Show: ALL IN with CHRIS HAYES Date: November 2, 2016 Guest: Jon Lovett, April Ryan, Margie Omero, Michael Isikoff, David K. Johnson, Olivia Nuzzi
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CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST (voice-over): Tonight on "ALL IN" --
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We`re almost at the end.
HAYES: Six days out, a campaign frenzy.
TRUMP: But we`re really at the end of the beginning, if you think about it.
HAYES: Tonight, inside the new blue state polling that`s looking pretty good for Democrats.
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The fate of the republic rests on your shoulders.
HAYES: As the president drills home the stakes and takes on his own FBI.
OBAMA: We don`t operate on innuendo.
HAYES: Then the latest on what appears to be a politically motivated church burning in Mississippi. Why white nationalists are declaring victory even if Donald Trump loses. And new pictures of Donald Trump with a mobster, he said he didn`t know. When ALL IN starts right now.
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HAYES: Good evening from New York. I`m Chris Hayes. With just six days now until Election Day, Hillary Clinton continues to lead in the latest polls, but the race is close. She`s ahead of Donald Trump by three and a half points nationally according to the FiveThirtyEight polling average, 48.6 percent to 45 percent. Latest NBC News Battleground Map, shows Clinton with 274 Electoral Votes between states that are likely and leaning democratic. Four more electoral votes than she needs to win the White House. Even if Trump were to win every single toss-up state as NBC now defines it, he`d still fall short of that magic number, 270. For Trump, there are signs that FBI Director James Comey`s October Surprise, the widely condemned and criticized letter, announcing new e-mails belonging to a laptop of a Clinton aide was not the turning point Trump had hoped for. New polling out of Wisconsin shows that before Comey`s letter, 50 percent of voters were bothered by Clinton`s use of an e-mail server, the day Comey released the letter, that shot up to 60 percent, but in later polling, it was back down to 48 percent, below where it had been before the Comey letter. Today, President Obama weighed in on the controversy for the first time in an interview with Now This News.
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OBAMA: I do think that there is a norm that when their investigations, we don`t operate on innuendo, we don`t operate on incomplete information, we don`t operate on leaks. We operate based on concrete decisions that are made. When this was investigated thoroughly the last time, the conclusion of the FBI, the conclusion of the justice department, the conclusion of repeated congressional investigations was that, you know, she had made some mistakes but that there wasn`t anything there that was, you know, prosecutable.
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HAYES: Whether or not Comey`s invention is effective in the presidential race, it`s clear that his disclosure and the spate of now competing -- one might even say, warring FBI leaks that have followed, have raised serious questions about the FBI`s integrity and impartiality. And the bureau, it should be clear, is just one of several key institutions, arguably fundamental to American democracy that have come under intense stress during this campaign, stress that is only increasing in these final days. With his rhetoric about a rigged election, repeated refusals to commit to abiding by the results next week and the peaceful transfer of power, Donald Trump has sowed great doubts about the electoral process among his supporters. Meanwhile, the integrity of elections already being actively undermined in states like North Carolina, where according to Slate, a group of republicans has implement a county-level voter purge scheme targeting black democrats. The NAACP has already filed suit and a ruling may be imminent. Trump has consistently attacked press freedom and challenged the role (INAUDIBLE) state, even targeting a reporter by name, our own Katy Tur at a rally today in Miami.
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TRUMP: There`s been anywhere near the media dishonesty like we`ve seen in this election. We`ll have a great story. We`ll give it out to the media, they`ll make it look as bad as possible. We have massive crowds. There`s something happening. They`re not reporting it. Katy, you`re not reporting it, Katy, but there`s something happening, Katy. There`s something happening, Katy.
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HAYES: Republican nominee is not alone in waging war against the norms of under (INAUDIBLE) the functioning democracy. In recent days, a number of sitting GOP senators, including Ted Cruz, John McCain and Richard Burr have voiced support for blocking any Clinton nominee to the Supreme Court forever, leaving the court with an even number of justices and stripping its power to set legal precedent. On Capitol Hill, republicans are already plotting to investigate Clinton from day one, should she win the election, potentially getting started before she`s even sworn in. According to Senator Ron Johnson, who`s currently up for re-election in Wisconsin, they might even start impeachment proceedings. Yes, that`s right, he`s discussing impeachment proceedings before the election has even happened. No wonder Trump, the party standard-bearer is already threatening a major constitutional crisis if he loses next Tuesday.
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TRUMP: If Hillary Clinton were to be elected, it would create an unprecedented and protracted constitutional crisis. Haven`t we just been through a lot with the Clintons?
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HAYES: I`m joined now by Jon Lovett, former speechwriter of President Obama, who`s also worked on Hillary Clinton`s 2008 campaign. And Jon, you`ve talked about this election as a national emergency. It`s a term I see you use.
JON LOVETT, FORMER SPEECHWRITER FOR BARACK OBAMA AND HILLARY CLINTON: Yes.
HAYES: And to me, this is really what gets to the heart of it. It`s their -- it`s not just that something`s being contested and all sorts of things are on the line as they are in every presidential election, but the sort of foundational aspects of a lot of the norms that kind of hold the whole enterprise together feel like they`re being ripped apart and are possibly on the ballot next week.
LOVETT: Yeah. I mean, because they are. And the Republican Party nominated this guy who is, you know, totally unfit in all the obvious ways, and then they embraced him. You know, I have felt like pretty heartbroken a few times during this campaign. And a few times it`s been Trump-driven, but more often than not, it`s not what Trump does, it`s how quickly people like Paul Ryan, Reince Priebus, Marco Rubio and others apologize for it, try to move past it, try to spin their way out of it, while continuing to support this person. You know, it`s like -- you know, one person doesn`t create a movement and one person doesn`t normalize disgraceful behavior. It takes other people to make what Trump does normal, and that`s what we`re seeing happening. The other thing that`s going on, too, is -- look, I`ve been saying this, you know, Donald Trump is like stage five crazy, you know? Whatever -- he is the culmination of a long shift, sort of, into the sewer. But what that`s meant is that a lot of sort of stage four level horrible behavior is either flying under the radar or not getting the attention it deserves.
I mean, Ted Cruz, John McCain, Burr in North Carolina, saying they`ll never confirm a democratic nomination to the Supreme Court, what does that actually mean in practice? What that means in practice is either you don`t want the Supreme Court, you just don`t think we need one anymore, and I don`t think that`s right. Or you think that only republican presidents are legitimate or I guess you think that once Scalia was appointed, that seat belonged to a Scalia white judge --
HAYES: Belongs to -- yeah, that`s right. Yeah.
LOVETT: -- for the rest of American history. And that`s just nonsense. It`s total nonsense.
HAYES: And I think it`s so -- to me, I mean, between the sort of -- the sort of -- the kind of dual stories of Trump sowing doubts about the, you know, electoral integrity and you need to go watch other communities, the assaults on the franchise, restriction of voting rights that happened in the states, and then Trump saying, "Look, if you elect Clinton, it`s going to be a constitutional crisis." It`s this -- it`s sort of us or the country burns is kind of the message.
LOVETT: Right, right. It`s like a, you know, nice democratic system of government you got there. Be a shame if something were to happen to it. The -- and, you know -- and then, I mean, this -- it`s so obviously wrong, what Trump`s doing is so obviously self-centered and narcissistic and rooted in his own sense of inadequacy, his own fear of failure, his own desire to sort of project the consequences of his own lack of discipline and inhumanity on to the system as a whole. The question, I think, is really going to be on the republicans around him and what they do. And so far, we have absolutely no reason to believe that these people will do anything --
HAYES: That`s exactly right.
LOVETT: -- other than behave in a craven and cowardly way.
HAYES: And this is a key thing, I think, to think about as -- when you think about a Trump presidency, which I think is a thing that people have not spent enough time thinking about, because they think about it in terms of, "Oh, you know, should he be trusted with the nuclear codes?" And there`s obviously -- there`s tail risks, right? There`s extreme things that could happen.
LOVETT: Right.
HAYES: But there`s also just what would the day-to-day of a Trump presidency look like? And we have seen, I think, from your point about Paul Ryan, right? I mean, that`s what a day-to-day presidency, it would be Paul Ryan`s sort of legislative objectives, some of Trump`s sort of nationalist ethos kind of married together, and they would have a lot of control and do a lot of stuff. That`s what that government would look like.
LOVETT: Right. I mean, look, on a policy level, what republican establishment figures that have lined up behind Trump are basically trying to say is, "Look, we don`t like him personally, and that`s why he`s going to lose." But the bottom line is we didn`t realize that all of the American people really wanted was protectionist Paul Ryan. Now, on a policy and sort of political basis, I don`t think that`s true, but we do know that`s how they would govern. We also know, though, that his presidency would be completely overwhelmed by his personal human flaws because presidents don`t change when they become presidents, they just become more like themselves. The character flaws that are revealed in the campaign are what dictate their behavior when they`re in office, because it`s the most stressful and insane job in the world. They`ve made it too powerful. We`ve put this incredible pressure on what you -- Donald Trump, have we ever seen even one moment where he`s risen to the occasion? Not one moment in his entire campaign has he ever demonstrated that under stress and pressure and criticism, he can behave like a responsible adult.
HAYES: Yeah.
LOVETT: I mean, I feel like these all is just so obvious now.
HAYES: Well, thank you for spelling it out, Jon. It`s always a pleasure. Jon Lovett, thanks for joining me.
LOVETT: Thanks, Chris.
HAYES: Joining me now, April Ryan, White House correspondent and Washington Bureau Chief American Urban Radio Networks, Sam Seder, host of The Majority Report and MSNBC contributor. And I want to play, the president was in North Carolina today. And he`s been doing this riff about sort of what`s on the ballot. And I want to play that because I think it`s definitely, I think, how he sees this race. I think it`s not a -- it`s not a work shop for public consumption idea of what`s on the ballot. I think it`s pretty clear how he`d use it. Take a listen.
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OBAMA: All the progress that we`ve made over the last eight years, all the progress we hope to make over the next eight years, all of that goes out the window if we don`t win this election. And we don`t win this election, potentially, if we don`t win North Carolina. So, I hate to put a little pressure on you, but the fate of the republic rests on your shoulders. The fate of the world is teetering, and you, North Carolina, are going to have to make sure that we push it in the right direction.
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HAYES: You know, April, the fate of the republic -- I mean, when the president spoke in Cleveland, you know, he said democracy`s on the ballot. I mean, you`ve been -- you cover that White House and that -- and that office. I mean, do you get the sense they really view this as existential, what`s going to happen in six days?
APRIL RYAN, AMERICAN URBAN RADIO NETWORKS: They view this as dire. This is real. Donald Trump is talking about not only defunding, but really, repealing what they called -- what they call Obamacare, which is the ACA. And that`s something that Obama understands that needs to be tweaked and maybe fixed in a couple of places, but he -- that`s a legacy piece. That is history for this man. He wants to make sure that people have health care. He also is concerned about the issue of criminal justice, another legacy piece. If Donald Trump were to be President of the United States, Donald Trump would look at it as an either/or issue. It would not be an issue of supporting police and weeding out bad policing, and also supporting the community that feels distrust. It would be, support the police. So, there`s so many things on that list to also include issues of climate change and the work they`ve done there.
HAYES: Yes.
RYAN: So, this president views this as his legacy and also the fact that, you know, again, and you talked about it a minute ago, the Supreme Court as well, you know, there`s a chance that we could actually have two or three justices that are up in the next term of a president. And if Hillary Clinton is there, the legacy of Barack Obama will continue. And it could lean a little bit left at the consternation of the right.
HAYES: The sort of substantive issues that April talks about, these sort of different legislative achievements. There`s sort of one level, right, that I think the president -- and I think that`s been weirdly absent from the campaign because it`s --
SAM SEDER, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: it`s totally absent.
HAYES: It`s completely -- right. It`s, like, partly because policy is hard to talk about in the context of Donald Trump. Like, wow, who knows, right? But no, that`s all there. And, like, you know, he would be elected, he would have republicans in the house and senate almost certainly, and would do things like, you know, repeal the (INAUDIBLE) I mean, all of that would laid waste, too.
SEDER: All of it. Yeah, I mean, the amazing thing about Trump is he representing two ideas that are not -- are not mutually exclusive. He can on one hand be a rubber stamp for the most right-wing policies that, I think, we`ve seen in generations. And on the other hand, be a total loose cannon.
HAYES: That`s right.
SEDER: And endanger and go off the reservation and do things that could actually put us in -- you know, the country in grave peril, frankly. I mean, it`s not like Donald Trump goes in with any type of policy apparatus. So, there`s no one to say, like, "Hey, this is a good idea."
HAYES: It`s Paul Ryan. And that`s why Paul Ryan and that`s why all the people that have been listening, the people that are coming home to Donald Trump as you watch republicans who nine days ago were issuing statements about the man who was saying grabbed them by the P-word and then accused on the record by 12 subsequent women who say he did exactly what he boasted about and what a disgrace it was and how horrible it was, and how they can`t bring themselves to back a man, an individual like this, as they come home, as they say, "Well, I think I will vote for him," it is because they`re going to be handed the keys to the castle. That`s the point.
SEDER: No, it`s not just that. I mean, let`s be honest. From day one, it has been because the plurality of republican voters are -- you want to call them Trumpistas? I call them the republican base.
HAYES: Right.
SEDER: And they have been groomed to appreciate this guy`s style. It`s not even a question of policy. And so, Paul Ryan is doing this out of fear. All of these republicans are acting in their best interests as seen through the prism of their voters.
HAYES: Their voters.
SEDER: This is who the Republican Party is. I mean, you know, this is -- this is Rush Limbaugh --
HAYES: Built this.
SEDER: -- built it.
HAYES: April, the -- how do you view -- I mean, there`s sort of this feeling that sort of our institutions are being stressed. I mean, you`ve got the court, we`ve got a 4-4 court which lord knows how that plays out if there`s a contested election in any way? Obviously in 2000, that was 5-4 decision. So --
RYAN: And the five weeks of wondering who would be president. I was there. Oh, my gosh.
HAYES: That`s right. And you`ve also got -- you`ve also got the FBI, which now seems -- I mean, it`s one thing, the Comey letter, but just the string of leaks. And I`ve got to say there`s sort of in both directions, politically, right? I mean, oh, there`s a preliminary inquiry into Manafort. Oh, we wanted to go off the -- I mean, they`re clearly leaking a ton in ways that really call into question just the core integrity of the operations.
RYAN: You know, after the July announcement from Comey, there were many people, republicans, who were very upset, and there were leaks all over the place. And I`m talking -- this is pre-letter, pre a couple days ago of pre FBI letter to congress. And there were a lot of people very upset, and then once you get this letter, and you hear about this letter rather to congress, it makes you wonder, I mean, we have been hearing a lot -- we were again going back to leaks, we were hearing a lot of that consternation in that -- in that building in the inner circle of Comey, and then all of a sudden this happens just days out, this breaks tradition.
HAYES: Yes.
RYAN: I mean, what does this do to an election a few days out? And it sets a precedent, it`s a bad precedent. We have never seen this before.
HAYES: Nope.
RYAN: And I just tell you, the integrity of Comey, as well as the FBI, is in question, it makes you wonder. You go back in history and think about some of the things we read in the history books, about things that were happening to Luthers like Dr. King and others. You know, you just wonder, you just wonder.
HAYES: Yeah, I mean, you are seeing the ground work laid for this stress test on American institutions that this campaign has been in a way that has been fascinating as a political journalist and terrifying as a citizen.
RYAN: And it may break -- it may break the way we do things.
HAYES: Well
RYAN: This could be (INAUDIBLE)
(CROSSTALK)
HAYES: And it has, and it`s going to -- and the point is that it is -- it could -- there`s a -- there`s a lot riding on what happens next week.
RYAN: Yes.
HAYES: But it`s also going to continue after in some fashion.
(CROSSTALK)
RYAN: Of course. Yeah, absolutely right.
HAYES: April Ryan and Sam Seder, thank you both. I appreciate it.
SEDER: Thank you.
RYAN: Thank you.
HAYES: Coming up, will Donald Trump be able to get the electoral votes Hillary Clinton`s counting on winning? A flood of new polling out today points to an answer that may please nervous democrats. That`s next.
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HAYES: You need to win 270 electoral votes to become President of the United States. As we mentioned before the break, the new NBC News Battleground Map shows Hillary Clinton with 274 electoral votes between likely and lean democratic states. That`s enough to take the presidency but not by much. Clinton`s electoral vote total in the Battleground Map is down from last month as New Hampshire, North Carolina have been moved from lean democrat to toss-up. But even if Trump wins all the states now considered toss-ups, including Arizona, Florida and Ohio, he will still fall short of the presidency unless he can pick up a state that now leans blue. Here`s an average of the latest polling out of those blue-leaning states Trump is now targeting, Colorado, Michigan, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin. As you can see, Clinton holds a clear but certainly not overwhelming lead in each of those states. Joining me now Democratic Pollster Margie Omero of PSB Research, and Margie, so today -- OK. So, here`s where we are, the race has narrowed, I think it`s fair to say, right? Would you agree with that?
MARGIE OMERO, DEMOCRATIC POLLSTER, PSB RESEARCH: Well, the polling reflects a narrow race. That doesn`t necessarily mean that the race overall has narrowed, but that`s what the public polling says right now.
HAYES: OK. So, this is a key distinction, I think.
OMERO: Yes.
HAYES: Because there`s some reason to believe that polling is capturing in this race a kind of much more enthusiasm or mood of voters` response rates than the actual intention of voting and that the internal data campaign sea has been much more consistent than the polling fluctuations. Is that what you`re referring to?
OMERO: Yes. And if you look at the overall averages, they are more stable. There`s a great piece by Doug Rivers at -- of YouGov at RealClearPolitics that`s excellent that goes into this in lots of nerdy, geeky detail that people should go read that says, you know, what they sound which is consistent with what others are saying about their own polling that when things are tough for their candidate, their base is not so excited about picking up the phone and that accounts for some of the fluctuations. But it makes a lot of sense when you look at how little impact things like the Comey letter really having on the race when you ask people about it directly, it, you know, seemingly make no -- doesn`t seem to make a difference. So, you know, when you look at the states, so some of the averages and the forecast like the Princeton forecast which is more focused on state polling than on national polling is consistently more optimistic for Clinton because the state polling consistently shows more of an advantage for Clinton if you break it out into the individual states as you showed.
HAYES: Yeah. OK. So, today there is a sort of funny moment for real political geeks, right, which was the Marquette Poll was unveiled in Wisconsin. The reason why this is a big moment --
OMERO: Gold standard.
HAYES: Gold standard, right?
OMERO: Yes.
HAYES: So, there`s a few reason why it is a big moment. One, it is a big moment because that state has not been polled that routinely, there`s not a ton of polls coming out of there. There was a lot of indications by campaign behavior that the senate race has narrowed considerably between Russ Feingold and Ron Johnson. And, you had Trump is there yesterday and they -- the Trump folks have been making a lot of noise that they are now competitive in traditionally blue states like Wisconsin and Michigan, so everyone was watching -- that`s the result, you see right there, Hillary Clinton up by six. What do you make of this push by the Trump folks into states like Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, et cetera?
OMERO: Well, they have to -- I mean, they don`t have a choice. They have to go into other states because their path is narrower. And they also want to force the Clinton campaign to spend money in a variety of places even though they have -- the Clinton campaign has such a massive advantage in terms of infrastructure, which is something consistent with what we found at PSB, Adam Rosenblatt who helps run our political department, measured the recall of contact, 10 different types of contact, and the main advantage that Trump has is on its swag, on stickers and lawn signs. So, which is very consistent with our reporting about how he spent a lot on hats, right?
HAYES: That`s fascinating.
OMERO: So, that is where, you know, two-thirds of Americans across the country, not even in Battleground States say, yes, they`ve seen stickers and lawn signs, and I know this upsets a lot of democrats. That`s part of why you see a lot of people freaking out this week. Me, too, I don`t like seeing Trump over one percent, I get upset, which is me for a very stressful year, but when people see these, you know, see this public display, they worry that that means the race is narrowing. If you look at the averages, if you look at the states polling, you see consistently, even if it`s narrowed a little bit, even if we`re not sure what`s causing the noise, it`s still ultimately showing a Clinton advantage.
HAYES: And I guess finally the question here is, what -- how confident are you that the polling is not headed for some big miss, right? I mean, that`s the sort of big question.
OMERO: Right. I mean, so the first thing is, if Trump wins that`s a much bigger problem than the polling being amiss. That`s how -- that`s my personal view, right?
HAYES: I think, yes. The (INAUDIBLE) of the stakes here are more important than the polling methodological stakes. I agree.
OMERO: Yes. If I had to trade -- we don`t have this choice, but if I had to trade a polling miss for not Trump winning, that would be easy call. But I feel very confident in the polling industry. I mean, the polling in the primaries, which is tougher, really only had a few misses. You have so many outlets, Chris, that are polling, have so many resources dedicated to getting the polling right, to focus on the polling (INAUDIBLE), so many outlets covering polling in so much detail than we do on our podcast. There`s a zillion other outlets covering this closely, and they all point to really very much the same conclusion. That to me -- and using a variety of different methodologies, phone and online and cell phones that I feel confident that polling as an industry has the tools and the infrastructure and the emphasis and prioritization and methodology to really do a good job predicting.
HAYES: All right. Margie Omero, thanks for being with me. I appreciate it.
OMERO: Thank you.
HAYES: Coming up, a historically black church in Mississippi burns with the words "Vote Trump" painted on the side of the building. Tonight, both campaigns are now reacting. That story is next.
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HAYES: Early this morning in Iowa, two Des Moines area police officers were shot and killed in what authorities are calling two ambush style attacks.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was 1:06 a.m. when police responded to a call of shots fired, found Urbandale Officer Justin Martin shot dead in the front seat of his squad car. A rookie officer, this was his first year on the job. 20 minutes later, two miles away, Des Moines Sergeant Tony Beminio, was found shot in his squad car. A husband and father, he died at the hospital.
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HAYES: Hours later, police identify 46-year-old Scott Michael Greene as the alleged gunman. He surrendered and was taken into custody. Greene was known to local law enforcement. Early this month, Urbandale Police helped remove him from a high school football game after he brought a confederate flag to the stadium. Greene appears to have posted video of that incident on YouTube in which he claims that, quote, "African-American people hit him and took his confederate flag." He also claimed the police were assaulting him.
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SCOTT MICHAEL GREENE, ALLEGED GUNMAN: I think I`ve been assaulted by you. You grabbed me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I escorted you outside the stadium, Sir.
GREENE: You grabbed me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I escorted you out of the stadium, Sir.
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HAYES: In a separate YouTube post, Greene shared this image allegedly from the same day, showing him holding American and confederate flags at Urbandale High School Football Stadium, you can see the reaction of the crowd. According to The Des Moines Register, the stadium is at the intersection where one of the officers was found dead early Wednesday. President Obama condemned the "Shameful acts of violence." and both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump expressed their condolences and sympathies for the officers` families. Well, the Trump campaign also release a statement late today, condemning the torturing and vandalizing of the historically black church last night. The Hopewell Baptist Church in Greenville, Mississippi, was engulfed in flames when firefighters arrived and the words "Vote Trump" were spray painted or painted on the side of the building. In the news conference today, Greenville`s Mayor called the incident "A heinous, hateful and cowardly act."
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ERRICK SIMMON, GREENVILLE, MISSISSIPPI MAYOR: I talked to folks who were fearful. I talked to people who were intimidated. I talked to people who, quite frankly, were sad and crying last night. That should not happen in 2016. It happened in the 50s, it happened in the 60s, but we`re in 2016. And that should not happen.
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HAYES: Authorities have yet to identify a suspect or a motive, but of course, burnings of black churches have been a long run forum white supremacists terrorism in this country. And this election cycle, white supremacists have a candidate they`re very clearly backing. We`ll take a look at what they have planned for Election Day and beyond, next.
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HAYES: Well, Hillary Clinton has received the lion`s share of newspaper endorsements across the country this week, Donald Trump got a nod of support from one paper. It`s called The Crusader, and it is the official newspaper of the Ku Klux Klan.
Under the headline "Make America great again" accompanied by a photo of Trump in a MAGA hat comes a lengthy and enthusiastic embrace of the Republican nominee`s message from a publication that bills itself as the premier voice of the white resistance.
Quote, "while Trump wants to make America great again, we have to ask ourselves what made America great in first place? The short answer to that is simple: America was great not because of our forefathers did, but because of who our forefathers were. America was founded as a white christian republic. And as a white christian republic, it became great."
The author of the editorial told The Washington Post that this wasn`t an endorsement of Trump but, quote, we do like his nationalist views.
The Trump campaign has distanced itself from the paper`s support. The publication is repulsive and their views do not represent the tens of millions of Americans who are uniting behind our campaign. Nevertheless, Trump`s message has resonated with many in the white nationalist movement, or hinting their efforts will go beyond election day.
According to one head of a white nationalist think tank, Trump has unleashed forces much bigger than he is that simply can`t be put back in the bottle.
Joining me now, Olivia Nuzzi, political reporter for The Daily Beast. Her latest piece: "How do you get David Duke to leave your party?" It appears in Esquire.
And Olivia, you`ve been covering -- I mean, probably the most famous reviled -- I think rightly reviled white supremacist in America, David Duke, who is running for senate in Louisiana who is a big Donald Trump fan who sees this as kind of his moment. You`ve been covering him.
OLIVIA NUZZI, THE DAILY BEAST: Right. I mean, I spent some time with him in Louisiana. In late October I went to Octoberfest with him, if you can believe that. And he was really in support of Trump. He was telling me how happy he was that Trump is using the same sort of language about immigrants that he himself has been using since 1977 when the Ku Klux Klan dispatched its members to the border to do border patrol watch.
HAYES: You know, the other language that struck me is this language of globalist. This is something that Duke has used that is very common in the sort of John Birch Society, that is a real core like globalist versus nationalist is this language that now extends, a dichotomy that extends from all the way of the most avowed racist fringes of David Duke into the heart of the rhetoric of the Republican nominee.
NUZZI: Right. I mean, you hear Steve Bannon, of course, Trump`s campaign CEO is a big fan of using that word. Roger Stone uses that word and now Donald Trump uses it as well.
So, you see there`s sort of like a trickle from the very far alt-right to the Trump campaign. Duke told me that he believes that Trump listens to his radio show. He said he can`t prove it, but that he suspects that he does.
He also said he thought he read his books, but I don`t think Trump is much of a reader. But the radio show seems like it`s a possibility. When you hear him saying the same sort of things that Donald Trump says. You hear him saying the same sort of things that David Duke says, it seems like a possibility.
And David Duke also talked to me about Ann Coulter. He said that when you read her books, she sounds a lot like he sounds.
And I mean, just all of this seems to be coming together in the Donald Trump campaign. I think that they need to do some soul searching and ask themselves why are all these white nationalists supporting them.
HAYES: Yeah, I mean, one of the things we should be clear, and obviously this is not the statement that everyone that supports Donald Trump is a member of the KKK, of course, and I think what`s also what`s interesting here is David Duke is about to get his -- he`s going to get annihilated in this race, right. I mean, his brand of extremely explicit, hyperexplicit white supremacist, white nationalism is not a political winner even in the state of Louisiana.
NUZZI: No, he`s polling around 3 to 5 percent. But he did make the debate that is happening I believe as we speak in Louisiana. He`s one of just a handful of senate candidates who made the debate out of 23 candidates. So while it`s likely that he`s going o get annihilated, as you said, he is not doing as badly as you would think he would be doing, given his worldview and given his history.
And I think it`s very troubling. But he was actually passing out hats that said I`m for Duke and Trump at this event the night -- with him while he was campaigning. It was troubling to see people walking up to him wanting selfies, wanting to wear these hats. I think people do see an obvious connection between David Duke and Donald Trump.
HAYES: And there is a feeling among these folks and again, like it`s hard to get your head around what the numbers are when you are talking about people that are sort of explicitly avowedly identified as out white nationalists, for instance, that this is kind of a moment for them and that whatever happened in this Trump campaign, you know, in the way that a certain kind of conservative found the Goldwater campaign was lost, but they learned how to organize and sort of enter politics, that this kind of represents that for them.
NUZZI: Yeah, I mean, I think that they see right now a real opportunity with Donald Trump taking their language to the mainstream, to the mainstream political discourse. When you see Donald Trump talking on cable news every day on the way they talk, on their radio shows, they`re on Twitter or on their Reddit forums. I think it`s probably very validating for them.
HAYES: I have to say one of the things that, you know, it`s been hard to distinguish between whether you`re dealing -- you know, deal with these, you know, what I call Nazi frogs on Twitter and these various trolls, but then you see someone at a Trump event using the word lugenpresse (ph), which is the Nazi German term -- Nazi term for the lying press.
And you think to yourself, man, I guess there are really people out there like who are doing that.
NUZZI: Right, maybe it`s not all about economic disenfranchisement.
HAYES: Or maybe not just like a bunch of bots or weirdos like on Twitter. There`s actual human beings in the world doing this.
NUZZI: There are real people who believe this sort of stuff. David Duke believes this sort of stuff and he supports Donald Trump. And you do -- you see some of them at the rallies, obviously not all Trump supporters are bigots, not all Trump supporters are bigots, not all Trump supporters probably with the Nazi movement or as white nationalists.
But there seem to be an unusually high number of people who do have that world view who support Donald Trump and I think you have to ask why.
HAYES: Yeah, that`s a good question. Olivia Nuzzi, thank you. It`s great to have you on.
Still ahead, what would be an earth shaking revelation in any other election, but this one: The mob figure Donald Trump claims he never met that is, yes, standing next to him in this new picture. I`ll talk to the reporter that broke that story ahead.
But first, Tonight`s Thing One, Thing Two starts right after this break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: Thing One tonight perhaps one of the most stupendous public displays of it wasn`t me. Texas agricultural commissioner Sid Miller, vocal Trump supporter who Trump has personally called a great guy and a star at a rally over the weekend. His Twitter account on Tuesday posted an offensive message calling Hillary Clinton the c-word. It cited a Pennsylvania poll by auto alliance with Trump at at 44 and c-word at 43, followed by Go Trump Go.
Within 15 minutes, Miller, or someone on his staff deleted the tweeted and posted this, Miller for Texas has been hacked. The disgusting retweet has been removed. And we have changed all account passwords. Be advised, which sounds serious.
Although it`s a little strange the supposedly hacked tweet looks so much like a bunch of other tweets sent out from this account that afternoon.
Shortly after an update, Miller or his team, deleted the tweet saying the account was hacked and posted in its place the campaign was retweeting information on Twitter today and inadvertently retweeted a tweet they were not aware contained a derogatory term. The tweet was taken down as soon as possible.
Even spoke to a local NBC reporter July Fein (ph) and told her it was a retweet. OK, a retweet, and sometimes you hit the retweet button. But that doesn`t seem to add up either, since the tweet clearly comes from his handle.
So less than an hour later another update. Miller again talks to local NBC reporter saying the reason the tweet did not say RT is because it was cut and pasted. Campaign confirmed this final version of the story claiming a staffer cut and pasted the tweet.
Well, the story gets even more interesting from there. Who sent the original vulgar tweet that Miller`s staff copy and pasted is Thing Two in 60 seconds.
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HAYES: Texas agricultural commission Sid Miller and his staff performed quite the two step yesterday trying to explain how this offensive tweet calling Hillary Clinton the c-word ended up on his account. After first saying the account was hacked, they claimed it was an accidental retweet, finally said a staff cut and pasted that language from another Twitter accuont.
So, who sent the original tweet that an unnamed staffer allegedly read, copied, pasted and tweeted out from Sid Miller`s account, well, it appears to have been first posted by this user, the Ricky Vaughan (ph), a notoriously vulgur and anti-Semitic pro-Trump user. The Ricky Vaughan (ph) account is either the reincarnation or an homage to the handle @RickyVaughan99 (ph) dubbed an alt-right celebrity by the Southern Poverty Law Center and suspended by Twitter earlier this month.
If you`re surprised that an unnamed staffer would cut and paste from that alt-right users account we should note that Sid Miller has previously tweeted at the Ricky Vaughan (ph) several times as the account was the on the radar.
There was, perhaps, some good news for Sid Miller today. The Ricky Vaughan (ph) handle met the same fate as RickyVaughan99 (ph), suspended by Twitter, this time for posting voter information -- misinformation aimed at minorities. So at least in the near-term there`s one less alt-right account from Miller`s team to worry about copying.
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HAYES: Donald Trump has on more than one occasion said he wouldn`t recognize a man named Robert Libutti, that might be because Libutti had a history of fraud and was reported to have ties to New York mob boss John Gotti.
In 1991, Trump told The Philadelphia Inquirer, quote, I have heard he`s a high roller, but if he`s standing in front of me I wouldn`t know what he looked like.
Today Yahoo! News released video that appears to show Libutti standing next to Trump at Wrestlemania event in 1988. According to Yahoo, Libutti can be seen sitting through the three-and-a-half hour event in a front row seat next to Trump and his then-wife Ivana.
When Yahoo chief investigative correspondent Michael Isikoff first reported back in March that Trump had a longtime relationship with Libutti, Trump told the website, quote, during the the years I very successfully ran the casino business, I knew many high rollers. I assume Mr. Libutti was one of them, but I don`t recognize the name.
When asked to comment on today`s video of Trump and Libutti standing side by side, campaign spokesperson Hope Hicks told Yahoo this was obviously a massive event which took place decades ago.
Mr. Trump attended many similar events with thousands of people during this time period. Libutti was a high roller in Atlantic City casinos. The Wall Street Journal reported that according to state documents his gambling losses earned Trump plaza $11 million between 1986 and 1989. In the 1990s, Trump Plaza casino in Atlantic City, according to Isikoff, sought to accommodate Libutti by keeping the employees away from his betting tables.
Yahoo News obtained documents that show the casino was fined $200,000 in 1991 for preventing especially black employees from getting near Libutti while he was gambling.
Quote, "investigators found Libutti had on multiple occasions berated blacks and women using what one state official described as the vilest language, including racist slurs and references to women in obscene terms that the Trump Plaza in order not to lose his substantial business sought to accommodate him.
Libutti was convicted of tax fraud. He died in 2014. When we come back, we`ll talk to a man who knew him.
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You`ve never had to meet with, to do business with any organized figure in order to build buildings...
TRUMP: I have never had to -- and to be honest with you, being a celebrity at a very high level is a good thing because they sort of -- and I`m not saying the mob doesn`t exist, but they want to keep it low. They want to really keep it low. The last thing they want to do is meet with Donald Trump and have 500 paparazzi taking pictures. The answer is no.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Joining me now Michael Isikoff, chief investigative correspondent for Yahoo News, and David K. Johnson, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, author of The Making of Donald Trump.
Michael, this is a fascinating report. I mean, to me, there`s a few things going on, but one is just just the denial like I wouldn`t know the guy from Adam, which seems pretty implausible once you read all the reporting you put together and look at the photo.
MICHAEL ISIKOFF, YAHOO NEWS: Right. Not only that, but I did talk to Robert Libutti`s daughter for the original piece we did back in March and she was quite upset, called Donald Trump a liar when I told her that he was saying that he didn`t know her father.
She said that`s ridiculous. We spent lots of time together. My father did. Flew on his helicopter. Partied on his yacht. They knew each other quite well.
So -- and when you got to this story about the video proof showing the two of them side by side ringside at Wrestlemania in 1988, sitting -- Bob Libutti is sitting with Donald and Ivana Trump throughout the three-and-a- half hour event, Edie, his daughter, made it quite clear this wasn`t by happenstance. He was -- he and Edie were the invited guests of Donald Trump, she told me.
So all that sort of when you put it all together, it`s pretty clear there`s a relationship there. And on top of that it`s worth remembering Bob Libutti was a whale, he the biggest customer at the Trump Plaza casino, gambled millions of dollars. And also caused the casino quite a bit of problems.
HAYES: You know, David, you reported for years about this sort of element of Trump`s life and the degree to which there were extensive connections. And partly -- I don`t even know if there were more than the normal connections of people involved in the gambling business particularly Atlantic City that with folks that were in organized crime.
DAVID K. JOHNSON, JOURNALIST: Well, Bob is not a made mob member. He was an associate of people. And he was a swindler in the horse race business. His daughter would tell you he was a smart businessman.
But he was Donald`s biggest customer. And so take Donald at his word. He didn`t know his biggest customer, right? That`s certainly an indictment. And the fact is I spent a lot of time with Bob back then, and he told lots of stories. Donald Trump actually had a professionally made video for Bob`s daughter, Edie, for her 35th birthday and gave her a cream-colored Mercedes convertible as part of a ploy to try and seduce her, which led Bob Libutti to threaten to take extraordinarily painful action against Trump were he to continue pursuing his daughter because she was married.
HAYES: You know, to zoom out here, right. So we`ve got this story. But to me the sort of important thing about a story like this in context of what`s happening now and six days from now is, you know, you have someone with a whole bunch of different business entities. Those entities may have certain conflicts, they may have certain interests, there may be debts that are owed to people, they might be in league with unsavory folks. Kurt Eichenwald has documented some of that in terms of dealings abroad.
And just know nothing. We know nothing. It`s all a black box as we step towards what could be the entirely unprecedented situation of the president of the United States operating the family business essentially out of the White House -- Michael.
ISIKOFF: Yeah, well, a couple things.
I mean, first of all, I think there`s two sort of takeaways from all this. First is the obvious one, there is something of a pattern here of when you ask Donald Trump about people from his past who may have been unsavory. He uses pretty much consistently the same language, I wouldn`t know him if he walked into the room. It`s what he said about Bob Libutti. It`s what he said about Felix Sadr (ph), the Russian emigre organized crime guy convicted felon who worked for the Trump organization.
There is that pattern as well as many of the women who have made accusations against him. The sort of just flippant, I don`t know him. I don`t know who you`re talking about.
But secondly, just getting back to the core issues in the -- when I said before Libutti had caused problems for the Trump Plaza, one of those was the case involving discrimination, violation of New Jersey civil rights laws where the casino was accommodating a guy who demanded that African- Americans and women be removed from the crap tables when he was betting because their presence upset him.
And rather than denying that request or kicking Bob Libutti out of the casino, they accommodated him.
HAYES: To be clear, this was not an allegation, this was a finding by the regulatory body that fined him for it.
JOHNSON: Chris, it`s a little different than the way Michael put it, just to be clear. Libutti certainly used the most vicious, vile language and everybody around him when he was losing at the table, but Bob Libutti was incensed at the notion that he wanted any of these people removed. It`s awful that he thought they should have to listen to this stuff.
But he told me, you know, what kind of a person would remove these people because of what I said. I didn`t ask them to be removed, Trump is a racist.
HAYES: That seems like a distinction without a difference. I mean, the fact of the matter is you can`t be...
JOHNSON: I mean, the point is that`s the reason they were fined because the hotel did remove them.
ISIKOFF: That`s exactly. He did remove them.
JOHNSON: And by the way, just sort of adding one more point, there`s no indication that Trump was ever questioned as part of that investigation.
HAYES: Right.
JOHNSON: But given that they apparently had this relationship, you would think that would be a logical question. Did the guy who owns the hotel, did he order this or was he aware that you were removing blacks and women from the crap tables to accommodate this guy?
HAYES: That was the real plot twist in that story. I was reading through it today. I was like, wow -- Michael Isikoff and David K. Johnson, thank you so much for your time. Appreciate it.
ISIKOFF: Thank you.
HAYES: That is ALL IN for this evening. "THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW" starts right now. Good evening, Rachel.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. END