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The Rachel Maddow Show, Transcript 9/29/2016

Guests: Marc Caputo, Peter Kiernan

Show: THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW Date: September 29, 2016 Guest: Marc Caputo, Peter Kiernan

CHRIS HAYES, "ALL IN" HOST: That is "ALL IN" for this evening.

THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW starts right now. Good evening, Rachel.

RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC HOST: Good evening, Chris. Thanks, my friend.

HAYES: You bet.

MADDOW: Thanks to you at home for joining us at home this hour. Happy Thursday.

Texas used to be a swing state. It was. I swear I`m not kidding. For a long time, Texas was a swing state.

Eisenhower, of course, was a Republican, Eisenhower won Texas narrowly the first time, then he won it comfortably the second time. Then starting in 1960, it was the Kennedy/Johnson years and Texas swung to the Democrats.

Eight years later, 1968, Texas was an absolute toss-up. The state split three ways between the Democrat and the Republican and segregationist George Wallace. Texas that year did go Democrat but just by a hair.

Four years later 1972, Texas went Republican. So, heading into the 1976 election, Texas was seen as a true swing state, an unpredictable swing state. That was truly up for grabs, not just because of its history of swinging back and forth between the two parties but also because of the candidates in 1976.

I mean, here was Jimmy Carter, an outsider, a newcomer, a Southerner running for the Democratic Party. And then there was the Republican candidate, technically an incumbent president but more literally, he was sort of the inheritor of the Nixon presidency. As a Michigander, he had no innate appeal to Texas voters.

As Election Day was getting closer and closer, the polls were really tight that year. The swing states were very hard to call, including big ones like Texas with all those electoral votes. And then less than one month before Election Day, on October 6th, 1976, President Ford stepped on a rake. It happened at the debate that night, October 6, 1976, and you can tell that something went wrong here just by watching the reaction from the moderator.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GERALD FORD, FORMER PRESIDENT: There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe and there never will be under a Ford administration.

MS. FREDERICK, CO-MODERATOR: Mr. Carter --

MAX FRANKEL, CO-MODERATOR: I`m sorry. Could I just follow -- did I understand you to say, sir, that the Russians are not using Eastern Europe as their own sphere of influence and occupying most of the countries there and making sure with their troops that it`s a communist zone?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: That`s Max Frankel from "The New York Times." You heard in the distance there sort of the background one of the other moderators actually tries at that moment, after Ford stops talking, tries to hand that over the Jimmy Carter to respond, but Max Frankel can`t hold himself back. He has to jump in with, I`m sorry, what now? I`m sorry, what did you say, sir?

I mean, Americans at the time could read you chapter and verse about the soviet domination of Eastern Europe, about Soviet tanks rolling through the streets of Eastern Europe and crushing the resistance, right? I mean, it was a very central part of the way that Americans knew the world worked. I mean, saying there was no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, that would be the equivalent now to a president getting up on stage and saying, oh, yeah, you know what, North Korea seems nice, right?

It`s like an American president getting up and saying you know what we need to worry about, the greatest geopolitical threat that we face and the greatest danger to the world? It`s the Canadians. Those Canadians, they`re vicious. They`re a threat to the world. It was just bizarre.

And it came at a really bad time for Gerald Ford. It was less than a month before the election. It was on a really bad subject for him to have a big flub like that. I mean, there had been no expectation that there would be televised debates that year. There hadn`t been any televised presidential debates since 1960, 16 years at that point.

Part of the reason Ford wanted to debate Jimmy Carter, and in particular, he wanted this second debate based on foreign policy was so he could show off on foreign policy, so he could showcase his international experience, right? He negotiated with foreign leaders as an incumbent president and he`s running against this never heard of him one-time Georgia governor who people are not supposed to take seriously particularly on that issue.

But then, Ford volunteers that bizarre statement. There`s no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe. And he never really recovered.

I mean, in a general sense, honestly, I don`t mean this in a mean way, but it made him look dumb. Gerald Ford was definitely not dumb, but that became a caricature that he never really escaped.

Specifically, though, beyond that general problem that created for him in the swing states that year and among some very specific constituents in the swing states, it didn`t just make them think less of President Ford`s intellect, it made them angry at President Ford.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Last night, the president made a statement so startling to his listeners that some even thought it must be a slip of the tongue. He said, quote, "There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe and never will be in a Ford administration."

The reaction has been generally critical, particularly in parts of this country having numerous people of East European descent.

REPORTER: Cleveland has the largest Hungarian community in the country, 80,000 people. Many of them said they were shocked by what the president said.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In effect, he denied that there is any Soviet domination in Eastern countries. I don`t know how would he explain then why 200,000 people fled Hungary in `56, and in `68, the Czechoslovak episode.

LEZLO BOJTOS: It`s shocking to us that the president of the United States makes a statement that Eastern European nations are not under Russian hand. Russian soldiers are by the hundreds of thousands present in Eastern Europe.

REPORTER: The leaders of the Hungarian community say President Ford`s comments may lose him votes among their people.

REPORTER: Chicago has as many poles as Warsaw, more than a million. After last night`s debate, the president of the Illinois polish American Congress got a call from one of Mr. Ford`s assistants.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I told the special assistant that this will hurt Ford in the Polish American community, as well as in other Slavic and European community.

REPORTER: The people who live in the community were upset.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`m a Republican. I like Mr. Ford, but he was very, very wrong.

REPORTER: The ethnic groups of Rosenberg, Texas, run all the way back to the plains of Bohemia. Czech immigrants settle this community in the late 1800s. Their descendants are still here.

The local radio station`s morning disk jockey is Joe Gravnorovich (ph), who broadcast news of the debate in Moravian, a Czech dialect.

And at the Chamber of Commerce luncheon today, many disagreed with the president`s remarks. Voters here tend to be anti-communist conservative Democrats who believe that Eastern European countries are still captive nations.

IRVIN HURTA: It`s not what`s going on over there. There is dominance in Eastern Europe. And unless he does admit his mistake, it is going to cost him some votes.

HOE HUBENAK: I would have a tendency to believe that he made a mistake and he`s going to have to face up to the American people and just say, that`s not what I really meant to say.

REPORTER: What if it was what he meant to say?

HUBENAK: I think he`s going to have his penalty to pay on November 2nd.

REPORTER: Most of the people here felt the president`s remarks were a mistake, a slip of the tongue. But they`re upset about it. So, unless the president issues a retraction or some clarification, they`re likely to remain upset all the way to the ballot box.

Arthur Lord, NBC News, Rosenberg, Texas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MADDOW: Rosenberg, Texas. And in fact on November 2nd that year on Election Day in Texas, Gerald Ford did pay some kind of penalty. On November 2nd that year, Gerald Ford lost Texas, lost Texas to Jimmy Carter.

He also lost Ohio to Jimmy Carter. He did pull off a squeaker in Illinois even if NBC had trouble finding angry Polish Americans who were angry at Ford forever for what he said in the debate. He did narrowly win Illinois that year.

But he lost overall. All those swing state races were close. Eastern Europeans, Hungarians, Poles, Czechs, and Romanians, and all the rest, they were sub-groups of Americans who a candidate couldn`t afford to lose in those tight races, on those up for grabs swing states and that hard-fought election year. So, that flub in that debate, yes, he`d probably be remembered for that anyway, that`s a pretty bad one.

But the way it affected him electorally, a lot of sleepless nights over that in the Ford campaign and for good reason. In general, big picture, it`s hard to know how individual flubs, you know, bad debate moments, bad campaign moments, how they shift a candidate`s overall electoral prospects. It is a little bit easier to gain those things out when a candidate`s offense doesn`t hit everyone equally. It particularly offends and upsets an important interest group from whom that candidate needs votes in a specific particularly important swing state. And so behold, Florida.

Hillary Clinton used to have a big lead in Florida after the conventions this summer, but it has tightened up there significantly. Some polls now show her ahead, some polls now show Trump ahead. But polling averages right now, which is probably the safest way to look at it basically show that Florida`s a tie.

The most populous county in Florida is Miami-Dade. Miami-Dade County also has the largest number of Republicans in any county in the state of Florida. There are more than 350,000 registered Republicans in Miami-Dade County. And what is unique about that population and, therefore, what is unique about what it means to campaign for the Republican vote in the swing state of Florida is that in Miami-Dade County, of those 350 plus thousand Republican votes, 72 percent of those voters are Hispanic. And the vast majority of those Hispanic Republicans are Cuban American.

Now, this year the latest poll of the Cuban American vote in Miami shows that Donald Trump is leading with those voters but not by a lot. His lead there as of last month with those voters was about four points. He`s going to need to get that number up significantly if he has any hope of winning Florida.

Republicans have to run the table with Cuban Americans in Florida in order to win that state. And, you know, the Trump campaign, for all its willingness to throw tradition out of the window, for all their proud indifference to political traditional and norms, the Trump campaign appears to absolutely realize that they`ve got to do what you usually need to do with Cuban Americans in Florida. They appear to recognize that there`s no way for their candidate to win in Florida without that critical Cuban American Republican vote.

And so, like every other Republican candidate known in modern history, like Mike Huckabee and like John McCain and like Newt Gingrich and like Michele Bachmann, even Herman Cain, remember him, like all Republicans before him, there was Donald Trump this week at the exact same coffee shop they all go to in Little Havana in Miami, a cafe called Cafe Versailles.

There was Donald Trump this week doing what they all do. He has famously bragged that in addition to not smoking and not drinking, he`s never had a sip of coffee in his life. If that`s true, I don`t know what`s in his little cup there, but maybe they made him a teeny, tiny tea?

But, you know, even if you`re Donald Trump, all Republicans agree they must go through the motions and try to goose their numbers with Cuban American Republicans in Florida and that`s the only known path to victory for Republicans in Florida.

And today, into that tiny delicious capacito cup at Cafe Versailles plopped this from "Newsweek" magazine. We were first to release advance excerpts from this story last night from investigative reporter Kurt Eichenwald. It is now out. It`s called the "Castro Connection", how Donald Trump`s company violated the U.S. embargo against Cuba.

Kurt Eichenwald`s allegation in this piece is that Donald Trump`s company in 1998 violated the U.S. embargo on American individuals or companies spending money in Cuba. For political effect, Donald Trump has repeatedly praised that embargo in Cuba. He has bragged about how he never violate it, he would never spend money in Cuba, that would be a terrible thing.

But Kurt Eichenwald in "Newsweek" magazine today said that Donald Trump`s company did exactly that. And now Donald Trump is denying all of it.

Here was Mr. Trump tonight in New Hampshire being questioned about it by a reporter from WMUR.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: How do you respond to a report that`s out today that says in the late `90s, you violated the embargo by doing business in Cuba?

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I never went to Cuba. I`ve never been in Cuba. I never did business with Cuba.

REPORTER: So that`s --

TRUMP: Well, there`s nothing else to say. I never did business in Cuba. I would tell you very openly if I did. I was never involved in doing business in Cuba.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: After Donald Trump made those comments to WMUR in New Hampshire tonight, Kurt Eichenwald responded on Twitter by saying, and I quote, "proof time". Here`s the full tweet from Kurt Eichenwald, "Trump just denied his company paid for Cuba trip during embargo. Proof time." Then he says, "Names not in story removed, which is explaining what`s the redactions in this thing that he posted."

To that tweet, Kurt Eichenwald appended an image of what appears to be an invoice from a consultant company called Seven Arrows Investment and Development Corporation. It`s addressed to an executive at Trump`s company at the time.

"Dear Mr. Burke, enclosed please find expenses that were incurred on behalf of Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts during calendar 1998. The expenses fall into the following categories. Number one is something involved in a Florida gaming project. Number two is expenses incurred prior to and including a trip to Cuba on behalf of Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts." And the billing amount, you see there, $68,551.88.

There`s then a follow-up note underneath that list of expenses explaining helpfully right there on the invoice that a trip to Cuba like that would have to be sanctioned by the U.S. government, and even if it were sanctioned, it would also have to be technically on behalf of a charity. But it says right there in black and white that the trip was on behalf of Trump hotels and casino resorts.

This was an invoice billing Trump`s company for these expenses. The expenses of this Cuba trip on behalf of Trump`s company. The financial executives at Trump`s company to whom this invoice was addressed reportedly testified in a lawsuit that this bill was in fact paid in full by Donald Trump`s company. If that is true, that means that Donald Trump`s company appears to have violated the Cuba embargo.

Trump`s campaign manager said today on Twitter that Donald Trump did no business in Cuba and respected the embargo. That said, on the daytime TV show "The View" today, that same campaign manager also said -- her words I think exactly are "they paid money, as I understand it, in 1998."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KELLYANNE CONWAY, TRUMP CAMPAIGN MANAGER: I read the entire story. It starts out with the screaming headlines, as it usually does, that he did business in Cuba. It turns out that he decided not to invest there, as you read the entire story.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you denying that his company spent any money in Cuba?

CONWAY: I think they paid money as I understand from the story in 1998. We`re not supposed to talk about years ago when it comes to the Clintons --

(CROSSTALK)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: Whether or not we`re supposed to talk about things that happened in the `90s, that`s Donald Trump`s campaign manager Kellyanne Conway on "The View" of all places trying to say that Trump didn`t violate the embargo because he chose not to invest in the country but he did spend money there in 1998.

If he did spend money there in 1998, that`s a violation of the embargo. Don`t concede that.

So they appear to be kind of up a creek with only a really, really terrible paddle on this. Since this reporting went live today at "Newsweek," also Mark Caputo, veteran Florida political reporter who now works at politico.com, Mark Caputo also bolstered these reports of Trump doing business in Cuba at the time.

Mark Caputo spoke with the president of the U.S.-Cuba trade and economic council today who told Mark Caputo that in the mid to late 1990s, quote, "We were approached by a Trump organization senior executive who visited my office, and we have the correspondence in our file where the organization, meaning the Trump Organization, was interested in exploring potential opportunities in Cuba."

So, not everybody in the country is going to care whether Donald Trump did business in Cuba, but Cuban-American Republican voters in Florida are probably going to care not just about the question of whether Donald Trump did it but whether he directly lie to their faces about it when he went to South Florida in 1999, the first time he was thinking of running for president, and when he went there this week, both times to talk about how hard line he is on Cuba and how much he always respected that embargo above and beyond his own bottom line because the cause of the Cuban embargo is so close to his.

This new scandal for the Trump campaign will not matter everywhere in the country, but it might matter a lot somewhere where it really, really counts and could make the difference as to whether or not he gets elected president. Stay with us on this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Investing money in Cuba right now doesn`t go to the people of Cuba. It goes into the pockets of Fidel Castro.

(APPLAUSE)

He`s a murderer. He`s a killer. He`s a bad guy in every respect, and frankly, the embargo against Cuba must stand if for no other reason than if it does stand, he will come down.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: Donald Trump in 1999 when he was starting his own short-lived campaign for the Reform Party nomination for president that year. New reporting out today alleges that even then, as he was bragging to a Cuban- American audience in South Florida that he would never break the Cuba embargo because he would not want to prop up Castro`s Cuba, new reporting out today suggests that his company at that time was illegally spending money in Cuba and violating the embargo.

The Trump campaign is denying it today, but Kurt Eichenwald of "Newsweek" tonight has published an invoice that he says proves that the Trump campaign did violate the embargo. If that`s true, they not only violated the embargo, they lie to Cuban Americans while running for president the first time.

How will that news affect his current presidential campaign particularly in Florida where the Cuban-American Republican vote is still absolutely key?

Joining me now is Marc Caputo. He`s a senior writer for "Politico". He`s based in Miami, Florida, and who`s our sort of authority on all things deep, dark and political in modern Florida history.

Marc, thanks for being here.

MARC CAPUTO, POLITICO: Thanks for having me.

MADDOW: Let me ask you about the piece that you added to our understanding in this today. You spoke with president of the U.S.-Cuba trade and economic council who told you that he was also approached by the Trump organization in the `90s about possibly doing business in Cuba?

CAPUTO: Right. John Kovoilich (ph). He didn`t actually have the paperwork in front of him because John was in Havana when I called in, but he said, sometime in the mid or late `90s, he had an emissary from the Trump Organization come to him and say, look, we want to explore business opportunities on the island. Now, exactly when that was, he wasn`t sure, but he`s sure that it happened. On a parallel track around the time that Richard Fields, who is the character at the center of Kurt Eichenwald`s "Newsweek" piece, had traveled down the Cuba on Trump`s behalf.

We know from a Bloomberg report that around 2012, 2013, or maybe 2011-2012, there were other emissaries of the Trump Organization looking to develop golf courses in Cuba. So, I have at least three cases where Trump over the years, over the decades has explored business chances, opportunities in Cuba.

One thing I`d like to point out, there`s a possibility that Donald Trump is telling the truth about him not doing business in Cuba. Understand that he reimbursed a consultant that went down there. However, Trump, if all the facts that we know right now are true, might have still been complicit in violating the U.S. Cuba embargo because this consultant, Richard Fields, appeared to fly under false colors down there and use a charity as a phony excuse for going down.

Because under the embargo, you can go down to Cuba and not need a license as long as you are fully hosted is what they call it by a non-U.S. entity, sometimes a charity. So, it looked like from the documents that Kurt Eichenwald found that Fields had gone down there, used this charity as kind of a fig leaf for going down there, and then explored business opportunities. The ridiculous or weird thing is they actually put this in writing saying we`re going to lie about this. That`s what I don`t understand.

MADDOW: Looking at the invoice that says travel on behalf of the Trump Casino and Hotel Organization.

You mentioned that Bloomberg report, Bloomberg reported, as you said in 2012, 2013 other representatives of Trump`s business organization were in Cuba apparently in their descriptions scouting for golf course opportunities for Trump`s organization. That was reported by Bloomberg earlier this summer.

Was there any particular reaction to that among Cuban-American Republicans in Florida at the time?

CAPUTO: You know, I heard a little, and then with this report, you know, this just happened this morning. It`s kind of moving through the community. I don`t think it`s going to affect Republicans who planned to vote for Trump no matter what and who love him. But I have spoken to a number of people -- in fact, I was on a radio show this morning where a caller called in and we were talking about how families and friendships have been split apart by this political season, who said he`s Cuban American and his brother who is a Trump voter has not spoken to him in like a year.

MADDOW: Wow.

CAPUTO: He finally called him this morning having seen the "Newsweek" report and told him that this is the last straw. He couldn`t support Trump. I know that`s one anecdote but I do think it`s instructive.

One of the fellows that drove me over here is a Cuban-American that came over nine years ago, he expressed serious misgivings about this and he said his fellow Cuban-Americans also have. This could cost him a good measure of support. You see the Republicans who are Cuban-American who vote regularly in elections in Miami are general the only or really if you look at the polling are the only demographic that supports the hard line on the Cuba embargo which is basically embraced by nobody else.

So, it looks like you`re actively playing both sides or playing on one side, supporting it on the other side trying to violate it and get around the embargo. This is just not going to play well.

This is up to the Clinton campaign to make a big deal out of it. So, we`ll have to see how it shakes out. Hillary Clinton this morning or this evening took the opportunity to really take a shot at Donald Trump over this. I don`t think this is the last we`ve heard from her over this.

MADDOW: Marc Caputo, senior writer for "Politico", longtime Florida political authority -- Marc, it`s good to have you here on this. Thanks very much for being here.

CAPUTO: Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

MADDOW: It`s just one of these key issues that this is a narrowly focused issue but there`s a subgroup of the population that`s very, very important for specific swing state reasons every four years in these elections and it`s more important to them than almost anything else.

Presidential politics are always intense. This is an acutely intense issue for an acutely important interest group. I don`t know where this one`s going to go.

We`ll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MADDOW: OK, running tally now, "The Dallas Morning News" has not endorsed a Democrat since World War I, 1916. Lat week, they endorsed Hillary Clinton. "Arizona Republic" had never endorsed a Democrat in its entire 126-year history as a paper. Yesterday, they endorsed Hillary Clinton.

As of last night that was the running tally of conservative and Republican publications breaking their own long-held traditions. Then, we got another one. "The Detroit News" was founded even in 1873, it was founded even before the "Arizona Republic", and the entire time they`ve existed they`ve never endorsed anyone other than the Republican nominee for president. But now for the first time ever they`re not endorsing the Republican nominee for president.

"The Detroit News" says they still can`t bring themselves to endorse a Democrat, so they instead this year are endorsing the off beat beyond shot libertarian candidate named Gary Johnson. But oh, wait, there`s more.

The editorial board at "USA Today," they`ve never, ever in their whole history as a paper taken sides in a presidential race. But this year, "USA Today" is taking a side.

Sort of like "The Detroit News". They say they cannot reach a consensus among their editorial board that they should tell their readers to vote for Hillary Clinton, but nor can they come up with a consensus that they should tell their readers to vote for anyone else either. What they have reached consensus on is that their readers should not vote for Donald Trump.

For the first time in their history as a paper, "USA Today" is taking sides in a presidential election and the side they`re taking is not Trump. They list eight different reasons they think Donald Trump is unfit for the presidency. They sum it up with this, by all means vote, just not for Donald Trump. Anything, anyone, but not Trump.

They`re effectively saying, go out and vote, America, vote against Donald Trump.

For the record, Donald Trump remains tonight the only major party presidential nominee in modern history to have racked up precisely zero endorsements in the general election from major newspapers. He`s got zero, none.

Strange times. Memorable time, I hope, but strange.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MITT ROMNEY (R), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right. There are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they`re entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: Forty-seven percent tape was disaster for Mitt Romney, right? He`s a multi-multi-multimillionaire explaining to his donors that what`s up against is the half of the country who are useless parasites who won`t vote for him because they`re so entitled. That`s what we remember from that tape, right?

But on that same tape on that same night, Romney had other warnings for his donors including a curious one about the riskiness of daytime TV.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROMNEY: "The View" is high risk because of the five women on it only one is conservative, four are sharp-tongued and not conservative. Whoopi Goldberg in particular.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: Whoopi Goldberg in particular.

Mitt Romney in 2012 telling his donors to watch out for Whoopi.

After that video leaked, Mitt Romney canceled his next scheduled appearance on "The View." Campaign said at the time it was a scheduling issue. Sure, sure, sure, tough guy.

Probably a wise decision in the end, at least that`s how it looked today. And that`s next. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MADDOW: Behold, the power of the one question interview -- demonstrated for us today by Whoopi Goldberg and Donald Trump`s campaign manager. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WHOOPI GOLDBERG, THE VIEW: Where are his damn tax returns and why don`t we know what he`s spent? Where is it?

(APPLAUSE)

I know what size Hillary Clinton`s bra cup is. I know how much she spent on her bra. The transparency is insane. Where is his --

CONWAY: That is not true.

GOLDBERG: I`m sorry --

CONWAY: I don`t want to know that about her. I want to know what she was hiding in 33,000 e-mails she deleted.

GOLDBERG: What is Donald Trump hiding by not releasing --

CONWAY: So there`s a 104-page financial disclosure.

(CROSSTALK)

GOLDBERG: She has never been hacked. She`s never been hacked. I want to know since every other president has had to do it, where are the tax returns? That`s what I want to know.

(APPLAUSE)

CONWAY: It`s under audit by an --

GOLDBERG: It`s bull. That`s bull.

(CROSSTALK)

CONWAY: First of all, America wants to know what it will look like under President Trump and President Hillary Clinton -- he`s not hiding anything.

GOLDBERG: I think he is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: It is hard to argue with Whoopi Goldberg. I mean, just technically, it is hard to argue with Whoopi Goldberg.

Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway found that out the hard way today.

You would think they`d have an answer for this question now, right? There`s no escaping it. He`s the first major presidential party nominee since Nixon to not release his taxes. It`s a total break from what we expect from presidential candidates, even those who haven`t made a career in business.

It`s a total break from what Trump himself said he would do if he ever to run for president. This is a thing that`s obviously going to dog their campaign. They have to come up with an answer for it. At the debate they had to have known that Trump was going to get hit on it at the debate.

But when Hillary Clinton unloaded on him on it in a way that was uninterrupted and comprehensive and brutal during the debate, it was really weird. Trump had no response. I mean, he did have one interrupting rejoinder to it but that was one that only made it worse.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Or maybe he doesn`t want the American people, all of you watching tonight, to know that he`s paid nothing in federal tacks because the only years that anybody`s ever seen were a couple of years when he had to turn them over to state authorities when he was trying to get a casino license and they showed he didn`t pay any federal income tax.

TRUMP: That makes me smart.

CLINTON: So, if he`s paid zero, that means zero for troops, zero for vets, zero for schools or health, and I think probably he`s not all that enthusiastic about having the rest of our country see what the real reasons are because it must be something really important, even terrible, that he`s trying to hide.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: Donald Trump interjecting there, that makes me smart, paying no taxes. That makes me smart.

Hillary Clinton was out campaigning on that the very next day. And the campaign ads have been writing themselves ever since.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: When I confronted him with the reasons why he won`t release his tax returns, and I got to that point where I said, well, maybe he`s paid zero. He said that makes him smart. Now, if not paying taxes makes him smart, what does that make all the rest of us? He didn`t pay any federal income tax.

TRUMP: That makes me smart.

CLINTON: That means zero for troops, for vets, for schools or health.

TRUMP: My whole life I`ve been really, really, I`ve grabbed all the money I could get. I`m so greedy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: This is something the Trump campaign knew was coming. But boy, have they handled it badly.

I mean, Donald Trump has tried to undo the "that makes me smart" thing. He started in the spin room immediately after the debate. The Clinton debate even turned that into an ad.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: You admitted that you haven`t paid federal taxes and that that was smart, is that what you meant to say?

TRUMP: I didn`t say that at all.

CLINTON: He didn`t pay any federal income tax.

TRUMP: That makes me smart.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: Last night on the FOX News Channel, Donald Trump made a new attempt to take back his "that makes me smart" line. He said on Fox last night that what he actually said in the debate was that if he paid no federal income taxes, that would make him smart. Though it`s not really clear how putting the assertion in the subjunctive makes things better for him. And besides, that`s really not what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: He didn`t pay any federal income tax.

TRUMP: That makes me smart.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: In their new poll that`s out officially today, TPP asked voters nationwide, who do you think pays more in federal income taxes, you or Donald Trump? This is not like whose tax rate do you think is higher. This is the question: who do you think pays more in federal income taxes you personally or this supposed billionaire running for president?

By a ten-point margin, people nationwide think Donald Trump pays less in taxes than they do. A plurality of average voters think they personally have a higher tax bill than this billionaire businessman man guy.

On the question whether Trump should release his tax return, 62 percent of voters say he should, only 27 percent say he shouldn`t.

Trump and his campaign have failed badly on this as a known political liability for their candidate. This is something they knew they would take heat on. They have failed to come up with any explanation, any counter- argument, anything to say in response to it that doesn`t just make it worse.

So, now, they`re getting all this pressure, not just from the Clinton campaign but from journalists, from voters, even from "The View", that he`s got to release these tax returns.

And now, on top of all that, there`s another very specific, very acute, very politically salient form of pressure being applied on this specifically. They haven`t responded to it yet at all. And that is next.

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MADDOW: Peter Kiernan is a highly decorated marine special operator who served in Afghanistan. You may recognize his face here because you saw him on this show earlier this month after our commander in chief forum. We had Kiernan here to talk about being a young Afghanistan vet in the midst of the fourth straight U.S. presidential election in which we have been in that war as a country even if the two candidates and the two parties don`t particularly like to fight about much anymore.

Turns out Marine Peter Kiernan has taken this interest in this election in another very specific direction. About three weeks ago, he started a crowd funding project to try to persuade Republican candidate Donald Trump that he should release his tax returns.

And, honestly, Peter Kiernan is being very persuasive about this. He set up this crowdpac site that people can pledge money that will go to ten different veterans organizations. Here`s the catch, though: you don`t actually have to make good on your pledge. You don`t have to pay out that money unless and until Donald Trump releases his tax returns. Donald Trump doesn`t get the money. The vets do.

Peter Kiernan`s original goal was to raise $25,000 for veterans charities if Trump released his taxes, but then the billionaire co-founder of LinkedIn, a man named Reid Hoffman, he upped the stakes enormously saying he would match everybody`s pledges 5-1. He`d pledge $5 for every dollar pledged by everybody else. He`s quintuple it up to $5 million.

So, that means if Peter Kiernan can get a million in pledge donations, Reid Hoffman will pledge 5 million all to go to veterans charities. All Trump has to do to make that happen is release his taxes and the veterans will get all of that money.

With that announcement about the 5-1 match, the project took off. They raised 100 grand in 24 hours. As of tonight, donors from 50 states have pledged a total of $400,000, but do the math. With Reid Hoffman`s quintupling pledge, that means if Trump released his tax returns right now, Peter Kiernan would have nearly $2.5 million to donate to these ten veterans groups.

Their deadline for the veterans to get their money, for Trump to release his taxes the day of the third and final presidential debate, October 19th. By then, there may be a pot of $6 million cash ready to be donated to these veterans groups if only Donald Trump releases those returns.

None of this money out of his pocket, $6 million to vets. I told you it was pretty persuasive.

Joining us now is Peter Kiernan. He served as a marine special operator in Afghanistan. He`s now at Columbia University where he`s a founder of the Ivy League Veterans Council.

Mr. Kiernan, thank you for your time tonight. I`m really glad to have you here.

PETER KIERNAN, FORMER U.S. MARINE CORPS SCOUT SNIPER: Thanks, Rachel. Thanks for having me again.

MADDOW: Let me ask first of all if I got that right, if I explained your persuasive scheme accurately.

KIERNAN: Yes, no, you hit the nail on the head. Ever since Reid`s joined in, it`s been very successful. We`ve raised an average of $25,000 a day. I would hope that Donald would consider releasing his tax returns to help veterans.

MADDOW: How is being a veteran driving this interest for you? What`s the connection between your status as a veteran, your interest in veteran issues and Trump`s taxes?

KIERNAN: Well, I think it has a lot to do with Trump`s claim about, you know, paying no taxes is a smart thing to do. You know, when I was in Afghanistan, taxes paid for my body armor. Taxes paid for my weapons and ammunition. Taxes paid for the emergency life flight that my buddies got flown out on when they lost their legs.

Taxes paid for gold star families, for the 14 children I know today without fathers. And more than that, they support cops and firefighters. You know, every public service that this nation offers.

And where I come from, leaders are meant to lead by example. And you inspire those to follow you. And I think that if Trump`s free riding on the political process and the system, I think that`s a dangerous precedent as a leader.

MADDOW: Has the Trump campaign or anybody from the Trump campaign responded to you at all? Do you expect them to respond to you at all on this?

KIERNAN: Nobody`s responded to us directly, but I think the message is pretty clear. I`m not looking for a personal response. This isn`t about me. We just want to see Trump`s tax returns.

MADDOW: Peter Kiernan, decorated he`ll be graduating from Columbia University next May, creator of this crowd funding campaign to get Trump to release his tax returns. Peter, thank you for keeping us up to date on this tonight, creative approach. Really appreciate you being here.

KIERNAN: Thanks, Rachel. Appreciate it.

MADDOW: All right. Up next, we have late-breaking news from a "Washington Post" reporter who`s on a hot streak right now. Stay with us.

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MADDOW: "Washington Post" reporter, David Fahrenthold, is going to be on "THE LAST WORD" with Lawrence O`Donnell tonight. That is particularly important tonight, because he has just broken this new news. Trump Foundation lacks the certification required for charities that solicit money.

Fahrenthold has been a terrier on this story of Donald Trump`s financial dealings through his foundation. He`s uncovered the latest detail on this that nobody else has been able to turn up. He`s going to be on with Lawrence tonight, right after this.

Stay with us.

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MADDOW: This photo was taken on May 13, 1880 on a makeshift railroad track set up in the farmlands of New Jersey. This was the first test of Thomas Edison`s electric railway, which started its journey outside Edison`s lab in New Jersey. It ended only about a third of a mile later.

At the time it was taken, locomotives in this country were run on steam. And Edison predicted that electricity could replace steam as a power source for trains. Most people thought he was nut. But 50 years later in 1930, just a few months before his death, there was Thomas Edison actually driving the first electrified train on the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western railroad. That`s him in the middle of the front there.

That electric train`s maiden voyage that day originated in Hoboken, New Jersey. The Hoboken train terminal has been around a long time. It`s over a century old. It has original Tiffany-manufactured stained glass ceilings. It`s seen a lot in its day, including some of the worst damage inflicted on the state of New Jersey during Hurricane Sandy.

Fifty thousand commuters rush through it day in and day out. They chased their way on six different commuter rail lines, a ton of bus lines, light rail, Hudson River ferries, Port Authority PATH trains into New York City.

So, that was the train terminal in Hoboken, New Jersey, today where we had one of the worse commuter train crashes we`ve seen in a long time. One person killed, hundred and eight people injured, after a commuter train, a New Jersey transit train crashed through concrete and steel barriers and into a wall.

It`s still too soon to know exactly how this accident happened. The NTSB says they`re interviewing the engineer. He`s been injured in the crash but released from the hospital.

The NTSB also says they`re also looking into past train crashes, including one that happened five years ago at the same terminal. In May 2011, more than people were hospitalized when a train failed to break, and rammed through the bumpers at the end of the line in Hoboken. NTSB said in that crash, it was the engineer`s fault for failing to hit the brakes. But, quote, "contributing was the lack of a system that would have intervened to stop the train and prevent the collision."

That lack of a system they`re referring to is an actual thing. It`s called PTC, Positive Train Control. It monitors speed limits and track signals electronically. So, if an engineer fails to stop a train because of illness or human error or whatever, that positive train control system would automatically kick in to slow the train down or stop it in time.

Congress passed a law years ago to force all railroads to install that system, it was after an engineer missed a signal and crashed into a freight train. That was a terrible accident in L.A. that killed 25 people. After that, railroads across the country were all supposed to have a positive train control system installed and up and running. The deadline in the law says those things have to be up and running all over the country by the end of the 2018, two years from now. So far, barely a fifth of the country`s railroads have it in place.

In addition to that (AUDIO GAP) crash in (AUDIO GAP), the lack of a positive train control system was also cited last spring in that Amtrak derailment in Philly that killed eight people and injured more than 200. It was also cited as a contributing factor in a Metro North crash in 2013 that injured 60 people and killed four people, including one of our colleagues here at MSNBC.

Today`s train in Hoboken, New Jersey, also lacked positive train control. It`s still too soon to tell whether that system would have prevented the crash today. The NTSB will be looking into all of it. In the meantime, they`re hoping the train`s black box recorder will tell them how fast the train was going this morning and whether the engineer did try to hit the brakes.

We`ll keep you posted as we learn more.

That does it for us tonight. We`ll see you again tomorrow.

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

Good evening, Lawrence.

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