ALL IN with CHRIS HAYES
June 13, 2014
Guest: Chris Murphy, Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Leslie Gelb, Dave Zirin, George
Quraishi
CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST: Good evening from New York. I`m Chris
Hayes.
Today, the man who ended the American involvement in the Iraq war
showed little appetite for rejoining that war already in progress.
From President Barack Obama, no reinvasion of Iraq.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We will not be sending
U.S. troops back into combat in Iraq, but I have asked my national security
team to prepare a range of other options that could help support Iraq
security forces and I`ll be reviewing those options in the days ahead.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: The president did lead the door open to airstrikes, the
efficacy of which we will discuss in the moment. But the recent chaos in
Iraq has created an opportunity for a chorus of voices on whom have been
wrong on Iraq for years, to advance a line that manages to cast blame for
the horrible violence of the radical group ISIS and the overreach of the
al-Maliki government on the person that conservatives love most to blame,
that is Barack Obama.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: The fact is, we had the conflict won,
and we had a stable government, and a residual force such as we had left
behind. We even have forces in Bosnia, Korea, Germany, Japan, where we
could have. But the president wanted out, and now, we are paying a very
heavy price.
BILL O`REILLY, FOX NEWS: There`s no question President Obama wanted
to get out of Iraq totally. When he should have left a small force of
Americans, Special Forces, to prop up the Iraqi army.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He`s been against it from the get-go and now, he`s
forced to acknowledge that the terrorists there are a threat to the United
States of America, something George Bush was saying all along.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s kind of like we just left there and crossed
our fingers and hopefully nothing will happen.
(END VIDEO CLIPS)
HAYES: It`s an argument echoed by "The New York Times" columnist
David Brooks today, who cast blame for current events at the seat of the
president. "The dangers of American underreach have been lavishly and
horrifically displayed."
The idea that unites all this is that Barack Obama cut and run. He
pulled American troops out of Iraq too fast before the job was done,
leaving it vulnerable to be overrun by marauding terrorists.
And here`s why I don`t buy it. One, ISIS, the group overrunning much
of Iraq right now, is largely a creation of the Iraq war itself. ISIS
previous iteration was al Qaeda in Iraq, a group that gained strength and
training in numbers in the midst of the cauldron of violence that was
unleashed by the Iraq war and the occupation, particularly the brutal
violence in 2004 and 2005.
If you want to identify the American policy choice that caused the
current turmoil and violence, the single best candidate is the decision to
invade and occupy Iraq under false pretenses full stop.
Number two, any residual U.S. force we might have left in Iraq would
have been minimal in any non-combat role, somewhere in the order of 2,000
to 3,000. Keep in mind that what happened in Mosul three days ago was that
30,000 Iraqi troops turned and fled in the face of 800 fighters. Those
troops were, it appears, largely Sunnis, who had no desire to risk their
lives, for what they view is a completely Shiite dominated government
hostile to their interest. It is deeply unclear that leaving a residual
force of American military trainers could have done anything to prevent
this eventually.
Number three, we could not have stayed unless the Iraqi government let
us stay. Iraq is a sovereign nation and the al-Maliki government wanted
American troops to leave and negotiations to keep a residual force there
beyond 2011 broke down.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Iraq considered keeping 2,000 to 3,000 beyond that, a
safeguard in case the civil war returned. But Iraqi politicians,
especially Shiite hardliner Mukhtar al Sadr, refused to grant the troops
immunity. So, they`re not staying.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: So, while critics might second-guess the Obama
administration`s negotiating strategy, the fact remains, it was not just up
to us, whether we left troops or residual force in Iraq.
And number four, the status of forces agreement, the basic frame work
upon question American withdrawal was based, came from the administration
of President George W. Bush. The status of forces agreement negotiated for
months approved by a new Iraqi parliament was signed by President Bush and
Iraqi President Nouri al-Maliki just a month before the first inauguration
of President Obama.
It might have gotten some decent news coverage on President Bush`s
final trip to Iraq, except it was overshadowed by this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: President Bush and the Iraqi prime minister were about to
take reporter`s questions. But an Iraqi television reporter hurled a shoe,
a grave insult in Arab culture.
The president wasn`t hurt and seemed amused.
GEORGE W. BUSH, THEN-U.S. PRESIDENT: It`s a size 10 shoe that he
threw.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: The Obama administration certainly does not have a perfect
record in its Iraq policy, but to point fingers at this president years
after the Pandora`s Box of horror was unleashed on Iraq is pretty craven.
Joining me now, Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut. He was a member
of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
And, Senator, I`ve heard a lot of casting blame, I`ve heard a lot of
arguments about the precipitous withdrawal of the Obama administration,
what I have not heard in many constructed ideas about what to do.
SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D), CONNECTICUT: No, that`s sort of par for
course, as the world gets more chaotic, it must be President Obama`s fault.
The David Brooks` criticism this morning is pretty rich, because he
actually agrees with President Obama`s strategy.
President Obama wanted to leave a force behind but he couldn`t do that
without legal protection. And after the fact, it`s convenient to say that
the difference is really just that President Obama should have tried
harder.
The reality is, is that had we stayed an additional six months or six
years, the underlying problem was not going to go away, which is that al
Maliki is concerned much more with seeking vengeance on his Sunni rivals
than he is uniting a country.
And you put it I think very well -- you know, when I break an egg on
the floor, whether I spend 10 minutes or 10 hours trying to clean it up, I
can`t put it back together. That egg is broken. That essentially is what
we did when we invaded Iraq, whether we stayed with an additional 3,000
troops, it wasn`t going to solve those deep divisions.
HAYES: It also strikes me that the brutal violent, vicious civil war
that broke out in 2004-2005, that the surge ,quote, "fixed", the surge was
a success. That the issues that are manifesting themselves right now are
just manifestations of the same issues of sectarian strife, of sidelining
of the Sunni minority which feels separated from the power of the state and
unrecognized. All of that was the stuff the surge was supposed to fix.
So, if it`s coming back now, it`s as much of a repudiation of the,
quote, "victory" of the surge as anything else.
MURPHY: Yes. And remember, the surge was fueled in part by massive
American payouts to a lot of the Sunni insurgents to get them back on
board. And when those payouts ended, along frankly with the massive
military involvement that was not going to be open ended, a lot of the
advancements of the surge did dissipate. That was inevitable.
And the reality is, we have been begging Maliki for years now to get
serious about building a real government. He`s not serious about it. That
doesn`t mean we should sit on our hands idly as these radicals move into
the country.
I`m going to be listening to President Obama as he potentially
proposes some limited military action. If that comes in coordination with
assurances from Maliki that he`s going to change his internal politics,
then I think there`s lots of us that will listen to that case. But the
reality is, is that for all of these folks just trying to say this is
Obama`s fault, it ignores the fact that Maliki is the one really to blame
here.
HAYES: And, finally, what is the mood on Capitol Hill right now? I
mean, you`re among your colleagues. It doesn`t seem there`s consensus as
there seems to be a little more on, say, Ukraine and Crimea, where they`re
seeing a stronger push from the hill in a bipartisan fashion. We`ve seen
that in Syria in terms of reluctance against airstrikes.
Do you sense any consensus among your colleagues?
MURPHY: No, I don`t. But right now, I do think that there is
relative openness to listening to the president`s recommendations, and I do
hope he takes a few days to make them. But I think that the one lesson
that most of us have learned from 10 years of misadventures in Iraq and
Afghanistan is that the United States is pretty miserable at trying to
orchestrate politics on the ground in the Middle East.
And so, there -- whether it`s confusion or general chilled reaction to
increase intervention is due to the fact that the one lesson that we have
learned is that the United States normally, when we try to intervene to
change the realities on the ground in places like Iraq and Afghanistan,
make things the worse, not better.
HAYES: That`s the truth. Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat of
Connecticut, thank you.
Joining me now, Rajiv Chandrasekaran, associate editor with "The
Washington Post," author of an incredible book about Iraq, reported from
Iraq for years in the midst of the conflict.
Having been there during some of the worst points of the conflict, how
are you understanding and perceiving what`s happening now?
RAJIV CHANDRASEKARAN, THE WASHINGTON POST: Look, Chris, this is just,
as I see it, the latest grim chapter in a series of bad decisions made by
Iraqi leaders, set in motion by bad decisions by the United States.
I mean, all this has its roots, of course in the decision to invade
Iraq. But then in those decisions made in those fateful days after we got
there, you know, disbanding the Baath party, disbanding the Iraqi army,
essentially turning the two major groups in Iraqi society against each
other.
Look, they had always been in conflict, Chris. You know this very
well. But what we did was exactly the opposite of trying to promote
reconciliation. And over the following years, we would continue to make
these mistakes.
And we talked about the surge with Senator Murphy. Look, we --
certain people in the United States took the wrong lesson from it, thinking
that the reduction in violence was the -- essentially the mark of a job
well done. The surge was only half done. We didn`t get to the fundamental
political compromise and we`re seeing the consequences of that play out
today.
HAYES: Do you think -- first of all, what do you think would alter
what`s happening right now? I mean, is there any kind of leverage, is
there anything to do? People say we have the political solution, the
Maliki government has to get serious about bringing in the Sunni minority,
making them feel integrated to the Iraqi state, but there`s no evidence
that there`s any incentive or desire to do that.
This is someone who has spent his life and career essentially as part
of the Shiite party, who has committed himself to waging war and running a
state on behalf of a long oppressed majority, we should note. What is
there to be done?
CHANDRASEKARAN: Well, there`s only so much Maliki I think can do and
is willing to do. We have to be realistic about that. But I think what
President Obama talked about today may be the most sensible strategy going
forward, which is to try to use the prospect of U.S. airstrikes as forcing
function to finally get Maliki serious about trying to reach out to the
Sunni minority. And maybe when he`s faced with an existential crisis like
this, where his personal survival and that of his government is on the
line, perhaps he will start to take some actions that he hasn`t done thus
far.
But I wouldn`t expect overnight, Maliki to turn into the great
conciliator or the big tent leader of Iraq. But hopefully, we can try to
get at least some affirmative steps that then lead some of these Sunnis to
try to reject the al Qaeda militants that have stormed into their country,
try to get sort of a second Sunni awakening.
HAYES: Yes. Of course, the best ally for that is the sheer depravity
of ISIS and what they have done in the towns which they have entered, which
as we saw with al Qaeda in Iraq and Zarqawi back in the middle of the last
decade, quickly alienated a lot of people that were subject to it.
Rajiv Chandrasekaran from "The Washington Post" -- thank you so much.
CHANDRASEKARAN: Good to talk to you.
HAYES: All right. Up next --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: Nobody has an interest in seeing terrorists gain a foothold
inside of Iraq, and nobody is going to benefit from seeing Iraq descend
into chaos.
So, the United States will do our part, but understand that
ultimately, it`s up to the Iraqis as a sovereign nation to solve their
problems.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Boots on the ground is out, thankfully. So, what is in, and
will it make any difference at all? That`s next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: Up next, on eye-opening report from the border in Arizona,
where officials are processing hundreds of undocumented immigrants.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So, I`m standing here in the Greyhound bus
station and this DHS van pulls up and drops off all these women to go to
different places in America.
Where are you going?
MAGDALENA: Georgia.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Where?
MAGDALENA: Georgia.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Georgia?
MAGDALENA: Si.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: That story and much more on the immigration crisis, still
ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: Whenever something bad happens in another part of the world,
the political discussion here in the U.S. at home goes something like this.
There`s a terrible thing happening over there. So, what is the U.S. going
to do about it?
Fueled by the idea of American exceptionalism, some very, very good
intentions, plus years of neocon prominence in Washington, we skip right
over the question of whether there`s anything helpful we can actually do.
We immediately ask how the U.S. and particularly its military and military
forces should get involved, how they can change the balance of power.
That was the case with the kidnapped girls in Nigeria who, by the way,
remain kidnapped by Boko Haram. It`s what happened with the Syrian civil
war and then with Russia`s incursion and ultimate annexation of Crimea.
Whenever there`s a crisis somewhere in the world, regardless of our
interest there, the first reaction at home is, what are we doing to stop
it?
That might be a laudatory impulse, but if there`s one consistent
principle the Obama foreign policy doctrine particularly in the second
term, it has been to resist this knee-jerk urge to intervene militarily
abroad.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: When issues of global concern do not pose a direct threat to
the United States, when such issues are at stake, when crises arise that
stir our conscience or push the world in a more dangerous direction, but do
not directly threaten us, then the threshold for military action must be
higher.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: That threshold in the first term was relatively low in certain
cases, and drones in Yemen, in Pakistan and Afghanistan and Somalia. But
in the second term, with each of these recent crises, the president has
actually done very little, because, I would argue, there hasn`t been much
he could do. And that, of course, has enraged his critics.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MCCAIN: First of all, recognize that the policy toward Syria has been
an abysmal failure and a disgraceful one.
DICK CHENEY, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT: We have created an image around
the world, not just to the Russians, of weakness and indecisiveness.
REP. MIKE ROGERS (R), MICHIGAN: I think Putin is playing chess and
we`re playing marbles, and I don`t think it`s even close.
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: We have a weak and
indecisive president that invites aggression. President Obama needs to do
something.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Do something.
So, with Iraq`s on chaos, the White House weighing airstrikes on a
country our troops just left less than three years ago, the question now
is, is there any good the U.S. can actually do?
Joining me now, Dr. Leslie Gelb, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist,
president emeritus of Council on Foreign Relations.
Dr. Gelb, good to have you here.
DR. LESLIE GELB, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: Good to be here.
HAYES: Your view of the efficacy of airstrikes, which seems to be the
form of military intervention being considered and floated most seriously.
GELB: I think we`re going to end up doing airstrikes or drone strikes
because of the political pressure. But the --
HAYES: That`s different than doing it because it will actually help
or the right thing to do.
GELB: I don`t think it will actually help. You know, first of all,
these ISIS or ISIS troops (ph), they`re probably numbered between 1,000 and
2,000. And as soon as we --
HAYES: There`s some say estimates go up to 7,000. That`s the high
range.
GELB: But they`re not heading towards Baghdad in any event.
And as soon as the planes come overhead, only seven people with rifles
and beards will forget to duck and they will be the targets.
These are not people coming down in helicopters and tanks and whatnot.
And it`s not a formidable army. We`re panicking because of what happened
in Mosul, the shock of it. The fact that the Iraqi forces we trained for
eight years didn`t fight.
HAYES: They didn`t fight. They pulled their uniforms off and fled.
GELB: Exactly.
HAYES: What about the argument that there is a crisis here and
there`s a sense of doom and momentum.
GELB: There is a crisis, of course.
HAYES: Well, then, but that airstrikes would essentially stop that
momentum.
GELB: No, what will stop that momentum is the Maliki government
offering a political solution to the country that`s being torn apart by how
he`s run it, and by an army that`s been unwilling to fight. If he makes a
reasonable political offer, and I think that`s got to be a federal system,
to give the Sunnis more control over their own affairs, and if that Iraqi
army stands up, which I believe it is outside of Baghdad, this will calm
down into a semi crisis.
HAYES: So, what is that -- but people talk about this all the time,
if the Maliki government does X, Y, why should the -- I mean, OK, fine.
Yes, lots of -- Bashar al Assad stopped slaughtering people, the world
would be a better place and we`d have (INAUDIBLE) crisis, too. I mean, the
wishing never make it so.
What would -- what makes us think there`s leverage to get that done?
GELB: Because that`s how we do things. That`s the American way.
The military action is the simple solution. Look, you showed John
McCain and a bunch of the others, and they say we`ve got to do something.
They hardly ever say what they propose to do.
And, look, as soon as we start taking military action, what happens?
It becomes our problem. The Iraqis say the Americans will solve it. The
Americans say, it`s not working, you have to do more.
The answer in this, if there is an answer at this point, is political
solution, Iraqi armed forces fighting, and then if they do need help -- if
they show they`ll stand up for themselves, then we can do something
militarily.
HAYES: One reason I want to talk to you, you`ve had a long career in
foreign policy. You supported the Iraq war, you later --
GELB: At the beginning.
HAYES: At the beginning.
And you later talked about -- part of the reason that you felt you
supported it was a certain -- I think you said incentives in the world of
foreign policy, certain ways that the world and foreign policy
establishment think of these problems.
GELB: Absolutely. It`s hard to maintain credibility in the foreign
policy business if you aren`t willing to use force. People dismiss you.
You don`t get asked to testify on the Hill. You don`t get asked to be on
most television shows.
HAYES: Well, we love the pacifist here --
(CROSSTALK)
GELB: You`re an exception.
HAYES: No, that`s a very profound point. I think it gets to the
point I`m trying to make in that intro, which is, there is this kind of --
what military solution can we deploy? It becomes this next question, and I
think it`s important for everyone to kind of take a beat.
GELB: Chris, it`s happened everywhere in the world.
HAYES: Yes.
GELB: As soon as we take on the fighting, it really becomes an
American problem. And others stop fighting. We trained the Vietnamese
armed forces and it became a million and a half under arms, and they were
well-trained and well-armed. We did it in Afghanistan. We`re even doing
it to a lesser degree in Syria. We did it in spades in Iraq.
And what happened? As soon as we stopped doing the fighting, they
walked away from it.
HAYES: Dr. Leslie Gelb, thank you so much for your time.
GELB: Sure.
HAYES: Up next, when is a school shooting not a school shooting?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: In the wake of yet another school shooting this week, you
might have heard this jarring statistic, which has been making the rounds.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The incident in Oregon marks the 74th shooting
on a school campus since the December 2012 mass shooting in Connecticut.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Once again, since Sandy Hook, 74 gun -- school
shooting incidents have occurred in the United States.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: According to Everytown for Gun Safety, a group
fighting to end gun violence, there had been 74 school shootings since
Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Everytown, a gun safety group, published their methodology of
how they rise to the number -- shootings since Newtown. Quote, "Incidents
were classified as school shootings when a firearm was discharged inside a
school building or on school or campus grounds."
As documented in publicly reported news accounts, this includes
assaults, homicides, suicides and accidental shootings.
Well, CNN decided this statistic needed some truth squading. So, they
undertook the perfectly legitimate journalist task and, quote, "took a
closer look at the list, delving into the circumstances of each incident
Everytown included."
Lo and behold, CNN revealed there weren`t really 74 schoolings, but
rather, quote, "15 Newtown-like incidents that have occurred between the
Sandy Hook massacre and the latest shooting in Oregon."
The numbers are so very different because CNN decided that certain
types of shootings did not belong on their list of school shootings. So,
they weeded out, quote, "incidents on Everytown`s list that included
personal arguments, accidents and alleged gang activities and drug deals."
As if a gun discharged in a school because of a personal argument, accident
or gang activity is not a real school shooting. Including at least one
incident that CNN itself initially reported on as a school shooting.
Everytown did not say they`ve compiled a list of shootings by deranged
mass shooters only. They are a gun safety organization and they put out a
list of school shootings that included times and places where guns -- guns
which they focused on -- were fired in schools.
But, of course, because the independent objective CNN debunks the
list, FOX News ran with it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The 74 lie comes from Michael Bloomberg`s antigun
group, which got there by counting all sorts of stuff. CNN took it apart,
concluding there were 15, not 74 of these shootings.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Yes, the lie.
Well, here`s another response of CNN on CNN`s amended list. From the
mother of a shooting death victim whose death has taken place on a school`s
campus, would not have made the cut to CNN, quote, "to CNN and other media
outlets, murders like my son`s don`t count. You see, they looked at the
list of 74 school shootings and picked and chose the 15 they though were
worth mentioning."
"Their reasoning? Because their innocent sons and daughters are
killed by gang members, they don`t deserve a spot on the list."
No town and no school, no person wants that list to exist. It
shouldn`t exist, but it does. So, there`s no reason whatsoever to diminish
that number, 74 -- 74 school shootings in the last 18 months, 37 this year
alone, for all causes, among all people, especially when it`s a list that
lawmakers are so unwilling to do a thing about.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: Amid a chorus of criticism about the thousands of
unaccompanied children crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, BuzzFeed is
reporting tonight the Obama administration plans to move as many as 1,000
unaccompanied minor migrants from Border Patrol facilities in Texas to
facilities in Baltimore, Maryland, and Richmond, Virginia, in an effort to
ease overcrowding and address the growing humanitarian crisis along the
border.
But it`s not just unaccompanied kids caught up in this crisis.
As MSNBC contributor Alexandra Pelosi reports tonight from Nogales,
Arizona, this involves entire families.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ALEXANDRA PELOSI, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: This week, the whole world was
in shock when they found out about all these kids in the detention
facility. They`re not letting any of us inside. So, what is going on
inside that facility?
JUANITA MOLINA, BORDER ACTION NETWORK: There were over 500 children
in that facility.
PELOSI: And what age range?
MOLINA: Anywhere from diapers, just now walking, from about a year
all the way up to 17. We`re putting the law enforcement agency, the
largest law enforcement agency in the country in charge of children.
It is like a more tragic version of "Kindergarten Cop," where Arnold
Schwarzenegger is all of a sudden put in the place of having to care for a
bunch of children. You know, this -- they`re ill-equipped to do this.
PELOSI: How is the morale in there?
SCOTT SMITH, MAYOR OF MESA, ARIZONA: These are children. You can
imagine. They`re wondering what comes next.
PELOSI: Where are these kids going?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They`re going -- there`s three facilities. And I
think they`re military bases, one in California, one in Texas and one in
Oklahoma. And that`s where they`re going to strive -- try their best to
locate a relative, preferably a parent.
That`s what I understand from Border Patrol, so that they can go and
live with that parent while they go through a process.
PELOSI: So Border Patrol is processing all the kids, and then the
ones over 18 are being released and dropped off here at the Greyhound
station.
I`m standing here in the Greyhound bus station, and this DHS van pulls
up and drops off all these women to go to all these different places in
America.
Where are you going to go?
MAGDALENA, IMMIGRANT: In Georgia.
PELOSI: Where?
MAGDALENA: Georgia.
PELOSI: Georgia?
MAGDALENA: Si.
PELOSI: So you can tell everybody here came from the detention center
because they don`t have their shoelaces.
BETH, HUMANITARIAN AID WORKER: What you`re seeing is ICE delivering
folks who have just spent up to a week in short-term custody, who have
gotten in touch with their families who are already here in the States.
These are families that have traveled from places like Guatemala, El
Salvador, Honduras and arriving with their small children.
It is almost always mothers and their children. And those mothers and
children are arriving to the Greyhound station, waiting for their families
to purchase their tickets so that they can be reunited with their families
elsewhere in the States.
PELOSI: So, are they all refugees?
BETH: These are economic refugees who are fleeing extreme poverty and
they`re fleeing extreme violence in their countries of origin.
PELOSI: Do you have a humanitarian crisis here on the border?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: With the children, yes. Yes, we do.
When it comes to children, you have to be very careful. What`s
happening right now, it is unique. This is unique. It`s time that we sit
down, remove our political hats and that gang of eight that they had, they
need to sit down and say, you know what? This is what`s happening in
Arizona, this is what`s happening in Texas, let`s sit down and figure this
out and work on it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HAYES: Joining me now on the border from Mission, Texas, is Jose
Diaz-Balart, the newest member of the MSNBC family. He will be anchoring
the 10:00 a.m. Eastern show beginning this month. He also co-anchors
Telemundo`s "Noticiero Telemundo."
Jose Diaz-Balart, great to have you.
All right. You have been doing reporting down on the border about
some of the causes behind what has been a real marked increase in
unaccompanied minors at the border. What have you been finding out?
JOSE DIAZ-BALART, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: It`s a two-prong problem, Chris.
One is the unaccompanied minors coming that have been across the
border. And you touched on it just a few minutes ago in that story. But I
just spoke a little while ago with the consul of Guatemala here in the Rio
Grande Valley area. And he told me that he just came out from one of the
detention centers where they`re holding just children.
They separate them by age and then they separate them by sex. He says
that he found kids as young as 9 months old that had been brought here
without a guardian. And then they go up to 18 and 19 years old. So that`s
one crisis. The other one is the fact that parents are coming across the
border with their children.
And sometimes when you see just a mother crossing, it could be -- like
a lady from Honduras told me yesterday -- that when they were coming
through Mexico to come here, the river behind me is the border, the Mexican
cartels and the thugs and the different guerrilla -- the different
organizations, criminal organizations, will kidnap one of the two parents
and say, all right, I know you paid to get up here. But now you are going
to have to pay more if you want your husband or wife. So go on. Go into
the United States with your kid, but one of you is going to be held back
with me for ransom.
So these are two issues that are very real and that every day are
happening here in the border area, not just in Arizona, but right here,
unaccompanied minors on one hand and then parents with their children on
the other.
HAYES: OK. Those are both deeply disturbing, horrifying in the case
of kidnapping.
DIAZ-BALART: Yes.
HAYES: To go to the first, when we`re talking about 9-month-olds,
what is the set of conditions, the set of transactions that are producing
that as the end result? That seems to me that must be the coyotes or the
cartels essentially swindling people or taking people`s children; that`s
what`s happening?
DIAZ-BALART: Yes.
This is such a complicated matter because -- and I`m so glad we
mention this and we talk about this with depth, because it`s more than just
numbers and politics.
HAYES: Right.
DIAZ-BALART: So, in Central America, you have El Salvador, you have
Honduras and you have Guatemala. Those three countries have had for many
years now a very increased violent society. And the gangs and the thugs
are just pretty much out of control.
And so what you do have is, for example in Honduras, the lady was
telling me that she wanted to remove her daughter because she told me that
when their daughters reach puberty, gang members will come in and either
rape them, take them as property, or kill them if they don`t do the first
two things.
So the parent, the mother and the father, says, listen, she`s as good
as dead here. Let`s head on over to the States.
HAYES: Right.
DIAZ-BALART: This happens at the same time that there have been
rumors occurring in Central America -- and this is where I think that the
drug cartels have been instrumental in releasing these rumors -- to say if
you come into the United States as an unaccompanied minor or with a child,
odds are you will be reunited with family or friends that you have in the
United States of America. And that`s what we were seeing in those bus
stops Arizona.
HAYES: Really incredible situation down there.
Jose Diaz-Balart.
DIAZ-BALART: Chris, can I tell you a quick thing that was really
troubling today?
(CROSSTALK)
HAYES: Yes.
DIAZ-BALART: The consul general said that he talked to these little
kids, right, in detention, and he said to them today, the 4- and the 5-
year-olds, that they have been separated from their parents. They`re not
going to see those parents.
So, he said to them, what is your dad`s name? Papi, dad. What`s your
mom`s name? Mommy. Where did you live? En casa, at home.
HAYES: Right.
DIAZ-BALART: They don`t know where they live.
HAYES: Right.
DIAZ-BALART: They just know parents` names are papi and mommy. Once
that child is separated from the parent, how do you get them back together
again?
(CROSSTALK)
HAYES: And you have a bureaucracy totally unequipped to deal with
child care now, having to oversee this, which is another nightmare.
Jose Diaz-Balart, thank you for all your reporting. We`re going to
keep checking back with you joining us from Mission, Texas.
DIAZ-BALART: Thank you.
HAYES: Thanks a lot.
All right, it`s widely to be considered one of the most corrupt
sporting organizations in the world. It`s running the world`s biggest
sporting event right now. And we will tell you that story next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: Right now in the middle of the Amazon rain forest, there`s a
brand-new stadium in the city of Manaus that cost nearly $300 million to
build.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN OLIVER, HOST, "LAST WEEK TONIGHT WITH JOHN OLIVER": That stadium
is only going to be used for four World Cup games. There`s also no team in
Manaus that can fill it afterwards, at which point it becomes the world`s
most expensive bird toilet.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: That stadium is just the start. We look at the rest of the
boondoggle that is the World Cup in Brazil ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: Yesterday marked the triumphant first day of the World Cup in
Brazil, Brazil`s international coming out party, and the home country won
its first match 3-1 thanks in part to one pretty questionable call, which
we`re going to talk about in a bit.
But the first day of the World Cup will be remembered for more than
just action on the field. Outside the stadiums, many Brazilians took to
the streets in protest. Police used percussion grenades and tear gas on
hundreds of protesters in Sao Paulo and other cities. Two CNN journalists
and an Associated Press photographer were among the dozens injured in the
clashes.
I have got to say the protesters have a pretty strong case. This
World Cup is estimated to have cost Brazil at least $11 billion and as much
as $14 billion, making it the most expensive ever, money the protesters say
would have been better spent on desperately needed housing, education,
health care and food.
To get a sense of how this money is being spent, it makes sense we
start in Manaus, which is located in the middle of the Amazonian rain
forest, and where nearly $300 million was spent to build this 44,000-seat
stadium, which will host four World Cup games, after that, not much.
A fourth division Brazilian team plans to play in the stadium after
the World Cup, but it can`t possibly hope to fill that stadium.
But that`s the ransom demanded by FIFA, the organization that runs
international soccer, which is widely and probably correctly viewed as an
absolutely corrupt racket. FIFA is run by Sepp Blatter, who leads an
organization believed to be awash in bribery and who once charmingly
suggested the way to make women`s soccer more popular is to have female
players wear tighter shorts.
FIFA runs roughshod over the countries that host the World Cup,
exempting itself from taxes, getting laws changed it does not like,
including a Brazilian ban on selling beer in stadiums that was designed to
keep safe. That apparently did not go over well with the World Cup sponsor
Budweiser.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OLIVER: FIFA seems anxious to protect Budweiser from a law designed
to protect people, which is FIFA`s secretary-general went to Brazil with a
simple message.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`m sorry to say, and maybe I look a bit arrogant,
but that`s something we`re not negotiating. There will be and there must
be a spot of the law the fact that we have the right to sell beer.
OLIVER: Maybe I look a bit arrogant, but how so you (EXPLETIVE
DELETED) your laws and your public safety? Is that right?
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: That comes from an incredible John Oliver bit you should look
up.
We have not even touched on the situation in Qatar, which is supposed
hold the 2022 World Cup, where workers are dying building stadiums in
conditions described as slave labor.
There`s than enough corruption around the World Cup to fill a really
compelling book.
And joining me now from Rio de Janeiro is Dave Zirin, sports editor
for magazine "The Nation," who has written a really compelling book about
the 2014 World Cup called "Brazil`s Dance with the Devil."
Dave, what is the protesters` case that they`re making against this
World Cup?
DAVE ZIRIN, "THE NATION": It`s the three D`s, Chris.
And you have already mentioned it a little bit, but it`s debt,
displacement and defense. Debt, the fact that this is going to cost more
than any other World Cup in history and people realize that that bill is
going to be placed in the hands of their families when this all said and
done.
Displacement. At minimum, 250,000 people are going to lose their
homes because of this World Cup.
HAYES: Whoa.
ZIRIN: I was in a favela today two blocks away, Chris, from the most
famous soccer stadium on earth, the Maracana, where 700 families used to
live. Now it`s just rubble.
It`s just entirely been leveled and they haven`t built anything on top
of it, two blocks away from the Maracana. And then there`s defense. My
goodness, this is the sort of thing that would make Orwell blush. There
are more troops on the ground in Brazil than the United States had at the
heights of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. There are surveillance drones
flying overhead.
(CROSSTALK)
HAYES: Whoa, whoa, stop, stop, stop. Wait, wait. Say that again.
That can`t be possibly true. Say that again.
ZIRIN: Yes.
Oh, yes, there are surveillance drones. There are over 170,000 troops
minimum in the streets of Brazil. Remember, Brazil is a country that is
bigger than the continental United States. So, on that level, you could
say it`s a lot of ground to cover.
I don`t know why they need the 1,000 new street cameras in Rio de
Janeiro alone, but it`s the sort of thing where people in Brazil feel like
all of this expense is being set up for the purposes of wealthy foreign
tourists, who want to come into the country and feel safe, not for the
people who actually have to live here once the confetti has been all swept
away.
HAYES: But isn`t there -- look, Brazil has got probably the best --
produces the best soccer in the world. It arguably has the most intense
soccer fans in the world.
Is there some sense of pride that we in Brazil, we have got the World
Cup? Like are people -- is everyone kind of frustrated with it, or is
there sort of a division among the folks there?
(CROSSTALK)
ZIRIN: The bars are packed. People are watching. I have been in a
couple myself.
But let me tell you something. I was here three years ago. I saw
more Brazilian flags when I was here three years ago than I`m seeing right
now. A recent poll even had the country about 50-50 about whether or not
people even want Brazil to win the World Cup.
I spoke to a man today in favela Favela del Metro. He had two big
posters up in his store. One was of Cristiano Ronaldo, the great player
from Portugal. Another was Lionel Messi, the great player from Argentina.
And he said, you see who is missing? No Brazilian players. I was rooting
for Croatia yesterday.
(LAUGHTER)
ZIRIN: So there`s some real anger there about the idea that even
rooting for Brazil is also like rooting for your own displacement.
HAYES: Finally, just how corrupt is FIFA?
ZIRIN: Oh, I mean, my goodness, if they -- we were having a casting
call for James Bond villains, FIFA could just line up one after the other
and go for that role.
The problem with FIFA from top to bottom is that they`re a completely
unaccountable organization that operates in a manner that seems to offend
everybody, yet at the same time, they never get called on it. And that`s
what is historic about what`s happening in Brazil.
Yesterday, 1,000 people marched through the FIFA fan fest in Rio,
where it`s like all -- it`s like the elite on Copacabana Beach, and 1,000
people marched through and they chanted, in English, "bleep FIFA." The
word wasn`t bleeped, but I think you can use your imagination.
They are dragging FIFA out of the shadows, much like the global
justice protesters did 15 years ago with the IMF and the World Bank. And
they are -- the people of Brazil have performed a public service, because
FIFA can live in the shadows no longer.
HAYES: Dave Zirin joining us live from Rio tonight, thank you so
much.
Everything you need to know about who`s who and what`s what in this
year`s World Cup, that`s ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HAYES: "New York Times" did this really amazing thing for the first
day of the World Cup. They set up cameras in various places in Brazil, and
they recorded the reaction to the home team`s first goal of the tournament
yesterday.
And no matter how big of a disaster FIFA may be, the connection that
people have to the game, to the World Cup and all of the emotions that come
with it, that endures, no matter what. Scenes like that are playing out
right now all over the world, from Cairo, to Jakarta, to Iowa.
And that`s what is so darn cool about this event. More than the
Olympics, more than any other sporting event, more than any other event in
the world, really, it is shared by the world, truly global tournament that
cuts across countries and cultures.
And so to help those Americans who may not quite be up to speed on the
storylines and drama now playing out, joining me now is George Quraishi.
He`s founder and editor of "Howler" soccer magazine.
George, thanks for joining us.
All right, I guess I should start with the homer question, which is,
is the U.S. any good and how badly are they going to do?
GEORGE QURAISHI, FOUNDER, "HOWLER": We`re not -- this is not the best
team we have ever sent to the World Cup by a long shot, and we`re in the
hardest group we have ever been, or at least in the last 20, 24 years.
And so it will be a real big victory if we get out of the group stage.
In fact, Jurgen Klinsmann was asked recently if we will win the World Cup.
He`s the coach, obviously. And he said we will be lucky if we get out of
the group stage or that should be our goal.
And he was pummelled for it.
(CROSSTALK)
HAYES: Yes. That`s like when you ask a candidate who is like clearly
a long shot the day before Election Day. They always have to stay, of
course I will win tomorrow.
QURAISHI: Right. But people would have been laughing at him if he
had said, yes, we`re going to win. So, he can`t really win that answer
anyway.
HAYES: This is super basic, but will you just explain what the group
stage is? Like, how does the tournament proceed?
QURAISHI: Sure.
There are 32 teams in the tournament. They`re broken up into eight
groups of four teams each. The teams -- the groups are seeded. And after
the top eight teams, it`s basically done by geography. So, we`re in a
group with Portugal, Germany and Ghana. Germany was seeded, and because
we`re from CONCACAF, which is North America, Central America, Caribbean, we
can`t be in any of the groups with those easier teams.
So, Costa Rica, Mexico all got other groups. And so...
(CROSSTALK)
HAYES: In this group in the little group stage, it`s like a little
league, right? They play a series of games against each other.
QURAISHI: Exactly, round-robin, every team plays every other team.
And the top two in each group go through, so you have a round of 16 in the
next and then quarter finals, semifinals, et cetera.
HAYES: All right, so who is the favorite right now or who are the top
teams we should be looking for?
QURAISHI: Well, Brazil is the favorite, I think, as the home team.
Brazil is the only country that`s won out -- far outside of its time zone.
They won in `58 in Sweden, and 2002 in South Korea.
Other than that, no team, no European team has won in the Americas.
And no South American team has won anyway else. So I would say Brazil and
Argentina have to be the favorites. Holland beat the defending champion,
Spain, today 5-1, which is just a giant spanking. I would have said Spain
was a favorite, but Holland looks amazing now, and as well as Germany.
They have to be a favorite as well.
(CROSSTALK)
HAYES: That was an astounding result today. There was an incredible
header goal by the Dutch striker in that game, which we would love to show
you. Of course, we don`t have the rights to show it. So, just imagine the
incredible kind of dolphin-like header goal and go on the Internet.
QURAISHI: That`s right.
HAYES: Who are the players to watch? There he is celebrating after
the goal, which again is amazing and you should look at it on the Internet.
Who are the players to watch in the tournament? Who should folks --
who are the kind of stars if people are coming to this with very little
knowledge to be looking out for?
QURAISHI: The names people have probably heard, Messi, Ronaldo,
Neymar. They`re definitely going to be big players in this tournament.
Yesterday, Brazil played -- I`m sorry.
(CROSSTALK)
HAYES: Just say where they`re from. Messi is from Argentina?
QURAISHI: He is from Argentina. Neymar is Brazilian. Ronaldo is
Portuguese.
There was a player yesterday named Oscar who is from Brazil who had
just a magnificent game.
And then Spain still has incredible players. Watching Andres Iniesta
in the midfield is just such a joy. There are a lot of great players, but
I should say those are the top ones.
HAYES: Those are the top stars.
So, quickly, about the officiating. Yesterday, there was a very
controversial penalty kick called that gave Brazil the tie-breaking goal
and there was a lot of like, the fix is in, the fix is in, the fix is in.
And every year, there`s complaints about the officiating. How
legitimate are complaints about the officiating? Is there some grand
conspiracy? Is there kind of favoring of the home team?
QURAISHI: Sure, a lot of things have come to light recently.
"The New York Times" just did a two-piece expose on match fixing in
South Africa just months before the World Cup there four years ago. There
have been gambling rings busted from Europe, basically run out of East
Asia. So everyone is sort of under suspicion.
The World Cup is a little -- maybe a little bit harder to crack,
because a lot of those players, they`re elite players. They are paid very
well. They might be less susceptible to that.
But they`re definitely -- Croatia, Brazil, they`re definitely players
you could maybe get to, and the referees especially come from places where
they`re not making millions of dollars, like the players are.
(CROSSTALK)
HAYES: There`s something sort of perfect, right, that captures 21st
century globalization, that the entire world sits and watches what is a
very enjoyable, corrupt racket.
George Quraishi of "Howler" soccer magazine, thank you so much.
(LAUGHTER)
QURAISHI: That`s right.
HAYES: That is ALL IN for this evening.
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BE UPDATED.
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All In With Chris Hayes, Friday, June 13th, 2014
Read the transcript from the Friday show