(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST (voice-over): Tonight on ALL IN --
REPORTER: What`s your name again?
"JOHN MILLER": John Miller.
HAYES: Move over, Carlos Danger. Meet John Miller.
MILLER: He`s coming out of a marriage and he`s starting to do tremendously well financially.
HAYES: The presumptive Republican nominee today denying he posed as his own spokesperson in the `90s.
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You`re telling me about it for the first time and it doesn`t sound like my voice at all.
HAYES: Tonight, an NBC News exclusive with the reporter who talked to John Miller, "The Washington Post" reporter who broke the story, and the Trump senior adviser who says that voice is not Donald Trump.
REPORTER: I don`t think we ever reported that about Madonna and Donald --
MILLER: Well, he called and wanted to go out with him, that I can tell you.
HAYES: Plus, the Trump explosion on taxes. A look at the sordid world of Clinton conspiracies Trump is preparing to deploy.
And as the Obama administration lays down the law on bathroom discrimination, my interview with Texas lieutenant governor leading the backlash.
(CROSSTALK)
HAYES: You intervened against the superintendent --
DAN PATRICK (R), TEXAS LT. GOVERNOR: Chris, calm down --
HAYES: When ALL IN starts right now.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HAYES: Good evening from Chicago. I`m Chris Hayes.
Donald Trump appears to have been caught once again in a brazen lie on national television over something so trivial and so absurd, you have got to hear it yourself to believe it.
Trump has already set records, of course, in this campaign for the appalling inaccuracy. Many of his claims in interviews and on the campaign trail. Of all his statements raided by PolitiFact, a whooping 84 percent were ruled mostly false, false, or pants on fire. It was also much. Politifact couldn`t pick a single fabrication to call its 2015 lie of the year. Instead, that coveted title was awarded to the totality of Trump`s campaign falsehoods. Those, of course, have included everything from Mexico intentionally sending criminals and rapists into this country, Muslim Americans celebrating en masse in New Jersey on 9/11, and Ted Cruz`s father conspiring with Lee Harvey Oswald to kill JFK.
After all that, it would be hard to imagine anything Trump can say that would still be able to shock. But today, "Washington Post" published an incredible scoop, they obtained audio of a 1991 phone interview recorded by Sue Carswell, reporter for "People" magazine, with a man claiming to be Trump`s publicist going by the name John Miller. His voice and his speech patterns were eerily familiar.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
MILLER: He didn`t want to make a commitment. He really thought it was too soon. He`s coming out of a marriage, and he`s starting to do tremendously well financially. As you saw, he got his licenses five to nothing the other day and totally unanimous. And he`s really been working hard and doing well. And probably, as you know, there`s a real estate depression in the United States and he`s probably doing as well as anybody there is. And frankly, he wants to keep it that way.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
HAYES: The alleged John Miller was referring to Trump`s relationship with his then-girlfriend and future second wife, Marla Maples. And he wanted to make sure the reporter knew that Trump had plenty of other option for female companionship.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
MILLER: Frankly, he gets called by everybody. He gets called by everybody in the book, in terms of women.
SUE CARSWELL: Like who?
MILLER: Well, he gets called by a lot of people. A lot of the people that you write about, and you people do a great job by the way. But a lot of the people that you write about really are -- I mean, they call. They just call. Actresses, people that you write about just call to see if they can go out with him and things.
CARSWELL: You can`t say, like, did Madonna ever really call?
MILLER: He was so set up with that. What happened is it was a benefit at the Plaza Hotel, which he owns, for Vreeland, Diana Vreeland, or no, for Martha Graham. Madonna was in the room, and somebody from Madonna`s entourage, she comes in with an entourage of dancers and everything else, somebody from Madonna`s entourage said, would you say hello to Madonna? And he went over and said hello to Madonna, and he gave an autograph to the dancers, and that was the end of it. And then he said good-bye to her and that was literally the end. He`s got zero interest in Madonna. It was literally the end.
CARSWELL: I don`t think we ever reported that about Madonna and Donald.
MILLER: Well, she called and wanted to go out with him, that I can tell you.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
HAYES: Discussing Trump`s divorce from his wife Ivana in pretty intimate detail. The man claiming to be John Miller said he`d been brought in to handle all the ensuing press attention.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
CARSWELL: What is your position there?
MILLER: Well, I`m sort of handling PR because he gets so much of it. And frankly, I mean, I could tell you off the record. Until I get to know you, off the record, I can tell you that he didn`t care if he got bad PR until he got his divorce finshed.
So when he got a lot of the bad financial stuff, he liked it because, you know, it was good, because he could get a divorce finished. Once the divorce is finished, if you noticed since then he`s doing well financially and he`s doing well in every other way.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
HAYES: According to "The Washington Post," Trump was known among reporters and editors in New York for posing as his own spokesman under fake names to talk to the press. The name John Baron showed up in reports throughout the 1980s. In 1990, Trump reportedly testified in a court case, quote, "I believe on occasion I used that name." Trump would later give the name Baron to his son with third wife Melania.
Tonight, NBC`s Cynthia McFadden reports a reporter on the John Miller tapes, Sue Carswell, said she immediately had questions about the voice on the other end of the line.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN, NBC: At the time, Carswell suspected John Miller was, in fact, Trump himself. And she says Marla Maples confirmed it.
CARSWELL: I called Marla and played it for her. She just started to cry.
MCFADDEN: In fact, that`s the story "People" published at the time.
It`s the same thing Carswell told "Entertainment Tonight" back then.
CARSWELL: She started to cry. She was absolutely devastated.
MCFADDEN: A few weeks later, Trump she says called her and apologized for pretending to be John Miller.
CARSWELL: He told me that he was sorry that he had done this and it was at Marla`s expense.
MCFADDEN: "People" published his apology for pretending to be Mr. Miller soon after. "I`m very sorry," Donald Trump said.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Nevertheless, when the "Today" show played the tape for Trump in a phone interview this morning, the GOP`s presumptive nominee vehemently denied it was him.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SAVANNAH GUTHRIE, NBC NEWS: Is it you?
TRUMP: No, I don`t think it -- I don`t know anything about it. You`re telling me about it for the first time and it doesn`t sound like my voice at all. I have many, many people that are trying to imitate my voice. And you can imagine that. And this sounds like one of the scams, one of the many scams.
It was not me on the phone. It was not me on the phone. And it doesn`t sound like me on the phone. I will tell you that. And it was not me on the phone.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Later this afternoon, a political correspondent for "The Post" tweeted "Washington Post" reporters were 44 minutes into a phone interview with Trump about his finances when they asked about John Miller. The phone went silent, then dead.
Joining me now, "Washington Post" senior editor Marc Fisher, one of the reporters who broke the story about Trump`s alter ego.
Marc, how did this all come about? Where did you get the tape?
MARC FISHER, SR. EDITOR, THE WASHINGTON POST: Well, we`ve been doing some reporting on this whole question of the Trump masquerading as John Miller or John Baron. And we`ve spoken to a number of reporters and editors in New York who received those calls, as well as Trump Organization executives who had heard Donald Trump making those calls from his office.
But then I got a call from an old friend who said, would you be interested in a tape recording of Donald Trump making such a call? And naturally, I said yes, and was connected to someone who provided me with this tape. The source is someone who received the original micro cassette of that phone interview with the "People" magazine reporter back in 1991 when the reporter gave it to the source.
And so, that`s what we received this week. And obviously, you hear much more in that recording than you would know just from hearing reporters say, hey, Donald Trump used to call us under an assumed name.
HAYES: So my understanding of this is that reporters at the time knew this was a thing he did. I just want to be clear. This was not a common practice among folks back then, right?
FISHER: No.
HAYES: This is as unusual as it strikes me, right?
FISHER: Yes, this is not something that most reporters would ever run across over the course of a career. But back in the `80s, a little bit in the `70s and `90s as well, a number of reporters and editors at New York newspapers would get these calls from Donald Trump masquerading as usually John Baron, this name John Miller who was much less familiar, but John Baron would call, he would either be promoting something Trump was doing that evening or wanted to talk up some woman who supposedly had the hots for Donald Trump.
And they were so used to these calls that they became a joke on the city desks of some of the newspapers in New York. Now, some people were disturbed by these calls and thought they were dishonest. Others thought they were just Trump being playful.
HAYES: Just to be clear, one of the common themes it seems of these calls, certainly the call we have, is Trump pretending, it appears pretending to be someone else, to call up reporters to tell them at length how many women were interested in him.
FISHER: And this was something that a number of the reporters we spoke to and a number of the former Trump organization executives we spoke to were quite disturbed by. The way the assumed name person, John Miller, John Baron, would talk about the women who were supposedly interested in Trump. It would seem to them disturbing to hear him go into great detail about the interest these women had and how Trump either was reciprocating or not.
If you listen to the recording, you get this sense of John Miller sitting there, rather enjoying describing Madonna in her combat boots or some of the other women who are mentioned in the recording.
HAYES: All right. Marc Fisher, thanks a lot. Very good reporting, appreciate it.
FISHER: Thanks.
HAYES: I`m joined now by Barry Bennett, senior advisor to the Trump campaign.
So, Mr. Bennett, let me start with this. Would you say that if that were a practice that Donald Trump gained in, pretending to be his own spokesperson to boast about women being interested in him, that would be a weird thing to do?
BARRY BENNETT, TRUMP CAMPAIGN: Nothing can be weirder than this entire story, tell you the truth.
HAYES: Well, the story originates with the practice. I mean, that`s the egg and this is the chicken.
BENNETT: "The Washington Post," a major newspaper, is writing a story about a recorded phone call with a "People" magazine reporter 25 years ago. Good Lord.
You know, people are hurting, the deficit is mounting, government can`t do anything and we`re talking about a "People" magazine article? Good Lord. You know, if we can`t -- surely we can find something more serious to talk about.
HAYES: Sure. Well, let`s talk about something more serious. Here`s the reason I think this has terrible essentially been brought forth. There have been a variety of claims that Donald Trump has made throughout the campaign that have been definitively debunked and refuted. He seems to skate away from that. He says Mexico is intentionally sending criminals, that`s not true. He says people were cheering --
(CROSSTALK)
BENNETT: Whoa, whoa, whoa, what do you mean they`re not intentionally sending criminals?
HAYES: Mexico is not intentionally sending criminals to the United States.
BENNETT: I can show you footage of drug runners crossing the border every night.
HAYES: You think the Mexican government is intentionally sending criminals to the U.S.
BENNETT: The Mexican government is complicit, they turn the other way and let the cartels rule, yes.
HAYES: What the Arab-Americans supposedly celebrating en masse 9/11, you believe that`s true even though that`s been definitely debunked?
BENNETT: Arabs celebrated all over the world, I have no idea whether it was in New Jersey or not.
HAYES: But your boss, Mr. Trump, made that claim repeatedly despite all evidence to the contrary. There`s no tape of that to definitively prove it. This seems to be a smoking gun that stands in for a pattern of carelessness with respect to the truth.
BENNETT: This is a smoking gun? Oh my God. This is ridiculous.
HAYES: Isn`t it?
BENNETT: Of what? A "People" magazine reporter from 1991? Oh my God. He says it`s not his voice. I don`t know. I don`t know if that`s his voice or not. You don`t know either.
HAYES: But that`s the point is that someone who just seems to willing to lie about something so trivial --
BENNETT: Whoa, whoa, whoa.
HAYES: -- strikes one --
BENNETT: You can`t call it a lie. You have no idea what the truth is. You can`t accuse someone of lying. That`s over the bounds. That`s not journalism.
HAYES: OK. So let me ask you this.
BENNETT: Uh-huh?
HAYES: A pattern of statements that have shown to be false, that then are repeatedly asserted in the face of being shown to be false, how do you characterize that? Is that carelessness with the truth?
BENNETT: I don`t have the same love you have for political fact, first of all. Second of all, you know, there`s scale, somewhat there`s integrity, I question a great deal. We can argue about any of those statements you want. But I mean, Good Lord, this is ridiculous.
HAYES: Mr. Bennett, the world is the world. The reporter was called by Mr. Trump, who apologized for doing this. We`re trying to establish this tiny little epistemic corner of the universe that we can all get on the same page and say "x" happened and it seems impossible to get Mr. Trump to come along with that.
BENNETT: Well, I`m sorry it doesn`t fit the fact pattern of what you believe. I mean, that`s where we are, OK? I don`t care what happened 25 years ago. You know what, 25 years ago our national debt was about $5 trillion instead of $20 trillion. I care a lot more about that.
HAYES: Do you think it is important to people the degree to which a candidate for office cares or even knows the difference between the truth and something false?
BENNETT: Who do the voters think is the least trustworthy and honest? Is it Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton?
HAYES: Donald Trump currently has the highest favorables in the history that we have of candidates running for office.
BENNETT: Actually, he and Hillary have exactly the same positives and negatives.
HAYES: They do not. He`s 10 points higher.
BENNETT: Whoa, whoa, whoa, you can`t argue mathematics. Look at the last five polls. That`s exactly the truth.
HAYES: That -- I was suspecting that`s going to turn out to be as true as mass Arabs celebrating 9/11.
BENNETT: PPP. Rasmussen. Reuters.
HAYES: All right.
BENNETT: You can go back and look at them. I`ll send them to you.
HAYES: Thank you, Dr. Bennett, Mr. Bennett.
BENNETT: See you.
HAYES: Still to come, the intense reaction to the president`s directive on bathroom discrimination. The lieutenant governor of Texas is leading the backlash. He joined me for a contentious interview. You don`t want to miss it.
But, first, new reporting on Donald Trump`s plan to mainstream fringe conspiracy theorists who attack Hillary Clinton. That story is right after this break. Be back in two minutes.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: As you can tell from that last interview, the Trump campaign likes a sort of oppositional stance toward the media, that is, of course, when they`re not cultivating it. Just as a little fact check, if you have Google, you can look up those last five polls in the favorable and unfavorable and see what the truth actually is.
Now, Donald Trump has a new opponent in his sights. Last night, the presumptive nominee suggested recriminations against Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, and "Washington Post," which is owned by Bezos.
Trump`s thinly veiled threat came after FOX News` Sean Hannity asked about a team of "The Post" reporters like the one we interviewed in the first block, assigned to research Trump`s life and publish a biography on him.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Every hour we`re getting calls from reporters at "The Washington Post" asking ridiculous questions. And I will tell you, this is owned as a toy by Jeff Bezos who controls Amazon. Amazon is getting way with murder tax-wise. And what they`ve done is he bought this paper for practically nothing, and he`s using that as a tool for political power against me and against other people. I`ll tell you what, we can`t let him get away with it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: This kind of vindictive approach seems to be par for the course for Trump, especially in regards to the media. He`s promised to open up libel laws so he can sue the press. His campaign has been accused of keeping a media blacklist.
"Mother Jones" reports that over the course of this presidential race, the Trump campaign at one point or another has banned publications that included "The National Review", "The Des Moines Register," "Univision", "BuzzFeed", "Daily Beast", Fusion", "The Huffington Post", and "Mother Jones.
There`s a certain sector of the media Donald Trump appears to love, the ones willing to say the most outlandish things. Which may explain Trump`s lunch this week with author Ed Klein, perhaps best known for his anti- Clinton smear books.
Here`s how "The Daily Beast`s" Olivia Nuzzi describes the reporting in one of Klein`s recent books about the Clintons blood feud. Quote, "Unless Klein wired his sources and his sources were Bill and Hillary Clinton, none of this is likely to be even kind of true. It`s possible Klein is a fabulist or it`s possible he has terrible sources. It`s also possible he`s a looney toon and the multiple sources he`s interviewed upward of 70 times each are all in his head."
Joining me, Alex Seitz-Wald, MSNBC political reporter.
Alex, you`ve been reporting on the Clinton camp, and I just wonder how much they are thinking about, prepared for, the sort of vast right-wing conspiracy sorts of stories to start circulating that Hillary Clinton, you know, famously talked about in the late `90s?
ALEX SEITZ-WALD, MSNBC POLITICAL REPORTER: Right. Well, Chris, it was Hillary Clinton who invented the term "vast right-wing conspiracy." So, you know, this is the kind of environment that they`ve been operating in for decades. And a lot of these conspiracy theories that are being dredged back up again by Roger Stone and Robert Murrow and Ed Klein are stuff that`s been floating out there since the 1990s, since the Clinton White House.
So, you know, they have a very large communications team, very large apparatus up in Brooklyn that is going to do a lot of swatting this down. They had some practice in 2014, 2015, with a couple of earlier Clinton books that came out from other conservative authors. But, you know, it`s just going to get cranked up to 11 as they say.
And with Donald Trump, you know, he`s willing to go out and say anything, do anything. And Clinton aides I`ve talked to have acknowledged that`s a challenge. You know, you wake up every morning, have no idea what he`s going to throw out there, how you`re going to go after it.
HAYES: Part of it is it`s news what the candidate says, no matter how untrue what they say is. You cover what they say, which as a sort of way of introducing all sorts of things into the discourse. Here`s -- Roger Stone has been interviewing spruce to conspiracy extraordinaire, Alex Jones of Info Wars, almost every day.
Here he is suggesting Hillary Clinton might kill him. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROGER STONE: If in a couple of weeks they tell you that I committed suicide because I was depressed, or if I get hit by a truck bus in the street --
ALEX JONES, INFO WARS: Or struck by a boat of lightning.
STONE: Or tell you I was killed in a freak hunting accident, don`t believe it. Hillary Clinton`s the major perp and she needs to be -- she needs to be exposed.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: That`s one of Trump`s senior advisers.
SEITZ-WALD: I mean, Donald Trump is the king of "just saying." He can take any one of these myriad things in his books, from Hillary Clinton is a lesbian, Bill Clinton is a cocaine dealer, you know, just wild, wild stuff. He could throw any one of these out and buy himself an entire news cycle worth of coverage and then immediately step back and just say, you know, this is just what I`ve heard, it`s out there, it`s on the Internet, it`s being reported, it`s in this book, I don`t actually believe this.
Like he did with Ted Cruz saying that his father was involved in the JFK assassination, which is something that I never expected to hear on a presidential campaign trail. Trump is very good at this. He knows how to pull these things out. He knows how to operate.
HAYES: All right. Alex Seitz-Wald, many thanks.
SEITZ-WALD: Thanks.
HAYES: Donald Trump gets testy over his taxes saying what he pays is none of your business. So, what, if anything, is he trying to hide? Ahead, one of the very few reporters on others the planet who might have the answer.
And up next, the Obama administration issues a directive on bathroom access for transgender students, a move the Texas lieutenant governor claims will destroy public education. My conversation with the man leading the conservative backlash is coming right up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LORETTA LYNCH, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: No matter how isolated, no matter how afraid, no matter how alone you may feel today, know this: that the Department of Justice and indeed the entire Obama administration want you to know that we see you. We stand with you. And we will do everything we can to protect you going forward.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Just days after Attorney General Loretta Lynch gave what is by far the most sweeping defense of equal rights for transgender people in the history of the American federal government, in a speech announcing the Justice Department would be counter suing to keep the North Carolina transgender bathroom law from going into effect, the Obama administration today took another big stance for transgender rights, sending a letter to every public school district in America warning them they should allow transgender students to use bathrooms consistent with their chosen gender identity or risk losing federal funding.
Many conservatives expressed outrage over the transgender directive to public schools with a chorus led by Texas lieutenant governor and former conservative talk show host, Dan Patrick, who called for the resignation of the superintendent of the Ft. Worth independent school district over guidelines which stipulated that students must have access to restrooms consistent with the gender identity each student consistently and uniformly asserts.
Patrick this morning claimed the president was seeking to blackmail Texas over policy he cast as one that forced boys and girls to shower together.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PATRICK: I believe it is the biggest issue facing families and schools in America since prayer was taken out of public schools.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Right after this, my very contentious interview with Dan Patrick on this issue. You don`t want to miss it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PATRICK: You leave it up to the parents and the community. You leave it up to the elected school board. You leave it up to the superintendent. The mistake the Ft. Worth superintendent made, he didn`t talk to the parents, he didn`t have hearings --
HAYES: You wouldn`t leave it up to the superintendent though --
PATRICK: No, I don`t --
HAYES: You intervened against the superintendent.
PATRICK: Chris, Chris, calm down.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: A short time ago I had a somewhat heated conversation with Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick who earlier today vowed to forego federal funding for low-income Texas students if that`s what it took to defy an Obama administration directive that school districts allow transgender students to use bathrooms consistent with their chosen gender identity.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PATRICK: I believe you`re going to see an explosion of home schools if this prevails. Parents are going to look for private schools. Parents are not going to send their 14-year-old daughters into the shower, into the bathroom, with 14-year-old boys. Not going to happen.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: I want to start making sure that everyone`s understanding each other about what exactly -- what does the term mean to you? When you`re transgender, what does that mean to you, Lieutenant Governor?
PATRICK: Well, Chris, I`m explaining it to you because the interpretation the Obama administration has is that they see transgender as someone who perceives that they are of a different sex, maybe they want -- it depends what part of the transition you`re talking about, by the way. Someone goes through a transition possibly, they may already have done the transition. You don`t know that. Someone may be thinking they`re another sex.
So title IX is about the sex that you were when you were born. And what Loretta Lynch and the Obama administration, the superintendent, are talking about is they see a transgender person is it`s the sex they would either like to be or believe they are.
And title IX doesn`t cover a transgender. Title IX talks about the sex that you are. So transgender, which is about three-tenths of 1 percent of the population, no one knows for sure, but it`s very small, are people who are born of one sex and either want to be, feel they are, it just depends. I can`t give you the definition for every transgender person.
So there`s your answer to the question.
HAYES: So, but let me ask you this so people that are born biologically to a certain sex and feel identified strongly with a different gender than that biological sex, my question to you is, just starting with that, do you think that is a genuine phenomenon and there are people that genuinely feel that, or do you think this is essentially a fabricated issue?
PATRICK: No. I don`t think it`s a fabricated issue, Chris. First of all, and just so you know a little bit about me as chair of education in the state, we make accommodations for lots of students for lots of reasons. We have 6 million students in Texas schools.
And so if a child, however you want to define it, wherever they are -- and particularly with a child, whether they`re 8 or 14, it may be difficult to tell.I assume they`re being sincere. I take them at their word that they`re sincere about that, and we make accommodations today, Chris, for them. Our schools figure this out.
HAYES: What percentage of complaint in the state of Texas or in Ft. Worth, what percentage of complaints that come from students and parents initiate due to this specific issue that you have now devoted so much time to? What percentage of those...
PATRICK: Chris, I just feel you`re kind of hostile to the issue. I`m just having a discussion here with you. You don`t have to kind of take me on. i`m just answering questions, trying to explain why this so damaging.
HAYES: No, no, but...
PATRICK: Chris, here`s the deal...
HAYES: No, but seem very convinced that this issue -- and I would like to know what percentage of those complaints originate from this?
PATRICK: What complaints have we had from transgender students that they need to actually have to go in the bathroom with a girl, or with a boy if it`s the other way around?
Here`s the bottom line, Chris. This creates total chaos in the schools. You`re going to have 8-year-old girls who are going to go home and say, mom, I don`t want to be in that bathroom with that boy, or a 15-year-old girl, I don`t want that boy coming in and playing on our basketball team and showering with us, because this is what it would allow.
HAYES: So they should.
PATRICK: So, you don`t change the whole school system, you don`t go against the values...
HAYES: So, what do you do? What`s the solution?
PATRICK: I`m a grandfather and a father, and I don`t want my kids or grand kids commingling in the bathroom or the shower and I think most don`t. And we`re not going to let Barack Obama blackmail us...
HAYES: What`s the solution, sir?
PATRICK: With 30 pieces of silver and threaten to take away our funding. if he wants to do that that`s going to be his call. And by the way, Chris, this is what Obama doesn`t even understand. He says he`s going to threaten to take away, our money which is $10 billion in Texas over two years. Most of that is for reduced lunch -- free and reduced lunch and breakfast. So, the poorest of the poor would lose their federal nutrition program because the president is unhappy with a school that doesn`t follow his mandate.
HAYES: So, then what is the solution?
PATRICK: The solution is what is happening today in America.
First of all, Chris, the president has no business in the schoolhouse...
HAYES: The solution...
PATRICK: So you leave it up to the parents...
HAYES: I just ask you what`s the solution? What`s the solution?
PATRICK: Chris, Chris, I`m answering your question.
First of all, you leave it up to the parents of the community. You leave it up to the elected school board. You leave it up to the superintendent. The mistake that the Ft. Worth superintendent made, he didn`t talk to the parents, he didn`t have any hearings...
HAYES: You wouldn`t leave it up to the superintendent though. When...
PATRICK: No, I don`t because...
HAYES: You intervened against the superintendent.
PATRICK: Chris, Chris, calm down.
Look, Chris. The point I`m making is local control is when people actually get a chance to vote and have their voice heard. He -- the superintendent did not take it to the board. There was no vote. The people never testified on it.
Had they, they would have rejected...
HAYES: Substantively...
PATRICK: OK, here`s the answer, Chris.
HAYES: So, what`s the solution?
PATRICK: So, the solution is what Keller ISD and school districts are doing all over the country for any child, whether it`s a child who may be a dyslexic or have a disability or has a nutrition issue or can`t eat certain food in the cafeteria, I can go down the list, who was partially blind. We -- in the school system as big as we have, there are all kinds of students who have special needs and schools make accommodation. They don`t turn the whole school upside down. They say, OK.
HAYES: So they can go to a separate bathroom?
PATRICK: They can go to a separate bathroom, absolutely.
And the president in his guidelines, by the way, say that`s not good enough. The president says that`s not good enough that separate bathrooms don`t matter.
HAYES: I understand there are parents who genuinely 1,000 percent feel your view, they may be the majority of parents in Ft. Worth, they may be the majority of parents in Texas, they may be the majority of parents in America...
I`m a parent myself with two children.
PATRICK: Probably like 80 percent, 90 percent.
HAYES: I don`t feel that way. I`m a parent of children...
PATRICK: Well, you`re in the 20 percent that doesn`t -- you have the right to your opinion.
HAYES: Let me ask you this.
PATRICK: Yes, sir.
HAYES: Can I ask you this, so put yourself in the position of being one of those children or the parents of them. And I want to ask, what have you learned from all your conversations with trans students and trans parents and trans teachers? What have you learned from those conversations about their concerns?
PATRICK: Sure, let me tell you what. I`ve been on the board of a charity for children with disabilities in schools since 1988. I have been in the senate on the senate education committee for eight years. I was chair of education and now I`m lieutenant governor. And the truth is I`ve never had a transgender parent or student, until this week, ever contact me personally about an issue or that they had a problem that I ever recall. It has not been an issue.
It is again maybe .03 percent. Many schools may not have an transgender...
HAYES: So, you`ve come to this position without talking to them?
PATRICK: Chris, no, Ie come to this position without any -- without it ever being an issue from anyone. And I have talked to transgender. Up to today, no one`s brought it up as an issue. Schools have dealt with it, parents have dealt with it. They`ve kept it private, they haven`t made an issue.
So, I have a lot of experience on this, Chris, more than you do, more than Josh Earnest does, more than Barack Obama does.
And here`s what I know, school decisions and community decisions are left to the parents and left to the school board. It`s not to be controlled by the president of the United States.
We`re not going to take his 30 pieces of silver and have him take over the students in our state and take over the children across this country. It is not right, Chris.
If you can`t get -- now I respect you may have a different view. But if you can`t understand that 70 percent to 80 percent of the parents don`t want a 14-year-old boy and a 14-year-old girl showering together or don`t want boy in the girls` room, girls in the boys` room, if you can`t understand that, that`s fine, but at least respect the fact that an overwhelming majority of Americans don`t agree with this policy.
And the president, this is the biggest issue for public schools and parents since they took prayer out of public schools. It`s a big issue, Chris. And it`s just the reality. It`s going to be a big issue in the presidential campaign, by the way. Hillary supports it, Trump doesn`t. This probably will cost Hillary the election.
HAYES: I would respectfully submit that there might be bigger issues in education...
PATRICK: There`s no bigger issue when you tell a parent how their child should be educated.
HAYES: Thank you, sir.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HAYES: If you want to watch the full 12 minutes of my interview with Texas lieutenant governor Dan Patrick, it`s up on our website. And I want to thank him for the extended conversation. It was excellent to have that exchange.
Joining me now, former democratic Texas state senator and gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis who hails from Ft. Worth. And IU wanted to have you on because I`m curious how this is playing in Texas right now, because I get the sense from talking to Lieutenant Governor Patrick, from Ted Cruz`s campaign trail rhetoric, that conservatives, a, believe what they`re saying, first order. But also think they`ve got a winning political issue on their hands right now. Is that the sense you get?
WENDY DAVIS, TEXAS GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: I think it`s much more the latter than the former, Chris. They feel like they`ve got a winning political issue on their hands. And I found it so striking today to see Dan Patrick get up and grandstand in the news conference that he held, talking about those 30 pieces of silver and the intrusions of the federal government.
We have some real problems here in Texas. We have a dramatically underfunded school system here. We lost a little girl not long ago in Grand Prairie because our child protective services is so dramatically underfunded.
The Texas legislature cut $400 million from disabled children receiving therapeutic services. You didn`t see Dan Patrick stand up and hold a news conference on any of those issues because he was a part of all of that underfunding and supporting that underfunding.
If he really cared about children in this state, those are the things that he`d be talking about. They`ve picked what they believe is a hot political issue and they`re going to drive it as far as they can.
HAYES: Did you say $400 million they cut?
DAVIS: Yes.
HAYES: That`s a lot of money.
DAVIS: Yes. It was a tremendous amount of money. And there was a huge backlash from the parents of these students who were receiving those services in Texas, the children who were receiving those services and still that went forward. There`s a lawsuit going on about it right now.
So when he gets up -- and I know him very, very well. I served with him for a number of years. I know that he is very good at capturing the camera when he believes he has an issue that will be politically beneficial to him. And that`s what this is all about.
But Chris, I`ve read that letter. The letter from the Obama administration was a letter clarifying, because so many school districts were seeking clarification on this issue, what the requirements of title IX are. And yes, title IX, if it is violated, there can be a consequence of school funding. But there was nothing in the letter that talked about or threatened to remove funding from schools based on the clarification that the letter provided.
It simply laid out what the law was under title IX. And that this kind of discrimination cannot be had. And there was guidance given to school districts on what title IX would require them to do for students based on their own gender identity, no differently than they would have to comply with title IX based on not discriminating in a girls` sports program, for example.
That`s why title IX exists. And the Obama administration is within its rights to interpret it and to provide guidance to school districts, particularly because so many of them have been asking for that guidance.
HAYES: You know, it strikes me one of the things that`s been glossed over is that in the policy of the Ft. Worth school district where you hail from and where the lieutenant governor has seen fit to intervene, the policy is the gender identity of the student consistently and uniformly identifies, which is to say this idea that has been conjured of essentially some tricksterism, of some predatory fakery to get into the opposite gender bathroom, is itself not germane to what the policy says.
DAVIS: Exactly.
What they know is that they`re playing on fear, right. And they know that`s been a successful strategy. We saw it happen in Houston with the defeat of an ordinance to protect sexual orientation identity and transgender identity there. And they`re trying the same thing here, because they know it`s a winning message.
HAYES: Wendy Davis, thank you for your time tonight, really appreciate it.
DAVIS: Thanks, Chris.
HAYES: Still to come, what could be in Donald Trump`s taxes that he wouldn`t want the public to know about. Could it be the part about the goats? I`ll explain just ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: Google Streetview is pretty cool. From anywhere you are you can just click to see these huge panoramic swaths of the world from mountains to houses, all gathered essentially by hand with hundreds of cameras attached to cars, bikes, snowmobiles, even people`s heads.
Here`s a Google Streetview bike taking in the sights in Paris. Here`s a Google Streetview snowmobile getting a 360-degree view on a mountain in Switzerland. And here`s the more familiar Google Streetview car cruising around California.
The cars, which had been spotted all over the world, have been known to capture some pretty interesting things like this nice man sitting outside a restaurant with what appears to be an alpaca, or these two guys duking it out on the side of the road with some swords.
Now many people and countries have expressed major privacy concerns with Google Streetview, but some get a kick out of the cars and their surveillance, giving a thumbs up, which of course also gets recorded. It`s fun to wave at the Google mobile.
But if you see this particular car, maybe it`s best to keep on walking. Because while this car spotted in Philadelphia certainly looks like a Google streetcar, it is most certainly not. And what it actually is will creep you out. I`ll tell you in 60 seconds.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: Earlier this week, Matt Blaze (ph), a University of Pennsylvania professor, came across something odd in Philadelphia. He noticed this SUV, which as you can see has a Google Maps decal on the window and tweeted, "wtf? Pennsylvania state police license plate reader SUV camouflaged as Google Street view vehicle?
Pennsylvania state police said it was not theirs. And Google told Vice`s motherboard it definitely wasn`t their car either saying, we can confirm this is not a Google maps car and that we are currently looking into the matter.
The plot thickens, the car did not belong to the Pennsylvania state police, it did not belong to Google. So, who could it be? Well, it turns out it belonged to another law enforcement agency in the state, the Philadelphia Police Department. And it`s not just any police department vehicle, it is a police surveillance vehicle masquerading for some totally unclear reason as a Google Streetview car.
The spokesperson for the Philadelphia Police Department addressed the mystery telling the AP today that no one was authorized by the department to place the decal on the van. It appeared officers were "being creative."
The decal has been removed and an inquiry is forthcoming.
(COMMERICAL BREAK)
HAYES: Today, Donald Trump said something that would be pretty much unthinkable coming out of the mouth of any other presidential candidate. When asked what his tax rate is he answered, it`s none of your business.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: So I fight very hard to pay as little tax as possible.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC NEWS: So, what is your tax rate?
TRUMP: It`s none of your business. You`ll see it when I release. But I fight very hard to pay as little tax as possible.
HAYES: As to when it will become the public`s business to know, Trump says he hopes to release his tax returns before the election.
He also continues to insist he can`t release his tax returns until an IRS audit is complete. That is not true, he absolutely can release tax returns during an audit, as Richard Nixon did actually. And the pressure is mounting.
As for Trump boasting that he fights hard to pay as little tax as possible it has been suggested that a low effective tax rate might be one thing, but not the only thing he`s trying to hide.
Today in The New York Times opinion piece, wall street executive Steven Ratner places some of the more interesting tax breaks Trump has availed himself of.
He installed goats on two of his New Jersey golf courses as part of a plan to get them designated as agricultural properties thereby vastly lowering his property taxes. And, indeed, here`s the picture of some of the goats which along with some hay farmer and some wood cutting, according to The Wall Street Journal, allowed Trump to get a farmland tax break on two golf courses.
Now, Trump is clearly within his rights to take whatever tax breaks he`s legally entitled to, but as expressed by conservative John Fund, a political party that nominates Trump without seeing his tax returns could be committing political suicide and endangering dozens of down-ballot GOP candidates.
Up next, one of the very few journalists who may be actually to figure out exactly what we might be missing in Donald Trump`s tax records will join me live. Don`t go anywhere.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: So I fight very hard to pay as little tax as possible.
STEPHANOPOULOS: What is your tax rate?
TRUMP: It`s that`s none of your business. You`ll see it when I release. But I fight very hard to pay as little tax as possible.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: All right, joining me now, Syracuse University law lecturer, columnist for USA Today and David Cay Johnston who has been writing and reporting on taxes for decades.
And David, let`s start with this question. I mean, why does it matter? Why is it the case that it has become a norm that candidates release their tax returns? And what do we learn from them?
DAVID CAY JOHNSTON, SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY: Well, because we have an unindicted tax felon in the White House in Richard Nixon whose tax guy went to prison, and we had a confessed tax felon one heartbeat away in Spiro Agnew who plead guilty, and we don`t want to have criminals running the United States government.
HAYES: So what are the big questions that you have as someone who`s gone through a lot of tax returns, been through the tax returns of previous candidates? The big questions you would have about a Donald Trump tax return?
JOHNSTON: Well, I suspect most importantly that Donald does not pay income taxes. If he owns anywhere near the real estate he claims, there`s a special rule congress adopted for full-time real estate professionals that allows them to live tax-free. And if that`s the case, I actually think Donald could turn that into a positive by saying, hey, I should be paying big taxes, you`re being heavily taxed, put me in Washington, get rid of those corrupt congressmen and senators, and we`ll fix this.
Another distinct possibility is that Donald has income from very unsavory sources that would be very disturbing to us, people he has business associations with. We know he`s had long-term relationships with all sorts of unsavory characters -- mobsters, mob associates, convicted trafficker. He may be engaged in a lot of offshore activity to avoid taxes that he`d rather not people know about.
I suspect it will show no gifts to charity since he`s given nothing to the Donald Trump Foundation for ten years and it`s primarily funded by people who have business contracts with him.
There may also be a big mismatch in his tax returns. He`s been pictured with documents up to here. Donald has in the past reported one set of numbers here and a different set of numbers here to advantage himself and gotten away with it. And so he says he`s audited every year for 12 years? That doesn`t happen to people. If it`s actually happened, it suggests that there are serious problems with his tax returns, Chris.
HAYES: Yeah, I was curious about that, too, when I first heard him say that. Because it seems like a strange thing to make up, because if you are making it up, it`s a thing that doesn`t seem to reflect well on you, getting audited 12 years in a row.
Like, is that is a plausible thing that you would be audited 12 years in a row?
JOHNSTON: Only if he`s really engaged in some aggressive and disturbing behaviors. But remember, Donald says things all the time that have no relation to reality. He admitted under oath that he used the name John Baron in phone calls. And today on national television he says, that`s not me, doesn`t even sound like me. Of course it sounds like him.
Donald lives in a world where he creates his own reality. And he makes things up and lies all the time.
HAYES: What about this idea -- I mean, we talked about Nixon releasing when he was in the White House, the idea that you`re barred from releasing if you are under audit that year?
JOHNSTON: Absolute nonsense.
And furthermore, let`s see the tax returns for the ten years before the current audits.
He`s indicated 2012, `13, `14 are under audit, fine. Let`s see 2000 through 2011. Those aren`t under audit anymore.
But it is absolute nonsense. And I`d like to see the tax lawyer who says otherwise. You file your tax return under penalty of perjury. That statement at the bottom called a jurat is a statement where you attest that it is a proper, honest, and accurate return. And if Donald`s returns are honest and accurate, what`s he worried about?
I have no influence on how the IRS audits him, assuming he`s actually under audit, and we don`t know that.
HAYES: is there any way to know that?
JOHNSTON: No. I think we should have Congress pass a law that says, once you are nominated for president by any major party, you`ve got to show your taxes, for years.
HAYES: I guess this whole thing could be fixed statutorily.
David Cay Johnston, thanks for your time. Appreciate it.
JOHNSTON: Thank you, Chris.
HAYES: All right. That does it from the Windy City. 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