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All In With Chris Hayes, Transcript 4/20/2016

Guests: Gabe Sherman, Charlie Pierce, Sabrina Siddiqui, Jeff Merkley, Sherrod Brown, Josh Barro, Betsy Woodruff, Dan Kildee, Hardin Lang

Show: ALL IN with CHRIS HAYES Date: April 20, 2016 Guest: Gabe Sherman, Charlie Pierce, Sabrina Siddiqui, Jeff Merkley, Sherrod Brown, Josh Barro, Betsy Woodruff, Dan Kildee, Hardin Lang

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST (voice-over): Tonight on ALL IN --

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Lyin` Ted Cruz.

HAYES: Meet the new Trump, same as the old Trump.

TRUMP: I`m about 300 delegates ahead of Lyin` Ted.

HAYES: The myth of the new presidential Donald Trump, as his New York blowout leaves Ted Cruz scrambling for answers to nearly impossible delegate math.

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Nobody is getting 1,237. Donald knows that.

HAYES: Then, after the Clinton romp in New York, new questions about the Sanders super delegate strategy.

STEVE KORNACKI, MSNBC CORRESPONDENT: How can you flip them after the primaries?

JEFF WEAVER, BERNIE SANDERS CAMPAIGN MANAGER: Well, because they`re going to want to win in November.

HAYES: Plus, breaking news on the criminal charges from the Flint water charges, and the Treasury Department wants change for a 20. How Hamilton saved Hamilton and who is replacing Jackson, when ALL IN starts right now.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HAYES: Good evening from New York. I`m Chris Hayes.

And after a string of losses at the polls and in the behind the scenes jockeying for delegates, Donald Trump`s presidential bid just hit two big milestones. One, an overwhelming victory in his home state of New York right here and ten months into the campaign an actual campaign operation with traditional things like a strategy and budget that are in the context of this campaign downright novel.

As expected, Trump won New York by a huge margin last night with 60 percent of the vote. John Kasich came in second with 25 percent and Ted Cruz in third with 15 percent.

At a campaign rally in Maryland moments ago, Trump reveled in his wide margin of victory.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We had a great night last night. I want to tell you, that was something. You know, the media was saying you can`t get over 50 percent, very hard to get over 50 percent, even if you`re really against two guys that don`t have what it takes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: But Trump failed to sweep the state`s 95 available delegates, ending up with total of 89, while Kasich picked up four, and Cruz came up empty handed. Two are still unallocated.

In the race to 1,237, every delegate counts, which might explain why there`s been an apparent coup within the Trump campaign. A senior campaign source told NBC News that Paul Manafort, who Trump brought in to oversee convention operations has stepped into a larger leadership role, while campaign manager Corey Lewandowski who`s been under fire for yanking the arming of a female reporter last month is now, according to several sources, essentially working as a scheduler and body man for Trump.

Lewandowski denies his role has been diminished. Manafort has brought some experienced new staff with him, while at least one long-time Trump operative resigned this week. Trump defended the changes in his victory speech last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: My team has been amazing and it`s actually a team of unity. It`s evolving, but people don`t understand that. The press does understand it, they just don`t want to talk about it. That`s OK. Just keep talking, it`s very important. Keep talking.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: It`s not just personnel changes. After months of taking all their queues from the candidate effectively flying by the seat of their pants, the unconventional Trump campaign is starting to do some of the things that real professionalize modern presidential campaigns normally do, like for instance, spending money.

Manafort has reportedly been given a budget of $20 million to spend in upcoming primary states, more than double what the campaign spent in the entire month of February, more even than the biggest spender, Ted Cruz spent in that month.

The Trump campaign is now actively also courting GOP lawmakers with Manafort visiting Washington yesterday to meet with a number of House Republicans, and more than ten months after Trump launched his presidential bid, the company is now touting a series of -- get this -- upcoming policy speeches.

The results of Manafort`s leadership we`re being told was supposedly a radically different Donald Trump who took the podium at Trump Tower last night, a disciplined, polished candidate, new and improve Trump 2.0. The new Donald Trump, lower key, a kinder, gentler Trump with a more presidential tone, finally shed the ugly rhetoric and made himself respectable.

The evidence for this total transformation, Trump`s been staying off Twitter and the Sunday shows and last night, he referred to Senator Cruz instead of Lyin` Ted.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We don`t have much of a race anymore based on what I`m seeing on television. Senator Cruz is just about mathematically eliminated.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: But less than 24 hours after that speech, here was Trump addressing Cruz today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: In the case of Lyin` Ted Cruz, Lyin` Ted, lies, oh he lies. You know, Ted, he brings the bible, holds it high, puts it down and lies. And, you know, the evangelicals have been supporting Donald Trump, it`s been great.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: And if there is any doubt that Trump is still Trump last night for the umpteenth time, he retweeted another apparent white supremacist.

I`m joined now by Gabe Sherman, national affairs editor for "New York Magazine".

You have been covering the ins and outs for this, and I feel like we`re into some -- we`re in the part of the arc of the plot of this campaign and we`re being introduced into minor characters who will later play some bigger role.

GABE SHERMAN, NATIONAL AFFAIRS EDITOR FOR "NEW YORK MAGAZINE": Yes.

HAYES: The behind the scene sort of knife wielding.

SHERMAN: Yes.

HAYES: Manafort has taken over this situation.

SHERMAN: Sure. And that`s clear. I mean, he held a meeting as I reported on Saturday at Trump Tower where he gathered all the senior campaign staff. He ran the meeting. Corey Lewandowski, the campaign manager, was sort of shunted off to the side. He left with Trump to travel to Buffalo upstate. So, he played his role as an advanced body man, while Manafort stayed behind and continued to run that meeting.

HAYES: First of all, the bars are so low here, right? I mean, you have people saying, well, he`s a new Trump, because he called him Senator Cruz. But even the bar of a budget, spending money, I mean, they have -- this campaign, you cannot overstate that this has been essentially an entirely, a media phenomenon first, second and third.

SHERMAN: Two points on that. One, no one doubt that Donald Trump is still running his campaign. The fact that last night he said "Senator Ted Cruz" and today he said "Lyin` Ted". I mean, Donald Trump, no one can script and manage him. That`s clear.

Secondly, I want to see whether he will spend this money. He`s pledged to spend the money.

HAYES: We`ve seen headlines before, bait and switch.

SHERMAN: So, the fact that Manafort comes in, you get a headline of $20 million, it`s very possible that Donald Trump will not open up the purse strings.

HAYES: What`s crazy about that is that if the man wants to actually get to 1,237, those marginal dollars are probably going to matter.

SHERMAN: Exactly.

HAYES: I mean, even if we look back at last night, you know, and this weird point scoring of, well, he missed those four delegates -- well, those four delegates could be important.

SHERMAN: And I`ve really heard that this is -- a lot of this is coming from the Trump children, Ivanka Trump and her brothers, are really pushing their father to say, listen, you got to carry the ball over the finish line. They don`t want had him to get this close and then not get there because he didn`t spend the money.

HAYES: It`s funny when you said this is coming from the Trump children. I thought you were going to say, which was dad don`t squander our birth money.

SHERMAN: No, they want him to be president. I mean, if you -- imagine your father is on the cusp of winning this nomination, they don`t want him to make short-sighted decisions.

HAYES: How volatile is that situation, that organization right now?

SHERMAN: I think it`s very volatile, because you have these people, let`s just step back. Ten months ago, you showed that clip. No one thought Donald Trump had any chance. Corey Lewandowski had come out of the political wilderness in New Hampshire to run this campaign.

He took Donald Trump, whatever you say about his style and tactics, he did take him incredibly far to win 21 states, 25 states under his watch. Now, that said, they didn`t do a lot of things they should have done -- you know, worked for delegates, spend money on ads.

But from Lewandowski`s perspective, he should get a lot of credit for getting this far and meanwhile, he`s just being kind of pushed to the side and so, he`s going to fight for his turf.

HAYES: There`s also this question -- I mean, we`ll talk about this in a second. But you just talked about the inability to manage the guy. I mean, look, if there`s one thing that I have learned about modern campaigns is they really reward discipline.

Barack Obama, whatever you believe of him, is one of the most disciplined human beings I have ever encountered anywhere, covered. Donald Trump is the opposite of that and that seems to be the fundamental problem.

SHERMAN: It`s both a problem and an asset. I mean, Trump told me in our interviews that he is the strategist, he is his own speechwriter, and that`s what his fan base and his support craves. If he is too scripted, if he is too managed, you know, last night, we saw Trump supporters say this isn`t the Trump we want, we don`t want him to sell out to the establishment. They`re going to view that as a sell out.

HAYES: Yes, the problem is getting from 40 percent of the Republican electorate to 50 percent of the voters in a general election.

SHERMAN: Yes.

HAYES: Gabe, thank you very much.

SHERMAN: Thank you.

HAYES: All right. Joining me now, Charlie Pierce, writer at large for "Esquire Magazine", and Sabrina Siddiqui, political reporter for "The Guardian".

Sabrina, I just don`t buy it. Like I don`t buy it -- I guess I just don`t buy anything is going to change. We`ve seen time and time again -- I remember we had sound of him on the night that he won Super Tuesday when he was in Florida where he sounded like a general election candidate, I have thought of myself, well, this -- that`s actually a pretty decent message for general election and then it was back to like retweeting white supremacist 36 hours later.

SABRINA SIDDIQUI, THE GUARDIAN: Right. There is an extent to which Donald Trump is simply going to be Donald Trump. He can`t be controlled. He can`t be managed.

I think he recognizes, as Gabe was just alluding to, that his supporters don`t want to see that shift in tone. In fact, they`re attracted to him because he takes on the political establishment, not because he`s trying to rally the establishment around his candidacy.

But I also think that the reasons he`s brought in some of these professionals is because one thing that we`re -- the stage we`re at right now, he`s realized that game ground matters, that if you don`t understand how that`s delegate conventions at the state level work, that matters. If you head into a contested convention because Donald Trump was unable to seal the deal and get to the magic number, then that`s where Ted Cruz with his sophisticated organizational operation really could run away with the GOP nomination.

HAYES: Charlie, you know, I had a thought today, I was remembering the campaign for Elizabeth Warren, someone who could not be more of the political opposite than Donald Trump, but here`s something that happened when Elizabeth Warren ran for Senate. She had built an identity as in one way that was very popular, she was obviously an incredible speaker, incredibly accomplished, she then had to run a campaign and fit herself into a discipline box that a modern campaign requires and it took some time to meld those two. And that`s a hard thing for anyone to do. Anyone the goes to that process.

I just don`t see that as something that Donald Trump is capable of doing.

CHARLIE PIERCE, ESQUIRE MAGAZINE: Yes, and I think it`s an interesting comparison because she only had do it in one state.

HAYES: Right.

PIERCE: She didn`t have to do it on the national stage.

No, he`s not going to discipline himself to the point, but he is going to discipline himself to this pattern. He is going to campaign like a thug, win, be gracious on election night, go to another state and start the whole thing all over again.

HAYES: Right.

PIERCE: And every time he accepts a speech and comes within an area code of civility, a lot of the elite political press is going to get fooled and say, look, it`s the new Donald Trump. And this is a great scam. He ran this all the way to the convention.

HAYES: And part of the reason that`s happening I think, Sabrina, is the strange place we found ourselves in this race and we`ll talk about the Democrats in a moment. Right now, in the Republican race, we have all these races. So far, geographical has equal destiny. We basically know the contours of what next week is going to look like in Maryland and Rhode Island and Connecticut and Pennsylvania where we think Trump is going do well again. We`re counting these marks on a chalkboard until June 7th.

And so, there`s this weird kind of feeling that`s set in and people are desperate to find a plot point in the story arc of this campaign.

SIDDIQUI: Absolutely. And we know that a big part of Donald Trump`s campaign has also hinged on reaching the economically disenfranchised working class vote, white working class Americans who have also been drawn to Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary, and I think one thing that is hard to grasp is that a lot of that strategy on the Republican side hinges on this idea that there are a lot of Reagan Democrats who are up for grabs in a general election and that`s who Donald Trump might be trying to appeal to if he does have any sort of strategy.

But at this point, the system is so polarized, our politics are so polarized that a lot of those voters have been voting Republicans, it`s unclear if that would really be an effective strategy to defeat Hillary Clinton in a general election. I think the greater challenge facing the Republican Party of Donald Trump is the nominee still remains the fact that he has alienated a lot of the minorities and demographics they would need to win back the White House.

HAYES: Charlie, I think the two best states for Trump so far had been New York and Massachusetts. What is it about Northeastern Republicans that they just love what he is offering?

PIERCE: I think it`s -- they`re finally -- new England Democrats -- New York Republicans in particular have been lost souls for a long time. They were the last outpost of moderate sensible and dare I say not insane Republicans, OK? The great wave that came from the West and took over the Republican Party rolled back at the Hudson River pretty much.

But at the same time, they missed out on all the fun. So, now here`s a guy, he`s not Bible banging, head shaking guy from the West, as far as the New England studs like myself are concerned, he`s one of them --

HAYES: Right.

PIERCE: -- in a kind of grandiose, grand way, but at the same time, at the same time, he`s a Republican that they can sort of identify with. I mean, he`s from the same class, although he`s an (INAUDIBLE). He`s from the same class as the Lodges, and the Saltonstalls, and Rockefellers, except his family worked their way to their money with a few fewer generations than the Rockefellers have had.

HAYES: Yes, that`s -- and everything remember, all politics is identity politics when it comes down to it. That`s one of my cardinal mantras about politics.

Charlie Pierce and Sabrina Siddiqui, thank you both.

SIDDIQUI: Thank you, Chris.

HAYES: Still to come, New York voters gave Ted Cruz a definitive hard pass. There`s one literal bright spot -- literal bright spot for Ted Cruz otherwise last night. I will explain what that was ahead.

But, first, the daunting climb ahead of Bernie Sanders after a big loss to Hillary Clinton, conflicting messages from the Sanders campaign on the road forward. I`ll speak with the lone senator who has endorsed Sanders in just two minutes. Don`t go anywhere.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KORNACKI: If June 7th comes and goes, and Hillary Clinton has won the pledged delegate count in the primaries and she`s won the popular vote, there are going to be calls from her campaign and calls from a lot of influential delegates in this country for you the Sanders campaign to make a decision to unite around her. You`re saying, instead of that, you will spend those months, those weeks in the summer trying to flip super delegates to Bernie Sanders before the convention?

WEAVER: At this point, yes, absolutely.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: The name of Bernie Sanders campaign manager, the man you just saw there, Jeff Weaver, began trending on Twitter last night shortly after his interview on this network and the declaration that Sanders would keep battling Clinton until the convention, even if he trailed her among pledged delegates and in the popular vote.

And that strategy seemed to be at odds with Sanders senior strategist Tad Devine. Tad Devine who told "The Associated Press" around the same time the Sanders campaign will see how it does next week in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, and then, quote, "assess where we are".

The Sanders campaign has launched a major effort here in New York, spending nearly $7 million on advertising, much more than any campaign in either party. But Sanders still lost to Clinton by a wide margin, 58 to 42.

Following her win, Clinton seemed increasingly focused on the general election and unifying the party around here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: To all the people that supported Senator Sanders, I believe there is much more that unites us than divides us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: Behind the scenes, an unnamed senior adviser was feeling not quite as magnanimous and telling "Politico" last night, quote, "We kicked his ass tonight. I hope this convinces Bernie to tone it down. If not, F him."

Joining me now, Senator Jeff Merkley, Democrat from Oregon, so far the only member of the Senate to endorse Bernie Sanders.

Senator, tell me -- tell me about your timing in this. One of the things that struck me when I saw the news of your endorsement was the timing. You`re the first senator to endorse him. You`re endorsing fairly late in this cycle and you`re endorsing at a time when it seems his odds of winning have receded considerably, which is the opposite of what politicians usually do.

SEN. JEFF MERKLEY (D), OREGON: Yes, I`m just not a very good politician, Chris. That`s what it boils down to.

I really felt that I should make an endorsement as we were preparing to vote in Oregon. We vote by mail. The ballots go out on April 28th. They will be out for a better part of 2 1/2 weeks and so I wanted to endorse two weeks while -- basically before the ballots go out and while Oregonians are really starting to pay attention.

HAYES: I want to get your reaction to what Jeff Weaver said last night, which has caused quite a stir. As the Sanders supporter, the idea that the Sanders campaign would essentially after June 7th, were it to be behind in pledged delegates and super delegates, attempt to persuade super delegates to come over to them and take that to the convention. Do you think that`s a good strategy?

MERKLEY: Well, it really reflects different messages coming out of a campaign, which, you know, happens in a complicated, rush campaign, because the core of the message is look, there is still a path to victory here. Yes, yes, he lost in New York, but he lost by less in New York than President Obama lost eight years previously. He did a percent better. So, it`s all how you frame it.

And, certainly, Hillary Clinton home state senator, home state turf, she campaigned in her Senate races, in every village and borough. And she knew the state inside out, so it was an extraordinary challenge.

There are other challenges ahead that present different circumstances and right now, there are just a massive amount of citizens and grassroots organizations who are saying, we have to change the model of how our economy and our political system works, and the person who understands the fact that we must change that is Bernie Sanders.

For -- we`ve now been through this period of 40 years, four decades, in which nine out of ten citizens have seen no benefit from the increase in American wealth. That is 100 percent of the new income has gone to the top 10 percent. There`s something wrong -- people understand there is something wrong when nine out of ten citizens and families are not benefitting while the wealth of the nation grows up. So --

HAYES: Let me ask you this. As you talk about those issues which have sort of come center piece in this campaign, when I`ve talked to other members of the Senate caucus on the Democratic side, they would say the following thing to me. They say, well, we`ve worked with both of them, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders and I`m endorsing Hillary Clinton -- and I was left to think they didn`t think much of Bernie Sanders frankly as a senator. They thought he wasn`t particularly effective.

What are you seeing in him that they are not?

MERKLEY: Well, actually, I think that`s way off the mark. Bernie`s comments are deeply listened to and widely respected and he has this record of effectiveness that many people are aware of, particularly those who served in the House. When he was mayor of Burlington, he preceded to reshape the waterfront. He had a baseball team. He set them up as a lovable city, as a kind of a model for the nation.

When he was in the House, out of 435 members of the House, he was known as the king of amendments, the single House member most effective in getting amendments past, and these were things relevant to working Americans.

And in the Senate, he has proceeded to be the leader on expanding our federally qualified health centers, which are the front door for millions of Americans to our health care system. And he put together a bipartisan veterans bill that is the most important veterans bill we`ve had in years, and he`s taken the lead and taken on chained CPI to make sure that our seniors didn`t get shortchanged. And the list goes on. So --

HAYES: You just named a bunch of fights that are a good reminder of some of the fights they`re having right now in the U.S. Senate. I want to follow up with our next guest about that.

Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley, thanks for joining us tonight. I appreciate it.

MERKLEY: You`re very welcome.

HAYES: All right. Joining me now is Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat from Ohio, who has endorsed Hillary Clinton for president.

Great to see you, Senator.

Let me start with your reaction to last night and what Jeff Weaver said. I mean, are you one of the people who thinks that there`s some danger that the Sanders campaign has entered into in the territory its in, in terms of possible lasting damage they could do to Hillary Clinton should she become the nominee.

SEN. SHERROD BROWN (D), OHIO: No, I applaud Bernie for what he`s done. Jeff, in fact, Senator Merkley and I, Jeff and I, on the floor, had a long conversation today about sort of his reasons for Bernie, my reasons for Hillary. It was clear that it really is -- we should be talking about what unites us, not what divides us. I understand the political campaign, debate after debate after debate.

HAYES: Right.

BROWN: There is contentiousness. But contrast our side with theirs, where they call each other names and attacked each other`s families. You know, ours are talking issues.

And I -- you know, there`s some slight differences on Dodd-Frank, for instance, but both candidates, like Jeff Merkley, Jeff sits with me on the banking committee, he fights hard to protect what we`ve gained with Dodd- Frank. I`d like to go a little further, I think what regulators did this week on something called living wills is a big, big deal. It will mean the banks very likely may get smaller because of federal rules about their capital standards and about their stability and safety and soundness. I think we`re doing that right. I think we can move a little faster.

One of the things I do in banking committees is put pressure on them and one of the other things I do is through my website through outside pressure and I ask people to come and help us join that fight where we can get people outside to keep putting the pressure on the Senate to make sure there are no compromises and weakening of Dodd-Frank.

HAYES: Yes, I want to talk about that because one of the issues in this campaign has been about the sort of what threats a new Democratic president might face in terms of retrenchment, in terms of consolidating some of the accomplishments of the Obama administration. I mean, there are attacks all the time happening right now in the Senate on Dodd-Frank for instance, on regulatory structures that have been put in place that have to be beaten back ceaselessly.

BROWN: Yes, last week, and of all places, the agricultural committee. And that`s where we regulate something called the Commodities Future Trading Commission. It`s where we regulate derivatives. The Republicans have created -- tried to create this huge Koch brothers loophole where farmers need to hedge risks to be sure on crops and weather and price and all that, but the Republicans want to make the farmers exception, farmers and ranchers, turn into the Koch brothers exception on the oil industry, which turns into billions and billions of dollars. We fight back against that.

The Republicans because they`re so controlled by a few big mega donors, especially the Koch brothers, are always going do their bidding and there`s always a Koch brothers loophole when regulatory issues, my position on banking and ag, agricultural, are the places to fight back and I will continue that. I expect Republicans because of the fuel of their party is their interests groups we`ve got to be ready and continue to fight regardless of when Hillary Clinton I believe will be president and when she is president.

HAYES: All right. Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, thank you for joining us. Appreciate it.

BROWN: Thanks.

HAYES: Still to come, the first criminal charges to come out of the Flint water crisis were announced today, but the attorney general says they`re only the beginning. We`ll look at that just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES: Last night was rough one for Ted Cruz, but we`re going to show one literal bright spot. This map from "New York Times" shows how New York City Republicans voted in yesterday`s primary. As you can see, it`s mostly a sea of Trump red.

But check out the borough park neighborhood of Brooklyn. That burst of yellow there, that marks as a Cruz country. Borough park is largely Jewish with a huge orthodox population and you`ll no doubt remember Cruz made an awkward trip to a nearby matzo factory earlier this month.

(VIDEO CLIP PLAYS)

HAYES: That`s a long way from a pork cookout in Iowa. But the matzo-based pandering only gets one so far.

Overall, Cruz got crushed in New York state, coming in third place with just 15 percent of the vote and even losing in one New York district to Ben Carson who long ago dropped out of the race. It is now nearly if not completely impossible for Cruz to secure the GOP nomination before the convention, something NBC`s Hallie Jackson we asked him about today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HALLIE JACKSON, NBC NEWS: You all but called for John Kasich to drop out when it became mathematically impossible for him to get the nomination. You`re about at that point now. How do you square that?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: It`s pretty good question, isn`t it? We`ll bring you Ted Cruz`s rather creative answer, ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES: Today, three men faced the very first criminal charges in connection with the Flint water crisis. Two state employees and one city worker stand accused of covering up early evidence of lead contamination after the city`s water supply was switched to save money poisoning Flint`s largely poor, majority African-American community.

This afternoon, Michigan`s attorney general announced the charges saying they are only the beginning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL SCHUETTE, MICHIGAN ATTORNEY GENERAL: I`ve made it abundently clear that our system of justice applies to everybody. It`s not rigged. No one is above the law, not on my watch.

Our investigation, when it is completed, will be thorough. It will be complete. It will be exhaustive. We will enforce the law.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: Men are charged with a slew of felonies and misdemeanors ranging from conspiracy to tampering with evidence to willfully misleading federal officials. And according to the complaint all three men did knowingly and intentionally remove, alter, conceal, destroy or otherwise tamper with evidence.

In addition, the two state workers allegedly improperly manipulated the collection of water samples by directing the residents to pre-flush their taps the night before drawing a water sample.

And one of them is accused of authorizing a permit to the Flint Water Treatment Plant, knowing the plant was deficient in its ability to provide clean and safe drinking water for the citizens.

Both state employees pleaded not guilty. The city employee hasn`t been to court yet.

The attorney general today said the investigation was ongoing and there will be more charges to come. Governor Rick Snyder who earlier this week visited Flint, reacted this afternoon to the charges.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. RICK SNYDER, (R) MICHIGAN: I`ve consistently said that a handful of bureaucrats had created a terrible situation in Flint from the beginning. If these accusations are correct, this would take it to a whole new level. And one of the things we clearly want to pursue is the truth. The citizens of Michigan deserve it, the citizens of Flint deserve it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: Joining me now, Congressman Dan Kildee, Democrat from Michigan who was born and raised in Flint.

And congressman, you`re reaction to the announcement of the charges today?

REP. DAN KILDEE, (D) MICHIGAN: Well, I`m happy to see that there will be a step toward justice. This is one step. But justice takes many forms and one of the things that the governor needs to address is not just who are we going to hold accountable for what went wrong, but how are we going to make it right for the people of Flint.

Charging these people with crimes might be appropriate and a judge and jury will determine whether that`s the case, but real justice for the people of Flint comes when the governor steps up and provides the resources to make it right, to fix the problem that he created in Flint.

That`s the justice that has to come along with the individual justice that will come with these prosecutions.

HAYES: I want to talk a little bit about what your colleagues in congress are also doing in a moment, but first do you worry that these three individuals end up as sort of personal scapegoats for a problem that was created by a broader policy directive putting pressure on people which is not to say they are excused or did or did not do the things of which they`re excused, but does it obscure the sort of larger systemic issue here?

KILDEE: Chris, that`s a really important point. The question we have to ask ourselves is who created the culture in state government that made the kind of behavior that we saw in these charges the norm? Who made it okay to think about these environmental protections as being something that can be manipulated because they don`t really matter or that the people of Flint don`t really matter.

There`s really only one individual responsible for creating that culture and that`s the governor of Michigan. So while he may not be charged, there`s no way to escape the fact that the way the state government operated is very consistent with a philosophy of government that this governor brought to the state of Michigan and he has the responsibility for that.

HAYES: There has been a fight in the senate particularly over funding for helping Flint restore and repair its water supply. This is Hillary Clinton`s statement today on the bipartisan bill that was passed this week, the energy bill.

Senate Republicans have pushed through today`s energy bill at the expense of the people of Flint who are still waiting for clean water, critical aid for rebuilding their infrastructure. It is unconscionable for this bill to move forward without this desperately needed aid.

That aid was taken out at the behest of the Republicans. What are you going to do? What are Democrats in congress going to do to make sure Flint gets the resources it needs?

KILDEE: Well, we`re going to continue to hold Republicans responsible.

It is interesting. We don`t want this to be a partisan issue, let`s face it. But it just so happens that in the state government it`s the Republicans that are holding up aid to the city of Flint. In the U.S. government it was Republicans in the senate and Republicans in the House that are unwilling to take up the legislation that I have offered. And my bill splits it 50/50 between the federal government and the state government.

So people say we`re trying to politicalize this. The last thing on my mind when it comes to the city of Flint is politics. We need to get help to these people. They are American citizens and they deserve their state and federal government to step up for them.

HAYES: Congressman Dan Kildee. Great. Thanks for joining me tonight. Appreciate it.

KILDEE: Thank you.

HAYES: Up next, the first woman to be featured on American paper money in over 100 years. It`s a remarkable choice for many reasons. I will explain right after this.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEB BUSH, FMR. GOVERNOR OF FLORIDA: I`m going to go with Ronald Reagan`s partner Margaret Thatcher. It`s probably illegal, but what the heck. It`s just not going to happen.

GOV. JOHN KASICH (R-OH), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This is probably not maybe legal, but I would pick Mother Theresa.

BEN CARSON, FRM. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I would put my mother on there.

MIKE HUCKABEE, FRM. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I mean who else could possibly be on that money other than my wife and then that way she can spend her own money with her face.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: Women.

Just a sampling of opinions from some of the Republican presidential candidates last year when asked which woman would be on the $10 billion if they had a choice. The question has been on people`s minds since June when Treasury Secretary Jack Lew announced that a plan was in the works for a woman to be the face of American legal tender.

Today, we got confirmation of who that woman will be: abolitionist Harriet Tubman. Tubman was an escaped slave who helped hundreds of slaves escape to freedom as well. She will be the first woman to appear on American paper currency in over 100 years. Tubman will, of course, be replacing a dead white man on the currency, but not the dead white man you might be thinking. The latest twist in 60 seconds.

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JACK LEW, TREASURY SECRETARY: Harriet Tubman, who really represents what a person can do to change this country by force of their own actions and determination and dedication for her whole life, because it went from the Underground Railroad all the way to being one of the early advocates for the women`s right to vote.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: Abolitionist Harriet Tubman was always one of the favorites to replace one of the men on American paper currency. The real surprise in today`s announcements was who she`ll be replacing. Now, the original plan announced last summer was for a woman to be part of the $10 bill, but the current occupant of that bill, a man by the name of Alexander Hamilton is having a bit of a cultural moment, you may have noticed right now, thanks to Hamilton the Broadway musical.

The show`s creator Lin-Manuel Miranda even made an appeal to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew to keep Hamilton on the Hamilton.

And then there was a social media campaign, women on twenties, advocating that a woman be put on the $20 bill instead. There are more twenties in circulation. It`s what your ATM dispenses. And most importantly, the face of that bill, our country`s seventh president Andrew Jackson, oversaw a barbaric campaign of ethnic cleansing leading to the forced migration of tens of thousands of Native Americans that is a shame on our nation to this day.

This afternoon, Secretary Lew announced that the new $10 bill will keep Hamilton on the front, while the back will feature images of women who lead the suffrage fight. The $20, meanwhile, will move Andrew Jackson to the back and feature Harriet Tubman on the front.

Lew said the designs of the bills will be unveiled by 2020, the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment which gave women the right to vote, truly remarkable to think that Jackson, a slave holder, will be replaced by Tubman an escaped slave.

Even more remarkable when you consider this, a notice for a $300 reward placed by Tubman`s owner for the return of Tubman and her two brothers. $300 dollars are what will now be known as 15 Tubmans.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES: Gone apparently are the days of cheek kisses and hand holding in the U.S.-Saudi realtionship. Personified by then President George w. Bush and Saudi Arabia`s King Abdullah who died early last year.

A bit of a chill has since descended at least judging by theatrics.

Today, President Obama landed in Saudi Arabia and was greeted on the tarmac not by King Salman, but by a small delegate lead by a loyal ranking royal, the governor Riyadh. In contrast, the Persian Gulf heads of state were welcomed by King Salman personally and with far more fanfare.

And while President Obama did meet with King Salman today, there are simmering tensions between the two countries. As a possible release looms of 28 secret pages from a report detailing a 2002 congressional inquiry into the 9/11 attacks.

That section of the report investigated a possible Saudi government link to the attack and was ordered sealed by the Bush administration.

That report ultimately concluded the Saudi government was not involved in 9/11. But this redacted section of the report has fueled suspicions for years the Saudis were involved.

Joining me now, Hardin Lang, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, Middle East expert.

And Hardin, the Saudis have made noises about sort of recriminations back towards the U.S. should those pages be released or should this legislation that`s pending that would allow the Saudi government to be sued. How big an issue is this in the relationship between the two countries right now?

HARDIN LANG, CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS: Well, I mean, what`s happening here is it`s quite clear that like the politics, the domestic politics in the United States around Saudi Arabia are beginning to change. And some of that is showing up in tension in the relationship.

And coming on the back of what`s been a very difficult period in the relationship between Saudia Arabia and the United States with disagreements over Syria, disagreements over Iran nuclear deal, a whole series of issues, it`s just adding fuel to the fire particularly to the emotinal aspect of it.

HAYES: The folks that I talked to who are experts on the region say that the Gulf countries and the Saudis thinks that there`s a sort of strategic pivot towards Iran, that they`re being left behind. At the same time, in the first six years of the Obama administration the United States entered into agreements to sell over $190 billion in weapons and training to Saudi Arabia.

There`s agreements from 2015 to sell another $22 billion American manufactured and sold weapons are being used right now to pummel Yemen into submission, sometimes at the cost of huge amounts of civilian lives.

It seems to me that whatever is going on at the surface of who meet who at the airport, we are still very much strategically allied with this country.

land: i think that`s absolutely right. I mean, there`s a huge amount of emotion and time and energy that`s being spent talking about how in essence the United States has pivoted away from the Middle East, and in reality we have a tremendous amount of long-term interests in the region and our relationship with Saudi Arabia remains critical to that.

So while we do have disagreements with them, the idea somehow that we`re sort of pivoting away from the Middle East I think is overstated and I think particularly as we move into like a next administration, we are going to see an effort no matter who is president to try to like reestablish a little bit of the ground that was there before.

HAYES: Hardin Lang, thank you very much. Appreciate it.

LANG: Thank you.

HAYES: Still ahead, now that`s virtually impossible for Ted Cruz to pick up enough delegates to win before the convention, will he drop out? Probably not, well only if he takes his own advice from two weeks. That`s just after this break.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We don`t have much of a race anymore. Based on what I`m seeing on television, Senator Cruz is just about mathematically eliminated.

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HAYES: Donald Trump got that right last night, possibly a first. After he was trounced in New York, by NBC News calculations, Ted Cruz now needs to win 98 percent of the remaining delegates to win the nomination before the convention. According to the AP, Cruz has actually been mathematically eliminated from clinching before the convention. There just aren`t enough delegates left on the table.

Now, a couple of weeks ago, Ted Cruz weighed in on what a presidential candidate, like say John Kasich, should do when they`ve been mathematically elminated.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CRUZ: Well, I think any candidate that doesn`t have a path to winning, that`s the time when you should suspend your campaign and at this point Kasich has been mathematically eliminated. He needs more than 100 percent of the delegates to be the nominee. That`s obviously impossible. You can`t get more than 100 percent.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: So earlier today NBC`s Hallie Jackson asked Cruz to explain.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HALLIE JACKSON, NBC NEWS: You all but called for John Kasich to drop out when it became mathematically impossible for him to get the nomination, you`re at about at that point now. How do you square that.

CRUZ: Look, Kasich has no path to winning. He has no path to winning in Cleveland. He will not be the nominee. You cannot lose 31 states, win your home state, and expect to be sthe nominee. The nominee will be one of two people, he will either be me or Donald Trump. Nobody`s getting 1,237. Donald knows that. We`re headed to a contested convention.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: All right, joining me now Betsy Woodruff, politics reporter at The Daily Beast and MSNBC contributor Josh Barro, senior editor at Business Insider. And Betsy, this sort of encapsulates Cruz`s problem, aside from the fact that he is absolute -- that voters outside a certain regions of the country are absolutely allergic to the man.

He got decimated in New York, lost to Ben Carson in one precinct, which is my favorite factoid. He`s going to get trounced in Delaware and in Connecticut and Maryland and Rhode Island.

Aside from that, the other problem is he`s got to basically make this kind of process argument for the next seven weeks. I mean, he`s got to raise money and run a campaign that is based on this delegate acquisition as opposed to being the person winning more votes. That is hard to do.

BETSY WOODRUFF, THE DAILY BEAST: It`s such an unpleasant situation. One new talking point from Cruz that we`re hearing is he started incorporating the phrase the delegates who the people elected into his stump speeches like he`s trying to remind people when you vote for president, you`re not actually voting for president, you`re actually voting for delegates. So, even though this process is confusing and nobody who doesn`t have a poli sci degree really understands it, this is how it works and it`s all totally fine, which of course is the least and menal position ever.

Now, the other thing that`s really important with Cruz is that he has some fundraising problems. He had about a 94 percent burn rate in March. He`s spending money almost as fast as he gets it and there`s a point where that`s just not sustainable so it`s rough for him.

HAYES: This has always been the question to me, Josh, about the sort of steel and the spine of the never Trump movement, particular when their emissary is now Ted Cruz. And whether people are just going to get fed up.

Here`s Sean Hannity basically Ted Cruz getting on Sean Hannity`s last nerve trying to make a process argument. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CRUZ: Sean, the only people asking this question are the hard core Donald Trump supporters.

SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS: Why do you do this every single time? No, you`ve got to stop. Every time I have you on the air and I ask a legitimate question you try to throw this in my face. I`m getting sick of it. I`ve had you on more than any other candidate on radio and TV. So if I ask you, Senator, a legitimate question to explain to the audience, why don`t you just answer it. CRUZ: Sean, can I answer your question without being interrupted?

HANNITY: Go ahead.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: OK, the question there was why shouldn`t the person with the most votes get the nomination, which is a good question.

JOSH BARRO, BUSINESS INSIDER: Which is a good question, and a question that you don`t have to be in the tank for Donald Trump to ask.

We keep seeing this in the exit polls, a majority -- when you ask voters if nobody goes to the convention with a majority of delegates, who should get the nomination, whoever got the most votes, or the person that the delegates decide that they want to give the nomination to. And clear majorities of voters keep saying whoever won the most votes. That`s the way most normal elections work.

Bill Clinton got elected in 1992 with 43 percent of the vote, because he got more votes than anybody else.

HAYES: And no one said, well, you don`t have the magic number, we`re throwing it to the house.

BARRO: Right. And so while Ted Cruz has to make this process argument, Donald Trump is going to get to make a very simple argument, which is I got way more votes than anybody else, and they`re trying to steal the nomination from me and give it to somebody else.

And so it`s not -- it`s not seven weeks he has to do this for, it`s 14 weeks all the way until the nomination. I think it`s likely to prove untenable. And I think it`s eventually going to become clear that even if Ted Cruz succeeds in wresting the nomination from Trump, it`s going to make so many Trump supporters so angry that it`s going to make it completely untenable for Ted Cruz to even think he has a shot of winning the general election. It`s going to make a lot of his supporters wonder whether it`s even worth taking the nomination.

HAYES: Right, so there`s a personal calculation, Betsy, for Ted Cruz, which is do you want this thing? That could be so toxic by the time you acquire it, it poisons you and then the second question is do the Never Trump forces, such as they are, have the institutional and financial wherewithal to stay the course and keep with this for the next seven weeks particularly through a string of losses they might rack up next week?

WOODRUFF: It`s tough, right. I think one thing that probably is a mass overstatement is the effectiveness of #nevertrump. I mean, the reality is he`s been slowed down in a few places. He obviously hit a bump in Wisconsin. But if you dig into what the Never Trump movement has actually accomplished, they don`t have a lot of deliverables.

I mean, look at the Super PAC spending against Donald Trump going into New York, it was minuscule. It practically didn`t happen at all. Very, very little negative ads that were seriously damaging him. Even though he needed to not -- even though it would have been great or them if he hadn`t swept.

I mean, some of the brain trust behind Never Trump are the same folks who pushed for Rick Santorum to run for president in 2016. That`s who Trump is up against. And, you know, color me skeptical that there`s some grand plan that`s going to all of a sudden magically fall together in 14 weeks and is going to stop him.

I mean, it`s going to take more than sort of social conservatives who are frustrated meeting up in back rooms and saying I don`t like Trump, wow, you don`t like Trump either. Cool, high five. It`s just not enough.

HAYES: Do you agree with that?

BARRO: Yeah. And I also think there`s a reason this is not well organized, which is that people put big money in big organization in politics to elect somebody so that somebody will be in office who owes them a favor.

HAYES: That`s right. So they have power.

BARRO: Yeah, it makes it very hard to organize a campaign around not electing somebody.

HAYES: That`s exactly right. Betsy Woodruff, Josh Barro, thanks for being with me tonight.

That is ALL IN for this evening. THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW starts right now.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. END