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tv   The Rachel Maddow Show  MSNBC  March 2, 2018 9:00pm-10:00pm PST

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tonight on "all in," another nbc news exclusive. >> my name is jared kushner. >> the mueller's probe is investigating whether or not the president's son-in-law is using foreign policy to benefit his own company. >> jared is a very successful real estate person. >> tonight why jared kushner may be in trouble like never before and what did the president know and when did he know it? plus the story behind the, quote, unglued president and his impulsive decision to start a trade war. incredible new deception from the white house chief of staff on his handling of a domestic abuse scandal. and a massive popular uprising in deep red trump country. "all in" starts right now. >> good evening from new york, i'm chris hayes.
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it would be one thing if jared kushner used his position from the white house to benefit his family real estate business. that would be bad but that's your standard run of the mill style corruption. a big deal scandal if true but also the kind of thing you've heard about before, maybe in state or local government. okay. but it would be another thing entirely it jared kushner actually shaped american foreign policy to punish countries for turning down deals with his business at the expense of u.s. interests. and that is exactly what special counsel robert mueller is trying to figure out according to a new exclusive from nbc news. mueller's team has asked about kushner's chance focusing on discussions with individuals from qatar, turkey and the united emirates. his family has struggled to
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refinance its flagship property at 666 -- i'm not making that up -- 666 fifth avenue in manhattan, about $1.4 billion. kushner tried and failed to get a bailout for the former prime minister of qatar. mueller's investigators are examining those talks taking specific interest in a meeting at trump tower between the then president-elect son-in-law and the former qatari prime minister. today the intercept broke the news that curb are in companies went on to seek funds directly from the qatari government last april. jared's father, charles, meeting with the country's finance minister here in new york to convince him to invest in the 5th avenue building. the dal fell throueal fell thro.
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get this. just a few weeks later this happened. >> we turn now to the diplomatic crisis erupting in the middle east. five nations cutting ties with qatar accusing them of supporting terror. today president trump appeared to side with its accusers. >> catch that? last june saudi arabia and the uae organized a blockade of qatar, an important ally that holds the largest military base in the middle east. >> the nation of qatar unfortunately has historically been a funder of terrorism at a very high level. for qatar, we want you back among the unity of responsible
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nation nations we ask qatar and other nations in the region to do more and do it faster. >> at the time reports suggested jared kushner may have been behind those very remarks. that's how secretary of state rex tillerson -- tillerson is trying to put out the fire. he's got different u.s. allies and rex put two and two together and said "this absolutely vacuous kid was running foreign policy out of the white house family quarters." sources tell nbc news that qatari government officials visiting the u.s. considered turning over to mueller what they believe was evidence of efforts by their country's
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persian gulf neighbors in kword nation with kushner. >> he's trying to figure out whether there was discussion by kushner and foreigners as you very nicely laid out. the second thing that's very significant is that mueller's office has reached out to foreign nationals, which is -- expands the universe of witnesses that we kind of thought he might be talking to and specifically has reached out to the fbi in turkey to see if he could connect him with foreign nationals. that's significant. and the fact that qatari officials government have decided for now not to talk to
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mueller is interesting, specifically because they wrestled for this for days on their visit. they felt like things were going well, they had discussions with the secretary of state, a second and others and they didn't want to do anything that might jeopardize it. >> that part of the story blew my mind. here you see the problem with this conflict, right? it flows in many directions. ryan, what was so important about your piece and coordination is carol is describing this conflict. there's this parallel thing that jared is doing. we know his family is looking for foreign money to inject into a cash-staffokascash-starved. your story gets the two as close together as you can imagine. how involved was kushner in
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that? >> he was extremely involved in the policy. without kushner, we might not have the blockade. this blockade is ongoing. i think they lost chad the other day. but saudi arabia and the uae are still blockading this country. they're trying to prevent -- food can't go in through certain channels and this cold war very nearly became a hot war. there are reports that the emrattees considered invading with a mercenary force qatar as this entire thing unfolded. it's not all just silliness either. t the yemen crisis is tied into this. the uae cares more about qatar.
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it's also helped explode a cholera epidemic and mass starvation while we're at it. >> kushner goes to saudi in 2017 in october. days before the head of the saudi government essentially purges a whole bunch of saudi oligarchs, which can be a brave stand for reform on a ruthless move, david ignatius reporting that jared and the man you see there had kind of a slumber party, the two princes stayed up until nearly 4 a.m. swapping stories. this is the kind of policy at the center of the middle east that is very dangerous and very high stakes, after one of the parties of this rejects offers to put money into his business. >> there are federal laws in interest. you cannot advise on a policy if the policy is going to benefit
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you. he still owns a huge stake in this family company whose entire fortune is tied to whether or not this 666 property collapses. these real estate companies are cross-cla cross-collateraliz cross-collateralized. and steve bannon has kind of gloated about this, if that property goes down, the entire family goes with it. he's setting policy in the middle east while his family's company is trying to extract money to save him. there are absolutely federal laws implicated there. >> am i wrong that kushner has not come before mueller yet? >> he spoke to him, what we know is he did speak to mueller's team briefly right before the flynn deal was announced. he went and had conversations. but as far as we know, that's it. >> i would imagine, i don't know
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what your white house reporting says that there must be some nervousness about jared kushner. >> yes. yes, there is. people -- not just people who are in the white house and working with kushner but people who are working with him say that he seems to be rattled this week. >> carol lee and ryan, f phenomenal reporting tonight. >> for more on the stakes for jared kushner, i'm joined by harry littman and ned price, now an msnbc national security analyst. jumping off a point ryan just made, are there any federal laws implicated here? >> a whole range of them. what ryan was talking about is our ethics laws that apply to executive branch officials. and those, you know, let's just say the minimum here, at a minimum this stinks to high heaven. it's crazy that we can even ask
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the questions that ryan and carol's reporting provokes. is he using his office to settle scores or exploit financial gain? is he being played for a patsy? is he subject to blackmail? all of those mean it's not in the interest of the united states for jared kushner to have this kind of roving commission that he's had. but there are a series of criminal laws as well that this could implicate. one is just good old fashioned bribery and -- but it's going to be a little hard to prove that after the mcdonald case. but there's one more i wanted to mention. i don't want to hog the airwaves but your point that he hasn't been nt viewinterviewed is a hu because there's nowhere to do the obstruction case. he's everywhere in the obstruction case, chris. the fact that he hasn't been interviewed -- to me you have to interview him before you start to negotiate with trump.
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and the fact that he hasn't suggests to me that his lawyer has hold mueller's team that he won't talk to them, he will instead plead the fifth amendment. because otherwise we would have heard about his interactions with them. >> there was a brief conversation with investigators but nothing like the kind of -- >> that's in november. >> nothing long term like we've seen other players in this. i'll give a best case scenario and get your response, ned. the best case scenario is the u.s. has a strong partnership with saudi arabia and the qat i qataris are cracking down on terrorism and they're threatening our allies so this is a perfectly, on the merit substantive thing for kushner to get involved in on the side of the united arab emirates and the saudis. what do you say about that? >> qatar is home to the air base that hosts more than 10,000 u.s.
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service members and qatar being a crucial member of our coalition, a country that, by the way, reportedly has helped us free hostages from isil and other al qaeda affiliates. when you talk about qatar in relation to saudi arabia in this mix of counterterrorism partners, let's be clear that saudi arabia also does not have clean hands when it comes to counterterrorism. it's sort of hard to parse the two. in my mind the best case scenario here is that as you were saying at the beginning, this was run of the mill corruption. this was just something that was purely unethical, maybe even illegal but was it more than that? i think worst case what we're looking at is a policy move that was dictated not by our national interests but by jared kushner's personal interests and the implications being our own national security was jeopard e jeopardiz jeopardized. we were for a few days at war, rhetorical war at least, with a
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key ally that hosts thousands of u.s. troops. those service members could have been in grave jeopardy. >> not only that, there's an expand expand expanded aperture, right? jared kushner saying please bail us out with a big loan. no. okay, we're now at war with you. we know he med with thead of a bank. >> you're exactly right here. there is a temporal circumstantial case here. we are able to see in may donald trump went over to saudi arabia the month before this deal with the qataris apparently fell
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apart and in june donald trump issued these tweets condemning qatar. it's a very sequential process here. if you go back to the transition, remember that donald trump along with his son-in-law, jared kushner, took a call from the taiwanese president and both of them called into question the u.s. adherence to the one china policy. then jared kushner, a week after the election met with the head of the one of the largest chinese banks and discussed a $400 million loan for his company. and all of a sudden once again the trump administration is backing the one china policy. there are other instances of that where the case is a little bit more circumstantial and we don't have this coincidence of sequencing but i think it's all there if you read through the lines. >> is there precedent for someone like jared kushner running around for the exposure he has? >> wow. so let's see. we certainly have had situations like this, you know, offhand i
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think of john connolly during the nixon administration but basically this is the most tangled web i've ever encountered. i think what ned says is right. this is the very best scenario, and just that we're asking these questions, it's nuts! it is nuts that he's conducting this roving foreign policy for the united states when there's so many points of vof vul - vulnerability. >> and coming up, what john kelly is trying to sell this time. two of everything thing. those fur babies preparing you for real babies thing. that one for me, one for you, us together for the rest of forever thing. buy one iphone 8, get one iphone 8 on us.
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and john kelly's statement said he didn't learn of the physical abuse until the second story broke. but the "daily mail" says that false. what is your case that john kelly is not being truthful when he says that he was not told about physical abuse? >> so the daily mail was very clear in its original account to the white house that it was in fact physical abuse, that the
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wife was alleging against rob porter, so it seems that there might be some sort of a disconnect between the press office and perhaps what john kelly was told, if he's saying he didn't know that there was physical abuse and it was just emotional abuse. there seems to be a disconnect between the white house press office and john kelly overall. if i could flash forward to the next day on wednesday, john kelly saying he told rob porter it was time to go on tuesday evening but on wednesday at the white house press briefing, after 1:30 p.m., sarah sanders gets up at the podium, reads rob porter's resignation and says he's not even leaving anytime soon. there will be a transition period of some sort. so those two things don't really jive, especially because the white house also right before the press briefing brought in several other reporters and allowed porter to essentially tell his side of the story. >> that's right. and not only that, jon kelly
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puts out a statement testifying to rob porter's great character after you broke your story in which jennifer said she was dragged naked out of a shower and when there's a picture of a bruised eye, a black and blue eye of the first wife, the white house said john kelly stands by his original statement, correct? >> that's correct. he did not change his statement at all until that evening, roughly 9:30 p.m. on wednesday that the white house even updated john kelly's statement about rob porter and even then, he said, this isn't the man that i knew him to be whatsoever. it's not as if any where and there. i told him, he has to go. he was fired. they were maintaining he resigned and left on his own terms. >> i want to bring in white house post reporter jennifer ruben. what's going on here?
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>> you got me. i think john kelly is a lot of trouble and engaged in this death match with jared kushner and ivanka. clearly the president is very upset, so upset he probably started a trade war because he's so upset with john kelly. everyone is just covering their rear ends here and inconceivable, not only he didn't know as francesca said until the 6th but for an entire year, he had no press clearance. john kelly came in the summer. apparently, he was told in the fall somebody was told in the fall he wasn't going to be getting his clearance. so was john kelly not told about that or not known the details? none of this hangs together. and i think it's really reflective of the fact that john kelly is on thin ice, he felt compelled to go back to the well, five or six scandals already and try to clean that up. >> so here's jennifer responding for jessica.
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i want to get your response to this. didn't feel rob should resign until he was accused of physical abuse. i'd filed a protective order and called the police on several occasions and i detailed pulled naked from the shower. there's a substantive point where what john kelly understands as fireable or disqualifying for the white house, right? >> he's saying he was only aware that it was emotional abuse at first and some sort of a messy divorce but i cannot stress enough that the daily mail told the white house press office that it was domestic violence and it was physical abuse and went through the allegations from rob porter's ex-wife. so certainly, the press office was aware of exactly what would be running in the daily mail. >> he said today, jennifer, i have nothing, absolutely nothing, this is john kelly, absolutely nothing to even consider resigning over. we didn't cover ourselves in glory in terms of how we handled that on wednesday morning. it was confusing. >> it must be confusing for the chief of staff. i think that's the problem. he says lots of things not going
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as he would have liked them. same thing with clearances in general. too many people had them. whose job was that? that was his job. there's a disturbing pattern in this administration that people in charge tend to be spectators in their own administration. he is in charge of that white house. if he didn't know, why didn't he know? i think, frankly i'm stunned they're going back to this. could be arguing about many other things, and other things transpired but this must have stuck with him and the president. >> great reporting to break that story initially. thank you both. coming up, exclusive reporting from nbc news. unplanned trade war because he was furious about the news cycle. the unglued president in two minutes. if he'd taken tylenol, he'd be stopping for more pills right now. only aleve has the strength to stop tough pain
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for up to 12 hours with just one pill. aleve. all day strong. sometimes you need an expert. i got it. and sometimes those experts need experts. on it. [ crash ] and sometimes the expert the expert needed needs insurance expertise. it's all good. steve, you're covered for general liability. and, paul, we got your back with workers' comp. wow, it's like a party in here. where are the hors d'oeuvres, right? [ clanking ] tartlets? we cover commercial vehicles, too. i think there's something wrong with your sink. we cover commercial vehicles, too. want us to do about what woulthis president?fathers i'm tom steyer, and when those patriots wrote the constitution here in philadelphia, they created the commander in chief to protect us from enemy attack the justice department just indicted 13 russians for an electronic attack on america. so what did this president do? nothing. he's failed his most important responsibility - to protect our country. the question is: why is he still president?
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one of the many questions we still had after the president's tariff announcement yesterday
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was what exactly prompted such a sudden decision? well, tonight, thanks to an nbc news exclusive report, we might have an answer. according to two officials, trump's decision to launch a potential trade war was born out of anger at other issues. gary cohen, top secretary and steve mnuchin tried to talk him out of it but became unglued and spurred on by wilbur ross, just put that up there while i'm reading. trump was angry and gunning for a fight and he chose a trade war. stephanie ruhle, one of the reporters who broke that news with nick. what's your reporting about the mood inside the white house that pushed the president towards the decision? >> bad day for trump. hope hicks leaving. angry about john kelly and wasn't happy with jeff sessions that day. president trump was not in a
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good state and also remember, he's without rob porter who did serve as sort of a filter. so wilbur ross makes his way in and president trump has had these views on trade as has wilbur ross for quite some time. but it's really just been wilbur ross and his side kick peter navarro. not john kelly or the defense department, the state department, the treasury department. no one knows about this. wilbur ross scheduled a meeting with ceos of steel companies and nobody knows who they are. nobody's been vetted. the white house said, well, these were people who have most been here before. yet no one knew their name. there was no legislative plan to tell congress. there was no diplomatic plan to tell other countries, other allies and the white house council's office was doing a review of possible tariffs on steel that's not going to be done for another two weeks. this came out of absolutely nowhere.
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>> so there's a sort of substance and a process question. put substance to the side. we debated this in a fascinating debate with leo and the steel workers and stephanie, but process-wise, like, this is really far a field of how something like this would normally work, right? >> well, absolutely. i mean, you would consider a policy change like this very judiciously and engage all sorts of stake holders in the government and outside of the government. it would take time. you would have a plan to roll it out. there would be an engagement period, even before you did that with the public likely but this is the thing. it makes me wonder, i mean, not wonder so much, just be concerned that if the president is willing to take action like this and knock 500 points off the dow in one fell swoop, when he's worried about other things or angry at other things, what else is he willing to do when the net sort of tightens, the mueller net tightens around him?
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i think we'll see more. >> that's what i was saying. it's preferable to an actual war having a trade war for now. >> if this is what blows off the steam, better to aluminum. >> behind the white house lawn or whatever. there's a process of constraining the president at all times from things he wants to do and to be honest on this one, we knew he wanted to do that and his own staff running around trying to slow roll him for a year. who should be surprised that he finally said, guys, i'm the president. i want this. >> he was surprised when the market dropped and when steve mnuchin and the rest of them up and what is the market doing like this? and it was actually general
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kelly, who you don't hear sort of defending the new york bankers often, who said to the president, these guys told you over and over, this was going to happen, sir. >> you know, there's also this question about like the policy making process when you think about foreign policy and war, right? so this really has me worried. i have to genuinely say. the president of the united states has incredible military power. >> year over year, the a.u. we passed after that allows us to wage global war anywhere in the world at any time for any reason. here's something that caught my eye last week. the pentagon secretly planning for north korea last week. table top exercise. okay. held over several days in hawaii. a number of pitfalls in well entrenched military. the pentagon's limited ability to evacuate injured in the peninsula. also the 2,000 casualties to expect in the first day of fighting. is this something you worry about? >> yes, and let me say this.
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let me temper this a little bit. i do hope not because trump is so reasonable but because he has reasonable national security people around him he gave an order to do something that didn't need to be done, they would stop it or so horrible. >> wait a second though. wait a second. i want to stop you there. it's the united states. he's the president of the united states. he gives an order. >> let me finish. what i'm worried about is on the margins because there are all of these decisions you make as president about national security and using the military where you could exercise restraint or you could do it and those are the hard decisions. those are the hard decisions that presidents make. there are a lot of them all the time. what happens on the margins? so something where we could take action but we don't have to. there may be other options but
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justifiable kind of to do it and you could explain it. that's what i'm worried about. >> chris hayes, also, history has shown, kind of all talk, right? i mean, even this. now he's pushed this off a week, so what are you going to see happen in the white house? they're going to scramble and try to get him to swallow this and not do it. bullies talk a big game. and point and push you in the chest with their finger but how many of them actually take a swing? have you seen president trump actually take a swing that often? on twitter, great, come get me. >> yes, he called it down the block tough. yeah, right. but and that's totally true. he can't even fire people. the guy who ran the show, can't fire people in person but there is a question of like, these two things happening. the people falling away, keith shilers, bodyguard not there anymore. still getting paid. hope hicks, not there anymore. jared kushner is in a lot of trouble it looks like, et cetera. and the mueller probe and whether the unpredictability ratchets up. >> he's the first president
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>> he's the first president in a long time, if ever, ever who does things because he's mad or does things policy-wise despite his own staff or he's in a bad mood and we know from the reporting in the white house, from the post and "the new york times" and from nbc, he does it a lot and losing the emotional support people around him that he's had in the white house who keep him from having these jags. so who knows what's going to happen? >> this is why i start to find this jared kushner and javanka, if you will, they are his security blanket. in the end, they're not going anywhere, but if they were to leave the white house and no longer has that security blanket and all of this other stuff is happening, then i think we have plenty to worry about. >> trump swaps beloved burgers for salads and soups in new diet. yes, makes you cranky but bone chilling to imagine what that can produce. thank you for joining us. still ahead, why the nra
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thing one tonight. the trump administration and interior secretary ryan zinke did something never literally been done before. they reduced lands that had previously been designated national monuments by prior presidents. one called bear's ear's national monument in utah which they reduced by staggering 85%. before that when ryan zinke rode around on a horse at bear's ears last summer, the review process was about preservation, not oil drilling. >> so should it be preserved? >> you know what? yes, of course, the legacy and what i've seen should be preserved. the issue is whether the
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monument is the right vehicle or not the right vehicle. what vehicle of public land is appropriate to preserve? the culture identity to make sure that tribes have a voice and make sure you protect the traditions of hunting and fishing and public access and we also have a pretty good idea of oil and gas potential, not much. so bears ears isn't really about oil and gas at all. >> at all. not about oil and gas at all. wouldn't it be absolutely galling if the opposite were true? if it was all about oil and gas? that's thing two in 60 seconds. from your allergy pills? flonase relieves your worst symptoms including nasal congestion, which most pills don't. flonase helps block 6 key inflammatory substances. most pills only block one. flonase.
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we also have a pretty good idea of certainly the oil and gas potential. not much. so bear's ears isn't really about oil and gas at all. >> that was ryan zinke, secretary of the interior saying, and i quote him again, bear's ears isn't really about oil and gas at all. so of course, today, "the new
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york times" reports oil was central in the decision to shrink bear's ears monument according to internal agency e-mails. from the start of the internal review process, agency officials directed staff to figure out how much coal, oil and natural gas had been put eessentissentially limits. utah senator warren hatch's office e-mailed a map with oil and gas sites that beared ears. it was incorporated in almost exactly into the much larger reductions. last month, that land opened for new mining and drilling leases. >> i'm actually optimistic because will make a recommendation that i think will be best for our country and best for preservation.
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♪ ♪ [ cheers and applause ] what's going on is everyone in america is seeing how the working class citizens are being treated in west virginia. [ cheers and applause ] it's time for the places of those in important and focus it on the top 1%, it's time to turn the table, ladies and gentlemen. >> there's something absolutely wild happening right now in west virginia. that scene you just saw is from
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the capital building in charleston where teachers now on their seventh day of a wildcat unauthorized strike are giving a warm welcome to a supporter who's come to visit. that supporter? the man you saw talking is democratic state senator named richard o'jetta, a tattooed tough talking army vet running for congress, who has become something of a celebrity in the movement. all of this happening in one of the most conservative states in the union. the heart of coal country where we held a town hall to talk to voters in the country and announced he was switching to the party with donald trump by his side and this, this is the place where 20,000 teachers from every single last one of the last 55 counties in the state are engaged in a week long grassroots strike over their salaries and crucially rising insurance premiums. those teachers who live in a state that spent years cutting taxes over and over for businesses and watching its revenue shrink and people whose pay ranks 48th in the entire
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nation, those teachers are still taking tear of their students while their schools are closed. they have pooled their own money to host free lunches and hand out bags of food to make sure the 67% of west virginia kids who qualify for free or reduced price meals are still getting fed. we don't know how much longer the strike will go on. the governor announced a plan to raise salaries by 5% earlier this week but teachers said no, no, they are holding out. they're on strike to fix the state health insurance plan they said it's too expensive. we do know that this kind of thing we're seeing is very rare. strikes almost basically never happen anymore in america and strikes like this pulled up by workers who do not even have collective bargaining rights in their own state, nearly unheard of recently. it's really a testament to the turbulence of the political moment we live in that whole new vistas of mass action are certainly coming into view and i would venture that there is yet more over the horizon.
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we took it as a slap in the face by delta. the people here in georgia love our country, constitution and second amendment. we have to represent the people here in georgia and not corporate interest. >> when delta airlines announced it was ending a discount program for nra members, georgia politicians threatened to retalia retaliate. they killed a proposed break for jet fuel sells that would benefit delta, one of the state's most largest airlines. even though only 13 group tickets were sold under the nra. i want to bring in michelle goldberg who observed here a few days ago political and consumer unrest in this country with josh bower who argued in business insider, they are taking more left leaning stances and tara who is an expert in marketing and communications and i want to
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return to the point. it's been so fascinating to watch this play out. in which political power in this country is tilted towards older, more conservative, particularly rural americans, consumer power in this country, the things that brands care about, the kinds of people they're trying to get to be customers are younger, more diverse and more urban. and nothing is more clear what politicians are doing post parkland. >> i don't think the natural place to turn to for gun control is big corporations but -- >> i agree. yes, that's not the solution. >> people are making it a consumer issue because they are shutout of the process because nra has such a lock on the government despite the way people are forced to turn to whatever avenues of influence are open, which in this case are sort of consumer power, it's not ideal and then it creates a situation where gun owners feel even more cultural embattled because they feel like even
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walmart and krogers are turning on them. >> the culture war is everywhere. >> right. i think it's interesting in part because you say the 13 tickets thing with delta, it reflects how symbolic this is. it's not like delta is getting out of a lucrative line of business here, compared to fedex being resistant to making changes because fedex is in the business of shipping things related to guns. if they took a stand, that could have a significant cost. >> dick's sporting goods. >> walmart, they are taking significant steps. what fraction of the gun sales are between 18 and 20? >> dicks, someone publicized their estimates, millions of dollars in sales. it's not nothing. it's somewhere between 13 tickets being sold. >> it's also self-protective,
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right? dick's said as soon as they saw the shooting they went through their own records to find if cruz bought a gun from them and he did but it wasn't the gun used in this massacre. there is an element we don't want to be the company that sells the next shooter his ar-15. >> i agree with that 100% because there is a reason they went through that exercise because imagine the pr risk if you are the company that sold that and there is increasing pressure, remember, before this started, there had been pressure on teachers' unions with the pension funds, pressure on groups that are typically left leaning groups that also invest. >> right, to use that money -- >> and that started with other issues before this issue but now with this issue being elevated in the way it has been by the youth, now that targeting is happening and you've seen black rock come out, black rock, the mega investment company say they are putting pressure now on gun retailers to make changes and that matters. >> what is fascinating is the effect where republicans are
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like screw you delta, i'm not sure the jet tax was good policy, anyway. i suspect it probably wasn't. the jet tax cut for delta. so who cares about that but it reinforces personal persecution. it's like everyone's out to get us. everyone hates gun owners and we're a raid across corporate america and the corporate echelon. >> it's amazing. i've seen several friends post how proud they are to fly delta in the wake of this and i think, you know, as we've seen a retreat of social institutions, people don't go to church as most, less likely to serve in the military, what draws us together is corporations and brands. people have been putting more -- >> depressing. >> on some level, people seem to get real joy out of it. people identify. lacroix water. >> that's different. that's a way of life. >> so there you go. >> i'm just kidding. >> some people say i'm a delta
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person. >> right. >> so when you identify that with a brand it starts to make sense to expect the brand to express your political value. >> and an interesting column saying there is something cynical at play here. he calls it the rise of capital. corporate activism is an intention with tax policy and stinginess in paychecks but the activism exists to justify the ways of ceos to cultural power brokers so those same brokers will leave them alone in realms that matter more. >> exactly. what realm matters the most are tax cuts and favorable policies, tax breaks, incentives, all of that matters most. they aren't going to make concessionsin that. >> no. >> they will lobby and fight for that so when they can make these concessions, the notion that this is altruism, it's just not. it's not. will activists take it? yes.
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but it's not altruism. >> yeah, i was skeptical about how much this is going to work in general although two hours ago on this network, i saw a panelist saying you don't mess with delta. if they want a tax break, give it to them. to the extent that they are succeeding in getting people on national television saying that maybe the capital thing is working. >> there is this generational issue. there is a generational divide in political preference that opened up. it usually is not the case there is such a wide divide between young voters and older voters. >> and not just partisanship on guns. you have an older generation where it is the norm to have a gun in the house, and you have a younger generation where it's increasingly not. it's an increasingly foreign way of life and so it doesn't have any sort of symbolic value. >> yeah, i've seen some data, it's hard to find really reliable numbers on this but looks like frequent travelers are somewhat more democratic than the country as a whole and it makes sense that gap would
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widen with the globalist versus nationalist perspective. people more eager to travel more might be becoming more in line with the globalist political coalition. >> and younger people are moving into cities. there is in the past older people moved down to the suburbs, that was your way of life and younger people moving into cities and guns and cities are not ideal. >> there is this fact that these kinds of people that the political system don't have much power in the political system, right? there are 30 u.s. senators representing states with a smaller population than queens. >> uh-huh. >> okay? >> right? so that's the balance in the united states federal government. the consumers of queens matter. there is a lot of them and they are young and diverse. >> there is a lot of people looking for any way they can to express political power. you're seeing that around special elections for state legislative seats drawing national attention. whether that's i can vote and elect someone to my state legislature or i can pressure delta to drop -- yeah. >> michelle goldberg, josh, tara
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thanks for joining me tonight. that's great. >> that does it for "all in." good evening. it's friday night. i am in for lawrence o'donnell. unglued. that is donald trump's current condition at least according to an inside source who just spoke to nbc news. and while many may say donald trump's presidency isn't exactly known for being very glued together to begin with, this week's chaos has been pretty intense even grading on any kind of, say, trump curve. think about the new reports that the mueller probe is now eyeing jared kushner and whether his debt and business issues drove any foreign policy corruption inside the trump white house. mueller's team asking witnesses about kushner's efforts to secure financing for his family's real estate properties. discussions during the transition from individuals from qatar, turkey, russia, china and