>> production assistance for "inside washington" is provided by albritton communications and politico. reporting on the legislative, executive, and political arena. with this and this parade of distractions and political posturing and phony scandals, washington has taken its eye off the ball. i am here to say this needs to stop. >> this week on "inside washington" -- president obama rediscover the economy. >> anthony weiner caught with

his pants down again. him, ive forgiven believe in him. >> the attorney general pushes back on voting rights. >> last week the supreme court issued a deeply disappointing and flawed decision that struck down a key part of voting rights act of 1965. >> also, a lovely show of support from a former president for a two-year-old leukemia victim. and welcome to the world, prints george alexander louis of cambridge. >> in illinois this week, president obama began a summer sales pitch on the economy, the first of a series of speeches

aimed at revitalizing the american middle-class. >> i will lay out my ideas on how we build on the cornerstone for what it needs to be middle class in america and what it takes to work your way into the middle class. >> the speech turned out to be all season and no steak, assuming there is anything left after you have repeated it so many times. what is new? >> we are about to have another fight about the budget and there is this thing called the bully pulpit, and the president is using it. this is the time to use it because we are going to have this fight. >> charles? >> i think he was announcing the beginning of the fifth summer of recovery. of course it was nothing new, it was a campaign speech. someone ought to tell him the campaign ended six months ago, and he won. it would save on the air force

one fuel expenses if he were to do those speeches from the rose garden rather than from all over the midwest. >> i think the president did what he had to do. i went over the speech a couple of times. he stressed some of the same issues he went over in the first term reverting infrastructure, education as a pathway to the middle-class. we have to continue to protect our rights of people. nothing new in terms of policy initiatives, but important to lay the groundwork for what will need to happen over the next few years of his administration. it is not a campaign speech, it is an important thing the president must do, especially given the fight they will have over the budget. he needs to lay down his markers now. >> median household income in this country has fallen from its peak in 1999 by a 11%. the underlying premise of the

president's position, which makes sense, is you have a suffering and shrinking middle- class, and that hurts national prosperity. 1%ween 2009-2011, a top income went up 11%. down.% went that is the problem of the economic growth in this country. >> i agree with what mark said, but i would point out, of that 11% drop, half of it has occurred since june 2009, the official end of the recession, the beginning of the obama administration. the median income of the united states, hitting the middle class in the pocketbook, under the policies of this administration. his argument is we cleared away the rubble and we are now constructing a foundation of a new economy. we have had a trillion dollars a

year of stimulus from his deficit, a trillion dollars a year of input from fiscal stimulus, monetary stimulus from the fed, and we still have the 5% decline. >> isn't it also true, over the last 10 years, most of the income gains have gone to the top 1% of the country. >> the administration has been in office for 4.5 years, and all of the issues it decries has gotten worse over its policies. >> i know they have not gotten worse, actually, they have gotten better. since the great recession, we were in free fall. we are no longer in free fall. the remedy that he picked up was also the remedy of the bush administration when we were in freefall. >> the reality is, things have improved. this is the problem of the president's message. things have improved, the

private sector has created jobs, it has come back, but the reality is, you go through the midwest of the country and there are hollowed out cities and there are jobs that are not coming back. it has been a systematic policy of the top 1% to sell those jobs out to get to as low as you can and abolish unions, the great strength for the middle class of the country. >> the president is talking about rebuilding infrastructure. that means jobs. every time you drive over a bridge built in 1935, doesn't it make you nervous? >> we have bridges that are old enough, eligible for medicare. we have to do something about infrastructure. that will not cure itself. when do you start? you have to start ninow. >> the stimulus was the biggest

tount of money given infrastructure. >> are you suggesting that is it? >> one at a time please. >> in defending the administration, you guys are pretending that it has not even started yet. >> i will say this about infrastructure. anyone who is sentient in this country knows that it is crumbling everywhere. the problem is that it is financed by a gasoline tax, and there is less gasoline as cars have become more economical and mileage improves. are we going to increase the tax on gasoline? the republicans will say absolute know. i will say one criticism of the speech. it was 1 hour 4 minutes long. as muriel humphrey once said to huber, in order for a speech to memorable, it does not have

to be eternal. more on anthony weiner. >> it is six to 10. i cannot predict what someone will predict is inappropriate or not. >> what is stunning, they do not realize it, they do not have a clue. wasuesday of this week national hot dog day. anthony weiner found himself once again being questioned about his tendency to send out parts of his anatomy that most would consider to be private. this happened a year after he resigned from congress. nevertheless, he continues his campaign as mayor of new york city. his wife stands by him. how you explain his behavior, charles? >> how do i explain your

introduction? that was the most remarkable non sequitur -- actually, it was a sequitur. i like to be analytic about this. compare him to eliot spitzer and former south carolina gov. mark sanford, who are doing well. number one, make sure you get that all out. make sure it is all out at the beginning. went forand spitzer jobs that are lower than the ones they held. weiner wanted to continue to be mayor. the last part is, there is a statute of limitations. it is about the five years which others have observed. two years is not enough. >> i have to agree with charles about the point on the lower jaw. the latest poll on eliot

spitzer, he is doing quite well. advice toion the anthony weiner to get it all out. this is a man that does not need to be encouraged in that direction, certainly. the new york times called his behavior serially evasive. >> i call it seriously sicko. when mark tells me he was in the in-out treatment -- in-house treatment for three days when you are caught for this sort of thing, you will not do it for a little while, but it appears he never stopped. we are not talking about a three-week overlap. we are talking about more than a year and probably more than that. i do not know why his wife is standing by him. grab the kid and leave. >> new york has the best

headline writers in the country. daily news. myself fromciate everything happening here. i have a career to think about. >> there is a serious side to this, and jokes aside. you have some serious issues. i would have to defer to charles but someone who went through what he went through, acknowledged the problem, and the samecaught for type of behavior, there is something going on here that is past the point of laughing. it is disturbing. >> some kind of addiction, i guess. i think you probably wanted to change the subject. since we're on the subject of political scandals, -- gov. bob donilon announced he has repaid more than $120,000 in loans to the ceo of star scientific, who

had been very generous to the governor and his family. apparently no laws were broken here. >> the governor was clear, i did absolutely nothing wrong, but i will never do it again. i will pay him back with every time i took, even though there was nothing wrong with all those dollars i took, rolex watches, and everything else. >> apparently the state law is swiss cheese, and there is a federal investigation. i do not know what would apply to a state governor, but there have been governors prosecuted before. >> this is crazy peak as he had a great career going. >> he was going pretty well. >> a pretty good governor, too. thee says that he broke public trust, broke no laws, but betrayed the public trust. how does he come back from that? i am not sure that he can. i am not true that he is out of the woods with those

investigations. >> he is term limited anyway. >> like a lot of governors in that state who are 1-term, they become very popular. mark warner, tim kane. he was on the rise, had a successful administration. he was spoken about in the last cycle about a possible no. 2 on the republican ticket. i think all that has washed away. >> the house takes a run at curbing the nsa surveillance powers, and locking horns with texas on surveillance. >> every reauthorization of the voting rights act was signed into law by a republican president. it is a question of our values as a nation. it goes to the heart of who we are as a people, and it is incumbent upon congressional leaders from both parties to guarantee that every eligible american will always have equal

access to the polls. >> attorney general eric holder thehot a barrel across supreme court, disagreeing with the recent ruling that struck down parts of the voting rights act of 1965. republicans are not going to like this. >> they are not, but this is interesting. nobody really knew until recently that there was this provision of the law. it was to cover areas that were not covered under the old voting rights act, that you could show were discriminating, and it needed preclearance. so there is no preclearance, they are trying to use the bail- in provision, where if there are areas practicing discriminatory things, we want to use this provision. if that were to work, it would

be a great argument against actually going back and putting back the old preclearance in. >> what are the criteria of that in the law? >> i knew that you would ask that. i need to go and look and read the actual words of a lot. >> -- law. >> they are talking about and 3.s 2 is new territory now. it is an interesting question, and it is a question that ought to be raised. in, he absence of the bail- the justice department will argue against a particular provision to get it repealed. i think on the first, doj has a good shot. on the second, i do not think so.

>> underlying all of this, in, the justice department will arguereality, something nefarios going on in the state of texas with respect to minority voting rights. they want to use every means possible to protect those rights and go after the kind of voter suppression that is happening. >> and the president george w. bush, between 2002 and 2005, there was a study done by the department of justice on voter fraud. 197 million votes cast in the period. 40 cases of voter fraud. 26 convictions. this is one of the great smokescreen issues of all time. what is the payoff in my impersonating someone else to vote? >> one boat is not much. >> they have this master scheme, this conspiracy? >> there are other provisions in texas law -- north carolina is

try to shut down all extra early voting days. that is a huge boon to people who work during the day and can hand.a week before an i suspect the government will try to put early voting back in place to make sure that people have the chance to vote. >> the main objective of what holder wants to do is go after the voter id laws. there is a problem, and indiana case that was decided in 2008, in which the supreme court ruled 6-3, saying that the laws were not unconstitutional, and the opinion was written by john paul stevens, the liberal lion of the court. i think he has a high hurdle. >> he does. but the case said is we do not find that this lot is automatically discriminatory.

you have to show us some real discriminatory of fact. >> let me change the subject. the house came close to limiting the nsa possibility to -- and as surveilbility to people's phone records. wewe know what is going on, know what this is for. let's be blunt about it. without edward snowden, this would have never come up and there is a growing public disaffection and skepticism about the constant monitoring of all conversation by an essay. there was a revolt in republicans, the retired replicants, and democrats in the house. >> you are not supposed to spy on us, the government is not supposed to spy on us.

>> i think it is a very healthy debate. i am glad we had it, i think we ought to have been every couple of years when we reauthorize laws, and it does show how the libertarian right, liberal left, are uniting on this. it will be a divisive issue but it is actually helping to decide, as we did in congress, that we will continue. it should not be done by high officials with no one else hearing about it or debating it. >> i am really have been there has not been a major terrorist attack, and i give the nsa credit for that, but this is not 9/11. there has been enough time, this is the time to have the conversation. >> the debate is not over. they have touched a nerve with this. snowden.entioned

senator lindsey gramm introduced legislation that would limit asylum for any country. apparently edward snowden is still languishing in a moscow airport which does not really deserve a lot of people. >> if he gets asylum in russia, he will find out it is not a very pleasant life. it will be okay for a year. >> but what about the issue? this is beginning to father people -- bother people. >> it is a dilemma because you want to know when your enemies are doing. >> that is fine, but i do not want to know what i am doing. >> what have you been doing? how do you draw the line, the fisa court

play, what kind of expertise do the judges have, what kind of questioning should they be able to do? it is very hard. beforeent through this with the domestic issue, domestic surveillance. you remember the program being run out of the the fisa johnson administration. the country discover the scope ofthis is beginning to father what the fbi was doing in the name of national security. serious discussions leading to a legislative change in the way that we go about doing this. protect national security, but you cannot infringe on people's civil liberties. it is difficult, though, because of some of the sensitive information involved. >> but you have to have a go at this. >> it seems there is no internal

answer and we do not need one. we need one every few years. the answer will depend on contingencies. number one, is there evidence of abuse? up until now i have not heard of datas of abuse, the meta program. if it starts you may have a different answer. second, what is the nature of the threat? we're not in october 2001 where we knew nothing and had to do everything. we are now 12 years in, al qaeda is weaker, or at least spread out, and we have a hold. so there is a diminished need. it could change. we could have a resurgence of terrorism, we could have a diminishing. the last thing is about technology. what is kerrey is not that there could be improper action for people will behave badly. i am worried about the unbelievable increase in the capacity of them looking into

our lives, which will change every other year. we gave a tentative answer in the congress this year. let's have a debate in two years once conditions have changed. >> those in power, in respect of a party, say that is great, we should have a debate, but we cannot debate this, because that would compromise our national security. we want a full and free debate, and that is what the country is owed. people who have information like this and access to it basically do not do good things in the long run. i am not arguing admission or protecting national security -- that is important. i am talking about power and the impulse to abuse that power. >> history is on your side on this one. proposal a year

or two ago to limit some of the meta data in the general population to protect people's privacy. all of the computer-age people went nuts. at the same time, they want to protect their privacy from the government. >> it is a dilemma. a word on the arrival of the latest member of the royal family. a splendid gesture from a former president. the world welcomed the new royal prince of cambridge this week. why are we americans so fascinated by the royals? >> as the only one who grew up here singing god save the queen at school every morning, the panel has designated may as the official spokesperson in saluting his royal infant kingly highness to a long and glorious rule as king george.

changei want to subjects. let's show a picture. this is a picture of our 41st president, and george herbert walker bush, who shaved his head this week, during members of his secret service detail to show support for one of the sons of one of the agents. he is undergoing treatment for leukemia. just a lovely gesture. >> a lovely gesture and a genuinely decent man. a friend of mine was on a long trip across the pacific, talking to the navigator and he says to the pilot, who is your favorite president? he said easily, president bush, he knew each of us by name. he said that he came back and ask each one of us about our

children by name. he is a class act. >> george and barbara bush lost their second child to kenya several years ago. >> it is very nice to have something to cheer for. we hope that everybody is cheering. mark tells me if i read the comments about this story, i will think of the whole country is sick because it is so partisan. >> meeting this president several times, my wife also worked for him, nominated her to positions in the social security administration, truly decent people. man, a goodecent man. i am glad that people are recognizing that. usually it happens after you are in office, but it is good is being recognized. >> you are a class act, mr. president. thanks. last word. see you next week.

>> hello from brussels and a very warm welcome to "european journal." very good to have you with us. here's what we have today -- the wave of drug tests as bulgarians demand an end to corruption. rotten conditions -- how seasonal workers are being exploited in italy. and portugal offers incentives. book area has been -- bulgaria ha