All In with Chris Hayes, Transcript 07/20/15

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST (voice-over): Tonight on ALL IN -- DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He`s not a war hero. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He is a war hero. TRUMP: He is a war hero -- UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Five and a half years -- TRUMP: He`s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren`t captured. HAYES: Republicans disavow their front-runner. REP. PETER KING (R), NEW YORK: To me that`s almost sacrilegious. There are certain things you don`t do. HAYES: Tonight, why the RNC rebuke of Donald Trump could set a dangerous precedent. Plus, the unbelievable things the so-called grown-up candidates are saying as we gawk at The Donald. GOV. SCOTT WALKER (R-WI), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The president shouldn`t wait to act. HAYES: Then, why Black Lives Matter activists are protesting Democratic candidates. ACTIVIST: Say that black lives matter! Black lives matter! HAYES: And the Uber wars rage across America. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At the end of the day, this is about providing folks a choice. HAYES: Why this election could be a referendum on the gig economy. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can`t stop Uber. You can`t stop them. ALL IN starts right now. (END VIDEOTAPE) HAYES: Good evening from New York. I`m Chris Hayes. And it is official. Donald J. Trump is now the front runner in the Republican presidential race, beating the runner-up by double digits in a new "Washington Post"/ABC News poll of likely Republican voters, far outside of the margin of error. This new result caps off several weeks of total news cycle domination by Trump and his bombastic rhetoric. First, those now infamous comments about Mexico sending drug dealers and rapists to the U.S. and now, his attack on John McCain`s service in the Vietnam War. But what about the other two candidates rounding out the top three? The only ones besides Trump to score double digit support. While Trump has been sucking up all the oxygen in the room, Jeb Bush and Scott Walker have been able to get away with extreme statements of their own. Bush was supposed to be the friendly antidote to Trump`s anti- immigrant demagoguery, giving Republicans their best shot at making much need inroads with Hispanics. But while he had previously endorsed a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, last week, something that got very little notice, Bush unequivocally rejected that idea. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) REPORTER: Would they be allowed to become citizens? JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think a path to legal status given the environment we`re in now, given the need to build consensus on how we craft an immigration policy that allows us to grow is the right one. REPORTER: Does that include citizenship or not? BUSH: No, legal statues -- legalized status. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: For Scott Walker, who officially declared a week ago, his campaign rollout might have been disastrous if it weren`t for Donald Trump. A day before he announced, Walker signed a state budget weakening tenure for professors in the vaunted University of Wisconsin System and he just signed a 20-week abortion ban with zero exceptions for cases of rape or severe fetal abnormalities. Walker recently said the Boy Scouts should uphold a ban on gay troop leaders because it, quote, "protected children", a position he since tried to qualify and he later told CNN he doesn`t know if being gay is a choice. But perhaps most damning from a policy perspective was what Walker said he would do as president to block the nuclear deal with Iran. Responding to an earlier note of caution from Jeb Bush about the process of undoing an international agreement, Walker vowed to do whatever he deemed necessary to terminate the deal on day one even if it meant a military attack. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) WALKER: I think that`s a bad enough deal that it needs to be terminated right off the bat and I will work with Congress not only to reinstate the already previously authorized sanctions, but to work with them in putting in place even more crippling sanctions and to convince our allies to do the same. I believe that a president shouldn`t wait to act until they put a cabinet together or extended period of time. I believe they should be prepared to act on the very first day they take office. It`s very possible. God forbid if this would happen, possible the president of the United States could be called, the next president could be called, to take aggressive actions, including military actions on the first day in office, and I don`t want a president who`s not prepared to act on day one. So, as far as me, as far as my position, I`m going to be prepared to be president on day one. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Joining me now, Sam Seder, MSNBC contributor and host of "Minority Report" podcast. I thought this was sort of amazing because, you know, obviously, there`s a spirited debate, policy and political debate about the Iran deal. Here he`s saying it`s possible the next president is going to have to start military activity on day one. That`s a pretty extreme thing to say. I mean, it`s a little bit hedged. It`s an extreme thing to say. SAM SEDER, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: Yes, it`s very possible. It`s not inevitable. I mean, I guess in that respect it`s somewhere within the bounds of reason. But, you know, I mean, that`s the thing. Trump on some level is providing oxygen and space for these guys to move even further right. This is going to be a real problem for him down the road. The longer Trump is in the race, it will become more and more of a problem, because it`s going to be harder to forget they may have said this. But, yes, it`s absurd. I mean, these things that they`re talking about are absurd. Walker just even the idea of more crippling sanctions. We`re all in to use a phrase in terms of sanctions. There`s no more sanctions to do at this point in terms of Iran. HAYES: And Walker response comes in the context of Jeb Bush -- when Walker said, I would ready -- I would rip it up on day one. Jeb Bush had this response. I would probably check with -- I would probably appoint someone to run state and Department of Defense and check with our allies. Maybe we figure it out. And that was what Walker is attacking on. Day one, be ready to bomb if that`s what it takes. SEDER: And, frankly, I mean, how different is that from what Donald Trump would say? I mean, maybe the way they deliver the sentiment would be the same, but fundamentally, Trump would say the same thing. I`m going to wipe away the Iran deal. I`ll just make it a bigger and better thing. I can do it better than all of them. HAYES: I`ll stall (ph) the Iran deal. You`re fired. SEDER: Exactly, exactly. I mean, that`s the thing that I think to a large extent, you know, these Republicans because they are somehow more respectable in the eyes of sort of the media establishment in some measure, maybe because they`ve been around longer. But I mean, let`s contemplate what comes out of the so-called adults` mouths. Lindsey Graham, "Al" anything in the Middle East is a problem. HAYES: Right. SEDER: I mean, really? I mean, is that -- HAYES: It`s an actual quote. SEDER: Yes, exactly. I mean, is this something you want from -- is that presidential? When John McCain saying bomb, bomb, bomb Iran. I mean, just imagine for a moment if a foreign leader who is maybe going to become the prime minister or the president of another country said, bomb, bomb, bomb America -- I mean, just contemplate how absurd this stuff would sound. HAYES: Or run the Scott Walker quote back through that exact translation about, you know, the Iranian person saying, you know, the next person on day one might have to start aggressive military action against the U.S., and then there`s the Bush thing to me that`s in some ways even more important and less flashy than there`s what people say and there`s what policies they commit themselves to. And that got essentially no attention, that little exchange. But that is possibly the biggest substantive corner to be painted into from a policy perspective of no path to citizenship. Hillary Clinton is pounding them on it, saying 11 million to 12 million people. They are cutting off the path to citizenship. You`ll never be American citizens. And here, while Donald Trump is saying they send rapist and drug dealers, here is the moderate and possible front-runner until Trump knocked him off saying, no, no way. That`s a big deal. SEDER: You know, a poll that came out a couple days ago that showed Trump in the lead as well, not by the huge margin as this "The Washington Post"/CNN one. That poll showed that there`s been big changes in terms of people`s perspective on immigration, even in the Republican Party. So, not only is he out -- when Jeb Bush talks like that, not only is he not moderate relative to the entire country but even in the context of the Republican Party, he`s going against the trend. I mean, the majority of Republicans are still sort of like edging towards path to citizenship on some level, but -- HAYES: You say Republican people who are polled? SEDER: Yes. But the base of the Republican Party is firmly headed in the other direction. HAYES: And you`re also seeing aside from this rhetorical overshadowing that`s happening, there`s a phenomenon called in anchoring in negotiations. First number anchors the negotiations. And essentially, it`s like you`re allowing Donald Trump to anchor your debate. Like he`s giving -- it`s like who names the first price matters a lot in how a negotiation goes. And he`s essentially, you`re allowing him to anchor and set, we`re going to talk about this in these terms and then people can respond to it. SEDER: Yes. I mean, one of the things that`s been interesting about Donald Trump from the beginning is that there`s been a complete misunderstanding as to why he was going to be so popular with the Republican base. When you see Jeb Bush following Donald Trump, I mean, he`s not counter programming to Donald Trump, he`s moving closer to Donald Trump`s position there, isn`t he? And so, it`s a fundamental misunderstanding of where the Republican Party is I think when people dismiss Donald Trump as buffoon. Yes, he`s a buffoon, but really not that different than other buffoons in the Republican -- HAYES: Well, you play his responses in the Iran deal, it essentially sounds indistinguishable from everyone else on the Republican side. Sam Seder, always a pleasure. Thank you. SEDER: Thank you. HAYES: All right. I`m joined by Matt Duss, president of the Foundation of Middle East Peace. Matt, I suspect this Iran deal is going to be the signature battle, the signature fight and argument on foreign policy because it`s the most concrete. It`s the clearest distinction a Republican nominee is going to say I would walk away from and Hillary Clinton is going to support it. And what do you think about Walker`s comments about where they find themselves rhetorically in describing this? MATT DUSS, FOUNDATION FOR MIDDLE EAST PEACE: Right, I want to know why walker is half-stepping this? Why only on inauguration day? Why not election night order a strike on Iran? Now, in all seriousness, the idea that one demonstrates leadership, that the way an American president demonstrates leadership is to start a war with someone on the first day he or she takes office is mind-boggling. You`re absolutely right. I mean, for Jeb Bush to be the responsible voice here, to say, well, I want to end this deal, too, but I`m going to look at it a bit more, I`m going to look at it seriously and see where we are in a year and a half and then to be criticized as, you know, not really hardcore enough, that really gives you a troubling idea of where this debate is on the Republican side. HAYES: Let`s be clear about how detached from reality this is, because one thing that often happens across the political spectrum of politicians selling their base a bill of goods but it really happens in Republican politicians in regard to conservative bases. This isn`t a deal that`s very easy to undo which is what Jeb Bush is hinting at when you have the buy in of the entirety of the U.N. Security Council and some of America`s closest allies in England and France onboard and also Germany. You can`t just blow this thing up on day one. It`s like telling people you`re going to repeal Obamacare. DUSS: Right. No, I mean, Walker gets at that, because he says here`s what I`m going to do. And we`ll put sanctions back. I`m going to talk to our allies a little, like he`s going to make a few calls to our allies in Europe, and they`re just going to say, OK, you`re right. This deal that we painstakingly negotiated over two years, you`re right, it`s just horrible. So, forget it. Let`s scrap it and just put the sanctions back on. It`s just unserious. It`s completely ridiculous. HAYES: I also think there is -- and I started to watch a little bit of the polling around the deal which has been generally supportive, although I think it`s fair to say polling on this is pretty soft. It`s pretty moveable because I think people -- it`s complicated. People don`t have a firm idea about it. But it seems to me there`s always a degree to which they are going to beat each other up in bellicosity. That`s what we seeing between Walker and Bush. And that is going to run into the same problem the immigration rhetoric runs into, which is even if people aren`t crazy about the deal, people are wary of war, I think. They`re very wary of war with Iran. They`re going to very likely find themselves in an uncomfortable rhetorical space. DUSS: No, I think that`s absolutely right. And there is -- I understand what you`re saying about polling, but there is a way in which polling on this has been very, very consistent, is that even though Americans by in large continue to be suspicious of Iran, I think with some good reason, given Iran`s behavior in the region, they have been consistently supportive of dealing with this problem through diplomacy. They have actually over the past several years been consistently supportive, not overwhelmingly but majorities have continued to support the idea of a deal very much like the one we just got. And there was a "The Washington Post"/ABC poll today that showed that. Just over 50 percent of Americans continue to be suspicious of Iran but they support this deal as they understand it. HAYES: All right. Matt Duss -- DUSS: And it`s for reasons that you said. It`s because they don`t want another war. HAYES: And that is going to be the very legitimacy of diplomacy is going to be sort of on the chopping block in that first debate where they`ll all going to try to outdo each other on this issue. Matt Duss, always a pleasure. Thanks a lot. DUSS: Thanks. HAYES: All right. Still ahead, the Democratic presidential candidates caught flat footed by Black Lives Matter protesters. Plus, New York`s mayor locked in a nasty battle with Uber. But, First, Donald Trump hit the tipping point by attacking John McCain? (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: To anybody that suggests that John and his fellow POWs are somehow lacking in the title of being called American hero, you shouldn`t be our commander-in-chief because you don`t know our military. INTERVIEWER: Do you owe John McCain an apology? TRUMP: Not at all. When I left the room, it was a total standing ovation. It was wonderful to see. Nobody was insulted. (END VIDEO CLIP) (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: Hillary Clinton joined the condemnation against Donald Trump this afternoon, during her first ever Facebook Q&A as a candidate, where she affirmed her commitment to immigration reform and pointed out that "Donald Trump is getting a lot of attention for some hateful rhetoric. But Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio agree with him on denying a pathway to citizenship and consigning hardworking immigrants to second class status. I will fight for comprehensive immigration reform that includes that pathway to citizenship." Hillary Clinton also responded to questions about financial reforms, student death, the capital gains tax, and her pantsuit preferences, saying, quote, "I never met a pantsuit I don`t love. Go our website and you can get one of your own." And speaking of Q&A, I`ll be on Facebook tomorrow answering your questions. Just head over to facebook.com/allinwithchris at noon Eastern. Ask me anything. I`ll be right back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: This weekend, while you were maybe at the beach, the feud between Donald Trump and John McCain went from pretty nasty to completely crazy. Last week, in discussing Trump`s incendiary rhetoric on undocumented immigrants, McCain told "The New Yorker" that Trump had, quote, "fired up the crazies" during a recent campaign stop in Arizona. Trump hit back on Twitter, first calling on McCain to apologize and mocking McCain as a, quote, "dummy" who graduated last in his class, at Annapolis. That incidentally isn`t actually true. According to Bloomberg, McCain was fifth from the bottom of his class at the naval academy. But anyway, Trump was asked about the feud in Iowa on Saturday, and here`s what he said when his interviewer interjected that McCain who spent 5 1/2 years in a prison is a war hero. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: He`s not a war hero. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He is a war hero. TRUMP: He is a war hero -- UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Five and a half years -- TRUMP: He`s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren`t captured, OK? I hate to tell you. He`s a war hero because he was captured. OK? You can have -- I believe perhaps he`s a war hero. Right now, he said some bad things about a lot of people. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Trump has declined to apologize for saying that McCain is, quote, "not a war hero" though he maintains the media has been distorting his words. Asked about Trump`s comments this morning on MSNBC, McCain called them, quote, "totally inappropriate" and called on Trump to apologize to veterans, though he declined to ask for a personal apology. Other Republicans were not so restrained. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) WALKER: At a minimum, he needs to apologize. In terms of what he needs to do next in terms of the race, I think that`s up to voters. But, clearly, he needs to apologize and refrain from comments like that. BUSH: This is a legitimate hero that has served this country in lots of ways and Mr. Trump knows that. He should just apologize. RICK PERRY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Until Mr. Trump apologizes directly to John McCain and also to the veterans of this country, I don`t think he has the character or the temperament to hold the highest position in this country. SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It`s not just absurd, it`s offensive. It`s ridiculous. I do think it`s a disqualifier as commander-in-chief. KING: What he did over the weekend with John McCain, that has crossed a line. To me, that`s almost sacrilegious. There are certainly things you just don`t do. Apart from the politics of it, it`s just morally wrong. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: For many political observers, the response has brought memories of another instance in which a decorated-veteran-turned-politician has his military record attacked. Then-Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry came under attack in 2004 from the so-called "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth". (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) GEORGE ELLIOT: John Kerry has not been honest about what happened in Vietnam. AL FRENCH: He`s lying about his record. LOUIS LETSON: I know John Kerry is lying about his first Purple Heart because I treated him for that injury. VAN ODELL: John Kerry lied to get his Bronze Star. I know. I was there. I saw what happened. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Those attacks were orchestrated in part by author Jerome Corsey, who had go on and write a book about President Obama called "Where`s the Birth Certificate?" They swift boat attacks would be proved to be riddled with inconsistencies and be undercut by official navy records and the men`s own statements, yet they did not invite the sort of swift and near comprehensive condemnation that greeted Trump`s attack on McCain. Bob Dole told CNN at the time that Kerry only suffered superficial wounds in Vietnam and some delegates took to wearing band-aids affixed with purple hearts to mock Kerry`s wounds. And while Jeb Bush now wants Trump to apologize, he had kind words to the swift boat veterans, early 2005, sending a letter, thanking them, quote, "their willingness to stand up against John Kerry." Joining me now, MSNBC political analyst Michael Steele, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee. Michael, here is what was most interesting to me about this brouhaha this weekend -- was the RNC getting involved. You got to think the RNC is the referee of this scrum. MICHAEL STEELE, FORMER RNC CHAIRMAN: Yes. HAYES: Right? Their whole point is they`ve got to be neutral. They`re not actually backing a specific candidate. They`re just sort of setting ground rules. And yet, here`s the RNC saying, "Senator McCain is American hero because he served his country and sacrificed more than most can imagine, period. There is no place in our party or country for comments that disparage those that served honorably." Do you think it was the right call for them to take the unusual step of sort of stepping into this? STEELE: Absolutely. And I applaud Reince and his team and Sean Spicer, in particular, who put out that well-crafted statement. And here`s why -- it`s very simple. I said maybe even on this program a few weeks ago when we had the first Trump kerfuffle, and that was the RNC needs to be the off-ramp for that. They need to be the ramp that you take whether you`re the media or others who are going to delving into this, so it doesn`t have to go to candidates. What did you just show us, Chris? You showed us about 30 seconds of video of Republican candidates doing what? And talking about what? HAYES: Right. STEELE: They weren`t talking about their policies. They weren`t talking about their campaigns or the candidacy. They were talking about Donald Trump and that`s not the space they want to be in or need to be in. And the RNC has the opportunity to be that off-ramp, to be that deflection point, if you will, to help give these candidates the breathing space that they`re going to need because come August 6th, it`s a whole different world when you standing on that stage encapsulated by the aura that is Trump and dealing with a lot of that, and you don`t want to go into that having week after week of the next question about something he said or done. HAYES: OK. But then what about this? Because this was the issue that struck me is, that they`ve now set this precedent where they`ll condemn this thing he said, right? They came out with a statement against it. Doesn`t that set a bar where if they don`t, does it feel like they are tacitly approving someone, when one politician attacks another politician or if you`re a Mexican immigrant, who is sitting around saying, well, the RNC didn`t come out a week ago when he was calling us rapists and criminals, like I didn`t like that. How do you create -- STEELE: Well, you just described politics. So, right, exactly, because the Mexican piece and I thought maybe something should have been said there. HAYES: You do? STEELE: Oh, yes. If I were chairman, I probably would have said something to push back on that because -- why? Because I`m holding a document that I called an autopsy of the party that`s dealt specifically with why we`re having problems with this very constituency. HAYES: Yes. STEELE: So, I cannot -- I cannot stand in good conscience and abide by someone undermining our efforts as a national party to claim this new space with these voters, number one. Number two, with respect to the second part of this in terms of dealing with this latest noise, it`s a little bit different because everyone knows whether you like John McCain or you don`t, whether you`re a Democrat or a Republican, conservative or progressive, respect what the man did and respect what he went through for his country. And so, that, I think, more than anything was the biggest affront that people saw. I mean, you know, whatever you feel about John McCain, you cannot take away from him the fact that he served his country in a way that most of us quite honestly would have a hard time spending one day, let alone five years in the environment that he did. HAYES: Yes. We should note that he famously turned down a shot at early release when his captors realized he was the son of this very high up person in the Navy and system, a remarkable thing for any person to do. Also, the Trump comment is so trump, right? I like guys that don`t get captured. Like he`s a loser. (LAUGHTER) STEELE: You`re going to fire him, right? HAYES: Yes, right. Here`s the thing though, I mean, I am genuinely curious about what happens in the polling, right? So, we got the new poll out today. It polled over three days. The third day of the poll was Sunday, after the comments sort of came out and caught fire. What do you predict going forward? Like, is this going to put a dent in him? Many said this is it. He`s finally imploded. Or is he going to carry on the way he carried on after what he said about Mexican immigrants? STEELE: I think he`ll probably carry on. Look, I keep going back to the argument and this is something I hope the other presidential candidates are really looking into. Don`t fixate on what Trump is saying or what Trump is doing necessarily. I mean, I get that and it`s incendiary and causes conversations we`re having now. But try to understand why he`s moving the needle, why he`s moving those disinterested, disaffected, angry, frustrated conservatives in the party in his direction. He`s speaking to that frustration. And I said this before and I`ll say it again -- just don`t think that he`s speaking only to conservative Republicans. There`s a whole swath of people out there and I have run into a few of them when I was in Vegas last week, aren`t Republicans, who agree with the sentiment. Finally someone is saying what I feel. HAYES: Right, right. STEELE: He`s speaking to the anger and frustration that I have. And the moment one of these other candidates are able to tap into that in an honest way, less incendiary way is a door opening opportunity for them. HAYES: Well, that`s something to consider. I want to just a little bit of an allay (INAUDIBLE) -- Trump just now in an interview sort of invited to say something to Senator McCain man to man says, "I`m going to say this. I have respect for Senator McCain. I used to like him a lot. I supported him. I raised a lot of money for his campaign against President Obama, and certainly, if there was a misunderstanding I would take that back. But hopefully I said it correctly and shortly thereafter I said it correctly." So, I don`t know what you make of that. It`s all nonsense. STEELE: There it is. HAYES: Michael Steele, thank you very much. STEELE: You got it. HAYES: All right. Still ahead, disruption at Netroots Nations as demonstrators take on Democratic presidential candidates. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D-VT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Black lives, of course, matter. But I spent 50 years of my life fighting for civil rights and for dignity. If you don`t want me to be here, that`s OK. (END VIDEO CLIP) (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: Last week we broadcast five shows live from California as part of our special All In America report on the state`s historic drought. We went everywhere from San Francisco to San Diego to the Central Valley. And on Friday during the last day of our trip, a fire broke out on the Cajon Pass, a major interstate about 55 miles northeast of Los Angeles where we were broadcasting from. We reported on that fire live as it jumped the freeway destroying 20 vehicles and trapping hundreds of people. According to Cal Fire, that blaze is now 75 percent contained after burning over 4,000 acres. That`s thanks in no small part to the historic rains that pounded Southern California over the weekend. Former Hurricane Delores brought a rare summer storm to part of the state and with it humid weather and unusually forceful rains breaking all-time local rainfall records in Los Angeles and over a dozen other cities. In fact, after this weekend, San Diego will have had more rain so far this month than during the last 101 July`s combined according to the weather channel. The heavy rains left thousands without power over the weekend and a flash flood took out an overpass on a key freeway connecting California and Arizona trapping a truck driver and closing the highway potentially for weeks. The storm also brought the Los Angeles Angels their first rained out game in 20 years, the San Diego Padres their first in almost a decade. The extremely rare weather may also have brought state water officials a bit of breathing room four years into California`s drought. And you can find all of our reporting from last week on the drought and California`s water wars at MSNBC.com/All-In-America or on Facebook by searching the #allinwaterwars. And if you are in a state in drought and desperately need of rain, let me tell you we at All In America are now taking submissions for our next road show destination. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: Democratic presidential candidate Barry Sanders exceeded expectations on Saturday when he drew a crowd of more than 11,000 people in Phoenix for Net Roots Nation, an annual meeting of liberal activists. It was the largest crowd yet for a presidential candidate, about twice the estimated size of the crowd that turned out for Donald Trump at the Phoenix Convention Center a week ago. Bernie Sanders and former Maryland Governor Martin O`Malley were two of the only two Democratic presidential candidates to attend the conference. But things got very tense during a town hall event Saturday afternoon. Black Lives Matter activists took the stage and confronted both men about racial injustice and spoke about the deaths of African-Americans in police custody, most recently the death of Sandra Bland, a young black woman who officials say hanged herself in a jail cell last Monday in Texas. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFEID MALE: We are going to acknowledge the name of black women who have died in police custody and then, Governor O`Malley, we do have questions for you about what your agenda is going to be to make sure that black lives do matter and that as a leader of this nation, will you advance a racial justice agenda that will dismantle not reform, not make progress but that will dismantle structural racism in the United States. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: The activist stayed in the room as O`Malley attempted to respond. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) O`MALLEY: We did not repeal the death penalty in Maryland the first time we tried or the second time but we repealed it the third time we tried. Every life matters. Black lives matter. White lives matter. All lives matter. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: O`Malley later tried to walk back those remarks, which we`ll talk about in a moment. First, here`s how Senator Barry Sanders responded to the Black Lives Matter activists. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. BERNIE SANDERS, (I) VERMONT: Black lives of course matter. And I spent 50 years of my life fighting for civil rights and for dignity. But if you don`t want me to be here, that`s OK. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Joining me now, Ashley Yates, an organizer with Ferguson action and Black Lives Matter. Ashley, tell me the thinking behind the actions that happened and specifically this question, had you planned -- the group planned the interruption ahead of time or was it specifically in response to what folks were seeing on stage? ASHLEY YATES, BLACK LIVES MATTER: Hi, Chris. Thanks for having me. The action was definitely planned. We have been reeling for several days off the death of Sandra Bland and as the usual is with black women that are affected by state violence, we didn`t see her name uplifted as much so we really wanted to firstly take the opportunity to lift up the name of Sandra Bland, Kindra Chapman, Kimberly Randall King and other black women that have been affected and lost their lives at the hands of police and state violence. And secondly we wanted to take the opportunity at the largest progressive conference in the nation to challenge our officials that say that they`re for us, right, that say that they are left leaning, that say that they believe that black lives matter to actually respond in real time about what they would do to exemplify that as the leaders of this nation and both of them failed. HAYES: You know, there`s -- I was thinking about some of the stuff that immigration activists have done, DREAMers particularly have used actions like this, disruptions at speeches, extremely effectively. And in those cases, there was a very sort of specific concrete policy ask on the table, right. And in those cases it was, you know, like this, disruptions at speeches, extremely effectively. There was a specific concrete policy ask on the table, right. In those cases it was, you know, signed -- executive action, deferred action or passing comprehensive immigration reform. Are there things that a candidate could be doing or saying such that if you were at an event three months from now, you guys wouldn`t do this kind of thing? YATES: There are definitely steps that they could be taking. And it`s the steps that they would take to address any other issue that`s been brought to their attention, right. So, when you asked a candidate about Iran, when you ask a candidate about economic injustice, when you ask them about gay rights issues now, right, when you ask them about environmental issues, they all have a platform, they all have actions that surround that. But when you ask them about the crisis at the state of black America, when you ask them about the fact that 4 million people are in mass incarceration right now and also deprived of their access to democracy, they have no response for that. They have no action steps. And, you know, we took the opportunity to show the rest of America what we already know that they are not focused on black life, and that we know that they should be, there can be no platform addressing jobs, addressing housing, addressing land, addressing economic injustice, which are all the things Americans hope to hear from a candidates without addressing the black lives that are at the center of a lot of that oppression. HAYES: So what you want -- you want to see a sort of specific, concrete sort of rhetorical platform from the candidates that say this is what -- where my platform stands on issues of racial justice. This is where my platform stands on structural racism and attacking it as a sort of explicit part of all those kind of issues that you talked about? YATES: Absolutely. We`ve been saying since August 9 and before that Mike Brown, Freddy Gray, all of the names that we have lifted up -- Rekia Boyd -- are not one off instances, they are the victims of structural racism. And we have to address that. One of the symptoms of structural racism, one of the ways it`s perpetuated is through our police department and it`s an immediate need that we`re addressing. But we`re also bringing to the table that it`s not just about police violence. Like I said, we need jobs, we need housing, we need land. Gentrification is a huge problem in the black community. So we are asking of our politicians that represent us to show us that they are actually taking those issues into account. HAYES: What do you say to supporters particularly Bernie Sanders who say, look, this is someone who supports a higher minimum wage, he supports a federal jobs program that would help particularly young black men and women who find themselves in margin of the labor market. He is not the person who has sort of crusaded on crime issues and been a huge part of building a kind of mass incarceration state. He`s with you on the issues. Why are you yelling at him? YATES: I would say to those people he`s exactly the person we should be talking to along with other folks. For people that say that they are for black life, that say that they are actually addressing this issues to stumble on stage and not be able to respond in the moment is directly in contradiction to what those people are saying. And I would also say to those people, to challenge their own faith in that candidate and to challenge their faith in all candidates around these issues and to really pressure them and see how they respond and then to take that into account. And I would also say that, you know, Bernie Sanders has been portrayed as this huge left leaning guy, right? And those folks should be on the side of black people. But when he`s pressured with black issues, he immediately defers to an economic lens and we know that that does not help address structural racism and what we`re asking and what we need is candidates who are not afraid to vigorously attack structural racism and understand that that has implications for all of the other issues that America suffers with. HAYES: Ashley Yates, thank you so much. I should note, interestingly Hillary Clinton got a question about this today from The Washington Post, Weseley Lowery. She says black lives matter. Everyone in this country should stand firmly behind that. We need to acknowledge some hard truths about race and justice in this country and one of those hard truths is that racial inequality is not merely a symptom of economic inequality. Interestingly enough, seems to be speaking to just what Ashley said. All right, up next the new battlefront opening up in the Uber wars of 2015. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: Most of us working on this show live in the New York City area. And like anyone here, there are a few things we`ve become used to over the ears. One of them is a TV ad for a local limousine company, which airs on all channels here constantly. (BEGIN VDIEO CLIP) (MUSIC) (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Now Carmel is a fine company, but anyone who has seen this ad say 200 or 300 times, which is all of us, notices a thing or two. One is that he guy in the white shirt with the black necktie clearly doesn`t know the words to the song. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) (MUSIC) (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Now you have to give him credit for effort. He`s trying. And they all get the choreography pretty well. But here`s the new thing we`ve noticed, Carmel Limousine has a new ad running. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ANNOUNCER: A person shouldn`t be able to be picked up without being ripped off. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: An anti-Uber attack ad complete with Law and Order sound effect. And trust me, that one is not nearly as harsh as the one depicting an Uber driver making unwanted sexual advances on a passenger. Local limo companies are feeling the Uber pressure these days. And they`re not the only ones. When we return, Uber is running a negative ad of its own. And they`re not going after Carmel, they`re own going right at the mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio. That`s next. Don`t go away. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: All right, take a look at this protest. What do you think it`s about? It is not Tahrir Square, and it`s civil unrest in reaction to a police shooting here at home. It`s taxi drivers in Paris, France protesting the car service Uber, burning tires and blocking highways and access to Charles de Gaulle Airport. After this day long protest, France cracked down on Uber using existing laws that make its very existence there basically illegal. It was an intense battle in what has become a global war between Uber and entrenched taxi companies and a lot of their drivers as well as a high stacks fight between Uber and every politician who tries to stand in its way. Uber goes after its opponents hard. Right now in the crosshairs, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio who is facing a full-fledged political campaign because he wants to cap the growth and the number of drivers for companies like Uber. The mayor cites concerns about safety and congestion. Since 2011, 25,000 on demand drivers have entered the New York market. And between 2010 and 2014, the city reported a 9 percent decrease in average Manhattan traffic speeds. Uber, through ads and other means responds that anyone against Uber is just in the pocket of the existing taxi industry and that Uber helps underserved people get much needed transportation. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just drove somebody at Coney Island who always complains about not being able to catch a ride. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is New York. We live in five boroughs. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We don`t just pick people up, we pick ourselves up, we pick our families up. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: And this battle isn`t just happening in New York, it`s getting played out across country from California to St. Louis to Florida. So much so some people are calling 2016 the Uber election. Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton seemed to be criticizing Uber and the on demand or gig economy in a recent economic speech saying that while it created exciting opportunities, it raised questions about workplace protections. Presidential candidate Jeb Bush responded in a post defending Uber entitled "Disrupting Washington to unleash innovators" and he used the service in San Francisco. Presidential candidates Marco Rubio and Rand Paul also criticized Clinton for her remarks. So, the question is why is a car service app, let`s keep in mind what this is, at the center of an increasingly nasty political battle? And what does it say about the future of the American economy and anxieties about it? A debate on that when we return. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: Joining me now, Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research and Kish Rajan, a board member for Cal Innovates, a technology advocacy group. Dean, let me start with you. I wanted to have you on tonight, because you are someone who is sort of politics are progressive. You`re an economist but you have also written really persuasively about how bad kind of entrenched cartels can be all throughout the economy and how much cronyism they can engender. And I`m curious when you watch this battle play out city after city, country after country, between Uber which sort of styles itself the innovative disrupter against the bad incumbent taxi interests, how are you reading this situation? DEAN BAKER, CENTER FOR ECONOMIC AND POLICY RESEARCH: I think it`s a very interesting story. I mean, the incumbent taxi industry I don`t think is anything that anyone would really want to preserve. We have archaic rules. The regulations were there to ensure their profits, you know, an industry that really hadn`t had an innovation for decades. Uber changed that. But on the other hand, Uber doesn`t want to play by any rules. And that doesn`t make sense, because the original rules were designed to serve legitimate public purposes and ensure that the cabs were safe and the drivers wouldn`t jeopardize passengers and there was proper insurance. So these were all rules that served a real purpose. Uber comes in and says, hey, none of that applies to us. And that really doesn`t make sense. So, good to see the disruption. I think we have seen improvements in taxi service. But that doesn`t mean you want no regulation. HAYES: Yeah, this, Kish, seems the issue here. There`s sort of two things happening. One is the actual way Uber, not as a principle of disruption, but as an actual company conducts itself. I mean, they can be really nasty. I mean, at one point they had to apologize because a competitor called Get, they were calling and canceling rides to basically flood their system. And have -- the mailers they are running after candidates here are as hard nosed as it gets. Do you think this is the kind of thing a company should be doing? KISH RAJAN, CAL INNOVATORS: Well, listen, I think that it`s important to understand that this is happening in the context of the sharing economy, which is part of a bigger innovation economy that brings tremendous benefits. So clearly I think any company should be conducting itself in ways that are upstanding and that are contributing positively to the communities that they serve and their consumers. And by the way, what you see in success of the sharing economy is that it`s consumer demand driven. HAYES: Can I just stop you for a second? People call the sharing economy I don`t understand why. No one is sharing anything. People are just selling things a different way. Let`s just be clear. AirBNB, Urber, it`s not like, hey, dude, hop in my car or like hey just like hang out in my house. They are selling. It`s a service. That`s fine. But let`s just call it what it is. RAJAN: Well, I think what you see in this new innovation economy are people sharing their talents, their ideas, their assets, their resources that they bring as individuals and they are plugging into a whole new economy in a whole new way. HAYES: But again Kish, sorry, they`re not sharing them, they`re selling them. Let`s just to be clear. People talk about it like we got some sort of at based utopian hippy collective where everybody has their excess room or their ride and we`re all -- it`s just -- it`s a really fascinating and in some ways I think incredible and in some ways dangerous or sort of freighted way of distributing resources. But it is just a set of market transactions. RAJAN: Well, I do think again I do think that the point that we`re making is that in this new economy it`s entrepreneurial by nature. It`s very dynamic. It`s changing all the time. And it`s presenting amazing opportunities for people, individuals, and small businesses to take their talents, their assets, their ambitions, and connect to a whole new economy in a whole new way. That`s very exciting. It`s creating lots of upsides and lots of things that we want to pursue. BAKER: You`re saying a whole new way. I think this really is kind of the double speak that has many people like myself very upset, because you know still have people working and, you know, an Uber driver, you go, oh, labor laws don`t apply, minimum wage doesn`t apply, overtime laws doesn`t apply, workers comp doesn`t apply because it`s the new economy. This is not serious. And that`s the sort of thing gets -- as I say -- myself and many others I think very angry, because it`s not a serious way to talk about it. So, yes, being able to order cabs over the internet, that`s a good thing. I`m glad we`re able to do that. But that doesn`t mean all of the regulations we had in the past shouldn`t apply. RAJAN: Well, Dean, listen, I would certainly say that we at Cal Innovates are not talking about no regulation. You know, I myself have worked in government at the federal, state, I was an elected official at the local level. I understand and respect the role and importance of government and rules. There`s no question. There have to be sensible rules. But here`s the challenge government can be a blunt instrument. It can be a hammer on every problem that it sees as a nail. And what we can`t do now is apply old regulatory regimes to whole new business models that we never even envisioned ten years ago. HAYES: Can I just say something here? People driving cars for other people isn`t some new radical thing. The original regulation -- again, what Uber is able to do from a coordination standpoint is remarkable. OK. It is genuine innovation. And if anyone is out of work, it`s the dispatchers, OK. So, that`s where creative destruction is happening. But people driving cars for other people and paying for that is a thing that people have been doing for a long time. In fact, the original -- the taxi regulations in New York started in the `30s when there was all this excess labor during the depression, and it was like, maybe I could make a buck driving a car. So, this idea that like it`s outdated just doesn`t scan to me. RAJAN: Well, Chris, I think you`re right that the special sauce of these sharing economy solutions that we`re talking about is the technology platform, it is the application, it`s the way the user is experiencing the services. But you can`t dismiss that. That`s critical. It`s fundamentally transforming the experience and consumers are flocking to it, right. It`s clearly -- they are obviously in this space and in other spaces, it`s open for disruption and opening for something that`s positive and I think that`s why you see such tremendous response to it. HAYES: I`m going to end this segment by recommending Dean`s writing on these issues, particularly about the way the medical cartel functions in the U.S., which is an under recognized problems. I`d like to see some disruption there. Dean Baker and Kish Rajan, thank you very much. And that is All In for this evening. The Rachael Maddow Show starts right now. 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