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