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All in with Chris Hayes, Transcript 4/28/2017

Guests: Philip Rucker, Michael Moore, Nick Confessore, Jennifer Rubin, David Folkenflik

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC ALL IN HOST:  Tonight on ALL IN.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE:  Are you disappointed with how the republicans have handled these big issues?  Health care went down the first time.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:  Yes, I`m disappointed.

HAYES:  Disappointment for the President as he laments his job is harder than he thought.

TRUMP:  This is more work than in my previous life.  I thought it would be easier.

HAYES:  Tonight, as the President revives a favorite slur.

TRUMP:  It may be Pocahontas, remember that.

HAYES:  99 days of Trump with filmmaker Michael Moore.

Plus, about that swamp.

TRUMP:  I said drain the swamp.  They went crazy.

HAYES:  Why the President`s biggest 100-day accomplishment may be his personal fortune.

Plus, after Ailes and O`Reilly, why the legal and now perhaps criminal problems for Fox News are just beginning.

And clearing up a conspiracy theory in a very special thing, one thing, two.

TRUMP:  All I did is point out the fact that on the cover of the National Enquirer, there was a picture of him and crazy Lee Harvey Oswald having breakfast.

HAYES:  When ALL IN starts right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Good evening from New York, I`m Chris Hayes.  Today on the 99th day of his Presidency, Donald Trump is set to sign into law his most significant legislative accomplishment as President.  It isn`t a bill to repeal ObamaCare.  That has now failed to make the floor for a vote twice.  It isn`t a bill to remake the tax code or to build the wall.  It is a bill to keep the government open for seven more days.  In the first 100 days, that is President Trump`s biggest legislative win.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP:  We`re going to win with trade.  We`re going to win with health.  We`re going to win at so many levels.  We`re going to win, win, win.  You`re going to get so tired of winning.  You`re going to say, Mr. President, please we don`t want to win anymore.  It`s too much.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES:  The White House has spent the past few weeks trying to dismiss the 100 days standard as a meaningless construct while also scrambling mostly unsuccessfully to have more to show for it.  And as for the President himself, he`s been marking the milestone by giving interviews and making speeches that strongly suggest that he liked running for President a lot more than he likes actually being President.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

TRUMP:  Well, I loved my - I loved my previous life.  I loved my previous life.  I had so many things going.  I actually - this is more work than in my previous life.  I thought it would be easier.  I thought it was more of a -- I`m a details oriented person.  I think you would say that.  But I do miss my old life.  This - I like to work, so that`s not a problem.  But this is actually more work.  And while I had very little privacy in my old life because, you know, I`ve been famous for a long time, I really - this is much less privacy than I`ve ever seen before.  I mean I used to like - I was able to go out to restaurants, and even though people knew who I was -

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE:  You liked to drive.

TRUMP:  I like to what?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE:  You like to drive?

TRUMP:  Yes, I like to drive.  I can`t drive anymore.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

HAYES:  That was the President of the United States speaking to Reuters yesterday.  Today he returned to reliving the glory days of the election victory while he was speaking to the National Rifle Association.

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TRUMP:  November 8th.  Wasn`t that a great evening?  You remember that evening?  Remember they were saying, we have breaking news, Donald Trump has won the State of Michigan.  They go Michigan, how did that happen?  Donald Trump has won the State of Wisconsin.  But earlier in the evening, remember Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, all the way up.  We ran up the east coast.  It was a great evening, one that a lot of people will never forget.  A lot of people.  Not going to forget that evening.  That was some evening.  Big sports fans said that was the single most exciting event they`ve ever seen.  That includes Super Bowls and World Series and boxing matches.  That was an exciting evening for all of us, and it meant a lot.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES:  After that, Trump also relived the campaign by reprising his racist slur against senator Elizabeth Warren.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP:  I have a feeling that in the next election, you`re going to be swamped with candidates, but you`re not going to be wasting your time.  You`ll have plenty of those democrats coming over, and you`re going to say no, sir, no, thank you.no, ma`am, perhaps ma`am.  It may be Pocahontas.  Remember that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES:  100 days in, Trump remains attached to the adulation he gets from his voters.  He seems to be focused on looking out for them above all others.  He`ll mark his 100th day with what he bills as a big rally in Pennsylvania where he can soak in the applause.  And in that interview with Reuters, the President reportedly interrupted a discussion about the Chinese President in order to hand out copies of what he deemed the latest figures from the 2016 electoral map.  "Here, you can take that.  That`s the final map of the numbers," the President said.  "It`s pretty good, right?  The red is obviously us."  Reuters noted the President had copies of the map for each of the three reporters in the room.  Trump had planned to mark his 100th day by announcing he was withdrawing from NAFTA.  But as he has on so, so many issues, he backed down, giving this explanation for his decision.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP:  I was going to terminate NAFTA as of two or three days from now.  The President of Mexico, who I have a very, very good relationship called me.  And also the Prime Minister Of Canada, who I have a very good relationship, and I like both of these gentlemen very much.  They called me, and they said rather than terminating NAFTA, could you please renegotiate?  I like them very much.  I respect their countries very much.  The relationship is very special.  And I said, I will hold on the termination.  Let`s see if we can make it a fair deal.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES:  But my guest - next guest got an entirely different explanation for Trump`s reversal, joining me now, Washington Post White House Bureau Chief Phillip Rucker.  And Phillip, tell me what your reporting indicates about how the President`s mind was changed on NAFTA.

PHILIP RUCKER, WASHINGTON POST WHITE HOUSE BUREAU CHIEF:  Yes, it was a pretty sudden shift, Chris.  I sat down with the President yesterday in the Oval Office to have him walk through his thinking process, his deliberations on NAFTA.  He said he was already to terminate the deal.  He was actually going to make a big show of it on Saturday at that rally in Pennsylvania.  He was going to basically sign the paperwork to initiate the process of withdrawing from Nafta.  He wanted to do it.  Some of his aides were encouraging him to do it.  And then suddenly word leaked out and there was sort of a freak-out.  Some of his cabinet officials came to him and said, no, no, no, you can`t do that.  Sonny Perdue the Agriculture Secretary actually brought him a map, showing all of the red states in the middle of the country, the big farming states that would be negatively impacted if NAFTA were terminated.  And then he got on the phone with the Prime Minister of Canada and with the President of Mexico, and they told him the same thing.  They said you can`t do this.  This would be really detrimental to us.  Then Trump said, OK, I`ve changed my mind.

HAYES:  This seem to be - there`s two themes here.  One, this is - everything is more complicated than I realized.  He`s even said that I`m not paraphrasing, literally.  And it`s all more work than I realized.  Again, not paraphrasing - I`m not paraphrasing.  I mean is that the sense from talking to him, that he just didn`t quite have a measure on the job?

RUCKER:  I think so partly.  The other piece of it is he wants to maintain some flexibility.  He actually prides himself in not being an ideological purist and on this issue of NAFTA, it`s the one piece where he`s had core convictions for like decades.  He`s been against these trade deals and yet he changed his mind this week because he was influenced by some of his cabinet officers and by the - by his counterparts in Canada and Mexico.  I think in his mind, he`s buying himself a little bit more time here to continue the negotiations, and he feels like he has leverage with Canada and with Mexico.  But it certainly is a shift in his position and a - and a real change.

HAYES:  One of the other themes interesting to me and all - every politician everywhere is concerned about their base.  They want to make sure of their supporters.  This President particularly is very focused on that.  He talks about it all the time, and it`s interesting to me that the way that his heart for Perdue, who is the Head of the Department of Agriculture, was to say this will hurt people that voted for you.  Texas is a great example, biggest republican state in the union, extremely dependent on NAFTA for its exports and economic engine.  That`s the way it seems to me to this President`s heart is to say the people that voted for you, not the American people at large, the people that voted for you.

RUCKER:  You`re exactly right.  And he takes so much pride in those people that voted for him.  And in your intro there, you were talking about the electoral map that he showed the reporters from Reuters in their interview.  He actually did the same thing with me.  He brought out the map.  He said aren`t you impressed by this map?  Aren`t you surprised by this map?  He encouraged me to take it home to my colleagues at The Washington Post and try to run it on the front page of our newspaper.  So he cares a lot about that map.  He cares a lot about these states.

RUCKER:  I`m sorry.  He on his 100th days interview five months after the election wanted The Washington Post to run the election map on the cover?

RUCKER:  He did.  I think he was - he was sort of playing there, but it speaks to the pride that he has in that map, and he was showing it to his visitors.  And, you know, he feels very strongly that it was redder than an electoral victory map has ever been, and he wants to do good by those people.

HAYES:  Can I ask you about the map?  Was it the county map?  Is it the map that is by counties -

RUCKER:  That`s right.

HAYES:   - that shows huge swaths of red because there`s counties in Texas and Nebraska and places like that that got about 5,000 people in it.

RUCKER:  Yes.  It was broken down by county and you know, some of these counties are very small, but it was very, very red.

HAYES:  Phillip Rucker, thanks for your time tonight.

RUCKER:  Thank you very much.

HAYES:  And joining me now, academy award winning documentary filmmaker, author, and activist Michael Moore.

MICHAEL MOORE, AMERICAN FILMMAKER, AUTHOR AND ACTIVIST:  There`s 5,000 people on my block here in New York City.

HAYES:  I mean, it`s like - that map, what`s funny about that map is it`s a real conservative meme because it`s so red because if you count land instead of people, the margins look much bigger.

MOORE:  Yes.  It`s a -- it`s a version of political pornography for them, large, bold swaths of red.

HAYES:  He - we were just talking about something with Phillip Rucker I think is important.  And part of the reason why I want to talk to you tonight is the Trump voter, who has sort of attained this - a little bit of this kind mythical status in American politics, partly for good reason which is that a lot of people missed their presence in the numbers they were.  You`re not one of them.  You talked about sort of anecdotally finding those folks.  There`s a lot of reporting now that`s going back to the Trump voters.  And one of the things I find a little strange is like a lot of people - I mean, they still like him, and my feeling is, it`s 100 days.  Who`s going to-like people are not going to change their mind in 100 days. 

MOORE: Right, right.

HAYES:  Like there some expectation that someone has - people don`t change their politics or their minds about stuff in three months on anything.

MOORE:  It`s like if you`ve had a sibling or a friend who you believe is dating the wrong person, the more you say to him, I don`t think he`s right for you, the more they`re like, well -

HAYES:  Defensive.  That`s right.

MOORE:  They circle the wagons.

HAYES:  That`s right. 

MOORE:  And I think - I think going after the Trump voters, I mean, look, yes, it is their first 100 days too.  Nobody likes to think they made a mistake, and so they`re going to hope for the best.  And I don`t know what it does - here`s the question I have.  What good does it do us on our end to be either laughing at Trump for all the - all his goofiness and all his big bravado and his promises that he doesn`t come through with it and, at the same time, we`re kind of - kind of happy that he actually hasn`t been able to do a whole lot.  So that`s a good thing.  We -

HAYES:  Yes, but that`s - I mean - `

MOORE:  We make it sound like, yes, look how little he`s done for his people.  No, thank god.

HAYES:  Well, right.  I mean, that actually - I`m glad you brought that because that - there`s two ways of looking at this 100 days, right?  I mean, at one level, it`s - and this is a real - this is - there`s a real tension here.  At one level, you want the President of the United States to be effective and competent because the President of the United States, he has the nuclear codes.  He makes decisions of life and death.  We have an act of war in Afghanistan.  We have two KIA actually tonight, Special Forces, Rangers who were killed, right?  This is someone who has in his hands life and death at all times.  You want him to be competent.  At the same time, if you`re someone like yourself who opposes the President`s agenda, you don`t want him to be good at that.  And yet there`s always the worry that if he`s bad at one thing, he`ll be bad at the other.

MOORE:  Right.  And it`s - I think we need to just be honest with ourselves about this too.  Like with NAFTA, you know, people today, like on my side of the political fence, are like, yes, another promise.  But it`s kind of wait a minute.  We were for Bernie, and we were against NAFTA.  And we`re the - back in Flint, believe me, we`ve been against NAFTA for you know, 25 years.

HAYES:  That`s right.  Of course.

MOORE:  So it`s - so -

HAYES:  OK.  But here`s my question.  (INAUDIBLE), doesn`t it feel in a weird way, it`s like the basic idea of like the populist insurgent versus the establishment?  Part of the first 100 days is like, it`s true, the establishment does kind of control Washington.

MOORE:  Right.

HAYES:  At some level on these certain things, right?

MOORE:  Right.

HAYES:  It`s like he started getting the calls and he got Gary Cohn, and it`s like no, you can`t undo NAFTA.

MOORE:  Right, exactly.  I think, listen, I think all these shows this week, everybody, you know, we`re here tonight talking about the first 100 days of Trump but what about the first 100 days of the resistance?

HAYES:  You know, I`m glad you said that because that`s exactly the thing that I think is more interesting and I want to talk about if you will stay here, I will take a quick break.

MOORE:  I would love to.

HAYES:  And I want to talk - I want to talk about that because actually the biggest story of the first 100 days isn`t Trump, I think. 

MOORE:  Right.

HAYES:  It`s actually civil society.

MOORE:  Right

HAYES:  Let`s talk about that after this break.  Stick around.

MOORE:  OK.  Thanks.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE:  Are you disappointed with how the republicans have handled these big issues, health care went down the first time -

TRUMP:  Yes, I`m disappointed.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE:   - and there was some suggestion it might happen today, but it`s not going to happen.

TRUMP:  I`m disappointed that it doesn`t go quicker.  I like them a lot.  I have great relationships, something that most of them might not even know. 

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE:  Right.

TRUMP:  But many of them, like the Freedom Caucus came and I see them at time, we love our President.  We`re doing this for our President.  You look at that.  You look at the moderates, the same thing.  I`m disappointed.  I`ll tell you, Paul Ryan is trying very, very hard.  I think everybody is trying very hard.  It is a very tough system.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES:  After two bites at the apple and 100 days in the White House, the President will not get the signature legislative win he promised.  Short of the support it needs, the House will not vote again on the revised health care bill this week and they might not have enough support for the vote next week, which is - as you just heard the President say, disappointing because A, he demanded the repeal of ObamaCare even if it took a special session of Congress to make it happen.  And, B, the President will now end his first100 days in office less popular than the thing he pledged to get rid of on day one.  Still with me at the table, Michael Moore.  That to me is the most concrete thing when you talk about the resistance, when you talk about what`s happened in reaction to Trump.  Most people I talk to, election night and inauguration day were like the ACA is dead.  I mean that was - and it`s not because why?

MOORE:  No.  It`s dead because the majority of Americans don`t feel the same way that he feels about it, and the members of Congress can read the tea leaves and know that if they - if they trash the American public by throwing them to the curb with health care, they`re going to pay a price next year for it.  Everybody has to remember that this first 100 days is really about the citizens of this country that came out en masse.  Within 24 hours of his inauguration, the largest demonstration in the history of this country took place in D.C. and across the country and across the world.  It was an amazing thing.  Ask anybody of my age or older, the `60s generation.  They`ll tell you as many demonstrations there were in the`60s, this doesn`t - this is way beyond the `60s.  This is -

HAYES:  That women`s march was arguably the largest demonstration anyone had ever seen.  I mean these numbers are  hard -

MOORE:  And I stood on the stage.  I - have you ever seen what a million people look like?  It`s - it was the most amazing thing and cathartic for me to know that we are not alone here.  The majority did not vote for him, and people have been so active on so many levels.

HAYES:  But even - to me, even more demonstrative of where the country is, and where this sort of - this part of the country, majority of Americans in both form, right, is that that was the first day afterwards, right?  That was in march and a march is invigorating and it`s a sort of a special event.  But when you look at things like turnout in special elections in Georgia and knocking on doors, phone calls and showing up Town Halls -

MOORE:  Town Halls.  The whole deal.

HAYES:  The much grittier granular work of active citizenship that`s not as kind of sacramental in the way that a mass is - that a march is -

MOORE:  Right.

HAYES:  That - you`re seeing that too.

MOORE:  Every day.  Every day the switchboard lines on Capitol Hill are jammed.  It`s hard to get through.  202, 225, 3121.  Keep phone calling every - just - I tell you, this is the way I - the way I - I refer to it this way.  We - all of us have been like a swarm of bees around his head, and he`s had to keep swatting, and we have discombobulated him to such an extent that he`s so busy trying to deal with everything coming at him.  Here`s a - here`s a lawsuit.  Here`s a judge`s order.  Here`s this thing going down in Congress.  Here`s these phone calls.  Here`s this protest.

HAYES:  Which, again, which is important I think to connect people to the idea that that`s what a system of an open society, with civil society in checks and balances and a functioning judiciary should be.  I mean, we don`t elect kings.

MOORE:  Right, no.

HAYES:  And I think there was a little bit - people forgot that for a little bit.

MOORE:  Well -

HAYES:  or they forgot their own power.

MOORE:  When you have a person sitting in the Oval Office who thinks he is sort of King, and doesn`t understand - when he shows you his fiefdom, look at the red on the map, you know.  And he doesn`t understand that the majority of people that did not vote for him, and that`s not just the 3 million that voted for Hillary.  There`s 10.5 million - when you count the greens in (INAUDIBLE), they did not want Donald J. Trump sitting in the White House.  That`s the majority of this country.  And people are going to stay active, they`re going to be active, we`re going to tie him up so where we may not be able to get rid of him out of office in the next few months or even year, but we will - we will see that we stop him every single step of the way.

HAYES:  So the way that I think about the promise of this President was that he said to people that he was going to - he was going to help some people, and he was going to make life more difficult for others, right?  The more difficult was the criminals coming over the border and things like that and --

MOORE:  Yes.

HAYES:  And I do think it would - we shouldn`t lose sight in the 100 days, you know, he`s had these legislative sort of implosions.  But if you look at the way ISIS conducted itself and the Department of Homeland Security and the huge uptick in apprehensions of non-criminal, unauthorized immigrants, right, who are being deported and what`s happening at the Department of Justice, there`s real tangible harm that`s being done.

MOORE:  The dismantling of the EPA.  Oh, no, believe me.  There is so much going on.

HAYES:  I just don`t want anyone to feel glib about what - you know -

MOORE:  That`s why I`m trying to - that what I said at the beginning.

HAYES:  right.

Moore:  Nobody should feel glib.  Nobody should be laughing.  Look how he`s falling on his face.   None of this.  He - there is enormous damage being done in all sections of the government by his minions, and there are still things that we don`t know about the Rex Tillerson, about Wilbur Ross.  There`s a lot to come out.  He`s - I`m sure nervous as hell about this.

HAYES:  Well, that`s the other thing to sort of bring in full circle, right?  It`s like, when you say, you know, not to be glib, I also -- when I - when I read the news in North Korea, there was another missile test that failed and we`ll be getting probably some official statements on that.  You know, I find myself genuinely rooting for him to handle the North Korea situation well.  I mean, there`s all sorts of areas where I -

MOORE:  Yes, but -

HAES:   - you are rooting for the man to be competent and effective.

MOORE:  Yes, but that`s a - I don`t know if I agree with that because it`s like rooting -

HAYES:  You`re not rooting for him to resolve North Korea well?

MOORE:  Well, it`s like rooting - it`s like rooting for a 6-year-old who suddenly swiped dad`s car and figured out how to take it down the road.  I`m not rooting for the 6-year-old to get on the highway and drive that car.  I want the 6-year-oldoff the highway.  That`s what -

HAYES:  Well, but he`s -

MOORE:  No, you`re saying - but you`re - just the implication of what you said means that he could possibly find a sane way and a safe way to figure out how to deal with it.

HAYE:  I would like to avoid Nuclear War, and I`m fervently hoping -

MOORE:  Yes.  Well, you got the wrong person -

HAYES:   - that the President of the United States navigates us in a safe direction away from that.

MOORE:  Here`s how we`re - here`s how we`re -

HAYES:  How could anyone have a different feeling about this --

MOORE:  Because he`s the wrong person to navigate us away from that.  He will navigate us toward it.  And our only hope is that please, Pentagon, if you`re watching, the Football, the Nuclear Football that his aide carries around in that briefcase with the nuclear codes, I`m guessing they don`t actually have the codes in there. 

HAYES:  Not, but that`s the thing.

MOORE:  They`re never going to put the real codes in there for him.

HAYES:  That`s a joke, right?  But it is -

MOORE:  No, I hope it`s not a joke.  If you`re watching over -

HAYES:  But this is a sure thing.  This is what I mean about - the - what it means - what the stakes of this particular moment, right?  I mean, he`s the President of the United States.  He is - I mean there`s - and there is a strange way in which I think for people that oppose the President or don`t particularly trust him or respect him, there`s also this sort of really fascinating thing to me culturally which is that Barack Obama was a titanic figure to many Americans.

MOORE:  Yes.

HAYES:  He`s a historic figure.  He conducts himself with a sort of preternatural self-restraint.  You know -

MOORE:  Yes, best President of our lifetime.

HAYES:  And in that way, he became a - this kind of colossus in people`s imagination.  And that is followed up for people that`s -

MOORE:  People`s imagination.  He was actually a really good guy.

HAYES:  Well, that has been followed up by people with Donald Trump who sort of the opposite of that people, and it`s interesting to watch, to work through how they feel about the office of the Presidency in that respect.

MOORE:  The office of the Presidency has been essentially hijacked legally by the electoral college, whose has put a man in there who is not serving at the will of the majority of the people.  And we have to be vigilant, and we have to make sure that hopefully there are safeguards set up around him.  Again, if you`re watching at the Pentagon, please.

HAYES:  But the safeguards are citizens.  That`s my point.  The safeguard`s fundamentally are citizens in a functioning civil society.

MOORE:  Absolutely.  And we will remain active and will do everything we can to stop him along the way.  He`s not going to get very far, and hopefully he`s watching. 

(CROSSTALK)

MOORE:  Well, because what`s he got on the other channel now?  The Tucker Factor or whatever the thing that is?  Just stay with us.  Stay with us, Mr. President.

HAYES:  All right.  Thank you.  Good tease, Michael Moore.  Thanks for joining us.

Still to come -

MOORE:  They don`t really call it that.

HAYES:  (INAUDIBLE) It looks like problems at Fox News are just beginning.  The latest on lawsuits, plus new reports of an expanding federal criminal investigation, ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COREY LEWANDOWSK, FOX NEWS POLITICAL COMMENTATOR:  Look, I think if you had to put them in a chronological order, drain the swamp is probably somewhere down at the bottom as opposed to getting tax reform done, making sure of middle class, people have more jobs.  The - you know, making sure we`re renegotiating our bad trade deals, ensuring that we`re fixing ObamaCare, repairing and replacing that or replacing that and putting in something new.  I think at the end of the day, it`s about the economy.  So draining the swamp is a larger narrative, but what it`s really about is putting people back to work.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES:  Draining the swamp.  See, Donald Trump`s former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski could not have been more straightforward when he spoke to Fox News about draining the swamp last December.  Today a new report lays out why.  According to Politico, a lobbying firm co-founded by Lewandowski appears to have been pitching clients around the world by offering poll and I and political advice but also face time with President Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and senior members of the administration.  People are familiar with Lewandowski`s pitch to potential clients say he has pledged he will personally call Trump or his cabinet members if necessary.  Now, this is precisely the kind of money for access pay to play that Trump and his surrogates accused Hillary Clinton of, citing appearances of conflict of interest between the Clinton foundation donors and her work as Secretary of State with Trump himself calling it, and I quote here, "a criminal enterprise despite the fact there was no criminal charges of any kind."  Part of what defined the Donald Trump`s campaign was his promise to drain the swamp, to rid Washington of its revolving-door process.  And you could argue that it`s part of the reason he won.  But after 100 days, not only has Trump not drained the swamp, he`s created a whole new kind of swamp creature.  More on that coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES:  Bill O`Reilly is gone, Roger Ailes is gone, but the problems at Fox News show no signs of going away.  Earlier this week, a class action lawsuit was filed against Fox News by 11 current and former Fox News employees alleging abhorrent, intolerable, unlawful, and hostile racial discrimination.

The only African-American male anchor on Fox News, Kelly Wright, held a press conference  this week to explain why he joined the suit.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KELLY WRIGHT, FOX NEWS HOST:  Somewhere along the way, they have lost their way, and they`ve failed to include equality for all.  Behind closed doors, I found myself confronted with race, albeit in a more subtle but in a demeaning way and marginalizing my growth and my development.

I said I want to make it possible for whoever fills my shoes, that next generation, to never go through this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES:  In a statement, Fox News and a lawyer named in the suit say they vehemently deny the charges.  Meanwhile, co-president of Fox News Bill Schein, who is closely associated with the era of Roger Ailes, has been under increased media scrutiny since the company got rid of Bill O`reilly.  According to New York Magazine`s Gabe Sherman, Schein has told friends he recently asked Rupert Murdoch`s sons, James and Lachlan, the CEO and co-chairmen respectively, of network parent company 21st Century Fox, to release a statement in support of him, but they refused to do so.

Through a Fox News spokesperson, Schein denied personally going to James and Lachlan for a statement.

Fox News host Sean Hannity, who has repeatedly expressed his support of Bill Schein responded to Gabe Sherman`s report, tweeting, "Gabe, I pray this is not true because if it is, that`s the total end of FNC as we know it.  Done."

But all of those problems may soon be dwarfed by a Justice Department investigation into  the business practices of Fox News, a case which is now before a grand jury according to The New York Times.  Fox News declined to comment on a recent report that a second federal agency is now investigating the network for possible mail fraud and wire fraud.

Joining me now, David Fokenflik, media correspondent at NPR.  And David, you`ve got civil lawsuits, which are one thing, but criminal investigations by the feds is a whole other kettle of fish.  And it really does seem like there`s something very serious proceeding there.

DAVID FOLKENFLIK, NPR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT:  It`s perilous for Fox News.  I think that, you know, the people I`ve talked to inside Fox are concerned that it`s spreading.  CNN was able to break off the piece of the postal inspection service was involved in looking at this, as you suggest for mail fraud, wire fraud.

But there`s concern about where this can go.  Once you have federal investigators poking around Fox News, a place that was operated, you know, much along the lines of a political shop with the idea of keeping things out of the public eye that might harm the guy at the top of the pyramid, Rogers Ailes in particular, who knows where things are going to go?

They`re concerned about the possibility of prosecutors being able to allege that crimes were committed, not just these civil wrongs that have been alleged in these lawsuits and complaints made by others.

So this is, you know, a multi-front battle that the folks at 21st Century Fox and Fox News are fighting right now.

And you know, you mentioned the question of people talking about Bill Schein and whether Bill Schein had been able to secure a statement of support from his bosses, the Murdochs.  You know, I and other reporters have been going to those same bosses and saying, where does Bill Schein stand right now?  What is the feeling about his leadership?  How do we feel about his relationship with a lot of the  actions that have led to some of these allegations or certainly have been contained within the allegations that made it possibility for Ailes to behave in this way if you give credence to these charges?

And so far there`s been almost blanket silence out of corporate headquarters.  And I think that`s very telling.  They`re worried about, you know, what it says to their employees that shine is still there, but they`re particularly worried about what this investigation may turn up if it`s allowed to go forward all the way.

HAYES:  Right.  And just to be clear here, I mean the reporting indicates there`s been subpoenas, and there have been interviews under oath with investigators.  I mean, you know, when you`re talking to federal investigators, you better be telling the truth, you know, up and down the chain.

There`s also the accusation that you`ve covered of the execs eaves dropping and hacking into personal digital devices of employees, which is a pretty astounding claim.

FOLKENFLIK:  Right.  That most recently was contained in yet another lawsuit filed by Fox`s suspended host Andrea Tantaros last seen on The Five and then whisked out of the office as her allegations of sexual harassment against, to be clear, Roger Ailes and Bill O`Reilly and others at the network were about to be made in court.

Her allegations have been remanded to this private binding secret, closed- door arbitration, but in this new federal lawsuit, she said, look, there was an attempt to intimidate her as she raised issues internally of possible sexual harassment by Ailes and that these kind of surrogate sock puppet figures on Twitter and elsewhere started tweeting things that portrayed certain kinds of intimate knowledge of conversations she had had with family members and loved ones either on her phone or through texts.

And they`re making the argument that this is because there`s been eavesdropping on her private  devices.  Now, you know, the amazing thing is Rogers Ailes leaves Fox News and they abandon the pretense that he wasn`t fairly significantly involved in overseeing a system in which people`s private correspondences were monitored using Fox News devices like phone lines and emails and the like.

The difference that this -- which they are actually technically allowed to do under employment law.

The difference here is that the claim is that this was done for her on private devices, and that would take it into a different realm.  It would be both an allegation of a crime if it`s substantiated and particularly if it`s prosecuted, and also contains echos of course of the scandal that six years ago caused so much angst and heart burn for the Murdochs over in London, and that was the hacking scandal back there.

So anytime that word is used, it is exceptionally charged.  The reaction that 21st Century Fox and Fox News has had to Andrea Tantaros` claims have consistently been more vitriolic than against anyone else.  And it`s in part because of the nature of the kinds of things she`s alleging.

HAYES:  David Folkenflik, thank you.

Still to come after his first 100 days, is the greatest beneficiary of the Trump administration the president himself?  How he`s doing it ahead.

Plus, breaking conspiracy theory news in tonight`s Thing One, Thing Two after the break.

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HAYES:  Thing One tonight, the National Archives are preparing to release more than 3,000  documents related to the assassination of John F. Kennedy.  President George H.W. Bush signed the JFK records act in October 1992 which initiated the collection of those mainly FBI and CIA documents and called for their public release 25 years later, which is October 26th of this year.

But the National Archives has announced a new timeline.  As Politico reports, they hope to  begin unsealing them in batches much earlier than October, possibly as early as summer.

However, there`s actually one person who has the power to intervene, one person who can  prevent the release of these documents.  And that one person, well, may have his own reason to step in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP:  I know nothing about his father.  I know nothing about Lee Harvey Oswald, but there was a picture on the front page of the National Enquirer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES:  That`s Thing Two in 60 seconds.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK0

HAYES:  President Trump may have just weeks to decide whether or not to allow the public release of thousands of secret FBI and CIA files related to the assassination of JFK.  Those files could clear up a host of conspiracy theories related to JFK`s assassination, which might be the problem  because if you recall, the tabloids were not alone in peddling the allegation that Ted Cruz`s father was linked to JFK`s assassin.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP:  His father.  I don`t know his father.  I met him once.  I think he`s a lovely guy.  I think he`s a lovely guy.  All I did is point out the fact that on the cover of the National Enquirer there was a picture of him and crazy Lee Harvey Oswald having breakfast.

His father was with Lee Harvey Oswald prior to Oswald`s being, you know, shot.

I had nothing to do with it.

What was he doing with Lee Harvey Oswald shortly before the death, before the shooting?

SEN. TED CRUZ, (R) TEXAS:  Donald Trump alleges that my dad was involved in  assassinating JFK.

TRUMP:  I`m not saying he did it.  This is nuts.

This had nothing to do with me except I might have pointed it out.

But it was a major story in a major publication.  You can`t knock the National Enquirer.

They got O.J.  They got Edwards.  They got this.  I mean...

The picture was taken of him and Lee Harvey Oswald and they didn`t deny that picture.

UNIDENITIFIED MALE:  Well, Cruz denied it.

TRUMP:  I don`t think they denied it.  I didn`t him.  Maybe they denied it later.

I think they didn`t deny it.

They can deny it, but I mean it is...

Did anybody ever deny that it was the father?  They`re not saying, oh, that wasn`t really my father.  That`s a little hard to do, because it looked like him.

I won`t believe it, but I did say let people read it.

There was a picture on the front page of The National Enquirer, which does have credibility, and that`s the only thing I know.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP:  What follows is my 100-day action plan to make America great again.  It`s a contract between Donald J. Trump and the American voter, and it begins with bringing honesty, accountability, and change to Washington, D.C.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES;  Honesty, accountability, and change.  The president certainly has changed some things though not in the way he said he would.  Over the course of his first 100 days in office, Donald Trump has radically transformed ethical standards and expectations held by the public for the occupants of the White House.  It`s arguably his biggest accomplishment, if you could call it that, to date.  And it`s happened so quickly and in such routine increments, it`s easy to lose sight of how far we`ve come.

So, let`s just take stock.  Donald Trump is our first full-time businessman president with active interests.  He refuses to divest from or put in a blind trust and from which, according to his lawyer, he can withdraw money at any time.

Now, he will not disclose the details of his finances, breaking with decades of tradition on releasing presidential tax returns.  But we know he holds assets all over the world including places where his own financial interests might conflict with the interests of the United States.

We`ve already seen him cozy up to the more and more authoritarian president of Turkey, a country that is building with Trump`s name on it, which the president himself has described in his own words as a little conflict of interest.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP:  I have a little conflict of interest, because I have a major, major building in Istanbul.  And it`s a tremendously successful job.  It`s called Trump Towers, two towers instead of one, not the usual one, it`s two.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES:  Now, the president`s businesses are now being run by his adult sons, who also act as public surrogates, advocating for his administration.  And he`s brought other members of his family directly into the White House in an unprecedented fashion.  Neither his daughter, Ivanka, nor his son-in- law Jared Kushner, have clearly defined roles, acting as de facto emissaries for the president and even the United States abroad.  And both have yet to divest completely from their own considerable business interests, exposing them to any number of possible conflicts themselves.

On the same day Ivanka was dining with the president of China at her father`s Florida resort -- more about that in a moment -- her company won provisional appeal from the Chinese government for three new trademarks.

And speaking of Mar-a-Lago, it`s one of several Trump-owned clubs where people can effectively pay the president through hefty six-figure membership fees to access him and his senior  officials.

The president has made seven trips to Mar-a-Lago so far, each one costing taxpayers about $3 million apiece according to analysis by CBS News, as well as $35,000 spent by the secret  service just on golf cart rentals.

And that money, let`s just be clear, is going straight into the president`s own pocket. 

On top of all of that, there`s one new development that makes you think maybe, just maybe during Trump`s campaign his entire argument at Hillary Clinton was just trolling us.  We`ll tell you about it next.

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(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TRUMP:  Then there was all of the money funneled into the Clinton Foundation from foreign  governments and corporations.  It was pure and simple pay for play.

The centerpiece of Donald Trump`s case against Hillary Clinton, particularly down the stretch when he was sort of at his most effective, was the unproven claim that corporations and foreign  governments had gained inappropriate influence by donating to her charitable foundations.

Now, Ivanka Trump is ready to start an philanthropic adventure of her own.  A massive fund that will benefit female entrepreneurs around the globe, according to Axios (ph).  Where will all that money come from?  As Axios (ph) reports, both countries and companies will contribute.  The fund will be administered by the World Bank, according to the White House official.  Ivanka Trump won`t have a role soliciting funds.

Joining me now, Jennifer Rubin, conservative columnist for The Washington Post, and Nick Confessore, political reporter for The New York Times covering money and politics.

And Nick, let me start with you.  You`ve carved out this incredible beat.  You`re probably one of the best reporters in the country on money and politics, the economy of influence.  It`s something I`ve written and reported about.  This is a totally different thing than that -- the way that beat usually goes.  And I mean usually goes across Republicans, Democrats as sort of permanent economy of Washington.

This is like the daily machine or something.

NICK CONFESSORE, THE NEW YORK TIMES:  Or it`s like Africa or Latin America in the sense that it represents the politics or government as a family business where you don`t recognize any  real barriers or distinctions between your public role and your business role.  And sure, they have the trusts and different, you know, walls they`ve set up to limit some of this, but the kids are running the businesses and the beneficiary of the business and they`re raising outside the government to do stuff in the government.  It`s unprecedented in American history.

HAYES:  I also just feel, Jennifer, again, that you can play this sort of (inaudible) game all the time, what if X did this, what if Y did this, but specifically with Hillary Clinton there was such a focus  on the idea that she was corrupt, that there was pay for play, that they had ill-gotten gains, you know, what we`re seeing here, you would think Republicans would be alarmed about this at some point.

JENNIFER RUBIN, THE WASHINGTON POST:  Well, this has been my angst for the first 100 days which is Republicans have facilitated this.  For all their talk about constitutional niceties, they`re not enforcing the emoluments clause, they don`t really care about all these conflicts of interest even when they`re glaring, even when they`re obvious, they are facilitating this.

Congress could step in.  They could have investigations.  They could subpoena documents. They`re not doing that because they are partisans.  And I think this is an issue that needs to be raised with the American people in 2018.

HAYES:  You know, there`s -- there are ways in which in the -- in the campaign finance world like laws and norms both kind of operate and they reinforce each other in different ways and I wonder the degree which you as a reporter in this field feel like we`re seeing an anomaly because it`s so different than what we`ve seen before or just an alteration in shift in norms, that this will now be like -- oh, I`m going to hire my son.  I`m a senator, I`m -- you know, my daughter is going to be a chief of staff.

CONFESSORE:  I think we`re seeing a permanent change in norms.  I remember back when it was hugely scandalous for Hillary Clinton to have a policy role in President Clinton White House, and now we have that times a million.

I think just - the norms that govern this are so important.  It`s, well, that`s not appropriate, we shouldn`t do that it would look bad and those are the kind of things that President Trump has decided he doesn`t care about and are unimportant to the American people in his view and they`ve gotten rid of them and just said so what.

HAYES:  That latter one, Jennifer, is part of the issue here too.  I thought this Matt Iglesias piece at Vox was very good.  Donald Trump`s first is 100 days have been a money making success story in a sense it seems unquestionable that he has personally gotten wealthier from being president of the United States.  Even just like the free advertising for Mar-a-Lago alone, right, like the winter White House.  He`s like running an ad for - I mean, he stopped himself in the middle of a story about a dinner with the leader of China and sending 59 missiles to tout the dessert quality at Mar-a-Lago.

RUBIN:  Yes.  And remember, and he doubled the membership fee.  So, it`s now $200,000 to rub elbows with the president.  He got a slew of Chinese trademarks all in one day, which never happens with the Chinese.  Don`t we think that`s related to the presidency?  So of course he is benefiting from it and part of the reason that this is so difficult is we don`t know exactly how he`s benefiting because we don`t know what he owns and we don`t know what he`s earning and we don`t know what loans he has because he hasn`t turned over his taxes.

I would hope that we`re wrong here.  I would hope that this is a temporary blip and that because it`s so horrible that once we get a different party in congress or a different party in congress or a different president, we would actually enforce this through legislation.

You can require the president to disclose his taxes.  You can prohibit these conflicts of interest.  And I wonder if that`s going to be in the aftermath of the Trump presidency.

HAYES:  That is a great point.

CONFESSORE:  I just said, you know, it`s unprecedented but at the same time I think it`s also part of a continuum.  We`ve seen the monetization of public office, where public officials now have as their end game in congress and elsewhere to go on to K Street, to be on corporate boards, to give speeches, to make money and making money isn`t a bad thing, but the idea that it`s a way station to making money further on down the line and that public service has that as a component, you can make money on the back end, he`s bring it on the front end.

I think maybe if we had had stronger norms on this to begin with we wouldn`t have this happen.

HAYES:  That`s sort of apotheosis of things that had actually started been going on for awhile.

I will also say this in terms of the beat that you cover.  There`s also a lot of that sort of normal stuff, the Corey Lewandowski stuff, that looks like things we`ve seen before.  I`m close to the president.

He`s also appointing lobbyists...

CONFESSORE:  Mike Deaver and all kinds of...

HAYES:  That`s right.  He`s also appointing lobbyists to the administration, populating White Houses and federal agencies with former lobbyists, lawyers and consultants who in many cases are helping to craft new policies for the same industries in which they recently earned a paycheck.  That is that we`ve also seen happen before as well as there was this pledge, Jennifer, there was a pledge that, you know, no one`s going to be able to leave this place and lobby, that was kind of clean up the  swamp.

And again that was a sort of standard like good government thing.  It now seems that has gone by the wayside as well. 

Jennifer Rubin and Nick Confessore, thanks to you both.

As I mentioned earlier tonight, two army rangers died in combat this week fighting in Afghanistan, the longest war in the history of this country.  Twenty-two-year-old Sergeant Joshua Rodgers from Bloomington, Illinois.  Twenty-three-year-old Sergeant Cameron Thomas from Kettering, Ohio.  I just ask you, please keep their families in your thoughts this weekend. 

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