Show: ALL IN with CHRIS HAYES Date: October 30, 2018 Guest: Brian Schatz, Maria Teresa Kumar, Andrew Marantz, Judd Legum
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CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST: Tonight on ALL IN.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The word nationalism has taken on for the left this connotation of fueling anti-Semitism, hate, even violence.
HAYES: Protesters greet President Trump at the scene of a hate crime as he keeps feeding fear to his base.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I look at two things globalists and nationalists.
HAYES: Tonight seven days out, how Democrats are answering the President`s toxic finish. Then --
REP. STEVE KING (R), IOWA: That`s what we`ve got to restore is Western civilization for the world, Tucker.
TUCKER CARLSON, HOST, FOX NEWS CHANNEL: Sounds fair to me.
HAYES: Why even national Republicans are rejecting Congressman Steve King citing the need to stand up against white supremacy. And as Steve Bannon appears for a second time before the special counsel.
TRUMP: When you see a Mueller with the conflict, he`s so conflicted.
HAYES: Congressman Adam Schiff on the foiled far-right plot to undermine the Mueller probe, when ALL IN starts right now.
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HAYES: Good evening from New York I`m Chris Hayes. One week before the crucial Midterm Elections a Republican party from the President on down is growing ever more desperate. Donald Trump and the GOP have controlled the government for almost two years, but with apparently little to show for it they are engaging in an increasingly reckless indeed dangerous gambit. They are throwing red meat to their most rabid supporters instead of running on the record. Today, the President floated the idea ending birthright citizenship as guaranteed by the United States Constitution something Donald Trump almost certainly cannot legally do.
Yesterday, the administration announced plans to send 5,200 U.S. troops to the border potentially stationed up to 14,000 there because of migrant mothers and children almost 900 miles away coming on foot to ask for asylum. Before that, it was Donald Trump`s promise to pass a fictitious tax cut for the middle class even though Congress won`t even be in session again until after Midterms. But as the rhetoric gets more desperate, it also gets more dangerous. It`s only been four days since Trump fanatic says Cesar Sayoc was arrested for sending bombs to leading Democrats and critics of the President.
And in Pittsburgh today, people lined up to attend the first funerals after the horrific anti-Semitic slaughter on Saturday when 11 people were murdered at a synagogue. A man arrested for that crime Robert Bowers admitted on social media that he was motivated by a racist anti-Semitic lie, a smear about Jews bringing in "invaders" meaning those very same Central American migrants. A grotesque sentiment reflected by the constant fear and hate mongering on Trump T.V.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Either Democrat operatives in this country are working with this caravan or the drug cartels or both.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We simply cannot tolerate the continued invasion of this country.
LAURA INGRAHAM, HOST, FOX NEWS CHANNEL: We don`t know what people have coming in here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What about diseases?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And what about the diseases that have come in from Africa?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We have diseases spreading across the country that are causing polio-like paralysis.
INGRAHAM: Kids are being paralyzed like smallpox and leprosy and TB.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Measles, mumps, rubella, tuberculosis, hepatitis.
INGRAHAM: Just to repeat what you just said, HIV, measles pertussis, rubella, rabies, that`s just a fact.
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HAYES: Now, the Republicans desperation makes some political sense analytically speaking. 538 reports today the Democrats could have huge opportunities to win GOP House seats while the non-partisan Cook Political Report just moved to seats closer to Republicans and four close to the Democrats. In Utah Republican Congressman Mia Love is down by six points, in Utah. In Montana, Congressman Greg Gianforte, the one who body slammed a reporter and then lied about it is tied with his Democratic challenger. Another new poll shows Iowa Congressman Steve King in an overwhelmingly Trump friendly district up by just a single point against his Democratic opponent. I`ll be talking more about him and his white nationalism later in the show.
All of that and more is why Republicans are trying so hard to whip their base into a frenzy. As Democratic Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii tweeted "remember that we close on health care and corruption and they can close with whatever toxic racists do they want. Senator Brian Schatz joins me now. Senator, what do you make of this strange desperate gross closing argument from the Republican Party?
SEN. BRIAN SCHATZ (D), HAWAII: I think you hit it exactly on the head. It`s strange, it`s desperate, it`s toxic, it`s awful. And what it shows is that the Republicans realize that all of their actual ideas both in terms of what they want to do in the future in terms of cutting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and in terms of what they`ve done over the last two years in terms of the largest upward wealth transfer in American history and the attempt to take away healthcare protections for people with pre- existing conditions, everything that they`re actually for is totally unpopular. So they`re left lying about what they`re for or trying to distract us with racism and xenophobia.
HAYES: You know, you mentioned health care. This is I think my favorite little nugget from this campaign so far. There are a number of Republican members of Congress who are running in competitive districts whose Democratic challengers have been saying there -- they voted to take away protections for pre-existing conditions. All of these members, I think there`s seven of them have then said, no, no, no, that claim that I voted for that, that gets four Pinocchios in the Washington Post fact checker. That claim itself is a lie, completely invented that has prompted the fact- checker to tell them to stop saying it and they have all refused.
SCHATZ: Yes, they`re -- I mean, they`re just left with lying. I mean Josh Hawley for instance, the Attorney General in Missouri is a guy who`s on the lawsuit to eliminate protections for people with pre-existing conditions. I mean, the gall of these people is incredible but it really shows that they have literally run out of ideas. I know how these guys work. They sit down, they try to figure out what they`ve done that is popular, they run a poll, they sit down with their operatives and they figure out what they`re going to talk about.
If they`re at the point where they`re talking about a caravan of people 1,000 miles away of unarmed individuals, if that`s the thing they`re closing with, it means that nothing that they are for, nothing that they plan to do and nothing that they have done is at all popular and that`s why we`re going to close on the following message. We`re going to protect your health care and they`re corrupt and we are here to stop them.
HAYES: What do you think about the President`s appearance in Pittsburgh today? It was notable to me that no one else joined him. Other Republicans and Democrats both alike declined to join him at that. Lots of people in the community obviously protesting his appearance today. What do you think?
SCHATZ: Well, I want to talk a little bit about the protests and I just saw a two-minute clip from your network and I was touched. I was nearly in tears to watch these individuals. It was not a typical sort of political protest. It was quiet. They were singing. Apparently, some people are observing their own religious traditions and there`s a sense that something bigger than politics is going on. We have to tap into our collective humanity and it`s not just about rejecting Republican policies over the last two years or what they want to do to us over the next two years, now we have to rebuke the way they`re conducting themselves over the last seven days of this campaign.
HAYES: Yes, what do you mean by that? What does it mean if they win this way?
SCHATZ: Well, it means that lying will have been successful. It means that racism will have been successful. It means that appealing to our most base instincts will have been successful. But remember, all of the positions are minority positions. All their positions are unpopular. So that the only way that they`re going to be successful in this election is if people don`t show up.
And I understand it`s a Midterm and I understand that you know, young people and presidential voter types who only show up every four years are not expected to turn out, but we can take this country back if we show up and we absolutely have to show up.
HAYES: Last point here and I thought you would appreciate this data point. You talked about Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid. This is from one of our producers at a Texas early voting spot in Texas 32. Talking people suburban early voting spot today, GOP woman said she was -- has a sign for Pete Sessions in her yard, that`s the Republican. Voted straight our ticket but was spooked at the last minute by T.V. mailers saying he was going to take away Social Security and Medicare, so she voted to Colin Allred who`s the Democratic challenger which is sort of music I think probably to your ears.
SCHATZ: Yes, and that`s because it`s true. You know, we are out there telling the truth about what they want to do. This is not a rhetorical flourish, this is not a talking point. This is what Mitch McConnell promises and this is what Paul Ryan has been dreamed -- has been dreaming about since he was in college.
HAYES: Sitting around kegs I think is the phrase, particularly, dreaming cutting Medicaid. Senator Brian Schatz, thank you for joining me.
SCHATZ: Thank you.
HAYES: I want to bring in Maria Teresa Kumar the President and CEO of Voto Latino, MSNBC Contributor and Princeton University Professor Eddie Glaude, and Andrew Marantz, Contributing Editor at The New Yorker. Eddie, let me start with you. You know, Dave Roberts is a writer for Vox who I really like made this point yesterday that`s stuck with me that part of what`s so unnerving -- both unnerving and strange about this whipping up the frenzy is how they don`t -- the people doing it don`t even seem to believe it. That it`s such a sort of blatant attempt to manipulate. There`s almost a sense in which they`re play-acting themselves as they go through the motions.
EDDIE GLAUDE, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: Well, I would hope so, Chris. It seems to me that you know given the Trump playbook you know, how he launched his campaign by describing people as racist -- I mean as rapists, as criminals, you know, they think that this playbook will work and so they`re using it for their end. I think you`re in the last segment your -- is absolutely right. They can`t run on their record, they can`t run on the tax cuts, so they`re going to run to the ugliness, they`re going to run to this base dimension of their base. But you know, I`m just thinking though, Chris, that`s a generous read.
Our politics for so long has been in some ways motivated by these implicit appeals to whiteness and what we see in this moment I think and I may be wrong here, is that what has been lurking underneath our politics has now been brought to the form. And instead of engaging in code -- coded speech and dog whistles, we see explicit appeals. People are now kind of trafficking in this in such a way that the kind of politics that was once banished to the shadows or to the margins is now at the center. And we`re going to have to figure out what this means for us, it seems to me.
HAYES: Andrew, part of what I find worrisome and I think dangerous about this is I think it`s very cynical, you know, that it`s you know, we`re going to talk about this caravan and we`re going to talk about these migrants. We`re going to get people scared but there`s actual consequences. I mean, the shooter himself said the thing, the predicate, the causal last step to take him from an angry anti-Semite racist online to a murderer was the propaganda about Jews funding these migrants.
ANDREW MARANTZ, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, THE NEW YORKER: Yes, these "invaders." It has very real consequences and so that that doesn`t mean that everyone who makes some kind of dog-whistle point about globalism or George Soros or these things that get interpreted I think often rightly as anti-Semitic, it doesn`t mean that each of those people, there`s personal responsibility for the actions of everyone else but what it doesn`t mean is that they`re contributing to as you call it, this toxic stew. All of which is interrelated. So what Robert Bowers sees on Gab is related to let the President tweets. It`s related to what shows up in the Drudge Report, it`s all interpenetrated. So it`s not enough to say when I`m talking about George Soros I only mean George Soros when it`s on those people if they hear a dog whistle, you have to know what you`re doing.
HAYES: Yes, we should also say that the Republican Committee is running ads at George Soros behind stacks of money. It looks like an actual lab that`s going out there which is not super subtle. Maria, I want to talk to you about that the president floating this. I think manifestly preposterous and almost insulting idea of unilaterally revoking birthright citizenship because I think it presents a problem for news organizations. At one level it is on its own face it`s ridiculous and it`s also I think offensive and deeply a constitutional and it`s also an obvious stunt but there are people who are worried by this and it requires some grappling.
MARIA TERESA KUMAR, PRESIDENT AND CEO, VOTO LATINO: Absolutely. But I think what the president has been able to do is basically create slideshows. He has dominated the news cycle for the last seven days around the issues that he cares about because he recognizes that in order to mobilize his base he needs to show them red meat. That red meat has been the caravan, that read me to send me close to 5,000 troops from now until December to the border, and more recently as of today denouncing birthright citizenship. Stuff that he clearly cannot do with the birth citizenship but it provides red meat and it literally basically ensures that news -- the news cycle isn`t covering the issues that voters really care about.
You cannot go in too deeply about the fact that they care about care, the fact that tax cuts are not for everyone, the fact that we need some sort of immigration reform. This basically allows us to have him dominate the news cycle instead of actually doing it. And I think the challenge, Chris, is that we do need to have a serious conversation with what he wants to do with birthright citizenship but it`s unconstitutional. And the only way we ensure that we actually set some sort of border and checks and balances as is demonstrated by the Constitution is to ensure that we`re promoting in a different type of Congress. Seven days out, that`s what we need to focus.
HAYES: So let me just say this. I take your point and I think it`s largely true in terms of him dominating attention. I also think though that he is miscalculating the majority of the country. There`s a -- there`s a belief that his base who wants things like to be scared and troops standing guard against Honduran moms in flip-flops and you know, and revoking birthright citizenship that the majority is on the side when it is not, Eddie. I mean, that to me is the thing I keep coming back to. They think this is a smart play or they are doing it out of desperation. The majority of the country in poll after poll stands four squares against almost all of this.
GLAUDE: I think that`s absolutely right. It`s just what happens on November 6th, right? We`re going to see whether or not people are actually selfish. They`re looking at their 401K, they looking at the stock market even though the stock market is not doing so well.
HAYES: No it is not. If that`s what they`re looking at, the Republicans are in trouble.
GLAUDE: Yes, exactly. But some people are making selfish choices. They hold their noses and support Donald Trump. But the majority of Americans, I agree with you, Chris, don`t support this stuff. But what we do see is that the number of Americans who do are willing to do some very horrific things yes to say some very horrific things. They`re -- many of them are dangerous. And so part of what Trump is doing is appealing to this darker dimension of American life. Something that I know and some other folks know very intimately. And we know what happens when people feel insecure, when they feel that their way of life is under threat, violence is always near. And so we`re seeing this the illusion of innocence if just for a moment has been shattered and now we have to confront it even though the majority of the country doesn`t believe this stuff.
KUMAR: But I would -- Chris, I would encourage us to look at early voting. I was just in Minnesota. Early voting as of last year, last -- in the Midterm Elections, only 13 people -- 13,000 folks had actually filled out their absentee ballots. As of yesterday, over 43,000 people had. If you look at Texas, they have had an increase in young voters of over 500 percent since 2014. The Latino population is actually over voting right now as of as of 215 percent. So I would encourage the American people to continue going out to the polls -- to the polls to make sure that they are voting because we are at a crossroads right now in this country and we need to put a stop to this hate -- to this hatred and to this racism. And unfortunately, the President is setting a tone where he`s dictating what is OK and what is not. And unless we actually have a checks there, that this situation is going to get much worse.
HAYES: That`s why I thought the protests were so significant today in this sort of very solemn moment, Andrew, because there is this idea of like what do you talk about the President is an anti-Semite. He`s -- he has Jewish grandchildren and Jared Kushner there and he doesn`t you know -- but the idea that it is all interrelated, that everyone`s fates are round up and at the toxics do that you have spent so much time reporting on and looking at, they`re not making real fine-grained distinctions in that world.
MARANTZ: Yes, and there`s also this very bizarre -- it gets weirder the closer you look at it. Not only was Jared Kushner was there today, Steven Miller was there who is Jewish but who is also about as close to an open white nationalist as you can be at that level of power in 2018. Now, do those people hate Jews? Of course not. But there is an overall overarching theory of what`s happening in this country that has as its linchpin at the inner core of online white nationalism the Jews are funding this, the Jews are trying to bring down white people in this country. There are a whole host of deeply mistaken reasons why that`s so and it`s too gross to get into on T.V. but that is a linchpin of the ideology.
So it`s not just a random thing. I`ve heard lots of you know my relatives and my friends saying this just doesn`t make sense, this kind of beggars belief. And while of course, that`s true, on another level it`s also true that the anti-Jewish stuff is part of the anti-Black sentiment, the anti- Latino sentiment. It`s all of a piece.
HAYES: It`s about that threat of invasion and about that threat of -- a threat to purity. Maria Teresa Kumar, Eddie Glaude, Andrew Marantz, thank you all for being here.
KUMAR: Thank you, Chris.
HAYES: Tonight, the Republican campaign chief responsible for electing Republicans to Congress has rebuked Congressman Steve King taking a stand against and I`m quoting him mere white supremacy. Steve King under fire next.
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HAYES: People are finally waking up to the fact that Republican Congressman Steve King of Iowa is a white nationalist. Now it appears they`re ready to do something about it. Today, Congressman Steve Stivers, that would be the chai of the NRCC, the group charged with getting Republicans elected to the House, all but called King a white supremacist. "Congressman Steve King`s recent comments, actions, and retweets are completely inappropriate. We must stand up against white supremacy and hate in all forms and I strongly condemn this behavior."
Corporate donors are abandoning Congressman King as well. Today both dairy giant Land O`Lakes, and Purina Petcare pulled support from King following a similar announcement yesterday from tech company intel. King`s own hometown newspaper, the Sioux City Journal broke with its past backing of King and instead endorsed his Democratic opponent J.D. Scholten. And the poll suggest it may be a real race.
While Republican pollster last week -- last week showed King with a big lead, a Democratic pollster today found the candidates are effectively tied 45 to 44. The influential Cook Political Report has now moved the district from likely Republican to lean Republican. Now just about the only person who isn`t calling Steve King a white nationalist these days is Steve King. Although even he is hedging kind of.
King put out a statement today saying Americans are all created equal by God, no word on non-Americans, with King adding that "attacks on him are orchestrated by the fake news." Joining me now is ThinkProgress Founder Judd Legum who now writes the newsletter Popular Information and whose tweet yesterday asking why Land O`Lakes gave money to King was retweeted more than 11,000 times which probably got their attention. I should note we once again invited Steve King onto the show and once again got no response from his campaign.
Judd, what do you -- what do you make of this? It`s like -- it`s like the jar of mayonnaise that you`re trying to get off that you`re sort of squeezing and squeezing and then it suddenly it pops off?
JUDD LEGUM, FOUNDER, THINKPROGRESS: Yes, I think that he probably -- Steve King has been up to this for many years. As you know, go back and you can look at his comments about immigrants, his comments about minorities, his comments about diversity, but I think we`ve hit a moment especially with the -- with the attacks over the weekend where someone who has so openly embraced white nationalism, the was an endorsement of a fairly open white nationalist for the Mayor of Toronto of all places, and you connect that up with corporations who are not just selling products in Steve King`s district where Donald Trump won by 27 points but across the whole country and it becomes an untenable situation.
HAYES: There`s also the fact of this. I mean, you`ve got the Sioux City Journal saying that Scholten represents the best choice in the 4th congressional district, the Des Moines Register talking about Steve King employing his family as a year-round campaign staff which is unusual approach. He`s getting out worked out hustled in the district right now partly I think because he seems to want to sort of perform as U.S. ambassador to white nationalism internationally.
LEGUM: Yes, he spends a lot of time traveling too. He was just in Austria, travels all around the world, meets with these far-right figures. He hasn`t spent really any of his money on campaign ads. He hasn`t been on the air. He spends a lot of his campaign donations on his family. And so even though Donald Trump won his district by 27 points there as this poll as you mentioned that shows his Democratic opponent within a point so I think anything can happen. I think you`d still have to make King the favorite just because his district is so bright red, but it`s a very interesting experiment of how much of a white nationalist can you be and still get elected in America.
HAYES: And we should note that there are ads being run in that district calling him Klan and neo-Nazi approved. He`s getting outspent in the Airways. What do you -- I found this Steve Stivers comments today pretty striking. I mean, obviously, they`ve known this all long. They know who the guy is, they know what he says. But the timing that was interesting and particularly because he would be the person to sort of ride to the rescue with money if it looked like King needed to be rescued.
LEGUM: Yet the cavalry is not coming. I think they were very clear about that. Clearly he believes -- I think Stivers believes that King is probably making his job more difficult in some of these other districts that remain competitive by being a face of the Republican Party who`s adopting these really abhorrent positions. But I thought what was interesting is you do have Stivers speaking out. You haven`t really seen Paul Ryan say anything other than the most milquetoast comments. You haven`t seen Kevin McCarthy who probably will be the head of the party once -- the Head of the House caucus once Ryan retires saying anything.
So Steve King is still pretty entrenched in the House in the Republican, still has these committee assignments so we saw the tweet but I haven`t seen a lot of back up.
HAYES: It`s a great point and it`s also true that this has been the case everyone has been basically (INAUDIBLE) over the last you know, both the duration of his career. But I should say particularly the last year or two when it`s kind of ticked up you know, endorsing the white nationalist Toronto person, the you know, this crazy thing where he goes to Poland and visits deaf camps I believe but says he sort of wants to ask the polls of there experience of it was, not just the Jews. It`s gotten weirder and weirder and I think more offensive and we basically heard radio silence from the Republican Party.
LEGUM: Yes, I think because of Donald Trump. I think it`s really -- I think Steve King has always been this person. He has always believed these things that we`ve seen signs over the years, but I think that Donald Trump has really given him license to show his true self. And when Donald Trump visited Iowa just a few weeks ago, he gave Steve King a big shout out. This hasn`t given, him given Donald Trump any pause. And so until the Republicans get their hands around that, until they realized that a lot of the stuff that Steve King is saying is flowing all the way up and down the Republican leadership, you know, I don`t know how much good it`s going to do.
HAYES: It`s perhaps not surprising that Steve King has sponsored legislation to end birthright citizenship the exact position the president I states took today. Judge Legum, thank you for being with me.
LEGUM: Thanks, Chris.
HAYES: Coming up, Congressman Adam Schiff on the latest truly unbelievable attempt to stop Robert Mueller. That story next.
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HAYES: The Special Counsel`s office has asked the FBI to investigate what appears to be a right-wing scheme to pay people to spread false claims of sexual harassment or sexual assault against Robert Mueller. The details of this is all just too pathetic, frankly, to get into but the spokesperson for the Special Counsel telling NBC News "when we learned last week of allegations that women were offered money to make false claims about the Special Counsel, we immediately referred the matter to the FBI for investigation.
Joining me now Congressman Adam Schiff of California, ranking member on the House intelligence committee.
Congressman, first, let`s start with this bizarre, apparent plot to smear Robert Mueller that is coming into light. What do you make of that?
REP. ADAM SCHIFF, (D) CALIFORNIA: Well, if it`s true, it`s just another indication of terrified people are of what Mueller is going to report. There are obviously a lot of rumors that a report could be imminent after the elections.
I don`t know how imminent it is, but clearly there are a lot of people in Trump world who are terrified about what the special counsel may have found, what he is prepared to say, and this is part of this very underhanded effort to besmirch his character. If they can`t impeach his findings, they`re going to try to impeach him. And so it looks like they were going to extreme lengths to essentially pay women to make false claims about him. If it`s true, it`s just another reprehensible effort to attack his character.
HAYES: I wonder if you think that the president`s attacks on the office of special counsel and on Mueller specifically encourage private citizens to sort of take matters into their own hands in ways that we have seen obviously last week with one of the president`s most ardent supporters and the pipe bombs.
SCHIFF: You know, sadly, I think that no one sets the tone as much as the president of the United States, and normally that is not a problem, but with this president it`s very much a problem. He has a no holds barred attitude of dividing the country, of egging on his supporters, of encouraging by praising violence against journalists, you know, all of this hyping of the caravan, this group of people who are fleeing violence 1,000 miles away from us. Hyping that threat I think had devastating consequences this week.
But, yes, all of these attacks on Mueller, all of the green light that he gives the most ardent of his supporters to engage in any kind of conduct to tear him down I think has results like this.
HAYES: There`s news today about the Mueller team reinterviewing Steve Bannon. And we`ve gotten the sort of drip, drip, drip of news over the last few weeks as the office has been largely quiet in terms of its public performance about them zeroing in on Roger Stone. Is that surprising to you, or is that where you anticipated this going?
SCHIFF: It`s not surprising to me. There are a lot of threads to the Mueller investigation. And obviously quite a few of them have to do with the issue of collusion or conspiracy.
The difficulty with the whole Roger Stone investigative thread is he dissembles, Roger Stone, that is, so much and the people around him dissembles so much sorting out what is fact from fiction is going to be an enormously challenging task for Bob Mueller. It`s one of the reasons why we urged that our committee provide the Stone transcript to Bob Mueller so that Bob Mueller could determine whether Stone was honest with us or committed perjury before our committee.
But certainly there are a lot of suspicious communications that have already been referred to in public between Stone and WikiLeaks, with Guccifer 2.0, which was basically the Russian GRU unit that was running this clandestine effort. So it doesn`t surprise me at all, but I think it`s really one of only a great many investigative threads that Mueller has been pursuing.
HAYES: One thing I think that has gotten lost a little bit just because of the sort of drip, drip, drip news about Stone is Stone was a very obvious de facto agent of the campaign, an ally to the presidential, an advisor to him. Should it be the case that he is found to have conspired with a foreign entity, that would be the bar, right?
SCHIFF: Well, it would certainly mean that elements of the Trump campaign were conspiring, were colluding with the Russians. If he was in contact with WikiLeaks or Guccifer discussing what would be helpful to the campaign, what would be helpful to Donald Trump, the timing to make certain disclosures. If there was any kind of coordination then, yes, it would be proof of collusion or conspiracy between the Russians and the campaign.
I`m sure they will make every effort to distance themselves. All of a sudden they`ll tell us they never heard of Roger Stone. They don`t know Roger Stone. The president is just prepared to write off even his campaign chairman if necessary. We`ll have to see if the trail leads back to people even closer to the president, whether he`s willing to try to write them off as well.
HAYES: What is your anticipation -- the country`s in the midst of this midterm election. It`s extremely fraught I think particularly because of the way in which the president and the GOP have chosen to run in this context, of what that lame duck looks like? Because all of a sudden, the day after, many things snap back into focus and you will have the same GOP majority in control until the end of the year?
SCHIFF: Well, I imagine what will take place if the House flips, and obviously we`re waiting with baited breath to see what happens a week from now, but if it does, it will mean that Democrats bargaining power will be increased in the budget negotiations that are going to go on immediately after the election. We`ll have a stronger voice at that table. My guess is that we`ll try to clear as much as we can by the end of the year so we can start fresh in the new year.
There will be an incentive really for both parties to come to the table if there is a change in the House. The Republicans will know if won`t get better for them in the new year. Democrats will have an interest in cleaning the decks. So it could be productive if the House becomes controlled by Democrats and if the Senate does as well.
HAYES: And if Republicans were to retain their House majority, what do you think that would send signal there then in power to do?
SCHIFF: Well, you know, then I think Republicans conclude that Donald Trump has been vindicated, whatever weak murmurings of conscience we`ve seen about -- from the Republicans about the president`s conduct, we can expect it to completely vanish.
And if we think this president is out of control now, we can only imagine what he`ll be if he feels that he`s somehow been vindicated by voters.
So, it`s one of the many reasons why I think this is the most important midterm that any of us will participate in, because the consequences are going to be grave. We`ll either have a check on this president in the form of at least one house or maybe bot in the hands of the party not in power in the White House, or we`ll have a Donald Trump with pretty much unbridled authority.
HAYES: All right, Congressman Adam Schiff, thank you very much.
SCHIFF: Thank you.
HAYES: Still to come, some genuinely good news for Democrats in a hotly contested Senate race, plus where we stand just seven days from election day.
Plus, tonight`s Thing One, Thing Two starts next.
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HAYES: Thing One tonight, you may remember a thing we did here last week about Donald Trump and the Saudi arms deal that was originally going to create 40,000 jobs. But then every time Trump talked about it he jacked up that number.
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TRUMP: I worked very hard to get the order for the military. It`s $110 billion. I believe it`s the largest order ever made. It`s 450,000 jobs.
They have a tremendous order, $110 billion. Every country in the world wanted a piece of that order.
It`s 500,000 jobs.
We have $450 billion worth of things ordered from a very rich country, Saudi Arabia, 600,000 jobs, maybe more than that.
This is equipment and various things ordered from Saudi Arabia, $450 billion. I think it`s over a million jobs.
I think that`s over a million jobs, a million to over a million jobs.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: As we said all last week, all the numbers he had there are questionable. And so today, Reuters got to that question. How many jobs would the arms deal actually create? The answer is somewhere between zero and a million or over a million. And that`s Thing Two in 60 seconds.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: So after President Trump said the Saudi arms deal would create a million to over a million jobs, Reuters set out to find out the real answer from the defense contractors who would actually be hiring all of those people. Spoiler alert. Trump`s numbers and reality are not in the same zip code.
Reuters saw an internal document from top defense contractor Lockheed Martin, which by the way, is profiting off of the Saudi`s continued war in Yemen forecasting fewer than 1,000 positions would be created. Lockheed predicted that the deal would also keep up to 18,000 existing U.S. workers busy, but all of that is only if the whole package comes together, which experts say is unlikely.
Reuters also spoke to the person familiar with the planning of another major contractor, Raytheon, who said if the Saudi order were executed, it could help to sustain about 10,000 U.S. jobs, but the number of new in jobs created would be a small percentage of that.
Now, you maybe wondering what about adjacent jobs? Well, I`m glad you asked. A research fellow told Reuters the highest multiplier for this type of industry would be about 3.2, and with Reuters estimate about 20,000 to 40,000 sustained are new jobs in the defense industry involved in the Saudi deal, that comes to, 64,000 to 128,000 jobs in related industries, bringing the total, again, only if the whole deal goes through -- which by the way it shouldn`t, because the Saudis are currently starving Yemenis to death to between 84,000 and 168,000 sustained and new jobs of which the new jobs are, again, a very small percentage.
We have a laugh here at Trump`s ridiculous lies from time to time, but in the end it`s important to remember they are, in fact, ridiculous lies.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I think that`s over a million jobs, a million to over a million jobs.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: Attorney General Jeff Sessions was in Boston yesterday speaking to the local lawyers chapter of the conservative Federalist Society about the future of religious liberty when he was interrupted by a Methodist pastor.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEFF SESSIONS, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: One reason why they...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was hungry and you did not feed me. I was a stranger and you did not welcome me. I was naked and you did not clothe me. I was a stranger and you did not welcome me.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you.
SESSIONS: Thank you for your comments.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was in prison and you did not visit me.
Brother Jeff, as a fellow United Methodist, I call upon you to repent. Prepare for those in need. To remember that when you do not care for others, you are wounding the body of Christ.
SESSIONS: Well, thank you for those remarks and attacks. But I will just tell you we do our best every day.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Did you hear that there. The Attorney General Jeff Sessions called that an attack. He said thank you for those remarks and that attack. That was a pastor quoting Jesus from the bible at an event about religious freedom.
After Pastor Green was escorted out by police, another religious leader stood up and that`s how it came to be that the members of the Federalist Society booed the words of Jesus Christ.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go home.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A minister...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go home.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Exercising his free exercise of religion. That is a person...
CROWD: (BOOING)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ...representing the christian tradition.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: This political moment is dominated by one side that is intent on selling intolerance, and suspicion, fear and hatred. And the only antidote is to fight that fire with water, to cultivate the values of compassion, of empathy, and of solidarity. And Americans have an opportunity in just seven days to make it clear what our values are.
That`s next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: With seven days to go until election day, Donald Trump is planning on holding at least 11 rallies in eight states -- Missouri, twice, West Virginia, Montana, Indiana twice, Ohio, Georgia, Tennessee, and Florida twice.
The takeaway is the White House appears to have given up on the House, at least in the deployment of the president, in exchange for making every effort to retain a Republican majority in the Senate.
But in this last-ditch effort to shore up their senate chances, the White House seems to have overlooked Arizona, oddly enough, where Democrat Kyrsten Sinema is up 6 points over Republican Martha McSally in a new NBC News poll.
Here to talk about the state of that race and other, Jenna Johnson, national political correspondent for The Washington Post; and Astead Herndon, national political politics reporter for The New York Times.
Jen, I`ll start with you. Very ambitious schedule from the president, and does seem very Senate focused, that Arizona polling result is I think kind of the first really good polling number in the Senate race for Democrats in a while, interesting to me he`s not going there.
JENNA JOHNSON, THE WASHINGTON POST: Yeah, exactly. I mean Democrats were kind of getting nervous there after so much early momentum. They felt like things were really narrowing. And Arizona is a place that they would really love to win.
Now the polls are showing Sinema up. But again, this is all going to come down to which voters actually show up and vote in early voting on election day.
In Arizona, the voters who are likely going to make a difference are Latino voters, women, independents, all those sorts of voters who have been rather appalled by things that the president has said and done.
HAYES: Right.
JOHNSON: And everything that`s been happening the last couple of weeks you would think would just add to that motivation to get out and vote.
HAYES: Yeah, it will be interesting to see. I mean, the calculation from the White House when you look at their travel schedule is the president can mobilize his base. Without the calculation of whether there will be an equal or opposite reaction.
ATEAD HERNDON, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Exactly. That`s the thing that this white house almost never has top of mind. The president certainly has a base that he mobilizes, and he thinks those people will be critical, especially in the senate, like you said. But there can also be an equal or even larger reaction in these places, and that is is what Democrats are hoping for.
In these Senate races, you have in places like Missouri or in places like Arizona, you have populations of minority voters, of young voter, of college voters who may not have previously come out in these midterm elections. And Donald Trump is holding a rally in your state a couple of times and in the last week before, that may be the last little push you need to go from a possible Democratic voter to an actual Democratic voter.
HAYES: Well, and that why I think the Florida visit, Florida twice is interesting. The other states, you know -- the other states that he`s going to -- West Virginia it`s like, well he won by 30 points. Florida he won by a few points. It`s not clear that sending the president to Florida at this moment is obviously a net positive.
HERNDON: And you have the opposite happening on Gillum`s side. He is bringing out President Obama on Friday. You have the kind of dual forces, the dual coalitions.
HAYES: Right.
HERNDON: And we`ll see who really makes the move there early voting shows folks are up and energized there, but you have to wonder if that is coming from the general election population and these are people who would have voted either way, or are these people being new voters, people mobilized, who may not have come out previously.
HAYES: You know, Jenna, one of the laser-like sort of focuses of Democrats in every race is health care. I mean, it has been remarkable how consistent the messaging has been. Jon Tester, who a poll had him up three points today against Matt Rosendale (ph) who is insurance commissioner, just cut I think probably the most striking health care ad of the cycle. I`m going to play it and get your thoughts. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JON TESTER, (D) MONTANA: I was nine years old when I lost my fingers in this meat grinder. My parents paid for the hospital, because our health care didn`t cover anything. It was junk insurance. Thank god Montana got rid of junk health care plans a long time ago, until our insurance commissioner Matt Rosendale (ph) let them back in.
My opponents is pushing to allow insurance companies to deny coverage for preexisting conditions.
I`m Jon Tester, and I approve this message, because it`s something Montana voters need to hear before it`s too late.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: It`s a pretty -- really going there. But that`s about as personal a testimony as you can get.
JOHNSON: It`s very personal. And the reason that Democrats are so focused on health care is that it`s an issue that voters really care about.
Back in 2016, Republicans talked about repealing, replacing the Affordable Care Act. Voters hated the Affordable Care Act. They wanted something better. Republicans get into power. Voters see what the replacement would be and that they don`t like it and they suddenly realize that while they`re not crazy about the ACA, they like it better than what Republicans were putting forward. And now health care has become a Republican problem.
We`ve seen a lot of Republican candidates, Wisconsin Governor and in Missouri the senate candidate there, Josh Hawley, all of a sudden coming around, talking about how they`ll protect preexisting conditions.
You know, this is an issue that is personal for a lot of people.
HAYES: Yeah.
JOHNSON: And it`s been amazing just all the candidates who suddenly have relatives who have preexisting conditions.
HAYES: Yes.
JOHNSON: That are being paraded out.
HAYES: I have to say, covering the health care fight for the majority of my adult career as a journalist, watching this is whiplash inducing. I mean, here news today in Idaho, deep red Idaho, Governor Butch Otter wants to expand Medicaid now. There is a ballot initiative -- there`s a bunch of of red states with ballot initiative for Medicaid expansion, this was like such a slam-dunk for Republicans for years. And they must be thinking to themselves like what the hell happened.
HERNDON: I mean, last year happened. What happened was the Republicans actually had the electoral numbers to be able to go do something about it, and people stood up. They forced the Republicans to actually backtrack on that message, and they heard that.
And so you have people like Susan Collins saying it`s the most proud vote she has ever taken.
HAYES: Against repeal.
HERNDON: Against repeal, but you also have people in deep red states, people like Scott Walker, now running ads saying they are going to be the best suited to help those with preexisting conditions.
HAYES: And have you heard this from voters on the trail, health care?
HERNDON: Exactly. Voters are really motivated around health care. It`s one of the top policy issues you see that`s even almost foremost than taxes or anything else.
HAYES: Yeah, I think that has been another theme throughout this campaign season.
Janet Johnson and Astead Herndon, thank you both.
If it`s Tuesday, that means there is a new episode of our podcast out Why is This Happening? This week`s guest truly blew my mind, which if you listen you can tell, wow, wow, wow, that`s wild. Michael Tesler breaks down the narrative in the rise of white identity politics began with the election of Donald Trump when reality, as Tesler shows, there is much more to that story. You can check it out on Apple podcasts or anywhere else.
And here is a fun bonus. While you`re downloading that, you should also in my humble opinion check out the first two episodes of the fantastic new podcast The Bagman done by the one and only Rachel Maddow.
As it happens, The Rachel Maddow Show starts right now. Good evening, Rachel.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. END
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