUREAU CHIEF POLITICO: I don`t think Chaffetz will be speaker. I don`t think there`s enough support for him to do that, but it`s hard to tell at this point. I do think it shows the unsettled nature of what`s going on within the House Republican Congress. There are 246 members. They are just operating on rumor and innuendo and everybody`s watching each other right now. I think McCarthy still is almost assuredly going to be the speaker, but he`s, as you said in your intro, it`s a really, really difficult path for him. He has to assuage all these different factions within the Republican conference including his hard right Freedom Caucus, and these guys are going to extract a price for him. And the thing is can he govern and be speaker at the same time? And this is the challenge that John Boehner faced and ultimately failed at. I mean, they don`t want any compromise with the Democrats. They don`t want any compromise with the president. These are the hard right guys. And, you know, as speaker, you have to govern. You can`t allow the government to shut down. You can`t let the country to default. So, you know, to do the things you need to do as speaker, you lose the support you need to become speaker. It`s the dilemma that all Republican leadership find themselves in. HAYES: That`s well said and that`s precisely the problem that Boehner faced time and time again and ultimately couldn`t solve. I mean, he -- I think he found himself in this position where he could not avoid a government shutdown without essentially bringing that vote knowing he would lose the majority of his caucus, and he couldn`t afford another vote like that and beat back a coup attempt against him. And then Kevin McCarthy`s going to come in and have two votes, as far as I understand it, that are going to be of the exact same dynamic as his first thing he does as speaker. How is that going to work? BRESNAHAN: That`s -- it`s going to be a fascinating dynamic to watch. And it`s a little scary also. I don`t know at this point, it`s unclear to us whether Boehner will try to raise the debt limit before he leaves office, whether he`ll push that through. Now, we had heard for a couple days the Treasury was getting ready to send a letter to the hill, which they officially did yesterday. We heard they were going to do it. I mean, Treasury`s not stupid. They want this vote while goner`s still speaker. I mean, they want to avoid any problem with the markets. I mean, the markets themselves are unsettled. China`s simmering problems. I mean, the markets are -- the unemployment report today rattled the markets. So, they don`t want any showdown like 2011. So, there is thought the Treasury had one eye on Boehner leaving office, set that November 5th date, or recognized the November 5th date would allow Boehner possibly to do this. Now, the problem for Boehner, Boehner is aware of this. If he tries to push too much through in his last 30 days in office, that alienates all the hard-liners who McCarthy needs to be speaker. HAYES: Right. BRESNAHAN: I mean, their power is on the floor. And these guys know it and they`re not going to forget it. And they`re going to -- they`re going to, you know, extract it. Now, the question is when will the speaker vote be? There had been some thought it would be late in the month of October. They`ll go into leadership elections next week but it`s just a nominee for speaker, it`s not the floor vote. Now there is some thought maybe they move this up. The longer they leave McCarthy out there taking arrows it`s the worst off he is. So it`s just very confusing, very unsettled picture right now. HAYES: Yeah, that`s a great point. If he`s out there basically as a kind of the putative next speaker and he`s basically got to answer for everything Boehner has to do, which Boehner`s is going to do all these things where he`s going to bring these votes and tell his caucus shove it, that`s not good for him. John Bresnahan, great reporting, thank you. BRESNAHAN: Thanks. HAYES: All right. Next a fuller picture is emerging of Pope Francis`s meeting with Kim Davis. Mike Huckabee says the new information is coming out of left field. And ahead new documentary from director Josh Fox about the dangers of working in an industry that is being hailed by some as a revolution. Josh Fox joins me. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ..making these fat cats their billions and billions of dollars. (END VIDEO CLIP) (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) KIM DAVIS, KENTUCKY COUNTER CLERK: He told me before he left, he said stay strong. And that was a great encouragement. Just knowing that the pope is on track, you know, with what we`re doing and agreeing, you know, kind of validates everything. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Well, it`s been a busy 48 hours in the old Vatican press office. Since the world learned about a secret papal meeting between Pope Francis and Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk who defied a court order to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Francis and Davis met while the holy father was in Washington, D.C. last week. The meeting was not part of the pope`s official public schedule, and it was only later revealed by Kim Davis`s lawyer after the pope had left the country. The Vatican seemed to be caught off guard by the media firestorm the news created, initially would neither confirm nor deny the encounter between Davis and the pope. Then came a confession, if you will, from the Vatican spokesman. "I cannot deny the meeting took place but I have no comments to add." Now, that non-denial was widely interpreted as the pope`s private support of Davis and her cause while publicly emphasizing a more progressive part of both his and the church`s views, calling for action on climate change and immigration. Meanwhile, Team Davis pressed on. Davis`s lawyer insisting, "this was not a generic meeting in which Kim Davis happened to appear. And she had the selfies to prove it." These photos showing Davis and her husband inside the Apostolic Nunciature. Today, however, came some official papal distancing from the Davis debacle. The Vatican issued a statement noting the, quote, brief meeting between Davis and the pope was by no means a papal endorsement. Davis was just one of, quote, several dozen people to meet with Francis and was not invited by the pope himself but the papal nuncio, the Vatican`s the equivalent to an ambassador. Quote, "the pope did not enter into the details of the situation of Mrs. Davis and his meeting with her should not be considered a form of support of her position in all of its particular and complex aspects." Further adding to the intrigue, this key detail from the statement, "the only real audience granted by the pope at the Nunciature was with one of his former students and his family." That former student seen here embracing the holy father is Yayo Grasi (ph), an openly gay man living in Washington, D.C. Grasi (ph) met the pope along with several friends, and his partner of 19 years. "He met me and my boyfriend knowing that I am his friend and my boyfriend is my boyfriend," Grasi (ph) told CNBC. It`s important note that the pope meets way lot of people privately. It`s a big deal, but those meetings are not necessarily directed by the pope himself. As one Vatican spokesman noted about the Davis meeting, "was there an opportunity to brief the pope on this beforehand? I don`t think so. A list is given. These are the people you`re going to meet." And so it was. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: Senator Bernie Sanders` progressive bona fides and capacity to take strong stands on national issues has never been in doubt. What has surprised some is Sanders` ability as a presidential candidate to prove he can be a viable national electoral force. The latest evidence, Sanders raised $26 million in the last quarter, just 2 million less than the $28 million the Hillary Clinton campaign raised. According to the Washington Post, Clinton held 58 fund-raising events to raise her total, Sanders held seven. As of the end of September, Sanders had brought in 1.3 million total donations from 650,000 individuals since he began running. Clinton`s campaign did not release how many total donors she has. And Sanders has, according to The New York Times amassed a million online donations over the past five months, faster than Barack Obama did in his first digitally groundbreaking campaign for president. Hillary Clinton`s total raised in the last two quarters is $75 million compared to Sanders` $41 million. But the recent strength of Sanders` fund-raising relying on small donors is still remarkable. And he responded to that when I spoke with him yesterday. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. BERNIE SANDERS, (I) VERMONT: What I am very proud of, that in the era of Citizens United and in the era of super PACs where millionaires and billionaires are making huge contributions to campaigns, we don`t have a super PAC and the overwhelming, overwhelming, overwhelming majority of our contributions are coming from middle-class and working-class people. I think our average contribution may be less than $30 bucks. And what we will blows me away is we have 650,000 Americans who have made contributions for a total of 1.3 million contributions. So what we are seeing in this campaign is just a huge groundswell of support for people who are saying, okay, we appreciate you don`t have a super PAC, we appreciate you`re not going to these fund-raisers with millionaires and billionaires, we are going to contribute 50 bucks or 20 bucks or 10 bucks. That`s the way we are raising our money. And I think in the era of, you know, the Citizens United and these huge campaign contributions I`m proud of the way we`re doing it. HAYES: You know, there`s also in a very practical sense that what the Barack Obama campaign learned in 2008 is when you raise a lot of money from small donors it`s easier to keep going than when you raise from a small amount of donors who can get tapped out. Are you in this for the long haul? SANDERS: There`s no question about it. I think what the results today show is that we are going to have more than enough money to run very strong campaigns in New Hampshire, in Iowa, in Nevada and South Carolina, the first elections that are coming up. But we`re going to be very strong on Super Tuesday as well. So we now have enough money to run a winning campaign. We are in this to the finish, and based on the kind of support that we`re getting in terms of volunteers, in terms of contributors, in terms of the kinds of turnouts that we`re seeing in our meetings, I am feeling very confident that we might pull off, Chris, one of the major political upsets in American history. HAYES: If you did pull off that upset, obviously it would be against Hillary Clinton who has long been viewed as a front runner and is ahead in national polls but is in a real race this moment. I mean, I don`t think there`s any question about that. This is an absolute contested race that`s happening, a contested Democratic primary. Do you think Hillary Clinton is excessively dependent on big money? Is she overly beholden to some of the millionaire, billionaire forces that you talked about so much in this campaign? SANDERS: Well, let me just say this. Our average contribution is about -- I`m not even sure, 25, 30 bucks. We have gotten 650,000 individual contributions. The vast, the vast majority of our money comes in from under $200. I`ll let people read what Secretary Clinton`s fund-raising is about and where she gets her money. I think there is a very different pattern. I would rather be where I am. That`s the way I like to do politics, involve whole lots of people. We are not dependent on any big campaign donors. No one`s going to tell me what to do. I don`t have special interests dictating to me what my position should be on Wall Street or anything else. And that`s where I am feeling very comfortable about. HAYES: All right. Senator Bernie Sanders, always a pleasure. Thank you, sir. SANDERS: Thank you, Chris. (END VIDEOTAPE) HAYES: All right, next, why isn`t Lawrence Lessig being allowed on the stage in the first debate among Democrats? Just ahead, the director of Gasland joins me on his new documentary on the unnecessary dangers in the industries workforce may be exposed to. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: Six Democratic candidates are running for president: Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Martin O`Malley, Jim Webb, Lincoln Chafee, and Lawrence Lessig. We here on the show have interviewed four of those six. We`d love into the view the other two. And for the first Democratic presidential debate on October 13in Los Vegas, CNN has invited five of those six, all of whom are polling at least 1 percent. The network has also invited Vice President Joe Biden who is not even running but who would based on CNN`s criteria technically qualify if he decided to run because he is averaging at least 1 percent in the polls. He`s averaging that because he`s being put into polls. And that stage leaves out Lawrence Lessig, Harvard law professor, who is focusing entirely on citizen equality and campaign finance reform. But here`s the problem, many of the polls don`t even include Lessig. So Lessig has been in the race for about a month. He entered after raising a million dollars in less than 30 days in the summer. And he points out in a piece published yesterday in Politico he is running a real campaign, he has an actual platform and an architecture. He`s doing events and raising money, writing that America, quote, "needs a minimum wage, a living wage," needs to stop subsidizing oil companies, restore safety to the financial system and immigration policy that promises some of the hardest-working Americans they can become citizens. Now, I`ve got to say, there is no earthly logic as far as I can tell for a Democratic presidential debate to give a podium slot to, say, Jim Webb and Lincoln Chafee but not Lawrence Lessig. It appears like the Democratic National Committee or a cable news network are essentially unnecessarily playing gatekeeper about what ideas people should and shouldn`t see. They`ve got a whole stage. They fit on ten for the other side. Why not let Lessig debate? (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: Fracking: a process used to extract oil and gas is called many things by U.S. politicians, perhaps most often a job creator. And it`s jobs that are being put front and center by Republican candidates for president like Jeb Bush who this week made fracking a centerpiece of his energy plan. It`s perhaps the most common refrain of proponents of fracking. What is not often mentioned, however, the jobs created through fracking can be quite dangerous. Last year the fatality rate for oil and gas extraction workers was almost five times the national average across all industries. Now, a new documentary from the lightning rod director Josh Fox talks to workers who spent years in the oil and gas extraction industry. Fox follows the story of a young man, Charles C.J. Bevins (ph), who died in 2011 working at an oil and gas drilling site in central New York. Bevins died after being crushed to death by a forklift. OSHA eventually found that lift operator was not trained in the safe operation of the rough terrain forklift and did not have any certification or documentation of proficiency. According to environment energy publishing the fine to the company Bevins worked for was some $5,000. Bevins` sister, Charlotte, believes stronger work regulation could have saved her brother and has spent the year since his death lobbying for better worker protection for people like C.J. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You are the strength in this operation. It`s your physical -- like your muscle goes into this industry. It`s my brother who was physically extracting that stuff from the ground who`s making these fat cats their billions and billions of dollars. But you can`t make sure that my brother is safe? He`s getting you what you`re making your billions off of but you can`t make sure he`s safe? And that`s my argument to everyone. They can`t make sure you`re safe? They`re making billions of dollars right now. And they can`t make sure you`re safe. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: We will speak with Josh Fox, the director of that short film, next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JOSH FOX, FILMMAKER: It`s very rare that workers from within the oil and gas industry come out to talk about their working conditions. But one of C.J.`s co-workers was so troubled by C.J.`s death that he came forward to talk to me under the conditions of anonymity. If you`ve done this your whole life and it`s obviously something you`re going to continue to do, right? Why talk to me? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because right`s right and wrong`s wrong. I lost one of my best friends and one of the best hands I`ve ever seen in an oil field. HAYES: Joining me now is writer and director of that short film Gaswork by Josh Fox. The individual story of C.J. is heartbreaking and also really maddening just in terms of the fine architecture. I think the question is how broad is this Right? I mean, clearly this is a dangerous job. No question. This specific circumstance seemed like a pretty messed-up situation. But you know, there`s a lot of dangerous jobs out there. FOX: Well, sure. But this is a job that is constantly being touted as the future of American jobs, you know. And these are third world jobs. These are jobs where workers are not being told the chemicals that they`re handling. They`re exposed to all sorts of dangers both on the well pipe sites themselves with industrial accidents, which claimed C.J.`s life. Also the trucking laws are completely inadequate. Oil field truck drivers are allowed to drive for up to 24 hours in some instances, and they`re falling asleep and they`re crashing into other people and killing themselves by falling asleep at the wheel. There`s all sorts of dangers that are going underreported. And what this piece is about is about the workers themselves coming forward because of one reason or another, they`re really, really sick, they have peripheral neuropathies, brain damage from the chemicals that they`re working with, they have the loss of a friend, the loss of a loved one, and talking about what actually happens on these sites and being very, very frank about the water contamination, the pollution and the adverse effects that they`re suffering on their own personal health. HAYES: Now, my understanding is all of oil and gas extraction, which is much more dangerous than your average -- but that fatalities have been coming down over time. There`s OSHA has done a push, right on this stuff. The question is where -- when you talk to these workers, how do they think about this balance? Right. Because like the argument always is yeah, they`re dangerous jobs but timber`s a dangerous job and go up to timber country in the northwest and ask them do you want the dangerous timber jobs or do you not want the timber jobs? And people say we`ll take the dangerous timber jobs. FOX: Well, the point, though, is not whether or not -- because a lot of the workers will say over and over again the company`s refused to give us adequate protections because they know we need to have a job. HAYES: Right. do you want these jobs or not is the argument. fox: Because natural gas prices are falling and because these companies are cutting corners in every possible way the mad rush to drill is claiming lives a lot of lives. And it`s also a big part of the cover-up about the fracking chemicals and what they do in the environment. Most of the information that I`ve had, or not most, but a lot of the information that I`ve had over the years covering this issue comes from workers who are speaking out who said I was dealing with this chemical, I had this problem, I had these illnesses, right. And Theo Colborn, the late great Theo Colborn, and this is my last interview with her in this film before she dies, says look, these jobs are so dangerous that if my son were to go to war in Iraq or take these oil field jobs I would tell him to take the military because these things, you`re assured of having some kind of problem and you`re not going to be taken care of at the end of the day. There is -- you mentioned that natural gas prices are going down. Oil prices remain at these record lows. And we`ve also seen this sort of boom- bust nature of extraction, particularly fracking extraction. North Dakota had the lowest unemployment rate. It was this massively boom town, huge swaths. And now all of that is coming down. FOX: Well, Van Jones makes the point in the film that we`re going after a shrinking pot of jobs in the polycarbon industry to give away a huge number of new jobs in the expanding sector of renewable energy. Right? So we can have vastly more jobs, and a lot of these workers want that kind of retraining. I`ve talked to workers who`ve gone from the oil and gas industry straight into solar development or straight into something that actually creates the wealth in a community. And it`s not just that the economy busts or that the workers get out of work when the boom-bust cycle happens. The bust is busted even harder because you no longer have a healthy environment to live in, you no longer have a healthy environment to work in. I mean, a healthy environment creates jobs. If you can`t farm because you have toxic water or if you can`t live in that environment anymore because you have polluted air, you don`t have an economy anymore you don`t have an economy any more. So it`s not just people that get busted, the environment creates a downward spiral for these areas. HAYES: All right, Josh Fox, thanks a lot for joining me. FOX: Thank you. HAYES: All right, that is All In for this evening. The Rachel Maddow Show starts right now. Food evening, Rachel. THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. END