Hillary Clinton Clobbers Donald Trump With His Own Words Rachel Maddow MSNBC

And thanks to At Home for staying with us this next hour. Boy, a lot happened today. Today we saw the death of the Beltway media myth that there is any meaningful resistance whatsoever between Donald Trump and the Republican Party. Paul Ryan, Speaker of the House, he did wait a few weeks after Donald Trump became the Republican Party's presumptive nominee, but that's it. He does not appear to have influenced Donald Trump to change in any way by waiting a few weeks to endorse him. Honestly, there was never any real indication that Paul Ryan would end up withholding his endorsement from Donald Trump. But now that he has given Donald Trump his endorsement today, the idea that the Republican Party has a leader other than Donald Trump, their standard bearer, I think we can comfortably finally say that's over. In today's news, though, there was also a great reminder, a sort of shoot coffee out your nose laughing reminder, that although it took Paul Ryan a few weeks to get there, took Paul Ryan a few weeks to acclimate to Donald Trump as the Republican presidential nominee, took him a little while to get there, not everybody had to wait. There were some people who jumped on board with Donald Trump right at the beginning, way before it was even clear that he was going to win. Like, for example, this guy. And I know, don't judge a book by its cover. I think it is safe to judge the guy posing on his Maserati on the book cover, but that's him. His name is Wayne Allen Root. I don't know if that's his Maserati, but he was the Libertarian Party's vice presidential nominee in 2008. He's now a self-help, get rich quick guy. And he's also become sort of a talk radio conspiracy theorist. He's the guy who says that he was at Columbia University when President Obama was supposed to be a student there as well. And he, Wayne Allen Root, says he is quite sure that Obama never really went to Columbia University. I mean, this is a variety of Obama conspiracy theory that's a little obscure, but it's one that Donald Trump has really been enthusiastic about. It's a conspiracy theory about Barack Obama that Donald Trump was still peddling less than two years ago. People for the American Way reposted this from Donald Trump just the other day. Donald Trump initially posted this in 2014. Attention all hackers, you are hacking everything else. So please hack Obama's college records, destroyed, and check place of birth. This is 2014. This was after Donald Trump supposedly gave up on the birther thing, right? But he has always sort of had the birther thing in reserve. He's never totally gone away from it. And he has always liked this fairly obscure Obama conspiracy theory that President Obama maybe didn't really go to Columbia University. He supposedly destroyed records from Columbia. Yeah, right. And lots of Obama conspiracy theories come from lots of places. But that particular one that Obama didn't really go to Columbia, that particular conspiracy theory comes from this guy, Wayne Allen Root. And Donald Trump has always liked that one. So much so that Donald Trump blurbed Wayne Allen Root's book, the one with the Maserati on the cover. His book is called The Power of Relentless. And this was Donald Trump's blurb for it. Opportunity is knocking, and Wayne Root will show you how to seize it. You're in the right place with the power of relentless. Relentless is always supposed to be all caps with an exclamation point. The power of relentless. So then in January, at the start of the Republican presidential primary this year, with the whole Republican Party supposedly so distressed by Donald Trump's success in the polls at that point, right? So against him. Nobody endorsing him at that point. In January this year, Donald Trump looked around for somebody who would embrace him wholeheartedly, someone who might be able to introduce him at an event in Nevada ahead of the Nevada caucuses, and he turned to his old buddy who he had written that blurb for. He turned to the guy from The Power of Relentless. At this January event in Nevada, Donald Trump had Wayne Allen Root introduce him, and he did so in true Trumpian style by using the occasion of introducing Donald Trump at a Donald Trump campaign event with a plug for his own book. We must fight with the power of relentless. We must never ever ever give up or give in. We must fight to the end to save this country, the greatest nation in world history. It's time to relentlessly defend America and American exceptionalism before it's gone forever. That describes the fight in Donald Trump. You and I love Trump because we know he'll go to Washington and break it. Oh good. He'll break it with the power of relentless. That was, that was January. That was the power of relentless guy. When Donald Trump endorsers in the Republican Party were few and far between. But this guy, Wayne Allen Root, the conspiracy theorist with the power of relentless, the guy who says President Obama didn't really go to Columbia, he was an early adopter of the Donald Trump thing. He was an early Donald Trump endorser. And now today, that guy got the making fun of you equivalent of a moment in the sun at President Obama's commencement address at the U.S. We need smart, steady, principled American leadership. And part of leading wisely is seeing threats clearly. Remember Ebola? That was a serious threat and we took it seriously. But in the midst of it, there was hysteria. Flights must be banned. Quarantine citizens. These were actual quotes. Seal the border. And my favorite, remove Obama or millions of Americans die. That's an actual quote. The thing is, when we panic, we don't make good decisions. President Obama speaking at the Air Force Academy today in Colorado, when he said, do you hear that quote, remove Obama or millions of Americans die, he was quoting the power of relentless guy. He was quoting Wayne Allen Root, because in addition to the power of relentless, in addition to claiming President Obama didn't really go to Colombia, he also said during the Ebola crisis that if President Obama wasn't somehow forcibly removed from office, we would all die from Ebola. All of us. Remove Obama or millions of Americans die. That's an actual quote. And that's an effective technique in a speech to just let the other side's words hang out there on their own, unembellished, as actual literal quotes while the audience laughs at them. That's a very effective technique. And there has been consternation in the media, I think in politics as well, as to whether it's possible to hold Donald Trump accountable as a presidential candidate for the more ludicrous and preposterous things that he tends to say as a candidate. I mean, just because of the sheer number of things he has said that fit that bill, how do you hold him to account for those things? How do you make an answer for those things? I mean, it's one thing for Mitt Romney to give his one remark on how 47 percent of Americans are moochers and parasites, and then the media and politicians chew on that for a month after Mitt Romney gets overheard saying that. That one comment. I mean, with Donald Trump, a 47 percent type comment, that would be a welcome respite on a day that might more typically include berating a judge for being Latino, calling Elizabeth Warren Pocahontas, saying he'll meet with Kim Jong-un, saying Saudi Arabia should have nuclear weapons, not swearing off dropping nuclear bombs on Europe, banning all Muslims from the United States, and admitting that he learns all he needs to know about national security from the TV shows he watches when they put the generals on. I mean, when it's, when that's like a typical day on the Donald Trump campaign trail, when it's just this tide of one thing after another like that, do we get inured to it? There's starting to be some media sort of soul searching about that. I think there's political consternation over that. When you're that ridiculous that frequently, do people stop being shocked? Do we get inured? Does nothing seem too shocking? Does nothing seem too idiotic or dangerous or blatantly racist anymore? How do you make a candidate answer for those things he throws out there when he throws so much out there? How do you make it sink in for voters that he really, truly has proposed all of this stuff? Well, today, in what was, I think, inarguably her best speech of the presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton did that to Donald Trump. And she did it the same way that President Obama handled the Trump conspiracy theorist as well today, by letting his own words speak for himself, just putting them out there unembellished, unedited, and letting people laugh at them. He says he doesn't have to listen to our generals or admirals, our ambassadors and other high officials because he has, quote, a very good brain. He also said, I know more about ISIS than the generals do. Believe me. You know what? I don't believe him. Of course, she's as serious as a heart attack that she's giving this speech. But the crowd is cheering and laughing at Donald Trump. I mean, the reason that works, both as a speech and as a lasting critique, is that she is not caricaturing Donald Trump to get that kind of reaction from that crowd. She's just quoting him directly, and that's deadly. I know more about ISIS than the generals do. Believe me. Who are you consulting with consistently so that you're ready on day one? I'm speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain and I've said a lot of things. This speech today was the best speech yet of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, in part because I think she likes pressing her case on national security issues, for one, but also because it is just rhetorically deadly to be able to take your opponent's record, not embellish it, not dress it up, not make it seem worse than it is, not round up the nearest funny thing about it. Just take it as it is. String it together, word for word, literally. Let it speak for itself and let people respond. It's hard to do, but when it works, it is politically deadly. This is a man who said that more countries should have nuclear weapons, including Saudi Arabia. We're better off, frankly, if South Korea is going to start to protect its Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia. Absolutely. This is someone who has threatened to abandon our allies in NATO. We don't need NATO. Do you think? No, we don't really need NATO in its current form. NATO is obsolete. He has said that he would order our military to carry out torture and the murder of civilians who are related to suspected terrorists, even though those are war crimes. With the terrorists, you have to take out their families. When you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families. And don't tell me it doesn't work. Torture works, folks. Torture doesn't work. Believe me, it works. What would you do as commander in chief if the U.S. military refused to carry out those orders? They won't refuse. They're not going to refuse me. The Clinton campaign today, simultaneously with this speech, they released essentially an annotated guide to the speech with direct quotes from Donald Trump, proving that she wasn't making it up. She wasn't embellishing. She wasn't rounding up to the nearest thing that would make an impact. She was hoisting him on his own words. And having done that, she just let loose in a way we haven't seen her do before. The person the Republicans have nominated for president cannot do the job. Donald Trump's ideas aren't just different. They are dangerously incoherent. They're not even really ideas, just a series of bizarre rants, personal feuds, and outright lies. He is not just unprepared. He is temperamentally unfit to hold an office that requires knowledge, stability, and immense responsibility. He praises dictators like Vladimir Putin and picks fights with our friends, including the British Prime Minister, the Mayor of London, the German Chancellor, the President of Mexico, and the Pope. He says he has foreign policy experience because he ran the Miss Universe pageant in Russia. I have to say, I don't understand Donald's bizarre fascination with dictators and strongmen who have no love for America. He praised China for the Tiananmen Square massacre. He said it showed strength. He said if he were grading Vladimir Putin as a leader, he'd give him an A. Now, I will leave it to the psychiatrist to explain his affection for tyrants. I just wonder how anyone could be so wrong about who America's real friends are. Because it matters. If you don't know exactly who you're dealing with, men like Putin will eat your lunch. It really matters that Donald Trump says things that go against our deepest held values. It matters when he says he'll order our military to murder the families of suspected terrorists. During the raid to kill bin Laden, when every second counted, our SEALs took the time to move the women and children in the compound to safety. Donald Trump may not get it, but that's what honor looks like. I remember being in the Situation Room with President Obama, debating the potential bin Laden operation. The President's advisors were divided. The intelligence was compelling, but far from definitive. And the risks of failure were daunting. The stakes were significant for our battle against al Qaeda and our relationship with Pakistan. Most of all, the lives of those brave SEALs and helicopter pilots hung in the It was as crisp and courageous a display of leadership as I've ever seen. Now imagine Donald Trump sitting in the Situation Room, making life or death decisions on behalf of the United States. Imagine him deciding whether to send your spouses or children into battle. Imagine if he had not just his Twitter account at his disposal when he's angry, but America's entire arsenal. Do we want him making those calls? Someone thin-skinned and quick to anger, who lashes out at the smallest criticism. Do we want his finger anywhere near the button? There's no risk of people losing their lives if you blow up a golf course deal. But it doesn't work like that in world affairs. Just like being interviewed on the same episode of 60 Minutes as Putin was, is not the same thing as actually dealing with Putin. So the stakes in global statecraft are infinitely higher and more complex than in the world of luxury hotels. We all know the tools Donald Trump brings to the table. Bragging, mocking, composing nasty tweets. I'm willing to bet he's writing a few right now. Hillary Clinton today in San Diego giving what I think is the best speech yet of her campaign. And of course, to that last point, Donald Trump was actually tweeting at her at that very instance in her speech. Look what he tweeted. Bad performance. Bad performance. If it is a performance that we're watching, then truly, I mean, all bets are off in terms of what happens, right? If it's no longer politics and it's performing arts, I don't know how to predict who wins that. But if it is a presidential race, then Hillary Clinton really did just step up her campaign significantly. And she did it by tacking him to the wall with his own unadorned statements. It's really hard to do that in politics, but she did it today over and over and over again. And that kind of an assault from a candidate is hard to rebut and hard to beat. We will see if Trump even tries.