The Rachel Maddow Show, Transcript 11/26/13

RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC HOST: Thanks to you at home as well for joining us this hour. There`s lots going on in the world, including huge whole swathes of America worrying right now about whether a rather large and powerful storm is going to keep us all from getting home to wherever home is for the holidays this year, whether it`s supposed to be random. But the god of supposedly random weather really does like to give us storms on t heaviest travel days before thanksgiving every year and this year it turns out is no exception. We`ve got more on that coming up. Also, the iconic political video "yes we can" from the 2008 campaigns, that is now translating to other countries` politicians, in very unexpected other countries. We`ve got that story and some of the tape coming up. And the Obama administration makes a big, big move late in the day today to stop the Sheldon Adelsons and Foster Friesses and Koch brothers of the world from trying to buy the next presidential election as well. They made the change without Congress today. They announced the first part of it today. And if you know any ideologically motivated billionaires and today they seemed like they were in a really bad mood, this policy change might be why. There`s a lot going on in the news this Tuesday of Thanksgiving week. But we start with the United States Supreme Court, and the court`s decision to weigh in on the conservative war on birth control. It`s hard to even say war on birth control, but as long as we as a country are going to use the idea of war as an allegory for things that are endangered because of the conservative political effort against them, then, yes, the conservative war on birth control is a thing. And right now it is hitting the big time in Republican politics. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) RICK SANTORUM (R), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: One of the things I will talk about, that the president has talked about before is that I think the dangers of contraception in this country and the whole sexual libertine idea -- many in the Christian faith have said, well, that`s OK, you know, contraception is OK. It`s not OK. It`s a license to do things of a sexual realm that is counter to what -- how things are supposed to be. (END VIDEO CLIP) MADDOW: Contraception is not OK. Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum may now just be a guy who`s Christmas movie about a candle is doing very poorly at the box office. But last year, Rick Santorum proved that a guy who once had been chased out of big-time politics because of his hard, hard, hard core social conservativism, a man who was famous as the man on dog guy, a man who was famous only for his anti-gay and anti-abortion and anti-contraception beliefs, and who had lost his U.S. Senate because of it. Last year, he proved that you only need to sit out a few years before the Republican Party would be ready to have you back after that sort of defeat. If that party was once again looking for a fire and brimstone type as it`s potential savior, Rick Santorum effectively came in second in the race for Republican president last year, losing only to Mitt Romney. And at that time that that happened, it was seen as more of an indication of Mitt Romney`s good fortune to be running against such as a weak field of other potential nominees. But, you know what, it was also the sign of a broader embrace on the right, of Rick Santorum brand culture war conservativism, and that includes being against contraception. About five years ago, an anti-abortion group called the American Life League started organizing protests around the theme of the pill kills, the pill as in the birth control pill. In 2008, their theme was the birth control pill kills babies. In 2009, their theme was the birth control pill kills women. In 2010, their theme was the birth control pill kills the environment. That was an interesting take on it. In 2011, they decided that the birth control pill kills marriage. So, yes, it`s an annual thing. Every year they say the birth control pill is responsible for killing some other thing and they hold the protest every year at the same time of year. They always hold them in the first week of June and that is specific and on purpose. They hold their protest in the first of June because June 7th is the anniversary of a Supreme Court decision called Griswold v Connecticut. The anti-abortion movement ties its protest every year to the anniversary of Roe versus Wade. The part of the anti-abortion movement that is also anti-contraception instead picks the anniversary of that Griswold decision because they disagree with the Griswold ruling, and the Griswold ruling said that states can`t ban birth control. The anti-birth control people think that ruling was a travesty, that states should be able to ban birth control and they should ban birth control. They think that contraception should be illegal in America. Like Rick Santorum said, contraception is not OK. But the big break through for the "we`re against birth control" folks really came in 2012 when their annual early June protests about how birth control should be illegal, started to dovetail with something that was going on in Republican politics. Their anti-contraception movement started to get embraced by Republicans and conservatives more broadly as part of the ways they wanted to be against Obamacare. They decided to become outraged that insurance regulations federally under Obamacare would specify that contraception is one of the things that has to be covered under people`s insurance. So, you know, I mean, vaccinations, cancer screenings, there`s a whole list of things that have to be included at a minimum in health insurance policies. And under Obamacare, contraception is one of those things. Everybody, freak out. Now, at the time that conservatives and Republicans decided to freak out about that, 28 states already had the exact same mandate in state law, which never bothered conservatives at all, not even in those states, but they decided that they were going to become outrage about it being part of Obamacare because the root word of Obamacare is Obama. Do you remember Wheaton College in Illinois? Wheaton is an evangelical school. They decided that they would sue the Obama administration over contraception. They said it would be horrendously religiously offensive to them as a school to offer employees insurance coverage that paid for contraception. If Obamacare wanted them to do that, they would sue. It was so terribly offensive to them on religious terms. The problem was, when that school tried to sue, it turns out they were already offering contraception coverage to their employees under their existing policies even before Obamacare went into effect. They`ve been offering it for years. It had never bothered them or offended their religious sensibilities before. But they decided now they would say they were outraged by it. The pill kills! Birth control is abortion! We couldn`t possibly cover birth control. We`ve been covering birth control all this time, seriously? And so, something that was never really controversial before except on the fringes of the anti-abortion movement became kind of a mainstream conservative and Republican cause. And it wasn`t just poor confused Wheaton College in Illinois suing the federal government because of their newly found religious objections to contraception. It was dozens of lawsuits, with dozens of plaintiffs, many of them filing from states that already required insurance plans to cover contraception, but that never really bothered anyone before. Today, the United States Supreme Court decided to take on a pair of those cases, to decide if your boss gets to decide, based on his religious beliefs whether or not you can get birth control covered by your health insurance. One of the plaintiffs is a chain called the Hobby Lobby which donates a portion of their profits to the televangelist Oral Roberts University. The Hobby Lobby says that the evangelical Christian religious beliefs of the company`s owners mean that they don`t want their employees to have access to contraception in their health insurance. Another one of the plaintiffs that the Supreme Court decided to take up the case of today was a Mennonite owned wood working business from Pennsylvania. Mennonites are sometimes confused with the Amish, but they are a different sect that shares some religious views about health care, including in some cases not believing in health insurance itself all together. So if your boss is a Mennonite or is an Amish guy who thinks that health insurance itself is wrong, does that mean that you don`t get health insurance at work even if otherwise the law would say you had to? That`s what`s so fascinating about this case. Because yes, it is the Rick Santorum, the pill kills folks, with their anti-birth control social conservativism. They`re an outgrowth of the anti-abortion movement. They think contraception is the same thing as abortion and they`re against them both. If you are against birth control, these folks are your folks. This is Rick Santorum, Ken Cuccinelli, Mike Huckabee, Sam Brownback, these are the folks who put personhood on the ballot in Mississippi and Colorado and other places. So, in which case if those things pass, yes, all abortion would be criminalized, all of it. But also the IUD would be criminalized because they consider some forms of birth control to be just exactly the same as abortion. So if you have an IUD, you would be what, a felon? But this case goes beyond just that part of social conservatism and Republican policy. This case is so fascinating because it goes to the broader question of what your boss`s religion means for you, because Wheaton College and the Hobby Lobby may not want you as an employee to have access to birth control. But what if your boss isn`t hung up on birth control? What if your boss has an objection to cancer treatment or a vaccination for polio? In the 1970s, in Greenwich, Connecticut, a whole bunch of kids got polio, in the `70s, because they were from families that were Christian Scientists and they didn`t want to vaccinate their kids for polio. Christian Science parents who treated their son`s diabetic shock with prayer instead of insulin, they were found liable in the boy`s death, along with their church, who advised them on their course of action as their son died and who sent a practitioner to the boy`s bedside to pray while he died, instead of giving him the insulin shot that would have saved his life. Over the history of the Christian Science Church, dozens of its members have been charged in connection with people`s death from treatable illnesses, which the faith of Christian Scientists tells them not to treat -- deaths from measles, deaths from asthma, deaths from treatable tumors and cancer. If your boss is a Christian Scientist, should his legitimately held religious beliefs mean that your health insurance shouldn`t cover treatment for things that he thinks should only be treated with prayer, things like measles, asthma, treatable tumors and cancer. If your boss doesn`t believe your kid should be vaccinated against polio, should he be able to stop your health insurance from covering your kids` vaccination against polio? If your boss is a Jehovah`s Witness, should he able to stop your health insurance from covering the cost of a blood transfusion? If your boss thinks that AIDS is god`s punishment from a god who hates the people, who he gave it to, and he gave it to him on purpose, then can your boss forced a change in your health insurance so it doesn`t cover HIV testing? And if you test positive, can`t he decide that your health insurance will not cover the treatment because god? And why stop at health care? What if your boss says it`s not just the laws about health care that he doesn`t want to follow because of his religious beliefs? It`s the laws about all kinds of things. This is the lovely, lovely campus of Duquesne University in Pennsylvania. This fall, Duquesne University started making the case that they were not going to recognize their employees decision to form a union because they are a Catholic institution, and for some reason, that religious affiliation of the institution means their teachers can`t be in a union. You might want to take that up with the new Pope Francis. Come to think that that was their case. Are religious beliefs mean we do not have to follow labor law here? And why should it stop there? Presumably, we`re about a half step away from somebody declaring that their religious beliefs preclude paying their employees the federal minimum wage, or anything else in the law. The fight here in the small sense is about the mainstreaming in the conservative movement of fire and brimstone anti-contraception politics. Anti-contraception politics where they think that contraception is abortion and abortion is murder and you shouldn`t have access to either. That`s what it is in a smaller sense. The fight here in a larger sense is about whether you are still entitled to the rights and protections of federal law, even if your boss says that god told him otherwise. Joining us now is Dahlia Lithwick. She`s senior editor and legal correspondent at "Slate". Dahlia, it`s great to have you here in person. Thanks for coming in. DAHLIA LITHWICK, SLATE: I feel like I have always been the crazy old aunt in your attic in Charlottesville and I`m really here now. MADDOW: You have always been the crazy aunt at your lovely studio in Charlottesville. It`s great to have you here. How do you think that the Supreme Court is going to approach this? Do we know anything from the specific cases they chose to bring up about the way they set this up for themselves that tells us what it`s going to be like? LITHWICK: We don`t know. I mean, what we know is, as you said in your intro is this is some kind of unholy alliance of, you know, Citizens United and the idea of corporate personhood getting together with the war on woman and getting together with the ACA cases, and producing this baby - - this ugly, ugly baby that has just threads hanging out of every kind of doctrine. You know, this is about in a profound way the First Amendment freedoms of religion, but it`s about their religious freedoms restoration act, right? It`s about a statute that was supposed to give fits (ph) to their religious freedom protection. It`s also about whether religion -- I`m sorry, a corporation, a for profit corporation, right, we`re not just talking about Catholic universities and about Catholic hospitals. We`re talking about for profit corporations that just make cracks in this case, whether they can have a conscious a religious conscious. So in a deep way, there`s so much going on and this is going to be a nightmare for the court. And based on the two cases that we saw them take today, and based on the cases that they did not take today, I don`t think they can avoid squarely answering this question of, are corporations people too, not just for speech purposes, right, in the campaign speech context, but are corporations people too, when it comes to having religion and what do you do about the real religions of the real employees, and are they trumped by that corporate person`s imaginary religion? MADDOW: And that corporate person`s imaginary religion is mind bending. I mean, my understanding -- you`re the lawyer not me. But my understanding about the law around religious freedom, especially the Supreme Court precedent here is essentially that you can have your right to obviously practice your religion protected, but your ability to sort of exempt yourself from things that would otherwise apply to you on the basis of your religion sort of stops at your own skin. You`re not able to make those decisions on the basis of your religion that affect other people. You can do things that affect the way things apply to yourself, but when you make that decision for a third party, in this case your employee, that`s when things have gone too far, because then you`re infringing on other people`s beliefs. LITHWICK: Right. And the court is clear. I mean, we have lots and lots of precedent that says once you make your decision to enter commerce, your religious personhood has to fall back from generally applicable laws. Otherwise, everybody could object to everything, and that doesn`t work. So, this precedent is clear. What`s a little bit interesting is that you have different corporations in this case, even defining what they consider abortion-causing drugs differently. So you`ve got the Catholic plaintiffs in these cases saying, all birth control is off the table. You`ve got others saying only the morning after pill. You`ve got others saying, as you said, the morning after pill plus IUDs. So even among themselves they don`t just disagree about religion, they disagree about science, right? They disagree about facts. Do these things cause abortions? The FDA says no, but that`s not even the issue anymore. So, you`re not just probing the good faith religious beliefs of these corporations, these profit corporations. You`re also probing, do they really believes these ideas about science? And how does the court -- MADDOW: And if we have to be completely value neutral in assessing them, why can`t a Christian Science boss say, no, the only treatment allowed for cancer under my employees` health coverage will be player? If we`re going to say we`re agnostic as to the validity of scientific beliefs, if you ascribed them to theology, when why -- how can there every ever be a regulation about health insurance ever, let along malpractice? LITHWICK: It really rises in some of the dissents in these cases, where they just throw out these slippery slope cases, really, stem cell research, really? Gay couples that you don`t agree about? Really? Really? You know, Christian Scientists and there`s no answer to that. You have to create a neutral rule. And I don`t know how the court creates a neutral rule if the court doesn`t want to micromanage religious beliefs and deeply held religious beliefs. MADDOW: It`s amazing stuff. I mean, it`s going to be amazing to watch this legally. Politically, I will say, it`s also amazing to see this spring from the anti-contraception movement which so few people even admit exists, even though it`s their in plain sight. Dahlia Lithwick, senior editor and legal correspondent at "Slate" -- it is a real pleasure to have you here in person. LITHWICK: Thank you for having me. MADDOW: Stick around if you want, there will be libations at the end of the show. Maybe. Look, I don`t want to promise. All right. Big news breaking this afternoon from the Obama administration that could potentially change things a lot for the ideologically motivated billionaires among us. Plus, some amazing pictures taken in Iran, after the big nuclear deal that I want to show you. And also, whether -- there`s weather. There`s weather and weather related hurly-burly in the skies and on the roads and on the rails tonight. There`s a ton still to come up this hour. Stay with us. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) MADDOW: After the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Kenneth Starr, the guy who investigated President Clinton`s extramarital affair, released a more than 400-page report about that affair and what happened when President Clinton tried to deny it. It was called "The Starr Report" and it was filled with really, rather lurid details, perhaps unnecessary lurid details. But it was all there in black and white and for sale. The public could buy "The Starr Report" as a paperback and we did buy it by gazillions. "The Starr Report" was so popular that it had coattails. It also caused a huge spike in the sales to the book of poetry by Walt Whitman called "Leaves of Grass." According to "The Starr Report", President Clinton had once given his young mistress a copy of "Leaves of Grass". And apparently, after reading that in "The Starr Report", everyone in America then rushed out to check out the Whitman. Maybe there`s some more dirt there. But "The Starr Report" was that popular. And the weird thing, surprisingly, even government reports that are not about sex turn out to be bestsellers more often than you might think. The 9/11 Commission report about why we were not prepared for that attack and what we should change to keep anything like that from happening again. The 9/11 report was a nationwide bestseller. Just like with "The Starr Report", you can go online and read the entire report for free, since it`s a government document, but people wanted to buy it in paperback anyway because they wanted to have it on the shelf. So, "The Starr Report", a huge smashing success. The 9/11 Commission report, also a very big bestseller. But you know what recent report was also a big and unexpected huge, huge hit? Five hundred seventy-six pages long, paperback edition costs about $15, Amazon ran out of copies of it a few days after it went on sale. It was the financial crisis inquiry report. Whoo! And there`s nothing about cigars or Whitman sadly, or al Qaeda. In the wake of the `08 financial crisis, from which we are still not yet recovered, the federal government created a commission of six Democrats and four Republicans to look for answers about what went wrong in that crisis and how we can avoid doing it again. And while there was a lot of disagreement between the Democrats and the Republicans about what exactly led to the financial crisis, there was one big unanimous criticism that had no partisan bounds and it was this: "The greatest tragedy would be to accept the refrain that no one could have seen this coming and thus nothing could have been done. If we accept this notion, it will happen again." Why did no one see it coming? Why didn`t more big deal economists see that the financial collapse was coming in 2008? They should have seen it coming. The fact that economists are not better at predicting thing has always been kind of a bad problem for economists. The very first president of the American Economic Association, this handsome chap with the awesome mustache, he`s famous for his lamentations in the 19th century about how economists were so tied up in abstract reasoning about the economy in theory that they didn`t offer anyone much help in figuring out the economy in fact. If economists cannot predict anything about the real world, then economics has a whole is essentially an elegant but mostly decorative form of math. It`s like the rhythmic gymnastics of the science world. It`s pretty, useless, but also very pretty. What would be very helpful and reassuring is if economists did actually offer some correct predictions about what might happen next in the economy and what the impact might be of certain changes and relevant policy. The other big news in Washington right now is that maybe there`s someone who can do that. Janet Yellen is President Obama`s nominee to be the next chair of the Federal Reserve, and she might just be the one person in the country who is best at predicting what`s about to happen next in the economy. Check this out, last year, before she was nominated, "The Wall Street Journal" analyzed more than 700 predictions that were made over three years by policymakers at the Fed. The current chair of the Fed, the guy who has that job now, he came in 10th. The number one spot, the most accurate predictor of all in the whole country was Janet Yellen. And who knows if Janet Yellen will still be as good at making predictions about the economy once she gets the job of running the Fed, but so far, if the criteria of being able to accurately predict economic events is an important criteria, she is apparently the best at it in the whole country among major economists. And she is also on paper the single most qualified person ever nominated to be Fed chair in the modern era. All of that means that it seems like smooth sailing for Janet Yellen`s nomination thus far. Being right on the important stuff and being ostentatiously qualified for the job tends to help you get the job. But neither of those things apparently help you with the modern Republican Party. The Heritage Foundation, the conservative think thank, they`ve just announced today that their political activist wing, not only opposes Janet Yellen to be Fed chair, they`re also making the nomination a key vote, which means that any Republican that dares to cast a vote for Janet Yellen will be punished with some sort of demerit by the once respected and now sort of out there Jim DeMint Heritage Foundation. Because of the move that Senate Democrats made last week to employ the so-called nuclear option, Janet Yellen`s confirmation is really not in doubt. Republicans do not have the votes to filibuster her nomination. She is going to be confirmed as Fed chair. But any Republican who dares to vote in favor of who has been deemed the most qualified Fed chair in history is still going to deem not ideologically pure enough for Jim DeMint and accompany. Will Republican senators care? Will they heed Jim DeMint on this and vote against her, even as he`s running primary campaigns against the whole bunch of incumbent Republican senators in their home states anyway? I have no idea what Republicans are going to do on this. Republican politics right now are amazing. They would have to go amazing to try to gin up a Republican revolt against somebody like Janet Yellen. But they are that amazing and they are not like the rest of politics here in this country or anywhere else in the world. It`s amazing. Watch this space. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) MADDOW: Happy almost Thanksgiving. Without fail, this time of year, you can always count on an influx of news stories to alert you that people are, for example, camping outside your local big box store, or there is a long list of ways that you are allowed to cook a turkey, or there`s a war on Christmas, and you are on one side of that war even if you don`t want to be. There`s another set of stories that you can also always expect this time of year. And tonight, we are having a particularly ripe experience of that. The problem and maybe part of the solution is just ahead. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) MADDOW: The news broke today in Washington, but it began with this documentary in 2007. It`s called "Hillary, The Movie". Basically a horror movie tear sheets of all the scandals that the right wing said Hillary had already been involved in even before running for president. It was produced by a conservative nonprofit called Citizens United. They wanted to show "Hillary, The Movie" on TV and they wanted to run ads for the movie on other parts of TV. Right before the Democratic presidential primaries in 2008. The FEC blocked Citizens United from advertising the film and ultimately from making it available anywhere on TV, saying that the movie was essentially a 90-minute attack ad. It was paid for by undisclosed donors and at that time, that sort of thing was verboten. Citizens United appealed that ruling all the way up to the Supreme Court. And in 2010, the Supreme Court ruled in their favor. And thus the legality of money in political campaigns was changed profoundly and immediately. The ruling was in January 2010. By later that year in the 2010 elections, campaign spending from groups outside of the political parties on the candidates was in the vicinity of $500 million. By the next election cycle in 2012, spending by those outside groups just exploded, another $2 billion of outside money. Billionaires like Sheldon Adelson and Foster Friess, and Charles and David Koch became very famous in the last election by pouring 10 of millions of their own personal dollars into various campaigns. Some of their contributions were unreported. Some of their money remained unreported, because it was funneled through nonprofits. Organizations not taxed by the federal government because they have a nonprofit purpose. They don`t have the same requirement as traditional political organizations to, say, disclose where they get their money. So, Karl Rove`s nonprofit group, which is called Crossroads GPS, they are estimated to have spent almost a billion dollars since 2010 on various political campaigns. The Koch brothers funded group Americans for Prosperity, they have been spending millions and millions and millions as well. Casino bazillionaire Sheldon Adelson is estimated to have given tens of millions of Adelson bucks to Crossroads GPS and also to Americans for Prosperity and also to other organizations. And those groups which take the millions and millions and millions of dollars especially from big dollar donors, and they use it for various campaigns, those groups remain untaxed under the guise of being social welfare organization. That`s how they`re categorized. Political operations funded by undisclosed donors at least for the moment are officially considered to work for the cause of social welfare and that`s how you get a billion dollars where we don`t know where it came from or what`s to become of the organization that made it happen. Well, today, a bombshell came from Washington, unexpectedly. Today, the Obama administration proposed new rules to specify exactly how much and what kinds of political activity these wealthy nonprofit groups could engage in and still qualify as tax exempt, nonprofit, social welfare groups. According to reporting from "The New York Times", these new rules would not just set clearer limits on spending, they would prevent these groups from funding political ads that appear two months before an election. That couldn`t be considered social welfare activity anymore. If these new rules are adopted, could they represent the first effective countervailing force against the massive flood of spending that sprung out of the Citizens United decision? And if so, wouldn`t bit neat that it all started happening when everybody was stuck at the airport two days before Thanksgiving, in the middle of a storm? Joining us now is Nick Confessore. He`s a political correspondent for "The New York Times". Mr. Confessore, thanks very much for being here. NICHOLAS CONFESSORE, NEW YORK TIMES: Of course, anytime. MADDOW: These proposed rules -- I think it was unexpected that they were going to happen today, two days before Thanksgiving, but we knew that something like this might come from the administration. Were those the contours that you expected to see that were expected to be seen? CONFESSORE: It`s actually a surprise. We have always known the IRS was considering over the long-term, over years some kinds of new rules and restrictions. But the idea of coming out with them like this, is probably a reaction to the IRS scandal with the Tea Party groups, a desire to have clearer rules for everybody, clearer enforcement for enforcers, clearer guidelines for the groups themselves. It is kind of a surprise. It is a wholesale change. It is the biggest change in probably 20 or 30 years. MADDOW: If these changes did goo effect as proposed today or as introduced today, how much of a change would they have on the kind of big dollar, outside groups spending that we saw particularly in the 2012 election? CONFESSORE: I think what would happen is, what we`ll see is that some groups will say, you know what? We can`t spend as much on political ads as last time. We got to spend our money on things that don`t count under these new rules as political. Some groups may say, you know what? We`re basically a political group. We should probably go and register with the FEC as a super PAC, and then some groups will say, no way, and they`ll find other ways, or they will try to hide their money, like organizing as a corporation and then spending the money out of the corporation. MADDOW: In terms of the option of registering as a super PAC, the downside, donors to those groups, even if they can spend unlimited amounts donating to them, we all know they have to disclose their donors at least eventually. So, that anonymity has been I think a big part of the suspicion about that spending, right? CONFESSORE: Yes. Listen, there are a lot of donors that don`t want their names in the paper, they`re afraid of boycotts, they`re afraid of being called names. So, C4 group has given those donors on left and right a way to spend money and get money in politics, large money, contributions in politics, without being disclosed. It`s a huge advantage of these groups. Super PACs, it`s all on the table. MADDOW: In terms of the viability of what was proposed today and what process it has to go through before these rules could be implemented, what do you see in terms of that? CONFESSORE: Well, we`ll see at least three months of public comment. I expect we will see thousands and thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of comments on this rule from the affected groups, from ordinary people. After that, they have to go back and think about the comments. Possibly tweak some of the rules little bit. And then, sometime, probably in a year, or maybe even two years, the final proposed rules will go out. It takes a long time, it`s the IRS. But eventually, it will have some clarity. MADDOW: In terms of the potential, I guess, the hurdles ahead, can Congress do anything to stop this from happening? CONFESSORE: Not really, they can, you know, try and pass laws to stop it if they want. In fact, some senators and Congress people have called for laws that would do this, so the IRS is now doing it with rule-making. But I see more of a fight in the rule-making and in the courts. I imagine if someone thinks they have a really good case, that these rules are burdensome, that they violate the First Amendment -- you know, I expect a challenge on those grounds. MADDOW: We`re not in the Supreme Court right now, and nobody should ever speculate about what the Supreme Court might do. But the way these rules are crafted, today do they seem to be crafted in a way that is designed to not rub the Supreme Court the wrong way? CONFESSORE: Well, you know, here`s the important thing -- the rules don`t say you can`t spend money on that ad before Election Day. It just says that if you do too much of these particular things which we will identify, you don`t qualify as a 501c4 social welfare group. You should go and register as a super PAC. You can still do these things. (CROSSTALK) CONFESSORE: You can`t be a 501c at the same time. MADDOW: And so that kind of limited -- well, at least if not limited, at least targeted change maybe design to -- CONFESSORE: It sounds like a small thing but it could be -- (CROSSTALK) MADDOW: Fascinating. Nick Confessore, political correspondent for "The New York Times" -- it`s really nice to have you here in person. Thanks for coming in. MADDOW: All right. Coming up, a real life cranberry gets it on live TV. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) MADDOW: The Iranian foreign minister, the guy who led the Iranian side in the huge and historic nuclear negotiations over the weekend is an interesting and eccentric seeming guy. He was the high level diplomat who broke the news of this "nobody thought it was possible" nuclear deal over Twitter. He was the guy who was immobilized, literally immobilized during a previous round of nuclear talks because of back pain -- back pain that he said was caused by the stress he suffered by being misquoted in an Iranian newspaper. Look, quote, "After seeing the headline of one newspaper, I got severe back and leg pain. I could not even walk or sit." The Iranian foreign minister is a very interesting guy. Right now in Iran, he`s a very popular guy. Look at this -- this is the greeting that he got when he arrived back home in Iran after making the nuclear deal. Those crowds if you can`t tell are very happy. This is the scene at the airport, people cheering him, mobbing the motorcade, singing patriotic songs. They`re holding up pictures of his boss, the Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. The Iranian people at least judging by the way they greeted their foreign minister, they seemed psyched about the deal that Iran struck in Geneva. Iranian journalists are describing the mood in Tehran as hopeful. Really the only hope that the Iranian people have had a in a long time, the relief from the sanctions that have knee capped their economy and isolated their country. And in that hopeful atmosphere, the Iranian president today posted online a rather astonishing video, posted on this official Web site. To appreciate what is astonishing about this video, it is helpful to revisit an iconic memory from a recent American presidential election. Do you remember this? (VIDEO CLIP PLAYS) MADDOW: And now the Iranian version. (VIDEO CLIP PLAYS) MADDOW: Iran has a yes we can video. And it seems a lot like the Obama "yes we can" video. This was first written about by the Persian letters blog. And this thing, it`s fascinating in style and in substance. It puts the Iranian president`s inaugural address to music. The format is almost exactly the same as the American "yes we can" video, right down to the solemn looking actresses. The fact that the president of Iran decided to essentially copy the style of this very famous American campaign video is itself noteworthy. But it`s also noteworthy what he says. (VIDEO CLIP PLAYS) MADDOW: There are hard-liners in Iran who have come out against the nuclear deal. But the overwhelming response from the Iranian people, and importantly from the government, is very positive -- a clear demonstration that there is a readiness for change there, that they see negotiating with the West not as a sign of national weakness but as a sign of national hope. And the "yes we can" video put out by the Iranian president today is maybe a sign that the Iranian government recognizes just how ready for change its own citizens are. Today, our Secretary of State John Kerry also released a video, not nearly as fancy. Secretary Kerry said he wanted to clarify misinformation about the nuclear deal. He explained that the U.S. has offered modest sanctions relief in exchange for major concessions from Iran, including daily inspections at Iranian nuclear sites. He did not explicitly address in this video to members of Congress, but he may as well have. Democrats and Republicans in Congress both are trying to scuttle the deal, working in a bipartisan way no less, miracle about miracles, to try to scrap it -- working to impose new sanctions on Iran even though the White House has asked them to wait a few months to see if this nuclear deal works. And even though sanctions, new sanctions would kill the deal immediately. Iran seems very happy about the nuclear deal and seems ready to take steps to change its relationship with the world. In a new poll that is released tonight, it is clear the American people favor the deal too, by a huge margin, by a margin of 2-1. Right now, most everyone is on one side -- the side of at least trying to make it work. It is only the U.S. Congress that is on the other side. The side of hoping that it doesn`t work and trying to make sure that it doesn`t. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) MADDOW: Hey, travelers. Weather. There are about 313 million people who live in the United States of America. And more than 40 million of us are expected to be traveling some where within the United States for the Thanksgiving holiday. And, hey, look weather. Nearly half the country its getting some kind of significant rain or snow event right now, and into the holiday -- which is making for scenes like this around the country, as people try to get home or to grandma`s house or anywhere that doesn`t have so many strangers in it who are also trying to get somewhere, but who instead are stuck with you somewhere on the way. Weather, so far, has caused 200 flights to be canceled. Nearly 5,000 flights have already been delayed. This would be a drag if this was not the busiest travel of time in the year. But because it is, this is a really serious drag. And you know what? It always is. It always happens every single time, seriously. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) REPORTER: It was a miserable travel day for millions of Americans on the move for Thanksgiving. MATT LAUER, NBC NEWS: Holiday travelers be warned. It could be a miserable commute to grandmother`s house this year. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you are planning on traveling to day, give yourself some extra time. Bad weather may be headed your way. (END VIDEO CLIP) MADDOW: Pick a year, any year, except maybe 2008 which seems like it was mostly OK. But other than, every year, every single year -- look, "Wild weather disrupts holiday travel plans." That was 2004. "Weather disrupts holiday travel." That was 2005. 2006, "Storms and floods hammer millions of Americans making the Thanksgiving trek." "Thanksgiving storm on the way." "Weather delays wreak havoc on Thanksgiving travel." Thanksgiving weather, Massive airport delays. Every year, every year, every year, Thanksgiving travel and northern hemisphere winter are a terrible combination. It happens every year. And so -- stay in. Stay in. Stay in if you can. And if you want to stay in and plan your Thanksgiving night cocktail for the family, or for just you and the cats, or whatever. This might help. My friend Josie Packard who works at the bar drink in Boston invented the drink. I don`t know if it is a Thanksgiving drink, but it is my family`s Thanksgiving drink nonetheless. It`s called the Northern Spy, named after the apple variety, the Northern Spy. Use a lemon to wet the rim of a glass. And this is sugar, granulated sugar, and cinnamon. Since the glass rim is wet with the lemon juice. It will sort of stick. And you will get a cinnamon sugar rim like that. Set that aside. And then, you make the drink. This is applejack. Laird`s bonded applejack, which means it`s 100 proof kind, which is way better than the non-100 proof kind. If you can`t find it, you might want to substitute for the bonded applejack. But per drink, you want to 2 ounces of applejack, 2 ounces. Then, the other liquor ingredient, some times hard to find. Apricot brandy is best. If you can`t find apricot brandy, apricot liqueur will also work, which is what this one is. You want to have about a half an ounce. If it`s too sweet, you can dial back to half an ounce. This is a pretty dry one, so that`s all right. It`s about a half an ounce. Then, the magic ingredient that makes it particularly seasonal is apple cider I you can find like non-preservatives, even non-pasteurized cider, that`s better. You want an ounce of apple cider. And then, to even out the whole thing -- then make it, muy delicioso. You`re going to want some lemon juice. For this recipe, you want half an ounce of lemon juice. So, that has to come from an actual lemon, not from a plastic thing that lives in your fridge that spelled like lemon but without the vowels. You want it to be a piece of fruit. There is the drink. Shake it up with ice. Pardon me for a moment. I have to take care of this. And then, you pour it into the glass that has already been rimmed with the cinnamon and sugar. If you forget to do the cinnamon and sugar rim until after you poured the glass. There is no going back. There`s no hope. You can`t add the rim once there is liquor in the glass. But then to be particularly thanksgivingy, you have two choices -- one, is to add champagne. The other is not to add champagne. Those are two choices. They`re both wonderful. Add fresh cranberries as your garnish. Do not eat the garnish. Cheers. That does it for us tonight. Now, it`s time for "THE LAST WORD WITH LAWRENCE O`DONNELL." Bye, have a great night. THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. END