he who pays the piper calls the tune. but exasperation isn't enough to fix our problems. that's what politicians are supposed to do. we've got an election coming up to force that one to force them to do what we want them to do -- lead us. that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. politics nation with al sharpton starts right now. occupy everywhere? is it the start of a real effort to make this country more fair? >> wall street! >> marching through the streets of new york city, setting down at the bridge and surrounding big banks in los angeles. >> this is the beginning of a very big social change in this country. >> what will it mean for progressive politics? how will it affect the 2012 presidential election? tonight former congressman alan grayson and van jones under

strength of the movement. senator sanders on how it's already forced some politicians to wake up except not these guys yet. plus, supreme injustice. >> she's involved herself in the litigation. >> a key senator goes after liberal justice elena kagan but has no problem with thomas and scalia's conflicts of interest? senator, is your hypocrisy meter broken? and why is john boehner crying again? it's his birthday. he should be happy. we'll have our special birthday wishes. >> happy birthday. >> politics nation starts right now.

welcome. i'm al sharpton. tonight's lead, the birth of a new progressive movement in america. marking the two-month anniversary of the middle class movement, protesters across the nation today took to the streets to march for families. in new york city at this hour thousands of protesters are in downtown manhattan enroute to the brooklyn bridge. we've already seen massive marches from zuccotti park to the new york stock exchange as thousands gathered near wall street. for the most part the march was peaceful but more than 170 people were arrested for blocking streets and clogging traffic. at least seven have been injured in clashes. it's not just in new york. in los angeles hundreds marched to the financial district chanting "banks got bailed out we got sold out." in portland organized labor and

activists rallied on the water front and shut down the steel bridge. in dallas occupy woke up to eviction as police shut down their tent city evicting dozens. we're now looking at a live picture of thousands of protesters who are planning to get across the brooklyn bridge. let me say that we can see all over the country people are standing up, standing in unity, saying, we must deal with economic inequality. i can assure you many will be discussing things that are really not the point. was it 200,000 or 20,000 or 2,000? the point is that it is enough to change the compensation in this country. we that march, we that engage in civil disobedience are not doing it because people like to get arrested or people like to be out in the cold. we do it because you must

dramatize what is going on to have those that are ignoring it have to deal and address the joining me now, two fellow warriors for the 99%, van jones, rebuild the dream, and former congressman alan grayson, democrat from florida. van, your line yesterday was, quote, you haven't seen anything yet. ? great day for democracy. we are three years into the the great depression and people a white hot stove for three years hoping that washington, d.c. would come save them. people realize now we've got to stand up for ourselves. the american dream means that people who work hard should be able to get someplace. we are now seeing the american dream being thrown in the garbage can. the people who don't work hard and break the rules, the people who sit there on wall street, you know, making money off making money, those are the ones who profited and the rest of us

have been suffering. this is a great day for democracy. what's next? we have to move from ainge tower answers. people want the occupy movement has blown the doors open. the rest of us, the 99% who have ideas and solutions like rebuild a dream.com, we've got good ideas now and we've got the opportunity to not just talk about the problems but also talk about solutions. >> congressman grayson, i think that we have seen any number of movements now from labor in wisconsin and ohio to the jobs march we did in the november around martin luther king's memorial, jobs and justice, occupy two months today. all of this must lead to real solution and answers as vance said and move to some action in the congress and the senate. how do we make that transition? >> well, the same way we did in the '60s. i'm in my second half century like you, reverend, so i

remember what that was like. this is what the beginning looked like in the '60s. people marching, protesting, saying we desperately need change. we're not going to take any more. our leaders have to follow us and get things done. that's what led to clean air and clean water, safe food, safe cars, women's rights, and peace. you'll see the same transition now in this country 50 years later. >> but just like in the '60s and the '70s, and the '80s when we fought and got change and i was t things, i'm clear there fighting us. there are people that are not easily and we can't romanticize that. that is why it's important that we have all kinds of expressions of movement but as vance says the solutions. how do we make the congress understand they must legislate

and not just sit by like spectators. >> we have an election coming up but even before the election the so-called super committee which should be called the super awful committee apparently is thinking about next week, even in the face of all of this protest coming forit with proposals that will just add pain to the pain. and impose even more devastating cuts on the american people. if you -- the reason i say you haven't seen anything yet is the streets and the elites stay this far apart where you have a movement going one direction saying we want more economic opportunity, more fairness, more help for the people, and the elites in d.c. go the other direction, and try to impose more pain on the people, the movement you see right now will grow by ten times. the super committee needs to stop putting forward super bad ideas and come forward with some super proposals for jobs. number one. >> what will move congress? marches as i said

mobilizing. the congress the past? >> think about what brought us the civil rights movement. we had a million people show up at the washington monument and demand their rights. we're going to need the same thing right now. now it's not just one race. it's all america. it's the 99%. it's all of us who just can't take anymore. the sheep are looking up and they're going to demand that congress listens. if that means occupy washington, d.c., that's fine. if it means occupy wall street, that's fine. whatever it takes because people head in a different direction. they will have to listen. the same way the tea party occupied all of our town hall meetings two years ago, now real suffering, experiencing the misery of having their social security taken away, their medicare taken away, losing their pensions, their jobs, their homes, they're going to speak up. the sheep are going to look up and take over.

that i am hearing, van. there are those that are complaining about all of the of us are doing the tea and the tea party was doing vigils and some of them even standing in front weapons, they were expressing of a sudden these that are out there, those of us doing other things are called trouble makers. they can't have it both ways. when americans stand up, let me show you this graph. when 68% of americans are saying they're supporting taxing millionaires, 68% of millionaires even saying it, economic inequality. when it was the tea party on the right, they had rights. when glenn beck was leading marches, they had rights. now when you have occupy wall street, when you have all of those of us doing other efforts, all of a sudden, we are being

disruptive. no, we are talking for the majority of americans. >> yes. and i think that's one of the most important things we can say. the other thing they're trying to say is that this is some kind of movement that is against it's a patriotic movement. be a place of equal opportunity american dream and cain's dream and we are supposed to be a place where equal opportunity means something. it shouldn't be just a cruel joke. we're standing up for that. that's what patriots do. you stand up and defend your country against the people who want to rig the game. the other thing is this is not a movement that hates rich people just for being rich. if it were that kind of movement we'd call it occupy silicon valley. it's about not hating the economic winners but the economic cheaters. we're tired of the cheaters. we're tired of people rigging the game so that they can get ahead and the rest of us can't get anywhere. and so this is a very american movement. it's saying we want to have equal opportunity. quit rigging the game. quit cheating. if you're successful that's

great but don't be greedy. don't use your wealth to hurt the country. use your health to help the country. that's this movement. >> congressman, alan grayson, and van jones, thanks to both of you for your time. >> thank you very much for the opportunity. >> ahead, massachusetts mystery. a bombshell. a bombshell report on governor mitt romney's team. why did they completely destroy all e-mail? why did they literally buy their state issued computers? what is he trying to hide? the reporter who broke the story joins us next. plus it's desperation time. starting and twisting the truth to paint the president as anti-american. massive fact check tonight. and cheer up speaker boehner. it's your birthday. and i have some special gifts for you tonight. you're watching "politician nation" on msnbc.

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democrats and republicans are trying to find a way to deal with this country's debt crisis. there's only one snag. republicans don't seem to get what's causing the debt problem even though they seem to have quite a problem with it. >> today marks an infamous day

in american history. it's the day that the national debt is now $15 trillion and the president rather than tackling this challenge, rather than facing up to our debt is pursuing policies that are making matters worse. >> our debts have crossed the $15 trillion number yesterday. that ought to be a giant wakeup call to the congress that it's time to rip the band-aid off and do what needs to be done. >> did i miss something? did speaker boehner miss the bush presidency? did he miss the tax cuts bush initiated? those tax cuts will add $424 billion to this year's deficit alone. one-third of our deficit can be blamed on those tax cuts. you want to solve this country's debt problem? focus more on having the rich pay more and less on cutting programs for the poor and middle class. joining me now is senator bernie sanders, independent from vermont. today he joined other lawmakers telling congress to wake up and

protect entitlements in debt deal negotiations. senator, thank you for coming on the show tonight. >> my pleasure, al. >> why do republicans continue to attack medicare and social security when taxes seem to be the real issue? >> well, they want ed to sort te reality facing the american policy and what the debt crisis is all about. george bush got news two wars. he forgot to pay for them. he gave huge tax breaks to the wealthy people of the country, no offset. he pass'd prescription drug medicare part d program, forgot to negotiate prices with the pharmaceutical industry, didn't pay for that. wall street caused this terrible, terrible recession, massive unemployment, less revenue coming into the federal government. and now with that as the background, as the true background, what our republican friends see is an opportunity with the national debt so high to start shifting the blame and

say, well. we have this terrible deficit. we've got to destroy social security, medicare, medicaid. we've got to cut back on education, the environmental -- >> and it's not even fiscally sound, senator. let me show you. when they talk about where we're doing this reduce the deficit, if you just reduce the corporate jet tax loop hole, you would generate $460 million a year. if you cut the wasteful spending programs they're proposing you'd only cut $456 million a year. if they really were just talking numbers and deficit, they would really cut more by just closing the corporate debt tax loop holes than programs that they're talking about are wasteful which you and i would argue are not wasteful atd all. it doesn't even make mathematical sense what they're saying. >> you're right, al. what is very, very interesting, al, is that all across the country the american people are

coming together on what a sensible deficit reduction plan is about. and all of the polls say the exact same thing. the american people whether they are republicans, democrats, independents, conservatives, progressives, they say that when the wealthiest people are doing phenomenally well, when their effective tax rate has gone down, you've got to ask the wealthy to pay more taxes. the american people are saying, when you have these huge corporate loop holes so the companies made billions of dollars in a given year and pay nothing in federal income tax, you got to close those loop holes. and the american people whether you're tea party or progressive, are also saying, do not cut social security, medicare, and medicaid. so we have a plan out there. the american people want deficit reduction but they want it in a way that is fair and responsible and i certainly hope that the super committee, republicans and democrats, are listening to what

the jaft majority of people want. >> we have a letter of 72 house republicans was sent to the super committee today saying they won't accept any tax hikes or new revenue under any circumstances. we also see that we're told that the republican leadership secretly pledged to grover norquist to protect tax breaks. these things are the problem that keeps the situation unfair and unequal moving forward. we've got to break that if we want to move forward al, what that is about is why the republican right wing ideology is literally a fringe ideology. nobody in america except the leadership of the republican party thinks that you should give more tax breaks to the rich and then cut social security, medicare, and medicaid. now, may hope is that the democrats this time stand tall

and that they defend working families in this country and they say, sorry. enough is enough. yeah, the wealthy all going to have to pay more in taxes and if you guys are not prepared to do that, we're going to go to the american people and expose you for what you are. >> senator bernie sanders, thanks for being with us tonight. >> thank you. >> ahead, we told you about the conflicts of interest of justices thomas and scalia and what they face in the health care challenge. what republican senator jeff session is saying. is it an attempt to deflect from that? and rick perry's latest attempt on president obama is just ridiculous and biased. >> he grew up in a privileged way. you know, he never had to really work for anything. >> you better believe i'm responding tonight to that. stay with us. how can you get back pain relief that lasts up to 16 hours?

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since the supreme court announced it would hear cases challenging president obama's health care law, we've told you about potential conflict of interest for justice thomas and justice scalia. but how does the right wing handle this story? they deflect. take alabama senator jefferson sessions. he's jumped on liberal justice elena kagan, saying she was

involved with defending the health care law when she was in the obama administration. >> she's involved herself in the litigation and is not normally any private lawyer would not be able to sit on the case. of course during her confirmation hearings kagan told senators she hadn't been asked her opinion about legal issues related to the proposed health care legislation, but it's interesting senator sessions is so worried about kagan and not scalia and thomas. just last week they headlined and spoke at a fundraiser for the conservative legal group the federalist society sponsored in part by the very firm that'slaw. and thom and scalia's table were right next to the table of paul clemmons. he is the lawyer who will likely argue against the health care law in the supreme court.

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[ male announcer ] innovative medical solutions. fedex. solutions that matter. ♪ and just let me be [ male announcer ] this is your moment. ♪ your ticket home ♪ [ male announcer ] this is zales, the diamond store. welcome back to "politics nation." an explosive report from the boston globe today reports that just as willard mitt romney was leaving the governor's office his top staff members destroyed all electronic records from their computers. quote, 11 of his top aides purchased their state issue computer hard drives and the romney administration's e-mails were all wiped from a server. and the computers that weren't purchased, they were replaced just before the next governor

duval patrick and his staff showed up to take power in january, 2007. state employees buying their work computers? that's a new one on me. romney's chief legal counsel said it was common practice in the governor's office and, quote, those purchases were in agreement with the law and long-standing executive branch practice. in massachusetts they're supposed to hand over electronic records when the governor leaves office. seems very fishy to me. joining me now, glen johnson 'n, political editor of "the boston globe" website, he's been writing about this today for the boston globe. thank you for being here with me tonight. >> thanks for having me on, al. >> now, let me make sure i have this right. romney's administration let employees buy the computers they used at work in state level jobs that had information on them that should have been saved for

public records. >> yeah. it wasn't just the computers, which i think people could probably wrap their head around. it was actually the hard drive component of some computers that in some cases was bought. so it wasn't just like selling somebody a lap top that they could use in another job. it was them taking a component out of a computer, a hard drive, and purchasing it on their own. >> now, wouldn't some of the things in the hard drive and those computers contain public record, public information that the state should have had access to, the citizens of the state of massachusetts? >> well, in some senses it's a public record. they were obviously government documents. this communication back and forth between government officials and on the government equipment was definitely government records. whether it's public is a whole different story. the state public records law doesn't apply to the governor's office. it also doesn't apply to the legislature which wrote the law but there's another section of state law which says that

government records must be preserved so even though the public might not have had ready access to anything on these hard drives, it should have been preserved for archival purposes and it wasn't apparently. >> have you been able to find any other case where this has happened in gubernatorial administrations aside from this one? >> yeah. as we work our way back to the computer era here, so far we've gone to the two prior administrations, the administration of governor jane swift another republican and the administration of paul sluchy a republican himself. the people we've talked to today, none of them, you know, ever bought their computers or at least bought the hard drives out of them. while the romney people say this was standard practice, perhaps they're referring to the practice of replacing computers in the governor's office before a new administration comes in, but certainly we've seen no precedent for this idea of taking hard drives out of computers and selling them to staffs for 65 bucks a piece. that seems unique. >> do officials that you spoke with think that this is legal?

>> well, certainly the secretary of state says the records should have been preserved and that part of it, you know, that is the question where, was there a violation of the law if any documentation that was on the hard drives wasn't preserved and passed on to the state archives. the transaction in and of itself, there are canceled checks for it and that all seems perfectly legal and i don't think anybody is alleging that is illegal. there is some question about how usual or unusual it bus not that the actual sale of the device was illegal, itself. >> the romney camp i understand is not too happy that you've written this. tell us about their response. >> well, i mean, they basically say this is standard practice and what they've done is immediately pivot and they've now launched into an attack on the people that brought this to light. the deval patrick administration is being peppered with public records requests about mitt romney and when people started asking for these e-mails they found they didn't ebsist. they issued a statement yesterday saying they don't exist and now the romney campaign is accusing the deval

patrick administration of conducting dirty tricks doing the dirty work of the obama administration by bringing this to light. they note the governor deval patrick, mitt romney's successor, is a very close friend of the president's and they say he is trying to embarrass him. >> let me get this right before i let you go. people have been making requests for public records of romney's term and office as governor. the present governor in responding to why they didn't have some of those requests explained what happened to some of it and of course willard's people are now saying that the governor is not just responding, saying why he can't produce these things, all of a sudden it's a conspiracy that president obama is behind? >> that's the -- been the line of attack this afternoon. the campaign manager for mitt romney wrote a letter to the governor of massachusetts this afternoon putting his own freedom of information request in saying he wants to see if there is any communication between the governor's top aides and the top aides in the obama campaign to try and prove that

this may have been done at the behest of the obama administration. the patrick people say they're going to be happy to fulfill the request. something in fact they say the romney people never did. they didn't release e-mails when they were in the governor's office. they're saying they're going to do it. >> an even and fair exchange. willard, willard. you never cease to amaze me. glen johnson, thanks for your time tonight. >> any time, al. i want to bring in maria teresa kumar executive director and an msnbc contributor and amanda turkel senior political reporter for the huffington post. thanks to both of you for being here. >> thank you, al. mar maria, let me start with you. one question here is what could romney and his staff be hiding in your opinion if anything? >> he's too much of a moderate republican for the extreme base. this is exactly what we forget is that just five years ago he was actually pro gay marriage

and pro choice. and while he was in the governor's office he actually passed universal health care for massachusetts residents. maybe he has too much of a fingerprint of how moderate he truly is, number one. number two, i could also see it as a problem for the tea party. what they believe is that government is truly about them and it's about the people so the fact that he's destroying or actually deleting public records that could actually give a trail of where his stance really is must keep them, give them some sort of unease that he cannot be trusted and it really fits into the narrative that he's a flip flopper. that he basically is hiding behind a shield and no one really knows what he stands for. >> now, amanda, when i got up early this morning, i read a statement from jonathan gruber, the man who helped romney create the romney care legislation in massachusetts and he says and i'm going to show it to our viewers, this is romney's architect of romney care. he said the same f'ing bill.

he can't just have his cake and eat it too. he can try to draw a distinction and stuff. he is just lying. when he is referring in that profane way to a bill he is talking about president obama's bill is the same as what romney is doing. so i'm not raising this "boston globe" to suggest they're hiding something illegal but maybe what maria teresa is saying, they don't want a record of the flip flopping and the stances that he once took that now he's taking differently. do you think he's hiding something like what gruber is saying? >> certainly it raises a lot of questions which is why, i mean why did they hide these e-mails? health care certainly would be in these e-mails. it was the signature achievement while romney was governor. he was probably creating the individual mandates, a very important part of his plan. perhaps he was talking with democrats about it.

you know, probably not what the conservative base would like to hear now. and so was romney thinking of this? were his aides thinking ahead saying look he might want to run for president and will need to appeal to republicans? we don't really know because those e-mails aren't out there and they're not really saying. >> now, maria teresa, you may think i have called willard a flip flopper and i have but let me show you republicans even feel -- >> that's right. >> that he's a flip flopper. these folks in iowa, 47% feel he's a flip flopper. in new hampshire, 43%. iowa, 48% say willard will say or do anything to win. in new hampshire, 43% say that willard would say or do anything to win. and you know what? these are republicans that are being polled. these are all just republicans.

so i think that when you have that kind of burden to overcome, you might not want people to have much of a record on what you said in the past. >> i think you're right. i think that's not wrong. and the fact that mitt romney cannot catch a break and break over 20, you know, 29% approval rating or 22%, whatever, that range, really says that they have an enthusiasm for everybody but him. and that's i think what the republican party really should have, keep an eye on. the fact that they were so confident coming into the 2012 election they were going to have a grass roots tea party pace that's going to get fired up behind a candidate but now it's evenly split with everybody but him, yes, he can go ahead and be the republican nominee but are they going to fire up the pace for the tea party to come out and vote for him? i don't think so. i think that's what has everybody scratching their head and why newt gingrich is increasingly looking like an attractive candidate. he himself has his own baggage both personally and professionally whether or not he

can actually carry the presidency. it's a tough field right now for the republican party just in general. >> amanda, is it possible with willard -- we've seen every week a different or every other week a different person rising up with momentum, clearly giving an indication republicans just don't want willard. how can he ever get over this 29% if he can't convince the republicans of his authenticity? >> i think he's just hoping to ride it out. he wants to be the tortoise in the race. the others are the hare. they'll make big headlines. they'll fizzle out. they might have a controversy like herman cain and the sexual harassment allegations. rick perry having his oops moment in the debate. they're hot one week not the next and mitt romney just wants to be the tortoise going along, going along, building up his supporters and saying, look. i'm reliable.

i may be more moderate but i can go against obama and istrategy get himself through the primary do you think in the end that he will win by default because everyone that they raise as the anti-romney just seems to implode? >> i think so. i think that is one reason why he is not paying attention so much to the iowa caucuses. he realizes if he spends any time there then it indicates to the media that he actually might win. if he comes in second or third by not doing anything in iowa then he actually has a shot at the presidency and he can control that media narrative. i think one of the things that he's also challenged with though is that sure kean come out, he can come out and be the republican nominee but every single candidate right now has a war chest that is going to really make a dent in his own war chest when it comes to becoming the republican nominee against obama and i think that's what's making the -- mitt romney a little nervous and not surprising why he is going after these jabs with the whole story of "the boston globe" trying to blame the obama administration

with why they're disclosing this. >> maria teresa and amanda, thanks for your time tonight. >> thank you so much. >> they have nothing on the president so they're attacking him by distorting the truth. that's next. i've seen this before -- the old "impromptu in-law visit." look at mom whipping up some kraft homestyle mac & cheese. sure it's easy to make, but it looks like she's been busting her hump in the kitchen. [ doorbell rings ] let the fireworks begin. [ male announcer ] kraft macaroni & cheese. you know you love it. [ male announcer ] kraft macaroni & cheese. [ dog ] i am my coat? solid gold. my insides? pure platinum. [ female announcer ] a healthy outside starts inside. new iams simple & natural has chicken as its number one ingredient and zero fillers. it works inside for health you can see on the outside. [ dog ] i can't be a rockstar on the outside if i'm not one on the inside. [ female announcer ] new iams naturals. you'll like what's in them and love what's not. [ dog ] i am an iams dog. [ girls ] he's so cute! [ dog ] groupies!

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the right wing has chute absolutely nothing on president obama so they attack him with lies. here is where it all comes from. his recent economic speech to ceos from around the globe. >> we've been a little bit lazy i think over the last couple decades. we've kind of taken for granted well people will want to come here and we aren't out there hungry selling america and trying to attract new businesses into america. >> the president was referring to america's pursuit of foreign investments. he was talking about business practices, not individuals. but republicans are never ones to let a little thing like facts get in the way of a low blow talking point. they're claiming president obama is calling americans lazy. >> can you believe that? that's what our president thinks is wrong with america?

that americans are lazy? that's pathetic. >> we've got some of the hardest working people on the planet here in the united states of america. what does he mean lazy? >> once again the president of the united states insults the people who make this country work. >> he said that americans are lazy. i just don't think that president obama understands america. >> the fact that the president of the united states has called us soft. we've lost our competitive edge. now we're called lazy. why is he so determined to bring us down? >> but rick perry went as low as he's ever gone in an interview on fox news last night. >> he grew up in a privileged way, you know, he never had to really work for anything. i think that mentality of i'm the smartest guy in the room and therefore it couldn't be my fault is really hurting america and we need a president who has been through their ups and downs in life. >> privileged. here's a man that grew up with a

single parent mother, who at some point had to take care of his eating with food stamps, take care of her child, grandparents helped to raise him, on merit went to college, became the one who headed the harvard law school journal. you can't get that unless you earn it with merit and grades. then went not to a big law firm but decided to go to a housing development in chicago and work for people that were poor and hopeless and you call that privileged? you call that a man who doesn't know anything about ups and downs? you are inferring that he got some extra advantage. you're trying to wink wink at those who try and behave in a way that everything certain people got it was because they got some advantage at the expense of others. we know the wink. we know what you're trying to say. and it is ugly and it should be

called out by all americans. as for him being the smartest guy in the room, when he's in the room with people that don't know the third agency that they want to close, there's a whole lot of people smart in that room, governor perry. sharpton said that, not president obama. joining me now is bill press, host of bill press show on sirius xm radio and jonathan capehart editorial writer for "the washington post" and msnbc contributor. thanks to both of you for being here tonight great being here. >> reverend al, good to see you. >> bill, this lazy -- i just played what the president said. obviously he said we've been lazy in going after investments. how they take a literal taped statement. we're not even talking about a private meeting here that no one can prove what he said and act as though he called americans

lazy and go on with this is amazing. >> everybody is saying they're distorting what the president said. they are not distorting. they are absolutely lying. the president did not call americans lazy. it does prove i think perry and romney will say or do anything to make a point to score a point to get elected. here's what gets me. what the president -- he was meeting with his business leaders and if you read what he said, you know, we've got to get out there and hustle. we have to hustle to tell people that this is a great country. we've got to streamline the process for it. we've got to help them invest here and we've got to make it easier for them. that is exactly what the chamber of commerce says every day. >> right. >> and that's what conservatives say they stand for. here is the president out there, they hate him so much, al, they will take one little word and twist it and lie about it and use it against him. >> jonathan, rick perry says the president grew up privileged and we need a president that knows the ups and downs of life. >> yeah. >> i mean, there is clear, you

know, inferences that he's trying to play on. >> those are dog whistle words we're hearing. you handled it just fine before you introduced us so i don't need to repeat what you said but anyone who knows president obama's story knows that the words "privileged" and "he never really had to work hard" just don't match the man. they don't match his story. they don't match his reality. you know, we're all aghast as what is being said now, that a word like "lazy" is being pulled out of context and thrown into an ad. it is going to get a whole lot uglier once there is a defined nominee and the independent 527s with all their money go out and go after the president. >> bill, i think he's right. is this because they really don't have anything to go after the president with so they're going to have to go for low

blows when you can't win a fight you have to try and break the rules and hit with low blows? >> oh, no. absolutely. what they're really feeding on i think is this hatred of obama, which is an obsession with the tea party so that anything obama -- here again, obama is singing the song of the business community, right? and they have to because it's obama. it's like newt gingrich who said we got to bomb libya and once obama gave the orders to bomb libya newt gingrich suddenly comes out against it. >> at least newt gingrich knew where libya was. i mean, to bring up who's the smartest guy in the room, rick perry shouldn't even mention that. >> at least obama can count to three. >> and remember. >> right. you know what else is going on here, let's put all these words together. privileged, didn't work hard, didn't have to work hard. doesn't know what it means to work hard. add that to socialist, muslim, not born in this country.

pretty much right after his inauguration and the rise of the extreme elements of the tea party there's been this move to delegitimize barack obama as president of the united states by making him foreign, making him strange, making him the other. so that's why i keep saying, if we're horrified by what we're hearing now, then just fasten your seat belts. >> bill, is that going to work with moderates? is that going to work with independents and moderates? >> well, look. unfortunately, if they tell the lie often enough some people start to believe that's what obama said and they're out there putting out this ad. i think the democratic national committee has to do a better job of telling the truth here and what obama really said. but, you know what? what i want to see, there is another debate next week. we were just talking about this on tuesday night. you know darned well that rick perry is going to use that line and mitt romney is going to use that line, probably all of them right? if those reporters or those moderators are not asking questions, let them get away

with it without calling them on it and saying that's not what the president said. then they are not doing their jobs. >> they should just play the tape. >> bill press and jonathan capehart, thank you. we'll be right back. just one phillips' colon health probiotic cap a day helps defends against occasional constipation, diarrhea, gas and bloating. with three strains of good bacteria to help balance your colon. you had me at "probiotic." [ female announcer ] phillips' colon health. at bank of america, we're lending and investing in communities across the country, from helping to revitalize a neighborhood in brooklyn

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welcome back. we have exciting news tonight. it is speaker john boehner's birthday. happy 62nd birthday, mr. speaker. congratulations. you now qualify for social security. but you'd rather keep working, right? >> eventually getting the retirement age to 70 is a step that needs to be taken. if you have substantial nonsocial security income while you're retired, why are we paying you? >> and maybe it's time to say so long to health insurance. >> when you look at social security, medicare, medicaid, these are important programs for

tens of millions of americans but they're not sustainable at their current levels. we're going to have to make some changes. >> but since it's your birthday we here at politician nation got some gifts for you on your special day. first, a dog. he's a man's best friend. and with those mean tea party members in your caucus, you can certainly use one. we've also got some driving lessons. you keep driving the conversation away from jobs to guns or taking away abortion rights so maybe we can steer balk ontrack. and we have new golf clubs. we know you spend half the year on the course but the tea partiers might give you even more time to tee up. don't start crying yet, mr. speaker.