Show: ALL IN with CHRIS HAYES Date: July 12, 2018 Guest: Jake Sullivan, Jodi Goodwin, Amber Jamieson, Mickey Edwards, Tara Dowdell
CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST: You have been watching MSNBC`s continuing coverage of FBI Agent Peter Strzok`s hearing before a joint House Oversight and Judiciary Committee task force on Capitol Hill. That was Chair of Judiciary Bob Goodlatte giving his closing. You can see where he`s going with all this. this has been going on for more than nine hours. It`s just wrapping up here. And now it`s time for ALL IN with me Chris Hayes.
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HAYES: Tonight on ALL IN.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You need your medication.
HAYES: The latest Republican effort to discredit the Mueller investigation.
PETER STRZOK, AGENT, FBI: Political belief does not equate to bias and we always have to go to the evidence.
HAYES: Tonight the ridiculous spectacle on Capitol Hill.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you just going to make up rules as we go along?
HAYES: And why the President should be thanking Peter Strzok.
REP. BONNIE WATSON COLEMAN (D), NEW JERSEY: But for you, we would have had a legitimate President elected.
HAYES: Plus, Paul Manafort`s brand-new mug shot. Stormy Daniels arrested, charges dismissed. The President`s European boondoggle.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I brought it up, nobody brought it up but me, and we all are talking about it now.
HAYES: Creating an imaginary crisis and claiming to solve it.
TRUMP: I`m a very stable genius.
HAYES: When ALL IN starts right now.
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HAYES: Good evening from New York, I`m Chris Hayes. When it comes to the danger of public and partisan attacks on the special council coming from the President of the United States and his allies, Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh has a clear opinion. "Sustained presidential and presidentially directed criticism of an independent council eventually will have an impact on a large percentage of the citizens and on their opinion of the independent counsel. A truly energetic political campaign to destroy the credibility of an independent Council is an effort to obtain a hung jury and there`s a real danger it will work in all but the most clear-cut cases of guilt." That was written by Trump`s nominee of the Supreme Court in 1998 in the midst of the Ken Starr investigation of President Bill Clinton. But boy howdy is it relevant to the GOP spectacle today in the House of Representatives?
Ironically, the man Republicans have spent the past nine hours haranguing FBI Agent Peter Strzok, maybe and listen to this, this is important, maybe this single person Donald Trump most owes his presidency to more than James Comey, more than Vladimir Putin because in the summer of 2016 after WikiLeaks released stolen material from the DNC, after Donald Trump publicly looked into a camera microphone and asked Russia to hack his opponent, it was FBI agent Peter Strzok who helped open the counterintelligence probe to find out whether a foreign adversary engaged in criminal sabotage of the U.S. election was actively conspiring with members of a presidential campaign. We know from Strzok`s text messages from his testimony today he was not a big fan of Donald Trump and yet while the New York Times published a misleading headline about Trump campaigns ties to Russia, while James Comey was giving public updates on the Hillary Clinton e-mail probe Peter Strzok held his hand information about the most explosive investigation in recent political memory possibly in American history never leaked a thing.
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STRZOK: In the summer of 2016 I was one of a handful of people who knew the details of Russian intellect -- Russian election interference and its possible connections with members of the Trump campaign. This information had the potential to derail and quite possibly defeat Mr. Trump but the thought of expressing that or exposing that information never crossed my mind.
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HAYES: The President frankly should build a monument to Peter Strzok to thank him for his discretion and his professionalism. The FBI`s investigation now led by special counsel Robert Mueller continues to this day, it`s far from over and we still do not know the truth about what happened. The probe has already resulted in over a dozen indictments and multiple guilty pleas as Democrats pointed out in today`s hearing. Also today we got our first look at the mug shot of Paul Manafort, the former campaign chairman the President of the United States whose motion to be released from jail ahead of his first trial was denied earlier today. All of that explains why House Republicans spent hours today berating Peter Strzok over unsupported claims of anti-Trump bias in his professional duties. It`s exactly what Brett Kavanaugh described in 1998 quote "A truly energetic political campaign to destroy the credibility of an independent counsel." They personally attacked Strzok who had texted about the president with an FBI lawyer with whom he was having an affair.
REP. LOUIE GOHMERT (R), TEXAS: The disgraced that this man has done --
REP. BOB GOODLATTE (R-VA), CHAIRMAN, HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: The gentleman from Texas will suspend for a moment.
GOHMERT: There is the disgrace and it won`t be recaptured anytime soon because of the damage you`ve done to the justice system and I`ve talked to FBI agents around the country you`ve embarrassed them, you`ve embarrassed yourself and I can`t help but wonder when I see you looking there with a little smirk, how many times did you look so innocent into your wife`s eyes and lied to her about --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Chairman this is outrageous.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Shame on you. Mr. Chairman -- Mr. Chairman, please - -
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You need your medication.
HAYES: That was one of many eruptions among lawmakers on the committee especially as Republicans threatened to hold Strzok in contempt for declining to disclose information about the ongoing Russia Probe. Strzok, by contrast, kept his cool over hours and hours of testimony defending both the FBI and his own conduct working on the investigation.
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STRZOK: I can assure you, Mr. Chairman at no time in any of these texts did those personal beliefs ever enter into the realm of any action I took. Furthermore, this isn`t just me sitting here telling you. You don`t have to take my word for it. At every step at every investigative decision, there are multiple layers of people above me, the assistant director, executive assistant director, deputy director, and director of the FBI and multiple layers of people below me, section chiefs, supervisors, unit chiefs, case agents and analysts, all of whom were involved in all of these decisions. They would not tolerate any improper behavior in me any more than I would tolerate it in them. That is who we are as the FBI. In the suggestion that I and some dark chamber somewhere in the FBI would somehow cast aside all of these procedures, all of these safeguards and somehow be able to do this is astounding to me. It simply couldn`t happen. And the proposition that that is going on that it might occur anywhere in the FBI deeply corrodes what the FBI is an American society, the effectiveness of their mission and it is deeply destructive.
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HAYES: For more on that circus on Capitol today I`m joined by MSNBC Justice Analyst Matt Miller, former Chief Spokesperson for the Justice Department under Eric Holder and MSNBC Terrorism Analyst Malcolm Nance, Author of The Plot to Destroy Democracy: How Putin and His Spies are Undermining America and Dismantling the West. What do you think, Matt?
MATT MILLER, MSNBC JUSTICE ANALYST: You know, I`ve spent through a lot of hearings of these two committees which meet jointly today and on a good day they`re pretty bad. This was not a good day. This was one of the most embarrassing moments I`ve ever seen from either of these committees. It was remarkable in their treatment of this witness today. They started out by threatening him with contempt charges, criminal contempt charges referring him to the Department of Justice for criminal charges because he wouldn`t answer questions that he was ordered by the FBI where he is still an employee not to answer. It ended with members of Congress at least spending all five minutes of their time to attack him and then not letting him respond. And for all their attacks it was pretty clear they didn`t -- they weren`t in a search for any truth, they weren`t in a search for justice, they wanted a public whipping boy that they could pin on these accusations, these unfounded accusations of bias on.
But the problem was they were never able to connect his very clear feelings about Donald Trump as expressed in his text messages and as he expressed in the hearing today with any actions he took at the FBI. They were never able to make that critical link that showed that some of the things he felt about Donald Trump influenced anything that he did and as he I think very eloquently stated, he had the power in the fall of 2016 with one phone call to derail Donald Trump`s campaign and probably prevent him from becoming president. He was one of the only people in the country with that power and he refrained to exercise it. It was -- it was the logical fallacy at their heart of it -- at the heart of their conspiracy that he exposed it.
HAYES: That is the tweet-length version of this. The on-line version of this is that if he wanted to undo Donald Trump if he wanted to use his position of power to destroy the campaign of Donald Trump, there was a very clear course of action for him to take that he did not take.
MALCOLM NANCE, MSNBC TERRORISM ANALYST: Yes, you`re absolutely right about that. You know what I find fascinating about this? Juxtapose this person who we saw today standing there for the honor of the FBI that`s showing how he used his integrity. Yes, he said private things as a citizen but he also for the First Amendment. I was I was quite pleased with that. But on the other hand, juxtapose that with his boss Director Comey who went out and made statements about Hillary Clinton. He didn`t keep his mouth shut at a time that he really should have. And so we have a guy in charge of the counterintelligence division who understood the severity --
HAYES: Yes.
NANCE: -- of what was going on. What could arguably be the single most important investigation in American history and he kept the faith of the bureau.
HAYES: By the way, I just want to be clear. I mean, as a journalist I want people to leak stuff to me, right? So I basically pro leak. But as a citizen, as someone the professionals in the FBI, Matt, I mean it was right and proper and in fact incredibly important that that investigation be kept as secret as it was which he and his cohort appears to have done.
MILLER: Yes, absolutely. And it was obvious -- by October of 2016 it was fairly obvious from anyone that knows how the department works that the Trump campaign was under investigation. Paul Manafort had to leave the campaign because he was under investigation. The hacks were public so it was clear that if you were going to investigate the hacks and if you were looking at Paul Manafort who had spent a long time working with you know, Russian cutouts in Ukraine that you were going to be looking taking a look at the campaign too. But not only did the FBI not publicly confirm it, at the same time they were you know, sending that letter to that confirmed -- that confirmed -- the renewed investigation in the Clinton campaign but they went out of their way to knock down stories about the investigation. They went out of their way to convince reports that there was no investigation going on, that any investigation hadn`t turned anything up which by the way is the appropriate thing to do. You want them to do that. You wanted to do it in both cases of course and that`s not what they did in the campaign. And I think that`s why -- that is why we`re here today with Donald Trump as president.
HAYES: It also strikes me as someone who has a long career in counterintelligence working specifically on Russian intelligence operations has been I was really like taken offline by this ceaseless character assassination of the guy who by the way if you happen to watch Trump T.V. or I mean, this guy is like public enemy number one.
NANCE: Yes, And you know who this man is? That`s America`s top spy hunter. That`s who he is. He`s the man that finds enemies within the United States whether they`re members of ISIS, whether to remember of al- Qaeda or whether they`re hostile intelligence agency. You have to understand, I think it`s important for this administration to take him down because they`re pretty close to foreign intelligence. We know some people have spoken with Russians. The Russians really, really must be very pleased today to see that America`s top internal security hunter is now being ripped apart. And what I loved about that the hearing today it sort of reminded me -- I think the Republicans really wanted one of those Saddam Hussein like show trials where you bring the guy out and you chastise him you throw a shoe at him but we hit the guard wheels of democracy today. You saw the opposition furious, you saw the man defend himself in the First Amendment and it was not a spectacle but it was a show.
HAYES: By the way, I want to just say, I mean, the idea that like the FBI would never do wrong or they would never revise and bruising allegation is ridiculous. Like, law enforcement gets stuff wrong all the time. It`s animated by bias all the time, Matt, but I kept thinking the whole time you know, Bob Goodlatte says, is equal -- you know equal justice under law. Do you want to read the text of ICE agents about the people that they`re investigating? Do you want to read the text of local police officers about the people they`re investigating? What do you think law enforcement says in private about the people that are investigated?
MILLER: That is actually absolutely right. You look at many of the logical fallacies here. The FBI, most of the people they`re investigating, they presume that they`re guilty. That doesn`t mean they eventually charge them with something to recommend charges. They only do that if they find evidence. But they think all kinds of negative things about the people that they`re investigating. And by the way, if you pulled the text of members of Congress, Republican members of Congress during the campaign and see what they said about Donald Trump, I thought a lot of them be pretty similar to what we know what these members said. I want to say one thing about what Malcolm said about what you saw a Peter Strzok today and Peter Strzok`s record, I mean, especially when you contrast it to some of the members of this committee who were spending their time attacking him.
Jim Jordan who right now is credibly accused of looking the other way as a doctor sexually assaulted wrestlers who were in his charge. Tom Marino, a member of Congress who was a former U.S. Attorney as U.S. Attorney gave a character reference to a mobster who his own office was investigating. Scott DesJarlais who as a doctor had an affair with his patients in violation of medical ethics and then pressured her -- one of them to have an abortion. These are the members who are now coming out and lecturing Pete Strzok on what is the appropriate behavior in the workforce. It is galling to watch.
HAYES: Someone`s tweeted this earlier and to Matt`s point I mean, that was part of it also is can you imagine a sweep of the 2016 text of a random person in the federal bureaucracy in Capitol Hill of a member of Congress and what grips that would be for a hearing.
NANCE: And I find it -- I just find it fascinating that Republicans understand that but they appear to have the only people who have a right to you know freedom of speech. Everybody else has a right to have their texts scan through and determine their bias. Let me tell you something. I know a lot of guys in the bureau, the bureau was pretty much in the tank, a lot of them for Donald Trump. They loved Donald Trump. The New York office is famous for that but they don`t -- I really believe they do not allow that to -- when they start when they start blood hounding they don`t allow that to color their investigation.
HAYES: You know, that point about the bureau`s color. Peter Strzok answered a question at one point from one of the members in which he said you know, the bureau is law and order conservative and overwhelmingly Republican as a description of the makeup of the bureau which makes in some senses the kind of head-spinning you know, we`ve always been at war with Eurasia part of this a remarkable from the Republicans as they basically continue to just sort of portray the bureau as this kind of leftist cabal.
MILLER: Yes, for anyone that has ever worked with the bureau and knows FBI agents, it is an absurd characterization. They are conservative. But one of the things about them being conservative I think people need to understand, I hear Democrats say this all the time, oh, they`re Republicans, you couldn`t trust them to conduct these investigations fairly. Yes, you can. Even though they`re conservative, most of them will conduct -- you know, they conducted in the investigation to Hillary Clinton I think very fairly. They`re conducting the investigation into Donald Trump fairly. Where you will see it break down sometimes as you will see leaks about people that they are investigating but that happens in a partisan way, it also happens in all kinds of cases that they`re investigating. Usually, it`s not because of partisan motives. And I will say for all the characterization of the bureau being so -- pro-Republic -- are so strongly Republican I think that is in idea that is weakened somewhat over the last few minutes. If you talked to FBI agents now many of them are Republicans who are very, very upset about Donald Trump and are very, very upset about the way Republicans on the Hill are attacking the bureau for political gain.
HAYES: Peter Strzok basically said as much today in this testimony.
NANCE: Yes, you know, let me stand up for the bureau again, OK? These guys when they get onto the hunt, OK, left right or center, they don`t care who the target is. I think what`s happening here in if we`re seeing a transition with these people or maybe this is why the Republicans which are going so hard at the bureau is that they know they will be in trouble if they come up with real evidence and they will throw partisanship out the window and they will be the bloodhounds that we test them.
HAYES: Right, there is a fear -- right, there`s a fear for that and there it also seems to me to laying the groundwork to basically say whatever comes out of this process is tainted so that whatever evidence is produced in the end you don`t have to listen to at the end of the Mueller investigation. Matt Miller and Malcolm Nance, thank you both. That was great. Coming up, a glimpse at the madness engulfing House Republicans, the craven spectacle creative of the people running this country in two minutes.
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STRZOK: I never prejudged anything, not in this case, not in any others.
REP. TREY GOWDY (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: Impeachment for what agent Strzok? Impeachment for what?
GOHMERT: when I see you looking there with a little smirk, how many times did you look so innocent into your wife`s eyes and lied to her about --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Chairman --
REP. MATT GAETZ (R), FLORIDA: Did Robert Mueller ever ask you if you were biased against Donald Trump?
STRZOK: He did not.
GAETZ: Did he -- so he didn`t ask you when he hired you?
STRZOK: No, that question is not typically a question that gets asked during hiring meetings in the U.S. --
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HAYES: The country got a good look today at what millions of Americans are soaking in all the time, the fever swamp repeated and amplify but the most significant caucus in the House, the hard right House Freedom Caucus, some of whom you never you just saw. It`s the same kind of approach that takes aim at legitimate questions about what Congressman Jim Jordan knew when he was an assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State about sexual abuse of student-athletes by teen doctor and turns those legitimate questions into a seriously a deep state conspiracy.
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GAETZ: Jim Jordan is a man of integrity and these attacks against him are a direct consequence of the outstanding oversight work that Jim Jordan is doing. If Jim Jordan was not after the Department of Justice and the FBI, he would not be dealing with these allegations. I think there are people that have some loose affiliation with the deep state that are out to get Jim Jordan and this is the way that they`re manifesting their hatred for a man who`s doing everything to fight for the regular folks in this country who want demand and deserve the truth.
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HAYES: Mickey Edwards, a former Republican Congressman from Oklahoma, author of The Parties versus the People and Tara Dowdell is a Democratic Strategist and Mickey let me start with you. You sat in hearings. You`re a Republican member of Congress. What do you think about your Republican Party congressional members in this hearing today?
MICKEY EDWARDS (R-OK), FORMER REPRESENTATIVE: I mean it was embarrassing. I mean, first of all, I believe at the right of Congress to investigate what the executive branch does that`s what`s they supposed to do.
HAYES: Absolutely.
EDWARDS: But to do that, you listen to information, you ask questions, and then you left the person to answer the questions and then that`s how you get information that you need to do your job. But then this is just a litany of insults and Louie Gohmert you know, it`s just ought to be locked up somewhere. I mean, you know, the guy is nuts. And what you need in a hearing like this because it`s a serious question it`s a very serious question. The I.G.s report that basically found no indication that bias was used by this agent or anybody else in their investigation, you know, got ignored. It`s all about you know, the text, it`s about his relationship with his wife. It`s -- I mean if I were just a plain citizen who`d never served in Congress, I would roll my eyes and I would say this institution has lost its way. It doesn`t know what it`s doing and it`s an embarrassment to the country.
HAYES: I want to play another section. Congressman Paul Gosar is a Republican of Arizona. I want to play an exchange that was interesting. I learned something I didn`t know from this exchange. Take a listen.
REP. PAUL GOSAR (R), ARIZONA: By the way, I`m a dentist OK, so I read body language very, very well.
And the last comment. This morning you are a smart individual. We are not a democracy, we are a constitutional republic that is why we have two ways both from a democracy voting and then from the -- where we have the Electoral College.
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HAYES: You got a little confusing constitutional structure there but I did not know and I seriously did not know the dentists are particularly good at reading body language.
TARA DOWDELL, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Exactly.
HAYES: But what you see I think here is partly you`re seeing people that don`t -- a huge part of the Republican caucus are folks like this who don`t who aren`t normally sort of in the news right?
DOWDELL: Right.
HAYES: But this is who the rank-and-file Republican Party are.
DOWDELL: Which is disturbing to say the least. I mean the Republican Party has been heading in this direction for a long time. People are acting as if this moment is the first time the Republican Party has devolved or this moment is the moment of devolution by the Republican Party and it`s simply not. Benghazi, we -- people have forgotten Trey Gowdy oversaw those investigations for two and a half years. They there were zero indictments and every single day the Republicans went on T.V. during those Benghazi investigations and that`s all they talked about for two and a half years. This has been an ongoing strategy where they`re just using whatever they can to distract and to maintain power. And I want to make one other point. People make the point that this is about you know, protecting Trump. This is a bigger than protecting Trump. This is about protecting the Republican Party as a whole and it`s about protecting their patronage structure. Mitch McConnell`s wife is the Transportation Secretary as we know. Their people placed throughout this government that are related and relatives to many members of that earth sitting there putting on this show.
HAYES: You know, Mickey, Tara makes a good point which is it`s not like -- I mean, I got to say, you were in Congress in the 90s right?
EDWARDS: I was.
HAYES: I mean, there was Dan Burton House Government Oversight shooting a pumpkin or watermelon I think in his backyard to show how Vince Foster was murdered by the Clintons. There is -- this did not come out of thin air.
EDWARDS: No. Look, this is a pattern here of trying to use the offices of Congress and the hearing power that members of Congress have to conduct political gain and it`s 00 there`s no serious attempt here to be a check on the executive. It`s it to be a check on the other party and I -- of course listening to this guy before tried to explain our constitutional system when he didn`t have a clue when he got passed his notes you know was hilarious. And I don`t know what we do to make the Republican Party understand this is not a game. We`re talking about the Constitution in the United States. We`re talking about the obligation of Congress to do a serious job to keep a check honestly on the executive branch and it seems that the people I know in Congress, the people I knew when I was in Congress Democrat and Republican alike took that job seriously. These people seem to be completely lost in how can you protect our great leader. And that that`s a real serious dangerous path to be on for a country that is supposed to be dedicated to separated powers, to the people`s branch keeping track of what the executive is doing so that the people remain in charge. That`s all being tossed out the window in the name of party loyalty. And you know a lot of these people just need to be out of office so they need to be out of office pretty quickly before they do more damage.
HAYES: Part of what`s -- to Mickey`s point, part of what`s strange here, right, is it`s fair -- you get this fairly often that where you have at the White House of one party in Congress of another.
DOWDELL: Right.
HAYES: And Congress is very you know, hostile and sort of has a partisan incentive for oversight of the executive. But here it`s a very strange thing because it`s a Republican Congress and a Republican president but what they`re doing is essentially attacking what they view is sort of disloyal members within the president`s own administration.
DOWDELL: Exactly, exactly. And again, this is going back to the Republicans decided that we have a saying in politics where you`re going to go for the big lie, right? Where you go for the little lie or you go for the big lie? The Republicans have decided to go all in to double down on the big lie. And the big lie is that Trump is the one that should be vigorously investigated for all --
HAYES: Right.
DOWDELL: For all -- for all of this show and all this you know, circus that they`re putting on, this is all to distract from the fact that Donald Trump is the only one where there`s overwhelming evidence, has done something. There been 20 people indicted, 20 people, three businesses, 75 charges and so they`ve decided that if they are just -- what they`ve learned is that their base and that`s the real issue here, they`ve learned that they`re never going to pay a price with their base and that is what is dangerous. And I wanted to say something about Democrats. I`m not saying the Democrats aren`t guilty sometimes of things but when Anthony Weiner got in trouble, Nancy Pelosi did not let him back in for re-election. When he ran for Mayor of New York City, remember he was leading in the polls and when all that news came out about his behavior, he dipped in the polls because Democratic voters were not having it. Republican voters will have it and that`s no -- and that`s the real check on both parties is their voters.
HAYES: Mickey Edwards and Tara Dowdell, thank you both.
EDWARDS: Yes, thanks, Chris. Ahead, the bizarre and dangerous performance of the President in the world stage, Trump`s NATO disaster after this.
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HAYES: The president today on his way out of the NATO summit in Brussels stepped in front of cameras and told a whopper of a tale about military spending.
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TRUMP: We`ve had a very amazing two-day period in Brussels and we really accomplished a lot with regards to NATO. Everyone has agreed to substantially up their commitment. They`re going to up it at levels that they`ve never thought of before. The commitment was 2 percent, ultimately that will be going up quite a bit higher than that.
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HAYES: That is not true. NBC News reporting it was not clear that Trump had actually extracted any new concessions from U.S. allies. Leaders of Italy and France removed any ambiguity whatsoever. Italian Premier Giusseppe Conte told the Associated Press straight up that there is no additional spending.
French President Emmanuel Macron added that the official NATO report only confirmed the spending goal 2 percent, a commitment made in 2014.
Trump did with NATO exactly what he did with North Korea and that he has done numerous time -- ratchet up tensions and then claimed to solve the crisis he created by getting concessions which do not actually exist.
Here to discuss Trump`s M.O., Jake Sullivan who served as national security adviser to Vice President Joe Biden, director of policy planning at The State Department and worked on the Clinton campaign as well.
This is now, an M.O. -- create the crisis, then say that you unwound it with these concessions that don`t exist. Do you think other countries are catching up to this?
JAKE SULLIVAN, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER TO JOE BIDEN: I think to a certain extent they are. In fact, I was over in europe last week and many people there were writing the script before Donald Trump delivered it. They were saying what is going to happen here is that Trump will walk in to the summit with the message that America is getting screwed by its allies and walk out of the summit with a message that he alone, Donald Trump, fixed everything. And nevermind that neither of those two things are true, that was the script and that is what Donald Trump was going to do. And they turned out to be exactly right.
And that would be fine, it would just be spectacle if it weren`t for the fact that I think it is doing severe and lasting damage to America`s allies, because Donald Trump is the president of the United States. He speaks on behalf of the United States of America, and the more that he undermines his own credibility, the more he is underming the credibility of our country, and that`s putting us in a worse position.
HAYES: Yeah, do you think -- I mean, in some ways it seems the safest way to deal with him, if you`re Macron or anyone, is basically just not listen to him. I mean, just don`t fall for any of it, right?
SULLIVAN: Yeah. You know, Macron tried for a while to play the buddy routine, to come in and give him a big hug and try to butter him up and get him to go along with Macron`s proposals on things like the Iran deal. He saw that didn`t work, so he shifted to a different course, which is basically just to have a poker face, let Trump do what Trump does, and then sit with the other European allies and basically weather the storm knowing at the end of it, Trump is going to want to walk away saying everything is all good because Trump has fixed it.
So, I think the Europeans have certainly caught on. But the real question, and it`s the one you initiatally posed, is as China looks at this, as Putin looks at this, as others do, how do they calculate ways to take advantage of the president? And those are crafty negotiators. And my guess is they`re going to get the measure of him and then they`re going to get the better of him.
HAYES: You know, speaking of that, we just had this big summit in North Korea. The president was there. And one of the things that he talked about, a sort of tangible request was the remains of U.S. soldiers who had died in Korean War and were still in North Korea, and he -- this is him talking about how this was so important. People talked to him on the campaign trail. Take a listen
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TRUMP: They want the remains of their sons back. They want the remains of their fathers and mothers and all of the people that got caught into that brutal war, which took place to a large extent in North Korea.
And I asked for it today and we got it. That was a very last minute. The remains will be coming back. They are going to start that process immediately.
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HAYES: I asked for it today and we got it. Then today was going to be a meeting in the demilitarized zone to start that process, and North Koreans were a no-show at the meeting to discuss repatriating the remains of Americans killed during the Korean War, and it seems like that -- there is going to be a lot more of that.
SULLIVAN: Yeah, I mean, you had today them not showing up on the remains. You had them last week telling Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, I`m sorry but all of your bold claims about how we were going to hand over all of our nuclear weapons, we never said that. Donald Trump said it, but we certainly didn`t.
And I think the North Koreans are sending a message that basically says if you get too far our ahead of what we have actually put down on paper, we are going to show you what`s what. And that puts us in a worse negotiating position with the north.
So Donald Trump`s braggadocio, his bold claims, they are bad in American domestic politics, but they are actually downright dangerous when they play out on the world stage, particularly with adversaries like North Korea.
HAYES: And then there is this crazy thing when you watch him go after Merkel and Trudeau, and obviously like we have differences of opinion with other countries and that -- you know, he just showed up and gave this like scorching interview about Theresa May and it`s on the front page of the Sun in England. And her government was on the brink of possibly toppling, which he may have nudged and pushed it over. And then after all that goes to North Korea, today he tweets a letter touting the great progress being made. It is like he can`t say -- it`s so bizarre, he cannot say enough good things about people like Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin and not enough bad things about basically every leader of every democratic country.
SULLIVAN: Well, I think what is happening here is that Donald Trump looks at Europeans small "d" democrats, or a democratic leader like Trudeau and sees American big "D" Democrats. He sees these liberals who are talking to him about climate change and nuclear diplomacy and refugees and he doesn`t like those people.
And then sees people like Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin and he thinks to himself, I want what you have. I want to be able to just march around as the strong man calling the shots. And there is a certain envy there, a certain kind of machismo that he is jealous of those guys.
And so the net result of that is that the United States kowtows to its adversaries and pushes away its friends. And you don`t have to be a foreign policy expert to see that is not a good recipe for advancing America`s interests in the world.
HAYES: All right, Jake Sullivan, thanks for joining us.
SULLIVAN: Thanks for having me.
HAYES: Still ahead, Paul Manafort isn`t the only one with a new mug shot today. The tale of two Trump world mugshots coming up.
Plus, tonight`s Thing One, Thing Two about breakfast starts next.
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HAYES: Thing One tonight, there`s been a lot of drama at this week`s NATO summit in Brussels, which seems to happen pretty much everywhere the president goes. You may have seen this moment, for instance, from the very first meeting over breakfast.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Germany is totally controlled by Russia. Germany, as far as I`m concerned, it is captive to Russia because it is getting so much of its energy from Russia.
So we`re supposed to protect Germany, but they`re getting their energy from Russia. Explain that. And it can`t be explained. You know that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: It was uncomfortable, to say the least. A lot of people noticed Chief of Staff John Kelly looked especailly antsy, figeting in his seat, looking away from Trump, pursing his lips. And that was understandable.
But it was the White House statement in response that was especially weird. They could have just said, don`t be silly, none of that had anything to do with what Trump was saying at the time, but what they didn`t say was, quote, "Kelly was displeased because of he was expecting a full breakfast and there were only pastries and cheese." Now that really seemed unlikely to us at the time, because, well, first of all, who doesn`t love pastries and cheese? And the answer is no one. But why would Sarah Huckabee Sanders go out of her way to make the White House chief of staff look like a disgruntled customer at IHOB?
It was all made more suspicious today when the NATO secretary general, who was at the same breakfast, says he left that breakfast with a fully tummy tum. That`s thing two in 60 seconds.
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HAYES: The White House could have said any number of believable things in response to questions about John Kelly`s clear discomfort with the president`s comments at a NATO breakfast this week, but instead they came up with a line about the retired Marine Corps general being hangry.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders saying, quote, "Kelly was displeased because he was expecting a full breakfast and there were only pastries and cheese," which is just a really strange thing to say and seems like maybe even a deliberate effort to troll the chief of staff who, according to multiple, reports may already be on his way out.
Now, we got some more inside information from the NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who, when asked later about how the breakfast went, said that he had, quote, "eggs and toast and orange juice and some good fruit salad." And it was paid for by the United States, now that is a grand slam NATO breakfast.
But it leaves us now with even more questions, like who is withholding delicious eggs from John Kelly. It Sarah Huckabee Sanders trying to red hen the chief of staff? And when will these other nations start paying for their fair share for breakfast?
We are going to stay on this very important story.
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HAYES: Former Trump Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort isn`t the only one in Trump world with a new mug shot. Adult film star Stormy Daniels was arrested last night while performing at a strip club in Columbus, Ohio. Daniels was accused of touching and fondling patrons. Two other women were arrested along with her.
The police initially said the arrests were part of, and I quote here, a long-term investigation into allegations of human trafficking, prostitution and other vice related violations, human trafficking. Sure, yeah.
It looks like something else all together. Daniels, in case you somehow forgotten, says she`s had an affair with Donald Trump in 2006. The White House denies the affair. And Trump`s personal lawyer paid Daniels $130,000 under a hush agreement that Daniels is now fighting in court.
Today, hours after the arrest, the charges against Daniels were dropped, and the Columbus, Ohio police chief put out a statement reading in part, quote, a mistake was made and I accept full responsibility. The motivations behind the officer`s actions will be reviewed internally. It`s an interesting thing to say.
Daniels` attorney, Michael Avenatti, is calling for an open investigation and posted pro-Trump images he was told came from a Facebook account belonging to one of the police officers. We can`t independently confirm that.
Stormy Daniels is still in Columbus, Ohio tonight. She is scheduled to perform at a different club.
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HAYES: Did the U.S. government kidnap an american child? The question sounds absurd, but it is not quite absurd, because in a court document filed Tuesday we learned this astonishing news about an under 5-year-old child among the immigrant children who were apparently taken from parents at the border.
Quote, one child cannot be reunified at this time, because the parents` location has been unknown for more than a year. Defendants are unable to conclusively determine whether the parent is a class member. And records show the parent and child might be U.S. citizens.
OK. When BuzzFeed reporter Amber Jamieson asked officials early today about the child, quote, "there was six seconds of silence."
Moments ago Jamieson tweeted an update, quote, the child was separated from its mother after she was arrested on an outstanding warrant by the U.S. Marshal service. Her whereabouts have been unknown since then.
Even in other incidents, the administration seems to have trouble keeping track of these children. The administration, of course, originally said there were 101 children under 5, 101. And then they found another child, so it was 102. And then in the last day or two yet another child, for a current tally of 103.
These are children, not just numbers.
According to the latest figures, just over half of those children are back with their parents with the administration saying the remaining kids are not eligible for reunification.
Here to help me understand the current status of those children and otheres is Buzzfeed reporter Amber Jamieson, and Texas attorney Jodi Goodwin who has been working with parents whose children have been taken from them.
Jodi, I want to come to you in a second. But let me start on this, Amber, because this case is so bizarre. This footnote caught everyone`s attention. One of the -- we have a child who is under 5 who we have. We can`t find the parents, and also maybe they`re citizens.
AMBER JAMIESON, BUZZFEED: There`s a lot going on.
So, what they have said today in the court filing that was released the child was detained with the child coming over from Mexico at the Texas border. It says the child was born in Mexico and that there was an outstanding warrant for the mother, and so she was taken by the U.S. Marshalls and the child was taken into the care of the, you know, Patridge House (ph), which looks after the unaccompanied minors.
However, since they`ve said that they`ve been unable to locate the mother, it`s interesting because she`s -- you know, obviously had, you know, contact with the U.S. Marshall services, so why they have lost her is -- I`ve contacted them for comment, I haven`t heard back from the yet on where she is.
But, yes, since late November 2015 this child has been in the care of Health and Human Services.
HAYES: I want to be clear about this, because that date is important. This is under the Obama administration. It`s 2015. And the separation happens because when they`re apprehended at the border, there is an outstanding warrant for the mother. And so this is one of those relatively rare cases under the Obama administration that family separation would happen. One, there was sort of an outstanding criminal warrant, but it is crazy to me that they have just essentially lost track of the two.
JAMIESON: That`s where it really seems to be a very different situation than normal. And when we have asked for information on exactly, you know, what happened of the circumstances of that, we haven`t got anything yet. It`s often very unknown. All it is is that they`ve said theyve been unable to make contact over a year.
HAYES: Jodi, what do you say -- what do you make of the administration saying, we`ve reunited about half of the 103, and that`s it, because the rest are ineligible.
JODI GOODWIN, ATTORNEY: Well, it is very confusing at least at this point, because we don`t know exactly what those reasons are. I`m a little skeptical about some of those reasons, because they seem sort of vague to me. I don`t have personal knowledge of the facts in each of those cases of those children, but when I looked at those numbers, it did cause question in my mind.
HAYES: What has been your experience working with parents who are trying to be reunited with their kids?
GOODWIN: Well, what I can tell you is that for the past month now, going on five weeks, myself along with a team of a large number of volunteer attorneys have been working primarily with the parents that are in detention.
So, at the Port Isabel detention center here along the border, there are approximately 400 parents that have been separated from their children. I can tell that you that the number one question on their mind is where is my child and how is my child doing? It very difficult and complicated to get them to think about their own cases, that they have to go through while they`re so worried and distraught about their children.
HAYES: The recordkeeping -- two things that have struck me about this (inaudible) you`ve encountered the same in sort of (inaudible) at this. One is, the recordkeeping doesn`t seem very good. The numbers keep moving around. And, also, it is like pulling teeth to get information from them.
JAMIESON: It`s been very hard to get information. You know, as you mentioned today when I asked a question, it was dead silence for six seconds and then they just said we don`t have any information on that. And it wasn`t until, you know, later this afternoon, suddenly they were able to provide some information on it. It is also interesting as well looking at what they classify, so, for example, if the 46 children haven`t been reunited, you know, 22 of them they say is because of safety concerns, and some of those include that -- and you know, some of them are very serious concerns, outstanding warrants for murder, assault, smuggling, some very major issues.
They are also concern ones where they that the -- that the adult is not the parent. Some of that has come from DNA testing or parents admitting; however, two of those are people who say that they`re the grandmother that they`re with, and another one said it is an uncle.
Now, the court order specifically says parents, so therefore they`re not covered and it doesn`t count.
HAYES: So they`re just saying, well, we`re not doing it because it is your uncle and the court is telling us we only have to reunite parents.
JAMIESON: Exactly, but, you know, in two of those -- but they then sort of say we`re making sure that we`re reuniting children with the correct parent and we`re doing it as safely as we can and making sure it`s not the wrong person. But I think you could argue that perhaps reuniting someone with a grandmother may not come under the safety concern. It does, definitely -- it is part of the court order that is absolutely correct that, you know, that is not a thing they have to be doing, but whether that classsifies as a safety issue.
HAYES: Are you -- are your clients -- these are clients, I imagine, who have kids older than 5, so they`re not in this class. But do you get a sense that ORR or anyone in the government is trying to reunite them?
GOODWIN: No, absolutely not. Most of my clients all have children that are over the age of 5 and I can tell you that there hasn`t been any movement in terms of any specific process or any specific plan that they have conveyed to us as attorneys or much less to the individual parents that are detained that would indicate that they`re doing anything to be able to try to reunify them.
What I can tell you is that there is a subset of parents that have been told that if they were to give up their rights to be able to apply for protection under the U.S. asylum laws, that they would be reunified with their children faster, and that sounds like extortion to me.
HAYES: Amber Jamieson and Jodi Goodwin, thanks for joining me.
One last thing before we go, a reminder to subscribe to our podcast. This week`s guest on Why is This Happening Larry Kasner, the Philly prosecutor taking radical steps to end mass incarceration. Get it wherever you get your podcasts. Use that shiny new hashtag #withpod to tell me what you think.
That is All In for this evening. The Rachel Maddow Show starts right now. Good evening, Rachel.
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