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All In with Chris Hayes, Transcript 07/23/15

Guests: Beto O`Rourke, Anthony Finnell, Dave Weigel, Hassan Shibly

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST (voice-over): Tonight on ALL IN -- DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: There`s great danger with the illegals. HAYES: Donald Trump storms the border and holds court next to a woman`s restroom. TRUMP: I`m the one that brought up the problem of illegal immigration and it`s a big problem. HAYES: Tonight, the Republican front runner`s wild day in Texas and why Trump`s ugly rhetoric on immigration is hardly unique to Donald Trump. Then -- SANDRA BLAND: I`m still just at a loss for words, honestly, about this whole process. How does switching lanes with no signal turn into all of this? HAYES: New questions about the death of Sandra Bland as officials release an autopsy. And the owner of a Florida gun shop who declared his store a Muslim- free zone in the wake of Chattanooga and the local Muslim leader who wants to talk some sense into him. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He`s confident that he can sway my opinion on Islam. HAYES: ALL IN starts right now. (END VIDEOTAPE) HAYES: Good evening from New York. I`m Chris Hayes. Donald Trump, the man who is leading in the polls of the Republican presidential race, the man who said the Mexican government is sending rapists and criminals to U.S., Donald Trump today went to the U.S./Mexico border, specifically to the town of Laredo, Texas, which is 96 percent Latino, in an attempt to substantiate his claims. His non-apology tour was exactly the sort of circus you would expect. Trump claimed he was welcomed warmly. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: You know, I have -- we just landed and there were a lot of people at the airport and they were all waving American flags and they were all in favor of Trump and what I`m doing. I mean, virtually everyone we saw, there was such a great warm -- I was actually surprised. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Reality, according to NBC`s Katy Tur who was there, most of the small crowd that greeted Trump were either media or protesters you see here who chanted things like, "dump Trump." Trump had been supposed to tour the border with Border Patrol agents. But shortly before his visit, the local branch of the union of Border Patrol agents pulled out citing careful consideration of all factors involved, as well as conversations with the union at the national level. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: They`re petrified and they`re afraid of saying what`s happening. And, you know, they`re the ones that invited me. They wanted to give me an award. And the Border Patrol, they`re petrified of saying what`s happening because they have a real problem here and I`m talking about the whole border. And they invited me and then all of a sudden they were told silencio. They want silence. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Trump, who wore a hate reading "make America great again", has been calling for a massive fence along the border that he insists Mexico would pay for, a fence that experts say would cost tens of billions of dollars and be a nightmare to attempt to build because of rugged terrain and private land rights, and offer no guarantee of fewer undocumented immigrants entering the U.S. At one point, he called to the microphone, Laredo City Manager Jesus Olivares, who Trump called tremendous and said he planned to steal to run something for him. Then, Olivares, who presumably knows the border pretty well, was asked about Trump`s planned border wall. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JESUS OLIVARES, LAREDO CITY MANAGER: We don`t think that`s necessary at this time. I think there`s other ways that we can work together with the federal government. I think right now, we have a process and we work together with Border Patrol, CBP, and everybody to be able to get some of these things done. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: As for Trump, he said he`d come to the border simply to do his duty as an American despite what he called the great danger he faced. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: They say it`s a great danger but I have to do it. I love the country. There`s nothing more important than what I`m doing. And I`m the one that brought up the problem of illegal immigration. And it`s a big problem. It`s a huge problem. You folks know it better than anybody. And you look at the crowds outside. We have crowds who are all screaming in favor of Trump. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Joining me now, Steve Kornacki, the host of "UP WITH STEVE KORNACKI", which airs weekends at 8:00 a.m. here on MSNBC. Look, here`s the calculus. There is a significant portion of the Republican primary electorate and of the American electorate. It`s not enough to win the majority. But there`s, you know, 15 percent, 20 percent of people who are upset about immigration. And you can -- there is hay to be made in just catering to them. STEVE KORNACKI, MSNBC`S "UP WITH STEVE KORNACKI": He`s -- I think he`s tapping into two things right now, and this is -- it`s primarily a movement within the Republican Party. One, obviously, as you say is immigration, and this is something that goes back a long ways on the conservative side. We`ve seen other politician who is tapped into this sort of thing before. He`s matching it up, though, also with this outsiders, anti- establishment, anti-system, anti-Washington, D.C. rage that, you know, every politician talks about how Washington is broken. But a lot of voters out there, a lot of the same voters, and a lot of voters sort of on the right and certainly others outside the right too, but a lot on the right, feel that Washington and the Republican Party has just totally sold them out. That there are changes taking place in this country that the Democrats are forcing on them and the Republicans will not stand up and fight the Democrats. So, Trump when he makes these blistering personal attacks on John McCain, on Lindsey Graham, when he calls out by name these leaders, and they say, oh, he`s breaking the rules of politics, well, what that sounds like that to that base -- this is something we`ve never heard before. HAYES: So, this is my question. When you -- OK. If we`re going to talk about him seriously as a candidate, right, there appears to be no campaign infrastructure as far as I can tell. No one is printing signs, no one`s running advance, I think there`s organizers doing any work, like I guess the question is, is it possible to run this way without those things? KORNACKI: It shouldn`t be. (LAUGHTER) KORNACKI: It shouldn`t be. Two things should not be possible here long-term. One is what you said. The second thing is the fact that he`s basically improvising. He`s making this up as he goes along. So, this whole immigration kick is he`s shooting his mouth off at the beginning of the campaign, he said some stuff about Mexicans. The next thing he knows, he`s in hot water and he plays it for what it`s worth. He said, oh, no. He`s defiant. (LAUGHTER) KORNACKI: Throwing it back in their faces. Now he`s got an issue and got a constituency. So, typical rules of politics say this should not be able to last. The one thing I say is different about Donald Trump, the variable here that we really haven`t seen before is when he does something like the attack on John McCain the other day and the entire media in the entire political world, including the Republican establishment, comes crashing down on him, every other politician I`ve seen will back off to some degree there, will concede, hey, maybe my tone was off. Maybe I could have phrased it differently. I apologize if anyone was offended. He accepts no blame, no responsibility and immediately turns it around and says, I have nothing to apologize. You`re the one who should be apologizing. I`ve never seen that kind of defiance in the face of that kind of storm. I`m curious how far he can go here. HAYES: Do you think he has that party over the barrel with the threat that is floating out there that to run as an independent in the actual race? KORNACKI: I mean, look, July of 2015 right now. It`s hard to see -- it`s like the guy in a marathon with a great first mile and he`s got 25 more to go. HAYES: Right. KORNACKI: But this is one of those -- there`s two things I could see here. What we`re really talking about is, it`s analogous to Pat Buchanan. HAYES: Right. KORNACKI: And Pat Buchanan had enough to win the New Hampshire primary in 1996. The minute it became Buchanan-Dole, two-way race, Buchanan stayed where he was and Dole is out everybody else. HAYES: I`ll never forget being a kid and watching the footage of the people with the hammers in New Hampshire destroying a Japanese car. Do you remember that? That was like some crazy, crazy stuff. KORNACKI: So, with Buchanan and Trump, it`s very similar here. You have like nativism and economic nationalism kind of merged together. But this is not Tea Party in the sense of -- this is Trump saying I want health care for people, our people, is what he`s saying. But it`s a weird mixture. HAYES: The Pat Buchanan president is a great one. I forgot. Of course, he won New Hampshire. Oh my God. And that petered out. Steve Kornacki, it`s always a pleasure, man. Thanks. KORNACKI: Sure. Nice to see you. HAYES: Donald Trump is not some outlier in the Republican Party. His stance on Mexican immigrants is largely in line with what you hear across the GOP, and particularly the conservative media, as well as from Republican base. FOX News poll last week found that 68 percent of Republican primary voters believe Trump is right in his suggestion that the Mexican government is sending criminals and rapists to the U.S. Indeed, Trump`s trip to survey the supposedly incredibly dangerous border is a standard stuff for GOP politicians, including former Texas Governor Rick Perry who despite partially criticizing Trump`s rhetoric posed for this tough guy picture at the border last summer with Sean Hannity. We saw the results today when the GOP-led House passed what Democrats derisively termed the "Donald Trump Act", a bill to withhold some federal grants to so-called sanctuary cities, those are cities that have policies that don`t force their local law enforcement to also police federal immigration laws. This afternoon, moments after he cast a vote against that bill, I asked Representative Beto O`Rourke, a Democrat from Texas who represents a border district, to responds to Trump`s comments today. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) REPORTER: You keep saying there`s a danger but the crime on the border is down, what danger are you talking about? TRUMP: There`s great danger with the illegals. We were discussing that. But we have a tremendous danger on the border with the illegals coming in. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) HAYES: Tremendous danger along the border. You live on the border. You represent the border. Is he right? REP. BETO O`ROURKE (D), TEXAS: No, he`s not. El Paso, Texas, the community I represent, is the safest city in America. It has been for the last four years. And what I try to share with people and I want to share it with Mr. Trump is that is in large part because of and not spite of the large number of immigrants who come to El Paso and the fact that we`re conjoined with Ciudad Juarez in Mexico forming the largest binational community anywhere in the world. And we`re also not an anomaly. You look at Laredo, Texas, you look at San Diego, California, or you look at an immigrant city like New York City, they`re all far safer than the average American city that`s not on the U.S.-Mexico border. So, he`s got the facts all wrong on this one. But I`m glad he`s at the border, and maybe he`ll learn the truth while he`s there. HAYES: Well, this is an important, too, because I`ve had you on this program to talk about this before. How different is what Trump is saying from what your Republican colleagues and conservatives have been saying for years? It doesn`t strike me to be different at all. O`ROURKE: You know, it`s interesting. I was at an event last night with the wife of a senator and we were talking about Trump. And I was, of course, saying this is ridiculous, what she`s saying about Mexicans and Mexican-Americans. And she told me, listen, he speaks for a lot of us in this country who are genuinely afraid of Mexico, Mexicans, and the border. So, what he says resonates. There`s a reason he`s polling at the top of the field in the Republican primary right now. My challenge and your challenge as a journalist is to make sure that we share the facts and truth about the border. And that the U.S. side of the U.S./Mexico border is safer than the average American City, that last year we had 480,000 apprehensions. And that`s with the asylees and migrants from Central America, 480,000 last year compared to 1.6 million 15 years ago. The border has never been safer than it is today. We`ve never spent more money. We`ve never had more Border Patrol. El Paso, the largest city on the border, has never been safer. So, any fact that Mr. Trump would choose to look at would contradict completely the narrative that he`s telling. But unfortunately, what he says resonates with anxieties and fears that people have about the border, about Mexico, about Mexican-Americans, which is absolutely unfortunate. But I think this is an issue where given enough rope, he`s going to do far more damage to himself, to the party, and to that whole narrative than I could ever change by the facts I`m sharing with you. So, I think this is one where we`re happy to allow this to play out and for Mr. Trump to continue to talk and stand at the top of the field for the Republicans in their primary challenge. HAYES: Final question here. He started with this comment in his announcement about how Mexico is sending criminals and rapists. There was a horrific murder in San Francisco shortly thereafter allegedly committed by a Mexican immigrant. There has been the conservative media and your Republican colleagues have taken up the torch of making this a front and center issue. You just came from a vote. What was vote on? And how do you understand the continuum between what Mr. Trump is saying and what your colleagues on the floor of the United States Congress are doing? O`ROURKE: You know, as my colleague Luis Gutierrez said on the floor recently, you know, Mr. Trump`s only been a presidential candidate for a few weeks and he already has a bill on the floor of the House of Representatives. This is an anti-sanctuary cities so-called bill that passed largely on Republican votes. I don`t think there were any Democratic votes. If there were, there were just a few. And it`s a solution in search of a problem. I`ve already shared with you how safe the border and border communities are. And immigrant-rich communities are compared to the national average. But when you talk to the experts on this, the sheriff of El Paso County, for example, or big city police chiefs, they tell us they don`t want to be enforcing federal immigration law because they want the cooperation of every single person in the community in which they`re trying to keep people safe, prevent crimes from happening or solve crimes that have already been committed. When the local population or segment thereafter fears that law enforcement is going to enforce federal immigration law or try to determine their immigration status. They don`t come forward as witnesses. They don`t help prevent crimes or solve those crimes that have been committed. So, I defer to the experts, the law enforcement officials, and they say a bill like this one is a bad idea. HAYES: Congressman Beto O`Rourke, always imminently sensible on these issues, thank you very much. O`ROURKE: Thank you. (END VIDEOTAPE) HAYES: Still ahead, 2016 posturing for the two presidential candidates who also sit on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Then, the gun shop owner who declared his business a Muslim-free zone and the man trying to change that. But, first, the latest on the Sandra Bland investigation and the heart breaking call she made from jail. (BEGIN AUDIO CLIP) SANDRA BLAND: They got me here on a $5,000 bond. I`m still just at a loss for words, honestly, about this whole process. How switching lanes with no signal turn into all of this, I don`t even know. (END AUDIO CLIP) (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: While the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was holding its first public hearing on the Iran nuclear deal today, Ted Cruz was across the street from the White House arguing against the deal at a rally organized by the Conservative Christian Group Concerned Women for America. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Let me tell you: Barack Obama`s weakness and appeasement of the Ayatollah Khamenei increases the likelihood that millions of Americans, millions of Europeans, millions of Israelis may die. The best way to avoid military conflict is peace through strength. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Now, when protesters from Code Pink showed up and started interrupting his speech, the presidential candidate took the step of inviting one of them up to the podium, may have gotten more than he bargained for. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The entire world is saying this is the best deal that we`re going to get to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, to bring about a peaceful settlement of this problem. And what makes you say as Ted Cruz you know better than all of these countries together? You don`t. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Fair point. Things were no less heated at the hearing on Capitol Hill today. That`s still ahead. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: Today, some results were released in the official autopsy for Sandra Bland who died in a Waller County, Texas, jail cell apparently hanged to death three days into her incarceration. The autopsy, according to the Waller County assistant district attorney, stated the cause of death as hanging in the manner of suicide. There are, however, three ongoing investigations encompassing not only the circumstances of Bland`s death, but also the incident that led to her arrest stemming from a failure to signal a lane change. Indeed on her first day in jail, Sandra Bland left a voice mail message obtained by the ABC station KTRK Houston which sums up her circumstances. hey. This is me, I`m -- I just was able to see the judge. I don`t really know. They got me set at a $5,000 bond. I`m still just at a loss for words honestly about this whole process. How did switching lanes with no signal turn into all of this? I don`t even know. But I`m still here. So I guess call me back when you can. (BEGIN AUDIO CLIP) SANDRA BLAND`S VOICEMAIL FROM JAIL: Hey, this is me. I`m -- I just was able to see the judge. I don`t really know, they have me at a $5,000 bond. I`m still just at a loss for words, honestly, about this whole process. How did this witching lanes with no signal turn into all of this, I don`t even know. But I`m still here. So I guess call me back when you can. (END AUDIO CLIP) HAYES: In presenting findings of the autopsy today, the Waller County assistant district attorney discussed marks on Bland`s back that could have been consistent with a knee to the back, but which were not conclusively so, according to him. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP WARREN DIEPRAAM, WALLER COUNTY ASSISTANT DISTRICT ATTORNEY: Those are consistent with somebody applying force against her back or with her applying force against some other object. Which one of those it is, we can`t say. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: He also addressed the issue of a possible prior suicide attempt. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DIEPRAAM: There were approximately 30 cut marks on her left wrist which were also in a state of healing. These roughly 30 cut marks were both in a state of scarring and scabbing indicating that they may have been placed on her body by roughly two to four weeks prior to her incarceration. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Now, a reminder that while Bland indicated in a Waller County mental health form she had previously considered suicide, she stated pills as the means of the attempt. There was no mention of cutting herself. She also indicated on another portion of that form that she was not suicidal that day, the first day of her incarceration. The ADA also said marijuana was found to be in Bland`s system but the results are preliminary and further testing is expected. Finally, the Waller County jail failed an inspection with regard to a different inmate hanging a few years ago. A 2012 inspection found that Waller County did not adequately provide face to face observation every hour as required by law prior to inmate James Harper Howell`s (ph) suicide in November of the year. Joining me now from Hempstead, Texas, is MSNBC national correspondent Joy Reid. And, Joy, there is so much about this case that I find troubling and confusing. What did we learn today from that press conference by the assistant district attorney? JOY REID, MSNBC NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I would say, Chris, the one thing that we learned is how definitively this part of as you said the three-part investigation because you have the Texas Rangers doing an investigation into the death. You also have the Waller County DA, there`s a separate investigation by the Texas Department of Public Safety into the traffic stop. What we learned today is that at least according to the preliminary autopsy finding, they are saying with a fair degree of certainty that they found nothing inconsistent with the suicide. The assistant district attorney spent a lot of time talking about the ligature marks on Sandra Bland`s body, saying there was nothing that they found, whether it was looking at her soft palate, looking at the injuries to her neck, the injuries to the rest of her body that was consistent with any kind of forced trauma or murder. And that they were instead consistent in their mind with or at least according to they said to the science with a suicide -- they talked about the smoothness of the ligature around her neck. There are a couple of things that are still outstanding however, though, Chris. They still have to test what they said was the trash bag that they said was used in the hanging. That still has to have some DNA and other testing done to it. They still need to do additional blood and other tests to hair, et cetera because they didn`t test, for instance, to find out whether she had epilepsy or not, whether or not there were any drugs of epilepsy in her system. Some of this is not finished yet, but they are going out ahead with this idea of suicide. And one other quick thing -- they really have spent a lot of time on this issue of marijuana. But what we haven`t been able to get answers to between them and the Waller County sheriff office behind me, I`ve been in and out of the building, is how it is possible. Because the ADA raised the possibility she ingested marijuana in jail. And I`ve spoken with several law enforcement professionals today, including one in my own family. nobody could tell me they thought that it was credible, including the guy who`s about to head a commission here on jail procedures, thought it was at all credible that she could have had any kind of drugs inside that jail cell. HAYES: I`m so glad you raised that, because I`ve been confused by this all day. I failed to see why the marijuana in her system is germane in any respect knowing that as we do it stays in the system for a long time, unless it was ingested in jail, in which case, you have to ask, what kind of operation are they running down Waller County. I mean every single jail that I`ve ever been in and places I`ve interviewed, you know, the thing they do when they do intake, is make sure to search and confiscate everything. REID: Yes, absolutely. And I spoke with again the same person that was going to head that commission is a local trial attorney. So, he deals with this a lot, and essentially said, you come into this jail intake, you are strip searched. Every person that comes in is strip searched. That`s why you saw Sandra Bland in that orange jumpsuit. She didn`t have any of her possessions and have been bodily searched. There`s no way she could have snuck any drugs into that jail cell, but you had the ADA actually say you can sneak anything into jail and that she somehow theoretically could have gotten in jail. But they said their investigation found none of the inmates in adjoining cells smelled or heard anything that would indicate that any drugs were being injected. Now, the same attorney made the point, too, that as a lot of people who are familiar with marijuana know, it could be in your system two days, two hours or two weeks. HAYES: Right. REID: So, there`s no way to definitely know, and the ADA said, they have not done a quantitative analysis yet. They`ve done a qualitative analysis that says that there was THC in her system and then breaks down in your body to a second compound. They found the compounds but not the quantity. So, they still need to do more screenings to find out what kind of quantities we`re talking about. And then to your point, what is the relevancy of that? Because I`ve never heard anyone say that marijuana is either something that would make you hallucinogenic or violent or include self-harm. They just said it`s a mind altering drug, anything could sort of happen. So, the connections are interesting. And I think they`re made a little bit more I guess I`ll say odd by the fact that that is what they leaked -- HAYES: Yes. REID: -- yesterday. HAYES: Yes, the relevance of this -- REID: About this report that we still don`t have. HAYES: Let me just say this -- the relevance of this until proven otherwise is highly suspect to my mind as of now. MSNBC national correspondent Joy Reid, thank you. When the supervisor of an independent review board in Chicago found six cases of unjustified police shootings, was he fired because he refused to change those findings? More on that story we brought you, next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: Brought you a bombshell story on Tuesday night of a 23-year police veteran who later spent seven years serving on Chicago`s Independent Police Review Authority, IPRA, which investigates police shooting. And that man, Lorenzo Davis, said he was fired for refusing to reverse findings in police shooting cases where he found the shooting to be unjustified. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: So, are you saying this essentially was rigged, that basically your supervisors at IPRA were determined to get a finding justified. And if your team went out and did the leg work and found it to be unjustified and came back with that, they would say no and overrule you? LORENZO DAVIS: Yes. That`s exactly what I`m saying. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: We reached out to the IPRA chief administrator. He responded with a lengthy statement which reads in part, "A few cases Lorenzo Davis worked on were found to be incomplete by all three levels of management above him, all with equal or greater experience because they did not include all available evidence and in some cases were built on assumptions. In addition, in some cases, Mr. Davis rejected the recommendations of his subordinates and told them to change their recommendations." Now, tonight we have someone else who worked there and left frustrated with what he saw there. He now works for a similar review board in Oakland now. And joining me now Anthony Finnell. He`s executive director of the Citizen Police Review board in Oakland, California, former supervising investigator at IPRA in Chicago. Mr. Finnell, what was your experience of IPRA like? ANTHONY FINNELL, FRM. SUPERVISING INVESTIGATOR, IPRA: Well, initially -- and first let me start out by saying thank you for having me, Chris. But initially my experience was a pretty good experience at IPRA. I received a team of investigators and we worked our cases. I began to have frustrations when particularly with some of our officer-involved shootings, the evidence didn`t support the officer`s statements. And then when the investigators tried to present those cases to close those cases and present those cases with an unjustified finding, the cases were never pushed through. They would be kicked back or we would be forced to go out and find further evidence. HAYES: Let me stop you right there. I want to make sure I`m tracking this because this is important. When your investigators would go through, they would look at the evidence and it would start to lead them towards a finding of unjustified. You felt like you were meeting with resistance as you were coming towards an unjustified shooting conclusion. FINNELL: Well, the evidence would contradict the officer`s statements. The officers would give a statement as to how the event unfolded. The investigators would find witnesses that countered those statements or the physical evidence itself would not align with that evidence -- with those statements. So, then, when that was presented to the bosses, it was pushed back. When different scenarios were presented, we got pushback on that. And it was frustrating, particularly to me, because I had investigated murders as a police officer for over ten years. So I -- as a police officer, I knew the thought process of officers and I also knew how to review evidence and dissect statements and try to make those align and when they didn`t, I always followed the evidence. HAYES: So ultimately you`re feeling you left IPRA was that the process was not fundamentally independent fair, that there was some bias throughout the process in favor of police officers you were investigating. FINNELL: Yes. Ultimately that was my feeling, because there were several officers on the Chicago police department that had multiple complaints against them, and yet they still worked on the agency regardless of what our investigation showed. We could not get the states attorney to file charges. We could not get the police department to discipline them. We could not even get our agency to support at times the findings against certain officers. And see and then for me as a police officer, that was extremely frustrating because I worked with great officers. And I met a lot of great officers in Chicago. So to have these officers representing law enforcement was very troublesome to me. HAYES: Anthony Finnell, thank you very for your time tonight. I really appreciate it. FINNELL: Thank you. HAYES: All right, still ahead, the Florida gun shop owner who declared his shop a Muslim-free zone and the Muslim who is trying to change his mind. He joins me live next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: In response to last week`s fatal shooting in Chattanooga, Tennessee, a gun shop owner has declared his gun store a, quote, Muslim- free zone. 28-year-old Andy Hallinan made the declaration over the weekend in front of a Confederate flag. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ANDY HALLINAN, GUNSHOP OWNER: Now I have a moral and legal responsibility to ensure the safety of all patriots in my community. And so effective immediately I`m declaring Florida Gun Supply as a Muslim-free zone. I will not arm and train those who wish to do harm to my fellow patriots. The jihadists said they would do it and they have. They said they`d live among us and they do. We must be prepared, vigilant, and equipped to handle any situation that might come our way. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: The video garnered lots of attention, widespread condemnation, but also one good faith offer. Hassan Shibly, he`s executive director of the Florida chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations or CAIR, reached out to Hallinan and offered to teach him about the Koran. Originally, it looked like the two had made a breakthrough. Hallinan actually agreed to host the Muslim leader at his shop, even telling Reuters Shibly is a really wonderful guy who I would consider a friend at this point and I think he would say the same about me. A great story of an ideological odd couple uniting to try and set an example of tolerance and understanding. Until... (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) HALLINAN: I had no idea what I was getting myself into. When I was contacted by the Council for American Islamic Relations, I offered them to come meet at Florida Gun Supply. Thankfully hundreds of e-mails poured in with links and information about who this organization is. And I cannot in good faith meet with them and certainly cannot train with them. (END VIDEO CILP) HAYES: Hallinan posted this video to Facebook today explaining a conspiracy theory that you`ll find on the internet about CAIR having links to terror groups. The meeting is officially off which is unfortunate. What is also unfortunate is that Andy Hallinan had agreed to come on this show with Hassan Shibly until Andy canceled on us late this evening. But still joins us is Hassan Shibly, executive director of Florida chapter on the Council on American Islamic Relations. Hassan, what motivated you when you saw this video to actually reach out to this guy and try to start a conversation? HASSAN SHIBLY, FLORIDA CAIR: Well, the video really hurt. I mean, it hurt as an American before it hurt as a Muslim. I would be so saddened to hear a Jewish-free zone or black-free zone, or a white-free zone. And especially being a practicing Muslim to hear about a Muslim-free zone. I don`t want my children to think that there`s any place that`s off limits to them because of their faith. That`s why we came to America to seek religious freedom and liberty that so many people throughout the world with denied. And I want my children to grow up in a free and just country. And I believed Andy`s sentiments were very hurtful and un-American. And it was just very sad to see somebody using a tragedy like what happened in Chattanooga to promote division and make a profit at the expense of dividing our nation. And I really believe it`s that fear and hatred that often divides us as Americans and dialogue is the key to overcoming that. So we hope that maybe Andy was simply misinformed and that by reaching out to him we can build bridges of tolerance and strengthen the unity of our nation. HAYES: So you guys had a conversation. And this strikes me as one of these things that happens all the time, right? People have conceptions about each other, then they talk as human beings and you think oh wow this is actually a person and I kind of like him, or he seems amiable enough, maybe we can get together. And then this sort of flood comes in, which also to me illustrates the issue which is this conviction held by many people that every Muslim or any group that`s an Islamic group like CAIR must be linked to jihadists, to violent people. SHIBLY: Well, that`s no different than minorities faced throughout this country`s history. There were times all Irish were seen as subversive and Catholics were seen as only loyal to the pope and that they couldn`t be trusted. This is just a new hate just facing a new target, this time it happens to be the Muslim community. In fact, what scared me the most about Andy`s rhetoric was that it sounded no different than the Nazi propaganda against the Jewish community back in Germany 70 years ago where they were promoting these conspiracy theories that Jews are a threat, that we need to have Jewish-free zones, and that Jews seek to take over the world and that horrible conspiracy theory that they promoted, which ultimately led to the holocaust and that the Jewish community could not be trusted, that they`re all liars and they`re all subversive. And it`s the same kind of rhetoric that Andy today is promoting and what he did is he actually brought to light the large anti-Muslim sentiment that some in this society hold. I mean, America is the best place in the world to be a Muslim, but some people are trying to change that unfortunately. HAYES: Well, so here`s my question. So, you talked to the guy. You`re going to have a meeting. Now you just sort of referenced the Nazis in talking about his rhetoric. I mean, is it overcomable, right? That`s the question. Like, do you continue to hold the faith that like you can sit down with folks that have views of you and see you with your head cap and your beard and have stereotypes about you and that you can have a conversation with them that breaks through? HAYES: Absolutely. I mean, I often have to remind myself despite the odds that we face sometimes, that in Islam`s history, some of the greatest Muslims were at one point Islam`s worst enemies. And it was through dialogue and interaction and community service that that we were able to build new friendships and new alliances, and in fact that`s the Koranic spirit, that`s what the Koran actually teaches us. The Koran says that bad interaction and good interaction aren`t equal, respond to evil, respond to negativity, respond to malice with that which is better. And you will find your worst enemies will turn into your best friends. But the Koran says this only happens for those who are patient. So, I think as a community we`ll continue to be patient. We`ll continue to be gracious and our doors will always be hope. And we still invite Andy to come and meet his Muslim neighbors, come and see what we are as his fellow Americans and fellow human beings. We`re his doctors, his lawyers, his engineers, his taxicab drivers. HAYES: Well, I would love if and when that summit happens, I want to either be there or capture it somehow. Hassan Shibly, thank you very much for joining us tonight. SHIBLY: Absolutely. It`s very important that the world knows that Andy doesn`t speak for Floridians or Americans and we have gotten a lot of support against his hateful message. Thank you. HAYES: All right. Up next, the campaign opportunity to good to pass up for 2016 Republic hopefuls: a Senate committee meeting on the Iran deal. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. MARCO RUBIO, (R) FLORIDA: The next president is under no legal or moral obligation to live up to it. The Iranian regime in the world should know that the majority of members of this congress do not support this deal and that the deal could go away on the day President Obama leaves office. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JOHN JENKINS, NASA: In my mind this is the closest thing that we have to another planet like the Earth. We do know that there`s at least one experiment in biology that succeeded and is the reason why we`re all here. So, that`s why I`m particularly excited about this discovery because it is the closest thing that we have to another place that somebody else might call home. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: NASA today announced the discovery of so-called Goldilocks planet, 1,400 light years away, that has the potential to sustain life. Known by the, well, unromantic name Kepler 4525-b, the planet is about 60 percent bigger than Earth, it orbits a star at a distance similar to the Earth`s distance from the sun, which could mean it could sustain liquid water and it might be the best match for our own blue marble yet. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: It was a big day for the senate foreign relations committee today because all of its members were actually present, and that`s rare with two of those members, Rand Paul and Marco Rubio, running for president. They`ve both been caught skipping out on important hearings and briefings, as Buzzfeed has documented extensively. But today, knowing the cameras would be there to cover an issue that will inevitably take center stage in the presidential campaign, senators Paul and Rubio were both present and accounted for and ready to go at the three cabinet secretaries testifying in favor of the nuclear deal. And Rand Paul, whose dad Ron supports the deal, said he favors diplomacy with Iran, but he didn`t pass up the chance to grill Secretary of State John Kerry. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. RAND PAUL, (R) KENTUCKY: I want a negotiated settlement. I want to believe that we could have an agreement, but it troubles us that immediately the Iranians say the opposite... JOHN KERRY, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: No. I`m not saying the opposite of this. In fact, the supreme leader`s quote is in this document that Iran will never go after a nuclear weapon and the Iranians happily put that in. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: And in an intense exchange, Kerry and Rubio sparred over whether a future president would, in fact, be able to walk away from the international agreement. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) RUBIO: The Iranian regime and the world should know that this deal is your deal with Iran. I mean yours, meaning this administration. And the next president is under no legal or moral obligation to live up to it. KERRY: I am confident that the next president of the United States will have enough common sense that if this is being applied properly, if it`s being implemented fully, they`re not just going to arbitrarily end it. Nobody has a plan that is articulated that is reasonable as to how you are going to strengthen this, do something more when the supreme leader of Iran and president of Iran and others believe they`ve signed an agreement with the world. And the rest of the world thinks it`s a good agreement. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Joining me now, Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat from Connecticut, who`s a member of the foreign relations committee, took part in today`s hearing. And senator, I`ve got to say, I think there are two categories of critics of this deal. I do think there are some folks who are good faith critics who basically really do object to certain things that are in the agreement. I think a lot of the critics are bad faith critics who basically would not be happy with any negotiated deal, didn`t like the negotiation from the moment they started, and are now essentially pretending to have issues with the document as opposed to the entire project. Is that a fair characterization? SEN. CHRIS MURPHY, (D) CONNECTICUT: Of course it`s a fair characterization. And how do we know that? Well, a number of the presidential candidates came out in opposition to this complex hundred page-plus agreement within hours of it being announced to the world. It is impossible to have actually reviewed in a thoughtful way this agreement in the course of about 90 minutes which about how long it took before a handful of presidential candidates and my colleagues in the senate came out and said they would never vote for it. And of course now you have the sort of fictions of standard review being set up over and over again. Republicans claim that we were told there was going to be any time anywhere inspections. Well, that was never the standard that anyone should have expected here. We never should have thought Iran is going to let international inspectors walk onto their military sites without any good reason, without any just cause, without any process for working it out. And so there`s just a number of red herrings here that are disguised for the fact that a good number of my Republican colleagues were just never ever going to support something that President Obama agreed to. And for Republican presidential candidates, because of their own primary politics, they have to trip over each other to seem more oppositional to this deal than the next because it`ll draw the extreme right of their party to the polls. Yeah, there are a handful of Republicans who are looking legitimately at this, but I wouldn`t trust that we`re going to have many of them voting for it on the floor of the senate later this summer. HAYES: Well, that`s my question to what you just said. How much are presidential primary politics playing into how this is going? Because it is already is very clearly at the center of that race. It`s the most kind of concrete point of unanimity and distinction on policy in the presidential race thus far. MURPHY: Well, think about this proposition that has been floated by virtually every Republican presidential candidate, and Senator Rubio talked about it today that a Republican president would promise today that they would walk away from this agreement when they became president notwithstanding the operation of it for the first year and a half, not only is that absolutely foolish in that Republicans are saying today that Iran won`t live up to the agreement. Why wouldn`t you test that proposition over the next year and a half? But second, is your first act as president really going to be to thumb your nose at the entire international community, at not only the Europeans but the Chinese and the Russians and tell them that we`re walking away from the most important agreement that they`ve entered into with this country in the last five to ten years? No, of course that wouldn`t be what you would do as your signature opening international move as the next U.S. president. But they`re saying it only because it speaks to a very thin slice of the Republican base that unfortunately dominates who gets chosen for the next presidential nomination on their side. HAYES: All right. Senator Chris Murphy, thank you so much for joining us tonight. MURPHY: Thanks, Chris. HAYES: There is one presidential candidate who`s flirted with being honest about the Republican position on the Iran deal. And when he reiterated it today at a conservative conference, he got a standing ovation. That`s next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) GOV. SCOTT WALKER, (R) WISCONSIN: Iran is not a place we should be doing business with as president. I will terminate the deal with Iran on the very first day, reinstate the sanctions, work with the congress to put in place more crippling sanctions, and convince our allies to do the same. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Scott Walker telling attendees at a conference for the Koch- backed American Legislative Exchange Council, ALEC, legislation that he would be prepared to take action against Iran his first day in Oval Office. He said earlier this week even if that meant a military attack. Joining me today, Dave Wiegel, national political correspondent for The Washington Post. Dave, here is why I wanted to have you on. You have chronicled for a long time the kind of libertarian portions of the Republican base. And it seemed for awhile like there was a change in the center of gravity on foreign policy in the Republican Party away from more sort of militaristic posture. That seems gone now. Am I misreading this moment? DAVE WIEGEL, THE WASHINGTON POST: I don`t think you`re misreading it. There might have been more of a conversation the Republican Party had. Rand Paul who does represent that wing stuck to his guns on the Iran deal. He pretty immediately, as soon as this deal came out, reluctantly came out against it. I mean, today you saw in committee him speaking more in sorrow than in anger about it. So it`s a different tone than Scott Walker. He`s not talking about setting it on fire. But there`s really no one speaking to this. Even though I do think a portion of the GOP base believes what you`re saying HAYES: Yeah. That`s what`s striking to me too. Is that you`ve got 15, 16 people in the race. There is, I think, some portion of that primary base that would actually go along with someone who said, yeah, I don`t want to have a war with Iran and I stand for this. And they are not being served despite the fact there`s this many people in the race. WEIGEL: When I talk to the libertarians who supported Ron Paul for the Hill, they did so because he said that. He didn`t care who it alienated in the Republican primary, because in these early primaries, you know, you get 20 percent, that`s more substantial than fighting for the same pie everyone else is fighting for. So, there`s a bit of confusion among libertarians why no one is saying this. And they`re totally outgunned. All of the money, all of the interest on the Republican side is going to be spent against this deal. There`s really no one speaking out otherwise. A couple of voices like the American Conservative magazine, but no one in politics.. HAYES: Part of that I think has to do with the kind of donor class and funding structure on the Republican side in which a lot of the folks that are going to be a lot of the heaviest hitters financially, Sheldon Adelson comes to mind, but a lot of others, really, really are worried about this deal, don`t like this deal, don`t think we should be dealing with Iranians at all. WEIGEL: Right. And the Kochs fund some organizations that do take the opposite position, the Cato Institute for example. But they don`t really throw their money at the political action for less interventionist policies. I mean, they fund Concerned Veterans for America, for example, which is more involved in politics. The candidates they funded generally have been more on the hawkish mainstream of the GOP. And that`s a huge gulf in the libertarian side of the Republican Party, there`s just not that much money advocating for policies that again a giant and historically large chunk -- remember it was of Republicans who were the isolationists, the anti-interventionists for a very long time. None of that`s represented in the new Republican Party, the one that`s sort of shaped by this big money we`re talking about. HAYES: Where do you see the rhetoric on this going? I mean, this is going to be a huge battle. It`s going to figure prominently. Right now it seems like essentially a unifying theme for all the Republican candidates and something they think they have the better argument on if and when they get the general. HAYES: Well, in a couple of weeks they`re going to debate. The first Republican debate certainly with Rand Paul who I talked to this week sees that as the start of the campaign, of the debate that the party should be having. Coming back to Paul because if he takes opposite position, we cover it and without that we don`t cover it. So I think you`re going to see in the first debate in Cleveland whether or not this becomes an issue, whether Paul sticks to any kind of guns -- I would say stick to his guns, but that`s a bit generic and it doesn`t represent this subtle position he`s -- so the debate I think we`ll see. HAYES: Yeah, we will see. I`m not holding out hope. Dave Weigel, thank you very much. That is All In for this evening. The Rachel Maddow Show starts now. THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. END