Guests: Chris Hayes, Howard Fineman, Robert Reich, Dave Weigel, Melissa Harris-Perry
LAWRENCE O‘DONNELL, HOST: President Obama and Congressman Paul Ryan both spoke at town halls and they both talked about the debt. Things couldn‘t possibly have gone well for both of them?
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(MUSIC)
MARK ZUCKERBERG, FACEBOOK FOUNDER: The president of the United States, Barack Obama.
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: My name is Barack Obama.
O‘DONNELL (voice-over): The president delivers his status update live on the social network.
CHRIS MATTHEWS, “HARDBALL” HOST: The town hall meeting at the headquarters of Facebook.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Opportunities for the president to talk about his deficit plan.
OBAMA: Right now, we face a critical time. We‘ve got to reduce the debt. Nothing is easier than solving a problem on the backs of people who are poor or people who are powerless or don‘t have lobbyists or don‘t have clout.
ANDREA MITCHELL, NBC NEWS: This is also the billion dollar campaign trip.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How do you raise $1 billion?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A million dollars isn‘t cool. You know what‘s cool? A billion dollars.
O‘DONNELL: Republicans who think they have a mandate to cut taxes for the rich and abolish Medicare might want to think again.
SARAH PALIN ®, FORMER ALASKA GOVERNOR: There was a mandate in the 2010 election.
REP. PAUL RYAN ®, WISCONSIN: Please, stop heckling. We can‘t do that if we keep taxing our businesses.
(BOOS)
O‘DONNELL: Voters aren‘t happy with Republican budget cutting. And Republicans aren‘t happy with their presidential candidates.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It all swirls back to guns, abortion, taxes.
PALIN: I think that it is still too early to declare a candidacy.
REP. MICHELE BACHMANN ®, MINNESOTA: Not the main issue facing the United States right now.
CONAN O‘BRIEN, COMEDIAN: Donald Trump who probably running for president. Maybe, I hope.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Defended his business record.
DONALD TRUMP, CEO, TRUMP ORGANIZATION: I don‘t view myself as having failures.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is rich. I think in is rich—Palin defending Trump.
PALIN: Donald Trump is the one being really treated unfairly.
O‘DONNELL: And then, Sarah Palin, of all people said this—
PALIN: Starting to flirt with this idea, he needs to be asked these tough questions.
KATIE COURIC, CBS NEWS ANCHOR: What newspapers and magazines did you regularly read?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you agree with the Bush doctrine?
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O‘DONNELL: Good evening from Los Angeles.
Today, President Obama went to Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto, California, where he held a live streamed town hall. The president took questions for more than an hour from people in the room and online. Most of the questions were related to the current debate over how to reduce the deficit.
The president led off by telling Facebook Mark Zuckerberg that he wants to raise his taxes.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: What we‘ve said is, let‘s take another trillion of that, that we raise through reforms in the tax system that allows people like me and, frankly, you, Mark, for paying a little more in taxes.
ZUCKERBERG: I‘m cool with that.
OBAMA: I know you‘re OK with that.
(LAUGHTER)
OBAMA: Keep in mind, what we‘re talking about is going back to the
rates that existed when Bill Clinton was president. Now, a lot of you were
--
(LAUGHTER)
OBAMA: I‘m trying to say this delicately, still in diapers at that time. But, for those of you who recall, the economy was booming and wealthy people were getting wealthier. There wasn‘t a problem at that time. If we go back to those rates alone, that by itself would do a lot.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: The president was asked if he thought the House Republican bill authored by Budget Chairman Paul Ryan was, quote, “bold.”
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: The Republican budget that was put forward, I would say, is fairly radical. I wouldn‘t call it particularly courageous. I do think Mr. Ryan is sincere. I think he‘s a patriot. I think he wants to solve a real problem, which is our long term deficit. But I think that what he and the other Republicans in the House of Representatives also want to do is change our social compact in a pretty fundamental way. Nothing is easier than solving a problem on the backs of people who are poor or people who are powerless or don‘t have lobbyists or don‘t have clout.
(APPLAUSE)
OBAMA: I don‘t think that‘s particularly courageous.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: And the president gave his most personal account yet of how government programs have affected his life.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: You know, I wasn‘t born wealthy. You know, I was raised by a single mom and my grandparents. I went to college on scholarships.
There was a time when my mom was trying to get her PhD where for a short time she had to take food stamps. My grandparents relied on Medicare and Social Security to help supplement their income when they got old. So, their notion is, despite the fact that I‘ve benefited from all these investments, my grandfather benefited from the G.I. bill after he fought in World War II, that somehow I now have no obligation to people who are less fortunate than me, and I have no real obligation to future generations to make investments so that they have a better future.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: But the town hall in California is not the only one that is making news today. A town hall hosted by Congressman Ryan in Milton, Wisconsin, yesterday got heated when the subject of tax cuts for the wealthy came up.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The top 1 percent took home about 10 percent of the total annual income. Yet today, we are fighting to not let the tax breaks of the wealthy expire and we‘re fighting to not raise the Social Security cap to $87,000. I think we‘re wrong. I think we‘re wrong.
(APPLAUSE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have to lower spending, but if it‘s a matter of there‘s nothing wrong with taxing the top because it does not trickle down.
RYAN: We do tax the top.
(BOOING)
RYAN: Let‘s remember—let‘s remember most of our jobs come from successful small businesses, two thirds of our job growth. You‘ve got to remember that these businesses pay taxes as individuals. So, when you raise their tax rate to (INAUDIBLE) which is what the president is proposing, I would just fundamentally disagree. That‘s going to hurt job creation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: Joining me now is Chris Hayes, Washington editor of “The Nation” and MSNBC political analyst.
Thanks for joining me tonight, Chris.
CHRIS HAYES, THE NATION: Great to be here, Lawrence.
O‘DONNELL: Chris, I have to believe that if the White House could show only one town meeting today, it would be Paul Ryan‘s town meeting with that reaction on the top tax cuts. That‘s better than anything the president can do on his own, isn‘t it?
HAYES: It is. And, you know, I thought—when I first saw the clip, I was like, good for those like progressives or whoever those folks who were in Paul Ryan‘s district who came out to the town hall. That was the lesson of those town halls, right, back in 2009-2010. It was like, if you show up, and you make noise, you can really—you can really sort of confront your congressman in a way that‘s going to be advantageous to your political position.
So, I was like, way to go, way to show up at the town hall. But, no, absolutely.
And I think it illustrates something broader than what was said in the room. The staples of the Ryan plan are fundamentally not just on the margin unpopular—they are wildly unpopular. Eighty percent-plus do not want to see Medicare abolished, and there‘s a strong majority among Republicans of whom that‘s true.
The most popular method of reducing the deficit when you put it to American people, are defense cuts and raising taxes on the wealthiest.
So, the agenda of cutting taxes for the wealthiest and getting rid of Medicare is about as unpopular a political program as you could come up with in terms of domestic policy.
O‘DONNELL: It sounded to me, at the Facebook town hall today, that the president began to find his voice in how he defends government spending and government programs. And he uses history to do it, talking about the G.I. bill, talking about his grandfather‘s use of that, talking about his own experience growing up, even his mother on food stamps, at a certain point—personalizing it. You could hear the quiet in that room as he was giving his personal account of how this has affected him, showing how real these things are.
Is that what we‘re going to have to hear more of from the president?
HAYES: I love the section that you just—that you just talked about, and that you played earlier because so much of the appeal of the Barack Obama story at a certain level is this very mythologized story of up by your boot straps, raise your auger, sort of American meritocratic achievement. He is the crowning achievement of the sort of post-‘60s meritocratic social order.
And that story is often told about sort of equal opportunity and individual virtue, and individual devotedness (ph), and not the way that it‘s embedded in the society and the social safety net and our political system that converts stability and also has sort of a redistributive aspect that makes all that success possible. I thought it was a powerful way of sort of distilling that fundamental point and contrasting it with the kind of no obligations—I really liked when he said, what they want to do is fundamentally reorder the American or fundamentally change the American social compact. I think that‘s a true statement about the Republican vision. And I think it‘s also a really politically effective message.
O;‘DONNELL: Chris, it seems the president is better on this subject the longer the plane ride, because he had to fly all the way to California. I think it feels to him like he‘s back on the campaign trail, and this actually counts. This is really where it‘s on the line.
HAYES: Yes. I also thought, you know, it‘s interesting—I also thought the level of conversation was extremely elevated. I mean, the questions in the town hall were, I thought, really smart. There was a woman who stood up from Detroit, who‘s a Facebook employee, basically said, how did our conversation shift from job creation to all we talk about is deficits? I thought the question of health care cost containment, which led to a very, very fluent recitation by the president of health care delivery system reform. All of that was operating at a very high level, and in some ways, that‘s where Barack Obama‘s at his best—speaking like an adult to other informed adults.
O‘DONNELL: There is something to be said for a smart audience. Chris Hayes, thanks for your time tonight.
HAYES: Thanks a lot, Lawrence.
O‘DONNELL: Facebook headquarters was just the first stop on President Obama‘s trip to northern California. He will attend a private fundraiser and speak at a DNC event later tonight in San Francisco.
Today, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who will be the only representative for the House Republicans at the administration‘s deficit reduction meeting in May, put out this statement. “Going in, we need a clearly defined mission and a targeted purpose to be accomplished within a specific and binding time frame. The latest iteration of the president‘s fiscal commission must be a serious and sincere effort to manage down our debt and foster long term economic growth, and not serve as yet another arena for political theater.”
Also today, a new round of “Washington Post” and ABC News polls showed people are not satisfied with how either side is handling the deficit. Thirty-nine percent approve and 58 percent disapprove of the president‘s handling of the deficit; while 33 percent approve, and 64 percent disapprove of the congressional Republicans handling of the deficit.
But the Republicans got higher marks on the question of who is showing stronger leadership in Washington. Forty-five percent said Republicans in Congress are showing stronger leadership while 40 percent said President Obama is showing stronger leadership.
Joining me now is Howard Fineman, senior political editor of “The Huffington Post” and an MSNBC political analyst.
Thanks for joining us tonight, Howard.
HOWARD FINEMAN, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Hi, Lawrence.
O‘DONNELL: Howard, I have to join those who say the Republicans are showing stronger leadership, if leadership is defined as taking people where they don‘t want to go.
(LAUGHTER)
FINEMAN: Yes, I think this was really remarkable what we‘re watching here today because, yes, the president was on his game, speaking to a well-educated audience on the coast, in the heart of the new digital realm of America. But in the theater of Washington, the Republicans went on theater points, but they lose on the numbers in terms of where things are headed.
I mean, it‘s fascinating to watch. The president really in the end—and I think I was wrong about this when I was watching the last hours of the budget negotiations. I think I even said Speaker Boehner took the president to the cleaners on the budget negotiations in the last year‘s budget.
But the fact is, if you look at the numbers, the Democrats and the president actually gave up less in actual spending than we thought at the time. So, chalk that up as a victory for the president. And the Republicans didn‘t shut down the government. They blinked. They didn‘t shut down the government.
So—and yet the sort of theater of it seemed to make it look like a Republican victory at the time. The president has an amazing ability. He was kind of elected because he was thoughtful, not because he was forceful. And he loses on the drama, but he wins on the numbers.
And I think, in the end, he also wins in context. What makes him a leader is winning in context—is the context. Cutting the deals, understanding the complexities, being fluid as Chris Hayes said. So, you know, the Republicans can walk around with a big stick, but it‘s the president who walks softly and gets over the finish line first.
O‘DONNELL: Howard, I would also point out it takes a very strong leader to get Mark Zuckerberg to wear a necktie, which he did today.
(LAUGHTER)
FINEMAN: Yes.
O‘DONNELL: On these polling numbers, about these specific Republican proposals in terms of Medicare and the top tax bracket—the country is overwhelmingly opposed to the Republican position, but a not yet overwhelmingly opposed to the Republicans. At some point, are we going to see those lines start to cross, where the lines that we‘re seeing on the issue polling start to infect the lines we‘re seeing on Republican candidates poll something?
FINEMAN: Well, I think that‘s—I think that‘s quite possible. You know, it will be really interesting to see how far the Republicans are willing to follow the Paul Ryan lead. I mean, you know, there were lots of votes for the Republican budget plan in the House. But there are going to be other votes down the road, perhaps. Let‘s see where those go.
I think it‘s interesting also to watch the president here, Lawrence, because on one part of this “Washington Post” poll, you look at these numbers—as you say, so strongly in support of the president‘s position, and so opposes to the Republican position, why would he ever compromise at all? On the other hand, other parts of the poll show that the American people really do want compromise.
So, they‘re sort of saying, yes, we‘re with you, Mr. President, we agree, we want you to be careful, we don‘t want you to give up too much, but we would also like to see a deal. So, it‘s not just the Republicans who are cross-pressured here, I think the president is, too.
In the end, I think he‘ll cut another deal. The left wing of his party may complain again. You know, then we‘ll find out he actually gave up a little less than we thought he did. And, you know, if the economy cooperates and things are slowly and steadily on the rise, he‘s going to be very hard to beat after a series of dramatic moments where he seems like he‘s lost.
That‘s the way this guy has been all the way along. He surfs the waves and that‘s what he‘s trying to do this time.
O‘DONNELL: MSNBC political analyst, Howard Fineman—thanks for joining me tonight, Howard.
FINEMAN: Thank you, Lawrence.
O‘DONNELL: Coming up: big surprise—the plan to destroy Medicare isn‘t winning over voters and it will be the fight of the 2012 campaign. Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich joins me.
And even Michele Bachmann knows Donald Trump is crazy. The queen of the Tea Party says, very clearly, the president was, in fact, born in the United States.
And Michael Isikoff will take a closer look at Trump and his money.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O‘DONNELL: Paul Ryan and the Republicans who want to end Medicare may have a few obstacles in their way, including 84 percent of the American people. And I know many of you wish I would never say another word about Donald Trump on this program. I understand that feeling. I wish the Trump nonsense was over.
But in “The Rewrite,” I‘ll tell you why I believe Donald Trump‘s lies cannot go unanswered.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: What they‘ve said is, let‘s make Medicare into a voucher program so that retirees, instead of knowing that they‘re always going to have health care, they‘re growing to get a voucher that covers part of the cost, and whatever health care inflation comes up is all going to be on them. And if the health insurance companies don‘t sell you a policy that covers your illnesses, you‘re out of luck.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: That was President Obama at Facebook headquarters today in California, reciting what will be a Democratic talking point heading into the 2012 election.
A similar attack against the House-passed Republican budget plan came today in a form of a web ad courtesy of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. It imagines the measures seniors might take to pay for health insurance if the Republican proposal somehow became law and replaced Medicare with a voucher program.
DCCC Chairman Steve Israel told “The Washington Post,” “When we win the majority, people will look back at the House budget vote as the defining one that secured the majority for the Democrats.”
A “Washington Post”/ABC poll released today supports Chairman Israel‘s prediction. Seventy-eight percent of Americans oppose cutting spending on Medicare in order to reduce the national debt; 65 percent say the Medicare program should remain the same; while 34 percent—only 34 percent—favor Congressman Ryan‘s version.
When asked which plan they favor if the cost of private health insurance rises faster than the value of the Ryan proposed insurance voucher, a scenario the Congressional Budget Office assures us will occur, 84 percent of respondents said, do not touch the current Medicare program.
Joining me now, secretary of labor in the Clinton administration and professor at the University of California, Berkeley, Robert Reich. He is also the author of “Aftershock: The Next Economy and America‘s Future.”
Thanks for joining us tonight, Professor Reich.
ROBERT REICH, FORMER LABOR SECRETARY: Good evening, Lawrence.
O‘DONNELL: Did you ever think we would come to this point in the
debate over Medicare? Which has been going on for decades, of how we
finance Medicare going forward. There‘s always been financing issues in
front of us, that the Republicans would take a position opposed by this
overwhelming majority of the American public and take that position into a
re-election campaign in Congress.
REICH: I never thought they‘d be so politically stupid. And I also, Lawrence, never thought that they would use the proceeds of their so-called Medicare savings to award the very, very rich.
I mean, on two grounds, you‘ve got most Americans thinking this is insane. They don‘t want to get rid of Medicare. Most Americans say that‘s crazy. And they don‘t want to give new tax breaks to the wealthy.
O‘DONNELL: Yes, they are reaching a kind of fiscal sanity on this that becomes very obvious. And—but there does seem to be some sort of gap in the polls. You see that the Democrats position and the Obama position on these issues, the top tax bracket and Medicare, polls very, very strongly in favor of the president and the Democrats position. But the president himself does not poll strongly.
How do you join those issue polls to the candidate polls in the case of the candidate for re-election for president?
REICH: Well, the platform is very clear. I mean, the president is going to campaign on the Republican‘s Medicare cost cuts, particularly for average working people, making them much more vulnerable. And at the same time, the big Republican tax breaks for the rich.
Now, how do you get them together with the president‘s popularity? As long as and as soon as gas prices begin coming down, the president will become more popular. If you have, on top of that, unemployment rates also coming down, and the economy beginning to move forward, then I think the president is in fine shape.
If you don‘t have these, there‘s going to be a little bit of tension between what the public wants in terms of a platform and also what the president—his popularity.
O‘DONNELL: Now, as the campaign progresses—is there any possibility of the Democrats getting together with the Republicans in the House and legislating something, some sort of temporary budget that gets us past the election? Or do you expect the Republicans to stay and hang tough on this issue of—no, no, no, we have to solve all the budget issues as we see them going-forward into the future, before this election. And, in fact, as they‘re saying is now, before we even raise the debt ceiling?
REICH: Well, I think the Republicans are probably looking for a face-saving way of getting out of the Paul Ryan attack on Medicare, and they probably will come up with some way or some vehicle for reassuring their right wing, the Tea Partiers, that they are still on track to eliminate Medicare or get the budget deficit under control, but will not really be seen as taking a direct shot at Medicare. This is going to play out, Lawrence, over the next couple months, in the big fight over raising the debt ceiling.
O‘DONNELL: You know, Ryan is the smartest guy they‘ve got in handling himself in a town hall like we‘ve seen get hit with yesterday. Once the rest of them get out there and they start getting asked those questions, I just don‘t see how they can cling to that position. I don‘t see how they can do it.
REICH: I don‘t see either. Again, I think the president has been extremely clever in forcing the Republicans into this kind of corner, where they‘re getting rid of Medicare, and they are rewarding the big tax breaks for the rich. I think the president also needs to come forward with a jobs and economic plan, because as concerned as the public is about the deficit, Lawrence, the big concern going into 2012 -- I‘m sure it‘s going to be the biggest concern next year—is the economy and jobs, not the deficit. Deficit comes in number three.
O‘DONNELL: Spoken like a former labor secretary—Robert Reich, thank you very much for joining me tonight.
FOR SUBSCRIBERSA harrowing ordeal aboard an Israel-bound plane
FOR SUBSCRIBERSThe debate over AI’s future rages on both coasts
REICH: Thanks, Lawrence.
O‘DONNELL: First, Jan Brewer rejected the birther bill, now, Michele Bachmann thinks Barack Obama‘s birth certificate is legitimate. That leaves the lonely job of fanning the flames of hatred to Donald Trump.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FOR SUBSCRIBERSA harrowing ordeal aboard an Israel-bound plane
FOR SUBSCRIBERSThe debate over AI’s future rages on both coasts
CHARLIE SHEEN, ACTOR: Is there anybody in here that would actually vote for me? For starters, I was (EXPLETIVE DELETED) born here. How about that?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: Now that they‘ve seen what real crazy looks like in the face of NBC‘s Charlie Sheen, formerly crazy Republicans have been scared straight on the Birther issue. No one who wants a future in politics wants to sound as crazy as Donald Trump, who obviously has no future in politics.
Louisiana‘s Republican Governor Bobby Jindal has said he would sign a bill requiring presidential candidates to present a birth certificate to prove their citizenship in order to qualify for the Louisiana ballot. But when pressed by Matt Lauer this morning, Jindal got as far away from Trump as he possibly could.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MATT LAUER, “THE TODAY SHOW”: Will you say right now to our viewers that you have absolutely no doubts that President Obama was born in the United States?
GOV. BOBBY JINDAL ®, LOUISIANA: Absolutely, Matt. I absolutely believe he‘s a citizen.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: And after humiliating Donald Trump yesterday on the president‘s birth certificate and everything else discussed, George Stephanopolous put the birth certificate question to Michele Bachmann this morning.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE STEPHANOPOLOUS, ABC NEWS ANCHOR: Well, I have the president‘s certificate right here. It‘s certified. It has a certification number. It‘s got the registrar of the state, signed. It‘s got a seal on it.
And it says, “this copy serves as prima facie evidence of the fact of birth in any court proceeding.”
REP. MICHELE BACHMANN ®, MINNESOTA: Well then that should settle it.
STEPHANOPOLOUS: It‘s over?
BACHMANN: That‘s what should settle it. I take the president at his word. And again, I would have no problem, and apparently the president wouldn‘t either. Introduce that, we‘re done. Move on, end of story.
STEPHANOPOLOUS: This has been introduced. This case is—this story is over?
BACHMANN: Well, as long as someone introduces it, I guess it‘s over.
STEPHANOPOLOUS: It‘s right there.
BACHMANN: There you go. That is not the main issue facing the United States right now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: Joining me now is Dave Weigel, political reporter for Slate.com and an MSNBC analyst. Thanks for joining me tonight, Dave.
DAVE WEIGEL, SLATE.COM: Thanks for having me.
O‘DONNELL: So Dave, there you have it, it‘s over. If Michele Bachmann says it‘s over, it‘s over, isn‘t it?
WEIGEL: Well, she said it was over. And then about an hour later, she went on “Fox & Friends” and was asked a similar question—similar series of questions and didn‘t quite say this. She said something slightly different, which was that, according to a poll, only 26 Republicans believe that Barack Obama‘s birth certificate was beyond questioning.
She was referring to a poll in Iowa. And that because of this, the president had a credibility problem, which is not how I interpreted it. Only 26 percent of Republicans believe something is true, that‘s more a problem of information than it is a problem of what Obama has been saying.
That‘s like blaming Diophantus (ph) because people don‘t understand algebra. I think she misidentified it. And she‘s going to keep getting asked this question, because Donald Trump keeps bringing it up.
O‘DONNELL: But it is striking to see her with Matt Lauer, and see how carefully she plays it out there in what they call the mainstream media. She seems to understand what the acceptable answer is to a wider audience.
WEIGEL: No, I think she does. I‘ve always seen her talk to various levels of the media, handle herself well, acquit herself well. And also, on this issue, she has not fallen into the same bear traps as some other Republican candidates.
Again, if you weren‘t watching conservative TV or listening to conservative radio, you heard her shut the door on this. If you listen to those—and I‘m sure if you listen to other Republican candidates get that question—let‘s me fair, some candidates like Mitt Romney, every time they‘re asked, say no. But the others find a way to answer this that does not offend that 74 percent of Republicans in Iowa, more than 50 percent in other places, who think this is an open question.
O‘DONNELL: It‘s something along the lines of that John Boehner answer we‘ve heard in the past about, well, I accept it; and then there‘s some little thing about I don‘t know how I can convince other people to accept it. That‘s the kind of thing that they—is that the kind of crack they like to leave open?
WEIGEL: Yes, which is odd, because Republicans very recently didn‘t have a problem saying no, saying definitely no, this is not accurate, 100 percent. We believe in this, 100 percent we don‘t believe in this.
With this, it really is odd to hear people fail to—fail to close the door on this. I‘ve been paying attention to this—issue is almost the wrong word. Paying attention to this side show for longer than anyone should have to pay attention to it.
It was in June 2008 that this birth certificate went online—sorry, the certificate of live birth that George Stephanopolous produced. That‘s probably been viewed more at this point than any birth certificate in the history of humanity. And that has not stopped this. That has not stopped people from questioning this.
I mean, it really is an unkillable little story. But again, have somebody out there who captures the media like Donald Trump does—and I think you have done a very good job of pointing out effect he‘s having—the malicious effect he‘s having. That makes this a question that they all are tested on. Not every Republican has a good answer.
O‘DONNELL: Well, it can‘t stay alive by something as soft as delusion. It has to be driven by some very, very strong and very negative feelings. That is what I believe Donald Trump has tapped into. That is what I believe the danger is that Donald Trump represents.
Dave Weigel of Slate.com, thank you very much for joining me tonight.
WEIGEL: Thank you for having me.
O‘DONNELL: Coming up, the toughest opponent in the Republican presidential candidate field is? Their own base. Why the voters don‘t like their options.
Donald Trump cannot stop himself from saying incredibly stupid things. This time, it‘s all about his net worth or lack thereof. That‘s in tonight‘s Rewrite.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CONAN O‘BRIEN, “CONAN”: This morning, Donald Trump said if President Obama releases his birth certificate, he will release his tax returns. In response, the president said oh yeah, well, I promise not to run for a second term if you release that thing on your head.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: Ah, Conan. Time for tonight‘s Rewrite. America‘s vulgarian in chief, Donald Trump, is at home now obsessively watching this show and every other show that mentions him, and probably having trouble deciding which of his recent interviews he regrets the most.
Here‘s the interview he made the mistake of doing for “the Today Show,” where Savannah Guthrie showed him to be utterly lost on the question of a constitutional right to privacy, on which the Supreme Court‘s Roe versus Wade decision is based.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, “THE APPRENTICE”: Why are you—what does that have to do with privacy? How are you equating pro-life with privacy?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: Then there‘s the one where George Stephanopolous stayed on him like a prosecutor.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I know exactly what you‘re getting at.
STEPHANAPOLOUS: The facts—
TRUMP: No, they‘re not the facts. He doesn‘t have a birth certificate or he hasn‘t provided it. He‘s given a certificate of live birth. It‘s a much different—
STEPHANAPOLOUS: Certificate of live birth meets the standard—
TRUMP: Not the same.
STEPHANOAPOLOUS: -- for any one citizen. There were contemporaneous reports in two Hawaiian newspapers.
TRUMP: George, they‘ve co opted you.
STEPHANOAPOLOUS: Those are the facts.
TRUMP: George, they‘ve co-opted you.
STEPHANOAPOLOUS: Who‘s they?
TRUMP: Obviously Obama and his minions.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: Finally, for tonight anyway, there is the interview he did with Michael Isikoff for “NBC Nightly News.” This is the one that hit Trump the hardest where it hurts the most, his business management style and his repeated bankruptcies.
Size matters to Donald Trump more than it does to most men and women. Indeed, nothing matters to Trump more than the size of his bank accounts, wherever they may be. Mike Isikoff pulled back the curtain on Trump‘s questionable enterprises.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAEL ISIKOFF, NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Donald Trump says he‘s a fantastically successful billionaire businessman, and would make a good president.
TRUMP: I‘ve built a great company. I‘ve done a great job. I put a lot of people to work.
ISIKOFF: But a closer look at Trump‘s business records also show high profile bankruptcy filings, multimillion dollar real estate deals that went sour, and a trail of ongoing lawsuits accusing Trump of deceptive business practices.
DAVID CADDEN, QUINNIPIAC UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF BUSINESS: The only thing that‘s brilliant about Donald Trump is his ability to get publicity and to promote himself. In that way, he‘s a contemporary P.T. Barnum.
TRUMP: I don‘t think I exaggerate any more than anybody else. And it‘s interesting. It then becomes successful. And everyone says, what a great salesman he is. He‘s the greatest salesman on Earth. Excuse me, don‘t I have to build it?
ISIKOFF: Trump owns luxury properties all over the world, and makes millions licensing consumer products. He‘s a brand name and a tough boss.
Trump rules on his hit show “the Apprentice” now in its 11th season on
NBC.
TRUMP: And Gary, you‘re fired.
ISIKOFF: But some critics say his own management should have gotten him fired. Trump Hotels and Casinos in Atlantic City filed for bankruptcy protection three times. They‘ve since emerged from bankruptcy, his name still on them.
Trump argues competition and rough market forces were responsible, and others were in control.
(on camera): Wait a second, you were chairman of the board.
TRUMP: Excuse me.
ISIKOFF: You were chairman of the board.
TRUMP: I was chairman, but I didn‘t run the company. I had nothing to do with running the company. Management—
ISIKOFF: You were paid two million dollars a year.
TRUMP: Excuse me, I didn‘t run the company. I‘m telling you—
ISIKOFF: So what were you paid two million dollars a year for?
TRUMP: Excuse me. Because of my genius, OK.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: Excuse me. So I guess genius is what we would be paying him 400,000 dollars a year for as president, not that he would actually run the executive branch of the government. He would just be president. Just like he didn‘t run the company when he was chairman.
Getting Trump to actually work is apparently not easy, if you‘re not aiming a camera at him and telling him exactly when to say you‘re fired. Trump entered a business designed to create more geniuses like himself and called—actually called it Trump University.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ISIKOFF: Then there‘s Trump University, no actual campus or degrees, but students, some of whom are now suing, plunk down up to 35,000 dollars for seminars.
TRUMP: We‘re going to teach you about business. We‘re going to teach you better than the business schools are going to teach you.
TRUMP: A 97 percent approval rating from the people that went there.
ISIKOFF: But last year, New York state regulators demanded Trump stop calling it a university. And he did.
And the Texas Attorney General‘s Office opened an investigation into possible deceptive trade practices, which was dropped after the school stopped doing business in the state.
Why did you call it a university?
TRUMP: Because we didn‘t know there was any rules or regulations about using the word university.
ISIKOFF: You didn‘t check that out?
TRUMP: I think probably they felt that we would have qualified. If we didn‘t qualify, that‘s fine. We changed the name.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: We didn‘t know there was any rules. Of course, this very silly man who cannot put a proper English sentence together thought he could start a business called a university because he didn‘t know there was any rules.
If he had been paying attention in elementary school, which he obviously wasn‘t, he would know what was wrong with the sentence “we didn‘t know there was any rules.”
But I‘m not going to tell him here, because I love watching this man tell us how smart he is while he mangles the English language.
Then Mike Isikoff asked the question that Donald cares more about than anything else. And of course, Donald lied his way through every word of the answer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ISIKOFF: How much are you worth?
TRUMP: A lot of money. And you may very see that number in about 70 days or 80 days.
Forbes said 2.7 billion. And 2.7 is very low. It‘s much lower than the actual number that I may be showing to people and to the rest of the world in a couple months.
If I run, shortly thereafter, I will send a statement of financial, cash, and how much debt, and all that. I think people are going to be very impressed. It‘s actually much bigger than any numbers I‘ve seen.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: Real billionaires, none of whom have the time to hang with Donald Trump, do not work as cast members in NBC prime time entertainment shows, which, of course, is how Donald actually makes his living. His fake campaign will be over by May 16th, when NBC announces Trumps position in next season‘s prime time schedule.
In the meantime, he will continue, knowingly or not, to fan the flames of hatred in this country, hatred of an imagined foreign born president, a hatred that is born by many who simply hate that we have our first African-American president.
There is something very ugly in what Donald Trump is doing. And it is built on a base of racism and paranoia. I‘m not saying Donald Trump is racist or paranoid. He doesn‘t have to be to do the damage he is now doing to this country.
He just has to be vulgar enough to keep barking out the lies that the racist paranoid Obama-haters want to hear. And in doing that for them on major network television talk shows, he legitimizes their feelings, their hatreds, their racism.
The millions out there who seethe with the madness that Donald Trump stokes watch him and say hey, it‘s not just me who thinks this; Donald Trump thinks this. And he‘s a smarter guy than me, and I know he‘s a smarter guy than me, because he says he‘s smarter than me. He‘s made a lot more money than me. And that proves he‘s smarter than me.
Those people who agree with what Trump is saying about the president‘s birth aren‘t going to be bothered by his grammatical mistakes. There are just going to feel validated in every bit of the hatred they feel for Barack Obama.
There are viewers of this program that wish I would never mention the name Donald Trump. They‘ve had enough. So have I. I wish May 16th was coming tomorrow. But as long as Trump continues to try to influence our thinking about American politics and the presidency, I believe his lies must be fought.
Because Trump‘s position in our culture now is sadly no longer simply a television entertainer who lies about nothing more important than how much money he has. When Donald Trump said, quote, “I have a great relationship with the blacks. I‘ve always had a great relationship with the blacks,” end quote, a black friend of mine e-mailed me saying, “one clue that you might not have a great relationship with the blacks is that you call them the blacks.”
No, Trump is not just an entertainer any more. He is now a very dangerous man who must be stopped from doing the damage to this country he may or may not know that he‘s doing. Donald Trump has become America‘s front man for the legitimizing of hatred and racism.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O‘DONNELL: The field of 2012 Republican presidential hopefuls may find their toughest opponent to be their own base. A new “Washington Post”/ABC News poll shows only 43 percent of Republican and Republican-leaning independents are satisfied with the names being talked about. Nearly the same number, 40 percent, are dissatisfied with the current batch.
Compare those numbers to exactly four years ago, when 65 percent were satisfied is with their Republican choices, and only 31 percent were dissatisfied.
Joining me now, MSNBC contributor Melissa Harris-Perry, an associate professor of politics at Princeton. Thanks for joining us tonight, Melissa.
MELISSA HARRIS-PERRY, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY: Of course.
O‘DONNELL: What do you make of this Republican funk? Four years ago, they had John McCain running. They liked that. They had Rudy Giuliani running. They liked the sound of that anyway, for a while. They had Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee. And they liked those guys. What‘s happened this time?
HARRIS-PERRY: I think we have to be a little careful. On the one hand, it‘s MSNBC, so we‘re leaning forward. But we do need to learn a little bit of something from the past. And remember that in ‘07, we were looking at an almost unprecedented situation, an open seat race for the U.S. presidency, where the vice president wasn‘t even seeking the nomination.
So that meant that your very best challengers on both sides, both the Democratic and Republican party, were showing up. Now, despite how weak this incumbent looks at the moment, given the poll numbers, he‘s still an incumbent president. And traditional strong candidates are going to sit this one out. They‘re just not going to jump into the morass of running against a sitting president.
They‘re going to hold on four more years. That means it‘s the weak challengers and the kind of quixotic challengers who are going to show up in this election.
O‘DONNELL: I think this polling helps explain the Trump phenomenon. Given that there‘s dissatisfaction with the general field, a famous guy comes in from out of nowhere, starts saying some things a lot of them like to hear, and he rockets up in their poll.
HARRIS-PERRY: Sure. We have, from the brilliant political scientist Gary Jacobson (ph), the common knowledge that you can‘t beat somebody with nobody. So the idea right now, if you look at the polls, is it looks like there‘s an awful lot of nobodies planning to run against President Obama.
The question, though, is whether or not one of these quixotic challengers actually steps forward. Donald Trump I suspect not. But Ronald Reagan challenged an incumbent and so did Bill Clinton. And both of them, at this point, we would have thought of as highly unlikely to win the presidency.
O‘DONNELL: Yeah. I also think that the overall dissatisfaction levels that Republicans have with this field open it up to anyone, to the long shots in there, which is why my dollar bet is on Tim Pawlenty to go from single digits and just keep climbing, because there isn‘t a lot of resistance to him. There isn‘t a big, strong favorite that would be smothering someone like him, who could emerge from the pack.
HARRIS-PERRY: Excuse me, I‘m a genius here. And I think it‘s clearly going to be a Trump/Bachmann ticket.
O‘DONNELL: I don‘t think we‘re going to get there.
HARRIS-PERRY: I don‘t think so. We just couldn‘t be that lucky.
O‘DONNELL: No, the—but as this field takes shape, when do they have to try to start to make their moves to separate from the pack? How long can they just be content to being overshadowed by Trump and ignored by the media?
HARRIS-PERRY: Look, I think this is really going to be a summertime event. At this point, the fact is people are still focused on actual policy making, the debt ceiling in question, the economy. But over the course of the summer, the media cycle tends to slow down. This will be when they‘ll make their move.
O‘DONNELL: Melissa Harris-Perry, thank you very much for joining me tonight.
HARRIS-PERRY: Absolutely.
O‘DONNELL: You can have THE LAST WORD online at our blog, TheLastWord.MSNBC.com. You can follow my Tweets @Lawrence. “THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW” is up next. Good evening, Rachel.
END
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