Show: HARDBALL
Date: October 24, 2014
Guest: Jennifer Sullivan; Jeff Gardere, Anthony Roman, Dr. Nina Radcliff,
Jonathan Allen, Paul Singer, Emily Schultheis
CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: It`s Friday night in America.
And this is HARDBALL.
Good evening. I`m Chris Matthews in Washington. A high school
freshman opens fire in a school cafeteria, shooting a table full of his
friends, then himself. A self-radicalized Muslim convert attacks four
rookie policemen in New York with a hatchet. An American doctor just back
from West Africa becomes this country`s fourth Ebola victim diagnosed here.
All this hardly 48 hours from the terrorist attack on the Canadian
parliament.
It`s Friday night, October 24th, a week before the elections. We`re
going to our Friday night roundtable to try to put it all together, if we
can, and how it`s coming together in the minds and psyches, we must guess,
of our fellow citizens, if that`s even possible tonight.
We start, however, tonight with the latest news from the horror (ph)
in Marysville, Washington. Jennifer Sullivan`s a reporter from "The
Seattle Times" out there. She joins us now by phone. Jennifer, thank you.
You know, we`re trying to get a fix on who did the shooting today. Can you
tell us about the young person who did it?
JENNIFER SULLIVAN, "SEATTLE TIMES" (via telephone): Yes, we`ve been
told that his name is Jaylen Fryberg. He`s about 14 years old, from the
Tulalip tribe`s reservation up in Marysville. He -- from what we
understand from our sources, that he went into the cafeteria right around
10:45 this morning and opened fire. And he shot and killed a young girl, a
girl who, we`re reporting, rejected him for a date.
MATTHEWS: Yes, and what about the other four people that were
wounded? Are they in critical care, or situations now? Are they -- how
are they doing right now in terms of life support?
SULLIVAN: We have two children who are still at Providence Everett
Medical Center, and they`re in very dire condition, and then two others
who`ve been transported to Seattle to a trauma center. One of them shares
the same last name as Mr. Fryberg, and we`ve heard is a relation, but we`re
not rally certain how.
MATTHEWS: I`m looking at these rather rough tweets that came out of
Mr. Fryberg, the young boy. And it looked like there was a lot going on in
this young guy`s life and -- is it too early to figure out what motivated
this pulling a gun on people he knew well, including the girl he was after,
it seems? I mean, this is an amazing eruption of passion and anger and
violence, and yet we have scant information about what might have caused
it.
SULLIVAN: We`re not very sure. Mr. Fryberg, it seems, had everything
going for him. He was on the homecoming court, elected to the homecoming
court last week. He was a star football player, a very, very popular young
man, well known in the community. His parents very, very well known. His
mother used to be on the school board. His parents were members of the
Tulalip tribe reservation, well -- very well known family. The Fryberg
family is very well known in Marysville.
What led him to do this? We understand it`s a girl simply rejected
him for a date. If you look on his Twitter feed, there was a lot of anger
in the last few days.
MATTHEWS: Is she the one that was killed?
SULLIVAN: Yes, there is a girl who`s 14 who was killed.
MATTHEWS: Let me ask you about the ethnic factor. What about the
racial aspects of this story? What can we -- what we know yet? Do we know
anything yet?
SULLIVAN: I don`t think we know anything about the racial aspect.
Mr. Fryberg is a -- he`s native American. He -- this community is a school
of 2,000. There`s many students who come from the reservation that go to
school there. There`s many, many students who don`t live on the
reservation who go there.
Mr. Fryberg, from what we understand, was just a very well known,
popular kid, and we`re not sure, other than maybe -- maybe just simply a
girl who rejected him was the reason for this.
MATTHEWS: Yes. Well, that happens all the time, but this kind of
violence is rarely the reaction. Anyway, thank you so much. We`ll know
more tomorrow and the days ahead. Jennifer Sullivan, thank you for that
spot reporting -- from "The Seattle Times."
SULLIVAN: Thank you.
MATTHEWS: Joining me right now, psychologist Jeff Gardere and
security expert Anthony Roman. Let me start with Jeff. Jeff, what does
this tell you -- what can you tell here, prima facie, when you see a case
like this?
JEFF GARDERE, PSYCHOLOGIST: Well, certainly a lot of rage going on.
And even though this young man is known to have been very popular, a lot of
that, Chris, may have been a facade for maybe a very unstable personality.
But one thing it does tell us -- and I know you know this -- it begins
to break the mold of what we used to see of school shooters, being
isolated, being perhaps bullied. And we don`t know whether that has
something to do with this, but basically, people who are disaffected, with
severe mental illness, and this seems to be breaking all of those
particular profiles, unless there is a lot that we don`t know. And I`m
sure there`s a lot we don`t know as to what may have been brewing in this
young man`s mind and in his life with this young lady.
MATTHEWS: From what we know of suicide -- and this was basically a
part of it, a suicidal attempt here, because we`ve seen evidence he may
have been saying good-bye to people and all that -- but I`m trying to
figure out here -- I`ve always been told that suicide doesn`t come from a
depressed reality as much as it comes from a shocking change in your
circumstances.
Could the woman`s rejection -- the young girl`s rejection at the age
of a freshman in high school be sufficient a motive to kill others -- her
and other people and yourself?
GARDERE: I think it might add to the drama that someone who has a
somewhat unstable personality is going through because, again, you`re
absolutely right, if everything is happening in a very calm, smooth way for
this individual, and all of a sudden, that`s ruptured by perhaps a young
woman who scorns him, or something in his life isn`t following what he`s
used to having as far as an orderly progression or some sort of progress in
his life, then that can cause him to go over the edge, especially if this
is someone, again, with a fragile personality that we just didn`t know was
that ill.
MATTHEWS: We all grew up with the poem (ph) Richard Corey (ph) about
the guy who had everything going for him, everything going for him, and
then he goes and shoots himself. Do you think the subjective and the
objective are very different? We don`t know what a person`s feeling, based
on being, you know, freshman class prince or whatever he was, I mean, does
that -- and playing on the football team, which normally would be the signs
of happiness and success and a good social life.
But we don`t know, do we, what he was thinking, feeling, living?
Jeff?
GARDERE: Oh, well, yes. Absolutely. I believe this was an
individual who very much had a facade. And perhaps being this -- you know,
the -- being in the student court, having -- being the prince of the --
named to the football team and so on has a lot to do with covering up a lot
of feelings and using that in many ways to keep a structure in a life that
may be falling apart.
And so when the seams begin to show, when the public begins to see
that maybe all of this is a mirage, then that person may feel suicidal, may
feel that self-doubt. The self-esteem is crushed, and it may push them
over the edge.
The other thing, Chris, is we just don`t know whether he had mental
health issues, was he on any psychiatric meds that some way -- in some way
may have contributed, as we`ve seen with young people with suicidal
warnings (ph) on antidepressants. So there`s a lot that we don`t know.
But as those pieces come together, we will begin to build the profile, the
real profile of this individual.
MATTHEWS: Dr. Jeff Gardere, thank you for joining us tonight.
Let`s go right now to Anthony Roman. Give me a sense now -- it seems
like schools don`t have metal detectors, and I`m told it`s because you
can`t have a metal detector without somebody there, standing there, who`s
willing to deal with a kid who comes in with a gun and has to either take
it off them, tell them to go away, or what. How do we make sure -- is
there any way to keep guns out of school cafeterias, to be blunt?
ANTHONY ROMAN, SECURITY EXPERT: Well, there isn`t a 100 percent
method of protecting any facility or preventing guns from entering the
facility. What you do is create layers of deterrents. You make it more
difficult for the individuals.
But more importantly than the physical security in this particular
circumstance is understanding the young man who was suffering these
problems. Clearly, based on some information we`ve developed on our way to
the studio, it appears that the young man was suffering emotionally and
that he had expressed that to many of his friends and colleagues. And it
should have been self-evident that he was having some serious problems at
that time.
If the schools would invest not only in upgrading security to a more
professional level, one layer of deterrent, and then another layer of
deterrent is the mental health issue, in which schools should reinvest in
social workers, in peer group leadership programs, in physicians,
psychiatrists and psychologists who can help these children during times of
stress -- and they don`t have to wait until there`s stress. They can run
encounter groups and discussion groups in which the kids deal with everyday
problems, so they defuse and learn to manage their problems as time goes on
and as they progress during their formative years.
MATTHEWS: But Anthony, we never had any of this stuff growing up. We
never had, you know, counselors and shrinks, if you will, hanging around
the school cafeteria -- the campus. You went to school, you got your
grades, you played sports, you played in the band, like I did, and you went
home.
How much -- how much schools have -- which schools have the money to
have the groups you`re talking about, the professionals, the psychologists,
the social psychologists, the psychiatry that you`re describing as
necessary to prevent this kind of incident? How many schools have that
kind of money?
ROMAN: They don`t have the money right now. As a matter of fact, all
of the programs are being cut down.
MATTHEWS: I know!
ROMAN: I`ve had experience in the school systems in which children
that I know need help in the formative years, in elementary school -- and
without help, some of these children would suffer some very serious
problems in the future. It becomes self-evident in the elementary schools.
So I think, at this juncture, we have to examine how high a cost is too
high.
MATTHEWS: Yes.
ROMAN: How many bodies in schools are too many before we...
MATTHEWS: I am telling you, there`s not a person watching right now,
Anthony, that wasn`t heart-sick over a romance starting around 12. We`ve
all been through it. You`ve been through it. I`ve been through it. The
girl doesn`t like you, the one you like, and the boy doesn`t like you, the
one you like. This is life. It`s called growing up.
And this -- you know, how do you separate those normal romantic, you
know, rejections, the unrequited love, we call it -- how do you separate
that from a felony, a mass shooting that`s about to occur?
ROMAN: Well, that is not always guaranteed that one can be able to do
that. But it`s training the children who are not having that kind of
training in the normal family environment to deal with the emotions and to
deal with them properly, so they can mature in a proper way.
In addition to that, coupling in school security, as you say. Do you
need, you know, detectors, metal detectors as you walk into every school?
That`s very obtrusive, and we don`t really want to see those in the school.
But if we have security guards -- and there are security guards in high
schools -- in most high schools today.
If we offer them additional training in how to spot kids with
problems. If we offer them additional training in how to spot kids with
problems -- these security guards often know the children on a different
level than the teachers do and can often spot the kids that are having
trouble, and can act as a big brother or big sister in circumstances like
this and preempt some of the problems themselves.
So perhaps we can use some of the resources we have in place today,
with a little bit of an investment, and a little bit more training for
those security guards.
MATTHEWS: OK, thanks so much for coming on this Friday night.
Anthony Roman -- what a night this has been.
And when we come back, the other big stories, none of them good.
Ebola in New York City -- we`re going to find out how the virus gets spread
and the new rules put in effect today to try to contain it, put in effect
today, after this happened.
Also today, some good news, I guess. President Obama meets the Texas
nurse, Nina Pham, who`s been declared Ebola-free. That is good news.
And this is HARDBALL.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MATTHEWS: We`re coming back with new information on the fight against
Ebola in this country, the USA, and the latest on the doctor in New York
who contracted the deadly disease when he was over working and helping
people in West Africa.
HARDBALL back after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NINA PHAM, NURSE, EBOLA SURVIVOR: This illness and this whole
experience has been very stressful and challenging for me and for my
family. Although I no longer have Ebola, I know that it may be a while
before I have my strength back. So with gratitude and respect for
everyone`s concern, I ask for my privacy and for my family`s privacy to be
respected as I return to Texas and try to get back to a normal life and
reunite with my dog, Bentley.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEWS: Well, today, Dallas nurse Nina Pham -- you just saw her
there -- who contracted Ebola after caring for Liberian patient Thomas Eric
Duncan, left the National Institutes of Health hospital here in Washington
-- actually, in Bethesda, and went over to the Oval Office, where she met
with President Obama.
Meanwhile, in New York, the doctor diagnosed with Ebola who treated
patients in the hot zone in West Africa itself, lies in Bellevue Hospital
tonight in New York City. Mayor Bill De Blasio rode the subway to City
Hall this morning, encouraging New Yorkers to not be afraid. And late
today, the governors of New York and New Jersey ordered a mandatory 21-day
quarantine for arriving travels who had contact with Ebola patients in West
Africa.
Here`s Governor Cuomo on the toughened new protocols.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D), NEW YORK: We believe it`s appropriate to
increase the current screening procedures for people coming from affected
countries from the current CDC screening procedures. We believe it is in
the state of New York and state of New Jersey`s legal rights to control
access to their borders. We will establish an interview and screening
process to determine an individual`s risk level by considering the
geographic area of origin and the level of exposure to the virus.
Depending on the risk level, a person could require a mandatory 21-day
quarantine, or (ph) at a government-regulated facility.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEWS: Joining me right now is practicing physician Dr. Nina
Radcliff. Doctor, thank you for joining us. I guess the questions that
people have now -- well, they have real questions about the authority of
anyone to tell us how you can get it and how you can`t. Is it absolutely
iron-clad we know how you get Ebola?
DR. NINA RADCLIFF, PHYSICIAN: Yes, it is. What we know is by
science, is that it can only be contracted by bodily fluids. That means
feces, vomit, blood and saliva.
MATTHEWS: Well, what about somebody who sneezes next to you on the
subway? This guy was riding the subway the other night -- night before
last. Was he able to transmit it by sneezing?
RADCLIFF: There`s two things. First of all, his viral counts were
probably very low, and he probably was not also having the symptoms of
coughing and sneezing. This is not an airborne disease. And yes, although
it possible to transmit it by saliva, at this time, it is unlikely.
MATTHEWS: So what do you do if you`re on a plane or a subway with
someone who`s sneezing? Do you assume -- what? They just have a -- they
just a cold or they just have the flu, even?
RADCLIFF: Right. What we need to know is that it is a very, very
minimal risk of getting Ebola because you`re on the subway, you`re touching
this person`s bowling ball, or if you`re going to the grocery store. It is
a very minimal risk at this time.
MATTHEWS: Well, why all the coverage tonight of the movement by New
Yorkers going around on the route this fellow took, this doctor took? He
went over to Brooklyn to bowl, over to Williamsburg. He took three
different subway lines, all listed in this morning`s "Washington Post."
Why so much information on the tick-tock here if he couldn`t have
transmitted it during that time? Or are we being overzealous?
RADCLIFF: Well, we need to understand that while people do not have
symptoms, they are not contagious. This person posed a very minimal risk
of contaminating other people. He was not vomiting. He was not having
diarrhea. He did not have a high viral count. We need to remember that.
We need to focus on the science, and not the fear of this. This is not an
airborne disease.
MATTHEWS: Well, thank you very much. People wanted to hear that.
Thank you, Dr. Nina Radcliff, coming to us from 30 Rock.
Let`s bring in our roundtable tonight. It`s Friday night, we`re going
to have the roundtable joining us. Jonathan Allen is Washington bureau
chief for Bloomberg. Emily Schultheis is a political reporter at "The
National Journal." And Paul Singer is politics editor at "USA Today."
Let me start with Jonathan here and this question of Ebola. We now
have a czar. His name is Ron Klain. Most of us know him. You can call
him an operative, if you want to be dismissive. He`s a lot more than that.
He`s a real public servant, a guy that comes in when he`s needed. He tried
to win the recount down in Florida. He lost it to a strong opponent, Jim
Baker.
But he`s a reliable source. Is he going to be a leader or a flack,
someone who just speaks the language that Susan Rice of Lisa Monaco wants
him to speak?
JONATHAN ALLEN, POLITICO: Probably a little bit of both.
This is somebody who is very highly regarded inside the White House.
He`s been mentioned as a possible White House chief of staff, a possible
White House counsel in the past and this may even be a stepping stone to
that for him. But I also think he`s somebody who`s a lot better at
articulating what the administration wants out there as a message than some
of the people that have been delivering it so far, including Dr. Frieden at
the CDC, who has had some difficulty doing that.
MATTHEWS: Will he have the ability to change the way the government
does things, or simply make a better case for the way they`re already doing
it? In other words, will he fix things? I like a fixer. I hope he`s a
fixer. Will he be one?
ALLEN: Well, that`s what I`m saying. I think the role is both. I
think if he sees things to be fixed, he will have that power to do it, but
also to articulate a little better.
Look, this White House is terrible at messaging.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: It`s got other problems, too.
ALLEN: Right. Right.
MATTHEWS: One of the problems it`s got is organization. I have got
criticized it from the beginning. OK, I`m traditional. There`s two ways
to run a White House, the Kennedy method, spokes of the wheel, calling up
the captain, calling up the major, calling up anybody during the Cuban
Missile Crisis to find out what`s going on, in other words, a person who
likes to deal with lots of people.
And then there`s the chain of command, the Eisenhower method, the
Reagan method, a strong chief of staff who cracks the whip, and everybody
knows their job and who their boss is. Which works here? I`m waiting for
one of those clarify itself and say, OK, this is the way Obama does things.
I don`t know which way he does things. Do we know now? Is there a chain
of command? Is there a president who is reaching out and checking with
people?
(CROSSTALK)
EMILY SCHULTHEIS, "NATIONAL JOURNAL": It`s something that I think, as
we have watched this Ebola crisis unfold, that it`s been clear that that`s
not really present.
You have seen that there`s -- there`s been questions about what`s
going on where, questions about who knows what at what time. Obviously, in
Dallas, we saw some of those issues coming to light.
And so now the idea that you do have somebody who`s going to be a
point person, who is going to be the person who theoretically all this is
going to go through, really -- should really help kind of keep that
response more streamlined.
MATTHEWS: Does he have the bureaucratic clout to be the boss? You
know what works in government? How many troops you have, how many people
working the phone, how many people that can work on your side to get
something done.
It seems like he`s dependent on Susan Rice at the NSA -- I mean the
NSC. Does he have his own team, or is he just sort of a fixture attached
to all that teamwork?
PAUL SINGER, "USA TODAY": Well, when Obama appoints you to run this
thing, and he wants them to run this thing -- part of the whole idea is --
and I think we have all done this in our newsrooms, is, we appointed one
editor to run our Ebola coverage, so it`s not coming out of everywhere.
And at the moment, Obama is really the primary spokesman on Ebola out
of this administration. For the moment, the president of the United States
is taking the lead in being the flack, as it were. He`s doing the talking.
MATTHEWS: But who`s in charge of making sure there`s no more screw-
ups, there`s no more needs to constantly change the protocols? Oh, I can`t
believe that happened.
The president has been accused by Krauthammer again today brilliant, I
thought, of always being the witness to something that just went wrong,
rather than the chief of state -- the chief of government.
SINGER: I think Klain is the guy. I believe that`s what they want...
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: He will be the boss?
SCHULTHEIS: Is to get this thing ordered, get it in line and get
everybody on the phone together to make sure we`re not making the same
mistakes.
ALLEN: Remember who the White House chief of staff is. It`s Denis
McDonough. This is a guy who is a foreign policy guy, a national security
guy, is not somebody who is really steeped in how the domestic agencies
work together.
SINGER: That`s right.
ALLEN: Podesta might be that type of guy, but he`s got a pretty big
writ.
And he`s leaving the White House at the end of the year. So, you
bring in Klain, somebody who has a lot of experience in government,
somebody you`re trying to maybe have a protege to move into that chief of
staff job.
MATTHEWS: Do you think Obama is ready to change his last two years
and become a real chief executive, not just a really good speech giver, or
inspirational leader, but actually accept the job of running the U.S.
government? Is he ready to take that job on every day, 24/7, I`m the guy
running this place?
Is he ready to do that?
SCHULTHEIS: Well, i think he needs to be.
You have seen really in the last year, there have been a whole host,
as Republicans point out on the campaign trail, a whole host of issues on
which he hasn`t been doing that. So if he wants to make his presidency
something to talk about, something to look up to, he really needs to work
on that in his last two years.
SINGER: Do presidents do that? Do presidents do that? Are the
presidents the ones who run the -- do they run the CDC? Are they the
ones...
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: They run the government of the United States and everybody
reports to them. That`s how we elect them.
By the way, there`s only one person we get to vote on, him.
SINGER: That`s true.
MATTHEWS: If we don`t like the way the government is running, we
don`t like him.
SINGER: That`s true.
MATTHEWS: But he`s got to run the place.
Look, here`s the question. Who`s running the health care system for
the president right now? Anybody know Anybody know the name of this
person? Because when he had the rollout problem, we kept saying, oh, oh,
it`s the COO, or the CMM of the HHS. And I actually don`t see that person
too often.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: You would think normally there would be somebody he would
have appointed the day he got the bill passed, I want this person talking
to me every day how it`s going, so when the rollout time comes, we know
it`s going to work.
SCHULTHEIS: Right.
And with something like Ebola too, there`s just not having good
information, not having streamlined information leads people to panic. And
that`s something that I think clearly the White House by bringing in Ron
Klain has recognized is happening.
And so when you have an issue that changes so quickly, that people
will talk about, are worried about, want to know what is happening, you
have to have that kind of a response.
MATTHEWS: Really? You think the United States, the American people
believe in this country when it talks -- the government when it talks about
Ebola, for example? Do you think they buy the fact that it`s hard to
catch?
SCHULTHEIS: Not really.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: You think they trust them?
SINGER: No, not at all.
MATTHEWS: Why don`t they trust them, Paul? Why don`t they trust the
government?
(CROSSTALK)
SINGER: There`s been a sufficient stream of things over the past
couple of years that suggest that they`re either incompetent or lying in a
lot of positions, whether it`s the NSA leaks, whether healthcare.gov that
crashed.
The whole series -- every -- you sort of now assume, well, if the
government`s doing it, they`re doing it wrong. And of course there`s a
cottage industry fueling the message that it`s all a conspiracy. It`s not
just mistakes. It`s a conspiracy and they`re bad people and it`s all
Obama`s fault.
So between the fact that the government is operating poorly and that
people are paying a lot of money to message that it`s all Obama`s fault,
it`s easier for people to believe they`re incompetent.
ALLEN: Isn`t the scary thing not whether it`s incompetence or lying,
but both, that there`s some great combination here?
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Yes, this isn`t about right-wing and left-wing and the
usual ideological fights we have around here. It`s about getting something
done right.
Anyway, thank you. We will be back with more of you guys. I like
your open minds.
Roundtable is coming back. And coming up, from Ebola to the school
shootings and the threat of a lone wolf terror attack again, what kind of
effect are these frightening stories having on an already jittery
electorate? It`s already set to vote in a little more than a week from
now. What`s this going to do, these crosswinds? I can`t believe it`s
going to help the incumbents.
This is HARDBALL, the place for politics.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MATTHEWS: Well, as I said, this is Friday night in America, and it`s
certainly a dangerous world out there, with everything going on from Canada
to what happened in Washington State today, God, to what is going on in New
York today with the guy with the hatchet, trying to kill the cops.
It`s a long time since we felt like this, don`t you think?
Anyway, today`s deadly shootings at Marysville High School out in
Washington State come just a day after this frightening picture of a man
with a hatchet attacking two police officers in Queens, New York. Today,
New York`s police commissioner said the attack was an act of self-
radicalized terrorism by a Muslim convert who ranted online against
America.
Well, Ebola is also in New York. The Canadian Parliament has just
been besieged by an extremist, and ISIS continues its reign of terror
across the Middle East. We`re 11 days actually from November`s elections.
How will all these crosswinds affects voters?
We`re back with the roundtable, Jonathan Allen, Emily Schultheis, and
Paul Singer.
Paul, how do you vote today if you`re one of those mysterious 4 to 12
percent undecided? I`m going through the math.
SINGER: I don`t know. You have just depressed me. I want to go out
and have a beer.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: OK.
(LAUGHTER)
SINGER: I think that`s the problem.
MATTHEWS: Florida is 44-44. That means 12 people haven`t made up
their mind, 12 percent.
SINGER: Exactly.
MATTHEWS: What are going to they do with all of this in their head?
SINGER: The most important poll question during the national
elections we look at is, is the country on the right track or the wrong
track? Clearly, at this moment, with all that we have seen on your show...
MATTHEWS: Who would say right track?
(LAUGHTER)
SINGER: Nobody would say right track.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: But there`s always someone.
(CROSSTALK)
SINGER: Looks good to me.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: It`s like the guy that liked Clinton more after Monica.
Remember those people? That was a weird group.
SINGER: So, and that`s a real problem for anybody who has D next to
their name. It has to be a problem.
If the president is polling at 30 percent approval ratings, how do you
get 50 percent of the people to vote for you and you`re in the same party?
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: And if you`re a right-winger, a Republican even, all you
have to do is say, do like the way things are going? Unless you`re Scott
Walker in Wisconsin, and you say, I like the way things are going.
(LAUGHTER)
ALLEN: Yes.
It`s bad for some of the incumbent Republican governors. But it`s
very good for the Republicans running for Senate and running for House
right now. People are afraid right now. And it doesn`t look like the
president`s leading in the direction they want him to.
By the way, the big statistic is economics and it`s the stagnant
waging. It`s not that necessarily people think the economy is going
terribly, but it`s not going well for them. And they don`t have that
ability, Democrats don`t have the ability to say, look what we have done
for you or here`s the hope that you can have. If you look at median
salaries for folks...
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Isn`t the market back up again today?
ALLEN: Yes, market is up, but talk about people`s paychecks. There`s
the same since before the recession.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Look at this number. To make your point, respond to this
Emily, because this is factual. This isn`t just psychobabble.
According to the Politico poll just out, things feel -- the number of
people who feels things are out of control is 64 percent, out of control,
not unpleasant. It`s an amazing thing.
SCHULTHEIS: Right.
And that`s something where people would have given Obama the benefit
of the doubt on one thing, would have given him the benefit of the doubt on
two things. But when you have foreign policy crises going on, you have got
terrorism, you have, as you pointed out, things happening here in the
United States, all of that contributes to a place in which voters don`t
feel safe. They feel like they don`t know what`s coming next.
And that is not the environment you want to be in if you are President
Obama or one of his allies right now.
MATTHEWS: Let me focus on you for a second now. Suppose you`re
president of the United States and you go to bed at night. You have to
have in your consciousness what just happened in Canada, what just happened
in New York City, the cop with -- the hatchet going at the poor guys, the
new Ebola -- you had said it was unlikely to be here.
It`s here. Then you have to look at the school sort of psychology of
these kids with the usual emotional problems of dating and high school
going horrible, horribly lethal, and you have to put all that in your head
and say, what am I doing to lead this country? And then you have to keep
in your mind all the government branches, there`s a war going on in ISIS,
all the allies you got to deal with, the enemies you have to deal with, all
the things going on every policy level from health care to make Obamacare
work.
How does one person run that world like Obama, especially a college
professor, a law professor really? How does he do this?
SCHULTHEIS: I don`t have any insight into how somebody could handle
all of those things at once. And I think that`s the problem is that people
think that he can`t. People think that there are million things going on
right now.
MATTHEWS: Who can? What human being is capable of that?
SCHULTHEIS: I don`t know.
(CROSSTALK)
ALLEN: I think this is going to be the argument that`s very hard for
a lot of 2016 candidates, whether you`re talking about Rand Paul, possibly
Ted Cruz, you`re talking about Elizabeth Warren, who is now opening the
door.
MATTHEWS: None of them are executives, by the way.
ALLEN: None of them are executives. And they`re first-term senators.
And they`re going to be trying -- some of them will be trying to run for
president after Barack Obama saying, I`m a first-term senator, give me a
shot. And I think the American public is going to look at it and go, we
just tried this, and those folks are not good at administering. They`re
not good at executive jobs.
SINGER: But it also speaks to, you have to be insane to want the job.
Who believes -- who among us believes...
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Or you have met the other people who might get it.
SINGER: Well, that`s also possible.
MATTHEWS: That`s what they all have to decide. They end up meeting
the others. They go, I can do that.
(LAUGHTER)
SINGER: And, by the way, Hillary Clinton, if she runs, she is going
to bring the 3:00 phone call back and say, see, I`m the one...
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: I know one thing we have. The job description of every new
president is the failure of the previous one.
SINGER: Yes.
MATTHEWS: You always want to fix -- so, George W. was considered not
too bright, made big mistakes, pushed around by Cheney, the neocons.
We wanted a president who was smarter, more academic, who read books,
and thought that was a bad way to be going. But we didn`t ask all the
other questions. Well, how are you good at running things?
We will be right back with the roundtable. They`re staying with us.
And up next, Joni Ernst, the Republican running for the Senate in
Iowa, is pushing Second Amendment remedies, personhood, and says states can
nullify federal law. She is a radical candidate disguised as a hog
castrator.
You`re watching HARDBALL, the place for politics.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MILISSA REHBERGER, MSNBC CORRESPONDENT: I`m Milissa Rehberger.
Here`s what`s happening.
Authorities remain -- say remains found over the weekend have been
positively identified as those of missing UVA student Hannah Graham. The
remains were found less than 10 miles from where the 18-year-old was last
seen in mid-September.
And a suspect is in custody following an intense manhunt in
California. Authorities say a gunman fatally shot a Sacramento County
sheriff`s deputies, then -- deputy, then fled. The same suspect allegedly
shot two other officers and the drive during an attempted carjacking. We
have just learned that a second officer has died -- back to HARDBALL.
MATTHEWS: Back to HARDBALL and back to the roundtable.
Let`s talk politics tonight.
We have got ourselves a barn burner in Iowa, where Republicans have
pulled a rabbit out of the hat in the hog castrator, Joni Ernst. This is a
remarkable thing, with the help of that wild Ernst, as she`s managed to
outrun a litany of fringe comments she made before about -- well, they kind
of -- I think a lot of them border on lunacy.
Yesterday, Huffington Post dug up video of Ernst two years ago saying
pretty remarkable things about the Second Amendment. She`s made comments
about supporting nullification. She wants to arrest public officials for
implementing the Affordable Care Act.
She`s pushed for laws that would effectively ban all abortions. She`s
painted to the hard right`s wacky black helicopter theories, and the list
goes on.
By the way, this is Iowa, a state that President Obama carried twice.
Right now, Ernst is up by two points against Democrat Bruce Braley. The
margin of error there is 3.
We`re back with our panel. Jon, Emily, and Paul.
Who wants to take this on? Because I think Ernst can win. But I`m
not sure the voters fully appreciate who she is -- Paul.
SINGER: Well, I think some of those ideas are not as fringy as we
think here in Washington. The idea of carrying my gun, because I don`t
trust the government that they might try to, you know, at some point, take
my gun or invade my home.
MATTHEWS: How would you use the gun?
SINGER: Well, this is as we were talking about before -- people are
afraid, people don`t think anybody`s in charge. Now, it makes sense to
have a gun.
MATTHEWS: What would be the use of the gun if the government try to
do something you didn`t like? You`d shoot them.
SINGER: You`d shoot them.
MATTHEWS: That is normal.
SINGER: That`s not as fringy an idea as you think. There are a lot
of people in America who think that is not an unreasonable to say.
MATTHEWS: So, in other words, if you don`t like the tax law, if you
don`t like Obamacare, you`re pulling your gun?
SINGER: This is how far do you take it? That`s the next question.
ALLEN: Pulling your gun because you don`t like Obamacare is crazy.
But Joni Ernst, the reason she`s in a position she is in, she`s a much
better candidate than Bruce Braley. When she said things that are on the
fringe, she says them in a tone and in a way that doesn`t alienate --
MATTHEWS: Has she been sculpted by smart consultants?
ALLEN: Yes.
MATTHEWS: Thank you.
ALLEN: Yes, absolutely. They figured out how to get her talking in a
way that`s very approachable. You know, that hog castration ad you were
talking about before, got her on the map, helped her get through the
primary and now, what you`re seeing from her is very positive, she`s
standing in a pig pen in the last ad I saw. Basically saying, I can clean
up Washington like I can clean up --
MATTHEWS: How does she get past the Second Amendment remedy things,
where you say you`re going to use your gun if you don`t like the feds? It
killed Sharron Angle in Nevada.
EMILY SCHULTHEIS, NATIONAL JOURNAL: Joni Ernst isn`t Sharon Angle.
Joni Ernst I think in general has been a far stronger candidate. And she`s
somebody who, you know, like Jon said, she`s somebody who has this profile
of, she`d be the first female elected senator from Iowa. She`s a combat
veteran. She`s a mom. She`s got all these things that she really has.
A year ago, we were talking about Republicans have nobody to run in
Iowa. Now we`re saying, okay, they have someone with a legitimate image
and profile that she`s created in a state that serves her well.
MATTHEWS: What do you do if you`re a voter and you maybe center, not
far fringy like you say? Which you say is now the new norm. I don`t think
it is in Iowa by the way. But it may be OK in certain parts of Idaho,
perhaps, Eastern Idaho.
But let me ask you -- what do you do if you see the woman? She`s
attractive, you like the way she speaks. Then you read the articles about
what she`s said in the past? Do you project forward the nice parts that
you see out there in the ads, in the debate? Or do you say, wait a minute,
if she`s talking like that when nobody`s watching, she may vote like that
when she gets to the Senate.
SINGER: I think people want to go and vote for somebody that reminds
them of themselves, that makes them feel comfortable, that makes them feel
like, yes, you know, this one -- and, Braley, I honestly, you`re right,
he`s not as radical, he`s not as dramatic, whatever else. He`s also not
particularly inspiring. He doesn`t make people go -- I can`t wait to vote
for Bruce named Bailey or Braley, depending on who he`s talking to.
So, I think she has the advantage that people can walk into the
polling booth and say, you know, I like that woman. Maybe she`s kooky, but
I like that woman.
MATTHEWS: Well, let`s take a look at this. Here`s Chuck Todd got a
hold of her and talked about her fringe past. Let`s listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHUCK TODD, MEET THE PRESS: Very early when you were running for
Senate, you took some very conservative positions, personhood came up,
abortion, this agenda 21, you even talked about impeachment. You walked
them all back.
What should voters now take away from that? You took some of those
positions and then you say, maybe I didn`t mean to take that, I`m not
there, it`s a statement of principle in personhood. What should voters
take away from that?
STATE SEN. JONI ERNST (R-IA), U.S. SENATE CANDIDATE: Well, I would
say that a lot of those issues weren`t issues that were pushed by me. They
were questioned that were asked by media or other members of certain groups
--
TODD: In this case, it was conservative groups getting you to sign on
to some pledge.
ERNST: Well, and didn`t necessarily sign on to pledges that dealt
with those issues.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEWS: That was Ronald Reagan talking there. Reagan could do the
same thing, guys. He could say that`s the way they got asked the question.
He was untouchable.
ALLEN: She sounded like a United States senator, pointing to the
media. And you know what, Chris? She`s going to be the prototype. She
wins. You`re going to see Joni Ernst clones being run by Senate
Republicans for years and years.
MATTHEWS: OK. This is why they don`t want mainstream or liberal
moderators at their debates in 2016, because they`ve accused them of
bringing up questions like the creation of the earth and Genesis and those
kinds of things. You know what I mean? They don`t like fundamental
questions being asked to these --
SINGER: Right. And you saw that answer was not most sort of
politically savvy answer. I mean, she --
MATTHEWS: Pretty good, though. She said, you media guys --
SINGER: She wouldn`t stand up, she could have said, I misspoke, I
said the right thing, or she could have said, I still believe some of that
stuff. But she doesn`t say any of that.
MATTHEWS: Well, you said, there you go again.
SINGER: There you go again.
MATTHEWS: You`re bringing Reagan anyway.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: The roundtable is sticking with us. Look who`s back in the
headlines this week? Monica Lewinsky, I think she`s got a good case on
this one.
And today, "The Washington Post" revealed now details about the harsh
treatment she got when she was ambushed by federal prosecutors working for
Ken Starr, 12 hours of sort of verbal rubber hosing and threats of prison
time of 26 years if she didn`t talk. That`s ahead.
This is HARDBALL, a place for politics.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MATTHEWS: I`m going to be hosting a live Twitter chat on Monday at
1:00 p.m. Eastern. Tweet me your questions about the midterms and all the
close races using the #msnbcVote. I`ll be answering some of them, most if
I can, in fact. Again, that`s 1:00 p.m. Eastern on Monday.
We`ll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MATTHEWS: We`re back. Well, Monica Lewinsky long ago said she was
treated roughly by overly aggressive members of the FBI and, of course, Ken
Starr`s team of prosecutors when they ambushed her one day at a suburban
Washington mall in 1998.
Now, a government report that was previously thought to be sealed from
the public and was recently obtained by "The Washington Post". It backs up
Lewinsky`s claims of mistreatment. The report is critical of the lead
prosecutor on the scene that day, Michael Emmick.
Quote, "We find that OIC, that`s independent council conduct, was
influenced and indeed largely driven by the poor judgment Emmick exhibited
in his formulation and execution of the approach to achieve Lewinsky`s
cooperation. The department requires far greater respect for an
individual`s choice of attorney, for attorney-client relationships and for
the role of defense attorneys in the process that it was exemplified in
this case."
Well, back now with John, Emily and Paul.
I was not a big believer in the early claim this week from Ms.
Lewinsky that she was a victim of blah, blah, blah of society, in fact.
But I do think there`s a real case here that the disproportionate behavior
by Ken Starr`s troopers, when they grabbed her, they set her up by having
Linda Tripp say, we`re having lunch, all of a sudden, these guys swoop on
her, take her to a room saying, if you`re trying to get a lawyer, your
witness will not be valuable enough to get you out of prison. Keep you out
of prison.
Really rough treatment.
SINGER: Well, I mean, every prosecution -- every criminal prosecution
is coercion. They were coercing this woman to testify. It was an
unpleasant experience. It was meant to be an unpleasant experience. They
clearly went over the line. They`re saying, you know, you can`t --
MATTHEWS: They didn`t want him lawyered up, did they?
SINGER: Yes. They said if you go to your lawyer, you lose your
immunity.
ALLEN: The White House counsel was her lawyer in about 10 seconds had
she been able to make a phone call. I mean, you know, potentially have the
White House counsel --
MATTHEWS: Will this spin in the direction of making people --
remember `98 went? You guys all know -- you know all what happened. `98,
the public thought Clinton did something wrong. They never believe what he
said. But they didn`t think it was worth a constitutional crisis. They
didn`t impeachment made sense, conviction certainly not.
And so, the Republicans got hurt. They overdid it. But in a weird
way, they make Clinton look innocent, although he wasn`t innocent, you
know, they flipped it. Well, this may help Hillary Clinton when she runs
for president. That he was a victim of overkill that really he did a
little thing wrong, but there are a lot worse was done to him.
SCHULTHEIS: Well, I certainly think that it helps in that direction,
particularly, like as you say, as the Clintons are back very perpetually in
the public eye these days. And it`s something, that since then, we have
seen his public approval ratings slowly climb back up.
He`s one of the most popular, in-demand politicians in the country.
So, something like this can only add to that, to show that there were
further overreaches and things that were done wrong on the opposition side.
ALLEN: You have a feature on this show, side show. And Monica
Lewinsky at this point is a side show. And it`s a sad side show, I think,
that she continues to have -- the only way she can get along in society is
by this scandal that`s old enough to drive by now. It`s probably like 16
years old.
It`s sad what happened to her. She`s clearly taken advantage of by
the president of the United States. Clearly --
MATTHEWS: Is she taking advantage of it, too?
ALLEN: Of course, yes. People say intern and you think 16-year-old.
I think she was 22 or 24, or something like that.
MATTHEWS: I had two jobs on Capitol Hill at that point of my life. I
was working about 20 hours a day.
ALLEN: It doesn`t mean she should suffer for the rest of her life
though for it. Nor does it mean she shouldn`t keep injecting herself into
the public to continue that cycle --
MATTHEWS: She`s a colleague now. She`s a columnist for "The Vanity
Fair" magazine.
SINGER: Yes. Well, this is I think the right point, exactly. We`re
going to hear a lot more about this if Hillary --
MATTHEWS: Is this good for the Clintons?
SINGER: I honestly think it is. The Clintons are able to say we`re
done with this. We`ve moved passed it. And it becomes more of a side
show. The first time she appears, it becomes a big news story for us.
And, of course, that was two years before actually running for anything.
MATTHEWS: I just thought, Secretary Clinton, I don`t know her that
well. When I`m with her, I really enjoy her company. But she should have
a cup of coffee with Monica and get passed this. I know it`s hard.
SINGER: No. What are you crazy?
MATTHEWS: No, I`m normal.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Moving on, get it behind us.
Anyway, Jonathan Allen, thank you. Emily Schultheis, great name.
Paul Singer, I`m not sure about you.
When we return, let me finish with Joni Ernst masquerading as a
mainstream Republican.
You`re watching HARDBALL, the place for politics.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MATTHEWS: Let me finish tonight with this.
There are few more things frightening in this world than a masquerade,
when someone truly scary pretends to be someone safe and comforting. I
give you the case of Joni Ernst.
She brilliantly introduced herself as the hog castrator, armed with an
image like that, it`s not surprising she was able to blind us to her more
forbidding aspects. Like the bank robber who wears the Nixon mask, it
becomes the only thing memorable to the eyewitness. Nobody notices how
tall the person was or what accent they had.
Joni Ernst, with a help of political makeup artist, was able to
present herself to Iowa voters and to the national media as simply the hog
castrator. Who could think about anything else to say about her after that
show stopper? Who had anything to ask about her after that introduction?
Well, we should have asked. More to the point we should have
remembered. Ernst is the one who said two years ago that she would use her
gun against the U.S. government if it did something that infringed on her
rights, echoing the same crazy talk of Sharron Angle of Nevada. She`s out
is there on tape now bragging about using her Second Amendment rights to
open fire on a government official she doesn`t like doing what he or she is
doing.
Ernst is clear on this point. She says that states have the right to
nullify what the federal government is doing. They have the right to
arrest federal officials who attempt to carry out the law. She points to
Obamacare as a prime example. Iowa she says need not worry what the United
States Congress decides. If the state doesn`t like a law passed by
Congress, it merely has to arrest any government official attempts to carry
it out.
Nullification that`s what it`s called is one of the basis for the
civil wars, states they can simply ignore, reject, defy what the national
government decides. This is radicalism. This is a political point of view
that needs to be fully understood by the voters of Iowa. If they elect
Ernst, that`s their call. If they elect her while ignoring their deepest
political beliefs, they are failing in their duty to their state as well as
their country.
Don`t fall for the castration ad. Think what`s behind it, think of
the cold-blooded broad daylight scam that`s being perpetrated here, this
masquerading of the dangers in the guys at the safe, comforting and merely
quirky.
That`s HARDBALL for now. Thanks for being with us.
"ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES" starts right now.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY
BE UPDATED.
END
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'Hardball with Chris Matthews' for Friday, October 24th, 2014
Read the transcript to the Friday show