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All In With Chris Hayes, Transcript, 6/20/2016

Guests: Charlie Pierce, Hakeem Jeffries, Benji Sarlin, Heather McGhee, Corey Booker

Show: ALL IN with CHRIS HAYES Date: June 20, 2016 Guest: Charlie Pierce, Hakeem Jeffries, Benji Sarlin, Heather McGhee, Corey Booker

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST (voice-over): Tonight on ALL IN --

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESUMPTIVE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: It would be so easy for me to terminate this man.

HAYES: Donald Trump`s campaign manager fired and escorted out of Trump Tower.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Listen, there`s protocols that are in place.

HAYES: As his polls continue to slip, the latest on the, quote, "bedlam" in the Trump campaign.

Then, how team Clinton is smashing the Trump campaign in ad spending, as fellow Democrats keep pounding on the stump.

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D), MASSACHUSETTS: Every day, it becomes clearer that he is a thin-skinned, racist bully.

HAYES: Plus, Senator Corey Booker on tonight`s big gun safety vote.

And the United States of Trump.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He has leverage with every country because he`s rich.

HAYES: An inside look at the voters who took over the Republican Party.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I keep telling myself that I`m kind of scared of him, but then again, I`m kind of -- think that`s what we need.

HAYES: When ALL IN starts right now.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HAYES: Good evening from New York. I`m Chris Hayes.

And amid a string of bad polls, simmering conflicts within the Republican Party, and signs his campaign is nowhere near prepared to take on Hillary Clinton in the general election, today, Donald Trump offered up a sacrificial lamb to placate anxious Republicans -- campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, who`s been with him since the very start of his presidential bid.

This morning, Trump fired Lewandowski, having him escorted by security from Trump Tower. It`s the outcome of a long power struggle within the campaign between inexperienced or relatively inexperienced loyalists like Lewandowski, who`s insisted on a hands-off strategy of "letting Trump be Trump", and more seasoned operatives allied with Trump`s oldest children who have been pushing to professionalize the campaign. As well as deliver on Trump`s much-promised pivot to the general election.

Donald Trump Jr. explained the thinking behind Lewandowski`s firing in an interview with NBC News.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, JR., TRUMPO`S OLDEST SON: I think we see the message, we see that it`s resonating, but I think we also have to unite that with someone who`s done this, someone who`s been involved in these kind of campaigns on a very high level, someone that`s worked with orchestrating not just the campaign as a primary, but as a campaign dealing with the RNC, dealing with the party in general. I think we are really trying to push that message and we`re unifying the party. We`re trying to get these guys back behind us because we`re trying to do what the American people have told us to do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: Corey Lewandowski has come under fire both for his management style and for man-handling a female reporter at a press conference in March and then lying about doing so.

But at that point, the Trump train was on a roll through the Republican primaries and the candidate stood by his man.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I know it would be very easy for me to discard people. I don`t discard people. I stay with people. That`s why I stay with this country. That`s why I stay with a lot of people that are treated unfairly. And that`s one of the reasons I`m the front-runner by a lot.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: Now, however, the Trump campaign is in a very different place. Trump himself has been widely condemned, including by top members of his own party for a slew of racist invective aimed at a federal judge and for stoking fear and xenophobia after last week`s horrifying attack in Orlando.

It`s taken a toll in his poll numbers with a handful of recent surveys showing rising unfavorables and a widening gap between Trump and Hillary Clinton. The latest poll out today from Monmouth University has Trump eight points behind Clinton among likely voters. Just look at the Real Clear Politics polling trend over the past month. Trump`s numbers have fallen off a cliff.

Now, Republican officials have stopped defending or even in some cases answering questions about Trump. A group of GOP delegates is now plotting to deny him the convention, the nomination at the convention next month. And according to recent reporting, relations are increasingly frayed between the Trump campaign and the RNC.

Meanwhile, the campaign itself seems to have done little to gear up for this epic battle against Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party, especially in the way of fund-raising. According to the last campaign filings from May, the Clinton campaign had $30 million cash on hand compared to just $2.4 million for the Trump campaign, most of it Trump`s own money.

There`s a similar imbalance in ad spending. While the Clinton campaign and its allies have already spent $23.4 million on ads in a handful of targeted battleground states, Trump hasn`t spent a single red cent on general election ads. That`s zero dollars.

Nor has the campaign built an organization capable of running a traditional nationwide race. It has yet to bulk up its headquarter staff with new political and communications hires. According to the "Associated Press", as of three days ago the campaign had only 30 paid staff on the ground in key states across the entire country. Compare that to the 150 full-time employees the Democrats have on the ground in the state of Ohio alone.

In an interview with MSNBC today, Trump`s ousted campaign manager acknowledged there are some differences of opinion over how to run the campaign.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COREY LEWANDOWSKI, OUSTED TRUMP CAMPAIGN MANAGER: My philosophy has been smaller and leaner and more efficient, ensuring that our resources are spent as best as possible. And there are people who think building a bigger, broader coalition to compete with the full-time staff of 732 paid people in the Clinton campaign is the right direction and that`s perfectly fine. My philosophy has been clear that let`s look at the state by state basis and expand those blue states, let`s make sure Donald Trump is playing in those places. Some people want to have a bigger campaign, that`s OK.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: Lewandowski`s job now goes to Paul Manafort who was hired in March to oversee Trump`s convention efforts has led the push to, well, traditionalize the untraditional candidate. It was Manafort who told GOP leaders at a closed-door meeting in April, it`s only a matter of time before Trump starts acting more presidential.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

PAUL MANAFORT, TRUMP CAMPAIGN MANAGER: When he`s out on the stage, when he`s talking about the kinds of things he`s talking about on the stump, he`s projecting an image that`s for that purpose. And that`s what`s important to our standpoint for you to understand, that he gets it. And that the part he`s been playing is evolving into the part that now you`ve been expecting but he wasn`t ready for because he had to feed the first stage. The negatives will come down, the image is going to change.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: Two months later, everyone is still waiting for those changes to materialize.

Joining me now, Charlie Pierce, writer at large for "Esquire", Michael Steele, former chairman of RNC, now MSNBC political analyst.

Michael, let me begin with you. This quote today I thought said it all. This is Ali Vitali, of course, who`s been covering the Trump campaign for us, among a team of folks who`ve been doing that. "Asked if staff was notified of Corey decision, campaign source tells me, it`s bedlam in the Trump campaign, no one knows what`s happening."

Michael, correct me if I`m wrong, but bracketing what you think of Trump`s politics, his temperament, his fitness to the presidency, this is a historically bad campaign at this point?

MICHAEL STEELE, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Oh my gosh, yes. Oh, there`s no doubt about that. Look, OK, I`m kind of old school. A little bit traditional. I love the avant-garde, I love the outside the box and the space.

But you need to have in many instances some of those traditional underpinnings that helps put the wheels in motion, to help you move the thing down the rails. That`s the piece that`s been missing. I think going back to the last clip you played from Manafort, what he was talking about was something that he`d hoped would happen back in March or April. I think now that he is got-to, he`s the one who`s running it, that`s what you`re going to begin to see -- some of those traditional pieces falling into place.

Yes, Trump is still going to be Trump in many respects. That may be good or bad. It may hurt the overall effort. But those structures to your point in your setup, Chris, has to be a big part of what`s going forward going into the convention right now.

HAYES: I mean, Charlie, I feel like I`m struggling to communicate to folks that have never been around a presidential campaign, just how insane it is right now.

STEELE: Oh, yes.

HAYES: This operation doesn`t exist. I mean, we are talking -- "Slate" had a tweet that said, it takes 24 people to run a Chipotle. He`s got 30 people total in the states of the United States of America to run a presidential campaign, a billion-dollar business.

CHARLIE PIERCE, ESQUIRE: In the 1976, I was a grunt in the Udall for president field operation. And in my storefronts I had more than 30 people. And we had no money.

You know -- I think that -- I think that it`s very hard to pin the problems with the campaign on Corey Lewandowski, let`s put it that way, because Corey Lewandowski goes, what`s the first thing the candidate says? He wished more people in that nightclub were heavily armed. That would have been beautiful. And he subsequently had to walk that back this afternoon.

I mean, the campaign may get back on the rails but the candidate left the rails decades ago.

HAYES: I mean, there`s two issues. There`s this sort of structural campaign issue, Michael.

STEELE: Yes.

HAYES: There`s money, you`ve got to raise money or pay for it himself and it`s clear he either doesn`t want to or can`t, right? That`s one thing. You`ve got to hire staff.

Then the message thing which is the fact that -- you know, he was well served in a perverse way, I think, by the sort of outrage of the day method in the primary.

STEELE: Sure.

HAYES: And it just doesn`t carry over.

STEELE: It doesn`t. And that`s what a lot of folks have been saying from the very beginning, or rather the end, of the primaries. Like now you`re in a space where everything you did before doesn`t apply anymore. It just doesn`t.

I mean, a general election campaign for the presidency is not a primary. It`s 101. Look, if the Hillary Clinton team have come out masterfully and it`s a missed opportunity by the Trump team over the last six weeks to take advantage of that space while Hillary was still battling, probably still is battling to some degree, with Bernie Sanders.

But nonetheless, that opportunity`s gone. So Manafort now and the team that he has to bring in place has to ramp up, you know, seven eight, ten- fold in a matter of weeks. It`s not that it can`t be done. It goes back to the central question, is it something that this candidate is prepared to do?

HAYES: And to me, Charlie, you can overextend the metaphor of someone managing a campaign is a window into how they would manage the United States federal government, right? I mean, that`s ultimately what these people are running to do.

And, you know, there are -- that analogy can break down. But right now, we`re watching someone manage this organization in a way that I think is just universally everyone has to view as a poorly managed operation. This is the guy that wants to run the federal government, the most powerful government on the planet -- the nuclear codes, the whole nine.

PIERCE: Yes, the first cabinet meeting ought to be fun. You`ll have five cabinet secretaries being escorted out of the White House by the Secret Service.

STEELE: I don`t think it would be that bad.

(LAUGHTER)

PIERCE: All right, four.

STEELE: OK, four.

PIERCE: But no, I mean, I agree with you. That very often when you people say, well, if you can`t run a campaign, you can`t run an administration. Very often that`s not necessarily the case. This time it is.

Because there are just so many -- and it`s only a matter of time before the stories really start come pouring out from people who want to have a future in Republican politics, want to get out from under this.

HAYES: This strikes me as part of the problem here. So much of this has been about momentum. And Trump is sort of -- ridden momentum. It`s true. He had a setback in Iowa, he`s been able to sort of push through that. There`s a setback in Wisconsin, they pushed through that.

But by and large, it`s been this sort of self-fulfilling narrative of success, right? Republicans as far as I can tell, institutional Republicans, all they care about is self-preservation by and large. If you start to see a spiral, you wonder how many people start running for the exits, more negative stories being leaked, et cetera.

STEELE: Yes, you do. A lot of the spiraling started with Donald Trump himself. He`s created this self-inflicted wound that he has right now. The wounds came from his own mouth, his own hand. So a lot of folks that are not a part of that orbit are going, wait a minute, hold, if you`re doing that to yourself, I don`t want to be a part of that.

HAYES: Right. It`s one thing if you decide that you want to do things that will tarnish your own reputation.

STEELE: Right.

HAYES: I would like to exempt myself from that since I don`t have a say.

STEELE: Yes. I don`t want a part of that.

PIERCE: Chris, I think you can see it in that nobody`s going to the convention.

STEELE: Right.

PIERCE: You`ve got all these politicians who are planning to have the flu for four days in July. You know, you`re going to wind up with corporate sponsorship and the Tostitos vice presidential nomination. I mean, I have no idea what that thing is going to be like as a TV show, let alone as a serious policy week.

HAYES: I will remind everyone that this whole thing started -- it`s easy to get amnesia. The whole thing started, this whole sort of bad month for him, started when he decided apropos of nothing to attack the federal judge in his fraud -- one of his numerous fraud cases against his defunct university based on the guy`s Mexican-American heritage.

I mean, no one started that attack. Hillary Clinton people didn`t link that there`s no oppo research. This was entirely brought upon by himself starting day one.

Charlie Pierce and Michael Steele, always a pleasure, gentlemen, thank you.

STEELE: All right. Bye.

PIERCE: Thank you.

STEELE: Still to come, all four votes on gun safety forced by last week`s Democratic filibuster fail in the Senate tonight. New Jersey Senator Corey Booker, who was part of that filibuster, joins me live to react.

First, as general election voters get acquainted with Donald Trump, Democrats mount a strategic and relentless attack coming from all sides. They are not holding back.

That story after this two-minute break.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D), MASSACHUSETTS: Think about all the other Trump failures. Trump casinos, Trump airlines, Trump steaks, Trump magazines, Trump vodka, Trump vodka, Trump mortgage, Trump games, Trump travel, Trump ice, Trump network. Donald Trump is a proven businessman, a proven failure.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WARREN: Ah, Trump University, which his own employees explained was just a big lie and a fraudulent scheme. Just this week, Trump sent his lawyers back to court to beg and plead that the videos of what he said under oath are kept secret from the American people.

Oh, poor little Donald is shaking in his high-priced Italian loafers, begging the court to protect him, terrified about what happens if those videos go public and he`s held accountable. Are you scared, Donald? Well, you should be. We`re coming.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: Over the weekend, Senator Elizabeth Warren continued to just absolutely eviscerate Donald Trump, further embracing her role as one of the Democrats` most effective attack dogs against Trump, and previewing the message of Hillary Clinton`s big speech tomorrow which will target Trump`s business record.

For the past several weeks, Democrats from the president on down have united across all fronts to go after the GOP`s presumptive nominee. Today, Vice President Joe Biden spending much of his address at a foreign policy conference condemning Trump`s rhetoric.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSEPH BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Using torture, threatening to kill innocent family members, indiscriminately bombing civilian populations -- that not only violates our values, it`s deeply, deeply damaging to our security. There are 1.4 billion Muslim in the world. Some of the rhetoric I`m hearing sounds designed to radicalize all 1.4 billion.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: Now, the Democratic assault on Trump comes at a very crucial moment in his campaign. It`s a period of time when he is essentially being introduced to general election voters. Majority of whom didn`t vote in the primary and didn`t pay much attention. It also comes during a pretty catastrophic month for the Trump campaign.

The campaign plagued not only by the seemingly inexhaustible supply of opposition research on their candidate from his decades in public life, but also by the fact that Trump keeps saying really offensive stuff. Take, for example, yesterday, when he suggested the United States start thinking more seriously about racial profiling.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN DICKERSON, "FACE THE NATION" HOST: Just as a bottom line here, are you talking about increasing profiling of Muslims in America?

TRUMP (via telephone): Well, I think profiling is something that we`re going to have to start thinking about as a country. And other countries do it. And you look at Israel and you look at others and they do it and they do it successfully. I hate the concept of profiling but we have to start using common sense and we have to use -- we have to use our heads.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: Joining me now: Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat from New York, who was an early supporter of Hillary Clinton. Those comments, you think the U.S. should be modeling itself on Israel or explicitly embracing racial profiling?

REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D), NEW YORK: Well, absolutely not. And the big problem for Donald Trump is that he just has a fundamental lack of understanding of the Constitution and what makes America great as it is right now, what has been important to us as a people. The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution has some requirements as it relates to the manner in which law enforcement interacts with the American people. And it prohibits racial profiling in a manner that would target individuals in the absence of reasonable suspicion that a crime had occurred, probable cause that a crime had occurred, and other things consistently laid out by the Supreme Court over the years.

HAYES: You have a constituent -- I`m going to give you a thought experiment here, OK? You got a constituent here in Brooklyn, OK, you met him in an event, this person says I`m on the fence, maybe I might vote for Donald Trump, OK? You`ve got a ten-second pitch to give him.

Is it the guy`s values are all wrong, right? He keeps saying all this offensive stuff, he sort of seems to sort of denigrate all these different groups? Or is it that he`s temperamentally unfit for the office?

JEFFRIES: Well, he`s a fraudulent failure who would be dangerous to our democracy in ways that would undermine all that is important to America, who we are, and who we need to become as we continue to move forward. I mean, the thing about Donald Trump is that he is selling the American people on the fact that he`s an individual who`s been a successful businessman and he`ll turn the country around. First of all, there have been 14 million-plus private sector jobs created under President Barack Obama as compared to 650,000 jobs lost during eight years of George Bush.

We still have a tremendous amount of work that needs to be done but there`s a tremendous foundation the Obama administration has laid. Donald Trump is not the one, given his consistent failure across a wide variety of business endeavors, Trump airlines, failure. Trump casinos, failure. Trump University, a failure and a fraud.

This is not the person to be our commander in chief.

HAYES: You know, there`s been some reporting recently about how he has had a habit of saying he was going to give the proceeds to charity and then not doing it. Trump vodka was one example. Trump University at one point he said.

There`s some reporting suggests that actually is actionable, right? That fraud law would obtain here, right? My understanding is you`re calling on the attorney general in New York to look into that?

JEFFRIES: Well, the attorney general right now is engaged in litigation as it relates to Trump University which there`s great reason to believe is a complete fraud. You`ve had individuals who are instructors and individuals who spent their hard-earned money and received nothing from Trump University in terms of reasonable instruction as it relates to real estate industry.

It seems to me that the attorney general now has an opportunity to basically explore whether some of the other peddling schemes that Donald Trump has gained in, such as indicating I`m going to sell this book, but the proceeds are going to go to charity, and therefore it`s OK to purchase it, when there`s not a scintilla of evidence in a lot of these areas, particularly as it relates to his latest book that a red cent actually went to charity. That could be actionable under New York law.

HAYES: Do you worry about this appearing to be a partisan witch hunt? I mean, he`s already made the claim essentially that he basically said Eric Schneiderman and Barack Obama had conspired at a campaign event in Syracuse to launch the investigation into Trump University.

Do you worry about this looking like a partisan witch hunt?

JEFFRIES: Well, every new day, Donald Trump comes up with a different conspiracy theory, so I think we should dismiss that.

I do think it`s important for Eric Schneiderman or any other investigative body, whether that relates to Donald Trump or any other individual who may be in the midst of an electoral campaign, to just let the facts follow them toward a conclusion without partisan interference. Eric Schneiderman is a professional. He`s an individual who during his time in office has gone after both Democrats and Republicans. I think he`s the right person for the job.

HAYES: You`re a New Yorker. New Yorkers have lived with Donald Trump for decades. Do New York politicians and the folks you talk, to whether they`re donors -- New York in some weird way can be a small town, right, in the sort of political world. Are people just scratching their head, like, how did this happen?

JEFFRIES: Well, people are a bit shocked. You know. We`re dealing with someone like Archie Bunker without the charm. And that`s a dangerous combination. Because I think as we`ve seen, particularly with his initial attack against the judge out in California, that there`s some deep-seated racial issues that this individual has.

We saw it here in the New York as it relates to the central park five. He went after them viciously, refused to back down in the midst of evidence to demonstrate that they were actually innocent. And so this is frightening. It`s no longer entertainment. I think for many of us from New York, clash because he`s so close to the presidency.

HAYES: Speaking of those racial issues, we have incredible tape later in the show of something he said decades ago on race that are pretty surprising.

Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, thank you so much.

JEFFRIES: Thank you so much, Chris.

HAYES: Coming up, the Republican base that Donald Trump rediscovered. Great new comprehensive deep reporting behind the Trump phenomenon, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES: This morning, the FBI released a transcript of the initial 911 call placed by Omar Mateen during his murderous assaults on the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, portions in which the shooter pledges allegiance to ISIS and its leader omitted from the transcript.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RON HOPPER, FBI ASSISTANT SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE: Part of the redacting is meant to not give credence to individuals who have done terrorist acts in the past. We`re not going to propagate their rhetoric, their violent rhetoric, and we see no value in putting those individuals` names back out there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: House Speaker Paul Ryan almost immediately cast a decision to redact as, quote, "preposterous" saying, "We know the shooter was a radical Islamist extremist inspired by ISIS." Soon after, the FBI reversed course and released the unredacted transcript which spells out the shooter pledged allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi.

In a statement, the FBI explained it sought to deny the shooter a platform to spread propaganda but the redactions have, quote, "caused an unnecessary distraction from the investigation." Despite the shooter`s claiming ties to ISIS and its leader in that 911 call, NPR meanwhile is reporting an investigator say he showed few warning signs of radicalization and they`re becoming increasingly convinced the motive for this attack had very little or may be nothing to do with ISIS. They say the shooter`s profile is more like that of a typical mass shooter.

Meanwhile, despite numerous eyewitnesses claiming on the record that Mateen had used gay dating apps and repeatedly visited Pulse before the shooting, federal law enforcement officials tell NBC News they have thus far found no evidence to support those claims. In short, we still have a cloudy picture of the shooter`s motivations.

Here`s what we do know. We know he pledged allegiance to ISIS in a way similar to others who have committed atrocities in that group`s name. Despite having been investigated by the FBI, we know the shooter was in possession of a weapon capable of unbelievable destruction, one he was able to legally procure. This afternoon, Senate Democrats forced a vote to try to keep such weapons out of the hands of someone like the shooter.

It was a dramatic scene and we`ll talk to Senator Corey Booker how it played out coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES: For a year, we`ve been hearing from Donald Trump supporters and trying to figure out who exactly is buying what the man is selling?

Now that he`s a presumptive GOP nominee heading into the general election we have a much better idea of who`s likely to turn out to vote for him in November. And in an exhaustively researched piece for NBC News, political reporter Benji Sarlin highlights a distinct movement of Americans alarmed by economic trends, unsure of their place in a more diverse nation, and convinced the major parties no longer have their interests in mind.

Joining me now is NBC political reporter Benji Sarlin; along with Heather McGhee, president of Demos Action, a progressive public policy organization.

A lot of fascinating stuff in this piece. Let`s start with one thing I think is under appreciated is the non-religiosity of the Trump base compared to how we think of the typical member of the Republican base.

BENJI SARLIN, NBC NEWS POLITICAL REPORTER: Exactly. There was a lot of puzzlement when Trump started leading polls that he did well, for example, with Evangelical voters. Even though he seemed to have absolutely nothing to offer. He used to be self-described pro-choice until more recently. He was literally asked, I was in the room at an evangelical event, whether he ever asked god for forgiveness and he seemed to not really like the idea of this concept, said no.

HAYES: That`s for wimps, that`s for losers.

SARLIN: Yeah, and yet he kept winning them.

Well, what gives is we were lumping a lot of people in this evangelical category and assuming they held the same politic and the same priorities as their kind of Evangelical leadership. This is not the case. And one way we saw this is that Donald Trump won many, many more evangelical voters in polls who said that they did not go to church often or at all, whereas he did much worse with churchgoers who were weekly or more than weekly.

HAYES: Which -- it`s so fascinating to me, because Heather, I feel like we -- in the era of the Obama majority, in the era in which America is headed towards a sort of demographic --significiant change happening now, that evangelical, what we`ve learning here is that evangelical is a sort of kind of identity that a lot of the white folks, particularly, choose that is actually independent from like religiosity. Because it says something about who your identity is, like, what tribe you`re part of in America.

HEATHER MCGHEE, DEMOS ACTION: Yeah. And this question of tribalism is I think of paramount importance.

HAYES: Elemental.

MCGHEE: And it`s shifting right now a lot. You know, we could also talk about the tribe of the sort of political class, which is actually the ones who are really showing themselves to be very much out of touch with everyone. We`ve been saying for a long time at Demos that there`s an inside and there`s an outside even more than there`s a left and a right when it comes to the American people.

Issues like higher minimum wage, support for labor unions, wanting actual more benefits, really left economic populist issues, are popular with the core Republican base even though they`re anathemas to the Republican elite.

HAYES: Or one of the biggest issues that you guys talk about and shows up, you talk about one of his biggest applause lines, and I heard it from Trump voters time after time, he can`t be bought. He`s not going to be a puppet. Money in politics, which is this kind of -- in the political spectrum a kind of lefty issue.

MCGHEE: It`s absolutely seen as a lefty issue. McConnell is the one who has been the biggest sort of plaintiff in cases to make money even more part of the political system. I often joke that the one thing that gets citizens actually united is the desire to get money out of politics.

And this is something where you could see a left-right coalition really move I think in the next administration.

HAYES: This was a huge selling point for him. Under appreciated how much people love that idea.

SARLIN: I would say that I heard from Trump voters, and this is from the earliest rallies...

HAYES: And you -- I`ve got to say, you have done the legwork. Like you and I have run into each other at hotels at various parts the country as you`ve been -- I mean, you talk to hundreds and hundreds of...

SARLIN: I was at my first Trump event I think in July and it`s been pretty much continuously since then. So, we`re talking hundreds of people.

The number one thing I hear, more than the wall, more than the Muslim ban, more than the anti-PC, is this self-financing thing, that he can`t be bought, that everyone else has this super PAC and they don`t like it.

When you hear Donald Trump still dumping on Jeb Bush, even now, that`s what that`s about. He became this perfect kind of symbol, especially to his supporters, of look at this guy who has over $100 million paid for by god knows who, by a bunch of millionaires. I don`t have that.

And what`s so funny is that the Republican rivals, they never thought this would be an issue in this election.

HAYES: Because they had told themselves their voters like didn`t care about this.

SARLIN: Yeah, because they felt great about this, because it was assumed that some people supported it on free speech principle grounds, but also it seemed to widely benefit their candidates because they stood to gain more from these kind of donations.

But the big thing is that they had no vocabulary to deal with it so there was no counter proposal. When Hillary Clinton -- when Bernie started raising these issues very fairly, she could she could say, look, I know you`re not happy that I`m taking this money, but I agree with you.

HAYES: exactly.

SARLIN: Literally a lawsuit, you know, about a film attacking me, you know, and I have a whole prescription that I`m going to do about this.

When it came to Ted Cruz, you could just kind of mumble about crony capitalism or something. There was no counter proposal.

MCGHEE: But of course Donald Trump doesn`t have a proposal either.

HAYES: That`s right. That`s the other thing. None of it`s substantive.

MCHEE: It`s just Trump of course is his answer to everything.

But he doesn`t say...

HAYES: IT`s never operationalized.

MCGHEE: Right, and so great, he gets in there and he quote, unquote can`t be bought. But what about the hundreds congress people.

SARLIN: It`s the absurd conclusion that this leads you to. It`s the same thing in New York with Mayor Bloomberg. There was a certain logic to this idea, well, if there`s this big machine maybe we need some benevolent billionaire who is not beholden to it.

HAYES: Let me ask you about this piece of news today I find deeply disturbing. British man has told federal agents that he had attended this Trump rally in Vegas with the intent of shooting and killing Trump. In fact, had reached for the gun of Officer Jacobs who is the officer there. He thought it was essentially unlatched, that he could grab it out.

This is now my -- like my biggest anxiety and fear about this is that safety at Trump rallies, generally some kind of person like this, or something in the opposite direction in terms of a protester, someone who`s been at a lot of his rallies. How worried are you about the sort of safety situation?

SARLIN: Well, they do have security at these rallies.

HAYES: Secret Service, you go through mags, the whole nine.

SARLIN: Go through metal detectors, the whole thing. It`s tough to get in.

I know Thump talks about this idea that we should all have guns and we should have them pointed at each other just in case. That`s not how his rallies actually are.

HAYES: Good point.

SARLIN: But it can be scarier outside. There have been supporters who open carry, say. And it`s, you know, you sometimes worry about a confrontation getting out of hand.

But you`re absolutely right to worry about this.

You know, one of the elections people have compared this a lot to is 1972. And people have compared Trump to George Wallace in various ways. But I don`t want to bring it up, but that`s exactly what happened.

HAYES: Well, there`s been a lot of American political violence in this country`s history. So, it`s something I worry about.

Benji Sarlin, Heather McGhee, thank you for joining us.

All right, we`ve still got a lot in the show tonight, including a personal announcement from yours truly. I`m really excited about. So stick around for that.

But first, just when you think you`ve seen it all when it comes to Trump, there`s this video which we will play right after this break. don`t go anywhere.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES: Unlike Hillary Clinton, or the vast majority of politicians who have run for the highest office in the land, Donald Trump doesn`t have a record of public office or legislative votes to look to.

But for decades, he has offered his opinions in public and a whole lot of it is on tape.

Here`s what Trump said as part of a 1989 NBC special on race in America.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: a well-educated black has a tremendous advantage over a well- educated white in terms of the job market. And I think sometimes a black may think that they don`t really have the advantage or this or that, but in actuality, today currently, it`s a great -- I`ve said on occasion, even about myself, if I were starting off today I would love to be a well-educated black because I really believe they do have an actual advantage today.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: If that sounds, well, incorrect, you`re not alone in thinking that. Spike Lee was also part of that very same NBC special. And let`s just say he did not agree with Donald Trump. We will play you his response in that special to what Trump had to say in 60 seconds.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I`ve said on occasion, even about myself, if I were starting off today I would love to be a well-educated black because I really believe they do have an actual advantage today.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: Later that night in the same NBC special, Spike Lee was asked by Bryant Gumble about race in America.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRYANT GUMBLE, NBC: What`s being black in America mean to you?

SPIKE LEE, DIRECTOR: Well -- I certainly don`t agree with that garbage that Donald Trump said, that if he could be reborn, reincarnated, he`d want to come back as an educated black, because we start out -- I mean -- Bryant, I didn`t believe he said that. I mean, that`s craziness.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: And the second part of that report, which aired the following night, Spike Lee expounded on being black in this country and offered a picture that was not surprisingly starkly different than the one painted by Donald Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: I think that any black person in America, you just grow up -- I mean, the first time that you`re really able to think, you know that you`re treated different. And it`s really -- it becomes matter of fact. It`s like the sky is blue, the water is wet, you know...

GUMBLE: And you`re black.

LEE: And you`re black.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES: Right now there are two huge police scandals rocking two of America`s big cities making headlines. Today, a huge high-profile indictment, three New York City Police Department commanders were arrested on federal corruption charges stemming from investigations into two area businessmen who have raised money for New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio.

The case involves a bribery scheme where gifts were made to police by businessmen. As a result of those gifts to police, the men got perks like being driven around town in cop cars with lights and sirens, or as U.S. attorney for the southern district of New York Prett Bharara told The New York Times, "they got, in effect, a private police force for themselves and their friends, effectively they got cops on call."

Bharara noted today the case doesn`t have anything to do with the mayor himself.

Now, meanwhile, on the west coast, the Oakland Police Department is on its third police chief in just nine days and will now operate under civilian control after a massive sexual misconduct scandal involving an under-aged sex worker who blew the whistle on an entire ring of corrupt cops in the department.

The department is also reeling from an investigation over an exchange of racist text messages between officers.

These police corruption cases are happening against the backdrop of a national conversation about policing and crime and the continued trend in our courts over the last several decades that gives police wider and wider latitude to make decisions and to oversee their own conduct.

Today, the Supreme Court made just such a ruling, essentially expanding the conditions under which improper searches by police can still yield evidence that could be admitted into court. The Supreme Court`s five justice majority opinion earned a stinging rebuke in the form of dissent from Justice Sonya Sotomayor who wrote, the court`s decision implies that you are not a citizen of a democracy but the subject of a carceral state just waiting to be cataloged."

What Sotomayor is pointing to is a profound crisis in our country about how we democratically oversee police, policing and criminal justice.

It also happens to be the topic of a new book that I am writing. It will be published in March by Norton and it`s called "A Colony in a Nation." I`ll let you Google it to find out where that phrase comes from.

It builds on a lot of the reporting I`ve done here on this show about policing and democracy. And it seeks to answer the question, why did we, the citizens of this country, build the largest prison state in the history of democracy? It`s available now for pre-order if you are interested.

Up next, my interview with Senator Corey Booker about the big senate votes on gun regulation that happened a few hours ago. That is right after this break. Don`t go anywhere.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES: In the wake of the Orlando massacre, Democrats have gone on offense in their efforts to address gun violence. Senator Chris Murphy`s nearly 15-hour filibuster last week prompting Republicans to agree to hold votes on two Democratic proposals. Those promised votes came today with the Senate voting on a total of four gun measures, including Murphy`s proposal with Senators Corey Booker and Chuck Schumer to expand the background check system to include sales at gun shows and also between people making contact over the Internet.

And a proposal from Senator Dianne Feinstein to prevent any individual on a terror watch list from buying a gun.

Now backed by the NRA, Republicans counter programmed with two measures of their own, both of which were deemed unsufficient by Democrats. So, they gave the GOP caucus something to vote for as opposed to only things to vote against.

In a repeat of previous attempts to pass new laws in the wake of mass shootings, all four measures failed to meet the 60-vote threshold needed for passage. Democrats were outraged.

Murphy telling The Washington Post Republicans have decided to sell weapons to ISIS. And Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid saying Republicans should be embarrassed by their actions.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. HARRY REID, (D) NEVADA: 90 percent of Americans support expanding background checks, that`s not 90 percent of Democrats, that`s 90 percent of the American people -- Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. And 85 percent of Americans want to close the terrorist gun loophole -- Democrats, Republicans, and Independents.

But the NRA says no, so Republicans do nothing.

Despite today`s votes, the fight to pass something in the wake of Orlando is not over. Republican Senator Susan Collins has been working on a bipartisan compromise measure that may still come up for a vote, though, they will still face an uphill battle in the House.

Meanwhile, the NRA`s Wayne LaPierre argumed yesterday the Democratic proposal reflect an attempt to distract from failures to combat terrorism and accuse Democrats of political correctness.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WAYNE LAPIERRE, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION: I think we need to look right in the face of what these people are that we`re facing. They don`t care about the law. Laws didn`t stop them in Boston, laws didn`t stop them in San Bernardino, where you had every type of gun control law you can have, and they didn`t stop them in Paris where people can`t even own guns.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: Joining me now, Senator Corey Booker,, Democrat from New Jersey who co-sponsored the measure to expand background checks. And, senator, reaction to the votes today?

SEN. COREY BOOKER, (D) NEW JERSEY: First of all, forgive me for just jumping off script. Your book about a very broken criminal justice system, I`m really looking forward to it. More people need to understand how deeply unjust America`s criminal justice system is. So, thank you for that.

HAYES: Awesome. Thank you.

BOOKER: And look, today was appalling. How can you have a nation where you can be under FBI investigation, on a terrorist no-fly list, and literally be able to go to a gun show and load up a trunkful of weapons? We are so exposed on this.

And you have al Qaeda terrorists literally giving instructions to those who are seeking to get to be violent terrorists here telling them to take advantage of these massive gaping loopholes.

HAYES: Senator, let me ask you this. Senator Cornyn proposed essentially a countermeasure, right, a three-day waiting list for folks that were red-flagged because they were on this list, and the government would have to go to court affirmatively to stop them. What was wrong with that alternative?

BOOKER: Well, a couple of things were wrong. Number one, the standard for which the government would have to approve would be we have probable cause.

Well, if they have that standard against a suspected terrorists what they would do would be arrest them.

Number two is, it didn`t -- even if it was a successful way of trying to narrow, which it wasn`t, it would have FBI agents exposing their operations, exposing their investigations under necessarily. But then a terrorist could still go behind all of that and just go on the internet or go to a gun show where they`d have to show no identification whatsoever and still be able to buy a weapon.

So, it still left these gaping holes that leaves our communities incredibly vulnerable.

We are at war right now with terrorism and our enemy knows they can easily get guns in this country to bring about this mayhem. They really instruct, even more so than Europe, that this is the country in which you can get AK-47s, assault rifles, and other weapons to do mass carnage.

HAYES: You just talked -- we just talked about criminal justice, and you and I have had conversations about this before on this program, off-air. It`s something that you have talked about a lot, about reforming criminal justice system. Is there some part of you that looks at the terror watch list legislation and thinks, am I doing -- am I promulgating the kinds of laws that in moments of crises have before have ended up disproportionately affecting certain populations, which is to say, in this case Muslim- Americans, folks of the Muslim faith that are disproportionately on those kind of lists. Can you imagine if this law passed essentially the hammer being brought down on a small marginalized section of America?

BOOKER: So, first of all, I absolutely have always had a problem when people have this idea, first of all, even the terrorist watch list itself or the no-fly list, rather, has some problems. And we`ve seen mistakes being made. I do worry about discrimination being wielded against a vulnerable population.

But the Feinstein bill actually had a due process elements built into it to try to keep us safe. It actually had transparency built into it so that watchdogs like you and frankly I like to think of myself as well could expose problems with it. So this was not what Republicans, some tried to say is getting rid of due process altogether. There was some of that baked into this system with which we could have done something.

And so I do have a problem right now -- and by the way, this isn`t just a problem -- all this talk about terrorism this week, please know that when I had a chance in private to talk to my caucus, I made it very clear that there are every single day in our country, every single day, people being murdered because criminals can so easily get their hands on guns.

Women are being murdered every year in our country because they`re abusers, they`re stalkers who are otherwise banned from getting guns through brick and mortar stores, can go to gun shows and acquire guns so easily.

So, we have a miss massive problem with violence in our communities. As long as we have gaping loopholes which terrorists can exploit, so can criminals as well.

And cities like the one I was the mayor of, I was standing in fact today at a rally where law enforcement stood up and said, the overwhelming majority of the guns being used in crimes are not coming from New Jersey where we have strong laws against acquiring guns without background checks, but were coming from States that have very lax laws.

HAYES: All right, Senator Corey Booker, great thanks for your time tonight. I really appreciate it.

BOOKER: Thank you.

HAYES: That is All In for this evening. The Rachel Maddow Show starts right now. Good evening, Rachel.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. END