Show: ALL IN with CHRIS HAYES Date: May 25, 2016 Guest: Charlie Dent, Lawrence Wilkerson, Sebastian Junger, Sherilynn Ifill, Tim Mak
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST (voice-over): Tonight on ALL IN --
SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D), MASSACHUSETTS: A small insecure money-grubber who doesn`t care who gets hurt so long as he makes a profit off it.
HAYES: The Democratic onslaught continues.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We don`t need a predator to be our president.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Shame. Shame.
HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: So, a good result in Donald Trump`s world is he gets his and you get hurt.
HAYES: Tonight, Clinton and the Democrats keep landing blows with a coordinated attack. We`ll show you Trump`s response.
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I`m a businessman. That`s what I`m supposed do.
HAYES: Then, separating the fact from the fiction in today`s Clinton e- mail report.
Major news on voting rights in Ohio.
And how Donald Trump cashed in after the crash.
TRUMP: Welcome to the Trump Network.
HAYES: Donald Trump and the recession-proof vitamin scheme.
TRUMP: The Trump Network wants to give millions of people with a renewed hope and an exciting plan to opt out of the recession.
HAYES: When ALL IN starts right now.
TRUMP: Let`s get out of this recession right now.
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HAYES: Good evening from New York. I`m Chris Hayes.
Several people were arrested this afternoon outside a Donald Trump rally in Anaheim, California, where numerous clashes broke out between protesters and Trump supporters. This follows dramatic scenes outside of Trump rally last night in Albuquerque, where protesters toppled barricades and attacked police who used smoke devices and what appeared to be pepper spray to try to control the crowd.
Trump today dismissed those protesters as, quote, "thugs who were flying the Mexican flag."
Meanwhile, for possibly the first since he entered the presidential race, Trump is now facing a coordinated, sustained, full spectrum assault on a single issue -- his 2006 response in an audio book for Trump University to a question about the possibility of a real estate crash.
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TRUMP: I sort of hope that happens because then people like me would go in and buy. You know, if you`re in a good position, which I`m in a good cash position today then people like me would go in and buy like crazy. If there is a bubble burst, as they call it, you know, you can make a lot of money.
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HAYES: A year later, the housing bubble bursts, devastating millions of Americans.
In a remarkable speech last night, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts tore into Trump for saying he, quote, "sort of hopes for a crash."
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WARREN: What kind of a man roots for people to get thrown out of their house? What kind of man roots for people to get thrown out of their jobs, to root for people to lose their pensions, to root for two little girls in Clark County, Nevada, to end up living out of a van? What kind of man does that?
I`ll tell you exactly what kind of man does that. It is a man who cares about no one but himself. A small --
(APPLAUSE)
A small insecure money-grubber who doesn`t care who gets hurt so long as he makes a profit off it.
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HAYES: Warren is just one of several Democrats absolutely hammering Trump over his comments.
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REP. GREGORY MEEKS (D), NEW YORK: I saw families devastated and apparently Mr. Trump was celebrating their devastation.
REP. AL GREEN (D), TEXAS: To build your dreams on the ashes of others, that`s heartless.
REP. XAVIER BECERRA (D), CALIFORNIA: Is this how he views other crisis? If we have a Zika virus catastrophe hit our people, does he think he can make money off the Zika virus?
REP. TIM RYAN (D), OHIO: Perched in the gold plated towers of the Trump building in New York City, there was a billionaire saying, "I hope this happens, I hope the housing market collapses, I hope people get thrown from their homes, I hope they file bankruptcy because that would be good for me." Shame. Shame.
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HAYES: The attacks put Trump somewhere he has rarely been this entire presidential campaign, on the defensive.
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TRUMP: They`ve got some clip of me from many years ago where I`m saying if it goes down I`m going to buy. I`m a businessman. That`s what I`m supposed to do. That`s what I`m supposed to do.
Hey, I feel badly for everybody. What am I going to do? I`m in business. OK? Never thought I was going to run for office.
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HAYES: Trump was responding to a video spotlighting his comments from Hillary Clinton who has been relentlessly attacking Trump over his comments.
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TRUMP: She goes and Donald Trump is a terrible person and he wanted to buy housing when it was at a low point.
Who the hell doesn`t? Who doesn`t?
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HAYES: Campaigning in California today, Clinton mocked Trump`s reaction to her criticism.
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CLINTON: You know what he said in response? Well, he bragged about what he did. He said and I`m quoting now, "That`s the kind of thinking our country needs."
(BOOS)
He said profiting off working people losing their homes would be a, quote, "good result". So, a good result in Donald Trump`s world is he gets his and you get hurt.
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HAYES: Joining me now is Congressman Charlie Dent. He`s a Republican from Pennsylvania.
As we`ve been charting on this program from Never Trump to Always Trump with Trump Curious as one of the options. Where are you, Congressman?
REP. CHARLIE DENT (R), PENNSYLVANIA: As you know, Chris, I`ve been a John Kasich supporter, he`s out of the race and I have not committed to Donald Trump for a whole host of reasons. The lack of policy substance and many of the incendiary comments, so I have not committed to him and that`s where I am.
HAYES: Congressman, were you rooting for a housing crash in 2006?
DENT: Absolutely not.
HAYES: Were the members of your district, your constituents, do you think they were rooting for a housing crash?
DENT: No, no, nobody was.
HAYES: Let me ask you this, it occurred to me today. You know, we`ve seen Mayor Michael Bloomberg ran New York while he maintained his business empire. Silvio Berlusconi certainly didn`t give up his holdings in Italy when he was the richest man in the country and also the chief executive of that country. Could you imagine a scenario where Donald Trump continues running his businesses and finding lots of profit opportunities in the crisis that will unfold in any country during his presidency.
DENT: Let me say that, obviously, from a political standpoint, those comments were not helpful to him, but I suspect they won`t hurt him as much as many would think. I mean, he`s said a lot of things that have been very incendiary and maybe cumulatively these comments have hurt him, but he`s survived a lot of comments about POWs, disabled, Muslims.
HAYES: Sure.
DENT: So, I would just caution on that.
On the issue of the housing crisis, I want to look at a story my late father-in-law back in the late `90s, he bought a property from the bank that foreclosed on a business. Apparently, they went to bankruptcy and they bought the property. I mean, somebody suffered. They lost their building and the bank owned it and my father-in-law said, hey, it`s at a low price and, "I`ll buy it", he did and he did well with it. He didn`t wish that person ill but he saw an opportunity.
That happens in the business world, let`s face it. When bad things happen, some other people are going to be there to try to pick up the pieces and maybe do better by it. But again as a political matter, it`s obviously not very helpful to Mr. Trump.
HAYES: You raised that. In 2009, Donald Trump saw a business opportunity. He was marketing for something called the Trump Network. Take a look at this.
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TRUMP: The Trump Network wants to give millions of people renewed hope and with an exciting plan to opt out of the recession. Let`s get out of this recession right now.
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TRUMP: So, this is something he was pedaling after people had been devastated by the worst financial crisis in 70 years. People were desperate. People networking over tens of thousands of dollars to basically buy a vitamin marketing kit. Of course, it won`t surprise, the business went bankrupt. What do you think of that?
DENT: Well, I don`t know much about that business opportunity he was pursuing there, but, look, he`s a businessman. He talks about it, he brags about it and that`s why -- I have not endorsed him. Apparently, that`s why many people are supporting him.
Like I said, he makes many comments that would be career-enders for most politicians, but when he says them it doesn`t stick as much.
HAYES: Congressman, do you think there`s a reason the United States, neither of the major party in the United States has nominated someone with as little experience in public life, public affairs, politics, or public service, as Donald Trump since 1940?
DENT: Yes, I think there`s an anger about how Washington is broken and he`s tapped into that very effectively.
HAYES: No, I mean, reverse on the other side. People have been angry about Washington for many years and many different times, and the person they have channeled that has been someone since 1940 in Wendell Willkie, who has, aside from General Eisenhower, who defeated the Nazis, which was a big deal, they`ve always picked someone who has run for office, knows a thing or two, like you do, about just what it means to be a representative.
DENT: Well, this is a very different kind of year. I think many of us are at a loss to explain exactly what is on everyone`s minds. It`s tough.
Let me say one thing about Donald Trump. You know, he`s done something that -- he`s pulled back the curtain, if you will, for the Republican Party. He`s pulled back the curtain, pulled back the veil.
What I mean by that is there is a stereotype of the base Republican primary voter that that person is ideologically very conservative, doctrinaire, you know, unyielding, and Donald Trump has exposed that many Republican primary voters clearly don`t fit that particular model.
HAYES: You`re correct about that.
(CROSSTALK)
DENT: That`s what`s interesting.
HAYES: Let me ask you this: are you going to vote for this guy?
DENT: I have not -- I have said that I`m not prepared to support him at this time for all the reasons I stated about all the incendiary comments and the lack of policy substance.
HAYES: We`re going to keep checking back with you. We`ll put you down -- we`ll be taking bets in our office pool on what date.
Congressman Charlie Dent, thanks for being with me tonight. Appreciate it.
DENT: Thank you.
HAYES: Despite having secured the GOP presidential nomination, Donald Trump spent today railing against not just Hillary Clinton, but also his fellow Republicans, hitting South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley for endorsing Marco Rubio, mocking Jeb Bush as low energy, he was really playing the classics today, and even attacking previous GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney.
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TRUMP: I said, Mitt cannot run. He choked like a dog. Did you ever see him in athletics?
He`s a choker. And you know the truth, I hate to say it, I hope we don`t have too many in the audience, once a choker, always choker. And he walks like a penguin on the stage. Did you ever see it? Like a penguin.
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HAYES: Campaigning in New Mexico last night, Trump went out of his way to criticize someone who has been hailed as a raising Republican star, someone who represents two groups Trump has struggled to win over, someone many have urged Trump to consider on his list for vice president, New Mexico`s Latino governor Susana Martinez.
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TRUMP: Since 2000, the number of people on food stamps in New Mexico has tripled. We have to get your governor to get going. She has got to do a better job, OK? Your governor has got to do a better job.
She`s not doing the job. Hey, maybe I`ll run for governor of New Mexico. I`ll get this place going.
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HAYES: Those comments prompted Hillary Clinton to float a theory about the presumptive Republican nominee.
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CLINTON: Last night, he insulted the Republican Governor Martinez of New Mexico just gratuitously. I don`t know. He seems to have something about women. I don`t know.
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HAYES: Trump`s decision to attack the governor who many Republicans have long hailed as the potential future of the party may seem like a head scratcher but these days, Trump and his campaign seemed a lot more focused on the past, with Trump world pushing decades old allegations against Bill Clinton in hopes of tarring Hillary Clinton by association.
That`s not the only way in way team Trump seems stuck in the `90s hot tub time machine. It turns out one member of the team hasn`t figured out that electronic mail thing either. Trump campaign adviser Michael Caputo yesterday morning sent an e-mail seeking help from the Republican National Committee and he copied Trump campaign spokesman Hope Hicks.
Hicks responded not to Trump adviser Michael Caputo but instead to "Politico" reporter, Marc Caputo, no relation. In doing so, Hicks accidentally revealed what the Trump campaign had planned. It wanted the RNC to, quote, "work up information on HRC Whitewater as soon as possible. This is for immediate use and for the afternoon talking points process."
Joining me now, MSNBC contributor, Sam Seder, host of "Majority Leader".
The Susana Martinez thing to me, I guess she had said she was busy when he was in town and he took that as an insult, but it`s like what are you doing?
SAM SEDER, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR & HOST OF "MAJORITY REPORT": I think it`s a calculated attack. If it was a classic Trump attack, it would talk about the tapes that came out, the scandal that she went through about, I don`t know, about a year ago that really sort of dimmed her bright light in the short-term.
I think this was basically a shot across the bow as a warning to other Republicans, it`s a warning to Paul Ryan, this is what`s going to happen to you, I can isolate you, and I think it also -- it feeds in with a couple of his policy points, right? He wants to get these talking points out there and I think it doesn`t hurt to show he`s not going to cow in the face of a woman or Latina for that matter.
I mean, it could backfire because I wonder if you`re Paul Ryan at this point, you know, Trump`s plan is to pick off the one individual and basically pound on them and say, this is a lesson to the rest of you.
HAYES: That`s right.
SEDER: But that can backfire because if somebody else joins there, if it becomes some type of like small mass, for Paul Ryan this puts him in a horrible situation because if he`s thinking 2020 or 2024 and he doesn`t come to her defense, this is pretty bad. But if he does, it`s also bad.
HAYES: It spells out the stakes that this -- he`s gone after Nikki Haley and went after Scott Walker and Susana Martinez, all these folks that were the future and to me, what it shows, it illustrates that they all -- if they`re thinking of their own political future, they`re rooting for Trump to lose because a Trump victory means it`s over for all of them.
Their political careers, their ability to ascend is done. They don`t own the party and they`ve got nothing and kaput, over.
SEDER: Yes. And I think it`s true not just of the politicians but I think of a whole host of --
HAYES: Thousands and thousands of people.
SEDER: Without a doubt. I mean, you know, this fits into the narrative of what they were talking about the Democrats were talking about today. This is a guy who is out for himself and with all regards to the congressman, you know, businessmen may do this. Vultures may also wait until someone dies and swoops down and picks at their bones. But that doesn`t necessarily mean that you want them to be taking care of you.
HAYES: Right. Everyone has their role in the ecosystem.
SEDER: Or someone who`s, you know, supposedly providing service for you.
HAYES: Right.
SEDER: So I think that this is -- it`s a strong attack and I think this is indicative of the way Trump operates.
HAYES: I also thought today was interesting, like watching him play the hits, I just felt like he found himself in the defensive and so, he`s like, let`s just go back, low energy Jeb. He`s like oh, let me go back to my happy place where I was pounding everyone.
SEDER: Yes. I mean, this is the thing is that -- again, the congressman said that, you know, Donald Trump has been Teflon. Well, he`s been Teflon in the Republican primary. This whole thing about Whitewater, this is stuff that`s going to win him another Republican primary.
HAYES: Yes.
SEDER: But that`s not what he`s going to be facing.
HAYES: Ding, ding, ding.
Sam Seder, thanks as always, man.
SEDER: My pleasure.
HAYES: Still to come the full story about the vitamin supplement company that we mentioned bearing Donald Trump`s name that went bankrupt. Why he told people they could opt out of the recession by buying into the Trump Network.
But, first, a new State Department report criticizes Hillary Clinton for using a private e-mail sever but notes, Colin Powell also used a private email as secretary of state. And I`m going to speak with Powell`s former chief of staff in just two minutes.
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HAYES: Today, the State Department inspector general published their long awaited report on Hillary Clinton`s use of a private e-mail server while she was secretary of state. The report published this morning concludes that Clinton`s use of a private e-mail account was against State Department policy, saying she did not ask for permission from the State Department`s legal offices to use that private e-mail account. An account the I.G. found prevented her e-mails from being preserved for the federal record.
Earlier today, I spoke with the Clinton campaign spokesperson and asked in retrospect if Clinton believes her e-mail practices were appropriate.
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BRIAN FALLON, CLINTON CAMPAIGN SPOKESPERSON: Certainly, if we knew that the State Department was not preserving those records, I think we would have -- we would have seen to set about to find a different way to make sure the records were being preserved.
Number two, let`s just take a step back. She has said for many months now if she had this to do over again she would do it differently. She regrets the decision. And so, to take the proper perspective here, there`s really no new information that came to light in this report.
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HAYES: The report also criticizes the State Department as a whole for being slow to recognize and manage effectively the legal requirements and cyber security risk. It finds that Hillary Clinton was far from the first person in the State Department to use a personal e-mail address, noting that dozens of State Department employees used a personal account and the former Secretary of State Colin Powell, like Clinton, used his personal e- mail address exclusively.
Joining me now is Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell, and professor of the College of William and Mary.
And, Colonel, what is your reaction to today`s report and particularly the citation of your former boss at State?
COL. LAWRENCE WILKERSON: I think the protocols for the use of e-mails in the government have been rather speculative at best and at worst nonexistent for the time that e-mail has grown in terms of communication between government officials. I think that it`s time if we haven`t already and I`ve looked around, I don`t think we have yet even to get a better handle on this.
So, I think there`s blame all around the government bureaucracy for not recognizing the fact that people communicate by e-mails primarily these days, and therefore, they have to have standards like every other means of communication. I think what we`re seeing with Condi Rice, with my former boss, with Hillary, although I think Hillary has gone a little bit beyond that with a private server is indicative of this.
I think you would find in almost every department of government and every agency.
HAYES: It was striking to me that the report which really was quite critical of the secretary in terms of the violating the protocols, in terms of not essentially getting clearance from the legal department of State even though her own lawyers looked at it --
WILKERSON: Well, it`s not really the legal department that would concern me. We had an undersecretary for management, Grant Green. As I understand it, they now have a deputy secretary of state for management, another stupid move by the Congress in micro-managing the State Department. You don`t need two or three deputies.
But anyway, they have a management department and a particular individual there by the name of Patrick Kennedy. If I`m looking at it right and my friends who remain in the State Department are telling me about this right, you`ve got an individual there that should have said to the secretary of state, no way you`re going to do this. No way. And he should have been fully aware of every means she was using for communication.
So, if I was going to blame someone at State, I`d reach in there to the management people.
HAYES: Colonel, you were today attending a conference on some national security and foreign policy issues and you`ve been pretty outspoken. I think you`ve informally advised the Sanders campaign at a certain point. As you watch this general election come into focus with Donald Trump as the presumptive nominee and really making no alteration to the way he talks about issues whether foreign or domestic, what do you think we`re seeing?
WILKERSON: Well, I really had to smile at what your previous guest, Representative Republican from Pennsylvania Dent, had to say about removing the curtain on the Republican Party or removing the veil. That`s exactly what`s happened, but not the way Dent meant.
What`s happened is Trump is the Frankenstein that the party I`ve been warning Americans about for sometime, that I`m a member of still, the Frankenstein it produced. He`s a representative of their intolerance, dare I say it, racism. He`s a representative of their misogyny.
He`s a representative of the intolerance that spreads into things like we don`t like women, we don`t like minorities. We like to build walls on the boarder and so forth.
Donald Trump is a perfect, quintessential figure from central casting and that central casting was created by my party, the Republican Party. So, the Representative Dent was exactly right but from the wrong perspective.
HAYES: There`s two lines of thinking. One is this is fundamentally, even though he`s been an abnormal candidate in certain ways, certainly a novel one, disruptive, that, you know, he would be a president and he would be a Republican president and liberals might not like that, but the republic will survive. And then there are people who say, no, this is something beyond that. This is something existential, catastrophic. Where do you come down on this?
WILKERSON: I think our system is resilient enough to withstand him. I would not like to see us have to go through the trial though. You know, In my sort of bizarre moments I think Donald Trump designed this all along. His initial objective was to destroy the Republican Party. In many respects, he has almost accomplished that objective if not accomplished it.
Now in the process of doing that, he`s becoming enamored of himself and that`s hard to believe about Donald Trump, and enamored of the possibilities he`s created for himself. I don`t think he thought he would get this far and this successfully. And now, he`s actually a candidate for president.
I agree with the previous speaker, though. He`s a candidate who has been successful with the 20 percent of those in this country who identify as Republicans and that`s not enough to win the White House.
HAYES: All right. Colonel Lawrence, always a pleasure. Thanks for joining me, sir.
WILKERSON: Thanks for having me, Chris.
HAYES: Coming, an update on ALL IN`s latest franchise, where we keep track of Donald Trump`s most recent controversies that one might think would be campaign ending. The latest entry to Trump`s last 10 just after this short break.
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HAYES: Last week, we introduced a new feature, an effort to stay on top of all the outrageous, offensive stories that seem to come out almost every day about Donald Trump, stories that for any other candidate would be cataclysmic and potentially campaign ending -- but for Donald Trump are merely a bump in the road, a momentary stumble before receiving into the news cycle`s rearview mirror.
In our list of Trump`s last 10, he`s 10 most recent controversies in chronological order, at number one, as of last week, "New York Times" report on Trump`s treatment of women chronicling his inappropriate behavior, his obsession with women`s looks. And number two, that time, Trump pretended to be his own PR guy, remember that, the made up John Miller, to brag about his businesses and his sexual conquests, some of which said bragging turned out to be untrue.
And on the chopping block down at number ten, Trump`s refusal to rule out, someday, maybe, who knows, possibly nuking Europe. Now, that gets pushed out to make room for our newest story as we update the list. Now on top at number one, Trump`s missing million dollar donation to veterans. The revelation that despite having said in January that he had already given $1 million of his own money to veterans, it wasn`t until a reporter started asking questions earlier this very week, four months later, that he actually ponied up the money.
Trump`s flirtation with the idea of punishing women for having an abortion is now in the precarious position at the bottom at number 10.
Moving to number nine, Trump`s suggestion that Ted Cruz`s dead helped Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK. Remember that one? At this rate, it`s only a matter of time before that too falls by the wayside.
Later in the show, Democrats are accusing Trump of cheering on the real estate crash, but that`s not the only way he tried to profit off a crisis. How Trump promised to help people, quote, "opt out of the recession", coming up.
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HAYES: There`s been a lot of talk in this presidential campaign about doing right by the nation`s veterans, this as the longest war in this nation`s history continues to stretch on.
We have two-and-a-half million veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who have an array of needs when they come home.
In his new book, journalist Sebastian Junger describes one of those needs the closeness that is common to military life and how we as a culture have in the grand scheme of things only very recently moved away from the solidarity that comes from tribal kinship.
Junger chronicles the way that that intense and intensely human closeness experienced on the battlefield vanishes once soldiers return to an alienating and increasingly acrimonious modern society, a jarring transition that can produce PTSD like symptoms and depression even for those who didn`t suffer severe trauma in war.
I recently got a chance to talk to Junger about his book.
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HAYES: Here`s what I`ve really liked about the book so far is that there is a kind of trite cliche that I think in this era of unending 15 years of war that we have about veterans and soldiers who return, which is like, oh, they`re sort -- they come back and they`re forgotten and they`re sort of tragic cases. And you`re getting at something really profound about what the experience of what they do in war is and how that differs from coming back.
What is that?
SEBASTIAN JUNGER, AUTHOR: War provides the opportunity for unbelievable closeness and intimacy with the men you`re fighting with. The unit I was with it was all men, so I`ll just say men. It`s easier. But in mixed sex units the same thing. Incredible intimacy and you`re relying on these people for your life. Incredible bond.
And actually, if you`re in a platoon of 30 or 40 people living communally like that, you`re reproducing our evolutionary past pretty closely.
And then you come back -- so you lose that bond. You lose your little tribe, right, which we`re wired -- we`re wired for that.
HAYES: Yeah, you make the case -- I mean, hundreds of thousands of years ago of development in which that`s the way we lived. We`ve lived in the world of Home Depots and cars for a tiny little smidge.
JUNGER: That`s right. So, you know, you`re sleeping in a group, eating in a group, or missions, et cetera. So, then you come back to modern society and if you come back to a tribal society you`re pretty OK, right, you`re going from one group to another group. It`s all the same group.
You come back to a modern society and you`re coming back to a society that because of it`s affluence has some of the highest rates of suicide and depression and child abuse and all of these other ills ever recorded.
You would think that with affluence comes an improvement in mental health, it`s actually the other way around. Because many mental health issues are correlated with frankly loneliness.
Loneliness is new in the human story, right. If you live in a group of 30 or 40 people in the Kalahari Desert, you`re never lonely. Whatever the other stresses are, you`re never lonely.
Well, these people come back and they`ve lost their little tribe and they`re in this alienating modern society that`s hard on everybody and what they`re experiencing -- I mean, about 10 percent of the military experiences combat so the other 90 percent really were not traumatized. What they are having is a disorder of transition. Even Peace Corps volunteers when they come back to the United States, many of them have quite a high rate of depression when they come home.
And I think a lot of that -- they call it PTSD because that`s the word we all have, but I think for a lot of them that weren`t in combat what they`re experiencing is that disorder of transition.
HAYES: I was reading this and I had a conversation once with a veteran who had done two tours in Afghanistan and literally told me about coming back and working at a job in Home Deport and just having a moment where he just looked around and was like literally is this all? Is this it? Is this -- all right. I`m going go down that aisle -- you know, and there`s this sense of meaning I think is part of what this book sort of is getting at.
Is there a way -- we`re not going to reproduce a tribal society, right. And also, you know, war is not a good thing in the general sense of -- it`s massively destructive and violent. Like, what is -- is there a capturable part of what`s lost here to salvage in our sort of modern society?
JUNGER: Sort of yes and no. I think we do a lot of things that are actively destructive to our sense of unity. We`re not going to go back to a tribal society. If you wanted to try that you would have to ban the car. I think national service -- Israel has a rate of PTSD of 1 percent.
Psychologist in Israel attribute that to national service. Everyone serves in the military, not necessarily combat, but they`re all in the military. that experience with group purpose is enormously beneficial psychologically. I think it would help this country.
HAYES: Yeah, I mean, -- this is a longer conversation. When I hear that I think, well, right it`s a society that`s sort of on permanant war footing. And all of the things that we talk about when we talk about the negative aspects of tribalism it`s like how do you detach the one from the other.
JUNGER: OK, but what about -- every nation needs an army. What about national service with a military option?
HAYES: And there`s many countries that have that.
JUNGER: Exactly.
And I think it`s quite good. I think that would help us a lot. But more urgently the contempt that we`ve seen in the recent political season of political leaders and media leaders speaking with incredible derision and lack of respect and contempt for other -- for their fellow citizens, for the president, for the congress, for parts of the American demographic, you don`t -- that kind of tone is reserved for how you speak with about the enemy.
You don`t use that tone when you`re talking about people in your own camp that you may have to rely on.
And I think one thing that happens to soldiers is they fight for this country and they come back and they realized that they fought for a country that`s fighting with itself. Imagine how psychologically destructive that is.
HAYES: The book is called "Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging" by Sebastian Junger. Thank you very much for coming. Appreciate it.
JUNGER: Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HAYES: Still to come, a major victory for voting rights in a very key swing state and what it could mean for the general election. That`s ahead.
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HAYES: By just about any measure the Tesla Model S is a pretty incredible piece of American ingenuity. The coolest feature may be the software that Tesla calls auto pilot. Using cameras and sensors, the care can drive itself. It auto steers, can change lanes, adjust speed in response to traffic and even park itself.
The technology has made for some pretty cool videos.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Tesla is a pro at staying in one lane, but we wanted to find out if it could change lanes automatically too.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`m going to use my blinker to get over. Hopefully it will be aware of that.
Oh, there it goes and it did it and it`s aware of the car in front of us and it slowed down. That was insane.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That was close.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That wasn`t close. That was awesome.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That was close.
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HAYES: Although, the Tesla S is fully capable of automatically navigating most highway situations allowing you to take your hands off the wheel and foot off the pedals. The director of Tesla`s auto-pilot program stresses that the software, quote, should be used with a driver fully engaged, fully in the loop, using their cognitive abilities as they normally would.
Tesla`s CEO and founder Elon Musk elaborated further.
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ELON MUSK, CEO, TESLA: We`re not asserting that the car is capable of driving in the absence of driver oversight. That will be the case at some point in the future. Like maybe five or six years from now I think we`ll be able to achieve true autonomous driving where you can literally get in the car, go to sleep and wake up at your destination.
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HAYES: Imagine that, in the future you will be able to just go to sleep behind the wheel of your car. But not now, right now it`s important to stay fully engaged while you`re driving. Apparently nobody told that to this guy. That video in 60 seconds.
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HAYES: So, the Tesla S has this autopilot feature that allows you to feel like you`re not really driving. Your hands don`t have to be the on wheel, your feet don`t have to be the on the pedals, it`s truly, stunningly advanced technology that puts Ttesla vehicles at level two on the autonomous vehicle spectrum as specified by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
But it is not, I repeat, not a totally autonomous self driving car, that would require a car that can be driven without human intervention at any point. That`s what the national Highway Traffic Safety Administration calls level four.
This guy is ready for level four. Behold, the future of autonomous commuting.
This video first popped up on the website Reddit yesterday and has slowly been making the rounds on the internet. It appears this man is sound asleep at the wheel of his Tesla as it autopilots the rush hour traffic. Elon Musk was asked to comment on the video and he does not approve, quote, "autopilot is by far the most advanced such system on the road, but it does not turn a Tesla into an autonomous vehicle and does not allow the driver to abdicate responsibility."
But I don`t know, the thing seemed to work pretty well for this guy and as far as we know he got safely to his destination. Sweet dreams level four dude. Sweet dreams.
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HAYES: A federal judge in Ohio has struck down an Ohio law that curtails early voting saying it is a violation of the Voting Rights Act and the constitution. U.S. district judge Michael H. Watson, an appointee of President George W. Bush wrote in his opinion it is reasonable to conclude that the reduction in overall to vote will burden the right to vote for African-Americans who use early in-person voting significantly more than other voters.
This case is being appealed to the sixth circuit U.S. court of appeals and from there it may reach the Supreme Court that is, let`s remember, currently only eight justices with one sitting there not getting a hearing as nominated by President Obama. It`s widely expected to split on the issue 4-4.
Joining me now Sherilynn Ifill, president and director counsel NAACP legal defense education fund, which has argued in defense of an NAACP challenge of a Texas voter ID laws. What`s the significance of this ruling.
SHERRILYN IFILL, DIRECTOR COUNSEL NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE EDUCATION FUND: Well, it`s important. I mean, what the judge found is that this particular provision in Ohio, golden week, it`s a week in which voters in Ohio can both do early voting and they can register and vote at the same time.
And what the evidence showed was that African-Americans were five times more likely to use Golden Week than white voters. In fact, 80,000 voters voted during that week in the 2012 election.
And so the judge`s decision is a powerful one, an important one. Of course it will be appealed. This is a big week for voting challenges as you noted. We were in New Orleans yesterday in the fifth circuit court of appeals arguing a challenge, an appeal to our Texas voter ID challenge. I didn`t actually argue the case, another lawyer in our office did, Jennai Nelson.
And she essentially laid out what the district court found which is that the Texas voter ID law was created for the purpose of discriminating against African-Americans and Latino voters.
HAYES: So, you`ve got the Texas ID law, you`ve got this Ohio law. This will get challenged. All this happening without the protection of a big part of the Voting Rights Act.
IFILL: This is what the Shelby case brought. You have got cases out of Wisconsin, North Carolina that are both on appeal. You have Virginia. All of these new voting laws, that`s new restrictions on voting all came about after the 2013 decision in the Shelby County case, and so this is literally the landscape that was created by the Supreme Court`s decision.
HAYES: And are we running out of runway to get all this settled before -- I mean, that`s my concern, like, whatever the rulings are you want to know what the law is before election day.
IFILL: Absolutely.
And we`ve already had election day, let`s be honest. We`ve had the primary election, right, in which people were disenfranchised.
But now it`s November and the Supreme Court actually in the Texas case said that they expect the court of appeals to issue a decision by July 20th so that there will be enough time, if the case needs to go to the Supreme Court for it to be decided before the November elections.
It`s quite a landscape.
That could really set up a tremendously intense high stakes battle in that Supreme Court in the fall.
IFILL: It`s a huge high stakes battle. I think most people are thinking about it as a high stakes battle in the presidential election, but there are DAs and judges and town council.
HAYES: All the way down.
IFILL: All the way down the ballot.
HAYES: All right, Sherilynn Ifill, always a pleasure to have you here. Thank you very much.
Up next, the pitch Donald Trump made to struggling Americans during the financial crisis saying they could opt out of the recession. That story and why it involves urine samples after this break.
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HAYES: Donald Trump is under fire from Democrats for having been, in his words, excited for potential housing crash, because of a given opportunity to, quote, go in and buy like crazy.
Now that`s evidence he did profit from the crisis and the ensuing recession not just necessarily in real estate. The Daily Beast reports today on the vitamin selling venture launched in 2009 by a company called The Trump Network. It was a multi-level marketing scheme along the lines of Amway or Mary Kay. And it appears to have specifically targeted vulnerable people who had been hurt badly by the crisis.
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TRUMP: The economic meltdown, greed, and ineptitude in the financial industry have sabotaged the dreams of millions of people. Americans need a new plan. They need a new dream. The Trump Network wants to give millions of people renewed hope and with an exciting plan to opt out of the recession.
Let`s get out of this recession right now.
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HAYES: The scheme pedeled a number of diet products and sham nutritional supplements, including a supposedly customized vitamin regime requiring users to send in a urine sample packed inside a very classy special Trump branded box.
According to a Harvard doctor and supplement expert interviewed by the Daily Beast, the process is, quote, a scam. It`s a bogus program to make profit for the people who are selling it. It`s fantasy.
According to Donald Trump, however, addressing a glitzy launch event in 2009 the The Trump Network was a sure thing investment.
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TRUMP: When I did The Apprentice it was a long shot. This is not a long shot,t his is going to be something that`s really amazing.
I know other marketing companies and there`s nothing like I`ve seen like what we`re witnessing. This is an amazing sort of a phenomena.
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HAYES: Trump didn`t actually own The Trump Network. As with many of his ventures, he merely licensed his brand to the business reportedly earning a million dollars.
But according to CBS News he spent two years traveling the country to promote The Trump Network and as a promotional video made clear his buy in was a key selling point along with providing a boost out of the recession.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have chills. I can`t believe we are The Trump Network.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everyone recognizes and trusts that Trump brand name.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is a recession proof business.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A recession proof income that can pay them some very significant income month after month.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We`re going to make the kind of money CEOs make.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When we talk business, Trump means business.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You cannot be in any other network marketing company besides Donald Trump, because who can compete with him?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don`t think anybody can.
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HAYES: The Washington Post reports Trump`s licensing deal with the company expired in 2011. The Trump Network`s three owners eventually filed for bankruptcy and in early 2012 the business was sold to another company.
Eileen Kelly (ph), a retired college professor interviewed by CBS News said she and her husband lost $10,000 in the scheme.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I hate to see people taken in like that, like we were. I mean, we`re educated people. It`s almost embarrassing.
I don`t believe for a moment that he`s going to change things. We just went through it with him.
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HAYES: Eileen Kelly (ph) told CBS she had to delay her retirement to pay off her Trump Network debt.
I`m joined now by Tim Mak, senior correspondent for The Daily Beast. Tim, how did this come about? It seems so random. I can`t even watch -- going through the clips today at the office I just couldn`t even believe this thing happened.
TIM MAK, THE DAILY BEAST: I think that during the time around the recession Donald Trump was looking for a multi-level marketing opportunity to get into. And he sure found one. He found this organization called The Trump Network and for $140 you could send in your urine and get a tailored version of vitamins, none of which was proven by science, by the way, they would be delivered to you and you would pay $70 a month, every month, to increase your health.
But the difference between something like this and a Trump steak or a Trump wine is this actually would have not only an effect on your income and purchasing these vitamins, but it also could have an effect on your health. The thing is that these supplements have not been tested, they have not been shown to work and they have not been shown to be safe. That`s the real problem here here.
The doctors that we talked to who were involved with The Trump Network say that Donald Trump was never really interested in the science or whether it was actually safe.
HAYES: Yeah, I mean, these guys pitched this to Trump, right, they showed him their ideas. It was both the vitamins and then the marketing, right, like you could be a person that sold these vitamins to other people. That would be part of the way the, you know, you would make this income.
Let me read the statement from the Trump organization, "yet another inaccurate, misleading story from The Daily Beast. To be clear, Mr. Trump`s role in The Trump Network was limited to licensing his brand and providing motivational speeches to its members. Mr. Trump was never an owner of The Trump Network," although we made clear that`s true. "It should come as no surprise The Daily Beast never bothered to contact the former owners The Trump Network," or anyone from the Trump organization to learn the facts presumably because it would have gotten in the way of the story."
Is that true?
MAK: No. We gave the Trump campaign five days to respond to the story. They didn`t respond to the story. Donald Trump just yesterday cited a Daily Beast story, so apparently he likes our investigations, he just doesn`t like it when we investigate him.
Really, the fact of the matter is that he went into this and we talked to plenty of doctors who were involved in this project and he wasn`t interested in the science behind it. He was interested in the money behind it, but he was not interested in whether or not it would effect the health of these people who were purchasing the products.
HAYES: One things that struck me -- people know that a huge part of what - - I mean, we don`t know how much money he makes and what his finances look like because we haven`t seen his tax returns. But clearly one thing that he does that lucrative is rent out his name, essentially. I mean, there`s buildings all over the world that have the Trump name. I mean, basically it`s just a licensing deal.
It was striking to me, though, that he was spend a considerable amount of time actually like out there marketing for this company.
MAK: Yeah, he spent a lot of effort, clearly people thought that he was invested in this company. He said he was involved with the company. So people when they were making these health decisions, when they were making these personal decisions that could effect their entire life, not just their pocket book but their health, they were relying on Trump being behind it.
And the fact is he was not at all inquisitive about what the vitamins actually did, whether it was healthy, whether it was helpful and that`s the real story here.
HAYES: I mean, this -- for lack of a better term this looks like basically snake oil, right?
MAK: Yeah. It`s the entire thing has been based in pseudo science. So, we talked to one of the top doctors of this particular vitamin product and he gave us a 12 page paper. We sent it to a Harvard doctor who specializes in supplements. He looked at the whole thing and he said this was a ridiculous concept. Firstly, they never tested this on humans. They had never investigated the claims of the science.
HAYES: Although, everyone got to keep their personalized branded Trump urine sample collection containers.
Tim Mak, thank you very much.
That is All In for this evening. The Rachel Maddow show starts right now.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. END