Transcript: Mayor de Blasio Appears Live on MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews to Discuss Democratic Debate

February 12, 2016

Chris Matthews: Joining me right now are supporters for both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders – Tad Devine is the senior advisor to Sanders campaign; New York Mayor Bill de Blasio is a Clinton supporter; and Johnathan Cape, who is an opinion writer for the Washington Post.

Let’s talk at the beginning here. Tad Devine, you can start because you’ve been on this campaign a long time. This is – tonight was the night when Hillary Clinton challenged your candidate, Senator Sanders, and clung to the office and presidency of Barack Obama, in a very strong way, challenging your candidate as not a loyal supporter of the President. She said he even went out there and pushed for a primary opponent of the President in 2012. Your reaction?

Tad Devine, Senior Advisor to Bernie Sanders: My reaction is that’s a gross distortion. Bernie’s at a radio show one day, he’s asked if somebody should run against Obama – he says it’s good for democracy with this competition, and, now, Hillary’s made him into a big opponent of the President. Listen, Chris, she’s taking things, distorting things – she did an [inaudible] on him on the end, you know, of the debate. The truth is, I think Bernie Sanders had his strongest performance tonight in any debate, you know, talking about immigration, talking about a corrupt system of campaign finance, talking about a rigged economy and how that corrupt system of finance holds it in place, talking about Henry Kissinger, who Hillary invoked in the last debate as one of her foreign policy advisors. Listen, we’ve got big difference with Hillary Clinton, but one difference we don’t have is whether or not President Obama and Vice President Biden have done a great job in office. Bernie believes they have and Hillary, I think, is trying to mislead people on that.

Matthews: Why did he mention Biden tonight, do you think – your candidate, Senator Sanders?

Devine: Why did he mention him?

Matthews: Yes, as part of, you know, as the government of Obama and Biden. Why would he do it that way?

Devine: Because he believes the Vice President has played a very important and fundamental role in the course of this administration. He’s talked to Vice President many times through the years. He believes the Vice President is a great vice president who has helped the President every step of the way. So, I think it’s perfectly appropriate for him to invoke him.

Matthews: Yes, I just thought it was interesting. Now, I’m always looking for the novel Tad. You know why I do that – because, I think, maybe you think he’s going to endorse you at some point. I’m just wondering if that’s the case –

Devine: Well, it would be welcome, I’ll tell you that, Chris.

Matthews: I’m sure it would be and for a lot of reasons like you and I would understand. There’s a whole constituency out there that really likes Joe Biden personally. Let me go to Mayor de Blasio. You know, I thought that the best line – just to put you on defensive – because I thought the first half of the debate, I thought Hillary Clinton was really getting to the other guy. He was – Sanders was getting red-faced. I don’t know if he’s got a cold or not. He was flustered. He was waving his hand like he’s calling for the waiter the whole night – the whole night long he’s got that hand – there are only two of them there. What did he think – who did he think the moderators were going to? But he was playing defense. One line I think he had that was a killer that rhetorical riff where does – any connection, any connection? Why do the pharmaceutical companies give tons of money to Congress? Why does Wall Street give tons of money to Congress? Why is oil and gas, and the Koch brothers give tons of money to politicians? What do you think the motive is, if it isn’t influence?

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Oh, I’m sure the motive is influence, but the important point is – does the leader go and do what’s right for the people? And Hillary Clinton has talked about what she did taking on the drug companies and the health insurance companies during that huge health care fight in the early 90s – that is the object lesson of who she is as a human being – and she made a great example about President Obama. He accepted a lot of donations and turned around and made sure Dodd Frank passed. But the bottom line we have to even go farther in reigning in Wall Street, and Hillary has a plan that’s clearly the strongest for reigning in that special interest, that most important special interest that we have to take on.

Matthews: Do you think the strong case that she made – do you think that it was strong case to say Obama did it, so I did, so it’s okay?

Mayor: I think the much more important point is – what is her vision? And what I saw a lot of tonight, particularly in that strong closing statement from her, is a clear, sharper message about where she wants to take the country. She invoked the children of Flint, she invoked the miners in coal countries, she talked about immigrants, she talked with passion about racism and sexism and challenges in this country, and then said here’s a vision for reigning in Wall Street. Here’s a vision for actually addressing these issues to their core. And I think that’s when she’s at her most effective.

Matthews: Gentlemen, I want you both to respond to this. This is one of the sharpest exchanges of the night, it came right at the end. It was the question of supporting President Obama. Let’s watch.

[…]

Matthews: Let’s go back to Tad Devine. Do you think that your candidate, Senator Sanders, did open a door to this for Clinton today? Hillary Clinton certainly jumped at it – the Casey Hunt interview, I’m talking about, where he said that the President hadn’t done enough to close the divide in terms of this tremendous income inequality in the country. Did he make the mistake in the way he answered the question that allowed Secretary Clinton, now, to jump on him as some challenger to the President we have?

Devine: No, I don’t think he did, Chris. And I think when she said he called President Obama weak, it’s just an incredible distortion – it really is. They’re just grasping at straws. You know, he said something and they said, “Ah ha” and they try to turn it into an attack against the President. Bernie believes the President, the Vice President, this administration have done a tremendous job. We were losing 800,000 jobs a month when Barack Obama took the Oath of Office. We were involved in two active wars abroad, wars that he and – at least one war in Iraq – that he and Bernie Sanders both opposed, and Hillary Clinton supported. So, no, for him to say – for her to say he called the President weak – he never said those words. That’s a gross and utter distortion.

Matthews: Let me go to the mayor. Mr. Mayor, it seems like we’re watching these debates now, they begin to recur almost like comments made by Senator Rubio – they have a certain redundancy to them, if you ask me. Hillary Clinton is really good at point-defense. She will argue that although she took campaign contributions from Wall Street, that she hasn’t been bought, you know, which reminds me of the old [inaudible] in politics, which – if you can’t take their money, eat their food, sleep with their women, and vote against them in the morning, you don’t belong in this business. Now, I believe politicians are capable of that. You know they all align. And as gross as it is, it’s a statement of a true professional can still take money from anybody and still be independent. Do voters look at it that way?

Mayor: I think voters are very cynical about everything happening right now in this country because they see massive income inequality. They see the middle class having been fundamentally undermined over the last two or three decades, and they have a right to say – is this system serving us or not? And this is the election where that question has to be answered with a very clear, strong progressive vision of how to address income inequality. Now, look, I keep coming back to where do these candidates want to take us? Hillary Clinton wants to tax the wealthy. She wants to raise wages and benefits. She wants paid family leave, pre-k for all – these are the actual changes that will affect working people in the middle class. This is where we have to get to. And people will remain cynical and frustrated until they see some of these things actually affecting their lives. They knew it – Chris you know this so well – in the 40’s, 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, people saw government improving their lives and they had a reason to have some faith. They haven’t seen that enough at least in quite a while. This election is when that has to change – the whole discussion’s about fighting income inequality. And I think at her closing statement tonight, Hillary Clinton hit that note very powerfully, and I think that’s the shape of things to come in her campaign.

Matthews: And by the way, back in 1970 – actually in the mid-60’s – the Wall Street Journal asked the people – do you believe the federal government can do what it sets out to do? 75 percent said yes – those were the days of optimistic government action. Here’s a strong exchange tonight on the question of super PACs, and Hillary Clinton’s ties to Wall Street – the point I made –

[…]

Matthews: Well, that’s the strongest argument, Tad. Is that going to be the heart of it, that you can’t take money from – politicians can’t take money from anybody without being bought?

Devine: It is, Chris. I mean, listen, he’s been saying for a long time – you can’t fix a corrupt system by taking its money. You know, Bernie Sanders, I think, understands better than anyone in American politics what’s at the heart of the problem that we face today as a country. The economy is rigged. It’s sending almost all the new wealth to the top, and it’s the corrupt system of campaign finance that is holding that rigged economy in place. He’s decided to run against it, and he didn’t do it by just talking the talk, he walked the walk. He said, I’m not going to have a super PAC. And for Secretary Clinton to say, well, that’s not my super PAC, that was set up beforehand, I don’t know anything about it – her trusted aides are running it, and she and surrogates are raising money for it. Okay? So, it’s preposterous to say that there’s no connection between her super PACs and her campaign. There are direct connections. It’s obvious.

Matthews: Well, I certainly – most people believe what you just said. They all think it. Let me ask you about – to clarify something that happened on our show earlier tonight – in the part of my show, which you know well, Tad – Tell Me Something I Don’t Know – Jonathan Capehart, part of the Washington Post – the opinion writer from the Post – came up with something I didn’t know about. He talked about your web – we’re looking at it right now – you’re web video with a picture of a guy that looks like it could have been Bernie Sanders back, you know, 50 years ago, back in the 60’s – and it follows another picture which is of Bernie Sanders – there it is – where it looks like there’s a young Bernie Sanders – now it cuts to this picture – as if they’re the same guy. Jonathan?

Jonathan Capehart: Well, it’s in the video for probably about two or three seconds. It’s part of the story about his civil rights work, which is not in dispute. We all know his civil rights background. But this picture also shows up on the Bernie Sanders for President Tumblr feed, and lots of his supporters are zapping it around on Twitter, on Facebook, on social media –

Matthews: As if it’s him –

Capehart: As if it’s him, trying to say, this is what –

Matthews: Okay, let’s clarify – that’s not the most important issue, but let’s clarify – this day, Tad Devine, is that Bernie Sanders? Apparently it is not. Is it him? The guy we’re looking at?

Devine: You know, Chris, when we put it in, it was identified as Bernie Sanders by the University of ‘Cago. Since then, some people have said well, maybe that’s not him. The part of the video that it covers doesn’t talk about Bernie at that moment it talks about the protests that were happening. It’s a representative image. We’re not trying to mislead anybody about something that happened –

Matthews: But it flips from a picture of him, you know, just quickly, a picture of him – it really is him to that picture of him leading what could be a teach-in. Is that him or not? You say you don’t know? You still don’t know?

Devine: I honestly – I honestly, listen, we’ve looked at and had people look at it and we honestly don’t know if it’s him. We do know the University of Chicago identified him. And the reason we didn’t change it is because we’re not really talking about him at that moment. We’re talking about the protests.

Matthews: Let’s listen to the video. Get this over with. Let everybody make their own judgements – if it’s important or not to people. Let’s watch.

[ … ]

Matthews: And there’s the picture. “We ended up getting involved in a sit-in demonstration.” There he is, looking like him.

Devine: Wait a second. “I got involved” – the picture of him – “We had a sit-in” – the picture of the sit-in. Okay. I don’t see what is the problem here? I don’t really get it.

[Laughter]

Matthews: I’m just asking – well, Jonathan?

Capeheart: Originally, the picture was captioned as Bernie Sanders. When alumni – including the man pictured – Bruce Rappaport’s widow was one of the people who went to the University of Chicago and said, that’s not Bernie Sanders. She wasn’t the only person. There were at least three others or four other, as TIME Magazine reported, and the University of Chicago told me yesterday that they changed the caption on January because enough people came forward who knew both men to say that that was not Bernie Sanders.

Matthews: Well, authenticity matters, Tad. I don’t think it’s the biggest thing in the world either. It was a mistake. Let’s move on. Okay?

Devine: TIME broke the story two months. I can’t believe you’re still talking about it.

Capeheart: Well, your supporters – but Tad, your supporters are sending that picture around because it has the [inaudible] of the Bernie Sanders for President Campaign.

Devine: It’s a completely accurate representative scene of a sit-in that he participated in, so I don’t think there’s any intention to mislead anybody, nor does it.

Matthews: Okay, but it wasn’t him.

Okay, well, thank you all. These things do matter, Tad. As you know, as well as anybody, if it was the other side, you’d be killing the guy. You’d be killing the other side with this one. Thank you, Tad Devine and Mayor Bill de Blasio. Mayor, thank you for putting up with our focus on journalism here for a second. Thank you so much.