Show: ALL IN with CHRIS HAYES Date: October 25, 2018 Guest: Catherine Cortez Masto, Michael Moore, Chris Murphy
CHRIS MATTHEWS, MSNBC HOST: -- again and again and again. Again, had those bombs going off in the presence of their intended targets, this day, this week, this year would have been marked in history. And that`s HARDBALL, for now. Thanks for being with us. "ALL IN" with Chris Hayes starts right now.
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CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST: Tonight on ALL IN.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is clearly an effort to terrorize people politically.
HAYES: Ten bombs so far. Two sent to Joe Biden, one to Obama, one to Holder, one to Clinton, one to George Soros, one to CNN, two bombs to Maxine Waters.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Oh Maxine, low I.Q. individual.
HAYES: And one bomb sent to Robert De Niro.
ROBERT DE NIRO, ACTOR: (BLEEP) Trump.
HAYES: Tonight, Michael Moore on the threat of violence and the president.
TRUMP: Do you see how nice I`m behaving tonight.
HAYES: Then, twelve days till the election and the Nevada Senate races neck and neck, Senator Cortez Masto joins me on that. Plus, the Tennessee farmers who do not support the President.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The tariffs and trade issue was the main reason I did that support, Mr. Trump.
HAYES: And the Republicans trying to dodge their healthcare records.
REP. MARTHA MCSALLY (R), ARIZONA: This is ridiculous, honestly. Do you have anything to talk about like the caravan?
HAYES: When ALL IN starts right now.
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HAYES: Good evening from New York, I`m Chris Hayes. We were learning more tonight about the passable mass assassination attempt against some of the most prominent members of the opposition political party as well as critics, the president, and a major news organization. As law enforcement officials work to identify the culprit, the President is warning the victims that they better change their ways. More than that in a moment but first the latest.
Officials now say that at least ten suspected explosive devices have been found. Device is made from PVC pipe which x-rays indicated likely contain shrapnel and were built with a timer that could set off a detonator. Now, officials also said the devices may have been mailed from Florida and that at least some of them could not have exploded due to flaws in their construction. It is not clear at this point whether or not those flaws were intentional.
As for the targets in addition to Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, George Soros, Eric Holder, and John Brennan who was targeted at CNN though he is an NBC Contributor, officials say two devices were sent to Maxine Waters, a frequent guest on this program, two were sent to Joe Biden, and one was sent to Robert De Niro.
What all these people have in common, of course, is that they are prominent critics of the president who have been regularly attacked by Trump and his allies in conservative media. That includes De Niro, a longtime Trump critic who cursed out the president during the Tony Awards this year. Trump responded by calling De Niro a very low I.Q. individual. While Trump T.V. played the clip of De Niro`s comments over and over and amplified the president`s attack.
At a campaign rally in Wisconsin last night in front of a crowd that was chanting "lock her up" before he even took the stage, a president clearly annoyed he couldn`t join the fun performed a kind of exhausted graciousness.
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TRUMP: Do you see how nice I`m behaving tonight? This is like -- have you ever seen this? We`re all behaving very well, and hopefully, we can keep it that way, right?
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HAYES: He didn`t keep it that way. This morning, the President tweeted that much of the "anger" we see today is due not who is rhetoric but the media. "It has gotten so bad and hateful it is beyond description. Mainstream media must clean up its act fast." Former CIA Director John Brennan who was one of the targets of this attack told Trump to stop blaming others. "Look in the mirror. Your inflammatory rhetoric, insults, lies, and encouragement of physical violence are disgraceful. Clean up your act." He added, your critics will not be intimidated into silence.
Joining me now for more on all this Academy Award-Winning Filmmaker Michael Moore whose latest film Fahrenheit 11/9 will be expanded to 280 theaters around the country this weekend ahead of the Midterms. Good to have you here, Michael.
MICHAEL MOORE, FILMMAKER: Thank you for having me.
HAYES: What do you think of this?
MOORE: I think that everybody should stop pretending that Trump doesn`t really know what he`s doing, that when he -- when he says these things he knows exactly what he`s trying to encourage.
HAYES: What do you mean by that?
MOORE: Well, there was -- Jeff Zucker I believe --
HAYES: From CNN, yes.
MOORE: -- CNN made a comment yesterday that he seemed -- that Trump seems to lack comprehension over his actions. I think he completely comprehends his actions and what he`s doing and the -- how he`s trying to encourage his nationalist people to make sure they get out to the polls on November 6th. And they`re counting on Liberals and Democrats and people on the Left who scare easily to you know, get all like this and not have the sort of vigor that the other side has.
HAYES: I just want to make sure I`m clear what you`re saying. Are you saying that you think that he knows what he`s doing in terms of rhetoric encouraging people to take actions like the action of the person who sent the bomb?
MOORE: Whatever -- yes. He said I believe on if he was August 9th, 2016 that he was saying that the election was going to be rigged and he was upon his Second Amendment people to be there and he said, to take the action you need to.
HAYES: Right.
MOORE: Whatever you need -- you know what you need to do is what he said.
HAYES: Yes, maybe the second he said Hilary`s going to rig it but I think the Second Amendment people might have something to say about that.
MOORE: Yes.
HAYES: A little ambivalent about what he meant. You don`t think so?
MOORE: I don`t think so, no. I think he was calling for violence then if he lost and he probably will not take it very well when he loses on November 6th. What is -- what is really interesting to witness is the fact that he has decided not to run for re-election in 2020. He is running for reelection on November 6th, 2018.
HAYES: Yes, it`s true.
MOORE: And he is campaigning every single day and telling everybody in every district, forget about the Republican name on the ballot.
HAYES: Barely an afterthought.
MOORE: Yes, yes, yes.
HAYES: He might get four seconds of the rally.
MOORE: When you go in there and then -- and it`s -- and the candidates, the Republican`s name is Joe Smith, I just want you to see the name, Donald Trump. It`s the Democrats versus me and we`re going to -- if we lose this, we lose everything.
HAYES: Let me ask you this. You`re someone who has -- had a very prominent role in public life for decades is -- I think fair to say a polarizing figure.
MOORE: Good, I hope so.
HAYES: You`ve also --
MOORE: And I`ll be very strongly in the things I believe in.
HAYES: I know, and I want to talk about that.
MOORE: And I don`t believe there`s a gray area when it comes to women`s rights, women`s reproductive rights, taking children away from their parents and putting the cages. There`s no middle ground to those issues. So we use that we`re polarizing a lot, I think it`s yes, I wish we lived in a country where everybody saw regardless of our differences that we`re all in the same boat.
HAYES: To be clear, I don`t think polarizing is bad. I mean, I think people should be polarized on the issue of taking children from their parents. I agree with you.
MOORE: Yes.
HAYES: That`s -- they should be polarized.
MOORE: Yes.
HAYES: People should choose their camp.
MOORE: So whether or not you should be vegan or vegetarian you know, that`s an open discussion.
HAYES: Here`s what I want to ask. I mean, you have been -- I know you`ve been the subject of threats of violence and have been on the receiving end of this kind of thing and I`m just curious what that -- how that experience in forms watching this play out?
MOORE: Well, I have been through this after I gave my Oscar speech in 2003 and after Fahrenheit 9/11 came out in 2004, I was subjected to not only many threats. The threats actually -- I looked forward to the threats because the threats as I learned, those are the people --
HAYES: The heads up.
MOORE: Well no, it so they cathartically get out of their system, their anger at you.
HAYES: Right.
MOORE: It`s the people that threatening you that you need to worry about I think. And so I was assaulted half a dozen times, on the street, on the stage, a guy was walking by a Starbucks and a guy comes out of Starbucks the sees me and he takes the lid off his hot coffee and throws it at my face. The worst was though the bomb. The -- this individual built a fertilizer bomb like the Oklahoma City bomb to blow up my house in Michigan. And he was cleaning his AK-47, it went off accidentally, a neighbor heard it, called the cops, cops came arrested him and found his list of who he was going to assassinate with my name at the top of the list. And I think Janet Reno was on the list, and Rosie O`Donnell was on the list. It was you know -- anyways he went to federal prison.
So I`ve been through this and it`s not a good feeling but you know, we always have to act with the resolve that nothing is going to stop us. And what -- and what anybody who might be watching this thinking that while I`m going to do some harm to Michael Moore, I`m just really one person out of the 66 million that voted three million more than Trump. And you can`t -- right now you can`t just take out this person or that person or whatever because there`s so many millions of us. We are the majority. We`ve won the popular vote in six of the last seven presidential elections. The majority of Americans are with us on virtually all the issues and they can`t change that with violence.
HAYES: You hear sometimes in the wake of this and I want to -- let me just stipulate this that when Gabby Giffords was shot, there was a lot of talk about the general tenner of politics at the time. And it turned out that individual was had for a personal grudge against her. It was seemed unrelated from the politics there. We don`t know the motive but the person who`s doing this, though it seems relatively evident but we don`t know. That said, you hear people talking about people need to tamp down the rhetoric on both sides, I hear that a lot, and unity. We need more unity and I just -- what do you think about that?
MOORE: Well, no, we -- first of all, our side needs to rev it up and we need to fight for these things that we feel strongly about but we do --
HAYES: Not violently. Like just to be clear. Yes.
MOORE: Of course. Of course, we`re non-violent people, non-violent democracy based cures --
HAYES: Yes, that`s right.
MOORE: -- is what we stand for. But our problem has been we`re always two kind of wishy-washy sometimes or let`s compromise, let`s reach out, let`s extend the olive branch, and you know the other side they`re like they`re - - as Steve banning has said we go for the head wound. And well, see, we`re not head wound people but what he says about us is that we like to have pillow fights.
HAYES: Right.
MOORE: And pillow fights are not going to get us what we need to get. In terms of the unity -- one thing I think we -- I hope most of us believe is that we are all Americans and we can have our differences, and we can -- and we can do -- have our differences in a civil manner and let`s have the great debate. People are like, if we impeach Trump will have Pence, that`ll be awful. No, it won`t be awful. Why are you -- why are you afraid of Pence? He actually believes in things. He has an ideology. He believes, Chris, that if you`re gay, he can convert you to be straight. I think we can have that debate and win that debate. I think most Americans are with us on all of these issues. And we should take some comfort in that and we should get to the polls and bring ten people with us on November 6th.
HAYES: Well, it`s funny because it is the case that what we`re watching with Trump, the Republicans is sort of running away from, big debates on a lot of the major issues. I mean, they don`t really want to talk about tax cuts.
MOORE: Oh, no.
HAYES: They really want to talk about trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The President in this like to me is slightly preposterous bait and switch has now announced some big drug pricing you know, 11 days before the election after controlling government. And all that seems to me to evince a -- it evinces a worry that they don`t actually have the issues inside.
MOORE: Right. No, they don`t. Well, they are going to get us a tax cut by November 6th. You heard that right? Yes -- no, even though there`s no Congress there, I don`t know how they`re -- maybe we put someone`s own carrier pigeon like they do in Game of Thrones. Just send the pigeon off up to Capitol Hill, nobody`s there, somehow we`ll get a tax cut. He really thinks people are stupid.
HAYES: Yes, he really does. He assumes people are stupid. Absolutely he does.
MOORE: He assumes they`re stupid and well -- and well, yes maybe 20 percent of the population should read a book every now and then. It would you know, maybe they should -- we should have given them a better school, you know. I`m -- you know, maybe --
HAYES: But you know, I --
MOORE: Maybe the daily paper --
HAYES: I don`t even -- I don`t even attach to that. I generally think -- because I`m a believer in democracy, I think people whoever they are whatever educational level should vote and our fate lies in our hands collectively and whether people reading books or not or whether they like Trump or not, we are all in this together and I have faith in that.
MOORE: I agree.
HAYES: I have faith in my fellow America.
MOORE: Yes. And the people who believe that the earth is 6,000 years old --
HAYES: They vote too and they should vote.
MOORE: Yes. Yes, I agree with that but I`m thankful there are more of us.
HAYES: Yes, I think there are more people who don`t believe the earth is - -
MOORE: Who don`t believe the earth is 6,000 years old and therefore there`s great hope ahead of us here on November 6th.
HAYES: I think that -- I guess the final question is what feels to you reversible and irreversible about this moment?
MOORE: I`m pausing here because I want to say something to leave this part of the show with a sense of hope but I`m very, very aware that we are close to the edge of a cliff.
HAYES: I agree.
MOORE: And you know, democracy does not have a self-correcting mechanism, like our new automobiles, the modern automobile mechanism. If you`re going to a skid, it can pull out of the skid. Democracy doesn`t have a mechanism if it goes out of the skid --
HAYES: Just voters, just us.
MOORE: Just us. We`re it. We`re it on November 6th. We`re the only thing that can apply the brakes and everybody should be thinking every day what am I doing to get non-voters, people who don`t usually vote in these Midterms out to vote. It`s the most important thing and I`m sorry to have to --
HAYES: No --
MOORE: I don`t want to be a buzzkill about this but we are very -- we may not pull ourselves out of where Trump has taken us and we have one last chance and it`s less than 12 days away.
HAYES: All right, Michael Moore, thank you for being with me.
MOORE: Thank you for being here with me.
HAYES: Next, believe it or not, both sides know the real issue that matters in 12 days is health care which explains why the Republicans want to talk about anything else. Senator Chris Murphy has some thoughts and he joins me in two minutes.
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HAYES: Republicans continue to be running scared on health care. They do not want to talk about the issue, and when they`re forced to they have been pretty routinely lying about their own position. Take for example the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Arizona Martha McSally. Yesterday she desperately tried to claim that she always fought for pre-existing conditions despite her actual voting record.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Will you fight to retain pre-existing conditions as they are today?
MCSALLY: I have fought for pre-existing conditions. I voted to protect pre-existing conditions.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You voted for something that would weaken pre-existing conditions. You voted for something that would weaken pre-existing conditions.
MCSALLY: That`s not true. Right now -- it`s not true.
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HAYES: It is true. McSally voted for the Republican Health Plan, the AHCA which would have weakened protections for people with pre-existing conditions. McSally though has her own idea of what matters to voters.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you know if any of your staff is getting their health care through the ACA?
MCSALLY: Denis, can we please talk about the things that matter to most voters instead of repeating the Arizona Democrat Party press releases. This is ridiculous, honestly. Do you have anything to talk about like the caravan or job opportunities?
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HAYES: Caravan. Can I get a caravan question? Here to talk about what does in fact matter to voters, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut. It is -- it is striking to me that if you look at the ad data, how much Democrats have prioritized health care and if you look at the way Republicans are responding from the President on down, how much they appear to know that this is a bad issue for them right now?
SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D), CONNECTICUT: Yes. I hadn`t seen that clip. That is absolutely hilarious. I`ve been begging for a caravan question because I don`t want to talk about the fact that I voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act, I voted to take 30 million people`s health care away, I voted to strip protections for pre-existing --
HAYES: Let me just -- quickly for the fact here. Just to be clear, the response was to a question about her staff being on the ACA. I just want to be scrupulously clear about what the question was.
MURPHY: Right. I think -- but part of this broader pattern to try to make sure that they are not talking about health care. And listen, it`s pretty remarkable that from Scott Walker to Rick Scott in Florida, you have lots of Republicans that are trying to reinvent themselves. Well, their own attorney generals are in court as we speak trying to rule that it`s unconstitutional for Congress to protect people with pre-existing conditions.
Listen, this is still the number one issue out there and I think we have all recognized that there is a you know, a disconnect right now that`s happening often between what is dominating the daily news and what Americans are talking about on the streets. What they are talking about is that their health care prices are going up, they`re deathly scared that Republicans are going to take it away, and Mitch McConnell of course, in the last week or so has given all the evidence we need to understand the stakes saying that if they win the Senate today are coming right back for the Affordable Care Act and they`re going to try to fit in some more cuts to Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid.
So the stakes are really high. Republicans know what they`re trying to reinvent their records and I don`t think they`re going to get away with it.
HAYES: You know, you mentioned this and it`s striking to me. You have Scott Walker is governor Wisconsin, Josh Hawley who`s the Attorney General of Missouri, both running statewide, one for governor and one for Senator. They`re both part of this suit that would destroy the ACA. Just to be clear, it would get -- the argument presented in the briefs is that if they -- if the suit is successful, the whole thing is done, it`s over, and they could just take the names off it. They actually could make even a big sort of ceremony and be like hey, this is a big campaign idea. I`ve seen the like. I`m taking my name off this. But instead, they`re saying they protect pre-existing conditions while remaining on the lawsuit to destroy it,
MURPHY: Yes. I mean, it`s really remarkable that they think they can get away with this. And you know, part of the problem is with all of these super PACs that can outspend Democrats, they are counting on the fact that if they have enough ads that say they are actually for pre-existing conditions no one will notice the fact that they are actually in court as they speak trying to overturn the Affordable Care Act. So it`s absolutely stunning but I think voters by and large get this and I think ultimately it`s going to be one of the deciding factors.
HAYES: I think it is a tough sell we should say that how important health care be voting for Congress, very important according to 71 percent of people in the -- in the latest Kaiser Family Foundation poll. There`s another part of this story which is far away from the state of Connecticut but I thought you might have thoughts on which is about Medicaid expansion in states like Idaho, Nebraska, Montana, and Utah, Republican, Conservative red states that all have Medicaid expansion on the ballot this election which again is one of the radar but speaks to something about what the desires of electorates are even traditionally conservative ones.
MURPHY: Right. So Medicaid expansion is a fundamentally conservative idea in the sense that these are states that are sending money to Washington that are not coming back to their states. So Idaho taxpayers, Texas taxpayers are sending dollars to Washington that are frankly coming to states like Connecticut who have expanded Medicaid. And so if you`re a fiscal conservative, you don`t want to send money away that you`re not getting back and I think that`s why you were going to see an increasing number of states step up to the plate and expand Medicaid.
It also just speaks to the tremendous desire, this grassroots consumer desire for more affordable health care. In Connecticut, last year while Trump was trying to destroy the exchanges, undermining them, sabotaging them, we signed up more people for the Affordable Care Act than we did when Obama was president because the demand is not going away no matter how intensely Donald Trump tries to destroy the Affordable Care Act, no matter what the Attorney General`s do in their states.
HAYES: I want to -- I want to pivot to something that just happened a few hours ago and it has to do with oversight which I think is another big prong of what a lot of the election is about. Certainly, issues Democrats have been have foregrounding. Newt Gingrich did an interview the Washington Post and they were talking about the possibility of the President`s tax returns being subpoenaed which is something Congress could do. He said something really striking and I want to play it for you and get your reaction to it. Take a listen.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And what about if they subpoena his tax returns?
NEWT GINGRICH (R), FORMER SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: And they`ll be trapped into appealing to the Supreme Court and we`ll see whether or not the Kavanaugh fight was worth it.
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HAYES: We`ll see whether or not the Kavanaugh fight was worth it.
MURPHY: Yes. It`s wonderful when these guys think out loud occasionally. We all sort of scratched our heads and wondered why Kavanaugh was being elevated above -- over a bunch of other names that were before President Trump, especially when Mitch McConnell told him that it probably wasn`t going to be worth it, especially when all these allegations came out that would have made it very easy for the president to just pick somebody who might sail through more easily.
And the guess was it might be because of Judge Kavanaugh`s exceptional position on executive power. It might be because he knew that Judge Kavanaugh was his best shot to get around subpoena power from Congress or ultimately the arm of the law through the Mueller investigation. And you know, we might now be seeing a window into what the actual rationale was for the Kavanaugh selection and ability for Donald Trump to try to avoid the law. There is no question that Congress has the ability to subpoena those records if we choose. And this preview that the President`s going to ignore the law and hope that his court saves him is as extraordinary as it is unsurprising.
HAYES: All right, Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, thank you for your time.
MURPHY: Yes.
HAYES: Ahead, why the man who brought us swiftboating and birtherism is now in Robert Mueller`s crosshairs and how he could sink Roger Stone next.
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HAYES: New detail suggesting Robert Mueller is circling Trump confidant Roger Stone. He`s been circling him for a while it appears. NBC News is reporting the Special Counsel now has evidence suggesting Stone associate Jerome Corsi knew that WikiLeaks had obtained e-mails stolen from the Clinton Campaign Chairman John Podesta. Now, that would be the same Jerome Corsi whose name may ring a bell, who promoted the swiftboating of John Kerry and who helped found the racist theory that the President Barack Obama somehow wasn`t born in United States.
Here to talk about what this might mean for Roger Stone and for the Mueller investigation, former Watergate prosecutor and MSNBC Legal Analyst Jill Wine-Banks and former Federal Prosecutor Glenn Kirschner who`s also an MSNBC Legal Analyst. Jill, I`ll start with you. Corsi is an interesting character. He has been subpoenaed, his records have been taken, he`s gone before Robert Mueller, he seems to be crucial as Mueller looks at Stone.
JILL WINE-BANKS, MSNBC LEGAL ANALYST: He does. And both of them seem to be taking credit for the WikiLeaks release of the e-mails. And so it`s hard to get around that because they wrote texts saying that they should get credit for the release of these very hurtful e-mails that have been stolen by the Russians and released by WikiLeaks. That`s pretty good evidence and no matter what they say now denying it, and we know that Roger Stone has a history of saying no, no, no, I didn`t do things which he then has to retract.
HAYES: Yes.
BANKS: He said he had never met with Russians. He said that a month after he had actually met with a Russian who was offering to sell incriminating information to the Trump campaign and he had to undo his testimony before the House Intelligence Committee.
HAYES: Glenn, there`s a legal question here that`s interesting that we`ve been sort of probing on a little bit. Let`s say Corsi or Stone knew about this before the public did and in some ways coordinated them being released, is that a crime?
GLENN KIRSCHNER, MSNBC LEGAL ANALYST: It could very well be a crime because that`s possession of stolen material and you know, you can be an accessory after the fact to someone else`s theft of material. So I think there are any number of criminal offenses that might apply. Of course, we know what Robert Mueller knows but I suggest, Chris, that you can stick a fork in Roger Stone because he`s done. Most importantly --
HAYES: What do you mean -- what do you mean -- what do you mean by that?
KIRSCHNER: What I mean by that, Chris, is that, first of all, as Jill mentioned, he already was caught in lies about whether he did or did not meet with Russian operatives in the run-up to the election, so that is one offense right there. But when we see Roger Stone go on TV and say, well, you know what, I expect to be indicted, Chris, I was a federal prosecutor for 30 years I have never once had an innocent person say I expect to be indicted.
Now, Roger Stone can explain that away all day long by claiming that`s because it`s a witch hunt. I thought I would be wrongfully indicted. But guess what? Once you say I expect to be indicted, that has the fringe benefit of being evidence that is admissible against you in a court of law. It`s called an admission by a party opponent.
So on the day we see Roger Stone sitting at defendant`s table in a court of law, and I suspect we will see him there, that information will be introduced as evidence against him to show that he committed crimes and that he had a guilty conscience. That`s why I say stick a fork in him, he`s done. He will be charged.
Jill?
WINE-BANKS: There`s another reason to say that, and that`s because, remember, he was partners with Paul Manafort who is now cooperating and who no doubt is sharing with Mueller information about Roger`s other activities on behalf of the campaign, not just meeting with this one Russian who was going to sell information to the campaign that was incriminating.
So I think that there`s a lot of reasons to think that there is a reason for Roger to think that he is about to be indicted.
Another story about Roger Stone today that`s pretty fascinating, a scoop from Mother Jones, text messages show Roger Stone was working to get a pardon for Julian Assange.
WINE-BANKS: Yes.
HAYES: And there`s two things that are interesting here. One, obviously, Assange a key player in the evolution of the leaked emails and them being published by Wikileaks, the site he runs. But also in the text, Glenn, Roger sort of telling someone that he`s working on this pardon, which would seem to indicate, given what we know about the pardon process at the White House, that he is talking to the president, that he is lobbying the president on matters that are important. And that would seem to be pretty salient to Mueller`s investigation about obstruction, among other things.
KIRSCHNER: Yeah, it`s theater of the absurd, because arguably you have one co-conspirator talking about perhaps lobbying the president to get his other co-conspirator a pardon.
I mean, the whole thing -- and as Jill said, we know that Roger Stone was Paul Manafort`s partner dating back to 1980. And it`s no coincidence that we have seen Mueller`s team meeting with Manafort over and over again for three, four, five hours at a clip. So all of the information that Manafort is downloading about Stone and about the time that he was campaign chairman for those four or so months for Donald Trump, the candidate -- you know, this is really going to be a treasure-trove of incriminating information. It will implicate Stone, and it may very well implicate the president and those around him.
HAYES: Jill, am I wrong in my recollection that Nixon at one point in his sort of emissaries were shopping around pardons, attempting to get pardons for those involved?
WINE-BANKS: Absolutely. It was part of the cover-up where the burglars who they were trying to keep from testifying about who had hired them, which would have been proving the connection to the committee to reelect the president and to the White House who were offering pardons and talking about executive clemency.
And it`s also interesting that Roger Stone`s denial that Manafort could possibly implicate him is very strange. I`m going to read part of it to you, which is, he limited to a "therefore Manafort doesn`t have any information, so it can`t be anything that I`ve done wrong."
But he`s not saying he didn`t do anything wrong, he`s just saying Manafort`s not going to tell about what I did wrong. so, it`s a very, very strange, strange denial that he has issued.
HAYES: All right, Jill Wine-Banks and Glenn Kirschner, thank you both.
Coming up, the Tennessee farmers who are paying the price for the president`s trade war and what that means for their vote in 12 days.
Plus, tonight`s Thing One, Thing Two starts next.
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HAYES: Thing One tonight, as we all know we have a president who just says stuff and we`ve all become accustomed to it but it`s so remarkable to watch how the White House has to go into scramble mode every single time Trump makes something up.
Monday morning he tweeted that, quote, "criminals and unknown Middle Easterners" -- oh no -- "are mixed in with the migrant caravan traveling through central America." He is just making that up to scare everyone, but Mike Pence got the duty of having to explain how it must be true because, you know, statistics.
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MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It`s inconceivable that there are not people of Middle East descent in a crowd of more than 7,000 people advancing toward our border.
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HAYES: Middle Eastern descent. Inconceivable there aren`t -- wait, what?
Trump makes something up, Pence goes out to make it true.
The same thing is happening with the new pretend tax cut the president has pulled out of nowhere. The Washington Post reported that neither officials on Capitol Hill nor his administration knew nothing about it, because it didn`t exist. When Trump told reporters over the weekend that middle income Americans would receive a 10 percent tax cut before the midterms, which is, of course, not even possible because congress is in recess until after the election.
So then the White House sent Larry Kudlow out to the driveway to make sure nobody thinks the president is a pathological liar who just makes things up.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LARRY KUDLOW, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF ECONOMIC ADVISOR: We`re working on it. That`s doable. We`re just working through it. We`re working on it. President Trump promises made, promises kept. We`re working through the ways and means as you have to do in these things, OK.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Yeah, you`ve got to work through it. We`re working on it. Promises made, promises kept.
Now, there was one Trump lie this week that could not be explained away, but it meant the FBI had to go looking for pictures of two men hugging. And that`s Thing Two in 60 seconds.
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HAYES: Last month in an interview with a right wing website called Daily Caller, Donald Trump made an extraordinary claim, a claim that if true could shake the very foundations of the Russia probe. Special Counsel Robert Mueller is totally conflicted, Trump said, he`s best friends with former FBI director James Comey, Trump said. Oh, but it`s worse than that. And I quote him here. "I could give you 100 pictures of him and Comey hugging and kissing each other." 100 pictures of them hugging and kissing.
OK, that sure sounds scandalous, strange. The Daily Caller just printed the claim without question, because that`s what the Daily Caller is there for. But lucky for us, a reporter at Buzzfeed named Jason Leopold practice some actual journalism. And Leopold made a Freedom of Information Act request with the FBI. His request, please, please, send the 100 pictures of Comey and Mueller hugging and kissing, thank you.
A month went by.
Now the FBI has responded, brace yourselves, quote, we were unable to locate records responsive to your request, therefore, your request is being administratively closed.
Perhaps that was a whole lot of trouble just to confirm that Trump makes up stuff, but James Comey was pleased, quote, "my wife is so relieved."
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HAYES: There are just 12 days until November 6, and one of the factors in play in some of the more rural states that voted for president in 2016 is the impact of Trump`s trade war on farmers. In Tennessee, a state Trump won by 26 points, Republican Marsha Blackburn has aligned herself closely with the president while Democratic former governor Phil Bredesen has been running ads against Trump`s tariffs.
All In correspondent Trymaine Lee went to Tennessee to talk with some local farmers. They told him the president`s trade policies are absolutely influencing their livelihood and their vote.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TRUMP: China had others, remember this, have targeted our farmers. Not good, not nice. And you know what our farmers are saying? It`s OK. We can take it. These are incredible people. We can take it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`m Caleb Dinwitty (ph). We`re in Trenton, Tennessee in the middle of a soybean field.
TRYMAINE LEE, MSNBC NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: So, this is your family`s farm?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
LEE: So, these beans, these little beans, are big money?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, sir.
LEE: Or used to be in.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They used to be, now we call them poverty peas.
LEE: Wow. And we`re in a field full of them, basically.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
TRUMP: Soybeans are going up and things are going up and we`ve had very little hurt from what I`ve done. In fact, the markets have gone up and the farmers are going to do great.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, these beans before the tariffs were worth over ten bucks a bushel. Today they`re worth less than 8. And the relief package is coming in at $1.65 a bush. I support Governor Bredesen who is running for U.S. Senate, because he is against the tariffs.
LEE: Are you concerned about the future?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`m very much concerned about the future. To have something one morning wake up and have a 25 percent tariff placed on your product would be like anyone going to work and saying, well, welcome to work, but today you`re going to make 25 percent less than you did yesterday.
LEE: Do you get the sense that things might get better before they get worse or worse before they get better?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s a hit that we won`t be able to withstand, especially if this goes on for six months to a year or something like that. It`s going to be devastating.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My name is Jimmy Tosh, and I`m the CEO of Tosh Farms and Tosh pork, been in the family 105 years.
LEE: Were you surprised, going into the Trump administration, were you hopeful? Did you always have the worst case scenario in mind?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The tariff issue was the main reason I did not support Trump.
LEE: Did you vote for a Democrat? Did you for a Hillary?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, but I supported a different Republican in the primary.
I`ve voted Republican the majority of my life.
LEE: How do you think the trade and tariff issue will play out in the mid- term, especially here in Tennessee?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`m supporting Governor Bredesen for the Senate. I`m worried about long-term damage that we may have from these tariffs on agriculture. If we`re considered an unreliable supplier, other countries are going to look for other countries to do their supplying.
We`ve got 20 people that are not working because of the markets and we think the market condition was created by the tariffs.
We`d love to hire them. We have people wanting to come to work here.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HAYES: And All In correspondent Trymaine Lee joins me now.
I feel like this is an issue that when you look at these races -- it`s true in North Dakota, it`s definitely true in Tennessee, in Texas it`s true where it doesn`t get a lot of national attention, but it`s really pretty live on the ground.
LEE: It doesn`t get much attention because Tennessee is so bright red, right, Republican red. But when you talk to these farmers on the ground, even the big guys like Mr. Tosh, he`s one of the biggest pig dealers in the country, but he talks about not having enough to hire people. You can`t expand on your farm because of the -- it`s so expensive to bring in steel. Every aspect of their business is being affected, but mostly they just can`t hire local folks.
HAYES: And this is something that Bredesen, as the former governor, has really, it seems to me, campaigned on. Is that right?
LEE: That`s right. And the thing about Bredesen, unlike Blackburn -- Blackburn is a hard core Trumper, right. She associates herself so closely with Donald Trump. What Bredesen is seen as he`s a Democrat, but he was a middle of the road guy. They trust him. He speaks their language. He`s run ads where he`s in the soybean farms talking about how important it is to protect those fields and those farmers. And that message seems to be resonating, but it`s just such a red state.
HAYES: Yeah. Do the people that you talk to view it as essentially a proxy for Trump? I mean it sounds like that`s what`s motivating them. They don`t like the Trump tariff policy. they view Blackburn as essentially an enabler of the president.
LEE: It is, but their concern is purely on business. They`re kind of OK with the rest of Trump being Trump.
HAYES: Right.
LEE: But it`s about you`re making it harder for us to do business, especially you talk about pigs. The concern is if China goes to Brazil for soybeans or pigs, you may never get that route back.
And then Mr. Tosh (ph) mentioned, what do we do with the pig innards? China buys all the innards, right. So he`s out slaughtering hogs and you get pork chops and ham, there are special parts of that pig that only China buys, so it`s impacting every level of their business.
HAYES: The charts show -- I mean, the decline in Chinese consumption of soybeans has been absolutely precipitous. Like, it`s a real thing that`s happening right now. A huge market for American farmers has been almost entirely (inaudible).
LEE: That`s right. And again the concern is, do we ever get that back? Because if they start going to Brazil, and you start creating these other paths to these other countries, and other countries start developing their business model, it`s like -- you might not ever get it back.
HAYES: So you can unwind this in six months, what happens is the relationships get established The sort of supply chains get established.
LEE: That`s right.
HAYES: And then you can say, oh, the tariffs are off and the business doesn`t come back.
LEE: The president has the attitude, it`s tougher to do business. We`ll go elsewhere. Bottom line.
HAYES: All right, Trymaine Lee. Thank you so much. Great work.
LEE: Thank you.
HAYES: Still ahead, one of the vulnerable Republican seats up for re- election. The race for Nevada next.
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HAYES: One of the post fascinating races to watch is the one for the U.S. Senate seat in Nevada. Democratic candidate Jackie Rosen backed by former president Barack Obama is running neck and neck against the incumbent Republican Senator Dean Heller, a one-time Trump critic, though it was a while ago, who just told the president at a rally last Saturday, quote, "everything you touch turns to gold."
If Democrats want any chance of taking back the senate majority in 12 days time, they will absolutely need to beat Dean Heller. It is a must-have seat. He is the only Republican senator up for reelection in a state that Hillary Clinton won in 2016.
And joining me now is the junior Senator from Nevada, Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto. Senator, it`s very nice to have you on the program.
SEN. CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO, (D) NEVADA: Great, Chris, it`s great to be here with you.
HAYES: What is the race like in Nevada? What are the issues front and center there?
CORTEZ MASTO: Well, first of all, let me tell you there is so much energy here. There is energy on the ground. Democrats are turning out numbers that I never seen before, particularly in a mid-term in Nevada.
And the numbers and the energy and the issues all around health care, right? It`s about health care. It`s about overage. We`re in a is that it in Nevada where we -- thanks to the Affordable Care Act -- expanded coverage to 400,000 Nevadans in our rural communities and urban areas. More people have access to health care, pre-existing conditions, coverage.
I literally just came from a meeting with some families with the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation and the number one concern from those teens as well as their parents was what is going to happen if they take away our pre-existing conditions, which they`re hearing from Mitch McConnell and some of the Republicans in the administration.
So it`s the number one issue. But along with that it is jobs, it`s making sure that working families have, you know, all of the support that they need from wages and good paying jobs.
HAYES: Let me ask you this, you are the junior senator of Nevada. You serve with Dean Heller. I imagine you work together on a bunch of issues. Are you campaigning against him? What do you think against them?
CORTEZ MASTO: No, listen, Nevada is still small enough. We all know one another, right, you literally can walk into a restaurant or grocery store and walk and talk to a governor or a Senator.
I`ve known Dean for a long time. We`re friends. But he also knows that I`m fighting for the issues that are important to the people of the state of Nevada, like health care, like keeping health care pre-existing conditions, protecting our Social Security and our Medicaid and Medicare. Those are our number one issues.
And I know in this race, and I think voters also know that Jackie Rosen is the one that`s going to fight for them. She`s going to be a decisive vote in protecting health care and this country, and ensuring that individuals, particularly retirees, can retire with dignity and still have access to Social Security and Medicaid and Medicare.
HAYES: What about the president`s role? I mean, obviously, he has been supporting Dean Heller. I believe had a rally there in Nevada. I`ve lost track of all the states he`s gone to.
Is he a central figure in this campaign? Do you view the campaign as a referendum on him?
CORTEZ MASTO: I think it`s a combination of things. There is no doubt there are people coming out, because of the concerns from this administration and what they`ve heard. Again, remember, we also are in a state where almost a third of the population is Latino. And there is a Latino vote. And people are coming out, because they are protecting one another, supporting their community and concerned about the anti-immigrant agenda that this administration has gone down.
But there is also health care. If you go into our Latino populations, their concern is performing for prescription drugs, making sure that, you know, when I go into some of -- and talk to some of these Latinas, it is about being able to afford those prescription drugs and still put food on the table and have a roof over your head.
It`s about an education, good education for your kids, and good paying jobs. That`s no different across this country. In Nevada, hats the number one issue and people are coming out. Let me say this, Chris, because this is a mid-term. And It`s very difficult for mid-terms -- for Democrats in mid-terms, but we have a 70,000 active voter advantage, Democrats over Republicans, in Nevada. We are in the middle of early voting right now. It started on Saturday. First five days of early voting, 90,000 Democrats came out. We have a lead of more Democrats in Clark County as well as Washoe County coming out to vote. We`ve never seen anything like that in a mid-term.
So that tells me the energy is there. People are paying attention to the issues they care about. And they are going to be, I think, coming out in a referendum on what they`re seeing coming out of Washington from this administration and the leadership that want to take away health care, that want to balance, you know, tax cuts on the backs of hard working families. They are just -- they`re not going to stand for it, and rightfully so.
HAYES: You just mentioned mentioned the enthusiasm. And Nevada is such a fascinating state and so distinct in so many ways, both sort of its demographic makeup, but also it`s a very organized state, obviously the Culinary Workers Union is a real sort of backbone of a lot of folks there, particularly around Las Vegas. And it`s also been a very organized state in which Harry Reid and the Culinary Workers Union and others have built a sort of infrastructure that can get people to the polls. Is that still enduring now?
CORTEZ MASTO: Absolutely, absolutely. They`re energized. This is an organized labor -- strong organized labor state. It is about the working families. Again, they`re no different from the working families all across this state. And they are strong. They are boots on the ground. They are the front lines knocking on doors, registering people, and now getting them to the polls. They`re not to be underestimated. And they have been working hard.
And, you know, you said it, Senator Reid is the one that had the foresight to invest in a strong Democratic infrastructure and a strong coordinated campaign. And what you see now as a continuation of that, I have pledged my support to make sure that we continue this strong infrastructure and it is now an organization. That`s our strength, right?
HAYES: There is nothing like it in the country, particularly in any swing state.
Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, thanks so much for your time tonight.
That is All In for this evening. The Rachel Maddow Show starts right now.
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