IE 11 is not supported. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser.

All In with Chris Hayes, Transcript 12/29/2016

Guests: Erin Gloria Ryan, Aisha Harris, Abraham Riesman, Amanda Terkel, Steve Cortes, Jason Kander, Bob Garfield

Show: ALL IN with CHRIS HAYES Date: December 29, 2016 Guest: Erin Gloria Ryan, Aisha Harris, Abraham Riesman, Amanda Terkel, Steve Cortes, Jason Kander, Bob Garfield

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He`s going to take that ouster and go. He may have to be physically and forcibly removed by a state official. I interviewed him in 2010 as an A.P. reporter when he was running for governor here in New York, and he told us that he wanted to put welfare recipients in upstate prisons.

STEVE KORNACKI, MSNBC HOST: Very, very controversial guy.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And give them hygiene lessons.

KORNACKI: All right, that`s (INAUDIBLE) thank you for joining us. That`s it for HARDBALL. "ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES" starts right now.

CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES HOST: Tonight on ALL IN.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT-ELECT: The whole, you know, age of computer has made it where nobody knows exactly what`s going on.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: The President-elect says move along as President Obama strikes back. The White House announces new sanctions on Russia, kicking out diplomats, naming names on hacking. Tonight, how Russia and President- elect Trump are responding. Then, fact checking the new Trump job claims and the media`s response; the eruption in Buffalo where Trump`s New York co-chair is under fire for sending more racist e-mails.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have been hurt by his racist, bigoted, slanderous behavior.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: And from Beyonce at halftime to Kaepernick taking a knee, a look back at 2016 and pop culture. When ALL IN starts right now.

Good evening from New York. I`m Chris Hayes. We got some big news today. In just a short time ago, a response from Donald Trump. With just 22 days left until Trump becomes President, the Obama administration taking steps to punish Russia for allegedly orchestrating a state-sponsored hacking campaign that both the CIA and FBI say was designed in part to help Trump win the election.

The White House announcing sanctions against two Russian spy agencies and three companies that allegedly supported the hack, sanctions against four high ranking intelligence officials, and two suspected hackers who will face a travel ban and have their U.S. assets frozen. The ejection of what the White House calls 35 Russian intelligence operatives, who have been ordered to leave the U.S. within 72 hours.

The shutting down of two Russian-owned compounds, one in New York and one in Maryland, and the release of evidence of Russian cyber activity including the network addresses of computers allegedly used by Russians to launch hacking attacks. White House has indicated its response could go beyond those announced today and potentially include covert operations. In a statement blaming the highest levels of the Russian government for the attack, President Obama said, quote, "All Americans should be alarmed by Russia`s actions."

The State department, meanwhile, said the U.S. steps came in response not just to hacks but in response to a pattern of harassment of U.S. diplomats abroad in Russia including arbitrary police stops, physical assault and a broadcast on state TV of personal details about our personnel that put them at risk. We have much more on this story including a reaction from Congressional Republicans, the Russians and Donald Trump, himself.

First, we want to get an update and the latest from NBC News Pentagon Correspondent, Hans Nichols. Hans, why today, why now and why this?

HANS NICHOLS, NBC NEWS PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, they`ve been building this -- toward this for a long time. And the answer to the why this, is that the White House finally settled on what something they thought the public response, at least, was going to be proportional, and that is they wanted to escalate, but they didn`t want to escalate too far.

So when you look at the universe of sanctions, it`s really a suite of sanctions, right? You mentioned the individuals, the institutions, then the Persona Non-Grata declaration for those 35 intelligence officers. You know, the one that sort of I find the most intriguing is the sanctions on the four individuals, these are high ranking, the chief, and then his three deputies of the - of the GRU, which is their intelligence agencies. That`s interesting to me, Chris, because in the past, we`ve heard from President Obama that he thinks sanctions against Russians, if not toothless, and if not useless, sometimes don`t actually modify behavior. So that`s the one that I have the most question about.

And then the other question we have is what`s more to come? Because as you mentioned, there`s a very clear hint from the President that we could have more action, it could be covert action, and it could be something that the President, nor anyone in his administration, never acknowledges. Chris?

HAYES: All right. Hans Nichols, thanks for that update. Appreciate it. Part of the Russian response today involved mockery of the outcoming - outgoing Obama Administration, one Russian political leader comparing the administration to, "Political Corpses." The Russian Embassy in the U.K. tweeting out a picture of a duck with the word, "lame" in all caps written across it. MSNBC, meanwhile, GOP Congressman Trent Franks suggested that if the Russians did successfully commit criminal theft and political sabotage, it was a public service for Americans.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRENT FRANKS, GOP CONGRESSMAN: The bottom line, if they succeeded, if Russia succeeded in giving the American people information that was accurate then they merely did what the media should have done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: Top Congressional Republicans are signaling support for today`s actions, while also simultaneously attacking the Obama Administration. House speaker Paul Ryan describing today`s steps as, "overdue" same words used by Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham, who also vowed to leave the effort in the new Congress to impose stronger sanctions. After the prospect of sanctions last night, during his impromptu press availability standing next to Don King, Trump said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I think we ought to get on with our lives. I think the computers have complicated lives very greatly. The whole, you know, age of computer has made it where nobody knows exactly what`s going on. We have speed, we have a lot of other things, but I`m not sure you have the kind of security that you need.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: "The whole age of computer has made it so nobody knows what`s going on," that`s Trump`s exact words. Trump who has received intelligence briefings on the alleged Russian hacking dating back to August then followed up today with this statement, "It`s time for our country to move on to bigger and better things. Nevertheless, in the interest of our country and its great people, I will meet with leaders of the intelligence community next week in order to be updated on the facts of this situation."

Joining now, Republican Strategist Steve Cortes, former Adviser to the Trump Campaign. Steve, you and the - and the Trump folks, do you accept or don`t accept that this was Russia? You accept the judgment of the intelligence community?

STEVE CORTES, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: You know, I -- listen, I`m not an intelligence officer, yes, I would - I would believe they`re correct. I think this is what`s important, though, Chris. Time and again, the mainstream media has been reporting today and for weeks, for that matter, that the election was hacked and that is simply not the case.

HAYES: No, let me stop you right there.

CORTES: The DNC was hacked.

HAYES: Let me stop you right there. I never said on this program the election was hacked, in fact, we`ve been quite careful about the wording here. We`re looking at two things that happened. The DNC was hacked and John Podesta, who, of course, campaign chair for Hillary Clinton. Criminal intrusion and what appears to be political sabotage with the intended effect of hurting Hillary Clinton, helping Donald Trump. That`s different from saying it`s definitive in the outcome. But my question is, does the Trump world accept that that is what happened?

CORTES: You know, listen, that`s what`s been reported. I don`t know. I`m not an intelligence officer. Right now, I think that`s what the facts -- here`s what I do know --

HAYES: Finish that sentence. Right now I think that`s what the facts --

CORTES: That`s what the facts relay. The intelligence agencies of the United States will clearly come, I believe, eventually to the correct conclusions. What is important, I think though, is that our election and this is what`s important, and this, today, I think was a highly politicized move for no other reason than just its timing, alone.

HAYES: Wait.

CORTES: This was a politicized move because what`s going on, Chris, and I think it`s just dishonest to say otherwise, what`s going on is there a move to try to delegitimize, to make illegitimate, yes, the victory of Donald Trump --

HAYES: OK. But here`s the --

CORTES: -- electorally.

HAYES: Sure. But here`s the issue. You say the timing is suspect, when would the timing not be suspect? Because if the President of the United States had done this before the election, you, Reince Priebus, Steve Bannon, Kellyanne Conway, Donald Trump himself, Mike Pence, and everyone would be screaming bloody murder that the President of the United States in a rank partisan move had messed with the election by announcing this before the election, in fact, fellow republicans saying this overdue probably been saying the same thing. Isn`t that true?

CORTES: Well, listen, also when you say fellow republicans, let`s be honest about who`s saying that, it`s primarily John McCain and Lindsey Graham who have never been friends of the Donald Trump campaign.

HAYES: Paul Ryan, too. Right.

CORTES: Let`s be clear --

HAYES: But answer that question. If the timing here is political, the only other option would have been do it before the election, which would have been seen as more political, don`t you agree?

CORTES: You know, I don`t. I think --

HAYES: You don`t? You don`t think that the President, the sitting President announced sanctions on Russia, and said definitively the intelligence community all agreed they were trying to get Donald Trump elected, that would not be a more political move?

CORTES: Hold on. Guessing motive is not what our intelligence agencies do. They can say -- yes, perhaps they can say that the DNC was hacked. First of all, Podesta was not hacked. He gave into a phishing scheme, which by the way was as juvenile as the e-mails that we all receive about a Nigerian prince. --

HAYES: You think it was his fault?

CORTES: Yes.

HAYES: You believe --

CORTES: Who falls for that? What kind of a senile grandfather falls for that sort of a juvenile --

HAYES: -- you believe John Podesta`s a senile grandfather because he was the victim of a phishing attack?

CORTES: Yes, but here`s the more important point, too. What we keep talking about is I don`t know who did - who did the hacking of the DNC. Podesta was not hacked. He fell for a scheme. The DNC was hacked, that is clear. Who did it? I don`t know. What we do know though is what was revealed by the hack. And what was revealed was, a Democratic Party that was corrupt to its core particularly when it involved their primary and Bernie Sanders.

HAYES: Why do you --

CORTES: The more the American people learned about the Democratic Party and the more they learned about Hillary Clinton, the less they liked and trusted them. And it`s one of the reasons we won.

HAYES: That`s right, I don`t think that`s pointed out by the data, but let`s just talk for a minute about this idea that this was John Podesta`s fault, it does appear to have been a phishing link. Criminal statutes on hacking do include that kind of behavior, right? So, if you, under false pretenses get someone`s account for a phishing link that is a criminal violation just to be clear on what the law says hacking is.

CORTES: Sure, I`m not saying that it was- you know, it was the act of a gentleman, right, to steal his e-mails. But my point is --

HAYES: Right, so then - so then the question becomes, is there any - is there any methodology of obtaining information that you think would invalidate it, right? So, if gunmen showed up at Trump Tower today, took everyone hostage broke in and stole a bunch of documents but the documents were interesting, you`d be cool with all of us reading them, right?

CORTES: No, I clearly would not. And listen, cyber hacking is -- cyber security in general is a major issue of national security of the united states from Russia, from china, from a host of nations and I think we have been feckless in our response to that and not just this administration, but the previous administration under George W. Bush. So I am heartened that we`re going to take this seriously. But it`s also just as important, I think, in a political season, with a President-Elect, to not try to in any way act as though these revelations make his victory any less legitimate and if anything --

HAYES: I think this --

(CROSSTALK)

CORTES: If anything, what was revealed, revealed the true nature of the - of the opposition he was running against.

HAYES: I do think the statement of the President was pretty narrowly tailored. Steve Cortes, I appreciate your time tonight. Thank you.

CORTES: Thank you, Chris.

HAYES: Joining me now, Missouri Secretary of State and 2016 Democratic Senate Candidate, Jason Kander, your reaction to today`s events.

JASON KANDER, MISSOURI SECRETARY OF STATE: Well, it`s pretty upsetting when it turns out that the President-Elect is either not sure how computers work, or is just using some sort of feigned ignorance about computers and claiming he thinks they hack themselves to excuse himself from having to accept the facts or listen to the American intelligence community.

HAYES: Do you think, to Steve Cortes` point, I saw some polling from U.GOV of about 50 percent of Hillary Clinton voters thinking that Russians had actually tampered with the voting files, right, which is not true, there`s no evidence of that whatsoever, that is not what`s on the table. Do you think -- there`s legitimate concern from the Trump folks, from others that democrats are playing this up too much? It is an attempt to delegitimize and they`re ramping up the rhetoric to an unhealthy level?

KANDER: What really worries me is the Trump camp`s perception that this is somehow just a part of American partisan politics. We used to have this saying that we used all the time, in this country, which was "Politics stops at the water`s edge." and the reason that we did that is because we`re one American family, and we have arguments amongst one another about what direction we should go, but it`s sort of like if you were arguing with your kid brother, your kid sister and then somebody from another house in your neighborhood came in to try and beat them up, you would stand up and you would protect them and you would protect your house. That`s how it really works in this country, is that we have arguments with one another, but if somebody tries to come in and go after one of us, we all stand up and we protect this country. And that`s what I want President Trump to do in 22 days is stand up and protect the country. Don`t just worry about protecting his own insecurities.

HAYES: You`ve served in the Armed Forces, yourself, and I imagine have had occasion in that capacity to make use of intelligence that comes from DIA or rather other intelligence offices. Are you, personally, convinced, satisfied that this consensus is accurate, particularly as someone like myself of the generation that came of age in the era of the Iraq War, a kind of scarring experience with regards to the credibility of intelligence.

KANDER: There`s absolutely no reason to reach any conclusion other than this is exactly what happened. When you have every intelligence agency saying this, it`s not really a very similar situation to after 9/11 in the sense that there`s not this great deal of pressure, there wasn`t this event like 9/11.

HAYES: Right.

KANDER: This pressuring the intelligence community to come to a decision of any kind. But, you know, you asked about my experience with it. I actually view it from the perspective of somebody who, you know, I`m a former army intelligence officer, and in `06, I was in Afghanistan gathering intelligence, risking my life going into rooms that, you know, there were some shady characters in and I would on occasion have to wonder whether I was going to get out of that room. And there are still people doing that all over the country - or all over the world.

And so, whether it`s Russian hacking or any other kind of intelligence, when the President-Elect communicates the idea that he`s not interested or doesn`t believe in the credibility of that intelligence, I can`t imagine how that would have made me feel back when my commander in chief at the time, President Bush, if he had said that he wasn`t interested in that information. It would have affected the way I felt about it.

HAYES: Yeah, it`s a good point. And to that, I mean, the statement from the President-Elect today is basically, you know, we know he has been briefed on this but I`ll meet with him next week. There`s only, almost a kind of begrudging quality to the statement.

KANDER: It`s really concerning. These folks are about to work for him in 22 days. And what I`m worried about is a President who is only interested in hearing from the intelligence community when they give him information that confirms what he already thought.

HAYES: Right.

KANDER: And I`m not worried about that as a democrat or worried about -- I`m worried about that as somebody who lives in the United States of America and has a family. And I`m counting on this next president just like we`ve counted on this one to protect me and protect my family. We are all counting on him to do that, and when he would rather pretend that he thinks computers hack themselves, you know, he has a big leadership test coming up and that is this - he has about to have to decide whether or not he is going to put himself first or put the safety of the country first. And in order to put the safety of the country first, he`s got to trust the U.S. intelligence community at least more than he does what he already had in mind, himself.

HAYES: Jason Kander, thanks for your time tonight. Appreciate it.

KANDER: Thank you, Chris.

HAYES: Coming up, Donald Trump claiming victories in his short time as president-elect. How Trump already spiked the football twice for a singled touchdown he may have had nothing to do with -- the amazing details after this two-minute break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES: President-elect Trump not only claimed credit for Sprint bringing back 5,000 jobs to the U.S., he did so repeatedly, last night first in a tweet and then press avails. Press asked for details operating on information that we had gotten that those 5,000 jobs were actually part of a larger deal that had been announced weeks ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sprint tells us the 5,000 jobs you announced today were part of the 50,000 -

TRUMP: No, Sprint will give you -- Sprint will give you -- I just spoke to the head person, they said because of me they`re doing 5,000 jobs in this country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: President-elect suggests the media refer to Sprint`s statement. Vex Sprint later said "the jobs are part of a previously announced commitment by Japan`s Softbank which owns a controlling stake of the mobile phone carrier to invest $50 billion in the U.S. and create 50,000 positions." Now just to be clear, the 5,000 jobs Trump claimed credit for was part of a previously announced 50,000 job pledge by the parent company and its founder, Masayoshi Son. But that`s not where this ends because Trump took credit for that, too, a few weeks ago. On December 6th, after meeting with Masayoshi Son, Trump tweeted "Masa said he would never do this had we, Trump, not won the election." OK, so he`s counted those jobs twice. But, even if that would be the end of the story, we have a situation that produces headlines like this, "Trump touts new Sprint jobs that he already touted as Softbank jobs."

That is still not the end of it. The Softbank $50 billion deal was part of a previously announced vision fund, $100 billion vehicle for investing in technology companies worldwide. That $100 billion global fund, OK, was announced on October 13th otherwise known as more than three weeks before the election. Now, the question is, would Softbank have pledged half of that $100 billion fund to the U.S. even if Donald Trump had not been elected president? Washington Post did a deep fact check into that question. The dubious claims about Softbank`s investments in the U.S. basically said we may never know because there are so many factors including the fact that based on past trends; it is entirely possible the same amount would have come to the U.S. regardless of who`s elected.

It also acknowledged the presence of Softbank saying that Trump would, quote, "Would do a lot of deregulation that could favor investors including himself." No matter what, yesterday Trump claimed brand new credit for something he`d already claimed credit for, a deal for which he may or may not deserve partial credit if that makes any sense. Joining me now, Bob Garfield, Co-Host of WNYC`s On The Media, and Editor-at-large at Media Post. His latest column on Trump and the media is online. Now, Bob, part of what happened yesterday was - it`s a familiar pattern, the President- Elect claims a thing, says something publicly. Generally, when someone in that position says something that utterances itself as news, but it then goes unrefuted or unrebutted or unexamined for a long-enough period of time, sort of hangs in the ether and then you find out later it`s maybe not true.

BOB GARRFIELD, WNYC ON THE MEDIA CO-HOST: Well, you know, the norms have changed a bit. I`m sure you`re observed this and get used to this conversation because we`re going to be having it a lot from border to border, coast to coast, in this great, perhaps to be greater country of ours. And that`s because Trump is such a liar. Now, all politicians lie. The President of the United States, Barack Obama, lies. Hillary Clinton lies. Clinton lies. Bill Clinton lied. George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush lied. All these people lied.

But the thing about Trump is, almost every utterance that spills from his lips is either a lie or built on a lie. And in a case like this, you have to get into kind of six degrees of prevarication to really understand the depth of the dishonesty. It`s dishonest on about four different levels which I`d, you know, be happy to run down for you.

HAYES: Well, so this is part of the issue, right, is that there`s a posture that news organizations tend to have, which I think of as presumptive authority. And it -- and so you`ll see it around police, police accounts of a police shooting. They`ll say, police say the suspect had a weapon and the reporting isn`t it`s definitively the case, but embedded in that police say is a sense of - well, they`re not just outright lying, right?

And then, sometimes we see in some police shootings that has been the case, they have outright lied about what the - what the suspect had. There`s a sort of similar thing happening here with Trump. How do you -- how do you report what he said while not lending it presumptive authority?

GARFIELD: Well, there are ways, and next, I think we actually saw it in the coverage of this particular episode which is, you know, how it`s framed in headlines. Trump claims 8,000 jobs.

HAYES: Right.

GARFIELD: And words like that, you know, historically, what the press would say is, Trump snags 8,000 jobs before he ever, you know, gets in the White House. And then if it turns out not to be true, well then a scandal eventually erupts based on the falsehood and then it eventually gets litigated, but now we have to, you know, the default assumption is that Trump isn`t telling the truth. Now in this case, these jobs which he supposedly saved, really they were earmarked before he ever was elected. He has, as you observed, taken credit for them twice. 8,000 jobs is a trivial amount. It`s in and of itself nothing. I mean, Obama`s Administration depending on how you do the math created 100,000 to 150,000 jobs a month for the duration of his administration.

HAYES: That`s right.

GARFIELD: And by the way -- by the way, this Softbank is seeking to have a merger here in the states that was turned down by the justice department under the current administration, and one way to look at these 8,000 jobs is that they could be a bribe -- a bribe for some antitrust consideration when they try to rebuild the merger. Which, you know, I don`t know if a political favor like this constitutes a quid pro quo for a crime, but it`s certainly some -- it`s certainly some nasty politics. So if I were Trump, I`d be keeping my mouth shut.

HAYES: Well - but - so here`s that -- you also bring up another really important point which is in all these interactions he`s been having. He`s had interactions with Boeing about, you know, whether the new Air Force One model was too expensive, and interactions with Sprint and Masa Bank -- in all of them, right, these companies -- if the company was going to already have 5,000 jobs here, let`s say, it`s not in their interest to correct the President-Elect, right? It`s in their interest to just say, yes, totally. This is totally about --

GARFIELD: Yeah, what the President-Elect says. Yeah, no, he`s probably got it. Right. Yeah.

HAYES: You get this -- you get this situation where you can`t - like, the two parties that are party to the conversation each have a mutual interest in creating this sort of, like -

GARFIELD: That`s correct.

HAYES: -- contract of fiction.

GARFIELD: Well, let`s talk about the reason I`m here and that is, what is the press to do? Because we`re going to be faced with this a lot. I mean, many times a week for the next four years, and how do you handle it? Especially when you know that if you point out the president`s dishonesty, you will be seen by a large part of the electorate as being partisan and untrustworthy and he will blame you, not for revealing truth and facts and, you know, actual, what do you call it, reality, but for doing a hit job, a smear, because you`re the dishonest press. So, you know, you just grit your teeth and you try to find a way to frame it.

HAYES: Right.

GARFIELD: And you have to be ever vigilant because now we have to truth squad everything in real time.

HAYES: Yeah, the key to me is yesterday when we saw this and we had the internal discussion, we had a -- talked about it, I said, let`s hold off, let`s wait until we have more information before we even put this on the screen to report it because I want to make sure this is actually a thing.

Bob Garfield, thanks for your time. Appreciate it.

GARFIELD: Thank you, Chris.

HAYES: Still to come, Carl Paladino who served as Donald Trump`s New York campaign Co-Chair is called on to resign from his school board position after sending racist e-mails. Something he has been known to do before -- that story just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES: Incredible scene today in Buffalo, where Carl Paladino created a firestorm after sending racist e-mails. That`s next.

But this has been quite a year, 2016 brought many things and many people are happy to let it go. One of its distinguishing characteristics is that it is on track to be the hottest year in the history of temperature record- keeping so far. 2015, I should note, had that distinction until 2016 came along. Well, "ALL IN AMERICA" went out and visited places where climate change is here and now and real and is affecting how people are living their lives and what they`re doing and even how cities are being built and restructured. A special "ALL IN INVESTIGATION: 2016, THE HOTTEST YEAR" tonight at 11:30.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Told Donald yesterday this is Trump country in Buffalo, New York.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: Before he became Donald Trump`s New York campaign chair, Carl Paladino first gained national infamy or a different reason: his tendency to forward racist emails. You see, during his run for New York governor against Andrew Cuomo, it was revealed that Paladino had forwarded friends and colleagues a number of lewd and offensive emails that include everything from racist jokes about President Obama and the first lady to graphic images of bestial pornography, not a phrase I often have occasion to say on the show, which why it was but not necessarily surprising when in a response to a local paper`s query about his expectations for 2017, Paladino inexplicably emailed back a series of misspelled racist, transphobic and bestiality-themed jokes about the president and first lady.

I`m going to quote some of them here: "Obama catches mad cow disease after being caught having relations with a heifer. He dies before his trial."

"Michelle Obama, I like her return to being a male and let her loose in the outback of Zimbabwe where she lives comfortably in a cave with Maxie the Gorilla."

The paper later published those comments, which shocked the city of Buffalo, New York, where Paladino lives and serves as a member of the school board.

Paladino ultimately apologized, quote, to the minority community in a statement that also included a lengthy tirade about President Obama`s Syria policy and teachers` contracts.

Today, that school board met to vote on a resolution that called for Paladino`s resignation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I am standing today for all the children who have been harmed by this school board member`s abhorrent behaviors and actions.

UNIDENITIFIED FEMALE: This level of hatred for African-Americans should not and cannot set policy for the education of African-American children.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Words matter, Mr. Paladino. I have heard, as has ever board member including you, from people all over the country who are incredulous that a sitting board of education member can demonstrate such a lack of responsible leadership for the children in our district. That would like me to tell you, you`re fired.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: In the end the resolution passed six votes to two with raucous applause from the audience. Paladino now has 24 hours to resign before the school board implores the state education commissioner to fire him.

One of the people who is in the audience of the vote was Huffington Post senior political reporter and politics managing editor, Amanda Terkel, who joins me now.

And Amanda, it looks like quite a scene in that room. What was it like?

AMANDA TERKEL, HUFFINGTON POST: It was pretty crazy. I mean, it was loud. They made clear that people couldn`t bring in signs and the school board chair had to keep reminding people that they weren`t supposed to be shouting things out and saying -- there`s a national audience, make sure you make Buffalo look good.

But people were pretty upset. There were a lot of reactions to what especially the Paladino, the two Paladino allies on the board were saying. One woman, Patty Pierce, who voted against the resolution, compared what was going on to the Charleston massacre and said that like people in Charleston, the families of the victims forgave Dylann Roof, the people of Buffalo should try to do that with Carl Paladino.

And that was too much for one woman who was actually sitting right in front of me who started shouting that, you know, it`s a disgrace to bring up the victims of this horrible massacre in Charleston for, you know, to sort of defend Carl Paladino or to say we should forgive him. And she left the room because of that.

HAYES: Wait a second, wait a second. The board member in attempting to defend Carl Paladino who has these sort of despicable comments about the president, the first lady, and other people, in her defense of Carl Paladino, compared Carl Paladino to the racist mass murderer Dylann Roof?

TERKEL: Essentially, yeah. I mean, someone else in the audience pointed out, like, you know, he went to jail, is that who you`re really comparing him to?

I mean, her point was she was so moved by the victims` families`, you know, forgiveness and their words that is how she came to also forgive Carl Paladino who she considers a friend.

But, yes, there is that other side of the comparison that she was comparing Carl Paladino to Dylann Roof.

HAYES: Well, there`s also the fact that I mean, I have to say, when this story -- obviously Paladino is a figure I know and we`ve covered him on the show, you know, ran for governor here, that I did not realize, I mean, when the story happened I did not realize he`s sitting on the board of education.

I mean, these are powerful positions. That board presumably is essentially dictating a fair amount about what happens to Buffalo schoolchildren. And even before these emails came out, it was pretty clear what this guy`s views were.

TERKEL: Yeah, and I mean, I talked to -- I went to a protest earlier in the day. There was -- you know, it`s Buffalo and it`s December, so it`s cold and there was some snow. And, but, you know, a few hundred people showed up for a protest outside City Hall today and I asked people why now? I mean, Carl Paladino has been saying stuff like this for years.

And a few people said that they`re paying more attention now, because of Trump and he`s a test case. You know, they feel like that they have to be more active now...

HAYES: Right.

TERKEL: ...that Trump was elected. And so they are trying to stand up and show that they`re not going to take it from Carl Paladino anymore.

And he is on the school board, but I mean, he barely won his last election. He ran against a high school student who sort of ran saying we need some adult leadership on the board, and we`re not getting that right now. And Carl Paladino barely beat him in his own district. So Paladino has been losing support.

The school board used to have more Paladino allies. Now he has just two people. So I feel like in this city, people are getting a little bit fed up of him sort of making the city look bad, giving the city bad publicity.

HAYES: An it`s interesting you mentioned Trump because he, of course, is an early Trump backer. He was, I believe, has been in Trump Tower since the election and was the campaign co-chair.

He is a sort of prominent Trump ally.

TERKEL: Yes, he is. Although his most recent comments were even too much for the Trump team who issued -- a Trump spokeswoman issued a comment saying that they found them distasteful, they didn`t agree with them.

HAYES: Wow.

TERKEL: So, even too much for Trump who has said many, many very Paladino- ish things.

HAYES: Yeah.

Amanda Terkel, senior political reporter and politics managing editor for the Huffington Post, thanks for joining us. Appreciate it.

TERKEL: Thank you.

HAYES: Still ahead in the waning days of a brutal 2016, a look back at some of the stories you might have already forgotten.

Plus tonight`s Thing One, Thing Two starts right after this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES: Thing One tonight, during the election we had a segment called Trump`s last ten, which was our attempt to keep up with the absolute flood of Donald Trump controversies. Things that had any other candidate said or done probably would have ended their campaign.

Things like, I don`t know, accusing Ted Cruz`s father of helping JFK`s assassin, lying about donating a million dollars to veteran charities until he was caught four months later, urging Russia to hack Hillary Clinton`s email saying he`d try Americans at Guantanamo, or claiming President Obama sympathizes with ISIS and literally founded ISIS, just to name a few.

So, we started keeping and updating a list, the last ten outrageous controversies, so as new controversies drove the news cycle they wouldn`t entirely eclipse past controversies that deserve more or as more attention.

But that effort failed as new legitimate controversies and scandals popped up nearly on a daily basis.

We`re not the only media outlet that failed. And new data out illustrates exactlythe problem, that`s Thing Two in 60 seconds.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES: A new report released by Echelon Insights perfectly illustrates the problem journalists had in covering Donald Trump during the campaign. All right, this chart shows the number of Twitter mentions about scandals, gaffes and controversies, and there`s a real pattern here. For Trump, a string of legitimately concerning scandals would pop up and then disappear, replaced by the next controversy. That included the Trump University fraud lawsuit, racist attack on a federal judge because of his Mexican descent, bigoted attacks on a gold-star family that was Muslim, refusing to release his tax returns or the uncovered tape of Trump bragging about sexually assaulting woman and the women who claimed they sexually assaulted him thereafter.

For Clinton, the same few stories kept coming up over and over, spiking Twitter use throughout the election. Clinton`s emails and her email server, which we should note the FBI found no wrongdoing, and the hacked DNC and John Podesta emails released by WikiLeaks, which spawned a torrent of articles and more than a little fake news but produced no legitimate scandal.

But those two issues by far in total eclipsed the Trump controversies in total mentions. As the co-founder of echelon insights noted about this chart, possibly the best evidence yet. The media moved on too quickly for anything to really stick to Trump.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES: 2016 was a completely insane year in politics, also a historic one. It was the year we saw a woman become the first presidential nominee of a major political party, also the year a former reality television star with no public service experience whatsoever was actually elected president. It`s the first time that happened.

2016 was also the year we said good-bye to some of the biggest names ever in popular culture. For instance, David Bowie, Prince, Muhammad Ali. Amid all this loss and shock, race and identity seem to remain throughout the year front and center both in the campaign that Trump won by playing on those themes as well as sports and pop culture.

Beyonce aligning herself with the Black Lives Matter movement in her Super Bowl halftime performance that seemed to pay tribute to the Black Panther Party top Colin Kaepernick refusing to stand for the very next season for the playing of the National Anthem, and sandwiched in between the groundbreaking hip hop musical Hamilton nominated for a record setting 16 Tony Awards and winning 11. And two long-form projects that focused on the life and trial of O.J. Simpson, one fictional, one not.

And all this, in some ways, made us think long and hard about what it means to be American.

Joining me now, a look back at the year in pop culture, Abraham RIESMAN, staff writer for New York magazine, Aisha Harris, culture writer and editor at Slate, and Erin Gloria Ryan, senior editor at The Daily Beast. It`s good to have you guys here.

ABRAHAM RIESMAN, NEW YORK MAGAZINE: Hey.

HAYES: I mean, whatever, it`s kind of ridiculous like impose some theme on a year`s pop cultural production. But it did seem to me like if you take the Beyonce Super Bowl performance, on the Colin Kaepernick taking a knee and you think about the campaign and the constant thrum of sort of white identity politics from Trump, and then the cultural production which kind of in opposition to it in a lot of ways, does that -- you buy that thesis, Aisha?

AISHA HARRIS, SLATE: Yeah, I think this is definitely a year where politics wise we had really terrible stuff happening with Trump using race to bait voters and use them as a scapegoat and paralleled with that we have people like Beyonce and Kaepernick and other people who are creating art and music who are really, like, digging into their own identity and pushing out against that.

HAYES: Yeah, and I was -- I kept finding myself -- I mean, the weird O.J. Simpson kind of mini bubble this year which I found bizarre at the time, like, who decided we`re doing this? Like, why are we? Like who made it this year to do this?

I was also like, do I want to revisit this? And then I watched both of them and I was like, oh, not only is this great, it`s perfect. It`s exactly perfect for what we`re...

RIESMAN: Well, that`s the thing. For a lot of people who are in the prime television watching demographic right now, the O.J. trial was something that we, I include myself there, saw when we were in elementary school or middle school. And it was so situated in this period in the mid-90s that we didn`t see what was weird and terrible about it.

HAYES: Totally true.

RIESMAN: Right. And so it took looking at it from a fictional perspective in People vs O.J., the Ryan Murphy series, and looking at it from a long view throughout his entire life perspective in O.J. Made in America to realize, oh, now that we`re in 2016, we see that like this was a flash point.

HAYES: Yeah, totally.

RIESMAN: This was the place where the future was made.

HAYES: I couldn`t believe how much I learned from those two series.

RIESMAN: Yes.

HAYES: Like, having lived through it and going back through it, it was like, oh, I didn`t get this at all the first time.

ERIN GLORIA RYAN, THE DAILY BEAST: Yeah, I think one thing that`s interesting, we talked earlier about how there was this incredible artistic production, like feminist artistic production, great artistic production around the issues of race, but it was really interesting to see how dramatically that decoupled from, like, the electorate.

HAYES: Yeah, totally. Yes, absolutely.

RYAN: What ended up happening is like we had this incredible amount of art that was addressing these really serious issues and felt as a and it felt as a person that was consuming that art that we were making real progress. And then election day happened and it`s like...

HAYES: Totally true.

RYAN: Oh, wait, really -- I`m looking back on the year and I`m looking at how I felt about all this art that was being created and now I`m retroactively looking at it as like a hamster wheel and not as like some kind of progress that we were making.

HARRIS: That`s really disheartening.

HAYES: No, that`s a really good point.

And I think also a point that, you know, people talk -- there`s this huge narrative right after the election about like out of touchness and the coastal elites and the liberal bubble. And a lot of that I think gets very like -- it`s very thin. You know, it`s sort of under-theorized.

But that part of it I think is true. Like it is true, the people that make big amounts of pop culture in America have different cultural sensibilities than a huge part of the country and are producing stuff, particularly this kind of stuff that tends to get written about a lot or blogged about a lot, right, or tweeted about a lot that is removed from wide swaths of the country.

RIESMAN: Except the two things that unite all of America, which are reality TV and sports TV.

HAYES: Right. Which is why -- and it`s coming back to sports, which is why to me the Kaepernick thing in some ways in all of pop culture was sort of the most important, because it did exactly what Erin was talking about other stuff not doing, it united both those worlds, like everybody in America watches football and all of a sudden every playing of the anthem at a football game, people don`t want politics there. It was like, OK, now we`re going to...

RYAN: Well, it kind of reminded me a little bit about the whole like fervor around the Dixie Chicks back during the Bush era.

HAYES: Very much like -- Yes.

RYAN: It`s like shut up and play football. It`s like no, no, no art is about expressing an opinion, sports are about being a human being who is good at this thing.

HAYES: I want to talk about one thing I think was a breakout star this year and I think also unites people across all sensibilities, political, ideological, and cultural after this break. Stick around.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENITIFIED FEMALE: Let`s go to they out here saying for eight.

UNIDENITIFIED MALE: Ok, the answer there, they out here saying that every vote counts.

Oh, Doug again.

TOM HANKS, ACTOR: What is, come on, they already decided who wins even before it happens.

UNIDENITIFIED MALE: Yes. Yes.

HANKS: Let`s go to big girls for 200.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, and the answer there, skinny women can do this for you.

Doug.

HANKS: What is not a damn thing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah, your damn right. You`re damn right.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: Black jeopardy, perhaps SNL`s best sketch and most astute political analysis of 2016.

Still with us, Abraham Riesman, Aisha Hariss, and Gloria Ryan.

I absolutely love that. I really thought that was like one of the best moments of political satire in the entire campaign.

HARRIS: It just kept unfolding and getting smarter and smarter. And when you think about SNL you don`t usually think, oh, really sharp political commentary.

HAYES: Yes, usually it`s very broad actually.

HARRIS: So, broad. But the way that sketch got so specific and seemed to pinpoint the idea that minorities and also working white class have a lot more in common than you think and having Tom Hanks on top of it is just...

RIESMAN: It ends up being this -- it`s also -- it`s so funny but it`s one of the single saddest pieces...

HAYES: Yes, because in the end the whole point is that like but...

RIESMAN: And it ends up being this -- I`m being a little too heady here, but it`s this American tragedy. You walk in and you say like, oh, it was so close to being united. This close.

HAYES: All right. So, the thing that I want to go to the thing that I teased, which is what I think brings everybody together, which is HGTV.

RIESMAN: HGTV.

HAYES: Which I put on in hotel rooms. Look, there`s something fundamental -- the formula -- it`s like their own version of the police procedural that they`ve perfected where it`s just like it`s so structurally tangibly has this arc. It`s like there`s a dead body and the murder`s solved, right?

Well, there`s like a house that they`re not happy with, and then it`s awesome. And it basically -- and it works so well, and there`s something so satisfying -- you guys are looking at me.

RIESMAN: No. I agree.

HAYES: You do not feel this way about HGTV?

RYAN: The last time I watched home improvement television was back when they had the makeover thing.

HAYES: Extreme Makeover.

RYAN: Where they would switch houses and sometimes the people would hate it and those were my favorite episodes.

There was like this brown living room episode that I think about whenever I`m sad and it makes me feel so good.

But I think like, you know, what you were talking about, it being something that`s culturally uniting. It`s something that seems to be the only thing that really transcended the culture wars of 2016.

HAYES: Totally.

RYAN: And the political divide that is still something that`s playing out in culture right now.

RIESMAN: I mean, what I hope is that if the Earth is not an ashen cinder within a year, that hundreds of years from now, cultural historians and anthropologists and archaeologists will watch HGTV and then explain back to me...

HAYES: What happened.

RIESMAN: Well, no, like what it meant, because people do passionately love it. But I can`t pinpoint exactly what it is other than the comfort.

HARRIS: It`s fantasy, right.

HAYES: That`s part of it, too.

HARRIS: You want to imagine that you can have that happen.

HAYES: And this year there`s a good Bloomberg piece on this. This year, because of the political situation it was sort of like escapism.

All right, there was another thing that I felt like sort of had a breakout year in 2016 which is podcasts.

No, seriously.

Serial was a sort of breakout I think it was in 2015 that Serial first came out or 2014.

RIESMAN: 2014.

HAYES: This year felt like the year when the medium really exploded. There`s a million different genres. I feel like -- I started listening to Crime Town, which is about Providence, Rhode Island.

HARRIS: So good.

HAYES: So good, which I spent four years, TBTL, which is my favorite podcast, which I discovered eight years ago listen to every day, like quasi-religiously.

But do you feel that way, do you feel like -- I feel like people -- I feel like as apt to have a conversation with someone about the podcast I`m listening to when I meet them at a party than television or anything else.

HARRIS: Oh, for sure. I dipped my toes into it actually this year. I hosted a podcast on something called Represent. We talked about...

RIESMAN: Mazel tov.

HAYES: It`s quite good, I will note.

HARRIS: Thank you.

It`s great. And what I love is that we`re having -- there`s so many different ways to listen to podcasts now and different kinds, like the crime shows, you also have like history shows. You can learn so much. And that`s what I love about it.

HAYES: It also feels like -- it feels, reminds me -- I`ll date myself here -- of like blogging in its heyday where the barrier to entry is very low. There`s an explosion of creativity. People are doing it at all sort of different levels of technical skill.

Girl Friday, which is quite well produced.

RYAN: Thank you.

HAYES: Which is the Erin Gloria Ryan podcast, which I listen to as well. But people are doing it at all different levels of skill and production and some of them, even the ones that are low level are really good, some of the really highly produced ones are good. But it`s like -- it`s like a thousand flowers blooming. So, you should go check out some of those podcasts we mentioned as well as I would also say Two Dope Queens and Another Round are two of the ones I really love.

All right, Abraham Riesman, Aisha Harris, Erin Gloria Ryan, thanks for joining us.

RIESMAN: Always a pleasure.

HAYES: That is All In for this evening. The Rachel Maddow Show starts right now.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. END