All In with Chris Hayes, Transcript 06/01/15

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST (voice-over): Tonight on ALL IN -- BRUCE JENNER, REALITY STAR: Bruce always had to tell a lie. Caitlyn doesn`t have any secrets. HAYES: Caitlyn Jenner tweets out her "Vanity Fair" cover and breaks the Internet all over again. Tonight, the inside story of an American icon`s public transition. Then, as Rand Paul retreats from his attack on Republicans -- SEN. RAND PAUL (R), KENTUCKY: Hyperbole can get the better of anyone. HAYES: -- will bulk collection of phone data survive the fight over the Patriot Act? Plus, jaw dropping new numbers on police shootings from "The Washington Post." And good news for Texas gun owners who want to pack heat in college dorms, cafeterias and classrooms. ALL IN starts right now. (END VIDEOTAPE) HAYES: Good evening from New York. I`m Chris Hayes. In what was an instantly iconic cultural moment, today, America was introduced to Caitlyn Jenner. "Call Me Caitlyn" gracing the cover of the July issue of "Vanity Fair" magazine with a portrait by Annie Leibovitz. According to an accompanied piece written by Buzz Bissinger on March 15th, quote, "Bruce Jenner went to the surgeon`s office in Beverly Hills thinking the facial feminization surgery would take about five hours. Caitlyn Jenner left the office in Beverly Hills after the procedure had taken roughly 10 hours." In a video on "Vanity Fair`s" Web site, Caitlyn Jenner described her thoughts. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JENNER: I was probably at the gauge because I was running away from a lot of things. Very, very proud of the accomplishment. I`m not -- I don`t want to diminish that accomplishment. The last few days doing the shoot was about my life and who I am as a person. Bruce always had to tell a lie. He was always living that lie every day. He always had a secret from morning until night. Caitlyn doesn`t have any secrets. As soon as the "Vanity Fair" cover comes out, I`m free. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Caitlyn Jenner`s first tweet, "I`m so happy after such a long struggle, to be living my true self. Welcome to the world Caitlyn. Can`t wait for you to get to know her/me." Caitlyn Jenner now has 1 million followers on her newly established Twitter handle. Earlier today, she became the fastest Twitter user to each one million followers ever, faster even than President Obama when he launched @POTUS two weeks ago. Today ushered in the next chapter of the transition of the Olympic gold medal superstar and reality TV staple who has for the past 65 years been known as Bruce Jenner. He first publicly announced he was in the process of transitioning to a woman in an interview with Diane Sawyer broadcast April 24th. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JENNER: I look at it this way: Bruce always telling a lie. He`s lived the lie his whole life about who he is. And I can`t do that any longer. DIANE SAWYER, ABC NEWS: Are you a woman? JENNER: Yes. For all intents and purposes, I am a woman. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Now with this first public photograph as Caitlyn, Jenner has become the most famous transgender person to go through a transition in the public eye in history. Caitlyn Jenner will have her own reality show on E!, and will making her first scheduled public appearance on July 15th when she will be awarded the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at the ESPN ESPY Awards. Joining me now, Congressman Mike Honda of California, who tweeted in February, quote, "As a proud grandpa of a transgender grandchild, I hope she can feel safe at school without fear of being bullied." And, Congressman, it`s a great pleasure to have you. First, just your sense of the -- REP. MIKE HONDA (D), CALIFORNIA: Thank you. HAYES: -- import of this as this kind of cultural moment today. HONDA: Well, I think it`s a moment, like you said, a culture moment, but it`s also a moment of teaching and learning. And I think that Caitlyn had done a wonderful job of instructing people about his life, her life, and the distinction. And I think she was very hard on herself when she said that Bruce Jenner was a liar. Well, society had a lot to do with it and didn`t allow that kind of exposure to happen. I hope that her story today and in the future will be able to mature our population and make us a little bit more open and eliminate a lot more closets for young people. HAYES: You know, I find her discussion of this real sort of unburdening that`s happening, the idea of living with the burden, profoundly moving. And part of the reason I wanted to talk to you is, you`re someone of the roughly same age cohort as Jenner. And, obviously, this is something I think there`s a certain kind of learning curve for folks of that cohort. I`m curious how you`ve gone through that yourself. HONDA: I think the folks of my cohort, a couple of changes occur almost immediately. It`s a change of pronouns and even searches for a more appropriate pronoun. And I think that how we look at birthing and how children are assigned a gender is going to be important, also. I think people of my age group have a lot of learning to do, but it`s something that helps us become more open, more nurturing, more embracing, and it`ll save a lot of lives. HAYES: What do you mean by that? HONDA: I think suicide among youngsters who are in question about their own gender, the fact that they`re being bullied all the time, and the effort to protect them from bullying is minimal right now. But with this kind of discussion, I think that more and more youngsters, more and more people will be aware of what kind of hurt and how far that hurt drives into a person to a point of committing suicide. And I think we have youngsters who when they first declare themselves to parents are very powerful image and person of a child`s life if there`s a resistance from a youngster declaring herself in the case of my Malisa, this resistance, that`s the initiation, the first plank of the door to the closet. To the extent that we`re open and we`re nurturing and engaging and allowing them to express themselves, that door will not exist. HAYES: Do you have conversations about this issue with your colleagues? Obviously, there are tremendous legal impediments, not just cultural impediments, just prejudice, there are legal impediments to trans folks out there. Tell me the level of kind of familiarity, literacy, open- mindedness among your colleagues. HONDA: Well, I think that that`s an ongoing process. We`re still going through the acceptance of the letters LBGTQ. And although we`ve passed laws and the Supreme Court has made judgments, we still have a way to go, and I think open dialogue and discussion is healthy. I have a colleague from Florida and we have our occasional chats. I think right now, for myself this past weekend, I spent time with a gentleman by the name of Joel Baum who is the executive director of Gender Spectrum group in Emeryville, California, who work versus closely with the endocrinologists at UCSF, University of California-San Francisco, who is an endocrinologist, Steven Rosenthal. They`re collaborating and looking at the science and the sociology of transgender. And I think from their work we can come up with some wordsmithing on how to adjust our policies in an appropriate way. HAYES: Congressman Mike Honda, a great pleasure. Thank you for joining me tonight. HONDA: Thank you. HAYES: There are 700,000 transgender men and women in the U.S., according to the Williams Institute UCLA. Most of them not famous and many are often the target of open hostility but there are positive legal developments. Today, Department of Labor Occupational Safety and Health Administration, OSHA, issued a four-page guide to rest room access for transgender access to ensure transgender employees are able to work in a manner consistent with how they live the rest of their daily lives. And said, quote, "Transgender employees should have access to the restroom that correspondents to their gender identity and not be forced to use a third or gender neutral bathroom." Also today in Connecticut, both houses of the state legislature passed a transgender rights bill to remove barriers to changing gender on birth certificates according to a press release. But according to the movement Advancement Project, most states seen here as red or light orange score poorly when ranked on LGBT policy issues that include marriage, adoption, nondiscrimination, safe schools, health and safety and ability for transgender people to be able to change the gender on identity documents. Joining me now Parker Molloy, transgender rights advocate, writer at upworthy.com. Parker, let me start with asking this question. There are so many tangible concrete battles that are being fought for equality in this space. I want to talk about your assessment of the kind of import of this moment today, this cultural moment, how it will impact those battles that are happening on the ground. PARKER MOLLOY, TRANSGENDER RIGHTS ADVOCATE: Sure. Thanks for having me, Chris. I believe that it all kind of ties together. I mean, you see these legal developments, the OSHA pamphlet essentially, along with the Connecticut`s new law. These are great things. And these are -- this is a positive step forward. You combine that with Caitlyn Jenner popping up on the cover of "Vanity Fair" and there`s just so much visibility right now. And I believe that it all kind of ties in together. As you mentioned things -- most people aren`t like Caitlyn Jenner. Most people have to go to a day job and don`t have the luxury of being able to hide away like that. So, OSHA`s recommendation is really important in the sense it`s trying to help the vast majority of transpeople. Now, the issue, though, is the fact that this is just a recommendation. It doesn`t have any real teeth to it. There`s nothing that can force people to follow it. And while they do note that the courts have ruled in favor of transpeople in these cases, these are expensive battles to take to court. And so, that makes it prohibitive in another sense. HAYES: You know, the point you made there strikes me as an essential and important one about the kind of day-to-day friction with a world that isn`t necessarily in the most enlightened space in conceiving of this. Just -- and sometimes I think probably out of ignorance more than malice but a combination of both. What are policies that you think could genuinely get us towards a better world in that respect? MOLLOY: Sure. I think the first thing that needs to happen there is that we need to see work place protections and not to just rely on those protections being, you know, the Department of Justice ruling or OSHA ruling something. We need to have that in legislation, you know, which is why I think it`s really important we get a trans inclusive Employment Nondiscrimination Act passed through Congress without, you know, any excessive loopholes that allow people out of that. Because we just need to make it clear that it`s not OK to deny someone work and it`s not OK to fire them just for being trans or for coming out as trans, just -- because as long as that`s the case, it legitimizes this argument that trans people aren`t OK, that there is something wrong with them. They`re not welcome to be around children. Just recently, there was a case at a Barnes & Noble where a trans employee who is now suing Barnes & Noble claims that she was fired after coming out as trans, and part of the reason that was given was think about the children. This is a family are store. Now, nothing hurts more than hearing people say that you can`t be around children or you shouldn`t be around children simply for existing. And that comes from this culture that`s built in that really envelops all of us. HAYES: Yes, that`s interesting. This sort of essential front line nature of actual statutory work place protection is a really key point. Parker Molloy, thank you very much for your time. Still ahead, just how Texas just voted to allow guns in more places on college campuses. Plus, Rand Paul takes on his own party over the Patriot Act. But, first, a brand-new contender for president, and an update on our ALL IN 2016 fantasy candidate draft. That`s next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: Today, we have another entrant in the presidential race which means more points on our ALL IN fantasy candidate draft board. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: And, ooh! ANNOUNCER: Lindsey Graham, if you like John McCain, then you`re going to love Lindsey Graham. SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: My illegitimate son, Lindsey Graham, is exploring that option. ANNOUNCER: He`s a southern hawk from the home of the gamecocks. If you have a war, he is for it. Put your hands together for South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham. (APPLAUSE) HAYES: Sam, my man, your reaction to Lindsey Graham. SAM SEDER, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: Not happy with that. He`s more of a whammy pick without actually being a whammy pick. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Senator Lindsey Graham declaring his run for GOP nomination in his home state of South Carolina despite, as you can tell from Sam Seder`s reaction on our draft show, having something less than a groundswell of support from the Republican faithful. Graham is not our only newly minted presidential candidate. Former Baltimore Mayor Martin O`Malley and former Maryland governor, a Democrat, announced his White House run in Baltimore over the weekend in an event that drew protesters tied to the Black Lives Matter movement who heckled O`Malley during his announcement. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MARTIN O`MALLEY (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Today, to all who can hear my voice, I declare I am a candidate for president of the United States, and I am running for you. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Those keeping score at home, Michael Steele is currently leading in our ALL IN fantasy candidate draft. Though there is a long way to go. A lot of candidates still on the board. For the latest, be sure to check out our Facebook page where we have our draft updates. Now, Martin O`Malley joins a Democratic presidential field that already has two declared candidates, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, the latter of whom has been drawing massive crowds, larger than many had expected, including an estimated 4,000 people at a Minneapolis town hall yesterday. And with Republican Senator Lindsey Graham`s entry into the race today, now a full 5 percent of the Senate is running for president. The battles are playing out on the Senate floor where cameras recently caught Graham rather hilariously rolling his eyes at rhetoric from fellow 2016 candidate Rand Paul. We`ll bring you the back story on what prompted that, next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: All right. Last year, the senior senator of Kentucky, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, endorsed the presidential ambitions of his state`s junior senator, saying that if Rand Paul runs for president, quote, "He`ll be able to count on me." But now, Paul has handed a huge defeat to his home state colleague and just about the most public and humiliating way possible. The clash came after the House passed a bill earlier this month, the USA Freedom Act, which would extend three expiring provisions of the Patriot Act, but also change the law to end the federal government`s bulk collection of phone records, a practice first exposed by Edward Snowden. Now, under the House bill, those records would instead be held by telecom companies like Verizon, though the NSA could still get a court order to access them. Mitch McConnell didn`t like that. He wanted to keep the Patriot Act pretty much unchanged. So, he helped block Senate passage of that House bill in hopes he could replace it with something he liked better. It was a gamble by the Senate leader and it failed spectacularly. Now, despite warnings from the White House, McConnell and many others have dire consequences, the Patriot Act provisions expired last night at midnight without Congress passing anything. This despite the fact that McConnell had finally relented and was willing to pass the House bill during a special session yesterday. So, why couldn`t he get it done? Well, Rand Paul, the man McConnell endorsed for president, Paul blocked passage, using the special session to lecture his colleagues about what he sees as their willingness to give away Americans` freedoms. Things got pretty nasty. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) PAUL: People here in town think I`m making a huge mistake. Some of them, I think, secretly want there to be an attack on the United States so they can blame it on me. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Paul admitted today that might have been hyperbolic. Still, his maneuvering energized his libertarian-leaning supporters and infuriated his Senate colleagues with Senators John McCain, Dianne Feinstein, suggesting Paul was putting his political ambitions ahead of national security. Republican senators tore into Paul at a closed door meeting Sunday evening which Paul himself skipped and which Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois dubbed the "we don`t stand with Rand" meeting. Tomorrow, when Paul runs out of tools to block it, the Senate is expected to move forward on that House bill, the freedom bill, reinstating the provisions but blocking bulk collection of phone records by the government. And the big question now, after all of this political posturing in what has been the most dramatic debate over American surveillance probably since September 11 is whether after all of this, anything will have truly changed. Joining me now, one of the few representatives to vote against that House bill, Congressman Ted Lieu, Democrat of California. Congressman, thank you for joining me. OK. I`m confused. And I would love for you to disabuse me of my confusion. So, 215 basically, we saw the government can say give us three months of phone records, every metadata, every phone record call, not the content, but who is calling whom, we want to look at it. We want to store it. What is different about the way the Freedom Act has changed that? I still don`t quite understand it. REP. TED LIEU (D), CALIFORNIA: Well, the Freedom Act will essentially have private sector telephone companies hold on to these records, and that`s one reason I voted no against the Freedom Act, because I don`t believe private sector companies should be an arm of law enforcement. HAYES: Right. But this is what I don`t understand. Don`t they by definition have these records? Like the idea of holding on the records, like Verizon presumably can access this if they need to, I don`t understand what affirmatively they`re being asked to do here. LIEU: Well, here is the whole rub with all of this. Even though the Patriot Act has expired, the NSA can still do everything it virtually wants to do if they just get a warrant. The whole issue here, can they spy on Americans without warrants? And I support what Rand Paul did. And I might add, by the way, that since the Patriot Act provision expired today might be a good day to call your mother. It will be the first time in many years that the federal government is not seizing your phone records. HAYES: OK. On this -- first of all, on this warrant question, right? My understanding, though, again, let`s get into the details, the reason that the document that leaked, right, the Snowden document that leaked, was that not a warrant, or was that just an order from the federal government for the bulk collection? LIEU: So, you have these FISA courts, that are essentially rubber stamp courts that have done everything the NSA asked, and they gave a generalized warrant that said, you, NSA, can seize every phone record of every American. And that`s just flat out unconstitutional. Federal courts have ruled that. And the notion that you are suspicious just because you use a phone is a noteworthy Constitution, and that`s why Congress is so upset about what the NSA did. HAYES: Now, let`s -- OK, let`s say this passes, right? We have the Freedom Act. I am some part of the government, the NSA, and I want those records now. Could I still go get the whole group of them from Verizon which is storing them, or do I have to say I want the phone records for this individual person? LIEU: You would have to have a select search query to these phone companies. HAYES: I see. LIEU: I think it`s still a little too broad the way it`s written. The USA Freedom Act clearly is better than the existing Patriot Act. I voted no because I thought the limits don`t go far enough. It really comes down to the Fourth Amendment, which is really clear. It says the right of people to be secured against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated, basically unless the government gets a warrant. And for years, the government has not been doing that. HAYES: I mean, actually, the history here is in the 18th century, the colonists hated the fact that King George II, the predecessor of King George III, had suspended the necessity of getting specific warrants. There were general warrants in the colonies which allowed the British to just take everything in a house and it specifically general warrants, that was one of the arguments the colonists made for the tyranny of King George. LIEU: That`s exactly right. That`s why when you really look at this issue, if you want to have this mass surveillance of Americans, you`ve got to change the Constitution. If you`re not going to be able to do that, then NSA can`t be executing their bulk collection programs. HAYES: Now, we have seen how easily the surveillance state can kind of tweak itself to do what it needs to do or feels it needs to do, no matter what the laws are on the ground. I mean, do you have any confidence we will actually see genuine constraints imposed on what the NSA is doing? LIEU: I think we should start from the bottom up and scrap the entire Patriot Act and rebuild it. That`s one reason I was against the USA Freedom Act. But if that`s the only thing Congress can pass, it will be a step in the right direction. And at the end of the day, it`s pretty simple, just follow the damn Constitution. That`s all we`re asking our federal agencies to do. And if they don`t, then it`s corrosive to our democracy and it reduces trust in our executive branch, and that is not helpful. HAYES: What -- what is your sense of where this debate has gone and where it`s going? It seemed for a while, the last few years, the polling reflects people -- a lot of people are disturbed by some of the things the federal government has been revealed to have been doing. At the same time, some of the fear around a renewed terrorist threat or a sense there is a renewed terrorist threat has changed that point. Where do you think we are right now in terms of the public debate on this? LIEU: Well, my constituents in southern California sent me here to fight for their privacy and Fourth Amendment rights. But on this issue of balancing liberty and security, it`s not even a close call because the NSA still hasn`t been able to cite a single instance where this bulk collection has saved one American life. If you look at the court decisions, they say that there`s no evidence that this bulk collection program has been effective and really is a mass surveillance of Americans with very little to gain. And I think we need to start from the bottom up and scrap the Patriot Act and rebuild something that protects liberty and security. HAYES: Representative Ted Lieu, thanks for your time tonight. Still ahead, two major victories for gun rights activists in Texas. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BEAU BIDEN, DELAWARE ATTORNEY GENERAL: JPMorgan Chase violate a law that`s been around since the Civil War called the Servicemen Civil Relief Act, which basically says when we send warriors to battle, that they shouldn`t worry about what`s happening on the homefront. And they shouldn`t worry about whether or not they`re being foreclosed upon. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: In 2012, I spoke to then-attorney general of Delaware Beau Biden who earned my respect for being one of the foremost leaders nationwide in pursuing justice for homeowners who had been foreclosed on improperly. At the age of 46, he had an incredible resume distinct from his last name. He was a captain in the Army National Guard, deploying to Iraq in 2008, was awarded the Bronze Star. He was twice elected attorney general, Delaware was expected to run for governor in 2016. And Beau Biden publicly known health problems beginning in 2010 when he suffered a mild stroke. In 2013, doctors removed a lesion from his brain and on Saturday, he died at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center where he was being treated for brain cancer. His father, Vice President Joe Biden, said in a statement, quote, it is with broken hearts that Hallie, Hunter, Ashley, Jill and I announce the passing of our husband, brother son Beau after he battled brain cancer with the same integrity, courage and strength he demonstrated every day of his life. Beau Biden was, quite simply, the finest man any of us have ever known." President Obama released a statement saying, quote, like his dad, Beau was a good, big-hearted devoutly Catholic and deeply faithful man who made a difference in the lives of all he touched. And he lives on in their hearts. Beau Biden believed the best of us all. For him and for his family, we swing our lanterns higher. And Joe Biden, quite famously, has already suffered immense tragedy in his life, having to bury his first wife and his infant daughter who died in a car crash in 1972 that also injured both of Biden`s sons Beau and Hunter, causing the elder Biden to take the oath of office as a U.S. senator from the hospital at his son`s bedside. That`s Beau there. In 2012, Vice President Biden delivered one of the most honest humane speeches I`ve ever seen from a politician as he addressed military families who have lost loved ones. Here is the advice he gave them. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JOE BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It can and will get better. There will come a day, I promise you, and you parents as well, when the thought of your son or daughter or your husband or wife brings a smile to your lips before it brings a tear to your eye. It will happen. My prayer for you is that day will come sooner or later. But the only thing I have more experience than you in is this, I`m telling you, it will come. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: I have to say, I cannot fathom the kind of loss that Mr. Biden is going through and can only hope the vice president`s wish for others that he so eloquently expressed comes soon as possible for him. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: I want to take a moment to show you a photograph. Look at this here. Where do you think this picture was taken? Afghanistan, Anbar province in Iraq? Nope, try Phoenix, Arizona, outside a place of worship while people were worshipping there. This was one of many images from Friday night when hundreds of protesters showed up as the Islamic Community Center of Phoenix, some of them armed, like that gentleman, to protest against Islam. Now, if you look closely at the gentlemen in full camouflage, you`ll notice that not only is he openly carrying a machine gun, he also has a handgun strapped to his thigh and that`s because Arizona is one of 44 states known that`s known as an open carry state, which means that any law abiding adult can carry a handgun right out in the open, although some require a license. In Texas, where it`s already legal to openly carry rifles and machine guns like it is in Arizona, lawmakers want to make it legal to carry handguns in plane site as well Last week, the Texas legislature passed a bill that will do just that, allow licensed Texans to openly carry handguns in belt or shoulder holsters. Governor Greg Abbott tweeted this reaction to the news, quote, "open carry just passed in both the Texas House and Senate, next destination my pen." But that`s not the only gun liberalization happening in the great state of Texas, last night Texas lawmakers voted to expand right to carry guns on college campuses. The existing state law already lets Texans with concealed handgun licenses carry the weapons onto university grounds, the new legislation will allow these gun owners to carry concealed handguns into dorms, classrooms, cafeterias and other buildings on public campuses. Joining me is the Texas State Representative Poncho Nevarez, who was assigned a security detail after open-carry activists confronted him in his office back in January. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) PONCHO NEVAREZ, TEXAS STATE REPRESENTATIVE: Hey, you need to leave now. You need to leave. I`m asking you to leave my office. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`m asking you to leave my state, because you don`t take your oath seriously. NEVAREZ: You need to leave my office. You need to leave my office now. You need to leave my office now. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Read the constitution. NEVAREZ: You need to leave my office. You need to leave my office. Leave my office. Get your foot out of the door. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What are you going to do? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Support us. He does not like the constitution. UNIDENITIFIED MALE: Read the constitution. Read the constitution. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: All right, representative, good to have you here. Your reaction to what appears to be a victory for the same forces that have somewhat controversially, I think, organized to lobby you and your colleagues. NEVAREZ: Well, I think the campus carry is not as black and white as you may have described it earlier in the segment. I think the implementation of it is going to be left up to the local administrations, to the chancellors of the prospective systems, to the presidents of each university that I think will limit the places where people can conceal carry on university grounds. HAYES: But on the open-carry front, I mean, I`ve been following this legislative session and it seems you`ve been occupied primarily with two things -- a very big, drawn-out nasty budget fight about spending caps and the like, and basically a gun agenda, right, largely driven by these open- carry activists who, whatever their -- whatever they`ve done that might cross the line in terms of appearing intimidating, particularly in that clip, has appeared to be, to me, as an outsider as effective. NEVAREZ: I mean, it works. I mean, it scared a great majority of the House to vote in favor of open carry. And you`re not wrong, Chris. I mean, that type of tactic, it literally opened up the door to the lieutenant governor`s office not more than a few days after the same gentleman that`s in the video clip threatened to kill each and every one of us for treasonous. And so, this tactic is working. It`s a disgrace that it`s working, but it`s working. HAYES: You know, one of the -- there`s a sort of interesting quirk here, right, which is that 44 states already allow open carry. Texas is one that has a kind of restriction on this. The Texan open carry people say how could an it be the case we here in Texas of all places have more restrictive gun laws than all of these other states, some of which are considerably more liberal. And my understanding is the history of this actually goes back to not wanting to a allow essentially Confederates to ride around with open guns and then after that a fear that African-Americans would be appearing with open guns. So, there`s sort of an interesting history to this law in Texas. NEVAREZ: You know, it`s funny is a lot of the people that you may see in that clip, and a lot of people that follow those folks, use a lot of racist rhetoric in attacking me after the fact, yet they choose to bootstrap this point of view that open carry should be allowed because it was, in fact, instituted for racist purposes back at the turn of the century or a little bit before. So, it`s kind of an odd situation where they`re harkening back to those days in order to justify why we need it now. HAYES: Do you think there are going to be -- this will be essentially a model for activists -- gun activists in other states since this relatively small but incredibly persistent vocal and at times intimidating group has been, as you said, effective in pushing this? NEVAREZ: It`s unfortunate, but I think it will. And until we have leaders at the state level -- and I`m speaking specifically about the lieutenant government -- who have the spine to not allow folks like that in his office to even dialogue about it, once they`ve been as aggressive and as intimidating as this group was, we`re going to have this this problem. And I don`t see why it wouldn`t be duplicated in other states, and for other types of legislation, not just this -- and I made the comment in another media outlet that, you know, I`m for Medicaid expansion, but if somebody threatened my life to vote in favor of Medicaid expansion, you know what, I`d say no. HAYES: Right. NEVAREZ: Because we can`t legislate that way. We can`t be pushed that way. HAYES: I just want to be clear on this, the lieutenant governor in question, you`re saying that he essentially reached out or had a meeting with that group after they essentially forced themselves into your office. NEVAREZ: Yes. And if you look at the time line there, I think after I was -- after I was on your show a couple of months back, or right before that, they had threatened our lives, not just mines, but everybody`s. And it was maybe a couple, two or three days after that this same gentleman walks in to the lieutenant governor`s office to talk about this issue. He even tweeted a selfie of himself there. And to me that`s obscene that they would allow him in there after he does that. To me, that`s just -- it`s a lack of spine, in my opinion. HAYES: Texas State Representative Poncho Nevarez, thanks for joining us again. Up next, shocking new data showing just how many people were killed by police this year and who they were. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: Here at All In we like to share some of the things we think are important or interesting on our Facebook page. And once a week, every Tuesday, you`ll find me there. Tomorrow at noon eastern, I will be answering your questions. Just head on over to Facebook.com/AllInWithChris, and ask me anything. And while you`re there, go ahead and just, you know, hit the like button. We love it when you do that. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BILL O`REILLY, FOX NEWS: Black boys murdered in the context of Ferguson. Are you kidding me? The truth is that 91 percent of black homicide victims are killed by other blacks: 91 percent. If that woman tries to mislead folks by accusing American law enforcement of shooting down young black men in the streets. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: As we`ve been covering recent police shootings of African- Americans in the protest movement that first sprang up in the wake of Michael Brown`s death last summer, people like Bill O`Reilly have argued it essentially a made up problem. And examples of black men targeted by law enforcement are exceptions to the rule inflated by activists in the liberal media to score political points. A part of the issue is our reliance on anecdotal evidence. As the director of the FBI himself has pointed out, this country just doesn`t collect good data on the number and circumstances of people killed by police each year. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JAMES COMEY, FBI DIRECTOR: You could tell me how many people to -- the absolute number, bought a particular book on Amazon, it`s ridiculous that I can`t tell you how many people were shot by police in this country last week, last year, the last decade. It`s ridiculous. (END VIDEO CLIP) O`REILLY: Now, journalists at two major media organizations are filling in the gaps. The Washington Post and The Guardian just published eye-opening statistics on deadly encounters with police in 2015. The Post tallies up all the people fatally shot by police officers. So far, just this year, already at 385, or more than two per day, while The Guardian counts everyone killed by police whether by gunshot, TASER or under mysterious circumstances while in police custody like Freddie Gray, and that`s already at 467 for the year. In both data sets, the vast majority of victims, more than 75 percent, had some kind of weapon on them. And overall, the demographics are pretty evenly split between whites and people of color. But, and this is key, when it comes to unarmed people killed by police, both studies reveal a troubling racial disparity. The Post found that two-thirds of unarmed victims were Black or Hispanic, while according to The Guardian, more than twice as many African-Americans than whites were unarmed when killed by police, 32 percent compared to just 15 percent of whites. Coming up next, two journalist who worked on these groundbreaking studies and how they may change the way we think about policing in America. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: The vast bureaucracy of the U.S. government spends a lot of taxpayer money on counting things. As The Guardian points out, it counts the average hours per week that American men spend on lawn care, almost two in case you`re wondering. It counts how many women between the ages of 15 and 44 currently use contraception, that`s just shy of 62 percent. It even counts nut consumption among non-Hispanic white men over the age of 20, about 42 percent of whom ate nuts on any given day in 2009 and 2010. The federal government counts all those things yet it doesn`t count the number of people killed by police officers every year. Joining me now, Wesley Lowery, the national reporter for The Washington Post, Jon Swain, senior reporter for The Guardian. You guys have both been covering police shootings and death in police custody, covering protests to them. And I think if both arrived at the same conclusion I have -- we all have in covering this is we just don`t know how what`s going on because the data is no good. Wes, maybe you can tell me how you guys actually put this together to fill in the gaps. WESLEY LOWERY, WASHINGTON POST: Definitely. I think that -- and I think we used very similar methodology The Guardian used as well in terms of piecing together these two databases. The -- initially what we all saw in covering these stories last year, and prior to that, is that there was no data as you pointed out. The government tracks all types of things, but does not track the number of people killed in part because police departments are not required to say to anyone when they have killed someone, many of them are not required to even report it at the state level much less the federal level, and so the number that exists federally, that the FBI puts out every year is woefully inadequate, only 400 of roughly 15,000 police departments are contributing to it. And so as we tried to do comparisons, as we tried to track something getting worse, is it something getting better, none of us could do it. And so the best measure right now is media coverage. In most cases if someone is killed by a police officer, some local media writes about it. HAYES: And so you guys use a similar methodology, you just sort of comb through and find instances in which this has been reported in the media as opposed to some official channel. JON SWAIN, THE GUARDIAN: Partly that. I mean, as Wes says, local media outlets are a good source for areas that we don`t cover ourselves. But have found that traditional reporting is also needed. We found five people in our database who were never publicly named. We found that really shocking. We found five people, three in Texas, two in California. They were just never reported. HAYES: And they died in police custody. SWAIN: It was noted in reports that someone had died, but they were never named. And, you know, we think that just shows that these figures and the information about how these people died and who they were are just so sorely needed. HAYES: I want to talk about racial disparity, because what left out to me here is you have people, a certain kind of skeptic who says, well, look, yes, you are know cussing on African-Americans, but there are white people shot by cops as well and also you would expect some disparity because the criminal justice system is racially disparate in general. Police encounters are racially disparate But what we see is a distinction in the racial disparity between the broad amount of encounters, right, so in the case of The Washington Post, shootings, and then unarmed shootings, right? And that same disparity shows up, and that is a completely unexplained, disparity but for some kind of racial suspicion, racial bias, et cetera, right? SWAIN: I think what the figures show is we definitely need this sort of data before we can have this discussion about whether police -- certain police forces are racist, about whether black people, Hispanic people are unfairly targeted. There`s no way that this debate can be had in any informed way if there aren`t official data, official statistics on who and why people are dying. HAYES: Wesley, having covered this, did those numbers surprise you the disparity between the sort of overall racial breakdown of people who were shot by police and those shot who were unarmed? LOWERY: They didn`t quite surprise me, although it certainly stuck out to me. It`s one of the -- you certainly want a top line numbers here and it seems to underscore and validate some of the concerns. But as John, said without the official data, I mean, we`re trying to do the best we can doing through traditional reporting means, through relying on other reports, but what we know is that we`re missing some cases. We know that. And without the official data, it`s hard to even do these comparisons. And a secondary in terms of speaking to the racial disparities, one thing we also looked at was how these encounters were initiated and also what happened -- what immediately precipitated the shooting. And another thing we noticed is in the -- if you were to compare the white armed universe to the black armed universe, in more cases, a higher percentage of the cases, a white armed suspect is the shooting at the officers, engaging the officer while a black or Hispanic is in fact more likely to be running away even if they have a gun or knife. Those types of analyses are impossible to do at the highest level unless we have real official data we can really rely on. HAYES: You know what also stuck out to me in both these analyses is you know the vast majority of people are armed, right, in these cases, and it is a reminder, right, that police in America encounter lots of people with guns. All the time. I mean, that`s the -- you know, we are obviously focusing on the people unarmed for very obvious reasons and I think legitimate -- completely legitimate reasons, but it is a reminder about the percentage -- just the amount, the prevalence of guns in America and how often police officers counter them. SWAIN: I think that`s right. If you look at our database, if you look through the stories of the people that died, some of them are pretty bad guys. You know, there are armed people, there are massive drug operations going on that police encounter where they are shot at, as Wes says, where they are facing these dangerous situations, where they -- if they are going to be armed, then they`re going to fire back. And I think there is a lot in these databases for the law enforcement community to like. You know, why wouldn`t they want the general public to know that the vast majority of people who are killed in encounters are armed themselves. You know, for obvious reasons the cases that catch the eye, the cases that catch the attention of the media, are cases where people were unarmed, are controversial cases where perhaps the law enforcement officer was not justified. You know, these sorts of data could tell the police side of the story as well. And you know... HAYES: Right. Well, we want to just know, right? We want to know what the actual facts are, whatever political prism they get run through. Wes, the other thing that jumped out at me -- one thing for your finding was 24 percent of victims identified as mentally ill. And I`ve got to say, this is something that keeps cropping up in cases of people both armed and unarmed where you have someone who is very clearly mentally ill and it`s just absolutely heartbreaking, whether -- independent of whether it`s justified in the moment or not it just feels like we`re failing these people. LOWERY: Of course. And then that`s, in fact, something that many police chiefs have pointed out to me over the course of months as I`ve talked with them and worked with them. The idea how they are -- the types of people they`re having to deal with, the social ills, whether it be drugs, whether it be mental illness, in fact, according to our findings so far this year police in the United States have killed more suicidal people than they have homicide suspects, and it tells you, it talks about the types of police officers are interacting with and it may be how the training could change, or potentially what types of preparedness they need before they enter these situations. HAYES: Leslie Lowery, Jon Swain, great thanks. That is All In for this evening. The Rachel Maddow shows starts now. Good evening, Rachel. THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. END