good evening, americans, and welcome to "the ed show" tonight from new york. mitt romney's hero is scot walker. tonight, i'll show you what mitt would do to america with walker's playbook.

and sean hannity is all bent out of shape because i proved how out of touch he is. sean, there's more where that came from tonight. this is "the ed show." let's get to work. and of course, your great governor. what a hero he is. scott walker. >> mitt romney's hero has caused a job disaster in wisconsin. now americans have to decide if they want scott walker's train wreck on a national level. tonight, illinois governor pat quinn on the success of his state and america's choice. the presumptive nominee's presumptive pick for vice president can't get it done without a teleprompter. >> free to become prosperous. i left my last page of the speech. >> republicans are playing games with student loans. >> you've got one member of congress who compared these student loans to a stage three cancer of socialism. >> you won't believe what boehner and his gang are trying to pull.

>> stage three cancer -- i don't know where to start. >> i just personally do not agree with the highest office of the land going on these comedy shows. i think it lowers the status of the office. >> and the right wing freaks out over the president's appearance on late-night. >> you and bo, you get together, you go to the presidential man cave. >> we go to the man cave, we turn on sports center. >> tonight, we'll set the curvy couch straight. >> and right now a bunch of former presidents are like, huh. i think it's nutso. good to have you with us tonight, folks. thanks for watching. republicans have no understanding of what economic progress is for the poor and the middle class in this country. president obama continued to hammer home that point today. >> and then you've got the spokesman for the speaker of the house, who said we're -- meaning me, my administration -- we're just talking about student loans to distract people from the economy. now, think about that for a second. because these guys don't get it.

this is the economy. this is the economy. this is about your job security. this is about your future. the you do well, the economy does well. this is about the economy. >> it makes good economic sense to keep interest rates for college students at reasonable levels. but republicans have different ideas for economic growth. mitt romney's speech last night was short on policy, specifics, but long on republican party talking points. >> we will stop the unfairness of urban children being denied access to the good schools of their choice. we will stop the unfairness of requiring union workers to contribute to politicians not of their choosing. we will stop the unfairness of government workers getting better pay and benefits than the very taxpayers they serve. >> let's see, school vouchers,

union busting, eliminating good-paying, public sector jobs. romney is reading right out of the scott walker playbook, which is no surprise considering how highly romney thinks of the wisconsin governor. >> it is nice to be in a hall of champions tonight. and i say that -- you guys, this is the place. chairman priebus, thank you. paul ryan, what a champion. and of course, your great governor, what a hero he is. scott walker. thank you. >> oh, what a hero he is. mitt romney might want to check out the local papers in wisconsin before praising his hero, scott walker. here's the headline the people of wisconsin woke up to this morning, "state job losses worst in the united states." for 14 months i have been telling you on this program about the dangers of this radical governor in wisconsin and his agenda.

all of the warnings are now memorialized in these numbers. and that headline. from march 2011 to march 2012, wisconsin has lost 23,900 jobs. the bureau of labor statistics says that wisconsin is the only state in the nation with statistically significant job losses over the past year. now, 17,800 of these jobs were from the public sector. 6,100 of these jobs were from the private sector. no other state in the country has lost more private sector jobs over the last 12 months. the numbers don't lie. how would you like this to be your state, your numbers? this is what huge tax breaks for corporations does to your state. this is what happens when you can cut education, when you cut health care, when you cut social services and you go after people's voices in the workplace. this is what happens when you turn your back on labor and you put yourself against the people and try to pit worker against worker.

but scott walker doesn't, well, he doesn't see it that way. never has. to him, these policies are a success. just last month, he was on fox news breaking his arm, patting himself on the back while he was trashing the governor of illinois. >> the more we get the message out, the more we get the truth out, the more we compare ourselves to illinois and they see the failed policies down there don't work, the more successful we are. i say look to the south of springfield, because those are the same policies that failed in the past in wisconsin and they'd fail again here. >> scott walker's state has employment numbers like this. but he is talking about the failed policies of illinois? in the past year, the state of illinois, well, they have gained 31,700 jobs. the state of illinois, you see, they didn't go to war with the workers. in fact, illinois did something unthinkable from the republican playbook. the state raised income taxes in

2011. now people are going back to work. and they're being able to pay their bills. in wisconsin, more people are out of work than before scott walker took office. oh, it must be the protests. well, why do you think they're protesting? walker thinks of himself as some government revolutionary. he believes his actions in wisconsin will reshape the country. >> came home from the super bowl where the packers won, and that monday night i had all my cabinet over to the residence for dinner. talked about what we were going to do, how we were going to do it. we had already kind of built plans up, but it was kind of the last hur ra before we dropped the bomb. i said, this is our moment, this is our time to change the course of history, and this is why it's so important that they were all there. >> oh, yeah. scott walker, i guess he's the canary in the coal mine. this is the plan he had for the state. here it is. here's what you get when you attack workers. when you think that you can balance the budget on the backs

of the workers of the state. the republican blueprint for the future in 2011 is now being played out. the republican future is job losses at the expense of corporate welfare. it's tax cuts for the rich at the expense of the very poor and the infrastructure in the state. and this really is the direction that mitt romney wants to take the united states of america if he gets the chance. don't give him the chance. get your cell phones out. i want to know what you think. tonight's question, would mitt romney implement scott walker's job-killing policies as president? text "a" for yes, text "b" for no to 622639. you can always go to our blog at ed.msnbc.com and leave a comment there. we'll bring you the results later on in the show. joining me tonight, i'm honored to have the governor of illinois on the program. governor pat quinn. governor, good to have you with us tonight. thanks so much. >> same here. same here, ed. i see you almost every night when i come home about 10:00. you know, you're on rerun in illinois as well. so we see you now and then later on. >> that's because you're working all day, creating jobs. >> i sure am. >> let's talk about that. the bloomberg economic state index has the state of illinois ranked at number three.

your neighboring governor has used with you as a whipping post. he's gone around saying that we don't want to be like illinois. now the numbers are in, they're memorialized. how has illinois been able to create jobs, and that's the big story in america, job creation, how have you been able to do it while wisconsin, your neighbor, has not been able to do it? what are you doing? >> well, wisconsin's dead last at job growth. don't listen to scott walker if you want to get jobs in your state. and we sure haven't listened to him. we believe in our workers. we have skilled, educated workers, we believe in investing in education. i was just with the uaw and, you know, when i became governor and president obama became president, the auto industry needed a helping hand. and we did it in illinois and we've done it across our country. in illinois, we have chrysler, going to have 4,600 jobs this summer, building a new dodge dart. when we began, some had 200 jobs. ford has three shifts around the clock in our state, making cars and trucks as well.

and we also have caterpillar who had their best year ever last year. and same with john deere. and these are all manufacturing jobs. >> so manufacturing has bounced back in the state of illinois. now, i want to know, have you attacked the institutions, the public sector jobs the way walker has done that in wisconsin? >> no, no. we believe in the right of collective bargaining. you don't always agree, if you're governor, you're going to have disagreements, but you negotiate those over a table, and that's what we have to do in illinois and across america. i think you have to honor the workers of our country. whether they worked in the private sector or the public sector, they're the heart and soul of america and made in america are my favorite words. >> well, the people of wisconsin woke up to this headline this morning, state job losses, worst in the united states. what would you say to them as governor of a neighboring state. now, you said, don't listen to walker, but is it really a result of a government overreach?

what is it? >> well, i think you have to understand that when you work together as a team, you go a lot farther. i want to give you an example. i believe in high-speed rail. we're building high-speed rail from chicago to st. louis. and because scott walker turned that down in wisconsin, his predecessor, jim doyle, was all for it. we would have a route going from chicago to milwaukee on to madison. he turned it down. we got part of their money to more people to work in illinois on rail. and as a matter of fact, one company left with wisconsin and came to our state of illinois to manufacture railway cars. this is the kind of thing you've got to do in the 21st century. you've got to invest in innovation, invest in manufacturing, and not listen to ideologues like governor walker. i like to work as a team with the whole midwest, but when he arrived, he wanted to kick me in the shins and our state, and we're not going to take that at all. >> okay. you hear the bullet point from

the right wing, you can't raise taxes on the job creators. have you raised taxes on the wealthiest residents in your state? >> well, i inherited a huge deficit from my predecessor, blagojevich, and we had to get out of the deficit. we had to raise the income tax. it's no fun to do that. with we had to stabilize the economy, much like president clinton did when he became president back in the '90s. >> but this is a key point. they're saying that you can't raise taxes on the wealthiest residents and create jobs, and your record shows just the opposite. >> yeah, we have lower employment today than we did when we had to do the revenue increase. not only that, ed, we've increased our exports by almost 30% in illinois. wisconsin, like, was 11%. we're well above the national average in illinois, because we understand that when you invest in people, when you have good

education, we used our revenue to invest in our schools, to make sure we have good preschool, early childhood, as well as great community colleges. very important in a global economy and a great four-year universities. we want to make sure everybody's in and nobody's left out when it comes to job growth and economic development. >> okay, governor. and i assume you think that the bears will probably have a better draft than the packers then, correct? >> yeah, we're definitely for the bears over the packers. but i think take a look at illinois's job growth versus wisconsin, and come on into illinois. everybody's welcome. >> all right. governor pat quinn, thanks for your time tonight, and good job. >> thank you. >> good job. you're doing exactly what they say can't be done. remember to answer tonight's question there at the bottom of the screen. share your thoughts on twitter @edshow. i want to know what you think. and next, republicans agree to extend low interest rates for student loans, but how are they going to pay for it? by gutting health care? congressman george miller who chairs the committee joins me. and also, mitt romney still hasn't closed the deal with conservatives. and their top choice for vice president could really use one of those president obama teleprompters. stay with us.

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coming up, republicans have a plan to keep student loan interest rates low. but you won't believe what they want to do to pay for it. we'll tell you. and the senate passes a bill that helps stop the bleeding at the postal service. i'll ask senator bernie sanders with us tonight what else congress needs to do to save the post office. i've got a few ideas. and paul ryan says his budget was shaped by his catholic faith, but cuts to food programs for the poor has catholic leaders speaking out and protesting in a big way. share your thoughts on twitter using the hashtag "ed show," we're right back. c'mon dad! i'm here to unleash my inner cowboy. instead i got heartburn. [ horse neighs ] hold up partner. prilosec isn't for fast relief.

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helping more young people, helping more young people afford college should be at the forefront of america's agenda and it shouldn't be a republican or a democratic issue. this is an american issue. >> president obama in iowa city, iowa, earlier today, reassuring students that he is on their side as the fight over student loan rates just continues. now, the president has really boxed the gop into a corner here. but here comes senator roy blunt of missouri, laying down the groundwork for the republicans' next move. >> why is that rate as high as it is? because it was one of the pay-fors in the president's health care plan. you know, if the health care plan goes away, as the court very well might decide, there's no longer an argument about this loan rate, because it was used to take money from students and pay for health care and largely health care for people who aren't students. >> blunt doesn't have a clue. he doesn't know what the hell he's talking about. the president doesn't want to

fund health care that way at all. meanwhile, speaker john boehner announced late this afternoon that the house will vote friday on a bill to extend low interest rates for student loans, paid for by gutting health care. >> we will pay for this by taking money from one of the slush funds in the president's health care law. you know, this the week, the president's traveling the country on the taxpayers' dime, campaigning and trying to invent a fight where there isn't one and never has been one on this issue of student loans. >> let's bring in congressman george miller of california, the ranking member of the house education in the workforce committee. george, great to have you with us tonight. i have to ask you about what roy blunt said. was this a pay-for to raise the student rates to help pay for the health care bill? take us down that road? >> roy blunt has it backwards. we lowered the interest rates in 2007, when we were paying them as middle men to loan them money. we said, let's get rid of the

middle men and give the money to students and families. we did that on a very large bipartisan vote back in 2007, and that became the law. we did it for four years, because that's all that we could afford with that pay-for sop roy blunt has it all backwards. he has the health care bill mixed up with what happened several years before in the bush administration. >> well, this is what the republicans are pretty good at, confusing the public, attacking health care, making it look like democrats have no idea what they're doing. the priority is to make sure that students in this country get a low rate and keep a low rate so they have a chance at getting out of debt sooner, is that right? >> that's the priority. and again, just as roy blunt had it all mixed up, speaker boehner has it all mixed up, because he says there never was an issue about this in the country. interestingly enough, when we lowered the interest rates, he opposed that, and just a week

ago, we had a anonymous vote by the republicans in the ryan republican budget to double the interest rates. they all voted to double the interest rates. president obama goes out on the stump for three days and they find religion and now they're rushing to lower the interest rates. and thank you very much for their conversion and for their following the guidance of president obama and understanding how importance this is to families and young people going to college. >> well, i want americans to grasp this. this is on paper, that the ryan budget plan would bring the interest rates up on students and fix it there. and here's john boehner tonight saying it was never really an issue. the hell it wasn't. they were trying to stick it of students and now they're backpedaling. if i'm wrong, congressman, you've got to straighten me out. >> that's exactly what happened.

they had a unanimous vote for the ryan budget. the ryan budget anticipated and planned for the doubling of the interest rates on july 1st to 6.8% and then staying there. >> okay. now, when the house gop voted on tax cuts for the wealthy, where were their offsets? they're big on offsets, but when they wanted to cut another check to the wealthiest americans, they didn't have any offsets, did they? >> no, they didn't have any offsets last week when they gave the offsets. people like paris hilton and others, the idle wealthy, if you will. and they didn't pay for that at all. but the minute we come to student loans that's for middle income and low income families and students, the minute we do that, there must be a pay-for. and we're fine with the pay-for, we'll do that. but it's interesting they never want to pay for any of the benefits that the wealthy get.

but as you mentioned, their pay-for tonight we've learned comes out of the preventative fund in the health care bill which screens women for cervical and breast cancer, immunizes children, and screens for birth defects. >> well, boehner calls that a slush fund. >> that's a slush fund, for children with birth defects, for immunizing vulnerable children, that's a slush fund? they thinks money used to screen women for cervical and breast cancer is a slush fund? the speaker's got it really upside down and wrong and rz it's essentially an immoral position that you would deny these individuals access to health care. >> so what do you make of mitt romney, all of a sudden following the president, coming back to the microphone the other day saying, yeah, by the way, i want to extend these loan rates too. this is a flip-flop, is it not? >> he was very auditory on the ryan republican budget, and the ryan republican budget doubled the interest rates in july 1st of this year.

that's why we're fighting so far. and finally the republicans have joined us in saying they're now for lowering the interest rates, but they're going to take that out of the hide of the most vulnerable people. i mean, just now women are getting full access to health care because of the health care reform bill, and now they're going to take away screening, once again for women, for breast cancer and cervical cancer. >> there is no connection between student interest rates and the health care bill, what roy blunt was talking about. it's amazing where the republicans will go. congressman george miller, great to have you with us tonight. senator majority leader harry reid is singing the praises of a bill to save the postal service. hold the phone. i think i -- we still have some work to do on this. bernie sanders will join me next. i'm not saying there's not some victories, but we've got work to do. the president slow jams the news. the right wing flips out. who is the most outraged? find out later. stay with us. we're right back. [ lauer ] this is our team.

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today the senate voted to pass a bill designed to help the united states postal service get out of debt and stay functional. senate majority leader harry reid was very pleased with the success of the bill. >> i am very, very gratified about the work that's been done over the last many months, which will culminate today in the passing of this postal bill. it's going to be something that is going to send to the house a message that we can do big things. >> and what do you think the reaction of the house is going

to be? let's not go overboard talking about the success here. it's a good start. this bill is just a first step towards solving the financial problems facing the postal service, which, of course, was imposed by a republican in congress. we've got a long way to go. it stops the bleeding, but it's far from a long-term solution. but it is a start. the legislation offers buyouts or retirement incentives to 100,000 postal workers, which would save up to about $8 billion a year. also, the postal service would not be allowed to eliminate saturday delivery for the next two years. that is a very good thing. and the bill makes it harder for the postal service to close small town post offices. another great one. the bill is not all bad, but it's not enough. and remember, a republican congress created the postal service's financial problems in the first place in the lame duck session of the congress in the 2006. the agency made an annual profit

as recently as 2006. that year, the lame duck congress passed the legislation, requiring the postal service to prefund the retirement account for the next 75 years in a ten-year window. who the heck runs their businesses like that? nobody. they were trying to kill the unions and the republicans are doing everything they can to ill that voting bloc. i'm joining tonight by bernie sanders of vermont, who worked very hard on this bill. senator, i hope you saved 200,000 jobs. i don't know how much cooperation you got from the house, but i want to go right to the money. what happens to that money in the senate bill? >> we made significant progress on that, ed. what happens is, as you pointed out, right now the postal service paying $5.5 billion every single year, which is really quite crazy. no other entity in america comes anywhere close to having that kind of burden. what we did is two things. we reduced the $5.5 to $3.5, but we also said the postal service can take $3.5 billion -- $3 billion, i'm sorry, out of the fund, the employee retirement

fund, to pay for current retiree benefits, which means they will be spending $5.5 billion less on retiree health care right now. that is a significant step forward and will help the postal service. furthermore, because the postal service was overpaying into overpaid into the retirement system, we brought them back another $11 billion, which will also help them. so we made some progress in those areas. >> all right. congressman darrell issa, who is the lead sponsor on the post office bill over in the house, he called the senate bill wholly unacceptable and it's going to be dead on arrival in the house pip mean, this is going to launch right into a huge election year issue, because the house isn't going to do anything about it, if they follow his line of thinking. your thoughts at this point? >> i'm not sure that issa is quite right. what we did in this bill, we came from a position where the postmaster general wanted to shut down 3,700 rural post offices, shut down half of the

mail processing plants in this country. what we said is, sorry, you can't do that. we protected rural post offices. we protected many, not all, of the mail processing plants. i think what mr. issa is going to find is that he has a lot of rural republicans who are legitimately concerned about preserving their post offices and their rural communities and i'm not so sure that they agree with him. >> this is a winning issue for the democrats. again, i go back to the theme of this show. you stand with workers, you can't lose. you stand with workers, you will win. what do you think? >> well, i think that in the middle of a recession, the idea of downsizing the postal service by 200,000 decent-paying jobs makes no sense at all. so, again, we did not go as far as i would have liked, but we did save tens and tens of thousands of jobs. i think the american people understand that and i think the pressure is now going to be on the house to follow what we did and produce something

meaningful. >> and i think, this would be a good platform for the democrats to run on, senator. and that is, we hear the republicans say that if they get in and get the majority, they're going to repeal obama care, is what they call it. how about the democrats coming out and saying, if we get the power back, legislatively, we're going to turn this post office issue around, because this is good for small business and it should have never gone down this road in the first place. >> this is absolutely vitally important to small business. ed, there are approximately 8 million jobs connected to a strong and effective postal service. so this is important for our economy and i think you're quite right. this is a major political issue. do you stand with small business, do you stand with the veterans who are working in the postal service right now? do you stand with the american economy or are you into downsizing, downsizing, downsizing and laying off tens of thousands of workers? >> vermont senator bernie sanders, always there for the worker.

great to have you with us tonight. thanks so much. lots more coming up in the next half hour of the ed show. stay right with us. is governor romney a conservative? >> well, that's what the voters are choosing right now. >> day one of the romney campaign is already off to a bad start. >> do you believe that mitt romney is the right guy? >> well, i believe he's the better -- obviously, i believed i was the better choice. >> howard fineman is here with the latest. catholic leaders continue to rip paul ryan for his immoral budget. jonathan alter has the latest on the republican war on the poor. right now a bunch of former presidents are like, huh? i think it's nutso. >> and republican hypocrisy is on full display after the president slow jams the news. fox and friends are busted again. >> what is a slow jam? you grew up in rap? >> you know what, i could explain it, but it's easier if you see it. i went to a small high school. the teacher that comes to mind for me is my high school math teacher, dr. gilmore. i mean he could teach.

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how math and science kind of makes the world work. in high school, i had a physics teacher by the name of mr. davies. he made physics more than theoretical, he made it real for me. we built a guitar, we did things with electronics and mother boards. that's where the interest in engineering came from. so now, as an engineer, i have a career that speaks to that passion. thank you, mr. davies. mitt romney spent the last year spewing hard right-wing rhetoric and now the republican

voters are finally rewarding him with the presidential nomination, at least, that's what it looks like. but some of his former opponents, well, they're still not convinced. last night michele bachmann and rick santorum got what you could say, i guess, a workout trying to dodge questions about endorsing romney. >> does that mean you're ready to endorse governor romney? >> well, i've been working very hard for the last few weeks to be able to unite our party. that's really been my focus. >> is governor romney a conservative? >> well, that's what the voters are choosing right now. >> has he satisfied you? >> again, the point is, he is satisfying people across the country in the primary races. >> he's won the race. >> he's won the race. >> is he therefore the right guy? >> yeah, absolutely. he's the person that, that is going to go up against barack obama, it's pretty clear, and we need to win this race. >> but that's an endorsement, isn't it? >> if that's what you want to call it, you can call it whatever you want. >> karen, you know your husband. has he just endorsed mitt

romney? >> not at this point, no. >> even jim demint who endorsed romney in 2008 has refused to endorse him this year. the bottom line is mitt romney hasn't convinced conservatives he's legit. florida senator marco rubio was supposed to be the guy who could shore up romney's conservative credentials by joining him on the ticket as the vice president. well, rubio is a great attack dog. he's gone after the president of the united states on everything from the economy to teleprompters. but watch what happened while rubio was delivering a foreign policy speech today. >> above all else, the 21st century provides us the opportunity for more freedom. a world where more people are free to grow their economies, free to pursue their dreams, free to become prosperous. i left my last page of the speech. does anybody have my last page? did i leave it with you? i apologize. above all else, the 12st century provides us the opportunity for me freedoms.

that! i'm joined tonight by howard fineman, nbc news political analyst and editorial director of "the huffington post" media group. i just had to throw that teleprompter thing in there, howard. you've got to know your script, i guess. >> i'm sorry to tell you, i left behind the last page of my speech tonight, i'm sorry. >> well, you've got enough material in your first two, i know, for sure. all right. why can't they just seal the deal? what is it about romney that these conservatives just can't go out on the talking heads and say, you know what, he's our guy? >> well, they know that he came late to the party. and by their likes, they didn't come convincingly. they know what his record was. this is a very interesting situation here, ed, where the grassroots conservatives, the genuine died in the wool conservatives, i think, it's fair to say that both rick

santorum and michele bachmann are that, don't believe mitt romney's conversion. but the white house does. and they're going to try to jam it down mitt romney's throat. so you have this odd situation where mitt romney, who has been on all sides of all issues, is going to get it from both sides here, as he closes up the nomination and as he begins the general election campaign. >> you know, they all talk about being on the same team, but this air of reluctancy certainly doesn't help romney's credibility. and how is it -- it's really going to be on him to patch all of this up. does it even matter if michele bachmann endorses him or rick santorum? >> no, i don't think it really matters what they say, in particular. but i've noted that some republicans are now trying to defend mitt romney as he heads into the general election by touting the fact that he's been on all sides of all issues. >> yeah. >> and i don't think the white house is going to let him get away with that.

they're going to make him choose. they're going to force him to choose the last thing that he did choose, which was a hard right attack to try to get to the right of people like bachmann and perry and santorum on any number of issues in the last six months and the white house, i know from talking to them, and the president says it himself publicly, and so do david axelrod and jim messina and the others, they're going to try to stick mitt romney with the very conservative positions he went with in the last few months. the president said, i don't think the republican nominee is going to suddenly be able to say everything i've said for the last six months. i'm not saying that i'm assuming he meant it. you're running for president, you are paying to attention what you're saying. >> every campaign has a rhythm, has a pace. and i think what the obama team is planning to do is to go after mitt romney very hard for the conservative positions he took, force all those videos back on to the air of mitt romney saying other things a few months ago and a couple things before that and so forth, try to get the benefit of both versions of mitt romney, the flip-flopping mitt romney and the hard right mitt romney.

there's a conceptual conflict between the two, but the white house isn't going to worry about that. they're going to try to get the benefit of both. keep their fingers crossed that the economy will keep improving somewhat, and then try to finish in the fall on an upbeat note. and they expect mitt romney to go negative from now until the very end of the campaign. >> that's all he's got. and in full disclosure tonight, howard fineman never uses a teleprompter. he knows his material, unlike marco rubio, the senator from florida. thanks, howard. president obama slow jams the news. gretchen carlson thinks these types of appearances are beneath the office of the presidency. did she always feel this way? find out next. at bank of america, we're lending an in communities across the country. fro omrevi htalielzeping t a neigbrhbooklyn..or.ho financing industries that are creating jobs in boston... providing funding for the expansion of a local business serving a diverse seattle community...

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last night the president went on late-night with jimmy fallon to talk student loans and other things. apparently it was just too much for the fox and friends gang to handle. >> jimmy fallon does this thing on the program where occasionally he'll have a big star and the star will slow jam the news. there's the president of the -- >> what is a slow jam? you grew up in rap. >> let's allow the president to explain what it is. >> on july 1st of this year, the interest rates on stafford student loans, the same loans that many of you use to help pay for college, are set to double. and that means some hard-working students will be paying about $1,000 extra just to get their education. so i've called on congress to prevent this from happening. what we said is simple. now is not the teem to make school more expensive for our young people. ♪

>> oh, yeah. you should listen to the president. or as i like to call him, the preezy of the united steezy. things are heating up inside congress' chambers behind all those closed doors, so the president made a few discreet calls across the aisle. he said, hey, let's get together on this one. without an affordable stafford loan, where can a student turn? the pell grant is a beautiful thing, but with college getting more expensive, is it enough by itself to satisfy all your collegiate needs? oh, pell, no. ♪ oh, pell, no ♪ if congress doesn't act, it's the students who play ♪ ♪ the right and left should join on this like kim and kanye ♪ >> that was just one part of the president's appearance on late-night. he also sat down and had a

serious discussion about student loans, the economy, and the direction of the country. predictably, the rnc jumped all over it with a two-minute ad contrasting the president with mitt romney. but no one was more outraged about the president's appearance than the fox news's gretchen carlson. >> and right now a bunch of former presidents are like, huh? that's what we do now when we're president of the united states? >> when you want the kids -- >> i don't care. i think it's nutso. >> former bush press secretary dana perino agrees. >> and president bush had just a very different outlook on these comedy shows. >> she's right. bush preferred his own brand of humor, like joking about lying america into a war. >> those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere. nope, no weapons over there. >> now, in all fairness, dana perino was talking about president bush going on tv comedy shows. >> remember, president bush didn't go on until after the

presidency was over. he just didn't think it was a place where the president should be. >> instead, president bush thought this was the place where the president should be. >> were y'all spankers. did you spank him? >> not really. >> you know, we were, in your roomers, you know, get to your room. >> and let's not forget about bush's appearance on the game show, "deal or no deal." >> good evening, captain colbus. i'm thrilled to be on "deal or no deal" with you tonight. come to think of it, i'm thrilled to be anywhere with high ratings these days. >> now president bush went on the program to cheer on a veteran, a nice thing to do, but let's see if i got this right. when president obama talks to young people about student loans, gretchen carlson believes it's beneath the office of the presidency. >> i think it's very effective for president obama. i just personally do not agree with the highest office of the land, the most important figure in the world, going on these

comedy shows. i just think it lowers the status of the office. >> but when president bush jokes about his approval rating on a game show, i wonder if gretchen carlson had an opinion about that. >> laura and i are rooting for you tonight and good luck. >> that's very nice. >> so that's amazing. it's really bringing down the whole idea of being president to just the human being level. i like it. >> yeah, i thought so. i thought so. next up, catholic leaders are lining up against paul ryan's budget, like never before. and they are protesting his appearance at georgetown university. jonathan alter joins me. [ male announcer ] this is corporate caterers, miami, florida.

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helping you do what you do... even better. ♪ ed show survey tonight. i asked, would mitt romney implement scott walker's job-killing policies as president. 94% of you say yes, 4% of you say no. coming up, paul ryan is getting heat for his budget plan that cuts billions from food programs. jonathan alter weighs in on that next. ♪ dave, i've downloaded a virus.

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tonight -- >> i have friends of mine that eat rice and beans all the time. beans, protein. rice, inexpensive. it's really -- and you can make a big pot of this for a week for relatively negligible amounts of money for your whole family and feed your family. not the -- look, you should have vegetables and fruit in there as well, but, you know, if you need to survive, you can survive off it. it's not ideal. you know, you can get some cheap meat too and throw in there as well for protein. there are ways to live really, really cheaply. >> there's a guy in touch. welcome back to "the ed show." that was sean hannity offering his answer to the poor and hungry in this country. rice and beans. throw in a little cheap meat too. congressman paul ryan's budget isn't much better. and catholic leaders are lining up against it. tomorrow ryan is giving a guest lecture at georgetown university. catholics united will stage a

protest and 90 georgetown faculty, including a dozen jesuit priests have written a letter to ryan, to "challenge your continuing misuse of catholic teaching, to defend a budget plan that decimates food programs for struggling families, radically weakens protections for the elderly and sick, and gives tax breaks to the wealthiest few." catholic bishops already sent letters of protest to ryan and other house republicans. here's why. the republicans have proposed taking 280,000 children off the school lunch program. the house ag committee just passed a bill cutting $33 billion from snap, the food stamp program over the next ten years. $11.5 billion of those cuts comes from reducing access to low-income families. but in the 2010 tax cut compromise, republicans cut taxes on multi-million dollar estates, which will add $11.5 billion to the deficit this year. joining me now is jonathan alter, msnbc political analyst and bloomberg view columnist. what do you make of all of this? good to have you with us tonight, john. >> this is just such a fascinating development.

because you remember just a few weeks ago that the conference of bishops was attacking president obama on the contraception issue and the exemption from obama care. now they're all over paul ryan, and by extension, mitt romney, and by extension, sean hannity and, you know, the amen corner in the conservative camp over being out of step with catholic teaching. so you have people who, you know, who were with the bishops when they were on the other side of the issue, and now they don't want to listen to the bishops when they're telling them that the ryan plan is contrary to the teachings of their church. so it's just absolutely fascinating to me. and when you independently analyze it, these numbers that you mentioned are right. the ryan plan would cut more than $800 billion from medicaid. that's health care for the poor. that's not welfare like, go get a job, we'll get you off welfare and get a job, if you're on your own.

these are people who are hurting. they're sick. there's going to be a lot less money to take care of them. the food stamp program, cut by close to 20%. that will contribute to hunger in the united states. so this election, ed, is about big things. it's not really about dogs on the top of the car or who, you know, insulted who in the daily news cycle. it's about what kind of country we want to live in. these are cuts that we have never seen before. this is a radical change of where america's going to go if these folks get the power. >> it's a big change. and you have to say that, look, democrats and liberals deserve a little blame for having cried wolf all these years, when sometimes there really weren't serious cuts, but for political gain, democrats portrayed them as being serious. now the wolf is at the door. the republicans are elected and they get the congress, they will enact the ryan plan. and that will shred the social

safety net the way they shred the net after an nba playoff. >> sean hannity said we treated him unfairly. we took his words out of context, that's what he says, when he was roughing it in his early days. he says he didn't go out to eat. here's more. >> i used to paycheck the best meat loaf, in part because i liked it and it was cheap to make. we ate cornbread, didn't buy a lot of cakes and cookies. again, i could have gone to my parents. so nbc news does a segment on this saying how out of touch i am, and again, the whole script was written by media matters. >> no, sean, i take care of all of that. and that was a damned good ad lib last night. i mean, if it's true, shouldn't he be more sympathetic though those who are struggling right now? instead, of course, he is going for tax cuts for the wealthy and also pp