All In with Chris Hayes, Transcript 08/17/15

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST (voice-over): Tonight on ALL IN -- DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You know, they`re calling it the summer of Trump. HAYES: The summer of the Trump continues. TRUMP: But they have to go. HAYES: As the Republican front-runner gets radical on the border. RUSH LIMBAUGH, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: People are standing up and cheering. HAYES: And kind of reasonable on Iran? CHUCK TODD, MEET THE PRESS: So, the deal lives in a Trump administration? You`re just going to be -- TRUMP: It`s very hard to say we`re ripping up -- HAYES: Tonight, why Donald Trump is closer to the average voter than the rest of the Republican field. Plus, is the speculation over Hillary`s e-mail getting out of control? GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R-NJ), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Her arrogance is breathtaking. HAYES: And the passing of a civil rights icon. JULIAN BOND, CIVIL RIGHTS ICON: I think we have to each other, black legislators, white legislators, that there are different ways of going about this. And if they can learn this lesson, then we`ll come out in a better place. HAYES: Remembering Julian Bond with his friend, Harry Belafonte. ALL IN starts right now. (END VIDEOTAPE) HAYES: Good evening from New York. I`m Chris Hayes. The latest polling from the GOP presidential race has a very clear message for the Republican establishment and the candidates most beloved by its donor class -- go to hell. That news coming today as the embodiment of that spirit, Donald Trump and his retinue, descended on Manhattan with the GOP front-runner reporting for jury duty. Trump took a limo to the courthouse this morning, created a chaotic scene with the celebrity candidate beset by throngs of media and selfie seeking bystanders. After going through a metal detector, listing his occupation as, quote, "real estate" Trump was released late this afternoon without getting for a trial and is free to return to the campaign trail. It was the latest surreal moment for Trump who over the weekend braved the heat and masses at the Iowa state fair where he worked the crowd, ate a pork chop on a stick and took rides -- took kids for free rides in his $7 million helicopter emblazoned with his last name. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: We have a few children going to take rides today. So, where are the children? Get them over here. That`s great. I love children, I love Iowa. Great place. I love my kids. Come here, kids. Does anybody want to take a ride? (CHEERS) (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: If you`re scoring at home, he loves Iowa, kids, and also the bible. We have all been experiencing what as the Donald himself noted Friday, some have taken to calling the summer of Trump and for many the presidential candidates backed by the big money movers and shakers in the Republican party -- particularly Jeb Bush, Scott Walker and Marco Rubio -- it has been more like the summer from hell. A new national poll finds all three are being absolutely crushed by Trump and that`s not the only bad news. They are also losing to Ben Carson and Ted Cruz who are in second and third place nationally and who like Trump are self-styled outsider candidates who are, let`s say, disfavored by much of the GOP donor class. It`s been a particularly rough few weeks for Walker who today clashed with protesters at the Iowa state fair and who spent the first few months of the campaign as the clear favorite to win Iowa. The Wisconsin governor has been sinking in the poll there is. Saw his Iowa support drop from 18 percent to 11 percent in just one week. As Trump continues to dominate the poll and the airwaves, what`s emerged is a somewhat bizarre ideology we might call Trumpism which combines extreme polarizing and confrontational, sometimes offensive rhetoric with an ideologically jumbled mix of policy positions. Some of them far, far, far to the right but some of them far more centrist than most of the rest of the entire GOP field. Trump`s newly unveiled immigration policy, which would involve deporting millions of immigrants living in the U.S. undocumented and ending automatic citizenship for children born on U.S. soil, that position, I think it`s safe to say, falls squarely in the far right extremist category. We`ll have much more on that later in the show. But yesterday on NBC`s "Meet the Press," Trump repeatedly showed how willing he is to break with conservative orthodoxy in a way that`s actually somewhat rare from GOP presidential candidates. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TODD: Affirmative action, should we keep it? Yes or no? TRUMP: I`m fine with affirmative action. TODD: Should private companies be able to fire people because they`re gay? TRUMP: I don`t think it should be a reason, no. I don`t think it should be a reason. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Trump has also asked what he would do about the Iran deal on his first day in office and he took a very different position than most of his rivals. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: I`ve heard a lot of people say "we`re going to rip up the deal." It`s very tough to do when you say rip up the deal, because I`m a deal person -- TODD: You get that. TRUMP: Let me tell you, I will police that deal. TODD: So the deal is in a Trump administration -- you`re just going to be -- TRUMP: Well, it`s very hard to say "we`re ripping up." And the problem is by the time I not go there, they will have already received the $150 billion. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: That position, that he wouldn`t simply rip up the Iran deal on day one, is, well, eminently sensible, particularly for a guy who`s supposed to be a tea party hero. It`s also the sort of thing that would get, I would wager, any other candidate in the Republican field absolutely torn to shreds by some of the same conservative commentators who are now celebrating Trump. We`ve been long been told that to win over the Tea Party and the GOP base, a candidate has to hew closely to conservative orthodoxy, ideology and ideas about small government and traditional social values. Trump`s candidacy is revealing the rules we thought we knew either no longer apply or that maybe they never did. Joining me now are MSNBC political analyst Michael Steele, former chairman of the RNC, MSNBC policy analyst Ezra Klein, editor-in-chief of Vox.com. Ezra, you had a very interesting piece that I thought was thought provoking and on the money that piggybacked on something Josh Barro, which basically talking about moderate voters. Everybody loves the independent non-aligned voter. They`re the sensible centrist while all these partisans yell at each other. They sit there and stroke their chin and they sift through different policies and they come up with these moderate positions and your point is Donald Trump is actually what a "moderate voter" looks like in reality. What do you mean by that? EZRA KLEIN, MSNBC POLICY ANALYST: So, the way a pollster finds a moderate voter is they go around and ask a bunch of issue questions and they average them out. And when you go into the numbers, what you get that the moderate voters are not false with positions that are all in the middle, they`re positions that average out to the middle. So, a moderate voter might be for single-payer health care and deporting all immigrants which, by the way, different points describes Donald Trump. The thing is that partisans tend to be very consistent in their political preferences and they tend to take their political cues from their party. So, the party, because their party has an incentive to get election, to win elections, tends to take a pretty consistent series of positions and take positions that are reasonably in the mainstream, positions they feel are achievable, that will not anger their core interest groups. But moderates who tend to be less connected to politics and to parties just pick the positions they like and those positions are often more extreme and Donald Trump, the reason he`s being so effective or one reason I think he`s being so effective is that typically a candidate like him, any candidates, would need to be sort of -- he would need to fit the party in order to run well in the party because even if he was appealing to voters, he would need money, he would need staff, validation, and he would need media attention. But Trump, because of his kind of unique role in American life, because of his tremendous wealth, he can do this while being at war with the party, and as such he doesn`t need to conform what the Republican Party wants and he can take positions that are popular with segments of the Republican Party that are often not well-served by the Republican Party establishment. HAYES: Do you, Michael, agree with me that -- and sort of to go to what Ezra is saying, if Jeb Bush had given the same answer to Chuck Todd about the Iran deal, FOX News conservative talk radio, his opponents would be going nuts on him today as basically a squish, as a sellout, that he`s not strong enough. Trump says it and because he`s so totally strident, because he`s such a kind of, like -- his tone matches the tone that folks like -- can get away it with. MICHAEL STEELE, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: It`s called conviction and that -- what comes through more than anything else with Trump is that he is convicted in what he`s saying. He believes it and while it may for the typical Washington media type or the political prognosticator out there, they look at it, they hear jumbled noise, disjointed sentences and confusion, to Ezra`s point, he is using words that resonate with average people out there, everyday folks and he`s saying it very plainly and the way they would say it. Sometimes they don`t complete the sentence. They just express the thought as they feel it in that moment. They don`t need to have every dot and every comma. So, I think for Trump, that what`s working for shim that resonance, that ability to sort of layer over the populace a message that touches them and they`re like -- that sounds like me. HAYES: I think you give the too much credit and here`s why. I think the real answer here is no one cares about the issues. People don`t -- they don`t construct their politics around issues. They sure as heck don`t sit there with a sheet of paper saying, all right, where are they on the Iran deal? What they are is "I want someone that`s going to stick it to those people. He`s going to stick it to the Republican Party that I think sold me out, he`s going to stick it to Barack Obama and the Democrats, he`s going to stick it to Hillary Clinton and if he says, look, a deal is a deal, I`m not constructing my support based on that." STEELE: That`s true to a point. But I think you do exactly what those average voters out there resent so much about the media and the typical Washington politico. You assume too much about them. You assume that they don`t care about the issues. You assume that they`re not following and connected to these issues. Just because they don`t express them the way you do, just because they don`t spend their life`s blood talking about it the way you do, that doesn`t mean that they`re not connected to it and that they don`t understand what`s going on. HAYES: Ezra -- (CROSSTALK) KLEIN: I`d like to disagree with both of you. HAYES: Go ahead. KLEIN: On the one hand, I think issues are more important than you give it credit for, Chris. But I think Trump is perfectly eloquent on the issues. I don`t think he speaks in half sentences or hard to understand. He`s one of the most skilled television presenters alive. The one reason I think he`s so powerful in the primary right now is that he has a level of television skill basically no one else running in the race on either side of the aisle does. And what I think is interesting about him is he`s got issue positions that match with the Republican base with ways Republican politicians rarely do. So, if you poll Republicans and ask them, "Do you want to cut spend organize increase it on Social Security and Medicare?" they say increase it. Everybody else in the Republican Party says "cut it." But Trump goes out and says "I want to increase it, too." And if you talk to them about free trade, a huge portion of the Republican Party skeptical of free trade and Trump agrees with them, but pretty much every politician running for president doesn`t. The thing that is interesting about Trump is that he`s operating in the cleavage between the Republican Party establishment and the Republican Party base. And usually you can`t do that because Republican Party, like the Democratic Party, is all kinds of mechanisms to bring a politician to heel. It can take away their money. It can take away their media access. It can take away their power in Congress. But nothing like that is working on Trump. Everything they do to destroy him only makes him stronger and that gives him this freedom to take these other positions that normal Republicans simply don`t have. And in the long term, when you are going to have a lot of scrutiny on his policy, on his actual policies, you`re going to have a lot of people listening up and thinking, actually, I agree with him more than I agree with Ted Cruz. I agree with him more than I agree with Chris Christie, who wants to raise the retirement age on Social Security. STEELE: But that`s essentially my point. That to your point, Chris, the reason they get to that space with Trump is that they have looked at these issues. They have thought about these issues. And while they`re not sitting there and brooding over policy papers, they have some thought about how they feel about the Iran deal or the economy or jobs. HAYES: Let me amend that. I think you`re right, right? I don`t want to say voters don`t vote on issues. Here`s what I want to say and I think Ezra`s point is that -- issues that matter a lot to, say, the donor class, right, or the boxes you need to check normally, for instance, an issue like the Iran deal, which is incredibly important to a certain segment of the donor class in the Republican Party and Democratic Party, let`s be clear, that may not be the deciding issue for your average Iowa caucus-goer, right? So, if he`s heterodox on that, that`s not the thing that`s motivating that voter. But he doesn`t have to check that box, just as he doesn`t have to check that box on trade, which is a great point from Ezra, right, because he hasn`t had to run the gauntlet of the donor class. So, he ends up with these ideology, whatever you call it, these issues positions that are kind of all over the map but they`ve escaped that vetoing function the donor class imposes and which I would argue in some ways ends up making less electable candidates. KLEIN: I mean, I think that`s right. And I think that one thing there, though, is that it isn`t just the side dish issues, right? It isn`t just -- as you say, the Iran deal is very, very important a certain segment of both party establishments and less important to voters. But Trump`s heterodoxies are fundamental. HAYES: Yes. KLEIN: Trump`s heterodoxies are he has supported single-payer. His heterodoxies are he gave money to the Clintons. HAYES: Right. KLEIN: And Hillary Clinton attended his wedding. His heterodoxies are instead of going after entitlements, which is really funded like take the Ryan budget, which was the core of Republican Party policy thinking for the last couple years, he will actually -- he goes in the opposite direction in terms of what you do with entitlements. So, it`s fundamental. He -- I think the reason you`re not seeing a freak- out over the Iran deal comments is that at this point the Republican Party sees no reason to do it. It`s not working it to go after him when he says something they don`t agree. HAYES: That`s the big question when whether that orthodoxy can and will be enforced. Michael Steele, Ezra Klein, thank you both. KLEIN: Thank you. HAYES: Up next, the birther movement is at it again, this time asking which of the Republican candidates are eligible to be president. We`ll tell you who`s on that list. Plus, how the entire Republican field is dealing with the fallout from Donald Trump`s radical, truly radical, plan on immigration. And later, Harry Belafonte remembers his different and civil rights leader Julian Bond. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: What began as an attempt to bar President Obama from the White House has metastasized to include four Republican 2016 candidates. "The World Net Daily`s" Jack Cashill who says it`s questionable that President Obama was born in Iowa is now asking just who is eligible to be president, and pointing out the question has been raised for Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Bobby Jindal and even Rick Santorum as to whether they are natural born citizens and thus eligible to be president of the United States. Cruz was born to an American mother but in Canada. Santorum was born in the U.S., but his father was an Italian immigrant. The arguments against Jindal and Rubio are the same, that while they were born in the U.S., their parents weren`t naturalized at the time. Now, the reason both of them have citizenship is the thing called the 14th Amendment which says all persons born in the United States are citizens. Now, at least one of their fellow Republican candidates is openly trying to get rid of that part of the 14th Amendment. The latest on Trump`s new immigration plan, next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: Conservative pundit Ann Coulter is so enthusiastic about Donald Trump`s immigration rollout that she tweeted yesterday, quote, "I don`t care if real Donald Trump wants to perform abortions in the White House after this immigration policy paper." Coulter was reacting to the six-page immigration document GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump released over the weekend. In it, the real estate mogul proposes dramatically increasing deportation on undocumented immigrants while decreasing the levels of legal immigration into the country. Trump even appeared to suggest to NBC`s Chuck Todd he would be willing to deport American citizens whose parents are undocumented as well. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TODD: You`d rescind the DREAM Act executive order, DACA? TRUMP: We have to make a whole new set of standards, and when people come in, they have to -- TODD: So, you`re going to split up families? You`re going to deport children? TRUMP: Chuck -- no, no, we`re going to keep the families together. We have to keep the families together. But they have to go. TODD: But you`re going to keep them together out? TRUMP: But they have to go. TODD: What if they have no place to go? TRUMP: We will work with them. They have to go. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Perhaps most radically, a President Trump would end birth right citizenship, a policy change that would require a change to the 14th Amendment which reads, "all persons born or naturalized in the United States are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside." The plan, which could potentially deport millions of people, was lauded in many corners of the conservative media. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) LIMBAUGH: You know, he wants to build a wall and have Mexico pay for it. He wants to deport all undocumented immigrants. They have to go. Now, the inside-the-Beltway people, when they hear that, they cringe. STEVE DOOCY, FOX NEWS: This is an early Christmas gift for anybody in the country hungry for an immigration plan because it is a -- you know, you might not agree with the politics but it is a plan. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Trump`s new document is not only to be talked about throughout conservative media. It is now setting the agenda for the 2016 Republican field. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) KASIE HUNT, MSNBC: You should end birth right citizenship? GOV. SCOTT WALKER (R-WI), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Yes. To me, it`s about enforcing the laws in this country. REPORTER: Do you believe that the issue of birthright citizenship should be changed for those who have children in the United States, they get citizenship? Should that be changed? CARLY FIORINA (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You know, we should talk about what it would take to get it changed. It would take passing a constitutional amendment to get that changed. This is part of our 14th Amendment. And so, honestly, I think we should put all of our energies, all of our political will over finally getting the border secured and fixing the legal immigration system. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Walker later clarified he would end birth right citizenship through addressing -- I`m quoting here -- "root causes." Not sure if he means the root cause of the 14th Amendment or not. Both Walker and Fiorina tried to appear positive. Other GOP members rushed to distance themselves. (BEGIN VIDEO CLP) JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I appreciate the fact that Mr. Trump now has a plan, if that`s what it`s called. But I think the better approach is to deal with the 11 million people here illegally. CHRISTIE: I`ve met President Pena-Nieto a number of times. I don`t think if we present him with a bill, he`s going to pay for it. And this is not a negotiation of a real estate deal, OK? This is international diplomacy and it`s different. SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Our leading contender, Mr. Trump, is going backward on immigration and I think he`s going to take all of us with him if we don`t watch it. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Joining me now is Matt Barreto, co-founder of the research polling firm Latino Decisions and professor of political science and Chicano studies at UCLA. Matt, OK, first let`s say where is this on the spectrum of the American political discourse on immigration? Build a wall, deport -- I mean, it sounds like a plan to essentially deport 11 million people which would cost literally hundreds of billions of dollars, require essentially the imposition of what would look like a police state and ending birthright citizenship with a constitutional amendment. Where is that on the spectrum? MATT BARRETO, LATINO DECISION: Well, I think this is probably the most radical and conservative plan we have seen to address immigration reform, and I think he probably wants to deport more than 11 million because that`s the estimate of the number of undocumented. As he admitted, he wants to deport families entirely, including U.S. born citizen children who are living and going to school in the United States. So, what he offered through his Web site and through his interview with Chuck Todd was really one of the most radical agendas we`ve seen and it`s surprising that more of the Republican candidates are not rushing to distance themselves from this. I think Lindsey Graham said it right, this is going to take down all of the Republican candidates when it comes to November of 2016. HAYES: OK. So, there`s two theories about this moment we`re in right now. One is that we`re 450 plus days away from the election. And it doesn`t matter. No one is going to remember, Rudy Giuliani was polling up in 2007 and there`s something to that about the horse race aspect to it. Substantively, though, my view is that watching our GOP field get into a bidding war towards ending birthright citizenship will do massively terrible things to the party standing among Latino voters. Which of those do you think it is? BARRETO: I think that`s absolutely right. This is going to really hurt the party standing. Mitt Romney did a lot of damage already. They came out after that 2012 election and said, "We need to fix this. We need to pass immigration reform. We need do a better job reaching out to Latinos." And now, with Trump at the center of the stage, they`re doing worse. And the candidates are all talking about this issue. They`re hardly distancing themselves. And so, this is really going to be something that people remember. It`s on tape, it`s on video. It`s not something that can go away and it will hurt him in November of 2016. It`s going to hurt him a lot. HAYES: What have you learned in studying public opinion, particularly among Latinos in the U.S., which are invoked as this rising demographic, growing voting bloc. Obviously, Mitt Romney lost by a huge amount in how they`re forming political opinions and the centrality or not centrality of immigration to that formation? BARRETO: Well, one of the things that you were talking about earlier in terms of how voters are evaluating the candidate, for a number of these Republican candidates, this is their first outreach effort to Latinos. Latinos are watching these TV shows, they`re hearing what they`re saying, and so, Latinos are forming public opinion, forming attitudes about the candidates right now during the Republican primary debate, even though most of these candidates aren`t reaching out to Latinos. They`re trying to win really conservative white voters. And so, that`s bad for them because we`re paying attention and Latino voters are seeing what they`re saying right now. So, these are the formative months for people like Trump, for walker, for any of those candidates to get to know Latino voters. And the immigration issue has often talked about, is it the most important issue? Is some other issue like jobs and the economy more important? What we found consistently in our polling is that it`s a symbolic issue. It`s a gateway issue, it`s a threshold issue, that is when you position yourself as Mr. Trump has on the wrong side of the issue and you alienate Latino voters and you alienate immigrants, it doesn`t matter what you say on the other issues, no one is going to vote to someone who is mean to immigrants, that is mean towards people in their family and people in their community. So that`s where not only Trump but other candidates if they look like they`re saying I understand the frustration he`s talking about. No. What that means is you agree with his anti-immigrant statements and this will cause a lot of trouble down the road. It`s early but people are going to remember what is being said right now about immigrants. HAYES: Quickly, mass deportation as a policy item broadly in terms of public opinion. I`ve seen polling that says it`s a minority opinion among Republican voters. BARRETO: Yes, that`s absolutely right. We`ve seen poll after poll that shows a majority of Republicans want to see comprehensive reform. I think this issue he`s tapping into is very, very extreme, even within Republican primary voters there`s not majority for support for mass deportation. I don`t know where he`s going with this. But this could be the loser issue if he continues to lean in on. HAYES: It is it an electoral time bomb. He has pulled the pin on it, to mix my metaphors. Matt Barreto, thank you so much. BARRETO: Sure thing, Chris. HAYES: Coming up, raging wildfires forcing thousands of people from their homes. The fallout continues from this historic drought. That`s next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) NELS SODERSTROM, HOME DESTROYED BY FIRE: The feeling is that the climate is changing, that`s the feeling. It`s getting hotter here in the summers and the weather has become more violent. Huge thunderstorms, torrential rainfall, drought this year, not a drop of rain for two months and usually we get some rain with these lightning storms so we can put out fires or at least dampen the ground so people can control it. This is getting freaky. It`s like some science fiction novel. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Tonight, nearly 100 wildfires are burning across at least six states from California and Montana as thousands of people have been forced to evacuate their homes, tens of thousands of acres torched. What began as five small lightning fires has now gutted an entire community in Washington State. The devastation in Chelan, Washington has been far reaching, entire neighborhoods destroyed. The National Guard has arrived, but residents remain on alert. Scores of homes are still threatened and mandatory evacuation orders in effect. It`s a scene that`s playing out across the entire west as many communities face the same uncertainty. Firefighters from across the country have been called up to help fight the fires. Smoke jumpers are being deployed, but resources are spread thin. And after spending $100 million a week on battling fires, the U.S. Forest Service is expected to use up its firefighting budget by next month. Firefighters are also facing relentless heat and unprecedented drought conditions, making things worse. We traveled to California last month and brought you a series of reports on the drought there, showing you exactly what firefighters there are up against. Right now, 13,000 firefighters are battling 19 major wildfires across the state. This was the scene in Simi Valley over the week end where a small brushfire threatened homes, the ground so dry the fire moved unusually quickly. The quick and aggressive response spared these neighborhoods, but the conditions make the situation all too common. Simi Valley, of course is the home to the Ronald Reagan presidential library and next month`s Republican debate. With wildfires and drought serving as a backdrop for that debate, forget about the low-polling candidates, the big question I have is will climate change get a spot on the debate stage? (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: We are standing outside the house in which Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. grew up. JULIAN BOND, CIVIL RIGHTS LEADER: One day he and I were walking across the Morehouse College campus. And I said to him, doc, how are you doing? His friends called him, Doc. He said "I`m not doing well, Julian. He said unemployment is high, racism is everywhere, segregation is immovable, I feel awful," he said. "I have a nightmare." I said, no, doc, turn that around, try to have a dream. And, well, the rest is history. I made that up. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: One of the first things I noticed about Julian Bond when I had the chance to speak with him last year was that despite the fact that he was a living legend with this intense charisma and an almost Patrician bearing, he didn`t take himself too seriously. The noted civil rights activist and state legislator died Saturday at age 75. He lived an amazing, iconic life as a student at Morehouse College in the 60s. He co-founded the student non-violent coordinating committee, or SNCC, with representative John Lewis where he worked with militant leaders like future honorary chairman of the Black Panthers Stokely Carmichael. When Bond was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives in 1965, he was part of the first class of black legislators in Georgia since reconstruction. And when I talked with Julian Bond last year in Atlanta, he told me that white members of the statehouse refused to let him take his seat because of some of his radical views at the time like his opposition to the war in Vietnam. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BOND: I endorsed an anti-war statement which if I told it to you today you`d say that`s nothing, but then it sounded radical and angered people and so they put me out and declared my seat vacant and called for a new election. HAYES: They threw you out under what, under the state constitution that says the house has control of its members? BOND: Yes, exactly so. Yeah. And they threw me out a second time and I ran again and won and then I went to the Supreme Court and I won and got in. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: In 1986 in a showcase of black political power and achievement, Bond would go up against his old friend John Lewis for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in a bitterly divisive race. Lewis referred to that election in a Twitter post yesterday saying, quote, "we went through a difficult period during our campaign for congress in 1986 but many years ago we emerged even closer." Julian Bond had an untiring commitment to social justice and education, one of the founders of the Southern Poverty Law Center, served as the chairman of the NAACP and taught at a number of colleges, including the University of Virginia and at Harvard. Through a lifetime of activism, politics and often brutal conflict, he never seemed to lose that kind of cool courtly manner no matter how intense the battles got. Earlier, I spoke with a close friend of Julian Bond, singer, actor, activist Harry Belafonte, and I asked him about Julian Bond`s coming of age. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) HARRY BELAFONTE, SINGER, ACTOR, ACTIVIST: The fact that he went to a private school I think it`s important to add that he went to a Quaker school. HAYES: Yes, right. BELAFONTE: And it was in the Quaker school that he got his first deep knowledge of non-violence and that began to play on him. And then of course when Dr. King emerged, he was still at college, Morehouse I think it was. And he began to take a great interest in the non-violent aspects of the civil rights movement and he became very committed to that as a Quaker student. When tensions took place, it was this regalness and this patrician characteristic. He had a soothing and a calming effect. First of all, he was deeply possessed of knowledge, he was a vociferous reader, he studied everybody, studied all the movements and made alliances that made a big difference in the selections that were made by SNCC and what it chose to do and not to do. HAYES: Part of what I find fascinating about Mr. Bond`s trajectory over his life is that he played both the role of the outside activist protesting and also of politician, legislator, wheeling dealing, inside and outside the system. He seems to have been an incredibly canny operator in which ever role he found himself. BELAFONTE: I think he was on a constant hunt for where was the right place for him to be. Where could he be the most effective? He went to the legislature, spent a lot of years in Georgia. I campaigned for him. I had to negotiate between him and John Lewis when they had a little tough time. HAYES: Very intense hard-fought race, very ugly at certain points. BELAFONTE: Right. Very ugly. But both John and Julian eventually came to the realization that the stress and strain on them was also translating a stress and strain on the organization. And they came together. We talked at great length about the advantages of cooling out the animosity. And in the midst of this animus, let`s get more engaged in the movement. One of the things that I think brought them together was that I think brought the together was that I took a large contingency of Snickers to Africa, their very first trip. I took them to Guinea. And I had done some work with them. I saw that they were getting beat up. They were on such a strain in voter registration, and things that they were doing. They were beginning to make mistakes and a lot of these mistakes appeared to me to be rooted in fatigue and that they really needed to get another venue and I put the money up, took them to West Africa and they spent several weeks talking, looking at Africa, meeting with a lot of African leaders in Guinea and in Senegal, and in the course of that meeting, John and Julian came to agreements and came to realizations. HAYES: It`s interesting to hear you talk because we look back at the black and white footage of the civil rights movement and we sort of think about unity, you know, all this phalanx of people and the Pettus Bridge and kumbaya and in the midst of this conversation you`ve talked about all the tensions and the conflicts and the fights. And it`s easy to paper over that, but Julian Bond and John Lewis and all the folks who are active in the movement and yourself, you know, conflict, it sounds to me, was just a constant in their lives and it was a constant for Julian Bond as he navigated all this. BELAFONTE: Well, there was a constant for two reasons. One the natural evolutionary process of coming together, letting ideas work and people bring you different thoughts to the table. But they also had the FBI and the CIA and John Edgar Hoover doing... HAYES: That never helps. BELAFONTE: ...his mischief. So it was hard to know who to trust. (END VIDEOTAPE) HAYES: I want to thank Harry Belafonte for his time today. It is always such a tremendous pleasure to get a chance to talk to him. Still ahead, why Hillary Clinton`s personal email does not spell out a disaster for her presidential bid. We`ll tell you how she`s still dominating the campaign trail. Stay with us. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) HILLARY CLINTON, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: I`ve just provided by my server to the Justice Department. But here`s what I won`t do, I won`t get down in the mud with them. I won`t play politics with national security. (END VIDEO CLIP) COMMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: With his poll numbers hovering close to the cutoff point for the next presidential top 10 debate, New Jersey Governor and 2016 hopeful Chris Christie headed to New York City this morning to make his case on Fox and CNN. Afterwards, he took a helicopter from Manhattan to Trenton, New Jersey. His campaign telling All In they reimbursed the state for the price of that ride. But while the governor flew across the Hudson, commuters were experiencing a traffic nightmare under the river with a stalled train in one tunnel and a car fire in another one. Back in 2010, you might remember, Governor Christie canceled plans to build another rail tunnel between New Jersey and New York, a decision that`s been roundly criticized as commuter problems under the Hudson River continue to mount this summer. Christie is now planning to meet with transportation officials to address the problem tomorrow and has promised to push for new tunnels if he`s elected president. We`ll be right back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: If you only followed certain media or if you just didn`t follow politics that closely, you would be entirely forgiven for thinking that the past few weeks have been a biblical disaster for Hillary Clinton`s presidential campaign, that at this point she`s probably begging Joe Biden to jump into the race so she can get it over with. Since the revelation in March that Clinton used a private email account when she was secretary of state, there`s been a steady drip of supposedly catastrophic news related to the 30,000 emails now under a Freedom of Information Act review for release to the public. Late last month, word came the Justice Department had been asked to open an inquiry into whether Clinton`s email system mishandled classified information. And after that, an intelligence watchdog overseeing the FOIA review reported Clinton had sent classified information over email. Then last week it emerged the FBI was on the case and Clinton turned over her entire private email server to investigators. Now, in certain quarters, this all looked like the beginning of the end for the Democratic presidential front-runner. Until today when news broke that officials conducting the classification review had flagged over 300 e-mails -- cue the panic button -- for further scrutiny by the intelligence community. Final nail in the coffin, right? Well, not really so fast. Because it turns out this is a standard part of the FOIA process. It doesn`t mean any of those emails actually contain classified information. According to the Justice Department`s FOIA guidance, if a record up for review contains information related to another government agency, it is customary to send it to that agency to weigh in on security risk. And that is all that`s happening here. Many of the other supposedly damning revelations about Hillary Clinton`s emails look just about as flimsy. Now as a political matter -- and one thing we`ve seen about Hillary Clinton the candidate is that she performs best with her back up against the wall. And this weekend, in Iowa, was no exception. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CLINTON: It`s not about emails or servers, either, it`s about politics. I will do my part to provide transparency to Americans, that`s why I`ve insisted the 55,000 pages of my emails be published as soon as possible. I`ve even offered to answer questions for months before congress. I`ve just provided by my server to the Justice Department. But here`s what I won`t do. I won`t get down in the mud with them. I won`t play politics with national security. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Coming up, if Donald Trump`s campaign slogan is "Make America Great Again" maybe Hillary Clinton`s should be what doesn`t kill her candidacy only makes her stronger. Stick around. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CLINTON: This is the usual partisanization -- which I may have just made up a word -- of anything that goes on and I`ve been at this for a really long time and I think people in Iowa just like people across the country are going to want to vote for somebody that they believe will deliver results for them. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Joining me now, former Ohio State Senator Nina Turner who is on the board of Correct the Record, an independent group supporting Hillary Clinton, and Jonathan Alter, MSNBC political analyst and columnist for The Daily Beast. All right, so here`s my broad -- where I`m coming from. I feel like there has been this drum beat about the disaster that is the Clinton candidacy that is totally detached from the reality of the fundamentals, and whether it`s about Bernie Sanders crowd sizes, which are totally impressive, or the polling in New Hampshire, which is very significant and newsworthy, and we`ve covered it, the email story, newsworthy, we`ve covered it. That does not add up to this is a disaster and Hillary Clinton is floundering. Agree or disagree. JONATHAN ALTER, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: I don`t fully agree with you. I wouldn`t say she`s floundering, but I think three months ago if we said Bernie Sanders was going to be leading her in New Hampshire in certain poll, even though he`s from Vermont, we would have been surprised. HAYES: One poll. One poll. ALTER: But this has not been a good summer for her. That doesn`t mean she`s not still on track to win the nomination, but she had some challenges and I think the biggest someone that what I consider to be a pretty lame story, the story about the emails, is now enmeshed in the machinery of federal investigation. So the FBI is investigating not her for something criminal, that was a bogus New York Times story, but they are investigating. And investigations take their own course and there is a drip-drip-drip of leaks. Because what happens is there are always leaks from these investigations and this is going to go on for months. It`s going to be a festering sore for her. HAYES: I mean, I think if you went down to Brooklyn Heights and said would you "if you could wave a magic, Hillary Clinton campaign, to have this be happening or not, they would wave a magic want and have it be not. That said, what do you think about Jonathan`s take on it? NINA TURNER, FRM. OHIO STATE SENATOR: I mean, I do agree. Listen, they`re going to do the dance. Secretary Clinton is not going anywhere. It`s important for your viewers to know that she followed precedent. She followed the rules. And she has not broken the law. And that last year, the State Department asked the last four secretary of states to turn over any work related emails that they may have had. So, Secretary Clinton is cooperating. And, you know, I do appreciate the fact that on issues of national security that she has said very clearly that she is not getting down in the mud with them. But if the Republicans think for any moment that she is going to get out of this race, they are sadly mistaken, even though... ALTER: Yeah, Trump thinks... HAYES: That I think we all agree on that. But here -- I mean, this is the thing about the emails, it -- I remember going through rounds of Benghazi minutiae. Now, let`s also remember that the core of Benghazi was a horrible insanely tragic event, right, four Americans died, the American ambassador was killed in a brutal fashion. Actual tangible horrible disaster at the core of it. I remember rounds of byzantine coverage of this on right wing media about this or that leak and when these talking points got edited. I mean, in this case that proved, I think, ultimately not politically damaging for her. I think it sort of ended up kind of in the noise machine. This we`re just talking about what email -- where she kept her email server. Like, I have a hard time thinking this is a thing that becomes something huge. ALTER: Well, especially if it`s put in the right context. I mean, you know, Colin Powell used a private email. There are many cabinet secretaries who have used private emails. You could make a strong case that it`s no different than having a private phone number, cell phone number. You know, I don`t know where we have got this idea that emails are open to everybody. It should be private. And I don`t actually think there`s anything wrong with... HAYES: well, NO, that`s not true. public business is public. ALTER: But Idon`t actually have any problem with maintaining private email accounts. I think they should be able to have confidential communications. And by the way, some of what is being described by the right wing as "classified" was actually only confidential meaning that they should have the right to speak in confidence. The problem is, once these investigations get started you don`t know where they`re going to go. HAYES: Well, and this is -- I mean, this is... ALTER: And we saw this in the `90s. HAYES: But that feels self-fulfilling. ALTER: Is Hillary too often there`s a coverup or appearance of a coverup without any underlying crime or even impropriety. And because she`s such a control freak, and she doesn`t realize -- as Donald Trump does -- that you can`t control the media you can`t manage these things, you have to surface, you have to surf the media, be out there all the time on the offensive talking about these things. And we saw that she final will is. She`s finally gong on the offensive and it`s about time. And it`s about time. The summer was not good for her because she hid out from the media for weeks which was stupid. It doesn`t help her to not answer questions on an almost daily basis. HAYES: And particularly it strikes me, I mean, Nina, her talking about this -- I mean, from their perspective, right, from the -- if you get around the Clinton people and sometimes I find that the level of loyalty -- it`s a bit hard to parse, like whether it`s distorting reality as it comes to them, because the people around Hillary Clinton can be so fiercely loyal. TURNER: Yeah, Chris, I mean, they`re very protective but I do agree with Jonathan in that the more she talks about these issues on her own terms the stronger she is. So I don`t know who`s advising on that campaign, but she needs to get out there in front like she is right now and continue to talk about these issues. I mean, in October she will be there to answer all the questions that they may or may not have within the senate. I mean, she has been a strong and dedicated public servant all of her life. So she has nothing be ashamed of and she needs to do the dance. HAYES: Well, and the other thing to keep in mind here -- I mean, this is part of it, too, is that you can feel -- I can feel, because I`m in it. I`m in the media. I can feel the rooting for her to have a hard tough road to the nomination and not out of any anti-Clinton animus, just at a narrative level people want twists and turns and plots and an upset. And so you can sort of -- I just feel like that rooting interest for drama has been a little warping in this period in the relative context of where she is as a candidate, which is if you walked up and said you have to bet 100 dollars on who the next president of the United States is going to be of anyone in the field right now, I think you have to put it on Hillary Clinton. ALTER: Well, especially today with Trump pushing the Republican Party to the right on immigration and whoever does get nominated is going to be in the same pickle that Romney was and they`re going to get like 25 percent of the Latino vote. You can`t get elected with 25 percent of the Latino vote. So this was a very, very good day for Hillary in general. HAYES: As she watches them try to outbid each other. ALTER: Yes. But also your larger point is dead on, you`ve got hundreds of political reporters. They need something to keep it interesting. And they`ll do what they can to make it interesting. HAYES: Nina Turner and Jonathan Alter, thank you both. 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