Show: ALL IN with CHRIS HAYES Date: January 20, 2017 Guest: Lynn Sweet, Sabrina Saddiqui, Tim Carney, Steve Schmidt; Michael Moore
KATY TUR, MSNBC HOST: And what sort of executive orders they`re going to be? Anyway, he`s going to come to the ball. We`ll see him here and we`ll see his first dance. Chris, thanks.
CHRIS MATTHEWS, MSNBC HOST: You`re the best, Katy Tur. Who know this is guy well, and has covered him to the point he can`t stand it anymore. Anyway, that`s HARDBALL for now. Thanks for being with us, join me for a special and some HARDBALL tomorrow night. Saturday night we`re on at 7:00, you might as well watch we`re going it. We`re going to cover women`s event all day tomorrow, it`s going to be exciting, lots of great guests going. "ALL IN" with Chris Hayes, starts right now.
CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST: Good evening, on this inauguration day from Washington D.C. I`m Chris Hayes, and there`s a lot happening at this very hour. We have Inauguration Ball is now getting under way, as protests continue in the streets. We`ll be checking in on all of that throughout the hour and bring you live events as it occurs. We begin tonight, of course, with what is by any measure a historic event in the life of this nation.
The inauguration of Donald J. Trump as the President of the United States. An inauguration day that looked very different than what we saw for now former President Obama eight years ago, the streets in this city where Trump got just four percent of the vote -- much emptier. This image posted by VOX, shows the 2009 inauguration of now former President Obama on the left, and Trump`s inauguration where there on the right with far fewer spectators.
The crowd estimated to be about one-third the size of Obama`s and while there were thousands upon thousands of jubilant Trump supporters on the streets, it was impossible not to notice row after row, nearly empty bleachers along the route of the inaugural parade. There`re also thousands of protesters, the vast majority of whom were peaceful, although, some windows got broken and limos smashed and lit on fire. They of course, were there in larger numbers than eight years ago, and there is a huge protest march still to come tomorrow.
There`re also scenes of violence among the protesters I noted, some of whom clashed with police. We have reports of arrests in D.C. and also in San Francisco which is one of many cities that at this hour or during the day are having their own marches. But the biggest difference on this inauguration day was tone. Compared to the optimism of President Obama eight years ago, President Trump offered a far darker vision of America; one awash in drugs, crime, and poverty.
As Washington Post`s graphic lists, words Trump said for the first time in any U.S. inaugural address, "bleed, carnage, disrepair, sad, stolen, tombstones."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This American carnage stops right here, and stops right now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Meanwhile, President Trump is now signing things as the President of these United States. This is video from inside the Oval Office within the last hour, Trump signing confirmation papers for Defense Secretary Mattis; Homeland Security Director Kelly. Also, according to White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, an executive order and I quote here, "to ease the burden of Obamacare pending repeal". Although, and I have to stress this, we have literally no idea what that means. We are hoping for more details and information.
Joining me now; Lynn Sweet, Washington Bureau Chief of the Chicago Sun- Times; Sabrina Siddiqui, Political Reporter at The Guardian; and Tim Carney, Senior Political Columnist at The Washington Examiner. You can see one of the inaugural balls there on the left of your screen. We are expecting at some point of this evening, the President and the First Lady will make an appearance at one of those balls. Lynn, I imagine you`ve covered a number of these, and I`ve been to everyone I realized since 2000 -- since 2000 and all the way through. What struck you today?
LYNN SWEET, CHICAGO SUN-TIMES WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF: What struck me today besides the small crowds, besides -- I mean, it was great get on the subway on it. What struck me was in the speech itself certainly the lack of strong aspirational tone. What struck me was the inability it seems with Trump to find any way of unifying people. This is number six for me, inauguration, I think since `97. And usually, people go away saying, "Well, I didn`t vote for him but I kind of got something out of that speech." And I don`t think -- unless, you know, he`s so much talk to his base, Chris, I don`t know how -- I`ve never been to an inauguration -- to answer your question most crisply -- where there was not a message to the people who did not vote for the new President.
HAYES: I have to say, it didn`t surprise me for this reason, and I agree with that basically. It was similar to the RNC speech.
SWEET: Yes.
HAYES: I remember getting an early copy of the text of the RNC speech, I`m thinking, this is his first opportunity, right, he`s going to be the nominee?
SWEET: Yes.
HAYES: You`ve won the primary, typically that`s a speech where you kind of try to sort of shift some of the rhetoric and it wasn`t. It was -- it was -- it was much like this inauguration speech. This is what the vision is.
SWEET: The ending -- The ending of the speech was similar to what he had. Right? That`s the point. Yes.
HAYES: And, you know, but if you`re him that worked.
TIM CARNEY, THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER SENIOR POLITICAL COLUMNIST: But he wasn`t -- he wasn`t speaking to you.
HAYES: No. So -- well, that`s clear.
CARNEY: And so -- but it wasn`t an ideological at all. It was less ideological I think than W., and it was less ideological than Obama. In other words, because it was more populist, it was more the people versus Washington. This wasn`t a conservative speech by any stretch of the imagination.
HAYES: No. It was nationalist.
(CROSSTALK)
CARNEY: It was nationalist, it was populist.
HAYES: Which I would note is an ideology.
(CROSSTALK)
CARNEY: You expected him to -- at the end of the speech to say, "and everybody come over to the White House for a kegger." It was a --
HAYES: Yes, they hence the Andrew Jackson.
CARNEY: It was against Washington, and so it wasn`t for you but it was for those people in Michigan and Pennsylvania who were the swing voters.
SABRINA SIDDIQUI, THE GUARDIAN POLITICAL REPORTER: And you have to remember that Donald Trump specifically said as a candidate that this is a Republican Party, not the Conservative Party. So, I think that as far as his Republican critics in Washington are concerned, this did very little to alleviate some of the reservations that they might have about how he might govern; how he might --
HAYES: There was not.
(CROSSTALK)
SIDDIQUI: -- republican control in Congress. Because it could very much represent the beginning of a dramatic shift within the Republican Party and also, you know, you have to remember, Donald Trump very much caters to perceptions and I think that this speech, as Lynn said, it was intended for his supporters and it was very much an indictment of all of the people who were sitting on that stage with him because that is at -- that is what he campaigned on. No one should be surprised because we keep looking for this pivot and Donald Trump has made it clear there`s going to be no pivot.
HAYES: No. No.
SWEET: No, I would not repeat for a pivot.
HAYES: What I think is interest is that there was not a drop of Ryan-ism or Pence-ism in that speech.
CARNEY: Yes. He could not cater two of the very --
HAYES: In fact, very little -- very little about God the almighty. I mean, there is a -- passive reference. No, but I`m serious like, inaugurations tend to get pretty, you know, virtually about God. Like, and there was very little of that. There was -- there was -- I don`t think, you know, the idea of freedom, even the word freedom not --
CARNEY: Yes.
HAYES: There are a lot of free markets, things like that. This was the full Bannon nationalist populism.
SWEET: No. But I was looking for -- and I understand that in a speech like this, we don`t want policy, you don`t want politics. I think for his own governing ability, though, I would have thrown in something that just doesn`t leave everybody as polarized now as we can. Now, Kellyanne -- you know, Conway gave an interview where she said, "Well, I think this is going to be aspirational and all of this." I could see where there were some attempts at it, but it didn`t even come close.
HAYES: I will say this to Tim`s point. I do think, you know, I do think it was effective to a certain -- you know, the idea that -- of the bleakness --
SWEET: Yes.
HAYES: -- that he paint the picture of. For people that feel like things are bleak, I think that`s pretty effective.
SIDDIQUI: That`s a Michigan, that`s a Pennsylvania Democrat. That`s not the Washington D.C. Democrat.
SWEET: OK. But here is the big question. I just have a big question here. On that quote that everyone is using, let`s listen to the whole thing. American -- everyone`s seizing on carnage, carnage. He said it`s going to end now. Now.
HAYES: And this is -- this is to me the big difference is the bar.
SWEET: Actually, how you`re going to do it? And when you`re going to do it?
HAYES: I want to bring in for a second -- I want to bring in Republican Strategist MSNBC Contributor, Steve Schmidt. And Steve, I thought I wanted to talk to you about the foreign policy aspects of the speech because in some ways, the most sort of remarkably radical parts of the speech I think had to do with the way that he talked about his vision for what the kind of international order of Trump-ism looks like, and it -- I think, and maybe I`m curious what you think, a pretty radical departure from where things are.
STEVEN SCHMIDT, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: An absolutely radical departure from the post-Cold War and the post-World War II consensus amongst Democrats and Republicans. About the primacy of the United States as the guarantor of a liberal international rules-based order, that has largely preserved and kept the peace after the catastrophe that killed 80 million people in the - - in the second world war.
American foreign policy has always been values based, and when he talks today about all nations have the right to pursue their interests as they see those interests, that`s going to be greeted with cheers in Beijing and Moscow. That is their point when they push back about America`s assertion of values across the -- across the world. And so, I think it`s a speech that sent shivers down the spine of our European allies. And I think it was gratifying to some other leaders like Vladimir Putin for instance.
HAYES: Yes, and you know, I should say that there`s a lot of people around the world who believe those American values have been honored in the breach a lot. I just (INAUDIBLE) -- as a -- as a sort of addition to the context to that. But you`re totally right, I mean, particularly, Tim, you mentioned this, the second inaugural of George W. Bush, which was basically that -- as long as there`s any person anywhere in the world who isn`t free, that America`s goal is to liberate them. It was unbelievably sweeping.
CARNEY: And I just -- I just remembered listening to that second inaugural and just thinking, this was the most ideological speech I`d ever heard. Where Bush was just laying out this vision that came straight out of sort of Washington D.C., think tank talking points, and it wasn`t the way Americans felt. Americans don`t feel, oh, well, I want to make sure the Saudi`s are living according to Madisonian principles. And that one of the things Trump has done is he`s taken this Republican Party, the ideology, a lot of which I subscribe to and said, "Nope, we`re not going to go there, we`re going to tie we`re going to tie to this populist thing." And I thought today`s speech reflected that populism, including on the international levels.
HAYES: Sabrina and then Steve, I want to come to you with another question.
SIDDIQUI: When it comes to the populism, one of the compelling themes of Donald Trump`s presidency will also be the narrative that he constructs around himself through the kind of rhetoric that you heard today, which then you`ll have someone like Mike Pence behind the scenes and some of the people he appoints to his cabinet. You know, go a different way working with Congress to potentially keep somewhere of the Republican orthodoxy in place. Because a lot of it has to do with Donald Trump, again, creating the perception that he`s doing what promised he would do. Creating the perception that he`s bringing back jobs, so all he needs to do from his -- he`s a, you know, very media savvy. He just needs to keep his supporters pacified through, I think, he believes speeches like he went on the victory tour through tweets. And make them believe that he is doing what he said he would do.
HAYES: Right.
SIDDIQUI: We still don`t know, of course, the extent to which he`ll carry out a lot of what he`s promised.
HAYES: And this connects to something that Lynn said about promises. He made a lot of promises today. In fact, he said, he was going to eradicate radical Islamic terrorism from the face of the earth. Now, Steve, I went back and I looked at -- I looked at Barack Obama`s 2009 inauguration. What`s interesting about that as a document is, all the hope and change rhetoric, that was actually a very kind of, clear-eyed speech that was very much like it`s going to be really hard and we face a lot of challenges. It was an attempt to ratchet down almost explicitly expectations. Today, Donald Trump promised the world.
SCHMIDT: No, he sure did. And, look, he`s going to be held to measure on that. You know, three times in the last 100 years, the President`s party has won seats, gained seats in the first midterm election. Structurally, the system is set up, usually that the incumbent party loses seats. You know, we will not be too far from now, talking about the midterm elections; not too long from now, we`ll have some early indications about the start of the next presidential contest and all of this is down for the record now.
I do think, Chris, that one of the things we saw today and that the panel is talking about, is the reality that we functionally now have three parties in Washington. We have a Trump party which is nationalist and populist, we have a Republican Party that`s a conservative party, and we have a Democratic Party. And so, the issues in the coalitions that will form around issues like infrastructure where republicans are not warm to spending a trillion dollars on infrastructure.
The ideological pursuits of a Paul Ryan, who wants to privatize Medicare and Medicaid is likely not to be signed by a President Trump, because he`s base won`t like that. And so, you have a Republican Congress that`s not going to be warm to Donald Trump`s idea of the imposition of 35 percent tariffs on automobiles made outside of the -- outside of the country. So, this coalition will be very interesting to watch as it starts to function in a governing capacity.
HAYES: This is -- that`s a great point, Steve Schmidt. Thank you for your time tonight. It was great to talk to you. And it tees up perfectly the point I want to get into which is what happened today on the governing side? Because some stuffs already happened, I have a document here. And that difference, that distance between Bannon Trump-ism and Ryan-ism, and Pence-ism and what that means for what the government actually does?
We will -- that`s the Liberty Ball there, that you see on your left. We`re expecting that at some point tonight the President and First Lady of the United States of America to come in there and maybe say some words, and dance, and celebrate as the revelers are celebrating the 45th President of the United States, sworn in today at noon. Lynn Sweet, Sabrina Siddiqui, and Tim Carney are going to stick around and you are too. Don`t go anywhere.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: It is inauguration night. That is the Liberty Ball that you`re seeing on the left. That`s a footage from earlier today. The President and First Lady when they got out of that motorcade, out of the limousine, in the Presidential motorcade and walked for a bit along that parade route and that is a live shot of the gorgeous nation`s capital.
Tonight, we are expecting the President and First Lady will be showing up for a dance at some point. Obviously, we got our eyes on that, lots going on. So, I still have with me Lynn Sweet, Sabrina Siddiqui and Tim Carney.
I now have in front of me the first Executive Order -- it appears, signed by the President. And I guess the second -- I don`t know if the official Patriots Day Commemoration counts as one. So, this is minimizing the economic burden of the patient of the Affordable Care Act and I should say it looks like a tremendously sweeping document. So, I`m going to quote one section for you that gives you a sense of it.
"To the maximum extent permitted by law," and that clause will be very important "Secretary of HHS, heads of all other Executive Departments and agencies with authorities and responsibilities under the act, shall exercise all authority and discretion available for them to waive, defer, grant exemptions from or delay the implementation of any provision or requirement of the act that would impose a fiscal burden on a state or a cost, fee, tax, penalty or regulatory burden on individuals, families, health care providers, health insurance, patient recipients," et cetera, et cetera.
Now, the key thing here about this paragraph is everything after to the maximum extent permitted by law is basically, you can do whatever you want. The question is what does the law abide?
CARNEY: Well -- but this law had a thousand clauses that said the Secretary shall, the Secretary shall, the Secretary shall. So some of that went through sort of more formal rulemaking process.
CARNEY: Right.
HAYES: But some of that went through less -- a less extensive rulemaking process. --
SWEET: OK. But here`s the thing, though, because I`m reading this, too. And the goal here is to -- you have the power, Tim, now, if you were a executive and now remember, there`s no political appointees in place, so I`m not sure who for the short term --
HAYES: This is a good question.
(CROSSTALK)
CARNEY: I cannot answer the question.
SWEET: The HHS Secretary designate has not been confirmed.
HAYES: I should just be clear. This is -- this is the first Executive Order that`s been signed by the President of the United States. --
SWEET: Right --
HAYES: It is -- it has -- we are -- its text has been released. It was signed by the President in the Oval Office earlier today. It is titled, "Minimizing the Economic Burden of the Affordable Care Act."
SWEET: Anything that deals with your critical health, safety, financial or national security matters or the great one, it says here, for some other reason.
HAYES: Right. So I mean, the point here, though, to me, is that, this is A, going to be litigated; B, this is the opening battle in what will be the first and biggest battle on the Hill.
SWEET: But because --
HAYES: The Affordable Care Act.
SWEET: Actually, before we get -- just so our listeners know. The bill, as Tim said, being so complex that meant that the -- a lot of the regulations, most of them, the guts of it, was really subject to interpretation and rulemaking by the Department of Health and Human Services. It didn`t even necessarily have to every dot and T-crossed didn`t get done by Congress even with all those 4,000 pages. So this is a law where the guts are dealing with it are so much done by HHS --
HAYES: Yes.
SWEET: -- and the regulations. That`s why this is important. And so, when you`re talk about litigation, you know, step one, let`s get to someone in there with the power to even do something, whatever it is.
HAYES: We don`t know who -- I don`t know who the head of the HHS is as of this moment.
SWEET: Right, so nothing`s going to happen today or tomorrow. Really people, there are people that think, great, I have a problem, this can`t affect you in the next week or two. You have to get the people in place but moreover, they have to still -- I think have some process eventually with -- you can`t have -- waiver everything forever, right?
SIDDIQUI: I think -- and this is -- this is obviously with respect to the Health Care Law as you said, the biggest and most immediate debate confronting Congress. And I think that the challenge facing Republicans in particular is after all these years and of course, all these vows to repeal and replace Obamacare, there still isn`t consensus within the party, within elected officials in Washington on a path forward.
so you have one camp that is saying, just repeal it entirely day one, that was the vow. You have the other camp that`s saying repeal, and then have a two-year process to come up with a replacement. So, it wouldn`t immediately phase out. And then you have to third saying, we shouldn`t repeal it unless we have a replacement lined up. And we`re still waiting for that replacement plan.
(CROSSTALK)
CARNEY: As an actual matter from a regulatory point of view, the amount of work that the Obama Administration put into building any individual rule --
SWEET: Yes.
CARNEY: -- that`s the amount of work roughly it takes to dismantle it. --
HAYES: Right, right, right --
CARNEY: So a lot of Republicans hope and a lot of Democrats fear that Trump can undo it with a stroke of a pen, --
SWEET: Right.
CARNEY: But no. It will take months. It will take a process. --
(CROSSTALK)
SWEET: I would hate to leave here without this. What is this executive order going to do to the insurance market? If you are running an insurance company right now and you`re trying to price policies, I don`t think, OK.
CARNEY: I`m glad that you`re really worried about Aetna and Blue Cross/Blue Shield because they deserve our sympathy, too.
SWEET: No, no. I think what you deserve is an orderly transition to market. I am a health consumer. We all are with our policies. You don`t want somebody to jack up your price because now they don`t know what the future holds.
HAYES: The fear --- the fear here and the -- and the difficulty is controlled demolition, essentially.
SWEET: Right.
HAYES: And pulling out a piece of the Jenga tower before things are in place -- and this is part of the problem they face with repeal and replace. It`s part of the idea that if you start sending signals into this market that then get --
(CROSSTALK)
CARNEY: Well, and this is actually one of my criticisms of Trump is that he tries to make a distinction between words and action and he doesn`t realize that now that he`s a President, his words are --
HAYES: Words are --
CARNEY: -- action. ---
HAYES: Well, this is -- this is both and this is the -- again, at this hour tonight, this is the first executive order and it is to go after Obamacare. It`s not surprising given the campaign that we`ve had and the campaign rhetoric that we`ve had over the last few years. Once we --
SWEET: And Obama`s first one was the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.
HAYES: That is true. Lynn Sweet, Sabrina Siddiqui, Tim Carney, thank you for your time tonight. We will continue our coverage of the inauguration events as they happen. This hour, there are balls happening all over the city tonight, much celebrating by supporters of the new 45th President of the United States. Much more to come, including Michael Moore. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: Earlier today, I caught up with documentary filmmaker, Michael Moore at a gathering of protesters at the McPherson Square here in Washington, D.C. Of course, hundreds of thousands headed here for the woman`s march tomorrow. Moore told me what he thinks about the protest movement, it`s political power and what protesters can expect from the new administration.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MICHAEL MOORE, DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKER: They`re dejected today? Wait until Tuesday. Wait until they`ve had a couple days to sign executive order after executive order or pass laws. They`re going to pass laws. Watch what they`ll do. They`ll try to pass these by voice vote. I mean, that`s how fast they`ll try to push stuff through and I think a lot of people on my side are going to be like, "Wait. What`s going on?" and it`s like, yes, here`s what`s going on. The people that lost, won. and now, they`re in power and they have the legal ability to do whatever that -- what they want.
HAYES: So then, how do you stop that?
MOORE: Well, we`re not going to stop it. We are not going to be able to stop a lot of it. There is going to -- honestly, this is -- let`s be honest. There`s going to be a political slaughter over the next week or two. I mean, that`s just -- that`s just the fact of it. People are going to be hurt. I mean, I`m talking about groups of people by the laws that they pass and the executive orders that he signs. But in the end, we should be able to form the majority that we are, to resist, stand up, and fight back. Let me give you a small example --
HAYES: Yes.
MOORE: Because we did a dry run of this two weeks ago. So on the night before Congress comes back into session, the Republicans vote in secret to eliminate the office of ethics. And the next morning, Kellyanne Conway goes on the "Today Show", on "Good Morning America," 7:00, 8:00 in the morning to --- to basically endorse what the Republicans have done in eliminating the office of ethics. I and others, immediately, 8:00, 8:30, went on Facebook and Twitter to say, "Everybody call your member of Congress right now. 202-225-3121, call and say absolutely not, you`re not going to close this office." And in the words of many of the members I have spoken to since, they called in those -- that hour or two and an avalanche of phone calls, the switch board was jammed, people in Congress couldn`t talk to each other because the phones were tied up with so many thousands of citizens calling.
By 10:07, Trump tweets, okay. Now remember, Kellyanne Conway is at 8:00 saying, "Will you support closing the office?"
HAYES: I like that you have the tick-tock down.
MOORE: Yes well, thanks to twitter it`s right there. It`s there for history. 10:07 -- 10:07, he tweets, "Yes, maybe we shouldn`t close the office of ethics today. We have other more important business to do." I think that since the election, between the election and now -- look, I mean, he got 46 percent of the vote. His approval rating today is 38 percent. What happened to at least 8 percent of his support, you know? I think there`s a lot of buyers` remorse. I know that for a fact that because I live in Michigan.
HAYES: Yes.
MOORE: And I know people that twice voted for Obama and voted for Trump. So they don`t like Trump, they didn`t vote for him liking Trump, they`re just so angry that they have been ignored. if you`re living in Flint, Michigan you`re still drinking poison water. You`re still very angry, as you should be and you really hate them all. And so Trump, because of the way everybody was like, "Oh, my god this will be the end of the world if Trump is president", they`re like, "Oh, okay, end of the world? Yes? Well, come see what we`re living here in Flint, Michigan. You want to see end of the world? I`m voting for Trump."
So I knew what was going on there. I don`t excuse that because -- because -- but I understand that their anger and their despair over road their understanding that by voting for a racist, and voting for a misogynist, means that they`re supporting that. As much as they`ll say I`m not -- and they aren`t. I don`t believe they are.
HAYES: But do you think that would? What`s key there when you talk about eight percent?
MOORE: Yes.
HAYES: Is it people can conflate his hard core supporters -- the kind of people that would travel across the country to be here for the inauguration.
MOORE: Yes.
HAYES: Those marginal voters, right? The reason he won was the second category, right? The folks -- the folks who have voted for Obama and Trump, right?
MOORE: Right.
HAYES: The folks in Kenosha, Wisconsin --
MOORE: Correct.
HAYES: Right? And you think those people -- you think those are gettable people and they`re gettable through kind of thing?
MOORE: He`s already getting them for us. He`s our best organizer.
(END VIDEOTAPE)0
HAYES: Michael Moore, earlier today. You can see some live footage of protests still happening throughout the city. There was protests all day -- most of it non-violent, some of it property destruction. Some police officers, according to local police departments, sustained a few minor injuries. A limo broken and set on fire. Huge amount of people coming in tomorrow, hundreds of thousands. Images all-day of planes packed with folks coming in to town for the women`s march. We are going to talk about how folks are planning to resist after this break. Don`t go away.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: All right, we are anticipating the president to appear at the Liberty ball at some point tonight and despite the president saying, quote, "we are going to have an unbelievable, perhaps record-setting turnout for the inauguration" there were, as we pointed out earlier,plenty of people who were not there, including close to 70 Democrats who decided to forgo the festivities. One of those lawmakers is Maryland congressman Jamie Raskin, initially Congressman Raskin assumed he would go just to witness the peaceful transition of power and, quote, "set aside my grave concerns about Trump`s bizarre provocations."
But then, he released a statement that read in part "as the hour approaches I realize I cannot bring myself to go. These are not normal times. I cannot pretend as if they are. I will not attend the inauguration."
Joining me here in Washington is Congressman Jamie Raskin from nearby Maryland. Good to have you on set.
What was the change of heart?
REP. JAMIE RASKIN, (D) MARYLAND: Well, I was a state senator in Maryland for ten years and I went to Republican Governor Hogan`s inauguration and I felt it was the right thing to do because I felt that his oath meant something. Donald Trump`s oath of office means nothing. He has nothing but disdain for the rule of law and the constitution. He refuses to divest himself of his corporate concerns all over the world that are doing business with foreign governments, continues to collect millions of dollars, presumably, from the Trump Hotel, which is renting out space every single night this weekend and through the weeks to foreign governments and foreign embassies. He`s on a collision course with the emoluments clause and the whole governmental administration looks like a money-making operation to me despite the fact that he said he`s going to put America first, he`s putting the Trump family first.
HAYES: I will point out something that I found interesting today. We, of course, saw the press conference in which he announced the plan to move ownership to his sons. It was denounced by bipartisan ethics experts as insufficient.
RASKIN: Control of the sons, not ownership.
HAYES: Yeah, control, right, exactly. Good point.
And I should say that the transfer of his biggest companies -- Trump has to file a long list of documents in Florida, Delaware and New York. Propublica asked officials of each of those states whether they`d received the paperwork. As of 3:15 p.m. today, the officials said they have not.
Point being, we don`t know if he`s taken even the steps that he has announced he would.
RASKIN: Even the completely inadequate steps that he claimed he was going to do.
No, we`ll get those filings at the same time that we get his tax returns, I think.
HAYES: What about the idea of the importance of the peaceful transfer of power, the observance of it. Obviously, you know, I heard people say, look, if Hillary Clinton can go, anyone can go of anyone that would find it difficult to be there. What do you--
RASKIN: All I know is when I watched that speech, which was the meanest, most low-down insulting inaugural address in American history, I mean, deeply divisive and offensive to the Obamas, I felt completely vindicated by it, and nobody gave me a hard time afterwards. I mean, most of my constituents were very happy that I wasn`t going. I was hearing from right wingers all over the country. After the speech, nobody was complaining anymore.
People understood. I mean, we are -- these are abnormal times. In normal times, people go to each other`s inaugurations regardless of political party. The problems with Donald Trump go way beyond partisanship. I mean, the man, he acts as though he`s completely oblivious to the constitution, to the rule of law, and he -- there`s an erratic and deranged quality to the things he says and does.
This is a very scary moment for the American republic.
HAYES: What are you going to do about that as a member of congress in the minority?
RASKIN: Well, I`m on the house oversight and government reform committee, and I`m on the House Judiciary Committee, and so we need to get the facts about what all of these business entanglements are around the world.
HAYES: Can I ask you quickly this, you`re on the house oversight and government reform committee, I want to ask you about an Instagram that Jason Chaffetz posted in which he`s shaking the hand of Hillary Clinton. He said, "I`m so glad she`s not president." He said one more thing. He said the investigation continues.
He`s going to continue to investigate Hillary Clinton.
RASKIN: I mean, this is like a parallel universe, right? I mean, here we have the intelligence agencies of the United States saying that there was a conscious campaign directed by Vladimir Putin to undermine Hillary Clinton, to benefit Donald Trump and to subvert American democracy, and they want to go back and relitigate the Benghazi investigation, which they`ve spent tens of millions of dollars on and nothing has ever come of it.
HAYES; All right, Congressman Jamie Raskin, a new congressman just has joined. This is his first term from nearby Maryland.
RASKIN: My first time on your show, too.
HAYES: It`s good to have you here.
RASKIN: Thanks so much.
HAYES: All right, much more coming tonight as we continue to follow both the protests that are happening live at this hour in Washington, D.C., they have been going on all day and also the balls, the inaugural balls, the traditional balls that celebrate the inauguration of the new president. We are awaiting the president and the first lady. They will be on at some point we believe. Don`t go anywhere.
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HAYES: Last night, on the eve of Donald Trump`s inauguration as the 45th president, the New York Times dropped a major scoop. I got a push notification on it on my phone reporting that, and I quote here, American law enforcement and intelligence agencies are examining intercepted communications and financial transactions as part of a broad investigation into possible links between Russian officials and associates of Trump`s, including his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
And Manafort denies having any ties to Russian officials or the Russian government, but this is the latest in a string of reports indicating that while the FBI was probing Hillary Clinton`s email server it was also at the same time investigating members of Donald Trump`s campaign and crucially it only discussed one of those investigations in public.
I`m joined -- after a quick break, we`re going to talk to Matthew Rosenberg. He`s the national security reporter for The New York Times. He will be with us right after this break.
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This has been the privilege of my life and I know I speak for Michelle as well and we look forward to continuing this journey with all of you. And I can`t wait to see what you do next and I promise you I`ll be right there with you, all right?
God bless you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: All right, President Obama addressed service members at joint Base Andrews today for his final flight aboard a presidential aircraft bound for vacation in Palm Springs, California. Vice President Joe Biden and his wife headed home to Delaware directly after the inauguration service taking Amtrak, Biden`s legendarily preferred mode of transportation throughout his Senate career and VP term.
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JOE BIDEN, FORMER. VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Hey, guys. Back on Amtrak.
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HAYES: All right. That is live coverage of the Liberty Ball where we expect the president and the first lady.
I just told you about that report in The New York Times that there is an active investigation by the FBI and other intelligence and law enforcement agencies, they ran that, they published it of the night last night before the president was inaugurated today. And I`m joined now by Matthew Rosenberg who is the national security reporter for the New York Times, one of the people wrote that story.
Matthew, why -- how can I ask this. There have been scattered reports pointing in this direction. What do we now know about the nature of this investigation?
MATTHEW ROSENBERG, NEW YORK TIMES: You know, we know that they`ve got intercepted communications that are what clued them into this, and exactly the nature of those communication, we`re not entirely sure. We believe they were first intercepted on the Russian end, so these were Russians talking either to people directly involved who were the subject of the investigations or to thirty parties talking about what they were possibly doing with these people and that that kind of got this going. But it really is a confluence of a number of investigations that have all come together sort of over the last few months. And I think one of the things to keep in mind here is that these investigations, these counterintelligence investigations, which are looking into people who are trying to potentially curry favor, influence policies, steal secrets, the bar for opening these things is exceedingly low, and prosecutions are very rare.
So we`re still in this weird place where we don`t really know what they have.
This is also a part of the FBI and part of the intelligence community that doesn`t leak that much, which is why this stuff can be hard to find out.
HAYES: So, that`s really important. So, you say the bar to open such an investigation is low, prosecutions are relatively rare, but what we do know is the FBI at least was actively engaged in one of these investigations prior to election day, that is to say while the campaign was happening.
ROSENBERG: Yes.
HAYES: And also obviously investigating Hillary Clinton, but we did find out about the later.
ROSENBERG: We did.
HAYES: Right.
And I think -- and I -- we should be clear what you said about the leaks, right, you had Director Comey who was speaking on the record, but there are also leaks about -- coming out of the FBI a lot about possible Clinton investigations. Can I read you -- this is a little bit weird, but I thought it interesting, your own public editor today basically asking if your paper, you, The New York Times, were too late in running this story, essentially should this have been something that ran before the election perhaps, since it looks like the investigation was then. The idea you only publish once every piece of information is fully vetted is a false construct. What`s your response to that?
ROSENBERG: I think if we were confident that we knew they were doing this and they had a substantive investigation going, we would have published it as soon as we knew that. We were confident that we knew it yesterday, which is why it went online last night. It was in today`s paper.
It`s not something we would sit on. It`s not something we I don`t think we were overly cautious about.
I mean, like we said these things are incredibly sensitive and we are talking about people`s lives here, too. You don`t want to say somebody is being investigated when there`s nothing to it if we`re not confident that that`s the case.
HAYES: All right, I absolutely agree. I think probably Huma Abedin would agree as well.
ROSENBERG: I imagine she would.
HAYES: Thank you, Matthew Rosenberg, appreciate it.
ROSENBERG: Thank you.
HAYES: All right, you`re looking live there on the left at the Liberty -- I`m sorry, that`s the Salute to the Arms Services Ball, that`s yet another ball we`re having tonight. Traditionally what happens the president and first lady make their rounds. They maybe dance at a few of them. We are expecting to see them at some point this evening, so you`re going to want to stay tuned. We`ll be back after this break.
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HAYES: All right, we are back here. A live look at the Freedom Ball where there will be -- typically there`s an appearance by the president and the first lady, folks in there to celebrate the inauguration of our 45th president earlier today.
Joining me now, MSNBC contributor Joan Walsh, national affairs correspondent for The Nation, MSNBC Contributor Ben Jealous, former president and CEO of the NAACP, and CNBC chief Washington correspondent John Harwood, political writer for The New York Times.
John, you`ve covered this town for a bit. How is this going to go from the governing standpoint? And who is going to be running the show?
JOHN HARWOOD, NEW YORK TIMES: Well, first of all, we don`t know, given who Donald Trump is, what his interests are, how interested he is going to be in governing the country. We would assume that Reince Priebus, his chief of staff, is pretty interested, but I`ve encountered a widespread assumption that Mike Pence, Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan are going to be running the parts of the country that involve legislation, but I think there`s a lot we don`t know and there`s a tremendous amount of appointments that have not been made, and so we don`t know who those people are going to be.
HAYES: And we`re seeing, you know, that we had this executive order on the Affordable Care Act, which I know was -- I think if you were watching that was a little confusing. We were digesting an executive order in realtime which always makes amazing television.
JOAN WALSH, THE NATION: It was great.
HAYES: Thank you very much, thank you.
They`re still chewing through what that means. I`m watching health policy wonks work this out in realtime.
Here`s what I think is an interesting idea, right? You have populist nationalism on this roster up there today, on the dais. That was full Bannon.
It sounds very different than Ryanism and Penceism, what you`re talking about.
The question is do you get that rhetoric and then just get basically the Paul Ryan/Mike Pence agenda?
WALSH: That`s what I`m afraid of. I mean, a lot of people have said he`s going to block it. He promised not to touch Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security. The Ryan Budget is very different. The Ryan Budget could not get elected.
But I just have just a feeling that when they start selling him on it he`ll try to sell it to his people as this is a bigger better bolder version of Medicaid, this is better for you. I`m saving it. It was broken. It was the worst. Obama had ruined it.
HAYES: Or you just say we`re not privatizing Medicare when you`re privatizing medicare.
WALSH: Right, exactly. Like, you say you`re divesting yourself or turning your businesses over, and you don`t turn them over, right.
HARWOOD: It`s a little easier to do that when you`re talking about your business than when you`re talking about somebody else`s Medicare.
WALSH: Right, because you don`t get it.
BEN JEALOUS, FRM. PRESIDENT NAACP: The opportunity here for people who are organizing out there is to try to actually hold him to his promises.
And there`s lots of Trump voters in places like Pennsylvania who have made it clear if you try to take away my health care, I`ll be getting locked up trying to shut down your White House.
So, you know, look, there are people who are really hurting in this country. Some came for Bernie, some went for Trump. Trump has promised to solve all of their problems. Trump has said he`s going to increase jobs, he`s going to increase wages, he`s going to give them something better than the ACA, and if he starts to not do that -- I think politics in this country get really interesting and you`ll see lots of people -- I think lots of people on the left, but even some folks who voted for him who aren`t really on the right, they just simply want their lives to get better saying "no, but you promised".
HARWOOD: Look, sooner or later reality catches up and--
HAYES: Well, that`s the question.
HARWOOD: Well, I believe it. If I didn`t believe it--
HAYES: Exactly. What do you do?
HARWOOD: This is a follow-on point on the ACA executive order. You know, so you`re trying to figure out is this a meaningless document put out or is it really something that has authority that would -- could cripple the ACA. The problem is, Republicans know they do not want to immediately cripple the ACA. And so to the extent that that possibility exists, it would be counterproductive to their goals.
And that`s where we get into the thicket of this. And I think when we`re going to talk about what the politics of this moment look like, right, because let`s say it does have some power, and let`s say insurance markets start reacting to that, right. If you get a big premium hike, and they say well, we have got this new executive order. Like, you now own that, right?
Democrats learned the hard way what it means to own American health care.
WALSH: Right. Democrats have to make sure that they own it and, you know -- John is right. I think they want to do a lot of this stuff and have it take effect after the 2018 midterms and not have your premiums go up or not raise the age of Medicare eligibility.
JEALOUS: But also, look, I think you`ll see a lot more actions will shift to the states as people actually try to lead from the areas where we have some control, have some influence and quite frankly have to create some insurance against the fact that he may try to yank the insurance from so many of our folks.
HAYES: There`s a bunch of stuff that has been reported in terms of what this agenda looks like. There`s going to be more executive orders coming. The L.A. Times report had a -- you know, they want deportation raids. They want to do deportation raids and they want them on the nightly news, right, that`s important to start sending out.
I thought one of the most important things that happened today was this FHA, this sort of weird obscure thing, which is that they basically stopped what was going to be a cut in the premium on insurance for people in have FHA loans. It`s going to cost a million people about $500 a year. These are people, first time homeowners.
WALSH: For some home buyers, not well off.
HAYES: It`s a totally obscure piece of policy. and to John`s point, it`s like, I`m going to go on a limb and say that was not a Donald Trump call. And that to me is like -- that`s where it gets really interesting about who exactly is calling the shots.
JEALOUS: Well, and to your Michael Moore interview earlier, this could be one of those cases where you get the right number of phone calls to congressmen and something like that gets revisited.
It looks to me like a little land mine that was laid by the Obama administration right at the end of their term to put it right in the lap.
HAYES: The cut was going to happen, that`s right.
JEALOUS: Exactly.
But let`s go back to the deportations that we were talking about just a second ago. I mean, this is a guy who was put in office with 46 percent of the vote who now a super majority of people in this country do not approve of.
Most people in this country did sign up for this. We didn`t sign up for you to come after our neighbors. We didn`t sign up for you to create a special registration from Muslims or ban them from airplanes, and so I think this president at some point is going to have to come to grips with shis own very low and falling approval ratings.
HAYES: And so this is the big question, this is the thing that I think I think of because a lot of people made a lot of mistakes in the campaign. And I remember, I was at Cleveland, and today felt like Cleveland. I was at the RNC and Cleveland it was like -- I was like what`s different? I`ve been to conventions before. This one feels different. It felt emptier, lower, more subdued, part of that is the people that are the institutional framework for the Republican Party weren`t there because they`re not Trump people, and that was the same here at this inauguration, right.
I think the -- ultimately the guy won. And how are you feeling about what you learned from the campaign in terms of how you`re assessing the politics of this moment?
WALSH: I wish that the Clinton campaign had not told everybody, hey, we`ve got this in the bag. I think going into the last few days--
HAYES: Fight like heck for every last inch.
WALSH: Yes. And I think a lot of people didn`t vote. You know, I`m hearing is non-buyers remorse for people who just didn`t think it was important and now they really know it`s important. So that`s part of it.
I`m trying not to draw huge conclusions from it, because she did win.
HAYES: 3 million votes.
WALSH: But, you know, those people that Ben is talking about and those three states that flipped, they are hurting, and somehow the message--
HAYES: And--
JEALOUS: They`re were hurting in lots of other places. She lost Michigan twice. And we have to pay got attention to that, because there is a part of Michigan in most states in this country.
HAYES: And they also have got lot of promises today. So, we`ll see how those.
Joan Walsh, Ben Jealous, John Harwood, thank you very much. It is inauguration night here, and that is All In for this evening. The Rachel Maddow Show starts right now. Good evening, Rachel.
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