All In with Chris Hayes, Transcript 11/24/15

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST (voice-over): Tonight on ALL IN -- MAYOR RAHM EMANUEL (D), CHICAGO: It is fine to be passionate. But it is essential that it remain peaceful. HAYES: Chicago releases video of the police shooting of Laquan McDonald. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People have a right to be angry. People have a right to protest. People have a right to free speech. But they do not have a right to commit criminal acts. HAYES: Tonight, a murder charge for the police officer more than 400 days later. We`ll go to Chicago for the latest. Then -- BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We`re still getting the details of what happened. HAYES: In the wake of Turkey`s downing of a Russian jet, cooler heads prevail at the White House. OBAMA: My top priority is going to be to ensure that this does not escalate. HAYES: As hotter heads vie for the president`s job. DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Would I approve waterboarding? You bet your ass I`d approve it. You bet your ass. In a heart beat. HAYES: Tonight, the grave importance of 2016`s first 3:00 a.m. moment. And the new polling on Donald Trump`s brand-new threat in Iowa. SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I do not like them Sam, I am. I do not like green eggs and ham. HAYES: Ted Cruz makes his move. CRUZ: I`m a big fan of Donald Trump`s, but I`m not a fan of government registries of American citizens. HAYES: When ALL IN starts right now. (END VIDEOTAPE) HAYES: Good evening from New York. I`m Chris Hayes. We have breaking news tonight out of Chicago, where officials just released video of the shooting death of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald who was killed by a Chicago police officer on October 20th, 2014, 13 months ago. That officer has just been arrested and indicted for first degree murder -- the first time in recent memory that a Chicago police officer has been charged with a criminal offense for shooting while on duty. Video of the shooting which we will broadcast in a moment was to be released no later than tomorrow by court order. On October 20th of last year, police responded to a call that a person breaking into cars. They found Laquan McDonald carrying a knife, a three-inch blade. The video seems to show McDonald was walking away from the arriving police vehicles when the shooting happened. The dashcam video of the shooting death of Laquan McDonald we`re about to show you is disturbing. We have blurred out portions of the footage. The video you see was described by Cook County state`s attorney Anita Alvarez this way. McDonald crossed over the white line divider away from the officer, an officer -- officers and Officer Jason Van Dyke has taken at least one step toward him. You`re going to see this here as they come out of the car. The officer then opens fire, that first bullet spinning him around as he hits the ground. His body jerks. The video captures what appears to be two puffs of smoke coming from the ground near his body caused by fired bullets. McDonald is still lying on the street when the last visible shot is fired, 16 in all. State`s attorney who today announced charges of first degree murder against Officer Van Dyke summed it up this way. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ANITA ALVAREZ, COOK COUNTY STATE`S ATTY: Our investigation has determined that Officer Van Dyke was on the scene for less than 30 seconds before he started shooting. In addition to the fact that all evidence indicates that he began shooting approximately six seconds after getting out of his vehicle. An analysis of the video establishes that 14 to 15 seconds pass from the time the defendant fired his first shot to clear visual evidence of a final shot. For approximately 13 of those seconds, Laquan was lying on the ground. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Ten days after the initial shooting, Chicago police says that Officer Jason Van Dyke was stripped of his powers and placed on deck duty. Today, he was charged with first degree murder. He turned himself in at the Cook County courthouse and ordered held without bond. The timing is noteworthy. The shooting was 13 months ago. This announcement comes one day before a court ordered deadline for release of the video of that shooting. A video that has been in police possession since the night it happened. Today, Alvarez acknowledged she moved up her announcement of charges against Officer Van Dyke because of the release date of the video. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ALVAREZ: While we would very preferred for the investigation to have run its full course and enabled our federal patients to complete their evaluation in its entirety, I felt compelled in the interests of public safety to announce these state charges today. With these charges, we are bringing a full measure of justice that this demands. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Back in February, we here at ALL IN filed a freedom of information request with the Chicago police department asking for any dashcam video that might show what actually happened that night. CPD denied our request. Multiple people did see the police dashcam video of the shooting death of McDonald before today, including lawyers for the family of Laquan McDonald who entered into a $5 million settlement in April with the city of Chicago before a lawsuit had even been filed -- a settlement that was voted on and approved by the city council. The video has been the source of tremendous activism and litigation, but requests for its release were essentially met with stony silence from Chicago officials until the last 48 hours. Then late this afternoon, Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy held a news conference in which their primary focus was preparing for possible protests. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) EMANUEL: I believe this is a moment that can build bridges of understanding rather than become a barrier of misunderstanding. I understand that the people will be upset and will want to protest when they see this video. But I would like to echo the comments of the McDonald family. They have asked for calm and for those who choose to speak out, to do it peacefully. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Right now at this hour, there are some protesters assembling in Chicago. Joining me now Craig Futterman. He`s clinical professor of law at University of Chicago who successful Freedom of Information Act request led to the release of Laquan McDonald`s autopsy report. And, Craig, I want you to give some context to people that are just coming to this story tonight. This young man was shot and killed 14 months ago, 13 months ago. And essentially, there was not a whole lot of coverage of it and then a whistleblower came to you and a journalist named Jamie Calvin. What happened? CRAIG FUTTERMAN, FILED FOIA FOR LAQUAN MCDONALD`S AUTOPSY REPORT: Yes, as you just said, this was a shooting that received the same kind of coverage that most police shootings receive in Chicago. And in Chicago, we`ve had a police shooting on average of one time a week for the last 30 years, 75 percent of the people who have been shot have been African- American. And until today, there has never been a single criminal prosecution of any officer has shot someone, a Chicago police officer shot someone on duty. So, when we saw -- when is I read this, honestly, it glazed over me in the same way these police blotters glaze over everybody else, because sort of the typical story we`ve heard before. It said young man had a knife, lunged at officer, officer shoots in self-defense, nothing to see here. It`s under investigation. HAYES: And then someone comes to you on the inside who essentially has seen the video and says, they`re concerned this is not being sufficiently investigated. Am I getting that right? FUTTERMAN: Yes. Someone confidence sources from inside were worried about the code of silence and were worried that this would never come to light, and were worried that there never would be any accountability. And so, as we investigated this, then we talked with witnesses. We got the autopsy which showed rather than single shots, self-defense to the chest but that the young man was actually shot 16 times. And then when we talked to witnesses and also when I talked with people who had seen the video from the inside who took me through it frame by frame, just as you -- even as the state`s attorney described it, that there was -- they shot him while he`s walking away, walking away toward the fence. Not they, Officer Van Dyke shoots him walking away toward the fence and then he goes down to the ground and then unloads his clip into the body, 16 shots in total and really different from the police story. Then the code of silence goes immediately into effect. Police officers who arrive on the scene cover it up. Tell the witnesses to get the heck out of there. A witness who was there, a woman who said, "Stop shooting, stop shooting" during the entire time when the officer was unloading his clip into this young boy`s body, she refuses to leave and she reports she`s taken down to the station, locked in a room, intimidated, told she didn`t see the what they saw. And then worse, there`s an officer who comes to the scene and there`s a Burger King kitty corner which doesn`t capture the shooting but they have surveillance tape that captures events leading up to the shooting. There`s seven different angles, seven different video files. Police officer goes into the Burger King and the police officer deletes every single one of those seven files. The irony and poetic justice is there`s actually tape of the Burger King tape running while he`s deleting the files. There is a videotape of the officer deleting that. So, one of the questions we have about the code of silence and this is a historic day that an officer is actually charged and being held to account for shooting and taking the life of a young man. What also about the officers who helped to cover it up? What about the official narrative that was given out and that may have been the official narrative, it may have been the official narrative unless we all pushed for in and this came out. HAYES: All right. Craig Futterman, thank you very much. Joining me now, Laura Washington, "Chicago Sun-Times" columnist and ABC 7 analyst. Part of what you heard from Craig was context. Those are investigations he undertook which I cannot and we cannot independently corroborate in terms of what he said about witnesses on the scene, et cetera. That is his investigation. But that said, Laura, the timeline of this is so bizarre in so many ways -- 14 months, 13 months of silence and then an absolute flurry of activity from all systems go from the city in the last 48 hours. What is the mood like there in Chicago? LAURA WASHINGTON, CHICAGO SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST/ABC 7 ANALYST: Well, Chris, you hit the nail on the head. People are wondering why it took 14 months, why this sort of hurry, this wait and then hurry up approach. They had the video. The police department, the state`s attorney, the mayor`s office could have if they had wanted to had the video from day one. That video I think tells a very definite story. Sure you need to do an investigation. Sure you need to interview witnesses, but it certainly shouldn`t have taken a year for these charges to be filed. You heard Anita Alvarez herself say she did this to help stem violence, a violent response to keep the community calm. She should have been releasing it because it was a crime or because it was an alleged crime and she should have been pursuing charges, and she shouldn`t be doing it today because she has to do it because she`s worried about unrest, but she should have been doing it because she`s the chief investigative officer for the county. And so, people are wondering why did this take so long? I this I one of the answers is, it`s politics. Mayor Rahm Emanuel as you know ran for re-election starting in the fall of last year into the spring of this year, the campaign took about six months. That was a period of time during which that investigation could have born fruit and obviously, again, from October until the spring, they had the video. But it appears at least to some people that they withheld -- they held the video back as long as they could because they knew they were going to be very severe political implications. HAYES: Let me stop for a second, Laura, and just sort of recap for folks that have not seen the video. I mean, what it shows is this young man walking down the middle of the street. He passes one police car. He keeps walking. He -- another police car pulls up, two officers s get out. Here`s the dashcam video again. We`re not going to play on a loop, but I do want people to sort of be acquainted with what the facts are. There`s a young man, Laquan McDonald. You see him walking down the divider. Police have been called. There`s a report of a young man walking around possibly with a knife, three-inch blade. Those two officers get out. The one on the left drew his weapon. And within seconds, that first shot spins him around. He hits the grounds. And as he`s on the ground, shots continue to be fired unloading the entire clip, 16 bullets into him. Later on, other police will come to the scene. You see he`s still being shot there. Other police will come onto the scene. The partner of Officer Van Dyke comes, you saw right there, and kicks the knife out of the hand of the inert dead body at that point one imagines of Laquan McDonald. That body remains there for quite a bit of time on the dashcam video. So, that is the video at the heart of this. And, Laura, here`s my question to you. That was released today but people have known been this video, describe this had video, described this video in public settings, be have talked about it in the city council where the council voted on a $5 million settlement. I mean, what has the feeling of Chicagoans been about the wait for this to be made public? WASHINGTON: Well, I think I would go back to what Mr. Futterman said earlier. There`s a long history of not being forthcoming in investigative -- in investigations around police shootings. And this is another -- it`s just the most recent example where the police department, where the state`s attorney hides behind the excuse that everything is under investigation. And they try to basically sweep these things under the rug. You`re right. There was a $5 million settlement. The city council unanimously supported that settlement back in the spring, but if there were any questions asked, if there were any demands for that video to be released, we`re only hearing about them now. HAYES: I want to be clear too, two things. One is that the family of Laquan McDonald, my understanding, did not want this video made public. WASHINGTON: That`s correct. HAYES: That`s an important thing for it to be public as people watch this and process if that was their request. Of course, an independent journalist sued actually like us, we had filed a FOIA-- we even filed an appeal and were rejected and sued and was found in court there`s a public document, which is why you`re seeing it today. The city fought tooth and nail to keep this out of the public domain. WASHINGTON: Because again, it has severe political implications. Mayor Rahm Emanuel has been criticized for the conduct of the police department. A large number of the city council members call for the resignation of Superintendent McCarthy. This is just one more scar on the record of Superintendent McCarthy. And you also have an election coming up in March. We have a Democratic primary which Anita Alvarez is running for re-election who you heard from earlier, and everyone is worried about how this will look. HAYES: All right. Laura Washington, thanks for your time. One quick correction: my understanding, I mentioned that he died. It appears he died in the ambulance later on. We should also note that the original accounts from police which we`ll talk about more in a moment went through a whole variety of actions, Laquan McDonald allegedly did that that video do not show. We`ll have more breaking coverage of this news out of Chicago up next. I`m going to go through the video, his death at the hands of a police officer with former police officer Marq Claxton. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: We`re continuing to follow the breaking news out of Chicago, where tonight, police released dashcam video of the shooting death of 17- year-old Laquan McDonald. I`ll speak with former Police Officer Marq Claxton about what we see in the video and the timing of its release, next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: Again, breaking news at this hour, Chicago officials have released video of the shooting death of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald which occurred on October 20th, 2014, 13 months ago. We`ve been covering the story here on ALL IN since February, when we first filed a FOIA asking for dashcam video and were rejected by the CPD on the grounds that it might taint the due process for the officer involved. The city just released the footage hours after the police officer who shot Laquan McDonald 16 times, Jason Van Dyke, was charged with first degree murder. Joining me now, Marq Claxton, former NYPD detective and director of the Black Law Enforcement Alliance, and my friend, MSNBC national correspondent, Trymaine Lee. Now, I want to show this video one more time. It will be the third time we play it and we will not play it again. If you do not want to see it, I want to let you know that. We`re very sensitive to the fact this is a person`s life you are watching extinguished here. At the same time, it is essentially the grounds for the facts as the issue here. So, gentlemen, if you`ll watch along with me, this is the dashcam pulling up. This young man, the police called that someone was walking around. Some I believe said he had knifed a few tires. You see him pulling up his pants there. He moves past the first car. It is the second car on the far left is Officer Van Dyke, on the right is his partner. Officer Van Dyke has the weapon out, and he fires a bullet right there as Laquan McDonald walks away, putting him to the ground. He proceeds to put 15 more bullets into him. At the end there, plumes of smoke come up, which we have blurred out. He`s still firing there. So, he is firing all of that time. That first shot spins him around, puts him on the ground. His partner comes and kicks the knife away. And the body will continue to lay there as other police vehicles come and he is in the street for quite some time. Marq, let me start with you. As a police officer, your reaction to what you see there. MARQ CLAXTON, FORMER NYPD DETECTIVE: Well, you know, Chris it`s very easy to discuss what we`ve just seen in terms of tactics, but I think that really doesn`t even touch on what the real issues are here. I think it`s obscene and as disturbing and as painful as the video is, it will be for many people who are witnessing the video. I think there are larger issues that are disturbing and enraging folk. And that is the process, how do we get to this point? You know, why did it take as long as it has taken to get to this point? And are we on a course that`s headed for true justice or are we allowing this, quote/unquote, "continued investigation", now concluding investigation to get in the way of actual justice? This is not a matter of what is or isn`t professional policing because what you witnessed there has nothing to do with proper tactics and professional policing. What we`re really talking about are some deep systemic issues that are ripe for reform. HAYES: One of the reasons that I think there`s been a lot of anger about this case and there are folks protesting in Chicago right now, although we should say there was a lot of mentions from the officialdom of Chicago about the possibility of unrest and violence and so far, it has been very organized and peaceful protests from the folks in Chicago. But, Trymaine, initial accounts of this, you know, they were the kinds of accounts that we`ve heard often as Craig Futterman said, lunged at officers, had a knife. There was one account early on that he had broken a window of a police car. Again, we remember some of the accounts about Tamir Rice, the young 14-year-old boy shot and killed in Cleveland and then you see the video. And it, to me, unmasks a little bit why folks have a little bit of skepticism sometimes against -- about initial accounts. TRYMAINE LEE, MSNBC NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Because so many of these cases have been captured on video, the public is more aware than ever. But I think if you`ve covered police and you`ve covered crime for any amount of time, you get used to the idea of the furtive movements, of the lunging. The first thing the police will rule out is their narrative of what happened. Looking at this video, it`s striking how at odds what we see with our own eyes, how odds that is with the narrative that he lunged at someone. And I think when you take a look at what`s happening in Chicago now and people are upset for many reasons that most of the shots happened while he was on the ground, that this video existed for a year, and no movement at all. But it comes on the heel of Rekia Boyd case where the Officer Dante Servin apparently perhaps intoxicated with an unregistered gun fired over his shoulder kills this young girl and he`s acquitted. HAYES: Off duty. LEE: Off duty. HAYES: He is charged with negligent manslaughter I believe. He is acquitted of that. LEE: That`s right. HAYES: Then we should note after a long period of time and people in Chicago very upset about that, the superintendent yesterday, the day before they know this video is going to come out, says he should lose his job. LEE: The idea of this timing that is of a political nature. Is there -- had there been a cover-up? HAYES: Marq, let me ask you this. When you talk about -- Trymaine was talking about the possibility of a cover-up. Craig Futterman raised that specter. And, again, I don`t have the evidence to suggest that`s what happened. That said, when you talk about something systemic, are there questions you would want answered and documents you would want to see from the other officers present that night to be confident this was dealt with integrity? CLAXTON: Yes, absolutely. There`s so much information out there that we haven`t been at least supplied up to this point. And some of it, of course, you won`t be privy to because you don`t want to compromise whatever prosecution may occur moving forward. But there are many questions yet to be answered. One question that has been raised is, there is some possibility that there`s some missing forensic evidence. A videotape from a Burger King restaurant, for example. There`s a section, a large section of it that seems to have been misplaced or destroyed or something along those lines. So, those type of questions would then leaded you into whether there is some sort of -- if there is, and I`m not saying there is or is not -- whether there is some conspiratorial kind of action or movement and that would actually explain why it would take these 13 months, if you will, for there to be a decision by a prosecutor`s office to pursue charges against a police officer, on duty, off duty, doesn`t make a difference here. And what that does is say to a lot of people, there is not a symbiotic relationship between prosecutor`s offices and police departments that there is an incestuous relationship between those two agencies and too often, those two agencies can work to obstruct and get in the way of true justice. HAYES: All right. Marq Claxton and Trymaine Lee, thank you, gentlemen, both. That`s a live shot in Chicago. There have been some protests there. I want to clarify a few things before we move off the story. First of all, the attorney for the Officer Van Dyke in question put out a statement saying that the videotape is two-dimensional. It doesn`t show things like depth. It doesn`t show the perspective from his client. And clearly, that`s going to be part of the case that he makes on behalf of his client as his client faces murder charges in Cook County. Number two, I should say we have no evidence and are not suggesting there was a cover-up independently. We have no evidence to suggest that`s the case. There are questions about how this was handled internally. And I should say, the city of Chicago and the state`s attorneys office in Cook County say there were multiple parallel investigations from federal, IPRA, which is independent civilian oversight, that everyone was doing that, in parallel and that is the reason that there was no forthcoming movement on this, that they did not want to tamper that investigation. I just want to make very clear that is the case being made by officials in Chicago on this night in the wake of the very, very disconcerting video released of the shooting death of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald. Up next, three men in police custody in relation to a shooting last night that left five Black Lives Matter protesters injured. The latest on that attack, ahead. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: All right. You`re looking live at a shot of Chicago where there are protesters, a lot of the police out in force. So far, the protests have been peaceful. There is a lot of organizing happening in Chicago, has been for a long time towards the CPD and the Chicago police knows that and has been interacting with those organizers and protesters for quite some time, as well. Meanwhile, police in Minneapolis have three men in custody after five activists were shot at a Black Lives Matter protest last night. For more than a week, demonstrators have been camped outside the 4th Precinct in Minneapolis following the fatal police shooting of an unarmed young black man Jamar Clark November 15. There has been reporting that protesters have been harassed and had racial epithets shouted at them by people who have come to harass them during the protest. Last night was an even more terrifying scene when a gunman shot five at the protest. According to the New York Times, Misty Nor (ph), an organizer at the Minneapolis arm of Black Lives Matter said the shooting happened as demonstrators were escorting three masked men who had been behaving suspiciously away from the site of the rally. When they reached a dark area, the men turned around and fired on the demonstrators before fleeing. Police arrested a 23-year-old white man in Bloomington, a Minneapolis suburb earlier today and are questioning two other white men in their 20s who voluntarily turned themselves in. Another suspect, a 32 Hispanic man was questioned and released. None of the men identified. Five shooting victims were taken to area hospitals with injuries that have thus far been deemed nonlife-threatening. Today there was another massive march in Minneapolis for Jamar Clark, a Justice Department investigation into Clark`s shooting death just recently began and is ongoing. The protests continue. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: Amid a bidding war of bellicosity among the Republican candidates, stoking a climate of fear and apprehension in the wake of the Paris attacks, today the world took a dangerous step closer to the brink. In the first hostilities between Russia and a NATO member since the Cold War, Turkey shot down a Russian warplane that it says crossed from Syria into Turkish air space. Russia insists the jet was flying over Syria. Those two countries have long seemed to be on a collision course with Turkey opposing the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Russia`s main client in the Middle East while Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan maintained his country`s right to defend its borders and said the only reason worse incidents haven`t occurred before is the cool headedness of Turkey. Russian President Vladimir Putin called the incident a, quote, "stab in the back," and vowed there would be consequences. Meanwhile, two very different leaders were meeting today at the White House. President Obama and French President Francois Hollande who is trying to build support from world leaders for increased efforts against ISIS in response to the Paris attacks. In a joint press conference, Obama sounded a note of caution to Russia and Turkey. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think it`s very important right now for us to make sure that both the Russians and the Turks are talking to each other, find out exactly what happened and take measures to discourage any kind of escalation. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: That`s a role Obama has played throughout his presidency to the chagrin of many critics, a kind of anti-Putin in disposition at the very least, urging calm rationalism over bluster. At that press conference today, the president took a stand against the mood of fear and panic gripping the country since the attacks in Paris. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) OBAMA: Even as we`re vigilant, we cannot and we will not succumb to fear, nor can we allow fear to divide us, that`s how terrorists win. We cannot give them the victory of changing how we go about living our lives. To those who want to harm us, our actions have shown that we have too much resolve and too much character. Americans will not be terrorized. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Less than eight years ago, amid a hotly contested Democratic presidential primary, Hillary Clinton`s campaign ran an instantly iconic ad implicitly questioning Barack Obama`s readiness to be commander-in-chief, the 3:00 a.m. phone call. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ANNOUNCER: It`s 3:00 a.m. and your children are safe and asleep, but there`s a phone in the White House and it`s ringing. Something`s happening in the world. Your vote will decide who answers that call. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: On days like today with the specter of military conflict between two world powers more present than at any time in decades, that message holds up at a certain level. Who do you want answering that phone call? In this case possibly trying to avert World War III. In that context, here`s the kind of rhetoric coming from the Republican presidential candidates. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. MARCO RUBIO, (R) FLORIDA: I believe we should be carrying out attacks against Sunni leadership nodes, videotaping the whole thing and putting it up on YouTube so the world can see they`re not invincible. I want the world to see how these ISIS leaders cry like babies when they`re captured. GLENN BECKY, CONSERVATIVE RADIO SHOW HOST: Do you believe they`re already here. SEN. TED CRUZ, (R) TEXAS: Of course they are. Of course they are and more are coming. And ISIS has made clear their intention to carry out terror attacks just like the one in Paris here in America and to try to murder hundreds or if they have their way thousands of innocent Americans. DONALD TRUMP, 2016 REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Would I approve water boarding, you bet your ass I`d prove it. I would approve more than that. And don`t kid yourself, folks. It works. Okay? And you know what, if it doesn`t work, they deserve it anyway for what they`re doing to us. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Joining me now Charlie Pierce, writer-at-large for Esquire. Charlie, you`ve been covering politics a long time. You`re even written a little bit about taking seriously some people`s fears in the aftermath of something as horrific as Paris. What do you make of this line of criticism of the president that he is too Spock-like, too calm, too sober and not doing enough to sort of get into the guts of an American populace feeling riled up and scared? CHARLIE PIERCE, ESQUIRE: I think it`s a very good thing we have the person in the White House that we do rather than some of the other voices we just heard in that segment. But the interesting thing to me, Chris, is that in the face of having one of his warplanes shot down, Vladimir Putin looks just as is feckless as everybody says the president is. HAYES: Right. PIERCE: There`s no good answer in that place. People are looking for a coherent policy to address an incredibly incoherent situation. HAYES: Well, this is -- I mean the point about Putin is an important one here, which is ultimately, there is this is widening gap opening up between the language of the campaign and what plays in a hall to 10,000 people and the language needed to navigate what is an incredibly perilous situation in which a dozen different countries are engaging in active military campaigns in same place, supporting different proxies that is the kind of thing if you read your history books, looks like the kind of thing that has started world wars in the past. PIERCE: It certainly has started big wars if not necessarily world wars or wars I guess in the world as it was known at the time. Yeah, I am really -- I`m on the verge of never voting for anyone who prescribes a no-fly zone in that area. You`ve got four or five different air forces all with different missions, some of which contradict each other all in the same sky space. How are you going to establish a no-fly zone? And once you`ve done that, what`s the next step? HAYES: Well, that`s exactly what we encountered today. I mean, no- fly zone, we should be clear here, Hillary Clinton has called for a no-fly zone. It is essentially a consensus call except for, I`m understanding correctly Rand Paul on the Republican side. But a no-fly zone means there are consequences when it`s violated. Well, today, we`re watching this play out in real-time. PIERCE: Yes. I mean, as I said, I think, you know, you`re looking for a coherent policy in a very incoherent situation. And in a situation that doesn`t look like it`s going to become more coherent anytime soon. You know, I was struck today by I remembered back in the -- in 1962 when I was hiding under my desk at St. Peter`s elementary school in the middle of the Cuban missile school, a Russian man, the Cuban anti-aircraft battery shot down one of our U-2 planes. And historians now agree that was pretty much as close as we came to losing everything. But they also agree that both Khrushchev and John Kennedy ignored the bellicose people in their inner circles and so frightened by what could come from that event that forced them to cut the deal they eventually cut. HAYES: You know, this is an incredibly important historical lesson that sometimes the strongest, most courageous, difficult things for a world leader to do is to act in restraint. And in that moment, those twos leaders did that, thank god. And that`s -- you know, whoever becomes president and next occupies that office is going to be someone that voters will have to decide whether they have the temperament and the record to act in a similar way. Charlie Pierce, thank you very much. PIERCE: Thanks, Chris. HAYES: Still ahead, a big week for the Ted Cruz campaign with new polling showing him just behind Donald Trump in Iowa. As he picks up an endorsement from Congressman Steve King, I will talk with Congressman King ahead. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: The Ted Cruz presidential campaign is having an awfully good week-and-a-half. Last night Cruz scored the coveted endorsement of celebrity conservative actor James Woods who has labeled President Obama a true abomination and yesterday went on the record backing Cruz after the two spoke for 40 minutes by phone about our love of this country. According to Woods` Twitter account, "this man is the real deal," Woods wrote of Cruz. "I`m all in." Somewhat more importantly, Cruz last week scored the endorsement of hard-line conservative Iowa Congressman Steve King, an immigration restrictionist with a reputation of something of a king maker in Iowa thanks to his strong connection to the conservative grass roots in the first in the nation caucus state. Cruz has raised more money than any Republican candidate other than Jeb Bush. He has more cash on hand than any of his GOP rivals. His strategy over the last few months has been to sort of draft behind Donald Trump like a runner waiting until the last turn to make his move to the front of the pack. Cruz has been rising steadily in national polls, and this month, in a new Quinnipiac survey out of Iowa shows Cruz within two points of Trump among likely GOP caucus goers. Cruz`s 23 percent support puts him solidly in front of a fading Ben Carson, represents a 13 point increase in support since last month. Joining me now from his home in Kiron, Iowa is Republican Congressman Steve King who last week endorsed Ted Cruz for president. And congressman, thank you for coming on. My first question is, do you feel confident that Ted Cruz shares your views on immigration? REP. STEVE KING, (R) IOWA: I don`t have any doubt when I look at his 11-page immigration paper that he put out here a week-and-a-half or two weeks ago, it checks all the boxes that I would like to check with securing the border, restoring the respect for the rule of law and establishing and ending the sanctuary cities, the sanctuary jurisdictions in the country. I think it goes a long ways to solve our immigration problem. HAYES: It strikes me, congressman, that there`s been an internal debate about immigration in the Republican Party that you have largely won. And my question to you is, do you think if you got say a Ted Cruz president, there would be a real opening for immigration legislation that did some of the things you`re calling for might start towards actively deporting the 11 million or 12 million unauthorized immigrants? Is that a possibility if Republicans are to win the White House? KING: I don`t think that either Ted Cruz or myself are for an aggressive, active deportation movement at all. We`re saying, instead that -- and here`s what I`m saying and Senator Cruz can speak for himself, but I believe we`re in the same place here is that when law enforcement encounters people who are unlawfully present in America, if you`re going to respect the rule of law, you have to put them back in the condition they`re in, the position they were in before they broke the law. That means the lawbreakers will go home when they`re encountered by law enforcement but it doesn`t mean there would be a massive roundup of any kind. HAYES: So, you`re just going to -- what about the 11 million then? I mean, what does life look like for those folks going forward? KING: From my view, and I think this is important to examine the morality of this, we have an obligation to protect the rule of law. And they came here to live in the shadows, they didn`t come here with an expectation they would demand a path to citizenship. So I think many of them would live in the shadows over a period of time. I`d rather see that than I would a reward for breaking the law that would bring more law breakers and that`s the existence that they`ve asked for. HAYES: So the policy of the sort of in the shadows. Let me ask you about comments you made about the refugees, this has been obviously a key issue. You had this to say about assimilation, some of the refugees from the middle East this morning. Take a listen. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) KING: There`s not assimilation taking place here. And no one has shown me an example of people from that part of the world that have assimilated into the broader society. And so what we`re about is building a culture in America that honors Americanism. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: You said no one has shown me an example of people from that part of the world that have assimilated into the broader society. Can you really defend that statement about 6 million people moral folks from the Middle East, Muslim Americans, Arabs? Is that a defensible thing to say, not one example of assimilation ever anywhere? KING: That`s a reference to groups of people, not individuals. Of course, individuals have assimilated into the broader American society. But yet, no one has shown me an example of large groups of people that have settled into American from that part of the world that have assimilated into the broader American society. And I go those places. I go to little Mogadishu in Minneapolis. I was there a week ago Saturday. And I go to places like Dearborn, Michigan and spend time there. And I go into the mosques, and I`ve gone into the inner cities in the Middle East. I see the similar pattern in the United States that I see there. There`s not assimilation taking place on the broader scale. HAYES: Do you really think those places are different than Chinatown here in New York City or in any city you go to that are different than say Italian-American neighborhoods like the one my grandfather ran a mozzarella shop? Is that really -- you really want to say they`re different in some deep and fundamental way? KING: Of course I do. They bring with them Sharia law, which is completely contradictory to the constitution. It`s incompatible with Americanism. HAYES: Let me ask you this, do you think fundamentally Muslims from the Middle East are incompatible with American democracy? KING: I believe that Sharia law is incompatible to American democracy. And if you can... HAYES: Do you think -- no, no, this is important, do you think that Muslims from the Middle East are incompatible with American democracy. That`s the question. KING: I think if they`re willing to reject Sharia law, then we can talk. But until they will do that, their view of Sharia law trumping constitutional law is incompatible with Americanism and eventually will break down the rule of law in our country. HAYES: I will note that I think the they there is doing a lot of work. But Congressman King, it`s good to have you on. Thank you very much. KING: Thanks for having me on, Chris. HAYES: Coming up, the ACUL is now suing Indiana governor Mike Pence for refusing to accept Syrian refugees. Their grounds ahead. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: Yesterday, the ACLU filed a lawsuit against Indiana Governor Mike Pence on behalf of a refugee agency that had to redirect a family of Syrian refugees to Connecticut after Pence said they were not welcome in Indiana. Pence is one of 31 governors opposing refusing or suspending the resettlement of Syrian refugees in their states. And some states are taking things a step further. Last week, non-profit and charitable organizations around Texas received a troubling letter from the Texas health and human services commission instructing all refugee related agencies in the state to report any plans of resettling Syrian refugees and, quote, "please discontinue those plans immediately." There are elected officials bucking the anti-refugee trend. Tonight in Louisville, Kentucky, Mayor Greg Fisher held a community rally to welcome refugees in which he said his is not a city of hatred and intolerance. And joining me is the Mayor of Louisville, Democrat Greg Fisher. Mayor, why did you decide to have this event? GREG FISHER, MAYOR OF LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY: Well, there`s fear obviously. It`s understandable in the community. Our refugees, our people are of the Muslim faith are concerned right now. There`s so much rhetoric of hatred going around the country right now that I think my responsibility as mayor is to make sure everybody feels welcome and supported here. We`re a city of great interfaith tradition. Our Muslim population here does countless works of service for our city and it`s important that they felt a, supported, but for the broader community also recognize there is an environment of fear but we can be both safe and compassionate at the same time. HAYES: I just had Congressman Steve King on from Iowa who basically was making the case that there`s fundamentally something not American about groups of people in the Middle East coming and living together and worshipping together, that that`s fundamentally outside American traditions, resistant to assimilation. What do you make of that? FISHER: I think that`s the kind of extremism that will people are tired of hearing from Washington. What leaders need to be doing is pulling people together. I can tell you in our community when we had a natural disaster with a tornado 20 minutes from here, our Muslim physicians were the first ones to go and the last ones to leave. They emphasize acts of citizenship and service to counter this very type of notion that people fabricate that they`re not great American citizens. So in our city, we embrace them. That is nothing to do with us being a safe city and a safe country. We`re strong militarily, but we need to be strong morally, as well. And when we lose that high ground, we lose the very essence of who we are, I believe, as Americans. HAYES: Mayor, do you get concerned calls and emails from citizens there, your constituents in Louisville who say I don`t want refugees to be resettled here? I`ve think that I`ve been watching the news and I`ve been listening to politicians talk and it sounds like they`re basically all covert ISIS operatives? You know, we`ve been doing work in the interfaith areas for over 20 years with our festival of faiths. We`ve got a large service tradition, as well. So, people have worked with other folks that may not look like them, speak the same language, worship the same god. So, that`s gone a long way to developing what I call social muscles here. And we need a lot of social muscles at this time in our country with all this fear mongering that`s going on. So, what we hear more is wanting to express support for people of all the different faiths, all different refugees and immigrants in our city right now. So, there`s a little murmuring, but it`s more let`s show our support for these folks. They`re good citizens. We welcome them here in Louisville. HAYES: One of your senators, Rand Paul, introduced legislation that would have essentially barred refugees from dozens and dozens of countries, mostly in the middle East and other parts of Asia and Africa. What do you think of legislation like that? FISHER: I think it`s the political silly season. When you take a look at the process that refugees have to go through, 18 to 24 months to get here, put a face on these refugees, too -- widows, orphans, kids, those that are the most persecuted. Look, that`s what our country is supposed to stand for to welcome them here after them here after they`re vetted. I get that. And I`m no saying that we just let anybody into this country. But we need to uphold the ideas of who we are, as well. The rest of the world is watching right now. And in fact, you know, it`s the terrorists that are trying to divide us, extreme language is trying to divide us, whether it`s from abroad for our own shores as well. What we`re saying here in Louisville is we don`t buy into that. We think we can be a safe city and a compassionate city and a welcoming city at the same time. HAYES: Mayor Greg Fisher, thank you very much. That is All In for this evening. The Rachel Maddow Show is up next. THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. END