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tv   Hardball With Chris Matthews  MSNBC  June 24, 2014 11:00pm-12:01am PDT

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tim schaefer, thank you both for joining me tonight and congratulations to you both. >> thank you so much. a bridge too far. let's play "hardball." good evening. i chris matthews in wash. let me start with governor christie's problems. it's getting hot. prosecutors in manhattan have zeroed in on a securities fraud case involving new jersey raising money under the name of the port authority and spending it on a state road project. if proven reportses suggest it could constitute a felony against who in the trenton offices put their hand to it. well, the possible securities fraud is being probed along with other piece of the new jersey scandal.
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the closing of the george washington bridge last september as some form of political punishment or whatever. the alleged strong arm tactics employed to back a water front development project. accusations of a possible case of extortion, threatening the loss of government hurricane recovery money. nick campasori is with the new york times and kendall coffee is founder of law firm coffee burlington. the walls are look to be closing in. the big story on the front page of today's "new york times," a second bridge inquiry said to be linked to chris christie. questioned we told you about the news in es kier which reported the u.s. attorney in new jersey was closing in on the office and that indictments against four of his allies including the former chairman of the port authority david samson were near certain. the headline in the "new york times" is the manhattan district attorney and the securities & exchange commission have zeroed in on possible securities law violations stemming from a $1.8 billion road repair agreement in
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2011. according to people briefed on the matter. those violations could result in criminal charges. that means felonies. let me go to in this case has. explain the various bodies now involved in investigating and perhaps getting close to indicting the people around the governor or the governor himself. >> well with, what you have in new york state here, chris, is an extraordinarily powerful statute called the martin act used heavily by eliot spitzer and andrew cuomo to prosecute wall street. it says if you can find that somebody has lied or committed a deception in the securities industry, you don't have to prove intent to deceive. you have broad latitude to go after fraud and securities including bonds issued by the port authority in this case to pay for other projects but which described the pulaski skyway
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bridge repair as a way to fix access roads to the lincoln tunnel which are miles away. >> it doesn't go to the lincoln tunnel. >> exactly. what's at issue here, chris, is are whether they told bond holders -- they deceived bond holders about what capital projects the port authority was undertaing because they were raiding the port authority for the money to pay for projectses to avoid raising the gas tax and compromising the governor's reputation for fiscal probity. >> the way they got to clinton and lewinsky was through paula jones. seems like this is a tributary. would this have occurred were it not for the noise and focus on the bridge closings of the george washington bridge? >> perhaps not. once the feds are after you, once there is a lot of law
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enforcement interest people start picking up the phone and calling, especially those who, for whatever reasons, have some real issues with the alleged center of the whole controversy. you have talked about three matters which ought to be enough to keep anybody awake at night. we don't know what else is out there. other people are calling about other allegations. so there are a lot of things chris christie has to be concerned about now. >> is there a possibility that the manhattan d.a., the securities and exchange commission and paul fishman, u.s. attorney in new jersey could all be moving toward some criminal action here? >> it's possible. the martin act is a new york statute. it's the most powerful law in the country which is why the manhattan d.a. is involved. remember, the project where they got the money was supposed to be a big tunnel under the hudson river to help new york and new
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jersey. that's why you have a manhattan d.a. investigating scandal in a different state. and the s.e.c. is involved as well. it's a securities matter. if i were a port authority official involved in approving bonds or the expenditure of the money for the pulaski skyway with project i would be worried now. >> let me ask you about the larger picture. i follow politics and christie. when he made the decision to cancel that rail tunnel to new york, the third tunnel, he got a lot of heat. we found out under this scenario he was taking the money for that tunnel construction and using it for something that had nothing to do with the port authority. had to do with the pulaski highway in new jersey. he did it so he didn't have to raise taxes so he could look like a low taxer but do big stuff. in other words he was moving
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stuff around. >> he was basically robbing peter to pay paul. it's not free money. when you raid the port authority it comes out of stuff the port authority should be doing. it can result in things people feel in the pocket book in new york and new jersey. >> why are we just finding out -- $1.8 billion is a lot of money by any standards. why wasn't this nailed when the bond money went to build a better highway in new jersey? >> in fairness, thises has been covered a while. i think it goeses to your point earlier. we knew they had diverted the money. the political story, the cover line, the cancellation of the other project because of worrieses of cost overruns went up in smoke in the last 12
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months. what was less clear was the fact they had within describing the expenditure out of the port authority in a certain way to investors. that's come to light more recently. once you get prosecutors sniffing around, all the prosecutors in the neighborhood want a piece of the action. >> kendall, it seems this is a tough act, this martin act. it seems to me based upon some requirement of the prosecutors to be able to make a case without getting into motive it seems just doing it on paper is the crime itself. taking money from investors, climbing that the money will be used for one thing and using it for something totally different in a different jurisdiction, in fact. that's enough information apparently according to what i'm hearing here to indict. >> well, absolutely. you can charge a misdemeanor if somebody had meaningful vovtment in putting a statement in the bond documents that was inaccurate. don't have to show there were damages or the alleged perpetrators had knowledge it was inaccurate. that's scary if you are on the other side of the investigation.
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that's a misdemeanor. a felony requires some greater knowledge. consider this, you have the s.e.c. involved, too. almost inevitably where you are saying in effect the skyway was six miles from the lincoln tunnel and that's an access road to the lincoln tunnel? there will be s.e.c. enforcement action. >> but with that's not the case. it's transparently inaccurate to say that's an access route to the lincoln tunnel when it goes to the holland tunnel. >> this is an easy case. certainly at the s.e.c. level. they will bring the case and that will be an ugly picture for everybody concerned. >> nicholas, are your sources talking felony prosecution here? >> depends on what's turned up and who is charged with what depends on their involvement. we have seen so far in the reporting a lot of evidence that the christie administration leaned on the port authority. was very intent on getting the
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money reallocated. whether or not anybody in the administration had any involvement in this bond prospectus that would be the exact subject of fraud. i'm not sure we know yet. >> let's look at another point here. the one that grabbed me from the beginning was dawn zimmer saying she was approached in a parking lot by the lieutenant governor and told although it shouldn't be this way, those were her words, if she doesn't back the water front development she won't get government money for hurricane relief. that struck me as having the ring of truth to it. esquire reported that's one of the three live investigations here that may lead to prosecution. what does the new york times know about that piece of the thing? >> i'm not sure we have new reporting to share in the hoboken casen on the air tonight. it makes the point that there are various investigations and
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not all on the same topic. they all go to the question of economic development. how money is spent. there is a broader political issue for the governor. the sense that there was a lot of gamesmanship, pressure being applied to get the economic agenda going. in some cases it may not have been appropriate pressure. >> there are five active investigations now into governor christies's office. state lawmakers continue the investigation. they have held four hearings on the bridge closures and more this year. the port authority inspector general is investigating the agency. by all accounts paul fishman is closing in on the governor's office. a report in esquire last week said indictments were with, "near certain." now we have significant movement by the manhattan d.a. and the securities and exchange commission, a federal agency probing $1.8 billion in potentially tainted infrastructure deals. last word to you, kendall.
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what's it look like to you from both sides -- prosecution and defense? >> i think the prosecution's got a lot of tools and i think there's going to be prosecutions. you talked about the may of hoboken. that's easy if they believe the mayor in as classic case of extortion. the other things may go on a while. don't expect indictments soon. somebody in the bridgegate case and the other case involving the alleged access road to the lincoln tunnel, people will start flipping. it will go up the ladder. how high? we'll know in a matter of months. >> this reads like "on the waterfront." thank you both. coming up, war talk. are we inching our way back to war in iraq? 71% of americans now say as of today that the war over there wasn't worth it under george bush, jr. why go back in now?
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two bushes, two wars and now what? plus thad cochran is trying to get african-americans to vote for him in the mississippi republican primary run-off but tea party supporters are using a jim crow-era law to challenge the right are of people to vote. democrats hope to turn red georgia blue by registering hundreds of uh thousands of african-americans. we'll see if it works in georgia could work somewhere else. finally, let me finish with the strong sense that we are headed back to war. it's coming. this is "hardball," the place for politics. s you on your toes. you wouldn't have it any other way. but your erectile dysfunction - it could be a question of blood flow. cialis tadalafil for daily use helps you be ready anytime the moment's right. you can be more confident in your ability to be ready. and the same cialis is the only daily ed tablet approved to treat ed and symptoms of bph, like needing to go frequently or urgently. tell your doctor about
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the u.s. house of representatives to impeach president obama. that's south dakota accusing the president of violating his oath of office in numerous ways. last week u.s. congressman lou barleta said the house probably had the votes for impeachment. do you believe this stuff? we'll be right back.
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welcome back to "hardball." this morning i woke up to this news on the front page of the washington post. "secretary of state john kerry said the united states will protect its national security interests even if iraqis cannot bridge their divides." that sounds like we won't wait for a unity government before the united states takes military action. the article in the washington post said the administration has left open the door for strikes -- air strikes -- on both sides of the border, the iraqi and syrian side. kerry said launching air strikes at this moment would be an act
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of irresponsibility. there is nothing to provide the capacity for success. again kerry's words. is kerry teasing us with the possibility of u.s. military involvement? a new nbc news wall street journal poll shows that by a margin of 50% to 43% americans say the u.s. doesn't have a responsibility to assist the iraqi government against insurgent troops. catch this number, a whopping 71% of americans now say the iraq war which george w. brought us to was not worth it. w.'s war. that's up from 59% in january of 2013. joining me now is the managing editor of quartz and ed ren dell. i want the governor to get in here in a moment about the politics. i want to talk to bobby about what's going on now. if you look at the map it's dramatic.
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how much isis has been able to do in a few days. they have taken over a huge part of iraq. they have challenged the government jordan which is friendly to the united states. they are taking over a good portion of syria doing it with a couple of hundred guys with rifles from what i can tell. semi-automatic rifles, ak 47s. nobody is fighting them. you can't create an army with esprit du corps with money and a uniform. of course they will take it but they won't get killed for that money. if it's the money and uniforms, they won't fight hard. they are racing to baghdad to make a stand. my question is what's our interest in getting in on either side of the fight? >> the obama administration has not yet fully articulated the interest. there are interestses in involved. there is opec. this terrorist group is now
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getting dangerously close to countries that are our allies like squor dan. i heard they were 70 miles from saudi arabia, another ally. of course this is a group that's badder, if you like, than al qaeda. they were kicked out because they were regarded as too radical. that group already has an interest in attacking us and our allies in europe and israel. if you look at the propaganda online, for instance, they are already trying to reach out to disaffected youth in this country, in europe. they have american fighters with them. they have european fighter. this is a terrorist group that threatens everybody. this is a part of the world where there is direct u.s. strategic, economic and security interests. to the take that argument and
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make that argument for the american public as you showed in the polls, it does not want any part of this conflict. it will be very hard. >> we were attacked on 9/11 by guys working out of hamburg, germany, who used thugs they recruited from saudi arabia. seems the to me the idea we have to hold territory to protect ourselves is meaningless. they can operate all over the world by grabbing commercial airliners. that has nothing to do with them on monkey lines practicing call stet sten nicks. but if people of sunni and muslim background go back to the region because their roots are there, what can we do? we can't stop that. they were able to go back because of loyalties that preceded that. they are going back to fight. how does our getting involved in the war stop their urnl to do that? seems that would increase the
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urge like cheney putting our troops in the holy land of mek created al qaeda there. we created al qaeda, as you mention here, in iraq because we were there. we keep treating it like this is a big army we have to fight when it is a point of view. a political point of view which we ignite every time we go into those countries and start shooting arabs. my question to you, are we going to win by slaughtering arabs by air power, droneses on international television? >> we are not going to succeed if that's all we do. we are not going to succeed if we try to do this by ourselves. they were able to plot, train. >> could they have done it in germany? >> i don't think so. that's part of the reason why they have not. that supports them as openly as in afghanistan.
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>> that sense of security. >> guys who got the flight training are aviation experts in florida were identified by the aviation teacher down there who was teaching them to fly planes once they were in the air as being german. he said, i think they're german. what a joke. they were operating out of germany. let me go to the governor. do you think the people want another war? >> no. absolutely not. malaki always danced.
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he blew it when he kicked us out. brought troops in and he kicked us out. he's never tried to bring the the sunnis or kurds into the government. we should have tried to force a new government a long time ago. i don't think the president -- i think what john kerry said today is operative. the president is not going to go in and help the malaki government unless malaki steps down or makes an immediate effort to get sunnis and kurds back to the table to form a real government. >> explain to me this. you say we were on behalf of jordan appropriately. they have an air force. we have supported them for year. they have an intelligence service but they don't seem to be fighting isis. there is something murky there politically.
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you and i are not sunni or shia but it seems the kingdom of jordan is sunni to the core if you talk to king abdullah. it's always sunnis versus shia. why do we start using air power against the sunnis coming at him if he doesn't want to do it? he's not doing it yet. >> again, that would have to be a request from an ally who has a real government that we care about preserving. >> we do care about it. it's weird. why isn't he fighting these people? >> that's a question he'd have to answer if he made that request. remember what the president said about malaki. he was right. there is no government there that's doing anything. until there is we shouldn't get in. i think the american people feel that way. i think the president feels that way. the president is doing the right thing. he's getting abuse from both sides but he's standing for what's right.
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he's not going to get us involved in a war. we'll use air power only if we believe there is something worth fighting for. you're right, we shouldn't get involved in a purely sunny/shia conflict. that's at the root but it's more than that. >> thank you very much, governor rendell, former governor of pen peb. up next, jon stewart takes delight in watching dick cheney squirm. this is "hardball," the place for politics. we're moving our company to new york state. the numbers are impressive. over 400,000 new private sector jobs...
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president obama said he wants his daughters to work minimum wage jobs because it builds character. [ applause ] >> yeah, i thought that was good. the president announced he'll be raising the minimum wage to $50 an hour. >> welcome back to "hardball." time for the sideshow.
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first up jon stewart weighed in on the ongoing military situation in iraq are and the absurdity of asking dick cheney his opinion on the matter. it was me gyn kelly's interview on fox news jon stewart enjoyed the most. >> what do you say to those who say you were so wrong about so much at the expense of so many ? [ cheers and applause ] >> pretty good. i guess dick cheney now knows what it feels like when someone he thought was a friend shoots you in the face. >> he was talking about that hunting accident. next, governor chris christie took the field for the bombers, boomers, summer class sick charity game raising money for wounded soldiers and cystic fibrosis. he dove for ground balls while playing third and managed to make a crucial catch to help his team win the game.
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new york post described his performance saying the new jersey governor shut down the other team while manning the hot corner like a traffic barrier on the george washington bridge. maybe not the most flattering comparison for chris christie who is in trouble on that one. finally he was a doctor, congressman, presidential candidate and now ron paul can add actor to his resumé. he'll make his debut in the third installment of the atlas shrugged film trilogy. they are based on ayn rand's novel. the movie will feature glenn beck. there's a reason not to see it. sean hannity and grover norquist. also, clinton the musical. got to see that one with. it's coming to new york as part of the musical theater festival.
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it, quote, follows two bill clintons and hillary on their quest to save their presidency and prove that politics is show business for ugly people. hmm. the cochran campaign is the incumbent for five terms is reaching out to african-american voters to vote republican. now the tea party has dug up an old jim crow-era law using it to challenge black voters from voting republican in the primary. you're watching "hardball," the ♪
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welcome back to "hardball." polls close at 8:00 eastern in mississippi's republican senate run-off tonight. another high stakes face off between thad cochran after five terms and his young challenger chris mcdaniel. it's the tea party's next shot at victory following the vickry
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over eric cantor, the ten-point loss in virginia. now mcdaniel is koubting on the same grassroots energy to bring him over the finish line tonight. senator cochran's supporters hope to counter that by expanding the electorate on the other side of the spectrum encouraging democrats, a lot of them african-americans, to vote. here comes the case, by the way. cochran made appeals with this one. we are asking democrats to cross over and vote in the republican primary to ensure our community's interest is heard. mcdaniel backers cried foul while cochran supporters say it's fair game to broaden the base. they hope to bring spo the fold african-american voters. that was their reference to the community. an anti-mcdaniel group is using automated r are obo calls to target the african-american community with messages like this. >> the time has come to make a
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stand and say no to the tea party. no to their obstruction. no to their disrespectful treatment of the first african-american president. if we do nothing, tea party candidate chris mcdaniel wins and causes even more problems for president obama. please commit to voting against tea party candidate chris mcdaniel next tuesday. >> well, tea party activists are countering with a so-called voter integrity project sending poll watchers to monitor the process and potentially challenge individual voter. they are citing a jim crow-era law from 1942 that states, quote, no person shall be eligible to participate in a primary election unless he intends to support the nominations made in the primary in which he participates. in other words, if you are voting republican in the primary you better plan to vote republican in the general. the mcdaniel supporters are saying any democrat who votes for cochran in the primary must, by law, intend to vote for the republican in november. any republican. but the tea party effort has got
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mississippi's attorney general on edge fearing racial profiling, he says, and intimidation tactics to supress the black vote. joining us from freedom works, one of the tea party groups with poll watchers in mississippi. and kasie hunt from msnbc news with us from mcdaniel headquarters in jackson, mississippi. quickly, the situation as we understand it here where it's as hot as there today. maybe not. you have people working for cochran trying to get black voters to switch and vote republican and people backing mcdaniel saying there is an old 1942 law on the books which says you shouldn't vote on a primary if you don't intend to vote for the winner of the primary. who is winning that fight? >> actually, they are trying to flip that. the cochran campaign is suggesting because mcdaniel said he's not sure whether he'll support cochran if cochran wins the nomination. mcdaniel himself may be inelable. they are having a back and forth
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about that. it's clear that the mission over the past three weeks has been to expand the electorate. there are signs it might be working. as reports trickled in over the day about turnout, there are signs that african-american turnout might be up and that could suggest that senator cochran might be in a better position than people expected. they poured a million plus dollars into the ground game here. it's a shift from the tv strategy they were employing throughout the rest of the primary. so at this stage people on ground at cochran headquarters are cautiously optimistic. that's a different tone from where they were when i was here three weeks ago. >> what do you think of cochran's last ditch effort to bring in black voters who are democrats, 98% to vote in the primary. is that fair, kosher, if you will? >> he hasn't talked to the community in years. talking to them in the last 24 hours, i'm not sure it will work for them. >> do you think it's legitimate? >> if you're in a republican primary and you need democrats you're in trouble. >> is it legal? >> sure. our issue, if you voted in the democratic primary, you are not
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allowed to come back and vote in the republican primary. >> how do you enforce that law? >> what our election observers are doing is watching. >> how do you enforce it? how do you know what a person's intent is. i don't mind the spirit of the law. strategic voting, it's called. voting in the other primary to screw them up. how do you stop people from doing what they are allowed to do. >> that's why we have lawyers. >> you think that law should be enforced. i shouldn't vote in the primary unless you plan to vote for the nominee. how do you enforce it? >> you have lawyers on the ground. >> don't say -- you're a tea party guy. tea party guys don't point to experts. they know if an african-american person thinks they are betting off with cochran than mcdaniel how do you stop them? >> there is an assumption -- >> you are not answering the question. >> there is an assumption there are only democrats that are
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black. there are also white democrats. >> answer if question. how do you stop a person from voting in the primary against your candidate. >> if it is legitimate, cast it. the reason we have folks down there -- >> why are you challenging voters? >> we're not. >> i heard freedom works is involved down there. >> we are waiting and ready if there is a problem. >> kasie, back to objective reporting from you. you are objective. does it still look and smell -- does it smell like mcdaniel? that's a legitimate reporter question. >> the tone has shifted are very dramatically i would say towards the docken ran campaign p. everybody on both sides acknowledges the race is close. neither side at this point is postured in a way that they seem to be sure of a victory. that's a remarkable switch from when we were here three weeks ago and the mcdaniel club thought they would have a straightforward time of pulling this off. the cochran campaign was saying three weeks ago they thought
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they were going to lose, that the run-off was the best case century owe they could have hoped for and the posture is different tonight. we'll see -- you can't make predictions until the voters have their say. at this point the ground has shifted some. >> what do you make of mccain coming down there? if you live in mississippi and you have an attitude about politics and you have been following it all your life, what do you care if john mccain -- >> at this point i don't think anybody will make up their mind. it's all turn out. the models are are getting the people we have identified as pro mcdaniel supporters to the polls. >> why is it so big for cochran? >> it's the reason we are in this fight. this is a fight about the k street hold.
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mississippi is not a family state. >> kasie, why is my friend haley barbour so tough for dock ran are who is 76? he ought to hang it up at some point. why is haley pushing so forward hard for him? >> there is loyalty to senator cochran in the state and basis in the argument that senator cochran delivered a lot for the state over the course of his tenure. that's the argument he's making as he tries to broaden his electorate and reach out to democrats or african-american voters and saying, hey, i delivered for mississippi. state senator chris mcdaniel said he may not have voted for hurricane katrina. he may cut defense. that explains why senator mccain was here. one of the fundamental things is people didn't think senator cochran could lose last time around. if you talk to republicans on the establishment said they are saying people woke up, realized senator cochran might be in danger.
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if he does win tonight it's part of the reason he would be able to pull it out. >> we have been successful and pork doesn't work anymore. it's about the $17 are trillion in debt. paying for the future. >> do you know what else is dying? the idea of the one party south, democrats. somebody would die in office. >> right. >> somebody else would be appointed and they would sit there until they died. all these guys -- >> we're going to have to pull they will out. >> they always say how tough a job it is. they love it. polls close at 8:00, not far from now. thank you, kasie hunt and adam for joining us. up next, chris hayes will join us to talk the about the simple math democrats hope can turn georgia from a red to a blue state. they are talking about registering african-american voters again. getting them in the game here. this is "hardball," the place for politics. s are impressive. over 400,000 new private sector jobs... making new york state number two in the nation in new private sector job creation... with 10 regional development strategies to fit your business needs. and now it's even better
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picking off republican seats. one's in kentucky but that's difficult because of coal. a better one down in georgia with michelle nun as the nominee. like many states georgia is at a tipping point in demographics thanks to growth in minority populations like african-americans and hispanics, of course. as our colleague chris hayes reports as part of an in depth series on "all in" organizerses in georgia are looking at aen plan to register turn out of hundreds of thousands of minority voters this is time. if they are successful it could mean a shift where republicans dominate and black voters have been marginalized. >> to run billion dollar presidents and not take back georgia is criminal.
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>> in 2008, john mccain won the state by 204,000 votes. in 2010, republican governor nathan deal won by 258,000. in 2012, mitt romney won the state by 304,000 votes. organizers say there are roughly 830,000 unregistered voters of color in the state. they can register 90% of them and 70% of those people vote, that's over 520,000 new voters, and if 80% of those voters go for democrats which is not an unlikely rate based on recent election results, democrats could end up netting just over 310,000 votes. enough to beat nathan deal in 2010, enough to give barack obama wins in both 2008 and 2012. according to that math, georgia turns blue. >> chris hayes, of course, is my colleague. he follow throes our show every night on "all in." chris, it's a noble effort but it's mathematical. is it real? why aren't these people registered now?
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is it because they're not confident they'll have a candidate they care about? are they not confident it will matter to them in their lives if they vote democrat? >> for years i've listened to lefties and progressive democrats talking about all the people who were unregistered and have to register them. when i've seen that bear out is the obama campaign. using very cutting edge research coming from political scientists who have been studying how you get people registered actually developed a very sophisticated set of tools to create new voters, go out, i.d. people who are not registered, register them, stay in contact with them, get them to the polls. north carolina in 2008, virginia in 2008 and 2012, in nevada this last time around in 2012, i mean, nevada they added tens of thousands of democratic voters to the rolls.
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so before the obama campaign, i would have said, yeah, this is kind of abstract, it's theoretical. after the obama campaign, we have seen thanks to what they did and what a bunch of researchers have shown in their research, it is genuinely possible with enough resources, enough sustained targeted effort to find these people, register them and turn them out. >> why didn't they vote for the first african-american president? they're african-americans. if that was not enough to stimulate to show up, register and show up in november, what would? are they going to get excited about michelle nunn if they weren't -- i'm being sarcastic because i am skeptical. i think you've got to engage people on the issues, make them commit enough african-american candidates to excite them. even if they lose. get people engaged because they can see something that's better than they've got. you know who is the biggest voter registrar in philadelphia? frank rizzo. they couldn't stand frank rizzo. they had a reason to vote against this guy. give people real intelligent energy to get them to vote. can't just walk around with a clipboard. i don't think. >> no, you're absolutely right about that. it takes real organizing.
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can't stand outside with a clipboard and randomly grab people and ask them what's going on. there has to be an infrastructure. the organizers have to have conversations with people that are about why they would want to register to vote. in terms of your first question, i should just say this. one of the things that's happening in the south, there's a great demographic transformation happening in the south underrecognized as a national level, the reverse northern migration. we're seeing historic numbers of african-americans moving from the north back down from the south and seeing a lot of turnover in voters. i mean, one of the things that happens with voter registration is people move around a lot. particularly people at the bottom of the income scale move around a lot. their registrations lapse. they're not registered at their new address. so in order to get those people off the sidelines, there has to be this effort of constant vigilance. if someone moved for a different job or got foreclosed on their home, had to move out, move in with a cousin, they're not registered where they were before.
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any effort that looks like this has to be constant year in, year out, have some constant infrastructure to make sure it works or you're right, it's just air. >> yeah. well, we're going to watch you tonight. chris hayes with "all in." the very topic we talked about as well, so often, which is getting people to get a bigger piece of the action in this country politically. chris hayes. good luck tonight. >> thanks, chris. >> catch the full report as i said coming up next on "all in" right here on msnbc. and we'll be right back for the final word from me tonight. da(????
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let me finish tonight with my concern about this tendency to shoot first, and ask questions later. this bush-bred foreign policy that has us jumping into wars. i had a suspicion, a real one, our going into the gulf war under the first president bush would lead to further incursions. why? because history teaches that once we get engaged in a war situation, it keeps pulling us back in. going to war is like doing business with the mob. you don't get into it and simply walk away. oh, no. all the pressure then builds on commitments you supposedly made. if you fight in one instance, you're called to fight again in
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another. we fought saddam hussein because he invaded kuwait then fought saddam because he didn't do what we told him to do. since we were in iraq, we owe iraq our continued firepower in perpetuity. so it's been two bushes, two wars and now this vague sense that we are one precondition away from firing away, killing more arabs on international television, shooting sunnis from the sky for the sin of trying to take back their country from those characters in baghdad we gave it to. how about we make a fresh start in how about we look at iraq as if we never fought two wars there and try to think whether we would even think of getting involved in a civil war there? a sectarian war between sunni and shia that's been afoot for over a millennium. would we? and if not, is the prime reason for our going back into the fighting there that we did it twice before to our regret? but isn't doing the same thing
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and expecting a different result the sign of insanity? that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. "all in with chris hayes" starts right now. good evening from new york. i'm chris hayes.