Transcripts For MSNBCW The Last Word With Lawrence ODonnell

MSNBCW The Last Word With Lawrence ODonnell March 22, 2016

Vote for donald trump. Senator Elizabeth Warren is adding her voice against trump. Branding trump as a loser. Shes essentially sending a signal to the Democratic Party, its time to focus on donald trump. People like Elizabeth Warren really have to get their act together. If you see a bully, stand up to him. Shes talking about you. I know. Yes, we need steady hands. Not a president who says hes neutral on monday, proisrael on tuesday, and who knows what on wednesday. She says you dont have steady hands. I have the steadiest hands look at those hands. I have the steadiest hands. Far steadier than her. If theres anything scarier than the fact that donald trump thinks hes the most important person in the world, its that in eight months, he could be. Jones day is a giant International Law firm with offices in 43 cities worldwide, including new york, london, beijing. In beijing, they are one of Many American law firms who offer Legal Assistance to american businesses in china, including the kinds of businesses who donald trump think are sending hour american jobs to china. Donald trump went to their Washington Office today, not to protest the loss of american jobs to china, but to have a meeting with washington republicans, many of whom were afraid to show their faces going into that meeting. The meeting was held at this temple to special interest representation in washington, because Donald Trumps Campaign Lawyer is a partner of that law firm, and he provided the Conference Room for that meeting. The reason many people didnt want to be seen attending is that the stoptrump movement had put out the word in washington that if you attend this meeting, you are dead to us. And so many lobbyists who would normally pour into a meeting like that held back, for fear that they might not be able to get another meeting with Mitch Mcconnell or paul ryan or any of the other republican power brokers in congress, who have not yet given up hope that donald trump can be stopped. Only two senators attended the. Jeff sessions, who has publicly endorsed donald trump, and junior republican senator, tom cotton, who has not endorsed anyone. And there were a few members of the house who attended because they knew it could only help them back home. I mean, hes clearly the frontrunner in my district in tennessee, he won almost 50 of the vote. I think he has the clearest path to a nomination, and it only makes sense to unify the party and get people behind him. After the meeting, donald trump held a long press conference in which he tried to sound reasonable to all the republicans in washington who are worried about him. If people want to be smart, they should embrace this movement. If they dont want to be smart, they should do what theyre doing now and the republicans are going to go down to a massive loss. They better be careful. And i certainly should be careful with third party stuff. If trump gets it, were going to start a third party. Well, a third party means the democrats are going to win. Donald trump signaled clearly to Senate Republican leader Mitch Mcconnell that he knows whos really in charge of who goes on the supreme court. Donald trump promised to publicly release a list of who he would nominate to the supreme court, something no president ial candidate has ever felt compelled to do. Im going to submit a list of justices, potential justices, of the United States supreme court, that i will appoint from the list. I wont go beyond that list. Probably between seven and ten judges that i think will be meet the highest standards, the highest standards. And from that list, well Pick Supreme Court judges. A New York Times cbs poll released tonight shows Bernie Sanders beating donald trump in a general election by 15 points and Hillary Clinton beating donald trump in the general election by 10 points. That poll also shows john kasich as the only republican who beats Hillary Clinton. No one, no one is going to that convention with enough delegates. I will have more delegates moving in there that will give me momentum, and then the delegates are going to decide who can win in the fall, because the other guys cant win in the fall. Hillary will be president. Joining us now is a member of the Republican National committees Standing Committee on rules and an unbound gop delegate from north dakota. Mr. Hagland, tell us what the rules are going into this convention. Or better still, i guess, how the rules for this convention will be written. Well, the rules for every convention are temporary rules, based on the rules for the previous convention. So thats about the best guidance we have right thousand, are the temporary rules. But the temporary rules are pretty simple. If you get to be the candidate of the republican party, the candidate, or the contender, i should say, first has to be nominated for consideration by the convention and then, once nominated, the contenders will be placed up for consideration by the full convention delegates. And all of the delegates each gets one vote and they vote. The question is, whats there threshold to get nominated. And im not going to speculate on where that might be, but i can guarantee you it will be between one and eight candidates, depending on what happens between now and the first day of the convention. Depending on the rules of the convention, could you members who write those rules, could you actually change it to a different target number that is necessary to win the nomination . Could you somehow raise it from the 1,237 . No, no. 1,237 is a simple majority. The number of delegates is known. Its going to be 2,472 delegates and half plus one is 1,237. Thats a fixed number. Thats not negotiable. Okay, so thats the one thing that you cant change. So do you expect to be lobbied by the candidates in terms of what rules they want to see . Well, there will be a tremendous amount of pressure exerted by the candidates, depending on the strength of their efforts. The makeup of the Convention Rules committee cant be known yet, because its made up of many delegates who havent even been selected yet. Theres a lot of work going behind the scenes right now to help to identify favorable members of the Convention Rules committee for each campaign, im sure. Were joined now by katie packer, part of the stop trump movement, the founder of our principles, an antitrump pac. She was the Deputy Campaign manager of mitt romneys 2012 president ial campaign, and also a political consultant and gop strategist. Also with us, jonathan alter, a columnist for the daily beast. Katie, is time running out for the stoptrump movement . Times running oubecause times running out to get to the convention. Theres only a limited number of primaries where delegates will be selected. And those are, you know, as we move down the timeline, they become fewer in front of us than there are behind us. That said, i still think that donald trump is in a very, very precarious position in terms of getting to the convention with 1,237 delegates. As curly said, that is an immovable number. You know, theres been a lot of speculation about, you know, would people try to wrestle, you know, the nomination away from trump . Its not his until he has 1,237 delegates. And if he goes in with 1,100, you know, they cant pressure the convention into handing the nomination to him. I dont believe if he doesnt go to the convention with 1,237 delegates, he will not be the nominee. Katie, will you be lobbying curly and the rules committee for sop stoptrump rules. I would always be happy to spend some time with curly, but i dont have any plans to adapt the rules. Theres temporary rules that have to be adopted by the 2016 convention. That will be up to the rules committee. We dont have any intention of trying to pressure trulies committee. We think it should be a fair process, but that fair process, i do believe requires donald trump to get 1,237 delegates and i dont think hes going to get there. Lets listen to what donald trump said tonight about his delegate lead. Its mathematically unfair. If i have millions of votes more and if i have 1,100 and somebody else is down at 400 or 500, i think its awfully tough to take owl of these people out of the system. Jonathan alter, katies pretty confident if he doesnt get the magic number, hes not going to get the nomination. I think that underestimates his abilities as closer, you know . Thats what you have to do in real estate is close the deal. If he depose in 30 to 50 delegates short, which a lot of the pundits like 538, for instance, are saying, that, you know, he might be 30 to 50 delegates short, there are a number of delegations that have uncommitted delegates right now, pennsylvania, for instance, has quite a number. And he can cut all kinds of deals for what might happen after the election if those delegates come his way. Remember, we saw in washington today, even the fact this meeting took place, hes pretty good at changing his tune, bringing people in, and right there on k street. He went right to k street. And a lot of the folks there and a lot of the delegates at the republican convention, they like power and theyre willing to look the other way at a lot of the things donald trump has said. So, i think right now, its obviously far from a done deal, but the odds strongly favor him being the republican nominee. Katie, whats your response to that . Well, first of all, if you look at the people that showed up at that meeting today, all but one of the people that showed up have already endorsed him. And so it wasnt a big surprise that those were the people that showed up to this meeting. I agree that a lot of people on k street are attached to the idea of power. But most of them dont believe donald trump will be the next president , even if he is the nominee. All of the data indicates that he is the one candidate that cant take on Hillary Clinton in meaningful way. In fact, were very likely to lose the senate and he puts the house in jeopardy. Thats something that concerns a lot of people. I think if it gets to the convention floor, most of the people that are there are that havent already committed to trump are going to be looking for a candidate that can actually take on Hillary Clinton, because theyre very, very worried about, you know, four more years of what weve had for the last eight years. Thats a huge, huge concern to people. And so, you know, i think that i would agree that donald trump is certainly the frontrunner at the moment, but ill stand by my premise if hes not at 1,237 delegates, he cant bribe people, he cant pay for their vote on the convention floor. So hell have to, you know, have some pretty fancy footwork and i just dont think that those delegates are going to be moved by that. Curly, if they do as katie says and look for the person who can beat Hillary Clinton, the polls will tell them as of tonight and possibly as of the convention, that that person is john kasich. Can you tell us a way that those delegates could reach all the way down to the distant third place finisher with delegates and evaluate that person to the nomination . That calls for a high degree of speculation. But i want to caution everybody to kind of look through the fog a little bit and get to understand the concept of what how does 1,237 how do we get to that number . Thats not an accumulation of number put up by the Associated Press or the rnc or anybody else based on the primaries. The first time were ever going to know how close you are to 1,237 is when the first round of voting takes place at the convention. Curly, quickly, whats wrong with the numbers were seeing publicly now. How might they be wrong . They might be wrong for a lot of different rules. Winnertakeall Convention Rules dont allow winner take all Convention Rules give every delegate a vote. That kind of blows a hole in the winner take all. Ive been saying that for years, before anyone suggests im part of any giant conspiracy here. Thats just the way it is. And the other thing is, some of the delegates might be challenged. Because they come from states that have open primaries. There are way too many open primaries. Thats a violation of our party rules, could be challenged. Some of the delegates are handpicked by the contenders. Thats a concern. Theres a lot of Different Things that can erode that 1,237. I was just taking notes during that answer. Everything you said is something i just learned right now. Curly haugland, katie parker and jonathan alter, thank you all. Coming up, donald trump speaks to aipac, pandering every way he could possibly find. And Bernie Sanders in an extended interview tonight with chris hayes. We will bring you some of that interview and later we will go live to a Bernie Sanders speech. And can you explain why you recommend synthetic over cedar . Super food . Is that a real thing . 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With centurylink you get advanced Technology Solutions, including an industry leading Broadband Network, and cloud and hosting services all with dedicated, responsive support. With centurylink as your trusted technology partner, youre free to focus on growing your business. Centurylink. Your link to whats next. I didnt come here tonight to pander to you about israel. Thats wt politicians do. All talk, no action. Believe me. Donald trump dropped his neutrality about israel tonight when he read a speech to the American Israeli Public Affairs committees annual conference in washington, d. C. Donald trump read the speech from teleprompters, since he was, for once, speaking to an audience that knows much more than he does about the subject at hand. Donald trump showed just how bad he can be on the subject of israel just hours earlier at a press conference, when he was speaking without a script. He was asked about his frequent complaint that we give foreign aid to countries who can actually afford to take care of themselves. I dont denounce the country. I have Great Respect for those countries. I want them to pay us some money. The questioner, whos not audible on our video of that interaction, then asked, if that pay us some money idea applies to israel. And here is Donald Trumps answer. I think israel will do that also, yeah. I think israel will do there are many countries that can pay and pay big league. Donald trumps speechwriters did not include that demand in his speech to aipac. Donald trump said two totally Different Things in the speech about president obamas nuclear deal with iran. First he said that he would, quote, dismantle the disastrous deal with iran. Six minutes later he said he would enforce that deal very strictly. And his biggest applause line was this. We will move the American Embassy to the eternal capital of the jewish people, jerusalem. And we will send a clear signal that there is no daylight between america and as our most reliable ally, the state of israel. Joining us now, former senator george mitchell, former majority leader of the senate, who was also a special envoy to the middle east. Thank you very much for joining us tonight, senator. Really appreciate it. Thanks for having me, lawrence. I want to get your reaction to this annual tradition at aipac, and this time the unusual spectacle of seeing donald trump address that audience. And his biggest applause line, moving the American Embassy to jerusalem. What was your reaction to that . To be fair, in president ial campaigns, theres a lot of pandering. Democratic candidates going to africanamerican or latin groups, they try to say what they think the audiences want to hear. When republicans go to christian and evangelical or conservative pacs, they try to say what they think the audience wants to hear. And thats what you

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