The Rachel Maddow Show, Transcript 04/03/14

RACHEL MADDOW, HOST, MSNBC: Good evening, Joy. Thank you, man. It`s great to see you there. Great to see you. JOY BEHAR: Thank you. MADDOW: And thanks to you at home for staying with us for the next hour. In 2004, the Academy Award for best documentary went to a film called "The Fog of War." (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ROBERT MCNAMARA, "THE FOG OF WAR": Was there a rule that said you shouldn`t bomb, shouldn`t kill, shouldn`t burn to death 100,000 civilians in a night? La May (ph) said if we lost the war, we`d all have been prosecuted as war criminals. And I think he`s right. He, and I`d say I, were behaving as war criminals. (END VIDEO CLIP) MADDOW: Robert McNamara who served as defense secretary during the Vietnam war and before that, served in the Air Force during World War II. In "The Fog of War," Robert McNamara reflects at length on war and morality and his own complicity as a human being and as a U.S. policy maker, and the film is both moving and, in a way, cathartic. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MCNAMARA: We all make mistakes. We know we make mistakes. I don`t know any military commander who is honest who would say he has not made a mistake. There`s a wonderful phrase, the fog of war. What the fog of war means is war is so complex, it`s beyond the ability of the human mind to comprehend all the variables. Our judgment, our understanding, are not adequate. And we kill people unnecessarily. (END VIDEO CLIP) It`s from "The Fog of War." The man who made that Oscar winning film, Errol Morris now has a new film out called "The Unknown Known," in which he subjects Donald Rumsfeld to the same kind of scrutiny as Robert McNamara from "The Fog of War," but in this film, Donald Rumsfeld has no similar interests in scrutinizing himself. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Osama gets away and a confusion sets in. People began to think that Saddam was connected with al Qaeda and with 9/11. DONALD RUMSFELD, FORMER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: Oh, I don`t think so. It was very clear that the direct planning for 9/11 was done by Osama bin Laden`s people, al Qaeda, and in Afghanistan. I don`t think the American people were confused about that. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In 2003, in a "Washington Post" poll, 69 percent said they believe it is likely the Iraqi leader was personally involved in the attacks carried out by al Qaeda. RUMSFELD: I don`t remember anyone in the Bush administration saying anything like that. Nor do I recall anyone believing that. UNIDENTIFED MALE: Mr. Secretary, today in a broadcast interview, Saddam Hussein said there is only one truth: Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction whatsoever. And he went on to say, I would like to tell you directly we have no relationship with al Qaeda. RUMSEFELD: And Abraham Lincoln was short. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Would you care to respond directly to what Saddam Hussein has said today? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How does one respond to that? It`s just a continuous pattern. This is a case of the local liar coming up again and people repeating what he said and forgetting to say that he never, almost never, rarely tells the truth. (END VIDEOTAPE) MADDOW: Donald Rumsfeld, former defense secretary as seen in the new Errol Morris film, "The Unknown Known." And you know, it is amazing that Donald Rumsfeld is denying not only that people believe there was a connection between Iraq and al Qaeda, but denying that he had any role in propagating that idea. I mean, Errol Morris debunks it right there in that minute and a half long clip. But proof of this is everywhere. Look, this is Donald Rumsfeld in 2002. Quote, "We do have solid evidence of the presence in Iraq of al Qaeda members. We have what we consider to be very reliable reporting of senior level contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda going back a decade." This is the transcript of Donald Rumsfeld speaking to the metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, bragging (ph) about how the evidence linking al Qaeda and Iraq, linking 9/11 and Iraq was, in his words, quote, "bulletproof." But now Donald Rumsfeld totally denies that he ever believed there was a connection between the two or that had any role in making other people believe that connection as well. NBC`s Michael Isikoff just today shared with us a new document that`s never been publicly released before, showing that when Donald Rumsfeld was told that the 9/11 hijacker had not actually met with Iraqi officials like the Bush administration had been publicly claiming he had, Donald Rumsfeld pushed back on that and asked how it was possible to know that Mohamed Atta hadn`t met with the Iraqis. He asked, "Couldn`t Mohamed Atta had been wearing a blond wig or something when he had the meeting? How could we know he didn`t do it?" But it is amazing to have Donald Rumsfeld on film, right? It`s one thing to know that they`re lying. It`s another thing to see them lying on film right to your face and to see how comfortable a guy like Donald Rumsfeld is with himself and his total shamelessness. Here`s one more very short clip from the film. Just watch at the very end of this one the sort of shock and revelation from Donald Rumsfeld and how proud of himself he is about this. Watch this. I find this just incredible. (BEGIN VIDEOCLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What about all these so-called torture memos? RUMSEFELD: Well, there were, what? One or two or three. I don`t know the number. But there were not all of these so-called memos. They were mischaracterized as torture memos, and they came not out of the Bush administration, per se; they came out of the U.S. Department of Justice, blessed by the attorney general, the senior legal official of the United States of America having been nominated by a president and confirmed by the United States Senate overwhelmingly. Little different cast I just put on it than the one you did. I`ll chalk that one up. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Was the reaction unfair? RUMSFELD: I`ve never read them. ERROL MORRIS, DOCUMENTARY FILM-MAKER: Really? RUMSFELD: No. I`m not a lawyer. What would I know? (END VIDEOTAPE) MADDOW: That`s Errol Morris, the filmmaker, shouting, "really?" It`s the best thing about that other than the revelation from Donald Rumsfeld that he never bothered to read the supposedly all-important memos that they said legally justified what everybody knew was torture. And Donald Rumsfeld, of course, is just amazing as a character. Errol Morris at one point walks him through how easily Donald Rumsfeld might very well have ended up being president of the United States had things not gone slightly differently in his own history, had he been picked as vice president at one point, which was very possible. It`s kind of a throw your popcorn in the air and fall down screaming moment, right? The prospect of Donald Rumsfeld, president of the United States. I think that`s why this film is being billed in some way as a horror movie. But beyond just the character issues here, what`s fascinating to see about this person who`s so important in our history, this film also comes out at a really important time in terms of the larger issue of whether or not we as the American public are going to decide that we ought to know what is true about our recent and difficult history. Whether we are going to decide that we ought to know the real truth about bad things our country has done and our government has done. Today, the Senate Intelligence Committee voted 11-3 to declassify a long-awaited report on the subject of those memos that Donald Rumsfeld so proudly said he had never read, the Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIA torturing prisoners after 9/11. It apparently runs more than 6,000 pages in total. What they voted on today was to declassify about 500 pages of that report. It`s a sort of summary of the report`s findings that they will now send to the president. The White House will then review it for declassification purposes and then it will come out to the public. And, you know, this vote is being reported today and leading up to this vote today, there`s been widespread reporting that there`s some ambiguity about whether or not we`re ultimately going to get to see it, whether or not the White House ultimately will decide to declassify this part of this report and release it publicly. I have to say, that ambiguity does not seem like it is warranted, if only because President Obama has been very clear about the fact that he is going to declassify this report, he is going to let us see it. (BEGIN VIDEOCLIP) BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The first day I came into office, I ended the practices that are subject to the investigation by the Senate Committee and have been very clear that I believe they were contrary to our values as a country. Since that time, we have worked with the Senate Committee so that the report that they are putting forward is well informed, and what I`ve said is that I am absolutely committed to declassifying that report as soon as the report is completed. In fact, I would urge them to go ahead and complete the report, send it to us. We will declassify those findings so that the American people can understand what happened in the past and that can help guide us as we move forward. (END VIDEOCLIP) MADDOW: The president has been pretty clear about this. And -- and because of that, this historic vote today in the Senate Intelligence Committee means that the summary of this big torture report is finally going to come out. And when that happens, we are going to have a lot of access to a lot of information about what our country did that we have never known before. And, again, it is not expected to be good news. It`s expected to be terrible news. (BEGIN VIDEOCLIP) SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D)-CA: The purpose of this review was to uncover the facts behind this secret program. And the results, I think, were shocking. The report exposes brutality that stands in stark contrast to our values as a nation. It chronicles a stain on our history that must never be allowed to happen again. This is not what Americans do. The release of this summary in conclusions in the near future shows that this nation admits its errors, as painful as they may be, and seeks to learn from them. We are acknowledging those mistakes, and we have a continuing responsibility to make sure that nothing like this ever happens again. (END VIDEOCLIP) MADDOW: We are on the precipice of something here. The long fight over releasing this report has been about the very basic question of whether or not we get to know what happened. Deciding that we just do not want to know is obviously more comfortable for everyone involved, but it is just as obviously the cowardly way out. And it is absolutely short- sighted if we do have a national interest in not repeating the error. In 2006, when then-president George W. Bush gave this speech for the first time acknowledging the existence of the CIA having a secret network of prisons that it set up after 9/11, George W. Bush said explicitly and repeatedly in that speech, that torture techniques, what he called alternative sets of procedures used by the CIA to interrogate people, he said explicitly that those techniques were how they found Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11. The president of the United States, himself, said explicitly, and repeatedly, and in great detail that the CIA torturing people worked, that it got us information we never could have gotten any other way. People who have seen this report that`s about to be declassified say that it directly and factually contradicts the president`s claims. If it`s true, and the report proves it, then either the president will be proven to be lying about a matter that is, after all, war crimes, or the CIA will have to explain why it lied to the president in such a way that made him lie to the country. This is very, very uncomfortable stuff. The CIA does not want to be talking about this. You can tell that Dianne Feinstein doesn`t even really want to be talking about this. You can tell the Obama administration does not want to be talking about this. I mean, they were the ones who said they wanted to move forward and not look to the past. Right? They said they wouldn`t be prosecuting any of these matters after the Department of Justice looked into it. Certainly most of all, you can imagine that the administration of George W. Bush and George W. Bush, himself, they do not want to be talking about this. On the day the Senate Intelligence Committee voted today to declassify key sections of this potentially earth-shattering report, President Bush was previewing his new gallery show of his new paintings that he`s done of world leaders. He previewed his new show of paintings in a sweet new interview with his own daughter, which is going to be airing on the "Today Show" tomorrow morning. That is what the former president wants to be talking about. But history has a way of sneaking up on you. History has a way of shaking you awake just as you are trying to drift off to sleep. History does not let go. Joining us now is Errol Morris, Oscar-winning film maker whose new documentary "The Unknown Known" is in theaters in New York and L.A. tonight, opening in additional cities tomorrow. Mr. Morris, thank you very much for being here. Mr. Morris, can you hear me? MORRIS: I can, indeed. MADDOW: Oh, good. Excellent. I was worried that I was in space and nobody could hear me scream. I have to ask you about the contention that I made about your film that Donald Rumsfeld did not particularly want to feel like he needs to reckon with his own legacy from the Bush administration. MORRIS: Of course not. He would like to pretend that everything that was done during the Bush administration, torture included, was perfectly OK. MADDOW: What did you learn about him going in that you did not know before you spoke with him? What surprised you? MORRIS: What really surprised me more than anything is this lack of desire to reflect deeply, maybe reflect at all on anything he had done. Everything was OK. Everything made sense. The policies were all successful. The war in Iraq was a good thing, not a bad thing. Who could not be amazed by that? The lack of an apology. The lack of even the ability to see that these policies might have been wrong, might have been mistaken. MADDOW: Do you see parallels between his personal approach to those issues and his role in them, and the way we have dealt with those issues as a nation? MORRIS: Sadly, yes. It is the way to deal with the past, denial. We`ve swept so much stuff under the rug. None of the officials of the Bush administration, none of the high officials, have ever been held accountable for what they`ve done. After all, didn`t we go to war for fraudulent reasons? Didn`t hundreds of thousands die? Shouldn`t someone have to explain why they did this? MADDOW: When you think about the prospect of this torture report coming out, one of the things that I`ve been struck by in this debate is that it`s been going on for so long that they`ve had this report in the Intelligence Committee about torture. It`s gone on for so many years now that members of that committee have come and gone, and you`ve had new senators be elected to the Senate, be appointed to that committee and to have access to that information for the first time. And every time somebody sees that information for the first time, they tell the world that they are shocked by it. Angus King is the most recent. He says reading that report was shocking to him, even knowing everything that we all know about that era in our history. MORRIS: You said a very crucial thing quoting President Obama. These policies do not accord with our values. Is torture what we want to project to the rest of the world as something that we endorse, something that we approve of, something that we practice? I don`t think so. MADDOW: Errol Morris, documentary filmmaker. The newest release is called "The Unknown Known." It opens across the country tomorrow. It`s also going to be available on Demand and i-Tunes. Mr. Morris, thank you for being with us tonight. It`s a real honor to have you here. MORRIS: Thank you very much, Rachel. MADDOW: Thank you. All right. Personal space. If your personal space matters to you, something that is one of your constitutional rights just got way, way creepier in one critical American state. That story and an encroachment on your personal space is coming up. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) MADDOW: Can I help you? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Boss`s orders. MADDOW: Oh, seriously? Oh, this is a thing now. Hold on. This story`s coming -- oh, man. Creepy guy. Hold on. We`ll be right back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) MADDOW: It`s 2014. It`s -- it`s a midterm election year. And Democrats are worried about that. Because even though Democrats are been pretty good at winning presidential elections in recent years, that success has largely hinged on Democrats getting lots and lots and lots of people to turn out to vote in presidential election years. It is harder to get people to turn out in non-presidential years, and that`s a big part of why Republicans did really well in the last midterm elections in 2010, and it`s why Republicans think they`re going to do well again this year in 2014. See, in general -- Democrats need lots of voters to turn out. Republicans need not lots of voters to turn out. So in states where Republicans are in control of state government, we have seen a lot of changes to election laws recently, all changes to make voting harder. And, of course, that is a contentious issue anywhere when you mess with people`s voting rights, but it is particularly contentious in states where everybody votes. The state of Wisconsin, for example, has a history of everybody voting. They`re always one of the top five states in the nation for the percentage of people turning out to vote. Apparently in Wisconsin, though, that`s now a problem. It is at least something that Republican Governor Scott Walker and Republican- controlled state legislature thought that they might be able to remedy. After the Republicans got control of state government in 2011, they cut early voting statewide from three weeks down to just two weeks. They also limited voting on the weekends. Those are both very popular ways of voting, so obviously they`ve got to go. That same year, Governor Scott Walker signed a new Republican legislation to require people to show new documentation in order to vote that people never had to show before in Wisconsin. That law was blocked in the courts. But the Republicans in Wisconsin are still going for it. Last week, Scott Walker and the Republican legislature slashed early voting for a second time, this time cutting early voting after work hours and eliminating weekend voting altogether. That ought to make a dent in Wisconsin having a good voter turnout rate. But now they`re going one better. And this one`s -- this one`s a doozy. It`s at least very high on the creep factor. Scott Walker just signed into law another voting regulation yesterday, this time cutting down on the breathing room you have when you go to register to vote and when you go to vote. It`s called Assembly Bill 202 that he signed. It requires polling places to have an election observer within three to eight feet of you when you go to register to vote in Wisconsin. A partisan election observer now has the right to be three feet away from you, 36 inches away from you, this close when you are filling out your voter registration information at the polls and then again when you`re announcing your name and address to the poll worker and you get your ballot on election day. Three feet away when they record your personal information, which you now have to show in order to prove your residency to be able to vote in Wisconsin. Three feet away while you exercising a constitutionally enshrined right. As close as three feet and no further away from you than eight feet according to Scott Walker`s new law. And these guys are not the non-partisan good government poll workers, right? These are the partisan election observers who are there to challenge you if in the process of breathing down your neck from a distance of 36 inches, they see anything that you don`t like about you voting. Wisconsin used to be known for civic virtue and civic civility. Now it`s just creepy. Go. Go. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) MADDOW: I realize we`re all really uncomfortable, so I want you to know that there were no (inaudible) harmed in the making of that last segment. You OK, man? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah, I`m all right. MADDOW: I know you had to play a creep and everything. He`s not actually a creep. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`m OK. Thank you. MADDOW: Stop everybody on Twitter telling me to hurt him. He`s really nice. OK. Bye. Thanks. See? He`s fine. He can walk and everything. I did actually ad lib the stabbing him with a yardstick. So that was bad. Anyway, lots more ahead, including unexpected news tonight from a state that has been providing a great public service to the nation and to the national press. That story ahead, plus much more. Stay with us. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) MADDOW: That story ahead, plus much more. Stay with us. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) MADDOW: The Iraq war ended in December of 2011. It was expected that U.S. troops would all leave Iraq by New Year`s Eve, by December 31st, 2011. But they made the transfer early on December 15th. NBC`s Richard Engel was at the Iraqi/Kuwaiti border when the last troops left, watching the troops cross over the border and cheer and celebrate that the 8 1/2-year-long war in Iraq was done. But the official end of the war was December 15th, 2011. That same morning, December 15th, 2011, a gunman opened fire at a small courthouse in a northern Minnesota town right up against the Canadian border. He shot the local prosecutor multiple times and he wounded two other people. That was December 15th. Less than two weeks later on Christmas morning, it was a mass shooting in downtown Chattanooga, Tennessee. A crowd of young people leaving a Christmas Eve party after midnight when the gunfire fired into the crowd. Nine people were shot. January 10th, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, four teenagers riding in the same car were ambushed by an armed 30-year-old man. All four of the teenagers were shot. Three of them were killed. February 21st, Norcross, Georgia, near Atlanta, a man storms into a spa own and run by his family. He shoots and kills four of his own relatives then kills himself. February 26th, Jackson, Tennessee. A crowded night club. A gunman fires into the crowd and shoots 21 people. Miraculously, 20 of those people are wounded and only one person dies. The next day, February 27th, it`s Chardon, Ohio. A 17-year-old high school student takes a gun from a relative, brings it to school, opens fire in the cafeteria. He kills three of his fellow high school students and sends two more to the hospital. March 8th, Pittsburgh, a man walks into a psychiatric hospital in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, carrying two semiautomatic handguns. He kills one person and wounds seven. March 30th, Miami, Florida. There`s a funeral under way for a 21-year- old man who had been shot to death. A gunman pulls up to the funeral home and fires into the crowd who`s there to mourn him. Twelve people are shot and injured. Two people are shot and killed. April 2nd, Oikos University in Oakland, California. A former nursing student, 43 years old, arms himself and returns to that campus after he`s been kicked out. He kills seven people and wounds three. Four days later, a shooting spree starts in Tulsa, Oklahoma, two men randomly targeting African-Americans who they see on the street. Two people wounded, three people are killed. May 29th, Seattle, a man may with a gun walks into a cafe in the university district in Seattle. He starts shooting. He kills five people and then he kills himself. July 8th, a soccer tournament in Wilmington, Delaware. It`s multiple gunmen this time firing into the soccer tournament. They kill a 16- year-old player and one other person. July 20th, this is one that even made the news. It was the midnight premiere of one of the "Batman" movies. The heavily armed gunman was wearing body armor when he opened fire. He shot and injured 58 people, 12 others were killed. Two weeks later, it was the sheik temple shooting in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. Seven people killed, including the gunman. Three people wounded. Eight days later, three more people were killed including a police officer and gunman, himself, when that shooter opened fire near Texas A&M. Eleven days after that, it was Empire State Building at rush hour. One man shot and killed. Nine more people shot and injured before the gunman, himself, was shot by police. Seven days after that, a 23-year-old opens fire at a supermarket he worked at in Old Bridge, New Jersey. He kills two of his co-workers then shoots himself in the head. September 27th, Accent Signage in Minneapolis. A 36-year-old man who had been laid off worked into his former workplace with a gun. He shot eight his former co-workers. He killed five of them and then he killed himself. October 21st, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a man with a gun shows up at his wife`s job. Kills her and two other people and injures four more people before he kills himself. November 6th, a man who works at a meat processing plant in Fresno, California, shoots four people, killing two of them then he kills himself. December 12th, 22-year-old man takes several loaded magazines of ammunition and rifle into the Clackamas, Oregon, shopping mall. He kills two people then he kills himself. December 14th, two days after that, well, that was Sandy Hook, 26 killed at the school. Mostly first graders. The shooter`s mother killed at home in her bed, and then the shooter, himself. And yes, that was a heavy year. But that was not a totally unusual year. That is pretty much the American way of mass murder now. And just taking that year, we don`t look back at that year of shootings and think, my God, what is it about high school students? Or nursing students? Or what is it about people with jobs or people who lose their jobs or people who are bad at their jobs or people who have relatives who work at spas? We don`t say, my God, what is it about young men or middle-aged men or truck drivers or doctor candidates? But you fast forward to the latest mass shooting in America and there is an urge to rush to judge that the most important deciding factor in what explains the latest burst of mass gun violence in our country, this latest multiple murder in our country, must be the fact that the suspected perpetrator is an Iraq war veteran, as if veterans are uniquely dangerous, as if knowing that this suspected shooter served in Iraq explains why this happened. It is a perversion in the news coverage of the Fort Hood story right now to focus so exclusively on the fact that the shooter is a vet. "The Washington Post" and the Kaiser Family Foundation this weekend published a landmark extensive survey of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. More than 2.6 million Americans have served in those wars. And more than half of those who served in the wars are now out of the service, no longer serving on active duty or in the reserves or in the National Guard. Half of Iraq veterans did two or more deployments. Nearly a third of those who served in that war spent two years or more in country during their service. That`s more than half a million Americans who serve more than two years on the ground in Iraq. But appreciating their needs, appreciating what it will take of us to make good on the things that we promise them in exchange for their service, there is a bright line between doing that and painting them with all one broad brush as needy or somehow incapable or scary. Even for people who didn`t experience serious injuries directly related to combat, asking people to serve multiple year-long tours exacts a toll even on young, strong bodies. Rajiv Chandrasekaran man writing for "The Washington Post" about this survey, he profiles a 32-year-old national guardsman who says he`s now 32 years old, going on 60. His job in Iraq was filling the craters left behind by roadside bombs -- a job that required him to jackhammer asphalt while wearing 50 pounds of body armor and gear. He returned home with a fractured vertebra, three fused discs in his back, ringing in his ears and post traumatic stress. He has a job, but he`s using a cane to walk and he does need moving boxes and things on the job. He`s 32 years old. Or this Texas National Guard sergeant who spent a year as an infantryman in Iraq on his feet, wearing heavy body armor, rifle, and his ammunition. The literal weight of that gear after a year has worn out the cartilage in his knees and his knees have leaking fluid sacks. He`s 26 years old. He says, "I just want my knees to be my knees again. I don`t want grandpa knees at this point." He`s 26 years old. He just reenlisted for another six years. Paying attention to veterans instead of stereotyping them means appreciating that they really do need access to health care. This week, we celebrated the fact that the backlog on veterans waiting to hear there the V.A. about their disability claims has been cut by 44 percent since last year. And hooray for that. That`s progress. But the backlog is so giant that even with the 44 percent cut, it still means more than 300,000 veterans are still in the backlog waiting a minimum of 125 days to even hear back from the V.A. about their disability claim, even if what they`re going to hear is no. More than 300,000, that is still outrageous. That`s for disability claims. Paying attention to veterans instead of stereotyping them also means appreciating that the stress and trauma of life at war and combat and specifically the contrast between that and civilian life, it does have mental health consequences and in particular it can heighten the risk of suicide. A majority of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans say they know a fellow service member who has committed suicide or has tried to. And that is not a call to write off veterans as too hurt to come back home. That means something specific, something nonromantic, something you don`t need to write fiction about. It needs policy. It means that as a country, we need stronger suicide prevention efforts for our veterans. That`s something we can do. The only Iraq combat veteran in the United States Senate, Senator John Walsh of Montana, just this week introduced a bill to up suicide prevention efforts for veterans. We need that. What we don`t need is to use what just happened at Fort Hood, the latest in a long line of mass shootings in America, what we don`t need is to use what just happened at Fort Hood as an excuse to stereotype veterans as broken, or as somehow unknowably monstrous because of their time as war. If we think of every other mass shooting in America as somehow particular to the circumstances of that shooting, but this one is explained away as, oh, he was an Iraq vet. What you see in the headlines about this story all over the country today, not only does that not help us understand what happened here, it is an offense against every other veteran who right now is getting that stigma shoveled on to them by a lazy civilian world and a lazy civilian media who find this dangerous veteran stereotype to be an easier thing to point to than the fact that America has a mass shooting problem. We have a bad mass shooting problem. And the only single thing that all of our American mass shooting perpetrators have in common -- the only thing common among them is that all of them were perpetrated by men with guns. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MICHELLE OBAMA, FIRST LADY: He was leading a platoon of Navy SEALs when he stepped on an IED. Dan lost both of his legs in the explosion, but he never lost that fighting spirit. On the one-year anniversary of his injury, he ran a mile on his prosthetics. And today, 4 1/2 years after his injury, Dan is proud to wear another one of our nation`s uniforms and that is of Team USA. Yes. (CHEERS) BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Our thoughts right now in many ways are with the families at Fort Hood. You know, these are folks who make such extraordinary sacrifices for us each and every day for our freedom. During the course of a decade of war, many of them have been on multiple tours of duty. To see unspeakable senseless violence happen in a place where they`re supposed to feel safe -- home base -- is tragic. They`ve done their duty, and they`re an inspiration. They`ve made us proud. They put on their uniform and then they take care of us. We`ve got to make sure that when they come home, we take care of them. (END VIDEO CLIPS) MADDOW: President Obama and the first lady today welcoming the U.S. Olympians and Paralympian at the White House including Lieutenant Dan Cnossen. He`s a Navy SEAL and double amputee who the first lady says she personally found so inspiring. The president as you heard him say there said America`s veterans take care of us and when they come home, we need to take care of them. After members of the military were killed and injured yesterday in the mass shooting at Fort Hood in Texas, today, of course, those sentiments take on stronger resonance. Joining us now, senior correspondent for "The Washington Post", Rajiv Chandrasekaran. Rajiv, thanks very much for being here. It`s nice to have you here. RAJIV CHANDRASEKARAN, THE WASHINGTON POST: It`s good to be back with you, Rachel. MADDOW: So, you`ve done this extensive survey with Kaiser Family Foundation and "The Washington Post" of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and it`s come out in what we didn`t know was going to be an incredibly important moment in terms of America`s perceptions of veterans. I wonder -- I want to talk to you about that survey more broadly and about America`s veterans coming home, but I wonder if the Fort Hood shooting if you feel like there`s been excessive focus on the fact that the suspected perpetrator in that case served time in Iraq without us having any sense of whether that might be relevant to this. CHANDRASEKARAN: Well, I mean, I think everybody sort of honed in on it and I think blown it out of proportion, as you rightly point out. You know, his time in Iraq was four to five months. It was on the tail end of that conflict, at a time when it wasn`t very violent there. There`s no clear evidence that the psychiatric conditions that he was reportedly under treatment for were linked to his time in Iraq or anything having to do with his military service. There are a lot of unanswered questions now. It`s quite frankly irresponsible to jump to conclusions to suggest that his time out on the war zone led him to do this. MADDOW: When you look at the survey data that we`ve got now from veterans, and this is an extensive, it`s a big survey size in the story, and it`s an extensive look at them. What are we able to document about how veterans feel in terms of their relationship with the civilian world? I feel like stereotyping is usually the result of distance. That people can only stereotype people who they feel like they don`t know. What are we hearing from veterans about their relationship with the civilian world coming home from these wars? CHANDRASEKARAN: Well, the veterans who are coming back are saying, look, we`re grateful for the fact that the civilian world says they appreciate our service, that they thank us for what they did. But they really feel disconnected from the civilian world -- 55 percent of the veterans that they surveyed said they feel disconnected from civilian life in America. And this is not an issue where the responsibility on the soldiers of the veterans. In many ways, the responsibility is on all of us, the 99 percent who didn`t go out there serving with a uniform on. The civilian population, given we have an all volunteer military, we`ve had one now for a generation. It`s a good thing. But the fighting has been left to a very small cadre of Americans who signed up to go and do this, often for these repeated tours. And what it`s meant is that the rest of America has really disconnected itself from the war. And so, these folks come back and they come back to an America where people not only can`t relate to what they`ve been through, but in many cases don`t really seem to care. MADDOW: Rajiv, one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you about this, one of the reasons I`m glad this is sort of -- something that you`re covering so intensively for "The Post", is because you have done a lot of on the ground reporting in the war zones and you`ve also done reporting on the policy making side of this, in the sort of Beltway discussions and policy-making discussions that leads to what happens on the ground. Do you feel like what we`re learning from these veterans, about the toll of doing, not just single tour, but multiple tours, about the huge number of veterans that did more than two years on the ground in Iraq, just the incredible amount of time and repetitive service we ask them to do, is that -- is there feedback about that to policymakers in Washington, that maybe that was too much to ask of what is, after all, a very small force for such big wars? CHANDRASEKARAN: You know, there hasn`t been enough discussion about it, because this group of American, this small group willingly went back again and again and shouldered this enormous burden. They`ve come back pretty battered, 43 percent say their physical health is worse today than before they went out there. A third say, or almost a third say their mental or emotional health is worse. But less people think that this is some angry, embittered group of Americans, you know, what so profound for me from this survey and quite frankly it`s not a surprise to anyone who wears a uniform, but to the civilian population, I think their eyes popped open at this. You know, 90 percent said they`re proud of what they did. But more importantly, Rachel, when asked would you do it again, given everything you`ve been through, all the risk, the separation from family, the stress, 89 percent said they would do it all over again. This group of people who really believe in what they were doing, putting aside the broader national policy debates about were these wars and the way they were conducted in the best interest of America. They felt they had a job to do. They put their hand up to serve and defend the United States, and when they were called to do it, they stepped and did it. MADDOW: What is remarkable, too, is to build on that point, is that not only are Iraq and Afghanistan veterans saying them do it again and that they are proud of what they did, but at a higher rate than the general population, Iraq and Afghanistan veterans say the wars were not worth fighting. That Iraq veterans are more against the Iraq war than the general population is and they would still go back and do it again. Is this a -- for me, I sort of feel like as a civilian, as somebody who personally didn`t serve, this is something that I need to have faith in, that I need to believe that this is the way you can understand the world, but I feel like there isn`t any parallel to this in the civilian world, where people say it`s not worth doing but I`m willing to stand up to do it and I would do it again. CHANDRASEKARAN: I think part of this goes to the fact that when a lot of civilians go up to a member of the military in uniform, you know, at an airport, or sporting event, and say "thank you for your service," they`re thinking to themselves, boy, this person got a raw deal. They were sent away from home for a year. They had to go there and engage in this incredibly dangerous activity. Well, indeed that was true, and that is true, but far lot of those folks, this is their calling. They signed up to be members of the military. They volunteered. Often cases their fathers or grandfathers served. They see this as a noble calling. They don`t want pity. They don`t feel like they were pushed into doing something they didn`t want to do. In some cases, they see it as their job. And they were simply doing their job well for their nation in their view. MADDOW: Rajiv Chandrasekaran, senior correspondent from "The Washington Post" -- thank you for your time tonight. Thanks for your reporting and thanks for whatever you had to do to talk "The Post" into doing this in such a big way. That survey data I think is going to be a benchmark for us as a country for a really long time. It`s really important work. Thanks a lot. CHANDRASEKARAN: Well, thanks for devoting so much attention to this issue, Rachel. MADDOW: Thanks, Rajiv. Nice to see you. All right. More ahead. We`ll be right back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) MADDOW: If there`s one thing that`s true in the media industry, there`s no one person more important than the folks who work at your local newspaper. We rely a lot on the local newspapers for the stories that we cover on the show. This has become more true lately in the great state of New Jersey, particularly the record of Bergen County and "Star Ledger" in Newark have provided irreplaceable reporting throughout what started as a local traffic column but soon became the most compelling story in national Republican politics. The investigation into the George Washington Bridge lane closures and the Chris Christie administration in New Jersey. We counted on "The Star Ledger" and its online at NJ.com for the news they break and the interviews they get, the way they doggedly covered the story, despite the people they`re covering telling them to buzz off. It was "The Star Ledger" who first alerted us to the fact that David Wildstein`s job had no job description. It was NJ.com that was the first to report that the U.S. attorney in New Jersey had sent federal grand jury subpoenas to the office of the governor in New Jersey. "The Star Ledger" has won three Pulitzer Prizes. It`s the largest newspaper in the state and today, they announced that they are laying off one out of every four people who works in their newsroom. They`re eliminating the jobs of 167 people, 40 of whom are reporters, editors, photographers and other staffers, specifically in the newsroom. More jobs were also eliminated at NJ.com and some of the smaller newspapers across the state and this is terrible news for New Jersey and for those of us who count on the news in new jersey being well reported to the rest of us. The moral of the story is not just despair. It`s also to not take your local newspaper for granted. If you`re not paying for your local paper, why aren`t you? Now, it`s time for "THE LAST WORD WITH LAWRENCE O`DONNELL". Have a great night. END THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. END