tv Martin Bashir MSNBC December 23, 2011 12:00pm-1:00pm PST
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holidays? >> aloha. >>aging mr. potter. how rich is this guy? you going to release your tax returns? >> i doubt it. i will provide all the financial information that show investments and so forth. i don't intend to release tax returns. >> mitt romney's wonderful life, ahead. >> it is over, kind of. the president signing what he had been pushing for throughout the week. a bill congress finally approved. a two-month extension of the payroll tax break. good news for 160 million americans on the verge of having taxes go up, but there is more work ahead for a one-year deal. >> when congress returns, i urge them to keep working without drama and without delay to reach an agreement that extends this tax cut as well as unemployment insurance through all of 2012.
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>> let's get right to nbc's mike viquiera. we are standing right there in front of the president. they wait for them to make that announcement. what was the mood after this big win for the president? >> the mood was let's get out of town. as i was standing there, we were waiting for the president and hear marine one landing through the doors of the west wing and sure enough, the president before he came out and before cameras signed the bill, it just arrived fresh from the printer and capitol hill. the president signing that temporary extension of the tax cut. walking out and getting on marine 1 and out to andrew's air force base. winging his way to hawaii later than he hoped, but he is on the way to hawaii. congress is scattered to the winds as well. let's real it back a week when the president appeared in the same briefing room and appeared that republicans got lemonade and they turned it into lemons. over the course that was week, we saw a rebel yon from house conservatives and many of them
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freshmen and tea party-backed. they would not go for a two-month extension and they said it was bad policy. number two from a political perspective, they didn't want to fight on the ground again and fighting against the democratic president as we get deeper into an election year. they had to capitulate and they were on an island and yesterday we saw that mitch mcconnell was the last straw. put out that statement saying let's get on with this house of representatives and passed the extension and the president appearing with citizen who is stand to lose $40 every paycheck and had that event, bashing republicans over the head with the statement from their own democratic leader. it was shortly after that we saw the dam start to break and anti-climax and took all of about three minutes for the senate and the house to wave their hands over it and consent, passing the two pieces of legislation. the shouting begins in another two months. >> watching it live on air and i was like is that it?
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it was that fast. two or three minutes. you were talking about it last week and last week many wonders as you said if this would be a working holiday. except for one person. listen to this. >> honestly, how do you think this is going to be resolved? >> we will know by next thursday. days from now. >> payou were smiling then and right now. what was your hunch that you thought was going to be today? >> lucky guess, i guess. born 21 years of watching and below the public officials in action. >> very well done. are you thinking it's something like folks want to get out of washington, d.c.? >> that's basically the way it goes. we had the benefit of hindsight and a negotiation with the very same issue. the payroll tax cut that they were trying to extend this time around. >> how about the jets and giants game? >> no clue, man. >> we are testing your prognostication.
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you were see good a week ago. >> i am a native washingtonian. i will let you know if it comes to me. >> mike i have kerr kea at the white house. they had a long week. >> what are you doing for the holidays? >> do you know it was worth it for them to wage this past week? >> i would hope we would have a happy new year as well. >> something tells me he is not going to be joining the president in hawaii, but having the tax break pass through the house came dangerously close to the january 1st deadline and house democrats are vocal in their excitement about it. >> this is a good christmas present and good kwanzaa and hanukkah president. >> the battle is over for now, there is still much work to be
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done as soon as they return. for more, i am joined by congresswoman karen from california. congresswoman, kevin birdie said it felt as if they were reenacting the alamo as they led up to today. describe the battle for us and how messy was it from what you were hearing for a republican counterpart. >> i think it was very messy and think what is so unfortunate is that speaker boehner's caucus doesn't give him the power or the credit that he should have as speaker. they should have accepted the negotiation that he agreed to with the senate. we really shouldn't have drawn this out as long as we did. they knew in the beginning that there was noplace else for them to go other than approve the two-month extension. they have to act through the whole time as though all they wanted to do was extend it for a year and that was a clean bill. you know that that one-year extension is filled with poison
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pills. >> there is a lot of questions about the revenue side and how it will be paid for and there was disagreement on that. let's talk about a fellow californian of yours. kevin mccarthy as you know well. they had this to say. while i'm gradified that the current legislative impasse ended, i urge president obama and senate democrats to put aside election year politics and join house republicans to provide american families with a long-term tax relief and create new american jobs. we will see a lot of spin after what happened today, but we have not even finished 2011 and it appears that it is a bit negative looking into 2012 what needs to be done. >> let me you that in that one-year bill that the house passed a few weeks ago, calls for essentially reshaping unemployment. they want to reduce it from 99 weeks down to 59 weeks. they want to require unemployment recipients to have
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to get their ged as though the people un. ed in their recession are uneducated. it also calls for states to if they want to require people on unemployment to have a drug test. it's very mean-spirited and fundamentally changes unemployment and it wasn't just a simple extension. >> would you support any of those? >> i most certainly would not support reducing the number of weeks and absolutely the ged and drug test provisions, i think it's absolutely insulting. you know several other things they want to do, they want to pay for it by freezing the pay of federal employees. here we are coming out of a worst recession since the great depression and what we are going to do is freeze the paychecks of federal workers. they need to contribute to job creation and i have to tell you that we have gone through this
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year with this republican congress being in charge and no jobs created. >> talking about that, we have a two-month extension. it will be revisited. do you expect any of those issues or all of the issues to be the key points when you are discussing again the one-year deal? >> i most certainly hope they are not the key points. the conference committee that is appointed includes the senate on both sides of the aisle. you do know that when that bill passed the house, the senate refused to even bring it up and even senate republicans said they didn't support those provisions. if the house republicans are going to put them back on the table, i think it's going to be problematic. i hope they won't be so strident. i have to say for my new colleagues and i'm a program as well, those that were backed by the tea party, i hope through this experience they learn that there is a difference between protesting and governing. you can't have the same kind of strategies.
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>> if i may, let me launch off of that as you you look at reelection in 2012, you are very aware of the all time low approval rating of 11% of congress. you have to be speaking with the voters and those in the areas of your constituents and you had a town hall this week. were they angry. were they looking forward to 2012 and saying you need to do something different? >> my constituents are angry. i am happy to say they are not angry with me and they are angry at the whole process. they're concerned with the fact that so many representatives are members that were backed by the tea party and have been so strident this year. they don't understand the mean-spiritedness with which people approached governing. talking about cutting unemployment down to 50 something week when is the many people have not recovered from the recession is just mean. people asked me why was that the
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case? >> what is the one thing you would do different when you do return to washington, d.c. in 2012? >> in spite of me talking about the partisanship, i have to tell you that i have a very good working happy with my republican colleagues. so the very first thing i will do is reach out to them and say let's sit down in an informal way and talk about these provisions and what do you really think is needed? drug testing people on unemployment insurance? i want to understand where that is coming from. they have a complete misperception of people who lost their jobs due to the recession. >> and you i have a date and we will talk about that meeting and what your discussion is and what happens in that in 2012 and what progress comes from that. thank you so much. >> absolutely, thank you. >> the race for 2012 does not take a break for the holidays. >> we grew up in small towns,
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raised with christian values, values we still believe in. we know washington, d.c. could use some of that. >> i'm rick perry and i really approve this message. i'd race down that hill without a helmet. i took some steep risks in my teens. i'd never ride without one now. and since my doctor prescribed lipitor, i won't go without it for my high cholesterol and my risk of heart attack. why kid myself? diet and exercise weren't lowering my cholesterol enough.
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to the race for 2012. growing questions over profits he made, romney is saying he took advantage to save on his taxes like anyone else. what those opportunities were, we won't know without his tax returns. romney telling msnbc's chuck todd he doesn't plan to release them any time soon. >> you going to release your tax returns? >> i doubt it.
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i will provide all the financial information which is an extraordinary pile of documents that show investments and so forth. i don't intend to release tax returns. >> you dared ted kennedy. >> never say never, but i don't intend to do so. >> arz for romney's rival, his campaign is teeing up the transparency. the spokesman saying "just in case you were curious, newt gingrich plans to release his income tax return fist he is the gop nominee. let's bring in the panel and jonathan cape hart, opinion writer for "the washington post." former communication director karen fin fre washington and in san francisco, democratic strategist julian epstein. a good friday to all of you. let's start with you. obama 2012 is jumping on romney's tax returns and a spokesman saying romney is defying a practice and for decades. what do you think?
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is he being unrealistic to think he won't have to do this? >> i don't think he is being unrealistic as far as the campaign made the risk or the hit they can take. my guess is they are assuming it's better to take the hit than to have to deal with what would be revealed in the tax returns. it's not just the current investments, but we also see income coming in from his time at bane. even since he left bane. that opens the door to a lot of activity that bane has undertaken since he was in the leadership that could easily go to the narrative that this is an organization that is about going in and destroying the companies and laying people off. >> is that it? what he has to lose? is there more information that he might be concerned about that might be more revealing about his financial background? >> yes. karen hit on i think the very key thing here. take the hit on over not releasing your tax return. you take it once or twice, but
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it's the same subject every time. he releases the tax returns and he will take a hit on this deduction and another day on this pot of money. >> or this or that company. >> exactly. they are making a calculated risk in the same way that then candidate obama opted out of public financing so that he can raise untold millions of dollars in order to run for president. >> a lot of concern when we look at the tax returns. what might force him at the end of the day to release this information? >> a lot of pressure on television and i think karen was right. this is part of the gordon gekko narrative. he is the rich guy in the race. you combine that with the fact that his policies are identical to george bush's economic policies and you have the table set for the democrats making the case against romney as the elitist who is out of touch with
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the american people. that's what the campaign sounds like. money is a big theme. he is always the bride's maid and never the bride. he is hoping that the money will be the thing to buy him love. when the basketball looks at the republican field they see what i said before like a star trek convention. romney is hoping that through money and organization, he is going to be the guy that becomes the default candidate. it may just work because the voters seem to be fighting so many faults as you would expect they would with all these other candidates. >> who's who in your cast for that. we won't get into that for now. karen, let's build off of that gecko optics issue on his wealth and being able to identify with voters. that's what we are talking about. he had a bit of a trouble pumping gas in new hampshire. >> what was that? >> what about the $10,000 bet in the debate. we had a lot of questions about that. >> that's how jonathan pumps his
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gas. >> i pumped gas, come on. >> we the are not talking about that as of yet. >> i'm kidding. it was as awkward as when george bush the first went to the grocery store marvelled at the scanners. this was particularly for mitt romney who continues to try to say that somehow it's president obama who is out of touch with how the real world works when every time we see him trying to put himself in a real world situation, it's mitt romney who doesn't seem to really understand how to operate in the real world. that place of the narrative that he is part of the 1% of the 1%. money and wealth have given him a very comfortable life in which he doesn't really pump gas. >> when was the last time you filled up a big bus? >> yesterday. >> okay. >> she actually drives one.
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>> driving buses around the northeast. stand by. we have to take a break, but we will go right back to you in a little bit with more discussion. stay with us. . >> i just saw as we were coming in that had me in second place. >> a poll for where? >> it was off the internet. hot gas. we know a place where tossing and turning have given way to sleeping. where sleepless nights yield to restful sleep. and lunesta can help you get there, like it has for so many people before. when taking lunesta, don't drive or operate machinery until you feel fully awake. walking, eating, driving, or engaging in other activities while asleep, without remembering it the next day, have been reported. abnormal behaviors may include aggressiveness, agitation, hallucinations or confusion. in depressed patients, worsening of depression, including risk of suicide, may occur.
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>> after weeks of bickering, a last minute extension of the payroll tax holiday and a victory and marked retreat by house republicans. we are back with jonathan cape hart and julian epstein. let's continue with you. a win for the president, no doubt about that. but this is a two-month extension. does the president get any momentum or does the fight pick up where it left off? >> he clearly won this fight.
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with adversaries like these, democrats hardly need political friends. these house republicans are like dr. evil's guards. for the last two weeks, every single analyst has been saying that they would lose this political battle to hold up the payroll tax cut. i think the real story here is that boehner who even early this week when we knew this was a political losing argument for the republicans didn't have the political courage to step in and tell them that they should take the senate deal voted overwhelmingly. the cowardess of john baner who couldn't tell his own party to do the right thing and had to wait for the senate republicans to say the inmates are in charge before he made a move. the question is whether he keeps his job next year. >> does he? >> i don't know.
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i would be very surprised if he were the speaker of the next congress, that's for sure. to jump on something julian said and the question you asked, i don't think the fight has never stopped. i think what's changed is the president's tactics in response to obstruction. we have seen that the president focused primarily on jobs and focused on the middle class and we are seeing the benefits of that from increased poll numbers. two polls. then the republicans by five points. then you have republicans aiding in their own marginalization with this payroll tax cut fight. that has left a lot of people in washington scratching their heads thinking how on earth was this possible that the republicans who were the party of tax cuts looks like the party not in favor of tax cuts? >> speaking to your expertise,
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the democrats shoulder to shoulder staying on message and going toe to toe, what do you think? >> woo-hoo! there a couple of things and there is a broader collapse. it's not just -- john boehner did a terrible job and baner is not the only problem. the talk us both on the house and the senate side were in different places and couldn't get their act together. what have we seen? we have shut the government down. that's not the leadership that republicans can run on with any degree of credibility when you get down to the wire and we are talking about payroll tax cuts for middle class americans. i think on the other side, the president today did a good job of standing firm and the american people were behind him and on his side. the democrats stood firm and what we are hoping to see is
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going into next year, that pattern continues. they stay firm and the people will be there and the members will be there and the president can therefore push forward with his agenda. we want to see more of that. >> for the democrats and the president. >> go ahead. >> one thing to pick up on what jonathan said. the president got osama bin laden he got about a 5 to nine-point bounce in the polls. since the republican primaries in august and since the latest screw up, i think and miscalculation on the payroll tax cut, president obama has gone from about a 15-point deficit to almost closing the gap. in other words, the republicans have done more for his poll numbers and the capture and killing or over osama bin laden. the one thing is they made almost all of my friends believers in the almighty. only these gifts to be done through divine intervention. i think people are believing
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that this is a gift. >> you finish it off and we appreciate that. thank you all and have a great holiday. >> coming up, how the mega mind has fallen. >> the ougdds are high i will b the nominee. it is very bunched and the sheer weight of money to be in the top three or four and would love to win. just one phillips' colon health probiotic cap a day
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here are the top lines from the candidates who just keep giving. >> this is an unusual interview. let's do it again. >> they asked me who is the president of u becky becky becky stan stan, i am going to say i don't know. do you know? >> they had me in second place. >> for where? >> it was on the internet. i think hot gas. >> stop the hate. stop anti-gay politics. >> the 9-9-9 plan. >> 9-9-9! >> 10,000 bucks? a $10,000 bet? >> i'm not in the betting business. >> okay. >> libya. >> that's what we do in our house on sunday. i sit in the ease chair and she prepares dinner. >> god wanted a bear and not a gazelle. >> the ice cream that tastes good every day.
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>> i have never sexually harassed anyone. >> live free or die. victory or death. bring it. >> what if the assistant janitors and the job was to mop the floor and clean the bathroom. >> we wouldn't have an embassy in iraq. i wouldn't allow that. >> i'm a doer. not a talker. >> i am america ♪ >> they will be 21 by november 12th, i ask for your support and vote. those of you who won't be, just work hard. >> let's get right to our panel now. with us from washington, democratic strategist and brent littlefield. good day to both of you. it has been a wild ride in this campaign season and we are 11 days to the iowa caucuses and ron paul is a leader of the latest poll. is this a trailing indicator or will paul take the state? >> i think the iowa caucus is
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always up for grabs trying to predict what will happen because it's based on who will get in the car and show up. try to predict the difficult business to be in. i will not be in the business. we see different poll numbers depending on whether you look at iowa or new hampshire or newt gingrich is way up and mitt romney is in first and gingrich is in second. new hampshire. we have this paul, romney, gingrich thing going on and more paul than gingrich. that remains to be seen who will end up on top. >> when we look at the key issue, many analysts will say it is the basics. it is the ground game and money. does ron paul have enough to take him through post iowa through new hampshire and south carolina, florida. what do you think? >> the way you described it is how you look at iowa. instead of thinking about who wins iowa, it's more useful to see who loses. the people who end up at the
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bottom of the pack in iowa fail to make it on to the next two or three primaries. i'm looking at bachman and santorum and huntsman. what happens to them? does perry fall into that lower group and does he stay at the pack at the top. you are not going to get a single person flying out of iowa. you never do. it's a surprise who ends up in the top group or the bottom. i will say this. the bizarre is getting more bizarre. look at what's going on in iowa. the governor whoa is a republican is dissing his own party's candidates by saying don't pay attention to ron paul. it's who comes in second. since when does the governor of iowa pick winners and losers? that was weird. yet it is still going to be the process it's always been. ron paul may do well and it may be enough to carry them to the next primary. >> when you look at this year, mitt romney who has been talked about as the front-runner many
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times. where is he going to end up? >> that remains to be seen. mitt romney has not put as much of an effort into iowa. especially new hampshire. he had a little bit of a surge and said i haven't had surges, but he did have a surge there in iowa and suddenly went in and did more of an effort. it remains to be seen where he will end up in iowa. he is ahead of new hampshire and invests a lot of time and money. that's where they have a lot of their eggs in the basket. in iowa, it's sort of a question mark. the problem he has is if he doesn't come out well in iowa, how is that going to affect his numbers? regardless of what those polls look like and new hampshire and south carolina, once iowa happens and all that media attention and all that bright spotlight is comes on whoever comes in first and second, it will impact the polls as well. >> david, we can't finish this
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discussion without discussing something that we are just learning here. just getting information and reports that donald trump is leaving the republican party and he is updating his voter registration to independent. what do you think? he is not going to run for president, but if he does, does he hurt the candidates? >> i think you hurt the republican candidates if he runs as a republican or independent. he will draw away the same way ross perot did. let's just take a moment here to remember who we are talking about. donald trump is the ultimate self promoter. i said on the air, he's like the don king of politics. he shows up to promote himself. >> indeed. the parallels keep coming. there is a lot to this. donald trump is a symptom of a larger phenomenon. the ultimate dissatisfaction that the party has with the field they have got today. there is dissatisfaction.
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about these candidates. >> do you hope this gives away and are you tired of donald trump. >> my hair is real unless anyone wants to pull it. i am sure david wants to pull it. >> i don't even have any hair. >> keep it friendly. >> we are friendly. donald trump is a master promoter. he is foe nominal and a program on nbc he doesn't hesitate to promote. he probably did that to get more attention and figured you report that and if he changes his registration. the reality is we will focus on iowa and new hampshire and south carolina that dominates the news coverage. the donald trump, one thing he has got going for him, he agrees with the republican field. if the president failed and i think we will hear more and more about that into next year. >> talking about koifs, thank
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throughout 2011, the question was the relationship between the president and corporate america. what do you think will happen in 2012 with regard to that? >> it is going to go way downhill and already has. if you look at the top donors to the 2008 campaign, goldman kaks and jpmorgan chase and citigroup. that's going to be down. he slammed them and slam the 1% and a lot of the folks that are down in 1%. i think you will see a change in the way the corporate america views the president and also what they give to the president in terms of money. >> can that be turned around? we don't know about one mngt being different than the next. >> i will be doing this for 15 years. they are not happy. a lot ever saying who cares if they are not. a lot of whom supported it and
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voted for president obama in 2008. they are ticked off. they don't feel like the bad guys. a lot of them again disagree with that, but it's hard to go home every day if you work on wall street and say hey, honey, i'm a bad guy. it doesn't work like that. >> that will be a tough argument. we had the payroll tax cut extended for a lot of back and forth. you and i were watching here and are we seeing some good response so far? >> the dow is up about 6%. my prediction last year. stocks right 8 to 10%. we may hit that. you had that quote for the president. the economy is getting better. until about july of this year, i was negative for five years and really started to turn around all the economic data we have seen. it's better than expected. it's not great. i agreed the economy a c plus or b minus versus a d minus a
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year 1/2 to two years ago. that could bring us back down. my biggest worry is china. i think it will be more pronounced. >> you coined the phrase hopium. >> we use it a lot. >> that's a combination of hope and optimism. we have holiday sales that seem to be encouraging so far. >> you know, we are the economy and we can't reiterate that. people go to work and pay taxes and that is the economy. it's a collective lift of how we feel and we see the market go up or data come in better. it's on the cover and not just on cnbc, but on the cover of "usa today" or the local newspaper. you start to feel a little better. that's all the economy really is. the upward cycle and all the data we have seen recently has
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been better than expected. let's hope. here's the key. the hopium needs to go to jobs. we have seen job openings and a lot of them left the workforce and we need to see companies realize i can't do more with the people i have. i need to bring in new people to meet demand. when that really happens and i think it has a little bit, but when that happens, it could be a very happy 2012. let's hope europe doesn't bring us down. >> the floodgate, a lot of people watching that as businesses unleash the trillions in the bank accounts. brian sullivan, thank you so much. have a great holiday. >> you too. >> have a wonderful holiday and much more ahead. stay with us. ♪ you, you ain't alone ♪ and just let me be [ male announcer ] this is your moment. ♪ your ticket home ♪ [ male announcer ] this is zales, the diamond store.
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>> happy birthday to you ♪ ♪ happy birthday to you >> benjamin is celebrating his first in nairobi, kenya. one year ago he came into the world here. >> so it went 18 feet? >> he was thrown into a now collapsed pit in a slum. a passing stranger heard his cry and spent two hours digging down into the muck to rescue him. this woman witnessed it. >> he said that she saw him, that he was brought up and that pretty much they thought they would take away this baby and the baby would be dead. >> but he didn't die. and when no one claimed him -- benjamin came to new life home trust in kenya, a series of homes that for 17 years has taken in abandoned babies and found new adoptive families for them. >> we have just reached 1,300
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babies that we have been able to rescue. . >> reporter: missionaries have built new life into one of africa's success stories. inside its gates, children are in essence given new life. >> on the other side of the gate, life for new babies begins in the slums of nairobi. this baby is one of them. >> this is the newest baby we've had in just over a week. and he was abandoned outside and brought by the police. >> reporter: one week later, he's gaining weight. by the time he is 2, they hope to have him adopted out. >> reporter: on november 1st last year, dennis and allison omandi found out they could not have children. >> i remember saying specifically, okay, god, if even today right now there's some child out there being born, being abandoned, that's out there that needs a mom or dad, you're going to have to bring
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him or her to us. >> reporter: they learned of benjamin, the boy pulled from the pit. >> we come here, we see benjamin, love at first sight. >> reporter: then they learned he was born on november 1st, the day allison prayed. >> i'm sitting there and thinking, wow, god, this is awesome. >> he likes the party hat. >> reporter: many of the babies who come to new life are hiv positive at birth, but with care and medicine, almost 90% revert to hiv negative. and the organization has blazed a trail in changing attitudes within kenya about adoption. >> you know, when we started, we had about 1% adoptions. and about 1% of that 1% were kenyans. now we're getting about 80% adoptions, and 80% of the 80% are kenyans. we don't say that new life home is the end of the journey. it's just the beginning
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actually. >> reporter: an often tragic journey that finds a happy ending, like the boy pulled from a pit into the arms of a new family. >> all right. nbc's jane wells, and we'll be right back. ♪ although it's been said many times, many ways ♪ ♪ merry christmas to you we're kind of a quiet couple. yes. but lately we've been using k-y® intense™. it stimulates arousal so the big moment is... (announcer) k-y® brand intense™ - intensifies female satisfaction.
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and now for the latest from egypt where estimates of 25,000 antigovernment protesters joining a mass demonstration in tahrir square today to stage funerals for demonstrators who have been killed and demand changes in the way the military is handling its power so far. live from cairo. and eamon, what is the status of the demonstrations this hour? the main issue here military rule and if there's a possibility of elected civilians taking power there.
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>> reporter: absolutely, richard. the sun has gone down, it's been a few hours, the temperatures are dropping, the numbers have dwindled from 25,000, but no doubt a very strong show of support for the pro democracy activists. they have been denouncing the ruling military council. they say the military council has to turn over power to an elected government. the only problem is, there are no elected governments in egypt so far. the only one really is the parliament that elections have gotten underway, but nothing yet definitive that the military can hand over power to. and it really kind of highlights the divide between those who support the military, it's important to emphasize the military still does have supporters here. they held their own protests on the other side of town saying they're the only institution that can carry egypt through this transitional process until that elected government is in place, somewhere in the middle of june of 2012. richard? >> one of the earlier concerns for the united states is the unrest reaching a level that might turn the area into a breeding ground for extremists.
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is that still a concern right now? >> reporter: well, there's no doubt that the sense of lawlessness that grips egypt is a serious concern, not only for the united states, but for the region and its neighbors. the egyptian military has announced on several occasions that arms coming in from libya have been seized in various parts of the country. they're very concerned about the area, the sinai peninsula where a lot of these wes and arms potentially end up and could potentially be a serious source of destabilizing, not only egypt, but across the region. >> ayman, so much gains have been had in the last year. have all of those been given back? >> no, certainly not. depending on who you ask, really. but if you ask most egyptians, no. the gains that have been achi e achieved so far, the revolution mostly having to do with the expression, if you will, the freedom. there's been a proliferation of new media channels, but very little tangible improvement on
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the ground in terms of the economics. the economy here is in complete tatters. the tourism industry has all but collapsed. the economy really suffers. and the quality of life for most people has not improved. certainly a lot more to be gained for many egyptians. >> nbc's ayman live in cairo. thank you so much, ayman. thanks for watching, have a great holiday, everyone. dylan ratigan is here to take us forward. and dylan, happy hanukkah christmas, kwanzaa eve. >> thanks, show starts right now. well, happy christmas eve eve. i am dylan ratigan, and today's big story, cave in friday, john boehner and his republican majority in the house gave in i should say made it official. there will be a two-month extension of the payro
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