The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, Transcript 04/23/15

LAWRENCE O`DONNELL, HOST, THE LAST WORD: Hey, Steve, Tom Brady couldn`t make it to the White House? KORNACKI: He was busy with Gisele maybe -- O`DONNELL: He was too -- KORNACKI: I don`t know -- O`DONNELL: He was too busy there. You should have taken his place at that thing. KORNACKI: I`m sure that they would have loved me there -- O`DONNELL: They would have loved you, thanks Steve. KORNACKI: Thank you, Lawrence. O`DONNELL: Well, there is panic, real panic in Bush world tonight, now that there is a new front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination and Hillary Clinton is facing new questions about the Clinton Foundation. And on the lighter side of the news, if a two-minute trailer is any indication, there is a new front-runner for the best actor Oscar for next year, Johnny Depp is really back. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What`s the secret? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come on -- UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What`s the family -- it`s the family secret. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Rubio on the rise. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Florida Senator Marco Rubio holds the lead. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let`s listen -- UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, listen -- (MUSIC) JIMMY FALLON, COMEDIAN & TELEVISION HOST: Marco Rubio`s presidential campaign has raised $40 million in the last week. Clearly, Rubio`s announcement gave him a bump there. Rubio is like, any chance I could drop out of the race and just keep the $40 million? That is it -- (LAUGHTER) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He also gets praised for effectively setting up a "generational contracts with Hillary Clinton." UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Full of bad day in Clinton`s world on two fronts. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She faces a wide world of political scrutiny. REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R-OH), SPEAKER, UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES: I think the Benghazi Committee is doing fine work. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: First, the GOP-led house committee is investigating Benghazi -- UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That comes amid a barrage of headlines on the Clinton family charity and its dealings. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She`s going to have to be held accountable like all of us about dealings, that`s part of the process, right? BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: As president and as commander in chief, I take full responsibility for all our counterterrorism operations. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Today, President Obama took responsibility and apologized. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The U.S. drone strike killed two western hostages including an American aid worker -- UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Killed in a U.S. drone strike against a suspected al Qaeda compound in January -- UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This will certainly raise questions about the use of drones. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They are going to throw a lot of things against the wall and hope that one of their arguments resonate with just one juror. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Defense lawyers began presenting their witnesses on Monday hoping to spare him the death penalty. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A volcano in Chile dormant for 40 years suddenly exploding six miles high, spewing a lot of ash and debris. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Witnesses say the twin blast sounded like bombs, a fiery mix of lava and lightning. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Senate will be in order. OBAMA: I`ve been looking forward to saying this, I am very pleased that Loretta Lynch has now been confirmed. (CHEERS) REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), MINORITY LEADER, UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES: At long last, this embarrassment for the Senate is over. (END VIDEO CLIP) O`DONNELL: Just ten days after announcing his candidacy, Marco Rubio woke up this morning as the new front-runner for the Republican nomination for president. Fifteen percent of Republican voters say they would vote for Marco Rubio. According to a new Quinnipiac poll, Jeb Bush comes in second with 13 percent. Marco Rubio also does best among Republicans when matched against Hillary Clinton. They`re in a statistical tie with Clinton at 45 percent and Rubio at 43 percent, which is within the margin of error of that poll. Hillary Clinton made a public appearance today in New York City speaking at the Women in the World Summit, but she did not comment on a massive new "New York Times" report today inspired by that new book that is not yet released "Clinton Cash". The report by the "New York Times" reporters Jo Becker and Mike McIntire carried the headline, "cash flowed to Clinton Foundation as Russians pressed for control of uranium company." The article describes the Russian takeover of a Canadian company with vast uranium mining holdings around the world. The "Times" report says, "at the heart of the tale are several men, leaders of the Canadian mining industry who have been major donors to the charitable endeavors of former President Bill Clinton and his family. Members of that group built, financed and eventually sold off to the Russians a company that would become known as Uranium One. Uranium One`s chairman used his family foundation to make four donations totaling $2.35 million, those contributions were not publicly disclosed by the Clintons despite an agreement Mrs. Clinton had struck with the Obama White House to publicly identify all donors. Other people with ties to the company made donations as well. And shortly after the Russians announced their intention to acquire a majority stake in Uranium One, Mrs. Clinton received -- Mr. Clinton received $500,000 for a Moscow speech from a Russian investment bank with links to the "Kremlin" that was promoting Uranium One stock." In response to the "New York Times" article, the Clinton campaign said today, "the essential fact is that Hillary Clinton was not involved in the State Department`s review of the sale to the Russians. While it is true that the State Department sits on the multi agency intergovernmental panel that reviews deals like this when Hillary Clinton herself did not participate in the review or direct the department to take any position on the sale of Uranium One." We`re joined at the round table tonight by Eugene Robinson, columnist for "The Washington Post" and an Msnbc political analyst, also David Corn, "Mother Jones" Washington Bureau chief and an Msnbc political analyst. Here in New York, Nina Burleigh, national politics correspondent for "Newsweek" and Michael Brendan Dougherty, senior correspondent for "The Week" magazine. So, Gene Robinson, I guess maybe tomorrow the Clinton campaign will release the State Department e-mails that show that Hillary Clinton had nothing to do with this decision -- (LAUGHTER) As secretary of state. I tried to finish that with a straight face. EUGENE ROBINSON, COLUMNIST, THE WASHINGTON POST: Yes, I know, and we`ll wait with bated breath to see when those e-mails come out. But my reading of the Clinton Foundation`s statement too also dealt with some sort of Canadian -- not subsidiary, but linked foundation for which they don`t disclose donations, it`s all very complicated. And I think people are going to want to give it more scrutiny. O`DONNELL: Let`s listen to what Hillary Clinton said at her confirmation hearing in 2009 about this kind of disclosure which she then promised. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: No president has ever disclosed the contributions to his foundation. So when my husband agreed to disclose the contributions to his foundation, that was a very unprecedented event, which he was happy to do. But the Clinton Global Initiative, which is separate from the foundation has always disclosed the contributions. (END VIDEO CLIP) O`DONNELL: Nina Burleigh, this -- so this was not just a promise she made to the Obama administration as a condition of employment, it was a promise she made in her Senate confirmation hearing. NINA BURLEIGH, NATIONAL POLITICS CORRESPONDENT, NEWSWEEK: Well, I think that the problem with this is mainly the Saudi -- to me, the Saudi amounts of money. They`re gigantic. I mean they`re tens of millions of dollars from Gulf countries that are -- have abysmal human rights records. And the money that they`re taking from those countries, I think, is more problematic than the Canadian -- the Canadian mining interests. So, you know, the -- what we`re going to see are people looking into Canadian tax records and Canadian documents for a very long time. O`DONNELL: You were at this speech that she gave today in New York. Was there -- was there any indirect veiled reference to any of this? BURLEIGH: Not a bit. But I was also at Chelsea Clinton`s talk this morning at the Council on Foreign Relations and she did field a few questions on it. And of course, she said that the Clinton Foundation`s transparency is legendary, and that they have stopped taking money from foreign countries. And again, on the -- she was asked about the Saudi -- the Gulf money and how it interacts with their responses to these, you know, human rights violations. And she wasn`t really -- she deferred to the issue of American gender inequality as opposed to the way that the Saudis treat their -- treat their women. O`DONNELL: We have some of what Chelsea Clinton said there today, let`s listen to that. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CHELSEA CLINTON, DAUGHTER OF BILL AND HILLARY CLINTON: We have always partnered with no government, NGOs, foundations to believe the work we do is important. What the Clinton Foundation has said is that we will be kind of even more transparent, even though Transparency International and others have said we are among the most transparent foundations. We`ll disclose donors at a quarterly basis and not just an annual basis. (END VIDEO CLIP) O`DONNELL: David Corn, everything she said is absolutely true. It`s just that this was the only foundation where -- that had a secretary of state in the family at the time and that has imposed unique burdens on this particular foundation. DAVID CORN, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, MOTHER JONES: Yes, and the next president and perhaps, you know, future president all in the family. I`m not even counting Chelsea there. You know, the Clintons are perhaps the most powerful, most recognizable family and raw players we have in America. And you know, a lot of the work of the Clinton Global Initiative and the Clinton Foundation does is quite admirable and I`m glad they`re raising money for it. But at the same time, they`re also raising money for themselves, they make, you know, tremendous money -- I mean $500,000 a speech for Bill Clinton, really? This guy, you know, you can see him on YouTube as much as you like, why are they paying so much money for him particularly while his wife is secretary of state and a future potential president of the United States. And it seems from the very get-go, they have not really clearly thought through what this says about their image and how they present themselves, how they present the political message. The same thing goes with their association with Goldman Sachs. They get a lot of money from Goldman Sachs, in fact, they`ve held fund-raising events for the Clinton Foundation at the headquarters of Goldman Sachs. While at the same time Hillary Clinton is trying to be more Elizabeth Warren-like in a populist way. All this stuff ends up cutting against each other. And I know -- and I think there may not be anything inappropriate or wrong or illegal, not saying there isn`t, but there may not be. But nevertheless, it really complicates the message they`re trying to send politically while they`re also trying to be global actors. O`DONNELL: Michael, I think the Clinton campaign released tonight about Hillary did not make the decision for the State Department about letting that deal go through. Is one of those funny pieces of honesty in politics where you actually do admit or forced to admit, and the office holder doesn`t really do these things, it`s all done at the staff level. MICHAEL BRENDAN DOUGHERTY, THE WEEK: Right -- O`DONNELL: The office holder is flying a plane around somewhere having meetings with people. And so I completely accept, I will be very surprised to discover that no, Hillary was really hands-on on, you know, certified in this kind of deal. Thus this stuff is delegated -- there`s usually and I`ll bet they will turn out to be a very large e-mail pile in the State Department, not hers, but others, advisory e-mails saying yes, this is what we should do with this deal. DOUGHERTY: Right, and of course, but the conflict of interest that`s inherent in the Clinton Global Initiative and the Clinton Foundation and Hillary Clinton in Secretary of State also extends to subordinates. I mean, Hillary Clinton is also the boss of those people under her making those decisions who may be aware of her interests or whether -- or her feelings on any particular matter if they`ve been expressed to them. Whether that`s been in a written document or not, whether that`s in one of the thirty thousand e-mails that somehow caught on fire in Chappaqua beforehand, or whether that was -- it was just a wink and a nod. Either -- the -- what we`re going to see, I think for a long time is the media sorting through the post presidency of Bill Clinton, which has not been painting pictures of his feet in a bathtub -- (LAUGHTER) O`DONNELL: Right -- DOUGHERTY: Right? O`DONNELL: Right -- DOUGHERTY: But going from being dead broke as Hillary Clinton said, to becoming a very rich family in league with the Bushes and other major families, not quite at the Romney level yet, but they`ve received this money practically from friends as practically been donated to them. So this is going to be a campaign of sorting through Clinton ethics rather than ideology. O`DONNELL: Here is my prediction on this. That I don`t believe that we are going to find that the bottom of one of these stories a decision made by Hillary Clinton as secretary of state that was affected by any of this. That in the conflict of interest, you can choose the right interests. That -- you know, there are two interests and one of them is right and one of them is polluted and it is entirely possible to choose the right one. And I suspect that`s what she did, especially with the advice of the State Department staff. Eugene, before we take a break here, Jeb Bush finds himself in second place now. I said to a former Republican -- ROBINSON: Right -- O`DONNELL: Congressman from Florida this morning on this network, who is on this network three hours every morning, Joe Scarborough -- ROBINSON: Yes -- O`DONNELL: I said, you know, when this poll came up in the show this morning with Joe, I said, hey, Joe, does Jeb Bush go into panic mode over this? And he said they are going to be very worried. We now have this report from "POLITICO", that special meeting of the Bush campaign, emergency meeting, what do we do? This is happening fast now. ROBINSON: Yes, it is happening fast. And, you know, he wanted to just -- the shock and awe, right? O`DONNELL: Yes -- ROBINSON: He just wanted to get -- O`DONNELL: Yes -- ROBINSON: Everybody else out of the way, raise all the money, scare everybody else out who could possibly get the -- CORN: It`s working as good as -- ROBINSON: First establishment thought -- CORN: It`s working as good as the Iraq invasion did -- ROBINSON: Well, exactly -- (LAUGHTER) It`s working just that well. He did, and in fact, until now you`ve got flavor of the week or the month potentially, Marco Rubio who, guess what? Also potentially gets you Florida which you have to have if you`re a Republican running for president. So I think -- I think this plane is in trouble. I know, I wouldn`t say yet this is going down, but it`s -- you know, one of the engines seems to be fluttering. O`DONNELL: All right, everybody just stay in place, we`re going to take a quick break here, when we come back, the drone attack that President Obama took full responsibility for today and had to apologize for. And late breaking details from the "New York Times" about how that drone mistake killed two hostages. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) O`DONNELL: President Obama went to the White House briefing room today to announce the tragic, unintended consequences of a drone strike on an al Qaeda compound in Pakistan, the death of two humanitarians, American Warren Weinstein and an Italian aid worker Giovanni Lo Porto. Who were unknown to U.S. authorities being held hostage there. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) OBAMA: As president and as commander in chief, I take full responsibility for all our counterterrorism operations, including the one that inadvertently took the lives of Warren and Giovanni. I profoundly regret what happened. On behalf of the United States government, I offer our deepest apologies to the families. It is a cruel and bitter truth that in the fog of war generally and our fight against terrorists specifically, mistakes, sometimes deadly mistakes can occur. (END VIDEO CLIP) O`DONNELL: A "New York Times" article posted tonight describes in chilling detail how U.S. counterterrorism forces discovered the deadly mistake. "The first sign that something had gone terribly wrong was when officers from the Central Intelligence Agency saw that six bodies had been pulled from the smoldering rubble instead of four. When six bodies were taken from the wreckage and hastily burned, it was a clear signal that the spy agency had made a deadly mistake. It took weeks for the extent of the disaster to be revealed, that the two additional bodies were those of an American and Italian hostage." David Corn, the price, the inevitable price of drone warfare. CORN: It is. It`s the price of our warfare, there`s collateral damages, a lot of people have been killed, a lot of Afghan civilians have been killed from the very beginning of the war and even without drones. And I mean I think it was, you know, a bit of a -- of a change to see the President come out and make just an outright apology for this, which is something we`re still waiting for from, say, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. I don`t think it`s going to come anytime soon. But it does lead to this question about the ethics and legality of using drones and whether, you know, the -- basically the accountability and the controls we have are sufficient. While at the same time, anytime you send a tactical team in, a counterterrorism team in a situation like this, the exact same thing could happen. But it`s a very perplexing issue. The President did not use the word drones in his statement today, but you know, more and more of this is coming out in the public and I think a full public review and a public review of drone policy is now certainly called for. O`DONNELL: Michael, your reaction. DOUGHERTY: I mean, I may sound like a radical on this, but this is the kind of war that terrorists want to draw us into, where we make mistakes like this. And this is the price we`re going to pay as long as we follow the policies set by Bush and even somewhat by Clinton before him, of not treating terrorism as a law enforcement exercise, but treating it as a global war. You know, the statements originally came out and said near the Pakistan- Afghanistan border which is code for in Pakistan -- O`DONNELL: In Pakistan -- DOUGHERTY: Where we -- O`DONNELL: Yes -- DOUGHERTY: Haven`t actually declared war. But these authorizations and military forces are going to use a sort of a kind of an unending blank check for strikes like this against known terror targets and signature strikes against people that we don`t know, but that they`re terrorist- looking from the skies. So we are paying a very heavy moral price for this policy, and I hope that eventually this do cause us to debate it. O`DONNELL: And Nina, this is a point that John Kerry raised years ago got condemned for what Michael is just referring to. The notion of do you militarize this response to terror or do you -- do you basically heighten your policing? You basically -- the techniques you would use to go after these people in a much narrower way? BURLEIGH: Well, I mean before 9/11, that`s what we were doing. We were, you know, approaching this with a police thing. I mean, they had the original bombers of the -- original bombers of the World Trade Center on trial here in New York. Mary Jo White, the federal prosecutor was prosecuting them. The FBI was over investigating and treating it as a law enforcement matter. And, of course, after 9/11, thousands of people dead, it became a different story. ROBINSON: But the -- what -- BURLEIGH: It was unfortunate because they should -- they -- I think they should be treating it as -- personally, I think they should be treating all of it as a law enforcement issue. And furthermore, you know, it`s nice to see the President come out and apologize. But as David mentioned, these drones are killing children and women all the time over there. And -- ROBINSON: You know, Lawrence -- BURLEIGH: And we don`t -- ROBINSON: You know -- BURLEIGH: We don`t hear about it. O`DONNELL: Gene, go ahead. ROBINSON: Yes, now the issue is that we can do things now that we could not do before. We can send flying robots up to track, identify and kill specific individuals. It`s kind of war by assassination, essentially. And, you know, there`s a powerful incentive for this president, who has vastly expanded the drone war from where George Bush left it. And for future presidents to use this technology as opposed to sending in commando teams and special forces teams because that would be putting American lives in danger. And if you have that choice to make, chances are you`re going to send in the robots. And so, you know, there are -- there are -- there are moral and ethical questions here. There are precedent setting questions here, drone technology is not that complicated, and certainly within, you know, there are dozens and dozens of nations now that fly drones. They have not all militarize their drones, but they have the capability of doing so. And we all need to talk -- to think about this and we all need to talk about this because you can imagine a rather dystopian future. CORN: Well -- ROBINSON: You don`t have to go all the way to terminator to imagine -- CORN: We`ll be targeted by drones as well. I mean that`s -- that`s how -- you saw the gyrocopter that made it to the capital. ROBINSON: Exactly -- CORN: It doesn`t take a stretch of imagination for a drone built at home with some military component to do a lot of damage. And I don`t know how our policy in Afghanistan is going to affect what happens here. But, you know, the future of warfare is rather frightening. And it`s very tempting to use to get out of some of the more complicated decisions, you know -- O`DONNELL: You know, I -- before we go on this, I just want to offer that I don`t think we should think that there`s an alternative to this that eliminates collateral damage. I mean the John Kerry notion of years ago, we were talking about tonight of the kind of very heavily armed policing response that is very targeted. I mean, look, we are seeing unintended consequences by American police officers everyday and far less pressurized circumstances than trying to go into a spot in Pakistan and find the right four people to kill instead of six people. The idea that we could ever come up with a method in which there wouldn`t be people who will be killed in these processes who shouldn`t be, I think is a pipe dream. But we`re going to have to break it here, we`ll come back to that subject I`m sure many times in the future. History maker Barack Obama made more history today with history maker Loretta Lynch. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) LAWRENCE O`DONNELL, MSNBC ANCHOR: Starting next week, the United States of America will have its first African-American woman attorney general after the Senate confirmed Loretta Lynch today, 56-43 with 10 Republicans voting in favor. Cheering is not allowed in the Senate chamber. But President Obama got a cheer for it today. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I am very pleased that Loretta Lynch has now been confirmed -- (CHEERS AND APPLAUSE) (END VIDEO CLIP) O`DONNELL: Coming up, more protesters took to the streets in Baltimore today and some officers there are now talking to investigators about what happened the day Freddie Gray was taken into custody and then died. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER: No justice. UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: No peace. UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER: No justice. UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: No peace. UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER: No justice. UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: No peace. (END VIDEO CLIP) O`DONNELL: Yesterday, the head of the Baltimore police union released a statement about the people protesting the death of Freddie Gray in police custody saying, "The images seen on television look and sound much like a lynch mob in that they are calling for the immediate imprisonment of these officers without them ever receiving the due process that is the constitutional right of every citizen, including law enforcement officers." Later that day, he held a press conference and said this -- (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) GENE RYAN, PRESIDENT, BALTIMORE FRATERNAL ORDER OF POLICE: Maybe I should reword that. I don`t want it turn into a lynch mob because when you`re trying to put somebody in jail before all the facts are in, the investigation hasn`t been completed, I mean, that`s wrong. (END VIDEO CLIP) O`DONNELL: Today, Baltimore City Police Commissioner Anthony Batts met with the family of Freddie Gray. And after the meeting, the Baltimore Police Department tweeted, "Police Chief Batts met with members of the Gray family, listening to their pain and expressing his sympathy. He updated them on the investigation." Joining us now is Jayne Miller, investigative reporter for NBC affiliate WBAL in Baltimore. Jayne has been covering this investigation from the start. Jayne, what is the latest tonight? JAYNE MILLER, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER, WBAL: Well, Lawrence, first of all, the protests, we had more protests today. Probably not quite as many people today as we`ve had in previous days. But they were scattered around the city. But tonight, all is quiet. We`ve had very orderly -- you know, a few scuffles here and there with police, but certainly mostly just very organized, strong message from the organizers. There`s been the demonstrators. So all is quiet tonight. The investigation goes on and, you know, there are little bits and pieces that are, you know, developing. But this is an ongoing criminal investigation of what happened to Freddie Gray while he was in custody on April 12th. He, of course, died a week later. O`DONNELL: Eugene Robinson, the police department has promised a -- and Jayne has been making the point about this, this is so unusual. A May 1st deadline for them to kind of go public with a report or some presentation of some kind about what they think happened here. So, you know, end of next week. EUGENE ROBINSON, THE WASHINGTON POST: Yes. One thing they may have learned from the string of awful incidents we`ve seen over the past month is try to get it out and try to get it out quickly rather than, you know, just let everything fester and resentments build up and anger build up and everything. You know, the kind of interesting thing here is, of course, Baltimore is a city with an African-American mayor and a history of African-Americans political leadership. Yet the issues are not dissimilar and the real issues are not so much the race of those doing the policing as how African-American communities are being policed. And specifically how African-American men and boys are treated by police. O`DONNELL: Jayne Miller, is there a different feeling in Baltimore under this mayoralty than under Martin O`Malley`s mayoralty? MILLER: You know, that`s a very complex question, Lawrence, because there are differences in the policing strategy, significant differences. In fact, the mayor, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and former mayor and former governor Martin O`Malley had kind of a war of words over this within the last 18 months. O`Malley, when he was mayor, set forth a zero tolerance policing. He introduced that to Baltimore in the years that he was -- in which he was mayor. We had -- averaged 100,000 arrests per year. Now the number of arrests is about half that. But it`s still very high. But the mayor, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, she was asked this very question the other day, Lawrence, by a reporter who`s been watching the post at her weekly briefing, does it make a difference that you are an African-American mayor? And her answer was, I look at this situation as an African-American female who has grown up in Baltimore. And she went on to say what we have heard her say many times over the past two years as she has tried to introduce reforms in the police department, and that is people hate crime, but in many communities, they hate the police more. So this -- what has happened with this situation with Freddie Gray is not a new conversation. It`s not a new debate. There are many people in this town that hope it will kind of blow open the conversation of the way that policing is done in not just the city of Baltimore, but around the country in urban areas. O`DONNELL: David Corn, this raises so many questions about the broken windows theory versus zero tolerance, which are actually two different things. The co-author of the book "Window`s Theory" recently at a forum here in New York said, it was never intended to be zero tolerance. And what we`re seeing in this arrest -- the approach to Freddie Gray is something that sounds like zero tolerance, meaning there was virtually no reason, no probable cause to arrest him based on what the police had seen. And this was something -- they didn`t see a broken window. And they still went into this mode. DAVID CORN, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Right. Which I think it`s to the point that even with the broken window theory, there still is, you know, discretion on how -- and more importantly how the cops prosecute or engage or implement those theories are as important as the theories themselves. And you`re seeing, I think, a lot of this resentment boil over now on the streets of Baltimore where they`re saying we don`t care about the color of our leadership, of the police force or of -- in the mayor`s office. We care about the interactions from the cops in our community. So that`s the fundamental issue. And you have to wonder how four, five, six cops end up in a situation with one fellow who might not have even deserved to be arrested who ends up with 80 percent of his spine severed. I mean, how does that happen? I hope they can tell us by May 1st. O`DONNELL: Jayne, do you have any more information -- MILLER: Can I just -- O`DONNELL: Go ahead, Jayne. MILLER: I was just going to add, ask the question, because I think I know what you`re going to ask. But go ahead and ask the question. O`DONNELL: What do we know -- what do we know about what happened inside the van? MILLER: We`ve done a lot of work on this. There is a lot of misinformation out there and it kind of drives me crazy. But this is what we have been reporting. And I have been doing this for a very long time. The -- where this investigation focuses is on two things, is what happened once he is in the police van. That police van, it`s a Ford E-350 van. It`s been modified to be a police wagon. It`s essentially a small metal box, it has a metal vents in it, and it has a metal divider down the middle to divide the two sides so they can put more prisoners in it at one time. And then there`s a metal divider between the passenger section and of course the driver`s section. This investigation, as we have reported it and as we have really zeroed in on this investigation, this investigation is really not so much about what the police did, although it does include that. It`s what they didn`t do. This is an investigation that centers on negligence. Police are required by policy to do three things. One, seatbelt in a prisoner. Make sure they are secured. Two, keep them safe. And three, get medical attention if it is necessary or observed. If they see that it is needed. This commissioner himself on Monday admitted that there -- as he put it -- two or three times when we probably should have called for a medic. That did not happen. This man suffered a broken neck. He was losing oxygen because of the severity of his upper spinal injury. If he had gotten medical attention sooner, who knows. That`s what is so critical in these kinds of injuries. Medical experts have told me what he suffered was his very badly broken neck is the Christopher Reeves injury. When you get medical attention quickly, you have a much greater chance to survive. This was not quick medical attention and that is really where this investigation focuses. O`DONNELL: Great reporting, Jayne. Jayne, you`ve had a long day.. Our first chat today was on "MORNING JOE." Thank you for staying with us tonight. Really appreciate you joining us. MILLER: Thank you. O`DONNELL: OK. All right, coming up, Johnny Depp as you`ve never seen him. Playing the notorious gangster Whitey Bulger, the Boston gangster. You`ve got to see this. We`re going to show you every second of this amazing new trailer. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) O`DONNELL: On the lighter side of the news, Warner Brothers broke the Internet today or at least broke the Boston Internet, my Internet, when they dropped the first trailer for Johnny Depp`s version of Boston gangster Whitey Bulger on YouTube. Here is every glorious frame of that trailer. You`re welcome, Warner Brothers. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JOHNNY DEPP, ACTOR, "WHITEY BULGER": What did you marinate the steak in? Because it`s out of this world. You`re killing me with it. DAVID HARBOUR, ACTOR, "JOHN MORRIS": No, no, no. It`s a family secret. DEPP: Come on. You`ve got to tell me that. What`s the secret? Come on, you could do it. Come on. That is one of the best (EXPLETIVE DELETED) damn steaks I ever had in my life. Ever. So what`s the family secret recipe? HARBOUR: It`s ground garlic and a little bit of soy. DEPP: That`s it? HARBOUR: Yes, that`s it. DEPP: I thought it was a family secret. HARBOUR: It`s a recipe. DEPP: No. No. You said to me this is a family secret. And you gave it up to me, boom. Just like that. You spill the secret family recipe today. Maybe you spill a little something about me tomorrow. HARBOUR: I was just saying that -- DEPP: You were just saying? Just saying gets people sent away. Just saying got me a nine-year stretch in Alcatraz. You understand? So just saying could get you buried real quick. Look at his face. (END VIDEO CLIP) O`DONNELL: Oh, my god. Michael Dougherty. MICHAEL BRENDAN DOUGHERTY, THE WEEK: Two thumbs up. O`DONNELL: I`ve got to -- listen, is it just because I`m Irish and I`m from Boston and I`m a Johnny Depp fan? ROBINSON: Yes. Yes. (LAUGHTER) O`DONNELL: Am I completely biased or is this thing the greatest two minutes ever? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s pretty good. It`s pretty good. DOUGHERTY: You`re biased. But this is -- ROBINSON: Wicked good. Wicked good. DOUGHERTY: This is the greatest crime story of the last 50 years. And you have one of the greatest actors playing a very charismatic, legendary sort of -- almost beloved legend of crime in Boston. And it was irresistible. Johnny Depp plays that scene just like Bulger played the FBI. Just -- O`DONNELL: Yes. Yes. DOUGHERTY: It`s perfect. O`DONNELL: Nina, is this a guy thing? Or is this -- NINA BURLEIGH, AUTHOR: It`s totally a guy thing. O`DONNELL: OK. Yes. BURLEIGH: I`m sorry, but -- (CROSSTALK) BURLEIGH: I`m going to play devil`s advocate here. O`DONNELL: You saw nothing there. Go ahead. BURLEIGH: I see -- well, first of all, we see Johnny Depp acting well after his last appearance. The last time I saw him, he was stumbling drunk at the Golden Globes. But I`m just kind of sick of mob movies. I mean, you know, just from this trailer here, you can see there`s probably one female character. She`s probably the stripper with the heart of gold. She probably gets kicked around a little bit and that`s it. And, you know, I`m a little tired of these -- (CROSSTALK) CORN: Well, I hope they ended up showing him with his wife in Santa Monica when they`re -- he`s living the good life and far away from the FBI. ROBINSON: I do not understand the phrase sick of mob movies. That doesn`t compute to me. O`DONNELL: Went over my head. (CROSSTALK) ROBINSON: Right. It is so great, though, to see Johnny Depp, who is a great actor, actually doing that as opposed to, you know, kind of -- UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: As opposed to being a pirate. ROBINSON: Flailing around as Tonto in that awful Lone Ranger remake. DOUGHERTY: That wasn`t so bad. O`DONNELL: And he`s -- ROBINSON: It was really bad. DOUGHERTY: That wasn`t so bad. O`DONNELL: And if you -- and it`s true, Johnny Depp does not have blue eyes, which we just saw in -- he`s got the blue eye lenses on for this. And he`s actually kind of stepping in the shadow of Jack Nicholson here of who in "The Departed" played the fictional version of Whitey Bulger with a different name. Let`s listen to Jack`s version of it for a second. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JACK NICHOLSON, ACTOR: When I tell you to dump a body in the marsh, you dump them in the marsh. (END VIDEO CLIP) O`DONNELL: You know, I got a lot of questions today on Twitter about is Johnny Depp`s Boston accent good? And the answer is in those two minutes I can`t be quite sure because I didn`t hear him say marsh. Now if he had a marsh scene like Nicholas, then I could tell you. I need to hear a little bit more. Everything I heard from Johnny Depp was good so far. Eugene, back to the -- you know, can`t stand another gangster movie. ROBINSON: Yes. O`DONNELL: I can`t stand another cliche movie, but anything can be done well. And when it`s done really well, even if it`s another gangster movie or a western or some other genre that you`re tired of. ROBINSON: Yes. O`DONNELL: If they do it well, a great movie is a great movie. ROBINSON: A great movie is a great movie. And, look, for some reason, mob movies offer -- you`ve got a lot to work with there, right? Because you`ve got violence, of course, but you`ve got betrayal and loyalty and, you know, family ties and all these sorts of themes. CORN: And food. Don`t forget the food. ROBINSON: And food. They`re awesome. There`s always good food. (CROSSTALK) BURLEIGH: Robert de Niro in a restaurant in Tribeca. CORN: This one you`ve got the FBI. This whole sordid story of the FBI which, you know, they had a lot bit of in "Departed." They didn`t focus on that as much. ROBINSON: Yes. CORN: I`d like to see how far they get into that with this one. O`DONNELL: Nina, I want you to go back to your -- I want to get drown out here on us guys loving the mob movies. But I don`t -- look, most of them I hate because most of them were bad. But, you know, my feeling is, I don`t care if it`s a musical, which I`m not necessarily inclined to. If it`s great, it`s great. BURLEIGH: Well, no, I agree that there are great stories. I mean, Eugene is right. The mob is -- you know, it`s filled with great stories. And, you know, tragedy and comedy and everything. But that said, I think I got sick of it after "Sopranos." O`DONNELL: Did you like "The Sopranos"? BURLEIGH: Up to a point. Up to a point. O`DONNELL: And then get sick of it or get sick of it during "The Sopranos"? BURLEIGH: Somewhere during "The Sopranos." O`DONNELL: OK. BURLEIGH: I think after -- (CROSSTALK) DOUGHERTY: What season, Nina? BURLEIGH: After the -- you know, after the badabing. O`DONNELL: A little too much badabing. BURLEIGH: Well, yes. A little bit. Yes. O`DONNELL: Yes. I understand that. I love every frame of the "Sopranos." But I understand that. All right. Coming up next, I`m going to drag some predictions out of the panel. Their LAST WORD predictions. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MIGUEL ALMAGUER, NBC NEWS: In southern Chile, the Calbuco volcano is erupting with fury. Witnesses say the twin blasts sounded like bombs. A fiery mix of lava and lightning. Calbuco rumbling back to life after sitting dormant 40 years. Thousands are on the move and in a state of panic. The fallout could contaminate water and is causing health concerns as far away as Argentina. Miguel Almaguer, NBC News. (END VIDEO CLIP) (COMMERCIAL BREAK) O`DONNELL: All right. Just a couple of minutes left for everyone`s LAST WORD predictions. Eugene Robinson, who`s going to be the front runner in the Republican presidential primary field a month from now? ROBINSON: Oh, Lawrence, honestly. (LAUGHTER) O`DONNELL: Come on. ROBINSON: A month from now, I`ll say still Marco Rubio. O`DONNELL: David Corn? ROBINSON: Marco Rubio is still going to be -- still going to be a front runner a month from now. Two months from now, he won`t be. But a month from now, he will be. O`DONNELL: David Corn, who is going to win the World Series? CORN: Who`s going to win the World Series? I think the New York Mets. O`DONNELL: I just thought I`d give you a tougher one. CORN: The New York Mets. Every since I was 10 in `69, I`d say that every single year. O`DONNELL: Right. ROBINSON: That is so wrong. The Nationals. O`DONNELL: Michael Dougherty, is Johnny Depp going to win the Golden Globe and the Oscar or just the Oscar or -- DOUGHERTY: I think both and the Tony, too. O`DONNELL: Yes. And the Tony. Yes. (LAUGHTER) O`DONNELL: Based on two minutes, two minutes of the trailer. You know, this is all you need, it`s all the information you need. Nina, tell me anything that`s going to happen in the future anywhere at any time, this next decade, the next decade. BURLEIGH: Shares of Ritalin rise as the investigative journalist at the "New York Times" starts studying the Canadian tax code. O`DONNELL: Yes. So where does the "New York Times" and the "Washington Post" that`s also on this Clinton money story? Where do they go from here? BURLEIGH: We`ve been talking about this a lot. I don`t know how much time you have, but it`s not good that these major newspapers had to farm out their investigative work to this right wing hatchet (INAUDIBLE). O`DONNELL: What they`re saying is this guy gave them their book ahead of time. BURLEIGH: Right. DOUGHERTY: Yes. O`DONNELL: And well, Eugene, speaking of the "Washington Post." BURLEIGH: They could have done that on their own. I mean, that material is already out there. O`DONNELL: Gene, tell us how it works at "The Washington Post." ROBINSON: How it works is if we`re going to get a book that we think there`s something in it and we get it early, we`re going to look at it and see if there`s anything in it. And meanwhile, we`re going to have our reporters out there on the money trail. So stay tuned. O`DONNELL: And the author of this Clinton cash book says he`s now working on the same kind of report, Michael, about Jeb Bush. DOUGHERTY: Yes. I mean, Peter Schweizer is definitely conservative, but he`s done books before like "Throw the Bums Out" that went after John Boehner and other Republican figures. He has his bias, but he`s not afraid of taking shots at Republicans for the same -- CORN: Well, there`s a lot to get into with Jeb Bush. A month ago at "Mother Jones", we came up with a list of just 23 scandals and controversies he had before, after and during his days as governor. They`re all right for further exploration. O`DONNELL: All right. I have a prediction. We`re eventually going to be talking about 23 scandals and controversies of Jeb Bush here on THE LAST WORD. Eugene Robinson -- CORN: I hope so. O`DONNELL: -- David Corn, Nina Burleigh, Michael Brendan Dougherty, thank you all for joining us throughout the show tonight. Really appreciate it. CORN: Sure thing. ROBINSON: Good night. Good night. O`DONNELL: Chris Hayes is up next. END