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tv   All In With Chris Hayes  MSNBC  February 3, 2014 8:00pm-9:01pm PST

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things in the theater and been brilliant there also. i don't know how -- >> he will be missed. but he's left us an enormous trashz to to come. david dunby, thank you so much for joining us on this sad night. david dunby, the new yorker. chris hayes is up next. good evening from new york. i'm chris hayes. for the first time in 3 1/2 weeks, governor chris christie has spoken publicly about bridge-gate in an hour-long radio appearance that concluded just minutes ago. >> so let's talk about some of the new developments that have been going on, and i want to talk a little bit about david wildstein as we open up this program. your former appointee to the port authority claimed through his lawyer that he's got evidence to show that you knew about the lane closings in ft. lee while they were happening.
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your office put out a pretty strong response to alan zegas' letter. >> yep. >> what, in particular, do you dispute in wildstein's account at this point? >> we'll bring it all to you in a moment. first, the fifth person goes down in the midst of bridge-gate. the now former director of governmental affairs quietly resigned on friday. renna is one of the 20 persons or entities subpoenaed in relation to bridgegate. she answered to bridget anne kelly. renna's friday resignation was not released from her lawyer until sunday before the super bowl kickoff. saying "this reflects a decision i've been considering since shortly after the election." whether or not she knew about the bridgegate scheme to close lanes on ft. lee, renna does
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appear in e-mails regarding the lane closure, participating in damage control. for example, "the mayor," referring to the mayor of ft. lee, "is extremely upset about the reduction of toll lanes from three to one," renna wrote in the e-mail to kelly. "not only is it causing a horrendous backup in town, first responders are having a terrible time maneuvering the traffic because the backup is so severe. the mayor told the avenue he has no idea why port authority decided to do this, but he's sure it's retribution for something. he can't understand why that would be the case, however, because he's always been so supportive of the governor. she joins former chief of staff kelly, david wildstein, port authority deputy executive director bill baroni and former christie campaign adviser bill stepien as those who resigned or were fired or sidelined in the midst of the ever-growing scandal. today bridget anne kelly invoking the fifth amendment. she declined to produce subpoenaed documents. speaking of former port authority executive director bill baroni "the wall street journal" is reporting his
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clearly discredited testimony came after parts of four to five days of prep with a lawyer. just any old lawyer? no. this lawyer. philip kwon. if that name rings a bell, that's the name governor christie unsuccessfully nominated to be on the state supreme court. a close christie ally helping to prep mr. baroni for parts of four to five days before mr. baroni claimed the ft. lee lane closures were part of legitimate traffic study. meanwhile former port authority official david wildstein having leveled the charge that evans exists that christie knew of the lane closures during the time of the lane closures is a target of an attack from governor christie. we'll dive into that momentarily as well. it's something you would normally expect in a political campaign against a political opponent. governor christie's office also today sent supporters a virtual bucketful of information suggesting the latest big accusation is really the media's fault.
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begins with criticism of the original "new york times" headline from friday, includes editorials, interviews, tweets espousing the idea "the new york times" headline was sloppy and misleading. all this surfacing before whatever mountain of new information may soon come out from documents right now are either being collected or making their way to the new jersey investigative committee in response to 20 subpoenas in conjunction with today's deadline. many including the christie campaign were granted extensions. it's all coming. and that, everything i've just said, is just the bridge scandal. there's also new reporting and information coming to light about sandy funds which we'll talk about later in the show. and it is against all of this, against this backdrop, that the governor today chose to break his silence with the voters of new jersey. governor christie having not addressed this issue in a media availability since that marathon january 9th news conference, not counting the questions christie took from schoolchildren about a week ago. just now governor christie said this.
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>> the most important issue is did i know anything about the plan to close these lanes? did i authorize it? did i know about it? did i approve it? did i have any knowledge of it beforehand? and the answer is still the same. it's unequivocally, no. and in fact, no one's ever accused me of that. and that's the thing that i think the people of new jersey care about the most. now, when did i first know about the lane closures? >> yeah. >> you know, the fact is that the first time this really came into my consciousness, as an issue, was when pat foye, the executive director of the port authority's e-mail about this incident was leaked to the media and reported on. and that was the first time that i got a sense that there might be some issue here. >> and who brought that to your attention? was that staff? >> no, it was news accounts. >> you read them personally or did somebody bring it to your attention? >> i read it.
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i read it in "the wall street journal." it was that day, then, i read that, that pat foye was saying i didn't know about this, it wasn't cleared through me. whatever else he said in that e-mail. that's when i asked my chief of staff and chief counsel, i said, hey, would you look into this and see what's going on here? now, if, prior to that, i know prior to that that there were press accounts about traffic issues up there. >> uh-huh. >> and if someone, you know, if i either read that or someone said something to me about traffic issues up there, it wouldn't have been meaningful to me because i didn't know that there was any problem up there. you know, because i didn't know that we had actually closed the lanes up there before that. >> are you confident, at this point in your day-to-day operations, that there is nobody on your staff right now that is lying to you? >> there's been nothing that's been brought to light so far that would make me believe that anyone is, but i'll tell you something.
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i'm not warranting anything anymore after what happened before. >> joining me now, kate zernike, new jersey correspondent for "the new york times" who has been identified by the christie folks as the villain in the story the last two days. i want to get your response to that in a second. first, let's talk about chris christie's response there. very similar to the original response from the christie folks. in which the christie people said this confirms what we've always said, that the governor had no prior knowledge. again, when he's asked during the q&a on the radio, his response is, look, this is what i've been saying, i had no prior knowledge. it is not his prior knowledge subject to dispute by david wildstein. >> what david wildstein said, he said the governor knew about these lane closings while they were going on, and evidence exists to prove that. he said governor christie lied during the two-hour press conference. he said he made the truth and the evidence contradicts what
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christie said in the marathon two-hour press conference and he said things about me and i can prove what he said about me is wrong. you're right, christie is in some ways moving the goal post here, saying i never knew anything about this prior and that's what the people of new jersey care about. he's leaving room for wildstein's accusation to be true, he knew about it during the lane closures. >> one thing we have to think about when we think about the plausibility of the governor not knowing. thls -- this is the governor's own story. this is what the governor is saying, in his two-hour press conference, what he's held to, i had no idea. basically this entire wildfire was happening and didn't get to my level. this is the story from the governor. one of the things i think is important, randy foye, the guy at the port authority -- >> pat foye. >> sorry. the guy at the port authority who ends up sending this very angry e-mail. it was a kind of declaration of interstate war. it you read that document,
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that's not the kind of thing that stays at a low level. that's one of the high-ranking officials on this very contentious interstate agency saying you guys have screwed up big-time. so in that context, it's not implausible that that would rise to the governor, right? >> well, sure, there's that, which is october 1st when he finds out about that. and you're right, pat foye not only says lanes were closed against my knowledge, he said federal and state laws may have been broken. he talks about the possibility people may have died because of this because first responders couldn't get there in time because of the traffic. but keep in mind also that the governor's office, we know this from documents that have been produced, the governor's office had many phone calls. the governor's appointees at the port authority had many phone calls from the mayor of ft. lee who claimed he made between 20 and 30 phone calls to people at the port authority and governor's office. we've seen e-mails. bridget kelly, christie's chief of staff had an e-mail saying the mayor is very upset about this, on september 12th. the governor is saying i didn't know about this until october 1st when "the wall street
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journal" reported it. >> the christie campaign put out this memo today saying your write-up of the letter in "the new york times" was sloppy, erroneous, there was a feeding frenzy because of your sloppiness, you and "the new york times" have an agenda. >> no, i'm not out to get chris christie, nor am i the story really. i've said this before. when i wasn't the issue, when msnbc was the issue, they're constantly changing the target. they try to accuse someone else of something. they try deflect what's going on. our story, initially the news alert that went out said what the news was and what the news remains. which is ex christie ally says the governor knew of lane closures while they were happening. what we said in the original leads which was up for 20 minutes said that david wildstein said the governor was lying about this and -- sorry, the governor knew about these during lane closings and has evidence to prove it, evidence exists. what he has evidence of is he
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was lying about david wildstein. again, we fixed the story. i don't think we posted the letter that was actually there. i think, you know -- >> everyone has the letter now, right? and whether that evidence is ever produced is a sort of outstanding question. >> yeah. >> there's a lot of evidence that is coming in right now as we speak. of course. and we will sort of talk about that a little later in the show. kate zernike from "the new york times," thank you so much. >> thanks, chris. joining me now, congressman bill pascrell from new jersey. i have to play you an interesting bit of the governor's q&a session on the radio. take a listen to what he said about the possibility this all was actually a traffic study. take a listen. >> as i said at the time of january 9th, when i did my press conference, i still don't know whether there was a traffic study that morphed into -- >> you still don't know at this point whether there was a traffic study. >> what i'm saying, eric, did this start as a traffic study that morphed into political shenanigans or did it start as
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political shenanigans that became a traffic study. there's information that was given to the legislature about counts of e-zpass, wait times that was done, at the time indicated to me that there was a traffic study. >> congressman, can you shed any light for the governor on whether or not there was a traffic study? >> according to mr. foye, by the way, traffic would still be backed up in ft. lee if it wasn't for the e-mail of mr. foye many, many months later. we asked, many of us, i asked exactly on the 13th when i wrote the letter to the port authority. still never got an answer. no one's kidding anybody here. we want the facts. there's very little transparency in this administration. whether it's we're talking about the bridge or sandy money which is coming out. it's all going to come out. all the facts are going to be on the table. the issue is not the governor. the issue is the people who
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suffered in ft. lee and the people who suffered because they're not back into their homes or don't know whether they're coming or going, whether they're down the shore or in north jersey that were affected. i have an obligation. responsibility. i fought for that money, as did everyone in the state of new jersey. want to know how the money is being spent, want to know who is overseeing this. how has the responsibility of monitoring? the governor knows a lot about monitoring. when he was a u.s. attorney, he monitored many of the major corporations that were shafting the american public. he knows about monitoring. who do you put in that position to oversee? i don't want to hear this that we can't come up with an independent study to see how the money's being spent concerning the sandy money, and i don't want to hear that we still don't know months later what happened. what kind of -- where was he? new mexico? where was he, in nova scotia when this was going on? we have pictures that he's with
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his people on september the 11th right in the heart of the backup of the traffic. i personally believe that mayor sokolich, that's who i believe. you can believe whoever you wish. >> is it possible, i mean, you're a member of the new jersey congressional delegation. this is -- we're talking about the city -- >> the last time i looked. >> we're talking about the sitting governor. we're also talking about the issue of prime importance if, i imagine, for the delegation which is the different waves of this federal money. can you work with this governor? do you trust him? do you view him as trustworthy? do you view his people as trustworthy? >> my record the last four years, the governor dually recollected, dually re-elected. i work for the governor. i said when he was right when he was right. nobody's perfect. you know what, power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. no one can prove to me that this
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administration has been transparent on a number of issues. there are questions that are hanging out there. you want me to believe that it took this e-mail to get the governor to even think -- what did he do about it? i want to know what the governor did after he got the e-mail, after he found out, regardless of where, regardless of where he first read it. >> congressman bill pascrell of new jersey. thank you for your time tonight, congressman. coming up, this was supposed to be a major weekend for chris christie. it didn't go so well. a recap ahead. hem their own, let alone for under $300. but this asus with windows is lightweight and has everything they need -- not like chromebooks that can't install office or have to be connected to the internet to get much done. with this they can do homework, chat, play games -- on their own laptop, and their own time. so no more fighting... at least not over my laptop. ♪ honestly, i wanna see you be brave ♪
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centurylink. your link to what's next. tonight, the super bowl is over, the nfl has packed up its tent and chris christie is left behind to pick up the pieces
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after wrapping up what could be his worst weekend yet. >> now you know what bothers me, i'm a new yorker, is that i keep hearing people saying the new york super bowl. >> oh, it's outrageous. >> how are you taking it over there in new jersey? >> like we do most things, regis, very badly. >> it was supposed to be his moment. the jersey boy who brought the super bowl to the garden state was given yet another opportunity this weekend to introduce himself to a national audience. it didn't go so well. >> governor chris christie. governor? [ boos ] >> good afternoon, everybody. you already heard enough speeches. enough speeches of the same thing. >> it quickly became clear this was not going to be chris christie's weekend. on friday, just hours before he was set to introduce jon bon jovi to sing "dead or alive" at howard stern's birthday party -- >> i happen to be a chris christie fan and i think it's been very good for new jersey. >> a "new york times" story
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broke quoting david wildstein's lawyer that evidence exists that christie had knowledge of the lane closures in ft. lee. then it got worse. saturday afternoon the christie administration sent out a rambling buzzfeed style listical to friends and allies titled "five things you should know about the bombshell that's not a bombshell." the two-page document included a section focusing on david wildstein's reputation at livingston high school. he and christie both went there over 30 years ago. >> i was the class president and athlete. i don't know what david was doing during that period of time. >> according to team christie, wildstein was "publicly accused by his high school social studies teacher of deceptive behavior." the list did not mention that wildstein was known as governor christie's eyes and ears inside the port authority after he was appointed by the governor to work at the port authority. or that wildstein was responding to the governor's deputy chief of staff when he wrote "got it"
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to "creating some traffic in ft. lee." or even that when wildstein resigned amidst scandal, christie's own spokesperson called him a "tireless advocate for new jersey's interest at the port authority." and if friday and saturday weren't headache-inducing for the governor enough, here's how christie's weekend ended. >> fans in the terminal were packed like sardines. security lines added to the backup. >> miserable failure. >> this is the most ridiculous transportation getting here and from i have ever been in my life. >> people are trapped out here. it's cold. and i've been to 17 super bowls and i've never seen anything like this. >> a human traffic jam, nearly 30,000 people, waiting to get on new jersey transit. right now, chris christie has very few allies left. his public approval is dropping. down in new jersey by 14 points since october. christie's only hope is convincing the right wing of his party that he is the victim of left-wing persecution.
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and yesterday after snubbing the governor last year, cpac, the annual conference of conservatives announced they'd be welcoming him back in 2014 with open arms. joining me now, bob herbert, distinguished senior fellow at demos, and former "new york times" columnist tara dowdell. the memo over the weekend struck me as amateur hour, they're flailing over there. >> before this traffic problem occurred when people were talking about chris christie as a potential gop presidential nominee, i had said on the air and other places that i didn't think that would ever happen and i thought the reasons were that he was petty, that he was a bully and that he and his operation were not ready for primetime. this is what's unfolding now. and they've got a real problem because they've got the state investigation going on, more importantly they've got the federal investigation going on and they've got disaffected staffers who have been taking the fifth amendment and who are looking for deals.
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so they really do need to get their act together. >> i also thought it was interesting that you have them now lashing out at the media which i think is in some ways kind of a smart tactical play. i mean, at this point, they are trying, i think, to endear themselves to a conservative base and conservative media that doesn't have much affection for them but the surest way to do that is convince them that you are the target of liberal persecution. >> exactly right. you either convince them you're a target of liberal persecution or attack president obama. that's your two ways to endear yourself to the republican party base. i think the bigger issue for chris christie, though, he's used to ruling by fear, but the problem is no one's scared anymore. so he's not used to being challenged. and when he is challenged, his response has always been to lash out. and a lot of times his lashing out has been in an amateurish way, but the difference is now people smell blood in the water. so people aren't allowing that anymore. they're pushing back against him. and that's never happened and that's why you see him really
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struggling. he's not used to being pushed back against. >> my response to the wildstein thing the other day was, look, there's this mystery that this whole thing started with. the whole thing started with a mystery. why people started -- why they shut down these lanes? this is kind of weird. why did these people resign over it? why did bridget anne kelly send this e-mail? if somebody cleared it up, that would go a long ways -- >> he needs to do that now. he's the one in the perfect position to find out, how did this get started? he would be able to find that out. you don't need subpoena power. you just need to be the governor. >> you also need to have a little bit of managerial control over your staff. i mean, this whole idea, like, he was on the radio today talking about we're conducting this investigation, we brought in this law firm. just find out, why did this happen? >> that's the problem. he had tremendous control over his staff. >> that's the problem. >> he's not finding out -- or
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he's not saying what went on because he doesn't want to say what's going on. what i think is really interesting, in response to this wildstein's lawyer's letter and then christie's -- the administration's attack on wildstein, and also on bridget kelly calling her a liar and that sort of thing. if you go by chris christie's assessment of what these top staffers were like, he's had a staff of liars and incompetence. you have to ask yourself, what does that say about his selection process? >> if you pull out the hatchet on david wildstein and convince everyone that the guy's an untrustworthy sociopath, he's the untrustworthy sociopath you made a job for at the port authority to be your point person. >> he's your guy. >> you own that. >> he's your untrustworthy -- >> yeah, exactly. >> mckay coppins had this piece a while ago when this started to break talking about the donor class in the republican party freaking out about this. and you've recently seen this strange talk that mitt romney's going to run a third time. >> right.
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>> and mckay had a tweet today where he said, look, that's the donor class grasping at straws because chris christie was their guy. as they watch him go down, the hedge fund, gop big-money people who thought he was their ticket, they don't know what to do. >> they also wanted him to run last time around. they were pushing him. that was the main group of people pushing him to run. now they are absolutely afraid. one of the things i think people may or may not have noticed is you don't see a lot of the local new jersey republican politicians coming to chris christie's defense. >> there's no one. no one. literally. there are no surrogates. there is rudy giuliani and no one else. >> because he's antagonized so many of them, they felt he was all about himself, he did not help them raise money, did not support their candidacies. a lot of them are upset. you better believe behind closed doors, they are pushing to let this play out so they can be absolved, but that the result will still benefit them. >> there's that old saying, everyone you meet on your way up, you're going to meet on your way down.
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that is a profound life lesson that chris christie is learning. bob herbert from demos. strategist tara dowdell. a new analysis, quote, multiple irregularities in the state of new jersey decides who gets one sandy money. just what are the multiple irregularities? i'm going to tell you, next. today we're going to play a little game. which 4g lte map has the most coverage? this isn't real difficult. pretty obvious to me. i'm going to have to say verizon. verizon. the choice is obvious. verizon is america's largest and most reliable 4g lte network,
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what i'm curious about what is happened here. and that's why i've authorized an internal investigation, as i talked about on january 9th. >> uh-huh. >> and we've hired a law firm to
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come in and do that internal investigation. they're working really hard. they're working diligently. i can't wait for them to be finished so i can get the full story here. >> chris christie earlier this evening talking about the ft. lee lane closures. now, according to a report from rutgers university, the new jersey town of new brunswick ranks 188th on the list of new jersey communities that suffered the most hardship due to hurricane sandy. 188. that means new brunswick simply did not get hit very hard compared to other towns, so you have to wonder why, as nbc 4 in new york revealed yesterday 4.8 million in sandy relief funds, $4.8 million went to help build this. a luxury apartment tower in new brunswick. complete with fitness center and 10,000 square feet of retail space along with just 48 units of affordable housing. it's another data point driving growing questions over how chris christie's administration divvied up its sandy money.
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today we learned a new jersey spotlight analysis showed multiple irregularities in how new jersey has allocated sandy mitigation money. that's the same pot of money that hoboken mayor dawn zimmer says the christie administration stiffed her city on as part of the christie administration's attempt to get her to support a development project backed by the governor. there's the town of belleville, new jersey, ranks down at 254th of the communities hardest hit by sandy. christie helped channel $6 million in money to a senior complex in belleville years before the storm. the democratic mayor went on to endorse christie les than two weeks after the funding was announced. who in new jersey is minding the store on sandy money? our own intrepid steve kornacki reported, it may be nobody. a new jersey law requires that an integrity oversight monitor
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be assigned to every recovery project granted $5 million or more in sandy money in order to protect against waste fraud or abuse. that law went into effect march of last year. and guess when the new jersey treasury department says it began putting a law signed more than ten months ago into practice? not until january of this year, 2014. that's right. the sandy money has been going out the door, but it appears integrity monitors were not put in place until last month in the wake of the scandal that is now engulfing the christie administration. joining me now, kevin walsh, associate director of fair share housing center. you guys have been doing incredible work in trying to get to the bottom of where this sandy aid is going. today, marc ferzan, the sandy oversight czar that chris christie personally appointed, he gave a kind of conference call press conference today. and he says politics has played absolutely no role in disaster recovery. there is nothing that is more highly regulated than federal recovery disaster grants."
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what is your response to the statement "politics has played absolutely no role in disaster recovery"? is that credible? >> then what did? we're still left trying to figure out. we've had to sue, we've had to push, we've had to demand, again, again, just basic information about how the money is being allocated. no one knows. if you go and you ask, if you go to the website, you look for the rules, you can't find them on the state's website. the only place you can find them is on our website because we sued and got them and put them up. victims of sandy throughout the state are left wondering when the money is coming in because they're still out of their homes. they're still sleeping on couches. the mold is getting worse. and here we are a year later and basic questions are still unanswered. >> that's an important point that while we're talking about this money for senior center in belleville, this money for a luxury development in new brunswick, there are people who indisputably were impacted by sandy who are getting kicked out of their houses, who are
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homeless, in between places who have not seen restitution or recovery money, right? i mean, it's not theoretical this money is going to, say, a new brunswick development and not people actually affect. >> absolutely. we hear every day from people who say i'm tired of the press conferences saying mission accomplished. i'm tired of people saying that everything is going well when there are complete -- there's a complete and utter lack of
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transparency and people get letters from the state that say we're not giving you money and they don't know why. the letter doesn't tell them why. >> the new brunswick story, does that surprise you? >> it doesn't surprise me. the state has had little given the reporting by steve kornacki of the lack of integrity monitors, given the fact we don't have real independent transparent oversight, are you at all confident that money is going to go to the right people and not be used as slush fund? >> they've given no indication -- they've given no indication that they're going to correct the mistakes of the past. the worst thing we can do is allow the money to come in and have the same mistakes that they've made in the past happen again because we're not going to get another chance. this could be the last money that's coming in. the federal government, the hud secretary, the obama administration needs to make sure that this money is well spent. if it doesn't, we're not going to recover in the way we should. >> i couldn't help but notice that one of the things that is asked for in this new -- the state wants to take $5 million of federal money and run some more stronger than the storm ads. what do you think about that? >> i've never heard anybody who supported them.
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we get a lot of calls from people. we have a toll free number set up so people can call us. we hear from a lot of folks and nobody, not a single person has said that they support that "was impacted by the storm." it's a bad idea. >> there's a story, we won't get to it tonight, but there's a story about a canceled contract to oversee the money that does not look square at all. there are a lot of questions about it. we're going to be asking some of those in the days ahead. kevin walsh from the fair share housing center. >> thank you. he left an indelible mark with every role he touched. on film and stage. philip seymour hoffman. our tribute to the actor, coming up. insurance id card - gots all my pertinents on it and such. works for me. turn to the camera. ah, actually i think my eyes might ha... next! digital insurance id cards. just a tap away on the geico app. could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. everybody knows that. well, did you know that when a tree falls in the forest
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it was -- i was 22 and i got panicked for my life. it really was. it was just that. >> philip seymour hoffman, an actor universally recognized as the greatest actor of his generation is dead at age 46. found yesterday reportedly with a needle in his arm and at least two plastic envelopes nearby. today we're getting more details. police say lab tests came back positive for heroin. test to find out whether the heroin was tainted is still ongoing. we now know detectives found approximately 50 bags of heroin in the actor's apartment. some used and some unused. along with a litany of prescription drugs. philip seymour hoffman is a family man. leave behind three young children, a son and two daughters. he battled substance abuse early in his life and stay cleaned until last may. he admitted to tmz he relapsed first with prescription pills, recently escalated to snorting heroin. checked himself into a detox facility for ten days. philip seymour hoffman thrilled us.
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his transformational chameleonic, mastery of his body in its use as an instrument. truman capote. to the cult leader lancaster dodd. to his role in lester banks in "almost famous" where he made outsiders feel like they belong. >> women will always be a problem for guys like us. most of the great art in the world is about that very problem. good looking people, they got no spine. their art never lasts. they get the girls. we're smarter. >> yeah. i can really see that now. >> yeah, because great art is about guilt and longing and, you know, love disguises sex and sex disguises love. face it. you got a big head start. >> glad you were home.
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>> i'm always home. i'm on call. >> me, too. >> you're doing great. the only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool. >> "there was no actor in our time who more ably suggested that each of us is a sum of our secrets. no actor who better let us know what he knew which is when each of us returns alone to our room, all bets are off." everyone who's watched philip seymour hoffman is shaking their head in disbelief and despair. joining me, david edelstein for "new york" magazine. i was taken aback by how upset i found myself in the wake of the news. i think partly because of his incredible talent and his presence in films that all of us loved. our affection for him. it's just a real blow. >> this -- this sucks. this really sucks. you can't -- the first thing i wrote that i put on facebook was i can't say on the air.
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and the second thing, and the third thing. this is such a tremendous blow. and after -- not just a great actor, but an actor who was continuing to evolve. a fearless actor. an actor who made it a point -- i mean, it was almost his source of vanity to do what other actors didn't do. >> i want to show a few clips. i want to show this clip from "doubt" which is meryl streep and philip seymour hoffman, peak top of their game actors in unrelenting ferocious dramatic attack upon each other. incredible scene. take a look. >> you have no right to go rummaging through my past. >> you have a history. this is your third parish in five years. >> call the pastor. >> why? >> ask him why i left. it's perfectly innocent. >> i'm not calling the pastor. >> i'm a good priest. >> go after another child. and another child until you are stopped. >> what nun did you speak to? >> i won't say. >> i've not touched a child.
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>> you have! >> you haven't the slightest proof of anything. >> but i have my certainty. and with that, go to your last parish and the one before that. if necessary, i'll find a parent. trust me, father flynn, i will. >> you have no right to act on your own. you have taken vows. obedience being one. you answer to us. >> he had a tremendous physical presence. i'm struck going back through all the clips today watching him was his unbelievable meticulous control over his own body. his bearing. >> he actually hated his body. i mean, he complained constantly about how easy it was for him to put on weight. and i think maybe some of that self-disgust made him take chances with his body to sort of go to the other direction, go be anti-shame. >> vanity is the enemy of truthful acting. >> well, all actors are vain,
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but there can be a kind of anti-vanity. he told me once when i did a profile of him that he had some fights in >> well, all actors are vain, but there can be a kind of anti-vanity. he told me once when i did a profile with him, he had fights in the editing room with bennett miller because he wanted truman capote to come off as less attractive, cut in a way to emphasize the manipulation and the cunning. he said to me, i think the way to empathy is not to show him more vulnerable and nicer but to show him more unattractive -- >> exposed. >> -- because none of us are truly benign and we can relate more easily to somebody who isn't. i actually questioned that sometimes. i said, you know, i said to him, we're not always who we are really at our worst. but i think he sought out -- >> yes. >> -- the grotesquery in everyone he played. >> and there was this raw, sometimes ugly vulnerability in many of his characters that was just you could not look away in
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its honesty. i mean, character after character, there is something where even when he's playing real scumbags, even when he's playing repellent, unlikable scoundrels you could not take your eyes off him. david edelstein. thank you for being here with us. >> thank you. last month the governor of vermont devoted his entire state of the state, whole thing, address, to the issue of heroin addiction in his state. why? because of that blue line right there. the red one, i should say. that's heroin use in vermont over the last decade and the number one crisis facing that state. vermont is not alone, and philip seymour hoffman was not alone. addiction and heroin-related deaths have skyrocketed recently across the country. we're going to talk about why in a moment. hey linda! what are you guys doing? having some fiber! with new phillips' fiber good gummies. they're fruity delicious! just two gummies have 4 grams of fiber! to help support regularity! i want some... [ woman ] hop on over! [ marge ] fiber the fun way, from phillips'.
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philip seymour hoffman's death has done -- what it has done is bring into sharp focus the tragedy of overdose deaths in this country. in pennsylvania, heroin laced with fentanyl led to 14 overdose deaths. maryland, the state department of health and mental hygiene says 37 have died of overdoses. vermont, heroin use has become such a problem that peter shumlin used his entire state of the state to talk about the issue. >> in every corner of the state, heroin and opiate drug addiction threatens us. the facts speak for themselves. in vermont, since 2000, we've seen more than a 770% increase in treatment for all opiates. what started as an oxycontin and prescription drug addiction problem in vermont has now grown into a full-blown heroin crisis.
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>> in fact, in 2000, nearly 400 people were treated for heroin abuse in vermont. by 2012, that number shot up to almost 3,500. not just the northeast. it's a problem nationwide. according to 2012 substance abuse and mental health services administration survey, between 2007 and 2012, the number of heroin users ages 12 and up doubled. joining me, mr. hart. author of the book "high price." challenges everything you know about drugs in society. the governor mentioned something i have read in a number of places that basically there's a big prescription painkiller problem in this country that then lawmakers crack down on and crack down the way they know which is barring access, right? restricting oxycontin and squeeze the balloon and people have now gone to heroin to find the fix. >> i don't know, that's what some people claim that happens. i'm not sure what's happening. a number of things you just
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played in terms of the fentanyl-laced heroin, i don't know how accurate that thing is. when we think about fentanyl and heroin, it would make the drug more potent. if they're making the drug more potent, they'd sell less. or sell it for higher amounts of money. when we think of heroin, opiate deaths, 75% of the people die because they combine the drug with alcohol. if we focus on public health information, education campaign, just tell people if you're going to use opiates, don't combine it with alcohol. if we really do that, really get that message home, we can save a lot more people. >> i think people hear that. i know i hear that. and i think about the horror of the grip of addiction and and i
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think about t think about the horror of the people that are in the grips of an addiction to an opiate like heroin. it seems like -- >> wait, make no mistake about it. most of the people dying from heroin overdose are probably -- i don't know if they're addicted. when we think of addiction, addiction, you're tolerant to many affects and can take a lot more heroin than people who are not addicted. people are conflating a number of things. this is part of the problem. this is part of the ignorance that the public has. i think it's incumbent upon us to do a better job at educating the public about what addiction is, about what opiate use is and the likelihood of really having an opioid overdose or something else.
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>> all right. so then if it's not -- if overdoses are happening to people not necessarily because of addiction, or those two are distinct problems, right, the problem of addiction, as distinct from overdosing, right, what is the way -- what do we know about how we reduce that level of incidence? in a society? >> if we think about the level -- you mean how do we reduce addiction in general? >> yes, exactly. that's the goal. >> again, education. when we think about addiction to opioids or heroin, people are addicted for a variety of reasons. some have psychiatric co-occurring conditions that are not met. people have a wide range of reasons. if we want to think about solving this problem, that means we have to first of all stop the hysteria, like everybody is speculating about mr. seymour's death. i don't know what happened. not yet. the information is not in. and the speculation is clouding our ability to actually really think about how to deal with the problem appropriately. until the information comes in, i think people should just really chill. >> i think it's hard to look -- yeah. i mean, i think what we do is we look into the horror of this, right, and when we feel angry and frustrated and also know i
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think people think about their own reactions to people in their lives, right? who have been kind of confined, taken away from them because of addiction and there is a deep emotional response to that. >> make no mistake about it. i lost a friend to heroin addiction, and the problem with her was that she combined it with alcohol. >> yeah. >> she was ignorant. >> we need to find a way to deliver people from the risk of it and also that kind of captivity. dr. carl hart. thank you. that's "all in" for tonight. "the rachel maddow show" starts now. good evening, chris. thanks, man. thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. we start tonight with breaking news out of the state of new jersey. first, bridget anne kelly, until recently new jersey governor chris christie's deputy chief of staff, bridget kelly is invoking the fifth amendment and refusing to testify or hand over documents in response to the subpoena she has received from the new jersey legislature. bridget anne kelly is the person who sent this e-mail, "time for some traffic problems in ft. lee" to a chris christie ally at the port authority who then does appear to have arranged for some huge traffic problems in ft. lee