The Rachel Maddow Show, Transcript 05/15/13

RACHEL MADDOW, HOST: Thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. So, today happened. Today, the president of the United States fired the head of the IRS, or announced that his resignation had been accepted. Also, the whole Benghazi scandal, the months-long scandal kind of went away today. The attorney general got grilled in a congressional hearing that went on for four solid hours today. And today, at Grand Central Station in New York City, Iran and America wrestled. And it was not a metaphor. There was actual physical wrestling in the train station. Also, there was a mystery toddler today in Washington. Watch this. Watch for the toddler. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ERIC HOLDER, ATTORNEY GENERAL: We`ll do that, and given the relationship you and I have Mr. Former Chairman, we`ll try to get back to you in a more timely fashion than we did on that first one. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Than a year. That will be appreciated. Thank you, Mr. Attorney General. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The gentleman`s time has expired. The gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Watt. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Attorney General, I`m going to just ask you a couple questions -- (END VIDEO CLIP) MADDOW: Hey, who`s the toddler? North Carolina Congressman Mel Watt, who did have questions for the attorney general, but who most of all will be remembered as the guy who brought the adorable toddler who`s apparently named Nico into the middle of the Washington maelstrom today. Hi, Nico. God bless him. All right. So, that was my favorite moment of the day in what was an unbelievably packed news day. But as noted, the president fired the head of the IRS today in a surprise, blunt late afternoon announcement. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Good afternoon, everybody. I just finished speaking with Secretary Lew and senior officials at the Treasury Department to discuss the investigation into IRS personnel who improperly screened conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status. And I look forward to taking some questions at tomorrow`s press conference, but today, I want to make sure to get out to all of you some information about what we`re doing about this and where we go from here. I`ve reviewed the Treasury Department watchdog`s report and the misconduct that it uncovered is inexcusable. It`s inexcusable and Americans are right to be angry about it, and I am angry about it. I will not tolerate this kind of behavior in any agency, but especially in the IRS, given the power that it has and the reach that it has in all of our lives. And as I said earlier, it should not matter what political stripe you`re from, the fact of the matter is, is that the IRS has to operate with absolute integrity. The government generally has to conduct itself in a way that is true to the public trust. That`s especially true for the IRS. So, here`s what we`re going to do. First, we`re going to hold the responsible parties accountable. Yesterday, I directed Secretary Lew to follow up on the I.G. audit to see how this happened and who is responsible and to make sure that we understand all the facts. Today, Secretary Lew took the first step by requesting and accepting the resignation of the acting commissioner of the IRS, because given the controversy surrounding this audit, it`s important to institute new leadership that can help restore confidence going forward. (END VIDEO CLIP) MADDOW: So, the president fired or rather accepted the resignation of the acting commissioner of the IRS tonight. President went on to say that the recommendations of the inspector general to make sure nothing like this can ever happen again at the IRS, those recommendations will be implemented. He said this problem, in his words, is fixable. And he said the administration will work with Congress to do the fixing. President`s statement tonight coming after that four-hour-plus hearing in which the attorney general, Eric Holder, got grilled on the IRS issue and a lot more. The attorney general today explaining beyond the action being taken within the executive branch, beyond the multiple investigations being conducted in the House and the Senate, now, in addition, the criminal investigation into whether any laws were broken at the IRS when conservative groups were singled out for extra scrutiny in their IRS applications, that criminal investigation was announced today will be a nationally one. It will not focus narrowly on that one office in Cincinnati that`s been singled out thus far. It is going to be a nationwide thing. And beyond all of those investigations, the inspector general, the executive branch, the congressional investigations, and the criminal investigation, beyond all of those, some of the real investigation of this matter continues also in the press. Two important salient new details on this IRS scandal turned up today by "Bloomberg News" in one instance and by "USA Today." In terms of the "USA Today" story, it was a, quote, "USA Today review of IRS data that found that liberal groups, groups that at least sounded liberal, groups with names that included words like `progress` or `progressive`, those liberal groups applications for the same kind of tax- exempt status as conservative groups, those liberal groups` applications reportedly sailed through the IRS much more quickly than the conservative groups` applications did." That said, what the Bloomberg report said today, is that even if conservative groups were being singled out for extra scrutiny, it`s not like all liberal groups were getting a free pass. A number of liberal applicants got the same detailed questionnaires about political activity that the Tea Party groups did, and unlike any of the conservative groups, at least one of the liberal groups got its tax status denied. In his testimony today, though, the attorney general went out of his way to point out and President Obama in his statement today went out of his way to point out, that there`s nothing in this scandal that means that the IRS should not be asking tax-exempt groups about their activity. That is a legitimate part of how we protect our elections. That`s a legitimate part of how tax-exempt groups are supposed to be evaluated. The point is, that it can`t be done in an ideologically slanted way, where conservative groups or liberal groups have an easier time of things just because they are conservative or liberal, and if everybody agrees on that and if even Republicans and Democrats in Congress agree on that and if the IRS commissioner just got fired for that and if the president is expressing how angry he is about that, then the two important questions about the scandal remain, does this have a larger political impact on the president or the Congress? And as this works out politically, does this mean that the IRS is hereby forever neutered from doing what is, after all, the important work of making sure political fundraising groups are not making a laughingstock of the rules that are supposed to limit what they do? Will we ever have an IRS doing that important work again, given how badly they screwed up trying to do it over these past couple of years? Joining us now is Sam Stein, White House correspondent at "Huffington Post." Sam, thanks very much for being with us tonight on this very, very busy day. SAM STEIN, HUFFINGTON POST: Thanks, Rachel. I know I`m not Nico the toddler, but I hope I suffice as a guest. MADDOW: Actually, if you kind of slicked your hair back and gurgled a little bit, I could, you know, you could play it. STEIN: You`re going to have to pay more a little more money for that. MADDOW: Or any. All right. The acting commissioner of the IRS got fired. He`s asked to resign. He was not in charge of the IRS when all of this happened. The guy who was in charge when all of this happened was, of course, the Bush appointee who served until November 2012. Why did the new guy`s head have to roll? STEIN: Because someone`s head had to roll, right? We`re in a political climate where there was a premium accountability and there was very few people beyond this guy who we could hold accountable, that the president could hold accountable. In addition to that, this man, Steven Miller, the acting commissioner of the IRS, did go in front of Congress on several occasions to testify that this targeting, the filtering of conservative groups was not taking place. Now we know because of the I.G. report that was happening. So, he had lost some credibility. But beyond that, I think the administration determined that they had to have some form of accountability if they just wanted to get through the week so we had was Secretary Lew asking for the resignation and getting it, aka, he was fired. MADDOW: In terms of the political climate and, as you say, sort of premium on accountability right now -- STEIN: Yes. MADDOW: -- the president`s due to take questions tomorrow at his news conference where he`ll be standing there with the prime minister of Turkey, poor guy is going to have to stand through all of this American politics that`s not going to make much sense in a Turkish contest, but you never know. STEIN: You`ll never know. MADDOW: With everything going on in Washington right now and the fact he`s going to be standing next to the Turkish guy, what do you think the president is likely to get the most heat about? I mean, we`ve got Benghazi ongoing. We`ve got the IRS scandal ongoing. We`ve got "The A.P." scandal ongoing. Plus, all the normal stuff. What do you think he`s likely to get the most heat about? STEIN: Oh, God, great question. You know, I think "The A.P." scandal in particular still resonates in part because members of the media who are asking the questions are directly affected by this policy. And so, it matters to them. I think we can`t ignore that fact. But it`s a pertinent scandal, relatively new, and unlike with respect to the IRS where we saw someone fired and Benghazi scandal where we saw e- mails this afternoon, there really hasn`t been as much movement from the administration on that one. So, my guess is you`ll see that. He`ll get a couple questions on that. In addition, I think there will be some follow- up questions on disclosure of Benghazi e-mails that came out tonight. MADDOW: Sam Stein, White House correspondent for "The Huffington Post" -- Sam, thanks for being with us. I really appreciate it. STEIN: Thanks, Rachel. Take care. MADDOW: Thanks. And, and, and, in the midst of all this going on, did I mention the president released his own financial disclosure forms today? His personal ones. Sure, why not? What the heck? Nothing else is going on. In the midst of this supposed scandal on Benghazi falling apart, we will still get to that. And the firing of the head of the IRS and, oh, hey, here comes the prime minister of Turkey. And all these other things going , there`s also the ongoing actual big controversy that is not about the IRS and is not about Benghazi and this one is actually harder to call a scandal because the White House is not embarrassed about it, and is not apologizing for it, and is not denying it, which is what you expect when you call something a scandal. It, of course, is the bombshell revelation from "The Associated Press" this week that the Justice Department has been monitoring the phone lines of the D.C. bureau of "The Associated Press", and the Hartford bureau, and the New York City bureau, and the bureau they have in Congress, those lines altogether served about 100 reporters, the individual office phone lines, the personal phone lines, and the cell phone lines of six specific reporters and one "A.P." editor. I mean, it`s not like the Justice Department has never looked at reporters` phone records before, but they have never lightning this before, at least not that we found out about. They supposedly to see who in the government leaked classified information about an al Qaeda bomb plot in Yemen for an "A.P." article that was published around this time last year. The Justice Department says it followed all of its own internal guidelines, its own regulations that are supposed to control how they handle reporters when they are chasing down a leak like this. But "The A.P.", despite the Justice Department`s explanations, "The A.P." is apoplectic. They say they do not buy the Justice Department`s assertions that they absolutely had to do it this way, that they couldn`t have done it in a more narrow way, or a more targeted way, a way that might be less damaging to "The Associated Press" as a news organization. "The A.P." says had they been notified in advance, which the Justice Department regulations say should happen in most cases, had they`ve been told in advance, that would have given them a chance to take this matter to a court and they would have. They would have taken this to a judge had they known to try to block the Justice Department from doing this, to try to keep those phone records private so the press can do its job. But they never found out about it in advance, and so, they didn`t get a chance to try to head it off. They never got to take this case before a judge. And the fact the Justice Department was able to do this on their own, make the decision to take the reporters` phone records, they made that decision on their own, without ever going to a judge, that fact is the product of one very simple thing in our law, have you ever heard of a shield law? In many states in the country, there is a shield law that says reporters need to have room to do their jobs and reporters` jobs include talking to people secretly. So, if the government wants to spy on reporters for some sort of investigation, it has to have a really good reason and it has to prove that good reason to a judge. The government can`t just do that on their own because we have to protect the freedom of the press. Even though that law exists in a lot of states, it does not exist federally and that`s why the Justice Department was able to go after "The A.P." wholesale in this giant dragnet. While he was running for president in 2008, President Obama went and spoke to "The Associated Press" and he told them, in effect, yes, reporters ought to have this kind of protection that they`ve got in more than 40 states. If the government wants to spy on a reporter, the government ought to have to prove that to a judge. When he was asked this question about it in front of "The A.P." in 2008, he was very blunt about it. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Senator Obama, do you believe that a sitting administration or a federal judge should decide if a confidential source should be protected? OBAMA: I think that that is an issue that should be determined by the courts. The essence of our constitutional principles is that not only do we have these civil liberties enshrined in the bill of rights, but that we also have mechanisms in place to make sure that there are checks and balances between the branches. (END VIDEO CLIP) MADDOW: That is what he said when he was running for president. He was a cosponsor of legislation to provide this kind of protection to reporters before he became president. When that law went up before the Senate when he was still a candidate for president, when he was still in the senate, it died in the face of a Republican filibuster. Republicans filibustered it before it become law -- before it could become law before he was president. But once Barack Obama became president, he sort of changed his mind on this issue. He decided that there should be a carve-out on the issue of national security. When it came to national security, yes, generally reporters should have protection from the government spying on them, but in cases of national security, maybe not. Those protections that he said reporters should have before he became president, once he was president, he decided they shouldn`t have on issues of national security. And the only subsequent effort to bring forth any type of shield law since he has been president really went nowhere. His only intervention in that was to say that he wanted that national security exemption, and now, in response to this furor of what the Obama Justice Department has done to "The A.P.", and there`s a reason there`s a furor over it. I mean, who knows what kind of irrevocable harm this has caused? Think about it, if you were a confidential source for an "A.P." reporter, would you ever call them again? Now that you know your phone number is in the hands of the Justice Department, if anybody from "The A.P." who you`ve been talking to ever called you from their office or maybe from their personal phone or maybe from their cell phone and the Justice Department has your number now and knows that you`re the source, would you ever call them again? Think about the harm done to "The A.P." here. In the resulting furor over what the Justice Department has done and what damage they have caused here, the White House today has contacted its allies in Congress and asked for the federal shield law to please be reintroduced. Yes, right, that is a good start. Keep going. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) MADDOW: This weekend in Egypt, an al Qaeda-linked militant cell was arrested for allegedly planning to carry out a series of suicide attacks. The three men who were arrested were found to be in possession of 22 pounds of explosive materials. Today, we learned with a bit more certainty than we had over the weekend that the planned targets of their attack were two foreign embassies in Cairo, the French embassy and the American embassy. There`s a long terrible history and in many parts of the world, there`s a terrible risk of violent attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities abroad. The really famous ones, like the Beirut bombings in 1983, the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Tanzania, and Kenya that happened in 1998, just during the George W. Bush administration, there was attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, and Uzbekistan, and Syria, Greece. There are about a dozen attacks in total on U.S. diplomatic facilities abroad during the Bush years. This sort of thing happens a lot. Then, of course, it was not the embassy, it was a diplomatic facility, sort of diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, in Libya, that was attacked last September, which our ambassador and three other Americans were killed. "McClatchy" today published an account saying that the general in charge of the Africa Command, Africom, twice offered extra U.S. military security resources specifically for Benghazi, offered extra military security resources to Ambassador Stevens. He offered security specifically to protect that outpost in Benghazi that got attacked and the offer came about a month before the attack there. Twice the ambassador himself, the one who was killed in September, turned down those offers of extra facility from the U.S. military. That`s according to this report today from "McClatchy." We don`t know why he turned down the offers of extra security. We don`t know much -- we don`t know how much of a risk at that facility is clear only in hindsight, but we do know that that is actually the real issue of the whole Benghazi scandal. Could the attack have been prevented, why wasn`t it prevented, why wasn`t there better security there, why did those four Americans die? That remains the big issue. That was the conclusion that was the main issue of the official government report into what happened in Benghazi that was completed in December. All of its recommendations have been accepted by the government and are currently being implemented now. Instead of that being the issue, though, Republicans have decided to make Benghazi a scandal of some sort of White House directed conspiracy. The White House was covering up the attack to use it for some domestic political purpose. Some purpose that remains mostly unclear but definitely has to do with Hillary Clinton shouldn`t be president. Republicans have been pushing these Benghazi conspiracy theories in various guises for months now, including during the presidential election. And, as you know, they have not really gotten anywhere with these theories. I mean, they have been prevailing winds in the FOX-verse for a long time now. But in the real news world, they`ve really not been able to get any traction. What the Republicans hope to be their big coming out party on this issue, their big crossover moment, their grand entrance into mainstream news on this issue was going to be their blockbuster congressional hearing on Benghazi last week where they would expose the capital "T" truth on Benghazi. And that hearing did get some news coverage on that day, but it ended up being a dud. It didn`t really produce any new information, other than one gentleman from the State Department saying he thought he might have been demoted for improper reasons after the attack. That has not yet been proven. He`s asserted it. The State Department has denied it. So, there`s that. Also, the Republicans were outraged that the main government investigator of the attacks refused to testify. That was undercut by the fact that he said he would be delighted to testify. Please, allow me to testify. How dare you not testify? But I`d like to testify. What are we fighting about? It was kind of a mess. So, that hearing really didn`t go anywhere. It made a splash that day, but then it was kind of over. That was supposed to be their big deal. That was going to be their big coming out party for their Benghazi scandal, but they haven`t been able to get any traction on. But still in the wake of that hearing, really no traction. Until Friday -- it finally hit for them on Friday, and it finally hit for them on Friday because of ABC News. This headline: Exclusive, Benghazi talking points underwent 12 revisions, scrubbed of terror reference. ABC News reporting that it was the State Department that wanted references to terrorism taken out of the talking points and the White House weighed in on their side. The big smoking gun was a White House e-mail that ABC said they reviewed. They gave the time and date stamps, September 14th, 2012, at 9:24. Here`s how ABC quoted that e-mail. Quoted, "We must make sure that the talking points reflect all agency equities, including those of the State Department and we don`t want to undermine the FBI investigation. We`ll go through the talking points tomorrow morning at the deputy`s committee meeting," closed quote. So, you`d think that this was quoting from the e-mail, right? Smoking gun is smoking. We, the White House, will work through the talking points to address the State Department`s concerns about references to terror. According to ABC News, the White House, in that e-mail that they quoted, clearly planned to massage the story about Benghazi at the direction of the State Department. The White House had been saying that the talking points came primarily from the intelligence community. ABC News said, no, no, we`ve got the smoking gun. Evidence it was not true, was not from the intelligence community, it was the White House that quoted this White House e-mail. And so, that`s what happened on Friday. That was what finally caused the Benghazi story to take off in the real news after months of living only on the conspiratorial right. It turns out that ABC News that finally blew this story open for them and made it a mainstream story, that ABC article turns out was totally wrong. ABC blew it. It turns out they weren`t actually quoting White House e-mails at all. Yesterday, CNN was first to publish what looked like a very different account of what ABC said happened with the talking points. CNN posted the same White House emails stamped at the same time, same date, same White House adviser quoted as the author, but what they showed to be that email looked really different than what ABC published. Here`s what they said it said. Quote, "We need to resolve this in a way that respects all of the relevant equities, particularly the investigation." So, no mention of the State Department, like ABC News reported. No mention of the White House working through the talking points like ABC News reported. It`s almost like ABC news didn`t actually review that e-mail at all. Oh, wait, it turns out they didn`t. Yesterday, ABC News posted this headline, more details on Benghazi talking points emerge. Among those emerging details is everything they previously said was wrong. ABC News now reveals when they supposedly quoted that White House e- mail, actually they were not quoting the White House e-mail, even though they put it in quotes, what they were quoting was a source who viewed the original documents and shared detailed notes. So, they reported as if they were quoting the White House and they were not. They were not quoting the actual e-mail. They were quoting notes from an anonymous somebody. ABC`s response for being pushed into this revelation was to demand that the White House release the full e-mail exchanges. Hey, new details emerged about an e-mail we had never seen even though we reported that we`d seen it. And it turns out you didn`t actually say things we said it said. It`s your fault. This afternoon, the White House did, in fact, release the full e-mail exchanges, nearly 100 pages, including the White House e-mail that started this whole new round of Benghazi gate that ABC News got wrong. Joining us now is Michael Isikoff, NBC News investigative correspondent. He has been going through these newly released e-mails since they came out tonight. Mike, thanks for being with us again. I feel I have to pay you a premium for so much of your time this week. MICHAEL ISIKOFF, NBC NEWS INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: All gratis. MADDOW: What did you learn from these e-mails that might further explain the scandal or at least the politicization of this scandal? ISIKOFF: Well, I learned that there actually is a scandal and I think the scandal is all these relatively high level national security officials spent hours on end exchanging e-mails in order to produce what turned out to be complete bureaucratic mush. I mean, why these talking points were even being written in the first place and why a committee was doing it seems inexplicable when you actually look through it. In fact, my favorite e-mail was from Jacob Sullivan, who`s head of policy planning at the State Department, who in the middle of this writes, "I do not understand the nature of this exercise." I think that kind of reflects anybody reading this. Look, there is no smoking gun, to say the least. In fact, there`s almost an antismoking gun, which is the e-mail from the general counsel of the CIA, who at one point explicitly writes, "I know there`s a hurry to get this, but we need to hold it long enough to ascertain whether providing it," this is the original talking points which did have information about al Qaeda, which did talk about Libya being a wash in weapons and that this being likely an attack by extremists, but whether providing it conflicts with the expressed instructions from national security staff, DOJ, FBI, that in light of the criminal investigation, we are not to generate statements with assessments as to who did this. So, that`s coming from the original counsel of the CIA. And that sort of sets the ball in motion in terms of scrubbing out all relevant details about who was behind the attack from the talking points. Then you put on top of that, that very revealing sort of bureaucratic knife fight between the State Department and the CIA in which State Department officials are taking umbrage at the idea that there were CIA warnings about the threat of a terrorist attack. Now, clearly, the CIA was trying to push that out there because they wanted to protect themselves by showing, hey, we told you that this might happen. We even told you on September 10th that this might happen. Victoria Nuland, as has been quoted before, took a great exception that and said that would just give members of Congress material in which to attack us. Another top state official weighs in, and says at one point, this is David Adam, head of legislative affairs, "The last bullet will read to members like we had been repeatedly warned," we being the State Department, they didn`t want that in there. At the end of the day, it all gets taken out, we`re left with the mush where Susan Rice says almost nothing and then sort of piece of resistance, which is David Petraeus` e-mail, reading it, seeing all the stuff about the CIA warnings and then writing, "No mention of the cable to Cairo either? Frankly, I just as soon not use this" -- this is about the talking points. And then, "No, but it`s NSS` call, that`s National Security Staff to be sure -- you know, regardless, thanks for the great work." I`m not quite sure what the great work was there. But bottom line is there`s no indication of partisan political motive for scrubbing this because of the election. There is plenty of evidence of this bureaucratic tussle between the state department and the CIA, and that`s, at the end of the day, what we`re left with. MADDOW: What I realized is all of my fantasies built up from all of my years of watching spy movies and reading spy novels about how exciting it must be working as a top-level spy, actually, I don`t want that at all. It sounds like bureaucratic nonsense. ISIKOFF: You don`t want to be a part of this e-mail chain. MADDOW: Well, I don`t understand the nature of this exercise exactly, how I felt reading it. Michael Isikoff, NBC News investigative correspondent -- Mike, thanks very much. Really appreciate your take on this. ISIKOFF: Thank you, Rachel. MADDOW: When the president came out saying there`s no there, there, you`ve been through all of these e-mails, why is this all of a sudden a political scandal? The reaction, obviously, this was a political scandal, didn`t you read the quote from ABC what they said happened in the White House? The President was right and ABC was wrong and ABC should apologize. I don`t say that lightly. We`ll be right back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) OBAMA: We`re going to have to, you know, not just step up our game, we have to exponentially step up our game to go at this thing hard. And for those who are in uniform who have experienced sexual assault, I want them to hear directly from their commander-in-chief that I`ve got their backs. I will support them, and we`re not going to tolerate this stuff. And there will be accountability. If people have engaged in this behavior, they should be prosecuted. Bottom line is, I have no tolerance for this. I have communicated this to the secretary of defense. We`re going to communicate this again to folks up and down the chain in areas of authority, and I expect consequences. So, I don`t want just more speeches or, you know, awareness programs or training, but ultimately, folks look the other way. If we find out somebody`s engaging in this stuff, they got to be held accountable, prosecuted, stripped of their positions, court marshaled, fired, dishonorably discharged, period. It`s not acceptable. (END VIDEO CLIP) MADDOW: That was how President Obama reacted last week when it became known that the man that the Air Force had put in charge of combating sexual assault had, himself, been arrested on charges of sexual assault. That was last week. Now, it has happened again. This time, it`s the Army, where a sergeant first class who was in charge of combating and responding to sexual assault cases for an 800-person battalion in Ft. Hood in Texas is, himself, now also under investigation for sexual assault and other charges. Defense sources telling NBC News that the investigation is into allegations that the sergeant forced one female subordinate into prostitution and that he sexually assaulted two other female service members. Again, this is an investigation, no charges have yet been filed, that`s why we don`t have the identity yet of that sergeant first class. If you are having difficulties keeping straight exactly which sexual assault prevention guy has been charged with sexual assault, it would suggest that the sexual assault prevention plan is may be something that is not working across the military. The Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said today he has discussed this issue with President Obama, including the new investigation of the guy at Ft. Hood. He also said that he has ordered a retraining and rescreening of all the people working in sexual assault prevention throughout the military -- although you have to wonder, weren`t these guys trained in some way for the sexual assault prevention positions that they did have when this stuff happened? When Senator Claire McCaskill was on our show a week or so ago talking about this subject, she said, this is not a problem the military can train its way out of. Right. There was no magic military-specific answer here. Sexual assault is a crime, but apparently, in the military, it is a crime that not enough people are afraid of getting caught for. The military`s own efforts here, so far, are a terrible failure. Can they fix it? Can Congress make them fix it, since apparently military thus far at least has not been able to do it themselves? Joining us now for the interview tonight is Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer of California. Senator Boxer is cosponsoring a bill in the Senate that would change the way sexual assault cases are adjudicated in the military. She introduces that bill in the senate tomorrow. Senator Boxer, thank you so much for being with us tonight. SEN. BARBARA BOXER (D), CALIFORNIA: I`m very happy to be with you on this very difficult topic. MADDOW: Yes, this bill you`re cosponsoring with Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, I understand you`re proposing that sexual assault cases be, essentially, taken out of the chain of command in the way they are adjudicated. What would that mean in practical terms? BOXER: Well, let me just make it very simple for folks. Every year in the military there are about 25,000, 26,000 events, cases where people have been assaulted, sexually assaulted. Out of that, only 3,000 a year report this. And out of that, there are only 300 convictions. This is a nightmare. Literally, you have thousands and thousands of felons walking around the military, perhaps they get out, they are walking around our streets. They`ve never paid a price for their crime. So what we want to do is make sure that a woman or a man, 50 percent of these are men, OK, can either go to a commander, someone in the chain of command and report it. We change the laws so that that commander must report it to the military police, to the prosecution, or they can go to the victims` assistance we have set up under Leon Panetta, this victim assistance organization. They can go there. That advocate can report it. They all have to report it immediately. And that`s really horrific situation when you have at the front end of this people too scared to report it because they fear nothing will ever come of it. Listen, you`ve got all these people walking around free, and I`m sure they are bragging about it, a lot of them. And so, there`s a culture there. We have to change the culture. MADDOW: President Obama, when he remarked on this last week and then, Senator McCaskill, your colleague, when she was on this show that same day, they both expressed frustration that the military`s essentially seen this as a training problem, military has treated this as sort of an awareness sensitivity and training issue. President Obama being very blunt. He doesn`t think the military can train its way out of this problem. Do you -- do you agree with that assessment? BOXER: Absolutely. They have been training and training and training. Every time something happens, they train more. But I got to tell you, when you have the vast majority, thousands of these felons walking around nothing ever happens to them and if you ever report this, you get harassed, you get harangued, may be the end of your career, you know, that wonderful documentary that was done, "The Invisible War" shows, puts a face on this. And people explain what happens to them when they have the courage to come forward. Look, we have to change this. Enough with the talk. We need legislation. We`re having a press conference tomorrow. I`m proud to say we have Republicans and Democrats behind this legislation. It is absolutely necessary. And, you know, anyone who doesn`t agree with it, I just don`t feel -- this is my opinion -- I don`t think they`ve studied the issue enough. It`s clear the path we have to take. MADDOW: Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel is expressing resistance to the basic idea of this kind of reform. He`s saying that he wants to keep the chain of command intact, including for dealing with issues like this, that he thinks it has to be handled within the existing structures, even though he takes the problem very seriously. What`s your counterargument to him on that? BOXER: It`s pretty simple, right now it`s in the chain of command and we have 20,000 felons a year walking around and harming people, hurting people, injuring them. Do you know, Rachel, we got a new report? The V.A. has stated that right now there are 50,000 men being treated by the V.A. who have experienced some kind of sexual assault in the military. This is an epidemic. This has to stop, and, you know, Chuck Hagel and I are friends. I supported him and he wrote me a beautiful letter saying we`d work together. We need to talk about this, because you go to your commander, the commander many times just says never mind, we don`t think your case is worth anything. They are judge and jury. That`s wrong. We need to change it. If you choose to go to the command structure in our bill, the commander must report it immediately. You can also go to that victims` assistance program that was set up and get one of those advocates to report it. And that`s what`s going to work here. This has to stop, and I intend to call Chuck Hagel, my friend, and tell him, you know, you need to be bolder on this one. MADDOW: Senator Boxer, if you do get that conversation with Secretary Hagel, we`d love to hear how it goes. Let us know. Thank you very much, Senator Barbara Boxer of California. Pleasure to have you here tonight. Thank you. BOXER: Thanks. MADDOW: All right, coming up, wrestling -- the real kind and the metaphorical kind, but most importantly, the real kind, including the tape. Stay with us. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) MADDOW: 2009, there was a corruption bust in New Jersey`s second largest city. It took the deputy mayor, three city council members who ran on the mayor`s slate, the housing commissioner, two senior officials in the city`s health department, the building inspector, utilities commissioner, essentially the Feds just walked in to city hall in Jersey City, New Jersey, and said, hey, everybody, let`s go, time to go to jail. Jersey City City Hall still contains the desk of the guy who was mayor of that city for 30 years until 1947. See, it is handy to keep Mayor Frank Hague`s desk around at that city hall because the desk has a rigged-top drawer. The drawer, the lap drawer when you sit down, it doesn`t just pull in toward whoever is sitting at the desk, it also pushes out to whoever is sitting across the desk. So if you`re sitting across from the mayor, you can handedly deposit your envelope full of cash into his desk drawer without the mayor having to touch the money in front of you. That rigged desk is reportedly still at city hall, but you will never guess what happened there yesterday. Hold on. It`s coming up. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) VUK JERMIC, U.N. GENERAL ASSEMBLY PRESIDENT: If we are unable to do anything to stop this tragedy, then how can we sustain the moral credibility of this organization? I believe that it is high time to say, enough is enough. (END VIDEO CLIP) MADDOW: There was a dramatic day at the U.N., the news from war in Syria is so terrible, "The New York Times" front paging a story on an almost unbelievable door to door massacre of hundreds of civilians in Syria by government forces -- women, kids, babies, all the men and boys of all ages and whole families killed systematically in a massacre that unfolded over three days. Hundreds of people killed. And the U.N. today voting that Syria should go through political transition, that the government must go. A nonbinding resolution condemning killings, human rights violations, the vote today on it was 107- 12. But a whole bunch of countries abstained, and Russia, a strong ally of Syria, was strongly in opposition to the resolution. If you want to know why there has not been meaningful international action, it`s largely because Russia supports the Syrian government, and they keep putting themselves in the way of anybody else doing anything there. Between the U.S. and Russia right now, in general, things are not very good. After all, Russia did this week just arrest a U.S. embassy employee who they said was spying, but who kind of look like maybe he was just on his way to a James Traficant impersonator convention instead. Regardless of that, things between us and Russia aren`t great right now, which makes it remarkable that at the U.N., America did a big joint event with Russia. And it was us and Russia in a country less likely to do anything with us, the nation of Iran. The United States, Russia and Iran have come together, including at this press conference at the U.N., they joined forces to try to save wrestling. Earlier this year, the executive board of the International Olympic Committee recommended that wrestling be dropped as one of 26 core sports for the 2020 Olympic Games. Wrestling, the original Olympic sport, IOC has decided that it`s got to go. And the determination to save wrestling has now brought together three countries that never come together really on anything, but apparently love men in tiny, stretchy suits, grabbing each other around the leg pits. Putting politics aside, wrestlers from the wrestling powers of Iran, Russia and United States gathered at Grand Central Station in New York City for a friendly wrestle off, men in singlets. Well, today`s event was meant to be friend, they did keep score. And it turns out, Iran kicked their butts -- 6 to 1, Iran beat the U.S. That said, we did beat Russia ourselves, 8 to 1. So, all in all, it was not a bad day in diplomacy even if the competition wasn`t that tight. The Olympic committee`s final vote on wrestling is scheduled in September. Hopefully, that means more unexpected bedfellows in all kinds of diplomacy and more wrestling and train stations between now and then. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) MADDOW: Now the story of the naked mayor. The way the naked mayor first became the naked mayor was winning a special election in 2004. Just a couple months before that election he was running as a candidate for mayor, he turned up naked in public -- naked and seemingly drunk on the front steps of his front porch at 3:00 in the morning. A photo exists of him naked on his front porch. I will mercifully direct you to Google to -- actually, no, just forget it, we blurred out the terrifying part. There he is, naked mayor on his front porch. Anyway, when the candidate for mayor was asked why he was naked on the front porch, how that ended up happening, he told reporters at the time, quote, "I wish I recall, I wish I recall how I got back out there, but I don`t." Here`s a hint, though. He did also admit to those same reporters that he had drunk between six and eight beers that night. So, six to eight beers, naked on the front porch, photograph, no idea how he got there, it turns out that`s good enough for Jersey City. He won that election, and he has been the naked mayor of New Jersey`s second largest city since. But this year, his re-election fight for mayor has been so tough, so excruciating that it caused the naked mayor to suddenly remember whole new things he never remembered about his naked night on the porch in 2004. In last few days before the election, the naked mayor told a columnist for the "New Jersey Star-Ledger" newly remembered details, rather than not remembering how he got out there, says he was lured outside at 3:00 a.m. by, quote, "three Hispanic girls, young kids," he said. "So I go out on the porch, they pulled the towel off me. I start laughing, they started doing other stuff. I said I was old enough to be your grandfather. It was filthy," he said. "I chased them away and then I just sat down." And that he says when a political enemy snapped that photograph. A few days later, the mayor explained why he was now coming out with a new story about being naked on the porch. He explained to the "Jersey Journal" that he, quote, "wasn`t thinking well" when he got the question about being naked on the porch in 2004. "The question came out of the blue," he said, "foolishly, I commented on it." In any case, that`s the naked mayor story that has led more people than you would expect all over America to care about the municipal elections that took place last night in the second largest city in New Jersey, Jersey City. It is because of the evolution of the naked on the porch photo and the naked on the porch explanation is just one chapter in the epic tale of how Jersey City Mayor Jeremiah Healy, the once naked mayor, lost his re-election bid last night. He conceded to fellow Democrat, Councilman Steve Fulop, who beat him by 15 points. It`s kind of tempting to send the mayor-elect a pair of briefs to stash in his mailbox or something, in case he ever finds himself in the same predicament. But in the meantime, probably just a simple congratulation is in order. But I thought you should know about it because this is why New Jersey is used as an adjective, not just as a proper noun. This is very, very New Jersey. Now, it`s time for "THE LAST WORD WITH LAWRENCE O`DONNELL." Have a great night. THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. END <Copy: Content and programming copyright 2013 MSNBC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Copyright 2013 CQ-Roll Call, Inc. All materials herein are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of CQ-Roll Call. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.>