CHRIS MATTHEWS, MSNBC HOST: And that`s HARDBALL for now. "ALL IN" with Chris Hayes starts right now.
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CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST: Tonight on ALL IN.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: That was some crowd. We had twice the number outside.
HAYES: The President tours the aftermath of a racist massacre as the deportation force conducts a massive raid.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Please.
HAYES: Tonight, the latest example of how the cruelty is the point for Donald Trump. Plus --
TUCKER CARLSON, HOST, FOX NEWS CHANNEL: White supremacy, that`s the problem. This is a hoax.
HAYES: A sudden vacation for the face of Fox News as the Tucker Carlson controversy grows. Another Trump supporter accused of a violent crime tries the Trump made me do it defense. And the growing movement to boycott businesses owned by a Trump-supporting billionaire.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Can`t see memberships today.
HAYES: When ALL IN starts right now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Good evening from New York I`m Chris Hayes. President Trump campaigned on two distinct sets of promises. There was a group of people he was going to help and a group of people he was going to hurt. And by and large, he has kept the latter set of promises.
We see it every day. He has relentlessly demonized and insulted immigrants, Hispanics, African-Americans, Muslims, and generally people who live in cities. He has produced to climate that many view as a direct predicate for the acts of violence and harassment we`ve seen like the 22 dead in El Paso as just one of many examples.
He is also -- and this is important -- crucially followed through on policy He tried and ultimately succeeded in instituting a travel ban on people from predominantly Muslim countries. He separated 2,000 children from their parents at the border. And after a judge told him not to, he separated 900 more.
He`s kept people including children in cages for weeks with no shower and no toothbrush. At least 24 immigrants have died in ICE custody during Trump`s administration. That number doesn`t include five children who have died in the custody of other federal agencies.
Now, here are two new cruelties. Yesterday, ICE agents raided seven worksites in Mississippi arresting about a 700 -- 680 people they say are undocumented immigrants. The raid conducted just days after a gunman targeted Hispanic shoppers in El Paso Walmart, is the largest rate in any single state in American history. And those 680 arrests left hundreds of terrified American children alone to wonder if they would ever see their parents again.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration deported a Detroit resident to Iraq even though he had never been there before. Jimmy Aldaoud was an Iraqi national, was born in Greece. He came to the U.S. when he was six months old legally. He never lived in Iraq. He didn`t speak Arabic. He was an American in every conceivable way.
He was a man who`s a member of a persecuted Christian group in the Middle East. ICE says he had at least 20 convictions over 20 years but friends say he also suffered from schizophrenia and other mental health issues.
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JIMMY ALDAOUD, IMMIGRANT DEPORTED TO IRAQ: I`ve been sleeping on the street, I`m diabetic. I take insulin shots. I`ve been throwing up, throwing up. Sleeping in in the street, trying to find something to eat. You know, I`ve got nothing over here as you can see.
I was kicked in the back of a couple of days ago, claiming that, you know, get off the guy`s property. I was sleeping on the ground. He claimed it`s his property. You know, I begged him. I said, please sir, I`ve never seen this country. I don`t understand the language, you know.
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HAYES: Now that man that you just saw is dead because apparently, he was unable to get insulin in Baghdad to treat his diabetes. So my question is this. How do any of those things help the people Trump said he would help? Who is made better by it? Those kids crying for their parents in Mississippi, the traumatized children, they`re American citizens.
The president is hurting those Americans. A dead man on the streets of Baghdad who was lonely, and scared, and sick, whose life did that make better in America? Whose job did that bring back? Whose income rose because of that? Who no longer has to deal with the ravages of opioid addiction in their family because that man is dead on the streets of Baghdad, because those kids are wailing because they don`t know if they`ll ever see their parents again? The answer is no one.
And that`s a fundamental calm at the heart of Donald Trump. He says I`m going to hurt these people and I`m going to help you. And he can deliver on the first part but he`s done just about nothing on the second. There are hundreds of people to close mine and Wyoming`s sitting around with no paycheck. We covered them
We`re in the second week of the miners down in Harlan County not letting the coal trains through because their mine is shut down and their pensions were late and their owed back pay, they say. And the people in Morristown, Ohio who told -- who Trump told not sell their own homes, they had their factory shut down.
And farmers across the country are struggling with unplanted fields, having to make up on Trump`s welfare handouts. The economic growth that Trump is so happy to tout has disproportionately happened in precisely the same it was already happening before, in large metro areas among people who had already participated from the boom. It has helped those who were already reaping the benefits.
In fact, there is one group of people Trump did say he would go after where he has broken that promise, and that is the Titans of corporate America and the globalist elites because the banks are running wild and corporate America got a trillion dollars in tax cut.
So for the immigrants, it`s punishment, and misery, and humiliation. And for the owners, well apparently, get this, the people who owned the chicken plants in Mississippi that were raided who had employed all these unauthorized immigrants, they apparently were not arrested. ICE won`t comment.
But when you think about it, how could they be arrested? Donald Trump has been doing the same thing in his own businesses for years exploiting immigrant labor. In fact, the 680 people detained in Mississippi was the largest such raid since 389 people arrested in 2008. And the owner of that plant was subsequently convicted of money-laundering.
But President Trump commuted his sentence in 2017. That`s the deal. You in Morristown, you`re not going to get to keep your job, but instead, you`re going to get real acts of savage cruelty against some struggling families down in Mississippi while Trump stuffs fat cats full of cash and parties with them in the Hamptons.
And meanwhile, all the structural inequalities in America, the great hollowing out of the industrial core and rural America and the declining life expectancies of the first time since World War II, the 70,000 people were losing every year to opioids, all that will go on, because Trump and his party in his donors could not possibly care less about all that.
Look over here the people aren`t hurting because that`s all you`re going to get. Joining me now is Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey. He`s a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, called out President Trump in a speech yesterday for "weaponizing hate." Senator, why did you feel the need to give that speech? What do you want to do with that speech?
SEN. CORY BOOKER (D-NJ), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Hey, first of all, I`m sorry, this is a little off-script but what you were just saying is one of the best expositions against this president. He`s hurting the people he tried promised to hate. I mean it was -- it was brilliant and I`m grateful for you laying it so plain.
And my speech yesterday at Emanuel AME was a really important location to talk about what we`re seeing in America right now which is the fact that since 9/11, the majority of our terrorist attacks have been right-wing extremist groups. The majority of them have been white supremacist groups.
And this violent white supremacy has been a part of our culture to the tune of killing thousands and thousands of people, beating folks, burning buildings, burning churches. This is a long history, in fact, Emanuel AME in generations ago was burnt to the ground when blacks were forbidden to gather and congregate.
And so I wanted to talk directly to the -- confront the Disneyland history that we often tell where we actually diminished the greatness of this country when we don`t speak to what we had to overcome to get to where we are. And right now we need that spirit more than ever to combat the ills of violence and white supremacy.
HAYES: You know, people -- there`s been this sort of strange to me a little bit in these news cycle about is the president racist or is he a white supremacist, and I`m not sure where you come down on that, and you`re shaking your head. Why you`re shaking your head?
BOOKER: Well, I said in my speech yesterday this impotent simplicity of asking who`s racist or whose white supremacist, it is distracting from what the deep question is which is does racism and white supremacy exist. And if it does exist, then the question -- the most important question is are you doing something about it or are you not.
Because King said so eloquently that when we have to repent for in this day and age it`s not just the vitriolic words and violent actions of the bad people, but the appalling silence and inaction of the good people. If racism exists in our society, it doesn`t -- it`s not enough to say I`m not a racist, you must be anti-racist.
You`ve got to get off the sidelines because if there`s injustice in this country is a threat to all of us, then you must be an activist against it. And that`s a much more constructive question. If this is an ill that exists in our society as an act of patriotism, what are you doing actively to deal with this crisis?
HAYES: This -- the moral urgency here seem very clear and it`s been channeled by you and others I think in the face of what we see in the last week. I don`t ask a political question that I don`t want to seem glibly amoral, but because you are running for president, it`s I think an important one.
Do you worry that these sorts of questions about the sort of existential nature of America as a multiracial democracy and who is American, the debate on those fundamentally end up playing on Trump`s terms or putting the emphasis where he wants to put them and not on say the coal miners out of a job in Harlan, Kentucky etcetera.
BOOKER: Yes, look, I am getting tired of political positioning and analysis because it distracts from what America`s are upset about, that there`s no larger sense of moral urgency. Let`s worry less as a party about the politics and start talking to the people, talking to the hurt, addressing the challenges that we have.
Trump is brilliant at trying to distract us to make it all about him, what he said, what he`s doing. Yes, that`s important. But let`s not -- let us distract from I think the urgencies of coal miners, of people out in farm country, of people in inner cities who are just looking for leaders that will speak with plain moral clarity about the challenges and the issues they`re going on the larger systemic problems.
It`s why I criticize folks all the time to making this all about Donald Trump. And I know the number one polling issue in our party is who can beat Donald Trump. But I`m like God, can`t we have bigger aspirations than that?
Beating Donald Trump should be the floor but it`s not the ceiling. It should -- it should be -- gets us out of the valley but it doesn`t get us the mountaintop which is dealing with these trends, as you and I have talked about before that have now been going on is for a generation that we have to address with more of a sense of moral urgency, moral clarity, and the kind of leaders that can inspire us to come together across the lines that often divide us to create real American change.
And you`ll find that we have a lot more when it comes to that. We have a lot more that we agree upon than we disagree upon.
HAYES: Yes, do you think that -- I mean, there`s sort of two schools of thought I think on the country, right. There`s one that it`s deeply structurally polarized and you have to sort of understand that and see that in a clear-eyed sense. And we`ve seen that you know, in the -- in the last midterms where Dems picked up 40 seats in the -- in the House and they lost a bunch of Senate seats in conservative states.
And there`s others I think who see that structural polarization is essentially a little bit of misleading. It sounds like you`re in the second camp.
BOOKER: I definitely am in the second camp. You know, you and I both know if you talk through that political lens, a Republican, do you support ObamaCare, heck no. Well, do you support making sure people have insurance even if they have a pre-existing condition? Yes, well, I support that.
Do you support people staying on your health insurance till your 20? When you start breaking it down, they support all the constituent parts. And that`s because we see a Republican Party that`s trying to hold on to power by doing everything from voter suppression to trying to tell these tired tropes to scare people away from what`s in their best interest.
And so the best leaders I`ve seen through our history are those who are able to cut through that to sort of spark a larger moral imagination amongst people that are outside of these lines. And that`s why I keep telling people that we as Democrats shouldn`t be just simply saying OK, the end we want to is to beat Republicans. No.
I think the bigger end we should talk to is about uniting Americans in the larger urgencies of justice in our country. And I think that that kind of leader that can inspire that or those kinds of leaders because this is not a one-person game, those kind of leaders are going to help us get back on track and deal with these issues.
HAYES: All right, Senator Cory Booker, thank you very much for making time tonight.
BOOKER: Thank you very much.
HAYES: Joining me now is Edward Bajoka. He`s an immigration attorney and he`s a family friend of Jimmy Aldaoud, the lifelong American who was deported to Iraq. First, I guess, I just want to express my condolences for the family`s loss. How did this happen?
EDWARD BAJOKA, IMMIGRATION ATTORNEY: Well, as you stated earlier, Jimmy came into the United States at the age of six months old. He was born in Greece to Iraqi refugee parents. They fled religious and ethnic persecution in Iraq and found their way to Greece.
HAYES: They were Christians.
BAJOKA: They were Christians, correct, and members of the Chaldean ethnic minority group. They found their way to Greece. That`s where Jimmy was born. And about six months after his birth, they came to the United States. The only thing that separates Jimmy from me as a citizen who was born in the United States and you is about six months of his life.
HAYES: Just to be clear, he came legally. I mean, the parents came as legal or refugees, correct?
BAJOKA: That`s correct. They were granted refugee status and they arrived here in that manner.
HAYES: And ICE says look, he`s got all these convictions. He did 17 months I think at some point I think for breaking and entering, that he has a long rap sheet and so sorry, too bad you broke the law.
BAJOKA: If you look at Jimmy`s convictions in his criminal history, they`re all related to his mental health issues. Jimmy has been a bipolar, schizophrenic, paranoid schizophrenic. He`s suffered from severe depression and severe anxiety, and these problems have plagued him and troubled him for his entire life. They`re the root cause of every single one of his criminal convictions.
If you look at some of the convictions, one was a home invasion for breaking into a neighbor`s garage and stealing his tools. An assault conviction was related to an incident with his father when Jimmy was having a manic episode. This goes deeper than that.
It`s not only a failing of the immigration system, and cruelty shown by ICE, but it`s also a failure for this country how we deal with people that have mental health issues. So Jimmy`s case is really unique and it`s really sad in the sense that this man is now -- is now gone in a cruel and unusual fashion.
HAYES: Am I correct the Christian sect, a version of Catholicism, Chaldean, a group of believers, Christian believers from Iraq that there was an actual ICE rate of that sub-community in Detroit and 2017 that picked Jimmy up the first time?
BAJOKA: That`s correct. There are 1,400 Iraqi nationals around the country with final orders of removal. And in June of 2017 ICE raided and did a mass raid and focus specifically on the Chaldean community in Detroit under the pretext that they would be able to deport these individuals to Iraq.
Iraq had not been accepting deportations from the United States for decades since prior to the first Gulf War in 1990. This was done without warning and it was done as a -- it was -- it was part of a negotiation that the administration met made with the Iraqi government to take them off of the travel ban list. And so you could also say that Jimmy`s death is as a result of what -- a side effect of the Travel ban.
HAYES: They put him on the travel ban, the first iteration, and then they negotiate with the Iraqi government and says, we`ll take you off the travel ban that we`re -- that flows from the president wanting to ban all billion Muslims, if you take our -- if you start accepting deportations. And then they go round up a bunch of folks who are predominantly Christian -- persecuted Christians from Iraq to send them back to Iraq.
BAJOKA: That is absolutely correct. And I would add that in 2016, our Secretary of State John Kerry declared what happened to the Christians in Iraq at the hands of ISIS was a genocide. So our government for the past two years has spent millions of dollars trying to deport people to a country that were their fellow Chaldeans had had just been victims of genocide.
The Christian population in that country is almost zero at this point. The last estimate is that it was under 200,000 and that`s from a high of 1.5 million before the U.S. invasion in 2003. At this point, the estimates are under 200,000. And I would guess it`s probably even lower than that. Jimmy is -- was in a unique situation and that he was never even born in Iraq.
(CROSSTALK)
BAJOKA: He had no knowledge of Arabic. He spoke English and a little bit of Aramaic which is the Chaldean language. He had no way to communicate with anyone in that country. And that is again another factor that led to his death.
HAYES: Again, I`m just so sorry about what happened to Jimmy and my deepest condolences to his family and thank you for telling his story Edward Bajoka.
BAJOKA: Thank you. Thank you, Chris.
HAYES: Next, the man who insists that the scourge of white supremacy in America is a hoax just announced a long-standing vacation. Trump T.V. is handling the growing Tucker Carlson backlash in two minutes.
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HAYES: In the wake of the murder of 22 people in El Paso who were gunned down by a suspect who allegedly warned of a Hispanic invasion, Trump T.V. host Tucker Carlson stared at the camera and declared that white supremacy is not a real problem in America. In fact, he called it a hoax.
In the wake of those comments, there are calls to boycott Carlson`s advertisers. The hashtag fire Tucker Carlson began trending on Twitter not for the first time incidentally. And then last night at the end of a show, Carlson announced he was going on vacation.
A spokesperson insists the vacation had been planned before the uproar over his white supremacy comments, but sudden vacation announcements have been a go-to move for Trump T.V. Last March Laura Ingraham announced a vacation after coming under fire from mocking Parkland survivor David Hogg. Sean Hannity went on vacation after advertisers fled over his promotion of a conspiracy theory that exploited the death of DNC staffer Seth Rich.
Jesse Watters took time off after criticism over a lewd comment about Ivanka Trump. And Bill O`Reilly took what he insisted was a pre-planned vacation after revelations he had settled multiple sexual harassment allegations and he never returned.
As I discussed last night, Carlson is the most adept and sophisticated communicator on Trump TV when it comes to pushing ideas that have been embraced by white supremacist. But the tone is set from the top. Parent company Chairman Rupert Murdoch and his son the CEO Lachlan Murdoch who ran a media empire who pushed nativist ideas across the globe.
Rupert is reportedly "a big Carlson fan" and made the decision to give him his primetime show. After Fox News CEO Roger Ailes was forced out amid sexual harassment scandals, the Murdoch`s eventually installed one of Ailes longtime acolytes Suzanne Scott, a longtime employee who had reportedly been in charge of enforcing Roger Ailes miniskirt dress code for women at Fox News.
Scott has been running the channel since May of 2018 and overseeing the type of programming that Tucker Carlson now wants to pretend does not exist. Joining me now MSNBC Political Analyst Jason Johnson, Politics Editor at The Root.
It`s interesting to me how much this has popped. Because it you know, it`s not -- this is in line with the way that they talk over there, but there`s something about this moment particularly in the wake of what we`ve seen that has seemed to really sort of grab people`s attention.
JASON JOHNSON, MSNBC POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: So it`s new and that`s what we can see through it, right? I mean, first off this is like whenever any celebrity entertainer on tours like I need to spend time with my family.
HAYES: Exhaustion.
JOHNSON: Yes, exhaustion. That`s why I have to stop the tour. So we know that this is actually because of the push back. And we`re at a moment now where the country is actually in pain. It isn`t trying to listen to the ridiculous both side-ism, disingenuous excuses that Tucker Carlson has performed.
But again, the larger issue is this. This isn`t new. He`s been playing up Forever 21 Klansmen for like four or five years now. Like this isn`t a new thing for Tucker Carlson. So I think what Fox is realizing from a business perspective is that oh wait, this doesn`t sell the way it used to. Bowties and earnest frowns don`t sell the way they used to. And that`s why --
HAYES: He`s on a necktie now. I`m just -- feel free to correct. Well, but -- well, it`s so -- I mean, look, there is also -- there`s advertising pressure, right. But it is interesting to me like when you look at the board, there`s some -- put the board up at the Fox Corporation board. So Rupert and Lachlan, Paul Ryan is on there.
Now, it`s interesting to me Paul Ryan is out there because Paul Ryan last seen hand-wringing in Tim Alberta`s book about oh but behind the scenes, he was so troubled by Trump and Trump`s moral failings. But you know, he`s in an abortive corporation that is promoting the great replacement theory that white people are undergoing a replacement, and that Latinos and immigrants are invading the United States.
JOHNSON: And the problem is Paul Ryan is the quintessential example of what`s going to be the new thing probably from this year to next year is you know, gosh, I just want the tax cuts not the racism, right.
HAYES: Yes, that`s true.
JOHNSON: And that`s essentially what Paul Ryan is. And you have a lot of people who may personally in any personal way their own sense of moral decency, oh I don`t like these blatantly racist things but all the other policies are fine. And again, that will work.
As a matter of fact, Chris, unfortunately, that may work in a month. But right now when the country is in our face faced with these words lead to consequences and death, everybody gets afraid.
HAYES: I mean, I think, right. When someone murders 22 people, they target Hispanics and they say they`re doing it because they think there`s an invasion, like it has a kind of clarifying effect. I should say Oliver Darcy called the board for comment. Total silence.
One of the Fox board member, former Telemundo CEO Roland Hernandez actually abruptly hung up on me when I phoned him and started to ask about Tucker`s comments.
JOHNSON: That`s not surprising. How many -- how many times you can justify this. And here`s the thing. We already know that like OK, many of these shooters have quoted Donald Trump but they had Cesar Sayoc has Donald Trump all over his car. How are we going to start holding these people accountable, right?
Because I stand back and I look at this and I see Tucker Carlson is a guy who has repeatedly failed in television, who`s basically been given media welfare a prime-time spot who replaced a guy who left because of maps of sexual harassment issues, and he`s still being promoted not because he`s good at his job, not because he has the skills of that a person that he replaced, but because he promotes a certain kind of bigotry that other people can`t say as eloquently.
What do we do with that as a society? Do we constantly call him out for it or do we pretend he`s actually just an entertainer.
HAYES: Well, he`s talented at serving it up. I mean, he is. I mean, that`s --
JOHNSON: But there are people who were better at it. And to be perfectly honest with you --
HAYES: Well, it`s that really what you want? That`s like asking Trump to get off the golf course.
JOHNSON: I mean -- but I think the issue is if you`re constantly being busted for not being able to say the quiet part loud, you know, you`re constantly saying the quiet part loud, that`s a problem.
HAYES: Well, but that`s the thing. It`s like to me this is -- this is very similar to Donald Trump, right. Donald Trump comes down the escalator and he says Mexico is sending rapists and everyone`s like whoa, dude, that`s a really race -- I mean, first of all, it`s not true but also that`s a regular racist thing to say. And remember that all these sponsorships got canceled.
JOHNSON: Right.
HAYES: Right? People reacted. But then it was just like oh wow, there`s just enough people that like this that he`s just going to keep going. And that`s basically the same -- the same issue with Trump T.V.
JOHNSON: Right. And here`s the thing. From a financial standpoint, fine, here are people who still want to watch that kind of nonsense. But I`m saying for the rest of us in the media system, for everybody else who`s talking about, we have to now frame this as this is somebody who basically supports terrorism. This is someone who is disingenuous.
If you`re talking about this white nationalist rhetoric, you can`t be a white nationalist. You can`t support white nationalist rhetoric without supporting terrorism. It can`t be accomplished without it. And I think he should be framed in that way. The people who promote that kind of --
HAYES: I don`t know if that`s true. I don`t know if I agree with that. I really don`t. I mean, I think supporting terrorism is distinct from sort of supporting the predicate for what has happened, right. I mean, there are people who can be -- have violent ideologies who don`t support violence or maybe that`s not possible.
JOHNSON: You can`t support white nationalist without supporting terrorism because you can`t accomplish white nationalism without state-sponsored or individual violence. You can`t. It requires movie people from a country that they have always been. So that`s terrorism.
HAYES: Jason Johnson, thanks for being with me. Ahead, another Trump fan accused of a violent crime tries the Trump made me do it defense. Can sustained messaging radicalize someone towards violence? I`ll talk to someone who says that happened to him right after this.
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HAYES: A lawyer for a Montana man accused of attacking a child who didn`t remove his hat during the national anthem says the man thought he was acting in line with the president`s wishes.
39-year-old Kurt Brockway (ph) was arrested this weekend after he allegedly grabbed a 13-year-old boy by the throat at a rodeo and slammed the child to the ground, fracturing the boy`s skull. The boy then had to be airlifted to a hospital in Spokane, Washington.
And he did this, apparently, because the boy wouldn`t remove his hat during the national anthem. Brockway`s (ph) defense attorney told the local newspaper that Brockway (ph) has a traumatic head injury, but added that Trump`s rhetoric also played a role, quote, "his commander-in-chief is telling people that if they kneel they should be fired, or if they burn the flag, they should be punished. He certainly didn`t understand it was a crime."
This is the second time in less than a month that lawyers for someone accused of violence argued the president`s words helped move them to violence, that was the case of the MAGA bomber, Cesar Sayoc, whose attorneys wrote in a July sentencing memo, quote, "in the lead-up to the 2018 mid-term elections, President Trump warned his supporters that they were in danger from Democrats and at times condoned violence against his critics and quote/unquote enemies."
Before Sayoc, there were the three men who plotted to blow up a Kansas apartment complex, home to a number of Somali refugees. In a rambling manifesto, the three railed about immigration and what they describe is a sellout of the country.
Here with me now to talk about how lone wolf individuals can be radicalized towards violence by sustained propaganda is someone who knows quite a bit about the topic. Mubin Shaikh is a former extremist who then took a U- turn, worked under cover of the Canadian security intelligence service, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to fight terrorism. He is the co-author of the book about his experience, "Uncover Jihadi: Inside the Toronto 18 Al Qaeda Inspired, Homegrown Terrorism in the West."
I guess I want to start with stating an obvious fact and get your response to it, which is these are defense attorneys who are attempting to sell a story that is exculpatory to their clients about their clients` alleged acts of violence, alleged in the case of the individual who choke-slammed a 13-year-old and convicted in the case of Cesar Sayoc. Should we take them seriously?
MUBIN SHAIKH, CO-AUTHOR UNDERCOVER JIHADI: Well, I`ve been on the receiving end of cross-examination by defense lawyers, so I don`t really take their arguments seriously.
HAYES: What, though, do you think is the connection, if any, between a kind of atmosphere and propaganda and the way that an individual can become motived to violence?
SHAIKH: Yeah, I mean, there are always a number of factors involved, right? It`s very rarely it`s just one factor. I`ve made other comments about the interplay between ideology and grievances. The way the quote goes is ideology without grievances doesn`t resonate, and grievances without ideology are not acted upon.
Now you throw into the mix, let`s say, a charismatic preacher, a radical preacher, speaking to individuals who are coming out of an environment where they`re feeling frustrated, they feel that their way of life is under attack, their religion might be under attack, their country is under attack. This is what motives people. As soon as you convince them that they face an existential threat from a perceived enemy, that is what moves people from talk to action.
HAYES: Do you view -- how do you view, having had the experience you had, sort of falling under the sway of this and being immersed in it, how do you view the rhetoric of, say, the president and the various sort of propaganda arms that echo his message?
SHAIKH: Well, you know, if you look at the propaganda that`s being promoted by various spokespersons, whether officially on the far right or undercover far right, if you will, various media personalities and others - - I think you were talking about Tucker Carlson earlier, and he mentioned that he believes white supremacy is a hoax.
And it`s these kinds of ideas, right, it`s the downplaying of it, it`s the normalization of it, that makes it easier for people who are already on the fringe, who are already on edge, who have, you know, difficulties managing the changes that are happening in the world, it`s very easy for these people to plug into these kinds of -- this kind of rhetoric and think you know what, it`s up to me to act, because nobody else is doing it.
And this is something that`s common, again, with jihadists and far right, this belief that I am that authentic pure vanguard that is going to do what nobody else is going to do.
HAYES: And it seems to me that in the cases of the most extreme rhetoric on the far right, and where there are some real echoes of parallels of say ISIS in places like the 8Chan message board, that sort of explicit call to act is also important, right? More than just the kind of rhetoric demonizing the other, and this is a threat to your way of life, but active encouragement, active and direct encouragement about acting in some violent way.
SHAIKH: Yeah, I mean very recently four-star marine general, General John Allen, who was running the war against ISIS made a comment how similar the two groups actually are -- the dehumanization, the whole notion that access to weapons, dehumanizing rhetoric in particular. So when you say explicit calls to actions, sure, a lot of these platforms, whether ISIS or 8Chan, not only do they have these explicit calls, but it`s the subtle calls, it`s the dog whistles where you don`t have to say -- you don`t have to say go out and attack these people using these weapons, you`ve already created the conditions for that person to go out and do it themselves. And then celebrate it online in these platforms, which is exactly a mirror image of what ISIS does, and with what far right people do on 8Chan.
HAYES: All right. Mubin Shaikh, thank you so much for sharing time with me.
SHAIKH: Thank you.
HAYES: Coming up, a Hamptons fundraiser for the president elicits a national movement of boycotts, the devil`s bargain with corporate America made with the president ahead.
And tonight`s Thing One, Thing Two starts next.
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HAYES: Thing One tonight, the Iowa state fair kicks off today, an annual tradition dating back to 1854 that attracts more than a million people from all over the world. The fair is known for a lot of things like agricultural contests. They`ve already crowned this year`s prize winning big boar. His name is captain. He weighs in at 1,254 pounds. He is not feral. And according to his caretaker, he likes to have a shot of Captain Morgan in the evenings to mellow out.
The state fair foods also of course a big draw, especially the enormous variety of things on a stick, more 70 available this year, including bacon wrapped deep fried Italian sausage, deep fried Twinkies and a salad?
But arguably the star of the show is the butter cow. This year, he comes compete with a hard hat to fit the building for our future theme, and a collection of Sesame Street character friends.
Of course, the Iowa State Fair is also a major political location. Candidates have been stumping at the early state event for decades, some with better events than others. The Iowa State Fair`s political winners and losers is Thing Two in 60 seconds.
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HAYES: The Iowa State Fair is a crucial stop for presidential candidates. It`s been described as sort of stations of the cross. They give a soapbox speech, eat some of the fried foods, interact with regular folks, maybe get on a ride or two. And there are rules, most importantly, whatever you do, for the love of god, do not get photographed eating a corn dog.
Of course, some politicians execute the delicate Iowa State Fair visit better than others. Mitt Romney liked to flip pork chops on his visit to the fair, infamously dropping one on the ground, and delivering this memorable line on the soapbox.
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MITT ROMNEY, FORMER GOVERNOR OF MASSACHUSETTS: Corporations are people, my friend. We can raise taxes -- of course they are. Everything corporations earn ultimately goes to people.
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HAYES: Fred Thompson showed up in dress loafers and got around by chauffeured golf cart which didn`t go around so well.
Barack Obama warmed hearts with an adorable bumper car ride with his daughter Sasha.
Donald Trump offered rides in his helicopter, not enough to beat Ted Cruz in the Iowa caucuses. Just last year John Delaney proved he was brave enough to get on the giant slide, although I`m not sure how much he enjoyed it.
This year, more than 20 candidates are scheduled to make an appearance and deliver a speech at the Des Moines Register political soapbox. Here`s hoping they learned from others` mistakes, but I`m not holding my breath.
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JOE BIDEN, 2020 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We choose unity over division. We choose signs over fiction. We choose truth over facts.
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HAYES: Related companies is a real estate firm that also invests in fitness and restaurant brands, among them SoleCycle and Equinox. If you Google Related Companies our brands and try to click on the first hit, you get this message: "you`re not authorized to access this page."
And this hasn`t always been the case. It appears to be the result of a report earlier this week that billionaire developer Steven Ross, the guy who owns Related, along with the NFL`s Miami Dolphins, will host a fundraiser for Donald Trump tomorrow in the Hamptons where the president himself is scheduled to appear and where tickets run as high as $250,000.
Also scheduled to make an appearance at one of two back-to-back Hampton fundraisers this weekend, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, Senior Adviser Jared Kushner, RNC Chairwoman Rhonna McDaniels, and Senator Lindsey Graham.
And people got wind that Ross was hosting this extravagant fundraiser after a mass murder in El Paso by a shooter whose manifesto echoed Trump`s language when he talked about Hispanic invasion, the administration continues to put brown people in cages at the border, and as they watched the president`s supporters chant "send her back" to a U.S. congresswoman born in Somalia, well, it turned out people were not so happy that the owner of their local gym or the place they like to cycle was supporting these kind of things.
Ross has since tried to deflect some of the criticism. In a statement he said, quote, "I have known Donald Trump for 40 years. And while we agree on some issues, we strongly disagree on many others. I have been, and will continue to be, an outspoken champion of racial equality." Who knows, maybe Ross does have an interest in racial equality. You can`t get your tax cuts and deregulation and all the other giveaways that benefit a billionaire like Ross and not be tainted by the disgusting, at times violent white nationalism, that Trump is fomenting.
He can`t have it both ways. We`ll talk about corporate America`s devil`s bargain after this.
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HAYES: Billionaire developer Steven Ross is not the only rich donor backing Donald Trump`s re-election. The Washington Post points out the Trump victory fund-raising committee has raised more than $67 million so far for the president`s re-election in the RNC. Among the biggest donors so far, Marvel Entertainment Chairman Isaac Perlmutter and his wife, Laura; Texas oil executive Jeffrey Hildebrand and his philanthropist wife Melinda; Texas billionaire Darwin Deason; and Wisconsin billionaire Diane Hendricks.
Joining me to talk about the bargain corporate America is making with Trump, I`m joined by Paola Ramos, host of Vice`s Latin-X, former 2016 Clinton campaign deputy director of Hispanic media; and Josh Marshal, editor and publisher of Talking Points Memo; and Elie Mystal, executive editor of Above the Law and a contributor to The Nation.
I thought the Steven Ross statement was so -- such a perfect microcosm of the whole way the Republican coalition in the era of Trump stays to together.
ELIE MYSTAL, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, ABOVE THE LAW: Exactly. I want my tax cuts and that`s all I want and I don`t care about the rest.
Look, I`m surprised -- Trump is a bigoted demagogue, and we all kind of know that. These people should be ashamed of supporting him, right, like at this point you should basically only be able to contribute to the Trump campaign with BitCoin, right? But Equinox man is out there holding an Eyes Wide Shut party and he`s surprised that people are getting up in his grill.
We understand, we know that there is no constitutional way to put pressure on these people`s exercise of their money as speech, but there`s darn sure social pressure that we have barely tried. And it`s time for us to start trying at least.
HAYES: Yeah, I think the civil society part of it is fascinating.
PAOLA RAMOS, HOST, VICE`S LATIN-X: Exactly. And I`m not surprised at all at his response. What I am loving is the backlash, right, because I think finally it`s crystallizing in everyone`s minds that we all have, every single one of us, has a moral responsibility to do something, right. You can be someone who goes to SoulCycle and you can be an activist, but that is exactly what the resistance envisioned, right, which is that activism can look many different ways. this is part of that.
HAYES: Right. So, I just want to make -- the conservative argument about all of this, right, is that you`re sliding down some dystopian like slippery slope where like it`s not just about Trump but it`s going to be about all Republicans or all conservatives or anyone with any politics -- like everyone is going to use every consumer decision. Cities have passed these laws, right, in the case of Chick-fil-a because of the founder`s belief or opposition to gay marriage, that like you`re going to end up in a position where everything gets politicized.
JOSH MARSHALL, EDITOR AND PUBLISHER OF TALKING POINTS MEMO: I think the thing is we know, according to the Supreme Court, and it`s a rule that we operate under now, that campaign contributions are speech. Speech is public. In the nature of things, speech is public.
So -- and what you see, not so much this particular controversy, but there`s a big move on the right that campaign contributions should be confidential.
HAYES: Yes.
MARSHALL: ...so this doesn`t happen.
HAYES: Well, they`ve already -- there is already a huge amount of dark money thanks to Citizen`s United.
MARSHALL: Right, but even beyond dark money, even the official money, should be -- you know -- and what you see is a growing desire that money should have untrammeled rights to enter into politics as speech and also have confidentiality, which breaks the whole speech model, really.
MYSTAL: They don`t want free speech, they consequenceless speech, and that is what we cannot continue to allow them have, and that is why we need to take -- and so when you`re talking about the slippery slope, like, the way you avoid the slippery slope is don`t support people who cage children. Don`t support people who are racist bigots. Like it`s not that actual -- what we`re asking for is not actually all that much.
And so I don`t really worry about the slippery slope, because I feel like if we -- if we have collective action, collective social pressure on our friends and families and uncles and whatever to stop supporting this ridiculousness, that we will actually get somewhere.
HAYES: There`s also -- the other worry, right, so you talked about wanting to make the donors anonymous. It was very interesting, so when Congressman Joaquin Castro, right, he tweeted out some donors, maxed out donors of Donald Trump that were in San Antonio where he, part of his district. And people flew off the handle that he was essentially kind of engendering some threats towards him, he was painting a target on his back. What do you think of that?
RAMOS: I saw nothing wrong with that. Like what is wrong -- as you said...
HAYES: It is public information, just to be clear.
RAMOS: Exactly, it`s public. But what is wrong with exposing the truth, what is wrong with exposing the people that are fueling his agenda, right? So my question is to the donors, like, what are you so ashamed of? Why can you not be proud? Why can you not be okay with associating yourself with a white supremacist? Be okay with that.
MARSHALL: The key is like...
HAYES: Well, the worry also, I should just say, I think the worry is danger. And I had a moment there -- I think partly because we`re just up against like two mass shootings, where there was part of me like I do worry about -- I worry about political violence in America and I would like to not...
MARSHALL: If Castro would have asked me, like, should I do this? I would have said, I`m not sure that`s the greatest idea, but I don`t see it`s a big problem.
And the bigger thing is in that case relatively small donors, it`s not this guy who`s probably bundling millions of dollars or something like that.
But you do not have to give to political campaigns. It is speech, it is an inherently a public thing. And the reality is, look, we live in a polarized time. We live in a time where a lot of, you know, bad things are going on. So I think we all have to be kind of collectively cautious about kind of focusing in on one person and what some crazy person might do.
But the reality is, I haven`t seen any case of anybody who was targeted in anyway because they gave money, maybe someone tweeted at them --yeah, exactly -- it just has not happened. And I don`t think there`s really, you know, the kind of people who gave -- you know, maxed out only takes, what, depending on if it`s a couple or individual, a few thousand dollars. No one really cares. No one is going to be thinking about them a week from now.
MYSTAL: People of color...
MARSHALL: It`s public.
MYSTAL: People of color are already targets under this administration. I have no problem with shining the light back on the donors who fund this kind of racialized hate.
I mean I go further, I want pitchforks and torches outside this man`s house in the Hamptons. I`ve been to the Hamptons, it`s very nice. There`s no reason it has to be. There`s no reason he should be able to have a nice little party. Right, no. There is no reason why people shouldn`t be able to be outside of his house and making their voices peacefully understood that they do not...
HAYES: Totally.
MYSTAL: ...that reject (inaudible).
HAYES: There have been peaceful protests outside Mitch McConnell`s house. And I imagine there will be peaceful protests outside this which is again it`s all speech, right, peaceful protests, the right to assembly under the first amendment, like that is the way that -- because your point here, right, is how does civil society deal with what we`re seeing, right? How does civil society deal with the most powerful person in the world like painting a target on people`s back and inveighing against the congress people and saying it`s an invasion, send them back.
Like, the peaceful means by which civil society responds is through more speech and more protected activity and pressure.
MARSHALL: And also, to me, I think there is a difference between, again, some pretty well-off person in San Antonio who maybe donates $5,000, to someone like this, who I`m sure in aggregate, when you figure in bundling and third-party groups, is probably getting hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars. That is giving him power way beyond anything we have.
And again, what his argument is sort of, like, oh, you know, I supported Hitler, but it was just for the cars and the Autobahn, man. The other stuff, that wasn`t my thing. It`s ridiculous. You can`t like pick and choose like that.
HAYES: It`s also someone whose brands, right -- like SoulCycle and Equinox, are located in the kinds of places like multiracial, multicultural, urbanized environments that the president has made a target out of in toto (ph). He said like all of those places are terrible.
RAMOS: Absolutely. And I just -- to me the moral of everything is that it makes us all rethink at whose expense are we enjoying all these things, right? Like, this is enough.
So, again, I`m just -- I will no longer go to SoulCycle, that is all that I have to say. I`ve enjoyed it, and today I have...
HAYES: Well, there you go, minus one for SoulCycle.
MYSTAL: My stance against Chick-fil-A is more perm to me than SoulCycle...
HAYES: Paola Ramos, Josh Marshall, and Elie Mystal, thanks for joining us. That is ALL IN this evening. "THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW" starts right now.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. END