The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, Transcript 08/10/15

LAWRENCE O`DONNELL, HOST, THE LAST WORD: Good evening Ari, thank you very much. Tonight, Megyn Kelly had something to say about Donald Trump after everything that he had to say about her this weekend. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) KASIE HUNT, MSNBC POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: I`m not sure I even quite know where to start with what`s been going on with the Trump campaign. DONALD TRUMP, CHAIRMAN & PRESIDENT, THE TRUMP ORGANIZATIONS & FOUNDER, TRUMP ENTERTAINMENT RESORTS: She should really be apologizing to me, you want to know the truth. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s a fire storm over Donald Trump`s comments about Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly. TRUMP: The fact is, she asked me a very inappropriate question. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a man that`s not smart enough to be president. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How were the women running for president responding? CARLY FIORINA, FORMER BUSINESS EXECUTIVE: They were completely inappropriate and offensive comments, period. HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: I thought what he said was offensive. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And on yesterday`s "Meet the Press", Trump told Chuck Todd that it`s hard for women to attack his looks, because, quote -- TRUMP: And of course it`s very hard for them to attack me on looks because I`m so good-looking. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Misogyny is a terrible campaign strategy. TRUMP: I will be phenomenal to the women, I mean I want to help women. JOHN OLIVER, COMEDIAN & TELEVISION HOST: The entire debate was basically a two-hour circus side show. GOV. SCOTT WALKER (R), WISCONSIN: You know, for a lot of us, it`s like watching a car accident instead of focusing on the direction we should be heading. OLIVER: He was the focus of everyone`s attention. CLINTON: I think he`s having the time of his life, being up on that stage, saying whatever he wants to say. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it`s awfully early to be worried about this kind of fluff with Donald Trump -- OLIVER: There will be actual babies born on election day 2016 whose parents haven`t even met yet! (LAUGHTER) (END VIDEO CLIP) O`DONNELL: Donald Trump`s version of a peace offering to Megyn Kelly came today in the form of a starring role in a vying video attacking Jeb Bush that the Trump campaign released this afternoon. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) GEORGE HENRY WALKER BUSH, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Read my lips -- (CHEERS) No new taxes. GEORGE WALKER BUSH, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Those weapons of mass destruction, they`ve got to be somewhere. MEGYN KELLY, FOX NEWS: Would you have authorized the invasion? JEB BUSH, FORMER FLORIDA GOVERNOR: I would have. You know, my brother did this wrong, my dad did this wrong. (END VIDEO CLIP) O`DONNELL: Donald Trump has spent days now relentlessly complaining about this question posed by Megyn Kelly. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) KELLY: Mr. Trump, one of the things people love about you is, you speak your mind and you don`t use a politician`s filter. However, that is not without its down sides in particular when it comes to women. You call women, you don`t like fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals. Your Twitter account -- TRUMP: Only Rosie O`Donnell -- (CHEERS) (APPLAUSE) KELLY: No, it wasn`t. (CHEERS) Your Twitter account -- TRUMP: Thank you. KELLY: For the record, it was well beyond Rosie O`Donnell -- TRUMP: Yes, I`m sure it was. KELLY: Your Twitter account has several disparaging comments about women`s looks. You once told a contestant on "Celebrity Apprentice", it would be a pretty picture to see her on her knees. Does that sound to you like the temperament of a man we should elect as president? And how will you answer the charge from Hillary Clinton who is likely to be the Democratic nominee that you are part of the war on women? TRUMP: I think the big problem this country has is being politically correct. I`ve been -- (APPLAUSE) (END VIDEO CLIP) O`DONNELL: Twenty four hours later, Donald Trump offered this description of what you just saw. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: She gets out and she starts asking me all sorts of ridiculous questions, and -- UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sure, it was -- TRUMP: You know, you could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her -- wherever. (END VIDEO CLIP) O`DONNELL: Donald Trump then spent the weekend refusing to apologize for what everyone knew he meant. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: I wake up and I hear that, you know, somebody took it as something else. Only a deviant would think that, Chuck, I wouldn`t -- I didn`t even think that. I -- who would think it? (END VIDEO CLIP) O`DONNELL: Donald Trump was still at it this morning. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: She got very angry during this question because of that, because she couldn`t even finish the rest of the question because the crowd went wild. And I -- in discussing it later, I said blood was -- she was so angry that blood was coming out of her eyes, blood was coming out of her -- and then I didn`t even finish the answer because I wanted to get on to the next point. But I was referring to -- or if I finish it, I was going to say, is or does, because that is a common statement -- UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So, you would -- TRUMP: Where blood is pouring out of your ears -- UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes -- TRUMP: It`s a very common statement. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Let me just ask you, just to clarify. If someone made such a comment about a female journalist, suggesting that they were on their menstrual cycle -- TRUMP: That would be inappropriate -- UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It would be class list and juvenile and over the -- TRUMP: That would be -- UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Line, right? -- TRUMP: Inappropriate, but -- UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes -- TRUMP: I didn`t do that. (END VIDEO CLIP) O`DONNELL: As the media world was relishing a Donald Trump war with his former friends at "Fox News", Donald Trump tweeted today that the chairman of "Fox News" called him to make peace. "Roger Ailes just called, he is a great guy and assures me that Trump will be treated fairly on "Fox News". His word is always good. Tonight Roger Ailes released a statement with his version of the phone call. "Donald Trump and I spoke today, we discussed our concerns and I again expressed my confidence in Megyn Kelly, she is a brilliant journalist and I support her 100 percent. I assured him that we will continue to cover this campaign with fairness and balance. We had a blunt but cordial conversation and the air has been cleared." Joining us now, Matt Lewis, a senior contributor for "The Daily Caller" and a columnist for "The Week". Philip Rucker, a national political reporter for "The Washington Post" and Christina Bellantoni, an assistant managing editor for politics at the "Los Angeles Times". Christina, I just want to point out a couple of things, just matters of fact, that Donald Trump has not been challenged on in any of his rants against Megyn Kelly. Fact number one, Megyn Kelly was not even slightly angry, not slightly angry, and he speeds that description past all of his interviewers when he`s getting into the blood coming out of her eyes stuff. With this -- with this thing about her being angry, and you can see in the video, she wasn`t angry at all in asking that question. CHRISTINA BELLANTONI, ASSISTANT MANAGING EDITOR FOR POLITICS, LOS ANGELES TIMES: Yes, I think exactly right. I actually -- I think she did a very good job at the debate. And really, the entire exchange, Trump`s answer was clearly well received by the crowd and probably had that been the end of it we wouldn`t be talking about it right now, we`d be talking about something else. But instead, this was allowed to become this weird fight that makes him look pretty bad in the eyes of not just women but in the eyes of a lot of people who are going to be voting, and it`s become this multiple story that as we heard in your intro. All of the candidates are being forced to respond to, but yes, she didn`t seem mad at all. She asked a measured question and she kept going after the crowd was cheering, and he answered it. And really, what we should be talking about are what the candidates would do for America, they all want to be president, that`s the more important story. O`DONNELL: Well, Megyn Kelly wisely let the whole thing bubble up all weekend without giving a hint of what she thought about it until her show went on the air tonight, and here is what she said about it. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) KELLY: Trump who is the frontrunner will not apologize, and I certainly will not apologize for doing good journalism. So I`ll continue doing my job without fear or favor. And Mr. Trump, I expect will continue with what has been a successful campaign thus far. This is a tough business, and it`s time now to move forward. (END VIDEO CLIP) O`DONNELL: Matt Lewis, it is pretty easy to take the high road against Donald Trump. Any road is higher than the road Donald Trump will take. MATT LEWIS, SENIOR CONTRIBUTOR, THE DAILY CALLER & COLUMNIST, THE WEEK: Yes, I think that`s right. And look, this is a very mutually beneficial relationship. I`m not saying that Megyn Kelly set this up or wanted it to go down like this. But this is a win-win I think for now at least. Donald Trump loves attention, loves publicity, he has dominated the conversation. Doesn`t really care if it`s good or bad if any, all publicity is good for Donald Trump. And I think Megyn Kelly, her name is out there, she`s getting a lot of attention and buzz, and frankly, I think she`s being regarded deservedly as a really top-notch journalist. You know, going into a Republican debate, it would have been easy to say "Fox News" is just going to throw softballs to these Republicans. Well, they asked a lot of tough questions, not just to Donald Trump, and I think Megyn Kelly showed that she is really tough and she`s a really good journalist. And I think that, you know, frankly, the phone call with Roger Ailes is a product of the fact that it`s mutually beneficial, "Fox" needs Trump and Trump needs "Fox News". O`DONNELL: Yes, they were never going to get that TV audience that they got Thursday night without Donald Trump in there. Another thing Donald Trump is very angry about is Frank Luntz focus group on "Fox News" after the debate. Let`s take a look at that and we can see why Donald Trump is so upset with him. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) FRANK LUNTZ, POLITICAL CONSULTANT: When you walked in here, how many of you had a positive opinion of Donald Trump? Raise your hand, overall. How many of you have a positive opinion of him now? Who is negative towards Trump when you walked in here? Who is negative now? What happened? You were Trump supporter when you walked in. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, Frank, you know what happened? I liked him when I came in here because he wasn`t a politician. But right now, he skirted around questions better than a lifelong politician ever had. (LAUGHTER) LUNTZ: Anthony, what was your reaction to Trump? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was really expecting him to do a lot better, but he just crashed and burned. He was mean, he was angry, he had no specifics, he was bombastic -- LUNTZ: Eli, you walked in here a Trump supporter, what happened? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know, he just let me down. I just expected him to rise to the occasion and look presidential. He didn`t. (END VIDEO CLIP) O`DONNELL: And Philip Rucker, we have some very hastily done surveys that aren`t calling themselves polls that don`t indicate any real movement for Trump in the polls, up or down. As a result of this, it seems like it will take a while before we know what the effect of that debate is. PHILLIP RUCKER, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, THE WASHINGTON POST: That`s right, it will. And you know, the key, I think for Donald Trump is longevity and durability. Can he take this kind of Summer fling, if you will, where he is really energized a core part of the Republican Party and translate that over the next several months into next year into a winning coalition to take the nomination and ultimately the presidency. At this point, a lot of people are doubting that he can, and we`re going to have to see over the next couple of weeks and into the Fall whether he`s able to do that. O`DONNELL: Well, he can certainly keep his campaign afloat financially for as long as he feels like it. But -- RUCKER: That`s right -- O`DONNELL: Philip Rucker, you`re breaking some news tonight on another Republican candidate who is in serious trouble financially. RUCKER: That`s right. Former Texas Governor Rick Perry has stopped paying all of his campaign staff, that`s at national headquarters in Austin as well as in the early primary and caucus states. The money is running dry in that campaign. That said, there is a Perry Super PAC that has about $17 million and they`re prepared to fund that effort aggressively and try to promote Perry as best as they can, but it will be very difficult for the Perry campaign going forward. O`DONNELL: How much money has the Perry campaign burned through? And what have they used it for? It`s a little too early to be buying TV ads, isn`t it? RUCKER: They`re not buying TV ads. But they didn`t raise a lot of money in that second quarter. This is the period when Jeb Bush was raising, you know, double digits in the millions. Rick Perry only had about a million dollars and he had about $800,000 cash on hand as of the end of June. At this point, I think they`re spending their money on literally airplanes and hotel rooms and food, getting the candidate to appearances. They really want to try to get him on the big debate stage next month at Simi Valley at the Reagan Foundation Library, it`s unclear if he`ll make that jump. He needs a push in the polls, and I think the Super PAC will probably step up perhaps with some more advertising to try to -- to ensure that he rises in the polls and makes that debate stage. O`DONNELL: Philip Rucker, thank you for that breaking news report tonight -- RUCKER: Yes -- O`DONNELL: Really appreciate it, thank you. Coming up, a little audience participation game involving you and Donald Trump. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) O`DONNELL: Time for tonight`s episode of questions for Donald Trump. The next Republican debate is just five weeks or so away. So let`s all help those debate moderators by coming up with questions for Donald Trump. You can tweet your questions to me @Lawrence or @the last word using the hash tag "questions for Trump". You can also post them onto our Facebook page, @facebook.com/the last word. Now, here is my suggestion for questions for Donald Trump. If you`ve watched him handling questions, you should know this, you should know this by now. Do not ask Donald Trump broad open-ended questions. The answers will go on forever. Always use a Trump concept and Trump words in a question to Donald Trump. That means you actually have to listen to Donald Trump which is something that many TV interviewers of Donald Trump forget to do. So when Donald Trump says he wants to make America great again, a good question for Donald is when was the last time America was great? You see what that question does? It forces Donald to give us a certain kind of specificity about America`s greatness like actually attaching dates to it. Now Donald is not going to say that America was great at any point during the Obama administration, so that sets the clock back to at least the George W. Bush administration. But that would include the Iraq war which Donald says he was opposed to, so he is not going to want to pick Bush years. And he certainly won`t want to pick the 1990s even though the economy was great because Hillary Clinton`s husband was president then. And so, you can see it`s a really fun question for Donald Trump. Will he have to go back to the Eisenhower administration? I don`t know. So, you get the idea. Now, to tonight`s question for Donald Trump, and it is based on what he said in the debate when he was asked how he changed his mind from being a pro-choice supporter of Roe versus Wade to being a classic Republican opponent of abortion. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: Friends of mine years ago were going to have a child, and it was going to be aborted, and it wasn`t aborted, and that child today is a total superstar, a great child. (END VIDEO CLIP) O`DONNELL: So tonight`s question to Donald Trump is, what if the child did not become a total superstar? Would you think maybe your friends should have ended that pregnancy? Would you still be a supporter of abortion rights? (COMMERCIAL BREAK) O`DONNELL: A new Royers thing, well, maybe a poll or maybe a survey, it`s kind of hard to describe, taken after Thursday`s Republican debate, finds Donald Trump still on top, 24 percent of Republican voters say they would vote for Donald Trump. Jeb Bush comes in second with 12 percent, Marco Rubio, Mike Huckabee, Ben Carson get 8, Scott Walker 7, Carly Fiorina breaks into the top ten, coming in at 6 percent. Ted Cruz gets 5, John Kasich hangs in there with 4 percent and Rand Paul, Lindsey Graham come in at 3 percent. An "Nbc News" survey finds that Donald Trump had the worst performance in the debate with 29 percent saying Trump did the worst, 14 percent say Rand Paul was worst. Jeb Bush was worst according to 11 percent in that survey. That same survey finds Carly Fiorina won the debate with 22 percent, saying she performed best. Eighteen percent say Donald Trump performed best, Marco Rubio, 13 percent say he was best, Ted Cruz, 12 percent say he did the best job. Joining us now, Nicholas Confessore, a political reporter for the "New York Times". Nick, we`re watching a lot of messy data come out in these things that they`re calling surveys and one of them describes not what they call a margin of error but some other thing that I think they used a physics term to describe just how wrong -- (LAUGHTER) It might be. But it seems like this debate, it`s going to take at least a week to settle into the polling consciousness out there. NICHOLAS CONFESSORE, POLITICAL REPORTER, NEW YORK TIMES: Or weeks, right - - O`DONNELL: Yes, or possibly -- CONFESSORE: I mean -- LEWIS: Yes -- CONFESSORE: It was a spectacle. O`DONNELL: Yes -- CONFESSORE: I mean, it was a lot to take in -- O`DONNELL: Like nothing we`ve ever seen. CONFESSORE: Yes, and look -- O`DONNELL: Yes -- CONFESSORE: I think, you know, Trump, he resets the algorithm for this whole campaign. If your goal was to come in and be the straight-talking blunt guy like Chris Christie, you can`t do that with Donald Trump on the same stage. Because you can`t out blunt him and out-talk him. So, I think everyone is kind of adjusting and calibrating and some candidates like Rand Paul and Fiorina are trying to get in there and kind of ride his coattails as the Trump critic. So, it will be well. O`DONNELL: I spent Friday afternoon driving up the Hudson River to the northwest corner of Massachusetts to Williamstown, which meant I got to listen to Rush Limbaugh for almost the entire three hours. And that host and that audience declared all of the Republicans in effect to be losers of this debate. Let`s listen to one sample. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I tuned into the debate and I had to check the channel because I thought I was watching Msnbc. The moderators methodically torpedoed each candidate with Donald Trump being the biggest target. I have lost all respect for Fox News. RUSH LIMBAUGH, RADIO HOST: Yes, you know, I -- you`re not the first I`ve heard this stuff from, beginning last night. And it is frustrating. (END VIDEO CLIP) O`DONNELL: Matt Lewis, that`s the way the day went in conservative talk- radio after the debate. They just felt that "Fox News" bombed all of those candidates. LEWIS: Well, I tell you, it`s an interesting phenomenon because, you know, working at "The Daily Caller", I have seen this for years, where there is an assumption because conservatives have for a long time lived in a hostile media environment where there is a mainstream media. The lame stream media and there was this filter and it seemed like conservatives couldn`t get a fair shake. Then you have alternative media, new media rise, talk-radio, cable news, "Fox", and there is an assumption I think that you`re supposed to carry the water for Republicans. And you`re supposed to just go easy on them. And I give "Fox News" credit, I think that they asked some very tough questions, not just of Donald Trump. And if there is an expectation that they`re supposed to just be there, you know, why are you so awesome to Donald Trump? I think that`s just a misunderstanding of the purpose of journalism. You know, look, if you work at "The Daily Caller", let`s say, you might say it`s a center-right journalistic outfit. But it`s not an activist organization, our job is not to help elect Republicans. There are other people that do that. We have a world view that`s a conservative world view. I`m not hostile to people who are pro life or anti-tax. But it doesn`t mean that we`re going to throw softballs, and I think that maybe that`s what some folks were hoping -- BELLANTONI: But -- LEWIS: This would be. BELLANTONI: These numbers -- O`DONNELL: And Christina, I want to get to a point where what I was hearing on talk-radio on conservative talk-radio Friday afternoon, I also listened to the "Howie Carr Show", a Boston show which was also great. It`s a -- it`s a more reasonable version of Rush, I guess is the way I describe it. But they all agreed that asking if you would support the Republican nominee was a tough question in the history of Republican debates that has never before been considered a tough question. (LAUGHTER) BELLANTONI: Yes, you know, part of -- there are two things going on here. I think all of these numbers really illustrate how difficult it is to have so many candidates on one stage. I mean, you can`t say that Carly Fiorina won a debate which she actually wasn`t there. She was on, you know, I`m out here on the West Coast now, she was on at 2:00 p.m. out here. So, that`s a whole bunch of people that didn`t get an opportunity to tune in and you -- and you can`t measure her against the candidates who played on the primetime stage. But then there is also -- think about how many millions of people tuned into that debate for, you know, Donald Trump reasons, but also because they`re interested in this. They`re not watching the post commentary, they`re not watching, you know, or listening to Rush Limbaugh or kind of following the machinations after the debate. They might not check in again for another 37 days or the next debate or even later. And so that`s one reason why those numbers haven`t been reflected. I mean, that is not a tough question at all to ask if you`re going to support the Republican nominee. Democratic candidates have been asked that question on debate stage before -- LEWIS: And look -- BELLANTONI: As well. CONFESSORE: Yes -- LEWIS: Lawrence, I also want to say there`s an assumption that it was just Donald Trump because he is the one complaining and whining about. I mean, Jeb Bush had to answer tough questions about common core and immigration reform, questions that cut against him in a primary. Marco Rubio was asked -- essentially, he had to come out and say he has no exceptions on the abortion issue, which I think it really hurt him in the general election. So, a lot of them were put to the test, and the fact is, Donald Trump should be asked tough questions. He -- as Rand Paul has pointed out and others, Donald Trump is a liberal. I mean, he supported single payer not that long ago. And in fact, in the debate said that like 15 years ago, he would have supported it in America. So, I think it`s -- (CROSSTALK) O`DONNELL: Come on, Matt, let -- Matt, let bygones be bygones, he was a liberal. Let`s listen to what Charles -- CONFESSORE: Right -- O`DONNELL: What Charles Krauthammer said tonight on "Fox" to Bret Baier about why Bret Baier and the moderators are being attacked. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, COLUMNIST: And I think one of the reasons that at the end of the debate, Donald the Trump decided that he would make this into a war on the moderators, and the wars on "Fox", is because I think he thinks he lost. If you win a debate, you don`t start a war attacking the moderators. (END VIDEO CLIP) O`DONNELL: Nick, some very -- some very compelling logic there. CONFESSORE: I mean, I`ve -- you know, I`ve seen this guy`s Twitter feed, Donald Trump`s -- O`DONNELL: Yes -- CONFESSORE: Twitter feed. Right, he -- O`DONNELL: Yes -- CONFESSORE: Attacks everybody all the time for everything. O`DONNELL: Right -- CONFESSORE: That`s his only mode -- O`DONNELL: Yes -- CONFESSORE: Attack. O`DONNELL: Yes -- CONFESSORE: I actually think, look, I think Rush has a small point on this by the way, that you know, hard questions were asked of all the candidates. It was a great debate, a great moderation. But the follow ups and the circling back that I felt like were directed mostly at Trump. It seemed like they came kind of loaded for a bear with Trump, to box him in and pin him down on some key things. It wasn`t wrong to do, but I can see why you would think that there was a little bit of engender there. O`DONNELL: Well, Matt Lewis, isn`t that the normal treatment of the frontrunner? When you have that big group up there that you can direct questions at. One reason why the frontrunner is placed in the middle is because that`s who people want to hear the most from. LEWIS: That`s exactly what I was going to say. I think that, you know, when much is given, much is expected, you know. And I think that Donald Trump is in first place, in a commanding lead in many cases. So, it makes sense that he would get a lot more questions, and frankly, because he is spoken in these, you know, generalities, also of course he would get the follow-up questions -- as you said, Lawrence, earlier, pinning him down on some specifics. I think Chris Wallace specifically did a good job on that. Let me also say something about Rush Limbaugh. Because I`m -- I am, you know, I`m writing a book right now about the conservative movement. And, you know, you look back at someone like William F. Buckley for -- who really sort of policed the far right, he was able to excommunicate fringe elements behind Rand, the John Birch Society to call them out to write them out of the movement. And Eric Erikson, I give him a lot of credit at red state for standing up and saying that what Donald Trump said is inappropriate. He wasn`t -- he was, you know, kicked out of the red state gathering. And I wish that Rush Limbaugh would exercise that same sort of moral authority. He has a huge audience, a huge megaphone, if Rush Limbaugh stood up to Donald Trump, it would make a big difference. But of course, he`s doing the opposite. O`DONNELL: Yes -- BELLANTONI: And -- O`DONNELL: And before we go, can I just make one point about this, that Donald Trump got a big cheer in front of that audience when he said, I only said this about Rosie O`Donnell. And none of the people who`ve been interviewing Donald Trump when he steam- rolled past him on this, and he says -- I don`t know what he said about -- and I got a big laugh about Rosie O`Donnell. You know, when did we decide as a society that it`s OK to use these words in relation to one person -- BELLANTONI: Yes, there you are -- O`DONNELL: That you can call this one -- BELLANTONI: Yes -- O`DONNELL: Person these words. And Christina, before we go, the truth of the matter is he did not reserve those words for Rosie O`Donnell. He used the word dog for someone else and a person we all know, whose name I won`t drag into this mud. But the idea that everyone is letting past in these interviews of Donald Trump that -- well, yes, you can say that about Rosie O`Donnell and you can laugh about that. BELLANTONI: Yes -- no, it`s -- you shouldn`t call anyone names. I mean I`ve said this about Trump before, all right, you know, he -- as Nick points out, like he goes after people on his Twitter feed all the time. He`s attacked every D.C. journalist we all know. It`s not a good way to run a campaign and it`s -- but it`s not what the voters are paying attention to. They just look at it in the broad brush of, oh, he`s not politically correct and that`s why, you know, as they said earlier, had he just left it there, it might have been a successful debate for him. O`DONNELL: Yes, and we -- I am just for the record not related to Rosie O`Donnell as far as I know, and I wish -- (LAUGHTER) You know, I saw somewhere over the weekend one conservative commentator, either in a tweet or somewhere say, hey, you can`t say this about Rosie O`Donnell. And I wish I knew -- I remembered who that was because I`d like to commend that person for doing it. Matt Lewis, thank you very much for joining -- LEWIS: Thank you -- O`DONNELL: Us tonight, really appreciate it. Coming up, Donald Trump may be leading the Republican pack, but he is losing to Hillary Clinton and he`s losing to Bernie Sanders. And Bernie Sanders is drawing way bigger crowds than Donald Trump could ever imagine. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) LAWRENCE O`DONNELL, THE LAST WORD WITH LAWRENCE O`DONNELL" HOST: Protests, dozens of arrest and gunfire broke out in Ferguson, Missouri on Sunday night. Demonstrations marking one year since Michael Brown`s death turned violent just before midnight last night. A man was wounded after police say he open fire on officers. Today, members of the Black Lives Matter movement occupied a public square outside the Federal Court House in Saint Louis during a peaceful act of civil disobedience. Nearly 60 people were arrested and authorities declared a state of emergency in Saint Louis County. Protesters also blocked Interstate 70 in both directions for about half an hour this evening stopping rush hour traffic. Police made several arrests there as well. For more, I`m joined by MSNBC`s Tyrmaine Lee with his live in Ferguson tonight. Tyramine, what`s the situation there? TYRMAINE LEE, MSNBC REPORTER: I`ll tell you what, Lawrence. It`s almost as if we`ve lived this day once, we lived it a thousand times. Almost a year to the day when I was talking to you and there was tear gas in the air and there was anger and all these passion. Here we are again, a year later, you`ll see dozens of people already if not a hundred or so gathered on West Florissant. There`s this rage of -- there`s range of emotions from coming off of last night`s violence, which really disrupted what had been, you know, a peaceful weekend of organizing and protesting. Folks tell me they are equally sad, and frustrated, and angry because it seems like every time they take a few steps forward, something happens to draw them a step or two back. And what sparked what they call, you know, the Ferguson uprising, was sparked by violence and bloodshed. And again, more violence and bloodshed disrupted the calm and peace that they worked so hard to forge. I`m not -- as you mentioned, the county executive had put in place a state of emergency for tonight. And so, what will that mean? Chief Jon Belmar who was the Chief of the County Police was already kind of behind the scenes pulling the strings anyway because Ferguson as an interim police chief was only weeks on the job. But what would that mean tonight? Folks say that they`re concerned that after last night`s shooting that perhaps they`ll be embolden or empowered. And we`ve seen what happens when the police come out with a certain show of force. But on the same token, if last night was illustrated anything at all, it`s again, how tenuous the situation can be here. When you see those videos of the repeated gunfire and you see people running in fear and screaming, then you see the image of that -- the young man, 18 year old, Tyrone Harris, blooded on the ground. But then, again, it all began with a skirmish between two groups and the fear. And that`s, again, for the last year, that`s what we`ve been dealing here in Ferguson. O`DONNELL: And, Trymaine, in this state of emergency tonight, is there any curfew there? LEE: There`s no curfew as of yet and that`s what a lot of people are talking about. Is this the first step to get us back to that place where there had been a curfew? As of right now, no, and as the sun is falling, you know, more people are out there gathering with Florissant. I was there about 10 minutes ago and there are group of people had climbed up on top of the Ponderosa building. A bunch of young guys about seven or eight. Just, you know, half a block down, dozens of officers. So they`re all kind of preparing for whatever may come. O`DONNELL: And Trymaine Lee reporting from Ferguson, Missouri tonight. Thank you very much for joining us tonight, Trymaine. Coming up, Hillary Clinton explains why she went to Donald Trump`s wedding. And Bernie Sanders is drawing crowds and on the campaign trail, big crowds and even bigger poll numbers than Donald Trump in New Hampshire. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) O`DONNELL: Donald Trump is making the most noise in the presidential campaign, but Bernie Sanders continues to draw the biggest crowds. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BERNIE SANDERS, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Whoa. We began this campaign over 3.5 months ago and the momentum as you can see tonight has been nothing less than extraordinary. Thank you for being here. (END VIDEO CLIP) O`DONNELL: That was a crowd of well over 20,000 who gathered to hear Bernie Sanders yesterday. That set the record for the largest political audience for the 2016 Presidential Contest. Senator Sanders broke his own record set just a day earlier when 15,000 people showed up to his rally in Seattle. That event came just hours after Senator Sanders left another stage in Seattle where protesters from the Black Lives Matter Movement interrupted his speech. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MARISA JANAE JOHNSON, BLACK LIVES MATTER: I was going to tell Bernie how racist this city is filled with it`s progressives but already did it for me. Right now, we are going to honor this space and we are going to honor the memory of Michael Brown and honor all of the Black lives lost this year. And we`re going to honor the fact that I`ll have to fight through all these people to say, "My life matters." O`DONNELL: Senator Sanders is at a campaign rally in Los Angeles at this hour, at the 17,000-seat Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena. Joining us now, Dorian Warren MSNBC Contributor and the host of "Nerding Out" on shift fly MSNBC. Dorian, your reaction to the moment in Seattle where Black Lives Matter takes over the stage. DORIAN WARREN, "NERDING OUT" HOST: My reaction is that the disruption concerning in that roots and then in Seattle is working and here`s why. The Sanders campaign just released a new policy platform that talks about the four kinds of violence inflicted on black and brown communities. Physical, political, economical and legal I think are the four. That wasn`t there before the disruption started. So in terms -- and this is what we know social movements do in American politics, they inject issues onto the political agenda. So now O`Malley now -- former Secretary of State Clinton and now Senator Sanders have all come out each with very strong, bold policy platforms to deal with what are the central demands of the movement for Black Lives around the range of issues of racial inequality that affect black people and specially people of color. O`DONNELL: And Christina Bellantoni, it doesn`t seem to his--what would we call them Dorano (ph)? I was going to say clashes with Black Lives Matter? I`m not sure that`s the right word but run-insurance, whatever we call it. It doesn`t seem to have hurt the momentum of the Sanders Campaign. There he is with you out in Los Angeles tonight drawing another huge crowd. CHRISTINA BELLANTONI, LOS ANGELES TIMES ASSISTANT MANAGING EDITOR FOR POLITICS: Yeah. Yeah. You know, we`ve got reporters out of the scene there and you know, big crowds of people driving from all over to see him. He was in Oakland earlier and got a pretty big endorsement from a nurse`s union that has left leaning but, you know, still shows that he has some momentum. But I will say just to temper a little bit on this excitement, it`s just that there`s not a lot to compare it to. Hillary Clinton is not attempting to do big rallies like this. So her potential to get disrupted in this way is less. You know, their events are a little bit more structured, a little bit more controlled, less open to the public than this at this point in the campaign. And at the same time, she`s also not trying to draw a contest -- a contrast with these crowds. So it`s hard to say, we`ll look into this giant crowd, he`s getting when she`s not when she`s choosing to reveal her student loan plan, you know, in one of the earlier primary seats. You know, this is about drawing attention. It is helping with his fund raising and it`s helping with his name recognition. I`m out here in California, everyone is talking about him. There`s really energized volunteer movement here. You know, when I talked to people, they`re asking me, "Hey, you know, can he win this nomination?" And the answer I always tell people is, "Anything can happen. You know, here`s all the reasons Hillary Clinton is well-positioned for it." But, you know, nothing would surprise me in politics. O`DONNELL: Yeah. If you try to grab Hillary Clinton`s microphone, you ain`t going to get near it because you`ve got the Secret Service to deal with. Nick, I want to put hole in Trump polling in perspective here, the huge Donald Trump phenomenon. Donald Trump is polling in New Hampshire at a level lower than Bernie Sanders, significantly lower, showing much less support 24 percent of Republicans, Bernie Sanders has 36 percent of Democrats. That`s a way bigger slice of the electric in New Hampshire that Bernie Sanders has. And yet, if you ever try to compare, you know, how much attention we`re giving these people, it all goes to the noisemaker. NICHOLAS CONFESSORE, THE NEW YORK TIMES: That`s right. I mean, it`s true and we still think about that for a second. I mean, you know, I think the Trump phenomenon is real. It`s hard to know how he would do in a smaller field of candidates in this -- I don`t know, 20, 30, 50 candidates at this point? So that they`re dividing it up and stealing votes from each other to some extent. I would very curious to see how Trump would do in a three person field against you know, Jeb Bush, Mark Rubio and Scott Walker. But you`re right, like, you know, because of the bomb-ass and the confrontation and the fun of it, right, that Donald Trump gets a lot more attention. O`DONNELL: Nicholas Confessore, thank you very much for joining us tonight. Coming up, Hillary Clinton`s explanation of why she went to Donald Trump`s wedding and why former Illinois Congressman Aaron Schock faces the possibility of jail even before facing criminal charges. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) O`DONNELL: Here is Chuck Laudner, Donald Trump`s Iowa campaign chairman yesterday in Waterloo, in an interview with Brent Roske. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CHUCK LAUDNER, IOWA CHAIRMAN DONALD TRUMP CAMPAIGN: They`re constantly complaining that he doesn`t put any meat on the bones, that there`s no specifics, no specifics to your plan. Well, he`s been to a lot of events Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Nevada, beyond and beyond. He has been making these policy pronouncements. He`s been talking about tariffs. He`s been talking about taxes. He`s been talking about health care, being able to buy across state lines and the details on that. He`s been talking about it, but they refuse to listen, because they want to hold on to that line of attack as long as they can, that he`s not talking about specifics. (END VIDEO CLIP) O`DONNELL: Donald, if you want to talk about specifics, about health care or any other the governing policy that you propose, you know you have an open invitation to do that, right here on "The Last Word". (COMMERCIAL BREAK) O`DONNELL: In out of control congressman news tonight, POLITICO is reporting that the Department of Justice threatened to hold former Illinois Republican Congressman Aaron Schock in contempt of court and put him in jail for not releasing thousands of pages of records from his Congressional Office. Schock`s defense team has argues that he has a Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself by handing over those records. Federal investigators are investigating travel reimbursements that led to the congressman`s resignation in March. Up next, if you`re wondering how to get Hillary Clinton to come to your wedding, you`ve got to make it sound like fun. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) O`DONNELL: In the Republican debate, Donald Trump was asked exactly what he got in exchange for his campaign contributions to democrats. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BRET BAIER, FOX NEWS: And what did you get from Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi? DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We`ll, I tell you what with Hillary Clinton, I said be at my wedding and she came to my wedding, you know why? She had no choice, because I gave. (END VIDEO CLIP) O`DONNELL: Today, Hillary Clinton told her side of the story. (END VIDEO CLIP) HILLARY CLINTON, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I didn`t know him that well. I mean, I knew him, I knew him, and I happened to be planning to be in Florida, and I thought it would be fun to go to his wedding, because it`s always entertaining. Now, that he`s running for president, it`s a little more troubling. (END VIDEO CLIP) O`DONNELL: The Democratic Party has announced they will hold only six presidential primary debates, far fewer than the Republicans. The conventional wisdom in politics is of course that fewer debates always favor front runners. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CLINTON: I`m going to show up for the debates as they are scheduled. And I look forward to having a robust, good opportunity to exchange views with my, you know, fellow candidates. I`m just going to show up. And when I`m told to show up, I`ll be there and looking forward to it. (END VIDEO CLIP) O`DONNELL: The other Democratic candidates for president would like to have a few more debates. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BERNIE SANDERS, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I would like to see us be debating all over this country. I`d like to see the DNC have more debates. I would like to see labor union groups. I would like to see environmental groups, women`s groups, gay groups. Groups of different constituencies, as host events and have us debates. So I believe the more debates, the better. GOV. MARTIN O`MALLEY, (D) MARYLAND: I think we should have a robust debate. The presidency is not a crown to be passed back and forth between two royal families. And in our party, sadly, we are now being told that we`re only supposed to have one debate in New Hampshire before the people of New Hampshire get to vote. I think that`s a big mistake for us. (END VIDEO CLIP) LAWRENCE O`DONNELL, MSNBC HOST: Back with us, Dorian Warren and Christina Bellantoni. I want to listen to something Hillary Clinton said where she`s basically leveraging Trump against the -- linking him to the other Republican candidates. Let`s listen to what she said about Marco Rubio with a veiled reference to Trump here. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CLINTON: When one of their major candidates, a much younger man, the Senator from Florida, says there should be no exceptions for rape and incest, that is as offensive and as troubling a comment as you can hear from a major candidate running for the presidency. What Marco Rubio said has as much of an impact in terms of where the Republican Party is today as anybody else on that stage. O`DONNELL: Christina Bellantoni, there is Hillary Clinton using -- that was actually a larger discussion about the offensive comments Donald Trump made both in the debate and after the debate. And then, she takes that into the policy arena saying what Marco Rubio and others are advocating in policy is just as offensive. BELLANTONI: The Democrats all want to make sure the volume isn`t turned up so loud on Trump that the other candidates aren`t heard when they say things that they think are going to be beneficial for the Democratic Party come November 2016. So, you know, they`re doing a really big job of putting out stuff on Chris Christie and Marco Rubio, and that`s exactly what she`s doing. She`s trying to turn up the volume a little bit on that because Hillary Clinton doesn`t think she`s going to be running against Donald Trump. And that, by the way, I`m dying to know, did she get him a wedding gift? And did he send a thank you note after that wedding gift? O`DONNELL: Yeah. And where was he registered exactly? And, Dorian, this thing about limiting the debate, obviously, to Hillary Clinton`s advantage, and it`s -- I wonder how much more noise the other Democrats are going to make about this? WARREN: We`ll see and we`ll also learn as more people might jump--might or might not jump in. We heard rumors about someone last week that this debating jumping in to the presidential race. So that dynamic could shift. I mean, obviously, it is to her advantage to limit the amount of debates. It is to the challengers, particularly O`Malley and Sanders, to have more debates to get them more exposure, absolutely. But at this point, I think there`s not much they can do in terms of influencing the DNC. I don`t think the DNC is... O`DONNELL: Yeah. WARREN: ... is going to reverse policy here. O`DONNELL: And, Christina, by the time they debate, will there be anything left that they might disagree on? I mean, there`s Hillary Clinton catching up -- trying to catch up with Bernie Sanders on affordability of college, for example. BELLANTONI: One debate is good. You know, I would love to see lots and lots of debates, but I, frankly, am surprised they even got that far given, you know, her standing, and I think Bernie Sanders sort of forced that issue and so that`s good for the other candidates who want these debates. So we`re going to have plenty to talk about, and I know whoever moderates those debates are going to do, you know, a very good job on that as well. You know, we just had reports from our L.A. Times reporters on the scene at the Bernie Sanders rally. He said from the stage that he had 27,000 people here in Los Angeles. O`DONNELL: Wow. So there`s another, I mean... BELLANTONI: Yeah. I haven`t done the crowd count, but that`s what he said. O`DONNELL: And, you know, as Christina can tell you, Dorian, Los Angeles is actually, people think, "Oh, the big cities." The big cities are the hardest places... WARREN: Yes. O`DONNELL: ... to get big crowds. Here`s Hillary Clinton in New York City, in Manhattan, she got 5,000 people, and they worked as hard as they could to get those 5,000 people. It is amazing that he`s turning out these. WARREN: It`s amazing, especially in Los Angeles... O`DONNELL: Yeah. WARREN: ... which is, as you know, has a car culture, right? O`DONNELL: Yeah. WARREN: But Portland, Seattle, all of these places, Phoenix, Texas, these are places you would not expect huge crowds for any political candidate, much less someone who is a self-avowed socialist and is on the left. O`DONNELL: And, Christina, the -- when Bernie Sanders pulls these kinds of crowds, there is going to be -- there`s this increasing excitement momentum, and it`s hard to see, in the campaign at this stage, that same excitement momentum for Hillary Clinton. BELLANTONI: Yeah. You know, and it does remind me, I covered 2007 extensively, and that`s when you really start to see Barack Obama, you know, gain a national following. It reminds me of that time. O`DONNELL: Yeah. And she definitely has this excitement, Dorian. It`s just that it`s not coming out there, I mean, this big crowd scene. WARREN: We`re not seeing a crowd visible in the same way, right. O`DONNELL: It`s really present online. WARREN: It is. O`DONNELL: I mean, they`re really there. Dorian Warren and Christina Bellantoni, thank you both for joining me tonight. Chris Hayes is up next. END