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'The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell' for Monday, July 7th, 2014

Read the transcript to the Monday show

THE LAST WORD WITH LAWRENCE O`DONNELL
July 7, 2014

Guest: Enrique Morones, Sam Hall, Sonja West


LAWRENCE O`DONNELL, MSNBC HOST: Good evening, Rachel.

And just right across the hall in 30 Rock, I can probably hold up my
gift, my get-well gift that the crew sent me, which is a spittoon which is
something I have secretly been using under my desk for years. Just a paper
cup. But now, it`s going to take an honored place on the desk.

RACHEL MADDOW, "TRMS" HOST: Welcome back, man. It`s good to have you
back, thanks.

O`DONNELL: Thank you.

Before I came back to New York yesterday I went to Murrieta,
California, this weekend which is, of course, the newest hot spot in the
American argument over border issues.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Congress returns from a holiday weekend to a
border crisis.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There is no stopping the fireworks over
immigration.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Tens of thousands of children from Central
America living in dangerous and deplorable conditions are now escaping to
the United States at alarming rates.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thousands are now facing an uncertain future at
holding facilities across the Southwest.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: President Obama and Congress will face tough
decisions on what exactly to do.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: With all due respect to the administration,
they`re one step behind. They should have seen this coming a long time
ago.

JEH JOHNSON, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: Our message to those who
come here illegally, our border is not open to illegal migration.

JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS CONFERENCE: What we are seeking is
greater authority to act more quickly to return children from the country
where they originated.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That request, to make deportations quicker and
more efficient, it may not go over so well with those who marched to the
White House today pleading for the president`s mercy.

(CHANTING)

REP. RAUL LABRADOR (R), IDAHO: The thing this administration needs to
do is immediately deport these families, these children.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The president planning a trip to Texas this week
but only to raise campaign cash, not to visit the border.

GOV. RICK PERRY (R), TEXAS: I don`t believe he particularly cares
whether or not the border of the United States is secure.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In a symbolic sense, he almost has to go. But in
a practical political sense, there`s a risk.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The central question, despite the politics, is
what to do with these kids?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O`DONNELL: The White House says the Obama administration will make an
announcement tomorrow asking for supplemental spending for the growing
border crisis in the Southwest.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EARNEST: It`s related to our efforts to add additional resources to
the border in the form of immigration judges, ICE lawyers, asylum officials
and others that can help us more rapidly and efficiently process the
immigration cases that are currently backlogged as it relates to a surge
that we`ve seen at the Southwest border.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O`DONNELL: Three Department of Human Services buses arrived at a San
Diego border patrol station today carrying Central American immigrants who
had originally crossed the border in Texas. Thousands of children and
families have arrived on the Texas border in recent months saying that they
are fleeing violence, murders, and extortion from criminal gangs in
Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras. More than 52,000 unaccompanied children
have been detained since October.

Here`s what White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest had to say about
those children today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EARNEST: Based on what we know about these cases, it is unlikely that
most of these kids will qualify for humanitarian relief. What that means
is it means they will not have the legal basis for remaining in this
country and will be returned.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O`DONNELL: Steps away from the White House at St. John`s Church
today, dozens of Hispanic immigrants and activists called on President
Obama to address the crisis at the border.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GUSTAVO TORRES: Our brothers and sisters are fleeing violence. We
don`t want the U.S. government to treat our children as criminals.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O`DONNELL: No more buses showed up in Murrieta, California, over the
holiday weekend. But protests persisted there.

Documentary filmmaker Alexandra Pelosi was there with her camera.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALEXANDRA PELOSI, DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKER: What are you doing here
today?

JARID: I`m here to support my city of Murrieta. Because, I mean,
really we`re a small town. And we don`t have the resources or capabilities
of managing 140 people every single three days.

PELOSI: What is your worst fear?

JARID: Worst fear is people coming and it just starts spreading
disease and whatnot and stuff gets spread throughout our town and community
to our children.

PAM: They messed with the wrong city. Murrieta does not put up with
this. We are more -- we`re a family town. And we do whatever it takes to
keep our families safe.

PELOSI: But these are families coming in.

PAM: These are families but they come illegally.

PROTESTER: Obama likes them so much, let them stay at the White
House!

NOEL: Absolutely, I feel disgusted and I feel dirty that people are
waving the American flag to go over and put a blanket over their hatred,
their bigotry, their rage. I think it`s a damn shame.

PROTESTER: Go back to Mexico! Yes, get out of here!

CROWD: Illegal is illegal!

(CHANTING)

PROTESTER: Jesus may not break the law, do not break our laws!

UNIDENTIFEID MALE: No one is illegal!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Love thy neighbor.

CRAIG: I don`t have a big fear of these kids, fear of coming here. I
fear more the Muslims and the Chinese.

PELOSI: What? You`re going crazy town, I thought we were talking
about the kids coming here.

CRAIG: Well, I thought we were talking about the immigrants coming
here.

(CROSSTALK)

CRAIG: Doing everything he can to destroy our country. I see this as
a little piece of his --

PELOSI: I got it, you just hate Obama, I got it.

CRAIG: Yes, that too. Yes, he`s anti-American, he`s anti-Christian,
he`s anti-white. I have problems with all of the above.

COREY: I think Murrieta did win. I think this was a big win for
Murrieta, because if the buses don`t come back, we`ve been -- we`ve stood
our ground and said we don`t want the uncertainty of having illegal
immigrants that maybe have disease and whatnot.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O`DONNELL: Joining me now, Alexandra Pelosi, and Enrique Morones,
founder and executive director of Border Angels.

Alexandra, I missed you out there. I was out there Friday for several
hours. What I noticed is, as the day wound down, as we got closer to 5:00
and people started to become I think a little more sure that no busses were
going to arrive, there was a little bit of conversation between the two
sides that happened at reasonable volumes.

And basically, the protesters against the arrival of the buses, the
most clear of them, were simply saying, it`s the illegal part of this that
we`re fighting and what you were hearing from people who were supporting an
orderly arrival of those buses and those people on the buses was a
humanitarian expression of what should be done now. But I think during
most of that, there was very little of that dialogue.

Did you see any dialogue between the sides?

PELOSI: I thought it was just theater. I thought it was bringing out
a lot of sort of the militant, Tea Party, then a lot of the pro groups but
they were going -- everybody was shouting at each other and it became just
sort of a scene. It was sort of like, what did you do for the Fourth of
July? I went to protest at the border patrol station! It looked more like
a party than an actual grown-up conversation.

And what I think is important for people to realize is, you know, we
really do have a humanitarian crisis. I mean, really. I`ve been there
you`ve been there, we`ve been on the border. And it`s really serious. We
have real issues we need to start talking about.

And I think when you see that, you see how much information is not --
how much misinformation there is out there, how much people really don`t
understand what`s going on, so they`re getting angry. You`re just seeing
this anger that`s just boiling over, because people really don`t have any
grasp of what`s really going on.

And I think that`s really what -- we need some real information.
That`s what I think is missing here. I think we need to sort of have some
grown-up adult conversation that we need our government to step in and give
us information, what`s actually happening what we`re actually going to do
about it.

O`DONNELL: Enrique, the buses today apparently arrived without
incident in San Diego. What`s the difference between San Diego and
Murrieta?

ENRIQUE MORONES, FOUNDER & EXEC. DIR., BORDER ANGELS: Well, there`s a
huge difference. I was in Murrieta for the first time ever last Tuesday,
which is really a date that will live in infamy in the immigration
situation of this country, because the whole world saw the American flag
being banged against the bus and these racist individuals just screaming at
the children and the mothers, the children were crying.

But I don`t blame them for the buses returning. Full blame needs to
go to the police of Murrieta and the mayor of Murrieta, because those three
buses could have easily gone through. I was standing right there. The
police stopped the buses.

So, they don`t want to have any of this show and tell anymore. It is
a circus. A lot of these are members of the Federation of American
Immigration Reform, a hate group, because a lot of those people were bussed
in from other areas to protest.

So, when the buses were returned to San Diego and another plane came a
couple of days ago, then today another plane came, we`re a whole different
ball game here in San Diego. We have received the buses, the children, the
mothers with love. The three buses that came back from Murrieta on
Tuesday, mothers and children spontaneously here in San Diego San Diego
went to meet them at the border patrol station in the Chula Vista area in
San Diego. That also brought tears to my eyes, but tears of joy, because
it was so horrible, what happened in Murrieta on Tuesday, that that could
be our Rosa Parks moment.

As was mentioned a little while ago, there is a tremendous amount of
misinformation out there. They`re screaming, go back to Mexico. They`re
not from Mexico. What part of illegal don`t understand? When there is no
legal way.

The people that are trying to come into this country that are
undocumented have no legal way to come in. It`s not like it was when
people came through Ellis Island, it`s a whole different situation. We`ve
got to remember that since 1994 when the U.S. government put up a wall
between Mexico and the United States, 10,000 human beings have died.

And people don`t talk about that. They don`t talk about the abuse of
the people and what they`re suffering and so forth. But now that the child
is in front of this issue, people from both sides of the aisle, people from
all over the world, their hearts have been torn apart. And they`re saying,
how could we have done this? How could we be doing this to children?

Some people are still staunchly in their corner, anti-immigrant. But
most of the country isn`t like that. So I believe that we`re going to look
back in time, and instead of Rosa Parks refusing to move to the back of the
bus, these buses when they backed up really brought this whole issue to the
forefront with the children, with the children that are dying to come in
here, literally dying to come in here. I`ve been to Guatemala, I`ve seen
the train. It`s a very dangerous journey.

Most of the people should be qualifying for asylum or humanitarian
visas. Not all of them. We as a country that have been in Central America
before, not for the benefit of Central America, during the Reagan years,
these are the grandkids of those people from those wars back then. They
should have more of a presence there, the U.S. NGOs and government.

So if I`m in a really dangerous situation and my child might wake up
dead the next morning, I should be able to go to the U.S. consulate office
in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and say, this is my situation, get the
visa, because we the Border Angels, we`re the ones that are in the desert,
we pick up the dead bodies, we see people desperately trying to come across
the only way that`s correct. We don`t encourage it. We tell them it`s
very dangerous.

But we need to fix this broken immigration system. And in the
meantime, let`s take care of the kids while the adults figure out how to
fix the system, which is taking forever, both sides of the aisle. In the
meantime, these are our kids. Let`s show these kids that we love them, we
want to protect them, we have Operation Teddy Bear which started today, we
had a bi-national concert at the border yesterday at Friendship Park with
the San Diego Symphony on the U.S. side and the Baja California Orchestra
on the Mexican side, it was beautiful.

So, we`re showering these mothers and children with love. I`ve been
in touch with customs and border patrol every day. We`re going to be
receiving some of these families when they`re released, after they`ve been
processed. We`ve already had one.

So we can take them, house them for a couple of days while they go to
visit with their family member here in the United States, then report to
court. So there is a way to handle it. But what we saw in Murrieta was
the worst of the American spirit. What we`re seeing in San Diego is the
best.

O`DONNELL: Alexandra, all three of us have been to Murrieta, and the
audience should understand that this facility is not in the center of town.
It`s kind of out on an edge. And it`s a very kind of back road, it`s a
small back road that those buses had to go down. And it looked this
weekend as if the police were probably embarrassed by some of the things
Enrique had to say last week about them. It looked like the local police
were determined to get the buses through if any buses arrived this weekend.

PELOSI: You knew the buses weren`t going to arrive. When you saw
that freak show out front, there were more satellite trucks than there were
actual real human citizens from Murrieta that were showing up. I mean, you
had a lot of people from a lot of places and a lot of them weren`t locals.

I was only looking to talk to locals. You had people coming from L.A.
Remember, this is Orange County. The political -- the politics of sending
this bus into Orange County, people like to say San Diego. But this is
actually closer to Orange County.

So that`s a totally different political dynamic. Of course, San Diego
is much more open-hearted about it. And plus, when you deal with the
border situations, people that live along the border know how to deal with
this. Orange County, they`ve never seen anything like it.

So, you knew when you see the line of satellite trucks, the bongo
players, and the shouting about how Obama is destroying America, all that
noise, they were never going to let those buses come through there. They
weren`t that stupid. I mean, no politician was -- whoever`s in charge of
sending the buses where they`re going had to know, you weren`t going to
bring buses into that freak show.

O`DONNELL: Yes, it`s about 65 miles from the border.

And, Enrique, when I was there, it was interesting to see how few
people you needed to keep the kind of chanting going. It was not a lot of
people. It is hard to say but my sense was of the small group that was
there, really, when I was there, they may very well have been local people.
But it`s -- you know, it`s a town of 110,000 people. It`s a very
substantial population there. What has to be said about the town is way
over 99 percent of that town has avoided going anywhere near there.

MORONES: But don`t forget that what happened on Tuesday represented -
- I believe it represented Murrieta and it represented these Minutemen,
former Minutemen, because the Minutemen have been pretty much shut down.
But the Tea Partiers and these neo-Nazi types. So, they were there.

And now, the mayor`s backtracking. Oh, that wasn`t me, that`s not
what the town`s all about. Well, what about the town hall the next day?

The town hall the next day, we really saw it. So, we`ve had people
from Murrieta come down, we`ve received more than 15 tons of supplies for
these families. So, let`s see what happens. I hope this is the turning
point in immigration.

O`DONNELL: Alexandra Pelosi and Enrique Morones, thank you both for
joining me tonight.

PELOSI: Thank you.

MORONES: Thank you. Gracias.

O`DONNELL: Coming up, the Tea Party candidate who lost the
Mississippi Republican primary said today he has discovered thousands of
voting irregularities. We`ll check what proof he has, next.

And later, the FOX News guys. They just cannot get enough of Beyonce,
including Bill O`Reilly tonight. They continue their obsession with
Beyonce.

They`re not the only guys in America obsessed with Beyonce. But no
guys on tv are more obsessed with Beyonce., than O`Reilly and the FOX guys.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O`DONNELL: We have breaking news from the Los Angeles area right now.
You are watching live rescues at Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia,
California. That`s a suburb north of Los Angeles. The L.A. County Fire
Department is on the scene at the ninja roller coaster. Early reports are
that the roller coaster hit a tree branch. The ride stopped with people
stuck about 20 to 30 feet off the ground.

There as many as 30 people stuck before the rescues began. The Fire
Department says four people have minor injuries.

I am afraid of that roller coaster just when I drive by it.

Coming up later, in "The Rewrite," how do you think Dick Cheney`s
relentless TV campaign of trying to rewrite America`s involvement in
Vietnam -- in Iraq, the history of that, how do you think that campaign`s
going? Well, we have a verdict. The American people have spoken. And
that`s in "The Rewrite."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS MCDANIEL (R), MISSISSIPPI STATE SENATOR: The integrity of the
process matters. We believe that night on June the 24th, there were
thousands of irregularities. And we`ve already found thousands of
irregularities in the process. We`re going to look into it for the
integrity of the process and for the integrity of the Republican Party.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O`DONNELL: Yes, that was today, not last week or whenever he lost
that thing, a week before. State Senator Chris McDaniel, the Tea Party
challenger, who lost to Thad Cochran two weeks ago, is pushing for another
election in the state`s Republican Senate primary. McDaniel narrowly beat
Cochran on June 3rd but because he failed to reach 50 percent of the vote,
a runoff was held three weeks later. With a higher turnout and the help of
apparently some African-American Democrats, Cochran managed to beat
McDaniel by over 7,000 votes.

Cochran`s margin of victory and his strategy to court liberals has
McDaniel pushing for a third election. Today, a lawyer for the McDaniel
campaign said this --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MITCH TYNER, MCDANIEL LEAD COUNCIL: We`re looking to see how many
ineligible voters voted in the runoff. We do not want to see any election
decided by ineligible voters. In fact, as we`ve gone through this process,
we`re surprised at the amount of evidence that continues to come forward
that shows us that there has indeed been election fraud in this case. And
we do not want to see any election decided by ineligible voters.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O`DONNELL: Joining me now is MSNBC political analyst E.J. Dionne.

Also joining me from Jackson, Mississippi, is Sam Hall, assistant
managing editor of "The Clarion Ledger."

Sam, the McDaniel campaign has offered a reward for any evidence of
fraud, we`re offering -- they said in their statement, we`re offering
$1,000 for evidence leading to the arrest and conviction of anyone involved
in voter fraud on or leading up to June 24th, 2014.

So, Sam, how much has that cost them so far over there in the McDaniel
campaign?

SAM HALL, THE CLARION LEDGER: Well, they haven`t paid out any rewards
yet. So, they`re actually offering up to 15 of those $1,000 rewards, using
it as a fund-raise tier. They`re asking each person to contribute $15 so
they can fund those 15 $1,000 rewards if anybody does come forward with
evidence that leads to the arrest and conviction of voter fraud.

O`DONNELL: So, Sam, what is your understanding of the state of the
evidence as we sit here tonight?

HALL: Well, we know that there are, you know, 2,000 to 3,000 votes
that are cross-over votes, we feel like probably statewide. The number
that they keep saying of irregular votes has risen all the way up to 5,000,
and then I`ve heard reports today of as high as 6,000, 7,000. The
attorney, Mitch Tyner, could not give us an exact number during the press
conference.

But just to put it in perspective, these are what they`re calling
irregular votes so it doesn`t mean they can be contested or they`ll be
illegal votes. They say 3,000 of these come out of Hinds County, which is
the largest county in the state. But, you know, we`ve been told by
McDaniel counters themselves of those 3,000, probably less than half, would
represent irregular votes that could actually be contested.

So, of whatever the final number is, you can be sure that it`s going
to be a lot lower than that of actual cross-over votes or votes that could
be considered contestable.

O`DONNELL: E.J. Dionne, you and I were both listening to that and I
for one did not hear any reference to a number large enough to affect the
outcome of this election.

E.J. DIONNE, THE WASHINGTON POST: Right, and I think it`s going to be
hard for him to get there. Because the rule is that if you`re a Democrat,
you can vote in the Republican primary. The only way you can`t vote in the
Republican runoff in Mississippi is if you cast a ballot in the Democratic
primary the first time around.

And what we know as a fact is that turnout went up in the Republican
primary. It`s very likely -- and the turnout was pretty bad in the
Democratic primary the first time around. So, it is highly likely that
most of the Democrats who did cross in to vote for Thad Cochran did not
vote the first time around, so those are legal votes.

But really underlying this is a McDaniel theory that if he won only
the Republican vote, he should have won the primary. And he`s just never
wanted to come to terms with the fact that it was an open primary. And
obviously it doesn`t do great things for the image of the Republican Party
that what they are objecting to for the most part are African-Americans who
crossed in to the Republican primary.

O`DONNELL: And, Sam, what are the Democrats in Mississippi making of
this situation? What opportunities have they found in it, if any?

HALL: Well, Rickey Cole, who`s the state party chair, is encouraging
McDaniel, as you can imagine --

O`DONNELL: Imagine, yes.

HALL: --to push forward with this challenge. He`s even accused
people of maybe voting irregularities. He`s the first one to throw out the
walking around money and all like that.

So, they`ve been very supportive of McDaniel as you can imagine.

O`DONNELL: E.J., it`s a long shot for Mississippi. But this is one
of the only ways the Democrats could possibly make some kind of advance
there.

DIONNE: Well, I made this prediction on your show, that the amazing
results on election night in November would be if the Democrats held the
Senate by one seat and it was Mississippi`s. And, you know, when McDaniel
lost that primary I figured, there`s one prediction out the window. But
now you`ve got so much turmoil and contention inside the Republican Party,
threats by McDaniel support there`s they`ll never vote for Cochran, that
maybe that one is still alive.

I think I might hang on to it a little longer.

O`DONNELL: And, E.J., it usually takes some time for that kind of
committed voter to get over that sort of bitterness. But McDaniel might
not give them that time by running this contest deep into the electoral
calendar.

DIONNE: No, that`s true. The longer this goes on, the better it is
for the Democrats, which is why Rickey Cole, the Democratic chair, will do
all he can to encourage Chris McDaniel to seek justice in this fight.

O`DONNELL: And, Sam, do you sense any kind of regrets over the
outcome of this election other than with the McDaniel people? Are there
any people who ended up going with Cochran who are starting to kind of
grumble, like maybe we shouldn`t have done that?

HALL: No, I haven`t heard any of that. You know, I think most people
are just kind of tired of the election in general. It`s become quite the
circus. We thought it was going to die down. We get crazy things that
happen just about every day. So you wake and up wonder what`s going to
happen next.

But going back to what you were talking about, you know, whether or
not they`re going to be able to come together on the Republican side,
Melanie Sojourner, who`s state senator, who`s also McDaniel`s campaign
manager, was on social media yesterday or Saturday, I can`t remember, one
of the two, and basically said -- she did say she didn`t see any way she
could ever endorse or support Thad Cochran in the general election.

So, you know, I think those feelings are going to hang around at least
for the core group. And whether or not that core group becomes active in
either dissuading people from going to vote or actively getting people to
vote for Childers in the general election, I don`t know that it will change
the outcome, but it certainly will make Cochran work a lot harder than he
would normally have to in the general.

O`DONNELL: E.J. Dionne and Sam Hall, thank you both for joining me
tonight.

DIONNE: Good to be with you.

O`DONNELL: Thank you.

Coming up, the new reason Justice Sonia Sotomayor is not pleased with
the Hobby Lobby case. There has been a part two of that case.

And later, Beyonce, Hillary Clinton, and the FOX News guys who just
can`t stop talking about both of them, including, of course, what one of
them calls Beyonce voters. They kept talking about that over at FOX News
tonight. You`ll hear that, later.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUSH LIMBAUGH, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Having sex, sex, sex, that`s
what it`s all about. Everybody wants it and whatever it takes to make the
safe. And if the taxpayers -- if it takes the taxpayers buying women birth
control the men are for it too.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O`DONNELL: That was Rush Limbaugh in his take on those who oppose the
Hobby Lobby decision by the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court found a way last week to put yet another roadblock
in the affordable care act`s birth control coverage requirement and
continued to venture into what Ruth Bader Ginsburg called a minefield.

In granting temporary, just temporary injunctive relief to Wheaten
College, a religious not for profit school. The court indicated the
religious accommodation they called reasonable last Monday in Hobby Lobby
is no longer that reasonable and easy to work with, and so Wheaten College
is not required to go through that accommodation, which is to say, fill out
the necessary forms to apply for the religious exemption. They don`t even
have to apply for it.

The college told the justices that quote "as a religious matter,
signing the form would be impermissibly facilitating abortions and is
therefore forbidden."

Justice Sonya Sotomayor, with whom the other two women on the Supreme
Court joined in the Wheaten dissent, wrote, just earlier this week in
Burwell versus Hobby Lobby stores, inc., the court concluded that the
accommodation constitutes an alternative that achieves all of the
government`s aims while providing greater respect for religious liberty.
Those who are bound by our decisions usually believe they can take us at
our word, not so today. As the dissent in Hobby Lobby feared it might, the
court retreats from that position.

Joining me now is Sonja West, law professor at University of Georgia.

Sonja, We have to I think throw away some of this court language, like
accommodation, when what they`re really talking about is a form you fill
out to get the exemption. And here was Wheaten College saying, if we fill
out that form and send it to health and human services department, we are
facilitating the provision of this kind of birth control because health and
human services will then find a way to get the birth control to the people
who have the insurance policies that we don`t want to provide birth control
for. And so that`s where the court just said, OK, you can just write a
letter saying you`re not going to do it and don`t bother with the form.

And this is what Sonya Sotomayor found to be even though it sounds
simpler, much more complicated. Why in her view is this a much more
complicated outcome?

SONJA WEST, LAW PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA: Well, it`s more
complicated because it throws some administrative roadblocks into the
government`s ability to make good on its promise to provide contraception
to all female employees via their employer health insurance. This two-page
form was already the great compromise that came about for religious
nonprofits. You know, it is separate from what the Hobby Lobby, decided
which is, of course, for-profit corporations. But we have this compromise
in the ACA about religious nonprofits where they said, if you don`t want to
pay for it for religious reasons, fill out this two-page form, tell us that
you have a religious objection to it, and inform the third-party insurer or
administrator that you are objecting to paying for this, and then that
party will provide the contraception.

So it`s a very simple form but it did include that key piece of
information. This sort of letter that the court now talks about in this
injunction that it came down with on Thursday leaves out that second part
of information. So now the department of health and human services is sort
of at a loss to be able to figure out or at least has a lot more work to do
to try to figure out how to reach these women who are not going to be
getting their contraception.

So Justice Sotomayor mentions that this is a great administrative
burden that they are placing on the government to be able to fulfill the
promise of this law.

O`DONNELL: But in the majority`s opinion on this, there`s a sentence
that very clearly, which I think is just a matter of them not
understanding, where they say, this will in no way affect anyone`s ability
to obtain this birth control coverage at no cost to them, and very clearly
in judge Sotomayor`s view, it absolutely will have a very significant
effect. And it just seems to me that the majority, the judges in the
majority, just simply did not simply understand that piece of it.

WEST: It certainly a great disagreement between the dissenters, the
three female justices, as you mentioned who are the dissenters, who are
very strong dissent here, and the majority about how big of a burden this
is.

You`re right. The majority says this doesn`t cause any problems at
all. And the dissenters all say, this is causing an enormous
administrative burden. Plus it makes the court sort of look like they are
Congress now. They came up with sort of a new thing. You can write this
letter, and you can say something, that they`re in the business of
legislating now, and telling us not the form that Congress had voted on,
and you know, the president signed, that went through the natural process,
but rather this letter that they come up with. So yes, there`s a great
disagreement between the dissenters here.

O`DONNELL: Since this is a temporary injunction, there will be
another formal decision on this matter. What do you think the chances are
of flipping one justice on this and possibly flipping the majority on it,
just on that comprehension point of exactly what are the complexities
involved here?

WEST: Well, the fact that they issued this temporary injunction is
also quite extraordinary. It`s actually technically considered an
extraordinary action by the court which is another issue that the
dissenters take issue with. They are only supposed to do this when the
petitioner`s rights here, when Wheaten Colleges rights are indisputably at
issue, indisputably clear.

So there are supposed to already have an extremely strong case on the
merits for a temporary injunction like this to be issued. So it is quite a
signal here for them to say to us or say to the country that we think that
there is a real issue here. I mean, they can always change their mind.
But this is a clear signal that they feel strongly in favor of Wheaten.

O`DONNELL: Well, I`ve got to say, I just think there`s a fact
confusion in the majority which they will probably see exposed by the
coverage that it`s received. And I think there`s a chance of at least a
flip of one justice that could make this go the other way. You don`t have
to get them all.

Professor Sonja West, thank you very much for joining us tonight.

WEST: Thank you.

O`DONNELL: Coming up, the FOX News guy who called Hillary Clinton
voters Beyonce voters, actually tried to explain himself tonight to TV
psychiatrist Dr. Bill, Bill O`Reilly.

FOX guys talking about Beyonce. It`s coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O`DONNELL: In tonight`s "lucky to be alive" segment, a heroic pilot
averts possible catastrophe in Spain. An airplane enthusiast caught this
video on Saturday as an Argentinean airbus a-340 was crossing the runway
just moments before a Boeing 767 from Russia was about to land. The
Russian pilot aborted his landing and did an emergency go-around. He
landed the plane safely a short time later. Airplane operators say there
was absolutely no danger because the plane on the ground would have crossed
the runway in time. But they have not explained why they let the planes
get that close. That close that it scared the Russian pilot into aborting
that landing.

So, how is Dick Cheney`s campaign to rewrite history going? Well, we
have an answer and it is next in "the rewrite." and it`s not just me
talking. The American people have spoken.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DICK CHENEY, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The fact
was, when we left, Iraq was in pretty good shape.

SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: If President Obama had left behind
just enough troops to provide the logistics, the training, the
intelligence, we wouldn`t be where we are today?

CHENEY: I think that`s an accurate statement.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O`DONNELL: And we have a verdict. The American people have spoken on
Dick Cheney`s attempt to rewrite the recent history of the Iraq war. By
which, of course, I mean we have a poll. A new poll on which presidential
administration is right on Iraq, the Bush/Cheney administration or the
Obama/Biden administration? That poll was taken after Dick Cheney`s
furious campaign to win the judgment of history.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHENEY: We went into Iraq for very good reasons. I think when we
left office, we had a situation in Iraq that was very positive. We made
major progress as a result of the decision President Bush made to go with a
surge in `07 and `08. There had been a dramatic reduction in violence in
the country. They were prepared for negotiations that would lead to a
stay-behind force of American trainers, technical people, intelligence,
logistics capability, so that the Iraqi armed forces would be able to
defend their own territory. What happened was that Barack Obama came to
office and instead of negotiating a stay-behind agreement, he basically
walked away from it. The result was an Iraqi military that was unable to
stand up to the terrorists when ISIS came in from Syria a few days ago.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O`DONNELL: Now Dick Cheney obviously knew that he couldn`t get away
with using the phrase "mission accomplished," but you can see how much he
wanted to.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHENEY: When we left Iraq was in pretty good shape. We`d had the
surge in `07, `08. That had had a dramatic impact. We had a significant
reduction in the level of violence. We had the situation pretty well
squared away when we departed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O`DONNELL: Pretty well squared away. The Bush/Cheney administration
never found the appropriate moment to put a pretty well squared away banner
across an aircraft barrier before they left office. They also had a pretty
strong suspicion that a powerful majority of Americans simply wouldn`t buy
it then.

By the time the Bush/Cheney team was packing up the boxes to leave the
White House in 2008, 62 percent of Americans believed the war in Iraq was
the wrong thing for the United States to do, according to a Quinnipiac
poll.

Quinnipiac asked that same question last week, after Dick Cheney`s
furious campaign to win hearts and minds to the pretty well squared away
view of Iraq. And the disagreement with Dick Cheney turned out to be
identical to when he left office.

Sixty one percent of Americans continued to say that going to war in
Iraq was the wrong decision. And 58 percent of Americans said, in the new
poll, that President Obama`s decision to withdraw all troops from Iraq was
the right decision.

And so when you see Dick Cheney on TV, please don`t get all upset and
agitated if you disagree with every word he says because according to that
poll, you might just be the only one listening.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O`DONNELL: I defy you to find any men in America who are more
obsessed with Beyonce than the FOX News guys as Bill O`Reilly and his
sidekick proved once again tonight. Karen Finney is going to talk about
that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JESSE WATTERS, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Having access to contraception
is not in the constitution. She`s dead wrong about that. And Hillary
Clinton, I`m not surprised, this is her bread and butter, this is how she`s
going to try to win the White House, this is what she`s going to go do.
She needs the single ladies` vote, I call them the Beyonce voters, the
single ladies. Obama won single ladies by 76 percent last time and they
made up about a quarter of the electorate. They depend on government
because they`re not depending on their husbands. They need things like
contraception, health care, and they love to talk about equal pay.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O`DONNELL: I showed you that video of that FOX News guy last week and
it`s caused quite a stir since then. He is the FOX News guy who calls
unmarried women Beyonce voters because, according to him, there are only
two types of female voters in this country, only two. Unmarried women, who
rely on government for contraception and health care. And married women,
who of course rely on their husbands for contraception and health care.

Now, earlier tonight, that very same FOX News guy appeared on "the
O`Reilly Factor" to talk about those comments. Here`s how it went with
Bill.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WATTERS: What I was trying to say is that I wasn`t talking about
Beyonce at all. I was talking about the song "single ladies." And what I
was saying was, single women, single ladies, depend on government much more
than married women and the stats show that. They depend on them for food
stamps, welfare, housing assistance, Medicaid, and Hillary needs those
single ladies if she`s going to win in 2016.

BILL O`REILLY, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: All right, but if you mention the
word Beyonce --

WATTERS: You can`t do that.

O`REILLY: You can`t.

WATTERS: No.

O`REILLY: The left goes wild. Why this is, I don`t know.

WATTERS: I don`t know, I was --

O`REILLY: I can`t figure this out.

WATTERS: I was called racist and I shouldn`t even say contraception.
I realize that`s not a good word to use.

O`REILLY: So you weren`t being nasty or anything like that.

WATTERS: No, no.

O`REILLY: You were taking the statistics that say --

WATTERS: Right, it was politically --

O`REILLY: Single ladies, mostly because they have children out of
wedlock, and then husband, father, whatever, goes and doesn`t support them.

WATTERS: Right.

O`REILLY: OK, so they have to --

WATTERS: Or even if they`re single without kids out of wedlock,
they`re still dependent on government more than married women. And I
wasn`t making a judgment --

O`REILLY: The census shows that.

WATTERS: Yes. The stats bear that out.

O`REILLY: The stats.

WATTERS: Right.

O`REILLY: What do stats say about Beyonce? Do they say anything --

WATTERS: I think she`s doing right well.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O`DONNELL: Joining me now, MSNBC contributor Karen Finney.

Karen, I am left speechless after that. So it`s up to you. Go ahead.
Your reaction to tonight`s FOX guys talking about Beyonce episode.

KAREN FINNEY, MSNBC HOST, DISRUPT: Well, I think you`re right that
there`s a bit of an obsession, and I`m pretty sure they just wanted to be
able to show that clip of her dancing for the ratings.

I mean, why are we listening to FOX guy when it comes to women? I
mean, but I love how Bill O`Reilly basically said, you know, because
they`re having children out of wedlock, right, that that`s what the single
ladies are. Not really recognizing that it`s unmarried women and some
women choose not to be married. And some women are unmarried and they have
kids or they don`t have kids. It`s outrageous.

O`DONNELL: Well, you know, he did not specifically correct himself
and say, look, there aren`t just these two kinds of women, there are plenty
of single women who support themselves, there are married women whose
husbands depend on them for income and support and so forth. And it was
that stunning, absolutely incorrect picture -- it`s not even a simple-
minded picture, a completely false picture of there being only two kinds of
women voters.

FINNEY: Yes.

O`DONNELL: That is what got him in trouble.

FINNEY: Yes. And I think he still doesn`t quite understand that,
actually. I think that explanation will not get him out of trouble. I
mean, the other thing, don`t forget, this is also the network that has
previously said, when we saw the statistics about women being primary bread
winners for their families, and you know, their salaries being kind of the
salary that`s helping keep a lot of families in the middle class, oh, no,
no. Then that`s -- women are the downfall of society that women are
working outside of the home. So I mean, FOX News basically just does not
understand women in general.

O`DONNELL: And Bill O`Reilly has spent some time on Beyonce in the
past, on other subjects.

FINNEY: Yes.

O`DONNELL: And you hear it. And it`s always negative. There`s never
a positive note to it. And it sounds like these, you know, little boys in
the schoolyard who are talking about the girls they don`t like, who they
obviously have huge crushes on.

FINNEY: Of course. That`s exactly right. I mean, that`s the
funniest part about it is every time he talks about it, you know what he`s
really thinking. You know what`s really going on in there.

O`DONNELL: Karen Finney gets tonight`s "Last Word." So appropriately
tonight, Karen.

Thank you, Karen, very much.

FINNEY: Take care, Lawrence.

O`DONNELL: Thank you. \

Chris Hayes is up next.

END

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