CHRIS MATTHEWS, MSNBC HOST: That`s our HARDBALL town hall. "ALL IN" with Chris Hayes starts right now.
MAYOR PETE BUTTIGIEG (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Thank you.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST: Tonight on ALL IN.
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: What is the president covering up?
HAYES: The pressure to impeach.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: To me, it`s a dirty word the word impeach.
HAYES: With at least 58 House members signaling support and the first Mueller hearing a week away, where do Democrats stand on impeachment?
REP. JAMES CLYBURN (D-SC): We`ve already begun it.
HAYES: Then exclusive new reporting on children separated from their parents. Plus, Senator Chris Murphy on the gun legislation stalled in the Senate, and the president`s son-in-law on Mideast peace and his father-in- law`s Birtherism.
JARED KUSHNER, SENIOR ADVISOR TO THE PRESIDENT: I wasn`t really involved in that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I know you would. Was it racist?
KUSHNER: Like I said, I wasn`t involved in that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I know you would, was it racist?
HAYES: When ALL IN starts right now.
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HAYES: Good evening from New York I`m Chris Hayes. Well, they`re not calling them impeachment proceedings but one week from today, the House Judiciary Committee will hold the first in a series of hearings on what its announcement refers to as "presidential obstruction and other crimes."
House Judiciary is, of course, the committee responsible for starting the impeachment process should they choose to do so and at least half the Democratic members of that committee are now on the record calling for just that.
As of tonight, a total of 58 House members have come out in support of a formal impeachment inquiry, a number of this grown steadily since Robert Mueller told the public last week in his own voice that he was unable to conclude that the President is not a criminal.
Lawmakers were back in Washington today for the first time since Mueller broke his silence after spending the past week working in their home districts. During that time, some of them were confronted by voters demanding they get more aggressive including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi whose speech at the California Democratic Party Convention was interrupted by calls were impeachment.
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PELOSI: Why is it that the President won`t defend our democracy from this foreign threat? What is the president covering up? The report lays out 11 instances of possible obstruction of justice by the President of the United States. I told you this is like coming home for me.
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HAYES: Another member of House Democratic leadership, House Homeland Security Chair Bennie Thompson told me that he decided to come out in support of impeachment only after talking to his constituents.
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REP. BENNIE THOMPSON (D-MS): Up until I came home this weekend I had resisted moving forward. But you know, I represent this district and I listen to the people and I heard them. It didn`t matter whether I was in the hole in the wall or the finest restaurant in my district, people would have come up and talked to me about this. And let me tell you, it bothers them.
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HAYES: First up next week, the Judiciary Committee will hear from legal experts and former U.S. attorneys on the findings of the Mueller report. They will also hear testimony from the former White House Counsel, not from Don McGahn who defied a subpoena to testify two weeks ago citing the President`s invocation of executive privilege. Instead, the committee will hear from Richard Nixon`s White House Counsel John Dean whose public testimony on the Watergate cover-up was a major turning point in that scandal.
These hearings represent a compromise of sorts between different factions of the House Democratic caucus which disagree on strategy on the end on whether to use the I-word as the president calls it. One thing there doesn`t seem to be a whole lot of disagreement on within that caucus is that the President deserves to be impeached whether or not it`s politically smart.
That his conduct as seen in public and the Mueller report already meets the threshold of high crimes and misdemeanors, so much so that the number three House Democrat now says impeachment proceedings are all but inevitable.
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CLYBURN: We do believe that if we sufficiently, effectively educate the public, then we will have done our jobs and we can move on an impeachment vote.
JAMES TAPPER, HOST, CNN: But it sounds like you`re -- you think that the president will be impeached or at least proceedings will begin in the House at some point but just not right now.
CLYBURN: Yes, exactly what I feel. I think we`ve already begun it.
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HAYES: I`m joined now by a member of the House Judiciary Committee who supports starting an impeachment inquiry Congressman David Cicilline Democrat from Rhode Island. Congressman, tell me what this hearing a week from today is designed to do?
REP. DAVID CICILLINE (D-RI): Well, Chris, it`s designed to provide some context with respect to the Mueller report. We`ll hear from legal scholars, one -- several of the nearly thousand U.S. attorneys who have signed a letter that said the conduct of the president would amount to obstruction of justice and he would be charged if you were not the president.
We`ll hear from John Dean who knows something about cover-ups and the way a corrupt administration operates. But your kind of lead-in suggest there`s big divisions in the caucus. I would really say to you that the Democratic caucus is unified on two critical points. One is that we must hold this president accountable, that no one is above the law, that the president cannot continue to cover up and prevent us from getting to the truth.
And secondly, that in addition to holding him accountable that we need to continue to deliver on the important priorities the American people elected us to focus on. Driving down the cost of health care, taking on the high cost of prescription drugs, rebuilding the infrastructure of our country, raising family incomes, and taking on the corruption in Washington.
We`ve passed over 100 pieces of legislation consistent with that agenda that will improve people`s lives. You`ve got to continue to do that. But the American people also expect us to hold this administration accountable. And there`s some disagreement in the caucus about the vehicle, the best vehicle to use but the hearings on Monday will be the beginning of our consideration of the contents of the Mueller report.
It will help bring that report to life for the American people and explain the crimes that are alleged ten separate instances of obstruction of justice including efforts by the President to create false documents or encourage people to do that, to encourage people not to tell the truth. These are serious, serious allegations in the Mueller report.
HAYES: In terms of holding the president accountable, there`s also this question of who you can get before your committee. Obviously, Don McGahn, Bill Barr have both defied your subpoenas. I see that there`s going to be a vote on Tuesday for contempt it appears for both of those individuals. How do you see where things stand vis a vis the kind of obstruction of Congress that the executive has doubled down on?
CICILLINE: Well, I think there`s no question that all the members of the committee and all the members of the Democratic caucus believe that critical that we have the ability to get witnesses and get documents that we need to conduct our investigations. If we allow the executive branch to simply deny us witnesses or deny documents, the executive branch will be allowed to extinguish congressional oversight.
That cannot happen. People cannot defy lawfully issued subpoenas so we`re really running on two tracks. We`ll begin these hearings, a series of hearings before the Judiciary Committee. At the same time we will move forward on contempt proceedings to compel the attendance of witnesses and the production of documents. That`s what the vote will be next week that will authorize a civil enforcement action.
But we really want to make it very clear that we intend to do our work, we intend to use the courts to enforce us subpoenas so we can get to the truth and that we can prevent the president from behaving as if he`s above the law and trying to keep this ongoing cover-up from continuing.
HAYES: I want to get your response to a little bit of reporting about the President and this has to do with something that you`re working on in your Subcommittee on the Antitrust. In 2017, the president repeatedly told aids such as Gary Cohn and Rob Porter, and John Kelly to try to block the AT&T Time Warner merger. They didn`t listen.
His tweet today in which he suggested a boycott as part of a long campaign to punish a network whose coverage it. Am I`m wrong or that that in and of itself opens up the possibility of impeachment? Like using the antitrust powers of the executive to punish bad coverage, where does that stand in your mind?
CICILLINE: Yes. It`s a complete abuse of power. Look, the antitrust enforcement that is required by the Department of Justice is a quasi- judicial proceeding. It has to be free from any political interference. Those are judgments that have to be made based on the facts.
It`s completely improper for a president to attempt in any way to interfere. And the idea of using the power of the Department of Justice to punish people that he perceives are giving him bad coverage is a gross abuse of the office. And we`ll obviously be part of or conducting an investigation on with respect to the Antitrust Subcommittee of the whole issue of antitrust.
HAYES: Yes, you announced big efforts to look into big tech through that committee today. It`s very interesting stuff. I want to have you come back and talk to us about that as that perceives. Congressman David Cicilline, thank you very much.
CICILLINE: My pleasure. Thank you.
HAYES: For more on the first hearing on the Mueller report, I`m joined by Adam Jentleson former Deputy Chief of Staff and Strategic Adviser of Harry Reid when he was Democratic leader in the Senate and former Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman who served on the Judiciary Committee when it drafted articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon. She`s authored The Case for Impeaching Trump.
It`s interesting to me, it seems that they have the Venn diagram of the various parts of the caucus are like well, we should definitely have some hearings about what this guy is up to and that`s what we`re getting next week.
ELIZABETH HOLTZMAN, FORMER CONGRESSWOMAN: Right I think the real problem that the Democrats face -- well, people who care about democracy face is that the witnesses who could tell the story are not showing up. And how do you get them? The really critical thing is to get the story of the Mueller report to the American people. You can`t hand a report to a jury and say convict somebody. You`ve got to have live witnesses and that`s the problem here. The story of the Mueller report hasn`t been told to the American people.
HAYES: And it hasn`t been told in the first person by the people there, like for instance Don McGahn. I mean, John Dean, God bless him, but John Dean was -- he was there 30 years ago, 40 years ago, he wasn`t there now. Don McGahn sitting out there but they can`t get him to come before the committee.
HOLTZMAN: Right. And so what they trying to do is figure out how to do that and that`s a critical problem for them.
HAYES: Adam, you know, you`ve -- it`s been interesting to listen to you talk about this because you`re someone who has been an insider. I mean, you were -- you were in Senator Harry Reid`s office. You know that the view from inside looks very different. Sometimes the view from outside, sometimes I think properly so, and sometimes in a blinkered fashion.
I`m curious what you make of the strategy right now and particularly Pelosi his appearance before the California Democratic Party.
ADAM JENTLESON, FORMER SENIOR AIDE, MAJORITY LEADER HARRY REID: Well, you know, I mean Speaker Pelosi has to bring the caucus along. I mean, that`s just a fact. You can`t just come out and announce that she favors impeachment if the caucus isn`t there.
But I think one of the things that was interesting about her appearance was that you know, she laid out the case for essentially why the president deserved to be impeached without saying he deserved to be impeached. And that`s sort of one of the things they`re dealing with here is that you know, if they lay out the sort of bill of particulars against the president, the automatic reflex question is well so doesn`t he deserve to be impeached.
It`s very hard to make the substantive case that this line they`re trying to walk right now of trying to make the substantive case against him without saying the I-word tricky because they have the power to do it and it and it just you know begs the question why they don`t use the power.
HAYES: Yes. There`s this sort of semantic wrinkle here. I mean, when I saw -- when I saw them noticing the hearing and the title is a presidential structure and other crimes, it`s like well, they`re crimes. Like crimes mean crimes. If you`re caught on crimes then that`s kind of the territory we`re in.
HOLTZMAN: Right. Well, you don`t need a crime to be impeached. And I think, you know, they have to be really careful about the language they use. I would have said obstruction of justice and other abuses of power, because I think you fall into a trap that the American people expect that you can prove that he committed a crime.
HAYES: Right. And abuse of power, you know, this -- Adam, this little blip right, this just passed today. It`ll get a little bit of nose. The president tells his advisers go block this murderer because I don`t like the way the company is reporting on me. It`s the perfect Trump example because it`s obviously to me, it`s an obvious abuse of power. I think it meets the threshold for high crimes and misdemeanors but they all just ignore him.
I mean, time and time again, the guy tries to commit masses abuses of power and fails in doing so because so many people around him are like just wait, wait the guy out. You can`t trust him. And that`s I think part of the problem the Democrats have.
JENTLESON: Right. Well, that`s right. And except for the fact that as of January 1st, 2019 they have the power to do something about it.
HAYES: Right.
JENTLESON: And I think you know, Trump got used to two years of being in control of the White House with a compliant Republican Congress where nobody was doing anything about it and he got in that habit. And Democrats I think in some ways got used to the fact that it feels powerless because the media would eventually move on and the story eventually moves on, but they have the power now.
And they have the power for the first time to actually do something about these abuses of power and it really is incumbent on them to do it.
HAYES: I want to play you something -- you know, we`ve been watching the sort of presidential candidates react to this and Mayor Pete Buttigieg was on Town Hall right before our hour, really fascinating. This is him in Chris Matthews talking about this question of impeachment. He comes right out and says what he would do. Take a listen.
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BUTTIGIEG: So I do recognize that while we`re still trying to get information, the investigations are ongoing, there are witnesses yet to come before Congress, that there may be some strategic wisdom in following that sequence. I`ll leave that to Congress.
MATTHEWS: I`ve got a follow-up and it`s to sort of nail you down. If you were voting in Congress right now on impeachment, would you vote to impeach?
BUTTIGIEG: I would.
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HAYES: Its hard -- to Adam`s point, right. I mean, that`s -- the problem is when you lay out you say look, I think the guy is abusing power and he`s committed -- he`s abused the office, you know, you end up in tails into something.
HOLTZMAN: Right. Well, look, there are a lot of parallels with Nixon. That`s what I write about in my book. The dangling pardon, says what Nixon was Nixon was impeached for, firing the special prosecutor. That`s what Nixon was impeached for.
HAYES: Right. But Nixon -- but Nixon succeeded in do it and Trump didn`t. I mean so many of --
HOLTZMAN: And he did. Trump did fired the special prosecutor -- I`m sorry, he fired Comey.
HAYES: Right. He fired Comey.
HOLTZMAN: And he tried to fire --
HAYES: But then he tried to basically end his own presidency by firing Mueller and Don McGahn wouldn`t let him do it.
HOLTZMAN: Right. But in the end, Nixon didn`t succeed in undermining our government.
HAYES: Right.
HOLTZMAN: And neither will this president. So there`s plenty out there. The question is how do you bring the American people long. Mueller sets out part of the case and it`s critical to bring the American people along, educate them. And that`s what happened in Watergate. Let`s follow that blueprint.
HAYES: Final thing, Adam. You know, we`re going to -- our next segment is about some of the legislation that`s sitting on Mitch McConnell`s desk. And it`s true this House has done a tremendous amount in terms of passing a lot of stuff whether you agree with legislation or not. But I think you know, you saw Cicilline talking about two tracks. There`s this idea that like, the domestic legislation passed the House can be the kind of message for Democrats and I wonder what you think of that.
JENTLESON: Yes, I mean, you know, the House Democrats are proud of the fact that they ran on health care in 2018 and that`s very important. But there`s a difference now which is that in 2017 and 2018, the prospect of Republicans taking away people`s health care, repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act was a live possibility that drove a constant flood of news out of Washington so that buoyed Democrats message.
You can`t drive news just by passing bills. Even though these bills are good and right and important, the press knows that they`re just going to die in the Senate. And even if they didn`t, President Trump would never sign them so you can`t drive a national message in this saturated environment we have right now by passing those kinds of bills.
HAYES: Yes, that -- I think that`s well said. Adam Jentleson and Liz Holtzman, good to have you both on.
HOLTZMAN: Thank you.
HAYES: Next, Mitch McConnell is holding the Senate hostage refusing to hold votes on countless bills passed out of the Democratically controlled House. Senator Chris Murphy on the standstill Senate in two minutes.
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TRUMP: People want the Democrats to pass immigration laws. They want the Democrats very importantly to do something on infrastructure. They want the Democrats to reduce drug pricing.
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HAYES: Donald Trump has been complaining about a so-called persecution in the hands of the Democrats for months and he`s repeatedly claimed that Congressional Democrats are getting nothing done as a result but that`s just plainly factually incorrect. For example, Republicans have been the ones to block repeatedly a desperately needed disaster aid package. That bill finally passed the House today after they all came back from recess and overrode Republican objections.
But that`s far from the only example particularly in the Senate where Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has stalled bill after bill after bill. And that includes the For the People Act on voting rights and anti- corruption which would make it easier to register to vote and reform campaign financing and redistricting.
The Equality Act which the House passed. It would ban discrimination by sexual orientation as well as by gender identity. They`ve also passed a non-binding resolution to release the full Mueller report, The Violence Against Women Act, and coming up now on 100 days since passage by the House background checks for gun sales.
Those were all bills the Senate could have taken up, could take up right now but have not to the frustration of even some Republicans.
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SEN. JOHN KENNEDY (R-LA): We need to do more. By we, I mean the United States Congress. Other than nominations which are important and I will come back to that, we have done nothing, zero, zilch, nada.
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HAYES: Here with me now Member of the Senate Democrat Chris Murphy of Connecticut. Senator, do you agree with your colleague there?
SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D-CT): Yes. You know, there`s empirical data to prove it. We have done nothing this year. This week we took two votes this evening and we will take a few more tomorrow and we`ll wrap up our business on Wednesday and leave for the week after having worked for a grand total of three days.
The idea that we`re doing nothing is I think one complaint shared by Republicans and Democrats. You know, as much as McConnell or President Trump can complain about the details of the legislation they might object to coming out of the House of Representatives, what`s so offensive to me and a handful of other Republicans is they`re not -- we`re not even trying to come up with alternatives in the Senate.
The Republican-controlled Senate could call up a debate on election security, could call up a debate on healthcare, could call up a debate on immigration. We could come to our own conclusion in the Senate and then we could try to reconcile that with the version come out of the House of Representatives but what is really difficult to swallow for those of us that work so hard to get to the United States Senate is that we`re not even trying to do our job any longer. We come in and cast a few votes on nominations and then go home on Thursdays.
HAYES: It`s really wild. I mean, having covered Capitol Hill before -- and this is I think in some ways the extension of certain trends that predate this moment, but you know you go there and people find little things they could get bipartisan cooperation on the election security where you could put together bipartisan majority. And McConnell what is -- is McConnell story he just doesn`t want anyone to take a hard vote on anything. I don`t even get. What is his theory of the case here?
MURPHY: Yes. It`s hard to figure out. I mean that certainly is one theory which is that you know, this cycle he has more incumbent Republican senators that are up for election than Democrats and so why put any of them out on a limb. I think part of it is that you know, when you have no idea what the President is going to say on a daily basis, it does get kind of hard to run a legislative agenda.
Because on Tuesday you could put up a bill that the president says he`s going to sign and by Wednesday morning he`s openly eviscerating you on Twitter over it. And so I think there`s just a bit of -- you know, they`re scared of what the president is going to do on a day to day basis on legislation.
HAYES: I mean, you`ve got -- you`ve got -- I just want to focus for a second on something that you`ve worked your entire career on which is gun safety legislation. Obviously on the wake of the murder of 11 people in Virginia Tech using firearm -- I`m sorry, in Virginia Beach using a firearm. I`ve (INAUDIBLE) slip. I talked about a previous massacre that was used with a firearm.
There are two gun control bills that have come out of the House which I suspect would get close to 50 votes or 51 votes maybe in the Senate. I wonder what you think about those to use legislation in a fantasy world in which Mitch McConnell brought them up.
MURPHY: So, unfortunately, I think that the background checks bill exists in our first theory of the case which is that Mitch McConnell knows that he could lose his majority over the issue of background checks. He knows that this is now a critical vote for swing voters in this country. And so he doesn`t want to put so many of his Republican members in a position where they would have to choose between their voters and the NRA.
It`s sad to say but that`s what he doesn`t want to do. But there is you know, legislation out there that could get a pretty big bipartisan majority in the Senate. If you put legislation on extreme risk protection orders which is this idea that you can go to court to take weapons away from someone who clearly presents a threat to themselves or others.
That legislation could probably get 60 votes in the Senate and could get you know, 80 percent of the House of Representatives supporting it, and even that doesn`t feel like it`s coming before the Senate anytime soon.
So you know there are -- there are the tough votes for Republicans and then there are easier to votes for Republicans on the issue of gun safety, and McConnell doesn`t seem to be plowing a path for it on any of it.
HAYES: Final question. There was a vote today on a budget that was proposed I believe by Rand Paul. This is essentially a symbolic document but there`s a real recorded vote on it, 22-year colleagues. Senate Republicans voted for it which would involve massive almost sort of incomprehensible cuts to the basics of the American social welfare state and social safety net including Medicare, Medicaid, snap, national institutes of health. I think everything would get cut by half basically if the math is right. Like what was up with that?
MURPHY: Yes. Well, I mean listen, give Rand Paul points for consistency.
HAYES: Yes.
MURPHY: He`s made it very clear that he believes in a government that doesn`t provide any notion of a basic safety net for you know, poor people or disabled people, or senior citizens, and he continues that crusade on a regular basis. He found a fairly obscure parliamentary point of order whereby he could present his vision of a budget before the Congress today. It got a handful of votes.
But in an era where you know, his leadership in the Senate has no responsibility for consistency of views, Mitch McConnell`s position on nominating judges in election years at the top of the list. At least Rand Paul brings consistency to his job.
HAYES: That`s right. Yes, a transparent outlining of an actual vision that people could be for or against. Senator Chris Murphy --
MURPHY: Yes. Ideas are largely lost in the Republican Party today but Rand Paul still has a few of them albeit very bad ones.
HAYES: All right, Senator, thank you so much for sharing your time tonight.
MURPHY: Thanks.
HAYES: Next, he is the Democratic candidate for president who speech was nearly booed off the stage in front of California Democrats. Former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper tells me what happened next.
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HAYES: This weekend, the largest single gathering of 2020 Democratic presidential candidates yet, a total of 14 in all hit the stage for the California Democratic Party convention to speak before a crowd that is part of the most engaged activist base that the party has to offer. And so with that in mind, perhaps it wasn`t much of a surprise when former Maryland Congressman John Delaney got booed for calling Medicare for all bad policy.
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JOHN DELANEY (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: But we need as Democrats to build an economy that works but it`s got to be with smart policies. Medicare for all may sound good but it`s actually not good policy nor is it good politics. I`m telling you -- I`m telling you --
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HAYES: Those boos went on for a full minute. Then there was former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper who not only criticized Medicare for all but also the Green New Deal and Socialism all in a matter of minutes.
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JOHN HICKENLOOPER (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If we want to beat Donald Trump and achieve big Progressive goals, Socialism is not the answer. I was reelected -- I was reelected in a purple state in 2014, one of the worst years for Democrats in a quarter century.
We shouldn`t try to achieve universal coverage by removing private insurance from over 150 million Americans. We should not try to tackle climate change by guaranteeing every American a government job. Hold on, hold on. As the Democratic Party, we have to create a vision for this country.
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HAYES: And John Hickenlooper, 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, former governor of Colorado, joins me now.
Governor, was that what you were expected, or was that what you were seeking in that moment?
HICKENLOOPER: No, we were aware that we might get some boos. Certainly, I wasn`t planning on it.
HAYES: Let me ask you this, it was interesting, so you talked about that, about socialism, and then you talked about yourself, your sort of political bona fides, right, that you`d been elected in 2014, a tough year for Democrats in a purple state.
When you talk about these issues, do you see this in sort of practical terms that the electorate isn`t there with us or in substantive terms that these are bad ideas?
HICKENLOOPER: No, no, I`m running for president because I think this country is in a national crisis of division and Trump is fueling it and it`s taking the country backwards, but socialism isn`t the answer. What we did in Colorado, we got nonprofits and business, we got Democrats and Republicans, to get to almost universal health care coverage. We became the number one economy in the country. And we beat the NRA with some tough new gun laws, right?
As a governor but also as a small business person, I brought people together to get the big progressive things done that people said couldn`t be done.
HAYES: I guess when people talk about bringing people together, right, the question I always ask is, like, what sort of magic do you have, or what trick have you figured out that everyone else hasn`t, right? Barack Obama, I think everyone agrees, is whether they liked him substantively or not, one of the most talented politicians in recent memory, had a huge mandate, had huge majorities, right? And Mitch McConnell basically did everything he could to obstruct him.
Like in what universe does John Hickenlooper not encounter the same problem?
HICKENLOOPER: Well, I think that in part it`s who I am. You know, I`m the one person running for president that never run for student council in high school or college.
HAYES: Wait a second, do you really think like your personality is such that Mitch McConnell is going to bring up stuff up to a vote because of who you are?
HICKENLOOPER: No, no, Mitch McConnell is the exception. And when we took on the NRA and they wouldn`t compromise...
HAYES: He`s a powerful exception. He controls one of the two legislative branches of the United States Congress.
HICKENLOOPER: I understand that. And you certainly have to go talk to him just so that the people that follow him and respect him wouldn`t feel diminished.
But in the end, you`ve got to do what you`ve got to do to get stuff done. And I think, you know, both as a small business person -- I spent 17 years as an entrepreneur and a small business person, you learn different skills of negotiation, and you build relationships in ways that other people don`t.
Look at Tip O`Neill and Ronald Reagan, they hated each other at first, right? They were at each other`s throats. And yet in the end, over a period of time, they came to know each other and they got big things done.
HAYES: Right. But Tip O`Neill and Ronald Reagan -- and my colleague in the (inaudible) wrote a whole book about this, it`s a very good book I`d recommend. You know, it`s just a different political era, right, the polarization of the two parties hasn`t settled in. You`ve still got southern Democrats who are sort of traditionally conservative. There`s all sorts of structural things in 30 years that have changed. And I think the argument that people on the other side of this sort of debate have, right, is that if you go into these structurally polarized politics thinking with a 1983 model you`re going to get the floor wiped with you.
HICKENLOOPER: I`m not using that model, I`m using the model of human nature. And when I ran for mayor in 2003, the suburban mayors were mostly Republicans and they hated the city of Denver. If you look at what we got done, we got all 34 mayors to unanimously support a tax increase to build the largest transit initiative in modern American history. And we did it collaboratively. You fly in DIA now, our airport, and you`ll take a train downtown to Union Station, you`ll see one of the national models of urban revitalization, that was through collaborative effort.
And it didn`t just happen overnight. My predecessor hated the mayor of the largest suburb, Aurora, and Aurora hated Denver. In the end, we got people to work together, and that`s how when I got elected governor, I was the first Denver mayor in 120 years to get elected governor of Colorado. That should say something.
HAYES: I want to ask you one more question about your record because you did mention the Green New Deal and you`ve talked about climate as well. One of the things that happened while you were governor of Colorado is that fossil fuel extraction went up tremendously. It was a boon, financial, to many of the fossil fuel companies. But I think you basically saw from 2.7 million barrels up to 14 million barrels. I know a lot of that was fracking.
When you look at that chart, when people who are really concerned about the climate crisis and say we need to get to net zero by 2050, look at that chart, isn`t that chart moving in exactly the opposite direction?
HICKENLOOPER: You know, what we did in Colorado, which had never been done in any other state, is we got the oil and gas industry to sit down with the environmental community. And if you look at it, we were the first state they got methane regulations. Methane is 25 to 40 times worse for the climate than CO2. And in the end the oil and gas industry agreed to pay $60 million a year, it`s the equivalent of removing 320,000 automobiles a year from the roads, that no one had ever done that, not in this country as far as I can tell. No other government had done that.
And yet if we`re going to deal with climate change, we`ve got to address methane and we`ve got to get everybody at the table and figure out some compromises or else we`re just yelling at each other.
HAYES: All right, John Hickenlooper, who is the governor of Colorado, 2020 presidential Democratic candidate, thanks so much for making time.
HICKENLOOPER: You bet.
HAYES: And I`m going to be talking with another 2020 candidate this coming Wednesday. We`re heading straight into the heart of Trump country for a live town hall with presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren in Fort Wayne, Indiana, a red county in a red state, as Warren tries to prove she is the candidate who can turn the Rust Belt blue.
Again, it will be live this Wednesday at 8:00 p.m. Eastern right here on MSNBC. I`m very excited for it.
Still to come, Jennifer Rubin on her take aways from the jaw-dropping interview with Jared Kushner. And tonight`s Tonight One, Thing Two starts next.
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HAYES: Thing One tonight, a pastor in Virginia is apologizing to his congregation tonight after he prayed for a man dressed in shabby clothes who had wandered into his church yesterday. The problem is the man is the president of the United States.
See, it all began when evangelical leader Franklin Graham called for a national day of prayer for the president and got more than 300 fellow conservative Christian leaders to sign on and participate.
Trump had been retweeting Graham all weekend, but obviously wasn`t going to be going to church on a golf day.
But after 18 holes at Trump National in Sterling, Virginia, he threw the clubs in the trunk, hopped in the motorcade and apparently, as David Waldman suggested on Twitter, Google maps the closest church on the way home.
Trump then walked into that church, clearly unshowered and wearing a blazer over his golf clothes. You can can see he`s still got the golf shoes on and his golf hat, which he remembered to remove after he was already on stage. And that revealed the newest Trump hairstyle, 18-hole hat head.
A White House spokesman said the Trump made the unplanned stop at McLean Bible Church in Vienna, Virginia to, quote, "visit with the pastor and pray for the victims and community of Virginia Beach in the wake of the mass shooting there on Friday."
But Pastor David Platt said in a statement tonight that he got a call out of the blue that the president was on his way to the church and wanted them to pray for him. There was no mention of the Virginia Beach shooting at any point in the president`s 15-minute visit.
Pastor Platt has now apologized to his congregation for leading the prayer for Trump saying his aim was in no way to endorse the president, his policies or his party. If you`re looking for a pastor who will do all those things, oh, do we have the guy for you. And he`s Thing Two in 60 seconds.
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HAYES: Pastor Kenneth Copeland and a televangelist who runs a ministry based in Tarrant County, Texas, who is a member of President Trump`s evangelical advisory board and he`s used his TV platform to preach for Trump for years.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KENNETH COPELAND, TELEVANGELIST: You`re going to be held seriously, seriously to account by god if you don`t vote. I mean, we could have another eight years of Hillary Clinton and the worst mess that anybody could make out of a nation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Like many big time televangelists, Kenneth Copeland has used his position to live a pretty cushy lifestyle, and for some reason he has four, yes, four private jets -- one, two, three, four. A bit of scrutiny about that and when a reporter from Inside Edition caught up to ask him about it, well, hold on tight.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Isn`t it true that you want to fly commercial so that you can fly in luxury? How much money did you pay for Tyler Perry`s Gulfstream jet, for example?
COPELAND: Well, for example, that`s really none of your business, but...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Isn`t it the business of your donors?
COPELAND: Listen, I paid -- you kind of caught me off guard here, OK? Thank you, lord, help me -- let me pray just a second.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, let me ask you a really simple question, a lot of people think it`s unbecoming for a preacher to live a life of luxury and to fly around in private jets, what`s your response to that?
COPELAND: Very simple, it takes a lot of money to do what we do. Without the airplane that we have that I bought from Tyler Perry, and I didn`t pay anywhere -- Tyler`s one of the greatest guys. He made it -- he made that airplane so cheap for me, I couldn`t help but buy it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, my question then -- Well, OK, all right, but I want to get to the demons, because people are very concerned about that comments.
COPELAND: Give me a chance here, Inside Edition. I love your eyes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Again, getting back to the comment. You said that you don`t like to fly commercial because you don`t want to get into a tube with a bunch of demons. Do you really believe that human beings are demons?
COPELAND: No, I do not. And don`t you ever say I did. We wrestle not with flesh and blood, but principalities and powers.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Exclusive reporting tonight from our own Jacob Soboroff, as a court-ordered deadline to reunify migrant children with their parents approached last summer, 37 kids ages 5 to 12 who were meant to be meeting their parents again were instead left stranded in vans for anywhere from 11 to 39 hours because the ICE facility holding their parents wasn`t ready for their reunification.
MSNBC correspondent Jacob Soboroff, who just broke this exclusive story along with Julia Ainsley, joins me now.
Jacob, this is wild and awful stuff. What happened here?
JACOB SOBOROFF, MSNBC: Yeah, it`s beyond awful, Chris. And, you know, there was that refrain over and over again during the separations and then again once the court-ordered reunifications were supposed to start taking place, where are the children, particularly the tender aged children? And now we know at least where these 37 children were when they were supposed to be in the process of being reunified with their parents they were sitting in a parking lot in a white passenger van, six to eight kids, crammed into each van, for as you said, up to 39 hours.
And the reason is Port Isabelle, the ICE adult-only processing center that was supposed to take them in and reunite them with their parents just wasn`t ready. They weren`t ready despite the fact that HHS called and gave them the heads up twice before these kids were brought over. And the idea that the first child was able to get off this van and see their parents after waiting 11 hours is -- it is hard to believe, but I feel like we`ve said that way too many times about this man-made separation crisis.
HAYES: You`ve managed to get your hands on some internal emails that are basically the contractor who is working with the government and watching over the kids flipping out over what`s going on.
SOBOROFF: It`s completely inappropriate in the eyes of the people that are supposed to take care of these kids. When I was on the air with you from that Brownsville shelter, the HHS shelter, the former Walmart that held over 1,000 young boys ages 10 to 17, I to you at the time these are people that are tasked with taking good care -- they`re licensed social workers of these separated children and they are in their care because of no fault of their own, it`s because the Trump administration systematically ripped them away from their parents.
So, this contractor, BCFS, it`s also the contractor that operated Tornillo and eventually advocated for shutting it down, wrote emails to Health and Human Services essentially saying this is unacceptable and we need to come up with a plan so that this does not happen again.
It was elevated all the way to Commander Jonathan White, who was the man in charge of spear heading the reunifications for HHS who basically said -- confirmed the anger that we could see in these BCF emails. He said you did the right thing by raising this and HHS called ICE in the middle of the night in order to get these kids ultimately reunified, Chris.
HAYES: All right, MSNBC correspondent Jacob Soboroff with some more great reporting. Thank you very much.
SOBOROFF: Thank you.
HAYES: Next, a rare interview with one of the most powerful people in the country. And it`s bad, I mean real bad. The best moments from the Kushner interview next.
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HAYES: Jared Kushner is literally one of the most powerful people in America and indeed the world I think you can say. Yet despite conflicts of interest so intense he was repeatedly denied security clearances until his father-in-law directly intervened on his behalf, Kushner basically never has to answer for his many egregious failures in his many White House jobs.
And after this latest interview with Axios, you can see why they keep him away from the cameras.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JONATHAN SWAN, AXIOS: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, she calls -- she has called President Trump a racist. Have you ever seen him say or do anything that you would describe as racist or bigoted?
JARED KUSHNER, WHITE HOUSE ADVISER: So the answer is no, absolutely not. You can`t not be a racist for 69 years, then run for president and be a racist. And what I`ll say is that when a lot of the Democrats call the president a racist, I think they`re doing a disservice to people who suffer because of real racism in this country.
SWAN: Was birtherism racist?
KUSHNER: Look, I wasn`t really involved in that.
SWAN: I know you weren`t. Was it racist?
KUSHNER: Like I said, I wasn`t involved in that.
SWAN: I know you weren`t. Was it racist?
KUSHNER: Look, I know who the president is, and I have not seen anything in him that is racist. So again, I was not involved in that.
SWAN: Did you wish he didn`t do that?
KUSHNER: Like I said, I was not involved in that. That was a long time ago.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Joining me now for more on the president`s son-in-law, Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post columnist and MSNBC contributor.
It`s amazing for someone who has as much influence and power as the man apparently does how little you ever get anything like this.
JENNIFER RUBIN, THE WASHINGTON POST: Yeah, I think there are two things that are confirmed by this. Number one, whoever said he should do this interview should be fired. Number two, it shows you that inherited wealth is often inversely related to intelligence and competence.
This man is a man who just rolled out a immigration plan that was pronounced dead on arrival before it got out of a room with Republicans. This is a man who rolled out a Middle East policy hat secretary of state told a room full of people who are sympathetic to the president this is not going to fly. So he has a perfect record.
HAYES: Yeah, this -- I want -- this part on the Middle East peace proposal I guess if you`re calling it that I thought was pretty remarkable. Jonathan Swan, who is the interviewer, does a very good job here. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SWAN: Do you believe that the Palestinians are capable of governing themselves without Israeli interference?
KUSHNER: I think that`s a very good question. I think that that`s one that we`ll have to see. The hope is that they over time can become capable.
SWAN: They being the Palestinians?
KUSHNER: The Palestinians.
SWAN: Do you understand why the Palestinians don`t trust you?
KUSHNER: Look, I`m not here to be trusted. I`m here to...
SWAN: Well, you are, frankly. I mean, to look at it from their point of view, and you`re a businessman, you always look at things from their view. You`ve got three orthodox Jews on the negotiating team. Two of you have at different points funded settlements, Jewish settlements in the West Bank. You`ve got the actions you`ve taken so far moving the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. You`ve cut all aid to the Palestinians, including hospitals in East Jerusalem. And you`ve shut down the Palestinian diplomatic office in Washington. I mean, can you not see why they might not want to talk to you and that they might not trust you?
KUSHNER: So, there`s a difference between the Palestinian leadership and the Palestinian people, OK?
SWAN: And you think the Palestinians people would be OK with all those things that you guys have done?
KUSHNER: The actions we`ve taken were because America`s aid is not an entitlement, right. If we make certain decisions which we`re allowed to as a sovereign nation to respect the rights of another sovereign nation and we get criticized by that government, the response of this president is not to say, oh, let me give you more aid.
So, again, that was as a result of decisions taken by the Palestinian leadership.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: I mean, this is the guy running this process.
RUBIN: Listen, there are those of us who didn`t think that the peace process was a process at all and this sort of confirms it. He`s certainly thrown dirt on it.
This man is an embarrassment to the United States, that he`s running around loose talking to foreign powers. And can you imagine what he`s saying behind closed doors if this is what he says on air when he knows the cameras are on? This really is embarrassing. And it just underscores the need to really abolish nepotism in the executive branch. It`s inexcusable he should have a position of authority.
HAYES: Yeah, it`s also -- I mean, there`s also the case that he lies again or apparently misdirects on this question of his security clearance. I want to play one more clip, which is to me the most egregious thing here is Khashoggi and the relationship between Kushner and the Saudi government, which hacked to death a columnist for The Washington Post. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SWAN: Saudi Arabia has admitted that Saudi agents strangled and dismembered Khashoggi -- Islam, Judaism, and Christianity value burying the dead. W ill you join Khashoggi`s fiancee in calling on the Saudi government to release his body to his family or identify where they`ve put the body parts so his loved ones might give him, if not a timely burial, at least a burial?
KUSHNER: Look, it`s a horrific thing that happened. And what we`ve done is we`ve called for full transparency. We`re working on an investigation to get to the bottom of what happened.
SWAN: Should they return the body?
KUSHNER: Once we have all the facts then we`ll make policy determinations. But that will be up to the secretary of state to kind of push on our policy and we`ll do everything we can to try to bring transparency and accountability for what happened.
SWAN: I mean, with respect, the Senate has unanimously said Mohammed bin Salman ordered it. The CIA briefed members of the Senate who voted that way. I don`t know what the administration`s waiting for in terms of accountability.
KUSHNER: I believe that there`s a report that they`re working on. They`ve been doing an investigation. And when they have the facts of the investigation, then it will be up to the president to make a determination on what he wants to do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: He murdered a columnist for an American newspaper.
RUBIN: Yes, he did. He dismembered him. He murdered him. He lied about the murder. And the president of the United States and this individual, his son-in-law, have lied about that again to the American people.
Understand also that Jared Kushner was giving Mohammed bin Salman advice, contrary to the notion that we`re trying to get to the bottom of, it he`s playing PR agent for the guy who hacked an American journalist. It really is galling.
And once again, I think he should be banished from office. And the people who are in charge of foreign policy in this administration are doing a bad enough job on their own without introducing Jared Kushner. So I think it would behoove all of them to put him behind closed doors and have him not make any more public statements.
As far as the Saudis go, we have not paid -- we have not forced them to pay any price. The congress has condemned this. The congress has voted. The White House is stalling. The White House lies. And this is just unacceptable. And I think the United States congress needs to consider further steps to make sure that our disapproval, to put it mildly, of the Saudis is felt.
HAYES: Yeah, it is remarkable. I mean, I come back to this time and again -- The America first campaign, the America first president, who is putting American interests behind the interests, quite frankly in front of all of us, of Mohammed bin Salman who runs the Saudi kingdom. Jennifer Rubin, thank you very much.
RUBIN: Thank you.
HAYES: 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