Show: ALL IN with CHRIS HAYES Date: October 14, 2016 Guest: Michelle Fields, Gabe Sherman, Jon Lovett, Sabrina Siddiqui, Hari Sevugan, Linda Chavez
CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC ALL IN HOST: Tonight on ALL IN.
DONALD TRUMP, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIA CANDIDATE: She`s a liar. She is a liar.
HAYES: 25 days out .
TRUMP: Believe me, she would not be my first choice, that I can tell you.
HAYES: The republican nominee attacks his old accusers, literally as new accusers come forward.
KRISTIN ANDERSON, TRUMP ACCUSER: He just put his hand up my skirt. That`s not OK.
HAYES: Tonight, inside the Trump campaign, that spinning conspiracy theories and stuck in damage control.
TRUMP: We already have substantial evidence to dispute these lies.
HAYES: Plus, the art of defending Trump.
BEN CARSON, RETIRED PEDIATRIC NEUROSURGEON AND TRUMP CAMPAIGN ADVISOR: Can you turn the microphone off, please?
(CROSSTALK)
CARSON: And turn your microphone off so I can talk?
HAYES: And responding to the First Lady.
MIKE PENCE, REPUBLICAN VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don`t understand the basis of her claim.
HAYES: Has a new battleground map causes sleepless nights at the RNC and the president fine tunes his message to make republicans pay.
BARACK OBAMA, UNITED STATES PRESIDENT: Donald Trump didn`t build all of these crazy conspiracy stuff.
HAYES: When ALL IN starts right now.
Good evening from New York. I`m Chris Hayes. Two more women came forward today alleging unwelcome sexual contact by Donald Trump, Kristin Anderson who told the Washington Post Trump reached up her skirt at a New York nightclub in the early 90s, and Summer Zervos, a former contestant on The Apprentice, who says Trump kissed and groped her without her consent in 2007. Trump strongly denied the allegations, and at a rally this afternoon, at the exact moment that Zervos was carefully telling her story to the press, Trump was attacking his growing list of accusers, even suggesting that one of them, Jessica Leeds, who said he groped her on an airplane in the1980s, was not attractive enough to assault.
TRUMP: I was sitting with him on an airplane. And he went after me on the plane. Yeah, I`m going to go after her. Believe me, she would not be my first choice, that I can tell you.
HAYES: Today, refutably the story, the Trump campaign also put forth a man claiming to have been a witness on that flight at the age of 17 or 18 sitting in first class. A man described by the Guardian as a former conservative activist who last made headlines in 2014 when he alleged he had once supplied politicians with underage boys for tory sex parties. And says he has no evidence but, quote, a "photographic memory." It`s now been exactly one week since the bombshell that rocked the 2016 race, a tape from 2005 featuring the Republican Presidential nominee boasting about groping women without their consent and getting away with it.
TRUMP: I`ve got to use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know, I`m automatically attracted to beautiful - I just start kissing them. It`s like a magnet. I just kiss. I don`t even wait. And when you`re a star, they let you do it, you can do anything.
BUSH: Whatever you want.
TRUMP: Grab them by the (BLEEP) I can do anything.
HAYES: Trump downplayed those comments as locker-room talk, and under pressure at Sunday`s debate, he eventually said he`d never actually done any of those acts. But in the days since, more and more women have gone public with stories of what they say is inappropriate behavior by Trump, corroborating his own account of how he treats women. According to Kristin Anderson, an aspiring model living in New York in the early90s, she encountered Trump one night at a club.
ANDERSON: I`m talking to my friend who I`m sitting to and across from on my left side. I`m very clear of this. This is the vivid part for me. So, the person on my right who unbeknownst to me at that time was Donald Trump, put their hands up my skirt. He did touch my vagina through my underwear, absolutely. And as I pushed the hand away and I got up, and I turned around, and I see these eyebrows, very distinct eyebrows of Donald Trump. And I got up and I moved and I continued to talk with my friend. And they said, "Oh, that`s Donald Trump." I was like, "Ewe, he`s gross. He just put his hand up my skirt. That`s not OK.
HAYES: Trump`s campaign called the Anderson`s allegation phony and ridiculous and said Trump strongly denies it. Summer Zervos, an Apprentice contestant in 2006 said she later reached out to Trump for career guidance and possible employment meeting with him at Trump tower.
SUMMER ZERVOS, TRUMP ACCUSER: He said he would love to have me work for him. Mr. Trump said he would be coming to Los Angeles soon, and he would contact me. I felt as though my dream of working for Mr. Trump might come true. As I was about to leave, he again kissed me on the lips. This made me feel nervous and embarrassed. This is not what I wanted or expected.
HAYES: According to Zervos, she later met with Trump again at a hotel in Los Angeles.
ZERVOS: I assumed we were going to a restaurant in a hotel. Instead, I was taken to a bungalow. I was standing in an entryway. To my left, was a bedroom, and I saw Mr. Trump`s clothes on the bed. I did not see him, but he greeted me with "hello" in a sing-song voice, that sounded like, "hello." So, I stood up, and he came to me and started kissing me, open- mouthed, as he was pulling me towards him. I walked away, and I sat down in a chair. He then asked me to sit next to him. I complied. He then grabbed my shoulder and began kissing me again, very aggressively, and placed his - placed his hand on my breast. I pulled back and walked to another part of the room. He put me in an embrace - in an embrace, and I tried to push him away. I pushed his chest, put space between us, and I said, "Come on, man. Get real." He repeated my words back to me, "Get real," as he began thrusting his genitals.
HAYES: Zervos said she made it through dinner with Trump without any further unwanted contact, but she alleges her job prospects were hurt, because she rejected his advances. In a statement in NBC news, Trump said he vaguely remembers Zervos from The Apprentice, but he never met her at a hotel or greeted her inappropriately. Adding that she wanted him to visit her restaurant this past spring.
Trump held a rally today in North Carolina where the rowdy crowd felt like a throwback to the primaries, complete with at least one intense scuffle between a Trump supporter and a protestor seen there. And initially, if it wasn`t clear if Trump would address the allegations.
TRUMP: You know, my people always say, oh, don`t talk about it. Talk about jobs, talk about the economy, don`t worry, your jobs are going to be for - they are going to be coming back to North Carolina like you`ve never seen. Who thinks I shouldn`t talk? We`ll talk jobs. Who thinks that I shouldn`t talk about it? Does anyone think that? OK. I agree.
HAYES: Well, address them he did, calling the women`s stories 100 percent made up and blasting them for coming forward.
TRUMP: It`s a phony deal. I have no idea who these women are, I have no idea. I have no idea. They are all false. They`re totally invented fiction. All 100 percent totally and completely fabricated. They have no witnesses, there`s nobody around, they just come out -- some are doing it for probably a little fame. They get some free fame. It`s a total set-up.
HAYES: Trump made a point of criticizing various women`s appearance, starting with some of his accusers and by the end, even getting in a dig at his opponent, Hillary Clinton.
TRUMP: When you looked at that horrible woman last night, you said, I don`t think so. I don`t think so. Believe me, she would not be my first choice, that I can tell you. I`m standing at my podium and she walks in front of me. And when she walked in front of me, believe me, I wasn`t impressed.
HAYES: And as he has all week, Trump blamed current fewer not on his own conduct towards women, but on a shadowy conspiracy involving the Clinton campaign global financial leaves the media in general, The New York Times in particular, and Times` biggest stakeholder, Mexican media mogul Carlos Slim.
TRUMP: Now, Carlos Slim as you know comes from Mexico. He`s given many millions of dollars to the Clintons and their initiative. So, Carlos Slim, largest owner of the paper, from Mexico, reporters at the New York Times, they`re not journalists, they`re corporate lobbyists for Carlos Slim and for Hillary Clinton. Behind closed doors, speaking to these international bankers, Hillary Clinton`s pledge to destroy the sovereignty of the United States. The whole thing is one big fix. It`s one big fix. It`s one big ugly lie.
HAYES: Joining me now, Michelle Fields, contributing reporter for the Huffington Post and Joan Walsh, MSNBC political analyst, national affairs correspondent for the nation. And Joan, you were - you were at that rally today. And man, I got to stay, that - there was - what was it like there? You could feel the sort of rage kind of coming off the screen.
JOAN WALSH, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: You could. Although, there was - it`s a beautiful amphitheatre. There was a bowl. The bowl where there seats were totally full, Chris, but the largest part of the amphitheatre is grass. And I was there at Tuesday and saw President Obama, he had at least twice as many people there.
HAYES: Interesting.
WALSH: This was kind of a lackluster crowd, if you got beyond that little area, but yeah, I saw the guy get put in a head lock. And interestingly, the man who put him in a head lock was young African-American man waving a rainbow flag and wearing a "Gays for Trump" t-shirt. So, I want to be able - I want to -
(CROSSTALK)
WALSH: -- capture diversity.
HAYES: Yes.
WALSH: We - I want to just blow up all of our stereotypes and show the diversity of the Trump crowd. He was one of the three or four African- American there`s, but he was there. It was really -- it was very, very weird. I mean, I was much very struck by the fact that he decided that the way to defend himself was to say these women were sort of beneath harassing. But you`ve also got to realize, and I wrote about this in my piece tonight, he did say at one point in just about all of these cases, "They`re nonsense, they`re not true. Just about all these cases is a pretty interesting phrase. I`m not a lawyer, but he didn`t say all these cases. So, you know, I`m just throwing that out there so that the legal people can gnaw on it. And, you know, as we see people come forward, maybe he`ll admit to one or two of these. I don`t know.
HAYES: Well, it struck me listening just all of these - just about all of these cases, the fact that it took him three times to being questioned at the debate to actually deny it, which is the kind of thing you would imagine given your first opportunity to deny, you would - you would take it.
WALSH: Right.
HAYES: Michelle, you`ve been watching this, and I`ve seen you tweet about just what it would mean to watch him sort of go after the people that are - - the women that are accusing him for anyone that is contemplating whether or not to come forward.
MICHELLE FIELDS, CONTRIBUTING REPORTER TO THE HUFFINGTON POST: Yeah, I mean, I imagine there are a lot of women who unfortunately have been sexually abused by Donald Trump who are watching his speeches and seeing him attack these women, and say, "I don`t want to go through this. It`s not worth it. And I think which is what you reapplied with, I think that is the strategic to make them scared to come out, to put an end to all of these, but there are women who are having - they`re having the opposite effect, that they`re watching this and thinking, you know what, I`m going to come forward. This guy is lying. He`s closer to being president. I need stand up and do something for my country. So, it`s having the opposite effect for some, but I do think it`s probably really scary for some women who don`t want to be called a liar and don`t want to be told that they`re ugly on national television, because that`s what he`s saying, they`re too unattractive to sexually assault, and he`s smearing them.
HAYES: And there`s a woman named Mindy McGillivray, from the Palm Beach Post reported on her, saying that Trump had groped her. She`s now leaving the country. She said we feel back lash of the Trump supporters. It scares us, it intimidates us. We`re in fear for our lives. That was in a Friday interview with The Palm Beach Post. So, sort of the first casualty. Again, that doesn`t mean the allegation is but that is the cost for one individual. Joan, I was reading your piece, and it was interesting to hear what folks were saying there in the crowd about these allegations, about whether they believed him or not.
WALSH: Yeah. I mean, I ran into one woman. It was very sad to me, she was sort of mocked at, and said, you know, we gals, we talk amongst ourselves, we trash talk about sex. And I was like, "Yeah, that`s true. We do. That`s cool. But, you know, this is not trash talk about sex. These women say he grabbed them," and she confessed that she`s actually a survivor of sexual assault, but she think that it was wanted and she said, "If I - you know, back in the day, if a billionaire came up to me and wanted to grab me, you know, I`d have wanted him to." So, there was - there was that. A lot of people that I talked to really don`t believe the women, they really - they really have sort of again, this is the hardcore, Chris. They really bought this line that these women are coming forward for fame and fortune. And as Michelle makes the point, you know, that could not be further from the truthful. There`s nothing positive really about coming forward and being humiliated and being told you`re too ugly to be molested. There`s nothing positive in this experience for these women. They are doing it out of a sense, you know, of duty to their country and perhaps some therapeutic value, I think, telling truth is always helpful. So, it`s sometimes helpful. I can`t even say it`s always helpful.
HAYES: Right.
WALSH: But the notion that people are doing this for fun and fame and fortune is just crazy, and -
FIELDS: I think -
WALSH: -- really speaks to a kind of sad view of women.
HAYES: Michelle.
FIELDS: The problem with a lots of conservatives that I`ve heard have is that the timing of all of this.
HAYES: Right.
FIELDS: So, it seems as though it all came at the exact same time to when Trump mentions that there is this conspiracy to ruin his campaign, a lot of his core, conservative Trump supporters believe that, but if you look at the polls that have been taken since the audio of Trump and Billy Bush leaked, it doesn`t look good for Trump. You look in Pennsylvania, which a key state that Trump needs to win, Hillary is up by 9 points, in Michigan, Hillary is up by 11, in Wisconsin, she`s up by 7. This is after the audio. So, there is an effect of this. There is damage that it`s causing, and his path to the presidency is narrowing, it seems.
HAYES: Well - and there`s also the fact - I mean, in terms of the timing, I - you know, I think a big part of it, big trigger was the fact that he flatly denied it on the record at the debate. And sort of waving a red flag for anyone who is able to refute that denial with allegations. There is - there is one part I want to play, just finally here, Joan. This part about Barack Obama from Donald Trump at the rally today was so odd.
WALSH: Yes, yes.
HAYES: And it seemed like of a piece with this kind of threatening, this sort of, you know, sub textual threat. Take a - take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Obama is an incompetent. He`s an incompetent president, he doesn`t know what he`s doing, he is out campaigning all day long. He`s talking about me like he knows me. I don`t know him, he doesn`t know me. And why doesn`t some woman maybe come up and say what they say falsely about me, they could say about him? They could say it about anybody. (END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: What was that about, Joan?
WALSH: It`s -- it sounded like a threat some of sort to me.
HAYES: Right.
HAYES: At minimum, it was basically, you know, begging, encouraging women to come forward, and who knows? At worst, it was - it was, you know, possibly foreshadowing something. But you know, it was really, it`s just so incredible because when you think about this president, you don`t have to like him, but there`s never been anything like that about him. He has conducted himself in such an amazing manner. And, you know, so it just - it`s so dirty on so many levels, Chris, it really is.
HAYES: Dirty on so many levels, well that`s an epitaph for 2016. We`re not yet done with that, Michelle Fields and Joan Walsh, thank you both. I`m joined now by Gabe Sherman, National Affairs Editor from New York Magazine, MSNBC Contributor, of course, did incredible reporting on Roger Ailes, and has been reporting from Trump team. First, I just got to talk about these striking similarities here, which are - it`s almost unfolding identically to what happened with Roger Ailes.
GABE SHERMAN, NATIONAL AFFAIRS EDITOR AT NEW YORK MAGAZINE AND MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: Yeah, that`s why I don`t buy it, as Michelle and Joan were saying, this idea of a conspiracy that, you know, the idea that this is planned. No, women start to come forward once there`s a critical mass, other women want to tell their story, and we`ve seen that in the Ailes case where Gretchen Carlson filed her lawsuit, then I reported on six women who shared episodes of sexual harassment by Ailes in the past, and then more and more women came forward. So, that -- you know, this isn`t some -- based on what I can tell, some concerted effort. This is just the way these scandals play out.
HAYES: Right. I mean, the point being that there`s a sort of natural ebb here, which is that people don`t want to be the first, but then when there`s a first and a second and a third, then all of the sudden they feel like -- if I`m the fourth and the fifth and sixth, seventh, eighth, people will believe me, and they won`t dismiss me, and so you get this kind of floodgates effect.
SHERMAN: But I just want to back up to some of my reporting that I`ve heard is inside Trump world back in 2014, when he was planning to run, he told his small circle of advisers that women would be a problem. He did not elaborate, now it`s not a stretch to say Trump would have women problems, he said it on Howard Stern, and these - and these public forums, but you know, this always was going to be an issue. I mean, the fact that it comes out this late, I mean, this is -- his problem with women has been there from the beginning.
HAYES: Yeah, he`s been on the record in term of what he`s used towards women or he - in 1999 speaking of my colleague, Chris Matthews, said that people were telling him to run for president, and he said, (INAUDIBLE) Bill Clinton, can you imagine the women problems I would have?
SHERMAN: Exactly. So again, like, I think it`s a case where these women felt brave enough and then emboldened enough to come forward, but this was not - this is not out of character for who Donald Trump is.
HAYES: Are Ailes and Trump still in contact now? Do you know the nature of that relation? I keep thinking about what that commiseration is like, given --
SHERMAN: Yes. So basically, Ailes and Trump have a personal relationship. Ailes has been phased out of the Trump campaign, the best that I can tell. He`s not have any formal role on debate prep that`s being run as I reported by Steve Bannon, Kellyanne Conway, Rudy Giuliani, Reince Priebus will be there this weekend. So Ailes has been kind of edged out, now he has a personal relationship with Trump, they speak on the phone. But I`ve not really sort of heard whether he`s in the room, he`s not in the bunker with Trump strategizing.
HAYES: It does seem like Bannon, the -- a very colorful figure, I think, if I can use a gentle term, who`s the CEO of the campaign and ran Breitbart. This does really sound like him, the campaign right now. I mean, the globalist international banker conspiracy.
SHERMAN: That`s (INAUDIBLE) yesterday was co-written by him and Steven Miller, Jeff Sessions former Policy Adviser. Bannon is really driving this message that this is a war against the elites, and in the elites you include Hillary Clinton, the republican establishment and the media, so you have all of those three, so it`s basically, a three-front war they`re fighting.
HAYES: All right. Gabe Sherman, thank you for your time.
SHERMAN: Yup.
HAYES: I appreciate it. Coming up, the very odd and very awkward defenses of Donald Trump from his surrogates, we`ll play those ahead. But first, President Obama`s new message to republican about Trump, you own this and have to pay for it. I`ll speak with one of the president`s former speechwriter, Jon Lovett after this two-minute break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
OBAMA: A lot of republican elected official have just stood by. A lot of house members, a lot of senators, they stood by, and they didn`t say anything, because it was a way to rile up their base, and it was a way to mount opposition to whatever we were trying to do. And over time, because a lot of the hardcore republican partisan voters were just hearing this stuff over and over again, they started to believe it. And that`s what allowed Donald Trump to suddenly, they emerge. Donald Trump didn`t build all this crazy conspiracy stuff, and some republicans who knew better, stood by silently, and even during the course of this campaign, didn`t say anything. I mean, I know that some of them now are walking away, but why did it take you this long?
HAYES: That was President Obama speaking earlier today in Cleveland making no bones about blaming republicans for Donald Trump. It was a pretty clear break from the Hillary Clinton`s strategy, at least as this has been up to now, which is primarily paint Trump as an outlier in a product, or an extreme part of the GOP. Joining me now, Jon Lovett, former speechwriter for President Obama. Jon, you know, I have always been struck by how uncomfortable the president seems making partisan arguments. Just making the straight argument that democrats are better than the republicans, he would avoid that almost at all costs, through much of his -- through much of his career except in election mode. In some ways, it makes him a pretty good messenger on this.
JON LOVETT, FORMER SPEECH WRITER OF PRESIDENT OBAMA: Yeah, I mean, you saw the speech today along with what you play. He also got a round of applause for the first amendment and due process. So, it`s not that hard in this election to make a partisan case here when one of your partisan arguments is in favor of the first amendment. But you know, I was thinking about this before we spoke that we`re sort of - you know, sometimes you watch an episode of Chopped, and, you know, somebody undercooked a risotto and somebody overcooked a risotto, and you`re not going to - you`re not really sure what`s going to happen when you lift up the lid?
HAYES: Uh-huh.
LOVETT: We`re now kind of at the point where somebody -- one candidate overcooked a risotto and the other candidate chopped his finger, bled all over the board and the - and the - and the judges can`t eat it because it`s been poisoned. So, you know, we`re kind of at the point where we can, you know, we can go for extra credit here. You know, I think that throughout the convention it was still a time when things are pretty close until you really want to - you really want to draw - you know, drive a wedge between more moderate republicans and Donald Trump. But we`re now at the point where it`s like, "You know what, screw you guys, you nominated this monster, that`s the story, you`re with him, you`re going down with this horrible shit."
HAYES: You know, that is -- I hadn`t thought of it in the Chopped terms or the chopped fingers so much.
LOVETT: I don`t know why you hadn`t. It`s a very obvious analogy.
HAYES: Yes, I mean, it`s what you expect from the straight shooters who`s effective in all sides but -
LOVETT: Absolutely.
HAYES: But you get - you get this sense right that a basically a deal was being offered from the convention up until last week, from Hillary Clinton - and Hillary Clinton, particularly, who couldn`t campaign, and also, I think for the White House, which is, "Reject Donald Trump and we won`t go after you." Right?
LOVETT: Right.
HAYES: If you - if you distance yourself and she tried to separate out Paul Ryan, she tried to separate all these other folks, name dropping them John McCain. And now, it`s like deals` expired. No, you can`t take the deal now, I mean, that`s to me, what the message is.
LOVETT: Oh, well, absolutely, because, you know, that it wasn`t enough. They couldn`t - they weren`t strong enough to run away from this guy when he was a racist and a demagogue and lying left and right for the past year, but there`s no sin like losing. So now, they`ve had enough, and you know what, it`s too little too late. By the way, Paul Ryan it`s not even - he`s still on board. You know, Paul Ryan is still voting for this guy. I mean, how much do you want to cut the top marginal tax rate? You`re going to go along with this genuine monster.
HAYES: Well, here`s my favorite category of republican. These are the four individuals, two senators, two members of congress, who endorsed Donald Trump, unendorsed him after the tape, and then re-endorsed him a few days after, after the tape. Those are Deb Fischer and John Thune, who are in the senate, Nebraskan (INAUDIBLE) ticket and South Dakota, and Bradley Byrne and Scott Garrett. Now, the question is, can any of them go for the very rare unendorsed - endorsed, unendorsed, re-endorse, re-unendorsed, quadruple.
LOVETT: Look, as a matter of personal and moral responsibility, these people can no longer, no longer, no longer, support Donald Trump. I mean, ridiculous. Paul Ryan invented a new category of thing called endorse, but won`t defend, like that`s impressive, like - oh, that settles it, man. What are you doing? This guy - there is - and, you know, I hear all of these people make excuses for Paul Ryan. Oh, he`s in a difficult position. Who cares? There is no excuse for supporting this person. He is terrible, he was terrible before a wave after wave of accusation of sexual assaults. What is going on? And by the way -- and by the way, a lot of these people were like, you know, "I`m going to write in Mike Pence. I`m going to write in - I`m going to write in Huckleberry Finn." you know, really make a point. And it`s like OK, they were equally bad six months ago. And you know, we haven`t learned anything new about Hillary Clinton. You know, Hillary Clinton - you know, who she is, that`s baked into the stock price. Donald Trump every day is a new horror, and still they can`t bring themselves to do the right thing. I`m bothered by it, Chris.
HAYES: Jon, and I can see that but as you remain a straight shooter, and respects on both sides. Jon Lovett, thanks so much.
Coming up, new polling shows Hillary Clinton is statistical tie with Trump in a deep red state one that hasn`t voted for democrats for president in 40 years, up ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MICHELLE OBAMA, UNITED STATES FIRST LADY: This was not just a lewd conversation. This wasn`t just locker-room banter. This was a powerful individual speaking freely and openly about sexually predatory behavior.
HAYES: In fact, in that speech contains to reverberate throughout the presidential campaign. The First Lady`s remarks have already been turned into a new web video for Hillary Clinton as Michelle Obama proves - once again, to be one of the Hillary Clinton`s most effective surrogates. Meanwhile, the Trump`s campaign top surrogate, Mike Pence, was asked this morning to defend his running mate from the First Lady main charge. The Republican Presidential Nominee was speaking openly about sexually predatory behavior.
MIKE PENCE, REPUBLICAN VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don`t understand the basis of her claim. And Donald Trump --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You don`t believe his language was sexually predatory.
PENCE: Well, no, I`ve already spoke about my concerns about the language he used in that 11-year-old video, but what he`s made it clear is that was talk, regrettable talk on his part, but that there were no actions and that he`s categorically denied these latest unsubstantiated allegations.
HAYES: Team Trump deploying a variety of tactics to defend their candidate from invoking grand conspiracies, to suggesting the women accusing Trump of groping them are all liars. And when all else fails, just ask for an interviewer`s microphone to be cut.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you saying that these women are lying?
BEN CARSON, TRUMP CAMPAIGN ADVISOR: That`s your characterization because you need to characterize it that way to try to make me the bad guy.
(CROSSTALK)
CARSON: Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. Hey, can you turn her microphone off, please?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Next, the republican establishment unraveling over Trump continues.
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. PAUL RYAN, (R) WISCONSIN: I know this election has taken some dark, sometimes some very dark turns, which is exactly why I think it is important that we take a step back and reflect on what this election is ultimately all about. Beneath all the ugliness lies a long running debate between two governing philosophies, one in keeping with our nation`s founding principles, like freedom and equality, and another, another that seeks to replace them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Paul Ryan beaming in today from Earth two where the Republican Party has not nominated Donald Trump. House Speaker made no mention of his party`s presidential nominee in a speech and Q&A with college Republicans in Wisconsin earlier and he dodged questions from the press on his way out.
Th headaches that the Republican Party leaders over Trump continues. The New York Times reports key Republican donors are calling on the Republican National Committee to cut ties with Trump and RNC chair Reince Priebus, according to multiple people who talked with The Times, has said he fears adrift, fearing that Trump is headed for disaster and told one longtime associate he was having sleepless nights to which I say welcome to the club, Reince.
Joining me now, former Reagan administration official Linda Chavez, current chairwoman for the Center for Equal Opportunity. Ms. Chavez, I have got to say, the Ryan speech was sort of a fascinating little message in a bottle from an alternate universe. But forget about Trump, it is not even Trump the personality, it is Trump ideologically doesn`t espouse the things that Paul Ryan says the Republican Party stands for.
LINDA CHAVEZ, CENTER FOR EQUAL OPPORTUNITY: Absolutely. I mean, I think it is really quite appalling what is happening within the Republican Party. And I can tell you as somebody who has been a long-lived Republican, somebody who has worked for presidents who are in the Republican Party, who has tried to elect Republican candidates, I am deeply ashamed of what is happening within my party and the lack of courage that is being demonstrated by too many people in the party.
HAYES: Yeah, Brian Boiler (ph) wrote a great piece months ago describing Donald Trump as a Republican Milgram (ph) experiment famous experiment, which is the famous Stanford Laborator experiment where people were brought in. They were told to shock folks, and the actors are acting more and more in pain and the director is telling them to amp it up. And it turns out you can get people to do all sorts of morally odious things because they`re basically taking orders.
And it seems like, you know, at some point there is some moral breaking point you would think for a lot more politicians than there have been.
CHAVEZ: Well, you know, I think part of problem, Chris, is that the Republican leaders are very intimidated by the Trump supporters. And this has been going on since the very beginning, since the primary season when Trump was showing a lot of support among voters that don`t normally show up to Republican primaries, who have not been part of the Republican base. And they were hoping that maybe they could, you know, enliven the debate, get people to come aboard. Well, it didn`t work out well.
But I think what they are really afraid of, is that they are somehow going to be punished. And of course that`s what Trump says all the time. I mean, he has spent as much time attacking the Republican Party in recent days as he has attacking Hillary Clinton.
In fact, we don`t hear a whole lot about Hillary Clinton in this campaign or certainly not about her policies, in part because Trump himself cannot articulate his own policies. I can tell you more about his tax policy, I would venture to say than Donald Trump could tell you.
HAYES: We hear nothing about her policies. I mean, I was just listening to the rally before I came here. I mean, it is corrupt email, all that stuff. But it`s, you know, there is very little on her proposal to fix Obamacare doesn`t work because -- yeah, I mean, that`s not happening.
CHAVEZ: Right.
HAYES: Yeah, please.
CHAVEZ: Well, I just think that it is really, I wrote my first anti-Trump piece for national publication back in July 2015. And I, and it was titled, it was the National Review Online and it was titled "Stop Defending Trump." That message, I still want to shout it loud and clear. They have got to stop defending this man.
HAYES: Do you think there`s long-term damage here? I mean, I watch Mike Pence on CBS this morning, essentially hinting there is going to be a big opo (ph) dump on these women that are accusing him, doing -- essentially being a kind of fixer for Donald Trump. And I can`t imagine that`s going to be erasable from his record.
CHAVEZ: And in fact, what they came up with was blame a Mexican, Carlos Slim (ph), apparently, is their evidence. I mean, you know, if the Chinese aren`t to blame, then the Mexicans are to blame or the international bankers, and I think we all know who they mean by that.
I mean, this is really -- I think there is going to be long-term damage. I have to tell you. I think I was on your show just a few days ago touting Mike Pence as an alternative to Trump. After watching him this week, I`m not so sure. I mean, if he doesn`t have the moral courage to be able to stand up and now with these attacks on the women. And acting as if he possibly couldn`t have attacked them because they`re not attractive enough.
I`ve never seen anything like this. I`ve been in politics 40 years. I have never seen anything like this.
HAYES: Yeah, we have yet to get everyone on the Republican Party on the record about the relative levels of attractiveness and thus plausibility of all the accusers here. Linda Chavez, thank you very much.
CHAVEZ: Thank you.
HAYES: Thank you.
Still to come, is the Trump business suffering amid Donald Trump`s disastrous campaign? But first, tonight`s Thing One, Thing Two starts right after this break.
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HAYES: Thing One tonight, New York City officials say Donald Trump, quote, may have lied about donating to a charity for 9/11 victims. In the weeks after 9/11, Howard Stern urged his fangs to donate to the Twin Towers Fund, and developer Donald Trump who often calls in to Stern`s show, as we`ve learned, kicked in $10,000. Stern personally thanked Trump for his donation when Trump called into his radio show the next month.
But, there isn`t any proof that Donald Trump ever actually made that donation. New York City comptroller reviewed the charity`s records through June 2002 and didn`t find evidence Trump contributed a single cent to the victims or first responders and to our city through the Twin Towers Fund.
New York Daily News, which broke the story, reviewed every form and 990, which provides financial information for non-profit companies or charities for the Donald J. Trump Foundation from 2001 to 2014. There are no donations to the Twin Towers Fund listed. Nothing for the Twin Towers Fund.
But, thanks to the excellent reporting of David Fahrenthold over at The Washington Post. We do know now what grants the Donald J. Trump Foundation did make in the first two years of its existence. Like, if $5,328 charitable contribution to its own lawyers in 1989.
And at least three instances of foundation dollars being spent on pretty clearly personal expenses instead of charity, the gobsmacking incredibly small details. Thing Two in 60 seconds.
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HAYES: So, new insight tonight into just what Donald Trump`s charity has been spending its money on thanks to the dogged work of Washington Post`s David Fahrenthold who got his hands on old Trump Foundation tax filings.
Among the list of donations in 1987, membership to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for $100. As Fahrenthold points out, that`s a dual membership for two people to the Met.
Three months after it started Donald Trump`s foundation seems to have bought something for him. But wait, there`s more. Later in the same year, the Trump Foundation gave a $15 grant to the National Wildlife Federation, that also happened to be the price of an annual membership.
Then two years later, the smallest gift in the history of Trump`s Foundation: in 1989 it gave the Boy Scouts a grant of $7.
Boy Scouts telling David Fahrenthold late today, quote, we can confirm the cost to register with the Boy Scouts of America in October 1989 was $7.
Late last month, the attorney general of New York ordered the Donald J. Trump Foundation to stop fundraising immediately and provide the state with overdue paperwork or risk being, quote, deemed a continuing fraud upon the people of the state of New York.
The deadline for the charity to comply? This Monday.
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TRUMP: Nice hotel, under budget and ahead of schedule, isn`t that nice?
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HAYES: Do you remember that really weird morning when that whole thing happened? It seems like a lifetime ago.
Donald Trump has no qualms about mixing business and politics as he runs for president. It was last month that Trump used his birther press spectacle to hawk his new hotel in Washington, D.C. He held a press conference at a Scotland golf course the day after the Brexit vote, which was bewildering.
He has held multiple campaign events in Mar-a-Lago resort, including the infamous Super Tuesday conference in which Chris Christie looked like a hostage. But it`s unclear if running for president is particularly good for business given how his campaign is going.
The nice hotel Trump was boasting about in D.C. may not be doing so well after all. As New York Magazine puts it, even with a prime location near the White House, swanky interiors and aggressive promotion by the candidate himself, empty rooms have forced the hotel to reduce rates during a peak season.
Well, the break even rate on the hotel room is more than $750 a night. By some estimates, last weekend room could be had for under $500 per night at a time when rival hotels were sold out weeks ahead of time.
Those other hotels were sold out because of the annual World Bank meetings. For Trump`s brand, new hotel to have a vacancy is according to New York Magazine a little like having empty rooms when the Super Bowl was in town.
So Trump`s politics may be hurting his brand and his brand may be hurting Republican politics. There is increasing evidence that Trump may turn red states blue and flip the Senate to Democrats. We`ll talk about that, next.
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HAYES: Well, the short version of the state of the race is that Donald Trump is in big trouble. If you want a window into how dire it has become, here`s two polls showing Trump ahead only our points in Texas within he margin of error.
Texas hasn`t gone to a Democrat in a presidential election since Jimmy Carter in 1976. He is up only 4 points in Indiana, the state in which his running mate is the sitting governor. That`s the lead within the margin of error.
Now, Barack Obama won Indiana narrowly in 2008, but it is normally a solidly red state.
Nationally, Trump is down by nearly 7 points in two-way polling averages. We no longer just have to look at polling data. We can look at data gathered from what is actually happening in the ground in terms of voter registration and early voting.
For instance, the Florida Democratic Party has submitted about 488,000 voter registration forms while Republicans have submitted roughly 60,000, according to state reports.
And data on early voting in seven states, six of which are battleground states, shows the party affiliation of early voters favoring Democrats in five of them.
Democratic Party affiliation of early voters is up in four of those seven states compared to 2012. Though we will get a clearer picture closer to the election.
As has been predicted, the ground operation of the Clinton campaign is so far pretty clearly outperforming the nonexistent one of the Trump campaign.
Joining me now Sabrina Siddiqui, political reporter for The Guardian. And Hari Sevugan. He`s former national press secretary for the Democratic National Committee principal at 270 Strategies.
And Hari, let me start with you, because you know this stuff really well. What`s jumping out to you about the sort of both the combination of the early data we have and the polling data right now about the state of where things are?
HARI SEVUGAN, 270 STRATEGIES: Well, the state of where things are is Donald Trump needs to expand the map, and instead it`s shrinking on him, right. So if we`re looking at Texas, the poll that you pointed out, Indiana is within the margin error. Utah is tied. I mean, Utah hasn`t gone for a Democrat since Lyndon Johnson.
And there`s a real possibility that Donald Trump comes in third. What`s really jumping out at me that I saw today was that Baldwin and Wallace (ph) poll in Ohio where Hillary is now up four and Ohio had been pretty for Tump until the last two or three weeks where seven out of nine polls have now swung to Hillary.
But really the movement in that poll came from his coalition. You know, a month ago when he was up 17 with men in this Baldwin and Wallace (ph) poll he`s only up 3. A month ago he was up 20 with independents. He is now down 8. He`s only getting 70 percent of the Republican support. So he is losing the coalition that was holding him together even in really close swing states.
HAYES: And that actually segues, Sabrina, to one of the interesting dynamics in terms of the Senate map, which is STrump is losing part of his coalition as the presidential candidate, but that doesn`t mean they`re falling away from the Senate races.
So you see very close races there, even you have got the senate candidate outperforming Trump in New Hampshire where the incumbent Kelly Ayotte is still up about 2 points, Richard Burr in North Carolina up about 2 points, Katie McGinty is tied with Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania there.
And even Wisconsin, which people thought would be a blowout is very close.
So, so far Republicans are managing to essentially hold their own against the downward pressure of the last week of Trump news. Do you think that`s going to last, Sabrina?
SABRINA SIDDIQUI, THE GUARDIAN: Well, it`s a little early to say. I think as you just pointed out there are some Republicans Senate incumbents in particular who have been successful at running these parallel races, where they focused more on their own states and kept the comfortable distance from Donald Trump and it`s worked.
But we don`t yet have the information for the real impact of not just the tape with the comments he made bragging about assaults and women, but also now these accusers coming forward and actually saying that Donald Trump sexually assaulted them, we don`t have any polling to see if there`s been any shift since then.
I think what Republicans need to be concerned about in these races is given how competitive some of them are, one is what is the likelihood that undecided voters break to Hillary Clinton. Certainly, they`re more likely to break to her at this point than Donald Trump, which means that those voters could follow on the Senate ticket or the House tickets as well. As well as what`s the likelihood that the turnout is suppressed among Republicans given this civil war that`s broken out between Donald Trump and members of his own party.
HAYES: Yeah, Hari, I wonder what you think about what the floor here is, right? So, I keep sort of generally, it`s been my feeling of the equilibrium of the race essentially we be between McCain and Romney. That partisan polarization is such a powerful gravitational force it will keep pulling the race in that direction.
And that any major party nominee`s floor is essentially 40 percent. Donald Trump seems intent on testing that. What is your sense of what that floor can be, you know, if he stays in this kind of us against the world mode?
SEVUGAN: Yeah. I don`t doubt that`s true, sort of in the support number. But what I`m really interested in is the turnout number.
Can he actually turn these people out.
So even in the senate races where if I were a Republican Senate candidate, what I would be concerned about is not just undecideds slipping, because that`s absolutely true, because there`s pressure there. But are people going to turn out because there`s no operation? You know, if the RNC is pausing on their victory fund in the wake of these revelations, that has huge consequences for Senate campaigns as well as for Trump.
HAYES: Yeah, and Sabrina, that`s one thing we`ve seen. I mean, I think that all throughout the fluctuations of the polling -- Robbie Mook, who is the campaign manager on the Clinton side is a veteran of the sort of Obama organizing world. It`s something they have put a tremendous of effort, pride, investment in. You can see pictures of Robbie making calls in Colorado.
This is something they know how to do even when polling was bad for their candidate, say, after the two weeks after 9/11.
SIDDIQUI: That`s what`s so critical here. It is not just that the Clinton campaign has such a substantial ground game and certainly unlike anything that Donald Trump has. Now, you have certain resources being pulled back from Donald Trump potentially. Republicans wanting to invest those in these down ballot races to preserve their majorities. And also there is no operation to really save him when he is in fact failing.
I think that`s why you see him trying to already frame the narrative of a potential loss, all of this talk where he is saying the polls are rigged, you know, the media is conspiring with the Clinton campaign and the Republican establishment to defeat him. That is really Donald Trump actually acknowledging that he is losing and trying to define that ahead of time, which is terrifying, because who knows what kind of a revolt that might cause come November 8.
HAYES: Hari, quickly. There is some case being made the tramp people are like we`re going to make this as nasty as possible so that we depress Democratic voter turnout. What do you think about that approach?
SEVUGAN: I think that`s been the Republican strategy for a while. I think people are going to turn out. I think people understand the stakes in this election. And I`ll just add, I think -- I agree, Trump is trying to set up his loss here, but really it`s for Trump TV. And, you know, I think the plan going forward is really going to be to set up his future business enterprises, not his political future.
HAYES: Yeah, that`s increasingly the way it is looking, although who knows. There are so many twists and turns thus far. I have no idea what tomorrow will bring.
Sabrina Siddiqui, Hari Sevugan, thank you very much. That is All In for this evening. The Rachel Maddow show starts right now. Good evening, Rachel.
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