Meeting. And with just over a month until iowa my special guest tonight 2020 candidate andrew yang, when all in starts right now. Good evening from new york. Im chris hayes. We have shocking new footage utof what the men in an accused war criminal thought about him. Navy seals describing actions by their platoon leader a man by the name of eddy gagger. Gallagher has become the figure at the center of an enormous moral scandal in the trump administration, perhaps one of its worst. Over the summer a military court acquitted gallagher of most of the war crimes he was charged with but he was charged with the lesser crime of posing with a picture of a mans corpse. The military began the formal process of stripping his coelostat s but donald trump intervened restoring his rank and ordering the navy to keep him in the seals. Its worth noting that donald trump campaigned on a prowar crime platform in 2016. Would i approve waterboarding, you bet your id prove it, in a heartbeat. In a heartbeat. And i would approve more than that. And dont kid yourself, folks. It works. He took 50 bullets and he dipped them in pigs blood, and he had his men load his rifles, and he lined up the 50 people and they shot 49 of those people, and the 50th person he said you go back to your people and you tell them what happened. And for 25 years there wasnt a problem. Okay . Now were talking about waterboarding. I said its fine, and if we want to go stronger id go stronger, too. Given that its perhaps not all that surprising Eddy Gallagher would become a kind of cause celebre for President Trump and his supporters. He wants to bring Eddy Gallagher out on the o20 campaign trail with him. They hosted gallagher and his wife at maralago. And heres the thing Eddy Gallagher a retired special operations chief of seal team 7, the guy you saw poezising with president and his son, and his personal lawyer, he was accused of some very serious war crimes in iraq back in 2017. He was accused of attempted murder of unarmed civilians including an unarmed man and a schoolgirl, he was convicted of posing with a picture of that dead mans corpse. Gallagher denies all the charges. Today the New York Times published a trove of interviews which have never been shown before. Statements made by Eddy Gallaghers fellow seal team members to investigators speaking out about what they saw. Some goats. The guy was freaking evil, the guy was toxic. You could tell he was perfectly okay with killing anybody that was moving. The times also obtained video recordings of the interviews of seals describing the scene when Eddy Gallagher approached the captive he was accused of stabbing. A warning the first image may be disturbing. Gallagher comes on the scene with his medic bag and pushes the kid down on the ground while he checks him for wounds and right then you can see a hand reach up and turn off the helmet cam. So what did you actually see gagger do . All of a sudden he just starts stabbing the dude. Did he say anything when he did this or just pull out a knife and started stabbing him . Just pulled out and knife and started stabbing him. How close do you think you were . One time, multiple times . It was probably two or three times. Nbc news did not reach out to the individual seals. The New York Times said they did reach out to every one of them and they all declined comment. Eddy gallaghers defense lawyer said the video was rife with inconsistencies and falsehood and they created a clear road map to the acquittal. The New York Times failed to give context to the videos and the supposed eyewitnesses actually had inconsistent stories. The ceil te one of the reasons Eddy Gallagher was acquitted of murder had to do with a remarkable moment during his trial, okay, where the prosecutions star witness, a medic who said he saw gallagher stab the isis cap itative multiple times changed his story on the stand. He said gallagher stabbed the captive once and he cory scott killed the captive by suffocation. No one was prepared for that. It was a shock to everyone in the room at least for prosecutors. Because that was witness was testifying under immunity he could not be charged for killing and Eddy Gallagher was acquitted and convicted of posing with the corpse of that dead captive. We still do not know the story of what led to this medic to change his tune on the stand and basically admit to killing the captive, but we do know after the trial the pentagon basically wanted to kick Eddy Gallagher out of the s. E. A. L. S and President Trump intervened, and he ordered them to reinstate gallaghers rank, and that led to the very public resignation of the secretary of the navy who so disagreed with the president s handling of the case, he quit. Trump clearly thinks his embrace of Eddy Gallagher is a way to ingratiate himself with active duty members of the family but there are recent polling shows half of active duty troops view the president unfavorably. Joining me now a Deputy Editor of the the New York Times which has been covering this story and andrew dire who covers the military and he was actually in the courtroom for the full duration of gaggerllaghers tri. So much happens when the star witness comes in and changes his testimony on the stand. What was that like in the courtroom . It was really surreal. Going into the trial we had a pretty good idea of what each witness was going to say. We kind of knew their stories. And when he said that he suffocated the fighter that was something new, something we hadnt heard before. And, you know, it kind of washed over the courtroom in a wave. I ms had to replay it in my mind did i just hear what i just heard . Do we actually know the full story of what happened there, why the testimony changed . Well, i talked to gallaghers lawyer yesterday and he said that in a preliminary interview with cory scott he had gone up to the edge of this and cory scott had said something about a suffocation, and scotts attorney cut him off saying they werent going to go any further without clarifying an immunity deal. And in the trial before this testimony the judge told cory scott that he was fully immune from whatever he was about to say on the stand. This case has obviously attracted enormous attention. I wonder from what your perspective at the military times what how it has reverberated through current active military members. Its definitely a concerning case for a lot of folks because it seems as if trump has waved into an area we havent traditionally seen president s. Obviously president s have the power to pardon or grant clemency. In this case as you recount chief gallagher was acquitted of the most serious charges, was found to be guilty of conduct unbecoming and the president stepped in and said no we should forget that. We should look beside that, and hes done eight deployments, theres a lot of good in his background, so im going to intervene not just on the issue of the crime here but all the way down to the issue of his rank, whether or not hed be reinstated as a s. E. A. L. , whether or not he could call himself a chief anymore. So the reverberations are just a lot of shock to the commander in chief coming down this far on a case thats already really complicated and really convoluted. Andrew, how does the picture painted from the footage how does it fit or not fit from the image painted of him at trial . It does square with their testimony. In most cases the s. E. A. L. S testified to the same things they had told investigators. I think its important to note that two of these s. E. A. L. S that were in these preliminary interviews were not called to testify at gallaghers Court Marshal including one who initially told investigators he saw gallagher stab the fighter, yet after scotts testimony for whatever reason the prosecutors decided not to call vil nlanuev which has always stood out to me and to this day theyve not offered a reason why the witness to this stabbing did not testify. Part of the sort of questioning here i think the difficulty of this from a moral perspective is the president says hes looking out for our, quote, war fighters but of course there are members of his own unit so distressed by the actions that they took tremendous risk to come forward and testify and talk to investigators and they have essentially been thrown by the wayside. And that becomes the question here. Obviously hes throne himself in gallaghers corner and said hes standing up for war fighters by standing with him, but as we saw from the release today, lot of the public had heard that some of the s. E. A. L. S didnt like him. I dont know what the effect will be in seeing just in black and white here, just how emotional some of their testimony is and how many folks are sort of left in the wake of this. If youre a member of the military and youre seeing this and you see something improper down range, whats your reaction going to be . Should you report this to your higher ups . Its something you feel confident the military code of justice is going to be upheld and going to be followed, or is it something where down the line maybe it can be reversed and you get into trouble interest being a whistleblower . That a great point and so much has been setup this one action and not just action, theres pardons this president has issued as well. Thank you both. Joining me now a former u. S. Army officer and iraq war veteran, the cofounder and former chairman of the vote vets advocacy group. John, i know you feel strongly about this case. Ive watched some of the things youve said. How do you feel about whats happen said, what we learned today from that testimony and what the president s involvement here means . I think the first thing i took today from the testimony that came out of the New York Times when you watch these veterans talk, you could feel the pain in their voices. And i think we could talk about a lot today, the ramifications of what this means or we could talk about the ramifications of what this means for our troops currently on the ground and in combat, and what this means for future troops who have maybe seen something wrong but the pain you hear in the voices of the s. E. A. L. S as they go to explain what happened to them is heart breaking because what i felt is they were trying to relieve some of their own guilt of being around an incident or being around a chief who is their senior noncommissioned officer in this deployment do things illegal, and this really was a cry for help for them to go to ncis, and its really hard for me to watch them deal with that pain. Theres also a broader question here of the way the president conceives of what u. S. Policy should be about the commission of war crimes, about torture. He talked on the campaign about killing the family members of, quote, terrorists. He told that story about a u. S. General dipping bullets in pigs blood. He seems to relish in the kinds of things that an entire structure has been erected within the u. S. Armed forces over decades to prevent from happening. Hes basically telling the navy i dont trust you to manage your own business. And weve never seen anything like this. Weve never seen a scenario where the military chain of command and the military Justice System basically is checkmated by the commander in chief. So you could basically do anything wrong right now in any of the Service Branches and if you could get, you know, pete whos a fox news host to promote you on a president a show the president watches, he could certainly undermine the entire military chain of command, hes damaged military leaders and officers for what is essentially Political Drama he wants to use for his own political benefit, and hes damaged an institution, just like hes damagedeter institutions through his dealings with the impeachment and damaged the institutions of the armed forces and i think thats heart breaking for anyone in the military whos served in it. You know, this this calls to mind this polling the military times did recently which was really striking to me. Very unfavorable views i think from active duty members, 45 , very favorable just 24 . Overall under water in favorability within the u. S. Military. Does that surprise you . It doesnt surprise me. The president is on an elevator going down. I mean theres a reason why we have a website called trump is a National Security threat, he disrespected a gold star family, right, he has decided hes going to bay for the border wall by taking money out of the department of Defense School system. Just weekend over christmas he decided he would depart deport family members of active duty military deployed. So its you know, pardoning war criminals is par for the course in his war over the military. It doesnt surprise me you see his poll numbers inside the military going from where they were to down. And i would remind you thats a military times poll. Thats a more conservative reader base to start, so, you know, this is longterm sort of effect that hes had because its been thing after thing after thing thats taking us to the point where, you know, for the first time we can see the military voter and veteran voter really vote against a american president. Last question has to do with the implications of what the president has done in this case and a few other cases reaching into the military Justice System, what that will mean for someone in a unit who sees something they think is wrong or witnesses what is genuinely an atrocity or maybe something that just seems sort of off and whats going to go through their mind when they think about whether to report that. Its really hard what they did. The s. E. A. L. Community is a very closeknit community. Theres a close in 2017 where a s. E. A. L. Was involved with a murder of a green beret. And this had to do with the telling of misconduct. So we have a scenario in the special Operations Community thats a little bit different where people feral now, hey, if i break this code what are the ramifications . Across the military as well. So i think now when people see misconduct that should be reported that they know thats their duty and obligation, thursday going to be a fear Going Forward on whether or not they should report it at all. One thing is for certain and to the s. E. A. L. S we met today on that video, they are heroes, and they can rest assured tonight the American Public knows that and that the American Public in ten or 20 or 30 years will look at them in even a better light then tha than they do today. Up next the president once again moving the goal posts as hiimpeachment trial approaches. Senator Richard Blumenthal joins me on in just two minutes. Enthas me on in just two minutes. Going new places. Anytime. Rewarded learn more at the explorer card dot com. Male anchor . An update on the cat who captured our hearts. Female anchor how often should you clean your fridge . Stay tuned to find out. Male anchor beats the odds at the box office to become a rare nonfranchise hit. You can give help and hope to those in need. And i like to question your im yoevery move. N law. Like this left turn. Its the next one. You always drive this slow . How did you make someone i love . That must be why youre always so late. I do not speed. And thats saving me cash with drivewise. My son, he did say that you were the safe option. And thats the nicest thing you ever said to me. So get allstate. Stop bossing. Where good drivers save 40 for avoiding mayhem, like me. This is my sons favorite color, you should try it. [mayhem] you always drive like an old lady . [tina] youre an old lady. When it comes to using data, which is why Xfinity Mobile is a different kind of Wireless Network that lets you design your own data. Choose unlimited, shared data, or mix lines of each and switch any line, anytime. Giving you more choice and control compared to other top wireless carriers. Save up to 400 a year when you switch. Plus, unwrap 250 off a new samsung phone. Click, call or visit a store today. From the very first moment the house announced an impeachment inquiry President Trump and his allies have been making a series of selfcontradictory internally constantly evolving process critiques. With the president tweeting out a critique he saw on trump tv that it is the houses job to get witnesses. Quote, look the house is supposed to do all this work on witnesses and documents before they send the articles over to the senate. That work is supposed to be done in the house. Heres the thing, the house tried to do that. The reason therapy not able to get those witnesses to testify is because they tried to and the witness ordered them not to testify but thats Donald Trumps latest argument. Joining me now to try and make sense of all this senator Richard Blumenthal, democrat of connecticut. He sits on the Judiciary Committee among other committees as well. Senator, first i think you agree these process critiques are absurd, but im curious what you make of comments yesterday or on tuesday by your colleague Lisa Murkowski expressing some disapproval of mcconnells statement that he would essentially be working in coordination with the white house. I think, chris, what those comments reflect is that it is impossible to make sense of this position that they need more information and evidence, but they dont want it to be presented in the senate. That position is essentially untenable. What is striking and what Lisa Murkowskis comments reflect is that the message is really breaking through to the American People. Thats why 70 of them think that witnesses and documents should be presented in this trial. The mcconnell strategy of in effect coordinating with the white house or working hand in glove is essentially a violation of the oath, and thats repugnant to the American People. So more and more i think we will see the American People get it, and that this coverup by mcconnell and trump is understood by them, that my republican colleagues are complicit in it, and they will be held accountable in the court of appeals. It wont be a legal court of appeals. It will be the court of Public Opinion eventually in the election and by history. Do you anticipate that were going to get some resolution . There was talk, reports today that whatever talks there had been between schumer and mcconnell on setting some ground rules which by the way in the last impeachment trial there werent sort of individual votes on that, that they had broken down. What is your sense of the state of play right now . The ball is really in Mitch Mcconnells court. We have made a very reasonable proposal for witnesses who have direct knowledge again, direct knowledge, not hearsay of the events that show conclusively trumps abuse of power and his obstruction of congress and documents such as notes and phone calls and emails and other kinds of messages that, again, are direct evidence that the American People deserve to see and hear. So i fully understand the speakers position that she wants a full, fair proceeding before she will send over the articles of impeachment. She wants that assurance before she appoints her managers, and i think thats what the American People want, too. And i think that Mitch Mcconnell eventually will be forced by these cracks in his wall as ereflected in Lisa Murkowskis comments and by other colleagues whoo saying it privately. The question is will they say it publicly, will they act on it . I want to ask you a question about the story we just did with chief gallagher and the president of the United States reaching in to restore his rank to overturn and surcomvent the military Justice System. What are the implications of that . What do you think that does to our armed forces . T the implications are really deeply disturbing. Theyre absolutely repugnant and will be regarded by such by our military. And President Trumps interference in the military Justice System is absolutely reprehensible and outrageous. It erodes trust in the command structure and uniform code of justice, and now our obligation members of the United States senate, i hope my colleagues will join me in condemning that interference by the president but also in reaffirming our commitment to strict prosecution of war crimes, respect as well for the military professionals who have to administer the system of justice and for our military in general all too often as that poll that you cited reflects our military has been disregarded and disrespected by the president as when he withdrew troops from turkey, when he sent troop tuesday the border in effect politicizing our great United States military. And i think the implications therefore really are very, very disturbing. All right senator Richard Blumenthal of connecticut, thank you very much. Thank you. Coming up, the president s rationale for putting the g7 at his own resort debunked in black and white. Thats next. N resort debunked ik and white. Thats next. When you shop with wayfair, you spend less and get way more. So you can bring your vision to life and save in more ways than one. For small prices, you can build big dreams, spend less, get way more. Shop everything home at wayfair. Com its versus the other guys. Eese cheering clearly, velveeta melts creamier skip to the good part with alkaseltzer plus. Now with 25 more concentrated power. Nothing works faster for powerful cold relief. Oh, what a relief it is so fast it became apparent at the end of that process that dural was by far and away, far and away the best physical facility for this meeting. In fact, i was talking to one of the advance teams when they came back and theyre like, mick, youre not going to believe this but its almost like they built this facility to host this type of event. I love that piece of tape. Do you remember when acting white house chief of staff mulvaney went out there with a totally straight face trying to convince everyone the president was forced to award himself a multimillion dollar contract to host the g7 and have a bunch of World Leaders come to south florida in the middle of the summer because no other place was as good as dural. The president even tried to make the case that the secret service preferred dural. That went to places all over the country, and they came back and said this is where wed like to be. Now we had military people doing it, we had secret Service People doing it. We had people that really understand what its about. Its not about me. Its about getting the right location. Well, the folks at the citizens for responsibility and ethics in washington formally requested government records on the dural selection, and youll never guess whether that story holds up. Here with me now the executive director of crew. What did you ask for and what did you get . Look, we asked for what the secret service had, the documents that showed their internal deliberations when they were considering sites. And lo and behold what we found was far from Mick Mulvaney and the president reported which is that out of the secret Services Process came dural as the clear choice. Instead dural was added into the process very late in the game. It was added from the outside, and the secret service had concerns about it. So it certainly was not they came in and begged for this. This was something that wii only got really one email and we know theres likelying mo more there, but this was enough to show clearly the president s version is made up, and this is something that benefits his businesses and him personally. One of the most striking things about this at the time, and im still sort of not over it because of how brazen it was and how obviously corrupted it is to award yourself a multimillion dollar contract. Was at the time the mayor of doral didnt even know. He learned this when we did by watching mulvaney on tv. He still hasnt gotten the call from the white house. That itself shows you something. Thats right. We also requested documents of communications between the secret service and the Police Department in doral and we got nothing. Well, we got a lot of documents but nothing showing there was any communication about the g7. We cant conclusively say there was nothing, but certainly based on what we have, it doesnt look like the city was ever given the heads up about this, so this was hardly a thoroughly process that lended to the president s club, rather what it looks like is the president wanting stoobring this multimillion dollar world event that would be incredible publicity for his business to his property and useding the levers of government to make it so. It also strikes me when i was reading the email that you guys unearthed and the foya request you have is just how much because the Trump Organization is a private business despite the fact it is owned by the president and his entire financial fortune rests upon it, we dont have a window into that. Right, there are foya rules and there are public records access you can get, but we dont get anything about the trump work. Thats right. The freedom of information act lets you get government documents and now this administration fights us and reporters and others tooth and nail to make it hard to get those, but we do ultimately get a lot of information whats going on within the government. But the Trump Organization doesnt have to turn over documents. And congress and we have in litigation and many others have been fighting to get information about the president s finances from day one with very little success. And we have very little idea of the scope of his use of the presidency and abuse of the presidency to benefit his businesses. This remains this sort of great untold story and something that has been told sporadically at the edges by and others. Thank you so much for joining me. Coming up the race to replace President Trump, 2020 candidate andrew yang joins me ahead. 2020 candidate andrew yang joins me ahead. I must admit. I had a few good tricks to help hide my bladder leak pad. Like the old tunic tug. You know it, right . But i dont have to, with always discreet. I couldnt believe the difference. Its less bulky. And it really protects. Watch this. The super absorbent core turns liquid and odor to gel, and locks it away. So i have nothing to hide. Always discreet. For bladder leaks. The sleep number 360 smart bed. Prices of the season on can it help keep me asleep . Absolutely, it senses your movements and automatically adjusts to keep you both comfortable. The queen sleep number 360 c4 smart bed is only 1299. Plus 0 interest for 24 months on all beds. Ends new years day. Male anchor . An update on the cat who captured our hearts. Female anchor how often should you clean your fridge . Stay tuned to find out. Male anchor beats the odds at the box office to become a rare nonfranchise hit. You can give help and hope to those in need. For years now President Trump has used the city of chicago, an incredible vibrant amazing city and the tragedy of hundreds of people who have been killed there by gun violence as a gross and racist inflammatory political talking point. He helped make the rise in shootings in chicago which really did go up quite sharply a number one story across the country. We did a town hall on violence in chicago back in 2017. In fact on that panel theres the current mayor who was not the mayor there then. We did extensive reporting on policing in chicago through the careers. Both donald trump and largely the National News media have been silent on the second half of this story. According to newly released data from the chicago Police Department shooting incidents are down 40 over the past three years, murders are down 14 just this year, and 36 over the past three years. Now with progress like this one can easily imagine a world in which donald trump having smeared chicago for years and having absolutely no shame turns around and takes credit for the improvement. But he wont do that because he fundamentally does not think chicago is part of the country that he represents. Its a foreign land to him. Its not trump land. And that says far more about donald trump than it does about chicago. Ays far more about donald trump than it does about chicago. dad mhm. Aaaah mom nooooo. dad nooooo. son nooooo. avo quick, the quicker picker upper bounty picks up messes quicker and is 2x more absorbent than the leading ordinary brand. [son loudly clears throat] [mom sighs] [mom and dad laugh] avo bounty, the quicker picker upper. Are you currently using a whitening toothpaste, but not seeing results . Try crest 3d whitestrips. Its enamelsafe formula lifts and removes stains to provide 100 noticeably whiter teeth or your money back. Try crest 3d whitestrips. Over the past year or so there have been at least 28 candidates in the race for the democratic president ial nomination including a bunch of very prominent people, very serious bioes who have just come and gone. Beam like senator Kamala Harris who dropped out earlier this month or the current mayor of the largest city of america, mayor bill de blasio whose candidacy barely registered as a blip. Amid all the comings and goings theres been two surprising stories. One is the rise of mayor Pete Buttigieg whos now polling in the top four nationally and highly competitive in the first two states. And the other is andrew yang who very few people had heard of. The 44yearold entrepreneur has built out of nothing a robust campaign, has raised lots of money and it has all allowed him to outlast and outpolled numerous sitting governors and senators and has repeatedly propelled him on the debate stage even as his bigger name rivals have failed to make the cut. Its a pretty remarkable story, and joining me now is andrew yang, a democratic candidate for president. Its good to have you. Chris, great to see you. Happy holidays. Thank you for having me on. Okay, so i want to talk about health care. This has been obviously the subject of a lot of debate. Youve talked about on the debates, on the campaign trail. But im slightly confused about your position. The first ad your campaign ran with your wife and your son and she said you would fight for medicare for all and its been the platform. You recently put out some language on your website where you say you spirit the spirit of medicare for all, which leaves me slightly confused what actually youd want to see happen. Well, what medicare for all means to Many Americans is universal health care thats high quality and lower zero cost, and that is exactly what im championing. We need to provide health care to all americans, but i would not get rid of all private insurance plans immediately because millions of americans are on those plans, enjoy those plans. In many cases negotiated for those plans in lou of higher wages. The goal of the government has to be we can outcompete the prive insurance plans and squeeze them out of the market over time. So is that something along the lines of positions taken by joe biden, Pete Buttigieg and a few others in which there would essentially be the availability of buying into medicare for people . Yes, it is quite similar. But our plan has lower minimal costs for Many Americans and then copays just so that you have a little bit of skin in the game. So it is similar, but we think weve improved upon some of the other proposals that are out there. The other big issue youve talked about, one of the kind of engines of your campaign for a while, i think it was a thing you were known for you call the freedom dividend of a thousand dollars a month. Theres a lot of people who are theres two questions about that, one is the sort of confusion how that interacts with how the government does, the income tax credit and would those go away and be replaced by that leaving some worse off and second the question of for people in dire poverty or who have really have problems with low income work, thats not enough money. So the last thing i would ever do is take something away from americans or leave someone worse off. The freedom dividend is universal and opt in. And if you decide to opt in you would be foregoing certain cash and cashlike benefits that do not include health care, do not include housing vouchers. When i talk to americans around the country those who are receiving benefits are often anxious about losing those benefits. I love the earned income tax credit, but 30 of americans who are eligible for the earned income tax credit dont thatll receive it, because they dont understand how to file for it, and there are massive timing of payments issues because if your car breaks down now and i tell you youre going to get a tax refund next spring, it doesnt help you get to work. So i would never do anything to leave americans worse off. We have to build an elevation in florida that elevates us all and starts to move us towards the 21st century because were going through the greatest Economic Transformation in our history right now. You talk about the threat of automation and i think you connect that in some ways and there are a lot of people who have a similar school of thought, some people have written about it that automation is going to take away a lot of peoples jobs in the future, its going to get progressively more ambitious and what jobs are automated. The problem with that is that threat has always loomed at every moment of Industrial Development and theres a lump of labor fal taesacy, the idea theres a set number of jobs and if the robot or machines or factory machines takes some of them, theres less for everyone else, which has not borne out to be the case. Why do you think its different this time . Well, the rate and pace of change and the scope of technology is much, much more extreme this time. Its going to impact many more parts of the economy than past transitions. Im here in South Carolina and they lost 90,000 manufacturing jobs, now a third of their stores and malls are closing and being a retail clerk is still the most common job in our country. So we have to recognize yes there are going to be many new jobs that get created, but these jobs are going to tend to bore different people with different skills in smaller numbers than the jobs being lost in communities around the country. But isnt that partly a question of labor Bargaining Power and redistribution . There was no reason that, for instance, making a car was a good middle class job until the uaw unionized and made it good middle class job. The question about how much power workers have over their wages ends up being really the determinative one. Yeah, you hit the nail on the head. Where unions have been this Massive Force for better compensation and benefits, when Union Membership has declined by 50 over the last number of years and as a result most americans are not benefitting from that kind of collective Bargaining Power, if you put this foundation of a thousand dollars a month into workers hands, it actually makes workers much, much harder to exploit and push around. And this plan im championing is not originally my plan. Andy stern who used to be the Largest Labor union in it country proposed this in his 2015 big raising the floor. So this idea has been with us for a long time. Its just overdue we actually put it into law. Final question i want to ask you about your trajectory here and your relationship to the Democratic Party. It seems to me from the folks there, their supporters of yours and people online youre reaching a lot of people who havent traditionally havent been involved in politics or part of the Democratic Party. What do you view as your role in the larger sort of ecosystem of the party in whose primary youre running . Well, thanks for asking, chris. Ive been a registered democrat for a long time. I served as an honorary ambassador in the obama administration. To me the Democratic Party needs to try and dig deeper and figure out how were going to solve the problems that got donald trump elected. But ive been a loyal democrat for years. Im just trying to provide new energy and new ideas to the Democratic Party to help us all move forward in the 21st century. I would certainly never do anything that would increase the chances of donald trump becoming president again or staying president. And i am thrilled that im bringing independence and libertarians of disaffected trump voters into the fold, but thats how were going to grow the Democratic Party and beat donald trump in 2020. Thaurnk you so much for maki time tonight. I appreciate it. Coming up the state of the rest of the 2020 field. How things have changed and how theyve stayed the same next. H theyve stayed the same next theres a lot of talk about value out there. But at fidelity, value is more than just talk. We offer commissionfree online u. S. Stock and etf trades. And, when you open a new Fidelity Brokerage account, your cash is automatically invested at a great rate thats 21 times more than schwabs. Plus, fidelitys leading price improvement on trades saved investors hundreds of millions of dollars last year. Thats why fidelity continues to lead the industry in value while our competition continues to talk. Talk fidelity. And my lack of impulse control, is about to become your problem. Ahh no, come on. I saw you eating poop earlier. Hey my focus is on the road, and thats saving me cash with drivewise. Whos the dummy now . Whoof whoof so get allstate where good drivers save 40 for avoiding mayhem, like me. Sorry hes a baby a drink with friends can turn into two. And a prescription can be stronger than you thought. Stop there are a lot of ways to get a dui. And a lot of ways to go. Text a friend. Call a cab. Share a ride. Whatever you choose to do, go safely, california. A drink with friends can turn into two. And a prescription can be stronger than you thought. Stop there are a lot of ways to get a dui. And a lot of ways to go. Text a friend. Call a cab. Share a ride. Whatever you choose to do, go safely, california. As i was just saying a lot has changed in the democratic president ial field this year. Candidates have come and gone, and then once we thought we were done with all the new candidates, other new candidates have shown up. Theres been a lot of fluidity and twists and turns out its also been a stable race in some ways. Consider this as pointed out on twitter in december of last year, a year ago, 2018, joe biden was polling at 27. 5 and Bernie Sanders was at 19 . One year later biden is polling at 27. 8 and sanders is at 19. 3 . It is also identical. Joining me now a pair of democratic pollsters. I was so struck by that little factoid from gabe and i want to go to each of you. On some level its actually not that surprising. Bernie sanders was the runnerup last time and joe biden is probably, you know, the most famous and wellknown democrat, he was the Vice President for president barack obama. What do you think about the stability of those two so far . I think stability is exactly whats marked the election. And, you know, democratic primary voters kind of flirt and date with a number of people and then they come back to think about who are they going to marry. And who theyre going to marry is really important this time because who theyre going to marry has to beat donald trump, and that lenlds a certain stability to the people who had the broadest most diverse and longest term coalitions and those were really joe biden and Bernie Sanders. He said whats really goingoon, cornell, is theres been an extremely stable primary among 60 of democrats who did not graduate from 4year college and a relatively volatile one among the 40 who did graduate and the media only covers the 40 . What do you think of that, cornell . What i think is two things. One i think i have to comment on this. I love that yang interview, it was fantastic. By the way, chris, im sure hes in South Carolina, he went out and found every black yang supporter he could possibly find i dont know if thats true, but they were there. Thats politics, dude. It also tells sort of a broader conversation about your ability to have be able to compete for people of color. To the larger point and i have daufb uds voice still in my ear from 2007, 2008, it is a state by state race. Yes, it is incredibly stable at the top but its not a national election. Hillary clinton was always sort of the national frontrunner and if you look at some of the other states, its a lot more volatile in iowa and a lot more volatile in New Hampshire than it is nationally, and those states will matter as well as South Carolina and nevada in the longterm. One of the things that one of the sort of new wrinkles and what could have been a source of volatility is these two people were running who are just spending unreal amounts of money. Each over a 100 million. Together theyve lapped the field multiple times in spending. Its almost like theyre running a Political Science experiment about the marginal effect of a marginal dollar of tv advertising. Its almost like you cook this up in a lab, and so far its been enough to like give them a pulse in the polling but not much more than that. What do you think . And its not just the tv ad, its the marginal impact of an online ad and i think Amy Klobuchar had it right which she said the Democratic Party doesnt like billionaires. Even the billionaires dont like billionaires. So im not sure you can buy it in the caucus system. Thats really the question to me what i find in a dispassionate discryptive sense fascinating is i dont know cornell if bloomberg decides to spend literally 1 billion is that enough to make you or literally you can spend all the money you have and it doesnt matter . New, look full transparency ive done work for interview town so i have taken some interview town bloomberg money, but that said i dont think you can and one of the things we worry about in politics all the time is how much our candidate is going to be outspent. And if our candidate is outspent tremendously, it absolutely has an impact on the race. And a guy like bloomberg, look he was supposed to be mayor of new york, but he has a track record and deep pockets and something to say, i dont think you can completely discount that out. I think were at a different point and different time in our elections. Thats the open question. I honestly dont know the answer. He and andrew yang are essentially tied in National Polling just to give a perspective of where things are in the polling averages. The last question to you is the degree to which warren who has just sent out an email saying her Campaign Fund raising has slowed a bit, you know, that campaign because they dont have the stable base of Bernie Sanders quite as much, they havent built that list over as much time and because they dont take big dollar voters theyre as such susceptible to the momentum as other campaigns. Thats exactly right, and they dont have a trick really. Andrew yang actually one of the ways he got into the place he got into is because person personally i think he had the most brilliant online strategy. And it was serious things and kind of whimsical, almost foolish things in some ways. Elizabeth warren is almost very serious, and i think it is subject to the ups and downs. I also think shes subject to the ups and downs because she has more women donors, and more women donors get risk yr about their investment. They tend to make smaller contributions, so theres a lot of things going on here that can make her more subject to ups and downs. I will say that definitely she was going up for a while, came down a little and plateaued, but i think the downward traject has been overstated as well going back to our stability theme. Thank you both for being with me tonight. That is all in for this evening. The Rachel Maddow show starts now with ali velshi in for rachel. Thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. Rachels got the night off. 2015, it marked the 70th anniversary of the end of world war ii. And since its rare to celebrate the 70th anniversary of everything much less the history altering event with the magnitude of world war ii, the anniversary was a very big deal here in the United States. Frankly, it was a very big deal all over the world. It was a chance for veterans of