All In with Chris Hayes, Transcript 07/06/15

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) STEVE KORNACKI, GUEST HOST (voice-over): Tonight on ALL IN -- DONALD Trump (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE (via telephone): This isn`t good for my brand. I think it`s bad for my brand. KORNACKI: Add NASCAR and ESPN to the list of companies dumping Trump as the Donald continues to stand by his harsh immigration rhetoric. Tonight, the impact Trump-mentum is having on the Republican brand. Plus, the Confederate flag debate in South Carolina goes momentarily off the rails. STATE SEN. LEE BRIGHT (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: We can rally together and talk about a flag all we want, but the devil is taking control of this land and we`re not stopping him. KORNACKI: The facts behind the summer gun violence in Chicago. And Chris Christie comes out punching over bridgegate. GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R-NJ), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Remember in the beginning, it was, "he did this, he directed it, he`s this kind of guy." Then, all of a sudden you`re not and they say, "OK, now, what do we do now?" So, instead of just standing up and saying what they should say, which is, "We`re sorry, governor," they`re saying, "Oh, well, all right, now, it`s a culture." KORNACKI: Tonight, the trouble with Chris Christie`s call for an apology. CHRISTIE: I`m much stronger now than I was before. KORNACKI: ALL IN starts right now. (END VIDEOTAPE)\ KORNACKI: Good evening from New York. I`m Steve Kornacki, in for Chris Hayes. The fallout from Donald Trump`s incendiary comments about Mexican immigrants is no longer just hurting his business empire, it is now taking over the Republican presidential race and threatening a year`s long effort to attract Hispanic voters to the GOP. Despite losing a number of corporate business partners from Macy`s to NASCAR and now, ESPN, after claiming many Mexican immigrants to the U.S. are criminals and rapists, Trump went even further over the holiday weekend, using the apparently random shooting of a San Francisco tourist by an undocumented suspect who`d been deported five times to make a political point. Quote, "This senseless and totally preventable act of violence committed by an illegal immigrant is yet another example of why we must secure our border immediately." In a new statement today, Trump pointed to the shooting as evidence that, quote, "The worst elements in Mexico are being pushed into the United States by the Mexican government. Like wise, tremendous infectious disease is pouring across the border. The United States has become a dumping ground for Mexico and, in fact, for many other parts of the world." Such provocative comments pose a big problem for the Republican Party, which identified outreach to Latinos as a key objective in its 2012 election autopsy report. Quoting from that document, "It is imperative that the RNC changes how it engages with Hispanic communities to welcome in new members of our party. If Hispanic Americans hear that the GOP doesn`t want them in the United States, they won`t pay attention to our next sentence." Hence the attempts by the Republican establishment to dismiss Trump as an irrelevant sideshow. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BRIT HUME, FOX NEWS SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: I think Donald Trump by his behavior and by the flamboyance of his manner sets himself apart from the rest of the GOP field and he has a niche following and will probably continue to. But I don`t think people look at him and say, "Ah, that`s the face of the Republican Party." (END VIDEO CLIP) KORNACKI: And as some of Trumps rival candidates have tried to distance themselves from his hard-line immigration stance, things have gotten ugly in the Republican race. After Marco Rubio criticized Trump`s comments last week, the mogul came out swinging, accusing Rubio of weakness on immigration. Rick Perry told ABC News yesterday that he was offended by Trump`s remarks, to which Trump tweeted, "Rick Perry failed at the border, now he`s critical of me. He needs a new pair of glasses to see the crimes committed by illegal immigrants." Campaigning on the Fourth of July in New Hampshire, where he holds a slim lead over Trump, Jeb Bush condemned his fellow Republican`s remarks. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: To make these extraordinarily ugly kind of comments is not reflective of the Republican Party. Trump is wrong on this. He`s just -- he`s doing this -- I mean, he`s not a stupid guy so I don`t assume he`s, like -- he thinks that every Mexican crossing the border is a rapist. I mean -- so, he`s doing this to inflame and to incite and to draw attention, which is -- seems to be his organizing principle of his campaign. (END VIDEO CLIP) KORNACKI: Trump then released an entire statement, hitting back at Bush, accusing Bush of mischaracterizing his statements and he appears to have retweeted an ill-considered post about Bush`s wife Columba who is from Mexico. It was later deleted but someone from Media Matters screened it, said, quote, "Jeb Bush has to like the Mexican illegals because of his wife." But the problem for the GOP isn`t just that Trump is bringing open warfare to their primary race, it`s that he`s giving voice to the opinions of a very real segment of the party. Some Republicans like fellow 2016 candidate Ted Cruz think that Trump is on to something. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I salute Donald Trump for focusing on the need to address illegal immigration. The Washington cartel doesn`t want to address that. The Washington cartel doesn`t believe we need to secure the borders. The Washington cartel supports amnesty and I think amnesty is wrong. (END VIDEO CLIP) KORNACKI: And joining me now, MSNBC political analyst and former RNC chairman, Michael Steele, and John Stanton, Washington bureau chief for "BuzzFeed News". So, Michael, let me start with you. Donald Trump as Jeb Bush just said right there is not a stupid man, he is not backing down from any of this, he seems to be delighting in all of the criticism that`s coming at him from fellow candidates, trying to throw it back in their face. So, let me ask you. When you look at the Republican world, who is it? Who are the voters Donald Trump is looking at here? Who is he thinking of it, here, and how big of a chunk of the party are they? MICHAEL STEELE, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, it`s probably a smaller chunk of the party than some would like to make it. But also, it`s not just Republicans Donald Trump is talking to. It`s not just -- you know, there`s a cross section of Americans who believe and feel the way he`s expressing, what he`s expressed. And, you know, you started the show talking about the illegal immigrant who committed a crime killing someone who had been deported five times before that event occurred. That`s his point. That`s the piece that speaks to a lot of people out there when he makes that reference, they know exactly what it means and they feed off of that because he`s the only one who`s giving it context. Now, we don`t like the words and the way he`s expressing it is off note for a lot of folks in the party, but you have to understand why he`s doing it at one level and at the other level who`s responding to it, and why he`s staying where he is in those polls. KORNACKI: But what about that concern, Michael? We have the section there from that autopsy report, the Republicans lost in 2012, they were trying to figure out why so they commissioned this autopsy and they said, look, if the message that Hispanic voters are receiving from our party is we don`t want you hear, we don`t want you to be part of this country, we`re not going to be able to get any other message across to them. STEELE: Exactly. KORNACKI: Donald Trump seems to be sending that message now, doesn`t he? STEELE: In a real sense, yeah. And that`s how it`s being received by a lot of people out there beyond just the base of the party. And so, this is the challenge that the chairman has, Reince Priebus, in trying to navigate these waters. But as I`ve said before, the reality at this stage is you`ve got to document -- it is sort of a part of the foundation of what you want to achieve for the party, you have to lead with that and you have to use it as a brick in this case to knock some sense into the conversation because right now, Donald Trump is determining the outcome of that conversation, not the national party, certainly not the autopsy. And that`s a big problem for Reince and his team. KORNACKI: John Stanton, you know Capitol Hill, you know Congress as well as anybody. There`s this whole issue that`s been sitting out there for years now, maybe even decades now, this whole issue of immigration reform. I sense that the same sort of voters who Michael is talking about, the voters Donald Trump has in mind, they are part of the reason that immigration reform hasn`t happened on Capitol Hill, that you have Republican members of Congress who are scared that if they vote for anything that could be attacked by Donald Trump, they`re going to have to answer for in the a primary. JOHN STANTON, BUZZFEED NEWS: I think if you look at what happened with Eric Cantor in last year`s election and some of the other primaries that maybe weren`t successful against member, particularly on the house level but the Republicans in very traditionally very easy seats to win, they never faced a lot of serious primaries and suddenly they had real challengers. And, you know, they may have beat them but they did better and they rode this sort of notion of -- there`s a certain amount of fear, I think, frankly, and just sort of uncomfortableness with the way the world is amongst a lot of primary voters and they see immigration as a really good example of that to them. And the change in America and how they think the world has changed around them, and that drives a lot of concern and fear in these people and that drives harder and harder to the right primary challenges to your traditional Republican candidates. And I think they all see this as a third rail issue, as third rail as it gets. I don`t think there`s going to be any kind of a serious attempt to reform immigration laws in this country for several years now. KORNACKI: OK. We can talk about individual congressional primaries, but right now, obviously, the biggest primary on everybody`s mind in the Republican side, Michael Steele, is this presidential race. And we`re a month away from this first Republican presidential debate. It looks like with these poll numbers, Donald Trump is going to be in those debates. It looks like by being in those debates, he`s going to keep an otherwise credible candidate off the stage. They have this cap of 10 candidates. So, play this out. You`re talking about that apprehension that exists in the base of the Republican Party about securing the border, about how this is changing the nature of this country, that sort of apprehension that`s out there Donald Trump is feeding into. If you`re Jeb Bush, if you`re Marco Rubio, if you here in this debate and Donald Trump is getting in your face and he is expressing sort of the guts of those voters and he`s throwing it into your face, how do you handle that without falling into his trap and being sort of the sellout he`s trying to paint you as? STEELE: That`s exactly well put. It is a trap. And so, this is where I think someone like a Jeb Bush, a Rand Paul and others have a chance to be authentic, to speak. You know, I was dismayed that the delay from the time the comments were made to finally someone saying, oh, I disapprove of them. You can`t allow for that. Everyone in the country viscerally reacted and responded except for the presidential candidates. It was almost as if they wanted to check and see, well, what are the voters thinking and feeling about this. You know how you feel about it, that`s the authenticity the American people and even primary voters in the GOP are looking for. And I think on that stage, both Jeb and many others will be afforded an opportunity to show that. If they don`t, Donald Trump will rule the day. KORNACKI: All right. We`re a month away from that first debate. A lot of anticipation in advance of that. Michael Steele, John Stanton, thank you both for your time tonight. Appreciate that. And up next, Bill Cosby in his own words. The newly release court documents that appear to show Bill Cosby admitting to obtaining Quaaludes with the intention of giving them to young women he wanted to have sex with. Plus, a look at the facts behind Donald Trump`s figures on the border. And, Chris Christie demands an apology as he parses words on bridgegate. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CHRISTIE: I`m accountable. It happened on my watch. So, you`re accountable. It`s different than being responsible. I think responsible is you did something. Accountable is, listen, it`s -- I`m the governor, the buck stops with me, so I`m accountable. (END VIDEO CLIP) (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: You`re going to have terrorists coming through the southern border. There`s no question about it. We have no security from the United States standpoint. JOSE DIAZ-BALART, TELEMUNDO: There has been, as you know, not one case of a terrorist crossing the border from Mexico to the United States that has participated in a terrorist act. The ones that did so on 9/11 as you know came from the Middle East and flew in here with visas, but back to the issue, sir. TRUMP: Jose, you don`t know that. You don`t know that. You can`t tell me that. If terrorist comes -- nobody knows, we don`t know where these people are coming from. When you say we don`t have terrorists, you don`t know that. Thousands of people are coming through the border, hundreds of thousands and they`re unchecked. You can`t tell me there are no terrorists. You may find out tomorrow that you are wrong. DIAZ-BALART: Acts of terrorism have not occurred by Mexicans or other Latin Americans that have crossed the border. TRUMP: OK. OK. See what happens tomorrow. (END VIDEO CLIP) KORNACKI: There`s what Donald Trump says and then there`s reality as Philip Bump of "The Washington Post" points out. New immigrants, including those undocumented, are actually less likely to commit crime than more. And the data proves it, as this graph from the Pew Research Center shows. The crime rate among first generation immigrants is significantly lower than the overall crime rate, and the crime rate of second-generation immigrants. Study after study showing similar results. From this one, published in "Justice Quarterly" that said foreign-born individuals exhibit remarkably low levels of involvement in crime across their life course. To this one out of Northwestern University that says, "There`s essentially no correlation between immigrants and violent crime." Be right back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) KORNACKI: A bombshell reported admission tonight from comedian Bill Cosby. According to court documents just unsealed by a judge, Cosby testified a decade ago that he had obtained sedatives years earlier with the intention of giving them to young women he wanted to have sex with. The deposition was part of a 2005 civil suit involving Cosby and a Philadelphia-area woman who claimed Cosby had drugged her and sexually assaulted her. Cosby was not charged in connection with these claims, and the case was dismissed with prejudice in 2006. Cosby`s legal team fought to keep the documents from being released, saying they would embarrass him. Bill Cosby has never been charged with a crime in connection to past sexual and drug allegations, allegations he and his representatives have continued to deny. NBC News has contacted Cosby`s attorneys regarding the documents and is waiting to hear back from them. For more on this shocking development, we turn to NBC`s Joe Fryer. So, Joe, what are we learning in terms of details? This is from ten years ago. What do we know about how this came out, why this came out, and specifically what he`s admitting to here? JOE FRYER, NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Well, we know this deposition was from 2005. Bill Cosby was under oath at the time. It was for a lawsuit. He was being sued, accused of sexual assault at the time. The claims were that that assault happened many decades earlier, in the 1970s. So, this was a case that came about later. Now, in the deposition, one of the key moments that everyone is focusing on is that Bill Cosby says he obtained Quaaludes. He`s asked by an attorney at one point, "When you got the Quaaludes, was in the your mind that you were going to use these Quaaludes for young women that you wanted to have sex with?" And according to the deposition, Cosby replied, "Yes." It`s important to note right after that, the attorney asked, "Did you ever give these young women the Quaaludes without their knowledge?" The attorney objected, there was no answer to that question. So, that question sort of hung out there. And a few moments later, Cosby did clarify that he was referring to one woman and not multiple women, and I think some of the question here is whether these women knowingly knew that they were taking the drugs versus not knowing. But still it`s raising a lot of questions. This lawsuit, as you mentioned, was dismissed in 2006. Cosby`s attorneys are fighting to make sure these documents did not come to light, saying that it would just embarrass Bill Cosby. More than two dozen women have now accused him of sexual assault and some of them say they were drugged, but Cosby has all along denied the allegations and has never been criminally charged. And tonight, we have reached out to his attorneys for reaction to this deposition. We are still waiting to hear back -- Steve. KORNACKI: All right. Joe Fryer, thanks for that update. Joining me now is MSNBC chief legal correspondent Ari Melber. So, Ari, the details are from ten years ago, but anything that you`re seeing or reading about in relation to this now that makes you look at this and say, there`s some potential for prosecution here for Cosby. Is there any? ARI MELBER, MSNBC CHIEF LEGAL CORRESPONDENT: There is. The big bar there all of these types of old cases is the statute of limitations, which is a matter of state law and varies state to state. There are a few places like New Jersey where there have been these kind of allegations made and no statute of limitations to bar it. But what you still need is the kind of physical evidence or other materials that makes a prosecutor feel they have enough to go on, beyond just what you might call one allegation absent any other evidence. This may be something that different prosecutors at the local level look at and say, "We didn`t have access to it, it wasn`t previously unsealed, and it shows a much earlier contemporaneous fact pattern that looks bad for Bill Cosby." KORNACKI: Yes, it certainly looks bad in the court of public opinion. I`m trying to read through this and I`m getting the impression that maybe, though, as these questions were being asked ten years ago the discussion got cut off too soon to get more specific details that would be more damning? MELBER: I think that`s fair. I think that`s certainly what his lawyers would say if you read those sections of the deposition as your reporting was mentioning, there was some back and forth, a lot of objecting, illegally or potentially unauthorized obtaining of drugs is not the same automatically as the kind of acts he`s also accused of. But it does fit that larger fact pattern which is bad for him. But, yes, you could have other arguments about that. You could have arguments about parties or gatherings where you could say allegedly people were taking drugs consensually or having these interactions consensually. So, there are a lot of ways that lawyers can obviously distinguish what`s going on. But I think what we see with the Bill Cosby case here is particularly over time, the way that these kind of sexual assault allegations are treated has gotten better and been taken more seriously. And so, you have an earlier period of stuff where, yes, the only recourse was a civil settlement. It doesn`t seem always the prosecutors were looking into this and he was a powerful man with a lot of allies. Another allegation coming out of this is that his agents were helping pay off some of these things. So, there were a lot of things cutting against these earlier reports. KORNACKI: Yes. And if you could clarify, too, these legal terms. I`m a layman so they confuse me. But I`m reading this and I`m seeing -- this is the testimony that comes out from this case 10 years ago and basically not long after this testimony the suit is -- the civil suit from this woman is dismissed with prejudice. That`s the term it`s being thrown out there. Explain what that term means. Does that mean the court is looking at this and saying it`s meritless? MELBER: It means with regard to the civil suit that it`s private parties dealing with each other, just like if you get into a dispute with your neighbor and you sue them, right, the government isn`t involved, police and prosecutors aren`t involved. That`s the criminal side. Civil side is, yes, it can be dismissed with prejudice in the sense that our suit is now over. It is ended. It may have ended for legal reasons that a judge decided it was not enough there. It may have ended for settlement reasons and thus been closed, that the parties agree to settle and seal. And typically that`s where it comes into the fact that he is a prominent person who according to the judge held himself out as a sort of a moral leader. Typically, part of what people pay for when they settle something, they don`t necessarily admit guilt but they certainly usually try to obtain confidentiality around the contents of the suit. KORNACKI: So, a settlement would be dismissed with prejudice? That term would apply for a settlement? MELBER: That could be in that case. KORNACKI: OK. MELBER: And what we have here, though, is the idea that some of what they thought they were putting to bed for good, legally, right? And, again, as we`ve mentioned, we haven`t heard an updated reaction from Cosby`s attorneys. They may have additional rebuttals once they decide to speak out. But from what we do know, they would have thought at the time and for many years that this was going to remain confidential because that was a party to whatever confidential settlement. Even though we have some of the deposition materials, we still don`t know everything that may have been agreed to with regard to the money paid, whether that was court ordered, et cetera. What we`ve seen at least tonight is this damning testimony. KORNACKI: OK. Ari Melber, thanks for that insight. Appreciate it. And up next, we`re going to go live to South Carolina in the debate over whether to remove the Confederate flag from statehouse grounds. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Removing this flag from out front is not going to do anything to change this nation. I believe it`s a Stalinistic purge of our cultural identity. (END VIDEO CLIP) (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) STATE SEN. LEE BRIGHT (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: I do understand what happened in Charleston has got a lot of people`s attention, but I am more against taking it down in this environment than any other time just because I believe we`re placing the blame of what one deranged lunatic did on people that hold their Southern heritage high. And I don`t think that`s fair. (END VIDEO CLIP) KORNACKI: Despite the objections of South Carolina State Senator Lee Bright, his Senate colleagues with a 37-3 vote took a big step today toward removing the Confederate flag from the grounds of the South Carolina statehouse. The renewed debate could take down emerged after last month`s massacre of nine people, including State Senator Clementa Pinckney, at Emanuel AME church in Charleston by a vowed white supremacist and convicted shooter Dylann Roof. Shortly after the murders, photographs appeared online with Roof posing with Confederate flags. Current bills emerged from removing the flag from statehouse grounds once seen as virtually impossible was introduced by Pinckney`s Senate colleague, Democrat Vincent Shaheen. After the vote, he tweeted out, quote, "Thankful the South Carolina Senate overwhelmingly voted to pass my bill to retire the Confederate flag from statehouse grounds. I pray for unity in our state." Joining me now is South Carolina Republican State Senator Tom Davis. Senator Davis, thank you for joining us. You were among the 37 voting to take the flag down. You said -- I read this afterwards. You said that this would be an exclamation point on an extraordinary narrative of good and evil. What do you mean by that? STATE SEN. TOM DAVIS (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: Well, let`s look at what happened in the last 17 days, starting with the horrific murders of those nine individuals in Charleston, including my colleague Clementa Pinckney. And what was amazing, a few days after that when they had the bail hearing for Dylann Roof, the victim`s families spoke out and forgave him. And they responded with love and compassion. And that set the tone, I think, for an extraordinary narrative of love and evil, and grace redeeming it. And what I mean is this -- I think once the people of South Carolina saw these victims families respond in that way to Dylann Roof, there was a tremendous groundswell and an outpouring of grace, a moral imperative, I think to do something in kind, to respond to that in kind with a similar gesture of grace. It`s my opinion that it`s the victims` families and the way they responded in that bail room that prompted this groundswell in South Carolina that naturally led to calling for the Confederate flag to be removed from the statehouse grounds as a symbol of reciprocal grace, in my opinion. And that was the narrative that I was referring to in the quote you just read, and that was the sentiment in the state senate today, I thought. I thought it was less about historical arguments, it wasn`t about who was correct about the Confederate flag, who was wrong about the Confederate flag. How should we properly view it? To me that took a back step to -- or a backseat to the need to respond in kind to an act of grace by these victims` families. And I think that`s the sentiment that impelled us forward in the Senate today, and that`s why you had a vote of 37-3, including many individuals who support the Confederate flag and who revere the Confederate flag, because what they realize is, is this vote isn`t a repudiation of what they think about the flag, it isn`t a concession that their interpretation of history or its meaning is wrong, but it is a frank acknowledgment by them that the grace exhibited in that bail room by the victims` families demands reciprocal grace. And I think that`s what animated the body today. KORNACKI: It`s interesting. I mean, the vote today was obviously was overwhelming -- as we say it was 37-3. But when I look at how this issue has been caught up in the politics of your state, the politics of South Carolina through the years, there`s always a story about David Beasley, the Republican governor in the `90s who tried to move it. He was defeated in reelection in 1998. Everybody remembers the story of McCain and Bush in the 2000 Republican primary down there. Has that basic attitude there, though, that basic attitude that had shaped those elections of this flag belongs in the prominent place in our state, has that basic attitude changed in the past few weeks? DAVIS: It has. And it`s notable to say this, the debate that took place back in 1998 when governor Beasley said what he did, and when the compromise was reached in 2000, which at that time took the Confederate battle flag off the State House dome and moved it down to where it currently flies by the Confederate soldiers monument, that was a political argument, that was an historical debate based on what the flag means, what it ought to mean, you know, how it been misappropriated by hate groups. The debate we`ve had over the last seven days has been materially different. It has been less a political and historical debate and quite frankly more of a religious debate. And South Carolina there are very religious people in South Carolina and they respond as Christians do in times of crisis. We saw this in the wake of Walter Scott`s murder over a month ago in North Charleston when a black man was shot and killed by a North Charleston policeman. There wasn`t hate. There wasn`t anger. There wasn`t rioting that poured out of that, there was renewed sense among South Carolinians to let`s do something to make ourselves better and in the wake of that we passed the nation`s first officer body camera law. You saw the same thing in regard to the massacre of these nine individuals in Charleston. There weren`t riots. There wasn`t looting. We responded with love and we responded with grace and we responded by lifting each other up and doing something positive and with the world watching, we showed them what South Carolina and South Carolinians are all about and I`m extremely proud of my state and its people. KORNACKI: All right, South Carolina Republican State Senator Tom Davis, thanks for your time tonight. DAVIS: Thank you. KORNACKI: Up next, another hot summer weekend brings a terrible spike in gun violence. We`ll look at what happened in Chicago when we return. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)) LUCY HILL, MOTHER OF THREE: The scariest part of my day is when they leave to go to school because I be afraid that they`re going get shot on their way home. FABIAN, CHICAGO RESIDENT: One time I heard gunshots was one time when I was playing basketball outside in the alley behind my house. And the one thing I was going to do (inaudible) I had to get home, try to get away from what I`m hearing. BOY: I hear them every night when they shoot, they be shooting plus I hear them when I`m -- when I wake up. (END VIDEO CLIP) KORNACKI: Over the weekend in Chicago, according to that city`s police department, seven people were shot and killed, 48 people were wounded in 34 incidents of gun violence. Among the dead is a 7-year-old boy who was shot while watching a fireworks show just before midnight on Saturday. Last year, Chicago police released similar numbers associated with gun violence over the Fourth of July weekend, summer months in Chicago seem to bring with them a spike in killings. A 2011 report from the Chicago police department found that, quote, "slightly higher percentages of murder victims were injured in the warmest months of the year." Similar trends have been seen in other cities, too. In 2009, a New York Times article titled "In New York number of killings rises with heat" cited a CDC study that analyzed a decades` worth of homicide data across the nation and found homicide swelled between July and September. Now, just because murders increase in the summer doesn`t mean the summer heat causes people to murder each other. Joining me now is Gary Young, a feature writer and columnist in for The Guardian based in Chicago. So, Gary Young, you`ve written about this subject that I was reading your piece tonight. You wrote that summer -- traditionally summer historically has been when riots happen. Is there some connection that you see between violence and the summer months and the temperatures? GARY YOUNG, THE GUARDIAN: Well, there isn`t so far as the cities are turned inside out. First of all, kids are out of school so there`s that. And then you know you go from the living room to the porch, you go from watching TV to playing outside and being outside, so people are outside where they are more likely to first of all interact, and secondly be available as targets. It`s incredibly tragic if you think that on the one hand you have people celebrating independence and apparently what America is all about and you can probably tell from my accent I`m not from here, originally, I`m from England, and on the other hand, here you have something else that America is also all about which is unfortunately large numbers of people being killed by guns. Because this doesn`t happen in any other western nation. This is -- when -- if you`re looking for something that`s really around American exceptionalism, this is exceptional. KORNACKI: Do you think, too, that there`s the availability, the ready availability of guns? You say in the summer months people obviously much more likely to be outside. Is the there something, though, do you think about the heat itself? The idea that maybe that makes people more irritable, more prone to lash out, less patient? Is there something about the scorching hot temperatures and just the sort of human temperament? YOUNG: Well, here`s the thing with the heat is that even if the heat itself was the issue, there are plenty of countries which are -- England`s just gone through a heat wave, very few people got shot. And the reason they didn`t get shot is because are not easily available. The thing that makes America exceptional isn`t the heat -- it`s France, Italy, Germany, they all have -- they can all have long, hot summers. But if you take a city like Chicago, which once on the south side has massive steel mills, and a huge industrial base, you take those jobs away, you close the schools as Rahm Emanuel did recently, you under fund the schools, you don`t provide people with housing, you effectively give people nothing to do, no money, no jobs, and then you throw guns on there like a flame on the tinder. Then this is what happens. So, yes, when it`s hot, people`s tempers run short and so on. But Americans are inherently no more violent, no more prone to sun-based rage than any other country in the world, I don`t think. KORNACKI: All right, Gary Young from The Guardian, thanks for your time tonight. YOUNG: Thank you. KORNACKI: All right, still to come, Chris Christie wants to put the George Washington Bridge in his rear-view mirror, but he`s rewriting history along the way. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CHRIS CHRISTIE, GOVERNOR OF NEW JERSEY: So, instead of just standing up and saying what they should say, which is "we`re sorry governor for having jumping to conclusions, we`re sorry for having prejudged this, we`re sorry for having not only accused you, but convicted you" they say "oh well, all right, now it`s a culture." (END VIDEO CLIP) KORNACKI: He`ll be back tomorrow night, but if you have any questions for Chris Hayes before then, feel free to ask him anything in his weekly Q&A on Facebook.com/allinwithchris. It starts at noon tomorrow. But first, Chris Christie demands an apology from the media. I have a thing or two to say about that next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) KORNACKI: Presidential candidate Chris Christie says the media owes him an apology. After multiple investigations of the George Washington Bridge lane closings led to multiple indictments of top Christie administration officials, the New Jersey Governor says the media still owes him that apology because those investigations didn`t conclude that he ordered the lane closings. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CHRISTIE: Because remember, in the beginning it was "he did this. He directed it. He`s this kind of guy." Then all of a sudden you`re not. Then they say "okay, now what do we do?" So instead of just standing up and saying what they should say which is "we`re sorry, governor for having jumped to conclusions. We`re sorry for having prejudged this. We`re sorry for having not only accused you but convicted you" they say oh, well, all right now "it`s a culture." It wasn`t a culture because if it was, Katy, there would have been more of these incidents. (END VIDEO CLIP) KORNACKI: But let`s back up to the fall of 2013 when this whole thing started ion the first place. And let`s look at how Chris Christie behaved as all of the details of this apparent political retribution scheme came to light, a scheme, remember, that was allegedly carried out in name of Christie`s reelection campaign. For four days in September of 2013, two out of the three access lanes to the George Washington Bridge from Fort Lee, New Jersey, were closed. And the result was nightmarish gridlock. It basically shut the town down. That`s where all of this began. Within days of that happening, Mayor Mark Sokolich of Fort Lee suggested that, quote, "punitive overtones" to the lane closings existed. And it certainly looked fishy. The Port Authority claimed that the lane closings were just part of a traffic study. And Governor Christie spent the next four months ridiculing anybody who raised the question about whether any kind of wrongdoing may have occurred. Christie even made jokes about traffic cones and he maintained this posture despite increasing evidence it was no innocent traffic study. In fact, in November of 2013 when Bill Baroni, who was one of Christie`s top appointees at the Port Authority, when he appeared before a state legislative committee in New Jersey his testimony, which emphatically reiterated the traffic study story, that testimony was widely viewed as nonsense. Next month on December 7, David Wildstein, that`s another key Christie appointee at the Port Authority, he resigned that day, and yet that same month after all of that happened, with all of this fishiness in the air around him, quote, "the governor singled out the Wall Street Journal, the paper that broke the initial stories saying that when all is said and done, the newspaper will owe Bill Baroni and David Wildstein an apology." So instead of saying yeah it sure looks like something is up here and we`re going to get to the bottom of it, Christie, in December of 2013 was lecturing the press for having the audacity to even ask questions about this. And he said that when this was all over, when all was said and done, he said that the press would have to apologize to Bill Baroni and David Wildstein. That, by the way, is the same Bill Baroni who has since been indicted for his alleged role in the lane closure scheme. And that is same David Wildstein who has pled guilty to federal crimes. Of course, on January 8 of 2014 this dropped. "Time for traffic problems in Fort Lee. That email from Christie deputy chief of staff Bridget Ann Kelly to Wildstein, only then, only when that came out, when that blockbuster revelation came forward, only then did Christie begin to change his tune -- somewhat. Did Chris Christie mastermind this whole thing? I still don`t think so. But he was presented with increasing evidence over a four-month period that something really bad happened, that something really bad happened in his name by his top appointees. And his response to all of those revelations and to all the questions that the press asked while those revelations came out in the fall of `13 was to ridicule the press, was to stonewall, was to demand apologies for people who are allegedly at the very center of it. If the press had listened to Chris Christie when this all began, we probably would never have found out any of the dirty details that we now know. And that same guy is now telling the press that they owe him an apology. We`ll talk about that when we come back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CHRISTIE: Well, how about nightly specials on this network for like five months calling me Attila the Hun? How about, you know, relentless attacks from The New York Time and the media. The bridge stuff was part of it for certain and the relentless negativity that I was subjected to. (END VDIEO CLIP) KORNACKI: All right, joining me now, Washington Post national political reporter Robert Costa and political consultant Tara Dowdell, who worked for New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey, Congressman Frank Palone and for the Port Authority. So, Tara, let me start with you. I had a lot to say, as you might have heard in the last segment there, but what I keep coming back to is listening to Chris Christie today saying, look, they had it in for me from the beginning, the press had it in for me from the beginning. They convicted me. I`m remember the fall of 2013 and I`m remember that there was this mysterious traffic jam, there were some intimations that maybe there was some kind of payback scheme at work here by somebody connected to Christie somehow and this story took four months to come out. And the reason the questions were raised about Chris Christie was because of how he behaved in those four months. He never seemed interested in getting to the bottom of it. TARA DOWDELL, POLITICAL CONSULTANT: Well, you raise a good point. You said you are remembering. That is what Christie is hoping for. He`s hoping that no one will remember the chain of events and his behavior and the statements that he made that have now been contradicted. We know that they are untrue statements like you said earlier. You pointed out how he said, oh, they`re going to find Bill Baroni, they`re going to have to apologize to Bill Baroni. This is typical Chris Christie, deny, deflect, attack. And this has worked so well for him in the past so he`s bringing this strategy out again, but it`s not going to work so well this time around. KORNACKI: Well, let me ask Robert Costa about that, then. So the audience here -- I mean, he`s attacking the media on the one hand, that`s the oldest play in the world, right -- in politics in general, certainly in Republican Party politics, but so Chris Christie is going around New Hampshire. He`s trying to turn his campaign around up there. How does what he said today play with Republican voters up there? ROBERT COSTA, WASHINGTON POST: According to Christie`s allies, his tone of defiance it`s unsurprising, because his entire campaign is rested on the premise that eventually Governor Bush will stumble, perhaps another establishment contender like Governor Kasich if he enters will stumble and that will create an entry for Christie to revive himself. And if that should happen, Christie has to be seen as viable. So each time the bridge situation comes up he swats it back. KORNACKI: Well, how is that -- when you talk to Republicans, Robert, I`m curious, how the bridge factors into their thinking because clearly it seems it had some effect. When I look at his poll numbers before this story ever broke and where I look at where they are right now, it says to me on some level this registered with him, even if they`re not out there crying that he had something to do with it. On some level this seems to have resonated with Republicans and made them say "we should stay away from this guy." COSTA: Governor Christie`s inner circle is aware that that question of the culture around Christie in New Jersey, in Trenton, that does linger with Republican voters. I`ve seen Governor Christie on the campaign trail. People love to coming out to see the Christie show. It`s an exciting performance to watch, him at a town hall meeting, it brings a crowd, but there are questions from the bridge. That`s why he`s down in the polls. KORNACKI: Yeah, and Tara, I mean, I saw this up close in New Jersey. You probably see it, too. What Robert is saying is true. I mean, he really is -- this guy is -- he`s a great political salesman. I mean, you sit him around the table on Morning Joe this morning just sort of throwing it around with four or five people. He`s really good at that. He`s really good in these town hall settings. And so, you talk about the story of -- the version of events he sort of laid out this morning, he can sell that in a way can`t he? DOWDELL: Oh, absolutely. He`s very quick on his feet. But the bigger issue for Chris Christie is going to be he`s up against people with a lot of money and there is no way that they`re not going to bring up these very issues. But the bigger issue for Chris Christie is the economic mess that the state of New Jersey is in. He`s actually lucky that people are talking about Bridgegate because what`s worse is the nine times the state`s credit rating has been downgraded. The fact that the state is 48th in job creation. All of these economic issues that leave him really, really exposed. And there`s no way. Rand Paul? He`s shown a willingness to attack Chris Christie. There`s no way these well-funded candidates let that linger. And their opposition research will be quite easy. All they have to do is read a local paper in New Jersey. KORNACKI: Yeah, I know, and I wonder, too, how much these two things are connected, too, when Christie starts to look wounded, starts to look vulnerable on the bridge, people look for other weaknesses, they start looking at the credit rating. I wonder how much those two things are related. Well, Robert, the other piece of this with the bridge is Chris Christie said today hey, it`s all over. Three independent investigations, they have all cleared me. Not really the case right now. I mean, you have pending trials -- pending federal trials. The star witness that the government is going to be using in these trial, David Wildstein, has said through his attorney that, quote, "evidence exists" that Chris Christie knew about these lane closures as they were happening. That is the guy who federal prosecutors made their deal with, that`s the guy they are depending on to get these convictions. These trials right now look like they`re going to start in November, maybe they get pushed back a little bit, December or January. In other words, basically the eve of Iowa, New Hampshire, these key early tests. What are the Christie people saying about that? COSTA: When I was in Livingston for the announcement, Governor Christie`s people, they feel confident right now because Christie is behind in the pack and he`s not being directly attacked by many of his rivals, but they know if he has a great debate, it he starts to slowly come back this summer and fall, eventually all of these questions will be brought up, and they will be brought up perhaps as these trials are ongoing. That leaves Christie vulnerable. That`s why he`s hitting back hard now. KORNACKI: I wonder, too, Tara, you look back at New Jersey, and when you look at the story that this comes out of the 2013 campaign, the idea here that federal prosecutors have put forward is this was because the mayor would endorse -- the democratic mayor wouldn`t endorse Christie`s reelection campaign. You do think back to that campaign in New Jersey and there was a clear connection there in the Christie team`s mind between how they did in that election and his prospects in 2016. They`re running in a blue state. They want to run on big numbers in Democratic areas, get all these Democratic endorsements, they want to run up big numbers with non-white voters, non- traditional Republican voters so that they can go to the country and say, look, we are the formula, Chris Christie is the formula to that this party has been missing. So when people start to look at this and say what would the motive have been to go after somebody like the mayor of Fort Lee, you do see -- I`m not saying coming from Christie himself, but you do see his campaign was really, really preoccupied with getting Democrats on board. DOWDELL: That`s absolutely right. They wanted very badly to get Democrats on board because that was -- as you mentioned, that`s the case that they wanted to make, and he`s been saying, he`s echoing those sentiments still in his talking points. They say, "I`m the guy that was able to govern and get along with Democrats. You see this gridlock in Washington, I`ve proven that I had Democratic support, I`m the guy that can go up against the Democratic nominee." KORNACKI: All right, Robert Costa, Tara Dowdell, thank you both for your time tonight. Appreciate that. And that is All In for this evening. I`m Steve Kornacki in for Chris Hayes. He`s going to be back tomorrow. THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. END <Copy: Content and programming copyright 2015 NBC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Copyright 2015 CQ-Roll Call, Inc. All materials herein are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of CQ-Roll Call. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.>