All In with Chris Hayes, Transcript 01/12/15

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST (voice-over): Tonight on ALL IN. MITT ROMNEY (R), FORMER MASSACHUSETTS GOVERNOR: Who`s got the camera, though? HAYES: Breaking news from "The Washington Post". ROMNEY: I`m running for office for Pete`s sake. HAYES: A surprise political return. Mitt Romney is getting the band back together. ROMNEY: What`s up, gangsters? It`s the M-I-double-tizzle. HAYES: Tonight, what we know and what we don`t about Mitt in 2016. BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Please proceed, Governor. HAYES: Then, leaders of the world unite, as does the D.C. press corps. JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I think the president would have liked to have had the opportunity be there. HAYES: The latest fallout from Sunday`s march. Plus, a look at how Republicans stumbled out of the gate in Congress. And the Hollywood award season has finally begun. TINA FEY, ACTRESS: Welcome you bunch of despicable spoiled minimally talented brats. HAYES: All the hits and misses from the Golden Globe as ALL IN starts right now. (END VIDEOTAPE) HAYES: Good evening from New York. I`m Chris Hayes. And it looks an awful lot like America is about to get its third consecutive Mitt Romney for president campaign. "Washington Post" reporting this afternoon, "Romney is moving quickly to reassemble his national political network, having spent the weekend and today calling former aides, donors and other supporters." Romney reportedly told one senior Republican he, quote, "almost certainly will run." Reaching out in recent days to discuss his plans with former running mate Paul Ryan, 2012 rival Newt Gingrich, and former Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown. All of this despite Romney`s insistent to "Meet the Press" last summer he would not run for president in 2016, saying there were much better options. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ROMNEY: Look, I want to find the best candidate for us to take our message to the American people, that we can bring better jobs, higher incomes and more security globally. We can do that, and I`m convinced that the field of Republican candidates that I`m seeing is a lot better positioned to do that than I am. So, I`m not running. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Romney first change -- signaled his change of heart on Friday when he declared to a group of donors in New York, quote, "I want to be president." The timing of his appeal to donors and supporters is not accidental. It comes, of course, on the heels of former Florida governor and likely presidential candidate Jeb Bush`s move to lock up the support of the GOP`s wealthy donor clash. And it sets up a potential three-way battle between Romney, Bush and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie to be the establishment candidate in the Republican primary. Romney is reportedly telling supporters he will run to the right of Jeb Bush, signaling to conservatives he shares his views on both immigration and taxes. We also found out today that Romney`s former running mate Paul Ryan is not a potential presidential rival. As Ryan told NBC News that he will stay in the House and not seek the presidency in 2016. Among those not welcoming the news of potential third Romney is another guy, who aspires to the label of perennial presidential candidate but can`t seem to muster the necessary commitment or support, Donald Trump. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MIKA BRZEZINSKI, MSNBC ANCHOR: Do you think that perhaps Mitt Romney is trying to take Jeb Bush`s thunder away? DONALD TRUMP, BUSINESSMAN: Well, I know for the fact they don`t like each other. And I would say, the last thing we need is another Bush. And as far as Romney is concern, he had a great chance of winning and he blew it. He`s like a dealmaker that couldn`t close the deal. So, you just can`t give him another chance. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Joining me now: Karen Tumulty, national political correspondent for "The Washington Post", whose byline is on that "Washington Post" report today. This does seem like this is moving very, very quickly. KAREN TUMULTY, THE WASHINGTON POST: It does, it does. It reminds me -- there is an old joke in politics I`ve heard it attributed to Mo Udall, but I don`t know for sure that`s true, that the only cure for presidential ambition is embalming fluid. I think a lot of people dent know how seriously to take Mitt Romney when he dropped this little bomb last Friday in a group of donors. But it`s very clear from his actions over the weekend, he was calling around, he called a lot of people. He`s already got some commitments of key operatives on the ground in New Hampshire. He basically has, you know, decided he truly wants to be president. And as he told one person I talked to who heard from them this weekend, that his wife, Ann, said to him, "Hey, if you want to be president, there`s only one way to do it." HAYES: This also clearly has do with Jeb Bush moving quite quickly and quite decisively over the past several weeks, where it seems all but announced essentially that Jeb Bush is getting in. And a feeling among people and I talked to people in sort of finance donor circles in New York who really do look at the list of candidates and they scratch their heads and they think there isn`t a real front-runner right now. TUMULTY: In fact, Newt Gingrich told me that that is exactly what he told Mitt Romney. That there is a lot of runners, but there is no front runner. But right now, I think this primary is for the donors. A lot of people thought that the reason that Jeb Bush moved out so early was that there were rumblings of Mitt Romney. Now, the idea is that the reason Mitt Romney is moving is because of Jeb Bush. I mean, these guys are, you know, looking at each other like chess masters. HAYES: OK. There is two ways to interpret this news. One is this it is pathological. I mean, this is just an insane vanity obsession. The other is that, look, if you become a major party nominee to be president of the United States, in the country`s current political configuration, you have near a coin flip`s chances of being the next president of the United States. You know, people -- we fight these battles basically 55-45, 57-43, 51- 49, somewhere there. So, if you want to be president, and you can get the nomination, you`re just right on the doorstep again. TUMULTY: And you also have to figure if you come as close at Mitt Romney did, you`d probably sit there and think about, well, if this little piece had been played a little bit differently, if I had done this a little differently -- HAYES: Right. TUMULTY: -- I do think it`s interesting, though, that he is now signaling that he intends to run sort of hard right to Jeb Bush. And that I think is sort of new, that was a place he got shoved in the last go round. Now, he says this is where I`m starting. HAYES: Well, part of it also is one of the most successful things for him in that last primary race was going to the right of Governor Perry on immigration, which essentially destroyed Governor Perry before Governor Perry imploded. He had been pretty handily destroyed by Mitt Romney getting to his right on immigration. In some ways, it was kind of a high point tactical moment for Mitt Romney during that entire race. TUMULTY: And, don`t forget, Governor Perry is talking about running again. So, and we`re going to have -- you know, it appears we`ll have Mike Huckabee. These are going to be some very familiar names. In fact, you know, I think in some ways, this is sort of counterintuitive. But, you know, for Jeb Bush, this is probably mostly bad news. But the only good news in all of this is that with Mitt Romney in the race, he can actually position himself as the new face -- HAYES: A new voice, exactly. TUMULTY: Otherwise, it`s very difficult for somebody named Bush to do. HAYES: Let me introduce myself, my name is Jeb. You probably haven`t heard of me. I`m not Mitt Romney. Karen Tumulty, thank you very much. TUMULTY: Thank you, Chris. HAYES: The story of the GOP`s invisible presidential primary so far is the story of a Republican donor class that really has yet to find a candidate to coalesce around. As Karen just pointed out, Newt Gingrich says he told Romney, "There are no frontrunners in the 2016 race. We have runners, but no frontrunners." Many of the wealthy GOP donors whose support is crucial to someone like Romney seem to have misgivings about the prospective field of establishment candidates, seeing Chris Christie as genuinely damaged as a result of bridge-gate and other scandals. Jeb Bush is carrying baggage due of his last name and perception he may be too moderate to survive a GOP primary. Mitt Romney is the same old Mitt Romney, who`s lost twice already. Romney appears to be banking on the idea his potential rivals are seen as flawed enough the GOP establishment may be willing to give him one more chance. Joining me now, former RNC chairman and MSNBC contributor, Michael Steele. And, Michael, the reason the that the kind of invisible primary for this cadre of the donor class is so important, is that history of the Republican primary is, for all of the caterwauling of the base, it is the kind of the establishment choice who does emerge triumphant in the end, whether that`s Bob Dole, John McCain or Mitt Romney the last time around. MICHAEL STEELE, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: Yes, isn`t that a kick in the teeth, you know? For all of the noise that conservatives make about, you know, we want one of our own to be the presidential nominee, they go to the polls and they vote for the establishment`s guy. And that`s I think pretty much how this can play out unless -- unless some of those conservatives are able to galvanize a fresh kind of momentum, a little bit along the lines of a Rick Santorum in the last campaign, was able to do around a couple of issues, to position himself to go a little bit further, to last a little bit longer than anyone ever expected him to do. The other thing, Chris, that I`m fascinated by, a lot of folks are just focusing on the top names you see run across your television set everyday. I`m looking at the next tier of Republican governors who have yet to step in, at the Mike Pences, the John Kasichs, Bobby Jindals of the world, the Scott Walkers, when they get into this thing, that`s a whole different dynamic because you`re talking about two former governors in both Bush and Romney who did not govern through the deepest recession that our country has ever seen. These other guys did and they have come out on the other side and have a track record that they can talk to the nation about, which will be very interesting. HAYES: And they`re also I think in some ways, particularly compared to Jeb Bush, a lot less rusty. I mean, you know, Scott Walker whatever you think about him substantively, has won three elections in the span four years. STEELE: Yes. HAYES: With a lot of resources against him. And if I were Scott Walker, I would be touring around and touting that to every donor I could find. STEELE: Well, on that point, you can`t forget that a Scott Walker has a national base now. HAYES: Yes, from the beginning. STEELE: Remember, the national party galvanized behind those three efforts to get him re-elected. So, he`s got a national base. He is not going to start in the woods like a lot of people suspect. HAYES: Here`s the big question, the reason that this stuff matters this early is because of how expensive it is, about how much train is shifting from a resource perspective, particularly in the super PAC era post-Citizens United, the ways in which we call the invisible primary plays out. I mean, the big question, the big $64,000 question in this primary is in the Republican is, will it be the rule pertaining again that essentially the establishment candidate wins. I think there is good reason to feel like it finally breaks this time around. But I`m curious what you think. STEELE: Well, you know, I tried to break it in 2000 for 2012. We put in place some rules that would allow for a longer process and to have more of an opportunity for people who didn`t have money like a Rick Santorum or a Newt Gingrich -- who ultimately found a sugar daddy, but that`s a whole another conversation -- to sort of come to the table and ultimately play. The RNC is changing their rules and they have changed their rules to try to shorten the process. They don`t want what they call the "circus" to take place again. And it will be interesting to see how the conservatives on that stage position themselves to stay in the game, because if they don`t, you know, hit that top tier of cash, they`re going to be treading water on money and the only thing they have is their message, and whether or not that is able to carry them remains to be seen. I`m still of the mind, Chris, that at the end of the day, I think the party should nominate the most conservative person they can simply to work with through this process with its base that says, we lose presidential races because we don`t elect a conservative. Well, here is a chance nominate one and see if the country is ready to elect them. HAYES: Yes. And part of this also has to do with how the sort of conservative vote, or kind of moderate vote to the extent it exists in the Republican primaries, which is up for debate, the degree to which it gets distributed over a number of candidates. That`s part of why the war between, say, Ted Cruz and Rand Paul particularly is going to be so brutal on that right flank, because if there were run of those candidates who emerges dominant early on, that those voters could coalesce around, particularly with a shortened calendar, they could hit a momentum up draft, where the next thing you know, they`re the nominee. STEELE: Be careful what you wish for, baby. It could come true. HAYES: Michael Steele, thank you very much. STEELE: You got it. HAYES: If Romney and Bush are shaping up to be the GOP establishment candidates, whatever happened to Chris Christie? Well, he just attended his last Cowboys playoff season -- game of the season. And as his administration finds itself at the center, brand new questions about using the power of the office to bully political candidates. More on that ahead. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: The most wanted woman in France, the only suspect in last week`s attacks who remains at large, managed to leave the country before the attacks were carried out. Foreign minister of Turkey confirmed today that Hayat Boumeddiene, the common law wife of the Paris attackers, arrived ten days ago at an airport in Istanbul, where she and a companion were picked up by security cameras, as you see here. From there, Turkish officials reportedly traced her to the border with Syria, where she crossed into an area controlled by ISIS. "The Associated Press" reported today that French police believe there may be as much as six members of the attackers still at large, including one who`s seen driving a Mini Cooper driving registered to Hayat Boumeddiene. MSNBC has not independently confirmed that report. France continues to beef up security in the wake of last week`s attacks, deploying 10,000 soldiers to guard Jewish schools and other sensitive sites. And security was extremely tight in Paris yesterday as world leaders gathered for a sign of unity and solidarity with the French people. As many have noticed, however, the image of those leaders marching arm and arm does not include President Barack Obama or any other high level members of the U.S. government. The White House came under stinging criticism for being AWOL at yesterday`s march. Today, they answer those critics. That`s next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Some have asked whether or not the United States should have sent someone with a higher profile than the ambassador to France. And I think it`s fair to say we should have sent someone with a higher profile to be there. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: The White House responding to criticism that no senior administration officials attended yesterday`s record-setting march to Paris, a massive demonstration of unity and defiance in the face of terror. While some lower level State Department officials were present, the U.S., to some critics dismay, was not represented in the tableau of world leaders walking arm and arm in the march. In addition to issuing its mea culpa today, the Obama administration announced that Secretary of State John Kerry will visit Paris later this week. And while the image of world leaders marching together was instantly iconic, on second look, it might have been quite what it was cracked up. The zoomed out view circulated on Twitter revealed a large gap behind the leaders with the rest of the marchers apparently nowhere in sight. And while it`s been speculated this was done for security reasons, the impression it gives of the stage photo op, somewhat undermines the power of the moment, not a march meant to celebrate the freedom of expression embodied in "Charlie Hebdo", some of the leaders who marched alongside the French President Francois Hollande have records on press freedom that range from poor to absolutely shameful and abysmal. For example, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, whose country imprisoned more journalists than any other country in 2012 and 2013, and whose president has repeatedly taken cartoonists in particular to court. Meanwhile this weekend, the surviving staff of "Charlie Hebdo" who were at work on the next edition of the satirical magazine due to be put to bed tonight, Paris time. An image of the color has been released and, true to form, it depicts Prophet Muhammad holding a "Je Suis Charlie" sign, with a heading "All Is Forgiven". New issue comes out Wednesday, with a wider circulation of 3 million copies and I for one cannot wait to see what paper makes of its unexpected new allies. Joining me now, Philip Gourevitch, staff writer for "The New Yorker", and former editor of "The Paris Review". So, what do you -- what do you make of the sort of president, the lack of the American delegation and controversy today. PHILIP GOUREVITCH, THE NEW YORKER: Well, I think that, obviously, it looks bad in terms of the optics for the moment that he wasn`t there. But I think -- as your report makes clear, it was a real motley crew of world leaders to be supporting the spirit of free press and free expression that frankly even in France is not as freer as it is here. And I think that that compromised the political front that you saw to that march, while behind it, you had this genuine moving popular outpouring of a massive crowd. HAYES: That`s what I want to distinguish between, all the attention today is on that B-roll photo op of the world leaders, because it is amazing, you never see Netanyahu or Mahmoud Abbas in the same line. It`s like a "we are the world" concert march of world leaders. But the most important thing that happened is that millions of people took to the streets in an atmosphere of genuine fear and terror, right? In total defiance. This was an incredible citizen action. Forget the world leaders for a second, there were two things that happened to me on Sunday -- there was this what we`re seeing, which is citizens taking the streets saying we refuse to be scared, we stand here, we stand in solidarity, and then there was a bunch of world leaders with super spotty records on press freedom essentially trying to get their own agenda through. GOUREVITCH: I think that`s absolutely right and I think in some ways, that`s a kind of large scale or very visible graphic illustration of what actually is going to be happening nationally within France and probably in Europe afterwards, which is that you have this kind of unity, you have the popular sentiment for it. You have this mixture of fear and defiance that goes into taking a mark like that. Everybody is saying, well, you know, something might go off here but there are enough of us. Our odds are good and we stand for this and we won`t be silenced, and we want to mourn, and we want to reassert what we stand for. HAYES: Reclaim the public sphere. GOUREVITCH: The public sphere and the republican ideal and so forth - - all of that mixed up in there. My favorite sign from the march was one that got circulated quite a bit on Twitter and elsewhere, which showed a French-looking Frenchman carrying a sign saying something to the effect of "I understand the contradictions and the hypocrisies and the complexity of the situation, I`m marching anyway." HAYES: Right, exactly. GOUREVITCH: And I thought, you know, there you go. OK, that was the sentiment yesterday. The morning after, we had three days last week where three gunmen terrorized and paralyzed and laid siege to France. The morning after, you`ve got 10,000 French troops being deployed into the streets of France, that`s not usually the first sign of openness and free expression. It is a sign of a place besieged and very terrified and very unsure of its next moves. You`ve got the French far right waiting in the wings. You`ve got all sorts of fears. You have numerous small-scale but visible attacks on the Muslim community, and by no means is the Muslim community is an Islamist community. One of the things that`s striking about this attack is that the jihadists in Paris were all French. They were Frenchmen. These were not foreign forces. So, you have real tension in a country that has been in political crisis for 20 years and that represents a lot of the fault lines that you see across Europe right now. I think that Hollande had his big moment there and it`s going to be very, very rough sailing for now for the country coming out of it. HAYES: And one of the ironies here when you talk about that sign, I recognized the complications and hypocrisy, I`m marching anyway, is that, of course, there is all kind of sancrimony, sacralization that`s happening around "Charlie Hebdo", and understandably because these people did something in the face of violence that I feel like we all -- lots of people want to stand up for. But, of course, they were opposed to this. In fact, my favorite quote on this is, this is (INAUDIBLE) cartoonist for satirical weekly who told "The Dutch Weekly", "We vomit on all these people who suddenly say they are our friends." GOUREVITCH: Yes. HAYES: And you have to think of, you know, the Saudi ambassador to France is in that photo op three days or two days after the Saudi government is lashing someone in the public square for running a liberal blog, critical of Islam and the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. GOUREVITCH: The first 50 of a thousand lashes I believe. So, it`s a 20-week saga that we`re going to have here of this guy getting lashes. It`s disgusting. And I think that is -- there are hypocrisies and there are these intentions, and freedom of speech is by no means as unlimited in France anyway, so that you have Jean-Marie Le Pen, who is the founder of the National Front, the far right, he keeps getting fined for making remarks seen as revisionist about the Holocaust, and he lambastes political correctness from the right, while they lambaste it from the left. And the center is a very kind of weak and uncertain thing. The last president, Sarkozy, was the most unpopular president in the history of the republic until he got replaced by Hollande who is now the most unpopular. HAYES: And hanging all over this is the continued dismal economic morass of all the E.U., and that obviously colors all of this. Phil Gourevitch, thank you so much for coming by. GOUREVITCH: Great to be here. HAYES: While all eyes are on Paris, the first week of the l14th Congress got underway in Washington and it is probably a good thing for the GOP that the world`s attention was elsewhere. A look at what you might have missed, ahead. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: Governor Chris Christie and his lucky orange sweater once again proudly in attendance at the latest Dallas Cowboys playoff game. Unfortunately for the Cowboys and the sweater, it was the last playoff game for that team this season. Christie paid for his own travel this time, unlike last week`s game between the Cowboys and Detroit Lions, when Cowboys owner Jerry Jones picked up the tab. In the run up to this week`s game, Green Bay fans had a little fun with the infamous hug. They reenacted the embrace in tail gate parties prior to the game, prompting the "Milwaukee Journal Sentinel", they hugged, and they hugged, and they hugged some more. But later at the actual game, there was a damper on the Jones/Christie hugging between the actual Jerry Jones and Chris Christie. Particularly when late in the game, a high flying catch by Cowboys wide receiver Dez Bryant was later ruled an incomplete pass. So, instead of Cowboys first and goal, Packers retook possession, ran out the clock to 26-21 lead. Game over. So, this was a picture of the visiting teams owner`s box after that controversial Cowboys crushing call was made. Here is a close-up of the New Jersey governor truly destined for meme-dom. Green Bay politicos got to take their victory lap. Chief among them, Congressman Paul Ryan, who is sitting in the seats freezing his butt like a true Midwesterner, Governor Christie, did you need a hug now? This hilarious brouhaha is the least of Christie`s problems, of course. The federal bridge-gate investigation is under Christie`s closest associates is reportedly coming to a close and now, add to that, a new report by David Sirota of "The International Business Times" alleging the Christie administration may have improperly used easy pass toll records to shame at least one political opponent. No wonder big GOP donors are so desperate for a third Romney candidacy. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: Due to last week`s horrific murders in France, the 114th congress -- the 114th congress`s first week did not get a lot of air time, which is probably a good thing for the GOP. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) UNIENTIFIED MALE: House Speaker John Boehner reelected, holding on this his post despite an effort, an attempt at what some had dubbed a conservative coup. HAYES: In case you missed it, the 114th congress started out with an insurrection. UNIDENTIIFED MALE: John Boehner faced more defections from his own party than any speaker in more than 150 years. HAYES: 25 members of John Boehner`s own party voting against him. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nugent? Webster? Webster of Florida? Webster? HAYES: Within hours came the speaker`s payback. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He is going to punish these people in ways he can. HAYES: Two of the insurgents had been kicked off of the House rules committee. REP. JOHN BOEHNER, (R) OHIO: Because of some of the activities on the floor, two of our members were not put back on the committee immediately. HAYES: But maybe not permanently. BOEHNER: We`re going to have a family conversation, which we had this morning, about bringing our team together. HAYES: Anyway, all of this infighting made the speaker sad. BOEHNER: It does pain me to be described as spineless or a squish. HAYES: Because John Boehner is not a squish. He`s a guy who stands for things, stands by people, like the guy who once spoke to a white supremacist group and now has a GOP leadership position. Boehner defended him last week. BOEHNER: I know this man. I work with him. I know what`s in his heart. HAYES: So, with a team in place, the House was ready to get down to business. First up, voting on the rules for the new session. Buried in that giant package of rules, an attack on Social Security. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, House Republicans are posturing to force an explosive battle over Social Security`s finances before the 2016 presidential election. At issue, is a shortfall in Social Security`s disability program. HAYES: The Republicans are essentially holding funds for the Social Security disability program hostage over a projected short fall in 2016, leaving 11 million people facing an automatic cut in their benefits. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Resolution is adopted without objection. HAYES: Next, something called the Promoting Job Creation and Reducing Small Business Burdens Act. In layman`s terms, a Wall Street giveaway. A package of 11 bills designed to attack financial regulation, including a delay to the Volcker rule, which essentially bars high risk trading when a Wall Street bank does it for its own profit and not a client`s. The whole package was a financial lobbyist wish list. The Republicans thought they could quietly get it passed. They thought wrong. UNIDENTIIFED MALE: The yays are 276 and the nays are 146. HAYES: With a suspension of the rules in play, the GOP need two- thirds of the members to vote for it in order to pass it. UNIDENTIIFED MALE: The bill is not passed. HAYES: Most Democrats banded together. The tactic backfired, killing the legislation for now. Then... LOU DOBBS, FOX NEWS: The House today also approved a bill to define a workweek ad 40 hours. HAYES: Seems pretty harmless until you start digging a little deeper. DOBBS: The current threshold for the Obamacare definition of a workweek is 30 hours. HAYES: So, this legislation will increase the number of hours a person must work before that person`s employer has to officer health insurance under the Affordable Car Act, which the CBO says, will increase the number of uninsured and increase the deficit by over $53 billion. So, in case you missed it, and it`s likely you did, it was an eventful week for the GOP as it took control of both chambers. Boehner tried to take control of his party, the party took control of a legislative agenda, one that threats funding for the disabled, offers huge giveaways to Wall Street and attacks Obamacare. Given all of that, they`re probably pretty happy no one was paying much attention. (END VIDEOTAPE) HAYES: Joining me now, Democratic Congressman Chris Van Hollen of Maryland. And congressman, what do you make of the first week? REP. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, (D) MARYLAND: Well, I think you summed it up pretty well. It began with that insurrection in Speaker Boehner`s party with more Republicans than expected voting against him, and you`re already seeing the impact both last week and this week when even in the aftermath of the terrible terrorist attacks in Paris, Republicans are playing politics with the homeland security bill, right? They`re threatening to defund the Department of Homeland Security unless they get their way on certain issues ideological issues and Boehner has been being driven to that position by some of these Tea Party guys who want to use this as an opportunity to go after the president on immigration reform instead of focusing on protecting homeland security. So, we`re already seeing the -- he said he is not a squish, but he is already rolling over to the far right wing Tea Party folks in his caucus. HAYES: I thought it was so fascinating this Wall Street financial deregulation just as a statement of priorities. They suspended the rules. They tried to get it passed. They actually thought they were going to get enough of your colleagues to roll over, because it`s like, oh, who is paying attention. This stuff is complicated. It`s in the weeds, big finance wants it. They are going to come back at you again with normal order and probably pass it and the White House has already issued a veto threat. What do you think of it? VAN HOLLEN: Well, I mean, here is a perfect example of Republicans hoping the American people will forget it wasn`t that long ago where financial speculation and gambling on Wall Street brought the economy to its knees. Taxpayers had to help save the financial sector, and they`re hoping that people`s memories are short and will go back to business as usual and give these guys on Wall Street a break again by essentially, as you saying, delaying the Volcker Rule, which is supposed to curb some of the excesses that led to the financial collapse in the first place and left taxpayers on the hook. So, make no mistake, it`s very clear that they`re willing to put taxpayers at risk again in order to protect special interests on Wall Street. HAYES: OK, you and the Democrats have issued your sort of set of domestic policy agenda. Now, as a minority party in the House it`s pretty hard to get a vote on anything, to even get amendments. You don`t control a lot. What is the point of this? What do you want? What kind of agenda do you want to lay out as a sort of alternative to what we`re going to see from the Republican majority? VAN HOLLEN: Well, Chris, I want to lay out a plan that very clearly tackles the issue that I think is on the minds of most Americans and that is while there is lots of good economic news, right, jobs are up, stock market is up, there`s one economic indicator that has been flat-lined for a very long time and that is real wages, real pay, take home paychecks for workers. And so what we`re proposing is a very clear plan to, number one, use the tax code, which by the way provides preferences for corporate jets and race horses, but use that tax code to incentivize corporations to provide their employees with higher wages, especially when these corporations are ducting CEO bonuses. And what we`re saying is you can`t deduct these multimillion dollar bonuses if you`re not giving your employees a fair shake. And we`re doing other things, Chris, to clearly demonstrate that we understand the issue of middle class squeeze, including some tax cuts specifically aimed at working middle class families. HAYES: And there`s is no clearer line here than the idea for posing a new financial transaction tax on Wall Street while the majority party right now is trying to undo a lot of Dodd-Frank. Congressman Chris van Hollen, thank you very much. VAN HOLLEN: Thank you. HAYES: Moving from Washington to Hollywood, and the first award show of the season. All of the shutouts and surprises at the Golden Globes, next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: We`ll it`s not a good day to be part of the U.S. military social media team. The Twitter and YouTube accounts for U.S. Central Command, which represents U.S. military forces in the Middle East and South Asia, the were both hacked today. CENTCOM`s Twitter avatar briefly replaced by this image of a masked militant along with the phrases cyber caliphate and I love you ISIS. The hackers tweeted out threatening messages from the account for about half an hour. They also posted ISIS propaganda videos to the CENTCOM YouTube page. Both accounts were temporarily suspended. The FBI is now investigating. CENTCOM released a statement emphasizing the hack involved only public non-Defense Department sites and that no classified information was compromised. Quote, "we are viewing this purely as a case of cybervandalism." A rather embarrassing case of cybervandalism, all things told, since it took place simultaneously with a speech by President Obama about cyber security. Meanwhile in Hollywood last night, the entertainment industry faced up to its own embarrassing hack. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TINA FEY, COMEDIAN: Tonight, we celebrate all of the great television shows that we know and love as well as all of the movies that North Korea was OK with. AMY POEHLER, COMEDIAN: That`s right, the biggest story in Hollywood this year was s when North Korea threatened an attack if Sony Pictures released The Interview forcing us all to pretend we wanted to see it. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Sony Pictures hacks loomed large at the Golden Globe Awards last nigh. We`ll talk about the most offensive jokes, the least intelligible speeches and whether the civil rights epic Selma got robbed. All that and more next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: I don`t think I`m alone in saying at this point that Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are my favorite award hosts. Last night they slayed it again, hosting the Golden Globe Awards for the third, reportedly the last time. If it is, indeed, their final go around, then their victory lap was proof that Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are two of the best and most important comedians working today. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) POEHLER: Patricia Arquette is here, so wonderful. So, so wonderful, in the film Boyhood. Boyhood proves that there are still great roles for women over 40 as long as you get hired when you were under 40. FEY: George Clooney married Amal Alamuddin this year. Amal is the human rights lawyer who worked on the Enron case, was an adviser to Kofi Annan regarding Syria and was selected for a three person UN commission investigating rules of war violations in the Gaza Strip. So tonight, her husband is getting a lifetime achievement award. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: After mocking movie stars, Fey and Poehler had a bit of fun with their films. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) POEHLER: The Theory of Everything, wonderful movie this year. Yes. It combines the two things that audiences love, a crippling nerve disease and super complicated math. FEY: Selma: in the 1960s, thousands of black people from all over America came together with one common goal, to form Sly and the Family Stone. But the movie Selma is about the American civil rights movement that totally worked and now everything is fine. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Besides reaffirming the idea that Tina Fey and Amy Poehler should host every award show, I think one of the big takeaways from last night was the groundbreaking television the Globes honored. All the shows nominated in the category of best comedy series, with the exception of HBO`s sitcom Silicon Valley, are shows run by and about women: Jane the Virgin, Transparent, Orange is the New Black and Girls. The winner in that category was Transparent, a show about a retired professor who comes out as a transwoman, making Amazon, not Netflix, the first streaming network to win a best in television prize. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JILL SOLOWAY, CREATOR, TRANSPLANT: This award is dedicated to the memory of Lila Alcorn and too many transpeople who die too young. And it`s dedicated to you, my transparent, my mappa (ph). You`re watching at home right now. And I just want to thank you for coming out, because in doing so you made a break for freedom. You told your truth. You taught me how to tell my truth and make this show. And maybe we`re going to be able to teach the world something about authenticity and truth and love. To love. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Increasingly, the Golden Globes are seen as a precursor to the Academy Awards. And that does not bode well for the movie Selma. The only prize it took home last night was for best song. I`ll talk about the near shutout of Selma, plus the Bill Cosby joke everyone is talking about. Stick around for that next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) POEHLER: Into the Woods. Cinderella runs from her prince, Rapunzel is thrown from a tower for her prince, and Sleeping Beauty just thought she was getting coffee with Bill Cosby. FEY: You know, actually -- I don`t know if you guys saw this on the news today, but Bill Cosby has finally spoken out about the allegations against him. Cosby admitted to a reporter I put the pills in the people, the people did not want the pills in them. POEHLER: No, Tina, that -- hey, that`s not right. That`s not right. It`s more like I got the pills in the bathroom but I put them in the people. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Joining me now, Jenna Mock, pop culture journalist and host of So Popular with streams on Shift by MSNBC, Fridays at 11:00 a.m.; Jason Baily, film editor for Flavorwire.com, author of the book The Ultimate Woody Allen Film Companion; and Erin Gloria Ryan, managing editor of Jezebel.com. All right, I thought last night was deeply enjoyable as a spectacle overall. That joke, the Cosby joke, they -- Tina Fey and Amy Poehler essentially signaled they were going to make a Cosby joke. What did you think of that moment? ERIN GLORIA RYAN, JEZEBEL.COM: I thought it was great. I thought it was really great. And actually I thought that that was a really interesting that the Golden Globes tied into kind of more relevant news stories of the week. You know, the terror attacks in Paris, you think about bravery and you think about humor and you think about going for it. HAYES: Attacking sacred cows and violating taboos and... RYAN: Exactly. And I think that the best comedy is brave. And you have to be brave enough to know that you`re going to make people uncomfortable and do it anyway. And they both went for it. It was so good. HAYES: OK, but we -- here`s the one thought I had about that riff. And the fist part of the joke, the joke about the Sleeping Beauty, it occurred to me that if Ricky Gervais had made that joke, that he would have gotten a lot of condemnation, because it was unclear who that joke is on, right. I mean, it`s because it`s Tiny Fey and Amy Poehler that everyone reads it as like this sort of subversive violation of the taboo as opposed to a, quote, rape joke. RYAN: Right. Well, you know, she`s got a history -- Tina Fey has a history of making jokes at the expense of Bill Cosby. HAYES: About this particular issue like on Weekend Update years ago and also on 30 Rock. JANET MOCK, HOST, SO POPULAR: Well, it also came emergence out of a comedy space, right. Hannibal Burress talking about this issue is what lead it to come to pop culture prominence again. HAYES: Which itself is insane, right, that it was like there and then it was like someone had a smartphone and Hannibal Burress. MOCK: Yeah, and I noticed that a lot of people were still very, very much upset on Twitter, at least, about, you know, saying that rape is not funny, because it`s not funny, right? But what I found so interesting was the fact this bit, they point out that it`s not right, right. And then they go to impersonate him. And use the voice that everybody in America -- everyone in America recognizes. And by doing that, they then put the admission in his mouth and in his voice, giving these women probably the only time in their lives that they`re going to have an admission from Bill Cosby. HAYES: And part of what made it super uncomfortable in that room. RYAN: But the joke was on him. The joke was on him, the joke wasn`t on rape or on any of the victims, it was on him. JASON BAILEY, FLAVORWIRE.COM: Exactly. That`s the key difference between, you know, these two women making a joke about this and a meathead like Daniel Tosh making a rape joke, which where the victim of the joke is a victim of a rape as opposed to here the victim of the joke is Bill Cosby and all of us a little bit in our sort of discomfort with the incongruity between the voice and that persona and these monstrous things that he probably did. HAYES: That`s why that joke was so hard to watch, precisely that. The big winner in TV -- I thought a few interesting things about the TV category. One is the fact that network shows are essentially shut out, right, completely shut out. Which isn`t -- which actually when you think about what are the incentives here, right? Like networks need viewers, and cable shows need prestige and buzz, particularly subscription services. So it`s not that surprising that that would be the case, right? BAILEY: No, absolutely. And, you know, we have seen this shift over the past several years, really, as cable has sort of begin to cater more to a niche audience, which is really about the only audience that you can find. HAYES: Right, that`s right. Mass audiences are ebbing. BAILEY: Right, exactly. What`s really interesting, I think, about the Globes specifically with this is that, you know, when you put the awards that the Globes gave in film up against, you know, the films that are getting a lot of recognition and that will probably get Oscar recognition, they`re pretty much running on the same playbook. But when you put the Golden Globes up against the Emmys, they`re much more interesting choices. And I don`t know if it`s that`s because they are different times of year. If there are fewer other sort of TV awards. HAYES: And one of the big winners in TV last night, of course, was Amazon`s Transparent. Here is Jeffery Tambor accepting his award for best actor in a TV series. that is a picture of Jeffrey Tambor. He said some things in his speech accepting the award. He talks about sort of -- he had this great moment where we said this award, dedicate my performance to transgender community. Jill Soloway, who we played the clip of before we came, also really eloquent. What did you think of Transparent`s sort of victory last night? MOCK: I thought it was a great cultural space for transpeople, trans community it pushed forward. I think it`s a different kind of face on what trans looks like, right? You have a 70-year-old transwoman who was formally a patriarch of a family and now this person is transitioning into motherhood, into womanhood and seeing what that kind of looks like. We have a whole new family to show, right? We talk about modern family, but this is the ultimate modern family is this family. HAYES: It also occurred to me like so much to bring it back around to Cosby, right, so much of what people talk about with Bill Cosby and the legacy of the Cosby show was the unbelievable sort of cultural impact of just the slice of life view of a black family, right and that for sort of middle America TV audiences, this was seeing something that might have been foreign to their own personal experience, but was incredibly powerful as a cultural force. And it occurred to me that Transparent is an iteration of that, although it`s in a different space because it doesn`t have that kind of network reach that something like the Cosby Show had. BAILEY: Sure. What I think is also really interesting about just looking at the two awards that Transparent won last night was if you want just some sort of a barometer of how far the conversation on this issue has evolved in one year, look back at Jared Leto`s speech last year at the Golden Globes, which was just this sort of gross thing with all these little sneery jokes about being in drag and all of this stuff. HAYES: He won for Dallas Buyers Club, got supporting for playing a transwoman. BAILEY: Exactly. And so when you compare the tone of that speech to, you know, the sort of earnestness and warmth of both of these speeches that we`re talking about, it is really striking. HAYES: Alice Anders Stanley (ph) of the New York Times sort of dismissing it saying the Sony cyberattack revealed Hollywood isn`t exactly a profile in courage. It is an industry that rewards politically correct free speech. She would then go on to misgender the lead character. Although, again as the show of progress the New York Times then corrected it. RYAN: It did. Yeah, they identified Jeffrey Tambor`s character as a transman, and she is a transwoman. But I thought what was really interesting is it`s not -- art doesn`t make you do a thing political correct or not politically correct it`s what connnects with people and it`s what want to watch and it`s what resonates with people. And I don`t think that you can, from an inauthentic place, award something like this. I feel like the awards are definitely something that happens because people are interested in their stories. HAYES: OK, but then -- so then this is the big -- this comes to the Selma question, right, because the run up to the Academy Awards, and increasingly Golden Globes have been seen as a kind of early predictor. And last night Selma was basically shut out except for best song. What did you make of that as an Oscar watcher? BAILEY: First of all, be clear that the Golden Globes has a reputation as a precursor that is not actually entirely accurate. Out of the last 10 years -- they give two films best picture, because they split it out -- over the last 10 years, only four times have they picked the film that ended up winning the Oscar for Best Picture. So it`s sort of perceived as Oscar momentum. But it is -- and it is a matter of momentum. That is the main place where it comes to the conversation. We have talked about how Oscar campaigning is like political campaigning, and in that the momentum is a big issue. Selma basically was a victim of the fact that it opened very late in the year. It was being finished right up to the end. And a lot of these awards and critics groups didn`t get the kind of screeners that other films did and so it`s sort of -- that`s -- it`s sort of been a victim of that. HAYES: And partly we`ll get to see if it sort of builds up momentum between now and March. Jenna Mock, Jason Bailey, Erin Gloria Ryan, thank you all so much. That is All In for this evening. The Rachel Maddow Show starts right now. 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.>