Show: ALL IN with CHRIS HAYES Date: January 29, 2019 Guest: Mark Warner, Hakeem Jeffries, Natasha Bertrand, Michael Isikoff, Joaquin Castro, Michelle Goldberg
CHRIS MATTHEWS, MSNBC HOST: Well, this raise the public isn`t normal. People who work in the White House don`t normally leave and immediately trash the place. There are exemptions. I was present years ago for a debate between a strange and a famous presidential speechwriter. The historian said we are loyal to history. The speechwriter said we owe our loyalty to the president we`ve come to serve.
That`s HARDBALL for now. "ALL IN" with Chris Hayes starts right now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST: Tonight on ALL IN. Roger Stone faces justice as the President`s Intel Chief face the Senate.
SEN. RON WYDEN (D), OREGON: Donald Trump met privately worth Vladimir Putin and no one in the U.S. government has the full story about what was discussed.
HAYES: Tonight, yet another revelation of a private Trump-Putin meeting.
DAN COATS, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: Clearly this is a sensitive issue.
HAYES: Plus, new reporting suggesting Robert Mueller is not done with Roger Stone.
ROGER STONE, FORMER CAMPAIGN ADVISER, TRUMP CAMPAIGN: They know that they have to take me down in order to take Donald Trump down.
HAYES: Then, as 2020 Democrats make their populist appeal.
SEN. KAMALA HARRIS (D), CALIFORNIA: Let`s eliminate all of that. Let`s move on.
HAYES: The billionaires bite back.
HOWARD SCHULTZ, FORMER CEO, STARBUCKS: That`s not correct. That`s not American.
MICHAEL BLOOMBERG, CEO, BLOOMBERG L.P.: I`m a little bit tired of listening to things that are pie in the sky.
HAYES: Not one but two big announcements for Stacey Abrams.
STACEY ABRAMS (D), FORMER GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE, GEORGIA: I promise you we will get it done.
HAYES: When ALL IN starts right now.
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HAYES: Good evening from New York I`m Chris Hayes. Just a few weeks after the revelation that the President of the United States was suspected by his own government of working on Russia`s behalf, we`re learning tonight about yet another undisclosed exchange President had with Vladimir Putin. It was attended by no American note takers, no American interpreters, just the President, and Melania and Putin and Putin`s own interpreter.
As we`ve noted before, this is wildly out of step with the usual protocol. And if you were disposed to view it in the most stark and cynical terms you might conclude that this is how the President meets with this handler. We knew the President had spoken briefly with Putin late last year to dinner during the G20 summit in Argentina. Remember the White House confirmed a "informal conversation only after it was revealed by local press. But now the Financial Times reports says the encounter was longer and more substantive than we`ve been led to believe.
Sources telling the FT, the President was accompanied by Melania Trump, his wife, but no staff, while Putin was flanked by his translator. The four of them sat at a table and were among the last to leave. According to a Russian government officials account, the two leaders spoke for about 15 minutes about a number of foreign policy issues.
That undisclosed exchange came after the President had canceled a formal meeting with Putin scheduled for the summit citing a Russian attack on Ukraine`s navy. Just before the canceling, the President had been implicated as Individual One in court proceedings against Michael Cohen, would reveal the talks about a tower project of Moscow have lasted much later into the presidential campaign than was previously acknowledged.
If the Financial Times story is accurate, then this meeting in Argentina was the second time the President and Putin had a private chat during a global summit which was only exposed by independent reporting after the fact. The first was at the 2017 Summit in Germany where the President was caught on camera motioning somewhat desperately almost to Putin from across the dinner table. And that came just a few hours after the President seized his own interpreter`s notes from his formal sit-down with Putin according to the Washington Post.
Then, of course, there was the one-on-one meeting in Helsinki where the President has his own translator but no staff while meeting with Putin for hours behind closed doors. The President`s own Director of National Intelligence admitted he did not know what went on.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Have you had any idea what happened in that meeting?
COATS: Well, you`re right. I don`t know what happened in that meeting. I think as time goes by, and the President has already mentioned some things that happened in that meeting, I think we will learn more. But that is the President`s prerogative. If he had asked me how that ought to be conducted, I would have suggested a different way.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is there a risk that Vladimir Putin could have recorded it?
COATS: That risk is always there.
HAYES: Asked about those meetings at the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing today, the DNI hinted his response was classified.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WYDEN: Director Haspel and Director Coats, would this put you in a disadvantaged position in terms of understanding Russia`s efforts to advance its agenda against the United States?
COATS: Well, Senator, clearly this is a sensitive issue and it`s an issue we ought to talk about this afternoon. I look forward to discussing that in a closed session.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Democratic Senator Mark Warner of Virginia is the Vice Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee. He joins me now. Senator, do you have concerns about this latest news about the President having yet another substantive conversation with Vladimir Putin without note-takers, without American translator?
SEN. MARK WARNER (D), VIRGINIA: Well, I heard about that reporting and of course I`m interested. Today in our public hearing, Senator Wyden raised the issue of did the intelligence community ever get a full readout frankly of even what happened in the Helsinki meeting between Mr. Trump and Vladimir Putin.
I think it`s critically important that at least some senior officials get those kinds of readouts from these meetings.
HAYES: Do you have concerns the President is compromised by Russia?
WARNER: I think it`s terribly important that the Mueller investigation finishes. I think it`s terribly important that our Senate investigation finishes. And obviously, it has been more than a little bit bizarre over the last couple years to see a President of the United States in public kowtow to a Russian president.
HAYES: Respectfully though, that`s not an answer to the question. Do you have concerns the President is compromised by Russia?
WARNER: You know, Chris, we`re going to finish our investigation. I`m not going to draw any conclusions until I finish that investigation. That`s been the operating principle since we started and that`s the only -- and I would point out to you as you know, and I think many of your viewers know, were the last bipartisan investigation going and I think that`s terribly important particularly when Mueller comes out that there becomes some bipartisan validator out there.
HAYES: What do you -- what would you tell people about the amount of confidence they should have in your committee`s work particularly those who are Democrats who might be watching and are suspicious to the fact that it`s chaired by a Republican Senator Burr and contrasting that what to happen in the House Intelligence Committee when chaired there by Devin Nunes.
WARNER: Well, I think you`ve seen with Senator Burr, I think we`ve got a great partnership. We`ve even had joint press conferences along the way. And our committee already has made a number of kind of interim reports. For example, we confirmed the fact and would done in a unanimous bipartisan way that not only did the Russians interfere but they interfered on behalf of Trump against Clinton.
We pointed out the fact that the Russians touched at least 21 states electoral systems and luckily we`ve got bipartisan legislation now to try to correct that going forward. And it was actually our committee that made the first reveals about the level of usage that the Russians made of social media particularly of Facebook and Twitter and candidly that`s an area that I`m going to come back to legislatively this year.
HAYES: The Intel chiefs testifying today seem to be at odds frankly with the White House on two of the key policy issues. North Korea, where the White House has declared progress that the Intelligence Community seems to think is not apparent and has not been shown in terms of the nuclear program, and then kind of the opposite with Iran where the White House seems to be saying there in strategic pursuit of nuclear weapon and the Intelligence Committee saying -- the community saying there`s no evidence of that. What do you make of the disconnect?
WARNER: Well, these folks have got a tough job and the most important aspect of anybody in the Intelligence Community. And I asked all of these individuals before they got confirmed, will you be willing to speak truth to power. And in the case today, I think we`ve got the Intelligence Community giving virtually unanimous conclusions on some of these key areas. And we have unfortunately a case where it appears that this President doesn`t want to hear the truth or doesn`t actually reflect the opinions of the Intelligence Community. And that puts us in a challenging position.
HAYES: Final question about the first bill that was moved through the Senate after the shutdown (INAUDIBLE) a variety of parts of it sanctions including a provision that would allow governments to penalize either groups or citizens that engaged in boycott divestment or sanctions of Israel. If passed in bipartisan margin, a lot of Democrats voted against it. The New York Times editorial board and others saying this is essentially unconstitutional. It criminalizes or creates government penalties for a protected conscientious speech. What`s your response to that argument?
WARNER: My response is there are I think appropriate ways as some states have weighed in I think with appropriate regulations in terms of the -- being against the BDS Movement. I support Israel and -- but I do believe that there may be some parts of this legislation that was currently brought up that did pass first hurdles at least with about 75 votes that may be corrected or amended in the House.
HAYES: So you have -- you do have some constitutional concerns about those provisions?
WARNER: Listen, I have heard there was a couple of different legislative vehicles out there that raised this issue. I think some of these are going to be reexamined in the House and that`s what part of legislative process is about.
HAYES: All right, Senator Mark Warner, thank you for making some time.
WARNER: Thank you.
HAYES: For more on the President and Russia and the rule Congress still has to play, I`m joined by Democratic Congressman Hakeem Jeffries of New York who was chair of the House Democratic Caucus. First your reaction to the news the President had yet another undisclosed and it appears substantive exchange with Vladimir Putin without any American staff present.
REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D), NEW YORK: Well, the more we learn, the more every single American should be concerned about the relationship between Donald Trump and Russia and what may have taken place during the 2016 campaign. What is clear to me is that there was definitively a triangular relationship between the Trump campaign, WikiLeaks, and Russian spies perhaps facilitated by Roger Stone, one of the President`s best friends.
There`s growing evidence that there was a conspiracy to sell out our democracy to artificially place Donald Trump in the White House. We`ll have to allow the Mueller investigation to run its course before we can determine who exactly is culpable. But the more we learn about the fact that President Trump continues to play footsie with Vladimir Putin, a sworn enemy of the United States, the more concerned we should be.
HAYES: There is -- obviously, Michael Cohen was going to come February 7th before the House Government Oversight Committee. He`s now going to appear the 8th in closed sessions before House Intelligence. Shouldn`t there be open public hearings with him and many others involved in this starting now?
JEFFRIES: Well, I would agree with that. Let me say two things. First, we House Democrats will continue to focus on our for the people agenda where we emphasize kitchen table pocketbook issues like lowering health care costs, a real infrastructure plan, and cleaning up corruption and the mess here in Washington D.C.
But second, we do take our Article One constitutional responsibility seriously as a separate and co-equal branch of government. We don`t work for Donald Trump. We work for the American people and unlike what has taken place over the last two years when my colleagues on the other side of the aisle conducting themselves like wholly owned subsidiaries of the Trump administration, those days are over. We have a new sheriff in town. Her name is Nancy Pelosi and we`re going to do legitimate oversight.
HAYES: Right. But legitimate oversight has to be conducted in public largely. I mean, sunlight is the best disinfectant and I guess my point is, I know that it`s early and the committees have just been constituted. There was a hearing today if I`m not mistaken on the first bill HR-1 which is anti-corruption and sort of pro-democracy a legislative agenda.
All of that has to happen in public though and I think there`s a sense in which we continue to operate in the black box at a time when there`s a whole bunch of worrying facts on the public record that people want to get this at the bottom of.
JEFFRIES: I think you`re going to see active engagement from the House Judiciary Committee as well as active engagement from the Committee of Oversight and Government Reform. With respect to the Intel Committee, however, Chris, I think as you know, much of their work is conducted sort of behind closed doors because of the sensitivity of the information.
And so that`s the reason I assume that the Michael Cohen hearing on the other side of Capitol will be taking place. But I don`t believe that we`re going to give up on making sure that that transparency in terms of what Cohen has to stay and others have to say are brought to the American people.
HAYES: In the Senate side, there`s some legislation that is being introduced to make sure that the -- whatever report is produced by the Special Counsel would be made public, unclassified version. Is that a legislative initiative you can imagine happening in the House?
JEFFRIES: Absolutely. I think there`s tremendous support for it. And as a member of the House Judiciary Committee I can speak confidently and say that Chairman Jerry Nadler and every single Democratic member of that committee want to make sure that when the report is issued which as you know pursuant to law only has to be disclosed to the Department of Justice, is made available not just to Congress but to the American people. All of the facts should be known once the Mueller investigation has been completed.
HAYES: Final question on oversight. It looks like William Barr`s vote is going to be on -- the committee vote I think February 7th. You have the current Acting Attorney General Mr. Whitaker before your committee in the House Judiciary Committee that you serve on the 8th. Are you looking forward to that?
JEFFRIES: I`m looking forward to that. And I think that we will still have relevant questions to ask of him. He`s presided over the Department of Justice now in an interim basis for the last few months and we need to figure out what he has or has not done to make sure that the Mueller investigation is unimpeded.
HAYES: Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, thank you making some time tonight.
JEFFRIES: Thanks, Chris.
HAYES: For a closer look at how the President`s affinity for Putin does or does not shape his administration`s policy, I`m joined by Natasha Bertrand, Staff Writer for The Atlantic covering national security in the Mueller probe and MSNBC National Security Analyst Ned Price, former spokesperson and senior director at the National Security Council under President Obama.
And Ned, let me start with you because you did serve in the NSC. Again, there are -- my understanding and I want you to sort of correct me if I`m wrong here. My understanding is that there are informal, very brief pull- asides that will happen at these big meetings but there tend to be staff and they`re not particularly substantive. This doesn`t sound like that. What do you make of it?
NED PRICE, MSNBC NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: It doesn`t sound like that at all, Chris. Pull asides at least in the traditional sense are quite literally a pull aside. You might pass a leader in the hallway and say hey let`s have a quick tactical chat about something.
And typically when you chat with a friendly counterpart, the French President, for example, the British Prime Minister, you may not have a native company. But when you chat with someone like the Russian -- like the Russian President, an adversarial relationship, you will typically have a note-taker and a translator, your own translator not relying on the Russian translator for instance.
There was something really interesting about this article that wasn`t mentioned and that`s the sourcing. If you read the sourcing in the Financial Times article, it comes from the Russians. And that leads me to believe this may be the work of the Russians themselves trickling this out, almost trolling President Trump, reminding him again and again that hey, we have stuff we can hold over your head. Let`s work together and how about you find a way to make our policy wishes come true or we can make your life much more difficult.
HAYES: And this has happened before Natasha, the meeting by Sergey Kislyak and Lavrov that happened the day after the firing of Comey when the president infamously told them I`ve got rid of all the pressure. We learned about that from the Russian news service, not from the President of United States. They do have -- they do seem to have more information about these meetings that are being publicly disclosed by our own president.
NATASHA BERTRAND, STAFF WRITER, THE ATLANTIC: It`s pretty amazing. I mean, by my count, it`s been at least half a dozen times since Trump took office that we`ve learned about his interactions with Russian officials from the Russians before we`ve learned it from the Trump administration.
And I think Ned`s point about this particular story being sourced to the Russians is a really important one. Because just remember that the Trump administration right now is taking a position on Venezuela that the Russians really don`t like. And so if they wanted to meet the Trump Administration look really bad at this particular moment in time, then doing this and raising more questions about whether or not Trump is compromised and like Ned said reminding him that they have leverage is a really strategic move by them.
But I think that the question about what they spoke about during this meeting, the 15 or 20 minutes that they were sitting at this table just Melania, Trump, Putin, and the translator is interesting because it also came right as the news was breaking that Michael Cohen had come -- had told you know, the -- had admitted essentially to lying about the Trump Tower Moscow deal.
The White House canceled the meeting that Trump was going to have with Putin formally at the G20 right when this came out so. The Question now is, of course, did Putin and Trump have any discussant discussions about Trump Tower Moscow. Did they discuss Syria because of course Trump announced the withdrawal from Syria not three weeks after that meeting? Were there any discussions about Venezuela? And the -- and the answer is that we don`t know because there were no aides or translators present.
HAYES: Right. And that point Natasha makes, Ned, is an important one about the Administration`s Venezuela policy. We`re going to talk about that in a little bit which has been very aggressive, really seeking to oust Maduro who is backed by the Russians which they do not like so there`s a sort of conflict there. There`s also a conflict in Syria where the President announced that very abrupt withdrawal and now it seems to be walked back.
That`s on the other side of the ledger in terms of where the President is with respect to the Russians and you wonder how that plays out if in fact, they are able to leak things they know about him.
PRICE: Well, that`s where you`re right on both of these counts, Chris. But I think we have to look at this more comprehensively. This isn`t really Trump`s foreign policy, this is John Bolton`s foreign policy. This is Mike Pompeo`s foreign policy when it comes to Syria and Russia.
Take superior for example. And last month in December I should say when President Trump said we`re getting out of Syria. He said we`re leaving Syria and we`re leaving now. Never did he say in four months, never did he say anything about an enduring presence in the remote outpost (INAUDIBLE). That is something that President -- that John -- excuse me -- John Bolton and Mike Pompeo set forward subsequently.
When it comes to Venezuela in this rumor of 5,000 troops, I tend to believe that is the work of John Bolton that he actually intended for cameras to catch that. You look at the video and the way he moved his paper around. This is not a media neophyte. This was a Fox News Contributor. Someone who knows how to work a camera and so someone who knows how to make message, and I think that`s what he was doing yesterday.
HAYES: Natasha, there was the news of Attorney General Whitaker yesterday saying sort of stumblingly and hesitatingly but for the first time on the record, the Mueller -- the Mueller probe is wrapping up. He is going to be before Congress as I just noted on February 8th. What do you make of that pronouncement which was not particularly sure-footed but was the first from a public official on that?
BERTRAND: It didn`t come across as an announcement right? I mean, it was respond -- in response to a question that a reporter asked and so in that way it seemed kind of off the cuff. But he did say that he was briefed on the investigation and you know, former FBI officials and Justice Department officials that I`ve spoken to say look, this is something that they would have discussed prior to this press conference and say look this is probably going to come up. This is how you have to answer it.
But it is weird though that he gave a definitive answer and it just seems like he was trying to kind of nudge Mueller along while also trying to pressure by trying to you know, appease Donald Trump and say look, this investigation is going to wrap up soon. Don`t make any rash decisions.
HAYES: He didn`t look particularly comfortable there. Natasha Bertrand and Ned Price, great to have you both. Still to come, Roger Stone making appearance in court today seemingly unfazed by his charges from Robert Mueller, but there`s news that Mueller might not be done with Stone. That story in two minutes.
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HAYES: Roger Stone was in D.C. today for what was otherwise a routine arraignment but outside the Courthouse it was chaos. Stone was supported by the proud boys, the violent far-right group whose members beat up a bunch of people in New York and are being charged by the NYPD over it.
They were chanting Roger Stone did nothing wrong which you know is a trustworthy pronouncement from that crew while anti-Stone protesters screamed lock him up and blasted the Beatles back in the USSR which I don`t know it`s not quite right. But for all the surreal circus that follows him, Stone is at least affecting the air of someone who thinks it`s all a joke despite the fact he might die in prison. We maybe haven`t seen all there is on Roger Stone.
A new report suggests that Robert Mueller is perhaps preparing additional charges of a man who brags he has known Trump for 40 years. Joining me now Michael Isikoff, Chief Investigative Correspondent for Yahoo! News, co- author of Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin`s War on America and the Election of Donald Trump. And Michael, that is the big question before us what the Stone indictment is, is this the first part of what they have on him or is there more?
MICHAEL ISIKOFF, CHIEF INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT, YAHOO! NEWS: Look, obviously I don`t know. It`s tantalizing the report that there might be more. But I suspect not -- they spent -- Mueller`s people spent a lot of time on Roger Stone, I mean, more than a year in questioning everybody who had contact with him going over you know hundreds if not thousands of e- mails and text messages. They were clearly trying to prove more and what was in the indictment.
There`s a -- you know, there`s a lot of meat in that indictment especially on very damning evidence about his lies to Congress when he testified particularly when he said he had no e-mails or texts relating to his efforts to learn about Julian Assange, his e-mails, obviously not true. And you know, some of his thuggish tax to Randi Credico threatening him, prepare to die, you`re a rat, your stoolie. You know, all that was deserving of indictment.
But you know, the goal that they were looking for was to show that he really was in communication with Julian Assange as he publicly said. And you know, the fact is you look at the indictment and they weren`t able to prove that.
HAYES: So -- but here -- then here the question becomes, right, why was he lying about all this? It`s just the whole thing is so bizarre. You know, he`s not just lying, he`s committing crimes.
ISIKOFF: Because he`s Roger Stone and he lies for a living. That what`s he`s done all his life.
HAYES: But he lies Congress and he tampers with witnesses for a living.
ISIKOFF: Yes, yes, look, I mean --
HAYES: You would think he would be able to turn that off. Like what is the point of everyone`s lies about Russia? This is the question. They all lie about Russia all the time. So what`s the point?
ISIKOFF: Right. Well, in Roger Stones case, he`s playing a role -- he`s been playing a role all his professional life. You know, all you got to do is watch the Netflix film.
HAYES: Yes, it`s very good.
ISIKOFF: I mean, you see you know, who this guy is and he relishes it and I think he`s relishing it now you know, whether he`s thought through that this is going to end up in spending his life -- the rest of his life in prison, I don`t know, but he`s clearly enjoying the limelight right now.
HAYES: There are some texts that involve you that I wanted to get your response.
ISIKOFF: Yes.
HAYES: So this is him texting Credico. Again, this plot is so bizarre and byzantine, basically tries to set up Credico as the kind of back-channel patsy even though it was actually Corsi and he wants Credico to stick to the story. When I try to tell you last week, you said you didn`t believe it. You`ve gone over the other side. You are now a deep state stooge. He talks like this in private. You should strap dynamite your body and invite Isikoff for another dinner. It`s the least you can do for your country. That`s not very nice. What the heck is that about?
ISIKOFF: Yes. Well, that was Roger Stone urging Randy Credico to become a suicide bomber and blow me up. Look, the context for that and it really sets the context for a lot of the texts and e-mails that were the indictment. This one was not but it -- this was last January and I was finishing up Russian Roulette, the book I wrote with David Corn and had interviewed Credico in which he disputes Stone`s account of Credico being his back channel.
So obviously I had to go to Stone for comment. When I did, Stone went ballistic and begins sending these series of really vile text messages to Randy Credico threatening him. Some of them are in the indictment, this one was not. But you know --
HAYES: Again, what does he care? What does he here? That`s the mystery at the core of all of it. What does he care? Michael Isikoff, thank you very much. Still to come, is the Trump administration planning to go to war in Venezuela? The enormous implications of John Bolton`s conspicuous signals next.
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HAYES: Here`s a question that seems absurd on its face, but unfortunately it is now necessary to ask. Is the Trump administration planning to go to war in Venezuela? The administration continues to pressure Nicolas Maduro`s flailing government in Venezuela, announcing crippling sanctions on the oil company, which is the chief source of revenue in the economy. And the mastermind behind this effort appears to be John Bolton, a man infamous for his advocacy for American military intervention in all kinds of places, a man who appeared yesterday in the White House with a yellow legal pad that he, just, oh, happened to hold facing without the words 5,000 troops to Colombia written on it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is there any circumstance under which American forces would get involved?
JOHN BOLTON, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: Look, the president has made it clear on this matter that all options are on the table.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: OK. None of this is particularly confidence inspiring given both Bolton`s track record and the United States long bloody history of intervention in Latin America, and support for regimes that did things like throw dissidents out of helicopters, and murder priests.
And then there`s the new special envoy to Venezuela, Elliott Abrams, a man literally convicted of crimes in Iran-Contra, who masterminded U.S. relationships with regimes in Latin America guilty of massacres and widespread human rights abuses.
Are these the best people to engineer a U.S. policy that actually helps Venezuelans out of their current misery?
Joining me now, Democratic Congressman Joaquin Castro of Texas, vice chair of the House foreign affairs committee, also host of a podcast called The Diplomatic Cable about foreign policy. I didn`t know that. Look at that, renaissance man.
You`re on the foreign affairs committee. Do you think U.S. military intervention to Venezuela should be, quote, on the table?
REP. JOAQUIN CASTRO, (D) TEXAS: I don`t. And honestly, Chris, this is not a question that I thought I would be answering this year. And like most Americans, I don`t think it`s a good idea. Unfortunately, you have somebody like John Bolton who over the years has been very eager to go to war in other countries, and so it should be a cause for concern. And I`m glad you`re highlighting this issue tonight.
HAYES: Just to be clear, there`s no legal justification for U.S. military intervention in Venezuela without congressional approval, right? I mean, you can`t use the authorization of use of military force passed after 9/11, right?
CASTRO: That`s right. That deals with obviously another part of the world, so this would be a unilateral decision by the president if he made that decision. I think it would be terrible decision.
Right now, what we need to do is work with organizations like the Organization of American States with the UN and other countries in the region and do everything that we can to make sure, I think, that there is a democratic election for president in Venezuela as soon as possible and also watch out for human rights protections in Venezuela and make sure people aren`t politically oppressed.
HAYES: There`s one line of thinking, which is that this is all a stunt, it`s sort of saber rattling with a purpose, right, to spook Maduro, to try to get him worried or to get the military to switch their allegiances. The Bolton pad being done intentionally. Like, what are you being told on the Hill? What do you know about where this is headed? Where they are driving the policy?
CASTRO: We`ve not heard much. Actually, we have two briefings -- I actually have two briefings on it tomorrow. And so -- and remember the intelligence committee, for example, because the Republicans have not appointed their members, we have had zero meetings of the committee, since this term began and so year hopefully we`ll have better information tomorrow.
But, yeah, they have not reached out to congress to provide really what -- tell us what their strategy is, if they are thinking of engaging militarily what the rational for that is. So, congress is in the dark so far in terms of what the administration has told us.
HAYES: Do you -- should Americans trust Donald Trump, Mike Pompeo, John Bolton, and Elliott Abrams to pursue a policy here that ends up being good for the people of Venezuela?
CASTRO: Americans have to makeup their own minds. But do I trust those guys? No, I to don`t. Based on their track record, based on the fact that the president I think doesn`t really have an interest in Venezuela. I think it`s probably going to follow whatever John Bolton and the very hawkish people on his staff want him to do. It gives me cause for concern. And I don`t trust them.
HAYES: Final question, the sanctions announced yesterday are a very big deal. They will have a very severe impact. There is concern that that impact will be widely felt among just the people of Venezuela, many people who are opposed to the current president and regime, whoa re already suffering, who have lost a lot of weight because of food shortages. Are you concerned essentially about this heighten the contradictions approach ending up increasing the misery of people there?
CASTRO: Yeah, oftentimes, you can use sanctions to change a country`s economic policy, for example, or essentially to punish for bad behavior. It`s a different thing when you have people in a nation that have been basically starving for a while now, many of them the average person losing 15 or 20 or 25 pounds over a year in a country that`s literally on the verge of falling apart, a society on the verge of falling apart, to then throw more sanctions on top of that, I think it`s very bad timing.
Joaquin Castro, thanks for being with me.
Still to come, 2020 billionaires want you to know they`ve had just about enough of this talk about raising their taxes and Medicare for all. The populous fault line beginning to form in the presidential race ahead.
Plus, tonight`s Thing One, Thing Two starts next.
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HAYES: Thing One tonight, as Donald Trump`s approval ratings keep dropping amid the fallout from his humiliating shutdown defeat reverberates, trouble in Trump world has never been more entertaining to watch.
Yesterday we told you about the three-way brawl between the president, Ann Coulter, Newt Gingrich. Well, today`s fun comes from the two different former members of Team Trump who were out selling books full of inside dirt.
On Morning Joe today, former Trump adviser Chris Sims told a story about Kellyanne Conway who he says is a leaker, and a liar, and a also leaking liar.
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CHRIS SIMS, FORMER TRUMP ADVISER: She was off air she would basically say I need to got take a shower, because she felt dirty being, you know, working for Donald Trump.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: After talking about him.
SIMS: So she calls me up to her office upstairs in the West Wing and says, hey, I want to do a response to this. And, you know, as a messaging guy, she says I want your help in crafting this statement. So, I`m like, OK. So I sit down on her Apple laptop and I start typing. And she`s sitting at her desk on her iPhone and texting away and forgets that the iMessages are synced tween her iPhone and her laptop. And so I`m watching as I`m supposed to be crafting a statement defending her against exactly what she`s doing in this moment, which is telling reporters, you know, trashing her colleagues to reporters, talking about how the president she has to baby sit the guy.
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HAYES: Well, that doesn`t sound like something Kellyanne Conway would do, does it?
But the really good stuff comes from her old friend Chris Christie going after Jared Kushner. And that`s Thing Two in 60 Seconds.
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HAYES: You may be aware that Chris Christie and Jared Kushner plain just don`t like each other. It`s a beef which goes back to the early 2000s when Christie, then U.S. Attorney in New Jersey, sent Jared`s dad to jail. Jared reportedly got revenge when he had the former governor fired from the Trump transition team. Healthy relationship all the way.
Now, Christie has a new memoir out, and there`s no need to re-litigate all that water under the bridge, and there`s certainly no need to rehash the details of Jared Kushner`s father`s case, which is probably very boring anyway.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We`re going to talk about Jared Kushner, because frankly he`s the one that fired you, right?
CHRIS CHRISTIE, FORMER GOVERNOR OF NEW JERSEY: That`s what Steve Bannon told me, yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And you believe that?
CHRISTIE: Sure.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right, you believe that because there`s history between the two of you?
CHRISTIE: Between me and his father, not between me and him.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But you understand why he takes it personally?
CHRISTIE: Yes and no.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Would you separate your experience if your father had been put in jail from the prosecutor who put him in jail?
CHRISTIE: If my father was guilty, I would.
Mr. Kushner pled guilty. He admitted the crimes. And so what am I supposed to do as a prosecutor? I mean, if a guy hires a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law and videotapes it and then sends the videotape to his sister to attempt to intimidate her from testifying before a grand jury, do I really need any more justification than that? I mean, it`s one of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes that I prosecuted when I was U.S. Attorney. And I was U.S. Attorney in Jersey, Margaret, so we had some loathsome and disgusting crime going on there.
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OPRAH WINFREY, : I just called Stacey up three days ago. Yes. I didn`t even know her number. I was just asking everybody to you know Stacey Abrams? Do you know Stacey Abrams? Do you Stacey Abrams? Finally somebody said I know Stacey Abrams, and said I have her cell number. I go, give it to me. I`m going to call her up right now.
So I called Stacey Abrams and I said Stacey, this is Oprah. You know what she said? She said girl, let me pull over the side of the road.
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HAYES: Stacey Abrams is, in a word, a phenomenon. She became a political star this past election year with her excruciatingly narrow electoral defeat. But she`s been working on behalf of voting rights and education and more for a long time before that race.
In fact, this show first met with her five years ago in Georgia to learn more about the work she and others were doing to get people registered in an effort to turn that state blue.
This past November, she almost did it herself, the first major party African-American female nominee for governor in American history. She got the most votes of any Democratic candidate for Georgia governor in Georgia history. And though she didn`t take the race in the end, she`s clearly not done.
As I first reported earlier today, Stacey Abrams has been tapped by Chuck Schumer to deliver next week`s Democratic response to Donald Trump`s State of the Union. This, itself, appears to be a historic first for an African- American woman.
But there`s another big day on Stacey Abrams` calendar we want to tell you about, and that`s February 24 when she will be my guest for a special live episode of our podcast "Why is This Happening?" It`s at 6:00 p.m. at Gramercy Theatre in New York City. You can go to our Facebook page for a link to tickets. The presale starts tomorrow, Wednesday at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time. You`ll just need to use the code "withpod." Tickets will, I think, sell pretty darn fast, so check that out tomorrow and we very much hope to see you there.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do you think of Senator Warren`s idea of a tax on wealth?
MICHAEL BLOOMBERG, FORMER MAYOR OF NEW YORK CITY: Well, number one, I think the constitution lets you impose income taxes only, so it probably is unconstitutional. Number two, I don`t know of any country that has done that.
If you want to look at a system that`s none capitalistic, just look at look at what was perhaps the wealthiest country in the world and today people are starving to death, it`s called Venezuela.
HOWARD SCHULTZ, FORMER CEO OF STARBUCKS: When I see Elizabeth Warren come out with a ridiculous plan of taxing wealthy people, a surtax of 2 percent because it makes a good headliner, sends out a tweet when she knows in fact that`s not something that is ever going to be passed, this is what`s wrong. I mean, you can`t just attack these things in a punitive way by punishing people.
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HAYES: The presence of at least two billionaires as of now pursuing a possible presidential campaign has had a clarifying effect on one of the main points of contention in this upcoming presidential primary season: what to do about America`s gilded age levels of inequality and the power of its ever more entrenched plutocracy.
Warren responded directly to Schultz in a tweet, quote, "what`s ridiculous is billionaires who think they can buy the presidency to keep the system rigged for themselves while opportunity slips away for everyone else."
She`s got a point. Shockingly, the plutocrats don`t seem to be super big fans of politics that would make them less wealthy. And they have useful spokespeople in Howard Schultz and Michael Bloomberg, along with anonymous sniping to reporters.
But it`s a testament to how far the conversation has shifted that higher marginal tax rates, wealth tax, and Medicare for all, have become central points of discussion for Democratic presidential aspirants.
Here is Kamala Harris endorsing the latter last night in her first town hall in Iowa.
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SEN. KAMALA HARRIS, (D) CALIFORNIA: Listen, the idea is that everyone gets access to medical care, and you don`t have to go through the process of going through an insurance company, having them give you approval, going through the paperwork, all of the delay that may require, who of us has not had that situation to wait for approval and the doctor says, well, I don`t know if your insurance company is going to cover this, let`s eliminate all of that, let`s move on.
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HAYES: Joining me now, Michelle Goldberg, columnist for The New York Times, whose last piece is called "Howard Schultz, please don`t run for president." Wonder what the thesis is. And Waleed Shahid, communications director for Justice Democrats.
I thought that Kamala Harris moment was really interesting, because in terms of where she is and where she comes from the party, she is not like the left most person running, and she was very straightforward about Medicare for all. That was not an evasive answer.
MICHELLE GOLDBERG, NEW YORK TIMES: Well, it`s wild that Kamala Harris is the centrist candidate so far in the Democratic primary, right. That, in itself, I think shows you how much the politics have shifted. And, you know, she`s been -- she`s co-sponsored Medicare for All. It`s not that this has been...
HAYES: No, yes. She`s on the -- absolutely.
GOLDBERG: But I think what is new is her being very forthright about what that means, right, that we`re not for some sort of gradual phasing out of private insurance, but coming out for the most a ambitious possible version of it.
HAYES: You know, it was interesting. Last night, I saw all of these conservatives light up when Harris said that, like, oh, that`s it. She`s done. And you see people, too, you see Howard Schultz and Michael Bloomberg others when they refer to the wealth tax and when they talked about Alexander Ocasio-Cortez`s 70 percent marginal tax rate.
It`s like they don`t even know how to argue against it, because they -- their view is that it`s self-evidently preposterous, but they clearly think it`s good politics for them. Are they wrong, Waleed?
WALEED RASHEED, JUSTICE DEMOCRATS: I mean, it`s great for the progressive movement, the populist movement in the Democratic Party to have people like Schultz and Bloomberg be the face of the anti-wealth tax campaign.
HAYES: Yes, I think you`re right about that.
RASHEED: But I mean, honestly, what is happening is that centrism typically refers to itself as the rational middle. Really, it`s a fringe movement trying to defend the economic preferences of the 1 percent, but right now what we`re seeing is that these corporate friendly centrist politicians are incredibly out of touch with the Democratic Party electorate and frankly the Republican Party electorate.
Trump did not run on trickle down economics. He ran on bucking the Republican establishment on some of these things. These ideas aren`t popular in America right now.
HAYES: Yeah, I also think there is something -- this is -- I want to show Howard Schultz sort of welcome to the show moment last night. He goes to do a book event in New York. This is what happened. Take a look.
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SCHULTZ: I wanted to clarify the word independent, which I view merely as a designation on the ballot.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don`t help elect Trump, you egotistical billionaire (EXPLETIVE DELTED). Go back to getting ratioed (ph) on Twitter. Go back to Davos with the other billionaire elites who think they know how to run the world. That`s not what democracy is.
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GOLDBERG: You know, I almost -- obviously I don`t want Howard Schultz to run for president. I think that his entree into the political stage has been catastrophically misjudged. And I think there is something bizarre about his personal pique at the idea of a 2 percent wealth tax on fortunes over $50 million, the idea...
HAYES: Well, he has a fortune over $50 million. He doesn`t want you to take his money.
GOLDBERG: Right, although he`s going to spend $500 million on his campaign.
HAYES: True. He has come up with his own wealth tax on himself.
GOLDBERG: He seems genuinely personally offended at this prospect, which by the way, a wealth tax, other countries in the world, European countries, have wealth taxes. This is not something unique to say, Venezuela.
HAYES: I`m sorry, wait, let me just stop on this, because it -- every American who owns property pays a wealth tax, OK. If you pay property taxes, you are already paying a wealth tax. Sorry, continue.
GOLDBERG: So -- but I almost have to feel bad for Howard Schultz for having sort of blundered on to this stage expecting hosannas for saying what to him are self-evident truths and being greeted with like mockery and derision by almost everyone.
HAYES: Well, and here is where I think that there is -- I think this whole idea that like the people are looking for Howard Schultz is nuts, but here is what I think is a legitimate point in terms of the describing the politics.
You see people on the left particularly talk about Medicare for All polls so or a wealth tax polls so well, which is true, but that`s also in like the untested chamber of combat. Those ideas are going to get flexed and they`re going to get frisked, and they`re going to get worked over, and it`s possible that they are not as popular after they have to be fought over as they are when they are abstractions.
SHAHID: I mean, look, right now in the polling they are very popular, but...
HAYES: There was a time repealing Obamacare was very popular. I want to be clear.
SHAHID: There has also been a time where Medicare was attacked by Ronald Reagan, Barry Goldwater and George H.W. Bush as being Soviet style socialized medicine and socialism. There is a time when the Affordable Care Act was also attacked for being Soviet-style socialized medicine.
HAYES: Totally, yes.
SHAHID: We`ll see the exact same attacks this time around. We`ve already seeing them. And I think we`ve overcome those challenges...
GOLDBERG: Although, this is a little more fraught, right, because when people actually are looking at kind of changes in their own lives, most people I think it`s safe to say people hate their health insurance, but are still kind of panicked at the idea of going on to not just a system for other people but a new system for themselves.
HAYES: Well, go ahead.
SHEHEED: But the thing is that people hate their insurance company and like their doctor. That`s the issue. But the reason it`s good for Kamala Harris to actually defend her policy position is explain to the American people it`s not just a hashtag, but what the policy actually is.
HAYES: That`s a big thing, too. You don`t see the defensive crouch. That`s what`s so interesting. I mean, Kamala Harris is someone who came up through these very fraught kind of like triangulating politics, particularly on things like crime and other stuff. She was not crouching in that response, which is, that is a real sign to me.
GOLDBERG: Right, well, yeah, I think that you see sort of newly confident ascending liberalism. And in part just -- I mean, in part because the country has moved, because of the evident failure of this style of politics both -- and the style of policy, really.
HAYES: Yeah. Yeah. And the fact that, you know, here we are talking in 2019 and all of the questions about inequity and inequality have just gotten worse and worse and there is also the generational aspect, too, which I think is going to be really interesting to follow.
Michelle Goldberg and Waleed Shahid, thank you for joining us.
That is ALL IN for this evening. "THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW" starts right now.
Good evening, Rachel.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. END