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The Rachel Maddow Show, Transcript 9/23/2016

Guests: Yamiche Alcindor, Corine Mack

Show: THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW Date: September 23, 2016 Guest: Yamiche Alcindor, Corine Mack

CHRIS HAYES, "ALL IN" HOST: THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW starts right now. Good evening, Rachel.

RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC HOST: Incompetently craven and sufficiently non- crazy. I feel like I`m making my bingo category for Monday.

HAYES: Incompetently craven, it fits well on a bumper sticker.

MADDOW: Exactly right. It would also make a fortune cookie and then there`s the awkward in bed thing and everything. It`s just terrible.

Thanks, my friend. Have a good weekend, Chris.

And thanks to you at home for joining us at this hour. Happy Friday.

On the last day that President Calvin Coolidge was in office in 1929, he signed a public law that was called public law number 107 and it authorized what was defined in the statute as a National Memorial Commission. This law that Coolidge signed his last day in office was to build a building that would be a memorial and a tribute, quote, "to the Negro`s contributions to the achievements of America." 1929, Calvin Coolidge signed that law, and that law authorized the creation of this national memorial and tribute. It also provided exactly zero dollars to do that with.

And so, the idea of a national memorial, a national tribute, a physical commemoration in Washington, D.C., of the contribution of African-Americans to the achievements of the United States of America, that idea, although law, that idea, although officially something we are working on, it just sort of held negative space for decades. All right? That idea that sort of national commemorative space, it existed in theory, but not in practice.

It was not until 40 years after Calvin Coolidge signed that law, it wasn`t until the late `60s when the idea first got revived and got more attention, more energy behind it. And it was not until 20 years after that in the late `80s when Congress started considering bills to actually do it. Most of them from Congressman John Lewis of Georgia, bills that would start the planning process in earnest, start really working toward building this tribute, this memorial, this monument.

It was not until the 21st century and not until 2001 that they finally passed actual dollars. They appropriated the first actual money to start planning in earnest and it was not until now. It was not until almost 90 years after we supposedly started working on this as a nation that it did finally get done, but now tomorrow, the National Museum of African-American History and Culture will open to the public on the national mall in Washington, D.C.

And honestly, I cannot do it justice here. I can show you through your TV screen a little bit of what it looks like. We can show you some of the things they`ve got inside. We can describe some of its collections, but it`s not -- I`m not going to be able to do it justice.

The right thing to do is to plan to go. I know that the show is broadcast not just in the United States, but around the world. If you are in the United States, you should plan to go. If you are not in the United States and you are in the sound of my voice, the next time you plan to visit the United States, you should plan to go.

The tickets are free. They are also hard to get. September is already sold out. October is already sold out. I checked right before we got on the air and there was one day left in November that had one time slot left, and that was the last thing left for all of November. But there were still a bunch of time slots on a bunch of days available in December.

The tickets are free, but you have to sign up for a specific time you want to the go in order to get tickets. And, you know, honestly, thinking about the timing, if you are going to go, when it comes to telling your friends or your kids or your grandkids about the way you lived and what you did in your big, long life, you may want to be able to say that you went to the National Museum of African-American History and Culture right when it first opened and in fact, you went while the nation`s first African-American president was still in office.

There are still tickets available in December right now that you can get online and book. You might want to try to get to this museum soon.

I mean, they started building the inaugural platform for the next president this week and we don`t know who the next president is going to be, but it is not going to be Barack Obama.

Today, President Obama hosted at the White House more than 700 African- American community leaders and cultural leaders, people who were key to this hard-fought, long slog that it took to create this epic, new museum.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You know, the timing of this is fascinating.

(APPLAUSE)

Because in so many ways, it is the best of times, but in many ways these are also troubled times. History doesn`t always move in a straight line. And without vigilance we can go backward as well as forward. And so, part of the reason that I am so happy the museum is opening this weekend is because it allows all of us as Americans to put our current circumstances in a historical context.

My hope is that as people are seeing what`s happened in Tulsa or Charlotte on television and perhaps are less familiar with not only the history of the African-American experience, but also how recent some of these challenges have been, upon visiting the museum may step back and say I understand. I sympathize. I empathize. I can see why folks might feel angry and I want to be part of the solution as opposed to resisting change.

My hope is that black folks watching the same images on television and then seeing the history representing this museum can say to themselves the struggles we`re going through today are connected to the past and yet all that progress we`ve made tells me that I cannot and will not sink into despair because if we join hands, and if we do things right, if we maintain our dignity and we continue to appeal to the better angels of this nation progress will be made.

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: President Obama today at a White House event celebrating the opening of the new National Museum of African-American History and Culture. It opens to the public for the first time tomorrow.

As you heard there at the top of his remarks the president said the timing is fascinating, and you hear this big response from the crowd and he went on to reference Tulsa and Charlotte.

In Tulsa, Oklahoma, this week, of course, the police officer who killed Terence Crutcher in the street after his SUV had stalled in the street and then the police tasered him and then shot him while he appears to have held his hands in the air. That officer who killed him has now been booked on first-degree manslaughter charges.

In Charlotte, North Carolina, it has been a very different story these past few days. It has been a heartbreaking few days since Keith Lamont Scott was killed by a Charlotte police officer on Tuesday afternoon. Charlotte protests, as you know, descended into violence on Tuesday night and again on Wednesday night.

Yesterday, the police reiterated and insisted that unlike Tulsa, they were not going to release the police videos, the dash cam and body cam have videos that they have of this police shooting of Keith Scott, but they did show those police videos to Mr. Scott`s family and the Scott family said after they saw those videos that they would like them to be released to the public. Police and local authorities insist they will not do that.

So, last night was the third straight night of protests in Charlotte. The mayor, as we reported late last night, signed a midnight curfew ahead of midnight last night in the 9:00 p.m. hour last night, and when midnight rolled around Charlotte authorities decided they would not clear the streets despite the curfew. They would allow the protests to continue as long as they were peaceful. Protests in Charlotte last night, by and large, were entirely peaceful and they went on late into the night and well past midnight.

Now, today has been a new day of further dramatic and in some cases upsetting developments in the same case. Today, NBC News obtained video of the shooting of Keith Lamont Scott, and it`s a harrowing video. One of the most harrowing things about it is that the video was taken by Mr. Scott`s wife, and you can hear her clearly talking to her husband, talking to the police throughout her recording.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAKIA SCOTT, WIFE OF KEITH LAMONT SCOTT: Don`t shoot him. Don`t shoot him. He has no weapon. He has no weapon. Don`t shoot him.

UNIDENTIFIED LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER: Drop the (EXPLETIVE DELETED) gun.

SCOTT: Don`t shoot him.

UNIDENTIFIED LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER: Drop the gun.

SCOTT: He didn`t do anything.

UNIDENTIFIED LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER: Drop the gun. Drop the gun.

SCOTT: He doesn`t have a gun. He has a TBI.

UNIDENTIFIED LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER: Drop the gun.

SCOTT: He`s not going to do anything to you guys. He just took his medicine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: When she says TBI, she means traumatic brain injury.

In terms of what this captures visually the video, I should tell you, it does not show the shots themselves although you do hear them. You also hear Mr. Scott`s wife tell the officers that her husband doesn`t have a gun that he would not hurt them and that he has this traumatic brain injury, you repeatedly hear police officers shouting, there is some kind of escalation of some kind and it is hard to see what is happening, but after this inconclusive, immediate event you do hear shots fired.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCOTT: Keith, get out the car. Keith, Keith, don`t you do it. Don`t you do it.

Keith, Keith, Keith. Don`t you do it!

(GUNFIRE)

SCOTT: Did you shoot him? Did you shoot him? Did you shoot him?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: Video, obviously, is disturbing in part because of the woman`s vantage point here and knowing that the woman is witnessing the death of her husband. You hear Keith Scott`s wife say over and over and over again, "he better live, he better live, he better live."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCOTT: He better live. He better live. I swear he better live. Yep. He better live.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: So, this is just -- I mean, it`s a terrible thing to see. It`s a terrible thing for us to see her seeing it through her eyes, right? But where we are right now, four nights after Keith Scott was killed, we still have conflicting accounts as to whether or not Keith Scott had a gun. You definitely hear police officers repeatedly saying drop the gun, drop the gun, drop the gun. You also hear his wife saying he doesn`t have a gun.

Still, the police video, the video from their perspective, the body cam video, and the dash cam video that is being withheld from public view even though the public -- excuse me, the family wants that released to the public.

We heard President Obama saying he wants Americans to be able to sympathize with each other at times like this, even to empathize with one another.

Hillary Clinton today added her voice to those calling for the police tapes of the shooting to be released. When she signs her tweets with a hyphen and "H", that means she`s written it personally and calling for the release of the police video. Hillary Clinton`s campaign also announced today that she intends to travel to Charlotte this weekend on Sunday, the day before the first presidential debate.

Now, as to whether or not that will actually happen I can`t say so definitively in part because the mayor of Charlotte who is a Clinton supporter tonight she said that she has also heard from the Trump campaign and that Trump would like to visit Charlotte some time next week after Clinton saying she planned to visit on Sunday. For now, at least, though, the mayor is calling on both candidates, both Clinton and Trump, to hold off from coming to her city. She said tonight, quote, "if there were a way to delay those visits, that would probably be ideal."

This is a live look at police in the streets of downtown Charlotte tonight where we will be keeping an eye throughout the evening on protests and now in their fourth day and tonight will be the first night since the whole country got a look at the incident which led to Keith Lamont Smith`s death.

Joining us now from Charlotte is "New York Times" reporter, Yamiche Alcindor.

Yamiche, thank you so much for being with us tonight. Really appreciate it.

YAMICHE ALCINDOR, NEW YORK TIMES: Thanks for having me.

MADDOW: So, first, just in terms of being on the ground in Charlotte. You`re on the ground there. Clearly, you`re in a calm spot and a quiet spot. Can you tell us just about the environment in the city tonight?

ALCINDOR: The environment in the city, I think, is tense in some ways. I`ve talked to people and there are already protesters marching and I would say there are at least 100 or more people out in the street and people are upset about the fact that they saw this video today. People -- I`ve been talking to people, dozens of people about how they really feel that this video confirms for them that the police in some way didn`t act correctly.

You hear Keith Scott`s wife saying he took his medication and he doesn`t have a gun and she`s trying to de-escalate the situation and people as though the police could have given her some time and given that family some time before they took these shots. I should say, of course, the family attorneys have told me, and I`ve asked them several times, they say they do not say whether or not -- they do not know whether or not the shooting was justified or unjustified. However, the idea is that people are feeling very upset about this.

But I should say, I was out in the streets until at least 1:00 a.m. and it was calm then. I don`t think we`ll see violence tonight. I hope that we don`t see violence tonight and I don`t have any indication that we`ll see the violence that we saw in the past days.

MADDOW: Yamiche, when you have the chance to speak with the attorneys for the Scott family, did they tell you about the decision to release this video, this very, very difficult to watch video shot by Mr. Scott`s wife. Did they tell you anything about why they decided to make that public?

ALCINDOR: Yes. So one of my first questions for the attorneys of this family was, are you trying to pressure the city to release their videos by releasing this video? And they told me, no. They are not trying to pressure the city to do that. They want the city to release the other video and the dash cam video and the body camera video and they told me this was about providing another angle and letting people know that this happened and this is the vantage point from which his wife watched him die.

So, I think the idea is to have people feel like they were here, so that they were in that moment to share in the grief of this family. This family, he has a lot of children. He`s a father of seven. So, the idea is that they wanted people to just, I think, really be in that moment.

And again, they`ve been asking for calm. The family has been asking for calm and they`ve been saying they don`t want this video to turn into people rioting and looting on behalf of the family.

MADDOW: Yamiche Alcindor, "New York Times" national reporter in Charlotte tonight -- Yamiche, stay in touch with us over the course of the night as you keep reporting out there on the streets. We want to make sure that we get good angles on what`s happening there and how people are feeling. I really appreciate it.

ALCINDOR: All right. Thanks.

MADDOW: Thank you.

All right. Big night around here. Thank you for spending it with us. We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MADDOW: So, tonight, we are watching protests not just Charlotte, North Carolina, but also now in Atlanta. Georgia`s chapter of the NAACP is leading a large demonstration in Atlanta tonight.

In Georgia and Atlanta, what they`re calling for is new laws in their state. They`re calling for an independent body to investigate all police- involved shootings instead of the police investigating themselves. They`re calling for an independent prosecutor for those kinds of cases and they`re calling for a requirement that all body cam and dashcam footage from police-involved shootings should be released to the public within 48 hours of those incidents.

Again, this is the protest and those are the demands that we`re looking at in Atlanta, Georgia, tonight. We are also keeping an eye as I mentioned on Charlotte, tonight.

This is the fourth demonstration after the police shooting of Keith Lamont Scott on Tuesday. Some of the most recent reporting we`ve had out of Charlotte is that protesters again are headed toward or blocking parts of Interstate 277. Protesters blocking major roadways and particular interstates have been some of the causes of some of the most heated confrontations between police and protesters.

But as I mentioned with Yamiche, we`ve got eyes and ears on the ground in Charlotte, and we`ll be covering this throughout the evening. We`re going to be looking at that later.

We`re also going to be looking a head at the political story that took over the headlines today. It`s been a love story for the ages. That`s all still ahead tonight.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MADDOW: So, suppose you were a Democrat and suppose you were nervous about the election. Oh, but I repeat myself. On the eve of the first presidential debate which is Monday, one of the things we have been keeping an eye on this week is the electoral forecast for which party will control the United States Senate. "The New York Times" for a long time had been projecting the Democrats would regain control of the Senate in November`s elections and as of this week the times is now projecting that the Republicans will control the Senate. "The Washington Post" also now forecasting that Republicans will retain control of the Senate.

We talked about both of those projections for Senate control earlier this week, but for you, hypothetical nervous Democrat, there was also good news on that front this week -- a little something to slow your frantic heart rate. Nate Silver`s outfit FiveThirtyEight.com have launched their Senate forecast and their analysis is that it is the Democrats who are favored to take control of the Senate, barely, barely, but still.

As of this evening, FiveThirtyEight gives Democrats a -- what is that? -- 58.5 percent chance of winning the Senate. So there. Happy Friday, nervous Democrats.

As for the presidential race yesterday, we reported on the first real data and the first real vote that has been cast already in the presidential election, an exclusive analysis from an NBC News partnership with the voter data group Target Smart shows that of the absentee ballots that have been cast in North Carolina so far, this isn`t polling, this is actual votes cast, registered Democrats have an eight-point edge so far on the early vote in North Carolina over Republicans. The ballots returned so far in North Carolina, 42 percent are from the Democrats and 34 percent are from Republicans.

Now, that`s only North Carolina and only a few thousand votes, but that is way better for Democrats than it was in 2012 when Mitt Romney won North Carolina against President Obama. Soon, we will be able to get similar data from lots of other states besides North Carolina.

In addition to North Carolina, absentee voting has now started in Georgia and in Alabama. Absentee voting started today in Virginia, Indiana, and West Virginia. Regular old early voting in-person and early voting also started today in Minnesota, South Dakota and Vermont.

A bunch of states are sending out their first ballots this week and over the weekend. Tomorrow is the deadline for absentee ballots to go out to overseas and military voters. If you`re wondering why we`re getting a big rash of newspaper endorsements right now, why is it happening before the debates and so far before the election is because voting is starting in so many places, and so, I think editorial boards feel like now is the time to say their piece.

Today, "The Cincinnati Enquirer" decided not to endorse a presidential candidate for the first time since 1916 when they endorsed Woodrow Wilson. It took "The Cincinnati Enquirer" another century to get around to endorsing a Democrat again after him. But this conservative paper, "The Cincinnati Enquirer" today gave an enthusiastic endorsement of Hillary Clinton and an enthusiastic renouncement of Donald Trump.

The big endorsement on the Republican side today was Ted Cruz, of all people. Senator Ted Cruz last seen getting booed and screamed at at the Republican convention in Cleveland when he didn`t say Republicans should vote for Donald Trump and he instead said Republicans should vote their conscience. When Ted Cruz came out today and endorsed Donald Trump, it was -- I mean, I guess we all knew it was coming, but still, reporters struggled to contextualize and struggled to explain the massiveness of the capitulation that this was today for Senator Cruz.

Here is a typical lead. Here`s how a reporter Russell Berman led his piece for "The Atlantic" announcing his endorsement of Ted Cruz and this shows you the lengths to which reporters are having to go to explain how bizarre this is. Quote, "Ted Cruz set aside his many differences with Donald Trump on Friday to endorse for a president a man whom he once called a serial philanderer, a pathological liar, utterly amoral, and a sniveling coward, a man who insulted his wife`s looks, a man who insinuated Cruz`s father was involved of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, a man who said he wouldn`t accept his endorsement, and who for months mocked him mercilessly with a schoolyard taunt, Lyin` Ted."

Ted endorsed that guy today. Other than that, nothing to see here.

Ted Cruz was supposed to be the last line of right-wing Republican defense against Donald Trump. The last line was supposed to be principled resistance to Donald Trump and that is gone now, too.

Ted Cruz`s former communications director Rick Tyler who was really a Ted Cruz true believer, he told NBC`s Hallie Jackson today when he heard this news. Quote, "It`s mourning in America for conservatives. We lost our leader today."

What it also means is that Donald Trump is consolidating the support of the Republican Party, all of it. He is theirs now and they are his, which is something I am sure his campaign wanted to have sewed up heading into the debates.

Both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were off the campaign trail today, preparing for Monday`s debate, although they`re preparing in markedly different ways. Sources telling NBC News that Clinton will be participating in mock debates with somebody playing the role of Donald Trump. She`s doing timed drills.

But sources also telling NBC News that Donald Trump is doing nothing of the sort. He`s continuing his more laid-back approach of sitting around and spitballing with his closest aides.

I, for one, don`t really believe any of it because they`re all spinning us so hard to try to manage expectations about this right now. Honestly -- when we`re this close to the debate there`s no real reason to believe the spin. There`s no real reason to even listen to the spin.

At this point, we just wait it out because on Monday night we will get to see them in action and all of the spin will become irrelevant because it`s going to happen live and in prime time.

Our debate coverage is going to start here on MSNBC at 6:00 p.m. Eastern. It`s going to be Chris Hayes 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. And then at 7:00 p.m. Eastern, Brian Williams and I will be here along with Chris Matthews and the cast of thousands. And then, the actual clash of action starts at 9:00 p.m. Eastern and you can watch the whole thing here, commercial-free. You should watch it with us.

It`s all very exciting. You`re not going to want to miss it. Obviously, you and 80 million of your fellow citizens are all expected to be there and you actually need a doctor`s note and an excuse if you`re not going to.

We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MADDOW: Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey is serving his second and final term in office. He cannot run for reelection. That`s probably a good thing for him right now. A new poll out this week puts the percentage of New Jersey residents who view Chris Christie favorably at an all-time low, 23 percent -- 23 percent favorable -- 23?

Remember when George W. Bush was in his second term as president and his approval rating fell through the floor and the whole country couldn`t wait to see him go and John McCain didn`t want to be seen with him, even in all that time, George W. Bush never dropped to 23 percent of people viewing him favorably, but that is where Chris Christie is right now, and I`m guessing it may be about to get worse.

This is the list of potential witnesses who may get called to testify in the federal trial in which Chris Christie`s deputy chief of staff and one of his top-appointed officials are facing felony charges for Bridgegate, for shutting down access lanes on the busiest bridge in the world in order to punish one of Chris Christie`s political enemies.

This is a big case. The potential witness list is giant. We don`t assume they`ll call everybody on this list, but one of the names they could call to testify is Governor Chris Christie himself. He`s on the potential witness list.

Today, the prosecution star witness took the stand. He`s a Christie appointee who has pled guilty for his role in Bridgegate. He`s facing 15 years in prison for his role in the scandal. His name is David Wildstein. He`s cooperating with the prosecution and today, his first day on the stand he testified as to what his job was as a Chris Christie appointee at this agency where he worked. This gigantic, two-state agency called the Port Authority.

Port Authority runs roads, bridges and tunnels and airport and marine facilities. It`s giant. And David Wildstein testified today that he operated at that agency by what he called by his one constituent rule. Meaning he only had one constituent. Meaning the only person that mattered to him and the only person his actions were designed to benefit was Governor Chris Christie.

David Wildstein said under oath today that the Port Authority was used as an instrument of Chris Christie`s re-election campaign. That he was expected as Christie`s appointee at the Port Authority to use the Port Authority`s assets to reward or to punish people based on how they treated Chris Christie. The whole Port Authority was to be used as leverage to get Chris Christie endorsements from other elected officials for his re- election campaign.

He said that order to use the Port Authority that way to get endorsements for the reelect, he says that order came from Governor Christie himself and also from Christie`s aide, deputy chief of staff Bridget Ann Kelly, who is one of the defendants on trial, and he said it mostly came from Governor Christie`s campaign manager, a man named Bill Stepien.

Bill Stepien now incidentally is the national field director for the Donald Trump for president campaign, and he was running the scheme? Oh, tell me more. Tell me everything.

The great news for the popcorn industry is that David Wildstein, the star witness for the prosecution, is expected to continue his testimony for all of next week. We`ll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DEMONSTRATOR: Black lives matter! Black lives matter! Black lives matter!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: We`re keeping an eye tonight on Charlotte, North Carolina on this, the fourth night of demonstrations since the fatal police shooting Tuesday of Keith Lamont Scott.

These protests started up tonight largely within the past 90 minutes or so. So far, it`s clear there are a lot of people out in the streets and there`s a lot of energy and no reports of any disturbances. These are peaceful protests.

Earlier in the day, we saw student-led protests at several local area high schools, including at Mallard Creek High and Hopewell High, Olympic High, Vance High, also at Charlotte`s Northwest School of the Arts.

But again, starting at around 8:00 p.m. local time tonight, protesters did start marching once again through the streets of Charlotte. You heard those chants, "black lives matter". We`re also hearing, "stand up, fight back", and "No justice, no peace". Also repeated chants of "release the tapes."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DEMONSTRATORS: Release the tapes! Release the tapes! Release the tapes! Release the tapes! Release the tapes!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: Protesters in Charlotte tonight calling for local officials to release the police video of the Keith Scott shooting. They`re asking people also to watch the video that was taken by Keith Scott`s wife which NBC News released today.

Charlotte leaders are also, in a sense, nationalizing their response and they`re asking people outside Charlotte who agree with them and who empathize with them in these protests to protest where they live.

Tonight, we`re seeing some of that. This is a live shot from Atlanta, Georgia. This is one of the large marches that`s happening in the country tonight. This was organized by the NAACP in Atlanta tonight.

It shows there are a lot of other signs of it, but this big crowd tonight out in Atlanta shows how this response to the shooting in North Carolina is spreading.

Joining us now is Corine Mack. She`s president of the Charlotte, North Carolina branch of the NAACP.

Ms. Mack, thank you so much for talking to us tonight. I know this has been a difficult few days.

CORINE MACK, CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA NAACP: Thank you for having me.

MADDOW: How would you describe the community reaction today to seeing the cell phone video that was released by Keith Scott`s wife?

MACK: I think there was a definite anger, initially, and most of us began to think about the family once again, just imagining how the short -- Mrs. Scott should have been seeing her husband die before her. That had to be traumatic and she was in our hearts and prayers for the day today.

MADDOW: Obviously, there is a tremendous amount of pressure, including in the streets tonight that local authorities should release the police video, as well, the dash cam video and the body cam video. The family, when they look through their attorneys and when they have seen those videos which the police have shown them, they also don`t believe they conclusively define what happened in that incident.

Do you think those police videos are released that it will materially change the way people feel about this incident?

MACK: I know it would change the way they feel with the relationship between themselves and the police department. The incident, I`m not so sure, but I do know this, those videos probably have very different angles which would give a different perspective. I know the videos that we heard the family Scott already said, they could not determine, there were a lot of blockage and areas that they could not see anything.

And I think it`s important, in terms of transparency, I think it`s important that the CMPD does release the videos. We have a long way to go. A long way to go to build that bridge, but at least in doing that, that`s a small olive branch towards what we`re trying to get done, which is a conversation, an honest conversation and possibly building trust again.

MADDOW: In terms of the protests, obviously, this is four straight nights, we`re seeing large crowds out in the street. Last night, people were out until the wee hours, even though that curfew was announced, large, peaceful protests, energetic protests last night.

Can you tell us anything in terms of how the organizing is going on behind these protests and it was organic with people just showing up and is this a pretty tightly organized effort across the city?

MACK: I think it`s both. I know that the Charlotte Mecklenburg (INAUDIBLE) as well as the NAACP have been working collaboratively to get things done. But there are some organic, you know, areas in terms of the protests.

The thing is I think that this oneness, we`re all frustrated and we`re all angry, we`re sick and tired of being sick and tired. We`re seeing African- Americans being killed by police and nobody is accountable. You know, there is not one incident we can think of where someone was found guilty of shooting an unarmed person and we`re sick of it.

So, I think just based on that and then when you look at the systemic problems we have in this country and systemic racism and oppression. When you look at North Carolina itself being number 50, in the country in terms of the vulnerability for black people, we understand there is a problem here beyond the fact that we`re being killed. There is a problem in terms of the educational system, the pipeline problem we have here, prison industrial complex issues we have here, there`s a whole host of problems that need to be resolved.

MADDOW: Corine Mack, as president of the Charlotte branch of the NAACP, you`re really the tip of the spear, your organization could not be more critical in terms of what`s going on there and the eyes of the nation being upon Charlotte -- thank you for taking time to help us understand what`s going on there. Good luck to you.

MACK: Thank you. I appreciate you.

MADDOW: All right. Much more ahead tonight. Do please stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MADDOW: Breaking news: we have just got a new statement from the Clinton campaign. I mentioned earlier this hour that Hillary Clinton`s campaign had announced she would be going to Charlotte, North Carolina, not tomorrow, Sunday. Sunday this weekend, so the day before Monday`s debate, had said that might be in question because Charlotte`s mayor had expressed that visits from either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, she would hope, they could be delayed. Obviously, Charlotte feels like they`ve got a lot on their plate right now, not least of which is a continuing state of emergency in that city.

A statement from Hillary Clinton`s communications director tonight Jen Palmieri, "Hillary is grateful for and intends to honor the invitation from faith leaders to visit with the Charlotte community. After further discussion with community leaders, though, we have decided to postpone Sunday`s trip to want impact the city`s resources. She`ll plan to visit Charlotte next Sunday provided the circumstances allow. In the meantime, her prayers are with the people of Charlotte during this difficult day."

So, Hillary Clinton now not planning on going to Charlotte this Sunday.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MADDOW: If you remember back to the days when Iraq was in the news every single day, when the Iraq war was such big American news that we all learned at least a little bit of Iraq geography by heart, you`ll remember that the northern part of Iraq up in the northeastern part of Iraq, there is a part of that country that isn`t really run by the national government. That`s the Kurdish-controlled part of Iraq, right? Semiautonomously governed by the Kurds.

Up in the northern part of Iraq, sandwiched between the Kurdish-controlled region on one side and the Syrian border on the other side, there is a major Iraqi city called Mosul, and Mosul used to have about 2.5 million people, making it basically the third largest city in Iraq. But then a couple of years ago, Mosul got taken over by ISIS and now nobody knows how many people live there anymore. Maybe it`s down to a million people? We don`t know. We also don`t really know what condition that city is in since is has been running it for so long.

Other big, well-known cities in Iraq like Ramadi and Fallujah, they`ve been taken back from ISIS control, but Mosul is the one that ISIS still has. They`ve got it now, but maybe not for long.

For months now, there have been reports that Iraqi forces of some strike presumably with U.S. help and, they`ve been positioning and moving weapons and forces into place to get ready to take back the city of Mosul from ISIS, to take back the single largest city that ISIS controls in Iraq, the single largest city that ISIS controls anywhere.

The Iraqi prime minister has recently expressed that he wants the Mosul operation to take place by the end of the year. Well, I can now report that there are new signs that that incident, that operation may be imminent, even just from a U.S.-involvement perspective.

A couple of weeks ago, the U.S. sent 400 more American service members into Iraq. Many of them were presumably sent to what`s being described as U.S. logistics hub just south of Mosul, in that spot that we`ve marked here on a little star. That U.S.-run facility made news just this week when ISIS apparently lobbed a shell into that facility that appears to have contained mustard gas. Oh great.

Nobody was hurt, but that`s ominous. Now, in addition to those 400 Americans that were sent in just a couple of weeks ago, now, U.S. officials have leaked to "The Wall Street Journal" a new request for 500 more U.S. troops to be sent over there now.

And again, this is just a leak. It`s not an official announcement that they are going, but if we are sending another 500 American servicemen and servicewomen over there, that will bring the total number of U.S. service members deployed in Iraq well over 6,000, and it probably means that the invasion of the biggest ISIS-controlled city on earth is coming up fast.

Things to watch for in terms of it becoming truly imminent, watch for cities and small towns on the way to Mosul to be taken first. We`ve already seen a couple of those be announced in the last week. Hopefully, we`ll be also be watching for some sort of plan to take care of the hundreds of thousands of refugees who are going to flee that giant city when the bombardment starts.

But I`m telling you, this thing is coming. It`s going to be a deal, and my expectation is going to happen before the U.S. election.

Watch this space.

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MADDOW: All right, here`s a story you have not heard anywhere else. Here was Donald Trump a few days ago in North Carolina in a place he had not intended to be. This is a barbecue restaurant in Greensboro, North Carolina. And you need to see him in these pictures, first, because Mr. Trump did not intend to be in that barbecue restaurant that you don`t actually get to lay eyes on him on this next video. But I swear he`s there.

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REPORTER: Mr. Trump, can you take some questions from us?

REORTER: Mr. Trump, will you take some questions?

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MADDOW: Mr. Trump would not be taking any questions in that barbecue joint in Greensboro, North Carolina. He had started his day, his Tuesday in North Carolina just a little down the road with a rally in High Point, the crowd there very enthusiastic, honestly a notably white crowd.

And at that mostly white super enthusiastic rally, Mr. Trump again made his appeal to African-American voters who really, truly were not there in the room.

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DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: That`s worse than the war-torn nations that you`re looking at. That`s worse than Afghanistan. The schools are failing. The jobs are leaving, and millions are trapped in poverty.

So, to the African American community, I say, vote for Donald Trump. I will fix it. I will fix it.

What do you have to lose? Your education is broken. Your communities are unsafe. There are no jobs, what do you have to lose?

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MADDOW: What do you have to lose? Donald Trump making that appeal for African-American votes in an almost entirely white room. That was in the afternoon. And then in the evening, he spoke at another rally in Kenansville, North Carolina, where he again stood before an almost entirely white audience to make his appeal to black voters.

Donald Trump basically just pronouncing the death sentence for America`s inner cities while speaking to a white crowd in a rural town of less than 1,000 people in North Carolina.

So, that was Donald Trump`s day in swing state North Carolina, but it was not the day he intended to have, which we can now report, and I`ll show what I mean. Trump started out in High Point, North Carolina. He ended up here in the evening, making that same appeal, again, to black voters, even though he was speaking to a room full of white people.

But between them, if you leave High Point on the interstate, the first place you come to is Greensboro, which is just a half an hour away. And right in downtown Greensboro is a fascinating place, the International Civil Rights Center and Museum. It`s built around the lunch counter. It`s built around old Woolworth`s lunch counter, where four African-American begin what is now known universally as the sit-in movement. They sat down at an all-white lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. That`s where it all started, but their lives and their livelihoods and their flesh and blood for equality.

And today, you can visit that exact same lunch counter in the exact same spot at that civil rights museum in Greensboro, North Carolina. We`ve got this epic new national African-American museum. But there`s also this one in Greensboro, and you really ought to see this too. Unless, of course, what you want is not so much to see it but to be seen yourself.

So, that museum is on the way for Donald Trump`s first campaign speech to his second campaign speech. He drove right by the Civil Rights Museum. Since then, we have learned that Donald Trump intended to go to that Civil Rights Museum before later changing his mind. We think we`ve learned why.

On Saturday, we can report that a representative of the Trump campaign showed up unannounced at that museum. According to the museum CEO, the Trump representative used a very authoritative tone as he informed the Museum staff that Trump security would be coming by on Tuesday, Trump himself would show up shortly thereafter specifically so he could be filmed walking through the Civil Rights Museum.

When the staff tried to ask about the event and what this was about, the head of the museum says the Trump representative just told them it was happening, it was on the campaign books, the Trump campaign was coming, the candidate was coming, so get ready, period. Well, that happened this weekend.

That caused the head of the International Civil Rights Museum to release this statement of Monday of this week, quote, "The International Civil Rights Center and Museum is a non-partisan, non-profit organization committed to advancing an enlightened understanding of civil rights. Any ream observer can conclude and many have that Donald J. Trump is in comprehensive opposition to the values and mission of the Civil Rights Museum. Also as a practical matter, the museum is not in a position to suspend its operations to serve as a backdrop to legitimatize Mr. Trump`s ideological positions."

The Civil Rights Museum says they told Mr. Trump he`s welcome to come as a citizen. Any citizen is welcome. But they were not going to stop everything and close up shop to become a photo-op showcase for Donald Trump`s, what did they call it, "comprehensive opposition to the values and the mission of the Civil Rights Museum."

And so, Donald Trump and his campaign did not go to the Greensboro Civil Rights Museum. Apparently, they decided they didn`t want to face that. They apparently did need to stop in Greensboro, but what they did is they just went in and got some barbecue instead. The local papers says, he sure surprised all the diners there. They didn`t know he was coming.

And reporters did try to ask him questions there but he did not answer.

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REPORTER: Mr. Trump, when did you change your mind about the birther issue? When did you decide that President Obama was actually born in the United States?

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MADDOW: That was Donald Trump`s Tuesday in North Carolina. No answer to those questions. No stop at the Civil Rights Museum either, even though they tried to.

So far, no comment from the campaign on that canceled planned trip to the Civil Rights Museum or why they`ve canceled. We`ve asked them about it, they apparently don`t want to talk about it. But I should tell you that that Tuesday in North Carolina was the day Keith Lamont Smith (ph) was shot and killed in the streets of Charlotte, North Carolina, and we`ve got four straight nights of protests since, including tonight.

That does it for this our coverage this hour tonight. We`ll see you again on Monday.

Now, it`s time for "THE LAST WORD WITH LAWRENCE O`DONNELL".

Good evening, Lawrence.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. END