Show: ALL IN with CHRIS HAYES Date: September 6, 2016 Guest: Steve Cortes, Paul Waldman, Molly Ball, Charlie Pierce, Cornell Belcher, Jonathan Allen, Michelle Goldberg
JOY REID, MSNBC HOST (voice-over): Tonight on ALL IN...
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HILLARY CLINTON, DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The scams, the frauds, the questionable relationships.
(END VIDEO CLIP) REID (voice-over): The post-Labor Day sprint is on and Hillary Clinton unloads.
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CLINTON: He clearly has something to hide.
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REID (voice-over): Tonight renewed controversy over the Trump Foundation and alleged pay for play, as team Clinton thinks they found the campaign`s first real scandal.
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PAMELA BONDI, ATTORNEY GENERAL, FLORIDA: Of course I asked Donald Trump for a contribution. That`s not what this is about.
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REID (voice-over): Plus, inside Trump`s big national security push today.
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DONALD TRUMP, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: A short number of years ago, it wasn`t even a word, and now the cyber is so big.
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REID (voice-over): Unpacking the new NBC News battleground map, reporter Gabriel Sherman on today`s massive headlines for FOX News. And the new push from the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce to, quote, guac the boat, in the wake of this...
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MARCO GUTIERREZ, FOUNDER, LATINOS FOR TRUMP: If you don`t do something about it, you`re going to have tacos trucks at every corner.
(END VIDEO CLIP) REID (voice-over): When ALL IN starts now.
REID: Good evening from New York. I`m Joy Reid in for Chris Hayes. With Labor Day now behind us and just 63 days left until election day, Hillary Clinton is moving to turn the tables on Donald Trump telling reporters on her campaign plane today that when it comes to his allegations of corruption, Trump needs to look in the mirror.
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CLINTON: His Trump Foundation has been fined for illegal activity when it made a political contribution to the attorney general of Florida. At the time, she was being asked by her constituents to investigate Trump University because of the effects that these people that she`s responsible for had experienced.
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REID: For weeks, Trump and his allies have been accusing Clinton of, quote, pay for play, alleging without a shred of legitimate evidence that as secretary of state, Clinton handed out political favors in exchange for donations to the Clinton Foundation. He was at it again tonight at a rally in North Carolina.
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TRUMP: Hillary Clinton using -- and you know this -- she was using State Department to dole out special favors and access to her friends and to her donors. Totally special favors. It`s called pay for play.
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REID: Trump continues to make that attack even though he boasted about giving money to politicians in exchange for them doing his bidding when he was still just a business man.
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TRUMP: I give to everybody. When they call, I give. And you know what, when I need something from them two years later, three years later, I call them, they are there for me.
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TRUMP: When I want something, I get it. When I call, they kiss my (INAUDIBLE), OK. Sure. They kiss my (INAUDIBLE).
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REID (voice-over): Wow. In September 2013, according to public records, the Donald J. Trump Foundation donated $25,000 to a political committee associated with Florida`s Attorney General Pam Bondi. The donation came just four days after Bondi`s office indicated that it was considering joining a New York State lawsuit against Trump University. Bondi subsequently decided not to join the Trump University lawsuit. Bondi admits she personally solicited a donation from Donald Trump, though a Bondi representative told the Associated Press the solicitation came several weeks before her office announced it might join the lawsuit. For his part, Trump seems to be denying that the conversation with Bondi took place at all.
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TRUMP: No, no, I never even -- I never spoke to her. First of all, she`s beyond reproach. She`s a fine person. Never spoke to her about it at all.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Pam Bondi?
TRUMP: She`s a fine person. Never spoke to her about it at all. Never.
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REID: Bondi says no one in her office ever opened an investigation into Trump University and that there was no basis to do so. But today she added to her defense the claim that she`s being used by Clinton for political gain.
BONDI: Oh, and let me tell you, I will not be collateral damage in a presidential campaign, nor will I be a woman bullied by Hillary Clinton. This is about her trying to deflect everything she did as Secretary of State.
REID: Last week the Washington Post reported and NBC News confirmed that Trump had paid a $2,500 penalty to the IRS in connection with the donation to Bondi after a complaint from a watchdog group. Because charities like the Trump Foundation aren`t allowed to make political donations. And The Post also reported that in 2013 the Trump Foundation did not notify the IRS of the donation to Bondi. Instead, Trump`s Foundation listed a donation also for $25,000 to a Kansas charity with a name similar to that of Bondi`s political group. Representatives for the Trump Organization told The Post that Trump has now reimbursed the Foundation for the $25,000 from his personal account. And they blamed the improper filing on a series of mistakes and clerical errors. Well, the Trump spokesman telling ABC News, this was a minor issue that was brought to the attention of the Foundation and addressed immediately. Yesterday after he said never spoke to Pam Bondi about donating to her campaign, Trump was asked what he had hoped to gain in exchange for the Bondi donation.
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TRUMP: I`ve just known Pam Bondi for years. I have a lot of respect for her. Never spoke to her about that at all. And I just have a lot of respect for her as a person. And she`s done an amazing job as the attorney general of Florida.
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REID: Joining me now, Steve Cortes, a surrogate for the Trump campaign. And, Steve, thank you for being here. Always good to talk to you.
STEVE CORTES, NATIONAL HISPANIC ADVISORY COUNCIL: Thanks for having me.
REID: So let`s go back in time just a little bit. I spoke to you about this issue last evening when you were so good as to come on the air with us on the holiday. And I asked you about what certainly does appear to the naked eye to be an exchange of a donation for backing off of an investigation. And this is what you said. I want to let you take a listen to it.
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CORTES: Donald Trump is a private citizen. Yes, he has admitted that to some degree there was pay to play that he tried to get access from politicians. Which, by the way, significant business people do all the time.
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REID: So do you stand by that, that there was in fact pay to play but that business people do that all the time?
CORTES: I do not, Joy, and I`m glad you have me on. You know, I admit when, I think, my candidate made a mistake, I made a mistake there. Because I was talking about a broader issue, which is the fact that business people, particularly very successful ones, they pay to play meaning that they want to have a seat at the table and they want to try to drive policy. But I made it sound like I was talking about this specific case, and I don`t believe that at all. So I`m glad that I can clarify that today. I don`t think remotely that Donald Trump was paid for play in this case. By the way, and here`s the reason I say that -- don`t take my word for it. The fact of the matter is, you mentioned New York. New York is literally the only state of all the attorneys general of 50 states, the only state that took any actual action here is the New York attorney general, who`s an incredibly politicized attorney general. The other 49 states decided there was nothing here. There was no there, there. Donald Trump didn`t pay off all 49 of them. He does give money to -- as a private citizen, he gave money to many politicians who he believed believe in pro- growth messages. And Pam Bondi in a state of Florida where he has enormous holdings and has built many, many jobs and built significant businesses, he supports her on philosophy, absolutely. But there`s no pay to play here. And I`m glad I can clarify that. And I misspoke, quite frankly.
REID: Mm-hmm. Well, I`m glad you did clarify that, Steve. I mean, but not all 49 states -- not all 50 states -- decided to investigate Trump University despite the fact that there were many, many complaints of people who felt they were bilked by the university. New York`s attorney general did investigate. Of course, no, he did not get donations from Donald Trump, but you have two other attorney generals who did. Now there`s been more push back in terms of Texas`s attorney general and them saying there was a really large gap of time between the donation and their decision. But in Pam Bondi`s case, it was four days. The gap between the donation and the decision not to pursue the case was literally four days.
CORTES: Right.
REID: So if it was not an exchange of a donation for backing off of the investigation, then how do you explain that small gap of time?
CORTES: Joy, I -- listen, again, I admit when I`m wrong, I admit when my candidate -- when the optics look troublesome. And the four-day gap, it looks troublesome. It does, OK. I`ll be the first to admit that. But also, let`s keep this in context. If we were to compare this -- let`s say it was pay for play. And I`m not remotely saying it was. But let`s say it was, $25,000 to the attorney general of the state of Florida, if we want to compare that to 200 million dollars to the Clinton Foundation for the government of the United States signing off on selling 20 percent of our total uranium capacity to the Russians. In scale, we`re not even --
REID: You keep bringing up a story that I`ve never heard of before. And I know that you want to get that talking point out, but I want to stay on topic.
CORTES: It`s not a talking point.
REID: -- (INAUDIBLE) limited time. I know it`s a talking point and I get that tactic, but -- you said that you admit that the optics of that four- day gap looked bad, looked troubling. What about the idea of saying that it was a different charity? Why would the Trump organization claim that they`d given the money to a completely different charity and not just admit that it went to Pam Bondi when she admitted she asked for a donation?
CORTES: Right. No, she did ask for a donation. And what happened -- and the details, honestly, are boring, Joy -- but down the line the Clinton -- excuse me, the Trump organization thought that the organization she was talking about which supports her campaign was a charitable organization. And so the Trump Foundation, then, thought it was a charitable to charitable donation, and it --
REID: Are you saying --
CORTES: -- in fact was not.
REID: -- that you think that the Trump Foundation did not believe that it was giving money to Pam Bondi`s organization, that they accidentally donated to her campaign?
CORETES: Well, do you think --
REID: Because they`re not saying that.
CORTES: OK.
REID: They went ahead and paid the fine, and he went ahead and did the reimbursement. So they seem to be admitting it was to her.
CORTES: Absolutely. Once it became clear it was an error. It clearly was an error. But by the way --
REID: But then how did they wind up giving it to a completely different organization? How do you explain that?
CORTES: Because it had the exact same name. And again, the details here are honestly pretty boring. But if you look into it, there`s nothing nefarious going on. And if you want to talk about nefarious donations to foundations, let`s look at Saudi Arabia giving tens of millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation. I mean, no --
REID: Well, but the thing is here -- and (INAUDIBLE) beware, we don`t have a ton of time. But, Steve, the reality is, is that all of the donations to the Clinton Foundation were discoverable. They were in a database that people were able to search. And there was no money going to the Clintons themselves, no direct benefit to them. They were like --
CORTES: Well, there was --
REID: -- give us this money for the --
CORTES: -- enormous direct benefit to them.
REID: -- charitable purposes.
CORTES: That`s not true.
REID: Charitable purposes in exchange for nothing. There`s been nothing found. But in this case -- hold on -- you`re asking for a lot of benefit of the doubt for your candidate here. But you have given no benefit of the doubt despite the fact that the AP tried to find something and admitted in their story that they didn`t find any pay for play. But they just said, it`s optics, right. Other news organizations have gone through -- they`ve said, well, we didn`t find any pay for play, but it`s optics. Here we have what does look like a --
CORTES: Right.
REID: -- quid, a pro and a quo, and you are saying, give us the benefit of the doubt.
CORTES: Joy, I`m admitting that I don`t love the optics of a four-day gap, OK.
REID: OK.
CORTES: That`s troublesome. I`m also saying this is peanuts. And the Clinton Foundation is --
REID: It`s actually --
CORTES: -- anything but peanuts.
REID: -- not peanuts.
CORTES: The Clinton Foundation --
REID: It`s $25,000 to her donation --
CORTES: -- is whales.
REID: It`s not --
CORTES: It is whales.
REID: You don`t have enough facts to support that.
CORTES: They spent $50 million on travel --
REID: You don`t have anything to support that (INAUDIBLE).
CORTES: That is not a foundation.
REID: Well, Steve, I`m going to end it here. But I can promise you we`re going to talk a little bit more about the media later. But if the AP or any media organization had a pay to play on the Hillary Clinton -- on the Clinton Foundation, trust me, it`s all we`d be talking about. This is not peanuts, it`s actually troublesome. But I appreciate you for admitting it. Good on you for admitting that it doesn`t look quite kosher. Thank you very much, sir. Really appreciate you.
CORTES: Thank you.
REID: All right. Joining me now is Paul Waldman, senior writer at the American Prospect and contributor to the Washington Post, and he`s the author of a piece headline, "Trump`s history of corruption is mind- boggling, so why is Clinton supposedly the corrupt one?" And also with me is Molly Ball, political correspondent for The Atlantic. All right. Thank you both. And, Paul, I`ll start with you because you just heard the defense that was put forward by Steve Cortes, who is a very enthusiastic, you know, surrogate for Donald Trump, that he essentially has tried to say that the Clinton Foundation is much worse than what looks like a very direct case of pay to play. How do you respond to that?
PAUL WALDMAN, CONTRIBUTOR, WASHINGTON POST: Well, I think we should look at the two different cases separately. It`s really not a question of what`s worse and what`s better. I think each of them should be examined individually. And one of the points that`s I`ve been making is that the Clintons, when it comes to this kind of issue, Hillary Clinton gets examined in a very different way than Donald Trump does. With Trump, you know, there`s so much Trump news going on that what tends to happen with stories like this and what was happening until a day or two ago with this story is that some news organization -- in this case, it was the Washington Post -- will do a story about it that one reporter will report, and then it gets published and then it just kind of disappears and we don`t talk about it again. And you have a whole string of these kinds of issues, whether it`s Trump University or the Trump Network or this case with Pam Bondi where there`s a story or two and then we just kind of move on the next time he says something outrageous. The difference is, when it comes to Hillary Clinton, when there`s something like, you know, the release of a new batch of emails, well, there`s a real kind of all hands on deck mentality among news media where dozens of reporters will be assigned to it and everybody will investigate every nook and cranny to see if there`s anything there that looks untoward. And even if there isn`t, it becomes this story that drags out over the course of days and even weeks and then gets mentioned again and again and again, whereas most of these Trump stories, they land and then they just disappear.
REID: Yes. And I think, you know, Paul Krugman was getting to that same issue, Molly, when he wrote a column really excoriating the media, including by inference his own newspaper and all of us, really, when he wrote, "Hillary Clinton gets Gored," comparing her to Al Gore. And he writes, "Many of Trump`s multiple scandals, like what appear to be clear payoffs to state attorneys general to back off investigating Trump University get remarkably little attention. Meanwhile, we have the presumption that anything Hillary Clinton does must be corrupt, most spectacularly illustrated by the increasingly bizarre coverage of the Clinton Foundation." I mean, indeed the Associated Press story admitted in the story that they didn`t find any direct quid pro quo, it was all about optics and about her meeting with Nobel Peace Prize winners. Why is it that these two are covered so differently?
MOLLY BALL, CORRESPONDANT, THE ATLANTIC: Well, look, I think Paul is right that the sheer volume of outrageous stories involving Donald Trump poses a challenge to the news media because there is always something new. Because there are so many scandalous things that he`s been involved in, and they come one after the other. I also think as you pointed out at the beginning of the show, there`s a difference in the way this plays into the candidate`s narrative or positioning. You have Trump basically admitting basically selling himself as someone who bribes politicians. And so the fact that these things come out that kind of look like he`s bribing politicians are not that off-brand for him. And he has painted Hillary Clinton as being the nexus of a corrupt system. Not the briber, but the bribee, which is a significant difference, the alleged bribee. And so this again plays into his narrative about a whole corrupt system of people whose personal and professional dealings are intermingled in government. And so it contributes to, you know, the crooked Hillary picture that he has portrayed. You know, it`s our job as reporters to talk about what the candidates say and to fact check it and to hold them accountable, but also to understand what voters are hearing. And it`s clear that what voters have heard about Hillary Clinton has a lot to do with this narrative. And of course we should portray what the facts are, and of course we should report on both candidates fairly and truthfully, but it`s our job to understand why voters are getting that impression as well.
REID: But isn`t it the case -- and I`ll ask both of you this question -- they`re hearing it from us. So what voters are hearing is the narrative as repeated by the media. So Paul, this sounds like a circular thing. Molly`s saying we need to tell voters what they`re hearing -- but they`re hearing it from us!
WALDMAN: Right. Those narratives don`t drop down from the sky. They`re not delivered on stone tablets. They`re created over the course of days and weeks and months and years by the stories that journalists make the decision to report and the way that they make the decision to report them. And so, you know, with the Clintons you`ve had this long 25-year history where, yes, they`ve done a lot of things that were questionable or skated close to the line. And you also have a lot of sort of non-scandals that successfully were kind of whipped up to the point where there`s now a presumption on the case -- on the part of a lot of people in the media that whenever something like this happens, even if the facts don`t really support any kind of nefarious goings on, then there must be something there. If there`s smoke, there must be fire. And you see that in a lot of the way these stories get covered. You know, even when you have, for instance, a batch of emails that gets released and you see that, you know, somebody --
BALL: Yes.
WALDMAN: -- tried to get some favor but didn`t get it --
REID: Yes.
WALDMAN: -- that`s still reported as though it`s something nefarious.
REID: You still do the story even though there`s not much to it. Well, we could have this discussion for a full hour, but we are out of time. Paul Waldman and Molly Ball, thank you very much. All right.
BALL: Thank you.
REID: Thank you. And still to come, confessions of a Clinton reporter. One journalist`s indictment of the media`s unspoken rules and double standards for covering Hillary Clinton. And ahead of tomorrow`s first ever "COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF FORUM", some important perspective on the list of 88 military leaders who endorsed Trump today and why Hillary Clinton says the Trump campaign is, quote, one long insult to those who`ve worn the uniform. That story in two minutes.
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REID: On the eve of tomorrow`s "COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF FORUM" hosted by NBC News and the Iraq And Afghanistan Veterans of America, and airing right here on MSNBC, well, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have been touting their national security chops on the campaign trail. In a town hall style event in Virginia this afternoon, the Republican nominee took questions from his highest profile military supporter, Retired General Michael Flynn.
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MICHAEL FLYNN, RETIRED GENERAL, UNITED STATES ARMY: To stay on ISIS a little bit, you have described at times different components of a strategy, military, cyber, financial --
TRUMP: Right.
FLYNN: -- and ideological --
TRUMP: Cyber is becoming so big today. It`s becoming something that a number of years ago -- a short number of years ago -- it wasn`t even a word. And now the cyber is so big. And, you know, you look at what they`re doing with the Internet, how they`re recruiting people through the Internet. And part of it is the psychology because so many people think they`re winning. And, you know, there`s a whole big thing -- even today`s psychology where CNN came out with a big poll. A big poll came out today that Trump is winning. It`s good psychology.
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REID: Today 88 retired generals and other military officials endorsed Trump in an open letter, citing the need for a, quote, long overdue course correction in our national security posture and policy. Among the few familiar names on that list is Retired Lieutenant General William Boykin of the U.S. Army who in 2003 cast the war on terror in religious terms saying, quote, we`re a Christian nation and the enemy is a guy named Satan. Then there`s Retired Air Force Lieutenant General Thomas McInerney, who in 2010 publicly backed an Army doctor refusing to deploy to Afghanistan because he didn`t believe President Obama was born in this country. While Trump now has the backing of 88 former military leaders, four years ago 500 retired generals and admirals took out a full-page ad supporting Mitt Romney. At a rally in Florida today, Hillary Clinton accused her opponent of disrespecting military service members.
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CLINTON: Trump companies have fired veterans because they had to take time off because they had to take time off to fulfill their military commitments. And we all saw him disparage the Khans, a gold star family who lost their son in a car bomb explosion in Iraq. His whole campaign has been one long insult to all those who`ve worn the uniform to protect our most cherished American values.
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REID: Joining me now is Charlie Pierce, editor at large for Esquire. All right, Charlie, let`s give Donald Trump a grade today for his performance. He sat with his favorite general, General Flynn, and he said the cyber is so big, the cyber is so big now, and then he pivoted to his CNN poll. What did you think?
CHARLIE PIERCE, EDITOR-AT-LARGE, ESQUIRE: Yes. I mean, you have -- given the fact it was, you know, a House audience with a House MC, yes, you give him a B for doing that fairly well. I mean, that pretty much assumes that the bar is located about 15 feet below the surface of the earth. But that`s the way it goes.
REID: And let`s also talk about the Clinton sort of retort to that, right. Because her basic case is that the Trump campaign itself is an insult to people who`ve worn the uniform. Let`s play the Clinton campaign ad that`s out on the road right now. It`s called Sacrifice. Take a look at that.
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CLINTON: I`m Hillary Clinton, and I approve this message.
TRUMP: I know more about ISIS than the generals do.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: John McCain, a war hero --
TRUMP: He`s not a war hero.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: He`s a war hero.
TRUMP: He`s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren`t captured, OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Donald Trump compared his sacrifices to the sacrifices of two parents who lost their son in war.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: How would you answer that father? What sacrifice have you made for your country?
TRUMP: I think I`ve made a lot of sacrifices. Built great structures. I`ve had tremendous success. I could go down the line.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: You think those are sacrifices?
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REID: It`s a pretty powerful ad, but Donald Trump, I think, by the polls is doing better with military families than Hillary Clinton is. Is that the kind of ad you think that can cut into that lead?
PIERCE: I think it ought to, but I think it ought to have cut into it six months ago and it hasn`t. So what do I know about anything in this campaign? I think one of the things that interest me about this -- and will certainly interest me tomorrow night when you guys have your town hall with the two of them -- I think Secretary Clinton is going to give you sophisticated, policy answers. I think Donald Trump is going to beat his chest. Now the problem with those two is number one, beating your chest is much better television. And number two, there is a feeling out there in the country that is just dying for Donald Trump to go three consecutive days without lighting his hair on fire.
REID: Yes.
PIERCE: And if he sits there tomorrow night and acts like a tough guy but not a crazy guy, he`s going to get an immense number of points. And the other thing that I find very interesting, particularly in light of what the president did today in Laos is to notice that how much of our politics and our culture and our very lives have been militarized since September 11th.
REID: Yes.
PIERCE: Foreign policy debates now are virtually -- well, there`s a little bit about trade now, which is a good thing. But by and large they`re all about the military posture. Even the backlash against Colin Kaepernick was framed in military terms. So I`m a little bit concerned when I look at the mixture of foreign policy and military policy has to be a nuanced one, which is why I think what the president did in Laos today was very, very significant.
REID: Yes.
PIERCE: And that`s the kind of thing I`d like to hear --
REID: Yes.
PIERCE: -- from both of them --
REID: Yes.
PIERCE: -- tomorrow night is how they`re going to handle that mixture.
REID: Absolutely. Well, thank you for also reminding us that politics, a lot of it, is theatre. And one of the reasons that Donald Trump has been able to stay in it is he understands the theatre. So it`ll be interesting to see how they`re both graded. Charlie Pierce, many thanks. Thank you. All right. And the "COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF FORUM" hosted by NBC News and the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America will air right here on MSNBC at 8:00 pm tomorrow night. Meanwhile, one of these things cannot be right: new polling shows Donald Trump ahead of Clinton nationally and Hillary Clinton leading Donald Trump in Texas. Making sense of the barrage of confusing new poll numbers with just 63 days to go straight ahead.
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CLINTON: Do I think there is a different standard for Trump than for me, and do I think that a lot of these issues that are raised about Trump are just missed because somehow the American public has factored into their assessment of him that, you know, that`s the kind of guy he is, right? And I can only say, look, this is not new to me. You can go back and look at a lot of what has been said about me by so many people going back 25 years. And so it`s something that I`ve just accepted.
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REID: On her campaign plane today, Hillary Clinton answered a question about whether the press might treat her with a different standard. Now we should note that pretty much every presidential campaign criticizes their press coverage at some point. But after decades in the national spotlight, what if it`s possible to actually detect trends in the way Hillary Clinton has been covered? The headline, Confessions of a Clinton reporter: The media`s five unspoken rules for covering Hillary. And the journalist and author of that piece will join me ahead.
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TRUMP: And by the way, today, much to the consternation of many, the new CNN poll was just released, and Trump is winning. Meaning -- meaning, you`re winning. I`m not winning. You`re winning.
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REID: With 63 days to go until the election, there`s a bevy of new data, as we head into the final stretch. But the question is, what to make of it all? Getting the most attention is a new CNN poll that shows Donald Trump with a two-point lead over Hillary Clinton among likely voters. But when CNN moves from likely voters to a larger share of registered voters, then it`s Clinton who has the narrow lead, three points over Trump. More on those differences and what they mean in a moment.
But for now, let`s look at some of the polling which will determine which candidate gets the 270 electorate votes needed to actually become president.
Right now, NBC News latest battleground map has Clinton with a 272-174 electorate lead before key swing states are even factored in. Again, you only need 270. And although it shows Texas as likely to go Republican, The Washington Post has a new 50 state poll in conjunction with SurveyMonkey that shows Trump is struggling in places Republicans have won consistently.
And perhaps the biggest shock is Texas, which shows a dead heat with Clinton at 46 percent for Trump -- 46 to Trump at 45 percent.
And joining me now to help make sense of all of this is Cornell Belcher, president of Brilliant Corners Research and strategies and former pollster for the Democratic National Committee.
All right, Cornell, let`s start with this CNN poll, because this has been sort of the big next Trump is always happy when he gets good polls. So he made this his talking point today.
When I dug through, and when the team here at All In dug through that -- through the cross tabs, what they call the cross tabs. We found that number one, the registered voter sample in the poll is actually larger than the likely voter sample. And she`s winning in the registered, she`s losing in the likely. So, it`s 886 interviews versus 786.
And then in the way that they did their demographic mix, for their likely voter sample, 28 percent of people they sampled describe themselves as Democrats, 32 as Republicans, 40 as independents, which is not what the real electorate is. There are nor Democrats than Republicans in the actual electorate.
Why would a polling firm structure their sample that way?
CORNELL BELCHER, BRILLIANT CORNERS RESEARCH: You know, it is really odd that -- because it doesn`t look anything like the actual electorate has looked the last couple times around. There should have been red flags to CNN and that polling sample all along the line there and how completely out of line with what the last couple elections have looked like.
Why none of those red flags stopped them and made them rethink some of what they were doing, or made them wait or go back in the field, it`s kind of odd to me. It really is odd to me, because they are an outlier here. And when you look at the demographics of that poll, it looks like a universe of voters that quite the last couple elections does not bear out what their world view is.
Part of this issue is, you know, good polling is both an art and a science, right. You know, you can know the science, but if you don`t get the art part of it right, it`s problematic, in understanding sort of who your electorate is going to be, is part of that art, who you let in as a likely voter is part of that art.
And I think in 2012, a lot of the Romney polling, a lot of the Republican polling, you know, they didn`t let in a more diverse, younger universe of voters, and that`s why they went into election day thinking they were going to win, when we on the Obama campaign did let that in and we understood we were going to win on election day, and they did not.
REID: And, you know, a lot of pollsters, where they make their bread and butter is not on the registered voter sample, because that is, as you said, just a universe that`s generally weighted the way the population is. But these polling companies go out on a limb when they structure their likely voter sample and as you said, you know, some polling firms like Gallup made their likely voter samples seem more Republican.
In this case, that does seem to be helping Donald Trump. But they are also showing him gaining among groups of independents, groups like, white men. Could there be an underlying trend that they`re catching even if their sample looks a lot more like a midterm electorate than a general election?
BELCHER: No, I think that`s right. I think we are in too love with the horse race number. And Joy what I think -- what I argue all the time, especially with clients internally is that the horse race number is the least important number on a poll, because the horse race number is the most fluent number in the poll. That horse race number is going to change over time.
What is important are the underlying factors in a poll about issues and about sort of where voters are.
Truth of the matter, if you go back to 2012, you know, Barack Obama had some really strong advantage over Mitt Romney on fighting for the middle class.
REID: Sure.
BELCHER: Making hard work pay. Those were just as predictable for some of us as...
REID: as the horse race.
Before we go, I want to really quickly get in -- I`m sorry to stop you, but we had -- you participated in a focus group that talked about some real softness among black millennial voters in terms of their interest and excitement about the campaign.
I want to play you a sound bite. Donald Trump was on Bill O`Reilly tonight and he was asked, if he`s not doing well with black voters because of birtherism. Take a quick listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILL O`REILLY, FOX NEWS: So you think your birther position has hurt you among African-Americans?
TRUMP: I don`t know. I have no idea. I don`t even talk about it anymore, Bill.
O`REILLY: No, I know. But it`s there. It`s on the record.
TRUMP: I don`t know.
I guess with maybe some. I really don`t know why. I really don`t know why. But I don`t think -- very few people, you`re the first one that`s brought that up in a while.
I don`t think so.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: So very quick compound answer from you, Cornell. Number one, do you think Democrats should be concerned about lack of strong support among black millenials for Hillary Clinton? And number two is birtherism hurting Donald Trump among black voters overall?
BELCHER: I think Democrats need to be concerned that a group of African- Americans, young African-Americans, who were cynical about politics before Barack Obama, are turning cynical about politics again, regardless of who the top of the ticket is. It`s not about Hillary Clinton.
And, two, is, you know, Donald Trump is struggling with African-Americans and Hispanics because of racism, plain and simple.
REID: Yeah. All right, Cornell Belcher, many thanks to you. Appreciate it.
BELCHER: Thank you.
REID: All right, another cable news earthquake today. Fox News settles a Roger Ailes lawsuit and one of their primary anchors suddenly leaves. Reporter Gabriel Sherman is here with the latest.
But first tonight`s tasty thing one, thing two coming up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
REID: Thing One tonight, an actual taco truck showed up on Donald Trump`s corner. It`s the latest reaction to comments made last week on this show by the founder of Latinos for Trump, Marco Gutierrez.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARCO GUTIERREZ, LATINOS FOR TRUMP: We need to understand that this is a different time and we having problems here.
REID: What problems? What problems are you talking about?
GUTIERREZ: My culture is a very dominant culture, and it`s imposing and it`s causing problems. If you don`t do something about it, you gonna have taco trucks every corner.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: So on Saturday, Trump visited a black church in Detroit as part of his new shore up the white suburban vote by appearing to court people of color strategy.
And while he was inside there were lots of protesters gathered outside. And one set of protesters brought more than a sign. The owners of Tacos el Cavallo (ph) rolled up with their very own taco truck. They parked it in the hope that the Republican presidential candidate might glimpse it on his way in, according to NPR.
And it was a smart business decision. The truck was so popular, they wound up resorting to surge pricing, which upped the cost of a tasty taco treat by a dollar.
Ah, American enterprise.
But that wasn`t the only notable response to #tacotrucksoneverycorner this weekend. We`ll tell you about something that could have real implications in November. And I`ll give you a hint, it`s Guac the Vote. Seriously. That`s Thing Two in 60 seconds.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
REID: In the days of social media reaction to the weird coded warnings of taco trucks on every corner, made by the founder of Latinos for Trump on this very show, one Hispanic organization is sensing an opportunity. The U.S. Hispanic chamber of commerce announced Guac the Vote, saying its initiative with one delicious ambition, to have a taco truck in front of every polling place in 2016.
They`re also encouraging taco truck owners to help register voters. In July, the traditionally non-partisan Hispanic chamber made its first ever presidential endorsement backing Hillary Clinton over Trump.
The Chamber`s and CEO, Javier Palomarez says of the latest initiative, "Taco trucks are American small business at its finest. 50 states of taco trucks at polling stations on election day would make one hell of a statement about the reality of Hispanic patriotism in America."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
REID: Two months after former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against her former boss and currently Donald Trump debate prep adviser, Roger Ailes, and six weeks after Ailes stepped down, Fox settled.
This morning, Vanity Fair broke the news that Fox paid out $20 million and offered an apology to Miss Carlson. The statement from Fox reading in part, we sincerely regret and apologize for the fact that Gretchen was not treated with the respect and dignity that she and all of our colleagues deserve.
Joining me now is MSNBC contributor and national affairs editor for New York Magazine, Gabe Sherman, who keeps breaking news on this ever growing story.
Gabe, glad to have you in the MSNBC family.
So let`s get the latest on this. I think what was weird, because last time that you and I spoke, you were saying that essentially to get around the clause in her contract, that she couldn`t sue Fox, Gretchen Carlson sued Roger Ailes.
So why is Fox the one settling?
GABE SHERMAN, NEW YORK MAGAZINE: So, as I reported, a condition of Roger Ailes` severance agreement with 21st Century Fox, is that he is indemnified, that they will cover his legal expenses.
So, it`s a maneuver so that even though she sued him personally, the parent company will pay his legal expenses.
REID: And will this settlement impact in any way the other women? Because she`s not the only one.
SHERMAN: Well, as other people have reported and myself, there are other women, I think two of other women, who have come forward, that are in final settlement negotiations that could be wrapped up.
So we know that at least three women now, including Gretchen Carlson, will have settled. Perhaps there are more to come forward.
REID: Will Ailes end up paying any money out of his own pocket?
SHERMAN: Well, too early to tell. The Gretchen case is closed. 21st Century Fox has said, my sources there, that he will not be paying the settlement.
REID: The other sort of weird thing about this story has been the Greta Van Susteren of it. She was also announced today to be leaving the company. What can you tell us about that?
SHERMAN: Well, really, there`s two sides of it. Inside Fox, they`re saying that she attempted to renegotiate her deal after Ailes left. Rupert Murdoch and Fox executives pushed back, so she exercised what`s called a key man clause in her contract that allows her to leave if Roger Ailes is no longer running the network.
Now, sources close to Gretchen have told me that she was unhappy at Fox, as she said in her Facebook statement, that she was unhappy at Fox at she decided now is the right time to get out.
REID: What was weird about the sort of exit statements, right ,was that it was indicated that she was unhappy with the climate at Fox News, but she has been fully supportive of Roger Ailes.
SHERMAN: Yes, she has. But what`s interesting is while she supported him publicly, I have heard that she was not aware of the sexual harassment allegations against him, and when she realized the scope of all the women who were coming forward, I think she was troubled sources close to her say.
REID: Any scoop on where she might be going?
SHERMAN: I think she`s ambitious. I think she`s going to try to land somewhere else.
REID: Yeah. Well, we shall see. Gabe Sherman. Thank you so much. Great reporting.
All right, up next, a campaign reporter spills the tea on the secret for covering Hillary Clinton with five, five unspoken rules. That`s it next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
REID: Of all the things that have been written about Hillary Clinton lately, this headline caught our eye: confessions of a Clinton reporter, the media`s five unspoken rules for covering Hillary.
Journalist Jonathan Allen writes, as a reporter, I get sucked into playing by the Clinton rules. This is what I`ve seen in my colleagues and in myself.
And according to Allen, here are the rules.
One, everything, no matter how ludicrous sounding is worthy of a full investigation by federal agencies, congress, the fast right-wing conspiracy and mainstream media outlets.
Two, every allegation, the no matter how ludicrous, is believable until it can be proven completely and utterly false, and even then it keeps a life of its own in the conservative media world.
Three, the media assumes that Clinton is acting in bad faith until there`s hard evidence otherwise.
Four, everything is news worthy, because the Clintons are the equivalent of America`s royal family.
Five, everything she does is fake, and calculated for maximum political benefit.
And joining me now is the author of that piece, journalist, Jonathan Allen, head of content for Sidewire and co-author of the book, "HRC: State Secrets and the Rebirth of Hillary Clinton;" and Michelle Goldberg, columnist at Slate.
All right, Jonathan, I`m going to start with you on this first, because backing up sort of your statement of the Hillary Clinton rules that she`s sort of guilty until proven innocent, and that those rules by implication don`t apply to other people -- think Donald Trump -- Mediaite posted an analysis of how much cable news, us, covered Clinton`s Trump`s pay to play versus Clinton`s Foundation story.
In a search of cable news transcripts for the past month, there have been 644 mentions of the Clinton Foundation and pay to play on the three major cable networks and conversely the number of times pay to play and Pam Bondi have been mentioned, 11.
Your thoughts?
JONATHAN ALLEN, JOURNALIST: I`m not surprised.
Look, I mean, there`s more information available about Hillary Clinton than any other public figure ever, a lot of it required to be disclosed, some of it voluntarily disclosed, and reporters do what they can. They go look at that stuff and they write as much as they possibly can about it and say, look, there`s part a and part b and they must equal part d.
We haven`t seen any fire in the Clinton Foundation and State Department nexus.
Now, look, I think it`s reasonable for people to wonder whether the president will be unduly influenced by people who contribute money to her campaign or to her foundation or to give her money for speeches, those are completely reasonable questions. I think the imbalance in coverage is telling, particularly where you have a situation with Donald Trump where there`s at least as much smoke there as with any of the individual Clinton Foundation transactions.
REID: Yeah. And it`s more specific.
ALLEN: Much more specific.
REID: And to that point, Michelle -- yeah, absolutely. And the other issue that I think you`ve heard a lot of people -- at least, Michelle, in my sort of social media world complain about, is that the media has dropped the issue of Donald Trump`s taxes, which seems to be a salient issue.
Let`s take a listen to Hillary Clinton hitting that very topic today on her plane.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLINTON: The list goes on and on -- the scams, the frauds, the questionable relationships, the business activities that have stiffed workers, refused to pay small businesses; so clearly his tax returns tell a story that the American people deserve and need to know. He clearly has something to hide. We don`t know exactly what it is, but we`re getting better guesses about what it probably is.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: I mean, given the fact that there are these Clinton rules that we`re talking about, and that she has such a toxic relationship with the press, the press clearly is not very favorable toward her, is it going to work for Hillary Clinton to try to goad the media into covering things like Trump`s taxes, et cetera?
MICHELLE GOLDBERG, SLATE: I don`t think so, becuase I think the problem with the media is not that they`re not covering things that Trump has done wrong; it`s just that Trump, there`s so many outrages, so many violations of political norms, so many scandals, so many lies, so much secrecy, that it becomes very scatter shot, right. The news sort of expands to fit the space available.
And so in Hillary`s case, it`s a couple of things that are rehashed over and over again and kind of picked over for any little scrap of news.
With Trump, there`s such a churn of, you know, new information, new outrages, that you kind of -- you can barely keep up with it. So, the weird thing about Trump is that he seems to benefit by replacing each old scandal with a new scandal.
REID: With another one.
And Jonathan, the thing that is sort of weird and interesting, and has got to be frustrating for the Clinton campaign is that the things about her that you hear just one or two things, they create an ingrained image that you hear reflected back from voters.
Whereas with Trump, do you see any evidence that the things about him are becoming engrained as his character in voters` minds?
ALLEN: Well, I think we see with his honesty and approval rates that he has also been hurt by a variety of things that he`s said and done. So, I don`t think Donald Trump is getting off scott-free, as it were.
But, look, the biggest prize in journalism is the takedown of the Clinton empire, right. And so reporters are going to go after that, editors are going to go after that. There`s an incentive to do it. It sells.
And as a result, they have a tendency to then have a sort of connection of interest, I think, with the Republican candidate here, of going after Clinton and amplifying eachother.
REID: And I think that`s sort of provably true, right, that there is this sort of connection of interest. You have groups like Larry Clemens`s (ph) Judicial Watch that will keep feeding this beast forever.
Can Hillary Clinton, you know, counterreact that by letting reporters on her plane and traveling with them?
GOLDBERG: I think a little bit.
I mean, again, becuase like I said I think that the news expands to fit the space available. And the fact that she doesn`t give people anything new ever, you know, and this kind of -- and also just the secrecy does create a presumption of, that she`s hiding something, as opposed to to just that she hates the press and cherishes her privacy.
And so, yes, I think that both kind of establishing more of a rapport with the press would be helpful and also just giving them something else to report on.
REID: Yeah. And Donald Trump will keep obviously doing that. Do you see any Trump rules developing, very briefly, Jonathan?
ALLEN: The Trump rules I see developing, are no matter what reporters say about what he`s done, no matter what their report about what he`s done, he does not seem to be losing his base.
REID: Yeah. And he doesn`t seem to be losing his base no matter what, whereas Hillary Clinton she has a huge perception problem with people -- they know her, but they still think there`s something deep...
GOLDBERG: I mean, Trump also has a perception problem. I guess the point is, is that it`s amazing that Hillary`s poll numbers are eroding in the wake of exoneration after exoneration after exoneration.
REID: And that just doesn`t seem to be abating anytime soon.
All right, Jonathan Allen, Michelle Goldberg, thank you both.
And 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