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All In With Chris Hayes, Tuesday, January 6th, 2015

Read the transcript from the Tuesday show

Show: ALL IN with CHRIS HAYES
Date: January 6, 2015
Guest: Katrina Vanden Heuvel, Philip Bump, Vicky Ward, Walter Madison

CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST (voice-over): Tonight on ALL IN.

JOSEPH BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I am not doing
this.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, you are. It`s part of the job.

HAYES: Joe Biden was bidening, the donors were scootering (ph),
senators were exchanging hog castration devices on the Hill. Welcome to
your 114th Congress.

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D), CHICAGO: This House will continue to be led
by a proud son of Ohio.

HAYES: Tonight, the Republican mutiny that almost managed to topple
John Boehner, as the president throws his first brush back of 2015.

Then, Steve Scalise takes his spot in leadership as a Republican
David Duke problem persists.

Plus, the new mini-scandal over Chris Christie`s offensive holding in
Dallas, and inside the underage sex scandal that has famed attorney Alan
Dershowitz proclaiming his innocence from the rooftops.

ALAN DERSHOWITZ, ATTORNEY: I don`t even know who she is.

HAYES: ALL IN starts right now.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HAYES: Good evening, from New York. I`m Chris Hayes.

Within hours of the very first day of the brand new Congress,
President Obama promised his first veto with the Keystone pipeline
legislation, and Speaker Boehner faces Republican mutiny on whether he
should keep his job.

Welcome to the 114th Congress.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

REP. ALAN GRAYSON (D), FLORIDA: A national poll asked the following
questions, what do you have a higher opinion of, Congress or hemorrhoids?
Congress, 31 percent, hemorrhoids, 53 percent.

HAYES (voice-over): America didn`t much care for the old Congress.

GRAYSON: What do you have a higher opinion of? Congress or dog
poop.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Will the gentleman suspend?

GRAYSON: Congress, 40 percent, dog poop, 47 percent.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Will the gentleman suspend?

GRAYSON: Yes.

HAYES: But it`s a new year. The country has elected a new Congress
and today was its very first day. It`s a day of new beginnings, a day
where the gallery is full, cute kids are in abundance, and Joe Biden gets
to be Joe Biden.

BIDEN: Best guy in the United States Senate.

Hey, everybody. Come on over here, son. How are you?

UNIDENTIFIED BOY: Charlie.

BIDEN: Charlie, how are you doing, man?

I need a hug, kid. Come on.

(CROSSTALK)

OK, up there. OK.

And you guys want to get sworn in?

HAYES: So maybe this Congress will be better than the last one.
After all, the 114th Congress is the most diverse Congress in history.
It`s 80 percent white, 80 percent male and 92 percent Christian.

First order of business for the most diverse Congress in history,
electing a speaker.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: John Boehner, once again, facing a built of a
revolt as he speaks a third term in that role.

HAYES: The seriousness of the task weighs heavily on many. And as
lawmakers begun to cast their votes, it became clear that John Boehner had
some challengers.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Gohmert? Gohmert. Yoho. Yoho. Clawson of
Florida. Senator Rand Paul.

PELOSI: The Honorable John Boehner.

HAYES: John Boehner won this one, but he had to fight off a serious
insurrection, 25 members of his own party declined to vote for the guy nor
any defections of speaker in recent memory. That`s 13 more than the second
highest in two decades, John Boehner in the last Congress.

So, here`s where we`re at with the 114th Congress. The new speaker
if the old speaker, the speaker`s party is at odds with him, still. And
the guy who spent $13 million to give Republicans full control of Congress
was back again to watch it all play out. Sheldon Adelson was on hand after
the 2012 election and he was there for today`s big show. If things keep
going his way, maybe they`ll build a Jerry Jones style owner`s box for him
in the House gallery so he can watch his teams play.

BIDEN: Come on. Bring the team up.

HAYES: So, on this day of fresh starts and new beginnings, it`s
already looking like dog poop --

GRAYSON: Dog poop --

HAYES: -- has nothing to fear.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HAYES: Joining me now, former governor of Vermont, former chair of
the Democratic National Committee, Dr. Howard Dean. He`s also an MSNBC
contributor.

So, if you look at it numerically, oh, he lost 25 votes. But,
historically, this doesn`t just happen. Everyone falls in line. They vote
for the speaker. Plus, I thought this was really interesting, there were
three freshmen Republicans today and they show up on their first day,
they`re just elected, and they vote against the speaker. I mean, that --
you know, that takes some guts.

HOWARD DEAN, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: That would be charitable. It takes
some guts.

You know, they`re intellectually challenged on that side of the
aisle. I wish I could be more nice about it. But that`s like odd group of
people.

HAYES: Or their principle, right? I mean, so let me give the best-
case scenario here. This is all tactical, right? You`re -- basically,
you`re showing up, day one, look, we`re not going along to get along.

You`re sending this message. You`re going to have to deal with us.
You`re going to have to listen to us. The tail is going to wag the dog
again.

And maybe from a negotiating standpoint, that`s a good opening bit.

DEAN: Three people, freshmen, voting against a speaker is not going
to have any effect about what goes on. But it does say something about the
people who are so determined to get their own way that they don`t give a
damn what the hell happens to the country.

I mean, the idea was and this is what the Republican is, that we`re
all going to try to work together now that we`re in charge. That`s what
they need to do.

If they don`t do that, they have no shot in 2016, no matter who they
nominate.

HAYES: Right.

DEAN: So, these 25 people, basically, are saying we don`t care about
the Republican Party. All we care about is the right wing agenda that
we`re here to set out and we`re not working with anybody. I think that`s
not such a good start.

HAYES: There was this --

DEAN: And it doesn`t help them any because nobody is going to pay
any attention to them.

HAYES: Well, and you know how Boehner is going around threatening
his retribution for people who voted against him, which also makes sense.

DEAN: I`ll tell you, Chris. There`s the real problem for Boehner is
if they keep doing that, he`s going to have to go get 25 Democrat votes and
move his entire legislative program to the left in order to do that.
That`s what these guys are doing when they`re voting against him.

HAYES: That is the big question. The open question I think in this
Congress is there`s two ways this goes. One is everyone works in lockstep
in the House and Senate, right? They move through a Republican agenda.
They pass this stuff that the president then has to veto.

DEAN: There`s certainly going to be some of that.

HAYES: Right.

But then the big question is, do you end up in a situation where he`s
facing such revolt all the time that on must-pass legislation, he has to go
get Nancy Pelosi.

DEAN: We`ve already seen that, too. The only way he kept the
government open the last couple of votes, big votes with the last Congress,
was to actually go and get about 125 Democrats and let 80 of his own people
walk. That is not conducive to long life as a speaker.

HAYES: Right. We see the number tick up. He survived again.

There was something today that is a little bit buried that I think is
just fascinating. I keep marveling over the kind of disconnect between
what people voted for in the fall, and what his agenda is going to look
like.

Buried in the House rules that are going to be voted on tomorrow is a
procedural change to change a routine way in which different accounts of
Social Security, there`s Social Security disability insurance, there`s
Social Security for seniors, right, in which those accounts are moved
around. And basically, it`s opening up a procedural opportunity for
Republicans to attack disability insurance.

DEAN: This is incredibly complicated. What they did basically is
make it harder for them to make an allocation.

HAYES: Right.

DEAN: Because they can`t move money around by a vote without the
Senate and the president and so forth and so on. You`re going to see a lot
of this stuff. There`s a much more dangerous one coming. They`re about to
use the rules to use something called dynamic scoring.

This is supply economics at its worst. What`s led to the enormous
Bush Democrat -- deficits, enormous Reagan deficits. It`s phony economics.

What they do is they spend, this is a typical Republican. They cut
taxes and they spend money and the budget balance gets worse. And dynamic
scoring means they can invent growth down the road.

HAYES: They can say because we cut taxes.

DEAN: And spend the money now.

And that`s going to be -- this is a bad change that you talked about
because it`s going to hurt people on disability.

HAYES: Right, they`re coming after it.

DEAN: What they`re really going to do is wreck the finances of the
nation, which should be the fourth time Republican administrations have
tried to do this. And that`s really dangerous.

HAYES: I think one of the most fascinating things is, are we going
to see government spending go up again, because one of the kinds of myths
of Washington is Republicans are for balanced or for lower governments --

DEAN: They`re not.

HAYES: It`s never been proven to be the case, historically.

DEAN: That`s the Tea Party exists in part because George W. Bush
creating this enormous deficit.

HAYES: And they were the effective in 2010 and 2011.

DEAN: Right.

HAYES: I think that`s all out the window.

Howard Dean, always a pleasure. Glad you`re here.

DEAN: Thanks, Chris.

HAYES: All right. So the very first item on the brand new Senate
majority leader to-do list is a bill authorizing the very controversial
Keystone XL pipeline. Well, that hit a major snag today, when in the first
moments of the new Congress, the White House announced if the Keystone bill
passed, the president would veto it:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: You and the president have been fairly down beat on the
Keystone pipeline. The governor is moving ahead with the legislation.
Have you taken a fresh look at this?

JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I mean, not really. The
fact that this piece legislation is not all together different than the
legislation introduced in the last Congress, and you`ll recall that we put
out a statement of position indicating that the president would have vetoed
had that bill passed the previous Congress. And I can confirm for you that
if this bill passes this congress, the president wouldn`t sign it either.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: This evening, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell
responded, saying the veto threat won`t necessarily stop Congress from
sending President Obama the bill. Today, efforts to move forward on that
Keystone legislation were delayed by Senate Democrats. An objection from
Senator Dick Durbin forcing the cancellation of a hearing on a pipeline
tomorrow, giving us an indication of what this Congress is going to be
looking like for the foreseeable future.

Joining me now, Katrina Vanden Heuvel, my boss at "The Nation", where
I am editor-at-large, she`s editor and publisher.

Great to have you here.

KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL, THE NATION: Thank you, Chris.

HAYES: So, this is the big -- I mean, we saw a very different -- I
felt -- Barack Obama post-midterm in the last few months. He just seemed
to not care anymore with the politics.

VANDEN HEUVEL: Liberated.

HAYES: Taking action where he could. You know, damn the
consequences. Sort of recognizing there (INAUDIBLE)

Do you think -- the big question is does that carry through this
time?

VANDEN HEUVEL: I think so. I think we`ll see it in terms of
protecting his agenda and priorities. We may not see it on some budget
items. But I think on Keystone, you saw the first skirmish today. The
president will veto. And he needs to because this is going to be the first
of many environmental climate-related bills. The next one up will be how
to take authority away from the EPA on power plants.

Basically, the bottom line, Chris, is this is a Congress right now,
Republican Congress, working for the oil companies, the coal companies,
deniers, leaving our children, grandchildren voiceless.

The president saw his poll ratings go up. Let`s not forget at the
end of last year, when he seemed liberated, as a second term president on
immigration, on normalizing relations with Cuba, speaking on a free
Internet --

HAYES: On the China climate pact, it was sort of amazing.

VANDEN HEUVEL: I think it`s a win-win, politically, and policy. But
I do think there are going to be trade-offs. We`re going to see probably a
trade deal, which is NAFTA on steroids which privileges corporations over
ordinary people. We`re going to see some game-playing with some of the
budget. I think tax reform is tricky. And infrastructure --

HAYES: Tax reform -- when you say tax reform on K Street, you just
get this light in the eyes of every lobbyist. Oh, really? We`re going to
do tax reform? Let me tell you some reforms I want.

VANDEN HEUVEL: Working people have gotten shafted enough by Wall
Street tax reform. If you really want to see tax reform which will benefit
those who have benefitted from the recession, 95 percent of income gain has
gone to the top 1 percent. So, I do think it`s going to be a mix bag, but
I do think the president has seen the power of the veto and has used it
wisely. Yes.

HAYES: We`re going to see those veto threats. The point we made to
the top there about the environmental is so important, because that is
something -- again, when I talk about this disconnect, what was the
campaign about and what are they going to do. They ran a lot of ads on
Keystone.

So, I think there`s a pretty good small d democratic case. We ran on
this, we`re going to try to pass its. They didn`t run a ton on the EPA.

But that is something they are going to be attacking. And the veto
is going to be this line of defense.

VANDEN HEUVEL: You know, Chris, we know -- listen, on so many
issues, we can`t let an obstructionist right wing or a highly centrist
Democratic Party define what is politically permissible. It is time to be
bold, passionate, push the limits of the debate, particularly on the
economics of this.

But let`s have a great, green jobs deal. Let`s put out there what
would appeal to millions of Americans because you`re so right, the
disconnect between what`s going on inside the Beltway, what went on during
the election, what millions of people really seek from a Democratic Party
that could regain its identity.

I mean, the attack on Social Security you and Governor Dean we`re
talking about, if the Democratic Party stands for anything, it shouldn`t be
just for defending Social Security. It should be what Senator Warren and
Senator Brown speak to, which is expanding economic security, retirement
security.

HAYES: Senator Warren today tweeting about this rule change which I
think we`re going to talk about tomorrow because I think the vote is going
to do that tomorrow on this sort of -- on the disability fund. But that`s
-- you know, these are the signals now that we`re going to get. We all
know that they`re going to go after the Affordable Care Act.

But all of the other stuff, we`re going to see it filter through.
And how up front they are about it I think to me is going to be one of the
big questions.

VANDEN HEUVEL: Very important. And I think we`ll see it, Alan
Grayson laid out some of it earlier. But Senator Warren has the clarion
call.

And I say that in 2015, she leads the way to take back the Senate in
2016. The map will be better. She is someone who can do that effectively.

HAYES: Katrina Vanden Heuvel, always a pleasure.

VANDEN HEUVEL: Thank you.

HAYES: Hey. This is the 150th anniversary edition, right? 1865?

(CROSSTALK)

HAYES: A hundred fifty years, man. That`s really something. I`m
very excited.

VANDEN HEUVEL: Thank you.

HAYES: We can do a lot of fun stuff on that this year.

All right. What does it say about house Republicans after they
decide to keep one of their colleagues and leadership even though he spoke
to white nationalist groups founded by David Duke?

We`ll talk about that, ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES: And, now, time for an important, nonpartisan public service
announcement with an eye on 2016. Jeb Bush launched a new fund raising
organization today. He did it by posting a video on Instagram and
Facebook. This is a video of him walking down a city street in lightly
falling snow talking about his PAC.

Here`s the thing, that video was shot on a phone on portrait phone,
which is wrong. There`s a very easy fix on this technology blunder. You
just turn the phone sideways so it`s in landscape mode, like this, see how
much better this nice, wide screen, horizontal video is?

So, remember, folks, when shooting video on your phone, turn it
sideways. That goes for everyone, not just you, Jeb Bush.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES: John Boehner`s re-election keeps the Republicans leadership
team intact. That means Steve Scalise, the number three Republican in the
House, appears poised to survive his brush his political death upon the
revelation he had spoken to a white nationalist group in 2002 founded by a
former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke. That`s a great file photo.

And civil rights icon and Georgia Representative John Lewis wants
Scalise to apologize directly to Congress, members of the Congressional
Black Caucus are stopping short of calling for Scalise to resign. One
member told "BuzzFeed", "If something else comes out, it`s over."

The White House said yesterday the House GOP`s decision to keep
Scalise in its leadership is telling.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EARNEST: Who they keep in leadership is saying a lot who they are,
what their values are and what the priorities of the conference should be.
Mr. Scalise reportedly described himself as David Duke without the baggage.
So, it will be up to Republicans to decide what that says about their
conference.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: It`s easy to forget in 2015, when a prominent political
figure David Duke used to be. A one-time Democrat who switched to the
Republican Party in 1998 subsequently won on term as Louisiana state
representative. Duke did remarkably well in runs for Louisiana senator and
governor in the early 1990s, forcing a runoff in 1991 gubernatorial
election and winning more than 60 percent of the white vote.

He spent the last couple of decades running for office, books,
serving prison time for tax and mail fraud, and spotting racist and anti-
Semitic theories. Though, I should note, like everyone else in America,
David Duke insists he`s not a racist.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL O`REILLY, FOX NEWS: Don`t sit here and tell me you`re not
trying to promote the cause of white people, because you are.

DAVID DUKE, FORMER KU KLUX KLAN MEMBER: Look, I am absolutely -- I
love my people, my heritage. I want to preserve my heritage like every
people does.

O`REILLY: Preserve your heritage? What does that mean?

DUKE: How about European heritage?

O`REILLY: What does that mean?

DUKE: Look, I`ll tell you what? You don`t know what European
heritage is? You don`t know what Mozart is, and Bach and Beethoven? You
don`t know?

O`REILLY: They`re people. They come from different countries.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: That`s a great clip.

All right. Here`s the thing. Now, we think of David Duke as a
fringe figure because he is. But he was not a fringe figure. In Louisiana
Republican politics in the early 1990s, as the Scalise episode illustrates.

When we take a look at what David Duke campaigned on in its heyday,
many of those positions entered the mainstream of the Republican Party.
It`s a point that Duke himself made during a 1992 debate with now Wisconsin
Governor Scott Walker.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DUKE: My past is cause for the first time in America real debate on
the affirmative action issue, on forced bussing, what it`s done in public
education, what has happened in terms of the welfare system, the old
legitimacy, the problems that are going on in our society. And I bet it
has.

MODERATOR: These are issues that Republicans are talking about all
of the time.

(CROSSTALK)

DUKE: The Republicans are talking about it more now that I was
successful in using them politically. And everybody has got to acknowledge
that fact.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: Joining me now is Philip Bump, political reporter for "The
Washington Post."

It`s kind of amazing to go back into that period in American
politics. Where this very racialized language about welfare and
dependency, at one point, David Duke is saying that people on welfare
should be given birth control, right? That, through a sort of different
rhetorical approach, it funnels pretty squarely into a lot of Republican
Party politics particularly in that period of time.

PHILIP BUMP, THE WASHINGTON POST: It`s absolutely true.

I think it`s important to remember what was happening in Louisiana at
that moment. It was just starting to transition from heavily Democratic to
a heavily Republican state. It was in this moment of trying to figure out
what its political identity was, which was like much of the Deep South, was
a reaction to the changing nature of race in the United States.

David Duke was an opportunist. He was also someone who was a member
of the Ku Klux Klan. He comes on board. He wants to run for office, and
he takes advantage of a moment to say, hey, what I believe in is having our
state take care of itself, which was sort of a transitionary point between
that argument in the 1960s, and the argument we`ve seen more recently.

HAYES: And as for Scalise, it looks like he`s going to survive this
politically, although to me -- it`s somewhat of black eye for the
Republican leadership. I mean, they`re just going to basically going to
say, hey, look, mistakes happen.

But one thing I just want to be clear on. There`s this guy, Kenny
Knight, right, who`s sort of Duke`s lieutenant, right, who`s also a
neighbor of Scalise, who set up this talk. The idea that Scalise had no
idea who Kenny Knight was or who he worked for, it just doesn`t really seem
plausible to me.

BUMP: Sure. I mean, you have to take someone at their word. He
says, you know, that this is a situation.

HAYES: Well, let`s just remember the context.

BUMP: Sure, right.

HAYES: David Duke is a famous guy. Kenny Knight is his neighbor.
Steve Scalise is not an idiot. I`m pointing all three of those things out.

BUMP: No one was under any misapprehension of what David Duke was at
that point in time. It was clear that Steve Scalise himself was under
misapprehension of what that was. It was by all accounts from a standard
in 2015, national politics was a bad decision to go to that conference by
the standard of what he was trying to do and raise his profile in the state
at that point of time. Perhaps he saw it was a risk worth taking.

HAYES: These are some of the sort of the bills that Duke has sort of
proposed when he was state rep. Repealing affirmative action programs,
stricter public housing guidelines, eliminating minority set-asides. You
know, those all become particularly the 1990s when the sort of affirmative
action wars really heat up, those all become mainstream planks of
Republican Party politics.

BUMP: Well, I mean, you know, some of what he said, although a less
extreme version of it, when you watch him combating Edwin Edwards in that
1991 race, he`s fighting over welfare and what is happening with welfare
recipients. And that evolved into a centrist position for President Bill
Clinton a few years later, right? I mean --

HAYES: And so, he`s leading the edge of the kind of political
discourse that takes the whole country in a certain direction.

BUMP: Exactly.

HAYES: But not singlehandedly.

BUMP: No, absolutely. Again, he`s an opportunist. He also was an
ecologist at that point because he blamed Edwards for ruining the
environment of Louisiana. He was glomming on to what Ronald Reagan said in
his first inaugural about government got too big.

He was cobbling together these various things to make his argument.
It just so happens that what he grabbed onto is a thing that actually was
very e effective for Republicans moving forward.

HAYES: So, Scalise now is surviving leadership. I saw one quote
from someone off the record about the thing that`s going to do him in, he
has a hard time raising money when he goes to New York. Is this sort of
smooth sailing? It`s like, no harm, no foul here?

BUMP: I mea, the way politics is now that you have your team, and I
think Steve Scalise is part of the Republican team. If they want to give
money to the Republicans, Steve Scalise will still be able to raise money.
I don`t think he`s going to be doing a lot of high-end donations on Fifth
Avenue. But I think he will be relatively effective because people are so
partisan that they`re sayings we`ve got your back.

HAYES: Yes. And I think the big question to me, always, of course,
is, it was said in the "BuzzFeed" piece today, which is -- are there any
other shoes to drop. I think he`s got two strikes. And there`s one. I
mean, just politically. I`m not saying morally or any other way. But
politically, you`ve got to think of anything else comes out and leadership
is going to have a problem.

BUMP: No question. No question.

HAYES: Thanks so much.

All right. Chris Christie`s little trip to Texas to watch his Dallas
Cowboys play the Detroit Lions on Sunday might be turning into an even
bigger controversy than the awkward menage hug thing he had happening after
his team`s win. That`s next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES: All right. So, last night, I defended Chris Christi`s hug in
the box of Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones on the narrow grounds of the
legitimacy of Christie`s Cowboy fandom, which seems to me squarely abide by
the eternal rules of a sports fandom.

But I think the deeper reason a lot of people criticize him or even
cringe when they saw it wasn`t because it shows a Jersey boy rooting for
the Cowboys. Because there was something kind of odd and uncomfortable
about this typically combative man, a governor of the state of New Jersey,
a guy with a lot of power, up in the owners box, hugging Jerry Jones,
having been flown out by Jones, put up on a hotel, and dubbed, quote, "part
of our mojo" by Jones who wants Christie there all the time for good luck.

I mean, this is an elected official on all expenses paid trip
courtesy of a very powerful and very wealthy man. I don`t know, maybe
there`s some sort of conflict there?

Well, leave it to David Sirota to find it. He`s pretty good at
finding that stuff, reporting in "The International Business Times" that,
quote, "government documents show Christie personally pushed the Port
Authority to approve a lucrative contract for a firm part-owned by Jones in
2013.

And here we come to eye. If you`re a big public official like Chris
Christie, you do not go around accepting gifts worth thousands of dollars
from big, powerful, influential business people, because even if there
isn`t a quid pro quo, it still looks bad. It`s also, presumably why the
New Jersey`s ethics code has, quote, "adopted a zero tolerance policy for
acceptance of gifts offered to you that are related in any way to your
official duties."

Though, according to the head of the state`s ethics commission, also a
former lawyer for Chris Christie, the governor is under the same code
allowed gifts from personal friends. And ethics laws do not define who can
be considered a personal
friend.

Now, having defended Chris Christie on one set of grounds and attacked
him on the other, let me conclude tonight by defending him again. The
other Christie news today is that he was overheard saying Philadelphia
Eagles fans are the worst in America.

Now, that`s impolitic of the governor of New Jersey, but this is one
of those political scandals that comes from accidentally telling the truth.
And if you don`t believe me, just ask Santa Claus.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES: Lawyers for the family of Tamir Rice said today they`re,
quote, "cautiously optimistic" about a decision by Cleveland Mayor Frank
Jackson to change who has jurisdiction over the investigation into the
shooting death of 12-year-old Rice by Cleveland police.

Jackson announced Friday that Cleveland Police Department, which had
been investigating with help from the state is now handing the case over to
the Cayahoga County sheriff`s department.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BENJAMIN CRUMP, ATTORNEY FOR TAMIR RICE`S FAMILY: We are curiously
optimistic that it would be a thorough, fair investigation into the death
of Tamir Rice. And we sincerely hope that it answers some questions that
these parents have about the untimely death of their child.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: Tamir Rice was shot in a public park on Nevember 22 by police
responding to a call of a person pointing a gun. The child had a non-
lethal pellet gun and while a 9-1-1 caller told dispatchers the gun they
saw was, quote, "probably fake," that characterization was reportedly not
passed on to the responding officers.

The entire thing was captured on surveillance tape, which you see
here. And the tape, at times, seems to tell a very different story to the
initial account of the Cleveland Police.

For example, while police said the officers saw a few people sitting
under the pavilion where Rice was playing, the tape clearly shows him
sitting there by himself.

There he is at the table shortly before police arrived.

Police have said the 12-year-old was ordered three times to show his
hands. The video shows one of the officers firing at Tamir within two
seconds of pulling up in a patrol car.

Now, that doesn`t contradict the claim from police. They say the
commands were given as they drove on to the scene. But it certainly
doesn`t look like 12-year-old Tamir Rice had allowed time to comply before
he was shot dead.

Also, it emerged later, the officer who fired those shots, Timothy
Loehmann had been deemed unfit for duty in 2012 by a small suburban police
department where he worked previously.

According to the Northeast Ohio Media Group, Cleveland Mayor Frank
Jackson said he asked the county to take over the investigation of Rice`s
shooting because he lacks confidence in Ohio`s state attorney general Mike
DeWine to handle it
fairly.

Jackson specifically cited DeWine`s investigation of another case,
this one back in 2012, in which a police chase ended in the fatal shooting
of an unarmed couple.

The mayor criticized DeWine at the time for failing to uphold due
process in that investigation, and like the Tamir Rice case, that
investigation was also ultimately handed over to the Cuyahoga County
prosecutor who did successfully obtain grand jury indictments for six of
the officers involved.

At their press conference today, the Rice family reiterated their
calls for justice for their son, while their lawyers questioned what
investigators had accomplished in six weeks adn three days since he was
killed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WALTER MADISON, ATTORNEY FOR TAMIR RICE`S FAMILY: We also, as part of
this new investigation or the transfer of this investigation, want to know
what has been done in those six weeks and three days. And in the spirit of
transparency, on the
heels of all of these grand jury decisions that have disappointed the
nation, I believe this family is entitled to an answer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: Joining me now is Walter Madison, attorney for the family of
Tamir Rice.

Mr. Madison, I have to say I`m a little confused by all of this.
Jurisdictionally, what is going on? You have the shooting. There has
been, my understanding, a Cleveland police investigation in tandem with
some investigators from the state of Ohio attorney`s general office? Is
that correct?

MADISON: That`s not correct in this particular instance. That
occurred before. What you have here is the Tamir Rice incident occurring
November 22. And we got six weeks and three days. And that inaction is
the thing that breeds the doubt and fear in the minds of the Rice family.
And we simply think that in the
spirit of transparency, there ought be some answers to what has actually
occurred.

HAYES: So when you say inaction, though, does that -- I mean, what
has been going on in this month plus. I mean, what is you`re
understanding? Has the Cleveland police been collecting evidence? Have
they interviewed the two police officers in some sort of formal setting?
What actually is the status of an investigation such that it exists?

MADISON: Well, that`s an excellent question. And I think that
someone from the city should answer. We have no idea what has been done or
not been done in six
weeks, three days.

I can`t imagine a scenario where anyone would need six weeks and three
days again to make a decision that we`re not the proper individuals to be
investigating
this case, in particular, when the city acknowledged in 2012, from that day
forward, all use of deadly force investigations will be handled by an
outside agency.

So they set the framework up for two years ago. I don`t understand
how six -- it would take the amount of time we`ve had since November 2 to
take some action.

HAYES: So, I should also say that this is a police department
recently cited by the Department of Justice for sort of systematic bias in
many ways, a lot of really disconcerting revelations in that report,
including -- and I`m reading here -- deeply troubling to us was that some
of the specially trained investigators who were charged with conducting
unbiassed review of officers` use of deadly force admitted to us they
conduct their investigations with the goal of casting the accused officer
in the most positive light possible, that`s reading from a DOJ report on
the Cleveland police Department.

So do you have faith in the new entity, the Cuyahoga County Sheriff`s
Department that is now going to be taking over this investigation?

MADISON: My faith is not an issue. What`s an issue is showing
improvement at this particular time. The patternistic behavior in general
is not my business, that`s the police department`s business to manage. But
when that patternistic behavior affects the life of my -- of Tamir Rice, my
family -- the clients, their child, I think it becomes our business.

And those questions and those issues that have been pointed out become
very, very salient in the minds of the Rice family.

HAYES: There`s been obviously a lot of national attention on the
various means by which these investigations are undertaken, is it the
family`s position that they believe there is sufficient evidence just based
on the video for some kind of criminal charges here?

MADISON: Any person in America will, if there`s probable cause to say
-- or
if you could answer the question, is it more or less likely a crime
occurred here, they will be arrested and they will have to go into the
grand jury with the label of being the accused. And that changes the
complexity and the composition of a grand jury proceeding.

When you`re the accused, only you can wave your right to go to the
grand jury, and more than likely in 99 percent of the instances you do not
appear in the grand jury. So you`re not able to walk in there and provide
exculpatory information and testimony that`s self-serving.

When you`re just a witness, because you haven`t been accused, you are
able to be presented to the grand jury at the discretion of the county
prosecutor or the district attorney, depending on the jurisdiction, and you
may say whatever it is that you`re -- that you can recall about the
circumstances.

So, I don`t expect any person to not have self-preservation in mind
first and foremost. But I think the label of being the accused is the one
safeguard that differentiates these police -- deadly force cases with
police officers from the civilian. And we just don`t believe that that --
the mechanism is fine, but the inputs in that fashion causes the breakdown.

HAYES: Walter Madison, thank you very much.

All right, it`s a story that reads like the script to a Hollywood
legal
thriller, one of the most famous lawyers in America is defending himself
after a woman claimed she was forced to have sex with him and others,
including Britain`s Prince Andrew when she was 17 years old. That story is
ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES: Tennis star Serena Williams did something I`ve never seen
before, and didn`t even know was possible. After losing the first set of
her match during the Hopman Cup in Australia yesterday, she asked the ball
girl for a beverage.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SERENA WILLIAMS, TENNIS WORLD NUMBER ONE: Is it illegal to order an
espresso?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Courtside, she said I need an espresso.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, that`s great she`s got a sense of humor
about
it, anyway.

WILLIAMS: I`m tired.

(LAUGHTER)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, I`ve never seen anything like this before.
This is one the funniest things I`ve ever heard.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Black?

WILLIAMS: Black, as black as it gets, thanks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: It worked. She rallied, won the match tweeting later, "hey,
everyone, I keep telling you I am like you, a normal, average human being.
I do need a coffee or esspresso, too. Going for one now."

Hey, whatever works. No judgment here.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES: Alan Dershowitz, one of the most famous lawyers in the
country, former Harard law professor so tenacious you would never want to
go up against him in court, now finds himself accused in the filings of a
lawsuit of which he is not named as a defendant, of engaging in sex with an
underaged girl on more than one occasion.

Now, Dershowitz vociferously denies these accusations. Here he is
with Matt Lauer on the Today Show this week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MATT LAUER, TODAY SHOW ANCHOR: What is your response?

ALAN DERSHOWITZ, HARVARD LAW PROFESSOR: Totally false and made up.
She claims I had sex with her on Jeffrey Epstein`s island. The records
will show I was
on that island once with my wife, my daughter, a prominent Harvard business
school professor, his wife, in-laws and children. I was never out of the
sight of my wife.

She claims I had sex with her on Jeffrey Epstein`s ranch in New
Mexico. Records will show I was at the ranch once with friends, with my
wife and my daughter for about an hour. The house wasn`t complete.
Epstein wasn`t even in it. There are no girls around.

She claims I had sex with her on the airplanes, manifests of the
flights will show I was never on the airplanes.

LAUER: Did you ever meet her?

DERSHOWITZ: No, no. I don`t even know who she is. No, I`ve never
seen her. I`ve never met her. I don`t know who she is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: Now the allegations against Mr. Dershowitz center around his
relationship with a man he just mentioned just then, Jeffrey Epstein. The
story of Jeffrey Epstein reads like a Hollywood film about a rich and
powerful villain.

As noted by The Washington Post, quote, "as part of a 2008 plea deal
with prosecutors, Epstein spent 13 months in jail on a state charge of
soliciting prostitutes. According to unsealed documents pertaining to that
deal, Epstein was the subject of a federal investigation probing
allegations that the powerful figure abused dozens of underage girls at his
Palm Beach mansion.

Now Epstein pleaded to one count of procurement of a minor for
prostitution and one count of offering to commit prostitution.

Some of the alleged victims are now suing federal prosecutors,
claiming the prosecutors violated the law by not fully consulting with them
before that plea deal was finalized.

And the expanding lawsuit has added allegations by a woman called JaDe
doe number three for the purposes of the lawsuit.

As described by New York Magazine, quote, "Jane Doe number three
alleges that between 1999 and 2002, she was sexually abused by Epstein who
also pimped her out to his rich and famous friends."

Now, as you may have already noticed from the headlines of these
reports, Prince Andrew, along with Alan Dershowitz, is among the people now
being accused of having had sex with Jane Doe number three.

Buckingham Palace has issued a statement to the media calling the
accusations, quote, categorically untrue.

This is the first time in the years-long Epstein saga that Dershowitz
and the prince have been accused. And let`s stress, these are just
allegations from a lawsuit that is not against these two men.

Now, Epstein, the man at the center of all, the one who did the jail
time, who is now a registered sex offender, raised in Coney Island, became
a math teacher at a wealthy private school when one of the Wall Street dads
at the kid of a school said he was so smart, he shouldn`t be teaching, he
should work on Wall Street.

Epstein did that and not only became successful, but acquired a
legendary status, the subject of media fascination, like a New York
Magazine profile which predated the 2008 bombshell allegations and the
subsequent plea deal.

He`s pals with Nobel Prize winning scientists, CEOs, socialites,
Donald Trump. He grabbed the world`s attention when he flew former
President Bill Clinton, Kevin Spacey and Chris Tucker to Africa on his
private Boeing 747.

And that is just a slice of the life of Jeffery Epstein.

We`ve reached out to Mr. Epstein to respond to these latest reports.
While we have not received a response, his lawyer issued a statement Today
Show, quote, "these are stale rehashed allegations that lawyers are now
attempting to repackage and spice up by adding the names of prominent
people. The allegations, which are outlandish on their face and
discredited by the evidence remain in the civil case in which Mr. Epstein
is not a party."

Now the lawyers for Jane Doe plaintiff have now as of today sued Alan
Dershowitz for defamation. And Dershowitz is taking legal action of his
own. Way back in the 2003 Vanity Fair profile of Mr. Epstein, and the
person who wrote that has a story to tell about what writing that profile
was like. She will be right here at this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES: All right, joining me now as promised is investigative
journalist Vicky Ward. She author of the Liar`s Ball, past contributor to
Vanity Fair where she wrote about Jeffrey Epstein.

Her latest piece about him was just posted on the Daily Beast. You
should definitely, definitely give that a look.

Great to have you here.

VICKY WARD, JOURNALIST: Thanks, Chris.

HAYES: OK, so you`re writing for Vanity Fair. You`ve got this
assignment, it`s 2002? I think?

WARD: 2002.

HAYES: Right.

Why was -- why did people want to profile Jeffrey Epstein? Why did
Graydon Carter ask you to profie Jeffrey Epstein in 2002?

WARD: So Jeffrey Epstein lived in this enormous house on the Upper
East Side of New York. And he was gossiped about, but he actually had a
very low social profile. But people did talk about these kind of amazing
parties that he had with these academics, with all of these billionaires
and these girls, but no one knew how he funded this extraordinary lifestyle
with the plane.

And then, suddenly, he popped up above the radar. He flew Bill
Clinton to Africa, as you said, on that plane. It was reported in the sort
of society gossip columns. And I think Graydon Carter, my boss, actually
was trying to do me a favor. At the time I was pregnant with twins,
couldn`t fly -- I wasn`t really allowed to fly. And he said, OK, here`s a
story that`s sort of on your doorstep, should be nice and easy, this
mysterious Gatsby-type figure. No one knows how he really made his money.
You know, why do all these people hang out with him?

HAYES: So, he`s got all of these famous friends. No one knows how he
made his money, but people became enamored of him. He`s throwing these
parties and
there`s also this talk about this girl -- I mean, you had Donald Trump even
saying on the record, like how do you girls? He likes them young, kind of
like half jokingly.

WARD: Yeah, no. And when I interviewed -- you know, they all came
out for
Jeffrey. I mean, he was -- he didn`t want to be seen controlling the
piece, but he tried to control the piece. He was on the phone all the
time.

I would be called out of the blue by Jimmy Cain, then running Baer
Stearns. I was called up by Ace Greenberg, I was called by Leslie Wexner,
Marshall Rose asked me to come and meet him in his office. You know, the
movers and shakers all wanted to say how clever Jeffrey Epstein was, what a
great philathropist he was.

And some of the actual academics even said to me, oh, and he gives
these amazing parties with these very pretty girls. They were kind of
naive. And Prince Andrew is there.

HAYES: Prince Andrew, so, just to be clear here -- and, again, we --
you know, Prince Andrew denies these allegations, Alan Deshowitz not only
denies them, he`s seeking legal recourse for them. But just to establish
the basic facts here, they were both friends with Jeffrey Epstein, right?
I mean, that should be clear. They hung out with him.

WARD: Absolutely.

HAYES: And Dershowitz, did he talk to you for the piece?

WARD: Dershowitz absolutely talked to me for the piece. And in fact
I remember the quote, you know, one of his quotes very well, because he
said, you know, I`ve now written I think it was 20 books. And I make sure
that the first person who proofreads every book is Jeffrey Epstein.

And by that point, it sort of stayed in my mind because Jeffrey
Epstein had been talking to me. He always wanted to talk off the record.
And I was not impressed by this man`s intellect. And I kept thinking, what
am I missing here?

But what did start to happen, Chris, was that there was an underbelly.
You know, as I started to dig, you know, his friends would have me believe
and Jeffrey would have me believe that he was the money manager for these
very rich men, men like Leslie Wexner, but, actually, what I began to find
was the story took me to jail outside of Massachusetts where I interviewed
a man called Steven Hoffenberg (ph) who at that point in time had
perpetrated probably the biggest Ponzi Scheme in history. It was pre-
Madoff. And he had a very different story to tell about his working
relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. And I -- you know, he`s was a
convicted...

HAYES: This was someone convicted of fraud.

AWRD: He was a convicted felon. So I`m going -- I`m sitting there in
jail
talking to this man in an orange jump suit. And he says, well wait a
minute, let me tell you the real story how I picked up Jeffrey Epstein
after he had been forced to leave Bear Stearns. Let me tell you some real
stories.

So I thought, you know what, he`s a convicted felon, can`t believe
everything he says, right? But I`m definitely going to go away and not
necessarily take what all of these rich, powerful men tell me at face
value.

And I then did with a lot of digging. And we did find documents that
certainly, you know, suggested that Jeffrey Epstein was not what he would
have had the rest of world believe professionally.

But there was another them to his biography, and that was the girls.

HAYES: OK. Right, so I want to talk about the girls. And it was
suggested that we had this guy who is this kind of -- you know, he`s called
the Talented Mr. Eptsein, I think - it`s like this kind of crazy Jekyll and
Hyde with the Nobel Prize winning scientists, academics, ex-presidents,
famous people, movers and shakers, glamorous. He`s got his own island.
He`s got his own mansion. He`s got his house. No one knows how he makes
his money. And then there`s the girls. What did you...

WARD: And then there`s the girls.

And this is when -- you know it`s interesting because at the time I
was pregnant and you don`t -- and we were moving very quickly and we wanted
to get the story and you don`t always see things that you see later on.
And I was going back and looking at all of my notes. And I now see that he
was never that bothered actually by the sort of the financial stuff that I
uncovered and put to him, but he was very bothered about the girls. And he
would say to me, well what have you been finding out about the girls? What
have you been finding out about the girls?

And obviously at that time, he wasn`t under investigation. We didn`t
know what we know now -- I mean, he`s now a convicted sex offender. But
then we didn`t know -- but what I actually had found was this very brave
family, a mother and two daughters, who were prepared to go on the record
about alleged molestation that had happened to one of them when she was
only 16.

And you know I had her sister sort of crying in my living room. And
they told me the whole story. And they also told me how frightened they
were to go on the record.

HAYES: And it did not ultimately make it into the piece.

WARD: And it did not. And I was very up set about it.

HAYES: Well, you`re now here telling it and it looks like you were
prophetic in your reporting.

Vicky Ward, thank you very much.

WARD: Thank you.

HAYES: All right, that is All In for this evening. The Rachel Maddow
Show 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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