See you tomorrow from cleveland. Hardball is next. The politics of division. Lets play hardball. Good evening. Im Chris Matthews in new york. We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility. Those are the opening words of our constitution. We know because we were taught them. But how are our two Major Political parties promising to meet these goals including ensuring domestic tranquility . We will know much of that answer in the next two weeks as the republicans and then the democrats meet in convention adopt platforms, nominate president ial and vice
president ial candidates. Tonight we look at the choice facing americans or at least how the choice is being presented by the parties themselves. Tomorrow president obama joins Vice President biden and former president george w. Bush at a Memorial Service for the Fallen Police officers down in dallas. The president while in europe of course meeting with nato allies has spoken out about dallas but also about the policeinvolved shootings recently in louisiana and minnesota. Four different times over the last three days. Yesterday he called upon those on both sides of the american debate to keep a respectful tone. This week people felt hurt and angry and so some of this is just venting. But i think that the overwhelming majority of people who are involved in the black lives Matter Movement what they really want to see is a better relationship between the police and the community so that they can feel that its serving them and the best way to do that is to bring allies aboard. That means that includes by the way, Police Departments that are doing the right thing like dallas which has implemented the very reforms that black lives matter is seeking. Thats part of why its so tragic that those officers were targeted. Donald trump has said the president himself is to blame for the uptick in racial violence tweeting yesterday look what is happening to our country under the weak leadership of obama and people like crooked Hillary Clinton. We are a divided nation. While many africanamericans agree that racial tensions are worse right now, some see it being stirred up by the partisan reaction on the right to the current occupant of the white house. As u. S. Congresswoman Eddie Bernice johnson said today in the Washington Post, quote, Race Relations have deteriorated greatly in the last five to eight years. Its the reality. I can tell you what the average black american thinks. They think that because our president is africanamerican that the white racism has been
rebirthed. Im joined by philadelphias former Police Commissioner charles ramsey, cochair of president obamas task force on 21st Century Policing as well as msnbc political analyst harold ford former u. S. Congressman from tennessee. I want to start with congressman ford about the political situation. Is this country more polarized than five or eight years ago . Is there a racial tension in the air . Is there a vicious cycle between the Police Forces of the country and the people who feel victimized by them . We have made tremendous progress in the last ten years. We have an africanamerican president who has been elected twice. We have a number of africanamerican men and women graduating from college, graduating from high school more black women graduating from college than before more africanamericans working in corporate america. I think a great argument can be made on the other side. When you look at some of the basic metrics, economic metrics, including income including household wealth, you certainly can make an argument that
africanamericans are not faring as well as they would like. Now, the Police Violence and brew brutality and some of the misconduct and obviously the tragedy in dallas i separate that from some of the other things. It is hard to fully embrace my former colleagues comments about this racism because indeed, the president has been elected twice. So if racism was as pernicious as one would suggest, he may not have won. Are they a louder group, people are more public about their views, are incidents of racial organizations or organizations dedicated to subjugating africanamericans, latinos, are they louder today . Police data and other data suggests that it is. But im hopeful that this conversation we are having will continue in some ways but the most important thing i hope that happens is what the chief of police down in dallas has urged as well as other leaders in dallas are urging not only for calmness but a real conversation about where we are and a real appreciation on the part of every american for the bravery and the courage of law
enforcement around the country and for an appreciation by all politicians. I was proud to see paul ryan and Newt Gingrich say the things they said that indeed africanamericans face a unique and unusual and for that matter a treatment that perhaps normal white americans as Newt Gingrich said, might not understand on a day to day basis. Lets push that conversation. Commissioner ramsey lets talk about it from a Police Commissioners point of view of a major city in philadelphia, for example, where you worked for all those years. What puts it all together . How do you connect the dots of what seems to be every month or so, a white Police Officer shoots a black person in what looks to be troubling, say troubling situations, without going into court on this. Just trying to figure it out. Why would a guy shoot a fleeing guy when he seems to be no threat to the Police Officer. Why is there what seems to be a triggerhappy situation going on here involving white and black, blue and victim . How do you put that together with the environment which seemed to be improving, i thought, the last ten, 20 years . Well i mean i think first of all we have to have
everything in context. Certainly there have been some very questionable if not outright criminal incidents that we have seen as part of the videos that have been out there recently. But that does not reflect the hundreds of thousands of contacts that police have with citizens every day. It doesnt reflect the number of guns we take off the street from armed suspects in which no one is injured or taken into custody. So i think we need to understand that theres a lot of activity that takes place, not all of which is bad. Most of it is very very good and positive and exactly the way you would like to see it. But i think when these things get out there and get highlighted, it does give the perception that have you got police that have gone wild and nothing could be further from the truth. But we did have to hold accountable those officers who act outside of the law. Was this going on before it got to be the headline . Well in some instances, yeah. I mean you have almost 800,000 Police Officers in the united
states 18,000 Police Departments, and you have got people that just dont do things the way you would like to see them. Some engage in criminal behavior some engage in Excessive Force and so forth. But name a profession where you dont have someone who is acting outside of the ethics of that particular profession, whether you are talking about medicine lawyers, politicians, journalists. It goes on and on. But you cant paint everyone with the same brush. After meeting with Law Enforcement leaders in washington Vice President joe biden today called for more Community Policing. Heres what he told nbcs lester holt. Theres a great deal of anxiety and fear, fear on the part of Police Officers that they become targets and fear on the part of the communities that they are in fact targets of the police. So theres a need for there to be more Community Policing and interaction and these Police Organizations ask for some help. They said we need help and more
money for training. We need more help in providing training on deescalation et cetera. We are sitting at a concrete agenda of things we can do that can open up the avenues of communication between the black community primarily and the Police Departments and i think theyre ready to do it and i think the community is. Congressman ford im not going to condemn the fellow down there, hes obviously guilty of what he did, he was killed in doing it down there shooting all those Police Officers. What can a president do to quell that kind of anger, that would lead a person to basically give up his life to be able to kill a lot of Police Officers apparently based upon digging up by the police down there, he was planning a lot more mayhem. He just went quickly ballistic, if you will literally, at the time he heard about what happened in minnesota and louisiana so he was stirred by those police incidents. The question is how can a president mollify that almost well suicidal murder . He wanted to kill himself, too. The whole thing is as horrible as it looks. I think both president bush and president obama being in dallas tomorrow is a powerful symbolic statement. I think the more the president can urge leaders of faith to come together and invite communities, invite their own communities to come together as just people as humans. One of the more touching pictures in all of this was to watch the young africanamerican woman, a mother of four who was shot there in dallas by that gunman and she explained how Police Officers ran to her and even she covered her son, her 15yearold son, Police Officers, to chief ramseys point, ran to her and protected her. She thanked the Police Officers. The more we can show and the more we can share those kind of stories and even in my hometown of memphis where you had a very peaceful protest with the police and protesters working together and the chief of Police Marching with protesters these symbols as much as the substance right now, to chief ramseys substance, talking about the
number of Police Contacts a day and the positive ones and the results of Police Departments around the country are achieving for communities of color and all communities for that matter are the kind of stories we need as we try to recover from a horrific week for this United States. Former new york mayor Rudy Giuliani said Police Involved shootings represent a small fraction of africanamerican deaths and said the name of the black lives Matter Movement was inherently racist. Lets hear him. If you want to deal with this on the black side youve got to teach your children to be respectful to the police and youve got to teach your children that the real danger to them is not the police. The real danger to them100 times, are the black kids who are going to kill them. When you say black lives matter thats inherently racist. Well i think black lives matter white lives matter asian lives
matter hispanic lives matter. Thats antiamerican and its racist. Commissioner, it seems interesting of course it seems more ironic every day in politics but Newt Gingrich said its dangerous being an africanamerican male in this country not just because of the street violence thats there, crime, but also because of the police. Rudy giuliani was just sort of i dont know was he just stirring trouble there . I dont know. What did you make of what he said . Well, first of all, i dont agree with the comment he made about just the name alone is racist. People are just trying to point out an issue, a very real issue that exists in this country, and that is that africanamericans die at a much higher rate than others, and when it comes to Police Officers and use of force, it does happen at a higher rate. Now, we also have to deal with some realities and that is crime that occurs in more of our challenged neighborhoods, oftentimes those are communities of color. We have to deal with all these
things. But i mean we are trying to find easy solutions or come up with names or name calling and things like that. We need thoughtful people to sit down and figure out what we need to do next. Because right now, the police are just kind of like holding the bag for all the social ills that exist in this country. And until we actually sit down and figure out whats going on and what we need to fix it its not going to change. We need problem solvers, not finger pointers or bomb throwers. We got to really sit down and take this very seriously with concrete action steps. One of the things Rudy Giuliani could do to help this conversation would be to be quiet. We are watching the black lives matter rally of course protest event down in chicago right now. Want to ask you, commissioner what happens to a Police Officer, a regular fellow or woman, male or female black, white or hispanic whos on the beat right now and faces some risk in a tough neighborhood . Do they pull back in a situation like this and say im not going
to stop that car with the bad light on the back im not going in that club at night, im going to pull back . Is that the tendency of a Police Officer when theyre under fire like this . A few may take that attitude but the majority of officers go out there and perform every day in spite of whats going on now. Listen when something happens, you turn on those lights and you roll. You go straight to it. Police officers do a tremendous job every day. Sure, in some circles, they are being vilified but even that is blown a little out of proportion. The majority of people in america still respect and like the police and appreciate what they do every day. They just want fair and impartial policing. Even black lives matter. They know they need police but they want police that are going to treat them in a fair and just way. We have always kind of looked at it as police as just get the crime numbers down. But people are looking for more than just low crime numbers. They are looking for fairness and justice. The way in which they are treated, the way in which they are respected. Thats when we have to folkouscus
on as a profession. Well said. I agree. Thank you so much for coming. Very thoughtful. Coming up what are the republicans offering in the way of leadership after this cycle, this attitude about the police and violence . I said that guy went out to kill a lot of police knowing he would die, too. You cannot consider anything but a sort of suicidal anger. Donald trump has tried to sound more serious momentarily. What signal will he send when he picks his running mate this week . Thats coming up. Thats coming up in the next couple days. He said so. He says its down to about four candidates. Plus Bernie Sanders is set to endorse Hillary Clinton tomorrow. Well see. 36 days after she locked up the nomination. But on policy bernies getting much of what he wanted. As the democrats are putting fort their most progressive or leftish platform in a long time. With one week to go before the start of the Republican Convention out in cleveland, there are a lot of republican noshows. Catch this. That Convention May be best
known by who doesnt show up. Its Donald Trumps comingout party. Lot of people arent coming in including big names like jeb bush. Can of course, mitt romney and the governor arent showing. The silence is a problem and its about the man who may well have a problem. The hardball roundtable will tell us something about the president ial race i dont know. Take on the unexpected with a car that could stop for you. Nissan safety shield technologies available in the altima, sentra and maxima. Now get 0 apr for up to 72 months, plus 500 bonus cash. If you love crab and who doesnt then seize the day already. Crabfest is back at red lobster with so many kinds of crab and the most crab dishes of the year. So dive into whatever floats your crabloving boat. Like crab lovers dream. Crack open tender snow and king crab legs and twirl creamy crab alfredo. Or try the new alaska bairdi crab dinner. Sweet and straight from the icy waters of alaska youve gotta get it. To really get it. But it wont last forever, so hurry in. Democrats are more optimistic about their chances of winning the u. S. Senate tonight. Thats because evan baye announced hes running for the open receipt inseat in the hoosier state. He will be running against todd young, who was favored to win that seat when facing baron hill but hill announced he wouldnt stay in bayhs way. Well be right back. Its in the quiet moments when you see why she does this. For hillary, its always been about kids. And when millions couldnt get health care, this first lady worked with republicans and democrats to fix it. Creating the childrens wbr id wbr10488 Health Insurance program, so that every child gets the health care that child deserves to have. Now eight million kids are covered. Thats the kind of leader she is. And the kind of president shell be. Im Hillary Clinton and i approve wbr id wbr10788 this message. b
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