All In with Chris Hayes, Transcript 08/18/15

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST (voice-over): Tonight on ALL IN -- JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This is a constitutionally protected right. HAYES: Republicans line up on either side of the latest immigration conflict brought to them once again by Donald J. Trump. CHUCK TODD, MEET THE PRESS: You want to get rid of birth right citizenship? DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You have to get rid of them. Yes, you have to. HAYES: Tonight, why even the candidates` rebuttals are bad politics. SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: As to the 11 million, let`s be practical. HAYES: Then, the resurrection of repeal and replace. SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We have to repeal and replace the health care law. GOV. SCOTT WALKER (R-WI), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Repealing Obamacare entirely. HAYES: Plus, new footage of Black Lives Matter activists meeting with Hillary Clinton. HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Look, I don`t believe you change hearts. I believe you change laws. HAYES: And things get rough on the campaign trail. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, no! HAYES: ALL IN starts right now. (END VIDEOTAPE) HAYES: Good evening from New York. I`m Chris Hayes. For the second time since entering the presidential race, Donald Trump is setting the agenda on immigration policy for the Republican field. While his surge to front-runner status began with warnings about Mexican rapists and demands to build the hugest, most secure wall you could ever imagine on our southern border, with Mexico paying for it, Trump`s new immigration plan released over the weekend calls for an end to birth right citizenship as the principle enshrined in the 14th Amendment by the Republican Party after the civil war that anyone born in the U.S. is automatically a citizen. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TODD: You want to get rid of birthright citizenship? TRUMP: You have to get rid of it. Yes, you have to. What they`re doing, they`re having a baby and all of a sudden nobody knows -- (CROSSTALK) HAYES: -- you have no choice. You have no choice. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: It turns out while Trump is putting this issue back in the news, his position, which may sound extreme, is already totally mainstream within the Republican presidential field. It turns out Rand Paul co- sponsored a constitutional amendment to terminate birthright citizenship back in 2011. Rick Santorum called for it to end in a column this past May. Lindsey Graham, Chris Christie, and Scott Walker have all signaled they`d support reexamining the policy. Even Bobby Jindal, who was born to immigrant parent and himself became a natural-born U.S. citizen, eligible to run for president thanks to birth right citizenship, tweeted last night, "We need to end birthright citizenship for illegal immigrants." Now, Jindal`s parents were here legally, but they got green card through his mother`s university scholarship, but it`s not all clear how that distinction would actually play out or be enforced. Trump`s plan to end birthright citizenship deals with immigration policy going forward. The real kicker is his plan for the 11-plus million undocumented immigrants already here living in the U.S. In his own words, they have to go. Trump is positioning himself the head of what we`ll call the round- them-up caucus, the part of the party that`s perfectly comfortable telling millions of Americans we`re coming for your friends and loved ones and colleagues and coworkers. We`re going to lock them up and throw them out of the country. Then there`s the nominally more moderate ring of the party which is arguing not that Trump`s approach is wrong, but that it`s just impracticable, unrealistic. Or as Jeb Bush told "The Washington Post," quote, "a plan needs to be grounded in reality." (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) RUBIO: Obviously, there`s some ideas that have merit, but the majority of it is really not a workable plan that could ever pass Congress. GRAHAM: Donald Trump`s eight-page plan is gibberish and unworkable. What Donald Trump is not doing is embracing a workable solution to a broken immigration system. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: While that may be correct on the merits, it might not be as extreme as Trump`s rhetoric as Matt Barreto Latino Decisions pointed out on this show last night, it still sends a very clear message. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MATT BARRETO, LATINO DECISIONS: We`re paying attention and Latino voters are seeing what they`re saying right now. So these are the formative months. It doesn`t matter what you say on the other issues. No one is going to vote for someone that is mean towards immigrants, their family and people in the community. That is 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`re saying you agree with his anti-immigrant statements, and that`s going to cause a lot of trouble down the road. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: I`m joined now by the Reverend Samuel Rodriguez. He`s president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference. And, Reverend, your response to watching the politics of this play out, the issue positions, both the revocation of birthright citizenship, the idea of rounding up 11 million people, how do you interpret that? REV. SAMUEL RODRIGUEZ, NATIONAL HISPANIC CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE: Chris, simply in the 1800s, a political party emerged as a splinter group of the Whig Party from 1845 to 1860. The nativist party of America also known as the know-nothings. Their platform, get rid of all the immigrants. Donald Trump`s immigration proposal is the nativist party motif regurgitated on steroids. It is anti-Christian, anti-Ronald Reagan conservatism, and anti-Latino. With his rhetoric, obtaining the White House in 2016 requires me to declare two words -- good luck. HAYES: Let me ask you this. When you hear -- I mean, it`s striking to me when I think about how this would hit my ears if I were someone who was of a community that had a lot of immigrants. Some people say we want to round these people up. They`ve got to go. We might even deport, as Trump indicated, American citizens in the family. And then other candidates, the so-called moderates, not saying that`s morally obscene, not saying that`s a crazy idea that`s a violation of some of our basic principles and constitutional guarantees, but rather -- well, it`s unworkable. It`s impractical. What does that send? What do you hear when you hear unworkable, impractical in response to this? RODRIGUEZ: I think you`re hearing the message of political individuals who are obtaining, who are attempting to obtain the candidacy of the Republican Party scared away by 20-something percent supporting Donald Trump -- the fact that Donald Trump is resonating with a core constituency of the Republican electorate, but he is sacrificing two necessary groups. One, our evangelical Christians who vote 78 percent Republicans. But evangelical Christians are in favor of immigration reform. So, Donald Trump may be engaging the nativist segment of the Republican Party but alienating evangelical Christians. And then he`s likewise alienating the Latino electorate. Listen, Chris, 27 percent supported Mitt Romney, the self-deportation Mitt Romney governor in the last election. That self-deportation rhetoric seems very compassionate in comparison to Donald Trump. And the Republicans know very well they must hit at least 35 to 38 percent of the Latino electorate if they are to obtain the White House. So, it seems foolish. It`s a death knell. It`s political suicide, the rhetoric coming out of Donald Trump as it pertains to immigration. I`m a Latino. I resonate with the values of Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy, for that matter. But I resonate with the values of Ronald Reagan. And I am alienated by the rhetoric of Donald Trump. HAYES: What do you want to hear, then? I mean, this is really the question because it seems to me there`s an opportunity here, you hear hemming and hawing, you say it`s nonsense or it`s unworkable. You know, I remember Rick Perry looking into the camera at a debate when he was defending his state`s decision to grant in-state tuition to undocumented students, saying, look, you don`t have a heart if you don`t want to educate these kids. He got killed for it. But is there an opportunity for someone in this field to come forward and say something like that? RODRIGUEZ: There is. And without endorsing or exhibiting any sort of a preference over these two individuals, I do believe that Governor Jeb Bush and Senator Marco Rubio do have the best prescriptions. I have looked at their proposals, I have worked to a degree on these proposals, and I`m privy to some of the dynamics. It is not amnesty, as Donald Trump projects it. It is not amnesty. Amnesty is what my friend Richard Land would call what Jesus did for us on the cross. So, it`s not amnesty. Paying fines, going to the back of the line, admitting you are here illegally, making sure you have a job and you`re not living off entitlements. That`s not amnesty. HAYES: Yes. RODRIGUEZ: So, Bush and Rubio do have the best prescription. And I do believe they`re going to have to step up at this hour and really push back on this anti-Latino, anti-Christian rhetoric coming out of Donald Trump`s camp. HAYES: Two closing points on that. One, neither of them have endorsed a path to citizenship, sort of path to legal status. And second of all, we will see if they get more strenuous in defense of that and what language they use. Reverend Samuel Rodriguez, it`s a great pleasure to have you on tonight. Come back. Thank you. RODRIGUEZ: Thank you. HAYES: Trump`s immigration platform has met with mostly glowing coverage on FOX News. Same network he will still at war with a little more than a week ago over his treatment at the first Republican debate. Trump claiming not only that he got tougher questions, especially from moderator Megyn Kelly, but that a focus group conducted by pollster Frank Luntz was stacked with anti-Trump voters. After talking with the Donald last month, FOX President Roger Ailes managed to attain a detente. But the cold war between Trump and FOX was re-ignited today by a political report claiming Luntz had bad-mouthed Trump at a closed-door seminar hosted by the Koch brothers, telling donors "Trump was dangerous to Republicans and was turning what we believe into a joke." Republican front-runner promptly fired back at Luntz telling "Politico", "If I was Roger Ailes, I would fire that guy so fast for what he did, his head would spin." Republican strategist Roger Stone even joined the fray. Despite having parted ways with the Trump campaign last week, tweeting, "Pathetic turd Frank Luntz begged Donald Trump for corporate polling work. He trashes Trump only after Trump declines." Joining me now, Gabriel Sherman, national affairs editor at "New York Magazine", author of the recent piece, "How Roger Ailes Picked Trump and FOX News Audience Over Megyn Kelly." Well, this is fascinating to me, because this is the Cold War. You`ve got two people on either side for people whose entire lives, careers and reputations are staked on never being the chump, never losing, never backing down, Roger Ailes and Donald Trump. Something happened between them. There`s different some reporting. You`re reporting, Brian Stelter`s reporting. But both of them have to save face now. What do you interpret this little skirmish today? GABRIEL SHERMAN, NEW YORK MAGAZINE: Well, essentially Trump is testing the waters. He had to answer -- I mean, it was "Politico" in Trump`s defense that reported this. HAYES: Yes, right. SHERMAN: They called him up and he unloaded on Luntz. But here`s the thing -- it sort of touches on what you talked about in that earlier segment. FOX can`t afford to go to war with Trump because his base, his supporters, is their audience. And so, you have this sort of detente last week and now they`ve settled into what they hope will be this truce that will last. I would argue FOX can`t afford an open, you know, hot war. HAYES: Well, but the calculation early on is they went into this was that Trump can`t on ford it, right? In some ways, Ailes and Trump seem to be two of the most uncontainable personalities in American public life who are now essentially eyeing each other with a kind of strategy of containment. SHERMAN: And I think what Roger Ailes would hope for FOX`s sake is that Trump`s poll numbers collapsed, because that`s -- that`s his power is his poll numbers, politically speaking. So, Trump`s poll numbers collapse, then Ailes can sort of have open season, FOX News hosts can start attacking him openly without fear of a backlash. But as long as Trump`s poll numbers are 20-plus, if FOX goes to war with him, that is sort of his base of support. That`s their audience. The audience as we saw turned on Megyn Kelly after the debate. So, really, you know, Trump holds the cards as long as his poll numbers stay elevated. HAYES: We should say the audience -- some portion of that audience turned on her, right? SHERMAN: The vocal audience. HAYES: The vocal audience. We`re talking about millions of people, right? So we don`t know what percentage that is. That said, what do you make of the reception Trump has gotten now in the sort of days of this sort of detente, embraced on the morning show, embraced in primetime, defended to the hilt against conservatives coming on to trash him essentially. SHERMAN: And also what`s interesting is he is -- Megyn Kelly`s on vacation. He said that, you know, she was -- his vacation was responsible, but basically, you know, Ailes fired back. I think they`re both basically settling into a cold war. HAYES: Luntz -- the most striking moment in that whole evening in some ways in FOX`s broadcast was the Luntz, you know, focus group with the voters in which he seemed to be leading them on to take it out on him. There`s a real question about, like, was this a setup? And Trump actually called it out, right? One of his big complaints, aside from Megyn Kelly`s questions, which I think, you know, seemed eminently fair, the focus group did feel a little like -- was this whole thing set up to do this? SHERMAN: I mean, there`s basically in Trump world you hear all sorts of gripes that, oh, it was a setup. That Murdoch set it up, that it was part of this FOX plot to destroy him. There`s no sort of I have no recording that would sort of back that up. But this is the sort of view inside Trump`s world that the sort of debate was an entire orchestrated effort to derail his candidacy. HAYES: And you also can see in his comments about Luntz today that this is not someone who`s going to forget a grudge. This is a guy who will literally at 2:00 in the morning apparently be up with his smartphone or his laptop out, reading random people saying things about him on Twitter and yelling at them on Twitter. He`s not going to forget who crosses him. SHERMAN: And here`s the best part is Trump remembers all the times these guys knocked on his door asking for favors, asking for business. And he`s not afraid to basically just spill the secrets and say, listen, two years ago you asked me for money. HAYES: That`s his Trump -- that is his Trump card. That is his go- to, and you saw it with Luntz in terms of Roger Stone. He wanted business from me. Rand Paul, he tried to ask me for money. That is his go-to. Gabe Sherman, thank you very much. SHERMAN: Thank you. HAYES: All right. Still ahead, the water that quite probably water bottle-gate. We`ll show you Marco Rubio`s latest shining moment. And later, what the people have been clamoring for, an update to our completely utterly mathematically legitimate 2016 candidate draft. Plus, Hillary Clinton`s meeting with the Black Lives Matter movement. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you don`t tell black people what we need to do, then we won`t tell you all what you need to do. CLINTON: I`m not telling you. I`m just telling you to tell me. (END VIDEO CLIP) (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JESSE MCINTOSH, EMILY`S LIST: This whole thing is making me proud of our candidates and happy to be a Democrat this year. HAYES: One more important thing. The thing that Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have most in common is the way they pronounce the word that is spelled H-U-G-E. MCINTOSH: Fair. HAYES: Which is pronounced huge. Look it up. It`s pronounced huge. They both pronounce it huge. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: My conversation with Jess McIntosh the other day. And it is true, the two biggest things going in the 2016 campaign right now are Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. Now, they share basically substantively, politically or personally nothing in common except they`re both shaking up the establishment, they`re drawing gigantic crowds and they both share the pronunciation of the word the rest of us know as huge. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: Well, first of all, I`m a huge Second Amendment person. SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Huge issue. TRUMP: I`m a huge believer in clean air. SANDERS: That`s a huge issue. TRUMP: I`m not a huge believer in global warming. SANDERS: Huge problem. TRUMP: I think NAFTA was a huge mistake. SANDERS: You can`t get huge tax breaks. Huge tax breaks. Huge, huge tax breaks. TRUMP: And I get huge reductions. They get pumped up with this huge pile of liquid. It`s a huge help for them. And, you know, I`m a huge fan of your mother. There`s a huge problem. It`s is a huge problem. The huge problem. That is a huge problem. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So you think he`s got a bigger problem. TRUMP: I think he`s got a huge problem. A huge heroin problem. SANDERS: So, that`s a fair issue. The issue is the huge amounts of money. Huge amounts of money. Huge amounts of money. Huge amounts of money. TRUMP: Huge amounts of money. SANDERS: As Trump mentioned, huge amounts of money. TRUMP: I have a huge company. And if I`m in New York, I get like to no bids. SANDERS: And this is a huge breakthrough. TRUMP: And I see a huge truck filling up with sand, which has to go to the driving range. SANDERS: Huge victory. TRUMP: He said I just put in a huge order for Komatsu tractors. SANDERS: That`s a huge issue. (END VIDEO CLIP) (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: The very first time we`re now getting a chance to see Hillary Clinton`s recent interaction with the Black Lives Matter movement. Now, we have seen these interactions with other candidates, public disruptions involving Martin O`Malley, Bernie Sanders and Jeb Bush. And Clinton`s interaction was a behind-the-scenes meeting that took place last weekend in New Hampshire. It began when Black Lives Matter activist, Julius Jones, talked about the Clinton`s administration role in promoting mass incarceration. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JULIUS JONES, BLACK LIVES MATTER ACTIVIST: You have been in no uncertain way partially responsible for this, more than most, but now that you understand the consequences, what in your heart has changed that`s going to change the direction of this country? And what in you, not your platform, not what you`re supposed to say -- like how do you actually feel that`s different than you did before? CLINTON: I think that there has to be a reckoning. I agree with that. But I also think there has to be some positive vision and plan that you can move people toward. I mean, once you say, you know, this country has still not recovered from its original sin, which is true. Once you say that, then the next question by people who are on the sidelines, which is the vast majority of Americans, the next question is, well, so what do you want me to do about it? What am I supposed to do about it? That`s what I`m trying to put together in a way that I can explain it and I can sell it. So, all I`m saying is, your analysis is totally fair. It`s historically fair. It`s psychologically fair. It`s economically fair. But you`re going to have to come together as a movement and say, here`s what we want done about it. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: The whole thing lasted for about 15 minutes. It remained respectful throughout, but it did get somewhat intense at times. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JONES: I`ll say this as respectfully as I can. But if you don`t tell black people what we need to do, then we won`t tell you all what you need to do. CLINTON: I`m not telling you. I`m just telling you to tell me. JONES: What I mean to say is that this is and has always been a white problem of violence. It`s not -- there`s not much that we can do to stop the violence against us. CLINTON: Respectfully, if that is your position, then I will talk only to white people about how we are going to deal with the very real problems. JONES: That`s not what I mean. That`s not what I mean. CLINTON: No? JONES: But what you just said was a form of victim blaming. You were saying that what the Black Lives Matter movement needs to do to change white hearts -- (CROSSTALK) CLINTON: I`m not talking about -- look, I don`t believe you change hearts. I believe you change laws. You change allocation of resources. You change the way systems operate. You`re not going to change every heart. You`re not. You can keep the movement going, which you have started. And through it, you may actually change some hearts. But if that`s all that happens, we`ll be back here in 10 years having the same conversation. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: All right. Joining me now, Karen Finney, senior adviser for communications and political outreach, senior spokesperson for the Hillary Clinton campaign. Well, I thought the whole 15 minutes, people should go online, it`s fascinating and in some ways, to me, as authentic and revealing a look at what Hillary Clinton is like as a person in power or a person who wants to have more political power as anything you can get from the stump because this is, like, the real work of politics. How do you understand this interaction? KAREN FINNEY, CLINTON CAMPAIGN: Well, I just want to point out, Chris, actually, the segment that you showed, that`s actually -- that`s the second half. There`s a whole first half -- HAYES: OK. FINNEY: -- where they`ve asked the same question a couple of times in a couple of different ways. So, what I would say is, look, I thought it was a -- as you pointed out, tense at times, but very respectful. It was a very real conversation and a very frank conversation. And I think that Hillary was -- you know, I mean, I`ve known her for a long time, so I know that these issues are very personal to her. And, you know, she talks about it earlier in the tape, she sort of says, look, I`m from the MLK `60s, you know, that`s what I know. And so, some of it, I think, is generational. But some of it I also think what`s going on here, I mean, I can tell you that Hillary was very intentional about wanting to talk with these guys who showed up. They got there late, unfortunately. So, we were able to work it out that she could meet with them and talk with them. And I think she was really straightforward -- you know, very blunt in her answers. And I think it was -- like I said, it was a very respectful conversation. HAYES: Let me ask you this because I think part of what -- and you`re right. There`s a long period in which they`re sort of asking the same question and they`re sort of going back and forth a bit. The core question here occurs to me is, look, the politics of criminal justice in the country have changed. They`ve changed since 1994. I don`t think anyone would dispute that. And we`re putting a lot more people in prison. Tons of people have warrants out for them. Hillary Clinton seems to have different views now than she held in 1994, at least in small part and a few lines, it takes a village, et cetera, a lot of that was her husband`s administration which you can`t hang on her. But I think the question is like -- FINNEY: Wait a second. You just said you can`t hang it on her, but you are hanging it on her, by the way. Come on. HAYES: She does endorse -- she does endorse the crime bill and it takes a village. She does. FINNEY: OK. However, what people seem to forget, she was a senator and she had a voting record of her own. Look, she talked about, earlier in the tape, they talk about the `90s and, you know, the unintended consequences and that`s something she`s talked about in other places, and president Clinton has also. And the idea that, you know, what was going on in the `90s and where we are now, one of the solutions for now. And I can tell you when she was senator, she co- sponsored legislation to ban racial profiling, to reinstate the vote for former felons, people who had served their time. She supported legislation around sentencing reforms. Did it all get done? No, we had a different president. So, you know, but my point is, I mean -- this is a person who I think has been consistent on these issues for a period of time. But the other point I was going to make is, you know, how we`re talking about race in this country now and, you know, sort of systemic inequalities is different. I think we`re having a different conversation. I think we`re having a tough conversation. And we should. And one of the things she also points out in the video -- and I agree with this -- I give this movement a lot of credit for forcing us to be having this conversation because we`ve need to have this conversation, frankly, I think for a long time. But I do think -- and this is very much who Hillary is as a person -- her focus -- and she says this -- is solutions. That`s why the first policy speech of this campaign was criminal justice reform. And talking about, you know, the things that we need to acknowledge in terms of realities about if you`re a person of color, you know, you`re more likely to get pulled over. How you are treated is different. And then also how the criminal justice system treats you is different. And sort of how do we deal with some of those unintended consequences from the `90s in terms of, you know, ending the era of mass incarceration. So I think, you know, what I take from that video is a person who is trying to say, look, I`m trying to find solutions. We can`t change the past. You know -- I hear you. HAYES: I love -- as a political theory, we`re not going to change hearts, we`re going to change laws. That`s a political theory that I think is a very powerful one. And it has history behind it, certainly. FINNEY: Yes. Well, and I think, look. My dad was part of the civil rights movement in the `60s. I mean, you know, a lot of movement people feel that way. Look, you may change hearts, which is kind of what she went on to say, but you`ve got to change laws and systems. HAYES: Well, we`re going to have a really interesting policy debate as this campaign goes forward about what that looks like concretely. And we`re going to look forward to hashing that out. Karen Finney, great thanks. I really appreciate you joining us tonight. FINNEY: Great to be with you. HAYES: All right. Still ahead, Republican candidates dip their toes back into the Obamacare battle. Plus, the video behind this picture you do not want to miss. Seriously, it is amazing. Stay with us. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: All right, some big news today on the White House`s fight with the GOP-controlled Senate over the Iran nuclear deal. Robert Menendez of New Jersey became the second Democratic senator to come out against the agreement. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. ROBERT MENENDEZ, (D) NEW JERSEY: I have looked into my own soul and my devotion to principle may once again lead me to an unpopular course. But if Iran is to acquire a nuclear bomb, it will not have my name on it. It is for these reasons that I will vote to disapprove the agreement and, if called upon, would vote to override a veto. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Now, Senator Menendez`s opposition of the Iran deal is not at all surprising. He`s been one of the most vocal critics of the White House`s effort since the very beginning. In fact, he`s been such a staunch opponent of the negotiation efforts that certain conservatives muse that his unrelated indictment on conspiracy charges was a scheme by the Obama White House to get him in line on Iran. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. TED CRUZ, (R) TEXAS: The very week when Bob Menendez showed incredible courage to speak out and call out President Obama for the damage that his policy was doing to our national security, that coincidence is troubling that that very week, after two years, is when the Justice Department announces they`re moving forward with a criminal prosecution. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: The indictment was clearly unsuccessful in swaying the New Jersey senator who brought the total number of senators opposing the deal up to 33, according to NBC News. On the other side of the ledger, however, more good news for the White House after democratic Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii came out this morning in support of the deal. Senators Jack Reid and Sheldon Whitehouse followed suit bringing the whip count in support of the deal to 23 senators. Now, that`s just 11 votes short of what the White House needs to uphold a veto of a resolution of disapproval in the Senate, which is how this is all going to go down. And it now looks increasingly like they are going to get to that vote threshold despite those two Democratic defections. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell admitting as much saying yesterday that "President Obama has a great likelihood of success in his high stakes showdown with the congress on the Iran nuclear deal." Now, if Mitch McConnell is right, once again further evidence that whether you agree or disagree with this president, he is pretty darn good at getting what he wants. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: Two GOP candidates did something this week you haven`t heard Republicans do very much lately -- they actually talked about Obamacare. Yesterday, Marco Rubio put out an op-ed entitled "My plan to fix Obamacare" which was noticeably light on actual detail. And today Scott Walker unveiled his plan to repeal and replace the health care law, which involved restructuring Medicaid and tying tax credits to age rather than income. (BEIN VIDEO CLIP) GOV. SCOTT WALKER, (R) WISCONSIN: We have got a plan that`s simple to begin with. It`s as simple as this, it starts out with the premise that on my very first day as president of the United States, I will to send legislation to the congress to once and for all repeal Obamacare entirely. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: In reality, and this probably won`t surprise you, Walker is offering something quite less than an actual Obamacare alternative. As the AP points out, his plan does not include cost figures or an estimate of the number of people who would be covered making it nearly impossible to compare with the current law. But Walker`s priority likely isn`t to actually try to replace Obamacare which would involve a massive upheaval for millions of Americans and effectively be an act of political suicide. What the Wisconsin governor really seems to be doing is trying to use the issue to shame his presidential rivals who served in the senate and who have yet to find a way to magically overcome the filibuster and the math of a veto to repeal the law. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) WALKER: We were told by Republican leaders during the campaigns last year that we just needed a Republican senate to be elected to repeal Obamacare. Well, here we sit, both chambers of the United States Congress have been controlled since January by Republicans and yet there`s not a bill on the president`s desk to repeal Obamacare. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Today`s antics notwithstanding, there`s no denying there`s been a giant Obamacare-shaped hole in the GOP presidential race. The party that voted more than 50 times to delay or repeal Obamacare, that warned incessantly the law would bring utter disaster, and even shut down the government trying to stop it, that party suddenly seems to have almost entirely stopped talking about the law. Consider this: in the first major Republican presidential debate four years ago in June, 2011, the candidates uttered the word Obamacare 23 times. In the first GOP debate this cycle, they mentioned Obamacare just six times. The relative silence could have something to do with the fact that the rate of people without insurance dropped six percentage points to just 11.4 percent since key Obamacare provisions began in 2013 with about 16 million people gaining coverage. Or maybe Republicans are just too embarrassed about all of their terrible predictions about what the law would do. (BEGIN VIDOE CLIP) SEN. RAND PAUL, (R) KENTUCKY: I think what`s going to come out of Obamacare is worse than anybody can imagine. I think it`s a disaster. REP. PAUL RYAN, (R) WISCONSIN: Think this law will collapse under its own weight. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think Obamacare is designed to fail. It will fail. REP. PAUL BROWN, (R) GEORGIA: Obamacare is going to destroy everything that we know as a nation. It`s going to push us into a total economic collapse. REP. JOHN BOEHNER, (R) OHIO: It will ruin the best health care system in the world, it`ll bankrupt our nation and ruin our economy. (END VIDEO CLIP0 HAYES: All right, joining me now, Dr. Zeke Emmanuel, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, one of the key architects of the Affordable Care Act. And Zeke, since we`re not hearing so much about Obamacare somewhat amazingly on the campaign trail, if I were to check in and say, Zeke, you worked on this thing, where do we kind of end up on this? Where are we at? What`s the report card right now at this point in 2015 on Obamacare? What`s your answer? EZEKIEL EMANUEL, CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS: Well, you might say I`m biased, but every independent analysis says no matter what your metric, it`s been a success for the last five years. If it`s the coverage rate, how many people are getting coverage, as you mentioned, we have more than -- about 13 million people getting coverage through the exchanges, about ten million of them new. The uninsured rate has gone from 18 percent to 11.4 percent. If it`s cost, over the last five years on a per person basis, costs have been at historic moderation. Over the last five years we`d have one quarter with health care inflation has been over on a per person basis over 4 percent. So historic low health care cost inflation. And then we heard over and over that it would be a job killer, undermine the entire economy and we`ve had steady progress in the expansion of jobs and no evidence that the ACA caused a blip in the hiring of workers. So whether it`s cost, access, or its effect on the economy, the ACA has been quite good overall and that`s one of the reasons I think the Republicans have gone silent. The other reason, of course, is they don`t have an alternative and the stuff you hear from Walker and Rubio now... HAYES: Refundable tax credits. Refundable tax credits. Refundable health care tax credits. EMANUEL: So let me just take a second to explain that. HAYES: I mean, that is just to be clear, this is the thing that has - - has been at the sort of center to the extent there`s an alternative, refundable health care tax credits has been one of the pillars of that. That is part of Walker`s plan. EMANUEL: Right, it`s part of all of their plans. It goes back to John McCain and basically it`s now people who get coverage through their employer get a tax exclusion, their health insurance is not taxed. They say let`s get rid of that. Let`s tax it. Employers would drop insurance like a hot potato then and they will use the money that we would collect in taxes and give people a tax credit and they can go out and buy insurance. And Walker, to his credit, put a number on that and basically said a family of four, two adult, two children, you get $6,000. Well, let me just tell you... HAYES: Good luck. EMMANUEL: Well, let me just tell you, the average employer health insurance now costs $16,000 and that means he`s going to shove $10,000 of cost on the average family which would be 20 percent of the average family`s income. He wants people to pay 20 percent of their pre-tax income for health insurance now. That`s the bottom line on the Walker proposal and that`s why these proposals don`t fly. The moment the public hears about how much they have to pay, they go wild and reject it. So I think these are We had the Burr-Coburn-Hatch that was the most successful senate plan and it went nowhere. After 24 hours, it was dead because of the same math. HAYES: Yeah, Zeke Emanuel, thank you for giving us a check in on the whole Obamacare thing. Appreciate it. EMMANUEL: Thank you. Take care. HAYES: Still ahead, the highly anticipated update to our 2016 Fantasy Candidate Draft, but first we`ll finally show you the magic moment behind this image that we`ve been teasing for 43:27 right after this break. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: Leading the receiver, it`s just so important for a quarterback to get at football out in front of a running target if you want to give the player a chance to make the catch and maybe tack on some extra yardage down the field. It`s why they have training videos like the one we just played. There`s another video today thanks to Bloomberg News and featuring 2016 presidential candidate Marco Rubio. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIIFIED MALE: Oh, no! Oh, no! (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Now, there`s been a lot of debate today as to whether this was a bad throw by the senator or very misfortunate bungle by the youngster who was fine, by the way. Upon further review, it is clear the quarterback was not leading the receiver. In fact, the pass was almost behind the kid. It was catchable for sure. But you`re forcing the receiver to twist around to attempt some sort of circus catch which, as you can see, lead to a suboptimal result. Luckily no one was hurt. The event looked like a genuinely fun one. But if you can`t lead a receiver, senator, how can you lead our country? More sports-ish politics coming up. an update to the All In 2016 Fantasy Candidate Draft when we return. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ANNOUNCER: 2016, so close yet so far away. This is the story of 25 men and women who may or may not be running for president of America. The select few brave enough, bold enough, friends with Sheldon Adelson enough. 25 will enter, but only one will arrive at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. That where`s the White House is. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: It has been awhile. We crack ourselves up, what can you say. It`s been a while since we last checked in on our 2016 Fantasy Candidate Draft in which five fearless contestants randomly picked numbers off of a large board unveiling 25 presidential hopefuls that are now forced to live with those selections until November, 2016. According to our official 2016 fantasy candidate draft rules, it is time to update our scoreboard. Now, you may have heard a thing or two about a Republican debate held earlier this month. Those polling in the top ten were able to participate in the main event while those with less robust poll numbers were invited to an earlier, more sparsely attended forum. Our rules state that constants are 200 points when one of their candidates participates in a sanctioned debate and according to RNC, the prime time and not so prime time Fox News debates are both considered to be sanctions debates. So where does that lead our scoreboard? Well, Joy Reid had four draft picks participating in those debates, putting her in the lead with 1,300 points. Jess McIntosh comes in next with four of her picks in the debate, all of them making the main stage, by the way. Giving her 1,200 points. Michael Steele is in third place with three of his five picks participating in the debates, that earns him 1,100 point. Sam Seder, who has 1,000 points with three draft picks in those. And last but not least is Josh Barro just chugging along with Ted Cruz and Carly Fiorina. He`s still this thing with 600 points. Now, the candidate field on the Republican side I think it`s fair to say is as large as it is going to get and the question now becomes, particularly for our fantasy draft contenders and their legions of fans following this with baited breath around the country, which candidates will start dropping out? We will place our bets on the first to go ahead. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Have you been able to pay your campaign staff? RICK PERRY, 2016 REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Have I been able to for the last week no? But we`ve got a lot of young people that are volunteering for us and I greatly appreciate their commitment to the cause. And as the dollars come in we`ll appropriately take care of those that are working with us on a paid status. (END VIDEO CLIP) HAYES: Good luck on your mortgage, Perry staffers, getting a little rough out there for some of the GOP presidential hopefuls. Here to assess the current state of affairs, MSNBC contributor Josh Barro and Lynn Sweet Washington bureau chief of the Chicago Sun-Times. All right, let`s -- this is I think the point where at least on the Republican side, because Democratic side we don`t know about Biden, right. It`s as big as it`s going to be. We`re going to start seeing people dropping and I should note this, we already had a big person drop out at this point in the last cycle in 2011 and that was Tim Pawlenty who dropped out I believe August 14, 2011. So already -- and Pawlenty was a very hyped candidate. A lot of people thought the guy might be the next president of the United States, declared it so in public and he was out at this point. Josh, who do you think is next? JOSH BARRO, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR; Perry is the obvious pick for that. I mean, the only reason to drop out now is if you were in this because you thought you might win and now it`s clear you might not win. There are various people who never had any shot of winning. Lindsey Graham is in this to raise the profile of a issue that he cares about a lot, the fact that he`s polling at less than 1 percent doesn`t really matter from -- or well, he`d rather be polling higher, but he`s not going to look at the polls and be like "oh, no, I can`t win, I better drop out." Rick Perry`s theory was that he ought to be the Republican nominee for president. He was a popular, very long serving governor of the second largest state in the country, he was thought to be a front-runner four years ago. He really hasn`t been able to get any traction, and he was discussing there, he hasn`t been able to raise enough money to pay his staff. So he`s the one who I see the least rationale for him to stay in. HAYES: And part of that, Lynn, is -- here`s the headline for the National Journal why is Rick Perry broke? His 2012 donors prefer Ted Cruz. I remember when I was in Texas the last time having off-the-record drinks with some operatives down there telling me about the absolutely brutal war that was taking place behind the scenes for both talent and money between basically the Cruz camp and the Perry camp because they were both fishing in the same pond and right now things don`t look that good for Perry. LYNN SWEET, CHICAGO SUN-TIMES: Well, they don`t. And they both need more than just a big and robust Texas fund raising base. I`ll go along with I think Perry. Perry is the most responsive to bad finances because he didn`t set himself up to live off the land. Lindsey Graham can live off the land. I have another category for you two guys to think of, too. Chris, you`re talking about dropping out as Pawlenty did where it`s official. I think you need another category, people who aren`t candidates anymore except they don`t know it. And that category -- I would put in -- because I think it`s going to happen soon, Bobby Jindal is having a hard time getting traction and Chris Christie who was going to come in to this as the truth teller loud mouth, well, he`s been out-trumped, hasn`t he? HAYES: Yeah, I mean, this is CNN poll, and Christie out of the top ten, polling at 3 percent. That is going to be a problem because he -- I think he`s someone who can`t afford to not be in the sort of prime time debate. The only thing about Christie is that there are several people who have lots of money who like Chris Christie. And in this brave new world we live in, it is conceivable that a few really deep pocketed billionaire can keep you in the race. BARRO: But you can only use that money for certain things. That`s what Rick Perry is encountering right now. HAYES: Great point, right. BARRO: Super PAC with a whole bunch of money, but he can`t... HAYES: And that super PAC can do huge ad buys, right, but someone has to pay the people who are staffing in office in Charleston, South Carolina. BARRO: On the other hand, Chris Christie has a better ability than a lot of other candidates to generate free media so he might enjoy staying in the campaign getting some amount of press attention even if as Lynn describes he`s dead in the water. SWEET: Well, I didn`t say dead in the water. I said he`s on the endangered species list. BARRO: OK, Sorry. I didn`t mean to put words in your mouth. HAYES: He`s alive but in danger? BARRO: Right. And another thing that he and Bobby Jindal have in common is that they both have pretty depressing home state situations to go back to. They are both very unpopular at home. Christie still has this festering scandal around the bridge along with various other things, so they might find it more enjoyable to be on the campaign trail even if they`re way down in the polls than to go back to Baton Rouge or Trenton. SWEET: Well, for whatever that is. You know, you never discount the ability of the psyche to keep people in races even when their chances aren`t there if they have a cause. Lindsey Graham, as you said, has a cause. He`s about something. Carly Fiorina, who got a big boost in Cleveland, has space. Chris Christie hasn`t done a good enough job fast enough to say I`m in this because and that`s why I`m putting him on the endangered species list. HAYES: And here`s what I would say, the Fiorina point is important. Fiorina -- people felt not as a substantive matter, as a kind of performance matter that she did well in that debate. It has improved her poll numbers. She will probably be on the stage the next time. And Lynn, you made this point about living off the land, which in campaign terms they call your burn rate, right. Which is, how much money is coming in, how fast is it going out? You can conceive of a situation in which you essentially try to bring all that down and just survive hoping that you end up and have a great debate moment and that turns your fortunes around. BARRO: Yeah, no, I think so. And I think the other thing going for Fiorina -- and as a matter of full disclosure, she`s on my All In draft card. But she`s a candidate who has a unique ability to be acceptable both to sort of the disgruntled conservative base that has turned to Donald Trump and to various establishment figures. She can say you know, these idiot politicians are losers, although she won`t say it exactly like that because she`s not Donald Trump and yet she can not seem like a total crazy person. HAYES: Josh Barro, Lynn Sweet thank you for both for joining us. That is All In for this evening. THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. END