All In with Chris Hayes, Transcript 09/09/15

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST (voice-over): Tonight on ALL IN -- SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This Iranian nuclear deal is catastrophic. HAYES: The circus comes to town as the right wing rallies against an Iran deal they almost certainly can`t stop. DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Never, ever, ever in my life have I seen any transaction so incompetently negotiated. HAYES: One of the presidential candidates who spoke at today`s event will join me live. GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R-NJ), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The fact is we have 60,000 people working for you. There will be occasions where someone doesn`t work out the standard. HAYES: Then twist you didn`t see coming in the bridgegate scandal. Plus, Martin O`Malley talks to me about his debate battle with the DNC. And Jeb goes for the Colbert bump. JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It connotes excitement. HAYES: ALL IN starts right now. STEPHEN COLBERT, COMEDIAN: Jeb! (END VIDEOTAPE) HAYES: Good evening from New York. I`m Chris Hayes. After descending on Grayson, Kentucky, yesterday to cheer Kim Davis` stand against marriage equality, today, the circus moved to Capitol Hill for a "stop the Iran deal" rally, a day after the deal locked up more than enough Senate support to survive a congressional challenge. Hosted by the group Tea Party Patriots, the rally featured a who`s who of serious conservative foreign policy thinkers from Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, to "Duck Dynasty`s" Phil Robertson, among others. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) GLENN BECK, TV HOST: This is the letter signed by Neville Chamberlain that he wrote to the Hitler youth where he explained to the Hitler youth that he had just met with their leader and their leader wanted as much peace as Neville Chamberlain and the West did. FMR. REP. MICHELE BACHMANN (R), MINNESOTA: As president of the United States, were I there or any sane person be president of the United States, this is not tough at all. SARAH PALIN (R), FORMER ALASKA GOVERNOR: Only in an Orwellian Obama world, full of fairy dust born from atop his unicorn as he is peeking through a really pretty pink kaleidoscope, would he ever see victory or safety for America or Israel in this treaty. REP. MIKE KELLY (R), PENNSYLVANIA: We need to echo what we said on September 11th, is never forget, never forget, never forget, never forget, never forget, never forget, never forget! (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: In a lot of ways, today`s rally was a throwback to the classic Tea Party protests of `09 and 2010, complete with t-shirts calling Obama various semi-contradictory names and clever Second Amendment themed tank tops. But given the Iran deal focus, we got to see some new slogans, this time for example, "#Jewishlivesmatter, ask God", and "Obama/Hillary/Kerry fulfilling Hitler`s dreams". A day after Ted Cruz found himself overshadowed at the Kim Davis event in Kentucky, today was supposed to be his time to shine preaching to an anti-Obama choir primed for apocalyptic rhetoric. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CRUZ: It`s worth remembering that if this deal goes through, we know to an absolute certainty, people will die. Americans will die, Israelis will die, Europeans will die. If you vote to send billions of dollars to jihadists who have pledged to murder Americans, then you bear direct responsibility for the murders carried out with the dollars you have given them. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Cruz had the bright idea of inviting Donald Trump in order to attract more media attention. And well, be careful what you wish for. The Republican presidential front-runner looked like he almost got stamped by reporters and camera people eager for a Trumpian sound bite. While Cruz wasn`t physically blocked from taking stage as he had been somewhat embarrassingly yesterday in Kentucky, he found himself relegated the metaphorical background of the Trump show. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: I`ve been doing deals for a long time. I`ve been making lots of wonderful deals, great deals. That`s what I do. Never, ever, ever in my life have I seen a transaction so incompetently negotiated as our deal with Iran. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: The second time in two days a musician objected to one of their songs being used at a conservative spectacle. This time it was REM, whose classic, "It`s the End of the World as We Know It and I Feel Fine" was Trump`s accompaniment as he took the stage. I`m not making that up. NBC`s Katy Tur asked Trump about the legislative battle over the Iran deal and he acknowledged it has enough support to succeed. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: It`s a done deal because we have stupid people and incompetent people running our operation. It is disgraceful. But it is a done deal, it looks like. I mean, it`s hard to believe that people can vote. I`ll tell you what? Anybody that voted for this deal, we should vote them out of office so fast they don`t deserve to be in office. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: And now, unable to get what they want on the nuclear deal, some of Ted Cruz` friends in the House of Representatives are doing what they do best, gumming up the works. The Conservative House Freedom Caucus successfully blocked a procedural vote today on the resolution disapproving the deal. And now, after a month`s long battle over that legislation, it`s an open question whether the House will vote on the Iran deal at all. Joining me now: Republican presidential candidate, former Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore, who spoke at the rally today. Mr. Gilmore, what would your reaction be if it turned out the U.S. Congress, the Article 1 branch under our Constitution, did not vote on this deal, and the Iranian parliament did vote on the deal? JIM GILMORE (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, I don`t think that would be a very good comment on the United States processes. And yes, did I speak today, Chris. I don`t think I was as shrill or as exaggerated as some of those comments, but yes, I did say that we ought to have a vote. That it was necessary to have a vote of disapproval. How can you go forward into the future and correct some of these problems, apply some genuine foreign policy to this and protect the American people if the Congress sits aside and doesn`t vote. So, I advocated today that there, in fact, be a vote. If there`s a filibuster, we have to have 60 votes to defeat that filibuster. I hope we get them. We need to have a vote. We need to make the president go forward and either sign it or veto it. HAYES: Mr. Gilmore, one of the organizers of this rally referred to Iran as, quote, and I`m quoting here, "The Nazi Germany of today." Do you agree that characterization? GILMORE: No. I don`t think that I like to characterize people that way. But I will say, I`ll characterize it my way, which is that the Iranians, in fact, are sponsoring terror. This agreement does give them eventually access to a nuclear weapon. It does in fact give them billions of dollars to continue to spread terror and revolution and rebellion all across the Middle East. It gives them potentially ballistic missiles and I think it destabilizes the Middle East. So, my message -- my message today was we have to be prepared to go forward and deal with this agreement if it, in fact, becomes the law. HAYES: Governor, when you say eventually, what do you mean by that? GILMORE: Well, because the agreement talks about a delay, a pause, a period of time. The president is gambling on the fact that the Iranians can be brought in during concert of nations during the next period of time and through years. HAYES: Specifically, what do you mean by that when it talks about a delay, a pause? Do you mean about the time limit of the deal? About the fact that certain elements are phased out over time, 10, 15 years down the road? GILMORE: Yes, yes, because what the agreement has said is that after a period of time, which I believe is about 10 years, at that time, they may very well be able to go forward and create a nuclear weapon. HAYES: But they`re able to go forward and do that now. The break-up capacity as judged by various intelligence agencies is between three and six months as of today. GILMORE: Well, that`s because the United States no longer has conducted the foreign policy with any credibility. We have taken position -- the president took the position that the Iranians are not going to be permitted to have a nuclear weapon and destabilize and endanger -- not just Israel but their neighbors and eventually us. And then what we`ve been done is we`ve been so weak and uncertain on our foreign policy that the Iranians think they can go forward and do these kinds of things immediately. And therefore, they leverage us into a bad deal going forward in the future. HAYES: Just to be clear about the deal itself, 14,000 centrifuges are going to be shuttered. They have agreed to almost near constant monitoring of any possible production equipment that comes in and out of country that can be used to manufacture centrifuges, but sanctions regime put together by the P5-plus-1 nations was so crippling and intense that they came to the bargaining table to give up all these things. I keep hearing all this stuff about weakness. What has happened is the Iranian regime has reversed course in a tremendous, almost head snapping fashion. GILMORE: Well, the sanctions certainly brought them back to the bargaining table. They want that money. They want to try to build up their economy. Remember that building up their economy can be used as a tool by the Iranians. It`s their policy that needs to change, Chris, and this agreement hasn`t done anything to bring them into the concord of civilized nations. Just in the past several days, their own people have been saying that America remains the great Satan, that they don`t intend to change any of their policy. So, the point is this, and my message today, Chris was this -- if the Democrats force this down our throats, if they make this agreement the rule of the lands, we have to be prepared to go forward and adjust to that and do what`s necessary on protect American interests. HAYES: You don`t think -- (CROSSTALK) GILMORE: Pardon me? HAYES: You would not rip it up on day one as president of the United States? GILMORE: Well, I would like to get out of the deal. If I were the president of the United States, I would immediately assess whether or not it continues to endanger American interests and then either discard it or make adjustments as necessary. Look, I`m not a knee jerk foreign policy guy. I`ve been around this all my life and I believe we have to do what`s necessary to protect American interests. This agreement does not do that. HAYES: But if it`s working, then you would change your mind? GILMORE: But if it`s working, but there`s nothing -- there`s nothing at this point that shows that we`re going to safe. That`s why I`d call for an adjustment. I`d call for a new NATO in the Middle East. I want to put together -- I want to put together allies so we can, in fact, protect ourselves through collective security and then turn in on the ISIS as well. HAYES: OK. Governor Gilmore, thank you very much. I`m joined now by NBC News reporter Katy Tur who was there today. Give us a sense of what it was like. Who was there, what was the sort of atmosphere like? KATY TUR, NBC NEWS REPORTER: I think it was a Tea Party rally first and foremost. The people there were Tea Party supporters first, and then Trump and Cruz supporters second. A lot of them came out to see Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck and even Michele Bachmann as well. But when you`re speaking to them and you`re asking them, why they were there, they said that they hate this deal. That they don`t think it is a good deal. They just don`t like this current administration. So, anything this administration is doing, they`re going to come out against. HAYES: So I`m curious about this. A lot of group that`s were organizing and lobbying around the Iran deal. What I`m hearing from you was you could have found people saying this was an anti-Obamacare rally. I mean, these were folks who don`t like this president, they think he`s bad for this country. They`re primary around that. TUR: Certainly, but they also were there because they really do not like this. And they think that Iran is a terrorist nation. They think that they`re funding terrorism and they think it will bring about end of days in some sense. And so, when you`re speaking to them and you`re asking them, why do you think Donald Trump or Ted Cruz would be the person to lead us in the right direction, they`ll say that because they`re the ones that are telling truth. Everyone else is lying to us. This is a bad deal. This is the end as we know it. But Donald Trump or Ted Cruz will get in there and they`ll be able to fix things and they`re so broken. HAYES: We saw a little of that. You`ve been up close in the Trump circus this entire time. We saw a little of what that looked like. Was that the main attraction there in terms of the crowd attraction? In terms of when the crowd swelled and when it ebbed? Was it mostly a Donald Trump kind of situation? TUR: It certainly seemed that way. The crowd swelled to maybe 2,000 people while he was up there and thinned out pretty quickly. But when you see, when you go to the Trump events, he gets crowded by reporters every single time. He has the press avail and he answers more than enough questions, he answers everyone`s question. But when he leaves, you see reporters chasing him down the hall. This one, it seemed like the majority were the foreign press that were trying to get in there and asking him the same question over and over again. You hear him answer literally the same question over and over and over again. But people keep asking it them want to see at what point he`s going to lash out at someone else, because every time he does answer it, there`s an opportunity for him to make news. HAYES: That`s right. And he has become a sort of news making machine in this respect. I saw this dynamic when I was at the Trump press conference, where people just -- you can see them like, it`s like they`re waving meat in front of a bear or something. TUR: People just want to ask him anything that`s going on during that day or whatever the news cycle is. HAYES: Right, can I make news on this? TUR: Exactly. Donald Trump, what do you think this, that or the other? Anything. Because if he answers in a wild or colorful way, he will be a top of the headlines. HAYES: Ted Cruz got boxed out at the Kentucky rally yesterday, in fact, some quote, funny quotes from Huckabee today saying, look, we rearranged the thing, Cruz flew in, yes, we boxed him out a little bit. This was more his event today. Did you get a sense of his people on the ground? Were there Ted Cruz for president volunteers and signs and things like that? TUR: There were a number of Ted Cruz for president volunteers, as well as a number of Ted Cruz supporters. I was actually surprise at how many Ted Cruz supporters there were in comparison to Donald Trump supporter. Much more people wearing his hats and his t-shirts and holding his signs. But he was the keynote speaker. He did invite Donald Trump. He invited Donald Trump for reason, because he`s going to get the attention, and so, the news cameras will be there and Ted Cruz is now in the news tonight, as well as Donald Trump. HAYES: Well, well played, Ted Cruz. Katy Tur, pleasure. Thanks a lot. TUR: Thank you. HAYES: Still ahead, did Chris Christie`s floundering campaign take a fatal hit because the CEO of United Airlines resign? I will explain the connection. And later, presidential candidate Martin O`Malley will join me live to talk about his debate battle with the DNC. Plus, Colbert is back. We`ll take a look at his premier behind the "Late Show" desk, as well as his first pet project. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) COLBERT: I want to help prep you for that debate, because I`m grateful that you`re here as my guest. Would you help prep you a little bit? BUSH: I would love it. I need a lot of help. (END VIDEO CLIP) (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: Today, Congress held a hearing on Planned Parenthood. Four witnesses were invited to that hearing, three of them invited by Republicans, one of them invited by Democrats. Here`s how many witnesses represented Planned Parenthood, zero. According to "Vox", neither the Republicans nor the Democrats on the committee invited the group to testify. Planned Parenthood spokesperson Erica Sackin confirmed. The witness invited by the Democrats, the director of the Yale Law School program for the study of reproductive justice, did strongly defend Planned Parenthood. The hearing often came off something far less than a fair attempt to assess Planned Parenthood`s value to women`s health in the wake of the release of videos from anti-abortion activists. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) REP. JUDY CHU (D), CALIFORNIA: Mr. Chair, I`m outraged by the sensational name of the hearing that makes no pretense of being fair or impartial. And I`m outraged by the accusations made against an organization that serves millions of women in our country. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Next, how bridgegate brought down the CEO of United Airlines. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: This was supposed to be the time that Chris Christie, the keynote speaker of the 2012 Republican National Convention, would be solidifying his status as 2016 Republican presidential front-runner. Instead, after the bridgegate scandal and the state`s fiscal woes, the New Jersey governor is barely in the conversation. Christie currently polling around just 3 percent nationally and that puts him in a tie for tenth place and at risk of failing to get into future presidential debates. And now, an absolutely crazy new story involving Christie`s political mentor and long time adviser is prompting a top New Jersey Democrat to call for Christie to put his, quote, "doomed presidential campaign" out of its misery. And Christie`s allies allegedly orchestrated those traffic problems in Fort Lee that began exactly two years ago today, closing down lanes in the George Washington Bridge and creating a traffic nightmare, allegedly as retribution against a mayor who declined to endorse Christie, no one would have predicted that it would lead to this -- the CEO of United Airlines and two senior United officials resigning amid a federal probe which grow out of the bridgegate investigation. But that is just what happened. The details of what allegedly went down are completely amazing. This is David Samson. You may remember him. He`s Christie`s political mentor and friend who Christie appointed as chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in 2010, a position Samson held until he resigned last year in the wake of the bridgegate scandal. Now, the Port Authority is a massive, really big deal in the region, operates bridges, airports and other transportation resources has an annual budget of more than $8 billion. And that means that, as Port Authority chairman, Samson was a very powerful individual. And back in 2011, United Airlines allegedly wanted his help. You see, United was reportedly pushing for millions of dollars in public investment at Newark Liberty International Airport where United is a dominant airline. That included a proposed train line extension so passengers could take a direct train from Manhattan to the airport. And Samson allegedly wanted something from United as well. You see, Samson had a vacation home down in Aiken, South Carolina, and he reportedly found it frustrating to get to that vacation home ever since direct flights from Newark to nearby Columbia were halted in 2009. Samson either had to fly from Newark to Charlotte, North Carolina 150 miles away, or take a connecting flight -- the sort of thing that could really mess up your whole weekend. And in September 2011, Bloomberg Business reports, citing an observer present, Samson and Jeffrey Smisek, the United CEO, went to a group dinner at an Italian restaurant in Manhattan, where Samson allegedly made a request. Could United revive the route from Newark to Columbia so that Samson could reach his vacation home more easily? United ultimately decided to reinstate the money losing route which became known by Port Authority officials as the chairman`s flight. After Samson reportedly twice threatened to block Port Authority consideration of one or more of the airlines favorite projects. In March of last year, Samson steps down, and then, this is best part. Just three days later, United canceled the chairman`s flight, a move that only fed speculation it had been maintained purely for Samson`s benefit. And now, with the feds investigating all this, Smisek, the United CEO, has stepped down, though you should not feel too bad for him. He is getting a separation payment of nearly $5 million, along with another $3.4 million in stock, as well as free flights for life. United says it is cooperating with the government investigation. Neither Samson nor Smisek has been charged with anything. A short time ago, Christie was asked to respond to alleged malfeasance by yet another close ally. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CHRISTIE: I have to be held accountable for what happens on my watch. I`m happy to be held accountable to what happens on my watch. I have 60,000 people that work for me. And so, you know, you can always strive to be better, which is what we strive to do. And I`ll just continue to work really hard and it`s always the way I`ve conducted myself. And there`s nobody who can say that I haven`t conducted myself that way in all 13 years of my public life now in the state. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: And now, Steve Kornacki, host of MSNBC`s "UP WITH STEVE KORNACKI", an expert on all things New Jersey politics. OK. (LAUGHTER) HAYES: I mean, I love it. I love -- I mean, who knows, right? Reportedly, allegedly. We got this from Bloomberg. I love this as a quid pro quo, like I got this -- I bought this house and it is sort of hard to get to and now it has a direct flight. How did we end up here? When I saw the news, United CEO resigns, pursuant to bridgegate scandals. It took me a second to be like, wait, how did we end up here? KORNACKI: Yes, well, it`s two years ago this week the bridge shuts down in Ft. Lee, New Jersey, and it takes a few weeks for that to come to light. You knew it then by the end of 2013, we`re talking about a payback scheme. Well, once that comes to light at the end of 2013, then the fed get involved. The fed start looking for documents, start looking for information inside the Port Authority, and from David Samson, the chairman of the Port Authority. Once that gets going, and the media is looking at this, too, and is digging up stuff, all sorts of things start to come into play. Don`t forget there were all sorts of stories the media has reported about property deals, property transactions involving David Samson that raise all sorts of questions. Then this came to light publicly a few months ago. This is such a glaring example, although I guess the question is, right now, if the feds, all we know right now is the feds have subpoenaed documents from both the Port Authority and United Airlines. And we know United is saying it has something to do with the investigation. We don`t know exactly what. But the question is, who would the feds side with here? Would they say United was trying to bribe David Samson? Were they saying David Samson were shaking down United Airlines? HAYES: Right. KORNACKI: Is there a villain here? Is there a good guy here? Or do they come down both of them, or neither? HAYES: Right. Or is it noncriminal favors swapping essentially? I mean, we don`t know necessarily what possible criminal exposure there might be here. We do know, though, I mean, this gets to the heart of the matter to me. What do we know about this investigation? I mean, this has been going on for a while. There are rumors, the shoe is going to drop. The shoe is going to drop, you know? And there`s going to be indictments. And so far, we haven`t got much. But there must be something. The United CEO doesn`t just resign out of nowhere. KORNACKI: Right. What we know is that the surprise when we got the indictments a few months ago, the surprise was that David Samson was not among them. The assumption among everybody following this was that David Samson would be indicted, and David Samson would be the closest you would get to Chris Christie, because this is -- the relationship between David Samson and Chris Christie, it goes back a ways and it`s very close. To call this guy a Christie confidant is not at all an overstatement. They are very, very close. And even tonight, Christie in that radio program is calling him a friend of his. And we`ve seen David Samson, one of the most politically connected lawyers in New Jersey. He`s basically gotten out of his law practice. I think he lives in Connecticut. He`s not even in the state anymore. So, there`d been some expectation he would be indicted. When he wasn`t, that was a big surprise. And then the talk immediately moved to, well, maybe so much stuff -- and this is conjecture -- but may be so much stuff has come to light about Samson that that`s a completely separate track right now and there might be future action dealing with Samson. Although who knows? Maybe there`s something involving United Airlines and Samson. We don`t know. It could be cooperating with the feds. We don`t know all the possibilities. It`s also possible nothing will ever happen to David Samson. HAYES: Do you think at this point is all this priced into the Chris Christie stock? Or does this news hurt? KORNACKI: I think he has to get some traction for it to hurt at this point. He is down to 3 percent. If you get a scenario here, though, they got the next debate next week. Let`s say Christie has one of those Christie moments and suddenly he is the guy surging the polls. Then this becomes a legal matter of a federal prosecution two or three months from now, then I think it hurts because it brings it all back when he`s surging on the polls. HAYES: Samson is a fascinating person, because the more that we learned, the more we saw how many parts of the Venn diagram he occupied, how many different hats he wore and how powerful he was. And the big question is to me, you know, is anything going to come out with the way the Port Authority, this massive thing works? KORNACKI: Talk about something that`s sort of baked in it. The idea of the Port Authority is this den of patronage and corruption and all sorts of malfeasance. HAYES: That`s the whole point. KORNACKI: This has sort of, you know, confirmed what a lot of people always thought. But the thing that`s interesting there, too, in listening to what Chris Christie had to say, that`s the line he falls book all the time when people say, is this more broadly about a culture in your administration, a culture among your appointees. And he says, I point 60,000 people to the governor of New Jersey. We`re not talking about a mid level person at the DMV right here. We`re talking about -- this is one of the most influential people in Chris Christie`s orbit who he put this charge of this massive bi-state agency. That`s not just any appointment. HAYES: Yes. Steve Kornacki, always a pleasure, man. Good to see you. KORNACKI: Sure. HAYES: Coming up, as Mike Huckabee claims, Kim Davis` release for religious freedom, how do you feel if a Muslim wanted to make the same case? We`ll look at that scenario, ahead. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: Rowan County Clerk, Kim Davis, freed from jail yesterday is not yet back at work and it will be interesting to see what happens when she returns. When Davis was released yesterday, the U.S. District Judge, David Bunning, told her not to interfere with the issue of licenses now that she has been released. Davis had been in jail since last Thursday, and during that time, up to six deputy clerks issued marriage licenses per the order of the judge. Meanwhile, one of Davis` deputy clerks, Brian Mason, says he will defy his boss if she tells him to stop issuing the licenses because he is following judge`s order. Davis` lawyer said she will continue to follow her conscience. And how exactly that plays out this time around, that`s yet to be determined. The problem for advocates of Kim Davis, like Presidential candidate, Mike Huckabee, is that it is very hard for them to articulate the limiting principle for this kind of behavior. For instance, in the case of the Muslim flight attendant who was suspended without pay for a year because she refused to serve alcohol, should she be protected by some principle of religious freedom? Mike Huckabee? (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MIKE HUCKABEE, 2016 REPUBLCIAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Historically we have made accommodations for people with religious convictions. You`ve seen in it Michigan where they spent $25,000 providing foot baths for Muslim students. I think most notably I saw it personally when I visited Gitmo, and I watched as-- for terrorists who are being detained at Gitmo, there were signs painted on the floor that directed them to Mecca. We gave them prayer rugs. I think people try to make accommodations wherever they can. Sometimes it can`t be done. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Sometimes it can`t be done. I mean, this is a person in a private employer/employee relationship and maybe it doesn`t work out. But then, what do you say about a woman who is defying the highest court in the law, the Supremacy Clause of the constitution and our entire legal system. Well, Huckabee never really answered that question, whether in fact religious liberty applies equally to the Muslim flight attendant. So, it gets you thinking maybe, I don`t know, maybe, it`s not really about religious liberty or a conscience so much about America being, to certain people, a Christian nation and a Christian nation only. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) STEPHEN COLBERT, THE LATE SHOW: I have a lot of great memorabilia all around the set. For instance, up there Jimmy we have the Captain America shield, there`s also the pennant my mother got when she attended Martin Luther King`s I Have A Dream speech in 1963. Sadly, civil rights only won the pennant that year. Racism won the world series. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: The Late Show with Stephen Colbert debuted last night and almost immediately you can see the ways in which Colbert was trying to final a balance between thing he is known for, biting political satire and all the conventions he is inheriting in a late night talk show on network television. A lot about last night was typical late night fare. Colbert opened with a monologue, he made some topical, very funny jokes about Donald Trump and the media`s obsession with him. He had a big celebrity guest in George Clooney and was accompanied by a talented and versatile house band. But for a genre that is usually only political in the most surface way, last night`s Late Show was at times explicitly about politics. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) COLBERT: That guy in the green shirt, that`s my brother Jay. UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Younger brother? COLBERT: That`s my brother, Jay, and Jay, you and I don`t agree politically do we? JAY COLBERT, STEPHEN COLBERT`S BROTHER: No. COLBERT: At all. Now, I love my brother even though we politically differ. Without in any way diminishing your love for your brother, in what ways do you politically differ from your brother, George? JEB BUSH, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think my brother probably didn`t control the Republican congress spending. I think he should have brought that hammer down on the Republicans when they were spending way to much because our brand is limited government. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Alright, that`s not the first time that Jeb Bush has appeared to criticize his brother on government spending, but as New York Magazine`s Jonathan Chait pointed out, back in May, while this sounds like a criticism of George W. Bush, it is actually a dodge Republican`s have used to avoid coming to grips with the failure of their party`s domestic agenda. And joining me now Jonathan Chait, writer for New York Magazine. And Jonathan, this is -- this is I think a sort of useful point for Jeb Bush to make because he knows he`s going to get asked. Why do you think it doesn`t scan? JONATHAN CHAIT, NEW YORK MAGAZINE: Well, it may work for him politically, but it`s not true. So, when they passed these tax cuts under the Bush administration, what they said was, if we pass these taxes it will stop congress from spending more than we want to spend, so there won`t be deficits. That`s their reason why there won`t be deficits, because it will necessarily limit the spending. But then when the deficits inevitably appear, the deficits that people like us predicted would appear, they say, well, sorry, it was the spending, forgetting that they promised us that the tax cuts would stop this from happening in the first place. So they just switched the argument every single time. And in fact this isn`t a criticism of Bush, this was a dodge that Bush himself used. He always said, well, I`m sorry, it`s the spending, it`s not the tax cuts. That`s not why we have these deficits. It`s all this spending that I somehow keep signing into law despite myself. HAYES: You also have a piece today -- Jeb Bush has a tax plan now, and you have a piece out, which I thought was great, basically saying if you like George W. Bush -- if you liked his tax plan, you`re going to love his brother`s. What similarities do you see between the two? CHAIT: It`s pretty much the same approach. It`s an across the board regressive tax cut financed by higher debt. So, you know, if you thought that worked for George W. Bush you`re going to want more of it, but it`s the same thing. He`s bringing in income tax rates down across the board. He`s cutting taxes for capital owners and owners of wealth. It`s going to give some tax cuts to people in the middle and some tax cuts to people in the bottom, like the Bush tax cuts did, because they thought that`s what they needed to get it passed through congress and to make it salable. But the biggest proportional share will go to people at the top. HAYES: You know, and this is -- this to me gets an existential question about the Republican Party, which is if you are to say what is the single core policy that any Republican nominee for president has to believe, it`s that they`re going to cut taxes at the top. I mean, that to me is -- there`s a lot of other things that could happen around the margins, but it does seem central to me. That actually when you drill down to the bedrock, that`s where you end up. CHAIT: Right. And for the donor class, that`s what they`re in it for. And for some of them, it`s self-interest. For some of them, there`s a strong belief of this philosophy of supply-side economics that no matter how many times it`s wrong -- it was wrong under Bush, it was wrong under Clinton, because they said when Clinton raised taxes on the rich the economy would collapse. That didn`t happen. But it simply can`t be disproved. Now, for some of them, I think it`s a real moral belief that progressive taxation, that taxing rich people at higher rates is wrong, that the money rightfully, morally belongs to the people who earned it in the market and the government cannot take it away. And that`s a really powerful belief among movement conservatives and libertarians who are the core of the party`s ideological apparatus. HAYES: Yeah. And when you -- I thought it was interesting to see this come out today, because there was so much about Jeb Bush`s donor base, right. And that is the sort of donor class of the Republican establishment. And, you know, at a certain level, it`s like -- this is not rocket science. There is strong moral beliefs, ideological beliefs, but there are also people with billions of dollars on the line you know backing someone who is going to come out and say, you know, someone who will come out and say you will have more money. CHAIT: That`s right. And one of the other similarities is that they both feel compelled to sell these policies as something other than that, because they know they can`t go to America and say our most successful people, our best people deserve more of their money. So George W. Bush always talked about the waitress moms. I don`t know if you remember that, from 2000, that was who was going to get the money, even though this poor waitress mom got very little or nothing money. With Bush, it`s all about the loopholes he`s going to close. HAYES: Literally, Paul Krugman is just tearing his hair out on the pages of the New York Times, that the entire campaign about the waitress mom. CHAIT: Same here. He has more hair than I do. You know, I was tearing out even more. HAYES: Jonathan Chait, thanks for joining us. CHAIT: Thank you. HAYES: All right, still ahead, presidential candidate Martin O`Malley will join me live. So, stay with us. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: Horrifying and clarifying footage has emerged from a border town in Hungary as refugees fled police near a makeshift camp, a camerawoman kicked a man as he sprinted forward carrying a child, sending the pair cascading to the ground. The later footage emerged of the same camerawoman kicking refugee children as they fled past police. Look at that. According to The Guardian newspaper, the woman is a camera operator for a Hungarian nationalist television channel closely linked to the country`s far right Jobbik party. And that detail, that is why this horrifying moment is so clarifying when it comes to understanding the current refugee crisis. Jobbik is by far the largest far right group in eastern Europe and it is getting even more popular in Hungary. Right now it the number two party in opinion polls as it assails the Hungarian prime minister`s right wing party for being too soft on immigrants and minorities including gypsies, gays and Jews. Last week hundreds of members of the neofascist group Jobbik confronted people walking into the country along railway lines in Serbia. On Saturday, Jobbik the activists demonstrated for sterner action, waving signs that read deportation not work permits, and border closures we don`t want immigrants. That`s what refugees are by and large encountering in Hungary, although many citizens have also been welcoming them and giving them water and nutrients as they pass. But it`s small wonder some many of them are desperately trying to get over the border. And small wonder we see scenes like this on Twitter, purportedly from Austria which borders Hungary to the west, recently arrived Syrian refugees broke out singing and dancing in the streets with joy. Back here, while many presidential candidates have advocated doing more for Syrian refugees, only one of them has given an actual concrete number of the people he expects the U.S. to take in. Martin O`Malley, he`ll join me, next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: The Democratic Party has a bit of a revolt on its hands. It is all about the primary debates or rather the lack thereof. You see, while the Republicans will have at least ten RNC sanctioned debates before they choose the next GOP nominee for president, Democrats will have just six DNC approved debates and only four of those debates have been scheduled before the Iowa caucuses and that has led to allegations of a rigged process, most vociferously articulated by former Maryland Governor and Democratic Presidential candidate Martin O`Malley. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MARTIN O`MALLEY, FRM. GOVERNOR OF MARYLAND: Four debates. Four debates? Four debates, four debates and four debates only, we are told, not asked, before voters in our earliest states make their decision. This is totally unprecedented in our party`s history. This sort of rigged process has never been attempted before. How does this help us make our case to the American people? One debate in Iowa? That`s it? One debate in New Hampshire? That`s all we can afford? And get this. The New Hampshire debate is cynically wedge into the high point of holiday shopping season so as few people watch it as possible. Is this how the Democratic Party selects its nominee? Are we becoming something less? Something else? (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: O`Malley is continuing his crusade, calling for protests outside the DNC next week. Bernie Sanders has also called on the party to add more debates to the schedule. And earlier this week, Hillary Clinton herself said she would participate in more party sanctioned debates. Meanwhile, DNC chair Debby Wasserman Schultz is standing firm saying there are no plans for additional debates, period. That may be the case but former DNC chairman Howard Dean said this week, quote, there are going to be more debates, whether they accept them or not. Joining me now is Martin O`Malley, former governor of Maryland, Democratic candidate for president. It`s good to have you here. MARTIN O`MALLEY: Thank you, Chris. The phrase, cynically wedged which you used there, cynically wedged in the height of the -- who wedged them? Why cynically? What`s the implication there? O`MALLEY: Well, I assume it`s it is the chair of the Democratic Party, it certainly wasn`t the DNBC members, all of whom gave me a standing ovation when I said we`re practicing, you know, we`re committing party malpractice by letting the Republicans talk about their ideas and their candidates and we`re not saying anything. So, I assume it is the chair`s prerogative. That`s what she says it is. But it is not good for our party, it`s not good for the country. And we need to have more debates. And some of these are scheduled on weekends which I think is a purposeful attempt to keep us from being viewed by as many as possible. HAYES: Why? So what, so that Hillary Clinton -- say what you`re saying, so that Hillary Clinton can be the nominee? O`MALLEY: I can`t think of another reason why they would do this other than the instinct that party established leaders have to circle the wagons around the inevitable front-runner. When I asked at the, in Minneapolis, whose interest does this serve? How could this possibly help us for the fall? And how could this possibly help us get our message out? So, I assume they`re circling the wagons around the inevitable front- runner as her descent continues. And -- but it is not good for the party and it`s not good for the country. Look, we need to be talking about the ideas that actually matter the most to people around their kitchen table: how many we make college more affordable, how we get wages to go up and not down. And also as a party, we have a moral responsibility to push back against the sort of hate rhetoric and the vilification, rhetoric and the vilification of people like Donald Trump who are casting aspersions and saying some pretty racist things about whole groups of Americans based on their ethnic background. We need to speak to the generosity and the goodness of the American people. HAYES: People will say this, you know, it is sort of a law of political gravity, that people that are ahead want less debates and people that are behind want more debates, right, because, you know, upside downside, it`s a very easy to figure that out. I mean, the rules are the rules and if you were in Hillary Clinton`s position, you probably would be fine with six, right? O`MALLEY: Ah, but here`s the thing, Chris. These rules -- the DNC members were never, ever consulted about these rules. And the unprecedented act is this, that any candidate who participates in one of the debates that`s not currently scheduled for the height of shopping season or a Saturday or Sunday morning when we compete with the cartoons, is punished for not coming in. I mean, what`s next? That you can only view the Democratic debates if you subscribe to Netflix? I mean, this is ridiculous. This has never been tried before. Our country needs to hear from the Democratic Party and our candidates. Yes, as a challenger, I would like a million debates. But somewhere between a million debates and one debate on a holiday weekend I think is a happy medium of three debates before New Hampshire, three before Iowa. And I think that there are going to be people rise up. And all of the early states saying this is wrong. This is rigged. It`s not right. HAYES: All right, you did you something that I was impressed with. I think is one of the boldest and more concrete things I`ve seen come out of this campaign so far so I want to talk about that, about Syrian refugees. You`ve also released a very strong program on criminal justice reform. I want to talk about that. Plus we`ll talk about Hillary Clinton and email a little bit if you`ll stick around. O`MALLEY: Sure. I`m here. HAYES: All right. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What do you think about the migrants issue in Europe and should any of them come here? DONALD TRUMP, REAL ESTATE DEVELOPER: I think it`s terrible. I think from a humanitarian standpoint, it`s terrible. But you know what, Katie, we have tremendous problems in this country. We have to secure our own border. We have tremendous problems in our country. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: After saying repeatedly, the U.S. should take refugees, today Donald Trump reversed course apparently joining several GOP candidates who said the U.S. should not take any additional refugees. And that the candidates who had said the U.S. should help out, all but one had refused to give any specifics. I`m back at the table with Martin O`Malley, former governor of Maryland and Democratic candidate for president. The only candidate to give a specific number of Syrian refugees the U.S. should take in. I believe that number, 65,000. What`s your response to people saying we`ve got enough problems? How do you explain this to voters? You are going to take on more of the world`s problems? O`MALLEY: This is how I explain it to voters, that the strength of our country depends on our acting in accordance with our deepest principles. And one of those very, very deep principles, and it is taught in every world religion is that thou shalt be kind to strangers, particularly when they are fleeing death or famine. In my own state, I broke with our president in regard to treating the Central American kids that were coming over, some governors were talking like they were a swarm of jack rabbits. But we managed to accommodate more kids in our state than any other state in the union on a per capita basis, and we did it in a humane, American way, in foster homes. These 65,000 that the international humanitarian organizations have called upon to us take, that is the equivalent, Chris, and our strong, generous and compassionate nation of 320 million, that`s the equivalent of making room for six more people in a baseball stadium that has 32,000 people in it. We have to act in addition with our first principles and we have to act like the good and generous and compassionate people we are, not like the xenophobic, immigrant bashing scapegoating sort of America that Donald Trump carries on his lips and in his heart. I believe in a better and kinder America. HAYES: You have put out a fairly comprehensive criminal justice reform platform. O`MALLEY: thank you. HAYES: Walk me through this. Going back through your record, there seems to be a real difference between you as governor and mayor and what this platform says. So you were sued by the NAACP and the ACLU for your zero tolerance arrest policy when you were the mayor. Baltimore paid out almost a million in a settlement. In 2007 you vetoed the sentencing reform bill as one of the first things you did as governor. You have refused to grant parole to anyone who had a life sentence. I mean, there are a whole bunch of policies in which you appear to be the kind of Democrat who was, quote, tough on crime. This platform seems to be looking in a much different direction. Explain to me the difference between those two. O`MALLEY: Yeah, I think if you look at my whole record, and when I ran for mayor of Baltimore in 1999, it wasn`t because our city was doing well, it was because our city was up against the ropes. We had allowed ourselves to become the most violent, the addicted and the most abandoned city in America. And I ran for mayor and I called upon our neighbors to forge a new consensus that says we should not have two standards of justice in our city, one where we allow 24/7 drug dealer occupation of poor neighborhoods, all which of were black, and another in wealthier white or black neighborhoods where we would never allow those things. And so I forged a new consensus. I put us on a path to reduce crime by more than any major city in America in the next 10 years. And I also delivered on something else, Chris, I promised people all that summer that we would do a better job of policing the police and that`s what we: a civilian review board, I promised 100 reverse integrity stings a year. I promised we would report and bring down discourtesy excessive force and lethal use of force. In fact, three of the four lowest years on record in Baltimore for police involved shootings were years that I was mayor. And as governor, I restored voting rights to 52,000 people. I repealed the death penalty. I banned the, I signed the legislation to ban the box. I`ve been on a constant search. HAYES: You`re saying there`s not a change, there`s not -- it is not that you come to realize certain things in the past don`t work, that this... O`MALLEY: Well, we`re always on a search for what works and what doesn`t work. That`s true. In fact, the remarks I gave, you talked about the criminal justice reform strategy. The title of it was to save and redeem more lives. And I am constantly looking for things that work and don`t work. For example I repealed possession of small amounts of marijuana in our state as a crime. So I`m constantly looking for the things that work. HAYES: Let me ask you this quickly. Hillary Clinton has apologized for her use of a private email server. Do you think that was appropriate? O`MALLEY; Sure, I think it`s appropriate. I mean, I think she violated the rules. And I wish that she had done it a couple months ago, because our party is now in the absence of debates, been branded with this email controversy and question after question. So, let`s get on to talk about the issues like affordable college, getting wages to up, reforming criminal justice, that`s what we should talk about as a party. HAYES: Martin O`Malley, Democratic candidate for president. Thank you for joining me. It was a pleasure to have you here. That is All In for this evening. THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. END <Copy: Content and programming copyright 2015 NBC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Copyright 2015 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.>