Show: ALL IN with CHRIS HAYES Date: June 10, 2016 Guest: Catherine Rampell, Josh Barro, Cornell Belcher, Mark Cuban
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CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST (voice-over): Tonight on ALL IN --
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESUMPTIVE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: No one should be judged by their race or their color --
HAYES: Donald Trump takes on Donald Trump.
TRUMP: He`s a Mexican.
HAYES: As top Republicans openly vent.
REP. PAUL RYAN (R-WI), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: I think there`s no justifying those comments.
HAYES: Tonight, the first Trump rally since Democrats united against him.
Plus, Hillary Clinton meets Elizabeth Warren as Democrats keep punching.
HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESUMPTIVE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Donald assures us that as president, he`ll be and I quote again, "the best for women".
HAYES: Then, Mark Cuban on what he says Donald Trump is hiding.
MARK CUBAN, BILLIONAIRE BUSINESSMAN: He can`t afford to self-finance no matter what he says.
HAYES: And the next great documentary series you`ll be hooked on.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What we did that day is created an illusion. We made him blacker.
HAYES: The director behind "O.J.: Made in America" -- when ALL IN starts right now.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HAYES: Good evening from New York. I`m Chris Hayes.
And there is a lot going on tonight. And there`s been a lot going on all week.
So, at this hour, we are waiting for Donald Trump to emerge in that Richmond, Virginia, auditorium for his first campaign rally since Hillary Clinton effectively clinched the Democratic nomination.
Now, that arena holds about 12,000 and it`s got about 2,000 in it. It`s a very sparse crowd by the Donald Trump standard. There you go, perfect.
This is a hugely important moment for Trump who continues to come under sustained fire from major figures in the Republican Party even as top Democrats are in the process of unifying around their presumptive nominee.
Now, Clinton met with Senator Elizabeth Warren for over an hour today. That`s Warren leaving Clinton`s house this morning in Washington, D.C. one day after President Obama, Vice President Warren -- Vice President Biden and Warren all endorsed Clinton with Warren and Biden unleashing absolutely scorching attacks against Trump in the process.
Meanwhile, Trump is absorbing more shots from his party leadership with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refusing to rile out rescinding his endorsement of Trump and stating, this is a fantastic quote, "It`s pretty obvious he doesn`t know a lot about the issues."
House Speaker Paul Ryan today said he personally reprimanded Trump over his remarks about the federal court judge overseeing one of the several lawsuits against Trump University for fraud, which Ryan has called the textbook definition of a racist comment.
And former GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney will not go away and will not stop haunting Trump. He said just a short time ago that he worries that Trump effectively creates racism.
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MITT ROMNEY (R), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don`t want to see trickle-down racism. I don`t want to see a president of the United States saying things which change the character of the generations of Americans that are following. Presidents have an impact on the nature of our nation. And trickle-down racism, trickle-down bigotry, trickle-down misogyny, all these things are extraordinarily dangerous to the heart and character of America.
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HAYES: Trump this afternoon courted evangelicals, the Faith and Freedom Coalition Conference in Washington, where he sought to counter claims that he is racist.
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TRUMP: Freedom of any kind means no one should be judged by their race or their color and the color of their skin should not be judged that way.
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HAYES: Trump also told "The Washington Post", he is, quote, "the least racist person", pointing as evidence to an endorsement from boxing promoter Don King. "Now, Don King knows racism probably better than anybody. He`s not endorsing a racist, OK?"
But even as Donald Trump seeks to break with the words and deeds of, well, Donald Trump, from definitely days ago, some members of his party seem to be embracing the sort of incendiary rhetoric that is of course a core part of Trump`s success and appeal.
Republican Senator David Perdue of Georgia today faced a flurry of Democratic outrage for this comment at the Faith and Freedom conference.
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SEN. DAVID PERDUE (R), GEORGIA: I think we`re called to pray for our country, for our leaders, and yes, even our president in his role as president. I think we should pray for Barack Obama. I think we need to be very specific about how we pray. We should pray like Psalms 109:8 says, "Let his days be few." And let another have his office.
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HAYES: Now Psalms 109:8 has become a bit of a meme on the right, appearing on t-shirts, and bumper stickers and billboards as far back as 2009. It`s been called a secret Christian code for "kill the president". That`s probably a little overheated.
But here`s the thing, the passage specifically cited reads let his days be few and let another take his office. The passage that follows in that Saul many, let his children are fatherless and his wife a widow, let his children be continually vagabonds and beg, let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places. Let the extortioner catch all that he hath, and let the strangers spoil his labour, there be none to extend mercy unto him, let there be none to favor his fatherless children."
In a statement, Perdue`s office said, it was clear to the audience, a group pretty familiar with the bible and presumably the context, Perdue wasn`t serious. Quote, "He in no way wishes harm towards our president and everyone in the room understood that."
As one Republican was clarifying his position on wishing for the president`s death, another representative, Duncan Hunter, describing his potential successor in remarkably sexist terms.
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REP. DUNCAN HUNTER (R), CALIFORNIA: I don`t care about personality. And by the way, if I had to go on personality, I would still go with Trump over Hillary Clinton. She is a shrill, loud person. If I wanted to vote for my grandmother, I`d vote for Hillary Clinton.
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HAYES: Joining me now, "Washington Post" opinion columnist Catherine Rampell, MSNBC contributor Josh Barro, senior editor of "Business Insider" and pollster Cornell Belcher, president of Brilliant Corners Research and Strategies.
All right. So, we are monitoring the speech from Richmond, Virginia. I think it`s interesting that the crowd is not as large, which is something to talk about.
Let`s start with -- to me, this was the Duncan Hunter thing and the Perdue thing, it`s easy to stoke up outrage over things politicians say and I don`t necessarily want to do that. What I want to do, though, is focus on the fact that this idea of, where did Donald Trump come from? That has bewildered Republicans?
CATHARINE RAMPELL, OPINION COLUMNIST, WASHINGTON POST: Who begat him?
HAYES: Right. Who begat?
JOSH BARRO, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: Well, this is funny with Mitt Romney today, I think what Mitt Romney said is correct, this is an underrated reason that Donald Trump is bad, that it`s sort of a coarsening of our public discourse, if people are so crude all the time that`s going to be bad for the country in the long run, if the president says racist things other people will too.
But the thing is Mitt Romney went to Donald Trump`s hotel in Las Vegas four years ago to accept his endorsement for president. He said it was a delight to be there with Donald Trump. He said Donald Trump had been more successful in business than him. This is after Trump had spent months running around the country talking about how the president`s birth certificate was a forgery and he was really born in Kenya. So this stuff was foreseeable at the time.
And Romney I think failed to appreciate or did not care that Donald Trump was fomenting racism. Now he understands it. I don`t want to hit Romney too hard because I think he gets it now.
HAYES: He`s doing the right.
BARRO: Yes, but he didn`t get it then.
HAYES: Yes.
RAMPELL: I think it`s also not so top-down. I mean, I do agree we look to political leaders for some set of setting an example, whatever. But if you look at the poll data and you look at what Republicans actually believe, a solid majority of them, you know, think we should build a wall, think we should keep out Muslims, think we should scrutinize more heavily Muslims who are already here, don`t think that the comments about the judge were racist. So, it doesn`t really seem to be so in tension with what the base believes.
HAYES: And there`s a true line here, Cornell. I mean, what Josh is talking about with Mitt Romney`s relationship with Donald Trump if 2012, this wanting to sort of get the people that support him without sort of fully embracing him but kind of keeping him at arm`s length, if you look at the endorsement he looks like a hostage video. He says, like there are certain days you thought you`d never see happen ask this is one of them, which is like a very neutral statement about whether he`s happy to be there.
But then you`re seeing the exact same thing play out with Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan right now, right, Cornell?
CORNELL BELCHER, DEMOCRATIC POLLSTER: By the way, the term trickle-down racism is my new favorite thing of all-times.
HAYES: It`s a good term coming from him, yes.
BELCHER: It`s a really good term.
The Republicans are now having to deal with the seeds that they planted. This is their harvest. And it is true that you do have a large swath of the base of the Republican Party who are anxious racially. And the election of President Obama built up some of that anxiety about a changing America.
I mean, everyone is shocked. No one is shocked about this except for the Republican leadership who have been part and parcel of this. But the other piece of this I think is fascinating, I think it`s an important moment here is that, you know, the term racist is now being mainstreamed by -- on both the left and the right, when you have Republicans -- the last Republican standard bearer calling the now Republican standard bearer basically a racist.
This is a fascinating thing, because racism -- other than the "N" word, there may not be a more powerful word in our language than to lay racism at someone. And they`re basically saying their nominee is racist. And I think that`s a fascinating thing.
HAYES: I agree with you. In fact, there`s a great piece in "The Hill" today Josh was tweeting about, with some schadenfreude, basically saying other Republicans are mad at Paul Ryan for using that word in describing Donald Trump`s manifestly racist statement.
BARRO: Right. Not because they think he`s wrong but because it`s very inconvenient, because then the press comes to Republicans to the Senate and says, do you agree with Paul Ryan that this was a racist statement? All of them are trying to do this dance.
Ryan`s chosen to do the dance by saying, it was racist but I still support him, whereas Republican in the Senate seemed to be mostly trying to not answer the question of whether it was racist or not.
RAMPELL: Or gas light it in general, just say, oh, no, no, he never said those things, he didn`t mean that.
HAYES: Sean Spicer today gets up and -- he`s RNC spokesperson, tip your cap to Sean who has a very, very, very difficult job. But he basically tried to gas light, tried to men in black it, he basically was like, oh, no, he wasn`t referring to the judge`s heritage. Like Donald Trump literally said his heritage is Mexican, right? Like we all saw what happened.
RAMPELL: He said he can`t be unbiased against he because his heritage is Mexican. He wasn`t just saying, these are some attributes of this judge. He was saying, this is why he is at fault.
BELCHER: Electorally, this is the problem. You have smart people now talking about the House might be in play because you may have a sea change election because what Barack Obama did in 2008 and 2012 was win moderate voters. Win that moderate middle swath of the American electorate. You know what the moderate middle swath of white voters in America don`t want to be associated with? Racists.
HAYES: Yes. And in fact, this is something that has been a key part of Republican politics for a long time is whatever -- you know, people call it dog whistle, or whatever, whatever racial animus that is in their voters that they feel is useful to stoke has to be done in ways that don`t just advertise oneself as a racist because voter -- racism is rightly something that in its sort of identifiable way viewed -- stigmatized, properly.
BARRO: Although you see polling now that shows that a majority of Republican respondents say they don`t think Donald Trump`s comments were racist.
HAYES: Sixty-five percent, if I`m not mistaken.
RAMPELL: Of Republicans.
HAYES: Of Republicans, everyone else says it is, right.
BARRO: Right, I suspect that`s mostly about, in general when you poll partisans about the candidate of their party --
HAYES: They`ll just say whatever, they`ll defend them.
BARRO: They`ll defend them.
HAYES: Right.
BARRO: So I think if you took it out of context, if it was some celebrity who said this, maybe more would say it`s racist.
But I think a lot of white voters are sick of hearing about racism.
HAYES: Yes.
BARRO: And I wonder exactly how this is going to play. Because the comments are so extreme that I think some of them look at it and go, no, this is actually racist. But I think a lot of people, especially Republicans --
HAYES: Get in their bunker even more, yeah. It`s a very good point.
Catherine, Josh, Cornell, I`m going to ask you guys to stick around if that`s all right.
BARRO: Sure.
HAYES: Because we`re going to continue to watch the event in Virginia where Donald Trump is about to hold his first rally of the general election era, essentially. We will bring you that when it happens.
And then just ahead, the most feminist speech ever given by a major party presidential nominee it`s fair to say happened today. It was Hillary Clinton at Planned Parenthood, taking it to Trump yet again.
But, first, this is Mark Cuban on why he`s going after Donald Trump and why Cuban says Trump doesn`t want you to know about his finances. My interview with Mark Cuban after this two-minute break.
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HAYES: All right. We are keeping our eyes on Richmond, Virginia, the who shot you see there. It`s a big arena. It sits about 12,000 people and there are 2,000 inside, lots and lots of empty seats.
Donald Trump is currently running late for his first campaign rally since Hillary Clinton effectively clinched the Democratic presidential nomination. Donald Trump`s fellow rich guy, reality star Mark Cuban has had a long, complicated relationship with the presumptive nominee.
Lately, he`s had a lot to say about Trump, questioning his net worth, predicting he`ll have to grovel to GOP donors.
Today, the businessman and Dallas Mavericks owner was here in New York and I got a chance to talk with him.
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HAYES: You`ve been talking about Donald Trump a lot. You guys have an interesting relationship. He called you recently? Is that right?
MARK CUBAN, DALLAS MAVERICKS OWNER: Actually, he e-mailed me this last time.
HAYES: E-mailed you, like what`s your deal? Cut it out?
CUBAN: He doesn`t e-mail. So I get an e-mail from his assistance with a piece of paper that`s scanned with his comments on it. And he said, what happened?
HAYES: What does that --
CUBAN: Just because I --
HAYES: He feels you`re being unfair to him because you`re being negative?
CUBAN: Yes. He`s got one of my quotes about him on his book, you know. So things have change the. So that`s what I told him.
HAYES: What`s changed? Why are you -- obviously you`re a public figure, we see you, it`s not like you`re a shrinking violet, right?
CUBAN: Right.
HAYES: You`re in the public anyway. Why are you doing this? Why are you giving interviews about Donald Trump?
CUBAN: You know -- I care about what`s going on. And I think I have a different perspective than most people, right, from a wealth perspective, from a business perspective. I`m an independent. I`m not affiliated with any party.
So I just wanted to bring a different set of lenses to him.
HAYES: You told "Fortune" magazine that we were asking the wrong questions about Donald Trump.
CUBAN: Right.
HAYES: What are the right ones, according to you?
CUBAN: Donald is driven by cash. Anybody can claim whatever net worth they want and tax returns don`t really say anything. I mean, he might have one year where he sold a lot of stock, made a lot of money. Other years where he didn`t need the cash, right? They`re not really a reflection of anything.
But cash is cash, right? You can`t fake it. You can`t fake it on an FEC filing. He tried to fake his FEC file is as much as he could, and maybe he`ll get in trouble for that, he tried to count as income rentals revenues and that`s not income.
HAYES: Right.
CUBAN: But cash is cash, right? And so, I just went and took about 15 minutes and added it all up. And it mostly is $165 million. Which is great, look, by any standard, that`s a lot of money. But when you`re trying to finance a presidential campaign, that`s nothing.
HAYES: This is a really key point. He does not -- right now, he`s stuck betwixt and between, right? Because he basically ran what was kind of a con about self-funding.
CUBAN: No, it wasn`t a con at all.
HAYES: He lent himself the money?
CUBAN: Lend, you can`t take it all back. It was legit.
HAYES: He`s getting a fair amount of money in. He was also getting donations.
CUBAN: Right.
HAYES: The point is -- what you are saying is the man is not sitting on enough liquidity to be able to self-fund a campaign for president?
CUBAN: Without question, and he knows it, right? And that`s why you`re seeing him trying to adjust his perspective, right? Adjust what he`s saying.
So, you know what, now maybe I need some help from the Republican National Committee, because he does. He can`t afford to self-finance, no matter what he says.
HAYES: There was two pieces out, "Wall Street Journal" and "USA Today," about his habit of stiffing folks, right? And we`re talking penny ante stuff. A contractor does $20,000 worth of work, carpenter, right? What do you make of that? Is that a thing people do?
CUBAN: No, you don`t do that, right? I mean, you know --
HAYES: Do you do that?
CUBAN: No, I would be embarrassed if I did that. I`ve sued literally because I was mad, I`ve sued two people, right? I`ve had lawsuits filed against my companies, right, a lot of crazy ones. But no, I`m not litigious at all, I avoid lawsuits.
The thing -- look, if I was going to try to protect him, give that perspective, maybe he has people running these companies, maybe he has people doing these things, and they`re taking his --
HAYES: Without his knowledge.
CUBAN: Yes, so give him that. But more likely that`s just who he is, right? He wants to fight.
And my experience there is about 12 years ago I had a terrible TV show called "The Benefactor" on television, right? It was ABC. Part of the pitch they wanted me to say was, look, Donald Trump, I can spend more money than you have and not even know it`s gone. Right? He got all crazy and all wild, right? And his lawyers got in touch with me.
HAYES: So weird. For nine different reasons. But continue.
CUBAN: Hey, look, it is what it is, right? And his lawyers got in touch with me, we`re going to sue you if you don`t stop -- I said, look, let`s just make our balance sheets public. I`ll give you my bank statements, you give me yours and we`ll just see if it`s real. Never heard back.
HAYES: Can I ask you -- part of me thinks Donald Trump is just revealing the fact that all of you, by meaning all of America`s super-wealthy people --
CUBAN: Park Street guys.
HAYES: -- are maniacs.
(LAUGHTER)
HAYES: I`m serious. I guess persuade me otherwise. That basically this is like in the same way people say, he`s revealing the Republican Party for what it is. Maybe all these people that make a huge amount of money --
CUBAN: If you say that again, I`m going to sue you for everything you have! Right?
HAYES: Am I wrong?
CUBAN: You`re wrong.
HAYES: There`s something distinct about this guy?
CUBAN: Absolutely. I know a lot of wealthy people, people I`ve done business with. The only thing that changed as we got wealthier was our bank accounts. You feel free to go back and interview my high school buddies, my college buddies, my friends from Dallas, anybody --
HAYES: I am skeptical of that claim, I have to say.
CUBAN: Go for it, feel free. I am who I am.
HAYES: That may be true about you --
CUBAN: No, my partner Todd Wagner who`s a billionaire, I mean, I can give you a long list of people that I`ve met. Maybe --
HAYES: You think that personal disposition, whether it`s --
CUBAN: You are who you are, right? And if you`re one of the people that changed because of money? You had that problem before you got wealthy, right? If you were an idiot, if you were not a nice person before you were rich?
HAYES: Cruel, sadistic, a bully --
CUBAN: Whatever it is, right? That`s who you are, and maybe to a greater extreme.
HAYES: All right. Mark Cuban, really a pleasure.
CUBAN: It`s fine. Appreciate it, Chris. Yes, appreciate it.
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HAYES: Donald Trump is expected to arrive at this Richmond, Virginia, event moments from now. His first rally since top Democrats including the president of the United States come out to endorse his opponent Hillary Clinton and launch an onslaught against Trump. We`ll bring you his response when he takes the stage shortly.
Stay with us. Don`t go anywhere.
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HAYES: All right. We`re continuing to monitor the Trump rally in Richmond, Virginia, where Trump is expected shortly.
But, today, Hillary Clinton made her first speech since the start of the unofficial general election. She gave to it a packed room of mostly women at the Planned Parenthood event in Washington, D.C. Clinton attacked Donald Trump`s policies, outlined what the future of reproductive rights would look like if she is the next president.
It was an unapologetically feminist speech, ne that placed her firmly within the centuries-long fight for reproductive freedom.
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CLINTON: When Donald Trump says, let`s make America great again, that is code for, let`s take America backward -- back to a time when opportunity and dignity were reserved for some, not all, back to the days when abortion was illegal, women had far fewer options, and life for too many women and girls was limited. Well, Donald, those days are over.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
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HAYES: Still with me, Catherine Rampell, Josh Barro, and Cornell Belcher.
Catherine, it has been interesting to watch the Clinton campaign find a relationship to their candidate`s own sort of history-making and also her gender and her vision for women increasingly as eve gotten in the general, it feels they`re embracing it in a way I haven`t seep them do it before.
RAMPELL: Playing the woman card.
HAYES: That`s right. Yes.
RAMPELL: Many copies of the woman card.
Yes, it does certainly seem that way. I think that`s partly because they`re realizing there`s so much enthusiasm amongst women voters, particularly middle-aged, older women voters, less so the Bernie crowd. But there`s a lot of enthusiasm.
I was looking at data earlier today that was released by Open Secrets, I don`t know if you saw this on political donations, and Hillary Clinton has the highest share of donations given to a presidential candidate of a major party coming from women on record. And the on the other hand, Donald Trump has the lowest share of donations coming from women on record.
So, there`s a lot of polarization along general lines and maybe she realizes it`s worth embracing that.
HAYES: Yes, the splits here are, if I`m not mistaken, I think Mitt Romney won all women by five -- sorry, he won white women by I think about five points. Lost the election. And Donald Trump is underwater by 20 points or so right now.
BELCHER: But I don`t think he`s underwater over 20 points among white women. And that`s the important key.
HAYES: Right.
BELCHER: I think if you go back early on, a lot of Democrats would argue Hillary would need as much as the Obama coalition because she`s going to do clearly better among women. That hasn`t necessarily borne out in the polling thus far. But I think what you see now is them making a play for that.
Look, it`s special. No one at this stage as a nominee has been able to sort of give voice to women`s issues the way that she can -- she`s going to be able to do that. So I think you do take advantage of that. I think the speech she did today was very much in line with giving a unique voice and speaking truth to power on women`s issues in a way no nominee for that office has ever been able to do.
I think she`s smart to take advantage of it. If she can in fact -- if she can do inroads among white women, it`s going to be a blowout.
HAYES: Well -- and also on a substantive level, what I find fascinating is look, these parties have polarized profoundly along the issues of reproductive choice. This is something which it`s fairly recent, actually. The parties have been as polarized as they are. I mean, there`s a party of opposition to abortion, there`s a party of abortion rights, and that you can`t really get very far in either party if you are not in line with that.
But it also is clear that like Donald Trump doesn`t seem to care, particularly. Like his comments to Chris Matthews look more knee-jerk than anything.
RAMPELL: He changed his position on abortion like nine times --
HAYES: Like nine times, right.
RAMPELL: -- in three days or something.
BARRO: And it used to be pro-choice. When he floated --
HAYES: Proudly pro-choice.
BARRO: In 2000, he had a very pro-choice. You could say this about any number of issues, right, that Donald Trump doesn`t deeply care about them. He is in this campaign committed to a set of positions.
What I found odd about this speech actually was this line she uses about Donald Trump will take us back. Because I feel like that`s what Democrats always say about the Republican nominee. And it`s a fair enough argument that it activates Democrats.
But there is -- what you miss in that is that Donald Trump is a really weird nominee who might do different, worse things than a normal Republican nominee would do. Maybe he won`t take us back. He`ll take us forward into some awful, unthinkable future.
HAYES: Like nuclear winter.
BARRO: Right, things that do not reflect what the country was like 25 years ago, even if we prefer now to 25 years ago.
HAYES: Have you read "The Road"?
BARRO: Right, I think it undersells Donald Trump to use these standard lines that you use any in Democrat --
HAYES: I think there`s something to that, particularly talking about him in this specific context. Not when you`re talking about his comments vis- a-vis women in which I think he`s the perfect foil because of the things he`s said that are blatantly sexist and there`s so much evidence.
But on this specific issue where it`s like it does -- it`s unclear what he believes in, whether he cares one way or another.
RAMPELL: I think why Hillary uses this line, and she`s used it in a bunch of recent speeches actually about going backwards, it specifically speaks to what is supposed to be appealing about Trump, i.e., his slogan, let`s make America great again.
HAYES: Again, right.
RAMPELL: Which implies there was a past period in time in which America was not only better but great on its own terms. And the question is, for whom was it great? Was it great for women? Hmm. Was it great for minorities? Not really sure.
If you play that up and remind people about the downsides of this period that his team is looking through rose-colored glasses at, then maybe that will resonate.
HAYES: Cornell, I want to play this to you. This is Hillary Clinton at the speech today talking about reproductive freedom, take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLINTON: Everything I have seen has convinced me that life is freer, fairer, healthier, safer, and far more humane when women are empowered to make their own reproductive health decisions.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Here`s the thing about that. I think this is one of these issues where I`m very uncynical about this issue. I think the two parties largely have the positions they do because they largely believe the positions they say they believe. Which is to say that I don`t think there`s a gaming here about, this is a political advantage for us.
I think in the case of the right, they genuinely hate abortion, want to see it made illegal. I think in the case of the Democratic Party, they genuinely cherish reproductive self-determination. And I think that in some ways, it`s sort of the politics be damned on this issue.
BELCHER: Well, two things. One is the language she uses is really important there because that language doesn`t necessarily ignite a conversation about abortion, right? She`s not using the term abortion because none of us are for abortion, right? But the ideal of women`s reproductive health and empowering women.
It`s really important language that she`s using there to speak to women. And you`re right, I mean, you talk most Democrats, most Democrats are, in fact, pro-choice. And you have a hard time winning a Democratic primary if in fact you`re not pro-choice because you`re on the wrong side of the issues.
But I also want to go back for a moment to the prior conversation about Trump. And you`re talking about the issues and how Trump is not necessarily in place on his issues. When you have a Republican primary thatlast time around the nominee was attacked because in fact he wasn`t conservative enough.
So you now have a guy who`s been a Democrat at one time, a Republican, pro- choice, anti-choice. He doesn`t know the bible at all. He fundamentally fails almost every test of conservatism. And that`s what -- and now he`s the nominee of their party.
He is a phenomenon that I would argue, you know, it boils down is make America great again because he`s feeding right into that variable that trumps all of those, no pun intended, and that is the racial animosity that you see at those rallies, and the racial animosity that you see bubbling up in certain parts of this party, because he is not by any stretch of the imagination in line with most conservative views.
HAYES: Well, there`s -- I mean, he went to go court evangelicals today. And of course he very famously and clumsily has courted them in the past when he talked to Cal Thomas about who Jesus is, hilarious answer.
RAMPELL: something about beheading, right?
HAYES: Yeah, we talked about...
BARRO: jesus is a guy who`s there for me was basically it. Great courage and strength.
HAYES: Yeah.
But Ralph Reed, listening to Ralph Reed, why you should vote for him if you`re evangelical, is hilarious. I want to play that later on.
Katherine Rampell, Josh Barro, Cornell Belcher.
Stay with us, we`re hearing Donald Trump is still en route to his Richmond, Virginia rally. He is expected to be there at 8:00 p.m. eastern. We`ll continue to monitor it.
More with my panel, including Elizabeth Warren`s anti-trump strategy just after the break.
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RALPH REED, FAITH AND FREEDOM COALITION CHAIRMAN: We`re not looking for a political messiah, because we already have a messiah. we don`t need to find one in the political arena.
You see, we understand that perfection is not the measure that should be applied, not only to any political leader, but to any man or woman. Because in all of recorded history there has only been one perfect person who walked on this Earth. And he wasn`t a candidate and he wasn`t a political figure. His name was Jesus Christ.
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HAYES: That was Ralph Reed, founder and chair of the faith and freedom coalition, speaking today at their annual conference ahead of Donald Trump.
But right now we`re waiting for Trump to take the stage in Richmond, Virginia, for this first rally since Elizabeth Warren, President Obama, Vice President Biden, and other key Democrats united behind Hillary Clinton for the nomination.
Still with me Katherine Rampell, Josh Barro, Cornell Belcher.
Here`s why I love that Ralph Reed sound, the argument is -- it`s a great argument, we don`t need Donald Trump to be perfect because all humans are imperfect. The only perfect person was Jesus Christ. And then once you go down from Jesus Christ it`s basically a flat level of complete imperfection amongst all human beings, ergo, Trump`s our guy.
BARRO: Yeah, and the amazing thing is like not all evangelical conservatives have sold out in this way. I think the split is really fascinating. There are a lot of people who take their religion very seriously and say, this guy is a charlatan, and he`s bad for social conservatives and everybody else.
But people -- I mean, I think it`s...
HAYES: But their leadership has been very different.
BARRO: Well, their political leadership.
HAYES: Right, exactly.
BARRO: Like you have someone like Russell Moore at the Southern Baptist Convention who is really fundamentally there to be a thought leader, and not to be a political figure. And he can say, this guy is awful. But Ralph Reed, who`s really a politician, is out there getting in line because that`s what the politicians do.
HAYES: And Cornell, one of the -- by the way, there has to be a picture of Ralph Reed ageing in a closet in an attic somewhere, basically, because that guy looks exactly the same as he did 20 years ago.
But Cornell, one of the most interesting pieces of polling data from the primary was that weekly church attendance is one of the best predictors of anti-Trump voting in the primary. Now that`s different than the label of evangelicals, Trump used to always say I want evangelicals and that is true. But there are a lot of people who call themselves evangelicals who are not weekly church attenders. People who attend church weekly, they were pretty Trump-skeptical.
BELCHER: No, that is actually a really important polling point. And actually I don`t even look at those who say evangelicals anymore. It is those who are in church three, four times a week, those are -- that`s a better sort of indicator of their religiosity, especially looking at polling throughout the south when everyone`s evangelical, right?
HAYES: Right, everyone calls themselves that.
BELCHER: And if sort of when African-Americans versus white evangelicals.
Look, if you show me an African-Americans who is in church three times a week and you show me a white woman in the south who is church three times a week, I`m going to show you two people who are politically very, very different. So, their religiosity takes them to two very very different places, whether it`s the, you know, the new bible or the old one, but their religiosity and their values take them to two very different places.
And it`ll be interesting to see how this plays out in the general election, because as you know Democrats have not done very well with strong faith and religious voters in the past couple of elections. And Republicans have run up the numbers with those. And it`s really important in some of these southern states.
And does that put a state like Georgia, and in North Carolina even in more play if you cannot hold on to that religious right?
HAYES: All right. We`re right now -- Donald Trump is being introduced in Richmond, Virginia. We`re going to take a quick break. I`ll have more with our panel just after the break.
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HAYES: Right now we are still waiting for Donald Trump to take the stage in Richmond, Virginia, being introduced by one of his advisers right now.
Still with me, Katherine Rampell, Josh Barro, Cornell Belcher.
That`s shots of some protesters. They`re outside in the city of Richmond.
So, apparently this adviser was just going after Elizabeth Warren for a bit. She has sort of emerged -- yesterday she gave this I just thought -- as a piece of political rhetoric, as an attack piece of political rhetoric, absolutely effective broadside against Donald Trump yesterday.
And she really has -- she gets under his skin. He cannot stop himself from going back at her.
RAMPELL: Well, everybody kind of gets under his skin.
HAYES: That`s true.
RAMPELL: If you know which parts of the skin to poke at, he`s going to jab back.
But yes, she has been very effective as an attack dog, and has been a good spokesperson and surrogate for Hillary Clinton, considering it took her so long to actually endorse Hillary Clinton.
BARRO: I thought the speech was funny because she talks about Donald Trump going after this judge. And basically says Donald Trump is getting this from Mitch McConnell, it`s part of the broader Republican pattern of disrespecting the judiciary...
HAYES: And she`s connecting it to the fact -- I mean -- right, the context is that they`ve blocked all these judges. They`re blocking a current judicial nominee for the Supreme Court.
BARRO: Yeah, and it`s like -- it`s a good piece of political rhetoric. It is not true. Like the reason Donald Trump is going after this judge is that Donald Trump is thin-skinned and has a bad personality and gets mad when anyone stands in his way, It has nothing to do with what Mitch McConnell is up to.
But I think it was clever how she found a way to like tie it around politically.
CAMPTELL: Well, especially since Trump`s who shtick is that like he can`t be controlled by the Republican elites. And if you somehow find a way to connect him to whatever the elites` agenda is, that`s pretty damning.
HAYES: Look, Cornell, the key point to me here, and this I think plays to a certain extent I think it place in the Senate races, which I thought that both Joe Biden yesterday and Elizabeth Warren, it is very easy -- and I blame myself for this, because I have a TV show every night and I have lost sight of this. You`ve got this guy who is duly nominated by the president of the United States with 300 days left in his term to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court, who is being stonewalled in a way that is historically without precedent.
And not only that, the seat is being held open for the man who spent a week with racist rants against a sitting federal judge to name his replacement.
BELCHER: To say that the Democrat senatorial campaign committee isn`t enthusiastic about this outcome is to underplay it.
It is a big deal, because it`s fundamentally going to help Democrats position themselves against Republicans in Senate races where you don`t have a gerrymandered district like we do on the congressional side where you have to run statewide.
And look, I think most people, if you`re betting, you`re betting that Donald Trump really does hurt Republicans up and down the ticket, and particularly at these statewide races where you`re going to see greater turnout of a more diverse electorate.
But I also want to get back to this point about Elizabeth Warren. What you`re seeing right now in Elizabeth Warren is in fact the most effective attacker in the Democratic Party right now. No one is a more effective attacker and no one has better bona fides in the grassroots left right now than Elizabeth Warren right now. And that she owns.
HAYES: She has a certain star power among Democrats. And I`ll just say for the metric we have here, which is we look in ratings every day, I mean, it was clear last night, like she is a draw. She is a very significant draw. People want to hear what she has to say. And her also I think doing a good job, what Josh said, I sort of agree with you in the sense that like one didn`t cause the other, right. I mean, his -- I think his rant against the judge is because he happened to be in San Diego, which is where the judge is and where the court -- where the case is.
But her point about sort of sort of trying to connect -- right, the difficulty I think for the Democrats is they`ve got this guy who so clearly is so different in certain ways, at least in temperament and experience as the other rest of the Republican Party. And yet he embodies certain parts of the Republican Party in telling us a united story about the party as a whole is the challenge...
RAMPELL: If you can taint the rest of the party and you can taint the down-ballot people as well who are running in races, who are worried about being affiliated with Donald Trump. That can be very effective.
HAYES: Cornell, let me ask you this question as a polling question. I -- it has always been my sense, back cover these fights as a print reporter at The Nation magazine, particularly during the Bush administration, justice Sunday and the sort of events around judges, that judges are little -- a little jock jams going in the Richmond, Virginia auditorium, which either we`re about to watch some 1990s vintage basketball or Donald Trump is taking the stage.
And it appears in this case to be the latter.
Now, as he approaches the stage it will be interesting to see if he wings it, stump speech style, or he returns to the much-maligned, much-denigrated teleprompter that he used for his, in the words of the Clinton campaign, low-energy speech the other night.
Josh, prediction on that?
BARRO: I don`t -- I mean, so he...
HAYES: They don`t seem to be set up. so, I think...
BARRO: So far -- I mean, he gave a very boring speech earlier today that was on script. I think he`s actually rattled by what happened this week and the clear negative reaction that he got. And it`s areas for him to stay on message in a speech than in an interview.
So, I think so far he`s been managing.
HAYES: There is a reason -- I mean, for so long it`s this idea of him defying political gravity. As Mitch McConnell said, I`ll take boring. And there`s a reason a lot of politicians choose to be boring. Let`s give a listen to what Donald Trump in his first speech, first rally, since basically the beginning of the general election, has to say.
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TRUMP: But I know all about Richmond.
You know, we set this up yesterday. We`ve had one day and look at this. I mean, it`s amazing.
Well, thank you, everybody. Thank you.
And we`re going to bring jobs back to America, remember that. Jobs back. No more games. We`re playing games. This country of ours is playing games. And they`re not smart games.
So I want to thank everybody. I want to thank the folks from Richmond.
So, here`s the story. You know, I have a lot of property, a lot of employees. I think some of them are here. Where`s Kerry? Where`s Kerry?
You know we have the vinyard. It`s the largest vineyard on the east coast. And I don`t drink. I don`t drink, can you believe it?
But it`s the largest -- there she is. Hello, Kerry. Are we doing well? We`ve got a lot of employees. How many employees? 110? That`s a lot, right? That`s a lot. That`s great.
You`re doing a fantastic job.
So it`s in Charlottesville, the Trump vineyard. And I don`t know if you want to try and come up here. Come up here, Kerry. What the hell, we have all night.
So great. I`ll tell you, so great.
And then in Loudoun County, you know Loundoun County, I have a great club. How are you?
We have a great -- where are those people? Look at them. Loundoun County on the Potomac River, one of the most beautiful clubs you`ve ever seen, and one of the best golf courses anywhere in the world. And it is beautiful.
And I think we`re going to do -- we`re going to take the press over there someday. We`re going to do a news conference on the Potomac River, OK? All right? We`ll bring them over.
So I want to talk to you -- a couple of things. First of all, where is she? She`s so unbelievable.
What a job. What a job.
So I want to talk to you. It`s been an amazing period of time for all of us, because it`s a movement. I mean, think of it. We say yesterday let`s do this, because we were in the area like what does that mean? The area means I was a half an hour away by air going 600 miles an hour, so I wouldn`t call that the area. But it`s sort of the area, right.
And, I said, let`s do it in Richmond. We had the arena, let`s do it in Richmond. And we did it in Richmond.
So, that`s cool.
Got to win. We`ve got to win the state of Virginia. And this whole thing with the prisoners, i don`t know, Kerry. This whole thing with the prisoners, not sounding too good, right?
Where murderers can vote and all these people can vote. I don`t think so. I don`t know. Doesn`t sound good.
Hopefully the court will act quickly. 200,000 people -- and many of these people, look, it`s not supposed to be the way it works, folks, so it`s one of those things.
Kerry, so you run our facility, tell them about the facility, go ahead. In one minute.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, honestly, more than the winery I want to tell them about you and what an amazing boss you are. But more than a boss, a true leader.
And really, you can`t run and have so many successful companies just by being a boss. And your leadership and your vision is just what this country needs to be great again.
(APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: Thank you, Kerry. She does an amazing job. What a great job she does.
So we started a year ago, 12 months. And when I came in I was told by all of the pundits, you`re wasting your time. This is the finest group of Republican talent ever assembled. So I figured what chance do I have, right? What chance? And it worked out good, right? It worked out good.
And we`re doing well, I`ll tell you. The polls are looking good in Virginia by the way, looking good in Virginia. Got to win. Very important state.
I`m going to be here a lot. Do you mind? Over the next five months I`m going to be here a lot. It`s true, though. I`m heading down to Florida. We have a massive crowd tomorrow in Florida. And we`re heading down there. And we`re going to be in Tampa.
And -- great place, Tampa. And I said, let`s stop on the way down. So, that`s why we`re here. And I appreciate everybody coming out on such short notice. We love you, Richmond. We love you, Virginia. We love you.
So we began the journey and I came down the escalator, you remember, with Melania. And since then it`s been incredible. And we started where we did very well in Iowa. Should have won Iowa, but one of those things. Something happened there.
But we won New Hampshire. And then we just kept winning and winning and winning. We won a lot. I think it ended up 37 states. Think of it.
Most importantly, we had more votes. And I say we. This is like a movement, folks. This is something that`s very serious.
And you know one thing that`s a little bit embarrassing but we`ll take it, whatever it takes, right? They say that they`re polling very well, but they`re always adding 5 percent, and 7 percent, and 9 percent. Because they say, a lot of people don`t say they`re going to vote for Trump, but when they get in the booth they vote for Trump.
Be proud of it, folks. Be proud of it. It`s true.
You know, I didn`t know -- was I supposed to be happy or insulted? Now then you have the opposite effect, a lot of people, you know, they run and they`re stiffs. They`re stiffs. And people all want to say it`s politically correct. Yes, I`m going to vote for so-and-so. I don`t want to say who it -- they call a certain effect. It took place in California.
But it`s the opposite, where they poll high. So I always poll low, because people don`t want to say it.
But you know, the biggest person in California called me up the other day. And he said, I think you`re going to win California. And I don`t know, you know, frankly, the Republicans don`t even campaign in California. But I go there, we get tremendous -- we had 31,000 people two weeks ago -- 31,000. I mean, we have crowds that are so incredible.
So they said, you know, I think you can win. Every liberal in Los Angeles is going to vote for you. This is one of the biggest guys, movie guys. He said, I`m a liberal. Every friend I have is voting for you. On cable, they never talk about it.
Do we care? We don`t care, right? Just make sure.
Remember, you have to vote.
So we started. And you know, I`ll never forget New Hampshire. I`m going to make a big speech in New Hampshire on Monday, by the way. It`s going to be called the Hillary Clinton something -- or the Crooked Hillary speech.
So dishonest.
You see the $250,000 she got today? She got $250,000, it was just reported by ABC. Congratulations, ABC. But she just got $250,000 and some guy gets a position to do with nuclear, okay, give me a break. There`s so much corruption. There`s so much going on.
And this Josh Earnest yesterday said criminal investigation. He wasn`t supposed to say that. But if the system works, she`s really not allowed to run, folks. The system.
You know what? I want to run against her badly. But it`s really unfair -- no, it`s really unfair to other people. It`s so unfair to other people who did 10 percent of what she did and they ended up destroying their lives, OK? It`s very unfair.
HAYES: We appear to have lost the feed in Richmond, Virginia. What do you know. I wonder what divine intervention that was.
Donald Trump appearing sans teleprompter for the first time in a little bit, a little while. The speech he gave today was fairly restrained and on message, the speech, of course, he gave on Tuesday night in front of a teleprompter. He brought a woman who runs his winery, I guess, up to introduce him. He talked about Crooked Hillary.
But it`s funny, just watching that little snapshot, trying to be free- wheeling but also not insulting, it`s actually harder than it looks, right. I mean, those have been two sides of the same coin the whole time.
RAMPELL: It`s not that hard for other people, but maybe for Trump.
BARRO: Although, he was hitting it there. This story about the guy who got put on this nuclear board actually isn`t -- it looks very bad for Hillary Clinton.
HAYES: Clinton donor, right.
BARRO: It`s a perfectly fair hit and one of the frustrations Republicans have had with Donald Trump is that in addition to drawing attention to his own racist comments he`s been sort of ignoring things like the inspector general`s report that came out aout Hillary Clinton and her email use, things that are handed to him that he can attack her with that he doesn`t talk about because he`s such a narcissist, he only talks about himself.
At least this time he attacked her on the right thing to attack her on.
BELCHER: I would agree, but look where it happened. It was 10, 15 minutes into the speech. Just as not even being partisan, but just as someone who`s worked on two presidential campaigns, my head`s exploding as he rambles on talking about, oh, I`m going to be doing a speech in New Hampshire in a couple of days. And I`m doing so well in the polls.
What? What message are you driving? You`re and also, and also touting and marketing his businesses. I mean, he starts with, he talks about -- we`ve got a great course here, it`s on the Potomac. We`ve also got this winery. Here, you come up here, talk about the winery.
Like -- I mean, sometimes there is some part of me that thinks part of this is about cultivating the brand and image. I mean, look, clearly the guy wants to be president. But yeah, Cornell, I mean, that`s -- this is the thing that has Republicans tearing their hair out. I mean, fundamentally, I think they`re all pretty much morally neutral. Like I think they just -- like, I mean, Mitch McConnell even said it. He said the party of Lincoln wants to win, like when he was confronted by Chuck Todd, Eric Erickson`s quote says the party of Lincoln is endorsing an outright racist.
He said, the party of Lincoln wans to win.
If Trump is polling up 10 points they will forget all their problems they have with him. But right now, what is driving them crazy more than any moral offense they take at things is the sheer political incompetencies displayed.
BARRO: Yeah, although the remarkable thing is we`re starting to get poll sin the last couple of days, but up until that point the whole Republican freak-out was happening before any polling evidence that this was actually hurting Donald Trump with voters.
Donald Trump said a lot of things back in the summer and the fall that people thought were going to destroy him that didn`t affect him that much. So, this time the Republican freak-out preceded the polls. Now, maybe it was just about predicting the polls. But I think people were actually genuinely offended by what he said.
HAYES: And even with that -- I think that is true -- but even that being the case, it is striking to say people talk about huge down-ballot effects, so far polling has Hillary Clinton with a fairly consistent 4 to 5-point lead. This isn`t some -- she`s not opened up some huge 15-point -- it`s a relatively close in the general scheme of things, even though it`s a robust lead insofar as has been shown time and time again in poll after poll.
Katherine Rampell, Josh Barro, Cornell Belcher, thanks for hanging out tonight.
BARRO: Sure.
RAMPELL: Of course.
HAYES: That is All In for this evening and for the week. 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