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tv   The Rachel Maddow Show  MSNBC  June 1, 2016 1:00am-2:01am PDT

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democracy. >> ralph nader, thank you sir. that's "all in" for this evening. >> thanks for joining us this hour, rachel has the night off. we begin tonight in one of the darkest hours for bill and hillary clinton. let's set the scene. it's march of 1992. the top movie in the country is "wayne's world." roseanne, murphy brown, cheers, they're tearing it up in the tv ratings. duke and indiana are gearing up for an epic final four showdown. mike krzyzewski against bob knight what a matchup. bill clinton is running for president and it has been rocky. he has endured the jennifer flowers scandal as the arkansas cabaret singer who told "the star" she'd had a 12-year affair with clinton. she had tapes, ugly comments about political rivals from a voice that sounded a lot like bill clinton's. there was a denial from bill clinton but it was a carefully
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worded denial. what was he saying? what wasn't he saying? it was messy. it was the vietnam draft scandal. bill clinton pulled strings to avoid service. all of this had been fatal for other candidates before. but bill clinton didn't quit the race, he survived the new hampshire primary, he called himself the comeback kid. his opponents weren't that strong. one by one they dropped out until only one was left and he seemed like a fringe opponent at that. this is late march 1992. almost by default, bill clinton is on his way to the democratic nomination. to a matchup with president george h.w. bush. and then this happens. >> reporter: today the extraordinary in connecticut. >> the unexpected has a way of happening now with a regularity -- >> reporter: jerry brown, labeled an enigma, a maverick, and the underdog, beats the democratic front-runner bill clinton in their first head-to-head primary.
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in this year of political surprises, add this one about the race for the nomination. it isn't over. >> 58% of the democrats who turned out to vote in today's primary said they wanted another candidate. second, there are clear doubts about bill clinton's character. the news magazines anointed clinton the nominee. the kiss of death in a year when people are looking for an outsider. >> that slingshot's getting big and heavy -- >> this is something that no one, i mean no one, saw coming. the march 24th, 1992 connecticut primary is one of the biggest presidential primary upsets ever. no one had it on their radar. when it happened, everyone in democratic party politics panicked. this was a vote of no-confidence from his own party's voters against bill clinton. connecticut was supposed to be a coronation for him. but all those scandals, all
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those controversies, democratic voters were saying, we're not sure we should be nominating this guy. in that exit poll, you saw it, nearly 6 in 10 democratic voters said they wanted another candidate. remember, this was 1992. republicans had won three straight presidential elections before this. three straight landslides. there were people who said it wasn't even possible for democrats to win a presidential election anymore. there were democrats who said that. today we're conditioned to think of bill clinton as one of the most talented politicians ever. but in march 1992, democrats looking at him then didn't see that at all. they saw a dud. they saw a guy with way too much baggage to win in the fall. that's why that connecticut primary was so devastating to bill clinton. it wasn't just that he lost. it's who he lost to. this might sound a little bit weird now but jerry brown in march of 1992 was a total and complete has-been. he had been a rising star in the late 1970s.
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back then he was young, he was the exciting governor of california. even ran for president in 1976. he did well. he was a phenomenon. but then he started embracing some unusual ideas. ideas that people thought were a little bit out there. a little bit dark. maybe even a little apocalyptic. a columnist gave him the name, nickname that stuck, became one of the most famous nicknames in american politics, "governor moonbeam." that's what they started calling jerry brown. his popularity dropped. he tried running for the senate in california. he lost. he left the country. he lived with buddhist monks in japan. he studied zen buddhism. he moved to calcutta. he was a long way from american politics for a long time. and then he came back to the united states in the early 1990s and he decided, going to run for president again. this time he decided he was going to do it as a revolutionary. he blasted corporate power. he swore off big money. he called his opponents bought
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and paid for. there was no internet like we know it back then but there were toll-free 800 numbers. jerry brown had one of those too. >> we have an 800 number, we ask people, if you want to join us, call it. wait a minute, don't censor. this is the first amendment, tom. i'm a presidential candidate. let the people -- these airwaves belong to the people. let them judge whether it's appropriate or not, let them join this campaign through the number. 1-800-426-1112. if you want to join, call us. if you think it's inappropriate, then you make that judgment. but that is not for a media outlet to censor the presidential debate. >> jerry brown of 1992 was an angry man. he was angry at the democratic party. he was angry at the media. he w angry at the political system. he was angry at his opponents. and he was getting absolutely nowhere. until completely out of nowhere he won connecticut. and that was the crisis for bill
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clinton. his own party had such severe, such grave doubts about him, about his ability not just to win but even to compete in the fall. they had such deep concerns that he lost connecticut to governor moonbeam. and that loss that loss in connecticut, set up a do or die test for bill clinton and for his entire political dream. the next big primary after connecticut would be new york. democrats weren't going to nominate jerry brown for president in 1992. he was too erratic, too fringe for them. but if jerry brown could follow up what he pulled off in connecticut, if he could beat bill clinton, beat him in new york, beat him in the brightest media spotlight in the world, well, then it wouldn't be too late to find a new candidate. someone else to jump in the race. a white knight to save the party from bill clinton. those were the stakes for bill clinton. that was the crisis he was facing in late march of 1992. jerry brown by the way, jerry brown was loving it.
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it had been years. but suddenly here he was back in the middle of the biggest stage in all of politics. and what made it even better for him, he clearly, clearly had it in for bill clinton and the feel was more than mutual. >> he is funneling money to his wife's law firm for state business, number one. i don't care what you say about me but you ought to be ashamed of yourself for jumping on my wife, you're not worth being on the same platform as my wife -- >> don't try to escape it, ralph nader called me and read me the article, i was shocked. >> that was before the connecticut primary. after connecticut, brown had the whole world watching and boy did he let it rip. >> i remember the last time we had a democratic president, we had almost two-thirds of the congress, we still didn't get labor law reform. when you're looking at presidential candidates, i want you to compare the record of a right to work union-busting,
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wage-depressing, environmental disaster governor, verses a labor governor! somebody on your side! >> jerry brown called bill clinton the prince of sleaze. he said he was slippery. he said he couldn't win in the fall. he called him the humty dumbty candidate, someone who was so broken he couldn't be put back together. every name in the book jerry brown threw it at bill clinton. on the biggest stage in american politics. day after day just tearing into him. campaigns can be tough. we all know that. they can be bloody. they can be ugly. but this, this was something else. and for a while, it looked like jerry brown was going to get the last laugh. the polls in new york action they tightened after connecticut. bill clinton got testy. the press said he was starting to crack under the pressure. jerry brown was under the spotlight too and he made his share of mistakes. he rubbed plenty of people the wrong way.
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in the end bill clinton managed to survive new york. he beat back jerry brown. democrats calmed down. bill clinton went on to win the nomination. and you know where that story ended up. but that wasn't the entire story. that wasn't the end of the story. because jerry brown still wouldn't go away. he stayed in the democratic race. he stayed in it through april. through may. through june of 1992. he had no chance at winning but he kept right on attacking bill clinton. the convention ride in july, clinton wanted unity, jerry brown wanted war. he refused to endorse clinton. so clinton refused to let him speak in primetime. all week jerry brown's delegates, hundreds of them, chanted on the floor, "let jerry speak." brown had himself nominated from the floor. democrats had no choice now. they had to let him talk. >> it is my honor to second the nomination of edmund g. brown jr. for the president of the united states of america.
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jerry brown. >> my name's jerry. i'm here to speak. >> jerry brown, the runner-up in the 1992 democratic primaries, he spoke for 20 minutes at that convention. he blasted the power of corporations, the power of the super wealthy, the democratic party's coziness with them. but never once, not even once in that 20-minute speech, did he mention the name "bill clinton." he never endorsed bill clinton. didn't endorse him at that convention, didn't endorse him in the fall, didn't publicly endorse him in 1996 when bill clinton ran for a second term as president. 1992 campaign sent jerry brownback into the political wilderness. by then he was nearly 60 years old and he had to start all over again if he wanted to be somebody in politics.
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you know what? he did that. 1998, he got elected mayor of oakland, california. 2002, he got re-elected. 2006, he moved up. he got elected attorney general of the state of california. then in 2010, he went for the big prize again. the governorship of california. governor of the largest state in the union. jerry brown by then was 72 years old. and this was going to be his ultimate redemption. winning back the governorship he'd had as a young man, it would be the ultimate redemption if he could win and it looked rough. 2010, remember, this was a big republican year. this was the year of the tea party backlash against obama. even in california. the polls looked close that fall. brown actually thought he could lose. he had to do something. and so what did he do? he swallowed hard. he swallowed very hard. he reached out to the man he had tormented all those years ago. >> president bill clinton!
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>> former president clnl urged democrats to put aside their disappointment about the economic climate and the state of politics and do something about it. turn out to vote. >> elect jerry brown and gavin newsom! will you tell your counterparts you were not here tonight, they have to vote too. bring it in, god bless you. >> here's the thing about politics. everything that everyone does, well, it's for a reason. jerry brown needed that boost from bill clinton in 2010. it could not have been easy for him to ask for that favor. but he felt like he had to and so he did. but bill clinton didn't have to say yes, except that he had something to gain as well. after all, who wouldn't want to have a friend, a new friend, an enemy-turned-friend, who happened to be returning the largest state in america? a friend who right now, today, six years later, happens to be the very popular two-term governor of that state, the biggest state left in the
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democratic presidential primaries. jerry brown's state of california votes one week from tonight and bernie sanders is giving it everything he's got. a poll last week put him within 2 points of hillary clinton. now sanders has essentially zero chance of capturing the nomination at this point. but he could inflict a lot more damage and a lot more embarrassment if he manages to beat her in california. don't you love how stories like this come around in the end? so bill clinton, husband hillary clinton, old, fierce, bitter rival of jerry brown, bill clinton who agreed to put that history aside and help jerry brown in 2010, came calling on governor brown in sacramento last week. we don't know exactly what they talked about, exactly what was said, but we do know this. today, one week before the california primary, the biggest name in california democratic politics, the man who chased bill clinton all around the country in 1992, who called him corrupt and worse, who never actually endorsed him for president, who went after
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hillary clinton as hard as anyone in the 1990s, today that man, jerry brown, governor jerry brown, came off the sidelines and announced that he's endorsing hillary clinton for president. it really is hard to think of a major endorsement in politics that comes with as much history, as much drama, as much trauma, as this one. at a raw, human level it's fascinating to watch this play out. politically it's also a major development. a major signal. because if jerry brown, with all of that history, is ready to snub bernie sanders and get behind the clintons? it's probably the strongest sign yet that democratic leaders are ready to get this primary behind them. joining me now is the "los angeles times" political reporter, great to have you with us. so let's talk about this endorsement from brown, first of all.
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again, as far as i can tell, this is the first time publicly he's endorsed a clinton for anything. did this come as a surprise at all? >> we never know what governor brown is going to do, he's such an interesting politician. i think if you read the endorsement closely it wasn't as much of an endorsement of hillary clinton as it was an endorsement that hillary clinton is the best way to stop donald trump, which i think is governor brown's priority number one. >> what was interesting just looking back through that history today that we've shared on the air right there, how similar and a lot of points the brown campaign in its message back in 1992. they talked so much about income inequality, about the rise of corporate power, about the establishment of the party supposedly selling out. a lot of overlap there between the jerry brown of 1992 and the bernie sanders of today. >> and if you look at the endorsement, he did say he was deeply impressed with bernie sanders. but the ironic thing is he's asking bernie sanders supporters to do what he would not do in 1992 as you pointed out.
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he wants the democratic party to unite behind clinton. he did not unite behind clinton in 1992. >> right. and that's the interesting thing to me. that's what makes jerry brown one of the most fascinating characters i've looked at and read about and observed in politics. he's changed so much. there have been like five different jerry browns through the years. when you look back at that guy we're showing from 1992, you compare it to the guy you're covering right now in california, you get the sense this is a different brown now these days. >> absolutely. i think you can say this about both jerry brown and bill clinton. these are elder statesmen of the parties, they're not the young, brush men they were back when they were arguing. jerry brown's considered somewhat conservative for a democrat in california. he's certainly righting the state's finances, popular among the state's voters. he's not doing what he did 25 years ago where he was talking about income inequality. he's really taking this more centrist path. >> bottom line, we mentioned that poll a week ago that had 2 points, basically a toss-up.
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another one has hillary clinton up double digits. we know she's changed her schedule, she's adding california events. her campaign does not want to end this primary process with a loss in california. what are the chances she does end up losing that state next week? >> i think it's closer than they expected it to be frankly. they originally went planning on going on the air, they announced last week they went up with a million-dollar ad buy. she moved up her schedule, canceled events in new jersey to come here thursday. her surrogates are all over the place. she doesn't need to win california to clinch the nomination, most people expect that to happen earlier in the evening on june 7th. but it would be an embarrassment to lose the state and go into the convention with some negative headlines and without that wind at her back. especially because this is such a huge democratic state, it's so diverse. if she had a loss here it would be embarrassing. >> "l.a. times" political reporter, thanks for the time. >> thank you. >> a lot more to come on this
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busy day in political news. from donald trump's swipe at the media at a press conference that he called, to the big decision bernie sanders is about to face. much more ahead. hey there, hi. why do people have eyebrows? why do people put milk on cereal? oh, are you reading why people put milk on cereal? why does your tummy go "grumbily, grumbily, grumbily"? why is it all (mimics a stomach grumble) no more questions for you! ooph, that milk in your cereal was messing with you, wasn't it? yeah, happens to more people than you think... try lactaid, it's real milk, without that annoying lactose. good, right? mmm, yeah. i got your back. lactaid. it's the milk that doesn't mess with you.
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what i don't want is when i raise millions of dollars, have people say, like this sleazy guy right over here from abc. he's a sleaze, my book. you're a sleaze. because you know the facts and you know the facts well. >> most political reporters will tell you that they see their jobs as trying to cover politics without being part of the story. but donald trump, the presumptive republican nominee for president, very much wants reporters to be part of the story of this campaign. in a press conference today he singled some of them out. then he blasted the press as a whole. >> i think, and i've been dealing with the press a long time. i think the political press is among the most dishonest people that i've ever met, i have to tell you that, okay?
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>> granted, it's not new for a politician to attack the media. what is different is that no candidate has ever relied as much on the media as donald trump. who was he targeting today and why? we'll dive into that coming up. there was some discussion some of the media is going to say the campaign is over, she's the nominee. on tuesday night after the votes
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there was some discussion some of the media is going to say the campaign is over, she's the nominee. on tuesday night after the votes come in from new jersey. that's not accurate. >> bernie sanders over the weekend insisting the democratic primary will not be over next week after california votes, saying not to listen if the media declares hillary clinton the presumptive nominee next week. this posture by sanders saying
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that he's in the race to win all the way to the convention, it's a sore spot with supporters of hillary clinton. they want sanders to step aside and send his supporters to her immediately. it's easy to see why they would be frustrated at this point. what's easy to forget though is that the posture sanders is taking right now, the one that's provoking such worry, such anger, such panic even from supporters of hillary clinton, it really isn't that different than the posture of the last runner-up candidate for the democratic nomination at this same moment eight years ago. it was intense. the outcry from obama supporters all through the spring of 2008 about hillary clinton staying in the race back then, telling hillary clinton that the numbers wouldn't work for her, that they couldn't work for her that by pressing on she was seriously imperilling barack obama's chances of uniting the party and winning in the fall. this is not a comparison, of course, 2008 and 2016, that every clinton supporter is eager to hear. and the situations, 208, 2016,
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they're not exactly the same. but they never are the same exactly in politics. there are still though a lot of similarities between the posture of the clinton campaign, the posture of clinton supporters, at this point in 2008, and the posture of the sanders campaign and the posture of sanders supporters right now. here's one. bernie sanders has essentially zero chance of taking the lead in pledged delegates. he's going to end the primaries with fewer of them than clinton. but the same was true for hillary clinton at this point in 2008 in the final weeks of the democratic race that year, she had zero chance to win the pledged delegate count. yet she stayed in the race and pressed on. then this, right now even though he has essentially zero chance to win the pledged delegate count, bernie sanders is openly appealing to superdelegates to overrule the pledged delegate count and vote for him anyway at the convention. he's basically saying an actual majority of delegates to win the nomination at the convention can only be attained with some help from superdelegates and he's telling those superdelegates they should vote for him because he's more electable. now flashback to may 2008. the end of may that year when
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hillary clinton wrote this letter to superdelegates. she had no chance to win the pledged delegate count when she wrote this but she told them an actual majority of delegates can only be attained at the convention with some help from superdelegates. she asked those superdelegates, she called them automatic delegates, asked them to vote for her anyway because she said she was more electable. number three, bernie sanders and his backers have raised questions about the fairness, maybe the legitimacy of the democratic primary process, calling it "disadvantaged his campaign." of course it was on this exact date 8 eight years ago, may 31st of 2008, hillary clinton's campaign went before the democratic convention's rules committee and didn't get its way. one of its top strategists accused the party committee of hijacking the will of the voters, also threatening to fight theish issue all the way to the convention. hillary clinton's campaign in 2008. then sanders critics saying the problem is sanders is telling his supporters the chance to win, that the problem is he is setting unreasonable expectations.
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let's go back to june 3rd, 2008. that was the final night of that year's primary marathon. hillary clinton was already doomed when it came to pledged delegates. in fact, barack obama was declared by the media the presumptive nominee that night as a result from montana came in. but still after that, that night at her party, here's how hillary clinton was introduced to her supporters. >> are you ready for the next president of the united states of america? >> the next president of the united states. right to the end even after the media called it officially over. she was being called the next president of the united states at her own campaign event. also the polls. clinton supporters fear that sanders with his posture is damaging their party's chances in november. again, you can understand why. a "new york times"/cbs poll came out last week, shows that only 72% of sanders supporters say they'd actually support clinton in november's election. but they asked voters the same thing. at this same point in 2008, and look at this.
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those numbers were even worse back then. 60% of clinton's supporters back then said they would vote for barack obama in the fall over john mccain. democrats right now may honestly believe that their 2016 primary is far worse, is far more divisive, is far bloodier than 2008. but think about this. 2008 worked out for them. barack obama won. he won easily in november. he won with hillary clinton on board. by the fall of that year, no one was talking about what had happened in the spring.
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how democrats now remember the spring of 2008 is probably very different than how they experienced it in realtime. that's the point. for all the bluster, for all the posturing from hillary clinton's campaign, right to the very end of the primaries in 2008, for all of the outcry from obama supporters back then, all the panic among obama supporters that she was destroying the party's chances in november, that she had stayed in the raceway too long, that she had stirred way too much disunity. for all of that, as soon as the primaries ended in 2008, her posture, her campaign's posture, it suddenly and completely changed. a few days after those final primaries clinton suspended her campaign. not long after that she and obama were campaigning together. all those vows to fight to the convention, to win over superdelegates, to spend the summer proving she was the most electable candidate, they vanished as soon as the primaries ended. maybe bernie sanders will behave differently this summer than hillary clinton did in 2008,
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maybe he will go all the way to the convention, maybe there will be lasting damage to the democratic party this fall, no one can say right now. but look back at 2008. look back at it hard. look back at it closely. because there's a lesson there. the lesson is this. the democrats, the key question isn't really what sanders is saying and threatening now. it's what sanders says and does the day after the final primary. because hillary clinton showed eight years ago, back in 2008, how different what a campaign says in the final days of a race can be from what it does as soon as that race is over. joining us is someone who was there at the end of hillary clinton's campaign in 2008, jeffrey guerin, co-chief strategist of the latter part of clinton's 2008 campaign, now president of hart research
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associates, a pollster for priorities usa, that is a pro-clinton super pac. thanks for taking a few minutes. take a trip down memory lane as we just did here. back in may, pack in early june 2008, that period where it was clear the pledged delegate math we hear so much about was not going to work for hillary clinton, but there were still primaries on the calendar. what was it like to be in that campaign? what would the kinds of conversations and strategic thinking going on back then? >> it was definitely a conversation going on about how the campaign would draw to a close. it's not clear what the conversation is in the sanders campaign right now. but the terms had already been set. after we lost north carolina primary, hillary made it pretty clear that we should not do anything that would make it more difficult for barack obama to win a general election in november. we tried to conduct ourselves that way. and we began to think very seriously about what would happen after the last event. hillary won the last primary in south dakota but she made a turn
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very, very quickly. the very next day she spoke to an apac convention where there was some suspicion of president obama on israel. she told the folks at apac they could trust barack obama on israel. then on that saturday, she gave a very full-throated endorsement of president obama, then-senator obama. told her supporters that the best way to continue her fight was to fight hard to elect barack obama. so that's really the standard that she set that we hope that senator sanders will follow. when you say that 2008 came to a happy ending, it came to a happy ending in large part because hillary clinton made a very courageous leadership decision that to tell her supporters and to ask her supporters to follow her in working for barack obama and helping him become the next president. so i think that's the standard
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that we're looking for after california and new jersey. >> and what i find so striking in looking back to 2008, it's not exactly a parallel. there are differences between hillary clinton and bernie sanders, differences between her supporters now, his supporters then. stipulating that, when i look back at the coverage in 2008, what strikes me at this point is, you would not have known from the way this race was playing out in the final weeks of may 2008 that by the middle of june hillary clinton's campaign would be over and she'd be on board with barack obama. from the posture you would hearing through the press at this same moment you would never have guessed that was coming so quickly. >> i think that's fair, steve. hillary felt it was very important for all of her supporters to have a chance to cast their votes. senator sanders feels the same way. then the question became, after that last primary, what do you tell your supporters? do you tell them to keep on fighting all the way through the convention? or do you tell them, it's time for democrats to unite?
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she made the correct, courageous decision to tell her supporters it's time to unite behind barack obama. make sure democrats would win the white house in 2008. look, jerry brown said, i liked your long segment about jerry brown, he said today, this is not a time for democrats to be fighting each other. that the general election has already begun. and he spoke really movingly and powerfully about the stakes in this election. and look, we've had other scenarios, that in 1980, in the brown -- sorry in the carter/kennedy convention, that was not a good convention for jimmy carter and he paid a significant price. i think hillary clinton after this combat really needs the opportunity to have a clear shot at communicating with the american people about her agenda, to begin to build the case against donald trump and the comparison with donald trump. and this space between the lastm and it's important for winning in november.
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and i hope senator sanders is able to make the same courageous decision that hillary made at that point in 2008. >> all right, jeff garin, former co-chief strategist for hillary clinton's campaign in 2008, thanks for the time, appreciate it. as democrats are trying to get a one-person field, some republicans are still trying to get someone else to run.
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you want a job done right, sometimes you have to do it yourself. a week ago conservative writer david french was pleading with mitt romney to make an independent run for president. french telling romney, "you're the only man who can save us from future calamity." except maybe there is one other person who could save us. david french himself. because tonight nbc news has confirmed that david french is now considering an independent run for president. this is according to sources close to the never trump movement. french is a conservative attorney and war veteran. he was awarded a bronze star for his service. if the reports tonight are true he's now being wooed for an independent run by leading conservative bun did it bill kristol, made be most widely known for having helped discover sarah palin for the republican ticket in 2008, chief of staff for dan quayle in the' noise. he tells us the hope of running david french is the citizen candidate may be intriguing in uh to catch fire, qualify for the debates, make the ballot in
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a few states, then who knows. it doesn't look like the ballot will include the name of mitt romney but it might have the name david french on it. body pain? motrin helps you be an... "i can totally do this in one trip" kind of woman. when pain tries to stop you, motrin works fast to stop pain. make it happen with motrin® liquid gels. also try motrin pm to relieve pain and help you sleep.
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unbeatable protection helps prevent early skin aging and skin cancer with a clean feel. the best for your skin. ultra sheer®. neutrogena®. there's no shortage of distinct characters on the fringes of american politics. the fringes is where we have found the libertarian party for most of its four-plus decades of existence. if you were watching c-span this memorial day weekend you probably saw the libertarian convention and got a taste of life on the edge. or maybe underneath when a candidate for party chairman decided to use his speaking time to strip down for the cameras. all that essen trilsty notwithstanding, if ever there were be a opening for the libertarians, this is the year for it. democrats are on the verge of nominating hillary clinton, whose 54% unfavorable rating in the latest nbc news/"wall street journal" poll is not only unparalleled in modern political history, it would be disqualifying probably in any year except maybe this one.
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because she's running against donald trump whose negatives are even higher than hers. 58% right now for donald trump. so for the libertarian party to be relevant, there really is no better time than right now. and while it took a few ballots at this weekend's convention, the libertarians did come away choosing the most credible ticket possible. maybe the most credible ticket in their history. gary johnson and bill weld. two former two-term moderate republican governors. ballot access shouldn't be a problem for the party. today that ticket got the attention of the presumptive republican nominee. >> gary johnson got 1% of the vote last time. i watched that whole situation. it was really pretty disgraceful. i think it's a total fringe deal. i think he's a fringe candidate, you want to know the truth. i watch him, i watch his motions, i watch what he says. i think he is a fringe candidate. and your second, weld, you do a little research on that, i think it's not going to be a factor.
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>> look, trump has history on his side in that the libertarian party hardly ever matters in anything. this year the libertarian ticket's ability to siphon votes from both republicans and democrats will be particularly tested because so many of its policies can an tag both the right and left. gary johnson opposes a federal minimum wage, wants to eliminate the education and commerce departments, says that taxation is theft. he supports the second amendment and is not ready to say climate change is manmade. those positions are generally going to appeal to the right. at the same time he would slash military spending. he supports same-sex marriage and the right to choose. positions that generally have appeal to the left. there is a moment at the convention when johnson was audibly booed for suggesting he would have voted for the civil rights act of 1964. >> the civil rights act of 1964 ended discrimination in both the private sector and the public sector.
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senator barry goldwater voted against it for libertarian reasons. if you had been in the senate, how would you have voted? >> i would have voted for it. >> if the libertarian party wants to be seen as a viable alternative come this fall they're going to have to start demonstrating real public support. for starters johnson and weld are going to need to get into those presidential debates this fall. ross perot was the last third party candidate to get into them. it helped him that year. to get to the podium johnson is going to have to get 15% at least in five national polls. that's a job that's made harder when you're rarely included in the polls to begin with. to date, johnson has registered double-digit support in two national polls. he got 5% in a new new jersey poll released today. really if the libertarian party has one pitch right now it's not necessarily the voters, it's more to the pollsters. in short, please make sure you
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include us. >> as journalists, how about a pitch, how about just an open headline questionnaire? why shouldn't these two guys be included in the polls? i mean, really. that's what i'd like the headline to be. why not include these guys? wahhhh... right. in. your. stomach! watch this!... >>yikes, that ice cream was messing with you, wasn't it? try lactaid, it's real ice cream, without that annoying lactose. lactaid. it's the milk that doesn't mess with you.
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headache? motrin helps you be an unstoppable kind of mom. when pain tries to stop you, motrin works fast to stop pain. make it happen with motrin® liquid gels. also try motrin pm to relieve pain and help you sleep. donald trump went to war against the media today, going on and on about the sins and failings and shortcomings of the press. and a member of the media who has covered donald trump frequently joins us next.
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>> i will say that press should be ashamed of themselves. i have to tell you, the press is so dishonest and so unfair. >> the kind of scrutiny -- >> when i raise -- excuse me, i have watched you on television, you are a beauty. dishonest reporting. >> i am not looking for credit. when i raise millions, like this sleazy guy from abc, you are a sleeze. you know the facts, you know the facts well. >> i think you set a new bar for being contentious. calls us losers to our faces. >> not all of you, just many of you.
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>> enough of us. >> not you, sdafd. >> is this what it will be like to cover you if you are president? >> i am a -- yes, it will be like this david. if you write false stories, libellous stories, and the people know the stories are false. i will continue to attack the press. i find the press to be extremely dishonest. i find the political press to be unbelievably dishonest. >> lashing out at the press, in this case, over coverage of his fundraising for veteran groups. was it real or was it a campaign tactic? donald trump, he relies on the press, you know, the public
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person grew up in the tabloids of new york city in the 1980s, and it is such a contrast that ethic, that trump mastered in the 1980s to, what we usually see in the political press. a combative pris -- press, a gentile atmosphere, than anything we have seen in the new york tabloids. >> do you think he has contempt for the press? or is it a tool he wants to use? rnths it is a complicated relationship. his whole campaign is fuelled by his appearances in the press.
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he uses his ability to get on television and saturate if the political conversation to drive his campaign it isn't a campaign that relies on paid advertising. it has a grass roots organization. it is not at the core, at the center of the campaign, donald trump who is appearing on television. >> something else at that press conference that illicited by holly jackson, the noise from bill crystal, a trump critic about a third party candidate. show that exchange. >> you yourself reacts, what you called a spoiler candidate, earlier in the race, you didn't rule out -- >> we are down the line. we are down the line. the fact that you can't win as an independent. if they do afternoon indy,
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assuming it is decent. i don't think anybody with a reputation would do it. they would look like fools. >> it does seem there is an opening for an independent candidate. the name is out there from bill crystal. mitt romney. it looks like it will be a little known writer, david french, if it is anybody. two on the liberitarian. hawks, away from donald trump, maybe not in a significant way, enough to hurt trump in sporaddic states, and the literians, with the addition of the former massachusetts for the time.
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we have seen the legs fail to lock. a rocket on a drone ship. mind boggling. actually able to land it space-x attached a camera to the rocket. giving an angle on that landing that we have never seen before. they turn it into a time lapse video. this is the rocket descending from the edge of space. you can see the earth's horizon in frame. the rocket positions itself for dissent. the rocket fires up to slow the approach, the legs lock into place, the target hits the bull's eye, a safe landing, right in the middle of the flat form. nailed it there.
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pretty cool. that will do it for us. rachael will be back tomorrow. see you tomorrow morning at my regular time. now, it is time for lawrence. that's going to do it for us tonight. i'd see you tomorrow morning. up next, "first look." it's wednesday, june 1. donald trump goes off on reporters who dare to question donations to veterans as hillary clinton just got a huge boost to her campaign. a harrowing experience as ceiling tiles fall right on passengers mid flight. here heavy rains headed to the drenched midwest. and plus, a glimmer of good news where a child pulled from the ashes. and the president welcomes the wildcats and the debut of maya and marty. "first look" starts right now. good morning, everyone. i'm betty nguyen. breaking news overnight, the first baby born with zika related