changes benefits for those who rely on medicare. >> social security is off the table. >> ending the bush tax cuts that favored the wealthy. >> on tax reform. >> balance -- >> president obama throwing the gauntlet down. >> obama draws the line. >> drawing the battle lines here. >> nancy pelosi came out and said she is encouraged. >> i thought it was a good plan. >> that's what president clinton seemed to say. >> i think it would put americans back to work. >> it's not going to get passed. >> i doubt that the republicans want it to happen. >> will it pass? no. >> the speaker says, we can't have it my way or the highway. >> taking a fight to the republicans. >> and then basically says, my way. or the highway. >> republicans are already picking it apart. >> there's no education the second kick of a mule. >> republicans saying this is dead on arrival. >> dead on arrival. >> you do understand, congressman, the average person out there who's making $40,000, $50,000, $60,000 a year, when they hear you have $400,000 left over, it's not exactly a sympathetic position.

>> class warfare's never created a job. >> well, i don't believe that class warfare is leadership. >> we're going to just do class warfare. >> it's time for us to get serious. >> engaging in class warfare. really? >> none of this is about class warfare. >> president obama reacted to the class warfare charge. >> this is not class warfare. it's math. this morning in his opening remarks introducing his new deficit reduction plan the president showed that he gets the joke about republicans. >> a week ago today, i sent congress the american jobs act. it's a plan that will lead to new jobs for teachers, for construction works, for veterans and for the unemployed. it will cut taxes for every small businessowner and virtually every working man and woman in america. and the proposals in this jobs bill are the kinds that have been supported by democrats and

republicans in the past. so there shouldn't be any reason for congress to drag its feet. they should pass it right away. i'm ready to sign a bill. i've got the pens all ready. >> i've got the pens all ready. see that little smile about having the pens all ready to sign his jobs bill? a bill the republican house of representatives would have to pass? he knows that's a joke. and he rightly intends it to be a joke on and about republicans. of course, republicans will not support the proposals in the president's jobs bill that they used to support in the past. because now that the president has made those proposals, republicans have to be for them, though they used to be -- especially tax cuts in the president's jobs bill. so the president has now made it clear if he cannot beat the

republicans at their silly games in the house of representatives, he will humiliate them for playing those games. he will take every opportunity as he did this morning to show voters that house republicans are standing in the way of economic progress in this country and need to be removed from office in the next election and replaced with a congress that has not signed its brain away to rover norquist's anti-tax pledge. >> anyone who assigns some pledge to protect every single tax loophole so long as they live, they should be called out. they should have to defend that unfairness. explain why somebody making $50 million a year in the financial markets should be paying 15% on their taxes when a teacher making $50,000 a year is paying more than that?

paying a higher rate? they ought to have to answer for that. and if their pledge to keep that kind of unfairness in place, they should remember the last time i checked the only pledge that really matters is the pledge we take to uphold the constitution. we're already hearing the usual defenders of these kinds of loopholes saying this is just class warfare. i reject the idea that asking a hedge fund manager to pay the same tax rate as a plumber or teacher is class warfare. >> that is not the talk of a president who is trying to thread the needle of compromise with his opposing party in the congress. that is the talk of a president who wants to fight first and legislate later. a president eager for compromise, a president eager to make a legislative deal does not call out the legislative leader of the opposing party like this. >> last week, speaker of the house john boehner gave a speech about the economy and to his

credit, he made the point that we can't afford the kind of politics that says, it's my way or the highway. i was encouraged by that. here's the problem. in the same speech, he also came out against any plan to cut the deficit that includes any additional revenues whatsoever. he said, i'm quoting him, "there is only one option." and that option and only option relies entirely on cuts. so the speaker says we can't have it my way or the highway and then basically says, my way. or the highway. that's not smart. it's not right. >> not smart. not right. the president doesn't come out and call the speaker not smart, not right. in other words, stupid and wrong.

when the president is trying to make a deal with the speaker. the president is trying to humiliate the speaker and the speaker has no better response than an empty slogan. >> well, i don't believe that class warfare is leadership. you know, we could get into this tax the rich, tax the rich, but that is not the basis for america. and it's not going to get our economy going again. >> presidents who are trying to negotiate a legislative deal with the opposition do not issue veto threats on day one. >> i will not support any plan that puts all the burden for closing our deficit on ordinary americans. and i will veto any bill that changes benefits for those who rely on medicare but does not raise serious revenues by asking the wealthiest americans or biggest corporations to pay their fair share.

>> the president knew republicans were going to call that class warfare. but with an nbc news/"wall street journal" poll showing that 81% of voters agree with the president's position on the rich paying their fair share, the president knows if he can't win this argument with the republican house of representatives, he can win it with voters in november of 2012. joining me now, gene smerling, director of the national economic council and assistant to the president for economic policy. thanks for joining me tonight, gene. >> thank you, lawrence. thank you for having me. >> gene, you put this package together with the obama team and the president. i've seen a lot of these packages put together. this does not look like a package designed to appeal to the opposition party in congress. this reads to me like a package that is in effect a presidential manifesto saying this is the way. i want to do it. >> i would slightly disagree with that, larry, lawrence, in

the following way. i think this was a deficit reduction plan and american jobs act that he proposed earlier that does speak his values but it is very much speaks to the mainstream of the united states. the mainstream of american workers out there. as you just said, the overwhelming number of people in our country believe that if you're going to do long term deficit reduction there has to be shared sacrifice. they are for spending cuts and spending constraints, but as the president called for, they don't believe you should put all the burden on the middle class, on seniors, the most vulnerable then ask nothing from the most well off. this isn't about class warfare. it's about what our country has always been about. that's shared sacrifice. you and i both know there are republicans in the senate. there are republican experts outside. businesspeople who would agree that you have to have a balanced plan. that has to include revenues on the most well off together with spending cuts. i think what he's done is speak

to the mainstream of america. he has spoken his values. i think by putting out something that's balanced, i think it is going to cause a convergence and i think there will have to be those who come and work with this president because we have 9.1% unemployment, 14 million americans out of work. are they really going to say they're going to oppose the president's plan to cut payroll taxes for every worker and every small business? are they really going to say that laying off hundreds of thousands of teachers in our schools right now is not a problem? i really think that when they hear from the american people, you're going to see them come toward the president and we will have a chance to get some meaningful progress this year. >> well, gene, you're also -- the president is in a re-election campaign. it seems to me the threat that he's laying down today is, look, republican congress, you can cling to your v r v, very unpopular position here as long as you want to, i'm not moving off of this point and i will

take this as they say in the capitol, you know, i will take this to the voters. that's the inside the game threat when people in legislating are saying to the other side, if you want to continue to fight this way, you know, forget about what happens in the congress, we're going to take it to the voters. it seems to me that's what i was hearing the president say today. he's ready to take this all the way to the voters next year if he has to. >> but i want to make very clear, we need the american jobs act. we need the 1.9 million new jobs that is projected to create in 2012. we need to get something done. that is our aim. of course, if people stand in the way and there is higher unemployment and less growth and less people working because people block the will of the american public and stood in the way of the kind of compromise the president wants, of course he will make that point. i do want to make clear that

with this kind of pain in our economy, with people suffering, this president put forward an american jobs act that as you said included not only infrastructure, school construction, putting teachers back to work. it also included a payroll tax cut that virtually every republican including michele bachmann and john boehner have supported repeatedly. and you have to ask them, does something, does a tax cut for all middle class families become a bad idea just because president obama proposed it? are you willing to block even tax relief that experts say would create 600 to 1 million jobs, just the tax relief portion, just because president obama is for it? and are you really going to betray the bipartisan areas that you and i both remember, democrats and republicans used to work together on. like transportation. and infrastructure. and putting people back to work. when you have 9% unemployment.

i think it's going to be very hard for them to just say no. i just do not believe doing nothing is going to be an option for them. >> gene sperling, director of the national economic council. thank you very much for joining us tonight, gene. >> thank you. thanks a lot. joining me now, robert reich, former labor secretary in the clinton administration. he's now a professor of public policy at the university of california at berkeley and the author of "aftershock." thanks for joining me tonight, dud. >> good evening, lawrence. >> this is a fighting president going out in the rose garden this morning with that speech. there was nothing conciliatory there. it seems to me he is confident enough in these positions that he's outlined and their voter appeal. that he's going right over the head of congress on day one and willing to actually ridicule and make fun of the speaker in his announcement of what he wants to do legislatively. >> this is a new barack obama. this is a feisty president who is in an election year contest right now. i would have predicted, lawrence, that the big battle to

come was over medicare, republicans want to cut it, maybe democrats not wanting to cut it or maybe the big battle to come would be over the jobs plan. but no, the big battle to come is over whether we increase taxes on the wealthy. and it's a battle that not only americans are siding with the president on, but it's a moral battle as well. the top 1% are now taking home 20%, more than 20% of total income. the more, and a larger portion than they've taken home in 90 years. and they're facing lower taxes. and lower tax rates than they faced in 50 years. what the president is saying is, americans are on their backs. most americans are either jobless or afraid of losing their jobs or their wages are going down. they can't make ends meet. you at the top, you have got to play your part. enough of this. and i think most americans say yes, that is a moral argument that i agree with. >> it's my sense the republicans were so unready to deal with the specifics of the president's proposal that they just fell

back on the class warfare line today. i think they're seeing the same polls that everyone else sees. they know that the public is on the president's side on the taxation issues. there were other areas to go at, i think, in the specificity of what the president released today for the republicans to maybe try to maneuver, but it seems to me that they fell into the president's trap perfectly since they're so reflexive on taxation that any mention of a change of taxes sent them right into class warfare mode. >> i think it was a trap. the interesting thing, lawrence, is that you had these polls showing americans overwhelmingly -- these polls are very -- it's not just one poll. you have about 12, 15 different polls showing americans overwhelmingly of the opinion that the rich have to pay their fair share, they have to pay more taxes. if we're going to get out of the debt bubble problem we're in. what the republicans did was to say, reflexively, because they've all taken this pledge they're not going to raise taxes on the rich or anybody.

what they say reflexively is class warfare which sets democrats up to say, obviously, well, wait a minute, the top ceos in this country that have been raking in $10 million, $20 million each and are laying off american workers, the ratio of corporate profits to waging that has not been as high as it's been now since before the great depression. who is actually waging class warfare? it is people at the top in control of the biggest corporations on wall street. they have been doing it. that's what democrats -- not the president -- that's what many democrats are going to say because the republicans have now opened up the issue of class warfare. >> it seems the grover norquist pledge is costing them politically, allowing the president as they have done to describe them as having signed away forever for the rest of their lives any consideration of closing tax loopholes. that's one of the forgotten elements of the norquist pledge is it doesn't allow them to even close tax loopholes because that

would raise tax revenue. the president is able now to identify them as protecting every single one of those tax loopholes. corporate jets. whatever it is. in the code. they have to defend every one of those against the president in this. >> they have to not only defend every one of them but defend the principle to take a pledge to grover norquist who is not elected, somebody who has a very special particular interest in this case in protecting the rich from having more taxes that take away a little bit of their extraordinary wealth, that that kind of a pledge, tieing their hands, is constitutionally part of their responsibility. well, most americans say, no, i don't want a representative who is going to tie his hands and take a pledge to somebody i don't even know. i want somebody who's going to represent me and my values. and the president is using that and that kind of bind the republicans are in against them. >> quickly, professor, before you go, grade the president's rollout today and this particular circumstance with this bill.

>> well, i give him an a-minus. the only reason not an "a," i'd like the tax reform proposal to go far wider and bigger including capital gains taxes which are one of the big, big loopholes in which and through which the rich drive their ferraris. >> i'm giving him an "a." i'm feeling generous. he's up against those crazy republicans. i get the point on the a-minus. you want to encourage your student to keep trying harder. >> keep trying harder. this is the right president and this is the right time. he's done exactly the right thing morally and politically. >> right. former labor secretary robert reich. thank you very much for joining me tonight. >> thanks, lawrence. coming up, the republican presidential candidates' response for the plan, of course, were predictable and false. tax increases kill jobs. we'll bust that myth next with ezra klein. and donald trump says willard m. romney is participating in the trump primary by coming to visit the reality tv star in new york.

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coming up, president obama says it's not class warfare. it's math. we'll do the math on the president's economic proposals with ezra klein, next. and later, mitt romney and rick perry share a little secret. something they don't want voters to know about them. we will, of course, reveal their secrets in the "rewrite."

either we gut education and medical research or we have to reform the tax code so that most profitable corporations have to give up tax loopholes that other companies don't get. we can't afford to do both. this is not class warfare. it's math. >> time for the math. that was president obama today making the argument that deficit reduction legislation should include corporate tax revenue increases. the proposal the president outlined includes $1.5 trillion in new revenue through a combination of allowing the bush tax cuts to expire for individuals who make more than $200,000 per year and families who make more than $250,000 per year. as well as limiting tax deductions for high income earners and closing corporate loopholes and tax breaks. the president's proposals provoked a chorus of simple-minded attacks from the republican presidential candidates relying on slogans, not facts. mitt romney released a statement reading, "president obama's plan

to raise taxes will have a crushing impact on economic growth. higher taxes mean fewer jobs. it's that simple." wrong, mitt. michele bachmann wrote, "mr. president, you don't create jobs by increasing taxes on job creators. the president's plan to raise taxes on the american people is the wrong policy to create economic growth and jobs." also wrong. rick perry went with, "president obama's plan is a bait and switch that offers more than $1 trillion in higher taxes for a promise of temporary tax relief. the president penalizes investment when it is needed most. discourages charitable giving and doubles down on a failed government stimulus strategy." okay. rick perry gets half a point on discourages charitable giving, but he's wrong on everything else. today the president argued that his proposed tax revenue increases would grow the economy.

>> all i'm saying is that those who have done well, including me, should pay our fair share in taxes to contribute to the nation that made our success possible. and i think most wealthy americans would agree, if they knew this would help us grow the economy and deal with the debt that threatens our future. >> joining me now, "washington post" columnist and msnbc contributor ezra klein. thanks for joining me tonight, ezra. >> good evening. >> you brought your pencil and paper. we're ready to do the math here. it's a marvel to me after the 1990s, which in effect the raging economy of the 1990s began with a bill clinton tax increase, what was then the highest tax increase in history. still is the highest tax increase in history. the rate stayed that way for the entire decade and we're still stuck in this discussion that republicans want to cling to the notion that those clinton tax rates would be disastrous for job creation.

>> it has not seemed to be a discussion particularly amenable to evidence. let's try some anyway. we have a graph, the center of american progress, that i brought along tonight. what you'll see on it, they did something interesting. they looked at job creation over periods of time which had different top marginal tax rates. different top tax rates for the people the republicans call the job creators. what they found, i think, is essentially destroys this argument. the best years, the best years for job creation in this country actually had the highest marginal tax rates. the best five years from 1950, the -- >> the highest bar there is in the 75% to 80% top tax bracket. that's when you really saw job creation just roaring along. >> that little tiny red line, the little itty bitty one with the no job creation, that's where we are now. very, very low top marginal rate, very, very low job creation. i don't want to go too far.

it's important to say we don't want extremely high marginal tax rates. they discourage work. we don't think tax hikes in general are a great thing for the economy. neither are spending cuts to things linsurance. we find taxes are not the driving factor behind the economy. republicans have a tendency to make taxes seem like -- the economy is a simple formula. one end of the formula is taxes. when they're low -- when it's high, they do poorly. that's not true. >> the list we saw was a list of the actual legislative tax rates at the time. the reality was that no one was actually paying those top rates. the reality was even when the rate was 90%, people were in effect paying around 50% which is still much, much, much higher than now. and it had absolutely no negative impact on job creation. where do we go from here in this debate, ezra? i was surprised republicans today really, they didn't come up with any specificity other than rick perry.

i have to give him credit. he noticed there was a limitation on deductibility proposed by the president. that would include deductibility for charitable giving if you gave $1 million to some charity, you would not get a 35% tax deduction on it but would get a 28% tax deduction on it and that may inhibit some charitable giving around the edges. that's possible. other than that, there wasn't a word of specificity if their responses. >> not a ton of it. if you talk to republican economists, if you talk to glenn hubbard who is advising mitt romney, he'll tell you the real types of taxes you have to worry about are marginal rate taxes. he'll also tell you it's not a bad thing to clean out expenditures and loopholes from the code, things like itemized deduction that perry's talking about. things like all the many, many, deductions we spend trillions of dollars on every year. but the part of the tax -- the type of tax increase that is popular is increasing marginal tax increases on the rich, a type that is unpopular is going after deductions which my

colleague, laura montgomery, pointed out in this weekend's "washington post," benefited a lot of middle class households. republicans are going to end up getting the type of tax increases they like least and have the best argument for being economically damaging and going to be able to block the type of tax increases we should be doing which create a broader, flatter code and encourage economic growth more aggressively. >> the "washington post," ezra klein. thanks for joining me tonight, ezra. >> thank you. ralph nader wants a primary challenge against president barack obama. democratic primary challenge. i'll talk about that with jonathan capehart coming up.

still to come tonight, the very first thing you ever learned about rick perry and mitt romney, not true. and that's because those two men want it that way. their secrets are revealed in tonight's "rewrite." and it's no secret donald trump would like people to think he still might run for president even though viewers of this program know better. coming up, how donald is trying to keep his hand in republican politics.

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in the spotlight tonight, ralph nader wants to challenge president obama in a democratic presidential primary nader doesn't want to run, himself, but he is hoping to find a slate of liberal candidates to

campaign against the president for the democratic nomination. in a statement today, nader said, "without primary challengers, president obama will never have to seriously articulate and defend his beliefs to his own party. given the dangers our nation faces, that option is unacceptable." on the republican side, donald trump is reveling in his role as he who must be revered in the republican presidential primary field. after rick perry came to new york last week to kiss trump's rings, team trump announced that mitt romney is on his way to new york next week to kiss trump's cufflinks or whatever's left to kiss. the romney campaign has not confirmed that romney has yet sunk so low as to seek an audience with his trumpness. republican candidates are not as stupid as they seem on the trump front. they know donald trump is a politically powerless object of ridicule who has no electoral

following. but donald trump does have access to media microphones whenever he chooses and the candidates know that if they show him respect, he is easily co-opted and unlikely to then attack them publicly. there is no one left on television who can bear donald continuing to pretend he might ever run for president so donald has taken to websites to spout that particular lunacy. >> if the republicans pick the wrong candidate, and that could happen, and if the economy continues to be bad, which i'm almost sure will happen because we have very poor leadership, i would certainly think about running as an independent. >> joining me now, msnbc contributor, jonathan capehart, opinion writer for "washington post" and senior trump correspondent here at "the last word." jonathan, let's start -- >> hey, lawrence. >> -- with ralph nader. this is a new development. this notion of -- he actually

wants to get a bunch of liberal candidates to challenge the president. and i guess it would be his hope that they would somehow end up on a televised debate stage where they would be challenging the president from the left on all his policies and the president would have to defend them. what are the chances of that happening? >> i was going to ask, who are these people who want to sign up for this what would basically be a suicide mission? you're going to be run against a sitting u.s. president, a member of your own party, further damaging that person. can you imagine, who would have the guts to go after president obama when the economy is so bad, when he's finally taking, you know, visibly taking the fight to the republicans? who's going to have the guts to do that? i can't wait to see who that person is and who's going to heed the call from ralph nader of all people. >> well, if it isn't ralph nader who absolutely has had the guts to do that kind of thing in the past -- >> look what it got us. >> i don't see who's there. i don't think it's anyone we've

actually heard of. everybody you can think of to the left of the president has already said they wouldn't do it. >> right. >> let's get over to donald frump and the republicans. he has become a mandatory stop. my theory is they're doing this just so donald can have dinner with them. they can charm him. then when donald is on some fox news show or something we won't say negative things about them. it's just to try to quiet donald down. >> if you talk to donald trump -- >> as you do. >> as i do. he quotes the "news max" piece that he's the must see person on campaign trail for republican candidates. donald trump will tell you they come to him not because they ask him for money. he says rick perry hasn't asked him for money. michele bachmann hasn't asked him for money. what they're looking for is his endorsement. because, according to donald

trump, he taps into that energy and angst and anger within the american populous over what's happening to the economy, what's happening with jobs and particularly he says they love what he has to say about china and how china is, quote, ripping us off. >> let's listen to what donald said about romney on "good morning america." >> if you look at his record as governor, it wasn't totally stellar. his job production was not great at all. in fact, it was the third worst in the nation. there's some pretty negative things with respect to mitt romney which frankly he's going to have to overcome. >> see, that i think is what it's about for romney. here's a guy who has access to "good morning america" which is where the voters are. "today show," those kinds of shows. he has access to it and can say things like that which will be damaging to romney. romney needs to just shut him up. it isn't about, you know, will you endorse me. it's just, would you please stop saying mean things about me? >> right.

hey, let's have a dinner, not at that pizza place, but maybe at john george or some other restaurant. so i can talk to you, mr. trump, about what it is -- what my plans are for the country, how i'm going to run this race and to convince you that if you're not going to endorse me, to at least stand down either in terms of your criticism or for potential independent bid for president which you have said and i believe he ultimately won't end up doing. >> jonathan capehart, minnesota contributor and opinion writer for "washington post." thanks for joining us tonight. >> thanks, lawrence. coming up, mitt romney's darkest secret is actually on his birth certificate. that's in the "rewrite." and it's been almost nine months since president obama signed the repeal of don't ask, don't tell. and as of midnight tonight, gays and lesbians will be able to serve openly in the military. dan savage joins me.

the front-runners for the republican presidential nomination are both very secretive about the same thing. i'll reveal their secrets next in the "rewrite." and tomorrow marks the first official day when sexual orientation does not matter for members of our armed forces. the end of don't ask, don't tell. [ male announcer ] you never know when a moment might turn into something more. and when it does men with erectile dysfunction can be more confident in their ability to be ready with cialis for daily use. cialis for daily use is a clinically proven low-dose tablet you take every day, so you can be ready anytime the moment's right. ♪ [ man ] tell your doctor about all your medical conditions and medications and ask if your heart is healthy enough for sexual activity.

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call or click today. time for tonight's "rewrite." you know, i've always felt funny about guys who don't want you to know their first names. are you with me on this? i mean, what else don't they want us to know about them? these guys are lying to you, the very first thing they say to you. like, hi, i'm mitt romney. no, you're not. you're willard romney, willard m. romney. then there's hi, i'm rick perry, i'd like your vote for president of the united states. well, yeah. i know you'd like my vote. but how about telling me your real name? which is actually james richard perry. that's right. the two front-runners for the republican nomination for president have rewritten their first names. now, i think i know -- i think you know what willard romney doesn't like about his first name. i have no idea what james or jim perry doesn't like about his

first name. i would love to have jim as a first name. so simple. no confusion. anyone can spell it. that's actually why i've been using jim as my starbucks name for years now. i'm jim at starbucks because i would never ask them to try to write an eight-letter name on my starbucks cup. but everywhere else, i endure life with a first name that i don't really like because not using my first name just seems too phony to me. and i'm sure i'm not the only one who feels this way. willard m. romney is obviously afraid that his first name makes him sound like, you know, some kind of rich guy. he thinks willard sounds too old-fashioned, too weird, maybe even too mormon. romney doesn't seem to understand american voters are open minded when it comes to first names. they've sent more than enough georges and johns to the white house.

they've also elected a zachary, millard, two franklins, a dwight, a lyndon. not to mention a barack. he should relax about his first name. unusual first names have never hirst anyone running for president. in fact, the three presidents who didn't use their first names went with middle names that were more unusual than their first names. steven cleveland used his middle name, grover. tom wilson ran with his middle name, woodrow. and john coolidge ran and won as calvin coolidge. so willard romney actually has a better chance of winning the president say if he goes with his real first name instead of trying to hide it. like a con man or a cult leader. you know, like elron hubbard whose real first name, of

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when air force technical sergeant leonard matlovich was buried in 1988 his tombstone read, when i was in the military they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one. now 23 years later the estimated 60,000 gay americans currently on active duty and those gay americans wanting to join the military will no longer have to hide their sexual orientation.

one minute after midnight, the repeal of don't ask, don't tell goes into effect. nearly nine months after president obama signed it into law. the pentagon says it is fully prepared for the change. 97% of the military has undergone training in the new law and the military has begun accepting applications from openly gay recruits. the united states army became the first branch of the armed services to formally end its don't ask, don't tell policies sending this announcement. "from this day forward, gay and lesbian soldiers may serve in our army with the dignity and respect they deserve. our rules, regulations and politics reflect the repeal guidance issued by the department of defense and will apply uniformly without regard to sexual orientation, which is a personal and private matter. for over 236 years, the u.s. army has been an extraordinary force for good in the world. our soldiers are the most agile, adaptable and capable warriors

in history and we are ready for this change. accordingly, we expect all personnel to follow our values by implementing the repeal fully, fairly and in accordance with policy guidance. it is the duty of all personnel to treat each other with dignity and respect while maintaining good order and discipline throughout our ranks. doing so will help the u.s. army remain the strength of the nation." joining me now is dan savage, columnist, author and co-founder of the it gets better project. thanks for joining me tonight, dan. >> thanks for having me, lawrence. >> dan, here we are two years, nine months into the obama administration and they got it done. and i must say, i must tell you in my experience with legislative timetables, as politics and governing goes in washington, that's fast. >> it is fast. and it didn't happen in a vacuum, however. there was a lot of screaming and yelling. unlike other democratic constituencies in the first couple of years of the obama administration, the lgbt

community made it known, was very loud and held the president's feet to the fire. that we expected action on d80-t, action on doma, action on enda that we didn't see or there would be consequences. the democrats delivered on the president's promises around repealing don't ask, don't tell. after the midterm elections in 2010 when the percentage of the gay vote according to republicans jumped and the amount of money coming from gay donors for democrats, democratic organizations dropped by gay, lesbian, bi, transgendered voters were dissatisfied with the foot dragging out of the white house. they read the writing on the wall after 2010 and delivered on this. it's a victory, it's a victory for the white house. they're glad now they did. early in the administration there was talk about pushing the d80-t repeal until after 2011 which now we know would have killed it because once republicans took the house there was no chance. we're really pleased. every right thinking american is pleased about this development. we can't be naive about what it

took to make this happen. >> dan, envision for me where we will be a generation from now. let's say 20 years from now on what this will mean in the american military at that time. will it pass in the way that integrating -- racially integrating the military did, such that a few decades later it was just inconceivable that it was ever any other way? >> i believe so. i think actually the adjustment is going to be quicker because lgbt americans are already integrated into the military. they're just not out to people. people are going to be able to come out now to their colleagues. out serve did a poll of lgbt people in uniform right now. 40% of them, 40% plan on coming out in the next week to some of their colleagues in the service. people are going to realize they've been serving alongside lgbt -- their fellow citizens who are gay or lesbian, bi or trans for years.

the period of adjustment is going to be swift. as we've seen any every other major military across the world that ended their bans on people serving openly, it's a huge nonissue. israel, canada, the united kingdom, australia. once they repealed their exclusionary policies about gay people serving in the military, everybody was surprised that there wasn't a lot of controversy. there really wasn't a lot of fallout. it's going to be a nonissue. >> dan, there's nothing like making americans sound stupid about these issues than a republican presidential primary campaign. and so we are in the midst of one right now. i want you to listen to something that michele bachmann said on jay leno's show. >> well, that whole pray the gay away thing. i don't get that. >> well, see, i think -- when i heard that, i really thought it was like a kind of a midlife crisis line. pray away the gray. that's what i thought it was.

>> two gay people want to get married, that's their business. that doesn't concern us. i mean, why is that even an issue? >> well because the family is foundational and marriage between a man and a woman has been what the law has been for years and years. >> i tried it myself. it works great for me. >> see, there you go. >> but, i mean, you know -- >> dan, when she tried to make a joke about pray away the gray, you know, as a midlife crisis, it's clear that one of her writers told her to try to on this show anyway get away from that kind of rhetoric if you can. >> michele bachmann's been ducking the question about gay marriage in every mainstream appearance that she makes. she still speaks in dog whistles. what we're going to see from the republican right is what happened with race on the republican right. it shifted from overt racism, overt statements of prejudice and bigotry to dog whistles for the races out there. they still want to scoop up

their votes. you know, it's not -- it shouldn't be lost on anyone. while we're on the eve of repealing don't ask, don't tell, finally tonight, today david cameron, the prime minister of great britain announced they are moving to legalize full civil equality for gay people in the united kingdom by legalizing finally marriage rights for same sex couples. and, you know, we're seeing from the right here this back peddling and this hemming and hawing about the inevitable full civil enfranchisement of gay, lesbian americans. bachmann is embarrassing on this issue and is many others. >> author and columnist dan savage from chicago where he kicks off his national college tour for his mtv series. thanks so much. >> thanks for having me. we'll have an exclusive interview with my buddy jane lynch fresh off her duties as host of the emmys and tell her about her memoir "happy accidents" tomorrow night on "the last word."