Show: THE LAST WORD WITH LAWRENCE O'DONNELL Date: December 11, 2017 Guest: Howell Raines
LAWRENCE O'DONNELL, MSNBC HOST: Good evening, Rachel. Give me a second for my speechlessness.
RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC HOST, TRMS: Sorry.
O'DONNELL: It makes me recall Donald Trump and the people working inside the Trump operation and what they said Donald Trump said when he actually saw a black accountant working in the Trump operations on accounting and saying he wanted all of his accountants to be wearing yarmulkes, you know, which was, you know, this Trump vision of where the Jews fit in his life at the time.
MADDOW: Apparently, after Kayla Moore said within of our attorneys is a Jew, and then gave that priceless look, the next thing she said was, we have very close friends that are Jewish and rabbis. So, I just -- I mean - - we can -- making me --
O'DONNELL: Yes, yes.
MADDOW: We get paid to talk for a living but there isn't enough money in the world to talk properly about this.
O'DONNELL: There is a way to render us speechless.
MADDOW: Yes.
O'DONNELL: Roy Moore's wife has done so.
MADDOW: Yes. Thank you, my friend. Good luck.
O'DONNELL: Thank you.
Well, Alabama has not voted for a Democrat for United States Senate since 1992 when both of Alabama's United States senators were Democrats. The Democrat who won his Senate race in Alabama in 1992 was Richard Shelby. It was his first re-election campaign for the Senate in Alabama. And two years later, Richard Shelby switched parties after the Democrats were wiped out when they lost control of the Senate and lost control of the House for the first time in 40 years.
Richard Shelby just walked across the aisle after that congressional election in 1994 and switched from being a conservative Democrat to being a mainstream Republican. And yesterday, Alabama's Senior Senator Richard Shelby said this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. RICHARD SHELBY (R), ALABAMA: I couldn't vote for Roy Moore. I didn't vote for Roy Moore. But I wrote in a distinguished Republican name.
There's a time, we call it a tipping point. And I think so many accusations, so many cuts, so many drip, drip, drip. When it got to the 14-year-old story, story, that was enough for me. I said, I can't vote for Roy Moore.
I didn't vote for the Democrat, or advocate for the Democrat but I couldn't vote for Roy Moore. The state of Alabama deserves better.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'DONNELL: And Doug Jones will take that because that functions as a vote for Doug Jones. Democrat Doug Jones has a very strong chance now to win a Senate election in Alabama tomorrow, thanks to Steve Bannon who worked as hard as he possibly could against the wishes of his former boss, President Trump, to win the Republican nomination for Senate in Alabama for disgraced, twice fired, former Alabama Judge Roy Moore who now stands accused of being a criminal child molester, who also preyed upon young high school girls while he was an assistant district attorney in his mid-30s.
Tomorrow is an Alabama election brought to you by Steve Bannon and tonight at a campaign rally for Roy Moore, Steve Bannon said this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEVE BANNON, FORMER WHITE HOUSE CHIEF STRATEGIST: To Mitch McConnell and Senator Shelby and --
(AUDIENCE BOOING)
And Condi Rice and all that, all that little Bobby Corker, all the establishment up there, all that establishment up there every day that doesn't have the -- doesn't have Trump's back. You know, they don't have his back, at all. What they want him for is a corporate tax cut. That's all they want him for. As soon as they get that tax cut, You watch what happens. There's a special place in hell for Republicans who should know better!
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'DONNELL: Of course, President Trump has said that the reason to elect Roy Moore is to deliver on that corporate tax break that Steve Bannon now seems to think is nothing but a trick being played on those voters by the Republican establishment.
At tonight's Doug Jones campaign rally, legendary basketball star Charles Barkley campaigned with Democrat Doug Jones. Here's some of what Doug Jones had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DOUG JONES (D), ALABAMA SENATE CANDIDATE: I'm going to tell you, folks. It is time -- and I think we're going to see it tomorrow -- that the majority of the people of Alabama say that it is time that we put our decency, our state before political party.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'DONNELL: President Obama and Joe Biden both recorded robocalls for Doug Jones, and there's a poll to tell you whatever you want to believe about this race. A new Fox News poll has Doug Jones up by 10 points, and Emerson College poll done by Emerson College in Boston has Roy Moore up by 9 points, and a poll sponsored by Monmouth University in New Jersey has the race tied. The Fox poll finds that Roy Moore is losing the support of his evangelical base, 65 percent of white evangelicals say they would vote for Roy Moore, a drop of 8 points in one month.
Peter Wehner wrote an op-ed in "The New York Times" entitled, "Why I Can No Longer Call Myself an Evangelical Republican".
Assume you were a person of the left and an atheist, and you decided to create a couple of people in a laboratory to discredit the Republican Party and white evangelical Christianity. You could hardly choose more perfect men than Donald Trump and Roy Moore.
Howell Raines (ph) op-ed piece in "The New York Times" yesterday says that the outcome tomorrow is all up to the women of Alabama. After conducting a series of interviews with voters in his home state of Alabama, Howell Raines wrote, women are the rebels in the current election. All those women who are coming forward, they're not making it up, a female civic leader told me over coffee.
Howell Raines' grandfather presided over the wedding of Mavany (ph) and Otis Bishop 72 years ago and Mr. Bishop told Howell Raines, he'll vote for Mr. Moore and intends to sway his wife from her plan to support Mr. Jones. No, he won't, Mrs. Bishop said.
Joining us now, Howell Raines, former executive editor of "The New York Times."
Howell, thank you very much for joining us tonight.
I learned more about Alabama and Alabama's history in your op-ed piece than I've read this Alabama season. Tell us what you found when you went in there and started talking to voters about how they're making up their minds.
HOWELL RAINES, FORMER EXECUTIVE EDITOR, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Well, thank you, Lawrence.
This was a great opportunity to me for me to visit my ancestral county, Winston County, the free state of Winston, and the attitudes I found there typified what's going on in this race. The men are all solidly convincing one another that Roy Moore's being lied about. The women are timidly -- not raising their voices but stating their opinion and in some cases, I ran into one woman who said she and her pastor were meeting about Roy Moore and both of them found him creepy.
So, the erosion among women voters particularly in the Republican suburbs holds one of the keys. Interestingly, Shelby's remark today that he was writing in could be a factor because the Jones people are hoping for about a 2 percent write-in drain on the Republican vote. It looks to me like this is most important election for Alabama's future since the election of 1970. That was when George Wallace beat a progressive new south candidate and sentenced Alabama to 25 years of retro politics. It's a chilly night here outside Dothan, but interestingly, Steve Bannon and Roy Moore inside this barn serving up some old warmed over Wallace dogma, and they seem to think it's going to work one more time.
If it doesn't, that will be a watershed election for Alabama because it will be the first time that it's really stepped into what we've been calling the new south for about 30 years now.
O'DONNELL: Howell, there's so many observations you make about especially your ancestral county of Winston and you say, Winstonians tend to go to one side or another in a big way and they don't care what the rest of the world thinks.
What do they think of Steve Bannon who you just saw at this Roy Moore rally? Because there's all sorts of talk we get about Alabamans don't want to be told by outsiders how to vote. You can't be more of an outsider than Steve Bannon.
RAINES: Yes. Well, he was trying to stress that he was a Virginian tonight and how proud he was to be in Alabama. But, you know, it's interesting. Bannon has a certain savage energy and yet there's an air of condescension in the way he talks to the people he claims to be defending.
He boasted about his Georgetown education and then assures him he is one of those elitists who think the people of Alabama are embarrassingly stupid. So, it's a -- the Moore campaign and Bannon's appearances have been rather awkward. They've kept Roy Moore out of sight as much as possible.
In Winston County, which is rural county, I don't think Bannon has penetrated the consciousness at all. They're fixated there on the sexual allegations and I think they're hurting Moore in the church community there and I think it's hurting him even more in the wealthier Republican suburbs in Birmingham and Montgomery.
O'DONNELL: Talk about those suburbs far moment because in your piece, you talk about driving through those suburbs and not seeing a single Roy Moore sign.
RAINES: That's true. And the -- a cultural split in the Alabama Republican Party that mirrors the split in the national Republican Party. And contrary to Alabama's rustic image, the suburbs are full of highly educated and many cases, people working in scientific and technical careers. And, you know, Birmingham now is one of the most sophisticated restaurant cities in America.
So, these are people who have some sophistication and for a long time have felt that they were being ridiculed unfairly by the nation because the state is dominated by the old Wallace-ite bloc. And so this -- the hope in those suburbs, particularly I think among the soccer mom faction who have taken these sexual allegations very seriously, I think the hope there is that this will finally be a breakout election where Alabama has a watershed victory for a more progressive candidate. It will also be a miracle and a tribute to Doug Jones that he is run a very effective campaign despite a virtually moribund Democratic Party in Alabama.
O'DONNELL: Let's listen to Steve Bannon tonight actually joining in the "lock her up" chant and this is at a rally for a candidate who is accused of child molestation. Let's listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Lock her up.
BANNON: Lock her up. Senator Sessions, are you listening?
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
This would be Senator Sessions seat, now wouldn't it? Come on, Senator Sessions. You got to work with us on this one.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'DONNELL: Joining the discussion now, Charlie Sykes. He's the author of book "How the Right Lost Its Mind" and an MSNBC contributor.
And, Charlie, there's Steve Bannon, hard to hear him saying, but he's joining in the lock her up chants and calling on Senator Sessions, he doesn't seem to realize that the title now is attorney general, but he does seem to think that he has the power to lock her up. Actually, calling on Jeff Sessions to join in this lock her up crusade.
CHARLIE SYKES, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: Well, this is an ugly and a defining moment that Trumpism and Bannonism have brought the Republican Party, isn't it? And I'm really glad, by the way, that Howell Raines pointed out the legacy of George Wallace.
This is not the -- this is not the legacy of Ronald Reagan here. This is the make Wallace, you know, Wallace-ite politics great again. And it's going to be very interesting whether or not you actually do have the coalition of the decent turning out in Alabama tomorrow, whether it's the soccer moms or the African-American voters or Republicans like Richard Shelby who are just looking at this and going this is just too far.
Because you look at that rally tonight, and you see this collection of the deplorables and, you know, one would hope that it would be the high watermark of Bannonism. But one way or another, it's going to be an ugly outcome for the Republicans and for Donald Trump.
O'DONNELL: Howell's been telling us about the sophistication of Birmingham which I visited a couple of years and I know exactly what you mean, Howell. I want to go to Doug Jones tonight appealing to that, appealing to Birmingham and Selma and Montgomery.
Let's listen to that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DOUG JONES (D), ALABAMA SENATE CANDIDATE: You know our history. It is all here in Birmingham. It's in Selma. Its in Montgomery. I was so happy to be in Montgomery on December 1st, the anniversary of Rosa Parks sitting down at a bus and not moving.
And let me tell you. I was so happy because let me tell you something. If we have ever had a year of courageous women, it is 2017! Right now!
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
I'm so happy before all of that happened that those issues were important to us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'DONNELL: Howell Raines, I can't think of a Senate election with more of a stark contrast between the Republican and Democrat in a long time.
RAINES: Doug Jones is a remarkable figure, not just because he was a successful prosecutor of planned murderers. He's the first candidate in my lifetime and I started covering George Wallace in '65, who's candidly addressed the question of Alabama's historic inferiority complex. Alabamians always embarrassed themselves by the people they elect and then complained that the nation looks down on them.
And so, Doug Jones is trying to address that directly and I think has as I say this could be the night or the day tomorrow when a new Alabama that's been struggling to be born will finally possibly step forward.
O'DONNELL: And, Charlie Sykes, George Wallace has cast a long shadow on this program last year. George Wallace's 1968 presidential campaign manager told us that when he heard Donald Trump campaigning, he was hearing George Wallace.
SKYES: Yes. Absolutely.
You know, by the way, I have the go back to something you said earlier, Lawrence, citing that column saying if you went into a laboratory and you wanted to create two people designed to discredit the Republican Party and evangelical Christians, you could not do a better job than creating Donald Trump and Roy Moore.
So, you know, yeah. It is this throwback to an uglier, darker era in our history, and, you know, from the point of view of Republicans, if Roy Moore wins, in many ways, it is a worse outcome than he is defeated. It would be obviously an electrifying victory for the Democrats but a victory by Roy Moore makes this what should be a local, regional embarrassment into a national defining moment for the Republican Party in a way that I think they will regret bitterly throughout 2018.
O'DONNELL: Charlie Sykes, thank you very much for joining us tonight.
And, Howell Raines, former executive editor of "The New York times" and proud native son of Alabama, thank you very much, Howell, for joining us tonight. Can't think of anyone I'd rather be hearing from about what's happening there. Thank you very much.
RAINES: Thank you, Lawrence.
O'DONNELL: Thank you.
Coming up, a NBC News exclusive report on the questions that Robert Mueller is asking about President Trump's conversations.
And an exclusive interview with former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers. He is criticizing President Trump's treasury secretary and what the treasury secretary produced today -- the most shoddy piece of information on a legislation that the Treasury has ever delivered.
And later, one of the President Trump's accusers gets tonight's last word.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'DONNELL: (AUDIO GAP) NBC news has new details about the focus of special prosecutor Robert Mueller's investigation. Quote, Robert Mueller is trying to piece together what happened inside the White House over a critical 18- day period that began when senior officials were told that national security adviser Michael Flynn was susceptible to blackmail by Russia, according to multiple people familiar with the matter. Sources tell NBC News that during interviews, Robert Mueller's investigators have asked witnesses, including White House counsel Don McGahn to go through each day that Michael Flynn remained as national security adviser after then acting Attorney General Sally Yates warned the White House that Michael Flynn might be compromised.
NBC News reports some of those interviewed by Mueller's team believe the goal is in part to determine if there was a deliberate effort by President Trump or top officials in the West Wing to cover up the information about Flynn that Sally Yates conveyed to McGahn on January 26th. Michael Flynn was fired 18 days later on February 13th.
According to two people familiar with the probe, Mueller is trying to determine why Flynn remained in his post for 18 days after Trump learned of Yates' warning. He appears to be interested in whether Trump directed Michael Flynn to lie to senior officials, including Pence or the FBI and if so, why, the sources said.
On February 9th, "The Washington Post" published a report saying that Michael Flynn had privately discussed sanctions with the Russian ambassador before president Trump took office, four days after that Donald Trump fired Michael Flynn.
Joining us now, Julia Ainsley, national security and justice reporter for NBC News. She's one of the reporters who broke that story today. And Jill Wine-Banks, former assistant Watergate special prosecutor and an MSNBC contributor.
And, Julia, this seems to be a very focused target of Robert Mueller's, staring at those 18 days, wanting the know each day why did you keep him another day.
JULIA AINSLEY, NBC NEWS NATIONAL SECURITY AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Right, Lawrence. So what we understand just based on the questions that Mueller's team has been asking witnesses recently is that they're really focusing on the time that passed between the time that Don McGahn, the White House counsel, got that warning from Sally Yates that Michael Flynn might be compromised, he might be subject to blackmail because he had been lying to the vice president about his contacts with the Russians, saying that he did not, in fact, discuss sanctions when he really did.
Right now, Mueller is focusing in on this and he has the key tools in order to do this at this point because as you know, Michael Flynn recently pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and has become a cooperating witness. So, right now, Robert Mueller's team in the key position where they've got one cooperating witness who can tell them everything they need to know about that 18 days and then they can go to key members, many of whom are still inside this White House, and ask them for their account of the 18 days and see how those two line up.
So, they don't have to just go on Flynn's word. And they can also really hold people's feet to the fire if they try to kind of skirt around what happened during this time. At the heart of this, what Mueller's really trying to figure out is whether or not the president directed Michael Flynn to lie to the FBI, and whether or not he then knew he had lied to the FBI and used that when he pressured Jim Comey to drop the Flynn investigation. That would be a case for obstruction.
O'DONNELL: Julia, I want to quote more from your NBC News reporting about how this could go to an obstruction case. It says, if Trump knew his national security adviser lied to the FBI in the early days of his administration, it would raise serious questions about why Flynn was not fired until February 13th and whether Trump was attempting to obstruct justice when FBI director James Comey says the president pressured him to drop his investigation in to Flynn. Trump fired Comey on May 9th.
Jill Wine-Banks, your reaction to this?
JILL WINE-BANKS, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: I think it shows two things. It does show that Mueller is looking at an obstruction of justice case. But he's also looking at whether there was a conspiracy to work with the Russians, and whether Flynn did that and whether the president knew about it and when he knew about it.
And it's very important because it's not just the collusion as we're calling it, although it's really conspiracy, and it's not just the obstruction, but it's the danger to America that might have happened when you have someone who's been compromised by a foreign power, and who is working at the highest levels of the White House and hasn't been fired.
So, it's not just the president firing the FBI director but not firing the person who was lying. So, it is a very serious and good way to look and the Mueller I'm sure has calendars that he can go back and look at. What everybody did every single day and that's a good way to catch people who aren't telling the full truth.
O'DONNELL: And, Julia Ainsley, there's a fact base here that's unchallengeable which is Donald Trump did not fire Michael Flynn until after "The Washington Post" reported that Michael Flynn had these contacts with the Russian ambassador. And so, one obvious question for the Trump administration is, what changed? What changed after "The Washington Post" made that report that, you know, how would that have changed anything since you already knew this?
AINSLEY: Well, exactly. It does seem like they decided that, all of a sudden, since it went public, the firing more of a kind of save our image answer than it was to really preserve the integrity of this White House since they did not fire him after the initial warning from Sally Yates.
Another thing that Yates said in her testimony that's really key is that Don McGahn asked her on January 26th how Michael Flynn did in the FBI interview. She declined to tell him, of course, because she thought that would be inappropriate, but it's obvious that this question was on their mind and former federal prosecutors we spoke to and I'm sure Jill would say the same thing, say that any lawyer in Don McGahn's position would have turned to Michael Flynn and said, so, did you fly to the FBI? What did you tell them?
O'DONNELL: Jill, a quick reaction to that point of the White House counsel asking basically the acting head of the Justice Department, how did my guy do in his FBI interview?
WINE-BANKS: Julia has it exactly right. Anybody who was in that position as a lawyer would have asked Flynn, did you lie? What did you say? And, what is the problem that I have to deal with now that I know that?
And I believe that it is also clear that McGahn would have told all of that to the president. I think there's some evidence that McGahn did tell the president right after Sally Yates warned him that there was a compromise going on, and so that the president knew before he fired Comey that there was a problem, and when he asked him to drop the investigation, it makes it look very much like it was an obstruction of justice. I think that's pretty good evidence of obstruction.
O'DONNELL: Jill Wine-Banks, Julia Ainsley, thank you both very much for joining us tonight. Really appreciate it.
WINE-BANKS: Thank you.
O'DONNELL: Coming up, Samantha Holvey, one of the accusers of Donald Trump who went public again today will join us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LAWRENCE O'DONNELL, MSNBC ANCHOR: Wow! That is the serve that Roger Federer has used to win more tennis matches than any other man playing the game today. But Steve Mnuchin could beat him. The Trump Treasury Secretary could beat Federer if we just make an assumption or two. The fastest serve Roger Federer has ever hit sent the ball across the net at 143 miles per hour.
So if we assume that Steve Mnuchin can consistently send serves across the net accurately at 150 miles per hour then Mnuchin can beat Federer. But no one would ever bet on Steve Mnuchin to beat Roger Federer because no on would ever s make a crazy assumption about Mnuchin's 150-mile-a-hour serve. But this is a season of truly crazy assumptions in Washington among Republicans during the past not just the biggest tax cut in history. But what most objective economist see as the worst tax legislation in history.
Congress has joint tax committee which has always been the official scorer of tax legislation, says that the Republican tax cuts will increase the deficit and debt by a trillion and a half dollars. But when the joint tax committee changing the assumptions to what they consider very optimistic forecasting for economic growth they then estimate that the tax cuts will increase the deficit and debt by only a trillion dollars. But when the joint tax committee changes it assumptions to what they consider very optimistic forecasting for economic growth they then estimate that the tax cuts will increase the debt by only a trillion dollars, just a trillion.
That leaves Republicans voting for a bill that adds at least trillion dollars to the national debt. So what can a President who pretends to care about the deficit and debt do about this? Assume it all away. That's what the President and Republicans have decided to do. just assume that the bill won't increase the deficit.
Today Steve Mnuchin put that assumption in the most ridiculous document ever issued by the treasury department to support tax legislation. It is a single page that assumes that the economy will grow at 2.9 percent because of the tax cuts. And to an economist this stuff sounds exactly like assuming that Steve Mnuchin or Donald Trump can hit a tennis ball at 150 miles per hour.
This piece of paper is a lie. This piece of paper has no one's name on it anywhere. There's no name on it. Steve Mnuchin allowed this piece of paper to be distributed today by the treasury. But he refused to put his name on it or the name of anyone working in the Treasury Department.
Former Treasure Secretaries follow a tradition of not criticizing the current Treasury Secretary even when they're in different parties but former treasury secretary Lawrence Summers has broken that tradition because of pieces of paper like this. He has broken that tradition because the Trump Republican Tax Cut package is the worst tax legislation he has ever seen. Former Treasury Secretary and current Harvard Economics Professor Lawrence Summers joins us next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHUCK SHUMMER, UNITED STATES SENATOR: No amount of fake math can change the fact that the Republican Tax Bill will be a boon to the wealthiest of Americans and the largest corporations while increasing taxes for millions of middle class families and leaving 13 million people without health care. Republicans still have time to turn back from this ugly, awful bill.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'DONNELL: Joining us now for an exclusive interview is Lawrence Summers, Harvard Economics Professor and a Former Secretary of the Treasury for President Clinton and a former Economic Adviser to President Obama. Professor Summers, thank you very much for joining us tonight. I know you recall that earlier in the year Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said that there were hundreds of people, he said hundreds of people working in the Treasury Department on their own analysis of the tax plan and this is what we got today this one sheet of paper.
References the office of tax policy but doesn't actually credit them with doing any work that we recognize here. No names on this. I've never seen a document like this. What was your reaction when you finally saw this?
LAWRENCE SUMMERS, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: I've never seen anything like it either. It's not a study. It's a weak press release.
It's not an analysis. It's a set of claims. Look, here's the secretary -- here was the secretary's problem. He has a highly professional career staff. If he let that highly professional career staff do an analysis with dynamic scoring that took account of economic growth and all of that that staff would reach the same conclusion The Joint Tax Committee Staff reached which is that bill doesn't come close to paying for itself. Releasing that is what always happens.
You ask the nonpartisan staff at the treasury to score bills. He didn't do that. He had promised an analysis and so he had to do something.
So what he did was he did an analysis that assumed the Administration's Economic Forecast was true. Now, you know, you showed in your introduction, if I assume I can serve the ball 150 miles per hour I'd be a hell of a tennis player. If I assume there was no gravity I would be terrific at the high jump.
If you make a crazy assumption then you can get any conclusion you want. So he derived the conclusion that if you took the administration's economic forecast which is a million miles from the professional consensus then the administration's conclusion would follow. But nobody believes the administration's economic forecast. Look, many things can happen.
And so, the way I like to explain it to people, Lawrence, is to say, it might turn out to be 70 degrees in 65 degrees, 70 degrees, something like that in Washington, D.C. on Christmas day. You can't say for sure that will not happen. But it's a wildly unreasonable forecast of the temperature on Christmas day.
In the same way, economists don't know that much. Surprises happen but 2.9 percent average growth for the next decade isn't anybody's assumption as to what the economy is going to generate going forward. So, they've taken an assumption that's absurd, not defended the assumption and then shown that it's consistent with an absurd conclusion. That's not an analysis. That won't persuade anybody who's trying to look at evidence.
I thought it was -- I think it of the Treasury of a great institution and I think it was an embarrassing moment for it. And I think all of you in the press and everyone in Congress who believes in good policymaking should want to know what the treasury staff believes.
O'DONNELL: You have made a point in recent op-ed piece which I haven't seen anyone else make which is they're selling this as a stimulus. It will provoke economic growth. But you're saying the way the economy is running right now it can't really absorb or make real use of this kind of stimulus.
SUMMERS: I think it's unlikely. I mean, normal argument for stimulus is when you need to bring down the unemployment rate. That's when you have stimulus. Right now, we've got the lowest unemployment rate in 17 years. And we have got the Fed looking to put the brakes on the expansion by raising rates.
What I'd expect if this happens is there will be more upwards pressure on the economy. therefore, the Fed will have to hit the brakes harder and we'll see higher interest rates and the higher interest rates burden people trying to take out mortgages to buy the first homes, will burden people who have to unlike Secretary Mnuchin have to borrow money to buy their car or take out an installment loan to buy furniture. So, I think this is another respect in which this is a burdensome and unnecessarily burdensome way to approach the economy.
O'DONNELL: Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, thank you very much for joining us once again tonight on this legislation. really important. Thanks, really appreciate having you here
SUMMERS: Glad to be here.
O'DONNELL: Thank You. Coming up, Donald Trump's accusers are not going away. One of those accusers Samantha Holvey, joins us next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHEN BANNON FMR. WHITE HOUSE CHIEF STRATEGIST: today you got, you know, Kirsten Gillibrand and Bernie Sanders all saying you have to step down because of Billy Bush week. I thought we litigated. That didn't the American people already vote on that one? Alabama's the fire break in all that. Judge Moore wins tomorrow, it's a different deal. You understand that, right?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'DONNELL: The women who have accused Donald Trump of sexual harassment and sexual assault are not going away. After three of them appeared on Megyn Kelly today this morning followed bay press conference Senator Gillibrand said this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND, UNITED STATES SENATOR: President Trump should resign. These allegations are credible. They are numerous. I've heard these women's testimony. And many of them are heart breaking.
And President Trump should resign his position whether he will ever hold himself accountable is something, you know, you really can't hold your breath for and so Congress should have hearings. They should do their investigation. They should have appropriate investigations of his behavior and hold him accountable.
(END VIDEO CLIP) O'DONNELL Senator Gillibrand became the fourth Senator called for the president's resignation. Each of those senators have also called for Al Franken's resignation last week for less than Donald Trump accused of. Donald Trump has said all of the allegations are lies. Now, that is the person who has been caught publicly telling more lies than any politician in American history. He says what the women are saying is not true.
Other Democrats are now calling for a Congressional Investigation of the President's conduct. Senator Ron Wyden tweeted, these women are right. If Donald Trump won't resign, Congress must investigate allegations by many, many women that he sexually assaulted or hurt them. No one is above the law.
And the House of Representatives tomorrow, 56 women members, all Democrats, will be making a statement, calling on the House Oversight Committee to investigate the accusations against Donald Trump. Today one of Donald Trump's accusers said this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RACHEL CROOKS, TRUMP ACCUSER: I want to believe that as Americans we can put aside our political inclinations and admit that some things in fact do transcend politics that we will hold Mr. Trump to the same standard as Harvey Weinstein and the other men who were held accountable for their reprehensible behavior. Therefore, I ask that congress put aside their party affiliations and investigate mr. Trump's history of sexual misconduct.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'DONNELL: Joining Rachel Crooks were Samantha Holvey and Jessica Leads. Samantha Holvey will join us next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'DONNELL: yesterday one member of the trump administration U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley said she thinks the women accusing Donald Trump of sexual misconduct should be heard.
NIKKI HALEY, U.N. AMBASSADOR: I know that he was elected, but, you know, women should always feel comfortable coming forward. And we should all be willing to listen to them.
O'DONNELL: Joining us now, Samantha Holvey. Samantha, it has been a long day for you and I appreciate you joining us tonight with this. Tell us what your experience with Donald Trump was.
SAMANTHA HOLVEY, TRUMP ACCUSER: So, my first interaction was Trump Towers. We were doing a press event and he had all 51 girls stand on the red carpet -
O'DONNELL: This was for the Miss USA?
HOLVEY: For Miss USA 2006. I was Ms. North Carolina USA and just turned 20 years old. And I was expecting kind of a meet and greet, hi, how are you doing, you know, lots of eye contact. And he moved down the line and he got to me and I introduced myself, and we shook hands.
And he was just looking me up and down like I was a piece of meat. And I was so disturbed and grossed out by this interaction. And then I was just like, all right, I hope that's it. I hope that's the only interaction I have to have with this guy. And then the night of finals, which imagine all of the hard work, the money, preparation that goes into this dream -
O'DONNELL: The pressure.
HOLVEY: So much pressure. And so I'm in hair and makeup and there is a large back stage area and there is a secluded part where we have hair and makeup and then the dressing area, lots of security to make sure nobody messes with us. And I'm in hair and makeup with hot rollers in my hair and nothing but a robe on. And he comes waltzing in, and not like a are you nervous, how are you doing, not that which that also would have been weird.
But it wasn't -- it was no sort of camaraderie. It was just a, I own you. You're my property. And I just want to check things out. And I was just like, what? And then he walked into the dressing room. There's only one entrance in and out of the dressing room.
And He walked into the dressing room where no men are allowed, just the contestants and our chaperones. And he walked right on in and I just could not believe it. I had never seen a director back stage, let alone walking into the dressing room or a man in the dressing room, was just ridiculous to me and how awful.
O'DONNELL: We have a corroborating witness for you to listen to. This is Donald Trump talking a year before this happened to you. Let's listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, UNITED STATES PRESIDENT: I'll go back stage before a show and everyone is getting dressed and ready and everything else. And you know, no men are anywhere -- and I'm allowed to go in because I'm the owner of the pageant, I'm inspecting it. I want to make sure everything is good. Is everyone OK? Standing there with no clothes. Is everybody okay, you see these incredible looking women. And so I sort of get away with things like that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'DONNELL: How does it feel when you hear him saying that, when you think back to your own experience with it?
HOLVEY: you know, that last comment, I get away with things like that. No, sir, no, sir. I've been telling my story, I've been sharing my experience since then. I was disgustted then. I'm disgusted now.
I'm hoping the country is listening now. I tried last year and I think I'm hoping that since we have come together as a unit of women saying we didn't know each other before this, look at, you know, all of the similarities in the stories. And in my case, I'm just confirming what he himself -- you just heard him bragging about this. I'm just confirming that he was right, he did do that.
O'DONNELL: Is there -- does it feel different for you talking about this year than last year, after all of these stories that have come out about other men in the last few months especially, from that Harvey Weinstein massive expose in the New York Times and today?
HOLVEY: It does feel different. I will say that I was, you know, a little angry when all of these Hollywood guys were being held accountable and I'm like, hold on, what about the President? He can't be held accountable for what he's done for demonstrated behavior throughout decades? He's not held accountable?
I didn't think that was right. I was angry about that. But I was also grateful that more women were sharing their stories all over the country. They felt empowered enough to share, because I think a lot of men, there are so many good men out there, and because we as women are ashamed of these experiences, we don't talk about them.
And so the good guys don't know that this is the kind of behavior we deal with daily and so for good guys to be able to stand up for the women. And women to be able to stand up for women is very powerful.
O'DONNELL: Samantha Holvey, thank you very much for joining us tonight, really appreciate it.
HOLVEY: Thank you.
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