All In with Chris Hayes, Transcript 03/17/15

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST (voice-over): Tonight on ALL IN -- (CROWD CHANTING) HAYES: Polls close in Israel and Netanyahu is already declaring victory. What does that mean for Israel`s relationship with the U.S. and the rest of the world? Then, a shocking premature ending to a promising career. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just don`t want to get in a situation where I`m negotiating my health for money. HAYES: How fear of concussions drove a linebacker out of the NFL. Plus, a city in revolt against big oil. The big-name potential 2016 Democratic candidate sitting on the sidelines. And the new gimmick from Starbucks. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What if we were to write "race together" on every Starbucks cup. HAYES: ALL IN starts right now. (END VIDEOTAPE) HAYES: Good evening from New York. I`m Chris Hayes. It is too close to call in Israel`s parliamentary elections, which have pitted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the fight for his political life against a challenge from the center lift. Exit polls show Netanyahu`s Likud Party neck and neck with Isaac Herzog`s Zionist Union coalition. And while Netanyahu is already declaring victory, it is not over yet. Who comes out on top will depend on how Israel`s numerous political parties come together to form a governing coalition in the Knesset, the country`s parliament. Election day is a public holiday in Israel, and voters appeared to have seized the opportunity. According to "Haaretz", turnout is up 4 percent over the last election, thanks in part to a massive American-style get out the vote campaign, complete with robocalls and volunteers going door to door. If it looks and sounds like an American campaign, it`s because some of the major political groups in Israel hired some consultant, including Jeremy Byrd, who ran President Obama`s field operations in 2012. Regardless of the outcome however, there`s no question this election, which was called by Netanyahu himself two years ahead of schedule, did not go the way he planned. Faced with voter discontent over the high cost of living in Israel and surprisingly strong challenge from Herzog, Netanyahu has tacked hard to the right in the homestretch of the campaign. In an Israeli election that looks more like a GOP presidential primary in the U.S., particularly the Iowa caucuses, his strategy has been to fire up the base and try to siphon off support from his right flank. Posting on Facebook about the left wing conspiracy funding his opposition, vowing at a right-wing rally never to cede control of the occupied territories, and yesterday, finally admitting what many of his critics have long suspected -- if he continues as prime minister, Netanyahu would block the formation of a sovereign Palestinian state. In what appeared to be a panicked last-stitch ploy to turn out right wing voters today, he took another page in the American playbook, resorting to demagoguery. Netanyahu warned supporters, quote, "Right-rule is in danger. Arab voters are streaming in huge quantities to the polling stations. The left-wing organizations are bringing them in buses." On the heels of his speech to the U.S. Congress, perhaps no figure is more polarizing at home and abroad than Benjamin Netanyahu, he is Israel`s George W. Bush. And this election is a referendum on him and his policies. The stakes could not be higher either for Israel itself or American interests in the Middle East. Most of the region is now in chaos, Shia militia fighting ISIS in Iraq, Syria mired in an brutal, gruesome and intractable war, U.S.-allied governments toppled in Yemen and parts of Libya, and a nuclear deal with Iran possibly on the horizon and hanging in the balance. Meanwhile, Gaza is still in rubble after the war last summer. Its citizens trapped in crushing stateless poverty and settlement construction in the West Bank continues to provoke unrest there with clashes breaking out even today. So, now that Netanyahu has shown his true colors, the question is, does a possible Israeli government led by a man who has renounced even the pretext of an interest in a two-state solution become an international pariah. Has Netanyahu won his campaign at the expense of Israel`s diplomatic future? I`m joined by Jonathan Alter, MSNBC political analyst, columnist of "The Daily Beast", who is just in Israel for several weeks, in the run-up to the election. Great to have you here, Jonathan. JONATHAN ALTER, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Great to be here, Chris. HAYES: You were talking before we went on air, and you said, this is not over despite what certain entities may want you to think. You know, Netanyahu is very quick to declare victor, but everything is very unclear at this moment. It`s a neck and neck. ALTER: Yes. So, if you read Twitter or whatever, you`re going to see the Likud people, the Netanyahu people celebrating. HAYES: They`re dancing. ALTER: The opposition is down in the dumps. And that`s all because at the very end, by being desperate and pleading with right wing voters to not vote for the far right wing, just the semi-far right, his party, he got enough seats in the Knesset and the parliament to probably, according to the exit polls win by maybe one seat. So, that gives him a little more momentum. But it`s not an American-style election. So, the issue is, who can put together a coalition? And that will depend on the king makers, the powerbrokers from other parties, and which way they go. So, the most important one is a man almost nobody in the United States has heard of named Moshe Kahlon, he used to be with Netanyahu, but they quarreled and they had a big falling out. When he was in the government, he reduced the cell phone bills of Israelis by about 80 percent. He became popular, and he got a lot of votes today. So, he`s holding a lot of cards. And whichever of the two main candidates he goes with will be the next prime minister. So, the only real question now -- and this is something of a oversimplification because this is a Rubik`s cube. HAYES: Very complicated. ALTER: Very complicated. But the basic issue is, will Kahlon go with Netanyahu or with Herzog? If he goes with Netanyahu, which is what most people predict, that`s why the odds favor Netanyahu, but there`s still a pretty decent chance he could, with all of the finagling and backroom politicking go with Herzog in the next couple of days. HAYES: Let`s take the first possibility, which again is a possibility. We shouldn`t say, this is not -- you know, we saw this sort of remarkable thing happen in the last month. We saw the speech in Congress, which was massively politically toxic, sort of unprecedentedly toxic for an action by an Israeli prime minister in terms of that bilateral relationship, a series of statements that were very provocative, demagogic, I would even say down the stretch, renouncing essentially support for the two-state solution. I mean, has the Netanyahu campaign written checks his government will now not be able to cash? What does it mean for an Israeli government to now have this man who said all these things in the past month run the government? ALTER: It`s really a problem for him and for Israel, because the BDS movement, boycotts, disinvestments, sanctions, is gathering a lot of strength in Europe. There are even some indications in the United States who have been supporters of Israel, that the long-term policy of the United States vetoing any resolution in the Security Council at the United Nations is favorable to the Palestinians, those days might be moving into the past. If that happens, then this election will be seen as a huge reckoning, a huge problem for Israel, and really isolating them in the world in ways that they have not been before. So, the stakes are quite high. Of course, they`re high for the United States as well, as it relates to the Iran deal and all sorts of other issues. HAYES: Jonathan Alter, thank you very much for joining us. Really great to have you here. Benjamin`s Netanyahu`s call to arms to his right wing supporters to counter the Arab vote reflects a new reality in Israeli politics. Arab- Israelis make up 20 percent of Israel`s overall population. And while they have typically turned out to vote in lower rate than other groups, the formation of four smaller parties into an Arab collision called the Joint List, has energized many Israel`s Arab citizens who may be forming a powerful new voting bloc. According to exit polls, the Joint List finished in third place in today`s election, behind Netanyahu`s Likud Party, and Isaac Herzog`s Zionist Union. As the focus moves from campaigning to forming a government, the Arab coalition could be an unexpected king maker. Joining me now, Diana Buttu, former legal adviser to the Palestinian negotiating team and a Joint List supporter. And, Diana, the creation of the Joint List ironically was a product of change in parliamentary rules pushed by right wing far right entities that essentially raised the threshold for what you had to get in the Knesset in the hopes of extinguishing Arab parties. DIANA BUTTU, FORMER PALESTINIAN NEGOTIATOR: Yes, precisely they ended up raising the threshold from 2 percent to 3.25 percent of the vote, and this was an initiative that was put forth by Avigdor Lieberman, Israel`s current foreign minister, who himself called for the beheading of Palestinian citizens of Israel. And it turns out that in this election, he`s actually going to lose a great number of seats and may not make it past the threshold himself. HAYES: I want to take a moment to make this clear to people. The person who pushed this in order to extinguish Arab parties pushed them to unite in a way that now has have the third highest voting party, and his own party is in possible danger of not hitting the threshold. BUTTU: Yes, precisely. And the reason these parties have come together is because it became apparent that while they may differ on a number of issues, that they have to be united against racism and united against occupation, against an end to occupation. So, these parties have come together and are pushing and may actually end up being the third largest political party, making them the leaders of the opposition. HAYES: We saw these robocalls going out about warning the flood of Arab voters, early exit polls suggest that Palestinian-Israeli citizens actually have turned out to vote at much higher rates than usual. What role do you see them playing? They have said they will cue to their traditional line of not forming governing coalitions. Do you think they`ll hold to that? If they`re in the opposition, what role do you see for them? BUTTU: They definitely will not be forming part of the government. And this is because in part of forming the government, you then become part of the responsibility. This is a government that believes in the denial of freedom for Palestinians, a government that believes in continued occupation and continued settlement expansion, and continued blockade on Gaza. So, there`s no way Palestinians and non anti-Zionists are going to be voting and wanting to be part of a government that believes in all those things. That being said, they may actually form a bloc in opposition to try to prevent a lot of the legislation that Netanyahu and his supporters have been pushing forward, legislation that calls for discrimination against Palestinians in terms of where they can live and where they can purchase property, discrimination against employment, discrimination against the privileges and benefits that are accorded only to Jewish citizens of the state. So, they play a very essential role in trying to block a lot of the racist legislation and push back against the settlement construction and against the blockade on Gaza. HAYES: There`s two distinct issues I want to separate out for a moment. Of course, there`s the occupation and the occupied territories and continued settlement in the occupied territories in the West Bank particularly -- or solely at this point. But there is also this question of how the Palestinians citizens of Israel are treated by the government, by the state. There has been a turn at the right fringe represented by Lieberman in recent years, to focus more and more sort of ire again the fellow citizens, a talk of loyalty oaths, raising the threshold. I mean, do you see that trend continuing? Or do you see tonight`s election results as a pivot in a new direction? BUTTU: Well, I see it continuing, sadly. The reason is it`s become acceptable to be racist in Israel. It always has been, but it`s been pushed to the fore. We`re talking about Lieberman who actually ran a campaign that calling for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their homeland. He also called for the beheading of Palestinian citizens of Israel. This is the foreign minister. And so, this trend of pushing to the right is one that we see not just with Lieberman but with all of the political parties that will make up this collision. This coalition will be a coalition of the right, and it`s a coalition that believes fundamentally that Jews have superior rights than Palestinians in Israel. And so, the real challenge will be for this Joint List to push back against that type of legislation, to try to prevent those pieces of legislation from being able to be initiated. I`m not sure they will have much success giving the recent trends in Israel, but they will certainly try. HAYES: Thank you, Diana Buttu. Appreciate it. BUTTU: My pleasure. HAYES: A pro-football quits the game at the age of 24, saying it isn`t worth the risk. And I will talk to another former NFL player who agrees with the decision, ahead. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: Earlier today, Illinois Congressman Aaron Schock resigned less than 12 hours after "Politico" questioned tens of thousands of dollars he received in mileage reimbursements for his personal car. "Politico" report Schock charged the government and his campaign for logging roughly 170,000 miles on his personal car. The only problem -- when he eventually sold that vehicle, it had roughly 80,000 miles. Meaning Schock was reimbursed for 90,000 more miles than his car was driven, the equivalent of tens of thousands of dollars. Schock says he`s now repaid all the money he received in reimbursements for official mileage since he was elected to Congress. The mileage story was just the latest in a steady stream of embarrassing revelations about the congressman`s spending habits. More than $20,000 for private flights on the taxpayers, at least some of which he`s now repaid, apparently misreporting thousands spent on one private flight as a software purchase and questionable-looking real estate deals involving donors to name just a few. And to think, all the scrutiny stems from the revelation that Schock spent $40,000 in government money, which he ultimately repaid on a "Downton Abbey" inspired congressional office. More on congressman`s spectacular fall from grace is next on "THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW". You don`t want to miss it. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) REPORTER: Tell us why you decided to retire. CHRIS BORLAND, NFL PLAYER: I think it was a combination of a number of things. It`s a unique decision to me. I`ve done a lot of research of what I had experienced in my past, projected to what I would have to do to be the linebacker I wanted to be, and for me it wasn`t worth the risk. It was just the realization, you know, I had just started my professional career, and am I going to go down this road? Am I going to commit the prime of my life to something that could be ultimately be detrimental to my health? That just kind of triggered my thinking, and changed the way I viewed the risks. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Think for a second about what kind of ways you thought about the world when you were 24 years old, if you`re not now 24 years old. If someone said to you at 24 -- well, you`re doing this thing that`s going to be very richly rewarded with lots of money, incredibly glamorous, lots of fun, people are going to know your name, you`re going to be famous. But down the road, down the road, it might come back to haunt you. The overwhelming majority of 24-year-olds aren`t very good at making the right decision in those circumstances. The here and now tends to overwhelm the future. But Chris Borland, a linebacker for the 49ers, is just such a man, announcing today that he`s retiring at the age of 24, walking away from a $3 million contract, because he didn`t want to trade his health and his life for his livelihood. Joining me now, Harry Carson, former NFL player and pro-football Hall of Famer, to talk about this decision. It`s a pretty remarkable thing to do. HARRY CARSON, FORMER NFL PLAYER: Well, it is. And, you know, from when I played years ago, the money is so much bigger now than when I played. But the risks are still the same. You know, there`s a physical risk. Everybody is aware of the physical risk -- knee, shoulder, whatever. You know, those things can be replaced. But when it comes to your brain, it can be replaced. HAYES: And we just know a lot more now. I mean, one of the things that came out of the story is that Chris Borland said he started thinking about this last season. He said he had what he thought was an undiagnosed concussion at one point that he played through, and he started talking to brain researchers, about the emerging literature about concussions and sub- concussive impacts and their long-term impact on brains, and he just decided the risk wasn`t worth it. CARSON: Well, you know what? He`s a smart guy because, you know, the information is out there now. And he has taken advantage of that information, and he has made an informed decision. When I played, when many of the guys who played prior to five or six years ago, played there was no information out there. HAYES: Nothing. CARSON: Nothing at all. So, you hear these people, these fans who say, well, you know that`s why they pay the big bucks, they knew what they were signing up for when they signed the contract. That`s bull. The players did not know. They knew about having the talent. They knew about the possibility of getting hurt, but in terms of the neurological risks, nobody knew until now. And Chris Borland has made an informed decision for himself, which I applaud. And this is one of those moments where everybody is going to sit up and take notice. HAYES: Yes. CARSON: You know, when you look at a Dave Duerson, you know, some people paid attention to it. Junior Seau -- HAYES: Dave Duerson, I should say, shot himself in the chest, killed himself. CARSON: Right. HAYES: Shot himself in the chest so that his brain would be preserved for science. CARSON: Yes. HAYES: Junior Seau did the same thing. CARSON: Did the same thing. And, you know, last football season in Ohio, Ohio State, I think his name is Kosta Karageorge, defensive lineman for Ohio State, he complained about having concussions. And as a result he committed suicide. Nobody paid a lot of attention to it, because Ohio State was really on a roll, but I`m pretty certain that Borland probably paid attention to that. HAYES: Yes. CARSON: And it`s one of those things that figured into his equation as to whether he was going to continue to play or not. HAYES: I want to stress here just for the same of establishing medical evidence, the connection between brain trauma and suicide is not an established part of the literature. What we do know is that things about brain trauma and possibilities of degenerative possibilities which can lead to depression, just so people are clear about that. I also thought this was interesting. Borland becomes the fourth player at the age of 30 or younger to retire in just the last week, joining Patrick Willis, another 49ers linebacker, who quit six days earlier because of pain in his feet, Steelers linebacker Jason Worilds s quitting at 27 to do religious work, and Jake Locker, a Tennessee Titans quarterback, NFL bust, he has no burning desire to play. You wonder if you start to see more and more of this. CARSON: Well, I`m pretty certain you`re going to see it, maybe not in a way in which you`re seeing it now, you know, because players always walk away. HAYES: Of course, they retire -- the average NFL career is very short. CARSON: Yes. And some of those players are not well-known players, but when you have a guy who was drafted in the first round like Jake Locker, you look at Patrick Willis, who is an all-star line backer, you know, to walk away from the game, you know, Bill Parcells used to tell me, you know before anybody else when it`s time to go. When you don`t feel that fire to play, when you feel that you`ve been injured so much, that it really doesn`t pay to try to come back and play and not be the same player that you were before, then it`s time to go. And I applaud these players for doing that. But Chris Borland is the only one who left because of the fear of serious brain injury down the road. HAYES: Real questions if that`s a precedent we`re going to see more. Harry Carson, thanks for being here. CARSON: OK, my pleasure. HAYES: The city of Seattle takes the environment pretty seriously. You can get shamed and fined if you don`t recycle properly. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Looks like a donut box. This is recycle. This is compost. But we need to take the plastic doohickeys out of it. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How do you know if you`re being fined? Well, the collectors will tag your can with a warning like this one, then on your next utility bill, there will be a $1 one time for each collection. But the tags are tough to miss. You could have these on you`re trash can if you`re violating the new garbage law. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: So, you can imagine how people in Seattle are reacting to the news that Shell Oil has come to town. That story is next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: "New York Times" reports that Shell Oil has spend more than $4 billion on its efforts to drill for oil in the Arctic. The company has not done any drilling there since 2012, in part because of a series of costly and embarrassing accidents, as well as environmental and safety violations. This year, Shell made a deal designed to get that drilling back on track. "The Seattle Post Intelligence" reports the company quietly entered into a two-year $13 million deal to have the port of Seattle serve as a base for Arctic drilling that would take place thousands of miles away off the north coast of Alaska. Now, word of the port of Seattle deal soon got out, prompting outrage among Seattle`s vibrant environmentals committee, which saw the arrange as a de facto acceptance of offshore drilling. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In one of the greenest cities in the United States, in one of the most citizen-involved cities in the United States, to approve a project without citizen involvement is crazy. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: The prospect of Shell`s massive drilling rigs, ships and equipment coming to the waterfront also galvanized Seattle Mayor Ed Murray and the Seattle City Council, who announced last week they will review the deal to see if it is legal. Environmental groups have also filed a lawsuit to block the deal. For its part, Shell says it`s committed to drilling for oil in the Arctic and supporters say it means jobs for Seattle. Opponents counter that any deal that facilitates Arctic oil drilling will harm the environment and exacerbate climate change and that`s very, very bad for Seattle in the long run. Joining me now, Mike O`Brien, a member of the city council. Councilman, I`m a little unclear about how did this job get struck with apparently nobody knowing about it? So, can you explain that part of it to me first? MIKE O`BRIEN, SEATTLE CITY COUNCILMEMBER: Well, as best I understand, folks at the port of Seattle entered into what`s called some sort of verbal nondisclosure agreement, and essentially held secret negotiations for about six months to strike this deal. And it was only a few weeks before the deal was actually signed it became public and there was some brief discussion. HAYES: Did it become public through reporting, or did someone advise about the deal happening? O`BRIEN: Well, I`m not exactly sure what the impetus was, but the port commissioners, there are five elected folks from King County, held a public meeting to discuss it. And so, they announced it, they gave us a few days` notice, had their public hearing, and then went on and signed the deal. HAYES: And describe to me what the sort of citizen and politician reaction to it has been? O`BRIEN: Well, as you can imagine, Seattle does not support drilling in the Arctic. Such a behavior is both destructive to the natural environment up in the Arctic and potentially here in Seattle. And the climate change threat is so real. Any world where we`re pulling oil out of the Arctic and putting it into the atmosphere is where we`ve well-surpassed that temperature rise that`s sustainable on our planet. HAYES: I think this is a key point and people think about it in big, abstract terms, what can I possibly do, we`re pumping tons of carbon. But every bit of oil infrastructure and fossil fuel extraction infrastructure has to somewhere, a coal export terminal, a pipeline that goes to the middle of the United States, some drilling rigs that are stored in the port of Seattle. And every one of those places is a site to have some kind of political action to block it. O`BRIEN: Absolutely. And you know, the idea of drilling in Arctic, I think it`s important for folks to understand, it`s an idea that really makes no sense. All of the other major players have pulled out of the Arctic. It`s only shell that`s left. And, the only two ports they were looking at to host this fleet was Seattle and Dutch Harbor, Alaska. And Dutch Harbor`s really a problematic environment because of the weather up there is so severe. And so we think that if they`re not in Seattle, it may be the end of Arctic drilling for the near future. HAYES: So, you actually think that they don`t have the argument in which you see groups use all the time, we`ve seen it with Keystone, which is if you don`t build this, we`re going to do it somewhere else, so you might as well give us this deal. O`BRIEN: No, I think it`s actually the other way around on this one. HAYES: So, what about people who would argue that you`re opening up a can of worms here, which is do you want a kind of ideological battle over every Port of Seattle lease agreement? O`BRIEN: You know, Chris, there`s no doubt that our economy is tied to the fossil fuel industry, and we have a lot of work to do if we`re going to unwind that and become the kind of sustainable planet that we want to be. And it`s going to be hard work. There`s jobs tied to that fossil fuel industry, and we have to figure out how we transition away from it. What we can`t do today, though, is take a huge step backwards, and drilling in the Arctic and tie in Seattle`s future to successful drilling in the Arctic, is that huge step backwards that`s completely undermines everything else we`re trying to do. HAYES: It appears to me the mayor is somewhat on board in this. Do you think you guys actually can stop this? I mean the deal has been signed. What`s your next move here? O`BRIEN: Well, we`re exploring all the options we have. And so it`s important to understand the City of Seattle is a different entity than the Port of Seattle. What I do believe for sure is when the people who are in charge decide that this is a bad idea, we can unwind anything. So, right now the city is figuring out all the things that we can do to say, hey, this doesn`t make sense, and whether it`s through the legal action or through the port commissioners changing their mind and undoing the mistakes they made, we`re going to make sure that all those options are on the table. HAYES: A piece of enduring legal advice for everyone watching right now, I want to quote you, "when the people in charge decide they don`t want this anymore, we can unwind anything". That`s always true. Seattle city councilman, Mike O`Brien, thank you very much. O`BRIEN: Thanks, Chris. HAYES: All of the sudden it seems like there is a lot of talk on the Internet about Al Gore. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) (MEOWING) (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: A lot of talk, some meowing. That`s next, minus the cat. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: Remember Al Gore? Former Vice President of the United States. Former future President of the United States before that whole Florida Supreme Court hanging chad situation? Nobel prizewinner, Oscar winner, although he didn`t actually win the Oscar, and object of sustained ridicule by the right for being right about global warming. That Al Gore. That Al Gore is having a little bit of a moment right now. He`s in The New York Times, with a feature of him in his new life as an optimist on global warming. I have actually seen Gore give the presentation that`s described in that article, and it actually can make you optimistic. And there was another piece this week that got a lot of people talking by Ezra Klein in Vox, saying that Al Gore should run for President. Which also struck me as a good idea. Joining me now, former Michigan governor, Jennifer Granholm, whose co chair of the pro Hillary Clinton`s priorities U.S.A. action, and also worked for Al Gore over at Current television. What do you think of this idea? Obviously, I think people don`t think of him as an active political player because he`s been out of electorial politics as long as he has, but I thought the Ezra piece was pretty persuasive and I`m of the opinion the more the merrier in a Democratic primary. JENNIFER GRANHOLM, FORMER GOVERNOR MICHIGAN: Well, first of all, I am a total Al Gore fan, too, and I did work for him. But, Chris, it ain`t gonna happen. Al Gore`s standard response to this question, and as you can imagine he gets asked it a lot, is, I`m not running, I`m a recovering politician. I`m in the ninth stage of recovery, and the longer I`m in recovery, he says, the less likely there is of a relapse. So, it isn`t going to happen. Your point about the primary, I know that a lot of politicians and particularly Republicans, and a lot of the media would like to see a primary. However, he is not going to be in that primary. And, by the way, I think Hillary Clinton would welcome a robust primary. It`s just that I think Democrats see her as the best chance, and people are happy with that particular choice, assuming she raises her hand. HAYES: Yeah, I mean the polling, you`re right about this, is that the polling on this issue is pretty clear. I mean, there is a lot of support for Hillary Clinton among Democrats, among primary voters. I mean, my question is more about the sort of ideological process by the way a party comes to decide what it stands for. And it strikes me the primary is increasingly important in that process. Right? So, if it`s not Al Gore, someone else who really was committed around climate change could have a real effect on what kind of commitment every candidate and the eventual nominee make, what kind of infrastructure is built up, what kind of legislation is sort of put into the queue, and I`m afraid that we`re not going to get that process. GRANHOLM: Well, I mean I -- first of all, the beauty about this particular setup currently is that she is going to have -- if Hillary Clinton runs, she`s going to have a fight, right? And the fight is going to be against the Republicans. And we saw her yesterday coming out swinging. She`s basically saying bring it on against the congressional Republicans. Great. There`s going to be a contrast. There will be such a contrast on this issue, that you and I care deeply about. John Podesta has moved over to her team. He was obviously very instrumental in helping President Obama take this issue on in his second term. I think there will be no doubt that she will be a forceful advocate for our planet, but also for the jobs that come along with clean energy as a result. Bottom line is, Chris, you know, the issue of a primary I think is a legitimate issue and I think she would welcome it. But, she is going to have a fight. And, just like the President is going tomorrow to Cleveland to set up this contrast between his budget and the Republican budget and fighting for the middle class, she will be doing that throughout the entire election, and the entire Republican machinery that has been orchestrated and set up to oppose her, including the $900 million dollars from the Koch brothers, and including all of the Trey Gowdy and the umpteen committees. She is going to have every single day, the opportunity to hone her definition of what Democratic values are and the contrast that it brings to Republicans. HAYES: You know, the point you make about Podesta is sort of precisely the point to me. And it`s an interesting one, right? I have a lot of admiration for John Podesta`s work on climate, his work in the White House. It makes me feel good that he`s working for Hillary Clinton. But, I guess the point is that I want to see an issue like that battled out in public. I mean, in 2008 we had this very robust debate about health care, and whether we`d have a mandate or not, and, we got into the weeds of that. And, as a party, you saw people as a coalition, as a progressive, you saw people hash that out. And, in the absence of that, what you are left with, is hoping the right adviser is in the right circle, and I don`t think that`s a good substitute. GRANHOLM: I mean, Chris, there is such a fantastic opportunity for voters to choose. You`ll going to have one party who is fighting for our future, our planet, the jobs that clean energy would bring, and you`re going to have another party who`s denying it even exists, bringing snowballs on to the floor of the Senate, saying that`s proof that global warming is not happening. So you are going to have this debate, and it`s going to be a long debate. And, you know that those who are funding the Republicans, the Koch brothers, are the biggest climate deniers of all. So this is going to happen. And, the great thing is, that she will be on the right side of an issue that you and I both feel deeply care about. HAYES: Former Governor, Jennifer Granholm, happy St. Patty`s Day. Thank you for coming on. GRANHOLM: I`ve got my green on. HAYES: You do. I think it was pretty clearly decided today that people do not want to go to Starbucks to have a conversation about race. I`ll explain, ahead. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: We used the software system here at the office called I-news, and as part of that system, we get news wires from the Associated Press. Last night, this popped up, "Louisiana state police trooper says millionaire Robert Durst has been booked on weapons charges in that state- on top of a first-degree murder charge lodged by Los Angeles authorities. The trooper Melissa Matey told Associated Press that an arrest warrant was issued for the former Limp Bizkit frontman and he was rebooked in the Orleans Parish Jail on Monday under two new charges." Former Limp Bizkit frontman, that would be Fred Durst, not Robert Durst, the heir to one of New York`s greatest real estate fortunes and star, if you can call it that, of HBO`s, The Jinx. The Associated Press issued a correction after the error was pointed out to them by the Jim Romenesko blog, which read as follows, "The associated press reported erroneously that Robert Durst is a member of a band. He is a real estate heir. Fred Durst is the former frontman of Limp Bizkit." Back in a moment. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: Starbucks is attempting to help heal America`s racial wounds one vente half-calf, nonfat misto at a time. This week, baristas at twelve thousand of the coffee giants locations will have that option to start up a conversation about race relations by writing the words "race together" on customers` coffee cups. Their enterprising page tracked through three different Starbucks here in Midtown, and eventually given this cup with a sticker on it. This one there. Yeah? A conversation about race, alas, did not follow. The "race together" initiative is all part of a larger campaign supplemented by a recent, full page ad featured in New York Times, in which the company poses the question, "shall we overcome?" Later this week, thanks to a partnership with U.S.A Today, some additional reading on the subject matter will be made available, packets to be distributed in stores will offer up race relation conversation starters, including one fill in the blank question that simply asks: In the past year, I have been to the home of someone of a different blank times. As "fortune" reports, 40% of Starbucks nearly 200,000 employees are part of a racial minority group, and as BuzzFeed reports, the company will announce a new hiring push focused on African American and Latino youth at its annual meeting tomorrow. Starbucks CEO, Howard Schultz says the idea for "race together" was sparked by a meeting with some employees in Seattle, look at that crowd for a second, look at that crowd, following the events in Ferguson and New York. And he shared news of the initiative with employees across the country last week via video message. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) HOWARD SCHULTZ, STARBUCKS CEO: What if we were to write "race together" on every Starbucks cup and that facilitated a conversation between you and our customers? And, what if our customers, as a result of that, had a renewed level of understanding and sensitivity about the issue? (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: This isn`t the first time Schultz has used his company to highlight social issues. The company has come out in favor of marriage equality, pledged to hire 10,000 veterans over a five year period, asked customers to keep firearms out of the stores, even in states with open carry laws, and it`s not the first time the company used cups to get a message either. It started an anti partisan gridlock campaign during the fiscal cliff crisis of 2012, asking D.C. area baristas to write "come together" on drink orders and saving the country from fiscal ruin. Predictably, the internet reaction to the news of "race together" was swift, and at times snarky. Gawker writing the campaign "sounds even more demeaning than Mcdonald`s asking you to dance for your Egg McMuffin." Twitter responses ranging from, "Would Starbucks lower their prices in order to offset the emotional cost in discussing race together with a clueless barista?", to "Not sure what Starbucks is thinking, I don`t have time to explain 400 years of oppression to you and still make my train. #racetogether". Me? Me, I`ve got my own reaction which has to do with the great fallacy of a conversation about race, capital C, capital A, capital R. I will explain that and talk to Jay Smooth and Nancy Giles, ahead. (COMMMERCIAL BREAK) SCHULTZ: And to be honest, there were some people that said, Howard, this is not a subject that we should touch. This is not for you. This is not for a company. This is for someone else. I reject that. I reject that completely because we can`t leave this for someone else. HAYES: Well, Starbucks chairman CEO, Howard Schultz, talking about why he`s given his baristas the option to start conversations about race. Joining me now, Nancy Giles, contributor of CBS Sunday Morning, and Jay Smooth, media strategist for Race Forward and video blogger at the Fusion Network. Okay, so before I give my own feeling on this, I shall open the floor. Nancy, what do you think of it? NANCY GILES, CBS SUNDAY MORNING: You know, it`s easy to make fun of him, and there was some very funny tweets, including one that had to do with people racing to the counter to get coffee, hahaha, but look, the bottom line is, it`s something that really does need to be talked about. And, you made a point during the break, I don`t want to, like, spill what you were saying, but the whole conversation about race concept, as a concept is kind of clunky and stupid, but we`ve got to talk and start somewhere. And, I think it`s really kind of cowardly to just make fun and mock it, and not try to get something started. Frankly, one thing that is fact is that under President Obama, the number of hate groups in this country has gone up by like 700-something percent. That`s according to the -- I mean, these are serious things. We`re living in serious times. I think the first black President has brought up a lot of stuff in people that`s churning up and bubbling over, and it`s worthy of talking about, however sloppily. HAYES: You know, that`s -- you made the best possible case for it, okay? GILES: Thank you. JAY SMOOTH, RACE FORWARD: I mean, I agree the intentions seem noble and I want to keep an open mind, but I think there`s already this strange fixation on conversation when it comes to race that you don`t see with other issues that we want to take seriously. I think it`s telling that, when Howard Schultz wanted to help veterans, he didn`t just tell people to have conversations about how much they like veterans. He committed to a plan of action to help veterans. And I think there`s lots of conversation. You know, he talked about being inspired by what went on in Ferguson and in other places, but if you look at the D.O.J. report on Ferguson, it does not describe issues that can be addressed by increasing the number of chats in coffee shops. We`re talking about institutional, systemic issues. GILES: But, for people who don`t even think there is a problem, I think, at least, talking about it is -- SMOOTH: The emphasis on talking about it misleads us about where the problems are because this focus on conversation comes out of our assumption that racism manifests on a personal level and our individual feelings towards each other -- GILES: That`s part of it, but not all of it. SMOOTH: -- and the sentiments. But we need to be looking at the systemic institutional -- GILES: I don`t disagree at all. HAYES: And part of it I think gets at this think about race, this point about a conversation about race is that, we tend to think race when we talk about race, a conversation about race, in the way that you would in a psycho analytic sense think about like a patient with neurosis, right? It`s like a natural neurosis, and the talking cure -- talk therapy will cure us of the neurosis. It`s a repressed thing, but if we talk about, right, then it will come out and that will be therapeutic. But it`s just a set of power arrangements based on white supremacy -- they even have distributive power to some people and locked other -- SMOOTH: If you were going to have a conversation that`s focused on identifying systemic problems and acting to change them, that`s great. But if we`re going to be talking so that we can feel better about talking to each other, I don`t really think that`s productive. That tends to be what conversation about race are. GILES: That`s not been always my experience. I mean, sometimes just, again, just illuminating people that I am 6`1", I am a black woman, and if I get in an elevator, sometimes, and I`m alone, and a white person see me in the elevator, they won`t get on the elevator. I mean, this is something that might not seem like a big deal to some people, but there`s like a real, kind of break down and kind of fear thing that goes on. That, if you talk about it with people, they may stop and go, holy hell, I have done something like that. HAYES: Right, so then I guess that part of -- right, it`s like, necessary but not sufficient kind of a deal? GILES: Right, yeah, of course. It`s not all that going to have to happen. HAYES: I want to talk, I want to play this clip that is sort of a famous clip from our esteemed guest, Jay Smooth, here, about sort of how to approach conversations about race, which is a great bit of wisdom. Take a listen. (BEGIN VIDEOCLIP) SMOOTH: When somebody picks my pocket, I`m not going to be chasing them down so I can figure out whether he feels like he`s a thief deep down in his heart. I`m going to be chasing him down so I can get my wallet back. I don`t care what he is, but I need to hold him accountable for what he did, and that`s how we need to approach these conversations about race. Treat them like they took your wallet and focus on the part that matters. Holding each person accountable for the impact of their words and actions. (END VIDEO CIP) GILES: I don`t disagree. HAYES: And this gets to something that, the point you`re making there, which is that when we have, when we talk about conversation about race, rather than saying you are a racist -- just focus on individual things that happen, right? Like, I thought, you know what actually was a model of this? The D.O.J. report on Ferguson. I thought it was such a great document in that he just said like, look, here are the numbers empirically, and, here are the reasons that you can`t, your normal excuses which is like, well, maybe black people drive worse. It`s like, no, actually -- GILES: No, there`s a dispropotionate amount of, you know, of -- HAYES: Enforcement. GILES: Yes. HAYES: And it just like, went about sort of documenting in this sort of rigorous way that avoided a lot of the -- GILES: But Chris, I can`t, I can`t not tease Jay about the kind of like, brother way he was talking, you know. Like hey, with the rap music in the background. SMOOTH: I`m a rap guy. GILES: Yeah, I know, but it`s kind of, it`s another interesting, funny thing about race. Like, there would be some people that feel that you co-opted something like that, and other people might feel like well, that`s his background and that`s really cool, too. Yo, like, you know, if somebody takes my wallet, I mean it`s really interesting since you were talking -- SMOOTH: It`s also interesting because I am actually black, but you assumed otherwise, and this is the sort of awkwardness we can look forward to. GILES: Absolutely, absolutely. But on top of all of that, I am clearly brown skin, and people are always saying to me, you talk white, you act white, you want to be white, you`re white. And yet, these are the kind of things that -- HAYES: But the question is, can you have that conversation, or about anything around the sort of multi layers with the person handing you the espresso. SMOOTH: That is so unfair -- they`re already too busy to spell anyone`s name correctly on any of the cup and you expect them to be a diversity trainer in a two minute transaction with someone who didn`t have their morning coffee yet? GILES: But I have to say, don`t you sometimes get into really kind of intimate conversations with somebody over a cup of coffee? Even the person that is making it for you? I mean, maybe I`m crazy, but I sometimes will -- SMOOTH: I disagree with the notion that any conversation is better than none when it comes to this topic. I mean, all you have to do is look at Brad Paisley and LL to see that if you`re not going to take the time to inform yourself, and do what the D.O.J. did which is take time to study and figure out how to discuss this productively, I think some conversation is a recipe for disaster. I think we need to take the time, when you hire someone to work behind the counter at Starbucks, you don`t just let them talk to themselves about how to make a cappuccino, you bring in experts to give them structure and a system to do it. I want to know, first of all, why are we delegating this to the lowest rung in Starbucks, first of all, and are we giving them information and training on how to have a productive conversation? I mean, I feel like this is sort of, throwing it out there in a haphazard way. That is not what we need to cure such a serious situation. GILES: Well, I would take issue because one of the board members of Starbucks is Melanie Hopson, and she`s one of the few black CEO`s, black female CEO`s in the country, and she did a wonderful pep talk about being race brave instead of being, you know, like silent about talking about things. And I think she might have had an influence, I`d like to think that she had an influence on the conversation. HAYES: So, you sort of buy the general repression narrative, which is like, it`s a thing we don`t talk about, we should talk about, and any opportunity to push back is actually a-- GILES: I wouldn`t say push it. HAYES: But I mean like push past the boundaries of repression. GILES: I don`t see, to me it`s a win-win. I would rather, even if it`s sloppy and messy and you have to like, go what the hell did so and so mean, let`s get something started. HAYES: Alright, so let me conclude with this tweet from Jay, which is "Starbucks staff in my neighborhood have already spent years doing noble level work of being patient with white people #racetogether". I do think that putting this on the shoulders of people who are trying to like -- SMOOTH: Here is a free coupon to the new Jim Crowe or slavery by another name and let them take that in there. Ask them and embarrass them to do the education is too much. HAYES: Nancy Giles and Jay Smooth thank you for joining us both. Alright, that is All In for this evening. THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. END <Copy: Content and programming copyright 2015 NBC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Copyright 2015 CQ-Roll Call, Inc. All materials herein are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of CQ-Roll Call. 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