Show: ALL IN with CHRIS HAYES Date: June 16, 2016 Guest: Norm Ornstein, Dahlia Lithwick, Sarah Ellison, Eric Boehlert
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JOY REID, MSNBC GUEST HOST (voice-over): Tonight on ALL IN --
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESUMPTIVE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: This is too tough to do it alone, but I think I`m going to be forced to.
REID: Donald Trump`s fight with the party he leads.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We`re just asking him if they can`t do that, then shut the hell up.
REID: Tonight, new reporting the growing tensions between Trump and the RNC.
Plus, the president visits victims at Orlando and takes on Donald Trump.
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The notion that the answer to this tragedy would be to make sure that more people in a nightclub are similarly armed to the killer defies common sense.
REID: Then, what we know about Bernie`s big announcement happening in this hour. We`ll bring that to you live.
And on the one-year anniversary of escalator day --
TRUMP: I`ll never forget standing on the famous escalator, you know escalator, right?
REID: -- the new reporting on Donald Trump`s cable news backup plan.
TRUMP: My whole thing was take money, grab it, I`m a business guy, grab money, I`ve always been so good at that, grab it!
REID: ALL IN starts now.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
REID: Good evening from New York. I`m Joy Reid, in for Chris Hayes.
Now, according to the presumptive Republican nominee, he doesn`t need his party to help him win the White House. Tonight, Donald Trump is campaigning in Dallas, Texas, where he`s due to take the stage any minute now.
On his one-year anniversary of his fateful entrance into the GOP primary, Trump kicked off his campaign a year ago today by sparking outrage with his claim that Mexican immigrants are criminals and rapists. Now he`s drawing bipartisan condemnation for his hateful and inflammatory response to the massacre in Orlando. Just as he did then, Trump is only escalating his rhetoric. In fact, his campaign has a message for disapproving GOP officials.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The leadership of the Republican party needs to figure out what they want. Either they want to get behind the presumptive nominee who will be the nominee of this party and make sure that we do everything we can to win in November, or we`re just asking them if they can`t do that then just shut the hell of.
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REID: Clovis was echoing his candidate who yesterday called on Republican leaders to get on board or get out of the way.
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TRUMP: Our leaders have to get a lot tougher. And be quiet, just please be quiet, don`t talk, please be quiet, just be quiet, to the leaders. Because they have to get tougher, they have to get sharper, they have to get smarter. We have to have our Republicans either stick together or let me just do it by myself, I`ll do very well, I`m going to do very well.
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REID: This comes as two reports describe deteriorating relations between the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee with individuals on both side griping anonymously to reporters.
Our own Katy Tur and Hallie Jackson depict mounting frustration with RNC as the Trump campaign seems to brush off RNC advice on personnel, messaging, and what it will take to win a national election come November.
According to chair Reince Priebus, however, there`s nothing to see here. This afternoon, he tweeted, "Flying to Dallas now with Donald Trump, reports of discord are pure fiction. Great events lined up all over Texas, Rs will win in November." Yeah.
Well, Priebus may be at Trump`s rally tonight, but the state`s top-ranking Republican is not reserve. Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who`s endorsed Trump, took a rain check on appearing with him at his rally, citing scheduling conflicts. We`re sure it has nothing to do with the damaging "Associated Press" report that as the state`s attorney general, Abbott dropped a probe into Trump University after the business agreed to end operations in Texas, later accepting a $35,000 donation from Trump to his successful gubernatorial campaign.
Abbott is not the only Republican official to put space between himself and his party`s presumptive nominee today. After Maryland Governor Larry Hogan declared yesterday that he won`t be voting for Trump, today Ohio Governor John Kasich, one of Trump`s former primary opponents, told MSNBC he still can`t bring himself to get on board.
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GOV. JOHN KASICH (R), OHIO: It`s painful. People even get divorces, you know. Sometimes things come about that -- look, I`m sorry that this has happened, but we`ll see where it ends up. I`m not making any final decision yet, but at this point, I just can`t do it.
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REID: Perhaps even more troubling for Trump, political reports today that Richard Armitage, former deputy secretary of state under George W. Bush, will back Hillary Clinton over his own party`s nominee. He`s a widely respected member of the national security elite and the highest-ranking defector so far.
And the timing does not reflect well on Trump`s handling of the first major crisis since he clinched the GOP nomination.
Joining me from Dallas, Texas, is NBC News correspondent Katy Tur, who co- wrote the piece on the growing tensions between the Trump campaign and the RNC.
All right, Katy. So, Trump says he doesn`t need the Republican Party, doesn`t need the RNC, he can do it on his own. That`s what he`s saying publicly.
Behind the scenes, is the Trump campaign still trying to use the resources of the Republican national committee in asking for help?
KATY TUR, NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Well, behind the scenes the campaign is reaching out. They`ve had meetings on Capitol Hill to try and gain more support. And there is some working between the RNC and the Donald Trump campaign. They`re working towards having a better relationship. And they say, sources say that they are hopeful that that`s going to happen.
But at the moment, there is some deep distrust, according to multiple sources that we spoke to. Six, in fact, who told us that basically each side doesn`t trust the other. It`s unusual in this circumstance, but again, Donald Trump has been an unusual candidate this entire time.
Usually, Mitt Romney or anybody else would have bolstered up their campaign staff, both in the swing states, the battleground states, also their communications team, stuff like that. The RNC urging them to do that, encouraging them to do that, according to sources.
But the Trump campaign not doing it. They say that`s because of two factors. One, there`s internal infighting in the Donald Trump campaign stopping some hires. And Donald Trump himself fundamentally does not believe he needs a large campaign staff, he`s gotten this far with having a small core of people.
He brags about this on the campaign trail over and over and over again. Look what I was able to do with just a few people. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, has hundreds. So we know from his books from "The Art of the Deal" that he doesn`t believe in spending more money than is necessary. So, this is an indication he thinks he`s going to be able to win the general the same way he won the primary.
The problem is, aides in the RNC and donors and everybody is telling him that`s not necessarily the case, you`re going to have to staff up, you`re going to have to bulk up, because Hillary Clinton is a formidable machine.
REID: But, Katy, this idea of a better relationship what does that actually mean? Because we`re also hearing reports Trump is not making the phone calls to raise money. Does the Trump campaign not think they need ads? Hillary Clinton is now up in about half a dozen states with advertising. The Trump campaign is dark.
Does the campaign even believe they need to raise money to run advertising?
TUR: I don`t think the campaign has any -- they know they need to raise money, they realized that. But Donald Trump doesn`t necessarily agree with that. And "Politico" was reporting he only called a handful of donors that he was supposed to call in order to raise this cash.
But, remember, he hasn`t felt like he needs to canvass this country during the primaries with ads. His ads are going on stage, getting his rallies carried live on television, and creating controversy, dominating the headlines. That`s what he`s done this entire campaign, that`s clearly the path that they believe that they`re going to continue on.
REID: Winning a campaign on Twitter alone. We`re going to see if that works out.
Katy Tur, thank you very much, really appreciate it.
I`m joined by Norm Ornstein, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and E.J. Dionne, columnist at "The Washington Post".
Thank you both for being here.
Norm, I`ll start with you, because, you know, talk about throwing out all the sort of normal norms of campaigning. If the Trump campaign doesn`t believe it needs staff, doesn`t believe it needs organizing in the states, doesn`t need to actually make phone calls and raise money, then is this literally a campaign that Donald Trump believes he can run on Twitter?
NORM ORNSTEIN, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE: You know, this reminds me of a Charlie Sheen marriage, the relationship between Trump and RNC. He keeps going off on benders and they keep saying everything`s fine, while trying to get him to stay in line. Maybe even more accurate would be Charlie Sheen`s relationship with CBS when they had a hit show and they knew they needed him, and he believed they needed him more than he needed them. And I think that`s Trump.
And he wants their money, he wants their ground organization, he doesn`t want to do anything for it, and his ego, of course, has grown every day since he moved into a leading position within that party. And they are helpless.
REID: You start to feel a sense of a hostage situation, E.J., with Reince Priebus tweeting from the plane, everything`s fine! There`s nothing to see here!
But you have an RNC where Republicans, prominent Republicans, are either jumping off the Trump ship or just refusing to show and up campaign with him. How do you run a campaign that is at the end of the day a coordinated campaign if the Republican sort of normal rear guard don`t want to be seen with the general and the general doesn`t want to even have a strategy to try to win?
E.J. DIONNE, THE WASHINGTON POST: I think as you suggested, the question answers yourself, you can`t. The way I`ve been thinking about this is imagine Hillary Clinton writing Donald Trump a letter saying, you`ve been a good friend of mine in the past, here`s what you can do to help me win by splitting your party and uniting my party.
And the items she would have put on that list are every single thing that Donald Trump has done. Don`t hire -- don`t staff up, don`t hire smart people who know more about running presidential campaigns than you do, insult a respected judge born in Indiana saying he`s a Mexican who`s bigoted against me, exploit the tragedy in Orlando, and by the way, remind Democrats you are a birther by floating conspiracies about President Obama.
So, Republicans are beside themselves. Some of it is there are some of these themes Republicans use like the president won`t say radical Islamic terrorism, or having a strong anti-immigration stance. But the Republicans like to put the dial up at about 3. Trump is putting it up at about 9 and blowing it ears out of everyone except his base. And he`s forgotten or never figured out that a general election is different from a primary.
REID: Well, in addition to that norm, never figured out where a swing state is either. You`re seeing Trump going to Texas, a state that is not in play and seeming to go where he can get excited crowds to deliver exactly the message that E.J. just talked about the thing that excites base Republicans but doesn`t help him with swing voters. Do you see any evidence that the Trump campaign is eventually going to start to mount a swing state strategy?
ORNSTEIN: Well, this is, of course, what the Republican National Committee and the professionals want him to do. He hired a pollster in New York which is almost bizarre. So, he`s going to follow his own drummer as long as he can.
And part of it is, one, it`s early. Two, there is a strong self-interest among Republican professionals, even as much as they despise what Trump is doing, to get that vote out so that they can at least have people there to vote for the House and Senate.
So, there`s going to be a ground game. Some of that ground game is going to be the Koch brothers, a parallel party organization and their supporters, and some of it will benefit him. But I think there`s no way he is going to be brought back into line by the party when he believes that he`s the alpha male and they`re just following along and if they don`t want to follow along he`ll dump them over at the side of the road.
REID: E.J., if you are one of those senators who`s up for re-election, if you`re Johnson, if you are Mark Kirk, if you are one of these vulnerable senators in swing states, how do you run for re-election and parse the question of whether you want the presumptive Republican presidential candidate to appear with you, to campaign for you, and whether you want him to be president? How do you answer that question this.
DIONNE: Well, they have a real problem, because on the one hand, they can`t win if all of the middle of the road voters in their state turn on Trump and see them as representing Trump and the Democrats have already done a pretty good job of trying to tie all Republicans to Trump. On the other hand, if they go after Trump, if they distance themselves too much from Trump, voters they need, Republican base voters who really like Donald Trump, might not vote for them, might skip them, might vote for a third party.
So, they are really stuck. I mean, it seems most of those candidates have chosen to distance themselves from Trump on the theory that he is doing so badly in swing or blue states that they`re willing to run the risk of losing some of the Trump vote. But they`re really stuck. And the party`s stuck, because the leadership would love to dump him.
I think the second Hillary memo would say, don`t overdo it, Donald, get under control, just so I can make sure you`re nominated. They`d like to dump Trump but again, the party is for him. He`s got 65 percent favorable among Republicans. The leadership doesn`t like the Muslim ban but the Republican rank and file does. So they also are in a very difficult position.
REID: Yes, in a way sort of hostage to their own timidity. They are individuals, they can do whatever they wanted, but this is what they`re choosing to do.
Norm Ornstein and E.J. Dionne, thank you very much for joining me. Appreciate it.
ORNSTEIN: Thanks.
DIONNE: Great, Joy, to be with you.
REID: All right. And still to come, a big address from Bernie Sanders happening this hour. His first since losing the D.C. primary. What will he tell his supporters? We`ll talk about that, ahead.
But, first, President Obama travels to Orlando to mourn with yet another community impacted by a mass shooting. This time, however, there`s something different. We`ll talk about what happens now after last night`s successful Democratic filibuster in just two minutes.
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REID: President Obama once again took on the role of consoler in chief after yet another mass shooting, this time in Orlando. During President Obama`s time in office, there had been at least 20 large scale shootings that have prompted a presidential response, according to "The New York Times".
After arriving in Orlando, the president and vice president met with survivors of the Pulse nightclub shooting and with victims` families.
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OBAMA: So today, once again, as has been true too many times before, I held and hugged grieving family members and parents and they asked, why does this keep happening? And they pleaded that we do more to stop the carnage. This debate needs to change. It`s outgrown the old political stalemates. The notion that the answer to this tragedy would be to make sure that more people in a nightclub are similarly armed to the killer defies common sense.
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REID: That last point is a reference to suggestions by Donald Trump and other Republicans that the best way to combat gun violence is to make sure that more ordinary citizens are armed.
President Obama approvingly noted the possible upcoming votes in the Senate on a measure that would stop people on the terrorism watch list or the no- fly list from buying firearms. Those voted are expected to take place on Monday. Only because a nearly 15-hour Democratic talking filibuster led by Senator Chris Murphy was successful.
The Senate majority leader, Republican Mitch McConnell, agreed to allow votes on four different gun measures -- the "No Fly, No Buy" measure which was previously mentioned, the weaker Republican version of that which has the backing of the NRA. A measure on universal background checks sponsored by Democrats, and a possible Republican alternative to that.
Although the measures sponsored by Democrats, including universal background checks, may fail, as they have in the past, at least senators will have to take a stand on the record.
And joining me now is Dahlia Lithwick, senior legal correspondent for "Slate", who recently authored the piece, "The Second Amendment Hoax: How the NRA and Conservatives Have Perverted the Meaning of the Right to Bear Arms."
And, Dahlia, thank you very much and congrats on a great piece.
DAHLIA LITHWICK, SLATE: Thank you.
REID: As always.
You write in this piece on a "Second Amendment Hoax", there are three lies underpinning our understanding of the Second Amendment, what are those?
LITHWICK: The first one is this notion that from time immemorial, this has been an individual right, that that`s what the framers wanted, they wrote it into the Constitution, and it`s always been understood, nothing to do with militias, ignore that clause.
The second is the notion that you can`t regulate that right because it`s so sacred that anything, including doctors in Florida talking to patients about guns, violates the Second Amendment. The third is the most pernicious hoax which is, Obama`s coming to get your guns, Hillary`s coming to get your guns, and you have to fight for this precious, sacred right inviolate, unregulated, because if you give an inch they`re going to come into your home and take your guns.
REID: They`re going to, first, the government starts taking your firearms. The second piece of that, the second lie that you talk about, this idea that it`s so inviolable you can`t have restrictions on it -- there is no other amendment that conservatives or anyone else describe that way, right, not the first, not any other?
LITHWICK: That`s right. And the most important part in my view of the Heller opinion where the court for the first time judicially finds that, in fact, by a 5-4, hey, there is an individual right and this only just happened in 2008. Justice Scalia himself who writes that opinion says, I want to be clear that doesn`t mean no regulation.
REID: You can`t have a bazooka.
LITHWICK: You can`t have no regulations. So that should be off the table, the idea it can`t have any regulations. Justice Scalia concedes this.
REID: And there was a time the NRA conceded there was a limit to individual rights and they didn`t see it that way. Talk about the history because my understanding of it, is that it was the 1960s, it was the Black Panthers who wants to carry openly on the streets of California and no less than Ronald Reagan, who was then governor of California, said, oh, no, you can`t do that, we`re going to limit your right to bear arms.
LITHWICK: It`s clear and it`s really important to remember the history, that this doesn`t become a really salient issue for the NRA until the 1960s and the 1970s. Until that both the courts don`t judicially find an individual right and the Justice Department and Republican presidencies don`t find it. This happens in the 1960s and `70s as the emboldened NRA says, we can go further, we can go further, we can further.
And, you know, the important part of our history that we forget is no lesser a liberal bleeding heart than former Chief Justice Earl Warren in 1990 called the notion of an individual right a fraud. You know, he didn`t believe it. So this comes very, very late in our history. Then we try to turn around and reconstruct our history to say, it was understood from the get-go.
REID: One of the people who`s making that argument, Charles Cook in "The National Review," called your article NRA trutherism. He didn`t have specific examples but essentially saying you are making up untrue stories and that from the very beginning, it was understood that individuals had a right to have any kind of a firearm they want.
How far would that right go? Would an individual have a right to a tank?
LITHWICK: I think, again, Justice Scalia says it doesn`t go that far. I think nobody thinks you have a right to a rocket launcher in your backyard. I think that the interesting history, you can read the Heller opinion for interesting history on both sides.
There`s certainly filaments of arguments on both sides. Was it militia- based, was it individual-based? In 1939, the U.S. Supreme Court said unequivocally, you don`t have an individual right to bear arms that are not connected to service in a militia. This was understood. I think what he`s upset about in that article is that I didn`t mention that there are three prominent liberal law professors who argued for a robust Second Amendment right.
So mea culpa, there were, but they weren`t the NRA. The NRA moved the needle on this, not three liberal law professors.
REID: And it should be important to remind people that the NRA lobby on behalf of an industry that makes profit from selling these guns.
Dahlia Lithwick from "Slate", thank you so much. Such a great piece. Everyone should read it.
Still ahead, what to expect from Bernie Sanders` first public address since losing the final primary of the election. Happening this hour. That`s coming up. Stay with us.
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REID: It`s been exactly one year to the day since the iconic moment when Donald Trump descended that escalator at Trump Tower to announce his presidential campaign.
At the time, Trump`s entry into the race was widely mocked. Yet here we are one year later and though there`s still a lot of mockery, Donald Trump`s the Republican Party`s presumptive presidential nominee.
To mark the one-year anniversary of Trump`s run, the Clinton campaign put out a compilation video featuring some of Trump`s most infamous moments, making the case that it feels like a lot longer than just one year. If Trump fails to make it to the Oval Office, a new report reveals he has an idea for a very different project.
Later in the show, what Trump may have up his sleeve if he loses? It just might look a little bit lit like this.
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TRUMP: Something has to be done about this terrible, terrible GEICO ad. It is the worst I`ve ever seen on television. They`ve got this third-rate guy acting like he`s Humphrey Bogart, he`s driving people crazy.
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REID: We are moments away from Bernie Sanders` first major address since his loss on Tuesday to Hillary Clinton in Washington, D.C.
And now that the Democratic Party has officially come to an end and Hillary Clinton is the presumptive Democratic nominee, what will Sanders tell his supporters?
Joining me now is Sam Seder, host of "The Majority Report" and MSNBC contributor.
All right, Sam. So let`s talk about what we know that Bernie Sanders has said so far. He came out and he did a speech after D.C. in which he talked about some of the changes he wanted to see made in the Republican Party. New leadership at the DNC, presumably getting rid of Debbie Wasserman Schultz, getting rid of superdelegates, open primary, same-day registration for voting.
If that`s what he says to his supporters he wants the movement to coalesce around tonight, is that a win in your view?
SAM SEDER, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: Well, I think it sells what he`s accomplished, sure, frankly. And I think he has more strength in that. You know, I think there clearly needs to be reform in the context of the primaries, probably in both parties, and frankly across the board in terms of voting.
But these are process issues that he didn`t even bring up at the beginning of the race. He entered into this race with an issue set that I think was really important. I think these goals are a little bit frankly shooting a little bit below where he should be aiming for.
I mean, I think the value of that, a, is that, yes, a lot of those reforms would help more progressive candidates in the future.
REID: And you know what, as a matter of fact, Bernie Sanders is speaking right now, let`s take a listen.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS, (I) VERMONT: Revolutions that attempt to transform our society never end. They continue every day, every week, and every month in the fight to create a nation and world of social and economic justice. That`s what the trade union movement is about, that`s what the civil rights movement is about, that`s what the women`s movement is about, that`s what the gay rights movement is about, that`s what the environmental movement is about, and that`s what this campaign has been about over the past year. That`s what the political revolution is about and that`s why the political revolution must continue into the future.
Real change never takes place from the top on down or in the living rooms of wealthy campaign contributors, it always occurs from the bottom on up when tens of millions of people say, loudly and clearly, enough is enough and they become engaged in the fight for justice. That`s what the political revolution we helped start is all about. That`s what the political revolution we helped start is all about. That`s why the political revolution must continue.
When we began this campaign a little over a year ago, we had no political organization, no money, and very little name recognition. The media determined that we were a fringe campaign. Nobody thought we were going anywhere. Well, a lot has changed over a year.
During this campaign, we won more than 12 million votes. We won 22 state primaries and caucuses. We came very close, within 2 points or less, in five more states. In other words, our vision for the future of this country is not some kind of fringe idea. It is not a radical idea. It is mainstream. It is what millions of Americans believe in and want to see happen.
And something else extraordinarily important happened in this campaign that makes me very optimistic about the future of our country, something that frankly I had not anticipated, and that is that in virtually every state that we contested, we won the overwhelming majority of the votes of people 45 years of age or younger, sometimes, may I say, by huge numbers.
These are the people who are determined to shape the future of our country. These are the people who are the future of our country. Together in this campaign, 1.5 million people came out to our rallies and town meetings in almost every state in the country. Together, hundreds of thousands of volunteers made 75 million phone calls, 75 million phone calls, urging their fellow citizens into action.
Together, our canvassers knocked on more than 5 million doors. Together, we hosted 74,000 meetings in every state and territory in this country. Together, 2.5 million people made over 8 million individual campaign contributions, more contributions at this point than any campaign in American history.
Amazingly, the bulk of those contributions came from low-income and working people whose donations averaged $27 apiece. In an unprecedented way, we showed the world that we could run a strong national campaign without being dependent on the big-money interests whose greed has done so much to damage our country.
And let me give a special thanks to the financial support we received from students struggling to repay their college loans, from seniors and disabled vets on Social Security, from workers earning salvation wages and even from people who were unemployed.
In every single state that we contested, we took on virtually the entire political establishment -- U.S. senators, members of congress, governors, mayors, state legislators, and local party leaders. To those relatively few elected officials who had the courage to stand with us, I say, thank you. Thank you, and we must continue working together into the future.
This campaign has never been about any single candidate, it has always been about transforming America. It is about ending a campaign finance system which is corrupt and allows billionaires to buy elections. It is about ending the grotesque level of wealth and income inequality that we are experiencing where almost all new wealth and income goes to the people on top, where the 20 wealthiest people own more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans, half our population.
It is about creating an economy that works for all of us, not just the 1 percent. It is about ending the disgrace of Native Americans who live on the Pine Ridge, South Dakota reservation having a life expectancy lower than many third world countries. It is about ending the incredible despair that exists in many parts of this country where, as a result of unemployment and low wages, suicide, drugs, and alcohol, millions of Americans are now dying in a historic way, in a ahistoric way, at a younger age than their parents.
Think about it, people today by the millions dying at a lower age than their parents.
It is about ending the disgrace of having the highest level of childhood poverty of almost any major country on earth and having public schools in inner cities that are totally failing our children, where kids now stand a greater chance of ending up in jail than ending up with a college degree. It is about ending the disgrace that millions of undocumented people in this country continue to live in fear and are exploited every day on their jobs because they have no legal rights. It is about ending the disgrace of tens of thousands of Americans dying every single year from preventable deaths because they either lack health insurance, have high deductibles, or cannot afford the outrageously high cost of the prescription drugs they need. Tens of thousands of Americans dying needlessly.
It is about ending the disgrace of hundreds of thousands of bright young people unable to go to college because their families are poor or working class, while millions more struggle with suffocating levels of student debt.
It is about ending the pain of a young single mother in Nevada in tears telling me that she doesn`t know how she and her daughter can make it on the $10.45 an hour she earns. And the reality that today, millions of our fellow Americans are working at wages that are much, much too low.
It is about ending the disgrace of a mother in Flint, Michigan, telling me what has happened to the intellectual development of her child as a result of excessive lead in the water in that city, of many thousands of homes in California and other communities where people are unable to drink the polluted water that comes out of their faucets in America in the year 2016, in a nation whose infrastructure is crumbling before our eyes.
It is about ending the disgrace that too many veterans still sleep out on the streets, that homelessness is increasing, and that tens of millions of Americans, because of a lack of affordable housing, are now paying 40 percent, 50 percent or more of their limited incomes to put a roof over their heads.
It is about ending the disgrace that in a given year, corporations making billions of dollars in profit avoid paying a nickel in federal taxes, because they stash their money in the Cayman Islands and in other tax havens.
This campaign is also about defeating Donald Trump, the Republican candidate for president. After centuries of racism, sexism and discrimination of all forms in our country, we do not need a major party candidate who makes bigotry the cornerstone of his campaign.
We cannot have a president who insults Mexicans and Latinos, Muslims, women, and African-Americans. We cannot have a president who in the midst of so much income and wealth inequality wants to give hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks to the very, very rich. We cannot have a president who despite all of the scientific evidence believes that climate change is a hoax.
The major political task that together we face in the next five months is to make certain that Donald Trump is defeated and defeated badly. And I personally intend to begin my role in that process in a very short period of time.
But defeating Donald Trump cannot be our only goal. We must continue our grassroots effort to create the America that we know we can become. And we must take that energy into the Democratic National Convention on July 25th in Philadelphia where we will have more than 1,900 delegates.
I recently had the opportunity to meet with Secretary Clinton and discuss some of the very important issues facing our country and the Democratic Party. It is no secret that Secretary Clinton and I have strong disagreements on some very, very important issues. It is also true that our views are quite close on others.
I look forward in the coming weeks to continue discussion between the two campaigns to make certain that your voices are heard and that the Democratic Party passes the most progressive platform in its history and that Democrats actually fight for that agenda.
I also look forward to working with Secretary Clinton to transform the Democratic Party so that it becomes a party of working people and young people and not just wealthy campaign contributors, a party that has the guts to take on Wall Street, the pharmaceutical industry, the fossil fuel industry, and the other powerful special interests that dominate so much of our political and economic life.
REID: That is Bernie Sanders in a live stream address to his supporters tonight.
And Sam Seder, he talked about building a movement that he wants to take into the Democratic National Convention with his 1,900 delegates and he says that he wants to make sure the party passes the most progressive platform in history and the Democrats actually fight for that agenda.
How does Bernie Sanders do that the most effectively? Does he do it the most effectively by remaining a Democrat, which he registered as last year, or somehow outside of the party process?
SEDER: Well, I mean, I think -- look, you know, he`s talking about heading towards the convention. I don`t think he`s going to change his registration before.
REID: I mean after that.
SEDER: Well, long-term, he`s someone who caucuses with the Democrats. I mean, at the end of the day, it was not an issue really two years ago what his party registration was in terms of how he was impacting the national discourse...
REID: But two years ago he wasn`t actually trying to change structurally the Democratic Party, now he`s run in the Democratic Party. He`s, as he said, millions and millions of donors, people who have been a part of his process, whether they have their doors knocked on or they were phone called or they sent him a check, now he`s got millions of people who were with him.
Does he lead that movement to remain in the Democratic Party and fight for these changes, or go back outside? Because he`s been there for 30 years. Now he`s actually trying to change party itself.
SEDER: Well, like I say, I don`t think it really -- I mean, that, to me, do me doesn`t seem to be a terribly key question, right?
I mean, he`s going to push for some reforms in the primary process, but it was low on his list I think of things that he was talking about. He`s really focusing on the platform. And he`s also talking about defeating Donald Trump.
I mean, he listed out a series of issues that the American public I think is far more aware of at times than probably the political class is. And I think the idea is that these issues must be addressed. And there`s a fundamental problem that I think a lot of people accept, and that is money and politics in is problematic that way.
And I think he`s best staying in the Democratic Party to...
REID: To try to make those changes.
SEDER: Yeah, I mean, I think he clearly understood that when he was running for president. That`s the pressure point.
REID: Yeah. And we will see if that is what happens. Sam Seder, thank you very much. Really appreciate you sticking with us.
All right, still to come, is there an end game that Donald Trump is preparing for that is not the White House? That story just ahead.
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REID: Today, Senator Marco Rubio arrived back in his home state of Florida, traveling for the first time with President Obama on Air force one, along with florida congresswoman corinne brown to Orlando where Obama met with survivors and families of the victims of the pulse nightclub shooting.
The trip comes less than 24 hours after Rubio signaled that he is now actively considering running for re-election to the senate, telling reporters yesterday, quote, "I enjoy my service here a lot, so I`ll go home later this week and I`ll have some time with my family and then if there`s been a change in our status I`ll be sure to let everyone know."
It`s a stunning about-face for the senator who has pledged repeatedly that he would not be seeking re-election.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. MARCO RUBIO, (R) FLORIDA: I`m not going to be vice president. I`m not running for governor of Florida. I`m going to finish out my term in the Senate over the next ten months. We`re going to work really hard here. And we have things we want to achieve. And then I`ll be a private citizen in January.
UNIDENITIFIED MALE: And you`re not going to rethink this and go back and file in April or May for this seat?
RUBIO: No. No. I`m not running for re-election to the Senate. As I said, I`m going to finish my term here and then I`ll be a private citizen.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: After that announcement in March, Rubio quickly tired of reporters asking if he was sure he wasn`t running, scolding them at one point saying, I have only said like 10,000 times I will be a private citizen in January.
Now his repeated proclamations did make some sense, given his rather complicated relationship with the institution. Last fall speaking about the senate he said, quote, "I don`t know that hate is the right word, I`m frustrated."
A long-time friend of his put it more starkly telling The Washington Post, quote, "he hates it."
Fast forward several months and a little encouragement from some influential Republicans and Rubio is reconsidering things. With five Republicans currently vying for the seat, including one of Rubio`s closest friends, Republicans see Rubio as their best chance to hold on to the seat. And it`s looking more and more like he agrees.
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: When we did the Republican debates, the Fox had 24 million people, the largest in the history of cable television. CNN, three weeks later, had 23 million people, the largest in the history of CNN.
I must say, you know, I think I had a lot to do with that, OK?
But I said, why aren`t we getting paid for this?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: On a night we`re spending so much time talking about how Bernie Sanders hopes to harness his movement, we`re getting some hints about what Donald Trump has planned for his supporters if he fails to make it to the Oval Office.
Trump has repeatedly expressed frustration with the fact that he has generated big ratings and profits for news outlets, but isn`t getting paid in the process, tweeting that the networks are making a fortune off of me, and calling for CNN to, quote, send me flowers and a thank you-note after a highly rated debate.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I mean, the networks, they are making a fortune off this stuff. They never made money, they always lost money with it. Now they`re making a fortune. I wonder why. But now they`re making a fortune with it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Now, according to Vanity Fair, Trump has plans to potentially get in on the action. Trump is considering creating his own media business, the magazine reports, and has discussed the possibility of launching a mini media conglomerate.
Though the Trump campaign says there are no absolutely no plans or discussions taking place regarding a venture of this nature.
Just yesterday, Trump tweeted that "the press is so totally biased that we have no choice than to take our tough but fair, smart message directly to the people."
Trump would potentially be following in the footsteps of his supporter Sarah Palin who in 2014 launched the Sarah Palin channel, an internet TV channel that charged $9.95 a month.
It didn`t go so well. Palin pulled the plug on the channel after just one year.
But Trump has reason to be optimistic, thanks to what has been dubbed the Trump effect. Cable news viewership and profits surged in 2015 with the cable news industry seeing a 10 percent increase in revenue from advertising and subscribers.
This hasn`t gone unnoticed to Trump, of course, who told the New York Times that if he left the presidential race, quote, there would be a major collapse in television ratings, it would become a depression in television.
And joining me now is Vanity Fair contributing editor Sarah Ellison who wrote that piece on Trump`s plans; and Eric Boehlert, senior fellow at the pro-Clinton watchdog group Media Matters.
All right, Sarah, you wrote this piece. What kind of a media conglomerate in theory would this be? Are we talking an internet TV enterprise a la Alex Jones, or a full-fledged cable channel like Sarah Palin?
SARAH ELLISON, VANITY FAIR: Well, I think we should first recognize that the idea that this would have been planned out to any great degree would be contradictory to anything that the Trump campaign has done so far. So, there`s no great strategy talking about something like this.
But the ideas that I have heard from my sources are one that a model would be the Oprah Winfrey Network, so OWN is one of the ideas people have floated. The other idea is that it would -- I mean, and then as part of that it would be a cable channel. And you could actually buy a channel off of David Zazlov or someone like that and you would then develop that. You would have your own platforms. There would obviously be a digital component.
Trump`s son-in-law, Jared Kirschner, owns The New York Observer. So, there would be a sort of -- I`m sure there would be a connection there as well.
REID: Some symbiosis, yes.
ELLISON: But I don`t want to overstate how much this probably hasn`t been planned out yet.
Yeah, like the campaign.
REID: Much like the campaign.
But Eric, you know, -- I`m glad you mentioned Oprah. Sarah mentioned Oprah. But the thing about Oprah is that her universe is huge, right. She can access tens of millions of people because she is generally inoffensive. If you are somebody like Donald Trump circa The Apprentice years, you, too have a big network of people who may not remember the housing discrimination suits and just know you as a celebrity.
Now that his universe is defined by, his brand is defined by quite frankly, racism and ethno-nationalism, does he have a big enough fan base to successfully launch a media enterprise?
ERIC BOEHLERT, MEDIA MATTERS: It would be problematic. I mean, he would have to keep virtually all his followers. As you mentioned, you take The Apprentice, 20 million view or however many you had on that -- on a hit night, and now he`s down to I think a much smaller day-to-day fan base. He would have to take everyone in with him, right.
And what would this channel be? Sort of like the crackpots who are too fringe for Fox News? I mean, fox has a pretty good stronghold on right- wing conservative America. He would sort of have to find a niche within that. I don`t know, maybe the Alex Jones territory, and things like that.
And then the other problem, you know, just practically, if they went forward with this, is this campaign is clearly sort of a cult of personality. I mean, it`s about him. I mean, is he going to be on eight hours a day just giving his same speech over and over?
So, look, he`s got a huge ego. I`m sure everyone agrees he wants to make money off this campaign, but it`s problematic for one of the reasons you mentioned.
He has defined his base on a I think an increasingly narrow sort of hate demographic.
REID: Yeah, I mean, he`s gotten like to about 10 million votes, approximately 10 million, 11 million votes in the primary. I guess that would be a good base to launch a cable news channel from.
But wouldn`t he have to keep up the same kind of dialogue? I mean, what has made Donald Trump successful with a certain part of the Republican base is really inflammatory language. Is that something that he could then keep up for years and years and years to sustain a cable channel around it?
ELLISON: Have you listened to conservative radio lately? I mean, I think the idea that he couldn`t be a good media figure -- I mean, this is the thing that he has done the most successfully in this campaign. And he`s done this -- I mean, media companies would die to be able to have the kind of audience that he has developed over this.
I mean, he went to war with Fox News and he won.
So I think that -- also the other thing about media these days is it`s not in a mass audience, it`s in a kind of extremely dedicated group of people who will come back again and again and again.
Now, I mean, I have no idea whether -- the format of this would be -- the devil is in the details and we`d have to wait and see. But I don`t think that -- this is the thing, like I don`t feel like --there`s a lot wrong with cable in general. We were just talking about -- how Eric and I were talking about how ESPN is bedevilining Disney and everyone`s over ESPN for being tied to this old model.
That`s something that you could go after him, that this is the wrong thing to be launching.
REID: Well, I mean, that`s part of his sort of history, right, is that is he jumps on trends. I mean, he bought Merv Griffin`s casino when it was on the outs, right. And then he`s sort of jumping on a model that isn`t the new thing.
What does this say to you, Eric, about where Trump believes his brand is and believes the state of its value is that they would be thinking this, media?
BOEHLERT: Well, again, I think he`s absolutely authentic when he was upset that he wasn`t getting paid for those debates and he kind of floated that idea. I mean, why were people charging 20, 30, 50 times their normal rate, and why wasn`t he getting a piece of it?
So, obviously he`s got an oversized ego. And he thinks he`s going to be this huge figure in American politics.
But again look at Sarah Palin. Tthese are tied to campaigns. Once the campaigns go away, something seems to happen to these personalities. And possibly, if he loses badly in November, what`s that do to his brand?
REID: You`re right.
And if you become Herman Cain sort of looking for the Klieg lights wherever he can get it.
ELLISON: I do think that there`s a risk, obviously, that if you lose very badly in the campaign -- and we talked about Oprah, even Oprah said, if I knew how hard this was going to be I might not have done it.
Because it`s actually really hard.
REID: It`s actually hard work.
Not to Dodald trump, he`ll do it all on Twitter.
Sarah Elllison and Eric Boehlert, thanks to you both. We really appreciate it.
That is All In for this evening." The Rachel Maddow starts now. Good evening.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. END