Show: ALL IN with CHRIS HAYES Date: August 5, 2016 Guest: Ted Lieu, Sabrina Siddiqui, Josh Barro, Tera Dowdell, Stephen Calk
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST (voice-over): Tonight on ALL IN --
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Unstable, Hillary Clinton, she`s really pretty close to unhinged. She`s like an unbalanced person.
HAYES: Trump targets Clinton as the former head of the CIA calls him a threat to national security.
TRUMP: All of my life I`ve been told, you have the greatest temperament.
HAYES: Then, the Republican nominee names his all male economic team.
HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Donald Trump`s problems go far beyond economics.
HAYES: Plus, Trump on the women he would appoint to his cabinet.
TRUMP: There really are so many that are really talented people, like you. I mean, you`re so talented.
HAYES: And his explanation for turfing a baby from his rally.
TRUMP: A beautiful baby was crying. And I mean crying like you wouldn`t believe. This baby could have been Pavarotti.
HAYES: When ALL IN starts right now.
TRUMP: I love babies.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HAYES: Good evening from New York, I`m Chris Hayes. Any minute right now, Donald Trump will take the stage at a rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where his vice presidential pick Mike Pence is currently speaking.
Trump is expected to do something second nature to many politicians who might find themselves in this situation, but so far has been completely anathema to the Republican nominee, that is double back, back down. Tonight, Trump is widely expected to endorse House Speaker Paul Ryan in his congressional primary next Tuesday, just days after pointedly refusing to do so.
His rejection of Ryan was a surprise move that amplified Republicans` growing panic over the recent conduct of its nominee, particularly its attacks on the grieving Muslim American parents of a slain army captain, and reportedly made RNC Chair Reince Priebus, a friend of Paul Ryan`s, apoplectic.
Trump even went so far as to praise Ryan`s opponent, an insurgent candidate Paul Nehlen, who has been described as a mini Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PAUL NEHLEN (R), CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE: I`m a businessman. I build things, create jobs, jobs that allow people to pay their mortgage, put food on their table, put their kids through college.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Nehlen endorsed Trump before Ryan did back in early May. "Politico" reported that several former Trump staffers are working on Nehlen`s campaign. Tomorrow, at least one of Trump`s biggest fans and a person of whom Trump is fan, is scheduled to campaign with Nehlen in Wisconsin. That`s Ann Coulter.
In a radio interview earlier this week, Nehlen proposed to go even further than Trump`s plan to ban certain Muslims from entering the U.S.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
NEHLEN: The question is, why do we have Muslims in the country if -- how can you possibly vet somebody who lies?
HOST: Well, so are you suggesting that we deport all of the Muslims in this country?
NEHLEN: I`m suggesting we have a discussion about it, that`s for sure. I am absolutely suggesting, we figure out how do we -- here`s what we should be doing. We should be monitoring every mosque.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
HAYES: Trump has much more to gain by mending fences with Ryan in the Republican Party than by continuing to try and punish Ryan for insufficient loyalty. For certain, Ryan is all but certain to crush Nehlen in Tuesday`s primary. He holds a 66 percent lead in the new poll out today.
And tonight, Trump arrives in Wisconsin, the site of his most demoralizing and primary defeat, a depleted candidate, under scrutiny for his feud with the Khan family, his comments about nuclear weapons, his familiarity with Russia`s role in Ukraine, and countless other blunders and plagued by a growing number of defections by high profile members of his own party.
Worst of all, Trump has seen his poll numbers plummet over the past week. Just a week ago, he and Hillary Clinton were tied neck and neck in the Real Clear Politics polling average. Today, after a convention Clinton bounce and a string of bad polls, he`s fallen behind by almost seven points in the average.
Things are even worse for Trump in individual battleground states like Pennsylvania and New Hampshire where recent polls show Clinton with a double-digit lead.
All week long, Speaker Ryan has insists on his right to criticize the Republican nominee, and claimed he`s not seeking his endorsement. In an interview today with Wisconsin talk radio host Charlie Sykes, Ryan sounded off on the particular brand of politics espoused by his primary opponent and arguably by his own party`s standard bearer.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
REP. PAUL RYAN (R-WI), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: I think they call it alt- conservatism.
CHARLIE SYKES: Alt-right, yes.
RYAN: Alt-right, yes, sorry. Alt-right.
This is not Wisconsin. This is not Wisconsin conservatism, Wisconsin Republicans. And that kind of dark, grim, indefensible thinking, comments is going to be thoroughly rejected and repudiated on Tuesday, I believe. And I for the life of me have a hard time trying to understand the kind of thinking behind it, but unfortunately, we see some of it these days.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
HAYES: That kind of thinking, as Ryan puts it, has been on public display more and more, emboldened by America`s birther in chief. Just last night, "The New Yorker" reporting that Carl Paladino, Trump`s New York state co- chair, accused President Obama of trying to misled the public about his religious affiliation, an effort Paladino said had been unsuccessful. Quote, "In the mind of the average American, there is no doubt he is Muslim."
Joining me now, Charlie Sykes, conservative radio host in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and an MSNBC contributor.
So, Charlie, at the most basic sort of surface level, this looks like a victory for Ryan, in so far as he`s going to crush Nehlen and Trump doesn`t want to get embarrassed, so he`s probably going to endorse him tonight.
SYKES: Yes, this doesn`t do much for Ryan. He was going to get 70 percent plus in the election. But it helps Trump stop the bleeding here in Wisconsin.
Look, when he refused to endorse Ryan, that was -- it was a real problem with Wisconsin, it was a humiliation for Reince Priebus. It was a humiliation for Mike Pence. They`d been putting tremendous pressure. There`s been a lot of blowback in the Republican base here.
So, you know, again, it`s kind of unusual for him to walk it back. But, again, it`s not going to change the outcome. Although, it`s going to definitely ruin Ann Coulter`s whole day tomorrow.
HAYES: Well, here`s a thing I -- you know, so you got Ann Coulter is a great example. She wrote a book that is a frankly anti-immigrant book. She says all things of offensive things. "Adios, America," I believe it`s called. Clearly a blueprint for the Trump campaign.
Nehlen is someone who, you know, is contemplating ethnic cleansing, the mass deportation of a religious group and he`s running in a Republican primary. There is a certain degree to which it does seem to me like Pandora`s Box is opened and it doesn`t get closed up if Trump loses.
SYKES: Yes, you almost have the sense that you basically -- there`s gates to this toxic sewer of white supremacy and hatred that were opened up here. And, you know, I would be interested to know if Donald Trump was asked about Paul Nehlen`s comments, would he disavow them? That may be a reason why he is bailing on all of this.
So when I talked to Paul Ryan today, he wanted to distinguish the alt-right rhetoric from actual conservatism. I think that`s one of the things on the ballot next Tuesday.
HAYES: But here`s the problem, and you`re someone who I believe is still a never Trumper. I haven`t checked back in with you. Although when we were sitting in the bar in Wisconsin, you were pretty never Trump. Assuming that didn`t change.
Paul Ryan can do all that he wants in this primary and he`ll beat this guy badly, but the guy who`s convention he just chaired is not that far from him. The guy who he says he`s going to vote for, the guy who the Republican Party is currently holding a Supreme Court justice`s seat for is not that far from Paul Nehlen.
SYKES: No. This is the exquisitely painful dilemma for Paul Ryan and I was trying to press him on how is he going to be able to walk this incredibly difficult, moral and ethical tight rope. So, I asked him. You know, his standard line is, well, my endorsement is not a blank check. And I asked him, OK, but is there some point at which the check expires, it bounces, you cancel the check?
And he did say, if you listen to the tape, yes, there is. Yes, absolutely, there might become some moment. I`m not going to lay it out what it would be. But at least he put that marker down.
And particularly when you see the polls beginning to hemorrhage, you saw the fundraising letter he put out yesterday, saying we can`t give President Hillary Clinton a blank check, you almost get the sense that Republicans are about to press on what they called 1996 tragedy, which is to basically bail on the top of the ticket, put all the resources on the down ballot races.
HAYES: Let me ask you this, I said this the other day on Twitter and I`m curious to hear if you agree with this. It seems to me that the GOP in its modern incarnation as a sort of coalition of sort of economic conservatives, foreign policy conservatives, religious conservatives, that sort of three-legged stool of Reagan, it can survive a Trump loss, but can`t survive a Trump win. That actually, a Trump win would be the death blow in a way that the loss might be able to be brushed off.
SYKES: I agree, in part, because if conservatives can`t stand up to candidate Trump, would they stand up to a President Trump? What you see is this tendency, this cult of personality, the lack of principle on the part of a lot of conservatives, that they will -- they feel the need to defend and rationalize what he does.
HAYES: Right.
SYKES: And as a result of that, as I said earlier during the primary, then you own all of this. You own the misogyny, you own the racism, you own the nativism, you own the gaffe, you own the bizarre attitudes and ideas about foreign policy. And I just sort of get the sense that a lot of these folks are putting their head down, they`re holding their nose, they keep repeating this mantra, it`s a binary choice, it`s all the Supreme Court.
But if there was actually a Trump presidency, I mean, I think it would be the end of modern conservatism, at least the post-Reagan, post-William F. Buckley style of conservatism.
HAYES: All right. Charlie Sykes, thanks a lot.
Recent polls show voters have some real concerns about Donald Trump`s ability to lead the country on national security. In a brand new NBC News/"Wall Street Journal", respondents overwhelmingly favor Hillary Clinton to be a good commander in chief to be able to handle a crisis, and to handle American policy. The Clinton campaign has been hammering that message, releasing a new ad with notable Republicans voicing concerns about Trump`s temperament and leadership.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAEL HAYDEN, FORMER CIA DIRECTOR: If he governs consistent with some of the things he`s said as a candidate, I would be very frightened.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He`s been talking about the option of using our nuclear weapon against our western European allies.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is not somebody who should be handed the nuclear codes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: In "The New York Times" today, former acting CIA director, Michael Morell, who served under Republican and Democratic presidents, wrote an op- ed endorsing Hillary Clinton, assessing that "in the intelligence business, we should say that Vladimir Putin has recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian federation."
"The Times" failed to disclose however, Morell is now employed by a communications firm co-founded by a long time aide to Hillary Clinton.
I`m joined now by Congressman Ted Lieu, Democrat from California, who sits on the House Subcommittee on National Security. Congressman, the characterization in that Morell op-ed, where he says Putin very deftly complimented him, he`s recruiting him, seemed a little bit out past what the facts are at this point. What did you think?
REP. TED LIEU (D), CALIFORNIA: Well, thank you, Chris, for your question. Let me first say that having served on active duty in the U.S. military, I believe the president`s most important duty is when he or she is acting as our commander in chief, protecting our nation.
The notion of an erratic, impulsive and cruel person like Donald Trump being our commander in chief so freaked out our former CIA director, Mike Morell, that he felt compelled to write op-ed.
And I don`t think his op-ed was anything but perfect. It showed how erratic Donald Trump is, and that Donald Trump has been playing footsie with Russia. He praises Vladimir Putin. He didn`t know that Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014. And Donald Trump wants to weaken NATO. These are all things that Russia wants.
HAYES: There`s been a lot of talk about the comparative commander in chief strengths. And obviously, Hillary Clinton, I think, her campaign can see that as being the huge threshold issues in 2008, she served as secretary of state. It seems in the polling now.
But I have to ask you, we have just started bombing ISIS in Libya. That`s the place where Hillary Clinton urged intervention. It`s now essentially a failed state. It has failed so much that we are now bombing ISIS there.
What does that say about her judgment on that particular issue?
LIEU: The Middle East is a very complicated issue. Keep in mind, Secretary Clinton was in on the decision-making process to take out Osama bin Laden. She`s negotiated ceasefires in the Middle East. She`s made women`s rights a human rights issue.
She is the most prepared candidate to be president in the history of the United States. And people can disagree on Libya, you can disagree on other actions that have been taken, but keep in mind, ISIS is a threat. And we do need to bomb terrorists and take them out.
HAYES: Right. Respectfully, all that`s true about her resume, but we`re now talking about judgment, right? That`s one of the things to compare here and there`s one person on your screen who has the judgment that he appears to have.
But with respect to Libya, I mean, the fact that we are now there bombing them again does seem to indicate the initial strategy was not a success.
LIEU: Well, keep in mind, Libya was a NATO operation. I think in hindsight, it`s easy to criticize, but before that operation happened, Libya was already a problem state. And Gadhafi was a very evil and bad person.
You can look at all different factors as to whether that should have happened, but the view is that at the time they made that call, you can`t say it was an unreasonable call.
HAYES: Final question here, you talk to your colleagues off the record. Do you think the people in the House, your Republican congressmen in the House, do they trust Trump with the nukes?
LIEU: Oh, absolutely not. If you look at our national security leaders, this past march, over 120 Republican national security leaders wrote an open letter saying they cannot support Donald Trump for president because they`re so scared of him having access to our nuclear launch codes. If you look at this, this is why Hillary Clinton is endorsed by our security leaders and Donald Trump`s been endorsed by Vladimir Putin.
HAYES: All right. Congressman Ted Lieu, thanks for making time tonight.
Let`s listen to Donald Trump who is expected tonight to endorse Paul Ryan in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
TRUMP: I`m only a messenger. We`ve done something truly historic together. Standing before you as nominee for president and I am not a politician, proudly.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
I`m not part of the system. I ran against the system, and I`m probably better off running against the system.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
I ran against the donors. I`m my own donor, essentially. I have a lot of money in this deal. This is a very expensive process, I want to tell you.
I funded, as you know, I funded the primaries. And now I`m in for over $60 million. And I`m largely funding my campaign as we go forward.
In addition to that -- in addition to that, we`ve raised tremendous amounts of money, and much of it from small donors, $61. $61, as a Republican, that doesn`t happen. It happens because of what you`re seeing in front of you today.
And if you remember just prior to June, they did a story. Donald Trump hasn`t really done too well with fundraising. Well, that`s because I didn`t even know if I was getting the nom -- I`m not going to raise funds. I would have had enough if I didn`t make it. I would have had bye-bye, politics. But I wanted to make sure, so I got it.
And then I started raising money for the Republican Party, and we raised a lot of money. We started really on June 14th. Flag Day, my birthday. My birthday.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
And in June, we raised approximately -- think of this -- $51 million. Can you imagine?
And those people couldn`t believe it. They were really surprised. Big headlines, you know. They don`t give me too many headlines. I can do the greatest things. I do things that I think are fantastic. I say, good, there`s no way they can cover this badly. And they cover it badly.
I gently tell a woman that I love her baby and let the baby cry, it`s OK. As the baby that had a voice that was superior to Pavarotti continued to cry -- remember, I told her to stay, don`t worry about it. After three or four minutes and I`m trying to speak, and it was in Jacksonville, we had this massive, massive crowd, filled up a stadium, and the baby`s screaming.
So, I said, ma`am, I`d like to reverse my order, perhaps you can nicely take the baby out, your baby`s great. I did it so nicely.
She was happy. Even the baby was happy. He stopped crying.
And maybe you can take the baby out, would that be possible? The whole place is cracking up.
And the next day in the newspaper, it said, Trump throws baby out of arena.
(BOOS)
Terrible. Now, they`re very dishonest. That was a tough one.
And I just had a reporter come up to me, backstage, a reporter come up, Mr. Trump, sir, but why did you throw the baby out of the arena? I said, I was having fun. I was so nice. I was so nice. Everybody liked me. The baby liked me. The mother liked me. We had a good time.
I tried to keep the baby in, but the baby had such a powerful voice. In fact, I want to find out who that baby is. Because I want to sponsor the baby. And that baby will sing some day in philharmonic hall. I`m telling you, New York City, OK, the great philharmonic hall.
So I`m not part of the system. I ran against the system. I ran against the donors, because I`m largely my own donor. I`m running against myself. That`s sort of -- never thought of it that way.
And against the status quo. And the status quo, we have to get rid of, because it`s not working, folks, because the country`s a mess.
And that`s why I put up a lot of money. But while the Democrats nominated the candidate of special interests and really, a candidate of total corruption, I mean, you take a look at what she`s doing, the Republicans made history by choosing a nominee from outside of this very, very corrupt system. It is a corrupt system. It`s a corrupt system. You want something done, they can do it for you. And that`s not necessarily -- and usually it isn`t -- good for the country.
That`s why we`re going to be able to deliver real change and real safety and real opportunity to all Americans. We have to unite. Remember that.
Everything I`ve accomplished I`ve done by putting together a really fantastic team, including, of course, Governor Mike Pence of Indiana, who`s done an incredible job. Done an incredible job.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
My wonderful staff of people that really love what we`re doing, and they`re working so hard. My family, my friends, and it`s expanding all the time.
But I need a Republican Senate and a House to accomplish all of the changes that we have to make. We have to make them, right? I understand and embrace the wisdom of Ronald Reagan`s big tent within the party. Big, big tent.
Remember? Ronald Reagan, great man. Great guy. Remember, he included Reagan Democrats and independents and Republicans. A lot of people.
We`re going to have the same thing. There are a lot of Democrats perhaps in this room. Are there a lot of Democrats in this room? Raise your hands. Eh.
I mean, I don`t think we need too many, to be honest with you.
So I embrace the wisdom that my 80 percent friend is not my 20 percent enemy. Ronald Reagan.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
Stated by Ronald Reagan. Pretty good.
We will be the big tent party. We are going to have a lot of crossover.
We`re going to have a lot of Bernie Sanders` people coming in, because of trade, because Bernie Sanders knew we were being ripped off by trade. Trade is a disaster, with China, with Japan, with Mexico, with Vietnam, with so many countries, with every country, every country. We don`t win at any level with anything.
And as a unified party, we will lead our country to unity as well. Very important. We need the unity. We have to win this election.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
No, we have to win it. Have to win it. Otherwise, our big movement was not as big as we thought. And that`s not good. That`s why November 8th, you`ve got to get everybody you know, and you know all this voter I.D., nowadays, a lot of places aren`t going to have voter I.D. Now what does that mean? What does that mean? You just keep walking in and voting?
So you have to be very careful, very vigilant. You have to be careful. But we will have disagreements, but we will disagree as friends and never stop working together toward victory, and very importantly, toward real change.
So, in our shared mission to make America great again, I support and endorse our Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
Paul Ryan, good. Good man. He`s a good man and he`s a good guy.
And we may disagree on a couple of things, but mostly we agree, and we`re going to get it done, and we`re going to do a lot of wonderful things. He`s a good man.
And while I`m at it, I hold in the highest esteem, Senator John McCain.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
For his service to our country, in uniform and in public office, and I fully support and endorse his re-election. Very important.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
We`ll work together.
I also fully support and endorse Senator Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
A state I truly love. Primarily because that was my first victory, but I love New Hampshire. No, I love New Hampshire. It`s one of the most beautiful places.
She`s a rising star and will continue to represent the great people of New Hampshire so very well for a long, long time, Senator Kelly Ayotte.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
Working hand in hand, we will grow our majority in the House and in the Senate. We need that. We got to get things done.
Arm in arm, we will rescue the nation from the Obama/Clinton disaster, which is exactly what it is, that has bled our country dry and spread terrorism unabated across the world. That`s what`s happening.
You saw just now, maps came out yesterday. They said, ISIS is far bigger. It`s all over the place. It`s all over the place.
We`re going to get rid of it, folks. Our military is depleted. We`re going to build up our military. We`re going to get others with us. Believe me, we`re going to get plenty of others with us.
And speaking of others, wouldn`t it actually be wonderful if we could get along with Russia? Wouldn`t that be nice?
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
They talk so big and so brave and so tough. They`re the tough ones, you know, Hillary`s real tough. Give me a break.
Wouldn`t that be great, we get along with Russia, we go together with others and we knock the hell out of ISIS. Wouldn`t that be great? Wouldn`t that be great?
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
Together, we will lead our country back to prosperity, security, and peace. OK?
When you look at the world and what`s happened, so we have the queen of corruption. She`s the queen of corruption. She`s a disaster.
I said before, if crooked Hillary Clinton becomes president, terrorism will destroy the inner workings of our country. Believe me. They are loving it. She wants to have 550 percent more people coming in from Syria and that region.
(BOOS)
HAYES: All right, Donald Trump making a bit of news there in Green Bay, Wisconsin, reading off clearly a prepared text, talking about a big tent, saying he endorses Paul Ryan, the speaker of the House, John McCain, running for Senate, of course, in Arizona, and Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire.
All that is news, because he had withheld his endorsements of all those people, clearly caving there in a speech that sounded a little bit like a concession speech in a weird way.
Joining me now, Sabrina Siddiqui, political reporter for "The Guardian", who`s been on trail following this insane campaign for 12 months more. What did you make of that?
SABRINA SIDDIQUI, THE GUARDIAN: Well, look, Donald Trump was given a clear directive by officials at the RNC, that he cannot afford to continue picking fights with members of his own party. He was supposed to focus on Hillary Clinton and instead spent several days since the conclusion of both conventions, continuing to go after Republicans, declining to endorse Paul Ryan, criticizing both heavily John McCain and Kelly Ayotte, all because they opposed his feud with the Khans, Khizr and Ghazala Khan, of course, the Gold Star parents of a fallen Iran war hero.
So, it was clear, reading off a script, I mean, it came off as very tepid. He was literally holding the paper there. That`s what he needs to do, I think, to curry favor among Republicans and among donors who were really, I think, having a real genuine freak-out over whether or not this candidate can be tamed with precious time remaining, and number of polls showing that he`s really tanking when it comes to head to head with Hillary Clinton.
HAYES: You know, it`s such a Groundhog Day situation, because we have been here so many times. He goes off script, they reel in them back in, he`ll do something to the prompter, he gave his foreign policy speech, he reads off the notes, he does what his handlers tell him to do for three days, you know?
And then, it`s just -- and the other thing is, he`s not a good candidate when he`s doing that. There`s something wooden, sort of hostage video-y about him when he`s doing that. And also, the only thing there is to sub in in a place of what Trump has is this sort of lowest common denominator conservatism that has not been particularly electorally effective.
SIDDIQUI: Right, first and foremost, this is something that very well could be temporary. They can only convince him to run a more coherent general election campaign for a matter of days. We never know when it might be that he`ll go off script again.
And more importantly, he loses some of his authenticity. Some much of his brand is rooted in being the outsider and challenging the political establishment, so watching him read off paper, backing people who he`s had sharp disagreements with, especially John McCain and Paul Ryan to an extent, I think that`s not really what his base of supporters are looking for.
But at the same time, this is a time when he has to bring the party together and he has to pivot toward general election because he`s losing moderate Republicans, as well as Republican-minded independents who Hillary Clinton is making active overtures toward, trying to appeal to them.
So I think part of this is to say that, listen, you have an opportunity to continue to go after working class voters, to hammer Hillary Clinton on the email server, to focus on her prior support for the TPP, for the trade pact and try and point out that she only reversed her position because it was politically advantageous, that`s the message they want him to be driving home. And that`s what he really failed to do over the last week.
To the point that you had prominent Republicans declining to endorse him altogether, you had a couple of House Republicans who certainly came out and said, we don`t think we can support Donald Trump based on the behavior he`s shown since the convention.
So I think that this is really another -- I don`t want to call it the nail in the coffin kind of moment, but this is one of the last stands we`re seeing from him yet again, under a lot of pressure.
HAYES: All right, Sabrina Siddiqui, thanks for your time tonight. Appreciate it.
Still to come, can Donald Trump name a single woman he would want to add to his cabinet? That excruciating moment right after this break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MITT ROMNEY, 2012 REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTAIL CANDIDATE: So we took a concerted effort to go out and find women who had backgrounds that could be qualified to become members of our cabinet. I went to a number of women`s groups and said, can you help us find folks? And they brought us whole binders full of women.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Then presidential candidate Mitt Romney was ridiculed after his 2012 debate with President Obama when he tried to explain what a good job he did as governor of Massachusetts finding women to hire for positions in state government by using the phrase binders full of women.
In retrospect, maybe the ridicule wasn`t entirely proportionate to the offense, particularly compared to the 2016 Donald Trump edition in which Trump was asked about naming women to cabinet positions.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK, so I want to know, just as a female, I want to know what, or who you would actually put into office as one of your first female in your cabinet?
TRUMP: Well, we have so many different ones to choose. I can tell you, everybody would say, put Ivanka in. Put Ivanka in.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Absolutely.
TRUMP: You know that, she`s very popular, and she`s done very well. And you know Ivanka very well.
But there really are so many that are really talented people, like you. I mean, you`re so talented. And I don`t know if your viewers know that...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is this breaking news? Am I going to be in the cabinet? Is that a yes?
TRUMP: Sounds good to me.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ooh, we`re looking good.
TRUMP: Sounds good to me.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Awesome!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: After that interview, the Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton tweeted we know a guy with a binder, Donald Trump. He might not take your calls, though.
Donald Trump may not have binders full of women, but today he did announce his economic advisory team which is chock full of Steves. We`ll explain next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: Four years ago, the jobs report released once month in August, September, October, felt like it might decide who won the election. Well, today the jobs report for July was released and the news was good. Economy added 255,000 jobs in July, far exceeding economist expectations, follows a strong report from June. And numbers like that seem to belie Donald Trump`s core message that the country is in terrible shape economically.
This Monday, Trump will elaborate on his position and a plan to address an economic policy. Ahead of that, his campaign just released its list of economic advisers. There are 14 of them, all men, including six Steves, or Stevens. And we have one of the Steves here with us tonight, Stephen Calk, CEO of the Federal Savings Bank, and a Trump campaign economic adviser.
Mr. Calk, thank you for joining us. Let`s start with this. How many times have you met to talk economic policy with Donald Trump?
STEPHEN CALK, FEDERAL SAVINGS BANK: We have been in regular conversations with he and his campaign. And of course Mr. Trump and I have met several times.
HAYES: So, what are the economic policies you think are best in terms of the vision he`s laying out for the country?
CALK: Well, I think, look, Mr. Trump`s going to lay out that in great detail on Monday. And I certainly don`t want to take away from that.
I can tell you one thing, Chris, I`m not a Wall Street guy. I`m a main street guy. You know I`ve already been a work for 12 hours today before I was invited to come and speak on your show.
But I can tell you what I can advise on, because I`m not the architect, I`m just an adviser. I can tell you about the struggles that Americans are having with home ownership. I can tell you about the struggles veterans are having trying to wade their way through the system of challenges they have both during and after their active duty service.
I can tell you about the challenges that they have in regards to home ownership as well. And the entire issue of creating more homeownership here in America. That`s my expertise. And I plan on spending a lot of time helping advise Mr. Trump on that as well as the challenges in community banking.
HAYES: How to you fix home ownership right now?
CALK: That`s a pretty broad question.
I think -- you know -- we really. I would say that the bank industry as a whole really deserved a smack in the head. And they got that in 2008 and 2009. But I think that the pendulum really swung too far. And my goal is to try to bring that back to the middle so that American purchasers of homes or those that want to refinance aren`t showing up with a telephone book of paperwork without understanding what the process is, why is this so complicated, and why does it take so long?
I think the process can be simplified. I think it could be more easily understood. And I think if we work closely with the regulatory agencies to help that happen, we can loosen up some of this gridlock and create more home ownership here in America.
HAYES: We`ve got pretty -- I mean, the home ownership rates have come back pretty well. obviously, they`re not at 2007 peak, although part of the problem in 2007, right, was there were a lot of people who owned homes who probably shouldn`t have.
I mean, this question of the pendulum, I hear a lot about deregulation. I hear about how the the CFPB is this terrible menace and how bad Dodd-Frank is. It`s created creating all this red tape, et cetera, et cetera. But we`ve seen what happens in the absence of a lot of those checks and balances.
CALK: Right.
Well, you make a great point, Chris.
Look, at the end of the day, home ownership, just like borrowing money, isn`t really a right, it`s a privilege. And so, I spend tons and tons of time, we`ve spent years dedicated to educating first time home buyers and educating veterans and others about the financial process and the responsibility of home ownership.
I don`t think it`s so much about deregulation, just tweaking the regulations so that they`re more understandable, more usable and can actually help us get the results that all Americans really want.
HAYES: Let me ask, one last policy question. Home interest -- the mortgage deduction, should we get rid of that? Why should the government be subsidizing that?
CALK: That`s a terrific question. It`s one of my favorite topics to discuss. I believe firmly that home ownership in general makes America a better place. When someone owns a home, if there`s a piece of trash on the street, you see them pick it up. If they see something suspicious happening on a corner, you don`t call the police. If they have a neighbor who might be in trouble, they`re more likely to walk next door and knock on that door and see if they can be a part of that community.
HAYES: I have heard this riff before. It`s actually part of the sort of core American vision of home ownership. There`s very little empirical evidence to suggest that`s the case, although I understand why people think that.
I think renters deserve a break too. Stephen Calk, thank you very much for joining us tonight. Really appreciate it.
CALK: Thanks for having me.
HAYES: Coming up, is Donald Trump putting notoriously red states on the path to turning blue? What some astonishing polling suggests ahead.
But first, we here at All In have an important favor to ask you in just 60 seconds.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) HAYES: OK, so we here at All In have been keeping track of all of Donald Trump`s missteps that would normally be disqualifying for any other presidential candidate. But Trump`s last ten, as we call it, is turning out to be a much bigger task than we thought.
Just this week alone, we had to update it twice. It`s a lot to keep track of.
So we decided to compile every update and put them together on a handy little website.
Here it is, at Trump`slast10.com, every topic we`ve added to our list, complete with links so you can read on each story.
But here`s the thing, our list only goes as far back as when we decided to start this segment on the show. So now we`re asking for your help.
We want you to go back and populate this entire list starting from the fateful day Trump descended that escalator and went on to say that Mexico is sending rapists, which was the first thing that would have disqualified anyone else. Trump did it in the first sentence, practically, on his first day.
So, check it out our list at Trump`sLast10.com. And if you see something missing, tweet it at us using the hashtag #trump10. We only want stories that would otherwise disqualify any other politician if they had done the same thing.
And here`s the bar, kicking out a crying baby from a rally doesn`t make the cut -- or maybe it does. We have to think about that one.
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HAYES: All this week, we`ve been bringing you stories from a unique group of athletes competing in the Olympic games for the first time ever. They are part of a team composed entirely of refugees from South Sudan, Syria, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, representing an ever-growing number of refugees and displaced people across the world.
According to the UN, the number of people forcibly displaced from their homes rose from 37.3 million in 1996 to more than 65.3 million in 2015, which means 1 in every 113 people globally is now either an asylum seeker, internally displaced or a refugee.
If they were a country, the forcibly displaced would be the 21st largest in the world.
Joining me now Justin Forsyth. He`s deputy director of UNICEF working on refugee issues.
It seems that we`re in the midst of a global crisis on this front, largely driven by the uptick in the Middle East. Is that fair to say?
JUSTIN FORSYTH, DEPUTY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, UNICEF: Yes, most of the refugees come from Syria, Somalia and Afghanistan. I mean, I`ve just come back from the Mediterranean. I was on an Italian navy ship just off the Libyan coast and they just picked up a thousand people out of the ocean. These are people that are fleeing violence all across North Africa, including Syrians.
Who we just saw in that film film, extraordinary story. She got in a boat from Turkey to go to Lesbos in Greece, a little island. And she`s had to jump out of the boat with her sister and literally pull the boat to the shore and rescue the other refugees. Well, now she`s competing in the Olympics, extraordinary bravery.
HAYES: the story of this sort of flow of refugees through sometimes from Afghanistan, down through Turkey, to Lesbos, sometimes up over land, but increasingly over sea, is just unbelievably harrowing and exceptionally dangerous.
FORSYTH: Very, very dangerous. I mean, the people on the Italian navy ship I was on in the Mediterranean. They picked up a thousand people a day before I was on and hundreds every day. I mean, these people have been on months and months of a journey from North Africa. They`ve been raped often -- I met a young woman who was only one year younger than Yusra. And she`d been kept in an underground cell for eight months and raped every day. And then she`s trafficked into prostitution in Europe.
So, they need our help.
These refugees are fleeing violence and conflict. And what we hope is that the Team Refugee effort will bring attention to the plight of refugees and get people on their side.
HAYES: Yeah, so how do you train under these conditions?
FORSYTH: I mean, you take Yusra`s story. She had to interrupt her training. She was acually a swimmer in Syria since 14. And when she fled, it interrupted her training for two years. But but she got back on her feet in Germany and was helped by local people and trained and now she`s at the Olympics and so are some of the swimmers and judo and athletes from the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan. They`ve all had terrible experiences.
But there`s a refugee camp in Africa tonight watching the opening ceremony that five of them are from, and that is heroic.
HAYES: Right, Justin Forsyth, thanks for your time tonight. Appreciate it.
Up next, how bad was this week for Donald Trump? The latest polling from one reliably red state in the south shows Hillary Clinton ahead?
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HAYES: If you needed additional proof that things are not looking good at the moment for Donald Trump, look no further than the latest polling out of the state of Georgia. Yes, Georgia. There, an Atlanta Journal Constitution poll released today, Hillary Clinton is leading Trump by 4 percentage points in a head-to-head match-up. And while that is within the margin of error, it is just the latest example of polls tightening up in the reliably red state.
One poll taken right after the DNC, but before the fall-out over the Khan family played out, showed Trump and Clinton tied, another had Trump leading by 4, again within the margin of error. This comes from a state that Mitt Romney won by eight points in 2012, that last voted for a Democratic nominee when Bill Clinton first ran for president in 1992.
But as the latest national polling also trends in Hillary Clinton`s favor, one of our next guests contemplates this, it`s almost time to start talking about Hillary Clinton winning Texas. If things get just a little bit worse for Trump nationally, he could start losing a lot of states we normally think of as very safe for Republicans, not just Georgia, with states like Texas, South Carolina and even Mississippi.
Joining me now, the author of that article, which I`m not quite sold on, Josh Barro, MSNBC contributor, senior editor of Business Insider; and Democratic political consultant Tara Dowdell.
Okay, well, so make your case.
JOSH BARRO, BUSINESS INSIDER: Well, so basically, you know, first of all, this is premised on Hillary Clinton winning by a lot more than Barack Obama won by four years ago. Barack Obama won by four points. If she were to win by say, 12 or 13 points, you`d see on average, that means she`s doing eight points better than Obama did four years earlier, but that`s going to vary across states. And particularly, you`ve seen these big demographic shifts.
Trump is actually doing pretty well with white voters who didn`t go to college, especially men. So states like Pennsylvania that have a lot of those voters and still vote Democratic. He`s having pickups there. It`s being offset with terrible performance with non-white voters, even worse than the usual Republican presidential nominee, and very bad performance with white voters who went to college.
So that effects different across states. It`s why Colorado has dropped off the map.
HAYES: It not even -- it looks to be at this moment, not contested in the sense that they`ve pulled their spending from it. The Clinton group.
BARRO: Right. And that`s because it`s a diverse state where a lot of the white voters did go to college. And so it just looks terrible demographically for Donald Trump.
You look at states in the south. And first of all, you have a state like Texas, where there`s usually a chunk of Hispanic voters who vote Republican. Trump seems to be doing even worse with Hispanics for obvious reasons then a usual Republican nominee. And then you basically don`t have a lot of non-college white voters available for Trump to pick up, because Republicans already get an enormous overwhelming percentage of white voters.
HAYES: He can`t make up more of it.
BARRO: So, basically Trump has a big problem with college educated white women, I`m calling the key voter demographic of this election, rich suburban white ladies.
If you have a woman driving a BMW X5 around Plano, Texas, or Sandy Springs, Georgia, almost all of those people were Romney voters four years ago. And a lot of them are turned off by various things about Donald Trump.
HAYES: So, here`s -- you know, Democrats -- so back in 2008, I did a piece for the Nation magazine where I spent some time in Georgia. And originally when the Obama campaign announced their -- I think there are 15 or 17 states they were contesting, they had an operation in Georgia. I was there that summer. They were registering voters. And Georgia is one of these sort of like eternal, like if we could only get the numbers like the way -- and it`s sort of proven to be fool`s gold.
Do you think we`re going to see, even if they don`t win an actual gain in performance this year?
TERA DOWDELL, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: I think there will absolutely be a gain in performance in Georgia, because the demographics do continue to shift. And to Josh`s point, when you look at how Hillary Clinton is doing amongst college educated white women, she`s doing really well.
The gender gap for Democrats has always been driven by women of color -- black women, Latino women, Asian women, with Democrats actually losing white women. And so now she has these significant gains that I think she has even more room for growth if she continues to stay the course and Trump continues to be Trump.
HAYES: Right, so that`s that`s the key to understand this, right, is non- whiteit voters and the demographic composition of the states, particularly states that are changing over time, right. So when you look at Arizona and Georgia, they are getting less white over time. So they`re trending and moving into that direction, and then white college educated women.
BARRO: Right. Exactly.
And so to be clear, I`m not saying that like Georgia`s going to be the tipping point. I don`t think if makes sense for Democrats to spend money in Texas, because if they win Texas, they`re not going to need it.
And I don`t think this necessarily means that they can expect to be in good position to win four years from now. I think Trump is a very unusual candidate who has particular weakness with college educated whites and especially college educated white women. And that`s the thing that`s giving an opening in a lot of states that you wouldn`t normally expect.
HAYES: We saw Politico reporting today a little bit about where the Trump team is making inquiries about ad spending. Aand they`re not making ad spending inquiries in places like Connecticut and New York, which they said -- or California, which they said they were going to win. But they are making them in Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, and Missouri.
Missouri is another one that has been razor close a few times, but has been a tough pickup for Democrats.
BARRO: Yeah, no. But I sort of question, what`s the point of spending money in Missouri?
HAYES: Right. If you need Missouri, you`re screwed. I mean, what -- when you walk through the paths, it really does seem to me that Pennsylvania is basically make or break.
BARRO; Right.
HAYES: Because Pennsylvania is a state that plausibly he could -- the question is, what can you flip? What can you get that Romney didn`t get?
DOWDELL: I don`t think he flips Pennsylvania.
HAYES: I don`t think he does either,but my point is that it`s a plausible target for a flip in a way that a state like Colorado is certainly not, or Virginia.
DOWDELL: But Pennsylvania is a classic case study of Trump`s entrenched problems, right. Because if you look at Pennsylvania, she`s up plus in the Suffolk poll, she`s up plus 19 amongst college educated white women voters.
She also...
HAYES: She`s up 40 in Buck`s county.
DOWDELL: And if you look at President Obama, one thing that never gets talked about -- I talk about it sometimes, is that Asian voters in Pennsylvania actually voted at a higher percentage for President Obama than did black voters.
So she has -- and the Asian population is getting even bigger.
HAYES: I`m glad you pointed that out, because that`s the fastest growing demographic in America. It was won by Republicans for a long period of time, the Reagan years and George H.W. Bush, and Romney got his clock cleaned among Asian voters. And that is actually -- that`s a part of this wedge that right now is small, but is growing bigger over time that is yet another demographic hurdle for Republicans, who have instead embraced the candidate they`ve embraced.
Josh Barro, Tera Dowdell, thank you very much.
That is All In for this evening. The Rachel Maddow show starts right now.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. END