ALL IN with CHRIS HAYES

August 4, 2014



Guest: Tim Carney, Sam Seder, Chris Gunness, Heather Hurlburt, Anthony

Fauci



(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)



EZRA KLEIN, GUEST HOST (voice-over): Tonight, we are ALL IN.



The Israelis and Palestinians agreed to a three-day cease-fire as the

politics continue.



VALERIE JARETT, WHITE HOUSE SENIOR ADVISER: You also can`t condone

the killing of all of these innocent children.



KLEIN: We`ll go live to Tel Aviv for the latest.



Then, fear-mongering over Ebola, as an American doctor stricken with

the virus is improving near the U.S.



UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We`re going above and beyond what`s necessary to

contain this virus.



KLEIN: Are the scare tactics warranted?



Plus, why Florida can take a lesson from Canada when it comes to

holding an election.



And if you missed this on Friday --



CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST: Congressman, you`re filibustering. My

question to you is yes or no --



REP. MO BROOKS (R), ALABAMA: I just answered. I said yes.



HAYES: Yes, you want to see them deported.



KLEIN: There`s much more where that came from.



BROOKS: This is a part of the war on whites.



KLEIN: ALL IN starts right now.



(END VIDEOTAPE)



KLEIN: Good evening from Washington. I`m Ezra Klein, sitting in

tonight for Chris Hayes.



And there`s big news tonight in the Middle East where there are signs

of a potential breakthrough, with both Israelis and Palestinians signing on

to a 72-hour cease-fire brokered by Egypt. The cease-fire is set to begin

tomorrow at 8:00 a.m. local time.



It is worth saying, however, the two sides here do not have the best

record with cease-fires. A previous cease-fire put in place on Friday, it

lasted only two hours before fighting between the two sides resumed.



Earlier today, Israel initiated a partial cease-fire on its own as it

began to withdraw ground troops from some of the more populist areas of

Gaza, saying they are, quote, "extremely close to completing their mission

of destroying Hamas` network of underground tunnels."



But near minutes after the partial cease-fire begun, an air strike

hit a home at the Shati refugee camp in Gaza City, killing an 8-year-old

girl and wounding at least 29 others, according to "The New York Times."

That refugee camp it should be said is far from the southern city of Rafah,

which Israeli army officials said was the only urban area where there would

be fighting on the ground today.



Across the border in Israel, in what the Israeli government is now

calling a terrorist attack, a man in Jerusalem drove a construction vehicle

into a bus, flipping the bus over and killing one pedestrian. The driver

of the construction vehicle was fatally shot by Israeli security forces.



Hours later, a gunman on a motorcycle shot and wounded an Israeli

soldier in east Jerusalem.



Israel said its partial cease-fire today was intended to allow

humanitarian aid into some of the hardest hit areas of Gaza and to let some

of the almost half a million Palestinians displaced in the fighting return

to their homes in the areas where Israeli troops are no longer engaged, if

indeed, they have homes to return to.



Nearly 250,000 of those displaced people have been sheltering at

facilities run by the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees.

And yesterday, for the second time in a week, a U.N.-run school acting as

refugee shelter was hit by Israeli fire.



An Israeli missile struck near the entrance of the U.N. school in

Rafah where around 3,000 Palestinians were seeking shelter, killing at

least 10 people and drawing the strongest condemnation yet from the U.S.

government. State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki said in a statement,

quote, "The United States is appalled by today`s disgraceful shelling

outside a UNRWA school in Rafah. We once again stress that Israel must do

more to meet its own standards and avoid civilian casualties."



Israel said the missiles meant to hit three militants on a

motorcycle. Instead, it killed 10 people at a U.N. school. This comes

after an Israeli strike killed 21 people at a UNRWA school at a Jabaliya

refugee camp less than a week ago, provoking an emotional response from the

organization`s spokesman.



(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)



CHRIS GUNNESS, UNRWA SPOKESMAN: The rights of Palestinians, even

children, are wholesale denied and it`s appalling.



My pleasure.



(CRYING)



(END VIDEO CLIP)



KLEIN: An examination of that Israeli barrage by "The New York

Times" suggests that Israeli troops paid little heed to warnings to

safeguard such sites and may actually have unleashed weapons inappropriate

for areas despite rising alarm over civilian deaths.



Joining me on the phone from Tel Aviv is Chris Gunness, spokesperson

for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.



Chris, I appreciate you being here.



GUNNESS (via telephone): My great pleasure. Thank you so much for

having me on your program. Much appreciated.



KLEIN: What is your response to "The New York Times" reporting that

Israel may have ignored warnings about the location of one of the schools

and fired artillery shells into a dense urban area?



GUNNESS: Well, let me say first of all we in UNRWA made 33 calls to

the Israeli army, telling them there were people in the school, 3,000,

telling them of the precise GPS of that school. The last of those calls

was put through an hour at 09:45 yesterday morning to the Israeli army, and

in spite of that, we still had this terrible instant in which five children

were killed between the ages of 3 and 15.



Now, it`s interesting, you quoted quite accurately, extremely

accurately the State Department`s statement and elsewhere in that statement

the State Department made it clear to Israel that simply being, having a

suspicion that there are militants on a motor bike would not justify a

strike on an installation where there are 3,000 people. There is laws of

war the principle of proportionality, and you simply can`t because you hope

you might kill a militant put at risk the lives of thousands of people in

that school. And sadly, because that risk was taken, children died.



KLEIN: So, you said 33 calls?



GUNNESS: We made 33 calls to the Israeli army. That is correct.

Notifying them of the exact GPS coordinates of that school and the last

call before the fatal strike was put in an hour before.



And, you k, this isn`t the first time. As you said in your

introduction, in the school in Jabaliya, it was 17 calls informing them of

the exact coordinates.



Now, I`m not accusing the Israeli army of making a direct and

deliberate hit. What I`m saying is that there are questions which I think

needs to be answered. And that is why we are asking for an investigation

and interestingly, the State Department has also said there should be an

investigation. We owe the families of those killed, those children between

the ages of 3 and 15, and others, an explanation because if you`ve ever

grieved in a situation like this, I can tell you one of the first steps you

need if you`re going to move toward some kind of closure, is the truth.

And we owe it to those people.



Just as on the other side, the people who lose members of their

family, for example, in the Israeli army, it`s important that they should

find out the truth about what happened to their loved ones. So, on the

other side, it`s important that people should know what happened. That`s

why we say we want an investigation. That`s one of the many reasons why

there must be an investigation.



KLEIN: Israel blames the civilian casualties in Gaza on Hamas which

it says uses civilians as human shields and fires rockets and stores arms

in heavily populated areas. What`s your response on that?



GUNNESS: Well, we are very clear, we condemn in the strongest

possible terms the rockets that fly out. It is absolutely condemnable,

absolutely unacceptable that 6 million Israeli civilians are terrorized by

these barrages of rockets that fly out.



On the other hand, it is -- there is no evidence whatsoever in any of

the schools that have taken direct hits by Israeli shelling so far, there

is no evidence whatsoever that in any of these instances there were any

militant militants using our facilities either to fire rockets or, indeed,

to store rockets. There have been examples of militants going into

schools, most closed down by the summer, where our staff simply didn`t have

a presence. There are examples, three examples, of militants doing that.



On all those occasions, we proactively came out and condemned it, but

that is not -- the fact that there are militant rockets that have been

found by UNRWA in our regular inspections in schools elsewhere in the Gaza

Strip does not justify attacks on schools where people are taking shelter.

We simply cannot put civilians, children, women, at risk in that way.



KLEIN: Given the recent record in the cease-fires that have been

struck so far, are you optimistic about the 72-hour cease-fire that has

been agreed to tonight?



GUNNESS: Look, I can say that this cease-fire simply has to work

because there is a human displacement catastrophe which is unfolding,

270,000 people are in U.N. shelters, UNRWA shelters tonight, and that

figure will simply rise further unless we have a cease-fire. It must end.



And can I also say that beyond a cease-fire, there must be a

permanent peace because it is utterly unsustainable to have a situation

where every couple of years civilians in Israel are terrorized by these

barrages of rockets, and also 2 million civilians, nearly 2 million in

Gaza, are subjected to the wholesale denial of dignity and the wholesale

denial of rights.



We`ve all seen the pictures of what`s been going on in Gaza. We all

know that civilians have paid an inordinately high price. It`s

unacceptable for this to happen again. When the final guns fall silent, it

is important there`s serious engagement with addressing the underlying

causes of the conflict in Gaza, and that includes the blockade because I

think everyone in Israel, everyone in Gaza that`s been through this

experience can realize it must never, ever be allowed to happen again.



KLEIN: Chris Gunness from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency

-- thank you for being here tonight and thank you for the work you`re

doing.



GUNNESS: My pleasure, sir. Thank you so much for having me.



KLEIN: The State Department`s condemnation of Israel`s strike on the

U.N. shelter yesterday is only the latest sign of fraying U.S./Israel

relations over the course of this conflict. And now, top officials in the

Obama administration are adding their voices to the growing chorus

expressing concern over the high number of civilian casualties in Gaza.

U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Samantha Power issued a statement calling

yesterday`s attack on U.N. school, quote, "horrifying," while White House

senior adviser Valerie Jarrett said it was indefensible.



(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)



JARRETT: Israel absolutely has the right to defend itself and we are

Israel`s staunchest ally. But you also can`t condone the killing of all of

these innocent children. And so, we`re very concerned. We`re monitoring

the situation closely.



(END VIDEO CLIP)



KLEIN: The United States wasn`t even present for the cease-fire

negotiations in Cairo today, which may or may not have anything to do with

the absolute shellacking Secretary of State John Kerry got from the Israeli

press and its political class the last time he got directly involved.



But now, German newspaper "Ders Spiegel" is reporting that Israeli

intelligence eavesdropped on telephone calls by Kerry during the Mideast

peace talks and used the information obtained from the calls during the

investigations.



Joining me now is Heather Hurlburt, a former White House official in

the Clinton administration and now a fellow at the New America Foundation.



Heather, thank you for being here.



HEATHER HURLBURT, NEW AMERICA FOUNDATION: Ezra, thanks for having

me.



KLEIN: What do the revelations in "Ders Spiegel" about possible

spying on Kerry -- not that America has such a clean record on spying on

allies, itself -- mean for the U.S./Israeli relationship right now?



HURLBURT: Well, I`m tempted to say it can`t get much worse than it

is. And also, I`ll say that I`m quite sure that Secretary Kerry`s

delegation assumed all the time that the Israeli government was trying to

do that. So, in some ways that may not make things worse because it lets

the U.S. go and say, yes, we knew you were doing that, what`s it gotten

you? So, actually I think that`s a sideshow.



KLEIN: You said a moment ago that it can`t get much worse. Explain

that for a minute. Has there been a serious deterioration in the relations

between the two countries? And if so, is it something that will last

beyond the end of this conflict?



HURLBURT: Well, we have to differentiate the relationship between

the countries and relationship between the governments. I think it`s fair

to say that it`s been a couple of decades since relations between two

governments were as bad as they are right now. On the other hand, you

know, defense cooperation remains at unprecedented high levels. One could

argue that the reason Israel has suffered such a tiny number of civilian

casualties despite the unprecedented number of rockets that have been aimed

at it is the ramping up of cooperation of Iron Dome and the anti-missile

systems that occurred under this administration.



So, the picture is complicated, as you said, Israeli public opinion

left, right, and center in recent days has been united in saying whatever

that is wrong here, it`s John Kerry`s fault. So that is a serious problem

that Israel is going to have to get over.



I also think if you look at American public opinion polls, younger

Americans are taking a dramatically different view of Israel than older

Americans are in part because a generation that`s grows up on the kinds of

pictures we just saw as opposed to people my age and older who grew up with

a very different image of what was going on in the region.



So, so long term, there are questions about the relationship that are

much bigger than Netanyahu and Obama.



KLEIN: One of the things that happened the last couple of years was

that Secretary Kerry, I think to some degree out of sight of a lot of the

U.S. political class, really put a tremendous amount of personal energy,

personal capital into trying to broker a peace deal. And now, we`re at a

point where Egypt is hosting these talks for long-term truce between Israel

and Hamas and the U.S. is basically at this point not involved.



I wonder to what extent you`re seeing a -- might continue to see

after the fighting has resolved, a shift in attention, a sort of exhaustion

on the part of American political leaders that steps forward can actually

be effectively taken?



HURLBURT: Actually I think you`re going to see the opposite, for two

reasons.



One is that this horror that we`ve seen over the last few weeks, the

casualties on both sides, the changes in public opinions on both side,

levels of fear, and despair, and disgust that you`ve seen. You know,

people are going to understand a little better why John Kerry was going

around saying, look, we can`t let this go. We can`t just let it sit there.

Something he was widely mocked for in the U.S. So I actually think there

will be something of a resurgence of attention.



The other thing, Cairo is hosting the talks, but remember, Hamas and

Cairo barely talked to each other. So, in point of fact, it remains the

case to, you know, whether you like this, whether you don`t, that the U.S.

remains really the only party that everybody talks to. Now, everybody

talks to the U.S. in order to heap abuse on us and tell us what John Kerry

is doing wrong, but point of fact, it remains the case that not Egypt, not

Russia, not Turkey, not the E.U., not the U.N., there`s nobody else who has

that relationship.



So, as every president before him, Obama`s going to find himself sort

of stuck right in the middle of this.



KLEIN: One of the features of this conflict has been particularly in

Israel a tremendous unanimity in public support for the offensive in Gaza.

And I`m curious what you think in terms of what will happen after, if there

will be any cracking in the Israeli position on what is best to do in Gaza

going forward? I`m thinking particularly of the blockade of what is done

in terms of Hamas.



What do you think the sort of status quo after the operation on the

tunnels is completed will be?



HURLBURT: Well, again, you really have to differentiate because

there`s been tremendous support for the operation but a collapse in support

for the Netanyahu government. So, I think that`s actually the first place

you`re going to see a potential seismic shift in Israel and you`ve seen,

frankly, some jockeying among parties in Netanyahu`s government that`s made

the job of Kerry and other outsiders much more difficult. So, there`s

going to be that.



The second problem, the Israeli public for entirely understandable

reasons wants to see Hamas punished, wants to see Hamas completely removed

from the political scene. But, frankly, that`s who the Israeli government

has to talk to, to get the cease-fire.



And if there`s one thing that comes out of this, it is that the

Netanyahu government`s effort to frustrate the coming back together of

Hamas and the Palestinian Authority will probably have failed. So, the

Israeli public is now going to be stuck with having Hamas in its universe

in a way that frankly it was better able to ignore Hamas before this

happened and before everybody was reminded of just how appalling a force

Hamas is.



So, that`s the other sort of seismic shift that I see.



KLEIN: Heather Hurlburt, thank you very much for being here tonight.



HURLBURT: Thanks for having me.



KLEIN: Why the Ebola outbreak that happened in Africa will never

happen in the U.S., and it is not for the reasons you may think. We`ll

explain, next.



(COMMERCIAL BREAK)



KLEIN: When you try to talk about getting things done in Congress,

there`s one word you hear over and over and over and over again --

gridlock. But tonight I`m going to tell you why that is a terrible

metaphor for what is wrong in D.C. politics. Stick around.



(COMMERCIAL BREAK)



KLEIN: Today brought a flurry of terrified headlines and tweets --

tweets -- when word got out that New York City`s Mt. Sinai Hospital was

treating a man for Ebola-like symptoms. A few hours later, doctors

announced it was unlikely the patient had the disease.



The latest round of Ebola scare-mongering, like this fear headline in

the "Drudge Report" -- look at that -- had long since gotten under way.



There is a very simple test for how worried you should be, you at

home, should be, about contracting the Ebola virus. It is so

straightforward that it actually fit in a tweet -- there it is again -- by

a guy with a coffee mug as his avatar.



So, here`s the test. Are you exchanging bodily fluids with someone

who has contracted Ebola? No? Settle down.



Ebola is a terrifying illness if you catch it. There`s no question.

It has killed 887 of the more than 1,600 people who have caught it in this

latest outbreak. That`s according to the World Health Organization`s

update today.



But the other thing about Ebola is it so far as these things go, it

is kind of hard to catch. This is not an airborne disease like the Spanish

flu which killed an estimated 30 million to 50 million people in 1918 and

1919. The only way to get Ebola, the only way is to touch a patient`s

bodily fluids. You aren`t going to get it by being on a plane or in a

public space with somebody who is infected.



And in the U.S. and Europe, there are health care practices in place

to keep diseases like this one from spreading quickly.



The problem is, in many countries in Africa, nearly four decades

after Ebola was discovered, a lot of these very basic public health

protections and practices simply don`t exist despite the best efforts of

genuinely heroic aid workers. Ebola has killed 646 people in Sierra Leone,

where the streets were largely empty today as people mourn the dead. That

outbreak does not reflect the triumph of an unstoppable disease. It

reflects a failure of economic and human development.



In some African countries, less than $100 is spent on health care per

person per year compared to more than $8,000 in the U.S. That is just

money that is not being invested in good health care practices.



On the ground in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, aid workers say

they simply don`t have access to the basics needed to protect not only

their patients but also themselves. Meanwhile, money that could be used to

find a vaccine or cure which comes mostly from the private sector is spent

instead in the areas where companies can make the most profit.



Right now, more money goes into fighting baldness and erectile

dysfunction than hemorrhagic fevers like dengue or Ebola. While there is

no cure for the diseases, there are some signs of hope.



NBC News reports the two American aid workers who were infected, Dr.

Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol were treated with an experimental drug made

in San Diego. A drug developed with government funding, by the way, which

led to a significant improvement in the condition of both.



But that right now is of no help to the hundreds of Africans who`ve

been infected with the disease.



Joining me now is Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National

Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, at the National Institutes of

Health.



Doctor, it`s good to have view here.



DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH: Good to be with

you.



KLEIN: Walk me through a little bit of how afraid and worried people

should be, that there is Ebola, there`s a victim of Ebola in hospital in

America, and also at least some people going into hospitals to get tested.



FAUCI: Sure. They shouldn`t be worried at all.



As you said very correctly, we have the health care system in place

now to be able to isolate people, to have the people who are taking care of

these people with the personal protective equipment to protect them.



As you said, the only way you get Ebola is by coming into direct

contact with bodily fluids like blood and feces and vomit, when people are

really, really sick.



So, the fact that somebody`s in a hospital under the right conditions

is no threat to anyone else. And people ask the same thing, what about

being on a plane or in a physical space with someone? That`s not the way

this virus is spread.



KLEIN: And just on the contagion point, one other question, when is

Ebola contagious? You remarked on this a second ago, but I think for a lot

of people, there`s an impression maybe it can be caught when people are

completely asymptomatic.



FAUCI: No, no, there are some viruses that, in fact, can be

transmitted for a short period of time before people actually get symptoms.

That`s not the case with Ebola. Ebola is transmitted essentially when

someone is sick, when one is really taking care of them. When the person

is, in fact, bleeding or vomiting, or what-have-you, and you touch that, as

you said very correctly, that`s how you get it.



KLEIN: Talk to me a little bit about the experimental drug that was

given to the two Americans. It`s not a drug on the market. It`s not a

drug you can go and purchase in a hospital. But what are we looking at

here? Do you think it`s promising?



FAUCI: Well, certainly the animal experiments were promising. It is

in, strictly speaking, a drug. It`s an antibody which is a protein that

the body makes that you and I make naturally when we get infected or when

we get vaccinated that tends to block viruses. What the intervention was,

was a cocktail of three monoclonal antibodies that were developed

artificially and infused into the two patients.



Now, the reports we`re getting from Emory is that Dr. Brantly is

doing well and seems to be associated with the administration of the

cocktail of these monoclonal antibodies. When you have only one patient,

it`s tough to say.



But the animal studies, the monkey studies that have been done on

this prior to giving it to a human are really quite impressive. So, we`re

looking forward to further information on this. As you said, this was an

intervention that was developed first by federal funding from my institute,

the NIH, and then now it is in the possession of a company which is trying

to scale it up because interestingly, there are only right now as we speak

three treatment doses available.



So, it isn`t like there`s a lot of it available. So we really have

to scale it up.



KLEIN: And so, this is not much of a help for people in Africa who

are getting sick.



FAUCI: No.



KLEIN: What can be done there in terms of basic public health

practices? Something people don`t think about as clearly as maybe they

could is that you don`t always need a giant advance in drugs --



FAUCI: Right.



KLEIN: -- or antibodies. You can often do a lot through better

practices. Is there an effort to scale that up in Africa right now and the

affected countries?



FAUCI: There is. The CDC is sending 50 of their health officers

there to help out with contact tracing and the trouble is that the social

conditions in those three countries, the complete lack of a functional

health care delivery system, superimposed and compounded by the fact that

the traditions and the customs of individuals about how they distrust

authority and distrust the health workers so that instead of bringing

someone to the hospital where you can isolate them properly, they`re taking

them back into their homes, infecting other members of the family and when

they die, you should treat the same body with the same sort of isolation,

making sure you have personal protective equipment.



They have the customs of touching the body when they prepare them for

burial. Unfortunately, that`s compounding that. So, we need a massive

turnaround of societal awareness of what it is that`s propagating this

pandemic. That`s very difficult to do. The people that are over there now

trying to do this are really challenged.



KLEIN: Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health --

thank you very much for being here.



FAUCI: Good to be with you.



KLEIN: So, today, a Republican congressman went on conservative

Laura Ingraham`s radio show and said something so totally outrageous even

she wasn`t buying it.



(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)



LAURA INGRAHAM, RADIO HOST: Congressman, don`t you -- that`s a

little -- that characterization is a little -- a little out there.



(END AUDIO CLIP)



KLEIN: Who said it, and what he said, next.



(COMMERCIAL BREAK)



(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)



REP. MO BROOKS, (R) ALABAMA CONGRESSMAN: The democrats, the border

security problem is really a question of where they come up with the money

for the welcome mats and the happy meals.



CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST OF "ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES": OK.



REP. BROOKS: That is a big contrast.



HAYES: Are there happy meals in the legislation?



REP. BROOKS: There is everything the president can give away, free

food, free clothing, free shelter, free health care, free education. He is

doing so. And, then he wonders after he is enticed the illegal alien

children to America, how in the world do they come and why do they come?



(END VIDEO CLIP)



EZRA KLEIN, MSNBC CO-HOST: That was Republican Congressman Mo Brooks

with Chris here on Friday night. But, it turned out that Congressman

Brooks was just warming up for what he was going to say today.



(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)



REP. BROOKS: This is a part of the war on whites that is being

launched by the Democratic Party, and the way in which they are launching

this war is by claiming that whites hate everybody else. It is a part of

the strategy that Barack Obama implemented in 2008, continued in 2012 where

he divides this all on race, on sex, greed, envy, class warfare, all those

kinds of things.



(END VIDEO CLIP)



KLEIN: The war on whites. Even radio host Laura Ingraham have

responded by saying, quote, "That might not be the best choice of words

there." But, the fact check the Congressman`s allegations of this, quote,

war on whites, let`s take a look at some actual numbers that might show

what is happening in the war, like average family wealth over the last

generation.



That blue line is the average for a white family. And as you can

see, there has been a consistently very large gap between that and the

wealth of black and Hispanic families. It is strange that the war on

whites has not done more about this, or how about income? Here is median

household income over about the past 40 years.



As you can see, white families bring in nearly $20,000 more a year

than Hispanic families and almost $24,000 more than black families. And as

for the poverty rate, well, poverty rate for black households is nearly

triple the rate for white families.



Unemployment rate, black and Hispanic unemployment has consistently

been much, much higher than the unemployment rate for whites over the past

40 years and black unemployment is currently more than twice as high as

white unemployment.



And, then there is incarceration rate. In the last 50 years we have

dramatically increased rate in which we imprison all folks in our

population, but the rate at which we incarcerate minorities has sky

rocketed and it far outstrips the rate in which we incarcerate whites. If

this is what it looks like, when the democrats running the government to

declare a war on white people then I would hate to see what it will look

like if the government declared war on non-white people.



(COMMERCIAL BREAK)



KLEIN: My other job at vox.com, one of our favorite pastimes is

explaining stuff, the kind of stuff that is really important to know but

does not often get explained. For example, here in 2 minutes is everything

you need to know about gerrymandering.



(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)



KLEIN (voice-over): There are some things in life that Canada is

just better at. Putin, for instance, being polite, appreciating Robin

Sparkles, and these days, elections. America does something very weird in

its elections. The way elections are supposed to work is voters choose

their politicians; but in American, politicians often get to choose their

voters.



The word gerrymandering comes from Elbridge Gerry, who is governor of

Massachusetts from 1810 to 1812. After he took office, his party redrew

the map of the state senate districts in a shockingly partisan manner. The

aim was to help his party win as many elections as possible by creating as

many districts as he could or at least 51 percent of the voters would favor

Gerry`s allies.



That is basically what gerrymandering is. We got 435 congressional

districts in this country. Somebody needs to divide them up. And,

amazingly, most states let politicians divide them up. The results are

totally predictable. See how this works in North Carolina. Democrats won

50.5 percent of the house vote in 2012. Republicans won nine house seats

for the democrats` four.



If you want to see why, just look at the map. Look at district

number 4. It kind of looks like two legs running away from this whole

mess. Look at district 9, which is getting punched in the neck by district

5 and kicked in the gut by district 12. Damn, look at district 12. It is

like a little worm wriggling away from North Carolina.



These districts may look weird, but they are what political

scientists call efficient. They cluster the state`s democratic voters into

a few districts where they have huge majorities and they spread the state`s

republican voters into more districts where there are slimmer majorities.



So, district 12, the democrat won by almost 60 percent. No

republican won a district by more than 30 percent. That meant they could

win more districts and more house seats in total. And, that is what

happens when you let politicians choose their voters.



This is how Canada did it, too, but then in the 1960s they took the

power away from partisan politicians and gave it to independent

commissions. America could do this, too, if it wanted and now we could

stop feeling bad about how much better Canada is in elections and instead

feel good that we get to wear such as a nice plain country as a hat.



(END VIDEO CLIP)



KLEIN: Now, if you want an example of why you should know about

gerrymandering, about what Canada was trying to solve, just look at Florida

where on Friday a judge ruled that state legislature needs to redraw their

congressional map, so that it adheres to the state`s constitution.



Specifically, the judge wants a new congressional redistricting plan

drawn for Florida`s fifth and 10th congressional districts, which

represented by Democrat Corrine Brown and Republican Daniel Webster

respectively.



Earlier this summer the judge ruled the districts are illegal writing

the quote, "Republican political consultants or operatives did, in fact,

conspire to manipulate an influence in the redistricting process." The

ruling was in response to a lawsuit brought by the league of women voters

at Florida and other groups.



And, over the course of that suit, the judge found that republican

operative posts as unbiased citizens at public hearings to discuss maps,

that -- wait for it, had been drawn in secret. Very nice. And, now it is

up to Florida`s republican legislature to fix the mess. The republicans

were just found to have illegally manipulated.



The judge gave them to weeks to submit a new proposal. But, even he

was not sure whether the whole map mess would be fixable by the midterm

elections in November. We will be right back.



(COMMERCIAL BREAK)



KLEIN: How congress not doing anything in Washington can actually

lead to some big things happening. That is next.



(COMMERCIAL BREAK)



KLEIN: Gridlock. You have heard of gridlock, right? Like really bad

traffic? This gridlock, what you are seeing here, is from outside Beijing,

100 kilometer traffic jam that lasted for nine days. People got out of

their cars and just wandered. There was nothing to do. There was nowhere

for them to go.



And, when you look at those pictures, it is easy to see what is

happening. Nothing. Nothing is happening. Nothing is moving. People are

just waiting. That is what gridlock is. It is what happens when nothing

moves. That is a metaphor we have chosen in Washington for what happens

when congress cannot pass legislation. We call it congressional gridlock,

and it is the wrong metaphor.



There are roughly 12 million unauthorized immigrants in America.

There is tens of thousands of refugee children massing on the border trying

to escape drug gangs in Central America. Last year the senate passed a

comprehensive immigration reform bill that would have toughened the border,

rationalize immigration laws and given the roughly 12 million people, at

least many, a path to legal status and even citizenship.



But, the house did nothing. The bill is caught in congressional

gridlock. That happens. Now, President Obama is considering doing

something on his own and he has the power to do it. Since there are way

more laws being violated on any given day than the federal government can

possibly track or investigate, the president has a lot of authority to tell

federal agencies what crimes to prioritize and which to deprioritize. That

is why the Irs does not spend all its time auditing the poor.



And, it is how Obama effectively legalized many dreamers back in

2012. The rumor right now is that he will use that authority to

effectively legalize or at least free from the threat of deportation many

more unauthorized immigrants, millions more of them.



In "The New Republic" Chicago Law Professor Eric Posner argues that

this would in effect be simply admitting reality. He writes that,

"Millions of illegal immigrants have lived in the United States for decades

under a semiofficial policy that allows them to stay as long as they do not

commit serious crimes and that in many cases, even allows them to obtain

driver`s licenses."



The main effect of Obama`s proposal would be to officially recognize

current practice. Again, I want to emphasize, there is no proposal yet.

But, writing in "The New York Times," Ross Douthat is more concerned. He

argues, this would be something new in the analysis of presidential power

writing, quote, "It would be lawless, reckless, and a leap into the anti-

democratic dark."



Congressman Steve King has said yesterday that if Obama use with

further executive action to legalize more undocumented immigrants,

impeachment would be on the table.



(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)



CHRIS WALLACE, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: You are saying that if he were to

do that, then impeachment would be on the table?



STEVEN KING, (R) IOWA REPRESENTATIVE: I think then we have to start

to sit down and take a look at that. Where would we draw the line

otherwise? If that is not enough to bring that about, then I do not know

what would be. We have never seen anything in this country like a

president that says, "I am going to make up all immigration law that I

choose and I am going to drive this thing regardless of the resistance to

congress."



(END VIDEO CLIP)



KLEIN: Supporters of the idea argue there are precedents for the kind

of move Obama is contemplating. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter used his

pardon power to pardon hundreds of thousands of people who have dodged the

draft. Some argued that went further than what Obama is considering.



Carter did some of good efforts for sue them on hold. He forgave

them their law breaking altogether. Even so, all this goes to a deeper

point about what happens in congressional gridlock and why that metaphor is

so long. What happens when congress is gridlocked is not nothing? Because

if justice congress is too divided to do anything, it is also too divided

to stop the other parts of government from doing something.



Congress cannot pass a law solving the immigration crisis but it also

cannot pass a law stopping Obama from trying to solve it. Sometimes

congress will even admit this when house republican leaders realize their

bill to address a child migrant crisis would not pass originally. They

pulled it from the floor and Speaker Boehner put out a press release

saying, quote, "There are numerous steps the president can and should be

taking right now without the need for congressional action." We cannot

act, so you should.



We are in a period now where polarized parties are the norm, and so,

too, is divided government. It is getting easier for democrats to win

presidential elections, but geography and redistricting give republicans a

hammer lock on the house that is not likely to lift until at least the

2020s.



So, there is going to be a lot of gridlock in congress, but that does

not mean that nothing is going to happen. It means more of what will

happen will happen through executive orders, through the courts, and the

Federal Reserve. It means, in other words, our political system is going

to become less democratic and more dysfunctional.



The leap into the anti-democratic dark is not just the president

doing more. It is congress doing less. Joining me now is Tim Carney,

Senior Political Columnist at "The Washington Examiner" and Sam Seder,

MSNBC Contributor and host of "Majority Report." And, after the break, I

am going to get their take on all of this, and we will be right back.



(COMMERCIAL BREAK)



KLEIN: We are back and I am here with Tim Carney and Sam Seder, and

we talking about how things get done these days in Washington or not. Sam,

actually, I want to begin with you because this question of executive power

is an important one for liberals to deal with.



At "The National Review," there was an example, said liberals should

think of George W. Bush failing to pass a tax cut and then directing the

IRS to simply not enforce penalties for those who decide to not pay over 25

percent marginal rate. So, how is this any different than that?



SAM SEDER, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: Well, I mean, I think if the argument

was that the IRS did not have the resources to collect those taxes, I think

the president might actually have a decent argument. I would not

particularly like it, but this is really just a question of allocating

resources. I mean, we know that there is not enough money to deport 12

million people in this country.



And, we have enough money maybe to do a half a million a year, if

that. And, so the bottom line is, there is going to be a lot of people who

are not going to be deported and simply rationalizing that, making that

processes rational, makes all the sense in the world.



KLEIN: So, Tim, to what Sam says, in a world where congress is not

going to match the resources and the actual law, and in a world where we

are letting many, many undocumented immigrants live here, why should not

the executive branch bring some order and be clear about what the

priorities are?



TIM CARNEY, "THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER`S" SENIOR POLITICAL COLUMNIST:

Now, again, we do not know what Obama --



KLEIN: Yes, this is all a little bit --



CARNEY: -- But, the premise is upsetting when I hear this, just

because I hear, well, if congress does not act, that is sort of the words

Brian Boitler uses in some of the articles.



KLEIN: Right, of "The New Republic."



CARNEY: -- in "The New Republic," that is some of the frame that you

are putting here, but that really just means if congress does not pass

something that is agreed on by the White House. And, I know it looks like

it is a bigger sort of agreement on immigration, because you have not only

the White House, you got the chamber of commerce. You got all these

liberal groups.



And, that seems to be why Obama thinks he can get away with doing

something because you have a unanimity among the power elite. But, just

because the republicans do not agree with them does not mean they are not

doing anything. There are bills that could pass both chambers that would

address some of these problems, but they would also have to not have sort

of a big influx of immigration.



It would have to take care of some of the conservative concerns about

massive immigration. So this idea, oh, well, they are not doing anything,

so we have to act. It really means they are not doing something Obama

would like, so we have to act. And, that is when we start to worry about

it being undemocratic. It is saying if you do not do what I want you to

do, I will do it myself.



KLEIN: Sam, does not Tim have a point there? Is not this really the

White House saying that if there is not a legislative compromise that is

agreeable to them, they will stretch executive powers to almost make that

compromise fact before it is law?



SEDER: Well, I think what the White House is doing is just simply

being, you know, exercising politics. I mean the bottom line is the White

House could have done this three years ago. They could have done it four

years ago. They could do it at any time.



I mean, so we can argue -- we can say, and Tim can say that, "Well,

President Obama is not being very polite about it, or he is being a little

bit trolly about it." And, that very well may be the case. But, that does

not change the fact that it is certainly within his powers to do this, and

frankly, there have been activists who have been asking him to do this for

years and when he said a couple years ago he did not have the authority to

do it, in fact, he did have the authority.



He just from a political standpoint did not want to upset the

republicans. And the republicans have shown that it does not matter if you

upset their feelings at all, they are simply not going to pass anything

under any circumstances. They have said now the reason why they will not

is because they are afraid that President Obama will not actually execute

the laws that they pass, which we all know does not pass the test. So,

yes, I guess the politics are a little bit disturbing to conservatives, but

I mean that is just -- the reality is he has the power to do it.



CARNEY: No, but it is disturbing because we see a continued march of

Obama doing what Bush did before, which is steadily expanding executive

power. President Obama went to war in Libya without even a vote.

Remember, Bush had a vote in Iraq. Obama did not have a vote in Libya.

And, then you saw the enforcement of the affordable care act again and

again, especially expanding the employer mandate, extending the deadline --



KLEIN: Let me ask you something very specific on this.



CARNEY: -- We see him expanding executive power and sort of taking

over congress` job. He thinks he is still a senator or more like a

superstar.



KLEIN: Let me ask you a -- let me try to draw one distinction on

this. Because, under Bush, Bush did a very similar thing on Medicare Part

"D" where he delayed and waived penalties for certain periods of time

unilaterally. Why is there so much Republican concern over Obama now when

there was not in the Bush years?



CARNEY: Well, as far as the Medicare Part "D" that was a situation

where he passed a bill that was sort of more amendable to what the left was

aiming for. And, so that is why the left did not push back on --



KLEIN: On Bush.



SEDER: Why did not the right? Why did not the right push back on?

Look, the bottom line --



CARNEY: I did not want that bill to pass in the first place. I

pushed back on Bush when he was expanding --



SEDER: An entire theory -- the unitary executive authority. Listen,

I agree with you in terms of Libya, but congress did nothing in that

instance. And, if they wanted to sue the president, that would have been a

great time to do it.



KLEIN: Sam, this is a great conversation. I will have to cut it off.

Tim Carney from "The Washington Examiner" and MSNBC Contributor Sam Seder.

Thank you, guys, both for being here.



CARNEY: Thank you.



SEDER: Thank you.



KLEIN: That is "All In" for this evening. I am Ezra Klein. You can

read more of my work at vox.com or at facebook.com/ezraklein. "The Rachel

Maddow Show" starts now with Steve Kornacki sitting in for Rachel.



THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY

BE UPDATED.

END



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