ALI VELSHI, MSNBC ANCHOR: I`m Ali Velshi. Chris Matthews will be back tomorrow night. But for now, that`s it. "ALL IN" with Chris Hayes starts now.
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CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST: Tonight on ALL IN.
GEOFFREY BERMAN, U.S. ATTORNEY, SDNY: There`s been a lot of speculation in the media about individuals affiliated or associated with defendant Jeffrey Epstein --
HAYES: The man Trump once called a terrific guy back behind bars.
WILLIAM SWEENEY, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, FBI NEW YORK OFFICE: He`s alleged to have sexually exploited and abused dozens of minor girls at his homes in New York City and in Palm Beach Florida.
HAYES: Tonight, new charges against wealthy sex predator Jeffrey Epstein.
BERMAN: The alleged behavior shocks the conscience.
HAYES: And new calls for the resignation of Trump`s Labor Secretary who gave Epstein a plea deal in Florida.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: That seems like a long time ago but I know he`s been a fantastic labor secretary.
HAYES: Senator Tim Kaine joins me on that. And --
WILLIAM BARR, ATTORNEY GENERAL, UNITED STATES: It does provide a pathway for getting the question on the census.
HAYES: How the administration plans to ram a citizenship question back onto the Census.
TRUMP: We`re working on a lot of things including an executive order.
HAYES: Plus, new lies about the state of the migrant camps on the border.
TRUMP: I`ve seen some of those places and they are run beautifully.
HAYES: And how a tremendous victory for Team USA became a rallying cry against the president.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now, we need to win in 2020.
HAYES: When ALL IN starts right now.
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HAYES: Good evening from New York I`m Chris Hayes. A notorious convicted sex offender and friend of Donald Trump, a man whose escaped serious accountability for years seemingly thanks to it as enormous wealth and social connections is now behind bars. The news is sending shockwaves through the corridors of power as his many prominent associates are left to wonder what 66-year-old financier Jeffrey Epstein knows and what he might tell prosecutors.
Epstein is connected to some of the most powerful people in America in the world including Bill Clinton, Alan Dershowitz, Prince Andrew, and yes President Donald Trump about which more in a bit. He is also according to federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York a repeat abuser of young girls.
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BERMAN: Epstein is charged in a two-count indictment. First conspiracy to commit sex trafficking and second the substance crime of sex trafficking of underage girls. Beginning at least 2002 and continued until 2005, Epstein is alleged to have abused thousands of victims by causing them to engage in sex acts with him at his mansion in New York and at his estate in Palm Beach Florida.
The victims were all underage girls at the time alleged conduct, we`re given hundreds of dollars in cash after each encounter either by Epstein or by one of Epstein`s employees. The underage girls were initially recruited to provide Epstein with massages and often did so new or partially new these massages became increasingly sexual in nature and we typically include one or more sex acts as specified in the indictment.
As alleged, Epstein also paid certain victims to recruit additional girls to be similarly abused. This allowed Epstein to create an ever-expanding web of new victims. Misconduct as alleged went on for years and it involved dozens of young girls, some as young as 14 years old at the time that they were allegedly abused.
As alleged, Epstein was well aware that many of the victims were minors and not surprisingly many of the underage girls that Epstein allegedly victimized were particularly vulnerable to exploitation. The alleged behavior shocks the conscience.
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HAYES: Epstein now faces up to 45 years in prison. He pled not guilty today in federal court. Prosecutors are seeking to hold him without bail citing his financial -- enormous financial resources and potential to flee prosecution. A bail hearing is set for Monday.
Prosecutors told the court today that additional alleged victims had contacted them since Epstein`s arrest and they along with the FBI encouraged any others to come forward.
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SWEENEY: The number to call is 1-800-call FBI. I`d like to take a moment to speak directly to the victims who will call that number. When you call that number, you receive a series of props. You`ll be asked if this representing a major case in the country. The answer is yes. It`s number four. You will then be driven to the top of the list and the Jeffrey Epstein matter is number one on the major case listed in the country when you call that 1-800-call FBI number.
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HAYES: Epstein was arrested over the weekend by the FBI NYPD Crimes Against Children task force when he arrived in New Jersey at a private airport on his private jet from Paris where he owns a home. Among his other properties is a lavish $56 million mansion on the upper east side of New York City which is one of the largest private homes in all of Manhattan and which prosecutors say they want to seize.
Investigators entered that mansion where they say Epstein abused girls in conjunction with his arrest. They reported finding what they described as a "vast trove of lewd photographs of young-looking women or girls, including some who appeared underage."
"Some of the photographs referenced herein were discovered in a locked safe in which law-enforcement officers also found compact discs with handwritten labels including the following young, name, and name, miscellaneous news one, and girl pics nude."
Back in 2005, the parents of a 14-year-old girl went to the authorities telling police in Florida that Epstein have molested their daughter. Police then eventually identified three dozen potential victims and prosecutors crafted a 53-page indictment.
But under then US Attorney Alex Acosta who is now Donald Trump`s Secretary of Labor, prosecutors struck a non-prosecution deal with Epstein`s lawyer that allowed him to completely avoid any federal charges.
Epstein potentially faced life in prison but instead, he pled guilty to state charges of soliciting a minor for prostitution and only served 13 months. It worked release privileges six days a week with a private driver to transport him and the deal which came back into the spotlight early this year thanks to some dogged reporting from the Miami Herald was viewed by many as almost unfathomable.
One human rights attorney telling the Herald it`s just outrageous how he minimized his crimes and devalued his victims by calling them prostitutes. At his confirmation hearing to be Labor Secretary, Acosta defended that deal as the most they could get based on the evidence they had. But earlier this year, a judge ruled the prosecutors flat-out broke the law where they concealed the agreement from more than 30 alleged victims.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, do you have any concerns about the Labor Secretary`s handling of Jeffrey Epstein`s case?
TRUMP: I really don`t know too much about it. I know he`s done a great job as labor secretary and that seems like a long time ago, but I know he`s been a fantastic labor secretary. That`s all I can really tell you about. That`s all I know about it.
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HAYES: Certainly not Donald Trump knows about Jeffrey Epstein. The two men are long-time friends. You can see them hanging out there. Back in 2002, Trump told New York Magazine and I`m quoting here and I`ve read this quote about 100 times today.
"I`ve known Jeff for 15 years, terrific guy, he`s a lot of fun to be with. It has even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it, Jeffery enjoys a social life."
Miami Herald Reporter Julie Brown further characterized the relationship between the two men on MSNBC this weekend.
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JULIE BROWN REPORTER, MIAMI HERALD: They went to dinner parties at each other`s house. Trump was also on his plane probably not as much as you know, a lot of other people because you know, Trump had his own plane. But they were -- they had -- they had a lot of social relationships with the other.
And then the other interesting is you know, Trump had a modeling agency an Epstein also had a stake in a modeling agency which they suspect he used to bring in underage girls from overseas. And you know, there is a comment in one of the court files where Epstein is quoted as saying I want to set up my modeling agency the same way Trump set up his modeling agency.
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HAYES: Joining me now Carol Lam former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of California and Mindy Marquez Gonzalez was a Publisher and Executive Editor of the Miami Herald. Mindy, let me start with you.
This was a story that got a fair a lot of amount of ink at the time and then it kind of settled and Jeffrey Epstein sort of returned to polite society and hobnob with all the people he was hobnobbing with. And then your paper has undertaken an incredible investigation over the past year that seems to be related to this point.
What did -- what did your reporters discover and how does it relate to what happened in the last 48 hours?
MINDY MARQUEZ GONZALEZ, PUBLISHER AND EXECUTIVE EDITOR, MIAMI HERALD: Thank you. You know, first of all, I think it has everything to -- it has a lot to do with the work that Julie Brown has done over the past year. It started quite frankly as she got interested in human trafficking after doing a story about the Florida prison system particularly women`s -- the women`s prison system.
As she started to do some background checking on human trafficking, Jeffrey Epstein`s name kept coming up. And then Alexander Acosta was nominated to be in the Trump`s cabinet and quite frankly when Julie saw the kid-glove treatment that he got during that process, we decided that you know, she needed to take a closer look at that case.
HAYES: You were a U.S. attorney. There are non-prosecution agreements that happen that come and go. This one has gotten a lot of criticism. Fair?
CAROL LAM, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY: Absolutely fair. Fair, that it`s gotten a lot of criticism and fair that it should have gotten a lot of criticism.
HAYES: Why?
LAM: Because when a non-prosecution agreement is entered, it`s because alternative remedies are viewed to be sufficient it`s because you know, in the case of a monetary crime, sufficient money has been paid. In the case of deferring to another authority to take action, that`s an authority that`s really getting sufficient justice.
What everybody feels in this case, Chris, is that sufficient justice was not obtained back when the -- when the Florida State charges were entered into.
HAYES: And there`s also the fact that you have many -- the -- many victims themselves coming forward in a lawsuit right, is part of the timing here, basically saying that they were -- that their rights were violated by the agreement itself and by subsequent actions.
GONZALEZ: The victims really are the heroes and they`re -- I mean of this whole case. They`re -- it`s their day. What Julia uncovered in her reporting was really potentially up to 80 victims of Jeffrey Epstein and she was able to track that down through dog of reporting following breadcrumbs and eventually getting four to talk on the record to us.
And you know, who knows what has transpired in the ten years where basically after this sweetheart deal took place and now.
HAYES: The memo that`s described in the four on the record conversations that happened, Julie Brown and folks can look at that at the Miami Herald fit squarely with the pattern that is established here. What does it say to you the DOJ is now doing -- taking another run at this?
LAM: Well, what`s happened here is DOJ and all the attention that this case has gotten in the past few years and credit definitely goes to the press, credit goes to the victims, credit goes to the victim`s lawyers for keeping this alive.
I think when Judge Mara came down with that decision in February and said the Miami U.S. Attorney`s Office violated the law and did not give the victims the sufficient notice that they are required by law to give them about this non-prosecution agreement, I think that really sort of blew the doors open at DOJ in terms of some other part of the Department of Justice, in this case, it was the Southern District of New York because of the locale of Jeffrey Epstein`s home and where these activities seems to have taken place.
That said, we really have to take a closer look at what happened with this non-prosecution agreement.
HAYES: Mindy, there`s lots of talk about the very sort of who`s who list of associates of Jeffrey Epstein. Bill Clinton has a statement out today saying that he was only on a limited number of trips that had to do with the international fundraising. Alan Dershowitz who has been locked in a court battle over accusations that have been leveled at him and he has helped advise Jeffrey Epstein.
And of course, the president of the United States whose quote I read to you before, it does seem to me that likely we`re going to hear more about that. What do you think?
GONZALEZ: I think we`re all waiting to say that so many -- these victims were just abandoned by so many layers of institutions and people and we really are waiting to see what -- who else was involved, who else was complicit, who else facilitated this, and who else needs to be held accountable.
HAYES: That is the question that`s sort of hanging over these entire proceedings today. Mindy Marquez Gonzalez and Carol Lam, thank you both. And joining me now for more on Acosta`s connection to all this, Senator Tim Kaine Democrat of Virginia.
Senator, what`s your reaction to the story today about Jeffrey Epstein?
SEN. TIM KAINE (D-VA): Well, I am glad that it looks like Epstein might finally get justice for his victimization of so many young girls because the sweetheart deal that Secretary Acosta cut for him when he was U.S. Attorney in Miami really allowed him to evade justice.
So it looks like somebody`s finally taken this case seriously. I am on the committee that interviewed at the hearing Secretary Acosta for his position. His answers about this deal did not add up then. I voted against him for that reason.
And subsequent events both the federal court ruling in Miami in February and the indictment today show that Epstein is a predator and Acosta cut a secret, illegal, sweetheart, outrageous deal he shouldn`t hold the job that he currently holds. He needs to go as Secretary of Labor.
HAYES: I want to play just the exchange you had with him about the case. You asked him about it when he was nominated for the position. Take a listen to that exchange.
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KAINE: You are aware that Mr. Epstein served at 13 months, he was allowed out during the day and he had to sleep at a County Jail but he was basically allowed to move and go around the community and do whatever he wants and then that became a subject of significant criticism.
ALEX ACOSTA, SECRETARY OF LABOR, UNITED STATES: And I am on record condemning that and I think that was awful.
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HAYES: Is it your understanding that he was somehow duped in this? Like what is your understanding of the role that Secretary Acosta played in this actual deal and do you feel like you know the full story of it?
KAINE: Well, I`m not sure I know the full story, Chris, but it was clear to me at the time he was trying to downplay his responsibility for this deal and it just didn`t add up. He was the U.S. Attorney who was the key guy behind the non-prosecution agreement that led Epstein off in such an egregious way.
And you know, the thing about this case that is so outrageous -- I mean, first it was illegal to not tell the victims about the deal. The federal court in Miami subsequently has found -- they took affirmative steps to hide the deal from the victims. It was outrageously light in terms of a sentence.
But the thing that makes me the maddest is Acosta allowed Epstein to plead guilty to prostitution, state prostitution charges. These were not prostitutes. They were teenage sex trafficking victims that Epstein`s sex trafficked, may be assaulted, possibly raped, and yet what Acosta did was revitalized these youngsters by allowing a prostitution charge to suggest that they were prostitutes. It`s outrageous.
Now, you got to note, Acosta is currently the Secretary of Labor who has enforcement responsibilities. In his past activities, he showed he would side with the powerful and throw the vulnerable under the bus. That`s the last kind of person that you need as an enforcer of the labor laws of this country.
HAYES: You know, it seems to me after that federal judge ruled the plea deal is functionally illegal right. I mean, basically, we had a non- prosecution agreement. I think there`s a Department of Justice investigation but it does seem to me and I`d like to hear your thoughts on this, there`s a lot more that needs to be filled in.
Like I don`t -- I don`t think I understand exactly blow-by-blow how this deal came to be and Mr. Acosta is responsibility for it.
KAINE: Well, and I think there are more -- there`s more there. One thing we do know is that some of Secretary Acosta`s prosecutors in his office prepared a massive federal indictment, a 50-plus page indictment in Miami against Mr. Epstein and they had that there and for some reason the decision-makers in the office just shelved that and went with this state law charge.
What does that matter? Well, when they -- when he agreed to plead guilty to these state charges, they filed the plea in a -- in a County Court where the victims wouldn`t know to look for it. And then he got this cushy sentence in a County Jail where he`s out during the day going back to work.
So there was just -- there are more facts to get at but what I think is now undeniable is that the deal was illegal, it was kept hidden from these victims, it was outrageously light, and Secretary Acosta re-victimized these young ladies by allowing it to be a prostitution charge which is so insulting to label these teenage kids.
These -- some of these kids were middle schoolers, Chris. To label these kids who were trafficked by Epstein as prostitutes, what an outrage.
HAYES: Finally, do you anticipate -- I mean, this is something he had to lightly address in his confirmation hearings. He was confirmed 52 Republicans and eight Democrats voting for him. You were not among them. Do you anticipate this is something that he is going to have to account for in some public setting whether before the House or the Senate in the near future?
KAINE: There is no way that Secretary Acosta could ever come before either the House or the Senate without having to answer more questions about this. At the hearing in question, I might have been -- I think it was just Senators Murray and I that asked him about this.
We were deeply troubled by it as were most of the Democrats. But there is no way he can come back before this body, Congress, without having to ask answer a lot more tough questions about this.
HAYES: All right, Senator Tim Kaine, thank you for your time.
KAINE: Absolutely.
HAYES: Next, we are not done because there`s yet another investigation into the man in charge of President Trump`s inauguration. A federal grand jury is looking into disgraced former RNC Deputy Finance Chair Elliott Broidy in two minutes.
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HAYES: Jeffrey Epstein is not the only person connected to President Trump under federal law enforcement scrutiny today. Remember this guy? His name is Elliott Broidy. He is the big RNC fundraiser who like Donald Trump also reportedly had an affair of the Playboy model to cover it up. He also reportedly used the President`s longtime fixer Michael Cohen to arrange a hush-money payment to said Playboy model.
And according to a lawsuit filed against him, he reportedly coerced that woman into having an abortion after getting her pregnant. You know, RNC dude. That guy Elliott Broidy was also once the deputy finance chair of the Republican National Committee.
Now his co-deputy finance chair was the one and only Michael Cohen who arranged the hush money payment and now sits in federal prison. And both of them reported to then RNC Finance Chair Steve Wynn, the now-disgraced casino magnate accused of sexual assault and sexual harassment who was forced to leave the RNC because of those lurid misconduct allegations but that has not stopped him from continuing to donate tons of money to the RNC.
Well, Elliott Broidy now appears to be the subject of another investigation in relation to his role as the vice-chair of President Trump`s inaugural committee. Associated Press exclusive reporting that the federal grand jury in New York is looking into whether he used his position as vice-chair of the president`s inaugural committee to drum up foreign business deals which is illegal. I should note that Elliott Broidy denies the allegations.
Joining me now, Erin Banco, National Security Reporter for the Daily Beast. She`s been reporting on the ongoing federal scrutiny of Mr. Broidy. Erin, what do we know about the latest case broken by the A.P. out of Brooklyn`s U.S. Attorney`s Office?
ERIN BANCO, NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER, DAILY BEAST: Yes. So it`s a really interesting story out today. The Daily Beast has been looking into Mr. Broidy for quite some time now. And what we learned today from The Associated Press, according to that news outlet, that a grand jury is investigating Elliott Broidy.
Now, we don`t know a lot about exactly what they`re investigating, only that according to the A.P. they`re looking into whether or not he used his position on the inaugural committee to benefit himself financially.
HAYES: And there`s -- looking at the huge amounts of contracts that he was able to score right, with foreign countries?
BANCO: That`s exactly right. But I think the bigger question here is the scope of this grand jury. We don`t know much about when this grand jury formed, who`s involved in it. We`ve talked to sources today who say that the scope of this grand jury is actually larger than Elliott Broidy himself, that it`s more sweeping, that it might include other individuals who have been involved in the inaugural committee.
And he -- I think the big question now is whether or not this grand jury is looking at Elliott exclusively or whether or not they`re looking at other individuals in the inaugural committee. Now we also know that DOJ in D.C. has been interviewing individuals connected to Elliott Broidy`s businesses.
We reported exclusively a few months ago in The Daily Beast that at least one of his business associates had been interviewed in D.C. and that appears to be a different unit than with the unit in New York. But there does seem to be some level of coordination between DOJ in D.C. and DOJ in New York.
So I think there`s still a lot of unknowns here, and actually, the scope of this could be quite larger.
HAYES: That`s -- so that -- we just showed that article that you published, the story you brought back in April. That`s the FBI in D.C. interviewing a business partner with Elliott Broidy. We`ve got now a Brooklyn U.S. Attorney`s Office and then we know that SDNY which has been confirmed I think by multiple outlets is running their own inaugural committee investigation, correct?
BANCO: There seems to be two inaugural committee investigations and I think some of the details haven`t really been worked out. There seems to be one in EDNY and there seems to be one in SDNY in the Southern District of New York.
Now it`s a little unclear exactly how the two jurisdictions have broken up the components of the inaugural committee probe. However, we do know that there have been individuals questioned -- individuals connected to this committee questioned by both jurisdictions and also in D.C.
HAYES: So what role did Broidy play? How close was he did the President and the President`s allies and associates?
BANCO: I think there were a lot of people at the time that claimed to be very close to the President or to have a foot in the door. Obviously, Mr. Broidy was connected to the inaugural committee and to the financing of that committee in a big way. I think there were several other individuals who were also involved in the financing and the financials of this committee.
But I think that Mr. Broidy played a big part in this sort of world, Trump land at the time because he was connected to a lot of other individuals who were sort of more deeply connected to President Trump. You know, obviously, Michael Cohen was also involved sort of laterally from him, Steve Wynn who you mentioned earlier. So I think it`s hard to gauge exactly how much foothold he had with Trump himself but he was definitely in the Trump orbit.
HAYES: We were going to be following this case very closely. It seems like there`s a lot piled up on the man`s plate legally. Erin Banco, thanks so much. Coming up, the White House revamp its efforts to rig this census and the President himself can`t keep the cover story straight again. What we`re learning about the administration`s constant lies on this topic after this.
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HAYES: It is now July 8, just over a week after the hard deadline for printing the United States 2020 census form. Now, I didn`t come up with that deadline, that deadline is the one that the Trump department -- Trump Department of Justice said could not be blown through, could not be violated, and they said that to numerous courts in numerous court filings in statements before judges.
Now they are trying to come up with a way to blow through it.
Last week, you`ll recall, the Supreme Court ruled against the Trump administration, finding that they had been effectively lying about their own motives in adding a citizenship question to the census. The clear reason to add that question would be to spook respondents, to reduce responses in immigrant communities, which would massively shift congressional representation, electoral college votes, billions of dollars in federal revenue and state legislative power, all away from areas with large immigrant communities, areas and states that just happen to be most often represented by Democrats.
But after being caught in a lie that even Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts wouldn`t swallow, it seemed like the Trump administration was declaring defeat. The administration agreed they would print a census without the controversial citizenship question. That is until the president threw a tantrum on Twitter, which led to an absolutely insane status conference in which a career lawyer with the DOJ told a federal judge that, and I quote him here, "I am doing my absolute best to figure out what`s going on."
As of today, we still basically have no idea what`s going on except -- except today Attorney General William Barr said he thinks they may have found a path forward to get that question on the census.
What we do know is that quite tellingly and really ominously the legal team at DOJ that has been representing this case has been completely replaced with a brand-new team. Many observers think that is because the new case will require directly contradicting what the old case, the old team already stated.
Having lost multiple times for lying to the court, it now sure looks like they`re about to take another run at it by lying to the court.
I want to bring in Vanita Gupta, former head of the Justice Department civil rights division, now president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.
Let`s start with just the matter of the deadline, Vanita. I mean, you can cite chapter and verse, as plaintiffs have, of the times the solicitor general of the United States, the Department of Justice lawyers, have signed documents saying June 30 is the hard deadline. We can`t go past it. And now what are we going to do?
VANITA GUPTA, PRESIDENT AND CEO LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE ON CIVIL AND HUMAN RIGHTS: Well, I mean, this is the thing, you can`t make this stuff up. I mean, they have repeatedly made representations to the court that June 30th was the deadline, so much so that they convinced the Supreme Court under that representation to do something pretty extraordinary, which is to bypass the court of appeals and to just take the case directly from the district court in order to meet this June 30th deadline.
And so now, after the president throws this tantrum and DOJ is suddenly scrambling to reverse course, what are they going to say? Are they going to say that they lied about the June 30th deadline? Are they going to say that somehow magically they found the extraordinary set of resources that it will take to correct forms that are, by the way, being printed as we speak.
HAYES: Yes.
GUPTA: They were started to be printed as of July 1st last week.
And so, you know, it boggles the mind. But, I mean, also let`s get to what you were talking about, which is they`re going to have to come up with now an entirely new rationale to pass constitutional muster and pass federal law. And for the last 18 months they have been unsuccessfully telling three federal courts and the United States Supreme Court about a different lie, which is that all of this was needed to enforce the Voting Rights Act.
So I just -- I don`t see how they don`t meet a dead end whichever way they turn. But they sure are trying. And they`re doing it apparently with the attorney general`s imprimatur, which is a real disappointment, I think, for the career men and women who try to serve with integrity in the Justice Department.
HAYES: Let me ask you about that. Noelle Francisco (ph) is a solicitor general of the United States, who, if he happens to be watching, should know that his reputation is on the line here. I mean, he is the person that, you know, asserted to the court -- his name is on these court filings saying the Census Bureau must finalize the census forms by the end of June 2019 to print them on time for the 2020 decennial census, that`s you Noelle Francisco (ph), that`s your name, that`s your integrity before the nation and before the court certifying that.
Like, are you going to let Donald Trump march you back into that court -- the Supreme Court and be like I lied to all of you?
GUPTA: I mean, you know, even the reversal in the last week is really quite shocking when you -- when you think about it. And Noelle Fransicsco (ph) he is a repeat player in the United States Supreme Court. This isn`t just about their integrity vis-a-vis the census/citizenship question, this whole endeavor in the events of the last obviously several months, but certainly in the last week, I think go to the core of the integrity of the Justice Department and the willingness of this administration to flaunt the law, and an attorney general who is basically just acting at Trump`s beckoning, ignoring that we have a Supreme Court decision that has said what they had been doing was unlawful. And the attorney general doesn`t get the flaunt the law. This was not an advisory opinion.
And so , you know, now they`re scrambling to find an entirely new rationale so they can wipe the slate clean but they can`t.
HAYES: Well, that`s the question. Quickly on this, you know, there is this idea that the executive order -- that there is the un-ring the bell problem, right? Which is like we need to "Men in Black" your memory and everyone in the Supreme Court and everyone in the public who knows this was pretextual, who knows they were lying, and now woof, that never happened. Now here is an executive order.
Like, can they do that?
GUPTA; Look, last I checked, we still had separation of powers in this country. And the president doesn`t get to override the Supreme Court through an executive order. The census is in the power of congress, Article I of the constitution says that the congress has control over the census. It`s a power that`s delegated to the executive branch, but there are huge constraints on it, including, you know, black and white letter federal law that Justice Roberts relied on in issuing the majority opinion of the Supreme Court.
You know, they will try. I think they will meet a dead end, whichever way they go. But meanwhile there is a really important thing at stake where health care, hospitals, policing, political representation are all at stake with this very serious democratic institution.
HAYES: All right. Vanita Gupta, thank you for joining us.
Ahead, the big political problem looming for the Trump White House in 2020. How they`re trying to dodge it today.
Plus, tonight`s Thing One, Thing Two starts next.
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HAYES: Thing One tonight, we know that Donald Trump likes to watch a lot of TV, especially cable news. People close to the president told The New York Times he spends at least four hours a day, sometimes as much as twice that, in front of a television, and even on a just glorious holiday weekend, the president apparently found the time to watch his favorite network, Trump TV.
But whatever he saw yesterday did not sit well. The president took to Twitter to unleash a torrent of displeasure, criticizing the weekend team and calling the anchors terrible. It`s unclear exactly what triggered that outburst. It could have been any number of things.
(BEIGN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Guess what? History has just been made. We are here in a sports...
CROWD: (EXPLETIVE DELETED) Trump. (EXPLETIVE DELETED) Trump.
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HAYES: That`s Thing Two in 60 seconds.
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HAYES: The U.S. women`s soccer team are World Cup champions once again, taking the trophy for the second time in a row after crushing the Netherlands 2-0 yesterday.
The dominating team capturing hearts all across the country, but maybe not the one in the Oval Office.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you excited about going to the White House?
MEGAN RAPINOE, U.S. SOCCER PLAYER: I`m not going to the (EXPLETIVE DELETED) White House. No, I`m not going to the White House. We`re not going to be invited.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You`re not going to be invited?
RAPINOE: I doubt it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: The president responded to those comments last month from team captain Megan Rapinoe, tweeting that "Megan should win first before she talks," but insisting he`d be "inviting the team to the White House win or lose."
Well, now the Megan has won. And the president is backtracking.
(BEIGN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Will you invite the women`s team to the White House, the soccer team?
TRUMP: We haven`t really thought about it. We will look at that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Well, at least the women`s team knows that the fans have got their backs.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are here in a sports bar in Lyon, France.
CROWD: (EXPLETIVE DELETED) Trump. (EXPLETIVE DELETED) Trump.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Listen to what...
CROWD: (EXPLETIVE DELETED) Trump.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So did you have any doubt they were going to lose?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. None. None whatsoever. Now we need to win in 2020.
CROWD: Democrats! Democrats!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: USA Democrats!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get that racist out of the White House.
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HAYES: We have yet more reporting this weekend on the human rights disaster that is the Customs and Border Protection immigration detention facilities.
New York Times, in partnership with the El Paso Times, reporting on the horrific conditions inside one detention center in Clint, Texas, quote, "outbreaks of scabies, shingles and chickenpox were spreading among hundreds of children who were being held in cramped cells, agents said. The stench of the children`s dirty clothing was so strong it spread to agents own clothing -- people in town would scrunch their noses when they left work."
At this point, we have accounts from reporters and lawyers who have actually witnessed the conditions inside the facilities, along with members of congress and doctors who have also been inside and the department`s own inspector general. All of those people have been consistent on the major details of just how terrible the conditions are.
But, of course, when faced with an uncomfortable and damning truth, we know what the Trump administration does, they lie and deny. They did so this week -- they did this for weeks to the public and before congress under oath about their child separation policy, which was so monstrous they could marshal no defense other than to deny it was happening or wrongly say it had been the policy of the Obama administration.
Now now they`re doing it once again with the indefensible conditions in the Trump migrant detention camps.
The acting head of the Department of Homeland Security was sent out this weekend to do what the former head of homeland security, Kirstjen Nielsen, had done before him: gaslight the public and deny reality.
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MARTHA RADDATZ, ABC NEWS ANCHOR: Why did you call these allegations unsubstantiated?
KEVIN MCALEENAN, ACTING DHS SECRETARY: Because there is adequate food and water, because the facility is cleaned every day, because I know what our standards are and I know they`re being followed because we have tremendous levels of oversight.
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HAYES: The IG said the standards weren`t being followed, that`s the oversight you`re referring to. And we should note that adequate food and water isn`t exactly a denial of the reporting we`ve been hearing.
But if there is any silver lining here, and it can be hard to find given the sheer awfulness, it`s that the Trump administration understands that they cannot actually defend what they`re doing.
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TRUMP: We have among the cleanest and sharpest -- crystal clean, you`ve heard me say it -- I want crystal clean -- air and water anywhere on earth.
You know, we have the cleanest air in the world in the United States, and it has got better since I`m president. We have the cleanest water. It`s crystal clean.
MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: America has the cleanest air and water in the world. We continue to use...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That`s not true. We don`t have the cleanest air and water in the world.
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HAYES: Have you noticed this weird thing that Trump and members of the administration do whenever they are confronted with their abysmal climate policy that is actively making the world hotter and more dangerous, they are pivot very hard to a very demonstrable lie that under their tenure, the air and water in this country is the cleanest, in fact the sharpest.
First of all, it`s not true, and second of all it`s kind of a non sequitur.
And today, they were at it again against a backdrop of truly biblical flooding in Washington, D.C. The president gathered up some cabinet secretaries and tried to tout his administration`s environmental record.
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TRUMP: We want the cleanest air. We want crystal clean water. And that`s what we are doing, and that`s what we are working on so hard.
RICK PERRY, ENERGY SECRETARY: I think the world needs to look at your leadership, look at what you`ve done.
ANDREW WHEELER, EPA ADMINISTRATOR: Today we have the cleanest air on record. and we are a global leader for access to clean drinking water.
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HAYES: Of all this clean air and water talk and performative environmental concern is arousing your suspicions that it`s just an attempt by the Trump administration to shore up what is a genuine political liability, you are correct.
The New York Times reporting the idea for today`s speech, quote, "started with consultants on his reelection campaign who have discovered that his environmental record is a definite turnoff for two key demographics -- millennial and suburban women," which is to say the public is actually on to the Trump administration. People do care about the climate crisis. And they know the Trump administration doesn`t.
And so unremarkably the Trump White House understands that it`s a political problem as we head into 2020.
But if only the public knew just how bad the record really is. Here to talk about the administration`s actual record on the environment as opposed to their record Emily Atkin, staff writer at The New Republic who reports on science and environmental politics, and Tyson Slocum, the energy program director at the advocacy group Public Citizen.
Emily, let me start with you, because you`ve written about Andrew Wheeler, who is the man who replace the almost comically corrupt Scott Pruitt, who made for excellent copy because he was such a ridiculous figure, and he had his security detail drive him around to different hotels whose soaps and lotions he liked. What is Wheeler`s actual record at EPA been?
EMILY ATKIN, THE NEW REPUBLIC: I mean, for Andrew Wheeler and Trump to say that they are leaders in protecting the environment it`s sort of like the cookie monster saying that he is the leader in vegetables. It`s like, you know, you know they`ll say they are, but they`re not. And Wheeler and Trump will say that they are protecting the environment, but they`re not.
Under Andrew Wheeler and Trump I believe it`s 83 regulations that are in the process of being rolled back, 49 of which have been completed. Those are all environment-climate-related. They span the gamut of drinking water, air protections, chemical protections.
And Andrew Wheeler himself is a coal lobbyist. That was one of the other funny things about today`s speech was that Trump brought up his secretary of the Department of the Interior, David Bernhardt, who is a former oil lobbyist, and he brought up Andrew Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist. These are the two people who are involved of repealing and creating new regulations that are supposed to protect our environment, when in reality what they are putting in are new regulations that are exactly what these industries want, that send -- that sort of allow them to operate in the most polluting way possible while still under the guise that they are being regulated.
HAYES: Tyson, as Emily refers to it, you know, the regulatory state, the modern regulatory state, has a fair amount of power when it comes to things like clean water and clean air and regulating chemicals. There`s -- on the question of climate, how much power does the executive have? And how has this administration used or not used that power?
TYSON SLOCUM, DIRECTOR, ENERGY P ROGRAM, PUBLIC CITIZEN: The administration has enormous unilateral power. Remember it was the Obama administration that unilaterally negotiated the Paris Climate Accord and got the rest of the world in line for a climate agreement that then Trump unilaterally dismantled.
And you have to remember that one of the individuals that pushed hard to dismantle the climate agreement was Bob Murray who was absent from today`s event, but Bob Murray, the coal magnate who runs Murray Energy, which is the largest privately held coal company, which used to hire Andrew Wheeler to set up meetings for Bob Murray when he was meeting with President Trump, Murray Energy delivered this 16-point action plan of which repealing and getting out of the Paris Climate Accord was the number one priority.
And you have to remember that the Paris Climate Accord, Obama made a ton of concessions on that. He conceded to Republicans that it wouldn`t be binding, that developing countries, along with developed countries, would be on it, and also that it would have fairly modest climate reduction goals.
But the radicalness and the absurdness of the Trump administration is even dismantling something like the Paris Climate Accord.
HAYES: Emily, having covered the Trump administration, do you agree the -- I am struck that he made the speech at all, and I am struck that they have consultants telling them this is actually a political liability for the president.
ATKIN: I think that the rhetoric that he used actually could work with a lot of Americans, and that`s why I think they did it. Having covered Trump, in general, and Republicans and climate change, their rhetoric has shifted a lot in the last just five years. I mean, you remember five years ago it was there is no climate change. It`s a hoax. And then it was, well, there is climate change, but it`s natural-caused, humans didn`t cause it.
Now Republicans and Trump, they are confronted with the fact that the majority of the public realizes there is a climate crisis and kind of wants them to do something about it. So, almost the genius of this speech was that Trump took that and he was like -- he didn`t even say this, but the administration does as a whole, they say, OK, there is a climate crisis, and humans might be responsible, but American humans are doing a really good job confronting it, you know.
He said at one point - - Trump didn`t say the words climate change in his speech once, but he did actually say -- he referenced carbon emissions. He said the U.S. has declined its emissions., They have been down since 2000. It`s strategic because we had -- our carbon emissions were awful in 2000, so obviously they have declined.
But he`s sort of saying -- the message that he and the administration are saying that we`re doing great. This climate crisis thing, that`s up to the more polluting countries.
HAYES: Is it progress, Tyson, at some levels for them to have to deal with it, for them even to make the point, as fallacious as it is, about carbon emissions?
ATKIN: Absolutely not.
SLOCUM: I think it shows how incredibly important clean air, clean water and addressing climate change are to a large majority of American voters, which is why it is so distressing that this administration is doing so much aggressive lasting damage on these critically important areas, and placing former corporate lobbyists for the fossil fuel industry in charge of the regulatory apparatus. It has to end.
HAYES: I think he has handed the Democratic nominee an enormous weapon in 2020. We will say if they use it. Emily Atkin and Tyson Slocum, thank you both.
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