from workers the republicans are out to require american citizens to carry i.d. cards if they want to vote. guess who these people are and why they don't want them voting. minorities and other poor, old people, and others who might tend to vote democratic. they want to make it easier for employers to get cheap labor out of people here, illegitimately, harder for democrats to get votes from people who show up to vote legitimately. what a wonderful display of partisan self-interest. and public cynicism. and that's "hardball" for now. again, thanks for being with us. "the last word with lawrence o'donnell" starts right now. the republicans get physical. >> i'm speaking. i'm speaking. i'm speaking. >> the newspaper -- >> aggressive. they were nasty. they got personal. >> not a good night for anybody. >> this smack down was really rick perry against mitt romney. [ bell ] >> they want to be a little scrappy and perry was a lot scrappy. >> it looked to me at times like he had too many red bulls.

>> thanks for being here. >> rick perry, it's now or never. >> i'm speaking. >> petty exchange with mitt romney. >> the foxhole. they will fight the fight and put the bayonets on and go to the top of the hill. >> bickering with each other. >> high school cafeteria food fight. >> i thought mitt romney was fabulous. >> mitt romney's behavior last night, that he's worried about rick perry and he's $15 million bank account. >> everyone on the stage was basically dismantling him. >> i could actually see a romney/cain ticket. >> a romney/cain ticket. >> let's talk about 9-9-9. >> 9-9-9. >> not doing very well in debates. >> his republican rivals took turns slamming him. >> the conversation turns to foreign policy and has no clue what he's talking about. >> i have no idea. >> herman cain really doesn't know honestly what he's talking about. >> it's simple, it's concise, it's easy to understand. >> just have a stupidity tax, just tax the stupid people.

>> i don't have facts to back this up. >> so what's the takeaway for voters? >> if we don't run chris christie, nominee will be the nominee on the loose. from 8:00 to 10:00 p.m. last night, president obama was comfortably ensconced at the spring hill suites hotel in hampton, virginia, where he was effortlessly winning the republican presidential debate. the republican presidential candidates were a couple of thousand miles away in a casino behaving as if they've been served too many free drinks at the roulette wheel. casino security had to keep a sharp eye on a couple of them who almost came to blows but the most shameful conduct belonged, as usual, to the republican debate audience. we have seen republican debate audiences cheer rick perry for

executing more people than any republican presidential candidate in history. we've seen them cheer the idea of letting a person without health insurance die. we have seen republican debate audiences boo a soldier asking a question from iraq. and last night, we saw the republican debate audience offer cheering support to the most vile pronouncement any presidential candidate has ever made on a televised debate stage. that is herman cain's repeated belief that if you are not rich, you should blame yourself. that if you're not ploy employed at the moment with 9% unemployment, you should blame yourself. >> herman cain,vy vy i have to ask you. you said, quote -- two weeks ago, you said don't blame wall street, don't blame the big banks. if you don't have a job, if you are not rich, blame yourself. that's two weeks ago. the movement has grown.

do you still say that? >> yes, i still do say that. and here's why. [ cheers and applause ] >> the republican audience and the republican candidates have very strong feelings about illegal immigration. the new front-runner has suggested that the proper penalty for the men, women, children and babies who try to enter the country illegally is that they be put to death without trial when they come in contact with a lethally electrified fence on our southern border. willard m. romney has deflected comments about his religion with grace, but being accused of hypocrisy on illegal immigration was more than even he could bear. >> mitt, you lose all of your standing from my perspective because you hired illegals in your home and you knew about it for a year, and the idea that you stand here before us and talk about that you're strong on immigration is on its face the height of hypocrisy. >> governor romney?

>> rick, i don't think i've ever hired an illegal in my life. i'm looking forward to finding your facts on that. >> i'll tell you what the facts are. >> rick, again -- i'm speaking. i'm speaking. >> the newspaper -- >> i'm speaking. >> it's time for you to tell the truth. >> you get 30 seconds. this is the way the rules work. i get 60 seconds. >> the american people want the truth. >> you get 30 seconds to respond, right? anderson -- >> would you please wait? are you just going to keep talking? are you going to let me finish with what i have to say? look, rick -- this has been a tough couple of debates for rick. i understand that. so you're going to get -- you're going to get testy. we hired a lawn company to mow our lawn and they had illegal immigrants working there. and when that was pointed out to us, we let them go. we went to them -- you have a problem with allowing someone to finish speaking and i suggest

that if you want to become president of the united states, you have to let both people speak. first let me speak. so we went to the company and said, look, you can't have any illegals working on our property, i'm running for office for petes sake, i can't have illegals. it turns out they hired someone who falsified their documents, had documents and therefore we fired them. >> a new nbc marist poll of the crucial states of south carolina and florida show that herman cain is now the front-runner in both of those states. in south carolina, he actually leads the field with 30% support among likely republican primary voters. romney pulls up second with 26%. with perry now running a distant third at 9%. in florida where most republican voters don't yet know that herman cain's 9-9-9 plan includes abolishing social security and medicare, cain is in a virtual tie with romney for the lead.

cain at 32% and romney at 31%. while perry is once again far behind in third place at 8%. joining me now, national affairs editor for "new york" mack gazine, john heilman who was at the debate, msnbc contributor alex wagner, former adviser to the george w. bush and mccain campaigns, mark mckinnon also joins us. and former chief of staff to congresswoman michele bachmann ron kerry returns to the show. thank you all for joining me tonight. alex, could president obama have had a better debate night? >> you have to think that president obama was sitting just rubbing his hands together saying, keep it going. i mean, it devolved, literally was there a mud pit stage left where they could take out the tax disputes hand to hand combat style? it was, i think, i mean, look, you've seen these candidates graded on a number of different

scales in the post hoc analysis and some people are saying, look, perry showed his true colors, he woke up. romney showed some steel. at the end of the day the feeling was ick. >> john, did you get any honest assessments from any progressal republicans about how they thought this went last night? >> yeah, sure, lawrence. >> i don't care about stewart stevens' spin for romney or the different spinners. >> what happened last night, for the first time of the republican debates, mitt romney got scuffed up. hillary clinton in 2008, in the 2007 debate she was a juggernaut throughout 2007 until they got to the debate in october and all of a sudden in one two-minute segment, the end of the debate she suddenly looked vulnerable. this was not as bad for mitt romney as that was. that was the beginning of the end for hillary clinton. this is the first time when the other republican candidates

treated mitt romney like the front-runner front-runner. most reporters at the other debates sat in amazement at previous debates of the fact nobody else seemed to care about the fact mitt romney was floating above the fray. people tried to take mitt romney on on health care, rick perry did on immigration. he's in the cross hairs of everybody else. that's a big moment. he flinched. he got rattled. there's no question in that exchange with perry, perry didn't look great, but mitt romney looked like his big sore toes had been stepped on and that's going to open the door to a lot more attacks in the coming days, negative advertising and certainly in these debates everybody is going to be on mitt romney the way they hadn't been before. >> mark mckinnon, did you see a winner in the debate other than president obama? >> the debate proves this thing is not settled yet. as john said, romney last night, blood was drawn and it showed

the man who would be king may be vulnerable. and that cain lost some altitude and that perry woke up and he's got his batteries strapped on now. so, you know, i think we have to just stand back and realize and focus on iowa and focus on new hampshire, don't look too far. it's time to look at what the impact of these debates right now is going to be on the first election which is going to be in iowa. so that's where i think we need to start focusing our attention. >> ron kerry, before i get to you, i want us all to listen to a spot where your former boss, michele bachmann, was actually one of the voices of reason in last night's debate. let's listen to this. >> and there are women right now all across this country, and moms across this country, whose husbands through no fault of their own are losing their job and they can't keep that house and there are women who are losing that house.

president obama has failed you on this issue of housing and foreclosures. i will not fail you on this issue. i will turn this country around. >> ron, she didn't get anything like the response that herman cain got for saying if you're not rich, blame yourself. michele bachmann in there says, actually refers to people losing their jobs, quote, through no fault of their own. that apparently is not the republican view of how people lose their jobs in this country. >> well, michele there i think was playing the gender card. her numbers have fallen dramatically. she's trying to reach out to the women voters in the republican party and say, i understand some of the concerns you have there. that's fine. she's trying to reinvigorate her campaign that's fallen dramatically. if you look at the debate performance last night, you don't hear anybody talking about michele bachmann. don't think there was anything memorable she did say. the show was rick perry and mitt romney going after it and rick santorum did a fantastic job going after mitt romney on health care and really injecting himself as a leader in the campaign and debates, going after and trying to press the attack on mitt romney. so that plus the herman cain 9-9-9 is what people remember, not michele bachmann's efforts

to try to bring gender into the debate. >> ron, how long can michele bachmann stay in the race? >> well, she can stay in quite some time. she does have an amazing small donor base of almost a quarter million people that gave money to her in the past. only if only 30% write her a check for $25, it adds up to real money and you can run a low-budget campaign in iowa where it's getting into the coffee shops and having your bus go from town to town. she can stay through iowa i think. i'd be surprised if he doesn't stay through iowa. if she doesn't succeed in iowa, i don't see any path for her to go further because new hampshire is going to be ughly and south carolina is not going to be viable for her if she can't win in iowa. >> mark mckinnon, can rick perry climb back into this thing? he sunk down into a distant third in single digits. >> absolutely. you know, it was interesting "wall street journal" poll in the last week that showed that

among the most korve conservative voters polled, they're those who are most likely to show up and vote, rick perry was leading romney. he has $15 million packed away and has a smart team. they're going to be targeted in iowa where they have upside opportunity. i don't count him out at all. i think there will be a second act to the perry campaign. >> john, with the polling mark just cite ing d, romney has to do everything he can to keep herman cain in the race. buy books. he's buying herman cain books. >> cain's buying his own book and romney who famously bought his own book back in the day doing the same thing. look, they are propping herman cain up. go to the spin room at the debate as i did last night and hear the romney people. you were disparaging my friend, stewart. i'm joking, i'm joking. >> he's a friend of mine. ignore what he says about his guy. >> all of those guys sat back there last night and said, you know, rick perry desperate --

there's a reason why herman cain is in the lead with us, he's the other businessman in the group. these are the guys with the private sector experience, mitt romney, herman cain. they talk about herman cain as if they want to have him on the ticket. >> herman cain is his brother. rick perry's brother. >> exactly right. they want as many of those guys to stay in and stay viable. they want michele bachmann. you saw him throw a softball can question to bachmann at the previous debate. they want bachmann and cain to be viable. the question for them, if they can keep the people propped up, is there an opening for mitt romney to go to iowa, sneak in and win the caucuses because the conservative vote is divided? can he sneak in and win the vote and win new hampshire and shut the whole thing down? that will be the fundamental strategic decision they have to make in the coming weeks. are we going to play in iowa or not? it's going to be tempting for

them to do that. >> you get the feeling romney wouldn't mind saying good-bye to rick santorum. from the sidelines, he gets in really hard hitting shots and does not make a fool of himself like some of the other ones do. >> i think, you know, beyond the fisticuffs quite literally and verbally with rick perry, it was rick santorum that gave mitt rommy the hardest time last night. santorum has been consistent throughout all this and can make a relatively good case but has no platform. he continues to be the gnat in everyone's ear is the nuisance and would like him out of this race. we're going to come back to this. coming un, more on last night's debate including the multiple attacks on romney for his health care bill. also ahead, the promises you heard in that debate cannot be kept. that's in the "rewrite." and ohio might want to rethink its position on regulations especially regulations on letting private citizens keep lions and tigers. after a man released dozens of very dangerous animals in ohio. you name it. i've tried it. i want healthy skin for life. [ female announcer ] improve the health of your skin with aveeno daily moisturizing lotion. the natural oatmeal formula

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last night's debate except perhaps president obama. you could argue that mitt romney lost. alex wagner, john heilman, ron carey and mark mckinnon return to talk about the hits mitt romney took on health care. and guess who thinks herman cain's 9-9-9 plan is a good idea. good idea for him, anyway. donald trump. [ inner voice ]

the republican presidential candidates have all consistently agreed on one thing. the health care reform bill that president obama signed into law is bad. very bad. all but one of the republican presidential candidates agree that the health care reform bill that governor mitt raum omney signed into law is bad. very, very bad. >> balancing the federal budget and that starts with repealing obama care. >> you just don't have credible, mitt, when it comes to repealing obama care. your plan was the basis for

obama care. >> i was asked, is this something you'd have the whole nation do? and i said no. this was something that was crafted for massachusetts. >> what you did is exactly what barack obama did. >> there's a lot of big government behind romney care, not as much as obama care, but a heck of a lot more than your campaign is admitting. >> actually, newt, we got the idea of individual mandate from you. >> that's not true. >> you did support an individual mandate. >> yes, sir. >> that's what sooim i'm saying. >> we're back with our panel. john heilman who was at the debate last night. msnbc political analyst, alex wagner. former adviser to the george w. bush and mccain campaigns mark mckinnon and former chief of staff to michele bachmann, ron carey. thank you for staying with me. to add to the video library on mitt romney and health care, here is mitt romney on "meet the press" in 2007. >> now, i think it's a good model for every state. maybe not every state, but most. >> so much for the it was only for massachusetts.

we're going to see an awful lot of that "meet the press" clip in campaigns ads, aren't we, john? >> sure will. mitt romney has done a good job so far at defusing this issue up until now. there was always a time when you knew it was going to come, when the ideological critique as mitt romney as not being sufficiently conservative for today's republican party was going to come at him from every angle. this has got to be exhibit "a." the individual mandate is something many, many republicans thing in principle is wrong not just for the federal government but any state to adopt. romney is going to start to be hammered on this. i think, again, last night, what we'll remember the debate for is the moment when his artful dodging on this issue, the rest of the republican candidates said, that's enough, we're going to take you on in this head-on and defend it in a much more forthright way than he has so far. >> the other candidates found their voices and the way to swing the bat on this thing.

>> absolutely. we saw turning of the tide. it was like mitt romney, you are the effigy, the strawman. we're going after you. it's your time. i mean, and really it's mitt romney backing away from his own shadow. i think it's a question as to whether the american public is going to say, well, we believe what you're saying or really i think it's an either/or proposition for them on this. massachusetts and look at obama care and know the president is going to be saying over and over and over again as he has, as senior advisers did today, romney care was the model for obama care, for the affordable care act. >> mark mckinnon, my proven inability to read republican primary politics, i had always thought mitt romney simply could not survive as a republican presidential primary candidate because of his health care connection. he is a front-runner. he has survived so far. can he make it all the way? is this thing -- is this the thing that can stop him, the most potent thing that can stop him? >> i think it is. and the surprise has been that

so far he's been able to handle that issue. we all thought it would wrap around his axel much earlier. he showed great candidate skills and learned a lot from the last election. but last night i think was reaffirmed for everybody, reminded everybody this issue was kryptonite for him and they pushed out the kryptonite and could see him start to wilt and start to fade and see the others gaining strength as he was losing his. so i think everybody smells that now and i think he's going to get a lot more of it in the next debates. you know, the next debates i think are going to get really interesting now. i think everybody is going to have to come with their body armor loaded up. >> ron carey, the new nbc poll of south carolina and florida republican voters goes to another problem that appears to be, it doesn't exactly say how it plays in the campaign, but the question, the mormon question that we all don't even

quite know how to talk about, for example, in south carolina, the nbc poll found that of republican primary voters, 53% say no, a mormon is not a christian. in florida, 42% of republican primary voters say a mormon is not a christian. and then there's another question. a recent poll, it asked to describe mitt romney in one word. 60% used the word mormon. the next thing down was health care at 17%. how -- did -- is there a way to factor in what the mormon factor is in republican primary voting and how it's going to affect romney going forward? >> it's an issue, but it's a pretty small issue. i mean, it pales in comparison to what we've been talking about with health care. health care is the achilles' heel for mitt romney. that's what he's going to have to fend off. there may be a handful of people there this is a concern, but those same people are going to have just as much, if not a bigger concern, with his flip-flopping issues on the issues that are important to

them as conservatives. so i don't think it's going to be deciding issue, but it's something, it is the gnat that is going to continue to haunt him a bit, but it's not going to be the issue that's going to take him out. it will be health care. mark was exactly right. if he is going to go down, it's going to be health care. what with e have to keep in mind in the republican primary circles, goes back to our last discussion about keeping everybody viable. you don't need to win a majority of the vote to become the nominee. if you look back to 2008, john mccain was getting 25% or 30% in south carolina and that was enough to win and thread the needle, become our nominee. he didn't start getting a majority of the vote until much later in the process. so romney seems to have that stable 20%, 25% of the republican establishment there. he just needs to be able to get incrementally 5% or 10% more to be able to ban quish his opponents. unless they're able to consolidate behind one champion,

he'll probably become the john mccain of 2008 and thread the needle and become the establishment candidate able to prevail over the majority of the party that's more conservative but fragmented among many candidates. >> john, quickly before we go, they're talking about it even when they're not talking about it. there's a newt gingrich who talks about religion at length up there on the debate stage saying the only important thick thing is you have faith, have a religion, must not be an atheist, that's the religion test, you must not be an atheist but can be anything else. when gingrich is talking about that, he's talking about the mormon question without going directly to it. >> any time they talk about religion in the republican primary they're talking about mormonism. mitt romney, that was the strongest moment in the debate when he talked about how he shouldn't be subject to a religious test. this party is a southern party. if rick perry, because of his

financial resources if he is resurgent and this becomes a romney/perry race, we're going to see a difference between the northern part of the republican primaries and the southern part. in the southern states where rick perry will be strongest, there is a strong feeling among a lot of evangelical voters that mormonism is not christianity, that it is a cult and perry will exploit that and see it throughout. >> the funny thing is democrats and liberals would have no problem as they showed in massachusetts when they elected romney, the mormon, governor. they have no problem at all. >> rightly so. >> john heilman, alex wagner, mark mckinnon, ron carey, thank you for joining me tonight. even though herman cain's 9-9-9 plan was attacked from all sides last night, he does not have -- he does now have one big defender. donald trump. the employee of

still to come on tonight's program, donald trump talked 9-9-9 with matt lauer admitting the plan would help him a lot but hurt working families. you know what that means. time for "the last word" senior trump correspondent jonathan capehart. let's go come with me, coffee doesn't have vitamins... unless you want it to.

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result in some americans paying more in taxes. a fact cain was forced to concede for the very first time on sunday's "meet the press." >> you're acknowledging this morning, which i haven't heard you do before, that there are individuals who are going to pay more in taxes. >> there are some, yes. >> you think those people are going to rally around tax reform where the wealthy pay less and middle class and lower income folks pay more? >> yes. >> how many will pay more? according to the tax policy center, at least 84% of households in the united states will pay more in taxes under the 9-9-9 plan. a family of four making $50,000 a year, married, filing jointly, with two dependent children, would see a dramatic increase. that family making $50,000 a year currently pays about $8,400 in payroll taxes and federal income tax. that's their federal tax burden. $8,400. under cain's 9-9-9, their tax burden would increase, federal tax burden, to $13,500. that same family making $1

million a year, that same shaped family making $1 million a year, is currently paying $289,000 in federal income tax after a $50,000 mortgage deduction and a $25,000 charitable deduction, which is reasonable to assume at that income level. under herman cain's 9-9-9 plan, that million-dollar family would pay 9%. $90,000 in federal income tax. assuming they put $300,000 or so in the bank and spend the rest, the remainder of that spending, they would pay $55,000 in federal sales taxes. the new cain federal sales tax. that would bring their total federal tax burden to only $145,000. so herman cain's 9-9-9 plan would result in the family making $50,000 a year paying $5,000 more in federal taxes. the family making $1 million a year would be paying $144,000 less in federal taxes. no surprise, donald trump really likes that. >> 9-9-9, whether you like it or don't -- >> a lot of people don't. a lot of conservative economic experts say it's a disaster. >> but it's something.

okay? it's something. he's putting something out there. other people are putting out 97-page reports -- the family making $1 million a year would be paying $144,000 less in federal taxes. no surprise, donald trump really likes that. >> 9-9-9, whether you like it or don't -- >> a lot of people don't. a lot of conservative economic experts say it's a disaster. >> but it's something. okay? it's something. he's putting something out there. other people are putting out 97-page reports -- >> wait, wait, wait, wait. do you agree with 9-9-9? >> i don't agree with it. >> if he puts out there and it's wrong, does that make a difference? >> he's not catering to me. he's katering to a lot of people. they understand the simplicity of it. it's simple, concise and easier to understand.

the sales tax part of it is very tough. do i like being brought down to 9%? i love it. will sales tax effect me? not so much. >> would you agree with conservative experts who say this takes the burden completely off the wealthy and puts it squarely on the shoulders of the poor and middle class? >> i think he's going to amend it. i don't think he's completed it. >> joining me now is "last word" senior trump correspondent jonathan capehart, "washington post" editorial writer and msnbc contributor. thanks for joining me. >> thanks, lawrence. great to be here. >> have you got to speak to the great man? you have donald's number. you chat with him. have you spoken to the great man about 9-9-9? >> i have not talked to him about 9-9-9. i have not spoken to him today. i spoke to him before his tele town hall with michele bachmann. >> there's wonderful trump inconsistency within one answer. he's up here at the top of his page in the transcript of what he just said, he's saying the

simplicity of it, it's simple, concise. that's ha what he loves about 9-9-9. then he says, you have to amend it, in other words, complicate it. >> he said it's not done. that's the very last thing he said. i think what donald trump likes about it is that it's catchy. it's something that trips off of everyone's lips when you ask, who's herman cain? oh, 9-9-9 guy. once you get into the details, it's horrifying. even donald trump in the sound bite you showed says, i don't agree with it but he likes the fact his tax rate will be brought down to %. he loves that. of course he would. anybody would. the 9% sales tax, of course he says, it's not going to affect me much. what does he care? >> right. right. and so every -- every single analysis you can do of this shows that it is a massive tax increase on 84% of the people. and it actually is not as good -- i was checking upper incomes. you have to get up to a pretty serious high income before it

starts to work for you. to work for you consistently. because he eliminates the mortgage deduction and eliminate eliminates a bunch of deductions you can't use. but herman cain cares nothing about any fact that gets presented to him on this and he just -- he will just continue to boldly assert, oh, no, no, it does this and does that and its revenue neutral. there's nothing that's ever going to shake him. >> not up until last night. we hit a watershed moment with herman cain and the 9-9-9 plan because up until that moment he wasn't really taken seriously. 9-9-9 was about getting his name out there, making a splash and he did. hooefs he's at the top of every poll, at the top of south carolina's poll. when you have people from the right on that stage attacking every single sentence of your plan, you have people from the left automatically attacking your plan and then you have places like the tax policy center, you know, nonpartisan, just looking at the numbers,

hammering you, you have no choice but to if you want to be considered a credible candidate be able to answer all those questions specifically and not just say you haven't read the plan. and the idea that donald trump just said he's going to have to amend it, it's not finished. that's unacceptable. you cannot become elected president of the united states and present a plan that sweeping and that radical and only have it be a rough draft. >> quickly before we go, his supporters and he seem to -- cain -- seem to think that all he needs to do is not back down. that that's -- he doesn't need to command facts, he just needs to hold his ground and assert that he's right. >> at a certain point, though, it's all going to crumble because it might work well in a debate, but when the folks in iowa go to caucus and the folks in new hampshire go to vote in their primary ies, they're going to look at hard and fast evidence to see if the person should be in the oval office.

they're going to look at him by then and say, no, he's not. >> mns snbc analyst and donald trump translator, jonathan thank you very much. candidates always make promises they cannot get through congress and voters always fall for it. that's in the "rewrite." for

republican candidates are making a lot of promises they know they can never keep because congress would never let them keep those promises. just ask president bush and president obama. that's in the "rewrite." the two and a healthy choice for the planet? [ female announcer ] try pantene nature fusion shampoo. its pro-v formula captures the potential of cassia to make weak, brittle hair up to 10x stronger. and now it comes in pantene's new bottle. made from up to 59% plant-based material. ♪ healthier hair... healthier planet. one small step at a time.

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time for tonight's "rewrite." at last night's republican presidential debate, the candidates did what presidential candidates always do. they lied. >> i said time and again obama care is bad news. it's unconstitutional, it costs way too much money, $1 trillion. and if i'm mt. president of the united states i'll repeal it for the american people. >> i think we're going to win this thing. we're going to repeal it. i will. >> i cut the corporate rate for manufacturing to zero, repeal all regulations of manufacturers that cost over $100 million and replace it with something that's presently and they can work with. >> i was the very first candidate to sign a pledge that said by a date certain i will build a double-walled fence with an area of security and neutrality in between.

i will board that, build the fence, enforce english as the official language of the united states government. and every -- every person who comes into this country will have to agree that they will not receive taxpayer subsidized benefits of any american citizen -- >> time. >> thank you. >> i will repeal it. i will build it. presidents can't repeal anything. presidents can't build anything. to be fair, democratic candidates for president tell the same kind of lies. the lies that in effect, imagine a fictional world in which there is no house of representatives and no united states senate, a world in which presidents get elected and just do things instead of the real world where presidents get elected and beg congress to things. presidents must frequently beg the chairman or chairwoman of the house ways & means committee, the chairman of the senate finance committee as well

as the chairman of the appropriations committees in both the house and the senate because that's where the money is. that's where all the money is. all of the federal government's money. everything that it spends is under the control of the chairman of those four committees. they control it all. if, like george w. bush, you are a republican who is asking those chairmen for a tax cut, the politically easiest thing for any politician, democrat or republican, to do, it is very likely that they will happily give you some version of your tax cut and your tax cut will pass both houses with way more than enough votes. if you're bill clinton in 1993 and asking those chairmen to give you a tax increase after having campaigned on a tax cut, those chairmen, if they happen to be democrats, which they were, will get that tax cut increase for you, but it will be very hard work and it will pass as it did them by one vote. if you're president barack obama and you're asking congress to

increase the top income tax rate and the house ways & means committee chairman is a republican, there's a zero percent chance you're going to get your wish. we know michele bachmann will never be president, but if some other republican is elected president someday and wants to build a double-walled fence that bachmann dreams of along our southern border, that president will have to go to the house of representatives in the senate and beg them to introduce a bill that will do that. that will authorize the building of such a fence. that authorization bill will have to then pass both the house and the senate. and then no fence will be built unless, and until the president can convince the house and the senate to pass another bill. the bill that appropriates the money to build the fence that congress has already legally authorized. so the right way to say what michele bachmann lies about on

that debate stage is, if i am elected president, i will ask congress to authorize the building of a fence and then i will ask congress to appropriate the money to build the fence that congress has authorized. okay. she doesn't have to say it exact exactly that we with all the legislative process involved but has to acknowledge it is up to the congress to authorize the building of the fence and to appropriate the money for building of the fence. and all she can really do is to beg or to cheerlead congress to do that. here is the correct way for a president to describe his legislative hopes and dreams. >> congress also needs to address the challenges facing social security. i traveled to kun he country to talk with the american people. they understand social security is headed for serious financial trouble. and they expect their leaders in washington to address the problem. >> i am sending this congress a

plan that you should pass right away. it's called the american jobs act. there should be nothing controversial about this piece of legislation. everything in here is the kind of proposal that's been supported by both democrats and republicans. including many who sit here tonight. >> president obama's jobs plan got much farther than president bush's social security plan. president obama's jobs plan was actually debated and came to a vote in the united states senate where it was then blocked by the republicans. president bush's social security reform plan never came to a vote in the senate or the house. not on the floor or even in the committee. president bush's plan never even received a hearing in the house or the senate. the republican-controlled house and senate completely ignored the republican president's proposal on social security. as you watch the rest of the republican debates and the rest of the presidential campaign, watch like a professional.

and remember what the candidates and the media always forget. and what fans of president obama have had to learn the hard way. the power to govern resides almost entirely in the congress. hey buddy, wattaya lookin' a-oooh. [ female announcer ] mini meets berries. kellogg's frosted mini-wheats

please don't quote me. i'm going to say we've got about 35 calls since 04, 05 area that we ran on our computer, we've been to mr. thompson's house with some sort of problem with the animals. >> that was sheriff matt lutz asked not to be quoted in his first press conference. why zep deputies had to shoot wild animals including bears, tigers and monkeys let loose by

their owner just before the owner apparently then killed himself. tonight, a monkey with herpes "b" is still on the loose in ohio. currently ohio has no rules regulating the sale and ownership of exotic animals like this. former democratic governor ted strickland issued an executive order during his last days in office but current republican governor john kasich allowed that order to expire in april. joining me now, democratic ohio congressman dennis kucinich, a member of oversight and government reform committee. thank you very joining me tonight, congressman. >> thank you very much. >> how could this happen? what do we need to do to prevent this kind of thing? >> what we know is that the owner opened up the gates and let the animals out. ted strickland was right when he put up a temporary ban in

january of 2011 on the sale and purchase of exotic animals. it was up to the department of natural resources to implement rules. they didn't do that. governor kasich apparently at this point has no intention of following up on the action of governor strickland and basically is sending it to the department of natural resources for them to do something about it. i don't think anything is going ohio is one of the easiest ion to deal in these exotic pets. they have auctions across the state. every type of animal you could imagine is auctioned off and as a result you see the kind of tragedies that we have today where there's really no way of stopping these incidences. today was, of course, the worst, but humane society of the united states points out since 2003, there's been at least 22 incidents that have involved these exotic animals, where people have been injured and, or in this case, the animals, unfortunately, have, 48 of them

have been killed. >> congressman, seems that there's a public safety issue here. these animals, it's not like having a dog or cat, obviously. it requires real training and expertise to be able to care for animals like this and keep the animals safe and anybody living near the kinds of animals safe. there's a clear governing interest here. >> there is. you need regulation. there's another issue here, too, lawrence. that is we should be focusing on protecting the natural habitats of these animals in the native countries. where they're from. because, you know, philosophically, what in the world are we doing? taking animals from the wild and people trying to raise them like they're a dog and a cat? it is fundamentally wrong and it can only lead to tragedy, where someone gets mauled or killed and the public needs to be protected, but the animals need

to be protected as well. this is really heartbreaking when, you know, we see not only animals removed from their habitat but can be penned up as they were with this particular individual then he decides for whatever reason to let them out, takes his own life. this is a nightmare, but we need to get back to the regulation. governor kasich should take heat from this horrible event and take up what governor strickland did, enact a temporary ban, let the dnr, department of natural resources come forward with rules to regulate this. the federal government, of course, is going to have to take a careful look at this. there's at least ten states where efforts to try to regulate the sale or purchase of exotic animals are basically futile. >> congressman dennis kucinich of ohio. thanks for joining us and explaining this situation in your state.