tv Viewpoint With Eliot Spitzer Current July 26, 2012 8:00pm-9:00pm PDT
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internally and expect better of your kids. i love that president obama gave this speech. i with him. "viewpoint" with eliot spitzer is next. stay right here. [♪ theme music ♪] good evening i'm eliot spitzer, and this is "viewpoint." mitt romney may have hoped to show off his foreign policy expertise at as he started a week-long trip to britain, poland and israel. to put it gently, it's a good thing romney does want to secretary of state. an unnamed romney advisor got off to a rough start when he said, and i quote: obama campaign adviser david
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axelrod appreciated that comment enough to tweet mitt's trip off to a great start even before he lands. romney tried to take the comment back a bit, he told nbc -- >> i don't agree with whoever the advisor right be but do agree we have a common bond between ourselves and great britain. there were a few stories that were disturbing. supposed strike was caught up a but mitt romney wasn't done. he went on to question whether the british would really support the games. >> do they come together and celebrate the olympic moment? and that's something we only find out once the games begin. >> today they come together
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against mitt. they wrote, quote: to british prime minister david cameron who seemed to take a dig at romney's 2012 salt lake city olympics when we told reporters -- >> we are holding olympic games in one of the busiest cities anywhere in the world, and of course it's easier if you hold the olympic games in the middle of nowhere. >> they did meet today and a contrite romney told the press -- >> i'm very delighted the prospects of a highly successful olympic games. what i see shows imagination forethought and a lot of organization. >> but his comments were a little late for london mayor, he
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said -- >> i hear there is a guy called mitt romney who wants to know whether we're ready. we wants to know where we're ready. with we redy? [ cheers ] >> in 24 hours romney turned himself in to a subject of division for 60,000 brits. quite a contrast to president obama's 2008 european tour. but ho raised $2 million in an event, which includes barclays executives from credit swisse deutsche bank, and romney kept up his attacks on president obama again used a sound bite wrenched out of context to make the president seem out of touch with small business. >> if you have a business that's -- you didn't build that
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somebody else made that happen. >> well mr. president built my business. who took the risk? who put in the long hours? >> for more on the tail of the not so innocent romney aboard i'm joined by these two. monty python could not have scripted a worst beginning for mitt romney. i have been saying for months he is the most awkward unpolitician like politician i have ever seen. adam you have flown that part of the world i gater from your accident. >> it's true. >> it couldn't have gone much worse could it. it seemed to aleanate the entire
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country of britain. and he is looking at the backside of 10 downing street which of course isn't what it quite makes over in england. and when he sat with brian williams he is trying to warm mitt romney up saying what about ann, what about the horse. mitt looks terrified by that question. >> joe are we missing something? is there a clever political age to show he is nothing like barack obama? there has got to be some counter lodger to thismissing? >> he is trying to show he is not barack obama mission accomplished. it almost seems that you have to try to alienate a country when
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you have organized once himself. he was probably trying to show has pat he is not just going to go with the flow he is going to drill down and point out deficiencies he thinks should be corrected. but you don't do that on a foreign stage. so certainly if he wanted to show that he is not barack obama. well done, sir. you are going to have 100,000 except maybe when you leave. >> yeah. maybe he forgot england is supposed to be our closest ally we have this close relationship.
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he goes over there and doesn't demonstrate the slightest sensitivity to where he's there. >> it's an exercise in how not to conduct diplomacy. you don't say anything bad about the foreign country you are visiting. and, you know, he really kind of tried to reach out and sort of warm back to britain and take advantage of the fact that he says obama has taken something away from the special relationship he was talking about. he was talking about putting winston churchill back in office. yeah. >> i think this -- joe, does this play into a sense that the media here as of the romney campaign -- that quite as deep there isn't the wealth of expertise the sense of preparedness. the very way that all of these issues have been handled, does
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not suggest that they are ready for what is going to come at them, and they are making what are really rookie mistakes. >> and these should have been ironed out during the republican primary. i was talking to a friend of mine on capitol hill and she said poor advance work. certainly the fact he has gotten off to such a rough start and has had to climb his way back from a negative first impression is not going to hold him very well. for very much concern among people who perhaps hadn't quite had their mind made up about mitt romney and certainly to england and londoners who
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didn't know him in the first place, it's not a good way to start your trip. >> look i don't know if this is going to be dispositive for swing voters or not, but i'm certainly looking forward to the rest of the trip. this is the easy part he was just waking up to say good morning. imagine when he goes to israel when he is going to have to answer hard questions, jerusalem, tel-aviv here he couldn't even say something nice about the city of london without tripping over himself. >> one quick thing -- there is going to be a debate on foreign policy. he is going to have to stand on stage to stage with president obama and talk about international issues and chances are this is going to come up. chances are the he had kind of a stumbling stuttering start is not going to -- to be unnoticed by the obama administration in their
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preparedness for that debate. >> let's turn to the fund-raising again. adam is it bizarre -- do british folks look at us and say what is mitt romney doing sweeping up money here in london for his campaign back home? is there some kind of tension emotionally or visually in doing this? >> i think it myth's argument that he is not ashamed of his business record is something that would not wash in the uk. in england that really is quite a big issue. david cameron is quite a wealthy man and that's a massive problem for him. and when people say in the wake of the libor scandal raising money from dubious sources. i think that will weigh and this is the first glimpse people in england and elsewhere will get of mitt romney. and they will put him in the
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pocket with george w. bush. >> right. >> and, you know, that's not where you want to be. >> certainly not. and there has been recent focus surrounding mitt romney and joe, i think it is fair to say that this is a repeat. round three of the bush presidency. and the foreign policy is stock full of neo-cons who will take us back and fight wars here and there. where is the sense of new vision? >> there doesn't necessarily have to be. romney is running a campaign that is very much stealth, talking about issues in a vague kind of way. as governor of massachusetts he doesn't necessarily have a whole lot of experience, so he brings old hands from the bush administration which had a wonderful foreign policy -- being sarcastic there.
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>> oh yeah. >> you are talk about john bolton who famously talking about lopping off the top floors of the united nations, and kofer black who is one of the top haunches of the cia before september 11th. and he was also vp of black water. if that's your all-star team then you have serious problems trying to win over the rest of the international community with leftovers from a foreign policy we're still trying to recover from. >> i see a hard time seeing how mitt romney is going to stan up well against president obama who has -- in an area where the democratic party has been playing defense and catch up has a remarkable resume adam i want to come back to the late itself rendition of the you don't build that ad.
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this is sort of becoming a theme of the romney campaign. words out of context, but framing the notion that president obama doesn't appreciate what it takes to build a business. will it work your sense? >> i think it will come back to bite him actually. i mean it's so taken out of context as you say, and i think obama's remarks on this issue, they are almost being publicized as much as the romney video now. i think he is being called out now. and it will move away from snatching these bits of quotes here and there, but i don't think this has been a good week at all. >> so reality comes back, and if the polls are credible this heat is a dead-even race right now. and bad economic news coming up who knows where so we may be the ones looking backward saying how did that
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happen? okay. many >>it's the place where democracy is supposed to be the great equalizer, where your vote is worth just as much as donald trump's. we must save the country. it starts with you. i look at her, and i just want to give her everything. yeah you -- you know, everything can cost upwards of...[ whistles ] i did not want to think about that. relax, relax, relax. look at me, look at me. three words, dad -- e-trade financial consultants. so i can just go talk to 'em? just walk right in and talk to 'em. dude those guys are pros. they'll hook you up with a solid plan. they'll -- wa-- wa-- wait a minute.
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septic disasters are disgusting and costly, but avoidable. the rid-x septic subscriber program helps prevent backups by sending you monthly doses right to your door so you will never forget to maintain your system. sign up at rid-x.com. in the days following the shooting in aurora, colorado, we have heard many stories of support for the community and of love for the victims, but we
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have also seen fear and recklessness across the country which brings us to the number of the day 2,887, that's how many people were proved to buy guns in the state of colorado alone. that's 43% more than the same time last year and it's understandable, the new story left us all feeling vulnerable in public places. and this goes beyond colorado. the state of florida has almost a million weapons permits. but consider the chaos if the owe people in that theater had been armed and started firing in the smoke and the dark and yet this seems like the only answer to some. if we could just stop cowering in front of the nra, we would ban semi automatic assault weapons and this would have slowed down the shootererererererererererererererererererererererer
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the real world and politics collide on "the gavin newsom show." this week: where will ken burns turn his lens next? find out on "the gavin newsom show." our conversation is with you the viewer because we're independent. >>here's how you can connect with "viewpoint with eliot spitzer." >>questions, of course, need to be answered. >>we will not settle for the easy answers. latino voters might swing this election but neither presidential candidate has sealed the deal with this constituency just yet. the president's decision on immigrants has energized this core group, and latinos
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overwhelmingly favor the president 67 to 23%. but that support won't matter much if latinos fail to show up on election day. seeking latino support must be on the job for jeb bush also. yesterday i had a chance to catch up with kongman luis gutierrez about how crucial courting the latino vote could be. this november's election is going to be determined by the immigrant vote. the president by saying we're not going to deport kids in act of humanity and good policy has struck a chord substantively and politically. does that seal the deal? >> they were waiting. they always wanted to vote for the president. it was never a question of whether the president was going to get 70% of the latino vote. how women were going to vote.
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was it going to be 7% of 5 million. barack obama even though he got it handed to him right in every primary where latinos hilary clinton beat him, he was still embraced with 70% of the vote. >> this time what do you predict? >> look there is a lot of enthusiasm, and we're going to have to work on that as democrats through election day. but let me say, here is what happened the president made this decision, so two thirds of americans regardless of your race, whatever say that's a good idea to let kids studies hard for an exam leave them alone and go after the gang bangers. let's not prosecute them and jail them when we have other priorities given the limited
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number of resources we have. so the president says hey, i'm just going to administratively say to about a million, and i have -- look we haven't yet seen the real impact of this. wait until the 15th of august when thousands upon thousands upon thousands in cities across this country sign up in auditoriums and gyms and schoolhouses -- >> right. you name them. that will be the day that crystallizes the support that makes it real what he has done. >> and you might say a program that they would be out there interviewing them and when people reaffirm who these kids are, and when you see kids that are like your and mine you go why were we going after them in the first place? >> how do we make it permanent? is there a way any time soon given the way this issue is so
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divisive, to get the dream act through? >> my senator from illinois is working very very very hard in trying to make that happen. i think this is the best we could do. >> all right. >> it gives them a work visa for two years, and if president barack obama is reelected they can pick it up for another two years, until they can work on a final solution. >> if a mitt romney is president, boom, we're in trouble. >> i mean the fact is -- here is the other thing, you know you need some black and white in elections so that people can make a decision and there's always the gray areas. in this case there isn't any gray. mitt romney said i'll veto the dream act. he has been asked would you continue the policy of president barack obama and not deport these kids? he said i can't make a judgment
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on that. and he says my policy is -- the policy in arizona, that policy -- that should be the national standard. this is mitt romney's words, and then he says why don't they just all self deport -- >> that is a phrase -- that is people can self deport. >> yeah wake up leave your family and children and leave the country. >> right. mitt romney as you say this is a binary choice either you are for or against. mitt romney has made it easy. >> yes, he has. >> but this is still a problem. this only applies to kids. >> it does. so how do you build a political coalition over time to build an argument which i think is overwhelming to be accepted by more people. >> the republicans have been very very clear starring with mitch mcconnell in the senate --
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>> right. >> -- they have said we're going to do everything we can to stop president barack obama from being successful and making any achievements -- legislative achievements, so we're going to have to wait until after the election. >> but if you look at the swing states florida, colorado arizona, new mexico some of those swing voters have been directly affected by any president now. >> they have made a decision to go with the most extreme element from their primary process and they don't want to get them go into the general election. >> right. right. >> if people would understand this decision, 500,000 -- >> right. >> -- having 500,000 latinos turn 18 every year -- >> that's a lot of voters. >> and they are american citizens. that's 2 million between every election -- >> right. >> and guess where they live? oh in nevada. >> that's right.
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>> in new mexico in colorado in florida -- >> yep. >> -- in states in make such a difference. so we need to come back comprehensive. i sat down with my friend running for the senate in arizona. it was -- and remember it was in the senate when it was mccain, kennedy, and when we were in charge it was kennedy -- we had bipartisan support. >> right in the few seconds remaining tell me why issues you used to be able forge a bipartisan perspective, what happened? >> sit the illness of washington saying you cannot bring people together. but i am ready to continue to work. because those were bipartisan bills which took in to account their concerns and the avenues
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of attack that they wish to pursue. and now -- basically what you have to understand they turned their backs on the very proposal that they sponsored. >> i believe it. i have seen it. i have been there, i'm with you. it is hard to persuade the people of that. thank you, and good luck. >> thank you, appreciate it. . in fact congressman gutierrez is someone who could forge that coalition.
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off and going and getting something to eat. [ laughter ] >> mr. romney hanging your attack on a person's slight gram mattic call misstep is what a person says when they are full of [ censor bleep ] and they know they have no argument. >> we have got to get you over to europe and run around like a busy body and while he is in these foreign countries, plans to visit his money, that will be good. >> this campaign isn't saying that he is a wasp they never said white or protestant they are just saying he is an ass. >> republican official familiar with your campaign selection process, told the folks at "politico," you are looking for a, quote, incredibly boring white guy for your vice
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presidential nominee. can you confirm or deny. >> you told me that you were not available. [ laughter ] >> fox and friends, challenging you to watch the whole show. >> if you know there's a casual elegance about matt -- he always looks like he is just walk talk the yacht and just had a shower. >> and he smells like that too. >> he does. >> i have a very ridiculous story, and that's [ inaudible ] she is the star of twilight and she recently admitted to cheating on her boyfriend, hunk i will house robert patterson. >> why? why would you cheat on robert patterson? what is the point of that? >> let me tell you the next time i come down drinks are on me. we'll all go
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for the second day in a row, timothy geithner travelled to capitol hill to discuss the state of the u.s. economy, but talk quickly turned to libor. perhaps they should have talked to attorney general eric holder instead. the department of justice is spreading word that it is preparing to file criminal charges against bankers sometime this fall. why the long wait is a bit mystifying, but once again it was the democrats giving him a pass on libor, while republicans pressed him on why he hasn't taken more aggressive action. >> as we sit here today, do we
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know whether citibank banc of america, jpmorgan similarly manipulate libor. >> to the highest levels but we haven't gotten to the bottom of it four and a half years later. doesn't that suggest somebody dropped the ball? did you and the new york fed look into the issue directly? >> i'm puzzled by repeated claims that you and other regulators stood by and did nothing. you and the new york fed were proactive. i think the idea that we did nothing for four years is obviously false, and i think some are taking unfair shots at you. sir, i think you have been just a very very fine public servant. >> joining me is bethany mclean. thank you for some of your time tonight. you watched tim geithner you have written this remarkable book about how the banks and the
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regulators all failed. give us your sense, did geithner get a fair shake at the hearing, and should he have done more? >> i think it's the jamie dimon hearing in diverse, and i'm referring of course to jamie dimon's the ceo over his bank's multi-billion dollars trading loss where he got a pass by republicans and got grilled by the republicans. and this was exactly the other way around. i absolutely think he should have gotten grilled. i think the new york fed absolutely dropped the ball. and i probably wouldn't have been so irritated if he wouldn't have said he took extraordinary efforts. >> the fact is that the new york fed had direct evidence of fraud in the rate-set progress as one
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of my guests [ inaudible ] the person who called on a recorded line gave them a checklist of every element of the crime of rate fixing and then geithner sent a memo and in that memo he did not say there is criminality ongoing, stop it. >> right. and that memo also was written after the "wall street journal" has published a lengthy expose detailing the problems with libor. so to put in a memo that the problems with libor was not exactly ground breaking. i think part of the problem is that everybody knew something was going on with this rate and it was just business as usual and people accepted the proud to because, hey, that's the way we have always done it. and it's a little bit analogous to the dot-com scandal.
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where everybody knew this was happening, and people just said that is business as usual. >> you are right. the everybody knows and just kind of let it continue. but your point at the top, which is so interesting, that the republicans wanted to go after geithner and the republicans wanted to go after jamie dimon. that suggests the bizarre prism through which every issue is vied in washington. >> yes. it is shocking to me because you would think in both cases these are things that people could be similarly aligned, what happened at a massive bank. can't we all agree it is important to understand what happened here? and the same thing, a key interest rate, the trillions of dollars in contracts defend on turns out to be fudged and the new york fed had information to that effect and nothing was
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done. can't we agree that is a problem? >> yes. the other element is we have black stone, vanguard and fidelity, three very large financial entities controlling trillions of dollars of assets saying they are considering brings suit against the banks because of libor manipulation. this would be now two sumo wrestlers in the same ring battling it out. >> yeah. people always talk about wall street and the financial industry as if it's monolithic and it isn't. and if this faction turns on the big banks that is extraordinary. and that almost more important than whatever criminal charges the department of justice might bring. my fear with the criminal charges is it will be low-level traders and bankers, something the street can just shrug off,
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whereas possibly multi-million dollar losses they are not just going to shrug that off. >> yes i want to shift gears quickly. you have written so much about the bank industry sandy weil's bomb shell yesterday, this was a moment of schizophrenia that overtook him. what do you think this means? >> in the context of libor you have to put this in the context of growing investor theory with the big banks. it's one more body blow against the big banks, when investors just don't believe in this business model anymore. i'm not sure where sandy weil would have come out and said
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what he would have said if the market weren't clearly against the big banks. and look he failed at citigroup. he appointed a successor who could don't the job, and now he has some regret and himself to blame, so you always wonder what is going on there. but it's extraordinary the number of people weil included and phil purcell, dean whiter who have some out and said this didn't work. >> this is sandy's last deal unleash the value. he wants them to break into two. this will be how he finally gets his equity value back. it's sandy once again getting value out of his shares. reuter's columnist, bethany
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>> we talk a lot about the influence of money in politics. it is the defining issue of this era. the candidate with the most money does win. this is a national crisis. in your jeep grand cherokee. and when you do, you'll be grateful for the adaptive cruise control that automatically adjusts your speed when approaching slower traffic. and for the blind spot monitoring that helps remind you that the highway might not be as desolate... ...as you thought. ♪ ♪
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iconic story, and i'll be talking with steven greenhouse about all of that. >> and profits are greater than ever, and they want their workers to give up like 36%. >> it's unbelievable. >> it's the story of the modern economy, unfortrtrtrtrtrtrtrtrtrtrtrtrtrtrtrtrtrtrtrtrtrtrtrtrtrtrt it's go time! >>every weeknight cenk uygur calls out the mainstream media. >>the guys in the middle-class the guys at the lower-end got screwed again! i think you know which one we're talking about. >>overwhelming majority of the county says: "tax the rich don't go to war." i just wanted to clarify. cu if you have an opinion, you better back it up. >>eliot spitzer takes on politics. >>science and republicans do not mix. >>now it's your turn at the only
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online forum with a direct line to eliot spitzer. >>join the debate now. sandy weil the father of two horrendous ideas has come around the former chair and ceo of citigroup acknowledged that the entire premise of his big bank is wrong. even sandy weil now says it break up the banks, the system will be safer, the economy will be sowner but before we start waxing poetic and singing his praises, we should recognize that most economists and bankers had come to this conclusion long before sandy did. and now at long last sandy finally got it right.
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but he is still to blame for one of the most damaging policy shifts in our entire economic history. here are a couple of crucial lessons we should all agree on the so-called synergies that others claimed would result often ended up being little more than the triumph of fraud over allegiance to truth-telling and fiduciary duty. it was and is no more than license to steal and cover for corruption. but what to make of the few who remain steadfast in their dedication to the now almost universally acknowledged broken administration of big banks, like mitt romney who's only goal is to repeal dodd-frank and then let the chips fall where they may. when it comes to financial services mitt romney is about where he is on most other
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matters wandering aimlessly with the ability to do little more than repeat the broken mantras of the recent past. instead his is a spineless voice for the tired failed answers that are now even rejected by hissssssssssssssssssssssssss >> this court has proven to be the knowing, delighted accomplice in the billionaires' purchase of our nation. >> and you think it doesn't affect you? think again.
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chick-fil-a. the teenager even went so far as to defend them on her facebook page. the problem is most people don't think abby farle actually exists. when dan kathy recently told a baptist newspaper that his organization only believes in marriage between a man and woman, many have come out in protest. but the really bad press started when the jim henson company announced it would not longer allow chick-fil-a to carry its muppets in its kids emiles. chick-fil-a responded foughting a phony story involving injury from the toys. there was the possibility that
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children might get stuck in the puppets. that's when people took to the internet. after someone posted on facebook what really happened miss farle came to chick-fil-a's defense. claiming the toys were actually pulled from stores weeks ago. this mysterious teenager raised some red flags, and it was soon discovered that miss farle's facebook page had been created only hours earlier, and the photo a stock image downloaded from a website called stutterstock.com.a denies creating the facebook, but then they also deny the love between two folks. richard socarides joins us. we have kind of mocking this --
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>> kind of. but it is a serious story. the organization i was president did an investigation of this company, and discovered that they were taking profits from the sale of his sandwiches and funneling them into a non-transparent secret corporation, and using them to fight organizations that are gay organizations. >> have you been to a chick-fil-a? >> i have not. but i have had the experience of having a chick-fil-a sand witch. >> they are primarily in the southeast, and i used to love
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chick-fil-a. the sandwiches were great the lemonade were great. i'm never going back. i have no problem with dan cathy supporting his view, but we have a right to respond on the other side. >> right. and i think people are really captured by this story i think because the brand is so iconic so well defined and people say the sandwiches are good but they don't have any employment protections for their gay and lesbian employees, dan cathy has said that he would probably want to fire employees who were engaged in sinful behavior. this company has a corporate way of doing business. >> this issue is different than many other issues. if the president of a company said we disagree about tax
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issues, fine. but this is an issue of core civil rights how we view our fellow human beings our sense of community, and when he is so in my view backwards looking on this issue we have the right to say we don't want to patronize this company. >> yes, and how important as the issue of same-sex marriage come in this country? it has really become the civil rights issue of our time but much like race was in the 60s and 70s, this issue really matters to people and the standing that companies and employers are taking really are going to matter to people. and customers want to be patrons of companies that support equality. >> chick-fil-a one, the boy scotts another, that seem steadfast in their embrace of the past. >> right. >> makes me wonder if they will
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be able to survive in the future. >> the boy scouts is such an important organization in our history and culture. the boy scout story last wreak, chick-fil-a this week and sally ride the first woman in space who came out posthumously but very beautifully. the the the juxtaposition of different times. >> yes, and perhaps it was the context in which she live as astronaut environment. absolutely. she could have lost her job. >> thank goodness we have advanced beyond that although if you work for chick-fil-a, you may still be fired -- >> you will be fired.
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>> which is why we're not going to chick-fil-a. is consumer power, or shareholder's rights movements being successful? >> i think this has prove tone be a very successful mechanism to bring people into the modern times. >> right. >> and companies understand that people customers, will support inclusiveness, customers will support companies that promote equality. most fortune 500 companies now have policies that protect people against discrimination obviously chick-fil-a is on the opposite end of the spectrum. >> when i was attorney general, you sued people this is something that is more democratic, people coming today as consumers shareholders whatever it is using the power of people reaching out. unfortunately, time is out, richard thank you as always for
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