Show: THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW Date: June 24, 2016 Guest: David Miliband, Dan Roberts
MOLLY BALL, THE ATLANTIC: -- violated even by -- and a lot of the voters themselves felt like they might as well make this vote because it couldn`t possibly happen.
CHRIS HAYES, "ALL IN" HOST: That`s right. We`ll just bump into the guardrail.
BALL: What we found in the Republican primary is that establishment was either incompetent or none existent or a combination of body.
HAYES: Yes. Molly Ball and Josh Barro, thank you very much, enjoy your weekend.
That is "ALL IN" for this evening.
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW starts right now.
Good evening, Rachel.
RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC HOST: Good evening, Chris. Have a great weekend, my friend.
HAYES: You too. You too.
MADDOW: And thanks to you at home for joining us this hour.
On the one side, it was Britain and France and Russia and the U.S. and Italy and Belgium and Greece and Portugal and just this incredible list. In the end, it was a huge list of countries. On the other side it was Germany and Austria-Hungary and the Turks which you would be well served at the time to call the Ottoman Empire. Between all of those great powers and all the smaller countries that joined up alongside them along the two sides. Eventually you had most of the countries in the world facing off in a war that went on for four years.
More than 70 million people -- think about that for a minute -- more than 70 million people fought in that war. And before it was over more than 15 million people -- soldiers and civilians -- were dead. Fifteen million people killed. Some estimates say it was significantly higher than that. It was more like 17 million people killed.
And the fighting and the terms on which that war was fought, they were almost unimaginably disgusting. I mean, war is always a terrible thing. But especially for a war that went on for years, the conditions were heretofore unimaginable.
It was the first time armies used poison gases for mass killings on the battlefield. The Armenian civilian population was decimated in a genocide. POW camps turned into basically starvation pens where thousands of people were tortured and died. It was hell on earth. It was hell.
And everybody agreed that it had been hell. That it had been an unprecedented manmade hell on earth when it finally ended at the end of those four terrible years. But then 20 years later, it started back up again.
In the First World War, they just called it the World War, or the Great War. Nobody conceived of the fact that we would ever need to put a number on it because nobody conceived that humankind would ever do that again, let alone so soon. But within the same generation, another World War started up again in Europe.
And the sides were a little different for the second one. But just about everybody ended up on a side. Ultimately, more than 30 countries were full-on combatants in that second world conflict. More than 100 million people were involved in that war.
And this time, the killing was on an industrial scale. There were more than 20 million military deaths alone, 20 million military deaths alone. And tens of millions of civilians killed. On the order of 60 million people killed in total.
I mean, as a species, as humankind, we thought we had seen an unprecedented hell on earth by 1918. But by 1945, unlocking the gates of the concentration camps and watching mushroom clouds bloom over the earth for the first time, by 1945, we were sure we had seen hell. And we were sure we very well knew how to make hell open up on the face of the earth.
And those two things were only 20 years apart. World War I ended 1918, World War II started 1939, 21 years apart.
These are pictures of Winston Churchill. Winston Churchill was one of that generation whose adult life spanned both of those apocalyptic World Wars. Winston Churchill had been a senior military leader, particularly for his age, during World War I. He was a senior navy official. He actually ended his war as a lieutenant colonel in the army where he was posted to the front to lead a battalion of Royal Scots fusiliers into the trenches in France.
After World War II started in 1939, he, of course, by then was at the very upper echelons of British politics and he was elected prime minister of Britain in 1940.
And as the wartime World War II prime minister of Britain, that is how he is etched permanently, not just in British minds but in our own minds as well.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WINSTON CHURCHILL, FORMER BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France. We shall fight on the seas and oceans. We shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air.
We shall defend our island. Whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches. We shall fight on the landing grounds. We shall fight in the fields and in the streets. We shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: Winston Churchill in 1940. World War II went until 1945. And then the U.S. occupied Japan and the allies occupied Germany and Europe was a catastrophe, frankly. Europe was an absolute disaster zone. Think about it -- 100 million people involved in that war, tens of millions of people dead. Dozens of countries involved, years-long war, industrial-scale killing.
Europe was a catastrophe. And we paid for the Marshall Plan, among other things, to try to rebuild Europe, to try to rebuild a Europe that could stand back up on it own, because even though our side won the war, even our allies were devastated. And even though we were on the winning side, no matter which side you`re on in a war, something else has to happen in the world after a war.
Everybody knows that nothing good comes from ashes and destruction unless there is constructive rebuilding thereafter. And so, we helped. We spent a ton of money and made a huge effort and we helped.
One year after the end of World War II, after the Brits had actually voted him out as prime minister, when the war ended, Winston Churchill went to Zurich, to Switzerland, he gave a speech in Switzerland. He said in the speech that he knew his speech would shock everyone. He was aware that he was saying something that people were not prepared to hear.
But he said that day in Zurich, in what is now a famous Winston Churchill speech that having seen two World Wars start in Europe, and fearing that a third was not only possible but that this time it could conceivably mean the end of mankind because of the kind of technology we had proven to be able to use in war time by the end of World War II, Winston Churchill said in September 1946 that what needed to happen to keep Europe from being a mouth into hell again, like it had been twice before in his lifetime, what Europe had to do as unthinkable as it was, while Europe was still smoldering after a Second World War, what he said they needed was what he called a United States of Europe.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHURCHILL: I wish did speak to you today about the tragedy of Europe. This noble continent -- if Europe were once united in the sharing of its common inheritance, there would be no limit to the happiness, to the prosperity and the glory which its 300 million or 400 million people would enjoy. We must recreate the European family in a regional structure called, it may be, the United States of Europe. And the first practical step would be to form a council of Europe.
If at first all the states of Europe are not willing or able to join in the union, we must nevertheless proceed to assemble and combine those who will and those who can.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: Winston Churchill in 1946, a year after the end of World War II, saying if Europe was going to stop throwing the world into apocalyptic worldwide and now nuclear war, then the unthinkable would have to happen. Something politically and geo-strategicly unthinkable to that point would have to happen. Europe would have to unify. In something like what he called the United States of Europe.
The European Council that he called for in that speech, it was created shortly thereafter. That was Churchill speaking in 1946. The council of Europe was founded by 1949. Two years later, by 1951, Europe had its first cross-European industrial agreement, specifically for coal and steel. The building blocks of rebuilding devastated Europe.
That agreement, that industrial agreement, ended up being the building block for something much wider called the European Economic Community. That was formed in 1957. It turned out that France was a little testy about letting the U.K. into that European Economic Community, so the U.K. tried to join that in 1961 and France could kyboshed it. U.K. didn`t get in until 1972.
And by then, even then the Brits were testy about the idea of their own country joining this European Union of a sort. This is British Prime Minister Edward Heath having a bottle of ink thrown in his face while he was arriving to sign Britain`s treaty to join the European common market in 1972.
That joining up of the U.K. into Europe, he signed that treaty 1972. It became official on New Year`s Day 1973. It was still controversial in Britain. By 1975, the Brits were so conflicted about it already that they held a national referendum on whether or not they should get out of Europe after they had gotten into Europe.
That referendum in 1975 was not close, interestingly. People thought it was going to be a lot closer than it was. They thought the Brits were much more likely to get out of Europe than they were. It ended up being a 2-1 "yes" vote they should stay in.
That was 1975. That was the last time Brits voted on whether or not to stay in the European Union or a predecessor of it. Since then for the past 40-plus years, Britain has been a cornerstone of a version of Winston Churchill`s United States of Europe. That structure, that idea of something holding Europe together, ensuring peace in Europe through economic integration, manner war between European countries unthinkable because they were so interlinked that they could never really see each other as enemies again and they could never afford to wage war within Europe again.
That idea over the years, it evolved from that initial industrial compact from essentially a trade zone to an uneasy political partnership of 28 different countries to now an economy that jockeys with China and the United States for status as the largest economy in the world. Or at least it did. Until today.
Do you like cats? I`m not really a cat person. But bear with me here. Even as not a cat person, I sort of think this helps. This past November, there was a G20 summit in Turkey. They had a stage set up with the G20 flags, people were milling around, cameras were set up and pointed at the stage because something was going to happen on that stage. And do you remember when this happened? Cats took over.
Look. Random stray cats. First it was a normal-sized cat. Then it was kind of another normal-sized cat. Then at one point, it was this really giant cat. This huge cat with the other little cat.
I have to say, that was a very happy-making scene for me, not even a cat person. But that, you know, my favorite part, the two cats went off to the side. At one point the other normal-sized cat, cat number three, realizes the other two have taken off stage left and he looks for his cat friends and he realizes they`ve run off to the left. Where is he? Doesn`t he come out here, cat number three? Then he finds his buddies. That was kind of happy-making.
Today, right before 2:00 a.m. East Coast time in the U.S., so just before 7:00 a.m. in Britain, the press had staked out number 10 Downing Street. They were waiting to hear from British Prime Minister David Cameron. About three hours earlier, vote totals confirmed the British public had unexpectedly voted to yank Britain out of the E.U.
This is the E.U. born out of the ashes of World War II. Even just in its current iteration it has existed more than 40 years. In its history, no country has ever left the E.U. before, let alone the second-largest economy in the E.U. and one of its military and international cornerstones, not to mention our closest ally overseas anywhere. Within hours of that shock result being certified, the press was out there on Downing Street, cameras pointed at the door, waiting for the prime minister.
And now nobody knew for sure what was going to happen. We were already getting a pretty good idea. But nobody knew for sure then. I can tell you that within two hours, the British markets would open and in the first ten minutes, they were open, $164 billion was wiped out of the existence in the British markets alone. The British pound would plunge off a cliff to its lowest point in more than three decades.
And, of course, very shortly that morning, the prime minister would emerge from that door and resign.
Worldwide by the end of the day today, $2.1 trillion would be piped off the map in global markets, $2.1 trillion. In the United States alone, our share of that would be $830 billion lost today, in one day, because of what the British public just decided they were done with. Over $800 billion lost in one day in our country alone today.
But this morning, while dawn was breaking over a beautiful day in London, the press was waiting for the prime minister to step out and resign in disgrace, and the shock waves started emanating worldwide of this local decision in Britain to throw away the means by which Europe rescued itself from the ashes of two World Wars and probably kept us from having a third.
At dawn today, while we were poised waiting to find out what this was going to feel like and how we are all going to pay for this and how this is going to change our lives -- while that was happening this morning on downing street, somebody let the cat out from the 10 Downing Street.
His name is Larry. Larry lives at Downing Street. Larry seemed all right today. So there was that. That was a nice moment today. Larry the Cat still fine.
That`s the thing I`m holding on to today. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MADDOW: Before we move on to the rest of tonight`s show, I just want to give a shoutout to Larry the Cat. Thanks, Larry, for helping with the A block tonight.
There`s a lot more to come about this British vote and the U.S. economy losing $800 billion in one day today and the global economy losing $2 trillion today based on what happened in Britain.
But, Larry helped me get through it, big guy, thanks.
All right. Lots more to come tonight. We`ll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sovereignty, Britain`s power to run its own affairs, was a key issue in the referendum campaign. The anti-marketers argued that continued membership would rob the British parliament and people of their sovereignty.
Some marketers like Prime Minister Harold Wilson countered that Britain could veto any market moves it didn`t like. Wilson has a lot riding on today`s vote, which follows weeks of political battling.
CROWD: No, no, no, no, no!
HAROLD WILSON, PRIME MINISTER: Are you prepared to accept the verdict of the people on Thursday?
CROWD: Yes, yes!
WILSON: Are you prepared? Answer yes or no. Are you prepared? Yes or no? I got my answer.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: Last night was not the first time that the British have held a national referendum on potentially getting out of Europe. The first one was right after they got in. They got in on New Year`s Day, 1973. By 1975, they were having a national referendum on whether they should get out. Even though it was a really heated national argument in 1975, Brits actually voted 2-1 to stay in the European common market, which was a predecessor to the E.U.
Here`s a weird thing. This is kind of amazing tape. The first time they ever allowed anybody to broadcast the proceedings of the British parliament, the first time in history, was right after that vote in 1975. The first broadcast ever from parliament was the prime minister at the time explaining to the House of Commons that the British people had voted to stay in Europe.
Watch this from "Nightly News" at the time, this is awesome.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And from London tonight, we have the sound of the British House of Commons, the mother of parliament. For years, broadcasters in Britain have been asking that sessions of the house be made available for broadcast and the house now has grudgingly allowed a four- week experiment in radio broadcasting. Today was the first day. What you`re about to hear is part of the first broadcast and the voice of the prime minister telling the house about the decision of the British people to stay in the common market.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The issue of membership has cut across party lines. And the government recognized the deep sincerity of views of both sides. The debate is now over. This country should be fully represented in all the community`s institutions.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That was the clear part. The microphones weren`t well placed. Much of today`s broadcast consisted of mumbles, coughs, bangs, rattles, along with the occasional cry of "rubbish," "resign!" in the middle of the din there was the clear and unmistakably British sound of one honorable member blowing his nose.
Good night for NBC News.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: Never seen John Chancellor giggle before.
In 1975, the British people voted overwhelmingly to stay in the precursor to the E.U. Then yesterday they sent a shock wave around the globe. And there is a chance they may have kicked off a global recession if not a further disintegration of Europe, potentially even the further breaking apart of the U.K., when they voted narrowly that this time they do want to leave.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a sharp fall. This will be felt. Let`s be clear, this is not something that`s just on a computer screen that feels alien and extremely remote. But believe me, those people who were queuing a couple of days ago, cashing in their holiday money early in anticipation of perhaps there being a leave victory, now look very sensible.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The value of the pound that is nosedived against the dollar, hitting a 31-year low as markets react.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The markets were confident of the remain win. The pound surged. Then fell dramatically as a series of early results put the leave camp ahead.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The implications are very, very major, both economic and political. Economic, we probably will have a bloodbath in the financial markets.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What`s happened to the pound and what does it mean?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, this morning it sunk like a stone. The markets last night were not expecting this result. And the second it became clear that there was a very strong chance that Britain was going to vote to leave the European Union, this is what happened. The pound went into not free fall but it crashed.
KELLY EVANS, CNBC ANCHOR: Hi, everybody. Welcome to "The Closing Bell." I`m Kelly Evans at the New York Stock Exchange.
BILL GRIFFETH, CNBC ANCHOR: I`m Bill Griffeth. Here we go. The last hour in what has already been a tumultuous day of trading after that historic night where Great Britain voted to leave the European Union.
EVANS: Here`s how we`re finishing the day on Wall Street. The Dow declined 609 points.
(END VIDEO CLIPS)
MADDOW: It ended up being 610 points. Not 609 points, for the record.
And this is just day one. This is the start of a process where we do not know how long this process will go on. We do not know exactly how it will end.
Again in global trading today, more than $2 trillion were set on fire, lost across global markets. The British markets and the pound had such a catastrophic drop that arguably Britain shrunk today, in one day, from being the fifth-largest economy in the world to being the sixth-largest economy in the world.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVID CAMERON, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: And I`ve spoken to her majesty the queen this morning to advise her of the steps that I`m taking. Negotiation with the European Union will need to begin under a new prime minister. And I think it`s right that this new prime minister takes the decision about when to trigger Article 50 and start the formal and legal process of leaving the E.U.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: Joining us now is David Miliband. He`s former British foreign secretary. He`s now president and CEO of the International Rescue Committee which does phenomenal work nationwide and globally, particularly on the issue of refugees.
Mr. Miliband, it`s really nice to have you here. Thank you for being here.
DAVID MILIBAND, FORMER BRITISH FOREIGN SECRETARY: Thank you very much for having me.
MADDOW: What`s your overall reaction and were you surprised?
MILIBAND: Disaster, obviously, for Britain. Very bad and sad day. It takes us out of the world`s largest, richest single market. But there`s also politics to this as you showed very well in your history lesson.
In 1940, Britain was forced to stand alone. And thanks to the efforts of the European Union, it`s now -- it was a 28-nation grouping. We`ve chosen to stand alone, or at least as a result of the referendum we have.
So, I was surprised because I confidently predicted that the remain camp, the status quo, would triumph. And I think it`s obvious that we severely underestimated the extent to which a referendum on the status quo, amasses a range of grievances, that allowed people to think they were kicking establishment, when in fact they`re kicking themselves.
MADDOW: Do you -- do you think there`s any reason to pay attention to the tiny minority of voices today saying the buyers` remorse is strong enough and that the sort of dog catching the car phenomenon is strong enough today in Britain that there may be a way to slow this down, that parliament might not act in the way that they need to in order to change domestic laws so that Britain leaves on a two-year time frame, there might be some way to undo it?
I realize there`s a tiny minority of voices today, but a lot of people are saying maybe it can be stopped.
MILIBAND: It`s very hard to see it. Equally we`re in for a long period of uncertainty. The negotiations can take up to two years. And then it has to be ratified not just by the European parliament but also by the House of Commons.
And so the danger of two, three, four years of economic sclerosis, a danger of a knock-on effect in other European countries, elections coming up in France next year, the far right running on an anti-Europe, euro skeptic platform, similar noises being made in Netherlands, it`s a very dangerous day not just for the U.K., not just economically, but I think politically the European Union is a pillar of global order. And the danger is of domino effect set off by the British vote yesterday.
MADDOW: Are you worried -- thinking particularly not just that political analysis that you just said, but also your work with refugees and what you`ve done in terms of international migration and responsibility for refugees, are you worried this marks a real turning point in terms of closing doors, hostility, and mainstream countries turning against migrants and minorities?
MILIBAND: Well, not so much a turning point. Just for the benefit of your viewers, the big issue was immigration.
MADDOW: Yes.
MILIBAND: But from within the European Union. This wasn`t a racial issue, not about people coming from the Asian subcontinent or from Syria. The big election was free movement of labor within the European single market --
MADDOW: Didn`t some of the leave campaigners try to make the Middle East an issue --
MILIBAND: An especially disgusting poster last Thursday on the day of the tragic killing of the member of parliament which you covered, there was an appalling poster, a new low from Nigel Farage, one of the leaders of the leave campaign, which had a queue of refugees queuing to get into Slovenia, one of the new members of the European Union, Eastern Europe, former Yugoslavia. That did muddy the waters.
But the truth is that there was a lot of focus on the issue of intra- European migration. And that`s been a big issue around Europe. So I don`t think it`s so much of a turning point but that immigration issue has been a lightning rod for a range of grievances against the European Union and against globalization in general.
MADDOW: I don`t mean to be too melodramatic, although I`m good at melodrama. But do you worry at all about the integrity of the United Kingdom? Obviously, there has been a significant movement toward Scottish independence anyway, although when they voted two years ago, they voted to stay. Some of the reason that Scotland may have voted to stay is because they didn`t want to risk not being able to get into the E.U. on their own as an independent Scotland. Scotland voted very strongly to stay in the E.U.
Are you worried about the integrity of the U.K.?
MILIBAND: It`s not mellow dramatic at all. Scotland voted 62 percent to stay in Europe, England voted to leave Europe. The Scots are saying, we`re being taken out of Europe because of the English. The devolve parliament, the devolved authority, the leader has said, we`re going to have a second referendum whether or not Scotland should pull out. It may be of interest to American viewers, Northern Ireland also voted to remain in the European Union.
And you`ve got major issues there with the threat of a border coming back between northern Ireland and the republic of Ireland, the border that is been thrown away because of the fact that Britain and the republic of Ireland are in the European Union. So, it`s not melodramatic to talk about political crisis of a fundamental kind, of a core part of the western alliance.
The fact that, yes, you showed Donald Trump is celebrating. Vladimir Putin is celebrating as well. And he can see a divided Europe only strengthens revanchist forces in Russia and elsewhere.
MADDOW: The congratulatory messages today from Russia and Iran were both - - sort of sent a chill down my spine.
Former British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, now president and CEO of the International Rescue Committee -- thanks for being with us.
MILIBAND: Thank you very much.
MADDOW: I appreciate it.
Lots more ahead tonight. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MADDOW: So, in addition to the news from Great Britain and the shockwaves sent across global markets, including our own, we`re also following an unfolding crisis in West Virginia, where raging floods have already claimed 20 lives -- 20 people killed. It was a storm system yesterday that dumped more than nine inches of rain in less than 24 hours on some parts of West Virginia. That is like fire hose rain.
That`s epic. The National Weather Service called that a once in a thousand years event. Search and rescue efforts have been around the clock. So far, 150 national guardsmen and women have been deployed in the state. More than 100 homes have been destroyed in the flooding.
We also got this surreal and shocking footage of a house on fire, yanked off its foundation by floodwaters, floating down a river, still on fire. This happened in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia.
The southeastern portion of West Virginia has been under state of emergency since last night. At one point, a half million homes had no power, but authorities say they`ve gotten that down below 100,000 now.
But this is truly terrible flooding, terrible damage in West Virginia. The death toll stands at 20 people killed. We`ll keep you posted with further updates tonight.
More ahead. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MADDOW: People in the U.K. woke up this morning to a brave, new, weird, crazy, surreal world.
And then Donald Trump flew in. They arrived at one of his golf courses in Scotland in a big helicopter that said Trump on the tail. There was a procession behind some bagpipers. While that was under way, the British press did try to yell out and ask Mr. Trump some questions. But nobody could hear anything over the bagpipes. Can`t hear ya, what?
Then, after that there was honestly just one of the strangest press conferences I`ve ever seen. At this point, at this moment, where Donald Trump steps up to that podium, global stocks are selling off faster than anything since the collapse at the start of the Great Recession.
The British pound is falling off a cliff. The prime minister had just resigned within the past hour. And Donald Trump, Republican presidential nominee, he stepped up to the microphone while this was all happening -- it`s not even like he stepped up to a microphone here while this was happening. He was there, in the U.K., geographically where this was all happening, the center of a global crisis unfolding at that moment.
And what he talked about when he stepped up to those microphones was the new suites that we have put into the lighthouse, they are magnificent, have you seen them?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESUMPTIVE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: We`ve taken the lighthouse, which is a very, very important building in Florida. I mean, in Scotland. And we`ve taken that building and made it something really special. Inside the lighthouse right now is incredible suites, and it`s called a halfway house because this is the 9th tee and it`s called the halfway house. And on the bottom, you have dining and golfers will stop and they`ll go and get something to eat and then they`ll go into the 10th hole, 10th tee next door.
So the light -- it was in disrepair. And all of the people from landmark, Scotland, all the people we had to go through, I thank you. Because it was a long, difficult process getting that approved. But they really wanted to see it at the highest level. And now, it`s really at a higher level than it ever was. When you see, I don`t know if you`ll get the chance, if you do you should try and get to see the suites. Because they are two of the most beautiful suites you`ll ever see.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: And we`ll cut it off there and he does go on. He`s just getting warmed up about the suites.
The British prime minister had resigned within the previous hour. But that was what he held his press conference about. Now, once he was done effusing about the suites, the assembled global press corps did succeed in asking him about the global crisis that he was standing in the middle of. He may not have appreciated exactly where he was standing, though.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I think it`s going to end up being a great thing. And the beautiful, beautiful, beautiful thing is, your people have taken the country back. And there`s something very, very nice about that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: Your people. Your people have taken the country back.
Donald Trump, in case the bagpipers weren`t a give-away, Donald Trump was in Scotland when he said that. And the Scottish people did not vote to take the country back. Scotland voted almost 2-1 to remain in the European Union, as David Miliband was telling us.
They voted to stay in European Union by more than 20 points. There are 32 local authorities in Scotland, every single one of them voted to remain in the European Union.
Nevertheless, Donald Trump tweeted this morning while arriving at his golf course, "Just arrived in Scotland, place is going wild over the vote, they took their country back."
Honestly, to the extent Scotland was going wild over that vote, it`s that they were staging massive marches against the vote and protests in solidarity with migrants and refugees. And they were waving European flags and European flags they sewed back to back with Scottish flags because Scotland voted overwhelmingly to stay in the E.U., so much so that Scotland might now try to declare independence from Britain again so they can stay part of the E.U. even as the rest of Britain leaves. This is commonly known as the not waving, drowning mistake.
As the good people of the U.K. explained to Donald Trump all day long, he didn`t understand anything about what he was talking about when he tried to talk about Scotland today. For example -- this. BuzzFeed put together some of the best of these today. Scotland hates both Brexit and you, you mangled apricot hell beast.
Hey, Donald Trump, they voted remain, you spoon. Hey, Donald Trump, Scotland voted remain, you clueless numpity. Scotland voted remain, you weapons-grade plum. Scotland voted overwhelmingly to remain, but what are facts to you, you bloviating flesh bag.
And then this nice sober one from a BBC reporter I think summing it up. Quote, "I cannot begin to explain how catastrophically this misunderstands and misjudges the majority mood in Scotland."
Scotland is really seriously not cool with this. Donald Trump has no clue about that. But here`s another thing to chew on tonight. And our earlier guest, the former foreign minister from great Britain, hinted at this. But the details on this are quite something.
Like Scotland, Northern Ireland voted to remain in the European Union. The U.K. as a whole voted to get out but Northern Ireland is one of the places that voted they wanted to stay in E.U. Northern Ireland, of course, is on an island, right? Separate and apart from the main part where England and Scotland are. Northern Ireland shares a border with the republic of Ireland. And the republic of Ireland is very much an E.U. country.
So, what happens when Northern Ireland, along with the rest of the U.K., leaves the E.U.? That means the 300-mile land border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, that will now be a border that separates an E.U. country from a non-E.U. country.
It`s a rash sensitive subject, that border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, right? Check your folk music collection if you need backup on that. Right now at the moment, that border is open. Free movement across the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, it`s like not exactly but basically like driving from Nevada into California.
If that becomes an external border between E.U. and not the E.U., then are they going to put back up the armed checkpoints on the Ireland/Northern Ireland border? Are they going to make people show I.D. and get their cars checked, to get between Ireland and Northern Ireland, like they used to during the troubles? Have to show your passport? That`s going to go great. That`s going to go great.
The very idea of it is already shaking up the very fragile power-sharing government in Northern Ireland as of today. One of the two leaders of that power-sharing government, the nationalists, they called for a referendum on reunifying Ireland and Northern Ireland. Getting Northern Ireland out of the U.K. altogether and sticking it back into the different country that is Ireland.
Northern Ireland voted to stay in the E.U. They could stay in the E.U. if they were part of Ireland, but not if they stay part of the U.K. How about it, uniting the island of Ireland referendum, who what could possibly go wrong, who could object?
You may recall that`s what the recent decades of fighting and near civil war were about. Both the Irish and British governments shot down that idea but it is not likely to be the last we hear of it. The U.K.`s breakup with E.U. is going to be messy in a million and one ways. It`s going to be messy in Europe, it`s going to be in the U.K. Potentially messy in Scotland and in Ireland. It`s maybe even going to be messy in the lighthouse suites. They`re beautiful.
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MADDOW: In 1980, the star goalie on the Soviet national hockey team was a guy named Vladislav Tretiak. Over six feet tall, 200 pounds, it was an absolute behemoth in goal. At the time, Vladislav was unanimously considered to be the best goaltender in the entire world.
But in 1980 at the Olympic Games in Lake Placid, the middle of the Cold War, the U.S. and Russia were tied 2-2 in the middle round when the coach of the soviet ice hockey team took the best goalie in the world, he took Vladislav and benched him. Huh? And after that, with 10 minutes left on the clock, the U.S. was ahead 4-3, and you know the rest.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Five seconds left! Do you believe in miracles? Yes!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Unbelievable!
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MADDOW: Why did he sit him? The coach of the hockey team said benching him, that was the biggest mistake of his career, quote, "It was worst mistake, my biggest regret." He gambled and he lost.
Gambling is risky. Sometimes it pays off, but sometimes it does not, which is a good thing to keep in mind, especially when you are betting your entire national identity on it and that story`s next.
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MADDOW: Pizza in the Chicago airport, there are worse airports to get pizza than the Chicago airport. And this might be a detail, but as markets were crashing all over the world today, as more than $2 trillion was being wiped out of global markets in one day today, there circulated the story today that British Prime Minister David Cameron came to his fateful decision that the U.K. should hold a referendum on staying in the European Union while he was eating pizza in the Chicago airport. We don`t know if it`s true or not, but that`s how it`s been explained thus far.
He was at a meeting. He was talking with senior members of his own party. Prime Minister David Cameron, of course, did not want out of the E.U. himself, but frankly, he`d had enough of the whining from his own party, about European regulations and European immigration and the global freaking community.
You guys say you want to leave Europe? I`m sick of hearing about it. Fine. Let`s hold a vote on it. Will that make you happy?
It was basically a tactic to try to keep himself in power in his own party. It may have been part of how he held on to being prime minister when he was re-elected to that post a couple of years ago. Prime Minister David Cameron called the bluff, basically, of the people in his own party, who were constantly carping against Europe.
He didn`t want to get out of Europe, but he decided he would ask the people of Great Britain to vote on the European Union. Vote remain or vote leave.
It`s basically taken as an article of faith that he thought there was no chance that the people of Great Britain would vote to leave. But to the world`s great shock and to David Cameron`s great shock, the British people voted to leave. It was a bad bet.
After the results were announced, Prime Minister David Cameron announced that he, too, would go. The referendum he decided to hold has become now a global economic disaster, and potentially a global political disaster, that threatens the economic and political health of his nation and Europe and it will have global repercussions beyond that, including here. David Cameron will step down in October, clearing the way for whoever the next prime minister is to try to take over this mess, if they can.
Joining us now is Dan Roberts. He`s Washington bureau chief for the British newspaper, "The Guardian." Mr. Roberts, it`s really nice to have you with us tonight. Thanks for being with us.
DAN ROBERTS, THE GUARDIAN: Thanks for having me on.
MADDOW: So the way this works, the British people won`t get a vote directly on who the next prime minister is. The Conservative Party will make that choice, internally, right?
ROBERTS: Yes. One of the oddities of the parliamentary system is that a sitting prime minister can basically be ousted without an election. It happened to Margaret Thatcher, it happened to Tony Blair, and in a way, it`s happening again now. At least, there has been some sort of democracy that`s triggered this referendum.
But, ultimately, the decision will be taken further by the Tory MPs, and then by members of the party, of whom there are only about 150,000. So a very small and quite radicalized party will be picking next prime minister.
MADDOW: It`s starting to feel, like at least on day one, whoever the next prime minister is, he or she will be dealing with not only the negotiations with the E.U., in terms of how the U.K. extra indicates itself from that union, all the complexity of that negotiation. He or she will be dealing with the domestic politics of how the U.K. extricates itself from everything about the E.U., including the legal frameworks there.
That person may also be dealing with whether the U.K. itself has additional pressure on it, centripetal pressure putting Scotland and England towards independent status. Those first day consequences seem pretty daunting for everyone. Did everyone know that`s what they were voting for?
ROBERTS: Well, there`s been a fair amount of discussion about buyer`s remorse today. It`s also an incredible poisoned challenge for whoever does take over. And that`s why Boris Johnson is seen as a favorite here. He led the leave campaign. He would argue he`s got a mandate.
But I think some of his enemies and critics say, well, you made this bed, you lay in it. I mean, you sort this mess out. Not going to be much sympathy for him if it is him.
MADDOW: Dan Roberts, Washington bureau chief for "The Guardian" -- Dan, thanks for being with us tonight. I look forward to having you back as we continue to watch this unfold. Thanks.
ROBERTS: Thank you.
MADDOW: All right. We`ll be right back.
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MADDOW: Tomorrow night, Donald Trump will already be back from his surreal trip to Scotland to sell Dutch air arrangements on the "Titanic."
On the Democratic side of presidential politics, here`s something to put on your calendar for Monday. Monday is going to be the first-ever joint appearance by Hillary Clinton with Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren. They are going to be campaigning together for the first time in Ohio. Lots of people are going to be watching that very closely for all the obvious reasons.
While you`re on that page in your calendar, though, you should also note on Monday morning, the Supreme Court is expected to release its final rulings of the term. Among them is expected to be a really big decision on abortion rights. Now, this is potentially the biggest abortion rights decision in year.
We are also expecting a decision on Monday in the Bob McDonnell, former governor of Virginia, corruption case. These will be the last decisions of the term. We expect them all to come out some time on Monday around 10:00 a.m.
So, have a good weekend, but get some sleep. Monday`s going to be really busy.
That does it for us tonight. We`ll see you again on Monday. Also, that cat we had here earlier was fake.
Now it`s time for a special edition of "THE LAST WORD" with Ari Melber sitting in for Lawrence tonight.
Hello, Ari.
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