Show: ALL IN with CHRIS HAYES Date: December 9, 2016 Guest: Jeff Merkley, Anthony Scaramucci, Roger Stone
CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES HOST: Tonight on ALL IN.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNTED STATES: You`re not forgotten anymore.
HAYES: The self-proclaimed champion of blue-collar workers taps another white-collar banker for his cabinet.
TRUMP: Believe me, nobody`s forgotten.
HAYES: Senator Jeff Merkley joins me on the bait and switch, and how the Carrier deal keeps getting worse.
GREG HAYES, CEO OF UNITED TECHNOLOGIES: We`re going to make a $16-million investment in that factory in Indianapolis to automate. And what that ultimately means is there will be fewer jobs.
HAYES: Then hate in America. My interview with the NFL football player whose home was vandalized with racist slurs and the President-elect`s name.
Plus, President Obama orders a report on the alleged Russian hacking due before January 20th.
And Gabe Sherman on his new reporting. Trump insiders comparing the mood to "Game of Thrones".
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And winter is coming.
HAYES: When ALL IN starts now.
Good evening from New York. I`m Chris Hayes. There are now just 42 days to go until Donald Trump becomes President of the United States. With every new appointment, to his administration, the bait and switch on many of the people who voted for Trump continues. His closing argument, let`s recall, summed up in his final campaign ad, was all about how a global financial elite had rigged the system against working people. And it specifically called out this guy, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, as a member of the rogues galleries of globalists and plutocrats.
Now, almost exactly a month later, Trump is poised to nominate Blankfein`s number two at Goldman Sachs until now the heir apparent to succeed that man, as CEO, to a top economic post inside the White House. Sources tell NBC News that Trump has asked Gary Cohn, Goldman Sachs President and Chief Operating Officer, to serve as the Director of the National Economic Council and Assistant to the President for Economic Policy. Cohn has worked at the bank for a quarter century, presiding over its role in packaging and selling the subprime mortgage loans that precipitated in the financial crisis.
In 2010, e-mail service between Cohn and other executives, really the Goldman was able to profit of the crisis by betting against the mortgage market. Prompting congress to investigate with the bank had taken advantage of its clients. Cohn testified in defense of the firm`s practices.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GARY COHN, PRESIDENT OF GOLDMAN SACHS: During the two years of the financial crisis, Goldman Sachs lost $1.2 billion in its residential- mortgage-related business. We did not bet against the clients. And these numbers underscore that fact. It is always useful with hindsight to examine actions taken. Of course, we regret that we didn`t do many things better.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Throughout the campaign, Trump attacked his opponents for their ties to big banks in general, and Goldman Sachs in particular, who`s kind of a theme. After The New York Times reported that Ted Cruz had failed to report a loan from Goldman, his wife`s employer during his (INAUDIBLE) Trump made the bank a part of his stump speech.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I know the guys at Goldman Sachs. They have total, total, total control over him. Just like they have total control over Hillary Clinton. They have total. But they have no control, they have no control over Donald Trump. I don`t want their money. I don`t need their money.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Now, Gary Cohn is the third Goldman Sachs alum, invited to join Trump`s administration, Chief Strategist, of course, Steve Bannon, and treasury nominee Steve Mnuchin, both worked there before striking out on their own. More generally, Cohn chose a list of wealthy plutocrats chosen to fill the key administration post. And contrary to Trump`s claim of not needing donors` money, The Washington Post reports today, "He`s given appointments to six campaign donors, who with their families gave almost $12 million to the Trump campaign and the Republican Party."
Last week, I talked to a Trump voter who lost her home during the financial crisis when it was foreclosed on by a bank owned at the time by Steve Mnuchin, Trump`s pick to oversee the financial system as Treasury Secretary. What she had to say about the administration taking shape before her eyes was pretty pressing.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TEENA COLEBROOK, VOTED FOR DONALD TRUMP: We believed Trump would be an outsider, for the first time, who would work for the people like his campaign promised. My only special interest, he`s quoted as saying is "To you, the American people, not major donors, the party or corporations." Now, we want him to prove it. He said he was going to drain the swamp. Now, he`s filling it with alligators like Mnuchin.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Meanwhile, the more we learn about Trump`s one real win so far on behalf of American workers, the deal to save jobs at a Carrier plant in Indianapolis, the less it looks like an out and out victory. First, we learned that Trump had inflated the number of jobs being saved. It`s about 730 factory jobs, well below the 1100 he originally touted, and that Mike Pence touted last night. And now it turns out those jobs still may not be around much longer.
On Monday, get this, the CEO of Carrier`s parent company, United Technologies, gave an interview to CNBC, and almost no one noticed this, but what he said about the company`s plans for the financial windfall which (INAUDIBLE) to stay on the country? Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
G. HAYES: We`re going to make a $16 million investment in that factory in Indianapolis to automate, to drive the cost down, so that we can continue to be competitive. What that ultimately means is there will be fewer jobs.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: So, thanks to $7 million incentives from the state of Indiana, taxpayer money, the company will be able to take that and invest and now be able to figure out how to have robots do those jobs instead of just moving on to Mexico.
Joining me now is Senator Jeff Merkley, Democrat from Oregon. And Senator, I got to say, you know, Bannon worked at Goldman, Mnuchin worked at Goldman, Gary Cohn to come over to the NEC is basically a direct transfer of the person running Goldman, and he`s been a banker for 25 years, to the person giving chief economic advice to the president. It`s almost like importing Goldman into the White House.
JEFF MERKLEY, UNITED STATES SENATOR: My goodness, you could not invent this stuff. That Trump campaigns against Wall Street, says they`re not going to be in charge, we`re going to take the economy back from them, he attacks his primary opponent, Ted Cruz, he attacks Hillary Clinton, and then he says, "Who am I going to put in charge of the American economy?" Goldman Sachs, at treasury, as Chief Negotiator, as the Director of the National Economic Council, this is a complete reversal from campaign Trump who talked about taking on Wall Street, to elected Trump who`s putting them straight in charge.
HAYES: You know what, Anthony Scaramucci who is a Hedge Funds Manager, and we`ve had on this program, he`s on the Trump transition committee, he said something I thought it was so fascinating. You know, this idea of sort of populism and pitch forks and how much bankers -- I think across the ideological spectrum, are loathed really in America since the financial crisis. And there`s a certain group of people that thinks that they`ve gotten a bad rap. And that`s not the way that you would have thought the Trump folks thought. But listen to Scaramucci talking about the cabal against the bankers. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is there something incongruous about the fact that Donald Trump ran ads that seemed to very directly criticize the role that Goldman Sachs has in the country, showing ominous pictures of Lloyd Blankfein. And now, potentially filling some key economic positions with Goldman people?
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI, SKYBRIDGE CAPITAL FOUNDER: Well, listen. I think that the cabal against the bankers is over, and I think what Mr. Trump is really trying to do right now is put the country together.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: The cabal against the banker is over. Do you think that`s true, Senator?
MERKLEY: I think, in fact, Trump apparently misled the American people profoundly during his campaign about what he was really up to. And there`s going to be millions of Americans who are saying, "Ha, that`s one thing I really like is he was willing to take on Wall Street", and they`re deeply disappointed in. And more broadly, this conversation about draining the swamp, we didn`t realize he`s going to drain the swamp by draining in into his cabinet in position after position after position.
HAYES: Let me ask you this, I want to - I want to lay out a scenario that seems quite likely to me, and ask how you plan to handle it. I can imagine a President-elect and the President Trump doing things like the Carrier thing quite often. Taking individual, sort of, concrete, high-profile cases in which he comes in and he goes after American company, to save American jobs, and it gets lots of coverage. And meanwhile, in the senate, they`re gutting Dodd-Frank, they`re gutting the ACA, and I guess the question for you is, what are you going to do about that when there`s these sort of high-profile spectacle, symbolic expressions of this kind of populism, and an agenda on Capitol Hill that`s totally contrary to that?
MERKLEY: Yes, this makes you think of a magician who is performing some trick and his making you concentrate on his hands while he pulls off something clever somewhere else, and just this big distraction from the - from what`s really going on. And I expect him to put on that kind of show and proceed to say, "Watch me over here fight for workers," where meanwhile his Labor Secretary, at least the person he`s nominated, I hope we can defeat him, is somebody who wants to suppress wages, doesn`t believe in the minimum wage, has enormous number of labor violations, doesn`t think his affiliate organizations of Hardee`s and Carl`s Jr. should even be accountable for the mistakes.
And so, it`s like crush the workers over here while I go out and talk to some plant CEO to say, stay in America. I hope we do keep jobs in America, but I -- if it`s just a show to distract from crushing workers, which is what it appears to be, that`s something very different.
HAYES: So then, let me ask you this, Senator. And I asked Keith Ellison, congressman on the other side of Capitol Hill just last night. Obviously, he has less direct power over this. You`re actually a senator. There are things that you and your colleagues and your Caucus can do can do. You can demand roll call votes, you can extend hearings, you can gum up the works, you can fight whoever you don`t think is not an appropriate nominee -- doesn`t mean all of them, but the ones that you believe are bad. You could refuse to play ball and go with voice votes on that. Are you going to do that?
MERKLEY: Well, I think we`re going to start with really vetting these candidates in committee. The American people need to know, they have the right to know their full and extensive histories. Meanwhile, we`re going to encourage grassroots organizations to make sure that they use their networks to educate Americans, Americans on both sides of the aisle. I hope those Americans are going to weigh in and say, "Wait, wait a minute. That`s not the story. That`s not what we voted for." When a Wall Street`s being put in charge and people are being put in charge of the labor department to crush American workers, that`s not what we voted for." I hope that combination will bring some bipartisan support.
And we can - we can slow things down and make sure things are thoroughly vetted, but we actually want to fulfill our responsibility to determine whether someone`s a fit character, unfit character as Hamilton said. And there`s a lot of folks being nominated. This is a parade of horribles who are absolutely unfit.
HAYES: Senator, you know, there`s that expression, "Hope is not a plan." I think bipartisan support is also not a plan in this day and age. Senator Jeff Merkley, I appreciate your time. Thanks a lot.
MERKLEY: Thank you.
HAYES: I`m joined by now by my colleague friend, Joy Reid, host of the one and only AM Joy, which is a fantastic show if you`re on MSNBC on the weekend, Saturday and Sunday.
JOY-ANN REID, MSNBC AM JOY HOST: Thank you.
HAYES: Your latest piece I think it`s the Daily Beast, right?
REID: In the Daily Beast, yeah.
HAYES: "Hey, White Working Class, Donald Trump is Already Screwing You Over", which doesn`t seem crazy contention.
REID: Not at all. I mean, the people who voted for Donald Trump on the basis that he was going to be the sort of working class billionaire, the blue-collar billionaire, who would fight for them and fight against the elites, the economic elites, was a complete scam. Let`s just be honest about it. He completely played these people and scammed them.
Donald Trump is providing bread and circuses, rallies to entertain, generals named "Mad Dog" which makes people feel good about themselves, they feel tough, lots of rhetoric, but he`s stocking his administration with the ultimate economic elite, the top 0.1 percent. Does anybody in their right mind think the guy who runs Carl`s Jr. and Hardee`s, Andrew Puzder, who believes robots should replace all his workers, because they`ll never strike, they`ll never have a sick day. He`s on the record. He`s not embarrassed about it.
HAYES: Or sued for discrimination. That was not fair.
REID: They`ll never sue for discrimination. So, the guy who wants to replace workers with robots is your Labor Secretary. OK.
HAYES: Right. Well -
REID: Here`s the thing for the -
(CROSSTALK)
HAYES: Here`s the thing about Puzder that I find really fascinating is, and I think this is sort of an important thing to say here. So, there`s - like, this idea that, "Oh, they voted for Trump but now they`re getting billionaire." Well, voted for Trump. They knew Trump was rich, right?
REID: Right.
HAYES: So, it`s not just that there`s all these rich people.
REID: Nope.
HAYES: It`s that they`re doctrineered down the line, old style -
REID: Plutocrats.
HAYES: Right. Plutocrat. It`s not like - like Puzder isn`t like -- Donald Trump with his position heterodoxy on trade, heterodoxy on immigration, frankly, which let`s be clear, Puzder favors comprehensive immigration reform.
REID: It`s correct.
HAYES: Because he`s just a chamber of commerce republican.
REID: Exactly.
HAYES: That, to me, is the biggest bait and switch. It`s not necessarily these guys are rich. Is it they are doctrineaire in their sort of pre- Trumpist classic, right-wing plutocratic (INAUDIBLE)
REID: And around the world when you have these populist movements, they typically do usher in the economic elite who then come in and just pillage the economy. I mean, the people he`s putting in, somebody like Mnuchin, Steve Mnuchin, who literally made money taking away people`s homes if they missed a 29 cent payment, people who have been rapacious in their attacks on the working class, people who`ve showed, no - not to mention the fact that they`re paired with a congress that is now essentially run by Speaker of the House Paul Ryan who`s on the record wanting to get rid of essentially -- I call it repeal the 21st century. He wants to privatize Medicare. I`m sure he`s going to come for Social Security. This folks who voted for Trump, I don`t think that`s what they`re hoping for.
(CROSSTALK)
HAYES: They have a bill coming out committee in Social Security that would cut benefits, introduce means testing.
REID: This is not what the Trump voter voted for.
HAYES: So, this is - OK. But this is really interesting to me because I actually think this is a fascinating test that`s being setup here. So, you look at the cabinet, that`s one thing, right? And I think you`re right. But there`s a real question about what that domestic policy agenda is going to be. McConnell clearly - McConnell really wants to go ACA. Ryan has had his eyes On Social Security, Medicare.
REID: Forever.
HAYES: For his entire career.
(CROSSTALK)
HAYES: It`s all he wants and now he`s got a chance. If I`m Trump and I`m Bannon advising Trump, that`s not the agenda - I honestly think that is a political mistake for this president.
REID: Of course. And it`s an opportunity. If he really is going to stand up, right, for the working class, then what he should do is oppose all of that. But here`s the thing, Donald Trump is not in a position to fight the congress when he has this giant bag of conflicts of interests ripe for investigation. His party has no interest in investigating it, but if Donald Trump steps one foot out of the line --
HAYES: Do make enemies of them.
REID: Do you not think that they would turn on him? Not just them, but who does Donald Trump owe money to? Deutsche Bank? Is it going to be the banks in Russia and China that will bring him to heel? Donald Trump can be brought to heel by so many people, he owes so many people who all are plutocrats and care about plutocrats. There`s only one potential victim here, the very working class that voted for him. They`re going to get played.
HAYES: So, already - so you think - your prediction is it`s going to be - because I think this is - we`re watching this shape up. When there`s a spike, we`re going to talk Gabe Sherman about, sort of, Reince Priebus, Bruce Bannon.
REID: Absolutely.
HAYES: Do you think it`s going to be the Ryan agenda? Do you think fundamentally, about domestic (INAUDIBLE) we`ve already seen what the cabinet is going to - we know what that is, if it`s confirmed.
REID: Forget what I think. That`s what Ryan thinks. Paul Ryan thinks that he`s got a movable feat set in front of him.
HAYES: He does. That`s exactly right.
REID: That`s he`s going to rip up everything FDR and LBJ ever put in place, white working class, bye-bye Medicare and Social Security. That`s what Ryan wants.
HAYES: I say this - I say this descriptively and not normatively. I think if that -- if they do do that, I think it`s a political disaster for the Republican Party.
REID: It`s suicidal.
HAYES: I really do, I genuinely think that.
REID: The thing is I think the - the thing is a complete power like this, giving one party complete power, it always leads to overreach, always.
HAYES: That`s right. Joy Reid, always a pleasure. Thanks for coming by.
REID: Thank you very much.
HAYES: All right. Still to come, I`ll speak with NFL player Nikita Whitlock whose home was vandalized this week with racial slurs, as well as the President-elect`s name. An incident now being investigated by police as a hate crime.
First, inside the Trump transition, Gabe Sherman infighting that one source likened to the Game of Thrones. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: Two main factions have emerged behind the scenes in Trump world. In one corner, you have the long-time Trump loyalists, the people who were there at the beginning, some of them are none too pleased. POLITICO reports that many of these so-called "Trump Originals" say they`re getting frozen out of the Trump White House and have been commiserating with one and another about how they can`t seem to get their calls to top Trump transition brass returned.
In the other corner, GOP establishment figures who may have opposed Trump but who now want a seat at the table. A group perhaps best represented by Mitt Romney who`s being considered for Secretary of State despite bashing Trump during the campaign. Long-time Trump ally, Roger Stone, spoke of that group with contempt during interview Wednesday with conspiracy theorist and Trump supporter Alex Jones.
ROGER STONE, POLITICAL CONSULTANT (via telephone): Right now, there are hundreds of establishment quislings, Trojan horses trying to get into this administration, swearing "Oh, I was for Trump the whole time," when they weren`t. The glad-handers and the self-promoters are marching on Trump Tower en masse. I mean, people are submitting their resumes to this transition who have never shared Trump`s philosophy.
HAYES: It appears tensions are high. New York Magazine Gabe Sherman reports that according to a transition staffer, Trump`s transition team is like Game of Thrones with two men battling for primacy. The first is Trump`s Chief Strategist Steve Bannon. He`s been pushing Trump to staff his administration with outsiders and Trump loyalists. The second is Trump`s Chief of Staff, former RNC chair, Reince Priebus who has pushed Trump to select more traditional establishment GOP figures. While Bannon has scored some victories, some Trump loyalist are angry that Priebus is staffing the White House with establishment types, while pointedly not (INAUDIBLE) jobs to some people who were with Trump at the beginning.
One senior Trump adviser telling Sherman, "We didn`t fight two years against the swamp only to bring the swamp to the White House." And joining me now, Gabe Sherman, MSNBC Contributor, National Affairs Editor at New York Magazine. So, you know, you`ve got news today about - so, Christie is basically nowhere to be found. News today that Giuliani out -- is out. You know, Christie and Giuliani, I would say are along with Flynn probably that the - publicly, probably the three people you most associate. And how much of that is a sign that the Reince faction is beating the Bannon faction?
GABRIEL SHERMAN, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR AND NATIONAL AFFAIRS EDITOR AT NEW YORK MAGAZINE: Uh-hmm. Well, you know, I think, really, what`s interesting is you see two fundamental world views, you have the Reince Priebus faction which is a establishment GOP, and you have Steve Bannon. I think the fact that now Rex Tillerson is a frontrunner for Secretary of State is interesting. On one hand, he`s your ExxonMobil CEO, very much of a creature of the Reince Priebus republican business world, but he`s an outsider, who`s never served in the government. So, I think, in that choice, you might see a candidate who can bring both things to the table.
HAYES: Well, I mean, here`s what I think is interesting. You know, Bannon -- again, in terms of his ability to channel a certain kind of part of the zeitgeist, and part of the zeitgeist that was channelled on his web site, Breitbart, was quite frankly disgusting and odious, morally. But this kind of anti-globalist - his connection with - his personal connection with the sort of right-wing nationalist and the populist in Europe, that, to me, is a very different creature politically than Reince Priebus, Wisconsin Scott Walkerism.
SHERMAN: Yeah.
HAYES: But it seems like much -- we`re getting much more of the latter.
SHERMAN: Well, without question, I think what`s fascinating is Bannon is a big-picture-ideas guy, but he`s not a down in the weeds, let`s-make-the- trains-run-on-time guy. And this is what Priebus is using his power to do, he`s stacking the west wing with traditional republican operatives who know how Washington works. But really, the way Washington works is whoever controls schedule and message, controls policy. So, Reince Priebus wants to bring in Sean Spicer, the RNC chief strategist and spokesperson, to be the White House Press Secretary. He wants Katie Walsh, the RNC deputy chief of staff to be his deputy chief of staff. He wants to bring in Joe Hagan, a long-time George W. Bush administration official in to be a head of operations which is basically human resources. So, this might sound like minutia, but the people -
HAYES: No. You know, it`s funny. When I -
(CROSSTALK)
SHERMAN: If you control the schedule, you`re going to set the policy.
HAYES: It was funny, when I was in -- when I was in D.C. during the Obama administration staffing up, my wife was -- worked in that administration, you know, there would be positions like Deputy Chief of Staff for Ops. I would think like, "Ops? That doesn`t sound that interesting." She`s like, "Oh, no, no. Ops is where all the power is." It`s like the line about how an army fights on its stomach, you know?
SHERMAN: Yeah. Sure. Yeah.
HAYES: Like - it`s like - it`s all logistics. It`s all about who controls that stuff.
SHERMAN: Exactly. Without question. I think the real test we`re going to see in the days ahead, is who`s going to get the RNC Chair job? Because we have, really, two candidates. We have McDaniel, Romney`s niece, and Nick Ayers who`s more of an outsider. So, we`re going to see this playing out. Bannon really wants to control the RNC job. So that, we`re going to see, if he -
HAYES: That`s the real test.
SHERMAN: Yes.
HAYES: And I have heard from my own reporting that it is extremely tense in Trump Tower right now.
SHERMAN: Blink. Yes.
HAYES: There is like -- it is like people understand that there`s a war happening.
SHERMAN: But it`s a cold war. And it`s fascinating when you talk to the strategists who are in the meetings with Bannon and Priebus, and they talk about how they`re all sort of looking to each other, looking at Trump. It`s all below the surface. This is not outright fighting. What`s fascinating is you`re seeing this sort of tinderbox set up, where once the stakes get really high and policy needs to be set, then I think you`re going to see open warfare.
HAYES: Well, and like I said, the joy - I mean, the place that you`re going to have it really come to a head is in relationships with congress.
SHERMAN: Yes.
HAYES: Because that - you know, it`s either going to be some big infrastructure bill, which seems much more of the kind of Bannon vision, or it`s going to be like, oh, we`ve been trying to privatize Medicare 20 years. Let`s do it.
(CROSSTALK)
HAYES: And, like, that`s a real choice that he`s going to be in front of them. That`s where the rubber is going to hit the road, I guess.
SHERMAN: Exactly. And I think, you know, Priebus` connection on the Hill - Bannon is not a Hill guy. So, I think the fact that Paul Ryan and the republicans on the Hill are going to control the agenda, that`s where you`re going to see some daylight between them.
HAYES: Finally, you know, it strikes me, this is more like a king`s court than any other situation in a kind of around a democratic leader I`ve ever heard. I mean, people like - it`s like he`s mercurial, you need to, like, get in his ear. Like, maybe you can change his mind on this - it all feels very much courtly.
SHERMAN: Yeah. Exactly. You know, as one long-time Trump confidant told me, you know, titles don`t matter. You know, really, it`s your personal relationship.
HAYES: Gabe Sherman, thanks for being here. I appreciate it.
SHERMAN: Thank you.
HAYES: Still to come, burglars broke into the home of New York Giants player Nikita Whitlock scrawling racist graffiti on his walls, along with the name of the president-elect. Nikita`s here to talk about that, just ahead. Stick around.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: Yesterday, we briefly introduced you to this guy. Andy Puzder, CEO to the company that owns fast food restaurants Carl`s Jr. and Hardee`s who is Donald Trump`s pick for Secretary of Labor, whom who both opposes a meaningful increase in minimum wage and has spoken enthusiastically about replacing workers with robots. There`s so much more for you to know about Andy Puzder. First on policy, Puzder has been critical of policies mandating that employees get paid sick leaves and he opposes expanding eligibility for overtime pay. And then there`s this -- when the Obama Labor Department looked at thousands of complaints involving fast food workers, it found labor law violations in 60 percent of investigations at Carl`s Jr. and Hardee`s. Usually for failure to pay the minimum wage or time and a half for overtime.
So, just to be clear, the guy whose company`s franchises had a history of - history of rampant labor law violations is Trump`s pick to lead the Department of Labor that enforces labor law. And that`s not all. Remember the truly terrible ads for Carl`s Jr. featuring scantily clad women seductively gorging on burgers?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s a bacon lovers fantasies.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yeah, yeah, I know what you`re thinking. But come on, it`s called the bacon three-way burger. What did you expect?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Well, the man who again wants to be our Labor Secretary thinks those ads are what America is all about.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANDREW PUZDER, CEO OF CKE RESTAURANTS: I don`t think there`s anything wrong with a beautiful woman in a bikini, eating a burger, and washing a Bentley or a pick-up truck or being in a hot tub. I think there`s probably nothing more American -
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Nothing more American. Truly -- maybe true, I don`t know. Here`s maybe the craziest part of all of this, it isn`t those ads or his general hostility to workers` rights that will be Puzders biggest obstacle to being confirmed, it`s the fact he holds the sort of pro-immigration views that were standard in establishment GOP circles until Donald Trump came along. "People vote with their hearts. Our values dictate we should be the party of immigration reform," Puzder said last year.
Comments like that have prompted outrage at Breitbart, the web site formally run by top Trump aide, Steve Bannon. Trump expected to tap Labor Secretary who prefers foreign labor to American workers. The site fumed yesterday adding that Puzder, quote, "Stands diametrically opposed to Trump`s signature issues on trade and immigration which won him the election." Weird. It`s almost as if what Donald Trump said during the campaign has virtually nothing to do with what he`s doing now that he`s won.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: On Tuesday night this week NFL football player Nikita Whitlock, a fullback for the New York Giants, returned home with his wife and two children to find his New Jersey house burglarized. But in addition to a few items being stolen, there was racist graffiti covering the walls in several rooms, three swastikas, KKK, the N-word and phrases like go back to Africa scrawled on the wall in a black marker going up stairs, Trump.
Last night local police said they are investigating the incident as a hate crime.
And joining me now is Nikita Whitlock, fullback for the New York Giants. Thank you for making time tonight. Appreciate it.
This is a really harrowing and terrifying story, I have to say. Maybe just tell me what was -- the moment of coming back to your house and realizing what had happened. Walk me through that.
NIKITA WHITLOCK, NEW YORK GIANTS: Yeah, it was terrifying.
The moment wasn`t so bad, honestly. I didn`t get to see the full extent. It wasn`t until about four hours later when the police let me back into my house. You know, they cleared the house and they took pictures and fingerprinted.
HAYES: So, you called the police right away?
WHITLOCK: Yes, as soon as I walked in the house, I looked to the right. I was actually trying to get an umbrella because I had a newborn and I didn`t want to get wet. It was raining. I looked to the right and there was a swastika and to the left was a big Trump banner almost.
And as soon as I saw that, I came out, called the police, got my family away from the scene, and so I didn`t see how bad it was.
HAYES: You had had a break-in earlier, right? Not too long ago, you had a break-in into this house?
WHITLOCK; I had an attempted break-in, yeah. Came back from Thanksgiving break, took my son to see the family for Thanksgiving and realized that the window to one of the doors was, it had been trying -- someone tried to break into it.
But we have a metal design through it that stopped them. It took some packages, but they weren`t able to get in.
HAYES: So that moment when you come in, you realize someone`s been in the house, you`re like out right away?
WHITLOCK: Immediately.
HAYES: Because you had primed that time.
So you then four hours later the police take they`re investigating as a hate crime. They come -- they take you back in. You go in the house. What do you see?
WHITLOCK: Just mass graffiti. In every room there was a different slogan. It was just crazy.
The N-word was used a lot. In my sister`s room, it said dirty n-word. I have a roommate who lives downstairs, it said n-word lover. Upstairs in the living room was f`ing n-word. In our room was go back to Africa, swastikas stamped all over the house, clothes thrown everywhere, things missing.
HAYES: What`s going through your head? I mean, what is -- are you thinking who did this? Are you scared? I mean...
WHITLOCK: At the time, all I could think about was safety, you know? Get the family away, get the police in, make sure no one comes back. And, you know, from that time to now that`s been my number one concern is making sure my family is safe.
HAYES: You live in New Jersey, right? You live in an area, my understanding, is a predominantly white area.
WHITLOCK: Yes, very.
HAYES: Do you feel like you have -- do you feel like you`ve been viewed with animus, with bias there?
WHITLOCK: This is a conversation I`ve been having a lot since. I haven`t felt bias, but I have felt the distance of, you know, people being able to experience the black culture or black people.
I have a neighbor. She`s a lovely lady. I love her to death. She bakes me cookies all the time. And one of the first things she said, I have been living in the house for about three weeks. I don`t broadcast what I do for a living. And, you know, helmets lot of people don`t know who we are.
And the lady said, what do you do? I said I play for the Giants. And her response was, I told them they didn`t have to worry about drive-bys.
And so, you know, at that time I knew that this area really wasn`t keen to having young, especially young black men living here.
HAYES: I want to ask you what it meant to see -- you come into your own house and there`s on one side a swastika.
WHITLOCK: Right.
HAYES: And on the other side is the name of the man who is currently the president-elect of the United States.
WHITLOCK: Right.
HAYES: But in this context, it must have been immediately clear to you what -- whoever wrote that name meant by that ame.
WHITLOCK: Yeah.
I have strong opinions about president-elect, but I don`t like that they used him as something to hide behind, you know. If they wanted to write any name, they should have wrote their name. This is your opinion, this was your decision. And you could have done it on Facebook and everybody would have known who you were and what you think, but you decided to violate my personal space and give me your opinion and use someone else`s name.
HAYES: That is an interesting response.
You say -- I mean, do you talk about politics in the locker room? Do you guys talk about politics in the locker room?
WHITLOCK: Sometimes. Sometimes.
HAYES: Because I imagine you got all -- you got all kinds, right?
WHITLOCK: All kinds of people.
HAYES: You got Trump voters, you got Hillary Clinton voters and everything in between, right?
WHITLOCK: Yeah. I think this election, you know, this was my first election in the league, but I think this election, it was more quiet. There wasn`t as much politic talk.
HAYES: Do you think people didn`t want -- because it was so raw?
WHITLOCK: Exactly, exactly.
HAYES: Because of what it meant.
WHITLOCK: Right. And I think, you know, we try to keep to topics that are light-hearted that we can discuss without raising any problems because, you know, the locker room can get aggressive sometimes. So this particular election was definitely -- you know, people would talk about it. But as soon as it started to veer one way or the other, it would be moved on to another topic very quickly.
HAYES: Nikita Whitlock, I`m so sorry that you went through that.
WHITLOCK: Thank you.
HAYES: And I hope you and your family are OK.
WHITLOCK: All right. Appreciate it.
HAYES: All right still to come, President Obama takes a remarkable step of ordering a formal investigation into Russian influence in the 2016 election. Senator Chris Murphy on that ahead.
Plus, tonight`s Thing One, Thing Two starts right after this break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: Thing One tonight, President-elect Donald Trump is taking time out during his transition period to travel to some of the states he won on his so-called USA thank you 2016 tour.
He started out in Cincinnati, Ohio, then went to Fayetteville, North Carolina. Last night he was in Des Moines, Iowa, and just last hour he wrapped up his fourth stop in Michigan.
So far these have been set in prime time aiming to attract the most viewers, but this afternoon Trump made a stop in Baton Rouge ahead of his planned thank you speech this evening because this wasn`t really part of his victory tour. He had some business to attend to. Why trump spoke in Baton Rouge today is tonight`s Thing Two in just 50 seconds.
(COMMERCIAL BRAEK)
HAYES: This afternoon Donald Trump departed from his normal prime time thank you tour stops to visit Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
While this is a state he won, that`s not why he was there. This was a campaign stop because in Louisiana, the U.S. senate race is still going on and voting is tomorrow.
The runoff election is the last chance for Democrats to pick up a crucial Senate seat. Republican John Neely Kennedy has a comfortable lead over the Democratic candidate Foster Campbell up 18 points in a recent poll.
And while Kennedy managed to get the president-elect to make campaign stop in upgrade from the original scheduled Mike Pence, Campbell hasn`t gotten much attention from the National Democratic Party, which he stressed with our own Chris Jansing today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FOSTER CAMPBELL, LOUISIANA SENATE CANDIDATE: I think the National Democratic Party needs to wake up. We`re not -- in the south they`ve just given up on the south. I don`t know what they`re doing. They`re up under the bed with the covers pulled over their head or something. I don`t know what they`re doing, but they need to come on back down to the south and let`s re-establish Democratic politics in the south.
(END VIDE OCLIP)
HAYES: So let this be a reminder, if you`re watching this in Louisiana, the election is not over. Tomorrow, you have one more ballot to cast.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: It is apparently not a good thing to be on the wrong side of a Russian cyberattack.
Just now The Washington Post is reporting, citing unnamed U.S. officials who one should maybe take with a little bit of a grain of salt, that the CIA has concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency rather than just to undermine confidence in the U.S.electoral system according to officials briefed on the matter, part of a wider Russian operation to boost Trump and hurt Clinton`s chances.
Here`s another example of apparent Russian cyber-mischief that might not leave tot he forefront of your mind, a longtime opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin living in Cambridge, England who says child pornography was planted on his computer. Vladimir Bukovski (ph) said he was lying sick in bed one morning when British police officers banged on his door saying they`d received information about forbidden images in his possession. Police took his computer and British authorities later charged him with possession of indecent images of children.
Bukovsky (ph) pleaded not guilty and notably there`s a prosecution request for more time to review an independent forensic report on what had been found on Mr. Bukovsky`s (ph) computers and how an unidentified third party had probably put it there.
Bukovsky (ph) maintains his innocence and says the Russian sabotage of his computer is an old KBG dirty trick known as compromate (ph), the fabrication and planting of compromising or illegal material.
If this is indeed what happened to Bukovsky (ph), he is, of course, not alone. Cyber-attacks of all kinds attributed to Russia have occurred in Baltic states, Georgia, Ukraine, Lithuania and it was of course just weeks ago, shortly before the U.S. election that intelligence officials said that computer intrusions into the DNC were directed by, quoting, Russia`s senior-most officials with the aim of interfering with the election.
It was, it appears at least, according to U.S. intelligence agencies, what was behind the constant drip of WikiLeaks disclosures of email from the DNC and Clinton campaign officials, like its chairman, John Podesta.
And today it was announced, that President Obama has ordered American intelligence agencies to produce a full review of Russian efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election to develop a list of lessons learned.
This coincides with prominent Republican senators saying they plan to conduct congressional hearings into Russian hacking.
So, a true bipartisan interest in getting to the bottom of this, with one big exception, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: So President Obama has ordered a full report from the U.S. intelligence agencies to be completed by the time he leaves office detailing Russian hacking and efforts to influence our election. And we just learned the CIA has concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened expressly to help Trump win, that`s according to unnamed officials who spoke to The Washington Post.
Simultaneously, Republican senators who say they will conduct hearings into the subject of Russian`s cyber attacks voiced support for such hearings include Senator Lindsey Graham, Senator John McCain and Senator Bob Corker.
But their party`s leader, the president-elect of the United States, expresses doubt that Russia was behind the vast hacking that lead to all those WikiLeaks disclosures. Trump telling Time magazine, I don`t believe they interfered.
That became a laughing point, not a talking point, a laughing point. Any time Ii do something, they say, oh, Rrussia interfered. Could be Russia, could be China, could be some guy in his home in New Jersey.
And joining me now Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut.
Senator, first I just want to get your reaction to the president officially calling for this report which I assume a declassified version will be made public.
SEN. CHRIS MURPHY, (D) CONNECTICUT: I think this is incredibly important in part because we`ll have some material to work with at the beginning of next year. I would argue what`s much more important is that next year the Republican congress in some way, shape or form start their own inquiry.
We`ve heard today and in the recent days that everyone from John McCain to Lindsey Graham, even to Bob Corker on the foreign relations committee are planning on starting these inquiries, and they should, because if you look back to the Cold War, if we ever had evidence that the Russians were trying to influence our elections both parties would have jumped to try to get to the bottom of it.
And today it might be an attempt to influence an election against democrats, but Russia will be no less willing to try to influence an election against Republicans in the future if they don`t feel that, a, what they`ve done is been exposed and, b, we take some action.
Chris, that`s the next step. The truth is not the end here, the end is a sanctions bill that I think, knowing what we know now, is probably appropriate to at least begin discussing.
HAYES: Well, OK, before we get to that stuff, though, right, I find it a little difficult if you`re just a citizen, to track this. So, there is some firms that have made some data publicly available that would really would suggest that this was at least coming from Russia, whether it was state actors or not. Obviously, the intelligence agencies have come to that conclusion.
But again it all just seems like I can`t see the evidence, right, it see seems persuasive to me. But I guess my question to you is before there`s actions, like what would it be to definitively establish in the court of public opinion, to American citizens, to the incoming president, we should note, that this really was them?
MURPHY: Well, what we`ve heard so far is statements by the director of national intelligence. I think it would be important before the end of his term for President Obama to directly say on the record that there is evidence that the Russians were involved.
Now, it may be that the way in which we know that involves classified means of obtaining information such that we can`t declassify it, but I think it`s important to have the president of the United States, who has a little bit different level of credibility than the director of national intelligence, his subordinate, to say that on the record and important to say that before Donald Trump comes into office who of course is likely to say the exact opposite.
HAYES: In terms of sanctions. So, when you talk about -- OK, let`s say that it indeed was the Russians and it`s a fairly serious thing to do. These are criminal intrusions. This is criminal trespassing, political sabotage that was, I think, actually quite effective in many respects in possibly tipping a very close election. What would a sanctions regime look like? Aren`t we already sanctioning them incredibly heavily?
MURPHY: Well, we are sanctioning them, but we are not sanctioning them incredibly heavily, we have done our sanctions in concert with the Europeans. So we have only gone as far, frankly, as the Europeans are willing to go.
And there is a limit given the amount of trade that they do with Russia. We would obviously first try to find individuals that were responsible or involved in the hacking. And we would personally sanction them. And then we would look to broader economic sanctions.
Obviously, we all have to have the information in front of us in order to move forward on that basis. But we aren`t bound on sanctions related to their hacking in the way that we were bound on sanctions related to their intrusion of Ukraine, because we don`t have to go in concert with the Europeans.
HAYES: Let me sketch out a broader worry here as I watch all this develop, and as I watch the rhetoric which was quite heated about Russian during the campaign. You know, this is a nuclear-armed power. This is a country the U.s. was locked in a Cold War with for multiple decades to the point of the precipice of nuclear war. It`s a country that clearly has territorial aspirations past its borders that`s been shown time and time again.
But it`s also a terrifying relationship in the sense of you can game out a set of escalations and counterescalations that get you to some pretty scary places pretty quickly.
MURPHY: Well, I think it`s interesting that even during this time in which we`ve been imposing pretty heavy sanctions on them for their conduct in Ukraine, we have been working with the Russians with respect to their Iranian nuclear agreement and other counterterrorism programs around the world. It suggests that up until this point we have been able to compartmentalize some of the most important national security conversations that we have with them, especially around the question of nuclear proliferation.
Now, whether that can continue or not, I don`t know. But this idea that Donald Trump has that there is a reconciliation to be made with Russia just misunderstands the nature of Russian politics.
Putin needs a strain of virulent anti-Americanism in order to maintain power. That`s not going to disappear just because Donald Trump is president. So I don`t believe that additional sanctions would lead to the breakup of our conversation on these other subjects just because if you look to the immediate past precedent that hasn`t been the case.
HAYES: That`s -- OK, I hear you on compartmentalization, but it does seem like we`re in some fairly new territory, right. I mean, we are talking about the accusation using a criminal intrusion to essentially sabotage a democratic election in this country. It`s a very serious thing to have hapened.
We`re also in a place where it seems like the world is essential a tinderbox waiting to be lit, whether it`s what`s happening in the Middle East, the refugee crisis, the rise of a populist right across Europe of course which Putin has played a role in.
I guess I`m asking you to convince me that what you`re advocating is kind of a tit for tat, we respond to what they do doesn`t lead on a road that ends in scary escalation in terms of what that relationship looks like.
MURPHY: Well, I can tell you a story in Europe about the rise of nationalism that runs straight through Russian money. There is no absolutely no doubt that the rise of the French nationalists, the rise of the British nationalists, have come through direct and indirect support from the Russians.
And so ask yourself what has permissiveness got us so far? Maybe we are in the mess that we are in in part because we have let the Russians get away with influencing elections from Europe into the United States.
And ask yourself what they will do next if they don`t feel consequences for their actions here. We know, Chris, that they were trying to get into voter lists. Maybe today they just tried to manipulate people`s Facebook pages, but they might next actually try to rig the election results themselves.
And so I don`t think there`s an argument that permissiveness has gotten us very far. I`d argue that that tinderbox has been created in part by their actions and I don`t know any other way than to take a bit stronger stand than we have us thus far.
HAYES: all right, Senator Chris Murphy. Thanks for you time. Appreciate it.
MURPHY: Thanks, Chris.
HAYES: That is All In for this evening.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. END