Transcripts For MSNBCW The Last Word With Lawrence ODonnell

Part of that problem. He conducted an important substantive interview with donald trump. Well, at least the questions were substantive. Also tonight, you will hear from the local milwaukee radio talk show host who finally, finally showed trump tv and radio interviewers how to handle donald trump. The anger and rage against donald trump, especially from the right. Its blinding. Grows by the day. He is in fact a vulgar narcissist. I dont think that hes temperamentally suited to be president. No candidate should be doing what donald trump did last week, which is attacking my wife and attacking my family. Again, i didnt start it. He started it. What, are you 12 years old . Is this a playground . Youre running for president of the united states. Im always amused when donald doesnt know what to do and so threatens lawsuits. I won louisiana. And now i hear hes trying to steal delegates. You know, welcome to the Republican Party. My favorability is plus 19 when everybodys else is underwater. Not frustrated at all. Im loving life. Every leader i meet, they ask about what is happening in america. They cannot believe it. Hes completely uneducated about any part of the world. I love the poorly educated. Its clear to me that whats happening is an embarrassment to our country. It wasnt supposed to be this way. According to a Trump Campaign insider who has turned against donald trump. As of tonight, all the polls indicate that the Republican Party is on its way to nominating the weakest possible candidate to run against Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders in the general election, a candidate so weak, so disliked by a big majority of voters that he could sink republicans on the ballot with him, causing republicans to lose control of the senate, lose house seats, and it wasnt supposed to be this way because donald trump wasnt supposed to be the frontrunner for the republican president ial nomination. I sat in trump tower being told that the goal was to get the donald to poll in double digits and come in second in delegate count. That was it. Thats according to stephanie sigliski, who was the Communications Director of make America Great again super pac that was created and disbanded last year. The trump camp would have been satisfied to see him polling at 12 and taking second place to a candidate who might hold 50 . His candidacy was a protest candidacy. It pains me to say, but he is the president ial equivalent of sanjaya on american idol. President trump would be president sanjaya in terms of legitimacy and authority. And theres no reason to think that sanjaya would have done any worse than donald trump in a series of interviews conducted in the last few days. Last week donald trump did what most serious candidates for president do. He went to the Washington Post for a policy discussion with the Editorial Board. And since theres not a single trump voter out there who cares what the Washington Post Editorial Board thinks about anything, it is not clear why the Trump Campaign chose to do that. In fact, in the middle of that Washington Post interview donald trump himself wondered why he was doing it. I read some of the stories coming up here, and i said to my staff, i said, why are we even wasting our time . The hatred is so enormous. I dont know why. I mean, i do a good job. I have thousands of employees. I work hard. Im not looking for bad for our country. Im a very rational person. Im a very sane person. Im not looking for bad. But i read, you know, articles by you and others. And you know, weve never we dont know each other. And the level of hatred is so incredible, i actually said, why am i why am i doing this . Why am i even here . Donald trump sounded a bit lost in trying to respond to serious domestic and Foreign Policy questions from the Washington Post, something he rarely faces in televised interviews. And he gave this extraordinary answer when asked about a threat that he issued to the Ricketts Family in chicago because they contributed to a stop trump super pac. You said a few weeks ago after a family in chicago gave some money to a pac opposing you, you said, they better watch out. They have a lot to hide. So what does it mean, they better watch out . Well, it it means that ill start spending on them. Ill start taking ads telling them what a lousy job theyre doing with the chicago cubs. I mean, they are spending on me. I mean, so am i allowed to say that . A president ial candidate wants to use some of his Campaign Money to buy ads against the owners of a baseball team, none of whom is running for president. Yesterday the New York Times published a frontpage story based on a 100minute interview with donald trump on Foreign Policy conducted by phone by Maggie Haberman and david sanger. Reading the full transcript of that interview is like taking a world tour of Donald Trumps rank ignorance about Foreign Policy. When david sanger asked donald trump whats your impression of xi jinping, there was no indication in Donald Trumps answer that he knew they were talking about the president of china. He talked about china a bit, saying, i think they are in a very interesting position, the economy is going to be i think actually very strong but the economy theyre doing better than the people. Understand, nobody has manipulated blah, blah, blah. No indication, no personal word at all about the president of china when asked specifically about that. Donald trump made no attempt to answer that question. But apparently, since that name sounded chinese enough to him, he did say a few words about the chinese economy before moving on to the basic elements of his stump speech about international trade. Maggie haberman asked, would you be willing to withdraw u. S. Forces from places like japan and south korea if they dont increase their contributions significantly . Trump answered, yes, i would. When donald trump said that iran is the number one trading partner with north korea, david sanger corrected him and said, mr. Trump, with all due respect, i think its china thats the number one trading partner with north korea. Donald trump said, ive heard that certainly but ive also heard from other sources that its iran. Chinas trade with north korea is more than triple irans trade with north korea. In that same sunday edition of the New York Times Nicholas Kristofs oped piece analyzed how the media has contributed to Donald Trumps rise in the Republican Party, noting the 1. 9 billion worth of free publicity donald trump has received from the media, nick kristof wrote, trumps pattern of prevarication is what we in the media, especially television, didnt adequately highlight, leaving many voters with the perception that trump is actually a straight shooter. We in the media empowered a demagogue and failed the country. We were lap dogs, not watchdogs. Joining us now, New York Times National Security correspondent david sanger. Also from the New York Times, nicholas kristof, pulitzer prizewinning columnist. Nick, you said, ive never met a National Politician in the u. S. Who is so illinformed, evasive, pure isle and decesepte as trump. Reading david sanger and Maggie Habermans interview did you get any reason in there to change your mind about that . Boy. Davids questions were very well informed. But it was striking that trump was extraordinarily illinformed and he was evasive. Maggie and david kept having to try to bring him back to the topic. But it also just struck me how dangerous some of his ideas are. I mean, the possibility of encouraging japan and south korea to develop their own nuclear deterrents. The idea that we would completely allow saudi arabia off on its own perhaps to collapse. The idea that we would withdraw from nato. The idea we might lightly use Tactical Nuclear weapons. And you know, it also just strikes me that obviously it would be incredibly dangerous to have a president do these things. Its also dangerous frankly to have a leading candidate for the presidency say these things. These undermine our position in the world. And i think they create doubts around the world as well. David, before we get to the substance of the interview, i have to ask you, how did it come about, you know, when you hear donald trump saying to the Washington Post Editorial Board, you know, i wonder why im here, because its kind of hopeless with you guys. I would think he could ask the same question about doing this interview with you and Maggie Haberman. How did it come about . What do you suppose he thought he had to gain by it . Well, it came about in a very straightforward way. Maggie, who covers mr. Trump, i cover National Security affairs for the times, we wrote him a letter, and we said, look, traditionally the New York Times has sat down with leading candidates and discussed a broad range of Foreign Affairs issues. We usually do it later in the election cycle but this is obviously an unusual Election Year and there are a lot of questions about mr. Trump and his own views. It took a little while. It took a week or two. But he came back and he did it and he did it without aides present and so forth. So on the one hand youve got to give him credit that he was willing to go do this and give the time. It was a considerable period of time to go do it. On the other hand, as nick has suggested, there were many moments in the interview where you sort of wanted to ask, and i did at several points, you know, what bob gates used to see, robert gates, the former defense secretary, is the least asked question in washington, and then what . You decide youre going to show your pique at nato or the saudis and ditch them in some way. How does that change the International Order . Well, in the case of saudi arabia it would probably empower iran. In the case of nato, if we actually did pull out of nato or change it in a significant way, it might well embolden vladimir putin. If you let japan build nuclear weapons, you may well trigger a arms race weve been trying to avoid for 50 years in asia. So hes got a set of answers to his questions, but he hasnt spent enough time on these issues to sort of think about the next set of consequences. David, i have to say, in terms of technique i admire everything about the way you and maggie conducted this interview. And im wondering, for example, you would ask a question, donald trump would not answer it, but hed give you a good 800 words of stuff without answering it. And then you would point out that he hasnt answered the question and youd go back to it. And im just wondering, have you been watching Television Interviews with donald trump and watching his techniques of evasion that made you kind of ready for this and sit there waiting for these various maneuvers and just sticking with your questions . Ive seen him a bit obviously. But in terms of doing interviews with president ial candidates or president s this wasnt the first time wed done this. And ive done interviews like this back since the Clinton Administration and the races that followed with the president ial candidates and so, you know, usually when candidates are uncertain of their topic matter, and i remember this happening with george w. Bush before he took office, theyll go back to very familiar lines from their campaign, their stump speeches, their debate preparation. Theyll try to steer the conversation to something theyre comfortable with. And you just have to hear them out and then guide it back to where you need to go take the conversation to get an answer. Nick, what we saw i think with david and maggies interview, the Washington Posts interview with donald trump, and this local radio interview in milwaukee this morning is in those instances the media finally turning a corner and doing the interviews that i for one have been craving. I think a lot of people in the audience have found the tv interviews donald trump has done mad ening because they dont pursue lines the way especially policy lines. The great thing about the times interview, theres not one poll question. Theres not one question about how are you going to do in california, new jersey, any of that stuff. You know, hon are you going to bring the none of that stuff. No sloganeering stuff. Just pure policy all the way through. Yeah. And i mean, one of the things that is striking about trump is he never really talks about policies. He talks about outcomes. Okay, were going to solve the deficit. Were going to stop immigration. Were going to have a great relationship with china. But he never talks about how were actually going to get there. And its really important, in maggie and davids interview, in the wshtd wsht interview, to watch him being pushed, to watch him resist and then be tugged back. And i think it is terrific that both the times and the Washington Post didnt just write a article or editorial about it but they published the transcript. And that enables us i think to get a deeper sense of just how extraordinarily slippery and uninformed this candidate is. David and nick, if i can just interject on that point, i think nick makes a good point. But you also have to think hard about why it is that the trump message resonates so well, something that weve all gotten wrong over the past nine or ten months. And i think one of the reasons is that whatever you think of his prescriptions and the outcomes that nick refers to, his diagnosis of whats going on has echoes of things were hearing from very mainstream politicians. It was president obama who told Jeff Goldberg at the atlantic that the saudis, for example, are free riders. Pretty close to what donald trump is saying. Now, mr. Trump then has an extremely different way that you would go deal with it than president obama does. If you think about the past times that weve had american leaders including American Defense secretaries saying nato has got to learn how to contribute more because if they dont theyre going to lose faith with the american people, especially those who dont remember the cold war. There are echoes in his prescription of things that Many Americans have heard before. Dafrd sang vid sanger, thank extraordinary interview. Nick chris kristof, thank you. I share your pain about how the media has been struggling to do this job. I hope we do a better job. We may have turned a corner this weekend. Thank you, nick. Coming up, Charlie Sikes. That radio interviewer who taught everyone today how to interview donald trump. Everyone on tv and radio should listen to that one. And how ted cruz got more delegates in louisiana even though donald trump got more votes. And tonights Campaign Fact check. Who is telling the truth about who started their latest feud . Donald trump or ted cruz . Hey this is lloyd. To prove to you that the better choice for him is aleve. Hes agreed to give it up. Ok, but i have 30 acres to cover by sundown. Well be with him all day as he goes back to taking tylenol. Yeahi was ok, but after lunch my knee started hurting again so. More pills. Yep. Another pill stop. Can i get my aleve back yet . For my pain. I want my aleve. Get all day minor arthritis pain relief with an easy open cap. Thats how much garbage visitors to our National Parks add to the countrys landfills each year. But this year, subaru is sharing their zerolandfill expertise with the National Parks to work toward the goal of making garbage there a thing of the past. To get involved visit subaru. Com environment. Time for tonights Campaign Fact check. And by the way, hes the one that started it. And from what i hear, he and his campaign went out and bought the cover shoot melania did a cover shoot for gq. From what i hear, somebody bought the rights to it and he was the one or his campaign bought the rights and they gave it to the super pac. And just so you understand, that super pac is very friendly to ted cruz. He knew all about it 100 . Did anyone within your campaign, you, anyone else connected to you, coordinate in any way or have communications with that group . Did you know anything about the ad . Not remotely. It was a group. I dont know the person whos involved. As far as i know ive never met them, ive never spoken to them. Theyre completely disconnected from our campaign. The ad they put up was deplorable. He used that as an excuse, the fact that someone else who i dont know and have no involvement with used a deplorable ad. He used that as an excuse to go after my wife, heidi. Liz mayer, the republican strategist in charge of the 123457b9 trump super pack make america awesome has claimed full responsibility for the ad that included a photograph of melania trump. The ad that started this latest feud between donald trump and ted cruz. Liz mayer feeted, hi, donald, i know youre really upset about that ad but it was make america awesomes, not ted cruzs. The photographer who owns the rights to the gq photograph says that no one purchased the rights to that photograph. So he got hes