worry-free. elect us because we're successful at business because you'll get the benefit of the same thing. well, what we see here is really what the republican campaign will be all about. it will be people being asked to believe that what has been good for the romneys will be good for you. vote the way they ask you, and you will be as well off as them. or something like it. and that's "hardball" for now. "politics nation" with al sharpton starts right now. republicans 2012. the politics of the 1%. tonight, willard's new talking point is the politics of envy. but i think the only envy out there is his for president obama's job. and ron paul has been getting a free pass on his ugly, offensive views. tonight, that free pass ends. and dropping the bain bomb.

newt's supporters release the full movie savaging romney's record as a job killer at bain capital. these republicans really don't like each other. >> worried we weren't going to have a job. >> i never knew if i was going to have a job when i came in the next day. >> romney and bain's cash rampage would ultimately slash jobs in nearly every state in the country. >> welcome to "politics nation." i'm al sharpton. tonight's lead, the gop candidates are going south. in more ways than one. the gop hopefuls are racing around south carolina. we'll see if the bain bomb will finally blow up in willard's face. ron paul is trying to roll back 100 years of progress. you better believe he's going under the sharpton microscope tonight. but let's begin with what's up in what is going to be the

battle of the 2012 race. on one side a president that's fighting for fairness. on the other side, the republican front-runner. >> president obama wants to put free enterprise on trial. and in the last few days, we've seen some desperate republicans join forces with him. this is such a mistake for our party. and for our nation. the country already has a leader who divides us with the bitter politics of envy. >> politics of envy. willard, there isn't envy in this country. there's a divide. this is a country where the bottom 20% has seen their income remain stagnant while the top has seen theirs skyrocket. romney is absolutely tone deaf. this is his battle cry heading into south carolina, a state with unemployment nearly 10%? a state where nearly 1 in every 5 people live in poverty? and he's not apologizing. he's doubling down.

>> thank you. please, please, have a seat. >> in the general election, i'll be pointing out that the president took the reins of general motors and chrysler, closed factories, closed dealerships, laid off thousands and thousands of workers. he did it to try and save the business. >> in quiet rooms. we should only talk about this divide, this class warfare in quiet rooms. maybe you mean corporate board rooms. no, willard. we're going to talk about this right here, right now. and so is the president. >> and that's part of the responsibility that comes with being a leader in america. a responsibility not just to the shareholders or the stakeholders but to the country that made all this incredible wealth and opportunity possible. because the more americans who succeed, the more america

succeeds. >> joining me now is congressman jim cliburn, democrat from south carolina and assistant democratic leader. congressman clyburn, thank you for coming on the show tonight and happy new year. >> same to you, reverend al. thank you so much for having me. >> now, mr. romney has said that he thinks that we are in dealing with the politics of envy. when i heard him say that last night ialmost fell off the chair here in the studio because i don't know anyone that is fighting to close the gap, close the tax loopholes, protect social security and medicaid and medicare. i don't know any of them that are jealous of those that are rich. we're saying, have a fair and even playing field. i mean, romney has three, four, five mansions. no one begrudges him having that. but why put us in the position where we can't pay the bill in

working class people's homes? >> well, you know, i heard that last night myself, and i've been hearing the sound bites all day today. i think it's a shame that people will be so sophomoric about the questioning of activities with wealth development. i have no problem with mitt romney or anybody else making millions or even billions. what they problem is that if you question things done in the name of capitalism, then he calls it being envious. i don't think anybody was envious or fearful of being envious when they fail to question what bernard madoff was doing. he did all of that in the name of capitalism. we can question what people are doing and the way they do it and to make sure that people adhere to fair play.

this whole issue is about fundamental fairness. is it fair to go in and invest $30 million, take $160 million out, bankrupt the company and put 160 people out of work? where is the fairness there? >> right. >> now they all went to the bank making millions of dollars, and the people who are working in the industry went to the unemployment line. i think we have a right to question that sort of thing. >> and to act as though the people that went to the unemployment line were just jealous of those that bought the company and forced them out is absurd. but let me show you this. when confronted on the "today" show, congressman clyburn, this morning about this, let me show you what his response was. this is willard romney this morning. >> i think it's about envy. i think it's about class warfare.

>> are there no fair questions about the distribution of wealth, without it being seen as envy, though? >> you know, i think it's fine to talk about those things in quiet rooms and discussions about tax policy and the like, but the president has made this part of his campaign rally. everywhere we go, or he goes, we hear him talking about millionaires and billionaires and executives and wall street. it's a very envy oriented, attack oriented approach. and i think it will fail. >> so we should talk about it in quiet rooms like where? and we should not have this in the campaign. if the nation bailed out major banks, major insurance companies, we're going to talk about that. and if we talk about it, we're jealous. if people are dealing with unemployment at record numbers, you're a congressman from south carolina. almost 10% unemployment. if they complain outside of a

quiet room, they are just envious. i mean, this is insulting, congressman. >> it is very insulting. and am i to understand that people who are asking, that unemployment compensation be paid when they are out of work, through no fault of their own, that they are being envious when they question whether or not this should take place? when people are asking to receive the same kind of tax considerations that the wealthy are getting? are they being envious? they are just saying that if i make a fair salary, i should pay fair taxes. they don't believe it's fair to be having a tax plan that will add taxes to those people who are making under $40,000 a year and giving a $300,000 tax break to someone who is making a million dollars a year.

that's not envy. that is fundamental fairness, and i do believe for mitt romney to be using that kind of intimidation tactics, that's all it is. they are trying to intimidate you and me to make sure we don't discuss these kinds of things. but i'm not going to be intimidated. this is south carolina. he better get ready for it because we are here to question his motives and his actions. >> well, i agree with you, and it is not envy. it's injury. that's what it is. congressman, stand by one second. i want to bring in david corn, msnbc political analyst and washington bureau chief for mother jones. david, thank you for joining us. >> good to be with you, reverend. >> tell me, david, as mr. romney, when you look at the fact that citizens for tax justice says his tax plan is a

complete handout to the top 1%, while the poorest suffer, the bottom 20% would only get a 1% tax cut while the top 1% would get a 38% tax cut. that's the analysis on the citizens for tax justice. is that why mr. willard wants us to only talk about this in quiet rooms, maybe so we're so quiet no one knows what he's really proposing? >> well, you know, this is an old and classic tactic that we've seen from conservatives and people in business community for decades. i think actually the notion, the term politics of envy was coined by marie anttoinette. any time you start talking about these issues, they come in and say it's class warfare. you are dividing us. you are looking down at american values of free enterprise. there's a word that's missing

from this debate that is actually a conservative word that conservatives often try to embrace. and that is the word responsibility. let's just go back a couple of years back to 2006 or '07 or 2008. who was responsible for the economic crash that hit this country? >> right. >> it was wall street going wild in subprime mortgage sending that was irresponsible and slicing and dicing, doing this in a musical chairs fashion like -- run by pirates to mix a metaphor to basically line their own pockets. and they had everybody else in this country held hostage to their machinations. and so when it all goes down, and we lose $8 million, 9 million, 10 million jobs because of the credit crunch that follows and they say you want to talk about dodd/frank and wall street people getting away? that's just envious of you. i think it's a bad set-up for

them. in the past, though, trying play this line with american voters has often worked going back to calling people reds and anarchists 100 years ago. so i think they've probably focus grouped this and have poll tested this liven attack and it will be up to democrats and others not to let them get away with it. >> congressman clyburn, they are going to have a problem this time because this is not just one segment of society. because of what they did to the economy, because of what president obama inherited, let me show you this graph of how americans across party lines feels about whether or not there's a class conflict between the rich and poor in this country. pew research poll raised the question, is there class conflict between rich and poor? 55% of republicans said yes. 68% of independents. 73% of democrats. the majority of their own party

saying there's a class conflict. this is not about envy. people are not silly. when they understand that they are not living in a way that is secure. they kind of understand that there is a question of fairness. they're not jealous of anybody, congressman. >> you are absolutely right. people know if you are making your money off of your parents' income or whatever they may have left you, you pay 18% on that. if you make your money going to work every day, trying to make ends meet for your children, you are paying 28% and 29% taxes. people know that that is unfair to work every day in hard labor and then have to pay 29% of your income in taxes. and if you earned your money off interest that you have

inherited, you only pay 18%. something is wrong with that. and we see instances -- i was on the super committee. we saw all the loopholes there inspect and all those loopholes. people paying zero in taxes. that's why when you hear all this stuff about we want a flat tax and the flatter tax. you ask them why don't you apply to all income, rather than earned income? and so that's the kind of unfairness that's in our tax system. people now know it. they're now talking about it. and you and i are going to make sure that they never -- it never leaves their mind as we go out and try to select the next president of the united states. >> well, you and i together on that, david. let me ask you something. the politics of this is what? who are they trying to hope to energize with this, and will they inadvertently energize those that maybe were kind of apathetic and say, wait a

minute. i better get out here because these guys are too extreme. >> well, i think when mitt romney says things like we should only discuss this in a quiet room, it comes pretty close to saying, let them eat cake. maybe there's cake in that quiet room. i don't know what they serve there. i've never been in that quiet room. but that is not enough of a gaffe to, i think, do him in, but it shows he has the propensity to talk about this in a way that can be really awkward and that may trip him up down the road. when they use this language, politics of division and envy, what they are really doing is to try to divide people up. and say, listen. do you want to be with those grubbing folks out there who want to take from us rather than work for themselves? it's a lot of coded language meaning welfare recipients and those lazy slackers. and so the people if you are in the middle class who may not be as hard working as you, and who are trying to leapfrog over you and just grab it from us. so they are trying to take people out there who might be feeling anxiety, economic stress and saying, you know, we have

more in common than you do with others who are clamoring for our millions. and as i've said in the past, historically, by raising the notion that this is a foreign idea, how many -- here's a little quiz. if you haven't done this already on the show. how many times last night did mitt romney say the word europe? three times. how many times did he say the word jobs? just once. so this whole notion of politics of envy is also coming from a president who is more european, who doesn't understand american values. so it's all about wrapping this together into something that is un-american. >> congressman clyburn and david corn, thank you both for joining me tonight. >> thanks. >> thank you so much for having us. ahead -- it's the story ripping the republican party apart. the bain bomb drops. and now they are taking sides. you know it's bad when senator demint, rush and hannity

are sticking up for willard. and, i think ron paul is getting a free pass. i'm talking about civil rights. the free pass stops here tonight. you're watching "politics nation" on msnbc.

willard and the bain bomb is ripping the republican party apart. that's next. made me what i am t. our science teacher helped us build it. ♪ now i'm a geologist at chevron, and i get to help science teachers. it has four servo motors and a wireless microcontroller. over the last three years we've put nearly 100 million dollars into american education. that's thousands of kids learning to love science. ♪ isn't that cool? and that's pretty cool. ♪

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nation." candidates are in south carolina, but the topic is the bain bomb. a pro-gingrich super pac unleashed a 28-minute film that hammers romney's job-killing record at bain capital. it's chock full of everyday americans talking about how romney's company ruined their lives. >> no matter how much they already had, they just couldn't ever get enough money. >> for an economy to thrive, there are a lot of people who will suffer as a result of that. >> it destroyed a lot of people's lives out there. >> bain reaped millions from companies that sent jobs overseas, closed factories or plunged into bankruptcy. >> that's what they do. is it right? no. but it's the way it's done. >> mitt romney is doing everything he can to deflect the line of attack, even accusing his rivals of helping president

obama. >> it's something we expected to come from president obama, but we didn't expect that newt gingrich and rick perry would become the witnesses for his prosecution if you will. >> joining me now is michelle cottle, reporter for "the daily beast." thank you for joining me tonight. >> it's my pleasure. >> now how much will these bain attacks hurt romney in south carolina and beyond? >> well, look, south carolina voters have a high tolerance for negative ads. so whereas maybe these ads would backlash against gingrich in iowa, you know, south carolina voters expect them to mix it up. you know, that said, i think you do have to kind of look at whether or not people are going to look at these and buy into the whole class warfare business. the republican party has always been the party that says class warfare is terrible. so, you know, romney will benefit to a certain extent from that. now the interesting thing is

what it's doing to kind of the major players themselves and the party has some fishers coming up in the establishment where you have the financial fiscal conservatives really ticked off about some of this stuff. you are seeing some interesting riffs coming up among the elites. >> now let me show you where they began circling the wagons today, some of the major talk show, radio people and even jim demint. let me show you this. >> they say they are vultures and unethical. i mean, that's about as severe a charge as you can make. frankly, you're right. it's one i would expect from barack obama. >> newt and perry blew it the last two days. i don't care what you think, folks. the attacks that they mounted on romney are not defensible. you just can't put your name to them. >> i certainly don't like to hear republicans criticizing one of our own and sounding like democrats. it really worries me when some

republicans start sounding like democrats. >> no, i mean it seems, michelle, like they are really screeching. you know, since we are headed to south carolina, i am from brooklyn. my mother is from alabama. she used to tell me if you throw a brick in a pile of hogs because i didn't know anything about hogs, the one that hollers is the one you hit. everybody is hollering, so i guess this is hitting somebody. >> look. the republican party has long held this very uneasy coalition between kind of the wealthy interests who like low taxes and the more populist interests who, you know, don't like the idea of big government but are also interested in more social issues. and this is one of those fault lines that the bain ads and mitt romney just make really difficult to kind of hold everything together. mitt romney looks like the ultimate rich republican kind of corporate raider. whether he sees himself like that or whether these ads stick.

he does have kind of an image problem that the party is not eager for newt gingrich to point out or anybody else because it kind of threatens this long-standing coalition they've used to hold power. >> well, michelle, thank you for your time tonight. sorry i couldn't find a quiet room to talk about this. >> it is a shame. maybe next time. >> maybe. ahead -- willard's touting things and ron paul's ugly talk. we're going to examine it here. all here tonight. [ male announcer ] to the 5:00 a.m. scholar.

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welcome back to "politics nation." it's do or die time in the gop race. and despite a rough night for some last night, they are all heading to south carolina where every republican primary winner has gone on to win the nomination since 1980. the latest poll has willard clearly in front. 18 points ahead of rick santorum. but they are all gearing up to take down willard, and he knows it's coming. he's already getting ripped for his not so conservative stances

in the past. this gingrich ad dropped today in south carolina. >> romney appointed a pro-abortion judge, expanded access to abortion pills, put planned parenthood on a state medical board but failed to put a pro-life group on the same board. and romney signed government mandated health care with t taxpayer funded abortions. mitt romney, he can't be trusted. >> he can't be trusted? the question is, will south carolina voters trust him enough to send him on the way to the gop nomination? joining me now is chad connolly, chairman of the south carolina republican party. first, mr. connolly, thank you for being here tonight. >> how are you doing, sir? i'll tell you, mr. sharpton. i'm impressed. i knew a lot of the talking heads had my talking points, but for you to have them, i'm impressed. >> we do a little research here. let me ask you this. first of all, you are neutral in

the race as chairman of the party. so i'm asking you this from that position. can willard be taken down in your opinion in south carolina, or is this a foregone conclusion? >> i don't think there are any foregone conclusions. south carolina has a rich history. 30 years of picking the nominee. there are ten days to go. we're the center of the political universe. serve watching. like i mentioned, you and everybody else on television, on every network is talking about south carolina. and the important role that we play. and so this is going to be determined by the candidate that gets out there, meets our people, connects with them and makes the most -- and creates the most buzz in the next ten days. that's going to tell the tale. >> mr. connelly, let me show you this graph about south carolina. >> okay. >> it's a little different than iowa and new hampshire. in fact, very different. 68% of it is conservative. this is how they label themselves. 60% evangelical. 96% white. 72% earn $50,000 or more. 25% military veterans.

these, of course, are the republicans in south carolina. and south carolina in general has twice more unemployment than iowa or new hampshire. so could a more grassroot kind of guy with a different image appeal to a different voter here that may not have worked in new hampshire or iowa? >> yes, sir. this is a totally different electorate, i think. south carolina is a carve out early state in the rnc's session because we have a blend of the republican base that's different. we have the conservative fiscal conservative side. we've got the social conservatives and the military conservatives, like you mentioned. and so our blend brings in a little bit of a different mix than you see in the other early states. i think, quite frankly, that's been why we've been so successful in picking the eventual nominee. >> now "the washington post" today said that there are conservatives scrambling to get rid of romney, and saying he's

not conservative enough. the subject of consolidating conservative opposition to the former massachusetts governor is expected to be a major point of discussion among 500 attendees at a tea party convention set this weekend in myrtle beach. they are meeting in myrtle beach, a very beautiful part of your state. how strong is the tea party element in your party in the state, mr. chairman? >> i got to tell you. you've even promoted myrtle beach for me. thank you, sir. the tea party element is strong here. when you look around south carolina, the tea party has really folded into the party in some places. in fact, they've even worked themselves into the leadership in several of the counties and the gop leadership. so they are very influential. you know, people say they are fractured. i don't see that. i've got friends who are quote/unquote establishment republicans in every one of these six camps. i've got friends who are tea party republicans in every one of the six camps. i don't think that's unusual for a primary fight at all. >> now rick perry, does he have

a chance? he did very poorly in new hampshire. didn't do that impressive in iowa. is really do or die for him in south carolina. does he have a chance? is there a potential constituency for him there, or does he get ready to go home? >> well, i think that this is a place that governor perry is really well received. no question about it. but i honestly think this is do or die for anybody. for 30 years, we picked the eventual nominee. so whoever wants to win this thing has to win it here. they have to get out and meet our voters and connect with them and make their story meaningful and real to all the electorate. >> well, chad connelly, thank you for your time. see, we didn't fight tonight. but when you come back, i've got a few rough ones for you. i'm just trying to get a handicap on the race tonight. you come back now, ya hear? >> have a great night. glad to be here. >> ron paul surging on his anti-war message. and has the beltway media been paying attention to him?

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a lot of the talk about ron paul has missed the mark, and managed to obscure his offensive views. in the name of state's rights, paul has attacked the civil rights act of 1964 which made discrimination illegal. >> do you thing country would have been better off in terms of race relations without the civil rights act of 1964? >> if you try to improve relationships by forcing and telling people what they can't do and you ignore and undermine the principles of liberty, then the government can come into our bedrooms. >> but now his state's rights agenda has gone mainstream with republican candidates talking about the tenth amendment, state's rights. >> we've got a great union. there's absolutely no reason to

dissolve it. but if washington continues to thumb their nose at the american people, who knows what may come out of that. >> we've got to have somebody that understands what the tenth amendment means. and that means these states tor compete against each other and that washington d.c. needs to be limited. >> a campaign for returning power to the states through the tenth amendment. >> i like the tenth amendment in particular. >> but let's not forget this state's rights ideology has a long and ugly history. especially in the south. and especially in the side of the next primary, south carolina. slave owners used state's rights as a rallying cry when confederate troops fired on ft. sumpter to start the civil war. strom thurmond ran for president in 1948 as a member of the state's rights party supporting segregation. and now south carolina officials

say they are suing the federal government to defend their discriminatory voter i.d. law. a move right in line with this state's right tradition. joining me now is dick harputlian, south carolina democratic party chair and msnbc contributor melissa harris perry, a professor of political science at tulane. and columnist for "the nation," soon to be host of a show at msnbc going from contributor to host. thanks to both of you for joining me tonight. let me go to you, dick, first. is it a coincidence that this state's rights issue is so big now right before the south carolina gop primary? >> no, i think that the south carolina gop primary typifies all -- you are going to hear all the issues that are going to horrify the rest of the issue. you can't come down here and talk to the republicans without

talking about state's rights. rick santorum was in greenville last weekend and he told a crowd up there, this is the most important election this country has faced since 1860. now 1860, abraham lincoln was elected and signed the emancipation proclamation. i don't know, rick. you know it may be an important election, but, really? abraham lincoln's election? the most important one since then? and you hear mitt romny, all these folks very subtly infusing race. by the way, the republicans have scheduled their big debate for monday, martin luther king day, without any regard whatsoever to the civil rights issues that this state has faced. these are the same republicans -- >> they are having their debate monday, martin luther king day. >> yes. >> now let me, melissa, so you know that dick is not being partisan. let me show you what both mr. gingrich and mr. santorum said about 1860, the year abe lincoln

ran for president. >> this is a very impoornt time for america. this may be the most important election since 1860. >> the most critical election in the history -- well, maybe since the election of 1860 but certainly in your lifetime. >> now why would they go back to 1860? we're in economic times. they didn't go back to 1932 when roosevelt had to come out of the depression. >> right. >> why 1860? especially headed into south carolina where the first south carolina debate is on martin luther king's birthday, a day that's a federal holiday that ron paul voted against. >> there's lots of things they like about 1860. part of it is a clear kind of racial discourse. this is about state's rights and state's rights are all kind of discriminatory principles. one is about african-americans, voting rights. the other piece is this anti-immigration legislation the states have passed. these issues around marriage equality.

state's rights becomes a cover for talking about the ability to remove the rights of some american citizens because those citizen rights exist in the states, rather than as national rights. something we keep getting reminded of in every tenth amendment conversation. but i think they also like 1860 because, remember that back then it was the republican party who were the champions of the union. >> yeah. >> i mean, for so many years, the south was a solid democratic space because our good friend abraham lincoln was a republican. so they can say -- >> and frederick douglass and others. >> the 1960s or 1980s, then it is the new-fangled republican party. if they go back to the 1860s, they can play claim to the segregationist past but claim that they were, of course, above the fray. >> but, dick, let me ask you this. when you look at the fact, and i like a lot of ron paul's anti-war stuff, but what has

drove me a little -- gotten me a little annoyed is how people are trying to say because he's right on the war we ought to forget about states' rights and what he's saying about israel and a lot of other things. and i think that it is dangerous for us to allow this kind of precedent to be set. and you are there as chair of the democratic party fighting, voter i.d. laws. let's show what will affect in your state of the voter i.d. laws in south carolina affects 239,000 voters, hitting black precincts in the state the hardest, according to the advancement project. this is serious. this is not just rhetoric. they are, in fact, enacting laws that could really impact upon people in your state, particularly black people in your state. >> there's no question. al, the focus here was not to come up with programs or to come up with positions that would entice african-americans to vote for republicans. they simply decided to not let

them vote. this is jim crow, this is where we're going backwards in this state, not forwards. and that's because of nicky hailey and the tea party folks that don't want to try to convince folks of color to vote for their candidates. i want to make one other point here. where's mitt romney on all of this, the gordon gekko of the 21st century, greed is good. where is he? what's his position on returning to the election of 1860? where is he on voter i.d.? where is he on these racial issues? when he was governor of massachusetts, he was very liberal on all these issues. especially states' rights. and now he's very silent. so i think it's important to note when he had a chance to speak up, i don't want to have a debate on martin luther king's birthday. that's a day we need to celebrate a great american leader. i don't think 1860 is the most important election. where is he?

he's quiet. he's a meek, meek man about these issues because he's always concerned about winning, not moving this country forward. >> i am sure some of our tweeter -- twitter folks are tweeting, oh, there goes sharpton bringing up race. well, let me show you who brought up race in this campaign. mr. santorum and mr. gingrich. watch this. >> i don't want to make black people's lives better by getting them somebody else's money. i want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn their money. and provide for themselves and their families. >> if the naacp invites me, i will go to their convention and talk about why the african-american community should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps. >> so let me get this right. we're supposed to hear him directly say, newt gingrich, why african-americans, like we're the majority of the people getting food stamps, what he would say to us. mr. santorum talking about blah

people that clearly don't exist and he went on without skipping a beat continuing the sentence so it doesn't sound like a stutter to me. we can hear people talk about 1860. we hear people using voter i.d. that disproportionately affect our voters but we're not supposed to say anything otherwise we're playing the race card. they can say whatever they want to play. >> we can play the historical accuracy card. no need to play the race card. let's take for example, newt gingrich's statement about paychecks versus food stamps. well, when he was speaker of the house, he made an alliance with the clinton administration that assured that african-american, white, latino, basically poor people in this country, particularly poor women with children would not have access to many of these social safety net programs like aid to families with dependent children. he already took care of that. let's go to historical accuracy on states' rights. it wasn't just an idea. it was always at its core about slavery. it was about how to keep the

union together, despite the fact that some states would be free states and others slave states. if they don't want to talk about race, they ought to not bring up the blah people and not assume the people at the naacp people who are middle class and assume they are all on food stamps. if they want to play the 1860 race cards, we're going to correct them on the accurate history. >> dick harpootlian and meliss athank you. >> thanks for joining me tonight. >> race is the elephant in the room in south carolina right now. and it's the republican elephant. >> it's a small room with a big elephant. thank you very much for joining me tonight. melissa, your new show starts? >> february 4th.

february 4th. >> at? >> 10:00 a.m. saturdays and sundays. 10:00 to noon. >> right after chris hayes. >> up with chris hayes and then something with me. >> all right. >> straight ahead, our effort to get americans back to work. 700 jobs available now. that's next. mid grade dark roast forest fresh

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back now with the latest in our ongoing series, here are the jobs. our goal is simple. help americans get back to work. since last week's segment, the response on twitter, facebook and posts and e-mail has been great. 2,000 people flooded the job fair on monday hosted by auto services company agero. many people said they found out about it right here on "politics

nation." that's great news. so tonight, we are featuring service master. a company adding 700 jobs right now. the memphis-based company is one of the country's biggest service providers for homes and businesses with franchises all over the country and brands that include terminix, merry maids and american home shield. joining me now from memphis is andrea huff. she's the chief recruiter and vice president of talent acquisition at servicemaster. andrea, great to have you with us tonight. >> thank you reverend, for having me. happy to be here. >> now 700 jobs. what positions are you looking to fill? >> absolutely. >> tell me what you are looking to fill. >> sure. so those 700 are really made up of two categories. the first being call center positions. we have call centers in memphis, atlanta, dallas, tampa, carroll, iowa, and those are supporting our businesses for american home shield, terminix and true green.

the other 100 of that 600 are in our corporate office here in memphis. jobs such as i.t., finance, accounting, hr and legal. >> now -- and you have other jobs you are planning to fill. 700 is right away. how many is the total that you are planning? >> so 700 this quarter. but we have 6,000 -- we are so excited. 6,000 new and seasonal jobs we'll be hiring sptsing true green and several other businesses this year. >> now i understand that the cities where you are hiring is sort of a mixed bag. let me show you. talking about when the unemployment rate nationwide is 8.6%, you are in memphis which is 9.2. tamp a10.3. dallas, 7.4, atlanta, 9.2. i mean, it's a lot of areas that really needs jobs. >> absolutely. >> now let me ask you about -- you also are helping people

start their own businesses. i was part of the kickoff of this program. and, in fact, when national action network, a group i'm president of, celebrated dr. king's 40th anniversary, you and i worked together -- not you, but the company, supported us in doing that. tell us about this program. >> yeah, and delighted you were there with us. so in addition to the 24,000 associates that service master has, we have 6,000 franchise locations that employ another 31,000 employees. what we've discovered is that it's very important that our franchise organization include diversity. and so we partnered with shane battier, and as you mentioned, you were at that event, to identify scholarship recipients that are of diverse status. so women or people of color that apply to a service master clean janiterial franchise, and if they are qualified, we give them a scholarship with the