All In with Chris Hayes, Transcript 09/08/15

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST (voice-over): Tonight on ALL IN -- MIKE HUCKABEE (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Kim Davis is free. (CHEERS) HAYES: Decision 2016 descends on Grayson, Kentucky. HUCKABEE: If somebody needs to go, I`m willing to go in her place. HAYES: Tonight, the latest from the spectacle to stop same-sex marriage in Kentucky. Then, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson on Dick Cheney`s downward spiral. CHRIS WALLACE, FOX NEWS HOST: In fairness, didn`t you leave -- the Bush-Cheney administration leave President Obama with a mess? DICK CHENEY, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I don`t think -- I don`t think of it that way. HAYES: Plus, what role is the media playing in Hillary Clinton`s slipping poll numbers. And he`s an NFL hall of famer and an American icon. My interview with Jim Brown on the Black Lives Matter movement when ALL IN starts right now. (END VIDEOTAPE) HAYES: Good evening from New York. I`m Chris Hayes. Today, the campaign media circus came to Kentucky. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) HUCKABEE: Please help me welcome to the stage, Kim Davis! (MUSIC) (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: That`s right. Kim Davis, the Rowan County clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples and was then jailed for refusing a court order to do so, was freed this afternoon after five days. Emerging to speak to an adoring crowd, to the strains of, you just heard, of the 1982 Survivor hit "Eye of the Tiger," which incidentally did not go over too well with Survivor guitarist Frankie Sullivan who slammed the use of his song. At a rally following her release led by GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, Davis declined to personally discuss her plans, though, she did have a message to share. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) KIM DAVIS, CLERK, ROWAN COUNTY, KENTUCKY: You are a strong people! We serve a living God who knows exactly where each and every one of us is at. Just keep on pressing. Don`t let down, because he is here. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: When she first emerged from jail, Davis was asked if the jail time was worth it. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) REPORTER: Kim, was it worth it for you? Was it worth it for you? Yes or no? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, guys. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Davis` lawyer, Matt Staver, a guest on this program Friday night, said Davis will return to work this week. He claimed, the licenses that have been issued while Davis was in jail are not valid, would not say whether she will abide by a court order not to interfere with the continued issuances of those marriage licenses of same-sex couples. Those began being issued on Friday after five of the clerks who work under Davis agreed to act despite their boss`s defiance. In doing so, they granted marriage licenses to the couples who had sued Davis and landed her in contempt. And once those couples had their marriage licenses in hand, a federal judge decided there was no longer grounds to keep Davis in jail. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MAT STAVER, ATTORNEY FOR KIM DAVIS: She loves God, she loves people. She loves her work. And she will not betray any of those three. Kim Davis cannot and will not violate her conscience. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Davis supporters have gathered outside the detention center with crosses and religious signs before her release, cheering invocations of God, bowing their heads in prayer. There were also hate messages to be seen, including this side reading, quote, "Got AIDS yet?" Among today`s speakers were Tony Perkins who heads the militantly anti-gay Family Research Council. And the Benham brothers whose reality show was canceled last May after David Benham was revealed to have been attacking homosexuality, as destructive and demonic. As for Huckabee, he railed against the Supreme Court`s, quote, "judicial tyranny" on same-sex marriage and repeatedly suggested he would go to jail in Davis` place if she is ordered back, much like the way a tribute works in the "Hunger Games." Though, of course, not how things actually work in the real world. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) HUCKABEE: Let Kim go. But if you have to put someone in jail, I volunteer to go. Let me go. Lock me up if you think that`s how freedom is best served. Because, folks, I am willing to spend the next eight years in the White House leading this country, but I want you to know, I`m willing to spend the next eight years in jail. But I`m not willing to spend one day under the tyranny of people who believe they can take our freedom and conscience away! (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: May the odds be ever in your favor, Governor. Huckabee and Staver, Davis` attorney, seem to have coordinated today`s events for maximum personal exposure. Though one of their planned big moments was not quite coordinated as well as they might have hoped. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) HUCKABEE: You will have a chance to see Kim in a moment. We have an announcement, and it is this. Kim Davis is free! (APPLAUSE) (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Huckabee wasn`t the only GOP presidential candidate on the ground in Kentucky today. Ted Cruz who is battling Huckabee for the support of evangelicals also showed up, though, he got Huck blocked failing to get on stage for the rally, generally missing out on the chance to use the situation to his political advantage. This picture from inside the detention center captures Cruz` day pretty well. That`s him in the back there poking his head out over Kim Davis` husband`s shoulder. Cruz did finally get a photo with Davis that he tweeted out with the words "Praise God, Kim has been released." And he was stopped from speaking to reporters reportedly by a Huckabee staffer, the guy in the red shirt after emerging from his visit with Davis. Cruz appeared to get increasingly frustrated as he tried to get past the staffer who used his body over and over again to block Cruz`s path to the press. And joining me now, "Washington Post" national political correspondent Dave Weigel, who was among the media strum today in Kentucky. That`s him in the spot shadow holding up his tape recorder. Want to make sure you get that on tape. Dave, it was a really wild scene from, at least from the cameras. What was it like in person? DAVE WEIGEL, THE WASHINGTON POST: It was wild there, frankly. It started at 3:00 p.m., the rally was supposed to start at 3:00 p.m. People were lining up to get into this thing by 8:00 a.m. This town is not really equipped for an event of this size. The line of cars to get in lasted -- by the time it started, lasted more than an hour to get out lasted about an hour and a half. I gave up and sat in my car working. And this was a major event that had been executed well and planned well. I think that was some of fracas you saw about Ted Cruz related from the fact that Huckabee and allies had been on the ground for days trying to make this into a major event. HAYES: Yet, talk about that, because you could tell this was not haphazard. This was not ad hoc. I mean, this had been -- there was a P.A. system. There was a stage. There were people on the ground. My understanding is Huckabee had staffers who were there sort of coordinating all of this. And Ted Cruz came in today. What can you tell us about who organized this and how? WEIGEL: Well, it was Huckabee and a constellation of these groups, Liberty Counsel, the National Organization for Marriage was there, the Bentham brothers, the Family Research Council, these groups that have been going on about this and getting shut out by the Republican establishment. I think one of my big takeaways from this whole day and this whole week is that the Republican establishment so inept at making Donald Trump disappear is surprised and inept at making social conservatives pipe down. This was not an issue they wanted to fight on. You saw in the wake of the Supreme Court decision this year, a lot of the Republican spokespeople and strategists in Washington saying, well, the battlefield`s pretty much charred, we can walk away from it now. And Cruz had been talking about this. Huckabee has, I think doubled down is too small of a word. I need to study a poker dictionary to think of a term for how much he invested and put on the table for this event. They`re saying, no, social conservatives are not going to let Republican Party the only social conservative party move on from this issue. HAYES: Yes. And I should note one interesting wrinkle, is that Davis herself is a Democrat, she got (INAUDIBLE), an elected Democrat in the sort of local part of Kentucky. WEIGEL: And I met a lot of Democrats there who said -- yes, they were with her switching parties. HAYES: Oh, really? That`s interesting. WEIGEL: I mean, this is one of the states where a lot of conservatives and Democratic, yes. HAYES: Well, tell me who the folks were at the rally. Were these people who -- to the extent you can talk to them, were they people from around there? Were they people sort of bussed in? Who were these folks? WEIGEL: It was a mix. But there were a lot of Kentuckians. All of them I should say were disappointed at Mitch McConnell for not coming out the way that Matt Bevin, the Republican candidate for governor has come out. He was at the rally, he was working the crowds. A lot of people have driven from out of state. I met people who driven as far as from Florida, from Texas, from New York. Often, they would announce that with a sign. And there were busses of -- churches who had chartered bus and the normal bus they used for mission trips to bring down as many people as possible. A lot of -- you would see a lot of groups, you see at the pro-life march for life, a lot of groups announcing what church they were from. And they were having a great time. And a lot hoped she was released today. But the fact that she was made this into a major triumphant event for them. HAYES: Did you get a sense from talking to people from there what the kind of game plan is going forward? I mean, obviously, she`s in a situation in which the original lawsuit filed by the plaintiffs is no longer applicable, because they longer have the injury, because they have not been married. Her attorney says those marriage licenses are invalid. He seemed to float in an interview with me, some kind of combination that the name would be taken off. Presumably someone`s going to show up there tomorrow, and we don`t know what`s going to happen. WEIGEL: Yes, he -- Matt Staver was noticeably squirrely about that. Everyone was. This was also a subject of dispute among people who showed up for the rally. There were people who said, look, if they don`t force Kim Davis to issue these licenses, but people are willing to go to a different county and get married, fine, we can`t control that, we`ve lost that battle. There were people, this element that I think has been silenced in the rest of the Republican Party who were talking about Sodomites, talking about how the Supreme Court is bringing the nation down. Older people, I should say. I talked to a lot of people who are in their 60s and 70s who literally thought that the Supreme Court`s decision was one of the things that was going to bring about a biblical event. It was going to bring about God`s judgment on America. One couple I was talking to who thought a famine could arise because God was so angry from this decision. And they`re not really going to accommodate. I think more likely is going to come from a lot of the younger people I saw. Who thought it was abhorrent that Kim Davis would be forced to do this, but hoped maybe the gay people that want to get married take it easy. You saw in real time, there were gay couples that showed up to talk to the crowd. And there was a discrepancy happening in real time where some people were yelling at them and some people would pray for them and shake hands. To the anger of the people yelling at them and calling them Sodomites. There is something to figure out. HAYES: Fascinating. Dave, phenomenal reporting. Thank you for joining us tonight. I learned a lot there. Thank you. WEIGEL: Thank you. HAYES: Joining us now, Michelle Goldberg, senior contributing writer at "The Nation", and author of several books ago "The Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism", also author of a fantastic new book out right now about yoga and the woman that brought it to America. So, you spent a lot of time reporting on the Christian right. And the reason I wanted to talk to you today was, watching this event, there was a period particularly around 2004 when all American political coverage, cover of "Time" magazine, "Newsweek," those are magazines for the kids watching at home, that all of the political coverage about evangelicals and their political power. And it`s like you would think that they`ve melted like the glaciers. But, of course, those people are still there. And they still have the belief they have. MICHELLE GOLDBERG, THE NATION: Well, most of them, but they don`t have the political power they have. They don`t have anywhere near the political power they have. I mean, you know, 2004, it wasn`t just, you know, kind of one random marginal candidate. It was George W. Bush going to those rallies, right? I was in Ohio then going to the mega churches that were, you know, absolutely central to getting out the vote in the 2004 campaign, especially in Ohio. And, you know, that`s all they were talking about. Now you get - - HAYES: All they`re talking about, meaning gay marriage particularly. GOLDBERG: Right. Gay marriage, and not just kind of religious freedom, banning gay marriage, which at this point is completely off the table. You know, Mike Huckabee is clearly, he sees this as his only plausible path to victory because there is this neglected constituency out there. But, you know, aside from him and Ted Cruz, everybody else is sort of embarrassed by them. I also have a theory that the energy and kind of among American reactionaries seesaws between sexual panic and racial animus, and I think that right now, we`re in kind of a moment of racial animus. And so, that`s why it`s with Donald Trump and not with Mike Huckabee. HAYES: Now, that may be true a political energy, but I think one of the things I thought was instructive and important today about watching this event is, is that there`s the question of people`s political influence, but there are millions, tens of millions of evangelical Christians in this country who did not suddenly decide it was OK. That gay people can get married under the eyes of the law as mandated by the U.S. Constitution because the Supreme Court said it. And there is somewhat an unmet political market -- GOLDBERG: Right. HAYES: -- that I think you saw today. GOLDBERG: Well, I think the question is, evangelical conservatives, going back to the scopes of the trial, go through the periods of intense engagement and then withdrawal. HAYES: Withdrawal, yes. GOLDBERG: And I think that, you know, after the re-election of Obama, after the Supreme Court decision, a period of withdrawal. And even their language around religious freedom. It`s not we want to ban gay marriage, we want to protect our little enclaves, we want to protect our right, you know, not to have to bake gay wedding cakes, or, you know, kind of participate in this sinful majority culture. HAYES: Right. GOLDBERG: So, in a sense, they`ve already, most of them, had kind of accepted their defeat. You actually hear a lot less of this sort of Christian nation rhetoric than you did ten years ago when I was reporting my book. You know, although maybe she`s given them a spark of hope that they could rise up again. HAYES: Well, that was part of what I saw today, and I`ve covered a lot of political events. GOLDBERG: Right. HAYES: And I`ve covered political events that are liberal political events, conservative, real lefty, real right wing reactionary. And this was an event of victory. And political movements need victories to keep going. And this is a political movement that`s had just one loss after another after another. You can almost feel the catharsis, like, we got a win today, it`s how long has it been since we got a win? GOLDBERG: Right. But this is a pretty tenuous win. HAYES: Extremely. GOLDBERG: I mean, this woman is no longer in jail. Her -- you know, this is not going to be enacted into policy, as you said, tomorrow, gay couples will still be married in her county. HAYES: We think. I mean, we don`t know what she`s going to do. GOLDBERG: Certainly a victory for her. She has a big future ahead of her in evangelical politics. HAYES: Right. GOLDBERG: You know, she`s out of jail, but they`ve lost. HAYES: And that was the other thing sort of oddly hung over this entire thing. I think Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee recognize, though, in a crowded primary field, being the candidate who is the tribune of that sentiment is a powerful thing. GOLDBERG: Yes, absolutely. I mean, in the same way that Donald Trump I think -- there was an underserved market for this sort of Buchanan, you know, economic populist social conservatism. This is another, yes, underserved market. HAYES: Yes. Michelle Goldberg, great thanks. GOLDBERG: Thanks so much. HAYES: All right. Still to come, the Iran deal has the supported needs in the Senate and then some. But now, Dick Cheney has spoken. Lawrence Wilkerson is here to react next. Plus, as the horrors continue to unfold in Europe, we ask presidential candidates how many refugees the U.S. should take in. We`ll have an update on that. And later, NFL legend and social activist Jim Brown will be right here at this table. Don`t go away. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: In Las Vegas today, British Airways bound for London caught on fire after making an emergency landing after takeoff. Video showing the Boeing 777 engulfed in flames on the runway at McCarran International Airport. A hundred and fifty-nine passengers and 13 crew were onboard. They all managed to get off safely through emergency slides. Two people suffered minor injuries. A fire was quickly put out, the runway, however, still shut at this hour. There`s a ground stop for arriving air traffic. British Airways says the left engine caught fire during takeoff. No word yet on why or how that happened. We`ll keep you posted. (COMMERCILA BREAK) HAYES: The Senate back from its August recess started debate on a resolution to disapprove the nuclear deal with Iran. But with three more Senate Democrats, Ron Wyden of Oregon, Gary Peters of Michigan and Richard Blumenthal in Connecticut all coming out in favor of the deal this morning, and with Senator Maria Cantwell, Democrat from Washington state announcing her support tonight -- well, the deal now has 42 votes in the Senate. And that, that is enough to block the resolution altogether with the filibuster and keep it from getting to President Obama`s desk for a veto. It is a momentous victory for the White House, and a crushing defeat for the forces aligned against the deal, from lobbying groups like AIPAC, to neoconservative think tanks, to Republican presidential candidates. Some of them aren`t ready to move on without trying to extract some kind of political benefit from the debacle. According to "Politico," congressional Republicans are discussing the possibility of voting on Friday, September 11th, to put maximum political pressure on Democrats, taking a cue from Alanis Morrissette, the Senate`s number two Republican, tweeted, "Ironic that Congress may vote on the Iran nuke deal on 9/11." Tomorrow, Ted Cruz and Donald Trump are set to hold their much anticipated stop the Iran deal rally on Capitol Hill. But today belonged to Dick Cheney who argued against the deal in the speech at the American Enterprise Institute. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CHENEY: With the removal of restrictions on the Iran`s ballistic missile program, this agreement will give Iran a means to launch a nuclear attack on the U.S. homeland. What President Obama is asking the United States Congress to do is unique, historically and dangerously unique. The results could well be catastrophic. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Cheney`s speech came after a remarkable interview over the weekend about his own administration helped strengthen the Iranian regime. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) WALLACE: During your time. Let`s put these numbers up on the screen. Iran went from zero known centrifuges in operation to more than 5,000. So, in fairness, didn`t you leave -- the Bush/Cheney administration leave President Obama with a mess? CHENEY: Well, I don`t think of it that way. In fact, there was military action that had an impact on the Iranians when we took down Saddam Hussein. WALLACE: But the centrifuges went from zero to 5,000. CHENEY: Well, it may well have gone. But that happened on Obama`s watch and not on our watch. WALLACE: No, no, by 2009, there were at 5,000. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Joining me now, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell who made big news this weekend with his endorsement of the Iran deal. Colonel, your response to Cheney`s apocalyptic warnings about -- about this deal today. COL. LAWRENCE WILKERSON, FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF TO COLIN POWELL: Well, the exchange you just characterized in that clip sort of personifies what my appreciation of Dick Cheney is. I`ve been searching for a single word that would describe Dick Cheney, and I`m afraid the only one I can think of is insanity. It`s a deliberate. It`s a methodical. It`s a lucid, often lucid insanity. But it`s insanity nonetheless. He can`t recognize reality. He can`t recognize the truth. The good thing, Chris, for this country, is that independence, Republicans and Democrats wish he would just go away now. He has almost no influence. You saw the influence he has virtually by numbers, those at the AEI today listening to his speech. That`s about it. HAYES: What do you make of this idea? I mean, Cheney and his daughter, they want to talk about Iran and what it sort of terrifying regime it is and how it`s growing larger. And yet really fail to acknowledge the fact that one of the largest geopolitical boons to Iran, unquestionably was the war in Iraq. I mean, they have essentially a proxy government sitting in Baghdad. We have, you know, members of Qassem Soleimani, the Quds force and all sorts of Iranian power being projected into Iraq, all of which is a result of the Iraq war. WILKERSON: You could go on in that regard, Chris. I can`t understand why this man who is portrayed (INAUDIBLE) the monumental biography of Brent Scowcroft fresh out called "The Strategist", as for 30 years at least 30 years of his career, bring and I saw him as secretary of defense being, a rather brilliant strategist, a rather brilliant man. All of a sudden, he`s turned into this person who simply cannot recognize reality. I can`t explain it. Maybe it`s physiological, maybe it`s biological. Maybe 9/11 did something to him. After all, he was in charge when 9/11 happened, the greatest attack on the American territory since Pearl Harbor. That might have shocked him somewhat. I can`t -- I can`t explain it, Chris, he is simply devoid of reason, and he doesn`t recognize reality anymore. HAYES: You mentioned 9/11. And I was so struck today reading that account today that the Republicans made to put maximal political pressure on Democrats, to take this vote on 9/11 and Cornyn talked about the irony. I mean, quite clearly, bin Laden hated the Iranian regime. The Iranian regime hated him back. They hated the Taliban. They have nothing to do with each other except, I guess, you know, their faith, the part of the world. What do you make of this idea that on 9/11 vote somehow will put political pressure on Democrats? WILKERSON: Cheney and Rove master, they mastered the process of associating things that really get a number of the American people, if not a small majority excited and fearful. Yesterday, Chris, my seminar explored Harry Truman in the Korean War and Senator McCarthy came up from Wisconsin, the anti-community scare and so forth. And I couldn`t help but think there`s a portion of Dick Cheney today that reminds me of Joseph McCarthy, the kind of baiting, the kind of fearful rhetoric and so forth. This is the sort of thing that paranoids do. And I think McCarthy was a paranoid. I think Cheney may have gotten to that point now, too. There are people you can excite with this kind of illogic. All you have to do is associate the fearful object with something else. It`s totally illogical, but it works. HAYES: You know, that`s a great point about the Cold War, because in many respects, one of the great strategic blunders continually made during the Cold War was projecting on to communism this sort of monolithic nature, right? They`re all communists, they`re all working for each other, whether it`s the Chinese, the Vietnamese, or the Russians, in Moscow, that proved not to be the case in any way. And it strikes me to have the Iran vote on 9/11 shows some sort of similar thinking about the, quote, "threat". WILKERSON: I think so. I think that`s the way you get some of the American people exercised about a threat that`s really different from the way you`re describing it, or in some cases is not even existent. And then you get a lot of money allocated to the military industrial complex and all this rest of the thing. Cheney`s a millionaire now. So, maybe I`m assuming his insanity, and maybe I`m wrong. Maybe he sees this as a way, as a route to success, and it turned out to be profitable. His personal finances now are quite well- established. He`s a multimillionaire. This is a man who in 1998, Chris, said most forcefully as CEO of Halliburton that sanctions were not working. HAYES: Right. WILKERSON: That they wouldn`t work unless they were comprehensive or international. And he wanted to do deals with Iran. And so, he was bashing sanctions up one wall and down the other. This is a man who`s lost his mind in some respects in my view. HAYES: All right. Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, thank you very much. WILKERSON: Thanks for having me. HAYES: Coming up, Hillary Clinton apologizes for her private e-mail use. But why, and more importantly, to who? That`s ahead. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: Pressure continues to build across Europe and across the world to grapple with the growing refugee crisis. Today, hundreds of people at a refugee camp on the Hungary/Serbia border broke free, many after waiting overnight in the cold for transport that never came. It is these traumatic scenes of desperation unfolding across the continent that are putting increasing pressure on European governments to take in more people fleeing violence in the Middle east. Yesterday, British Prime Minister David Cameron pledged Britain will take up to 20,000 refugees from Syria by 2020, a paltry number compared to Germany who took in some 18,000 people this past weekend alone according to the BBC. Meanwhile, the White House reiterated today it is actively looking at ways to deal with the refugee crisis while refusing to give any specifics. Presidential candidates Democrat and Republican are for the most part following suit. Marco Rubio, John Kasich, Chris Christie, Lindsey Graham and Hillary Clinton have all over the past few days said the U.S. should do more to help without getting into specifics. Ben Carson today took a similar stance when asked, as Ted Cruz, who said the U.S. should not take refugees, but quote, address the cause of this crisis. And Scott Walker, in perhaps the most cowardly response yet, simply refused to answer the question at all. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: what would you do to address the migrants who are currently fleeing into Europe? Should the U.S. accept some of those migrants into the country? SCOTT WALKER, GOVERNOR OF WISCONSIN: Well, again, I think the problem is we`re ignoring the basis of the core of the problem. The problem is this president is at a weak stance in terms of taking on ISIS. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But to follow up, if you were president today, what would... WALKER: I`m not president today and I can`t be president today. I`m going to be president in January of 2017, and I`m telling you what people need to do. Everybody wants to talk about hypotheticals. There is no such thing as a hypothetical. UNIDETNIFIED FEMALE: The fact that these refugees need a place to go is not a hypothetical. And Pope Francis has even come in and said that countries need to help them. I mean, Should the U.S play an active role? WALKER: Again, I`m talking about what I will do as president, that will be a year-and-a-half from now. I`m going to take on ISIS as president. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Hypotheticals do not exist. Good thing to note. The question of the U.S. response, the refugees crisis is an unusually simple one from a policy perspective. There is a certain number of refugees the U.S. will take into this country. The U.S. expects to admit only between 1,500 and 1,800 Syrian refugees total by the end of the year, total, that`s according to the State Department. And we`ve reached out to almost two dozen presidential campaigns to ask what they think that number should be. So far, a grand total of one candidate has gone on the record with a specific number. Martin O`Malley said last week the U.S. should let in 65,000 Syrian refugees by the end of next year. We will continue asking the other candidates what their number is, because as we watch human suffering on an almost unimaginable scale unfold across the Middle East and Europe, hemming and hawing is not enough. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: If there`s a bias in the political media, whether ostensible mainstream, or not, it`s for a good story, for uncertain outcomes and close, contested races. Cake walks and coronations interest no one. And so our institutional bias in the media is for Hillary Clinton to have a contested primary. Now, it`s true of Jeb Bush, too, who has run up against a similar, though, less consequential bias in this respect. Although, he obviously has a whole other set of problems with Donald Trump. So, that is a lens through which all of the actual Hillary Clinton news is being refracted, that news has not been awesome. The Clinton campaign has very real actual challenges, challenges in answering questions about the secretary of state`s decision to use a private email server rather than a public government one, challenges encountering Bernie Sanders who continues to perform very well in early state polls, and dealing with the potential entry of Vice President Joe Biden into the race. So now, the big story generated over the weekend, in large part by her aides is that the Clinton campaign is rebooting. The New York Times headline, Hillary Clinton to show more humor and heart aides say. And along with that comes the email apology, an apology that in many ways seems to have been driven by and addressed to the media. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) HILLARY CLINTON, FRM. SECRETARY OF STATE: In retrospect, certainly, as I look back at it now, even though it was allowed, I should have used two accounts: one for personal, one for work-related emails. That was a mistake. I`m sorry about that. I take responsibility. And I`m trying to be as transparent as I possibly can. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: And then, there is Vice President Joe Biden who had a Labor Day parade in Pittsburgh was in prime Biden mode, chock full of humor and heart and peppered with cries of run, Joe, run. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENITIFIED MALE: Run, Joe, Run! UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Run, Joe Biden, run! JOE BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: What`s your name? (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Joining me now, writer at large for Esquire, Charlie Pierce. Charlie, I don`t get. Well, I guess I understand this sort of apology focus in the coverage of this. Today, she apologized. Was it a sufficient apology? But it just doesn`t strike me as necessarily that important. And yet, it seems to be a real focal point for a lot of the coverage of this. CHARLIE PIERCE, ESQUIRE: Yeah, I mean, did she owe you an apology, Chris? Because she didn`t owe me an apology. She didn`t do anything to me. Seriously, who is she apologizing to? Is she apologizing to the, you know, the 20 or 50 or 100 people who are on her campaign plane with her? I don`t understand who is she apologizing to. The American people? The American people don`t care about this. I spent the whole day -- or the last couple of days having very serious Al Domato (ph), Dan Burton flashbacks to the Whitewater investigation. I think we`re all living in the cocktail lounge of the Meana (ph) airport right now. HAYES: Explain that references. PIERCE: The Meana (ph) airport was this -- one of the wilder Bill Clinton conspiracy theories was that he was running, you know, cocaine like water through a mill race at a little airport in Meana (ph), Arkansas. And that`s become at least my shorthand for all the weird stuff that gets thrown at the Clintons simply because they`re the Clintons. HAYES: But do you -- I mean, so there`s also there the email thing, right? There`s also this sort of reboot. And I read that Times article. And I was a little bit, like, I don`t quite get this. Is this, you know, aides, it was just so sort of easily mockable, you know? She will show more spontaneity. And I guess any article about a campaign reboot is and maybe nobody cares anyway at this point. But I didn`t understand the strategy of telling the Times this. PIERCE: Yeah, there`s a real -- there`s a fine line in every campaign. One is a lot of people outside of your campaign are telling you you`re doing very badly. The real problem was when the people inside your campaign start to believe them. Now, it`s still September. I got the month right this time, by the way, which I didn`t last time I was on. HAYES: Well, instant fact checks are a source of pride here on All In with Chris Hayes. PIERCE: But in any event, it`s still September before the Iowa caucuses. Things are still very fluid. I don`t -- I think if the Clinton people within the campaign are taking seriously all the noise from outside of the campaign she`s in desperate trouble, then they have a really big problem and it has nothing to do with email. HAYES: See, this is an excellent point. And this is - one of the most fascinating things to watch develop over the course of a campaign is you feel these sort of pressures build and this storm will build. You have to do X, you have to do Y. And one of the things that I think distinguished the Obama campaign as a campaign, independent in some respects from the candidate himself or his qualifications and his vision, was just their sort of institutional resistance to being bullied by these sort of calls that come from outside about what you have to do. And that ended up sort of working very well for them. And there was a lot of talk about this time around the Clinton campaign being similarly focused. PIERCE: Well, I mean, that`s the classic, don`t worry, I`ve got this, internet meme, which has been the president`s, you know, the hallmark of the president`s -- of this president`s leadership in the White House. The Clinton people can talk that talk, but you`re also dealing, at least, with a candidate who is, you know, I`m going to borrow something from Lyndon Johnson here you`re out in the middle of a Texas road, and it`s raining, and you can`t run, you can`t hide, and you can`t make it stop. That`s been the Clinton`s life ever since about 1988. HAYES: Right. PIERCE: Now if the candidate`s a little bit gun shy about this at this point, I can understand that, but she better get over it, because she`s really not in as much trouble as people are saying she is. HAYES: You know, and I also had this thought as I was watching the Joe Biden footage was. I think it would be better for everyone, for the Democratic Party and for Hillary Clinton if Joe Biden actually just got in. I think in some ways the kind of, the polling of him as a theoretical candidate as opposed to an actual candidate, if he`s in, you sort of know what the field looks like, you know what the parameters are. You have the race. And I think in some ways, the ambiguity around him sort of haunting this race in this sort of odd way like this sort of spectral presence is actually part of what is making them a little spooked. PIERCE: Yeah, I mean -- at the very least, it will reduce the fantasmic notion of Joe Biden, progressive hero. Joe Biden is a pretty middle of the road politician. He always has been. I mean, Elizabeth Warren went to war with him before she was in the senate over the bankruptcy bill. HAYES: That`s right. PIERCE: And there she is -- she`s taking a meeting. I mean, I think Joe Biden as a real, you know, life size living candidate would do the field a better service than having them, as you say, out there as this kind of shadow candidate. The problem of course is, it`s another whack at poor Bernie Sanders who is drawing great crowds and getting no attention. HAYES: Although, he continues to plug along and his polling numbers reflect that. Charlie Pierce, thanks for joining us. PIERCE: Thanks, Chris. HAYES: Still to come, NFL hall of famer and social activist Jim Brown will join me to talk about his public safety summit and the Black Lives Matter movement. Stay with us. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: If you`re doing politics, chances are sooner or later you are going to encounter protesters, and often these protesters will be holding signs, signs you may not like. But pro tip here, never try to grab the sign from the protester, it`s a bad idea because win or lose, you end up looking terrible. Take what happened last week when one of Donald Trump`s security guys took on a protester outside his press conference. It`s a big guy, got the sign easily and then things degenerated badly from there as he pops the protester in the face. Then there`s what happened today when a guy at Dick Cheney`s Iran speech took it upon himself to try to take a banner from a Code Pink protester, a protester half his size, we might add, but an unbreakable death grip on that sign which just proved to be too much to handle. As the man who flopped down to think about what went wrong, the protester leaves the room flag still firmly in hand. And now, you`re famous on the Internet, dude. Never, ever grab the sign. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIIFED MALE: You often heard mantra that black lives matter. Some say, falls flat when you consider just how many blacks are killing other blacks. That remains the majority of homicides across the country. UNIDENITIFIED FEMALE: Black on black crime is statistically a reality. SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS: The majority of deaths of young, black males are coming from other young black males. If we don`t address that, we`re not serving these kids in these neighborhoods well, are we? UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I haven`t seen the rallies like this over the black on black crime, which is 91 percent in New York City and nationally. TED WILLIAMS, FRM. D.C. HOMICIDE DETECTIVE: It`s not all about police officers, there`s something else that`s gone on that needs to be addressed and that is that a lot of this is black on black crime. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Perhaps you noticed, there`s this somewhat cynical thing that happens around the phrase black lives matter. We keep hearing conservatives, in particular, pivot from that to what about black on black crime. What those same commentators often fail to mention is that murder, as a just general phenomenon is an intraracial crime. According to the U.S. Justice Department between 1980 and 2008, 93 percent black murder victims were killed by black people, while 84 percent of white murder victims were killed by other white people. Murder happens among people largely who know each other. And the other thing those commentators often fail to mention is that crime and murder and violence is simply not getting ignored. Instead, people that live in communities, black communities with very high crime, spend an extraordinary amount of time dealing with, fighting against, attempting to solve gun violence and violence more broadly. Tomorrow, just to give an example, Newark, New Jersey, a city whose population is more than 50 percent black, a city that has struggled with high crime, will hold a summit on violence intervention. And it`s hosted by Mayor Ras Baraka and NFL hall of famer and social activist Jim Brown. And I`m going to talk to both men about that next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAEYS: Joining me now as promised, Newark, New Jersey Mayor Ras Baraka and NFL hall of famer legend Jim Brown. Wonderful to have you gentlemen here. Thank you very much. JIM BROWN, NFL HALL OF FAMER: Thank you for having me. RAS BARAKA, MAYOR OF NEWARK, NEW JERSEY: Thank you. HAYES: Mr. Brown, when you watch this discussion about violence, police violence, gun violence and you hear this phrase about black on black crime and no one`s raising this issue, what`s your response to that? BROWN: Well, you see, I`m not a philosopher. And I`m here not to do a lot of talking. I`ve worked on this issue for many, many years. And it isn`t that the people are black, it`s that there are certain people that live in certain conditions. And if you don`t change those conditions, the people not going to change. And what I`m trying to do because the mayor here is really giving us a great opportunity to maybe help his initiative, I`m trying to be a force of security to these young people, hope. I advocate education, getting off your butts, and I`d have nothing to do with crime. Crime is something that I`m against 100 percent. I`m against murder, and I`m against excuses for it. So, I hope you`ve got something for me. HAYES: Well, you had this summit back in 1967, right? BROWN: Yes. HAYES: Around violence. I mean, this is something you`ve been thinking about and working on for a long time? BROWN: We`ve been very successful. We`ve had 15 years of success in Los Angeles with the Crips and Bloods where the homicide rate went down to basically zero. If the society joins in like this man is joining in, we can do something about it. But if the jobs are not there and you don`t emphasize the education, and if the fathers are not there, and if those of us like myself and the mayor don`t substitute then what are the kids supposed to do? HAYES: What is this summit tomorrow? And what`s the idea behind it? BARAKA: Well, it`s to kind of focus on the unresolved trauma that`s happened in our community, a cycle of violence that is initiated by poverty and five decades or more of unemployment and all kinds of issues that create these problems that we have in our community. It`s our way of organizing something and helping us bring our community together outside of using the police and all these other agencies, something that we can do as a community. HAYES: What does that mean, though? BARAKA: Well, its means that the community starts first, at the first line of defense is the neighborhood, is the community, are families. Restructuring our families, getting people together, strengthening them, providing jobs and opportunities and hope for young people, giving them a pathway out of crime, a pathway out of violence. HAYES: A big part of what happens in, I would imagine a place like Newark, it certainly happened in Chicago when I was a reporter there, is someone in my neighborhood does something to me or someone that I love, right? Bad. Violence, insults, something like that. I`m not going to go to the cops, right, because I don`t trust the cops will be fair to me. I don`t trust the justice will be done. The way that I am going to settle the score is I`m going to go back and do something to him or to people that he loves, right? That`s part of what this cycle is. But how do you break that? BARAKA: Well, I think, a lot of it had to do with what I talked about, unresolved trauma. Giving people an opportunity to have outlets, to talk about these kinds of issues that confront them in their community, give them opportunities that provide them hope, give them employment, jobs, you know, the destruction of poverty I think is the bottom line. So we have what`s going on, I can`t say post traumatic stress because it`s not over. I mean, this is happening over and over again. You`ve got kids growing up in situations where there`s violence all around them, where they`re witnessing murders, where their friends are being murdered or hurt or maimed by this kind of violence. And so, it becomes our most systemic and we have to treat it as a disease and begin to eradicate it just like we eradicated other kind of public health crises. HAYES: You know, I`ve been reading a bit for a project I`m working on, around some of the things happening `65, `66, around Watts riots and some of the civil rights struggles particularly around police. And as someone who was very active at that time and is watching what`s happening now with a sort of new civil rights struggle around policing, how much do you think has changed since 1966? BROWN: that`s an unbelievable question. You know that we have a tremendous problem today, everything is escalated. But if you look at the economy and the future of our economy is not in this country, it`s somewhere overseas. And if you look at the top, they`re doing real well. The black top is doing real well, right? You have great athletes, you have great entertainers, they`re making millions of dollars. But can you get them to come out here and sit down with this man and help him heal his city? Well, my job is to say to Ray Lewis, Ray come on, man, Mayor Baraka is trying to do a job. Let us get with, let the kids see us, let us be those surrogate fathers and put an interest in these kids and get them educated. And then understand the value of economic development. Jobs are so important and self-esteem is a major problem with people. And you`re not going to solve it unless you understand the root cause of it. HAYES: It`s amazing how much, you know, not feeling like you`re no one makes you want to do something to make yourself feel like someone. BARAKA: Plus, you`re talking about five decades or more about double- digit unemployment and poverty. HAYES: That`s not going to be solved overnight. Mayor Ras Baraka, Jim Brown, such a great pleasure. 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. 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