Show: ALL IN with CHRIS HAYES Date: April 6, 2016 Guest: McKay Coppins, Sarah Isgur Flores, Karen Finney, Jeff Weaver, Sam Seder, Barney Frank, Rober Reich
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST (voice-over): Tonight on ALL IN --
SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Wisconsin resoundingly rejected his campaign.
HAYES: The Stop Trump forces prevail as a Trump senior adviser reportedly threatens to quit.
Then, after a big win in Wisconsin, Sanders sets his sights on New York.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Do not tell Secretary Clinton, she`s getting a little nervous.
HAYES: As Clinton attacks the heart of the Sanders campaign.
HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The core of his campaign has been break up the banks, and it didn`t seem in reading his answers that he understood exactly how that would work.
HAYES: We`ll debate that with Sanders` backer Robert Reich and Clinton supporter Barney Frank.
Plus, why Republicans care so much about voter ID laws.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hillary Clinton is about the weakest candidate the Democrats have ever put up and I think photo ID is going to make a little bit of a difference as well.
HAYES: And Florida Governor Rick Scott meets his constituents.
(EXPLETIVE DELETED)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You don`t care about working people.
HAYES: When ALL IN starts right now.
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HAYES: Good evening from New York. I`m Chris Hayes.
Donald Trump may have suffered a punishing loss in Wisconsin last night, losing to Ted Cruz by 13 percentage points, 48 percent to 35 percent. But it`s a brand new day as Trump returns to his home state here of New York, which holds the next primary on April 19th.
The Empire State has 95 delegates up for grabs, more than double Wisconsin`s 42 total delegates. A new poll shows Trump support at 52 percent among likely voters, far ahead of his two remaining rivals.
In just the last hour, Trump was greeted by a little bit of jack jams and a rapturous crowd in Bethpage on Long Island. It was as if Wisconsin never happened.
Trump was in his element, thoroughly enjoying the home field advantage, hitting Ted Cruz for attacking so-called New York values.
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DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Do you remember during the debate when he started lecturing me on New York values like we`re no good, like we`re no good. And I started talking to him about the World Trade Center, the bravery, the incredible bravery of everybody -- our police, our firemen, our everybody.
We all lived through it. We all know people that died. And I`ve got this guy standing over there looking at me, talking about New York values, with scorn on his face, with hatred, with hatred of New York. So, folks I think you can forget about him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Joining me now from inside the Trump rally in Bethpage, NBC News national correspondent, Peter Alexander.
And, Peter, what was the scene like inside that massive, massive facility you guys were in?
PETER ALEXANDER, NBC NEWS NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Chris, you know Patrick Ewing and John Starks, famous names around these parts. This felt at times like an NBA Finals at the Madison Square Garden. This has been a raucous crowd like we`ve rarely seen it before, 10,000 people filling this massive warehouse.
There was a lot of security in advance, anticipates what could be a potentially a raucous night. It was. But very little interruptions, a couple of protesters. Most of the interruptions were people chanting so loud for Trump that he had to walk away from the mike, yelling. "Build that wall," yelling "Trump". They were all on his side tonight, clearly benefiting from the home-field advantage.
We`ve been talking to people here tonight. And Donald Trump said at the start, it`s good to be home. They`re proud that Trump is back home.
Back to you.
HAYES: All right. Peter Alexander, thanks for that. You can see a lot of the red maga hats in the crowd, which is what Trump supporters refer to them as.
Joining me now from the protest outside the Trump rally, NBC News correspondent Jacob Rascon.
And, Jacob, what was the situation like outside the venue?
JACOB RASCON, NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: So, for about an hour now, Chris, you have over here the protesters who have been out here for several hours protesting and yelling and chanting at the supporters going inside and then you`re going to have over to my left, you`re going to watch the police, the 50 feet in between, and the police farther back in full riot gear because at one point, there was almost a fight.
And then you have the big crowd of Trump supporters. Now, these are people who could not get in because the venue was at capacity. They`ll spontaneously now break out into chants, into yelling. At some points, they were throwing things and as I said, there were almost fights and that`s why you had the police in full riot gear come in to try to break it up and move the media to the other side of the street -- Chris.
HAYES: All right. NBC`s Jacob Rascon, thanks for that.
Donald Trump trying to flip the script, of course, after resounding defeat in yesterday`s Wisconsin primary. It was a victory not just for Ted Cruz but for the Stop Trump movement, including local talk radio, well-funded super PAC, which until now had failed to make much of an impact.
According to exit polls, less than half of Republican primary voters in Wisconsin said they felt excited or optimistic about what Trump would do as president, while a plurality, 38 percent said they were scared of a Trump presidency.
In a rare move for the Republican front runner, Trump opted not to appear in front of any TV cameras last week, instead releasing a statement accusing Cruz of illegally coordinating with his associated super PAC and tying him to what Trump ally roger stone is calling the big steal. Quote, "Ted Cruz is worse than a puppet, he is a Trojan horse being used by the party bosses attempting to steal the nomination from Mr. Trump."
Last night`s results did contain a couple silver linings for Trump, however. First, given Wisconsin`s highly distinctive political culture, it is not clear that what happened there can be repeated in upcoming primary states. Second, Trump managed to win six of Wisconsin`s 42 delegates, holding Cruz to 36 meaning Cruz won with a margin of 30 delegates. That`s 12 fewer than if he`d gotten a clean sweep.
Margins are what counts right now in the race at 1,237. Here`s where that race stands after Wisconsin. Trump is still the only candidate in sight of the finish line with 756 delegates trailed by Cruz with 517. Marco Rubio who suspended his campaign in third with just 172. John Kasich who`s still in the race with 143.
It`s still an uphill climb for Trump. According to NBC News, he now needs to win 58 percent of the remaining delegates in order to clinch the nomination on the first ballot at that Republican convention in Cleveland in July.
If Trump falls short, the race would likely move to a contested convention, something the campaign appears to be struggling to prepare for. According to "Politico", Trump`s embattled campaign manager Corey Lewandowski is fighting to preserve his own power and to box out Paul Manafort who was hired last month to lead the campaign`s delegate corralling effort.
One source with knowledge of the situation told MSNBC`s Ari Melber that Manafort, a veteran operative, views his role as having broader authority than Lewandowski might think, and was said to have told the campaign he needs absolute control of convention strategy.
"Politico" reported that Manafort was scheduled to meet with Trump in New York this morning and would likely threaten to quit if he doesn`t see more cooperation.
Joining me now, Sarah Isgur Flores, former deputy campaign manager of Carly Fiorina and a supporter of Ted Cruz, McKay Coppins, senior political writer for "BuzzFeed" and author of 2016 campaign book "The Wilderness."
Sarah, let me start you. Ted Cruz first trotted out the New York values line. I believe it was in Iowa, he was trying to close the deal in Iowa. It was pretty clear based on polling calls that we heard, they poll-tested that with the Iowa folks. Apparently, it poll-tested well. They attacked him on New York values.
Why should New Yorkers vote for this guy now when he was basically using them to score political points in Iowa?
SARAH ISGUR FLORES, FORMER FIORINA DEP. CAMPAIGN MANAGER: Well, a couple things. One, I don`t doubt that Donald Trump will do well in his home state. I mean, look, even John Kasich managed to win he is home state.
HAYES: Even John Kasich. That`s mean. That`s mean.
(LAUGHTER)
HAYES: Continue.
FLORES: That being said, I think Donald Trump has hit a wall. I think the even if he does well in New York, that can`t translate very far past that. Again, it`s his home state.
Ted Cruz saw what ground game can do, what an actual political operation can do and then we`re seeing disarray and chaos in the Trump campaign. I think it`s the end there.
HAYES: OK. McKay Coppins is shaking his head. Why are you shaking your head?
MCKAY COPPINS, BUZZFEED: Well, I think that, you know, there`s a case to be made that New York isn`t applicable to the rest of the states, except if you look at the rest of the map, you have states like Pennsylvania, you have states like Rhode Island, you have states --
HAYES: Connecticut, Delaware.
COPPINS: New Jersey. You have states that are actually very demographically similar to New York. They have a Republican primary electorate that is similar to New York`s. These are not states where Ted Cruz is particularly well-suited. A lot of the Republican voters in these states are more moderate on social issues, which is one of the defining -- social conservatism is one of the defining characteristics of the Cruz campaign.
Look, I mean, Cruz should be congratulated for a big win in Wisconsin, but I just don`t know if the anti-Trump forces are as organized and as well- positioned in the remaining states in this primary.
HAYES: Sarah, is your sense, I was in Wisconsin talking to a bunch of folks and it does seem hard to replicate the situation partly because of the specificity of the Scott Walker battles that have created a very distinct political culture there. But also it`s just so clear to me there that the Cruz vote was a never-Trump vote. I mean, they might as well have written #nevertrump onto their ballots.
Like to one is waving the flag for Ted Cruz. I guess the question is like how long can you keep voting for a person as a means of blocking another person and expect to get victories?
FLORES: Well, look, a month ago people said that Cruz couldn`t win Wisconsin. And you`re citing Scott Walker and that`s right, Scott Walker endorsed him toward the end, actually. So I think you could see that repeated in Pennsylvania, in Delaware, where people rally around Ted Cruz.
Scott Walker wasn`t giving speeches about never Trump. Scott Walker was giving his endorsement as a pro-Ted Cruz endorsement. I think that Wisconsin --
HAYES: Sort of. He sort of was.
FLORES: This idea that you can`t replicate Wisconsin, that was somehow a social conservative thing or an anti-union thing or whatever it was, the fact of the matter is he won by 13 points. He wasn`t supposed to win at all.
COPPINS: So, Sarah, who -- this is my question. What are the next states that Ted Cruz wins? In your mind? Pennsylvania? Connecticut, New Jersey?
FLORES: I think he`ll overperform in all the states. But to tell you the truth, California is where I`m already looking, which is the backstop if you want to prevent Trump from getting to 1,237.
HAYES: Yes.
COPPINS: Right.
FLORES: Ted Cruz has polled in a tie/lead there, I think that will continue to move. And with the support of someone like Carly Fiorina, I think he`s got a great shot in California to do a lot more than people expect.
HAYES: Sarah, let me ask you this. It was interesting to watch Cruz last night. He came out and gave, like, a five-minute peroration on delegate math, which was unlike anything I`ve ever seen in a campaign. Obviously, he understands what`s going on here. What is this campaign about from a policy perspective at this point? I kind of lost the thread.
Like what are the big policy disputes between these men that are being contested?
FLORES: Wow. So, Ted Cruz is a conservative and Donald Trump is a liberal.
Ted Cruz wants to simplify the tax code, repeal Obamacare. Ted Cruz is pro-life.
Donald Trump has no clue what the pro-life community stands for as he made very clear. Ted -- Donald Trump has no idea what conservative women are about. He wants -- he doesn`t know what to do with Obamacare. And he wants to expand the tax code. I don`t even know what he`d do with that.
He is so a part of the system, such a part of the establishment, they could not be further apart policy-wise.
HAYES: OK. Policy-wise, right, what I`m getting from you, Sarah, and a lot of never-Trump forces, they believe that he believes what he`s saying he believes. At least punitively on the record.
FLORES: He doesn`t believe what he`s saying he believes. He sends out a statement an hour after he talks to reverse what he just said and he sends out a statement about the statement.
HAYES: I`m not disputing that. I`m just saying if you essentially go to the website, what the on the record policy position is, if is repeal Obamacare, it`s replace it with something awesome. You got to take care of people. It`s -- it is pro-life. He`s very pro-life. He told us.
COPPINS: Most pro-life --
HAYES: The most pro-life. I don`t know, I guess he wants --
(CROSSTALK)
COPPINS: If you go through the issues that Sarah just pointed out, they`re abortion, simplify the tax code, Obamacare, women`s issues in general the way -- you know, there is, you know, certainly there`s a dramatic difference in the way they talk about the issues. The policy issue -- you know, policy wise, I don`t know if there`s that much --
HAYES: Yes. I think it comes down to Trump and Trump-ism.
Sarah Isgur Flores and McKay Coppins, thank you both.
COPPINS: Thank you.
HAYES: Still to come, how last year`s long lines and absurd waits exposed an ineffective, to say the least, democratic process and why some want to keep it that way. That`s ahead.
But, first, the escalating fight between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. Clinton attacking the central promise of the Sanders campaign, his ability to truly break up the big banks. I`ll be joined by Robert Reich and Barney Frank to debate. That is coming up. Do not go anywhere.
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HAYES: Hillary Clinton sure seems to be losing patience with the continued presence of Bernie Sanders in the Democratic presidential race. Last month, having built up a sizable pledged delegate lead, it appeared Clinton had, quote, "started pivoting heavily towards the general election."
But with his resounding victory last night in Wisconsin, Sanders has now won seven out of the last eight Democratic contests, giving him a legitimate claim that he has the momentum of the race. The Clinton campaign has moved towards a more critical tone.
With Clinton this morning questioning whether Sanders even understands the issues at the center of his campaign.
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CLINTON: You can`t really help people if you don`t know how to do what you are campaigning on saying you want to do. He`d been talking for more than a year about doing things that he obviously hadn`t really studied or understood, and that does raise a lot of questions.
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HAYES: Clinton and her campaign had zeroed in on Sanders` meeting with "The New York Daily News" editorial, which we`re going to discuss in depth in a little bit, in which Sanders` critics have pounced on for its lack of policy specifics.
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CLINTON: The core of his campaign has been break up the banks and it didn`t seem in reading his answers that he understood exactly how that would work under Dodd-Frank, exactly who would be responsible, what the criteria were.
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HAYES: Clinton also hammered Sanders for saying the family members of the victims of the Sandy Hook massacre should not be allowed to sue gun manufacturers, prompting a fiery response from Sanders.
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REPORTER: So what do you say to these Sandy Hook families who say you should apologize for your position?
SANDERS: Well, I would say that I think that it is -- we all are aware of what happened and Sandy Hook is a tragedy beyond comprehension. But maybe Secretary Clinton might want to apologize to the families who lost their loved ones in Iraq.
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HAYES: Right now, even though she`s only won one of the last eight contests, Clinton still leads Sanders by 246 pledged delegates, having won about 55 percent of them so far, leaving Sanders with a fairly narrow path mathematically to the nomination, or at least to a lead in pledged delegates. There is, however, a potential game changer on the horizon. New York, where voters go to the polls on April 19th, less than two weeks from now.
It is the state where Clinton, of course, served as senator, where she lives today and even a narrow loss here would be a genuine disaster for her, if not in the delegate race, clearly in terms of the perception of the strength of her candidacy and campaign.
At his victory speech last night, Sanders who grew up in Brooklyn made clear his every intention of winning the state.
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SANDERS: Please keep this a secret. Do not tell Secretary Clinton. She`s getting a little nervous and I don`t want her to get more nervous. But I believe we`ve got an excellent chance to win New York and a lot of delegates in that state.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Joining me now, Karen Finney, strategic communications adviser, senior spokesperson for Hillary for America 2016.
It`s always great to have you here.
Do you want to respond to the senator`s response to Sandy Hook and Iraq?
KAREN FINNEY, HILLARY FOR AMERICA: Yes, I thought that was an unfortunate answer to tell you the truth, because the person who was one of the Sandy - - the family member of a Sandy Hook victim who said they would like to see an apology, and actually Hillary Clinton has not only apologized for her vote on Iraq, she said it was a mistake and actually I believe it`s a month or two ago, Senator Sanders was asked if his vote, in support of gun manufacturers liability was a mistake and he said no.
So, I think he`s trying to compare a couple of different things. Seemed a little testy there but that`s all right. You know, this is New York. That`s how we roll. It`s rough and tumble.
HAYES: Is that -- is the rough and tumble, is that your expectation for the next two weeks here?
FINNEY: Yes, why not?
HAYES: I agree. Look, I have no problem -- it`s not --
(CROSSTALK)
FINNEY: I was born in New York. So, I love a good fight.
HAYES: I am, too.
FINNEY: No. I mean, look, as long as -- here`s what I would say, though. I think it`s important that this continue to stay focused on the issues and I think it has. I mean, even the clips that you showed from this morning, where Hillary was responding to a question from Joe about some of the things that came out in that "Daily News" editorial board meeting. You know, I think she raised a fair point about, you know, the senator goes around talking about breaking up the banks and, you know, where she has talked about going farther and systemic risk, and I know you`re going to have a debate on that with people far more qualified than I to discuss it.
But I think that`s a fair question. I think it`s a fair questions to raise.
HAYES: Right. But let me ask you this. I remember -- I do think sometimes on the Democratic side, sort of bracketing that, right, there`s this sort of fetish for specifics and plans even with the knowledge that those plans will change, right? So in 2008, Secretary Clinton and Barack Obama had a six-month-long debate about the mandate that Hillary Clinton said there had to be a mandate. Barack Obama said, no, you can`t have a mandate.
Barack Obama won that election and literally the first day was, we`re throwing out, Hillary Clinton was right, we`re going to do the mandate.
So, my question is join get into these granular disputes, what`s it all cash out to?
FINNEY: In fairness, though, literally some of the answers were I hadn`t really thought about that, I don`t really know.
That`s not saying let`s get down to a granular specific. That`s, you know, the question being, well -- so how would you do that, what do you think about that? I hadn`t really thought, that`s -- I think that is a fair criticism.
But here`s what I think is more important. I mean, coming into New York, I think one of the things that we`re looking forward to, certainly, is the opportunity to talk about Hillary`s record in this state because Senator Sanders has focused a lot on the `90s. Well, now, we`re here in New York, we`re here where Hillary Clinton, here in New York City, one of her big accomplishments helping make sure we secured the funds to rebuild downtown.
The work that she`s done upstate in helping to create jobs and bring partnerships like fork-to-table where literally she had restaurateurs from New York City go upstate to make -- to try to connect the two, connect the upstate market with, you know, restaurants downstate that were looking for, you know, organic food and wines. And so, it`s that kind of creative idea and that`s -- I think it gives people a sense of her problem-solving, but also people in New York know when she says she`s going to do something, she gets it done.
HAYES: All politics is local approach to this campaign. Thank you for joining us.
FINNEY: Sure.
HAYES: Good to see you.
Joining me, Jeff Weaver, campaign manager for Bernie Sanders.
And, Jeff, I want to start on this, the Sandy Hook question because I`ve actually -- I was somewhat confused. That bill -- there`s sort of two issues being conflated. I think the bill that became law that Senator Sanders voted for in 2005. My understanding is the position of the senator and the campaign, that they would introduce legislation to repeal that law that shields the manufacturer from a whole sort of class of liability claims.
JEFF WEAVER, BERNIE SANDERS CAMPAIGN MANAGER: Well, in fact, he`s supporting legislation currently introduced in the Senate to do just that. You know, he`s talked about this issue on a number of occasions, something the Clinton campaign has brought up obviously in the past. They only bring it up in some states where they think it`s going to be effective. They don`t really talk about it elsewhere.
I mean, similar to Flint, really. They talk a lot about Flint in Michigan. Bernie Sanders continues to talk about Flint. They don`t talk about Flint anymore. They`re talking about guns in New York because they think it will help them. They frankly don`t talk about it in other places.
But Bernie Sanders, the fact has been very clear, that he wants to appeal the vast majority of that bill.
And look, Chris, Hillary Clinton on guns, if anybody believes that Hillary Clinton becomes president is going to do much about guns only has to look at her record. She used to be for registering handguns when she was in New York. Then when she ran against President Obama, she attacked him for being too hard on gun safety. He called her Annie Oakley. She takes money from gun lobby.
You don`t take money from the gun lobby if you`re going to take on the gun lobby. Let`s be clear. The same with bank and all the other interests she takes money from.
HAYES: What`s -- two things, I want to -- first, let me -- what specifically do you mean by takes money from the gun lobby?
WEAVER: She has taken out maxed out contributions from registered lobbyists for the gun lobby. She had a fund-raiser on March 21st hosted, co-hosted by the guy who`s the chief, or was -- very recently the chief lobbyist for the NRA with Democrats.
So, yes, she takes money from the gun lobby. She has a prominent gun lobbyist who holds fund-raisers for her.
It`s the same as with the banks, the fossil fuel industry, the pharmaceutical companies. All of these people seem to be too stupid to realize that Hillary Clinton is going to take them on when she gets to be president. Maybe they know something we don`t, Chris.
HAYES: So let me come back around, though, to this sort of point on this legislation.
WEAVER: Sure.
HAYES: When Senator Sanders was asked in that "Daily News" interview about this issue, he said how would you feel about this lawsuit? Do I think people should be able to sue the manufacturer? He gave a one-word answer of no. I think that was somewhat confusing because the whole idea is that if that 2005 legislation is repealed, it would reduce the blockage to the courthouse door that those families now face, ergo, they would be able to sue.
WEAVER: Let`s be clear about, first of all, Senator Sanders` longstanding record on semiautomatic assault weapons. In 1980, he`s been opposed to them. He`s voted to ban them numerous times. If, in fact, the laws had been on the books that he had supported, there would be no Sandy Hook because the weapon that was used would not have been accessible to anybody.
So he has been a strong opponent of semiautomatic assault weapons. He probably lost a 1980 election because of his support for the ban on semiautomatic assault weapons. He has a D-minus with the NRA. He`s earned his D-minus.
And so, he`s been extremely strong on the particular issue of semiautomatic assault weapons which is, you know, the key issue here at Sandy Hook.
HAYES: I`m sorry, but, Jeff, do that point, that no that he gave in that interview where he said, no, they shouldn`t be able to sue, I`m just trying to interpret what that means.
WEAVER: Yes, so he`s been very clear that if you`re a bad actor, if you`re selling guns into an area where you know they`re going to be going into the wrong hands, if you`re selling, you know, large amounts of ammunition to a single person and you should know that`s going to be used for bad conduct, then you should certainly be held liable.
The point that he I think has made in the past, if you`re a small mom and pop store, hunting store in northern Vermont that sells hunting weapons to -- completely legally follow, follows all the rules, someone goes out and breaks the rules should you be held liable in that particular narrow instance? Probably not.
But in this broader context that we`re talking about, in terms of big manufacturers, he`s been very, very clear he would hold bad actors responsible.
HAYES: OK. Jeff Weaver, thanks for your time tonight. Appreciate it.
WEAVER: Thanks, Chris.
HAYES: Next, the fight over the heart of a campaign. Can Bernie Sanders keep his biggest promise, or one of them, ahead?
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HAYES: Bernie Sanders has been making -- had made breaking up the banks a central rallying cry of his campaign. Last week, during an editorial board meeting with the "New York Daily News" that was published Monday, he was asked how exactly he would do that. He responded, quote, "How you go about doing it is having legislation passed or giving authority to the secretary of treasury to determine under Dodd-Frank, that these banks are a danger to the economy over a problem of too big to fail."
That answer and several other follow-ups from Sanders about how he would break up the banks, something he`s promised to do in the first 100 days of his presidency has become a hotly contested issue at the center of the Democratic campaign. Basically, does Sanders have a plan that makes sense on one of his signature policy issues?
Hillary Clinton for one says no. Her response coming up when we debate this with former Congressman Barney Frank who agrees with Clinton, and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich who says Sanders does, indeed, have the right plan for Wall Street. That`s next.
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLINTON: I think he hadn`t done his homework and he`d been talking for more than a year about doing things that he obviously hadn`t really studied or understood. And that does raise a lot of questions.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: The Clinton campaign appears to think they have found one of their strongest attacks yet on Bernie Sanders after making his plan to break up the banks a signature issue, he actually doesn`t know what he`s talking about. That`s how the Clinton campaign is portraying his interview with the New York Daily News editorial board earlier this year.
Sanders campaign, however, has responded with force saying today, quote, "on breaking up big banks, Senator Sanders understands exactly how to do that. We don`t need any lessons on getting things done in congress from someone who didn`t pass a single amendment by a roll call vote during her entire career in the senate."
Joining me, Barney Frank, former congressman, a Hillary Clinton supporter and co-author of the Dodd-Frank legislation that now bears his name, at least in the way we refer to it, Robert Reich, former secretary of labor under President Clinton, supporter of Bernie Sanders, author of "Saving Capitalism for the Many not the Few.
And Mr. Frank, let me begin be you. There were a few different answers given in that interview with the Daily News. There`s a great degree of actual policy confusion about this. Your response first to what you heard from Senator Sanders about too big to fail, about breaking up the banks in that interview?
BARNEY FRANK, FRM. DEMOCRATIC CONGRESSMAN: It was very disappointing because it wasn`t coherent. He confided several issues. By the way, I had understood previously that one of his biggest issues to deal with this was Glass-Steagall. I didn`t see any reference to Glass-Steagall or explanation of that. He appeared to have forgotten all about this.
And of course, Glass-Steagall is not relevant to the too big to fail issue, it has to do with other issues.
But he confused several things. First, he was talking about antitrust -- not not first. But then he was talking about not enough loans going to smaller banks.
Look, the too big to fail issue is very specific. The problem is if an institution is capable of amassing so much debt that if it becomes insolvent and can`t pay its debts, it causes systemic damage.
HAYES: Yes.
FRANK: That`s what happened in 2008.
The legislation deals with that in two ways, the bill that`s on the books. First of all, it severely restricts their ability to incur debt. AIG owed $180 billion in credit default swaps it couldn`t pay. You couldn`t do that anymore. You have got to have capital both in general in the institution and specifically.
In addition, what we say is this, if an institution is going to go out of business because it can`t pay its debts, the federal government takes it over, it fails. That`s the key thing people don`t understand. An institution becomes too heavily indebted, is put out of business by the federal government and if it has too much debt and that level of debt threatens the stability of the economy, the federal government temporarily pays some of those debts, only as much as it needs to stop things from going out of control then takes it back automatically under an assessment on other large institutions.
Nothing in which Senator Sanders said deals with that at all. He, as I said, confuses several different things. He seems to have forgotten that he was for Glass-Steagall and does not explain in any way how he`s going to do it.
He does say, and I`ve dealt with this before in some things, he says he wants to break up the banks but he doesn`t tell us how big is too big. There`s a fundamental problem there. The argument is that you don`t want a bank to get so indebted, have such debt that it threatens the economy so you deal with that by breaking up the banks.
But I still haven`t heard, and I`ve asked several times to Senator Sanders, how big is too big? To what level, if he`s going to reduce the size of the banks, and he hasn`t told us how , to what level do we have to go to protect ourselves?
HAYES: OK. Let me turn to you, Robert.
There`s obviously a lot there. There`s a whole array of issues here, right. There`s whether the understanding of Dodd-Frank is accurate, whether the actual goal itself is warranted or necessary, and then this sort of meta question, I think, which is do you feel the senator is adequately briefed, is adequately studied, ready on what is essential one of the central policy issues of his campaign?
ROBERT REICH, FRM. LABOR SECRETARY: Well, first of all, Chris, this is a tempest in a teapot. I read the interview and I read the transcript, and what the senator said in response to a question about the Fed`s authority, not the authority of the president, the Fed`s authority to break up the big banks is that he did not know. And I can understand that, because the Fed`s authority is a little bit ambiguous under various statutes.
And then when it came to the president`s authority, Senator Sanders was very specific and he was accurate. He said, well, the president can through the Treasury secretary convene a group of regulators. It is called the Financial Stability Oversight Board. And they can determine whether a bank is too risky.
And he in terms of -- in terms of Glass-Steagall, I mean, Senator Sanders has said throughout this campaign that Glass-Steagall needs to be resurrected. He cannot abide the fact that Senator Clinton does not want to resurrect Glass-Steagall because although Glass-Steagall would not have prevented the financial meltdown, it would have at least in the eyes of many regulators, many observers including Dan Terulo (ph) at the Fed, it would have helped...
HAYES: Right.
REICH: ...and so we need to resurrect Glass-Steagall and the senator has said that repeatedly.
I honestly think this entire tempest is really a reflection of how well the senator is doing and the mainstream press may be a little bit nervous, certainly the establishment is a little bit worried.
HAYES: Mr. Frank, you don`t seem to agree with that?
FRANK: No, I`m sorry Mr. Reich, he`s got the oh they`re picking on poor Bernie who is of course been hyper critical of others. And by the way, the thing that bothered me in that interview and the elsewhere in the campaign is a kind of a McCarthyite suggestion that the reason big banks and other institutions haven`t been criminally prosecuted is in part because people have taken financial contributions.
And that, by the way, is an attack on President Obama. Let`s be very clear.
The secretary of state does not get to indict people. So, the complaint that there were not criminal prosecutions has literally zero to do with Secretary Clinton, it`s an attack on President Obama. I wanted there to be more prosecutions. There were some policy choices I disagreed with, but Senator Sanders is consistent in suggesting that somehow people were persuaded not to do that because of campaign contributions is, as I said, it`s a kind of McCarthyism. It`s an accusation without substance.
Beyond that, no, I don`t blame the press. I don`t see how you can do that, that was a very good interview and they did a very good job. And, no, it is not the case that the president can convene a group of regulators.
Hillary Clinton, by the way, has been very specific. There were some powers in the existing law to deal with banks if they are a serious threat. She, unlike Senator Sanders, has said specifically she wants to increase the power to deal with banks if there was a complexity that is getting out of control.
But...
REICH: Well, they`re already -- there`s already too much complexity and they`re already out of control.
You know, in 2008, the biggest -- the five biggest banks had 33 percent of total banking assets. Today, the five biggest banks have 44 percent of total biggest assets and if they were too big to fail then, they`re too big to fail, they`re too big to jail, they`re too big to curtail. They have too much political power as well as economic power.
Now, wait a minute, political power is part of the issue.
FRANK: It is not the size of the banks, it is the size of the indebtedness. Large institutions...
HAYES: Right.
FRANK: ...that are solidly capitalized that don`t have a lot of debt, it`s the leverage. And that`s the key thing, it`s the amount of debt...
REICH: Congressman Frank, with all due respect, I do respect you a great deal...
FRANK: You don`t like the point. But they do...
REICH: It`s not just economics here, we`re also talking about political...
FRANK: Okay, but I want to talk about economics. I understand that. But you don`t like the economics, because it goes against your argument. We`ll get to the politics later.
REICH: No, the economics is exactly in my argument.
FRANK: I want to...
REICH: They go together, the economics and the politics are intertwined here.
HAYES: So, so...
FRANK: Mr. Reich, you don`t want me to make the point about your economic mistake, and I understand that, it may be embarrassing. But the fact is this, the problem is not their size, it is the amount of indebtedness they leave behind and how you deal with that and we deal with that by preventing them from getting excessively indebted as they were in the past so it`s very different than 2008. You could not have an AIG again.
And we also say that if they do get too indebted, they fail. They are put out of business.
Now, as to politics, I will say this. With regard to the political power, when we were dealing with the legislation, far more political power, frankly, is in the community banks, the credit unions, because they represent everybody there. I did not find when I was trying to get, for instance, the consumer bureau adopted, that it was the big banks that I had to worry about, I had to worry about the political power of the community banks located as they are in everybody`s district.
REICH: Let me just say this, the new head...
HAYES: And this will be the final word.
REICH: The president of the Federal Reserve bank in Minnesota, a Republican, a former Goldman Sachs executive, he says the big banks ought to be broken up. He`s a Republican, former Goldman Sachs executive.
FRANK: He`s one person.
REICH; He`s now president of the Federal Reserve bank in Minneapolis. Before him, the federal reserve bank president in Dallas said the big banks have to be broken up. Sandy Wile (ph) thinks the big banks ought to be broken up. This is not a fringe idea.
FRANK: I didn`t say it was a fringe idea. I said it -- what I`m saying is this, and you`re evading my point again. If you believe the banks ought to be broken up, by the way, most of the federal officials do not think you have to break up the banks. We think we have to control their indebtedness. And that, again, is a point you seem to miss.
But beyond that, if you tell me the banks are too big and have to be broken up, to what level? If the argument is that we cannot allow an institution to exist if it`s going out of business or its indebtedness will threaten us, I ask people to tell me to what level. Is it $500 billion? Is it $300 billion? All those have implications for the economy.
REICH: Of course they have huge implications. But if they are...
FRANK: ...what`s the level to which you want to reduce...
REICH: They`re already too big to fail and curtail and jail.
If they`re too big to jail, if there`s no way of controlling the big banks in this country, and there is not right now, they should be broken up. In my view, they should be broken up right now.
FRANK: How big is too big?
HAYES: But the question is the they, right. The question I think for anyone, right, whether you`re Bernie Sanders or anyone else, right, who is saying too big to fail, should be broken up.
I mean, there is right now a classification, which is the systemically important financial institutions, that`s a part of Dodd-Frank, that essentially throws a lasso around the largest entities, the ones that have been deemed systemically vital, the ones that threaten the biggest risk.
Is that essentially the cutoff?
FRANK: No, let me respond.
REICH: Wait a minute, Chris. The biggest banks right now don`t even have plans for winding themselves down in the event of a financial problem. They have the fed and all of the oversight groups who are supposed to be looking at them have failed them on the basic principle of having a winding down plan.
Now, if you don`t even have a plan that passes muster, you ought to be put out of your misery.
HAYES: Let me stop you right there.
FRANK: Let me respond to that, please, Chris.
HAYES: Very quickly, please.
FRANK: First of all, the level -- there are two issues here. One is the level at which you get extra supervision, that`s $50 billion. Nobody is suggesting I think that no bank would be bigger than $50 billion. And again, the point is that what we want to do is to regulate them.
As to the point Mr. Reich just made, yeah, we did require in the bill that they submit these plans and under the law it`s working well, some of them have been told those plans aren`t good enough.
But I want to repeat, it makes no sense, it`s irresponsible to say we have to break them up, they`re too big...
HAYES: Barney Frank...
REICH: This is where politics and economics come together.
HAYES: Mr. Frank and Mr. Reich, I`m sorry, that was illuminating, deeply illuminating.
We killed a break for it but I now have to go. Thank you very much, both you gentlemen for joining us.
All right. Still ahead, it`s not every day you get one-on-one time with your elected official in a Starbucks so when one woman had the opportunity, she sure made the most of it. We`ll play you that video ahead.
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HAYES: Last week, George Mason University announced it would rename its law school after the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. The new name, the Antonin Scalia School of Law.
Upon further review, the university decided the name needed another tweak because if you`re attending the Antonin Scalia School of Law, that`s kind of a mouthful to say and people usually use an abbreviation or some kind of acronym in these situations and the acronym for the Antonin Scalia School of Law is spelled A-S-S-O-L. That`s the kind of acronym you don`t really want on a sweatshirt.
Predictably, the internet outed this potential issue and the controversy prompted the university to change its plans. Citing a person familiar with the school internet discussions, The Wall Street Journal reports "the name officially remains the Antonin Scalia School of Law at George Mason University, but on the website and marketing materials the name now reads the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University.
Because this is not an acronym or word you want to be associated with and certainly not a word you want shouted at you while you are trying to get your daily Carmel Macciato, which is the situation Republican Governor Rick Scott of Florida found himself in at a Gainesville Starbuicks yesterday when a constituent decided to publicly take him to task over recent cuts to Planned Parenthood funding.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You cut Medicaid so I couldn`t get Obamacare. You`re an (EXPLETIVE DELETED). You don`t care about the working people.
I`m not talking to you. You don`t care about working people. You should be ashamed to show your face around here.
GOV. RICK SCOTT, (R) FLORIDA: We got a million jobs.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A million jobs, great. Who here has a great job?
RICK: You should.
SCOTT: Or is looking forward to finishing school? You really feel like you have a job coming up? You stripped women of access to public health care. Shame on you, Rick Scott. We depend on those services.
Rich people like you don`t know what to do when poorer people like us need health services, you cut us. Shame on you, Rick Scott. You`re an embarrassment to our state.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sweet.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
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HAYES: Today the sentence came down in the case of the coal magnate Don Blankenship, the former Massey Energy CEO who has been called the dark lord of coal country.
Blankenship was the highest ranking former Massey executive charged with the worst domestic coal mining disaster in 40 years. April 2010 explosion at the upper big bank mine in Mount Coal, West Virginia, that killed 29 men.
Blankenship was CEO at the time of the explosion. He was charged with conspiracy to willfully violate mine health and safety standards, a misdemeanor. Blankenship was on this show in October 2014, showed no remorse for how the coal industry conducts its business.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: 20 years from now we play that clip of tobacco people saying I don`t believe it`s addictive. You`re going to look like that 20 years from now. That`s the way Don Blankenship is going to look. Like how do you think about what your legacy is going to look like 20 years from now?
DON BLANKENSHIP, FRM. CEO MASSEY ENERGY: I think our legacy will be that we made it possible for the country to be very strong and to be the superpower of the world and to have the best quality of life in general in any place in the world.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Blankenship was found guilty by a jury last December in a conspiracy charge. And today, U.S. District Judge Irene Berger (ph) gave him the maximum allowable sentence, which is one year in federal prison and a $250,000 fine.
With 29 deaths involved, that will work out to 12 1/2 days in prison for each life lost. Blankenship`s defense team plans to appeal the sentencing. They had recommended he be fined and placed on probation.
Family members of the victims see matters quite differently. One of those family members has some very strong words after today`s sentencing.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I lost three that day.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Who were they again?
UNIDENIFIED MALE: Charles Timothy Davis, that was my only brother, my go- to guy. My son, Corey Thomas, which was only twin and the youngest one out of all them, and my nephew, Joshua, from Ohio.
I was talking to my other nephew at Mantrip station when it all went down. This man has no remorse at all.
Out of six years, he never approached none of us. He never told us he was sorry for what happened. And he knows he could have done the right thing. All he had to do was make one of them 40 phone calls a day he called checking production and say shut it down and fix everything, but he refused to do it.
I miss my family. He hugged his and all he gets is a year? And she done great. She gave him what she could give him. But they need to be stricter, more marsh penalties for people like that who puts greed and money over human life.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Every time that I`m in a room with a camera showing something, I think to myself, well this is good television but bad democracy. I mean, you know, it`s great that we have caucuses and we can show the room, it`s great we`re showing the lines. The fact of the matter is there should be nothing to show. It should be very easy. You don`t show people doing things that are easy.
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HAYES: Last night I got to see in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, that American Democracy can be a pretty worn down and creaky, Rube Goldbergian machine. At times it`s made that way on purpose.
In other words, there are people who have an interest in making sure the country is less democratic than it should be.
Take, for instance, Wisconsin Republican Representative Glenn Grothman who as a state senator in 2014 told colleagues he wanted to nip early voting in the bud before it spread to more communities.
And who just last night seemed to suggest that Wisconsin`s voter ID law could skew the election in Republicans` favor.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know a lot of Republicans since 1984 in the presidential races have not been able to win in Wisconsin. Why would it be any different for a Ted Cruz or a Donald Trump?
REP. GLENN GROTHMAN, (R) WISCONSIN: Well, I think Hillary Clinton is about the weakest candidate the Democrats have ever put up. And now we have photo ID. And I think photo ID is going to make a difference as well.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Huh, interesting.
There`s also the fact that the primary nominating process is not, well, strictly Democratic at all. Since it the party that actually decides the nominee, the decisions of a few party insiders can ultimately outweigh the votes of millions of Americans, that`s a point I pressed former RNC general counsel Ben Ginsburg on yesterday.
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HAYES: It seems to me that we are -- we have two trains careening toward each other. One of them is the fact that in the modern era we have come to understand primaries as fundamentally small "d" democratic enterprises in which voters choose the person they want as the nominee. The others that the actual rules of the system aren`t that voters choose the nominee, voters simply choose delegates through an attenuated process who in turn choose the nominee and it`s going to be a bit of a rude awakening when those two things crash together in Cleveland.
BEN GINSBERG, FRM. RNC COUNSEL: I don`t think they crash into each other, Chris. You vote for members of congress or your legislature, or your city council but you don`t tell them how to vote on every matter. The delegate selection process is similar to that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Joining me now, Sam Seder, MSNBC contributor, host of Majority Report.
I thought that was such an illuminating answer because it`s true in a technical sense, you`re essentially electing a kind of almost quasi- legislative body that will go and do this thing, which is adopt rules. But no one thinks of it that way.
SAM SEDER, MAJORITY REPORT: Right. Yeah, I think there`s going to be a really rude awakening for Republican primary voters come July. I don`t think that`s the same, frankly, as the voting lines because, you know, one is there`s an opportunity at least for Republican voters to say, hey, you know, our party completely rejected our expression of will. There`s no -- they`re just not taking us seriously.
The idea that that representative from Wisconsin. There`s only two options here when that guy gives that kind of answer, right? He`s got to believe that every presidential election that has gone to a Democrat in Wisconsin has been the function of literally hundreds of thousands of fraudulent votes in which case he should be on that right now, right? I mean, he should be holding investigations about that.
Or he just sees there`s going to be an added bonus for us that we have consciously disenfranchised a whole set of people and they happen to be Democrats.
HAYES: OK. So, I totally agree, like, from a sort of moral perspective, right, that these are very different things. Voter ID laws that disenfranchise folks, make it hostile to vote is one thing. Primary rule systems is another.
What unites them in my mind is just the fact that we have set up all kinds of ways in American democracy that essentially just make it hard, attenuate the connection between the people and what happens democratically.
SEDER: I`m not even talking morally, though. I`m talking just pragmatically.
HAYES: right.
SEDER: The fact is those disenfranchised voters, they can`t vote that guy out of office.
HAYES; Right.
SEDER: they don`t have access to that.
These Republican primary goers who are about to find out that, hey, you know, I think there`s a very good chance they`re going to get -- their choices are going to get screwed over in some respect.
HAYES: We appreciate -- they`re going to be told we appreciate your suggestions. We`ll be considering them in Cleveland and we`ll get back to you.
SEDER: Been an interesting year. Thanks for playing. And at least those people have somewhere to go, right, theoretically they can continue to vote against their Republican congressmen, their republican senator.
But those people who are disenfranchised, there`s nowhere for them to go. Literally there`s nowhere for them to go. They can`t even respond in terms of the electoral democratic process.
HAYES: The other thing I saw -- someone made this point to me once in a different context, in a different policy context about just how much damage you can do with hassle. You know, look, I have a to-do list I could pull up here. I mean, there`s things on there that have been there for three years.
You know, all it takes is a little bit of hassle to get me not to do it. You create enough little hassles, you can have big effects.
SEDER: Well, sure.
And frankly that`s the strategy, the way the Republican Party is disenfranchising women`s right to have sovereignty over their own body. I mean, that`s the whole game plan.
HAYES: For abortion, absolutely. One hassle after another.
SEDER: exactly. We`re just going to keep putting obstacles there and make it practically impossible to exercise that right. That`s exactly what`s going on with the disenfranchisement of voters.
HAYES: And both constitutional rights, although both very contested constitutional rights. Sam Seder, thanks for joining us.
SEDER: Thank you, Chris.
HAYES: That is All In for this evening.
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THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. END