CHRIS MATTHEWS, MSNBC HOST: And that`s HARDBALL for now. "ALL IN" with Chris Hayes starts right now.
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CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST: Tonight on ALL IN.
MICHAEL COHEN, FORMER LAWYER OF DONALD TRUMP: He doesn`t give you questions, he doesn`t give you orders. He speaks in a code.
HAYES: New messaging from the president for two of his criminal colleagues.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I feel very badly for Paul Manafort.
HAYES: Tonight, what the president is signaling to his newly sentence campaign manager.
TRUMP: His lawyer went out of his way, actually, to make a statement last night, no collusion with Russia. There was absolutely none.
HAYES: And what he`s signaling to his about to be jailed fixer.
TRUMP: Michael Cohen lied about the pardon. That was a stone cold lie.
HAYES: Then the abrupt resignation of Trump`s sixth communication director. Jane Mayer joins me on that. Plus a banner week for House Democrats.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Every single Democrat was united on this vote.
HAYES: And the backlash against condemning hate.
TRUMP: I thought yesterday`s vote by the House was disgraceful.
HAYES: When ALL IN starts right now.
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HAYES: Good evening from New York I`m Chris Hayes. It`s really not hard to decipher the signals the president appears to be sending to his various numerous criminal associates. Michael Cohen has said his former boss speaks in code and we`ve seen the president do it. Heaping praise on his cronies who don`t "brake" while blasting the ones who cooperate with law enforcement calling them rats just like a mob boss.
Now we may be witnessing the president and his felonious campaign manager trading messages right in plain sight. After Paul Manafort was sentenced last night to 47 months behind bars years below the guidelines for his conviction on tax and bank fraud charges, his lawyer skated past all of that to make one essential point.
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KEVIN DOWNING, LAWYER OF PAUL MANAFORT: I think most importantly what you saw today is the same thing that we had said from day one. There`s absolutely no evidence that Paul Manafort was involved any collusion with any government official from Russia. Thank you everybody.
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HAYES: We talk a lot about how members of Trump world played to an audience of one and that statement is just about as perfect example as you can find House Intelligence chair Adam Schiff responded the statement by Paul Manafort`s lawyer after an already lenient sentence repeating the president`s mantra of no collusion was no accident. It was a deliberate appeal for a pardon one injustice must not follow another.
The lawyer`s statement would not be the first evidence that Manafort has been angling for a pardon. Attorneys for the special counsel presenting their case that Manafort breached his plea deal suggested to the court he may have lied to investigators concealing vital information from them to boost his chance of getting a pardon.
And if Manafort and his lawyer were trying to send a message but that statement last night, the President appeared to receive it loud and clear.
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TRUMP: I feel very badly for Paul Manafort. I think it`s been a very, very tough time for him. So I just want to tell you that his lawyer went out of his way actually to make a statement last night, no collusion with Russia. There was absolutely none.
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HAYES: If Manafort broke his plea deal and lied to investigators in exchange for a pardon, that could land him and the President in some pretty hot water. Even the new Attorney General who views executive power extremely broadly based on the memo he sent the White House has been clear that such conduct would cross a line.
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SEN. PATRICK LEAHY, VERMONT: Do you believe a President could lawfully issue a pardon in exchange for the recipients promise to not incriminate him?
WILLIAM BARR, ATTORNEY GENERAL: No, that would be a crime.
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HAYES: Meanwhile, after Michael Cohen the so-called rat told Congress that he never sought nor would accept a pardon from his boss, the president is now publicly contradicting him. And doing so, the president is raising more questions about what exactly they may have talked about in secret.
The President today tweeted this, get this, "Bad lawyer and fraudster Michael Cohen said under sworn testimony that he never asked for a capital P-pardon -- why a capital P, I don`t know. His lawyers totally contradicted him. He lied. Additionally, he directly asked me for a pardon, I said no.
Wait, what? Now Cohen says that`s not true and then according to Cohen`s lawyer, before he decided to cooperate with prosecutors, Cohen directed his attorney at the time to explore the possibility of a pardon with the president`s legal team. Cohen`s current lawyer says the president and legal advisors had dangled the possibility of a pardon for a while.
But getting back to the President`s extraordinary statement today, if the President had a direct conversation with Michael Cohen about pardons, as he claims, that would raise a host of new questions about his intent, questions that go to the heart of the investigation into whether the President obstructed justice and is continuing to do so.
For instance, when did he talk to Cohen? Was it on the phone? Did they talk in person in a third location in secret? When did it happen right after the raids what exactly was said who actually raised the subject of pardons? According to the New York Times, federal prosecutors in New York have followed up with Cohen to ask for additional details about the pardon discussions.
And asked about his contacts with the President on Capitol Hill last week, Cohen testified at that particular topic his contacts with the president was off limits.
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REP. ROGER KRISHNAMOORTHI (D), ILLINIOS: When was the last communication with President Trump or someone acting on his behalf?
COHEN: I don`t have the specific date but it was a while ago.
KRISHNAMOORTHI: And what did he or his agent communicate to you?
COHEN: Unfortunately this topic is actually something that`s being investigated right now by the Southern District of New York and I`ve been asked by them not to discuss it not to talk about these issues.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: To help understand the implications of all this Parton talk I`m joined by Carol Lam, former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of California and former Superior Court Judge in San Diego and Ian Bassin former Associate White House Counsel of President Barack Obama and Executive Director of the nonprofit protect democracy.
Carol, there seems to be sort of consensus, I think, even among the maximalists that despite whatever Article two powers are at a part and you can`t exchange them for favors as part of a conspiracy to cover up a crime, right? I mean, that that were agreed on pretty much?
CAROL LAM, FORMER SUPERIOR COURT JUDGE, SAN DIEGO: I think we`re all agreed on that, Chris. The problem is we`re in completely uncharted waters right? I mean, you know, the pardon authority has typically been used after somebody has been convicted of a crime when all the facts are known.
And here we have the opposite. We have -- we have the pardon discussion getting mixed in to investigative work going on you know, while hints are being thrown around about you know, on the one side people dangling the possibility of a pardon and on the other side people angling for the for the possibility of a pardon.
And that`s just -- that`s just unprecedented because there`s only one person in the United States who holds a pardon authority and that is the president.
HAYES: I keep coming back, Ian, into this code idea, right? I mean, you know, there`s a reason that organized criminal speaking code. And there`s a reason that often they can go for a very long time without being prosecuted. Those two things are related, right? I mean, saying to someone you know, I need another meal or whatever, and that means like go do some illegal act.
Is done specifically so that you apply deniability and you can`t help but feel like we`re watching in public these flags being sent back and forth.
IAN BASSIN, FORMER ASSOCIATE WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL OF PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: I mean, the president is essentially treating pardons like some sort of reality show prize right? But this is not The Apprentice and the Founders did not intend the presidency to be a game show. And what the president needs to realize is that the pardon power is not unlimited, OK.
Think about this. Jimmy Carter came into office and pardoned all the Vietnam draft dodgers. Now, if he had pardoned all the white draft dodgers and none of the black draft dodgers, it would have violated the Equal Protection Clause. And the president is getting really up against the limits of the pardon power because if he`s going to use it to protect himself, he`s going to find that it doesn`t work.
HAYES: No, but here`s the problem. Here`s what I think this whole thing`s very effective, Carol. The dangling of it prospectively could do what he needs it to do without the ever granting it retroactively. Meaning, it`s the power that he holds in front of you and we know this guy if there`s one thing he`s good at, its screwing over someone in a deal and double-crossing them.
So the problem is here throughout this whole thing, we know Paul Manafort is acted in ways that make zero sense unless the guy is angling for a pardon.
BASSIN: And this is a reason why Congress should begin investigating the dangled pardons now. So Representative Adam Schiff introduced a bill this week to give the Congress immediate access to investigative materials related to a pardon that was issued. Our organization protect democracy has advocated that they should expand that bill to cover dangled pardons, and that Congress should be investigated now precisely for the reason you note, to block it as being a deterrent to people cooperating.
HAYES: But Carol, then the question is like what`s the dangle. Like this is this is the world were now in, right? Like a wink-wink, nudge-nudge, going on the air and saying I think Michael Cohen was treated roughly and I feel terrible for the guy and I don`t know. And then when they ask him about a pardon saying something like I`m not going to talk about that but he was treated terribly. Like that seems like you can get away with that.
LAM: Yes, it does seem like it`s hiding in plain sight here. And you know, the problem is that mob cases are very difficult to prosecute for exactly that reason, right? You know, there`s code and there`s winks and there`s nod, but then there are nods but I think that here everybody has got to tread very, very carefully and there may be signals being sent at a certain point if that is truly what`s going on here.
They`re going to be enough signals that some -- that everybody`s just going to say enough. That`s enough. But what does worry me is that the dangling does interfere with the fact-finding process. And that is what investigations are about. And that has never really you know, hit us quite the way it`s hitting us now.
And we should note successfully interfere if we - if this is in fact the Manafort`s motivation which is that in court yesterday the sentencing, the Mueller prosecutor said they didn`t get any useful information out of them that they didn`t already know. So the -- mission accomplished. I mean, let me just read this tweet because it`s so perfect, August 22nd, 2018.
I feel -- this is the president. I feel very badly for Paul Manafort and his wonderful family. Justice took a 12-year-old tax case among other things apply tremendous pressure on him and unlike Michael Cohen and he refused to break, makeup stories in order to get a deal. Such respect for a brave man.
BASSIN: If we think that Donald Trump`s interest is in justice or mercy for Paul Manafort, I`ve got a bridge to sell. Donald Trump`s interest is in Donald Trump security. And that`s why the thing I think we also need to be talking about is the oath that Donald Trump took to take care that the laws be faithfully executed because what he`s doing here is he`s acting in bad faith, trying to use his powers to protect himself. And when Congress looks into it this should be a central claim that they look at.
HAYES: Carol, I also think there are ton of factual questions about this conversation he now says having Michael Cohen which I don`t know if I believe it happened. The President lies about all things all the time everywhere. But here`s him responding to a question three weeks after the raid about a pardon for Michael Cohen. Watch how he responds. Take a listen.
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TRUMP: Mr. President, what about Michael Cohen? Are you considering a pardon for Michael Cohen?
TRUMP: I thank you very much. Stupid question.
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HAYES: Oh, stupid question? Really Mr. President? Well, today, you said you had exactly that conversation, right?
LAM: Right. You know, there are a lot of as you said signals being sent here. I mean, look at the fact -- look at the lawsuit that Michael Cohen filed against a Trump Organization wanting them to pay his legal fees according to the lawsuit, according to an indemnification agreement that the Trump Organization signed to pay Michael Cohen`s legal fees.
But according to the complaint, the payment stopped as soon as Michael Cohen started cooperating with the federal government. So the signals are all over the place, right? If you`re with us, you`re with us, and if you`re not, you`re not.
HAYES: Carol Lam and Ian Bassin, thanks to you both. My next guest sits on two of the House committees that are investigating the President`s abuses of power Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland, Member of the House Judiciary Committee and the House Oversight Committee.
Michael Cohen says that his lawyer says he sort of inquired about a pardon early on that one was dangled. The president says he asked him specifically for one which would be in contravention of the testimony he gave you under oath on House Oversight Committee. Who do you believe?
REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D), MARYLAND: Well --
HAYES: I know it`s a tough one between those two.
RASKIN: Cohen`s lawyers appear to be suggesting that there was the possibility of a pardon being dangled or floated by the president and that doesn`t surprise me. I mean, all of the footage you were just showing was of you know, public tweets and statements he was making which were like little Valentine sent to Paul Manafort you know, so I don`t think anybody puts it past the President Trump to use the pardon power along with everything else in order to get leverage in the justice process.
I mean he`s been doing everything that he can to interfere with the Mueller investigation and to steer everybody away from investigating his ties with Russia and other countries and the oligarchs and so on.
HAYES: You know, it`s always the possibility -- there`s always a possibility of President did nothing wrong at all although I think even the publicly known facts make you question his judgment but that there`s nothing further hidden and he will be cleared ultimately because he didn`t. And there`s also the possibility that he did commit either illegal or wrongful acts that will ultimately be found out. How likely is that scenario and do you do stay up at night worrying about that?
RASKIN: Look the facts that we have now make it one thing very clear that we have a President of the United States who`s tried to turn the government of the United States and has succeeded in many ways into a money-making operation for himself, for his friends, his family, and then for other large business interests which have begun if they`ve not already succeeded in taking over the Department of Interior of Education of Labor and so on.
And you know that`s the big structural corruption underneath the level of personal and family corruption and business corruption for the Trump interest. But underneath that what we`ve get is a massive taking of power by the timber interests, and the oil interests, and the for-profit colleges. There`s a fox for every hen house in Washington and Donald Trump has made this principle of corruption the defining ethos of his administration.
HAYES: But that`s distinct from getting the bottom of what he did or didn`t do with respect to Russia and with respect to other interests on the factual basis. I mean, it doesn`t necessarily disagree with that right? It`s also distinct from what kind of congressional or constitutional remedies there are.
RASKIN: Right, and you know, this is what the hearings are about. This is what our investigations are about. I mean, look people have already shown up with documentary evidence when originally it was reported that the president was paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in hush money to former mistresses in order to buy their silence.
The right wing all claim that this was a smear and it was fake news and so on. And then Michael Cohen shows up with the canceled checks written directly by Donald Trump and others and then they maintain a discreet and demure silence about the whole thing and then go on to deny the next scandal.
So look, I mean it`s hard to think that any of these allegations are just wholly concocted after all. Nobody believes that Donald Trump is out spending his time trying to figure out how to advance the public interest or the common good. He`s out there wheeling and dealing and bringing in all of the businesses that he think can support him for his reelection.
And the political deals he cuts, of course, are with the extreme right-wing religious group that Vice President Pence brings in and we know they`ll do anything they can to try to stifle women`s right to choose. But other than that it`s hard to think of a real public agenda they have either been selling everything off to the highest private bidder.
HAYES: Final question, and you know I think that people have successfully commuted certain communicated certain red lines to the president before, I think firing Mueller which he tried to do according to reporting, wasn`t unable to do because Don McGahn threatened to quit over it. I wonder if pardoning Manafort would be such a red line and are you confident that has been communicated to him?
RASKIN: Well, I hope somebody has told him that the founders of the Constitution were very clear that the pardon power is not unlimited. It cannot be used for corrupt purposes. It can`t be sold. You can`t go on eBay and say I`m going to offer a pardon whoever it gives me the most money. That would clearly be an impeachable offense. I mean that`s in a direct violation of what the Founders talked about and what our best understanding of the Constitution is.
You know, I hope we`ve maintained enough common sense to understand that the president cannot put everything up for sale.
HAYES: Congressman Jamie Raskin who is on the House Judiciary Committee and the House Oversight, thank you so much.
RASKIN: My pleasure.
HAYES: There`s a big shake-up in the staffing of the Fox News White House. Next, New Yorker Jane Mayer on the departure of Bill Shine just days after her blockbuster reporting on the nexus of Trump and Fox News. She also has some late-breaking news about the reporter who says that Fox News killed the Stormy Daniels story right before the election. Jane Mayer joins me in two minutes.
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HAYES: Bill Shine, Trump`s communications director is leaving the White House for a job in the President`s 2020 campaign as a senior advisor. The rather unexpected move comes amid reports that shine wasn`t good enough at shielding his boss from negative coverage. Poor guy.
According to the New York Times, the president frequently criticized him to other advisers saying at his own press coverage had not improved. New Yorkers Jane Mayer also reported as much in her piece this week describing the close ties between the Trump White House and Fox News.
Mayer reminded readers that Shine, the former Fox News Executive was allegedly responsible for helping clean up sexual abuse at the network extensively noting several lawsuits name Shine is a complicit in a workplace culture of cover-ups, payoffs, and victim intimidation. Mayer also reported on Shine`s job interview with Trump.
Two months after Shine left Fox, Sean Hannity became a matchmaker arranging a dinner with the President at the White House. Hannity proposed shine as a top communications official or even as a deputy chief of staff. A year later, Shine was both and now he`s out. Jane Mayer joins me now.
First, let`s just start with this rather abrupt move as someone who`s been working this beat very closely. What was your reaction to it?
JANE MAYER, STAFF WRITER, NEW YORKER: Well, I guess I thought that probably Shine had just become too much baggage. I mean what he said himself in a meeting at the White House today to colleagues was that he`d become a distraction. He -- it was almost too obvious. He`d been the president -- a co-president of Fox News and he was now the Director of Communications in the White House. It just made the tie between Fox and the White House so heavy-handed that it became a you know, a lightning rod for critics.
HAYES: You know, the White House said they never know when the White House read your article which I find preposterous and hard to believe. But do you think the article played a role in the timing?
MAYER: Well, I don`t know why he`d be a distraction this week and not last week, but who knows, you know. I mean, it would be speculation on my part. I do know that Bill Shine was planning some long-term improvements in terms of what he wanted to do with the press office so it seemed as if he didn`t himself expect to be leaving anytime soon.
But it`s also true that he had bothered -- I think that President Trump had felt dissatisfied with him. He did not go on the trip to Vietnam with the President and he had expected to go on it. So I think it`s a combination of various things but something brought it to a head and I don`t think we know the whole story yet.
HAYES: I want to ask you about some pushback in some of your reporting than happened today which had been playing out in an interesting fashion. One of the most explosive parts of your reporting in the New Yorker is that Fox News, the Web site killed a story by one of its reporters Diana Falzone about the existence of Stormy Daniels that she said that she had a relationship with the president and that they killed it, and that the editor who killed it a guy by the name of Ken LaCorte killed it saying forget it, kid. Rupert wants Trump elected.
Big deal, an explosive thing to say in the newsroom. LaCorte himself wrote an op-ed today I believe for (INAUDIBLE) and he made a number of contentions. One, that he killed the story because it wasn`t publishable, that the reporter didn`t have enough details, and seemed to imply that you never even spoke to him, and I`d like you to respond to that.
MAYER: Yes. Well, actually it`s not really push back because his denial and his contention that he killed it because it wasn`t ready is in my story. And I did speak --
HAYES: Yes, he say that that`s the claim.
MAYER: It`s actually -- his point of view is very much reflected in the story. He`s quoted four times from the story. I interviewed him extensively. That last bit about Falzone who was the author of that particular story we`re talking about he sent us a ton of material on. I went through his material and put in his you know, his statement.
So I think -- I mean I do understand why he feels embarrassed and wants to try to sort of reclaim his reputation because who wants to be the editor who killed the story about Stormy Daniels that turned out to be true and have a reporter who feels that it would have swayed the whole election if they just published it.
I mean, he`s got to think of something to say I suppose. But he had his say in our story and I`m glad he did. You know, we feel at New Yorker that we try to get everybody`s point of view and his is very much reflected.
HAYES: I just want to be clear because the most explosive part which is that a reporting that a colleague heard him say out loud this line that Rupert wants Trump elected. You`re confident in that reporting. You stand by that reporting.
MAYER: It`s -- I don`t think I have it quite exactly right. It`s not that she heard it said out loud. It`s that the reporter Diana Falzone confided in my colleague who I interviewed about it.
HAYES: I see. I see.
MAYER: And yes -- and I think that the record will show this if in fact the record is ever disclosed and in fact there`s a call tonight by the lawyer for Diana Falzone. She unfortunately is under a gag order. Fox will not allow her to speak because there`s a non-disclosure agreement with her.
She sued Fox for gender discrimination and there was a settlement out of court and she`s not allowed to speak about what happened to her at Fox and about her doing this story. But her lawyer tonight whose name is Nancy Erika Smith has put out a statement calling for Fox to lift that NDA and let her speak about this so the truth can come out. And I`d love for Fox to lift the NDA. I think that would be just great and we can see.
HAYES: I would like to read that statement because it`s quite remarkable. So this is a woman who is at the center of this with this explosive story that you`ve reported right? The idea that it was killed too politically benefit the president was essentially helping a cover-up. We know that cover-up also happened because of the hush money which is a federal crime as pleaded to by Michael Cohen. And the person at the center of it covered by an NDA because of a settlement with Fox News.
Her lawyer tonight saying, in light of the false and defamatory statements being made by Fox News agent Ken LaCorte and Fox News employee Howard Kurtz, Diana Falzone again, the reporter who you report found the Stormy Daniels story and had it squashed. As Fox News and specifically Rupert Murdoch to release her from her non-disclosure agreement on the topic of her reporting in October 2016 regarding Donald Trump paying hush money to Stormy Daniels because the public has a right to the truth. So I guess we will wait to hear from that.
Final question here. Do you think that Shine leaving changes anything about the fundamentally bizarre codependent relationship between this White House and Fox that you document in your story?
MAYER: You know, I don`t really think so because the relationships go so deep on so many layers all the way up between Rupert Murdoch who was the chairman of Fox and talks frequently to the President and to the President`s son-in-law Jared Kushner. To Sean Hannity who is the marquee talk show host at Fox who says -- he`s told colleagues, he speaks to the President after his shows in the evening. There`s so many different levels of communication and it`s such an open kind of feedback loop there. I don`t actually think that that`s going to change just because Bill Shrine is leaving.
HAYES: Sorry, final question. I lied. You`re -- the DNC announced I believe it was yesterday that they would not have Fox host any of the Democratic primary debates. And one of the things they did was cite the reporting in your article specifically about what happened with Diana Falzone according to your reporting. Your reaction of the fact that this article apparently led to that outcome.
MAYER: You know, I mean that`s really a political calculation what the DNC wants to do. It`s kind of a beyond my paygrade. I`m happy to talk about journalism and describe the reporting process that went into for instance the Falzone story where you know I interviewed a number of people and there were three corroborators for her story. But you know, I don`t -- I don`t really know. I mean the DNC has to make its own decisions about who it wants to deal with. It`s so not my deal.
HAYES: All right, Jane Mayer whose piece is out in this week`s New York Magazine has made a lot of waves. Thanks for joining us.
MAYER: So great to be with you.
HAYES: Coming up, 23 Republicans voted against condemning bigotry and hatred. That story next.
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HAYES: It was an eventful week for the Democratic House majority. They had an intense internal caucus debate over comments by Congresswoman Ilahn Omar, who some people in the party found anti-Semitic, prompting a resolution rebuking anti-Semitism, which was then delayed and expanded to include other forms of bigotry, including bigotry against Muslims, something that Representative Omar has certainly faced.
In the end, Nancy Pelosi walked away with a completely unified Democratic caucus that voted unanimously yesterday to condemn different forms of hate. Plot twist, the only no votes were 23 Republicans who voted against the anti-hate resolution, plus -- and I love this detail -- Steve King, who just voted present. The same Steve King who was stripped of his committee assignments in January for asking "white nationalist, white supremacist, western civilization, how did that language become offensive?"
Yes, how did it become offensive?
And then today, another unified front with every single House Democrat voting for the first big piece of legislation to come out of the Democratic House.
Joining me now, Democratic Congressman Max Rose of New York, part of the bipartisan task force for combating anti-Semitism, an upset victory in the outer Burroughs of New York City, a place near and dear in my heart. Good to have you on.
REP. MAX ROSE, (D) NEW YORK: Well, it wasn`t an upset to me and my supporters, but thank you.
HAYES: You`re insulted.
ROSE: Thanks for calling me that -- yeah, well, what a way to start off a conversation.
HAYES: You beat an incumbent in a race that I don`t -- you know, a lot of people when they looked at first tier, top 10 races, top 20, you were definitely in a competitive race, but that was an uphill battle. You had an incumbent.
ROSE: Well, look, an incumbent -- a lot of people had an incumbent.
HAYES: Against -- in a Trump district.
ROSE: It`s not a Trump district, just like it`s not a Max Rose district. What it is is it`s a district, just like the rest of the country, votes for the person, not the party. This isn`t complicated stuff and we shouldn`t overly intellectualize it, I`m seriously. And I know that part of what we`re going to talk about today is what we accomplished today in the halls of congress, which was the boldest anti-corruption measure, the boldest pro-democracy measure ever put before congress. And we promise that when we ran from Michigan to California, Colorado, Florida, it didn`t matter, we were talking about putting congress back on the side of the working class and the middle class, and shocker we actually followed through on what we said we were going to do.
This wasn`t like repeal and replace where we didn`t actually have a planet.
HAYES: Well, you don`t have a law yet, let me just say, you don`t have -- I mean, you passed a bill out of a House.
ROSE: Sure, sure. We did our part. And now a very simple question is going to be put before Mitch McConnell. It`s very simple, whose side are you on? I actually think that question defines our politics today. It`s going to define 2020 as well. Mitch McConnell has to decide, because his party is running on draining the swamp. He supported a president who said I`m going to drain the swamp. I`m going to put government back on your side, get all the lobbyists out of your pockets. And now they`re not for H.R.1? They don`t even have a plan for anti-corruption. They don`t even have a plan for any of this. It`s shocking. It`s absolutely shocking.
HAYES: So, what`s -- I mean, there`s a bunch of stuff in H.R.1. Public financing of campaigns. There`s an automatic voter registration nationally, which would be a huge change. A lot of states are doing it -- New York is thinking about it, election day a national holiday. Why -- what, to you, is most important in this bill?
ROSE: Well, it`s viewed as a whole package, which is what I think is essential. The aim of the bill is to change politics in this country, because it seems like it doesn`t matter, we can`t get things done like lowering drug prices, generation`s long infrastructure bills, so many of the things that we have spoken about for so long. Part of the reason why is that the system is not on the people`s side.
We have to make it easier to vote, not harder. We certainly have to make it so it`s not just the rich that can run for office.
HAYES: I want to play you -- you know, this is remarkable. So, there are a lot of things in here trying to make it easier for people to vote, right. And Kevin McCarthy, I want to play his objection to this in which he cites what appears to be felonious malfeasance by a Republican campaign in North Carolina as a reason not to vote for the Democrat`s bill. Take a listen.
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REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY, (R) CALIFORNIA: H.R.1 exposes our election system to widespread fraud. Take ballot harvesting, for example. We had one less member in this body because of harvesting of ballots. Can you imagine putting the trust of your votes in the hands of a stranger? If that doesn`t scare you, it should.
Sadly this practice was weaponized in California and North Carolina, not so long ago. But now we want to make it everywhere.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Don`t vote for the bill because in North Carolina congressional campaign hired a felon to commit fraud?
ROSE: Sure.
Look, this is rich. This is just rich. They do not have a plan. These folks have been running around the country -- because the American people are united, all right, they`re voting for Republicans when they say drain the swamp. They`re voting for Democrats when they talk about H.R.1 anti-corruption, everyone is voting for change.
But it seems that the Democratic Party is the only ones who have actually put forth a way in which we want to accomplish this and all they`re talking about is distractions. It doesn`t even matter which party they`re talking about.
I`m all about bipartisanship, I really am. But the American people want this. Let`s at least hear what they want to do. This shouldn`t be hard.
HAYES: I want to ask you about the other big resolution this week, the anti-hate resolution. You have a very diverse district. It`s an incredible district. It`s a patchwork of all sorts of people from all sorts of places. First question, were you someone who objected to them broadening it out from a resolution just about anti-Semitism to including other forms of bigotry, or were you happy that it broadened out and took the form it took.
ROSE: Let`s take a step back, first, OK. When I saw Ilhan`s comment, you know, as someone who is a Jewish army combat veteran, of course was offended. I don`t have multiple allegiances. My allegiance is to the United State of America. On the same hand, though, one should be in free in this country to criticize Israel, criticize Benjamin Netanyahu, just the only thing that we`re asking is say that. This should not be difficult.
On the same hand, though there is rising Islamaphobia in this country that is incredibly galling. I mean, we have direct threats being made against Ilhan herself. And so to come out and talk about both of those things I don`t think is the problem. What the problem is, though, is that we had 20 Republicans who couldn`t even meet that standard. I would like for you to the invite them on and seriously question them what issue did you have? I`m sure what issue did they have with this?
HAYES: Well, Brooks said that it was Christians and I think Caucasians, or just Christians were not protected from anti-bigotry.
ROSE: Oh, come on.
HAYES: You just said Ilhan -- are you friends with Ilahn Omar? Do you guys have a good relationship personally?
ROSE: Yeah, so look, we are certainly colleagues, and I`ve certainly worked to continue a working relationship with her here. That`s important.
Resolutions are easy. Resolutions are not hard. What`s important, though, is that we continue to quiet and diligent work to bridge coalitions, to have hard conversations on both sides, so we can make sure things like this do not happen anymore, because there is so much to unite around. And I think you saw some of that unity today around H.R.1.
HAYES: All right, Congressman Max Rose, great to have you here. Come back any time.
ROSE: Thanks.
HAYES: Coming up, another bold progressive policy move by 2020 candidate, as Senator Elizabeth Warren announces her plan to take on big tech.
Plus, what it means to learn on the job when you`re president of the United States. That`s tonight`s Thing One, Thing Two, and it`s a good one. Starts next.
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HAYES: Thing One tonight, earlier this week, we told you about a meeting at the White House on American workforce policy where a few really strange things happened. First, the president called his daughter and advisor, Ivanka, honey, in front of everybody and awkwardly sort of wrestled with her, then Trump tried praise Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, and got a little confused about his name.
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TRUMP: Tim, you`re expanding all over and doing things that I real a wanted you to right from the beginning. I used to say, Tim, you got to start doing it over here and you really have. I mean, you have really put a big investment in our country. We appreciate it very much, Tim Apple.
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HAYES: OK, if that wasn`t bad enough, Tim Cook, not Tim Apple, had to keep sitting there, nodding, listening to the president talk about how he discovered human trafficking.
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TRUMP: Human trafficking is a disaster. Nobody knew too much about it until recently. It`s been going on for a million years, actually. It`s been going on for a long time. But we`ve seen it, we`ve spotted it.
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HAYES: Nobody knew anything about it until recently. It`s been going on for a million years.
It`s always amazing when Donald Trump learns a well known fact that everybody else already knows and tells you that you actually didn`t already. And boy does he do that a lot. It`s Thing Two in 60 seconds.
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HAYES: We learned recently that Donald Trump threatened to sue his former schools if they ever let his grades or transcripts be made public. And it`s hard to imagine why he would be so concerned. I mean, it seems like he must have been such a great student. Just look at all the things he`s learned since running for president that nobody ever knew before.
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TRUMP: People don`t realize, you know, if you go back to the civil war it was the Republicans that really did the thing.
Nobody knew health care could be so complicated.
People don`t realize we are an unbelievably divided country.
People don`t know this about Iraq, but they have among the largest oil reserves in the world.
Denuclearization is a very important -- it`s a very important word -- become a very well used word and a lot of people don`t know what it means.
People don`t realize what a big country Mexico is.
A lot of people don`t realize that Abraham Lincoln, the great Abraham Lincoln, was a Republican.
Most people don`t even know he was a Republican, right. Does anybody know? A lot of people don`t know that.
Veterans are America`s greatest national treasure. And a lot of people understand that, some people don`t.
You know, people don`t understand, I went to an Ivy League college. I was a nice student. I did very well. I`m a very intelligent person.
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HAYES: The news of Paul Manafort`s just over four year sentence far below the federal sentencing guidelines, has prompted a lot of attention to the massive disparities to the U.S. criminal justice system. And how could it not?
When a woman last year was sentenced to five years in prison for voting illegally, because she was a felon on parole. Another woman, will spend eight years in prison, and potentially be deported, because she thought you could vote as a permanent legal resident.
Then there`s white collar crime in the same category of Manafort, the ex- mayor of Detroit, Kwame Kilpatrick, was sentenced to 28 years for a series of corruption charges.
But one case that really gets me that I keep thinking about in the wake of that sentence is the case of Reality Winter. Winter worked as a linguist in the air force, and an intelligence contractor for the NSA. And she was so torn up about what she learned about Russian interference into the election, so determined to get the story out to the public, that she leaked a classified document on the subject to the publication The Intercept. And for this act of whistleblowing really, Reality Winter was given over five years in prison.
Prosecutors said her sentence was the longest ever imposed ever in federal court for an unauthorized release of government information to the media.
Now, Reality Winter did not spend her adult life involved in financial scams, or cheating the government, or lobbying for dictators, she leaked a classified report. She`s a veteran who served her country, which means the guy who actually met in a cigar bar with Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian political operative assessed to be linked to the Russian intelligence, and gave him 75 pages of Trump campaign polling for reasons unknown is right now going to serve less time than a veteran who leaked a document to blow the whistle on a Russian election interference.
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HAYES: Another day, another big, bold new shoot the moon policy proposal from a Democratic presidential contender. This one comes from Senator Elizabeth Warren, who has already proposed some big ideas, including a wealth tax and universal child care. Warren`s new proposal, laid out in a Medium post today and in a speech today in Queens, is to break up the big tech companies, including Amazon, Google, and Facebook on anti-trust grounds.
One of the issues Warren highlights, is that these companies concurrently sell products on platforms they also own. Earlier today on this network, speaking to Ari Melber, she explained why that`s a problem.
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SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN, (D) MASSACHUSETTS: What this is about is about is about competition, it`s about all those little businesses and startup businesses and entrepreneurs who want to put their products on Amazon or on Google and who are at an enormous competitive disadvantage because Amazon or on Google, if they like the money they see that you are making, because they get all the information, they decide to go into competition with you and put their product on page one and your product back on page six and kill your business.
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HAYES: Joining me now for more on Warren`s big plan and the big proposals from Democratic presidential contenders, Democratic strategist Tera Dowdell, and Sam Biddle, technology reporter at The Intercept who has got a big column about this today.
Let me start with you, Sam, on the details of this. How big is this in the context of what we have seen from anti-trust enforcement?
SAM BIDDLE, THE INTERCEPT: I think the biggest we`ve ever seen. I -- it is a huge, huge, more than a warning shot, it is a we are coming after you, if I win, kind of warning, which is, you know, a warning with some caveats in it, but it`s a huge statement, and I think it is shaking a lot of people in Silicon Valley right now.
HAYES: It would actually mean breaking up these companies, right. I mean, she would actually reach into them and separate different parts of them.
BIDDLE: So far it sounds like most of it would be sort of undoing, reversing these merger and accusation deals that we`ve seen over the past few years.
For example, taking Instagram away from Facebook. Taking away...
TERA DOWDELL, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: WhatsApp.
BIDDLE: Yeah, exactly, taking WhatsApp away from Facebook. So sort of making them -- pairing them down a little, but not splitting them up into a bunch of different pieces.
HAYES: Two things happening here that are interesting. One is the politics of seeing big tech as a threat, which I think is -- there is growing political momentum behind, and also just this sort of ideas primary we`re seeing the Democratic Party where people are really pushing the boundaries of what a Democratic agenda looks like.
DOWDELL: I think there is a thirst in the Democratic Party, and this is a manifestation of that, there say thirst in the Democratic Party for Democrats to be bold, unequivocal and unapologetic in terms of fighting for Democratic values.
I think what you`re seeing is voters are realizing, generally speaking, not just Democrats, but Democrats are professing it differently, all voters are realizing that something is not right, right. Like their incomes are still the same, but yet they`re working harder. We know productivity is up in this country, homeownership, if you`re African-American is lower now it was before in past years. And so I think voters are feeling that, and I think on the Democratic side, in particular, Democrats are pushing for the party to prioritize, working poor people, poor people, middle income people, small business owners, like myself, and that`s what you see. You see these bold ideas coming out as a response to that.
HAYES: These are some of the basic income for children, which has now become a sort of consensus Democratic position, breaking up big banks and tech firms here. Free college, the Green New Deal, legalizing marijuana, Medicare for all, paid family leave, universal child care, a wealth tax. I mean, those are -- that`s a very big agenda. I mean, those are from different candidates.
One of the advantages of this, though, is this doesn`t really need 60 votes in the Senate, right? I mean, this doesn`t need to go through legislation, this is the thing you can do as president.
BIDDLE: Well, so what Warren said in the post, and it`s worth noting this is just a blog post, right, she`s not talking legislation at the moment, this is all sort of 10,000 foot view, but she wants to, or said she would appoint regulators whose job it would be to monitor these big firms for infractions, the definitions of which are a little vague at the moment, but -- and also facilitate that spinning off process, that cutting Instagram away from Facebook, cutting Ways (ph) away Google, Nest away from Google, that pairing down process.
And that sounds like something she could do on her own more or less.
HAYES: That is something I also think that we will, I wonder if we`re going see that more in the primary.
You can talk about Green New Deal, Medicare for all, big legislative domestic priorities, but like, if Mitch McConnell is there and no one gets rid of the filibuster, whereas there are things you can do things in executive, anti-trust, or there`s some things you can do executive around marijuana enforcement. You wonder how much we`re going to see ideas that don`t necessarily depend on the congress.
DOWDELL: As someone who has worked in government, I can tell you that if you have a lot of discretion within a different agencies to write rules and protections and that is what you see. You see the Trump administration, for example, using those powers and unwinding those protections that were put in place under the Obama administration. So I think you will see more a savvier Democratic Party around making clear that they will use what powers they will use, exactly.
BIDDLE: It`s also been so long since we`ve seen an FTC that`s willing to take on business interests. The Trump FTC has been sort of asleep at the wheel, an aggressive FTC that would want to crack down on some of these things that Warren laid out would be shocking.
HAYES: That`s the amazing thing about this sort of revived anti-trust movement is that there is already regulatory bodies, statutory authority in place. The craziest thing is that it just has not been used in a particularly aggressive way in essentially 30 years, because of like a revolution in the way all this stuff was done.
DOWDELL: Well, I think the other thing that you see -- as a small business owner, I can tell you I experience this all the time and I see it, witness it, is you see when companies get big, the first thing they do is they increase the barriers of entry to keep people like me from getting into the process.
HAYES: Yes, and the story Elizabeth Warren told there is wild. Amazon will just sit there and be like, oh your plates look nice, we`re selling Amazon plates now. And that`s the first hit in the search.
Tera Dowdell and Sam Biddle, thank you both for being with me tonight.
That is ALL IN for this evening. "THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW" starts right now with Joy Reid in for Rachel. Good evening, Joy.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. END