(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST: Tonight on ALL IN.
REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-NY): They should be given water. They should be given basic access to human right.
HAYES: Horrific conditions in detention camps amid new reporting on a secret border patrol group joking about migrant deaths.
REP. JOAQUIN CASTO (D-TX): There are many within CBP will become desensitized to the point of being dangerous to the migrants in their care.
HAYES: My guess tonight, the reporter who broke that story and one of the members of Congress who actually toured detention facilities today. Then - -
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Do you hear the power of that voice. Nobody has heard that voice before. He doesn`t do news conference in case you haven`t heard.
HAYES: The President`s chummy meetings with Kim Jong-un, Vladimir Putin, and the Saudi Crown Prince whose henchmen murdered a Washington Post columnist.
TRUMP: And I want to just thank you on behalf of a lot of people and I want to congratulate. You`ve done really a spectacular job.
HAYES: Plus, Trump`s plans to Bigfoot America`s birthday.
TRUMP: I`m going to be here and I`m going to say a few words and we`re going to have planes going over it, and we`re going to have some tanks stationed outside.
HAYES: And first daughter diplomacy.
TRUMP: Has anyone ever heard of Ivanka?
HAYES: The disastrous adventures of Ivanka Trump abroad when ALL IN starts right now.
TRUMP: All right, come up Ivanka. Come on. She`s going to steal the show.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Good evening from Chicago, I`m Chris Hayes. The moral crisis of the Trump administration`s border policy is more evident than ever tonight. Members of Congress today including Congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez toured detention camps in Texas and saw unheard, firsthand about some of the appalling conditions.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. NANETTE BARRAGAN (D-CA): They took all our phones away from us, something they haven`t done in the past. So we certainly seen some changes. And frankly, I wonder it`s because they don`t want us to document anything, they don`t want us to take any photos.
REP. JUDY CHU (D-CA): We talked to a group of women detainees who said that they didn`t have running water, one was an epileptic and she couldn`t get her medication. They were separated from their children. They`ve been there over 50 days. One woman said that the Border Patrol agent told her to -- if you want to water just to drink from a toilet.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: The members of Congress also tweeted about what they saw. Madeleine Dean of Pennsylvania wrote "15 women in their 50s and 60s sleeping in a small concrete cell, no running water, weeks without showers, all of them separated their families. Congressman Ocasio-Cortez tweeted "after I forced myself into a cell with women and began speaking to them, one of them described their treatment of the hands of officers as psychological warfare, waking them up at odd hours for no reason, calling them ugly names etcetera."
"It`s not just the kids, it`s everyone. People drinking out of toilets, officers laughing in front of Members of Congress. I brought it up to their superiors, they said officers are under stressed and act out sometimes."
One way those border agents appear to be acting out according to a shocking new story from ProPublica was by making vial posts in a secret Facebook group mocking immigrant deaths and posting sexist memes, like this post about the congressional visit today singling out Congresswoman Veronica Escobar of Texas and Congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez with one person commenting about throwing a burrito at them.
In another exchange after the death of 16-year-old Carlos Gregorio Hernandez Vasquez at a border station in May, ProPublica reports "one member of the group posted a GIF of Elmo with "oh well," another responded with an image and the words "if he dies, he dies."
Members of Congress today drew a connection between the vile comments in that Facebook group and the broader culture at Customs and Border Protection.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CASTRO: That was a vulgar, disgusting, and vile page. That shows unfortunately that there are many within CBP who will become desensitized to the point of being dangerous to the migrants in their care and to their co-workers.
REP. VERONICA ESCOBAR (D-TX): One of the things that we see in action whether it`s the Facebook page or the chants that you`re hearing today is a dehumanizing of people that is very dangerous to our country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: By the way, those were pro-Trump Detention Center protesters in the background there jeering the members of Congress. Now, it`s not just members of Congress sounding the alarm about Border Patrol and the detention camps, it`s the Department of Homeland Security`s own internal watchdog.
NBC News exclusive reporting the DHS inspector general warned as far back as May that conditions at an El Paso border station were so bad that border agents were arming themselves for possible riots. "Only for showers available for 756 immigrants, more than half the immigrants are being held outside, and immigrants inside were being kept in cells maxed out at more than five times their capacity. A cell meant for a maximum of 35 held 155 adult males with only one toilet and sink. The cell was so crowded the men could not lie down to sleep."
The name of the El Paso Border station was redacted in a report but as a reminder, last month a New Mexico State University professor described a detention center in El Paso as a "human dog pound." Now that to be clear as a different facility than the one in Clint, Texas were reports surfaced about children held in appalling conditions including inadequate food, water, and sanitation.
And that is different than this detention camp that was photographed from the air by Reuters. At this camp in McAllen, Texas, you can see adults and children sleeping on the ground with reflective blankets apparently jury- rigged to give them some shade.
By the time the photos were taken, around midday, Reuters reports the ground temperature was about 89 degrees. Here with me now, one of the members of Congress who visited those facilities in Texas today Democrat Nanette Barragan of California. Congresswoman, what did you see today? Describe it.
BARRAGAN: Well, I think from what we`ve seen today, from what we`re reading today, and what I`ve seen personally, it`s more than a lack of resources and funding, it`s really a lack of treating people like they`re human beings. It`s a lack of treating people with dignity and respect that they deserve and that is part of this problem that isn`t focused on that we need to make sure we focus on.
HAYES: Well, part of -- I mean, there seems to be two things here. CBP facilities have been pretty awful places to be for years. The toilet sink combo that there`s been pictures of stretch back years. Those have been operating for a very long time.
What seems different here are the crowding conditions and the duration of time. I mean, how long -- what stretches a period of time the people you talk to are in those facilities?
BARRAGAN: So we talked to some of the women who are being held at the Border Patrol station in El Paso for 50 days, 70 days, there are in these cells, these very tiny cells for extended periods of time not -- there`s really no healthy food. When I ask what`s the healthiest food you have, they said maybe some fruit.
And so that`s a great concern. This is the area where you have members of Congress asking to speak to the detainees. This time around they said no which is why we basically had to force ourselves to get their attention and ask him to open the door which they did.
When we got to Clint, Chris, they locked the kids in these rooms so we wouldn`t talk to them and there`s a plexiglass. You had a small child, maybe three or four years old running up to the plexiglass to try to touch us through the glass, to try to get our attention, and asking for his father. It`s pretty heartbreaking.
But Chris, let me tell you one more thing. There weren`t that many people. It was quite remarkable and quite shocking. I said, where`s everybody at? The board Patrol said, you came at the wrong time. And so, I said well, what are you going to do with all this money with the funding that was just allocated from Congress? And he kind of looked at me with a blank stare and said well, it`s not going to be like this forever.
And so there`s so much inconsistency and there`s so much concern in new policies and procedures of taking our phones away, not allowing us to talk to people is causing concern. And for me I believe they don`t want us to know what`s happening and they don`t want us to talk to people so we can hear directly from them on the experience.
HAYES: We`ve got -- I believe one of the members that you were in there with Joaquin Castro of Texas just tweeted this video from inside that El Paso facility that he managed to show which is women, you can get a sense of what it looks like there. Women sort of crowded around cramped in the cell for 50 days, denied showers is one of the things that he mentions in that tweet as well.
You can kind of see here. So they`re sleeping on the ground. I mean, to me, with the thing I keep returning to here, these conditions are terrible but the duration of time is insane. I mean, these are facilities that it appears to me look like they`re designed the way that like an overnight booking cell in a local jail might be designed, like a place that people stay for 12 to 16 hours. How is it that these folks are there for 50 to 70 days? Do you understand what is breaking down?
BARRAGAN: You`re absolutely right. That is what these are designed for. They`re designed for a very short term a period of time and they`re there for a very long time. And so the impact is having to their mental health. I mean, look, Chris, these ladies were crying. They were begging for help. They wanted out. And many of these said they had family members here in the United States.
So I don`t understand what the holdup is. I don`t understand why they have to be detained for 50 days, 70 days. It`s just not human to have people in these holding cells that are meant for short term periods of time.
HAYES: I want to just -- if we could keep --
BARRAGAN: And these showers. I mean, we could -- that`s a whole another conversation.
HAYES: Well, I want to hear about that. I just want to keep -- if we can just to the control room, if we can keep showing this footage because I think it`s important to stress here. It`s very hard. I mean, and I`m wondering what your conclusion was as talking these women.
I mean, there is no -- in your estimation, is there a public safety reason for these individuals to be behind bars in this facility?
BARRAGAN: I don`t think it`s justified. I don`t think it`s necessary. We talked to a you know, a mom who came with her child who`s 18 years old. She was separated from her 18-year-old. They`re telling her she`s going to be sent back to remain to Mexico and to wait there while her daughter came on and got into the U.S.
So we had no answers today about how they`re treating people differently, what the standards are. They wouldn`t answer questions about how they determine who they`re going to send back. And you know, the showers. There were three showers in Clint where the children are kept, only one of them was working, two of them look like they were locked.
It was -- it was pretty horrifying to see that these this is where they`re keeping people and children, and there`s really no need to do this. There are alternatives and there`s got to be quicker ways to do this as well, Chris, so we need to continue to shine the light on what is happening at the southern border and we have to make sure that when we allocate funding, there`s guardrails, that there is oversight provisions.
Members of Congress should be able to show up unannounced and they`re not allowed to do that right now.
HAYES: All right, Congresswoman Nanette Barragan, thank you so much for that -- sharing that. I really appreciate it. I want to turn now to the Pro Publica reporter who broke the story of the secret Facebook group for Border Patrol agents. A.C. Thompson who is an incredible investigative reporter and thank you for your work A.C.
Describe the group itself and the scope -- the size of the membership and how you`re able to confirm that these are in fact employees of CBP and not -- and not just random trolls.
A.C. THOMPSON, REPORTER, PROPUBLICA: So there`s about 9,500 members of this group. It`s a secret private group. You have to be invited in. It`s essentially invisible if you`re not a member of the group and haven`t been invited in. It`s for current and former Border Patrol as well as members of the air and marine division of Customs and Border Protection, the people that fly the planes and drive the boats.
What we could tell from looking at the posts is that a lot of these people we could identify we`re legitimately active Border Patrol agents at this moment. We can`t say how many, we can`t say what the percentage is, but certainly, the ones that we`re looking at we can quickly connect them to the agency.
HAYES: So you were able -- you did the sort of due diligence of running down in some of the more incendiary, offensive, vile, dehumanizing posts just to make sure that those people are actually people that work at CBP?
THOMPSON: Exactly. And we went out to CBP and said hey, you know, what about this particular agent? What about this particular agent? What about this supervisor? And we have not heard back from them yet. But I can assure you that this is -- you know, we have sources within the Border Patrol at this moment saying I`m on here, other people from my unit are on here, other people from my station are on here. This is a real thing.
HAYES: I should say that today the CBP did put out a statement. They acknowledged the existence of the group. They did not deny it. They also did not deny that it was members. They said they immediately informed the DHS officers and the office of the Inspector General and initiated an investigation. That adds to a very heavy workload for that particular OIG who`s been cranking out reports about detention conditions.
What struck you about the tenor of the posts and the discourse in this group?
THOMPSON: Look, Chris, I`ve been reporting on law enforcement for more than 20 years and I`ve seen a lot of bad stuff. But when I see members of federal law enforcement agencies posting memes about essentially sexually assaulting a sitting congresswoman, I`ve never seen anything like that. It is so upsetting and so vulgar.
When I see the kind of things that are in there, making jokes about dead migrants, making jokes about all these kind of -- all these kind of stuff that is misogynistic, that is dehumanizing towards migrant population, that is belittling anyone that doesn`t exactly agree with the Border Patrol`s current approach, that is really concerning to me. That`s a culture of as has been put, desensitization and dehumanization.
HAYES: The Border Patrol Union, it`s a unionized operation of the federal government made its first-ever presidential endorsement back in 2016 in March, first ever for Donald Trump. Do you have a sense -- do we have any way of comparing this era, this culture that`s at least in some part of the CBP to previous eras?
Because a lot of the reporters who have interacted with CBP have had complaints along these lines that precede Donald Trump quite frankly, both about the conditions in some of the facilities the CBP runs, the terminology and words and dehumanizing insults that are sometimes hurled at migrants. What`s your sense?
THOMPSON: Look, this has been a troubled agency for the last 16, 17 years since it was created, right. There have been problems with internal oversight, with not having a proper internal affairs unit, without properly policing the members of this unit. Historically from the time it was created, about 250 agents per year and officers of the custom service get arrested on criminal charges. That is a concerning thing and that has gone on through the Obama administration to now.
So there have been persistent problems. But I think what you see now are two things. And one, there was just an audit that came out by the Inspector General it said hey, look, we surveyed 16,000 Border Patrol members, and 5,300 of them said I have witnessed misconduct on the job. That`s a significant number. That`s a big number.
It`s almost you know -- that`s about a third. And so the that is a concerning thing that we see those kinds of numbers. The other thing that I think that is concerning that we see is in the post you see this very sort of political bent that these men and overwhelmingly they`re men making these posts feel that they are part of some sort of political vanguard. It`s them against the world.
And this gives them license to behave badly online. And I fear it gives them license to behave badly -- they think it gives them license to behave badly in the real world.
HAYES: All right, A.C. Thompson, thank you for your excellent reporting.
THOMPSON: Thank you.
HAYES: If you want to learn more about the historical context of what`s happening at the border, we have an hour-long conversation I found to be extremely informative going up tomorrow on our podcast, Why Is This Happening. I really encourage you to check that out.
Next, the President goes out of his way to fawn over Mohammed bin Salman, the man who according to the CIA was the mastermind behind the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The president and his dictators in two minutes.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: The headlines today from President Trump`s trip abroad were all about him being the first sitting American President to set foot in North Korea. And after the hastily arranged meeting with the North Korean Dictator Kim Jong-un with whom Trump has previously described a love fest, it`s very unclear whether any tangible progress is being made on North Korea`s nuclear arsenal or any diplomacy between the two countries.
But at least some kind of open channel is better than what the U.S. is doing with Iran for example. And in some ways the most outrageous fawning over a dictator was not what happened with camera with Vladimir Putin, it`s Saudi leader -- it was Saudi Arabia`s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman known as MBS with the Trump administration has done everything in its power to embolden and empower.
It`s taken policy cues from MBS getting out of the Iran deal, something as Saudis and favored, facilitating an ongoing war in Yemen that`s producing a humanitarian crisis, as well as doing nothing to bring accountability to MBS who the CIA concluded ordered the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
In fact, quite the opposite. The President invited the Saudis to a breakfast meeting and heaped MBS with praise.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: The Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, a friend of mine, a man who has really done things in the last five years in terms of opening up Saudi Arabia. And I think especially what you`ve done for women, I`m seeing what`s happening. It`s like a revolution in a very positive way and I want to just thank you on behalf of a lot of people and I want to congratulate you. You`ve done really a spectacular job.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Congressman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota is a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and she joins me now. Congresswoman, what do you see as the effects of the President speaking in that way, going out of his way to sort of praise Mohammed bin Salman?
REP. ILHAN OMAR (D-MN): It`s really frustrating to hear this president talk about MBS and what he`s doing with women when we know that MBS has incarcerated the woman that have been fighting to liberate women in Saudi Arabia.
But as they say, you know, you judge a man by the company he keeps. And in the ways that he`s cozied up to dictators around the world really tells us a lot about the kind of corrupt dictator in the making Trump is.
I remember when he was running for office. He was asked once what he thought about Saudi Arabia, and he said you know, they spend $40 million, $50 million in my hotels. They`re great. Why would I think of them as an enemy? All he thinks about is how he`s going to enrich himself, doesn`t really pay attention to the kind of devastation some of these dictators are causing within their countries and around the world.
You heard today as he referenced Kim and how healthy he appeared without worrying about the health and the well-being of the starving people of North Korea. The kind of ways that he is really leading our foreign policies, making a lot of our allies worry, and I am very concerned.
HAYES: I want to play you what he said about MBS specifically on the question of Khashoggi which is something that the man was an American resident and a columnist for an American newspaper. So there`s some stake here, some equity for the American government. This is his response. I want to play it and get your reaction. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: If you look, and look into Saudi Arabia you see what`s happening. 13 people or so have been prosecuted, others are being prosecuted. They`ve taken it very, very seriously. Nobody so far has pointed directly a finger at the future king of Saudi Arabia.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: We should note that both the CIA and the U.N. had pointed a finger at MBS but what do you make of that?
OMAR: And we know that MBS`s hands are unclean. I mean, our own CIA has concluded that he had a hand in the brutal murder of Khashoggi. We know that this is -- this is a king -- a crown prince who really threatens women, and uses force, who as incarcerated so many political prisoners in his country who in some accounts even has his own mother under house arrests and other members within the kingdom.
This is not a friend. This isn`t a good person. This isn`t someone who is moving the needle in any decent way. This is someone who has helped cause one of the worst humanitarian crises in the way -- in the fight in Yemen. This is someone we should be holding accountable. This is someone who we should be pushing to do better. This isn`t someone we should be talking about as a friend.
HAYES: Final question. You referred to the president in his sort of ardor for strongmen and dictators as a dictator in making himself. What do you mean by that?
OMAR: I mean, he has an affinity that is to dictators. We`ve seen in the ways that he gets excited when he talks about dictators is very different in the ways that he talks about other democratic leaders around the world. When he talks about Putin, when he talks about Kim, when he talks about MBS, there`s a little light in his eyes as if he almost envies and kind of wants to be like them.
That should be very alarming to the people of our country. And I know what a making of a dictator looks like and I`ve said that since the day he`s gotten sworn in. We should be very worried.
HAYES: All right, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, thank you so much for your time. Still ahead, our first post-Democratic debate polling numbers, who saw the most significant changes, after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: It`s been well established in both polling and reporting and well, through common sense that Democratic voters desperate to defeat Trump have electability at the top of their minds as they evaluate the various candidates.
The problem, however, is that no one really knows what electable means or what it looks like. One thing thatƒ_Ts for sure is that whichever candidate is best suited to take on Trump is not going to be decided abstractly or theoretically in a vacuum but by actually watching the actual candidates actually compete for the nomination and we`re already seeing the results.
We just got our first posted polls one from Morning Consult shows Warren and Harris tied for third place with Harris up six points from the previous week. Bernie Sanders is second and Joe Biden leads with 33 percent of the support, down five points from the previous week.
A CNN poll shows larger motion. Joe Biden leading with 22 percent, but that`s a dip of 10 points since May. Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren both saw significant bumps in support in this poll, getting 17 percent and 15 percent respectively, while Bernie Sanders got a 14 percent support, a drop of 4 percent.
When it comes to which Democrat is likely to beat Donald Trump, it`s interesting to note the former vice president still leads by a much wider margin in the CNN poll, 30 points higher than his nearest rival.
To talk about what`s happening here, I`m joined by Neera Tanden, president and CEO of the Center for American Progress, and Waleed Shahid, communications director for Justice Democrats.
Neera, one of the questions I think this all comes down to is in terms of approaching or thinking about the primary voters is should they be thinking about what other people think is electable, what other people are going to like, what other people -- what will defeat Trump or should they just look at what they`re seeing and respond in a first order sense to what they`re seeing? What do you think?
NEERA TANDEN, PRESIDENT, CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS: I mean, I think what actually happened on Thursday is that people were responding to what they saw.
HAYES: Yes, agreed.
TANDEN: I think what really happened was I think for all of these candidates, part of electability is are you going to be tough enough to take on Trump? Trump fights dirty. He fights in a way that previous candidates, previous Republican nominees haven`t -- haven`t fought. He took a candidate that was, you know, pretty tough, had issues here or there maybe, but Hillary Clinton was known as a tough candidate, has seen through a lot, and he still defeated her. So I think this was a particular burden for every candidate.
And I think what happened with Kamala is that she demonstrated in real time that she is tough enough and capable enough to prosecute the case. As she`d been, you know, she`d been touting that she`s a prosecutor who can make the case against him, then she demonstrated it in real time with both a personal story as well as a basic argument.
And I think that`s why she did so well.
HAYES: What do you think, Waleed, about this sort of question about like thinking about electability as its own thing versus thinking how you think -- how dynamic, compelling, persuasive the candidates are just as you watch them as a Democratic primary voter.
WALEED SHAHID, COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, JUSTICE DEMOCRATS: Yeah, well, in the polling right now, the candidate that Democrats are choosing as the most electable, the most likely to beat Donald Trump is obviously Joe Biden at number one, and then Bernie Sanders at number two, and then Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris following. They`re all pretty different Democrats, so that variety of electability keeps changing.
And then at the same time, like, we have these voters right now in the most polarized time in politics where we have conservatives who are just going to vote for the candidate who is not a Democrat and Democrats who are going to vote for a candidate who is not a Republican. And meanwhile, there are all these working-class voters and young voters who stayed at home in 2016 that Democrats have to figure out how to inspire, and that you see some talk of it in the media and, and amongst voters about who is going to actually activate and energize the base. But that`s a whole different equation of electability that I think we also saw on stage with different candidates trying to hold Joe Biden accountable for his record, whether that`s busing or Iraq or any of these things.
TANDEN: I mean...
HAYES: Go ahead, Neera.
TANDEN: I think -- I think the electability question has actually changed if you look at the CNN poll today. Of course, it`s just one poll.
HAYES: Yes.
TANDEN: Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren are both seen as more electable than any of their rivals. So I think these issues -- this debate changed a lot of perceptions and it changed in real time. I do think this is a big question for the Democratic Party about what to, you know, what is the electoral coalition? What happened in 2018 was that Democrats were both able to really bring out the base. Millennials voted at very high levels, people of color voted at historically high levels for a midterm, and bring moderate voters back. A lot of Trump voters, particularly in the Midwest, came back to the Democratic Party.
So I think this is a big question of what the coalition is. But there is - - there is the possibility of not having to trade off, to put together a broad coalition, and in a way that is exactly what Barack Obama did in both 2008 and 2012.
HAYES: Yeah, one thing that`s always good -- because we all live on these, like, cross tabs in democratic subgroups, it`s always the case you can do better by just doing a little better with everyone, that`s always an option.
TANDEN: Sure.
HAYES: That like just you don`t have to necessarily make some trade, like you`re trading players on a team.
TANDEN: Yes, it`s always better to do better with everyone. That is a lesson of politics.
HAYES: One thing that`s striking to me, Waleed, that Alex Burns pointed out, which I think just signals to where we are in this race in terms of time, is that in March Biden and Sanders, who I think are the two best-known names, were at 47 percent, today combined at 36 percent.
I think one of the things I think you`re seeing, Waleed, is that, you know, a lot of that early polling, March, April, May, June, is a lot of it is name recognition. The race really does kind of start now.
SHAHID: Yeah, one debate could really shift things, as we saw with the debate last week with Kamala Harris kind of going after Joe Biden`s record on busing and school desegregation. What I was mentioning earlier is that there are other constituencies in the Democratic electorate that might get activated toward different candidates and shift through being exposed to the front-runner, Joe Biden`s record, on various issues where he`s a little out of touch with, or a lot out of touch with where the Democratic base is, such as the Iraq war, the Anita Hill hearings, his controversy over the Hyde amendment, unfair trade deals, you can imagine Elizabeth Warren, Castro, Bernie Sanders, doing kind of the same thing that Kamala Harris did and being aggressive, personal, and persuasive about why Joe Biden`s leadership and record is not really in touch with where the party is at today.
HAYES: One of the things that I think Joe Biden`s campaign team and Biden himself is probably talking about right now is, like, what the -- how they talk about the 40-year record that he has.
SHAHID: You would think they would have figured that out before his presidential run.
HAYES: Right, but it`s a long record, right? I mean, like, it`s one of the things -- it`s one of the differences between running with a small record or, you know, three or four years of votes and 40 years of votes is you talk about how you`re going to talk about those 40 years of votes and that`s in some ways the central question I think for Biden.
SHAHID: It`s clear the strategy has been to not apologize, to double down so far. It might change, but for now it has been to not apologize.
TANDEN: The truth is a lot of candidates have long records in this race, and so I do think the big question -- look, I was in debates that the first debate went really well for candidates. So back in 2007, Barack Obama had a terrible first debate.
HAYES: Terrible. I remember it.
TANDEN: And people really counted him out. And, you know, he managed to do pretty well in the process. So it is just the beginning of this process, and I think Joe Biden, and others, will have a lot to prove in the next round.
HAYES: All right. Neera Tanden, Waleed Shahid, thank you both for joining us.
TANDEN: Still ahead, the president`s daughter tags along at the G20. It didn`t go great. We`ll talk about that.
Plus, tonight`s Thing one, Thing two starts next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: Thing One tonight, it was an unusual working weekend for Donald Trump, who was in Asia at the G20 meeting instead of on the golf course. And maybe it was the jet lag or the change in routine or something, but he had some moments, like when a reporter asked him about the Biden/Harris busing debate.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: It has been doing that they`ve done for a long period of time. I mean, you know, there aren`t that many ways you`re going to get people to schools. So this is something that`s been done -- in some cases it`s been done with a hammer instead of a velvet glove. And, you know, that`s part of it. So -- but it is certainly a primary method of getting people to schools.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: I mean, it`s true. Also, the wheels on the bus go round and round. But I don`t think that was really the question.
Later, someone asked for his reaction to Putin`s comments about the decline of,quote, "western-style liberalism," you know, foundation of democracy in Europe and America, and the Trans-Atlantic alliance, and a thing that maybe Donald Trump has never heard of.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: He sees what`s going on, and I guess if you look at what`s happening in Los Angeles where it`s so sad to look, and what`s happening in San Francisco, and a couple of other cities, which are run by an extraordinary group of liberal people. I don`t know what they`re thinking.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Western liberalism. OK, anyway there was one more answer from the president that made our ears perk up because it returned to one of his -- one of our favorite Trump ticks, the old exaggerated numbers routine. And that`s Thing Two in 60 seconds.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: So Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin got the chance to spend some quality time together while they were beth in Japan for G20 summit over the weekend. And in between friendly chitchat about election melding, Trump says Putin invited him to visit Russia next year for the 75th anniversary of the allies victory over the Nazis in World War II.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: He did invite me to Russia for the defeat of Nazis. That was a big thing. Defeat of Nazis.
You know, Russia lost he said 25 million people. I had actually heard 50 million people, bud he said yesterday that Russia fighting the Nazis, they lost 25 million people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Do you see what he did there? Putin told him the number, 25 million, but Trump says he heard it was 50 million. And that`s because whenever Donald Trump hears a number, no matter what the number is or what it signifies or what it`s counting, he`s got to make it bigger.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We`ve created almost 500,000, soon it`s going to be 600,000 manufacturing jobs.
We used to have vets that would wait in line for seven days, 20 days, 30 days, I`ve heard up to 38 days.
Two days. Five days. 20 days. 30 days. 50 days.
To build a highway in this country would take 17, 18, 20 and even 21 years.
You could have lost 30, 40, 50 million people.
401(k)s are up 30, 40, in some cases much higher than that percent.
Well, they have 90, they have 92 and they have 93 percent.
They have massive tariffs on us, 50 in one case, 100 percent, in some cases more than that.
You know, Russia lost he said 25 million people. I had actually heard 50 million people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: John Bolton, Donald Trump`s notoriously hawkish national security adviser, was notably absent when the president stepped into North Korea this weekend. Bolton was instead dispatched to Mongolia where he tweeted a picture with the Mongolian secretary of state and claimed to be delighted with the assignment.
Bolton was not delighted with the New York Times report indicating the Trump White House is scaling back its demanding on denuclearization from North Korea. Bolton called the report a reprehensible attempt by someone to box in the president, adding darkly, there should be consequences.
You can understand him getting a bit prickly since he`s the guy who is running the National Security Council and yet somehow didn`t end up on the Korea leg of the trip.
But you know who was there, America`s newest diplomat, Ivanka Trump, who joined a meeting with North Korean despot Kim Jong-un and announced to the world that we are on the precipice of ushering in a potentially golden era for the Korean Peninsula. OK.
During the trip, Trump referred to the combination of his daughter and the Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as beauty and the beast.
As for Ivanka`s diplomating, we got to see her in action from a video posted by a French government where she tried to participate in a conversation in Japan involving the leaders of France, Britain and Canada and the head of the IMF, Christine Lagarde.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ...social justice.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: As soon as you start with that, (inaudible)...a lot of people start listening who wouldn`t otherwise listen.
IVANKA TRUMP, DONALD TRUMP`S DAUGHTER: And the same on the defense side, in terms of the whole sort of -- it`s been very male-dominated, so...
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: That video, and Ivanka`s presence in Korea in general, garnered plenty of criticism. Eric Swalwell noted she has no foreign policy or diplomacy experience. And Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wrote that being someone`s daughter actually isn`t a career qualification.
On Twitter under the hashtag #unwantedivanka, people PhotoShopped her into various scenes. There she is alongside Martin Luther King Jr., and taking the mic at the Yalta Conference next to Winston Churchill, and peering from the water during Rose and Jack`s last moments together.
The awkward Ivanka adventure was another reminder that you are not the only one who finds this situation strange. As Bobby Ghosh reported, a foreign diplomat telling him in 2017, quote, "we regard Ivanka Trump the way we do half-wit Saudi princes. It`s in our national interest to flatter them."
But this assault on our democratic norms is just what Donald Trump does. Next up, he`s coming for the Fourth of July, adding a military showcase and a Trump speech to the previously non-partisan celebration. Get ready for the Trump of July next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I was your guest at Bastille Day. And it was one of the greatest parades I have ever seen. It was two hours on the button, and it was military might. Because of what I witnessed, we may do something like that on July 4 in Washington down Pennsylvania Avenue.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Well, Donald Trump is getting his wish. Ever since he witnessed firsthand the French Bastille Day military parade two years ago, he has wanted one of his very own. He tried to order up one last year for the day before Veteran`s Day, but it was nixed by the Pentagon because of the cost and, well, concerns about tanks rolling down the streets of D.C. ripping up the urban pavement.
But now, Trump is converting the heretofore non-partisan public July 4 celebration in D.C. into a Trump rally/military showcase, complete with Trump speech, fighter jets flying overhead, and of course, brand-new tanks.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: It`s a salute to America, and I`m going to be here. I`m going to say a few words. And we are going to have planes going overhead, the best fighter jets in the world, and other planes, too. And we are going to have some tanks stationed outside. It`s going to be pretty careful with the tanks because the roads have a tendency not to like to carry heavy tanks, so we have to put them in certain areas. But we have the brand new Sherman tanks brand-new tanks and we have the brand-new Abram tanks.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Joining me now, a Washington Post senior national affairs correspondent Julian Eilperin, who has been covering Trump`s grandiose July 4 plans. Also with me, former White House cabinet secretary and assistant to the president, Chris Liu.
Julia, can you let me know where we are on all this? Like what is the latest. It seems like there is kind of negotiations between the White House and the fantasies of the president and the realities of what it would actually mean. So, where have we ended up so far?
JULIA EILPERIN, THE WASHINGTON POST: Really the negotiations are still going on which is interesting. There was an expectation that it was going to be resolved today, but really at the president who came -- being public about this after we`ve reported this morning that he wanted tanks and other armored vehicles on the Mall in kind of a stationary position around the Lincoln Memorial is indicating that this will go ahead, but our understanding is that people are still evaluating to what extent you can have these heavy pieces of equipment -- we`re talking about more than 60 tons for the Abrams tanks -- positioned on the National Mall without damaging what is obviously part of the National Park System.
So, while we certainly do expect that at this point there will be some of this equipment on the Mall for the Fourth of July, there is still a question of how you can do this safely without damaging park resources.
HAYES: Chris, I guess let me -- I guess here would be the devil`s advocate defense of this undertaking, like, you know, what`s so bad about a display of military might? You know, yes, we associate it with some dictatorships and un-free places, but there are free democracies like France, for instance, that have this sort of thing. And, you know, it`s a big patriotic holiday. What`s the problem with this?
CHRIS LIU, FORMER ASSISTANT TO PRESIDENT BARACK OB AMA: Well, look, there is certainly the cost aspect. There is the safety of the street aspect. But there is simply the precedent of this. I have lived in Washington, D.C. and this area for the last 45 years. I mean, this is one of those wonderful institutions we have in the city where people come out, they barbecue, they watch fireworks, they hear some music, no president has tried to meddle in this.
And if you`ll remember the last time we had any kind of dust up about July 4 was 1983 when then Secretary of the Interior James Watt didn`t like the Beach Boys and then got slapped down by Ronald Reagan. Since then, you know, this has been a uniquely nonpartisan event.
And a couple of things just to consider here, this is a president whose campaign still owes $7 million to D.C. from the inauguration that it hasn`t haven`t paid. This is also the National Park Service, as Julia pointed out, where this is going to be held, as $12 billion of deferred maintenance projects, that`s roads and bridges and buildings in national parks that need to be repaired, and instead that money is going to be going for this giant vanity project of Donald Trump.
HAYES: Well, and there is, also, Julia, I mean there`s concerns about the sort of partisanship, right. That -- I mean, yes, he is the president of the United States, so, you know, he gives speeches in that role, but there is new that is the RNC is distributing tickets to the July 4 Salute to America event, essentially a kind of like VIP seating for donors? What`s that about?
EILPERIN: Well, there certainly will be VIP seating. There will be a restricted area. Again, all of this is coming together at the last minute. The distribution system is unclear even to some top administration officials, so they are assembling this now, but is no question that the president will be delivering remarks that certainly supporters of the president will be getting tickets. They are saying they`re not charging for tickets, but obviously there is a question of who is receiving them, had they supported the president financially or are they supporting his reelection campaign? So, that will be happening.
And in addition, of course, now there will be protests on the National Mall during the Fourth of July celebration, which again in itself is unusual. You don`t usually have protests because generally people are in favor of fireworks, although obviously some people aren`t. And so as a result you are really going to have a political element one way or another regardless of, for example, what the president says, although, you know, that -- it could be a very innocuous celebratory speech about the nation or it could have more of a political tinge at this point. It`s hard to tell.
HAYES: I mean, Chris, you could have thousands of people screaming lock her up with the monuments behind them and fireworks going off.
LIU: I mean, Chris,s if the VIP tickets were going to people like Nancy Pelosi and Maxine Waters, then great. I suspect that`s not what`s happening here.
And let`s just consider this is a president from day one of his administration went to sacred ground and Langley and CIA headquarters and made a political speech. And every time he has a chance, whether it`s handing off the commander-in-chief trophy to a winning football team or speaking to American military, every time he can rise above it and be presidential, he turns it into a political speech. And so he can`t control himself. And there is no reason to expect that he would do that here.
HAYES: This is definitely going to happen, Julia?
EILPERIN: Yes. And it`s worth saying, you know, we are going to have the biggest fireworks display that Washington has ever had. So, there certainly will be a much more elaborate fireworks display. We`re going to have the Blue Angels flying, so there will be a flight show that we haven`t had in the past, so there is no question that this is going to be a really major celebration. And some people are going to love it and some people will not. And so we will just have to see how that transpires.
HAYES: We will see how it goes.
Julia Eilperin and Chris Liu, thank you both for being with me.
That is ALL IN for this evening. "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