Show: ALL IN with CHRIS HAYES Date: December 6, 2016 Guest: Adam Schiff, Sherrod Brown, Sarah Isker Flores, Robert Reich, Craig Silverman
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST: And the lingering concerns about Trump`s National Security Adviser after his son was fired in the wake of pizza-gate.
MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think that`s the appropriate decision for us to move forward, avoid any further distraction.
HAYES: Plus.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: Now, they`re keeping actually the numbers over 1100 people.
HAYES: A week later, Trump`s job claims aren`t holding up amid new concerns about a populist bait and switch. Exclusive new data on how damaging fake news was to the election, and the movement to help electors bail on Trump.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Electoral College is here to do exactly what I think I`m doing, which is standing up and saying no.
HAYES: When ALL IN starts right now.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HAYES: All right. Good evening from New York. At this hour, Donald Trump is hosting his second "Thank You" tour stop in North Carolina, a state he won. He is there tonight to introduce General Mattis who we believe will be the nominee for Secretary of Defense. We`re going to listen for a few minutes and then come back and monitor the rest for news. Let`s listen in.
TRUMP: And I said, "What?" And they said, "We have a big crowd but they won`t mind just because the weather was so terrible." So, I said, "You got to be kidding. So, we`ve been driving for two hours. We landed it like a long ways, but there was no way that we weren`t showing up tonight." That I can tell you. That I can tell you. That we couldn`t land at your local airport, we landed -- we landed a long ways away. I said, "What?" Let`s put it this way, the drive was about three times longer than the flight. But we made it. That`s all that matters, right? We made it.
And I`m here today for one main reason. To thank you, the people of North Carolina, for being so incredible. We want to thank you. You went out and pounded the pavement, you organize your fellow citizens, and propel to victory a grass roots movement, the likes of which nobody, nobody has ever seen before. And that`s beyond our country. And I want to give a special thank you to the incredible military families, service members and veterans of North Carolina. And they were great. You saw what happened with the military. I got such numbers, oh, those numbers are good. I won`t talk about it. We don`t talk about numbers, we bring people together, but boy, were those numbers good.
And our veterans, do we love our veterans? We love our veterans. Your state`s legacy of service is an inspiration to us all. North Carolina`s produced many of the finest soldiers, airmen, sailors and marines, the world has ever seen. So true. Our men and women in uniform represent the absolute best of us. We must follow their example, working in unison toward a shared goal across every social, racial and economic line. They understand that to accomplish the mission, we must all be pulling in the same direction. We have to get together. They know that we must leave no man or woman behind. These patriots have shed their blood to defend our country, in distant fields of battle across the earth. Our debt to them is eternal and everlasting. Amazing people. Amazing people.
And you know we have a very special person here tonight, who we`re going to introduce very shortly. Boy, it`s been such a popular choice. We salute their sacrifice and we salute the flag they fought to protect. We love our flag, right? We love our flag. We love our flag and we don`t like it when we see people ripping up our flag and burning our flag. We don`t like it. We don`t like it. And we`ll see what we`re going to do about that, OK? We`re going to see.
Tomorrow is the 75th anniversary of Pearl Harbor. It`s a milestone that marks the ultimate sacrifice of those who wear the great uniform. It`s a reminder, too, of the valiant efforts of America`s fighting men and women, who have liberated millions from tyranny and oppression. Now, today, our brave men and women are the first in line defense, defense against radical Islamic terrorism -- words that some people don`t like to say. An ideology of death that slaughters innocent men, women and children. We`re going to protect our people, we`re going to protect our country, believe me.
In every generation, a new threat to freedom arises. And just as we defeated these threats, we faced generations in the past and you understand that. So too, will we defeat the forces of terrorism. It`s unseen in many cases, but we`re going to defeat that force and we`re going to defeat it strongly and quickly. Believe me. We will prevail. We stand here today just miles from Fort Bragg, the home of heroes, a home of heroes. Our Special Forces at Fort Bragg have been the tip of the spear in fighting terrorism. The motto of our Army Special Forces is to free the oppressed, and that is exactly what they have been doing and will continue to do. At this very moment, soldiers from Fort Bragg are deployed in 90 countries around the world. Can you believe that? 90 countries.
Base in Fort Bragg is the 82nd airborne division, also known as the "All- American division". We stand in awe of their achievements. We really do. Not far from here, sits 45 percent of the entire United States Marine Corps at Camp Lejeune. I`ve been to Camp Lejeune. We love Camp Lejeune. 12,000 citizen soldiers fill the ranks of the North Carolina Army and Air National Guard. The National Guard rushed to the scene to help the victims of Hurricane Matthew and so many other catastrophes, and we continue to send our thoughts and prayers to those recovering in its wake.
The military families in North Carolina are a national treasure and will be the duty of my administration to ensure that we protect those who protect us. And I just want to tell you that we are going to be taking care of our veterans, and I`m right now -- I`m right now working -- these are great, great people, and they haven`t been treated fairly. And I`m right now working on picking the people that are going to be helping our veterans, and they are really outstanding. We have some of the great people, and a lot of people they`re giving, making great sacrifices to do this. But they`re going to be unbelieve -- you`re going to see such a change. You`re going to see such a change like you`ve never seen before. We`re going to protect and help our veterans, believe me.
That brings me to the second reason that I`m here. To discuss our action plan, to make America great again, beginning with the rebuilding of our military, and we will, we will. You`re going to see it. I`m so looking for it, probably next week, you`re going to see what we`re going to do to take care of our vets. It`s going to be announced, a lot of things are going to be announced. Stay tuned, folks.
Here are the priorities that will guide our military and veterans policy. All men and women in uniform will have the supplies, support, equipment, training, services, medical care and resources they need to get the job done incredibly well and perfectly. You watch. The best care in the world for our veterans, both at public and V.A. facilities, as well as the right to see a private doctor when the lines are long. I`ve been saying this for the last year and a half. You know, people are waiting in line for seven days, eight days, nine days, longer. He just said longer, longer than that. And when that happens, you`re going out to see a private doctor, a private hospital, a public hospital, somebody that can take care of you, and we`re going to pick up the bill. And it`s going to be, not only is it going to be great for you and lifesaving in many cases, it`s going to be less expensive.
And I`m saying why didn`t they do this in the past? Why didn`t somebody do this? There`s not going to be any more waiting for our great people in line for weeks to see a doctor. And finally, a commitment to only engage the use of military forces when it`s in the vital national security interests of the United States. We don`t want to have a depleted military because we`re all over the place fighting in areas that just we shouldn`t be fighting in. We`re going to have such a strong, powerful military. It`s not going to be depleted any longer. I mentioned equipment previously and I said, "Equipment. We`re going to have the finest equipment in the world. It`s going to be new. It`s going to be modern. It`s going to be clean. It`s going to be the best." That`s what we`re going to have. We`re not going to be a depleted military anymore.
From now on, it`s going to be America first, America first. We will stop racing to topple foreign -- and you understand this -- foreign regimes that we know nothing about, that we shouldn`t be involved with. Instead, our focus must be on defeating terrorism and destroying ISIS. And we will. Any nation that shares these goals will be our partner in this mission. We won`t forget it. We want to strengthen all friendships and seek out new friendships, rather than a rigid dogma, we`re guided by the lessons of history and a desire to promote stability, stability all over and strength in our land. This destructive cycle of intervention and chaos, must finally, folks, come to an end. Come to an end.
We`ve spent, at last count, $6 trillion in the Middle East, and our roads have potholes all over. Our highways are falling apart, our bridges are falling, our tunnels are no good, our airports are horrible, like third- world countries. We`ve got to start spending on ourselves. But we`ve got to be so strong militarily like we`ve never ever been before.
HAYES: All right, that`s Donald Trump in North Carolina. That`s his second stop on his "Thank you" tour/victory tour. Tonight, he`ll be introducing Marine General James Mattis as the Secretary of Defense. You can see him talking about veterans and about foreign policy, and we will monitor that if there`s any news made as we go along here.
Now, just hours before the President-elect took the stage in North Carolina, the current president, addressing soldiers at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida, delivered his final national security speech, and without referencing Trump by name, repudiated his successor`s policies, from immigration to civil rights to military strategy. We`ll play an extended chunk of that speech for you in just a bit.
And Trump`s choice of Mattis, which is unveiling tonight, or formally unveiling tonight, a recently retired general to lead the defense department has prompted some serious concerns, since for very important reasons, the military is supposed to be under civilian control. And indeed, congress would actually have to change the law and issue a waiver from Mattis to be able to take the job. But Mattis is also seen as a potential moderating force in a Trump White House and not just because he recently tried to talk Trump out of torture. Mattis could also provide a hugely important counterbalance to another general Trump has picked for his team, retired Army Lieutenant General and staunched Trump loyalist, Michael Flynn, who Trump has tapped as his National Security Adviser.
Today, Flynn`s son, who`ve been part of the transition effort, was fired from the Trump campaign after tweeting about the pizza-gate conspiracy theory. There`s not appear to be a lot of daylight between Michael Flynn, Jr. and his father, who will soon run the national security process inside the White House for the entire country. Michael Flynn is also a fan of spreading fake news. He`s reportedly pushed dubious factoids at least 16 times since August 9th. He recently tweeting with a link to a fake story, "You decide. NYPD blows whistle on new Hillary e-mails, money laundering, sex crimes with children, etc. Must read!" Again, that is not true, that was a fake story. Flynn has such a loose relationship with the truth that when he ran the Defense Intelligence Agency, his subordinates reportedly came up with a name for the phenomenon, they called them "Flynn Facts". Flynn has tweeted the, quote, "Fear of Muslims is rational." He had this to say while promoting a book on quote, "Radical Islam", earlier this year.
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MICHAEL FLYNN, FORMER DIRECTOR, DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY: We are facing another `ism,` just like we faced Nazism, and fascism, and imperialism and communism. This is Islamism. And it is a vicious cancer inside the body of 1.7 billion people on this planet. And it has to be excised.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Flynn would seem to represent some of the worst impulses of Trumpism, the very impulses President Obama today sought to counter in his final national security speech.
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BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We are fighting terrorists who claim to fight on behalf of Islam. But they do not speak for over a billion Muslims around the world. And they do not speak for American Muslims including many who wear the uniform of the United States of America`s military. If we act like this is a war between the United States and Islam, we`re not just going to lose more Americans to terrorist attacks. But we`ll also lose sight of the very principles we claim to defend.
So, let my final words to you, as your Commander in Chief, be a reminder of what it is that you`re fighting for, what it is that we are fighting for. The United States of America is not a country that imposes religious tests as a price for freedom. We`re a country that was founded so that people could practice their faiths as they choose. We`re a nation that believes freedom can never be taken for granted. And that each of us has a responsibility to sustain it. The universal right to speak your mind and to protest against authority. To live in a society that`s open and free, that can criticize a president without retribution.
A country where you`re judged by the content of your character rather than what you look like or how you worship or what your last name is or where your family came from. That`s what separates us from tyrants and terrorists. Remember what that flag stands for. For we depend on you, the heirs to that legacy, our men and women in uniform and the citizens who support you to carry forward what is best in us. That commitment to a common creed, the confidence that right makes might, not the other way around.
That`s how we can sustain this long struggle. That`s how we`ll protect this country. That`s how we`ll protect our constitution against all threats, foreign and domestic. I trust that you will fulfill that mission as you have fulfilled all others.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: President Obama earlier today. Retired General James Mattis brought to the stage by President-elect Donald Trump. Mattis has been nominated to be the Secretary of Defense. He thanked everybody and left the stage. This is the first sort of joint cabinet official event that Donald Trump has done. He`s done two of these, he`s planning lots more, and if the campaign`s in any indication, probably hundreds more over the course of his presidency.
Joining me now, Democratic Congressman, Adam Schiff from California, a Ranking Member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Congressman, let me -- let me start with your thoughts since we just saw retired General Mattis there about the choice of Mattis.
REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D), CALIFORNIA: Well, I think he`s a good choice in the sense that there`s a lot to like about this man. He served with great distinction for many years in the Armed Forces. He`s pushed back already against the President-elect on the issue of torture saying that it`s a bad idea and it`s not effective. I think he will also speak plainly to the President-elect as well as his National Security Adviser nominee about Russia, and how Russia is not our friend. I think he will speak strongly about the NATO alliance and the need to support our NATO allies in particular in the Baltics.
But elsewhere, I think in Syria, he will push back against working with the Russians who don`t share our interests, and have been bombing civilians there. So, there`s a lot to like about this man. There are reservations about breaching this longstanding policy, in fact, embodied in law that we don`t appoint people as Secretary of Defense unless they`ve been out of uniform for many years. Seven years is the current law. And Chris, there`s a recent report that they may try to insert in a must-pass government spending bill. A waiver for General Mattis, I think that would be a big mistake.
HAYES: I saw them. They may try to put that in the -- in the continuing resolution which is must pass to keep the government open. You mentioned him as sort of counterweight to Michael Flynn. A lot of people have been talking numbers. And I want to talk about Flynn, because it`s really quite extraordinary. I mean, Michael Flynn`s son had a transition.gov e-mail address. He was, according to reports, the transition had sought security clearance for him. He was acting as a Chief of Staff for his father. And after a gunman shows up at a pizzeria in Washington, D.C., based on an entirely false libelous conspiracy theory that there`s a child-sex ring being run by the Clintons out of it, after this guy shows up with a gun, Michael Flynn`s son is Chief of Staff on the transition team reportedly seeking security clearance said, "You have to disprove it before we know it`s false." He was then let go today. What does that say about Michael Flynn`s judgment?
SCHIFF: Well, you know, if caused profound questions I think about the judgment of both father and son, because have been involved in the propagation of these fake news stories. And there`s no question that they`re completely fake and false. It`s not as if the earlier tweets by Mike Flynn senior about the Clintons` involvement in a child sex ring was any more true than the latest by his son. And the fact that they would peddle these fake news stories, whether it`s during the campaign or after, it doesn`t matter. I mean, it`s completely unethical. And you really have to question the -- both the morals and the judgment of people that would be engaged in propounding such ridiculous and absurd conspiracy theories which could have had very deadly consequences.
HAYES: You know, there`s a -- there`s a debate happening right now of some back and forth about Keith Ellison, a congressman from Minneapolis, one of your colleagues, a chair of the DNC. There`s some writings he`s had in the past that some have said they`re uncomfortable with in terms of his views on Israel and Zionism, and things like that. I want to show you a tweet that Michael Flynn himself posted. It was later deleted. In which he retweets someone basically telling the Jews, not today Jews, that we will - - we will no longer -- CNN implicated. The USSR is to blame! Not anymore, Jews. Not anymore." Here`s General Flynn retweeting someone saying not anymore, Jews, not anymore. "The corrupt democratic machine will do and say anything to get never Hillary into power." This is a new low. I mean, can you imagine if that was something that one of your colleagues have retweeted just in the last year?
SCHIFF: I can`t imagine it. Now, I think in fairness to General Flynn, he retracted that, said it was a mistake, that he didn`t mean to send that tweet. But nonetheless, there are a lot of very offensive tweets that he did mean to send, that he hasn`t retracted.
HAYES: Like fear of Muslims is rational, is that --
SCHIFF: Exactly. Exactly.
HAYES: Is that a -- is that a -- do you think that`s a legitimate view for the National Security Advisor of this country to hold?
SCHIFF: Absolutely not. And I -- and I think just as the president laid out in his speech today, suggesting that all Muslims or that an entire faith is linked to terror or is somehow anathema or automatically the subject of a registry, all of these terrible bigoted ideas are so counterproductive as well in terms of the fight against terror because they play into the ISIS and Al Qaeda narrative that the west is at war with all of Islam. It`s deeply destructive. And imagine trying to work with our Muslim allies and get their support when we`re talking about banning Muslims from coming to our country. So, what are we supposed to say to King Abdullah of Jordan? We`ll work with you, but just don`t try to come to the United States?
HAYES: Congressman Adam Schiff, always a pleasure. Thanks for your time, Sir.
SCHIFF: Thanks, Chris.
HAYES: All right. Next, as Donald Trump continues his second victory tour, it was Donald Trump`s Carrier jobs to the front end of an elaborate bait and switch. The numbers are not what the President-elect said they were. And Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown on that and more, next.
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HAYES: Donald Trump continues to address his victory rally in North Carolina. Just introduced General Mattis as his pick for Secretary of Defense. But there are new questions about big claims Trump made at his carrier event last week in Indiana.
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TRUMP: That we`re saving the jobs at the Carrier plant from going to Mexico. 1,100 jobs. And we will work to make America a better environment for workers and businesses. Those days are over when those companies are going to leave.
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HAYES: On his Victory/Thank You Tour, Donald Trump has been touting the deal he facilitated last week in the State of Indiana, manufacturer United Technologies to keep Carrier factory jobs from moving to Mexico. An early political win for the president-elect, the deal is extremely popular. According to a new poll from POLITICO and Morning Consult, 60 percent of registered voters saying it gave him a more favorable view of Trump. But the United Steelworkers Union that represents those Carrier workers, the actual people whose jobs are at stake in the deal, they were not a party to the negotiations and they just found out from the company how many factory jobs are actually being saved. The number, 730, about a third fewer than the 1,100 Trump cited, and that included at least 350 research and development jobs that were never slated to move to Mexico.
Another 70 to 80 were non-union jobs like supervisors and secretaries. The 730 jobs saved (INAUDIBLE) a sizeable number of the Union workers employed at Carrier`s Indianapolis plant. About 550 of those factory positions are still relocating on top of 700 jobs being lost from a nearby plant owned by the same parent company. So in all, 1,250 factory jobs moving to Mexico versus 730 being saved in Indiana. Now, Chuck Jones is the President of the Carrier Workers Union reacted to the news today in an interview with The Washington Post. "He got up there," Jones said to Trump, "and for whatever reason lied his -- bleep -- off. Trump and Pence, they pulled a dog and pony show on the numbers. I almost threw up in my mouth."
And Trump has made a habit of performing a kind of toughness against American corporations, most recently going after Boeing earlier today when he said it was a bloated contract to revamp Air Force One. This weekend, he tweeted up a storm about a 35 percent tariff he wants to impose on companies that export jobs and try to bring products back in the U.S., warning them against making a, quote, "Very expensive mistake." We should know, he hasn`t said whether that would apply to Carrier for relocating the majority of its Indiana factory jobs to Mexico. And the republican congress where Trump`s agenda is to be implemented, toughness on corporations is not exactly in fashion. Instead, leadership favors slashing corporate taxes.
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REP. PAUL RYAN, (R) WISCONSIN: The problem we have largely speaking is that we tax American businesses at much, much higher tax rates than our foreign competitors tax theirs; therefore, they`re winning and we`re losing.
So we think the real solution here is comprehensive across the board tax reform which is what we`re going to be hitting the ground running on and working on in early 2017.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Just this past week congress on the verge of taking an actual real step to protect American workers adding a buy American provision to a water infrastructure bill that required the use of American made iron and steel, something you would think the president-elect would be in favor of. And then Paul Ryan stepped in and stripped that measure out of the bill. Ironically, he`s following an example set by the president-elect who has opted to buy Chinese steel for his construction projects.
Joining me now, Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown.
And Senator Brown, I mean, I want to talk about this buy American provision in the water infrastructure bill, because it strikes me as a perfect contrast. We`ve got huge nonstop coverage of the Carrier deal and I`m very happy for those 730 workers. Basically nobody is shining the light on this buy American provision in this water infrastructure bill. Presumably the president-elect could have stepped in to stop it.
What happened there. SEN. SHERROD BROWN, (D) OHIO: Yeah, I`m glad for those workers there. You know they are 100 miles from Ohio. I`m glad for the workers in Indiana, not so glad for those that got left out of the deal and the taxpapers that paid for the company -- gave money to the company.
But fundamentally this was the first test of the new Republican era, if you will, and President-elect Trump. We had strong buy America provisions if you`re going to build a water and sewer system, you have got to use American iron and steel and aluminum and other products.
We know Trump didn`t do that in his own construction projects, but let`s wipe the slate clean, gave him a chance here. I organized a tweet storm to send tweets -- a bunch of Senators and others sent tweets to President- elect Trump asking him to intervene and push Speaker Ryan. Ryan took the language out. And fundamentally if tax dollars are being spent for projects, they ought to be buying American iron and steel made by American workers. That`s sort of fundamental. And Trump failed his first test, Ryan failed another test in protecting American workers.
HAYES: So I mean, I just want to be clear here, right? You`ve got an opportunity for concrete to embed legislatively in policy a concrete measure by the government, a simple one when the government is doing infrastructure projects it buys American steel and iron. That would produce jobs for Americans. In the same week or two weeks this Carrier thing happened that Republicans are all applauding. And what you`re telling me is that Trump didn`t weigh in on it, didn`t use any muscle to get this kept in the bill and the Republican speaker stripped it out?
BROWN: Yeah, this was an easy one. This was simply keeping the language in that the senate had written. We wrote it bi-partisanly. Good strong buy America language for water and sewer projects and there are tens of billions of dollars spent on these water and sewer projects around the country. So, this is thousands and thousands of jobs. The House speaker stripped it out, Trump didn`t raise a finger.
And we figure the best way to communicate with Trump, with the president- elect was to tweet him. We did it. A bunch of us did it. We got no answer and he didn`t lift a finger. And this -- as I said -- this is really his first test to show whose side he`s on and he failed.
And I wished he hadn`t because this is a pretty big deal for a whole lot of steelworkers in my state, in Ohio and other places.
HAYES: You know, it strikes me today watching this, the tweet he sent at Boeing about, you know, accusing them of sort of cost overruns on this Air Force One contract. The details of that are a little complicated. They are -- it is expensive. It`s unclear how justified it is.
But it struck me that here`s someone who can use Twitter to kind of play the role of tough on corporate America. And as long as that`s where all the attention is, whatever Paul Ryan or Mitch McConnell are doing in those two chambers to give away the store to corporate America, is not going to rise to the same level of notice.
BROWN: Well, the president has proven himself pretty darned good, the president-elect, at using Twitter to distract people from the really big issues that are happening. He can do a tweet saying that 3 million Americans are felons because they were doing -- not doing -- they were voting illegally at the same time as all the Trump University settlement was announced. I think that was the same time.
He`s very good at getting people to pay attention to the relatively little things he`s doing when we see these interest groups sell out American workers and Trump doesn`t seem to really care when it comes to getting his congressional colleagues and his congressional party members on board to fight for American workers.
This is, again, the first test, the first example. I hope that he cleans his act up and pays more attention to this and puts heat on McConnell and Ryan to do the right thing.
We`ve got this case where the mine workers in Ohio -- around the country, more than 12,000 mine workers because of one guy, Mitch McConnell -- we`re trying to get Trump involved. He won`t get involved. And a whole bunch of thousands of workers, retirees and widows are unfortunately going to face Christmas with their health care cut off.
HAYES: All right, Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio. Thank you very much, appreciate it.
BROWN: Thanks very much, Chris.
HAYES: All right, joining me now Robert Reich, former secretary of labor in the Clinton administration, author of Saving Capitalism for the Many Not the Few, and Sarah Isker Flores, Republican strategist, former deputy campaign manager for Carly Fiorina during her run for president.
And Sarah, I`m fascinated by the tangle of ideological lines that have suddenly been created. There was a line Mike Pence said about the free market. He said, well, the free market has been sorting it out for years now and America is losing. And there`s a poll out today asking people if they agree with that. And, you know, a majority of Republicans agree, the free market has been sorting it out and America has been losing, and a minority of Democrats agree with that.
Is it now Republican and conservative doctrine that the free market has been sorting it out and America is losing because of the free market?
SARAH ISKER FLORES, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Well, I think that that`s simplifying a larger point which you did talk about earlier which was the tax system that we have now and that desperately needs reform, naemely the corporate tax rate right now which is the highest in the world...
HAYES: Right, but that`s not why the outsourcing`s happening, right?
FLORES: No, it absolutely is.
HAYES: No, I mean, it just isn`t. The taxation may be part of the outsourcing, but the trend over 20 or 30 years of moving manufacturing to places where there`s cheaper labor is part of a global trend of global trade, right?
FLORES: Right, and it`s hard to compete with that labor when the taxes here are so high. They are intertwined, of course.
HAYES: But it`s not just the taxes that are driving it, right, it`s the cheaper labor, it`s the entrance, for instance, of China into the WTO, not changes in the corporate tax rate that led those jobs to go to China.
My question is global trade. Let`s say you cut the corporate rate and those jobs still left the country, right.
FLORES: I don`t think they will, but OK.
HAYES: The Republican Party, what do you guys think about global trade? Do you believe in comparative advantage? Do you think that capital should flow to where labor is cheapest or do you think the president should make these countries buck up and stay where they are?
FLORES: I think it`s a fairly simple concept that will be complicated in its very simple implementations, which is we need to do what`s in America`s interests. That`s true for our foreign policy, it`s true for our trade policy and it`s true for our domestic policy. I think that`s what the Republican Party stands for.
HAYES: That is fascinating. That is fascinating. This is fascinating.
Because I want to be clear here, right? Robert, this is a new ideological core for a party that has been extremely favorable to trade deals. It`s been a bipartisan consensus, let`s be clear -- whether it`s NAFTA, whether it`s CAFTA, whether it`s Peru, whether it`s Korea, whether it`s Jordan, whether it`s Cambodia, all of those deals which I`ve covered.
This is new all of a sudden that the guiding light should be America`s interests.
ROBERT REICH, FMR. LABOR SECRETARY: Well, Chris, it`s -- if you define America`s interests as corporate interests, as American corporations` profitability, that is old Republican doctrine. There`s nothing new here at all. The only thing that is slightly new is this Donald Trump gloss that is put over it, this kind of populist worker oriented gloss.
If you look beneath that gloss, what you find is the same old Republican doctrine and that is tax breaks for corporations, every effort to make corporations more profitable will somehow trickle down to the benefit of the rest of America. That`s trickledown economics. We`ve been here before, seen it before. It is just dressed up differently right now.
HAYES: Sara, let me ask you this, the auto bailout. When the auto bailout happened, you had Republicans saying this was essentially Stalinism come to the U.S. I mean, Sean Hannity had a line similar to that, I think he called it communism or the return of the USSR.
You had folks saying, you know, we don`t pick winners and losers, that`s not the way American capitalism works.
If Bernie Sanders were president-elect and he did to Carrier what Donald Trump did, you cannot look me in the face and say the Republicans would be like, yeah, this is totally cool.
FLORES: I think the auto bailout is significantly different from this in a lot of ways that we probably don`t want to get into about managed bankruptcies, and a $90 billion loan.
HAYES: So, go to the second part. If Bernie Sanders did the exact same thing, you`re telling me that Paul Ryan and every Republican would say we are so psyched about this deal.
FLORES: So psyched.
I think that politically governing is about priorities And what Donald Trump did was show the American people...
HAYES: That`s not an answer to the question. Bernie Sanders, President- elect Bernie Sanders does the exact same thing, you tell me honestly that you, other conservatives, Paul Ryan Republicans would say, this is awesome, way to go Bernie Sanders.
FLOREDS: I think it depends what solutions it was pointing to in the presidency. He is still president-elect. He does not have the power o the White House. With Bernie Sanders I think it would have a zillion other plans that Bernie sanders had once he was president to have the government play this huge role.
I think what Donald Trump is signaling is that jobs are going to be his priority. And American jobs are going to be his priority, and therefore as president-elect he`s going to make this deal because he`s a negotiator and as president he`s going to look at the tax code and figure out ways to incentivize these companies to stay here.
HAYES: Believe me, there is going to be a huge corporate tax cut, which corporations will be very happy with, that is clearly on the agenda.
Robert, same question for you, when liberals look at the Carrier job and they say, oh, he -- $7 million of corporate welfare, he`s only saving 700 jobs, aren`t they just doing the same thing that if the shoe were on the other foot they would be applauding?
REICH: Well, actually, Chris, it`s interesting, because what we see here in all of these instances is Republicans using the free market when the free market actually generates higher corporate profits. And when the free market doesn`t, well, then we don`t like the free market. We like corporate welfare.
And again this is not particularly new. What`s new here is a very interesting dynamic between Donald Trump playing a kind of straight man to a Republican congress that`s actually doing the work of giving the corporations and also Wall Street exactly what they want. Donald Trump kind of distracting attention from the typical old Republican playbook. And I think that if the media does its job, and I hope the media will do its job over the next six months, four years, whatever it needs to actually look underneath the orchestration that Donald Trump is using and see what day by day the Republicans are doing, and even what Donald Trump is doing, because Donald Trump is talking out of one side of his face in terms of oh, we`re going to protect American jobs, but actually it`s a handful of jobs.
What`s really happening here, and what we really need to focus on, is a gigantic corporate tax cut. It`s repatriated earnings from abroad, which is going to help United Technologies, the parent company of Carrier. That`s the big story.
HAYES: Sara, you know, I think there`s something interesting that`s happened that we`ve seen is that Donald Trump won that primary I think largely because he jettisoned an entire conservative rhetoric about free market. He didn`t really talk about free markets very much. He, in fact, didn`t really use the word freedom very much.
I remember a really fascinating analysis of his language. He was not really into the word freedom. Ted Cruz loves that word. He kept hammering it. He hammered it during his convention speech. It`s what sort of Reagan Republicans, it`s the word they -- he basically said like I`m going to save your jobs. I`m going to open up the mines and there was not really an articulation of, you know, we have to let the market do its work. It`s basically it was a kind of like almost statist at times agenda of, yeah, I`m going to get in there and pull the levers however they need to be.
Is that now the view of the Republican Party en masse?
FLORES: I think I disagree with your premise, but I think a more interesting thing to look at is actually the distinction between the rhetoric in the general election between Donald Tsaying that he was going to fight for American jobs and Hillary Clinton running an identity politics campaign that ended up failing pretty dramatically in this Midwest corridor that we`re talking about.
And to go back to something you said earlier, you`re talking about union jobs and not including the non-union jobs for no particular reason. I don`t know why someone`s non-union job somehow doesn`t count anymore if they get to keep that.
HAYES: But answer the question. Answer the question, right?
So the question is, is this -- I mean, Ted Cruz and Donald Trump had an ideological dispute in the primary. It was very clear. I listened to those two speeches in Cleveland. I was sitting there. They don`t believe the same thing. Both men said that, OK?
Donald Trump won that argument, and my question is is that the controlling ideology now, the ideology that says we don`t let the market decide, we don`t believe in the invisible hand, we believe in the strong hands of Donald Trump to reach in and move things around so that outcomes the market produces are favorable to the American worker?
FLORES: So I don`t think that`s what Donald Trump stands for. And so I don`t think that`s also why he won. I think that if we want to go back to the primary and why he won, I think that your argument is probably difficult to bear out data wise that he won because of an ideological difference versus all these campaign that frankly political differences that you and I both know and can point to.
HAYES: Although, you know exactly why Hillary Clinton lost the Midwest.
FLORES: Because people voted for Barack Obama twice chose to vote for Donald Trump?
HAYES: It turns out when there`s 80,000 votes across four states there`s lots of reasons why someone might have won or lost.
Robert Reich, and Sara Isker Flores, thanks for your time tonight.
REICH: Thanks, Chris.
HAYES: A Republican member of the electoral college just announced he will not case his vote for Donald Trump. There`s an effort to get more electors others follow suit.
Texas elector Christopher Suprin made his case today in a New York Times op-ed today. Pretty interesting document.
"The election of the next president is not yet a done deal. Electors of conscious can still do the right thing for the good of the country. I believe electors should unify behind a Republican alternative, an honorable and qualified man or woman such as Governor John Kasich of Ohio."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRISTOPHER SUPRIN, TEXAS ELECTOR: Objectively, I can look at the emoluments clause and say, look, Mr. Trump, you were making sales calls when you conduct your foreign policy, that is expressly forbidden in the constitution. That is a danger to our republic and the electoral college is here to do exactly what I think I`m doing, which is standing up and saying no.
HAYES: As it stands, when the 538 members of the electoral college -- of course that named after the website 538 -- cast their votes on December 39 (sic), Suprin is the only Republican who says he will not cast his vote for Trump.
But there`s a movement led by Democratic electors to try and convince others to follow suit, to do what Suprin is doing.
They refer to themselves as Hamilton Electors, a nod to Alexander Hamilton`s vision for the college as a kind of check on populist demogoguery.
Their primary goal is persuade at least 37 Republicans to not vote for Trump and have electors coalesce around an alternative, in their view, more moderate Republicans such as Governor John Kasich instead.
But today, Kasich released a statement saying, in part, I am not a candidate for president. Ask that electors not vote for me when they gather later this month.
And one of the men who has promised to give legal representation to anyone that breaks their pledge joins me now. He`s Lawrence Lessig, creators of the Electors Trust Project who also ran as a Democratic presidential candidate.
There are laws in these states, I think 30 states, 29 states, if I`m not mistaken, to bind electors for exactly this reason. No one gets in there and does mischief. You vote for someone you think you`re going to get that person.
There are some now talking about breaking that. And you are say they should do that. Aren`t you telling them to break the law?
LAWRENCE LESSIG, FOUNDER, THE ELECTORS TRUST: Well, there`s a law called the constitution that came first, and it`s the constitution that creates these things called electors. They are federal offices. And these state laws that purport to restrict what these federal electors can do are just not constitutional. The Supreme Court has addressed this in a case called Ray versus Blair. The court made it very clear, states could not legally compel electors to vote one way or the other.
All they can do is morally compel. And so that`s what they`ve done. They said you pledge you were going to vote for one side or the other.
And the question now is whether these electors believe they have a stronger moral obligation to vote in a different way.
HAYES: So here`s the -- so two of these people are in Colorado. The Colorado secretary of state withering statement today basically said instead of honoring the will of the Coloradans who voted for them, these two faithless electors seek to conspire with electors from other states to elect a president who did not receive a single vote in November, being John Kasich. The court should reject this illegal conspiracy. This is not a noble effort to fight some unjust or unconstitutional law. This is an arrogant attempt to elevate their personal desires over the entire will of the people of Colorado.
LESSIG: Yeah, so obviously what happened today in Colorado was a lawsuit was filed to make it clear what I thought the law was already clear about, that these federal electors were free to exercise their judgment.
HAYES: So, you are saying constitutionally they are free. Like the state law can say whatever it wants, the constitution supersedes and the constitution says you can vote for whoever you want.
LESSIG: Right. But the question is what should they do? What`s their moral obligation?
Now, I think it`s hard to say that if you`re an elector and you`re pledged to one candidate but you are going to vote for another one because you like that one better, that`s actually a moral thing to do. I think breaking your pledge. But if you believe, like some of these guys do, that the emoluments clause is being violated by Donald Trump, there`s a constitutional reason why they would not be supporting Donald Trump.
And all we`re trying to do in the Elector`s Trust is give them legal advice. And more importantly, we`re giving them an opportunity confidentially to signal that they might be interested in doing this so that they can learn whether there are enough people who are also willing to do this.
HAYES: So they can come to you and find out this sort of like GoFundMe, right? Like you pledge and only if it gets over the certain actual amount you actually have to pick it.
LESSIG: Well, they`re not going to come to me, but they`re going to get a lawyer who is promising confidentiality. I`ll never know their names. Nobody will know their names until they actually vote.
HAYES: Let me ask you, you and I have known each other a long time. We are friends. I admire you tremendously. I have to say there`s some part of me that says I look at what happened over the last 18 months this country and we have watch all these norms unraveling. There`s norms unraveling before Donald Trump in some ways laid the path to Donald Trump.
And he`s the sort of expert right of blowing up these norms. You can`t do that. Sure, I can. This seems like is one of those things where it`s like you can`t do that, right, like we kind of know what the rules of the game are. You can say what you want about the intent of the constitution.
But this is the way it works. The states decide how they apportion their electors, then that person becomes president.
Don`t you run the risk of sort of further tugging at what`s left of what`s binding us all together in this liberal democracy, which we currently inhabit for who knows how long if you start doing something like this.
LESSIG: Well, you know, the question is how are you going to talk about the norms. Like one norm is the person who gets the most votes becomes president, that happened all but two times. The last time it happened was 2000, the time before that was 1888.
Now these two exceptions to a very strong norm I think should lead people to say, well, which of the norms should we be embracing? And in this context when the electoral college follows the winner take all rules, which are again imposed by the states, that is what`s creating this gap between what the people have said and what the electoral college produces.
And so, one strong norm they could embrace is the idea -- one person, one vote. And what one person, one vote should mean is that I should be voting in a way that`s upholding the democratic norm.
So, you`re right, we haven`t had examples of this in the past, but this is like a circuit breaker and it doesn`t go off.
But when it goes off because there`s a reason for it to go off, I think we have to look at the reasons for it. And I think what we`re seeing among Republican electors at least, is deep concern that they`re making a fundamental mistake.
HAYES: I have to say I was pretty amazed to read that in The Times today. And we`ve already seen one resign. So, it will be interesting to see if others come forward.
Lawrence Lessig, always a pleasure.
LESSIG: Great to see you.
HAYES: All right, up next, the fake news effect. New scientific data shows a massive majority of people from across the political spectrum believed it when they read headlines like Denzel Washington endorses Donald Trump, which, yeah, sure, why not? Alarming new numbers ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: There`s been a lot of talk lately about fake news and how big its reach is but there`s been very little data on the subject. So, Buzzfeed news did something novel. They partnered with Ipsos Public affairs and conducted a poll, the first large scale survey into the fake news phenomenon. We are bringing this exclusive Buzzfeed News survey with Ipsos as the story goes live.
Most Americans who see fake news believe it, new survey says. Respondents were shown a random selection of six headlines, three true and three false. 75 percent of the time they thought fake headlines were somewhat or very accurate. By comparison they considered 83 percent of real headlines to be accurate. That`s just the tip of the iceberg on this new data.
Joining me now to flesh out the numbers, co-author of that piece, Craig Silverman, media editor at Buzzfeed news and someone who sort of pioneered the beat on this and wrote one of the greatest stories of the campaign cycle about the town in Macedonia that produces fake news or a lot of fake news.
Craig, what did you learn from this survey?
CRAIG SILVERMAN, BUZZFEED: Well, one of the key things we learned is an answer I think to one of the key questions around fake news in the election was when people encounter it, do they actually believe it? And I was surprised by a 75 percent number of people believing those headlines.
The other thing that really stood out to me is we did split the numbers between people who said they voted for Trump and people who said they voted for Clinton. And surprisingly more than half the people who voted for Clinton also believed a lot of these fake headlines. And that was surprising because a lot of the headlines that were fake were actually pro-Trump or anti-Clinton.
HAYES: Yeah, see that`s what I found fascinating. So, we`re show this one example. Could we show that again, the FBI agent suspected in Hillary email leaks found dead in apparent murder/suicide.
If that happened, that would be a very big deal, OK? That was just entirely fake story. In fact, we know the person that wrote it who himself voted for Clinton and said he just made it up.
People believed that when they saw it.
SILVERMAN: They did. And you know, to the point about the Clinton supporters, one of the things that`s been established by research over a long period of time is that people are more likely to believe information that aligns with their beliefs or interests.
So, you might expect Trump supporters to maybe fall for that headline, and fall for that story. But the fact that Clinton supporters also believed it to a surprising degree is something that goes a little bit against that assumption. And I wonder what it says about sort of the perceptions of Clinton for the people who even voted for her.
HAYES: OK, here`s something I thought was really important. Asking this question of what have you seen, right. So, there`s this question of what`s the reach of this. Mark Zuckerberg trying to make this point that it`s 2 percent of the stuff that`s content that`s floating around newsfeed.
So, you guys go out and you say to people, have you seen this fake article, right, and you get high teens to low 20s percent which is in the rage of awareness have you seen a real article, you know, like the, whatever the sort of controls are, meaning that people are seeing fake articles and real articles at roughly the same rate.
SILVERMAN: Yeah, the spread between the kind of exposure to the fake news headlines and exposure to the real ones was probably a bit tighter than I would have expected. I mean, overall people did believe the real ones to be more accurate. People did see the real ones more.
But the fact that the gap is not bigger is a really surprising and disconcerting thing. I mean, fake news is getting out there. People are seeing it. And they are believing it. And those are, I think, some of the key questions people had around this discussion and we`ve given some pretty good data on that.
HAYES: You know, there`s also this perception of accuracy of fake headlines, but I think what`s so key about all this is no one is actually reading these articles. It`s literally just headlines that are flowing through the people`s newsfeeds. And the perceptions there are 70, 80 percent range, nearly as high as perceptions for the accuracy for real headlines, which is in the 80 to 90 percent range.
And what I think is going on here and I`m curious to hear what you think is, there`s a format to a headline that we have just come to associate with someone not making something up. And so I remember when there were these sort of versions of kind of satire sites like Daily Current that were sort of pioneers in this where they would do a headline, it wasn`t satire, but it was also just not true and you would believe it because you thought well, I know that that`s a format that I recognize with something that`s generally factual and now that`s just being entirely abused.
SILVERMAN: 100 percent.
I mean, the people who are running the sites that publish 100 percent fake stuff, they watch what people at real news sites are doing. They pay very close attention to which headlines are trending on Facebook and they move towards that and they invent stories that fit within the realm of things that are going on but have that extra tweak to it and that present as real.
As you said, you know, people are seeing these headlines go by on a Facebook newsfeed where the real ones and the fake ones in some ways present as the same kind of thing. A lot of the context is taken out of it.
And I think that is a factor in people believing them.
HAYES: All right, Craig Silverman who has been doing really great work on all this at Buzzfeed. Thank you. Appreciate it.
SILVERMAN: Thank you.
HAYES: Before we go, programming announcement. You`re going to like this one. This Monday I`m going on the road with Senator Bernie Sanders for a special town hall event in Kenosha, Wisconsin. We`re going to talk frankly and openly with workers, voters and residents there and see if we can`t get a better idea of exactly how Donald Trump managed to turn that state and that county red for the first time, the state for the first time since Ronald Reagan.
That`s this Monday on a special edition of ALL IN.
And that is ALL IN for this evening. "THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW" starts right now. Good evening, Rachel.
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