>> having been in the private sector for 25 years, give me a perspective on how jobs are created. right now, we have an economy in trouble, and someone who spent their career in the economy is more suited to help fix the economy that someone who spent his life in politics and as a community organizer. >> so let's see. knowing how to create jobs and the career in the economy, if

those are the most relevant criteria for president, i've got a proposal for a write-in candidate. jay-z. no, really, jay-z. according for the mitt romney handbook, he has what it takes. loving husband, private sector experience. by jay-z's own declaration, i'm not a businessman, i'm a businessman. he hasn't just worked in the private sector, he is the private sector and as for being a job creator. kanye is his testament to his skill in that area, as everyone who has been employed by the record label, nightclub chain, record label and basketball team that has contributed to jay's 4$460empire. it may not be much compared to mitt romney's fortune.

but he wasn't the son of a governor. jay-z meets all of romney's requirements. maybe he should be on the short list of vp. except, of course, he shouldn't. being a businessman doesn't mean that he should be in charge of running the united states of america. and that's not qualifying mitt romney either. only if he had a record of, i don't know, governing a state. that might give us a sense of how he might run the country. joining me now, keith boykin, and former clinton white house aide and peter goodman, of the huffington post, and author of "past due: the end of easy money and the renewal of the american economy." thank you for being here. romney tells us, i'm a businessman, that means i ought to be president. what do you think of the argument?

>> it didn't work in massachusetts. if you have this business experience and supposed to be applicable to be a governor or elected official, why didn't it work in massachusetts? why were they 47th out of 50 in job creations? romney says he's going to lower the unemployment rate if he is president over the next four years. that's where the congressional budget office estimates where it will be on his own. like he will do anything for the economy. >> tomorrow, i'm going to make the sun rise. >> i am troubled about what mitt romney did, he bought into the idea we need government. you can't fix everything with the private sector, in fact, he imposed fees to reduce the deficit he inherited, including fees on gasoline sold at the pump. things would get him kicked out of the party if he imposed this. he embraced access to health

care for everybody, something he doesn't want to us remember. this is a guy who has proven government does matter, and he doesn't want to run on the platform today. that makes him look like a socialist. >> all of the things won't discuss now. my take on this, there are different kinds of businesses in america. bill gates came up with a brilliant idea. nobody be grudges them their billions. they came up with something really revolutionary. a guy or whom would starts with one shop and through the sweat of the brow turns it into a chain, they have done something. mitt romney isn't that kind of businessman. mitt romney isn't a businessman, he is a capitalist. a certain kind of capitalism, a branch that grew up relatively recently in the 1980s, private equity buyout kind of concern. conservatives say that private equity has dramatically

increased the productivity of american business, they have a point, but it hasn't helped wages and the problem is that the middle class. >> i want to go exactly this point. again, no one begrudges him. a really great capitalist. all the way back to december 2011, in the "atlantic," she talks about what do we want from a president? a visionary that unites groups, a negotiator that can advance america's interests in the world. combine lobbyists and congressional opponewe ponies. a bold decisive leader, someone who can manage his vast staff. these are real skills. some come from an experience you might have in the business world.

but as president you can't hire and fire. >> two totally different things. >> last president who presided over a drop in employment, drop in deficit, and was a guy named bill clinton who spent almost his entire life in government. >> with respect to the people of arkansas, it's a small state. he wasn't managing billions in that way. >> and the economy took off like gang busters. >> the last two that were businessmen were george bush and herbert hoover. the problem with the argument that romney is providing, it misunderstands the role of business. businesses do not exist to create jobs. they exist to create profit. and create profit sometimes by creating jobs, sometimes by losing jobs. >> i need to you say that again.

this is what? >> businesses should not exist to create jobs. they exist to create profits. that's the fundamental misunderstanding of mitt romney's argument. >> absolutely to me that requires us, therefore, to have an argument about what xworchgo meant to do. >> the problem for running for ceo of the country, again, when are you the ceo, you work for your investors, for your shareholders, about maximizing return, and you don't get to say, well this group of people over here, they are not really helping us out in terms of gdp, let's get rid of them. in essence what we had when we put our chips on the idea that the markets can take care of everything, that if we just get government out of way, the private sector can fix all of life's problems. we lived through that that's how we got the great recession and a lot of people got kicked out. mitt romney, the capitalist, he's an investment banker, he looks at things that somebody

else built that somebody else created and figures out how do i maximize that for myself and the people who gave me the money to step in? that won't get us there. >> is it possible that jay-z, coming up, more of what we need in this moment? and beyonce would be our first lady, which i love. up next, mitt romney's massachusetts record and trivia question. who said it? romney or jay-z. asked if he considers himself a good businessman? he said yes, because when i promise something, i deliver it, and i expect the same from others. the answer after the break. it's time to live wider awake. only the beautyrest recharge sleep system combines the

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before the break, i asked you who said it, mitt romney or jay-z. when asked if he considers himself a good businessmise something i deliver, and i expect the same from others. who said it? jay-z. there was a four-year period between 2003 to 2007, mitt romney dedicated his life to public service. the bullet point on his resume he gives only passing mention. when he ran the entire state as the governor of massachusetts. not sure why he doesn't talk about it more, because it actually includes a few greatest hits, like that time when he gave everyone in massachusetts health care, and the president thought it was such a great idea, that he decided to try the same plan for the entire country. remember that? it was fun. 62% of massachusetts presideres

who love their health care think some of it means highlighting the good and bad. like when mitt romney cut $277 million from local education and $137 million from higher education. which left towns and counties stuck with a heavy share of tack burden. so he does have a governing record. what do we learn if instead of thinking of businessman, we think of gore nor romney. >> we learn as many people may know, because it's been o rep t repeated. massachusetts 47th in job creation under his tenure it is true there was a 2001 recession that he and all governor has to deal with. so, you know, you can cut him a break for that. on the other hahn, does he cut barack obama a break for the 2008 great resection? not so much.

if you do one, you have to do the other. >> i think it's something about gooses, ganders and sauce. >> pots and kettles and that sort of thing. >> they did come back by his last year, but it's important to note by his last year, he lost interest in the job. mid 30s in the polls and didn't run again, a, because he was running for president, b, because he would have lost. >> and this is interesting, though. this idea, as you were saying, peter, government still has a role. even about sort of our founding documents, declaration of independence, not to maximize profits or minimize deficits, to provide opportunity for human beings to reach full potential. listen to president obama, who earlier this week did try to articulate a roll for government. let's play off of that. >> through government, we should do together what we cannot do as well for ourselves. that's how we built this

country. together. we constructed railroads and highways, the hoover dam and the golden gate bridge. we did those things together. >> and by the way, those things were good for business. >> indeed. and, in fact, if we relied on the private sector to give us our transportation system it would be very easy to get from los angeles to new york and washington to new york, and good luck getting huntsville, alabama. where there are people who need jobs and have goods and services that they produce that they would like to contribute to the global economy. there are lots of areas of life that can't be addressed without government. that goes from things like picking up the trash and delivering mail, which wh that was important, which putting enough research dollars into high-growth industries and produce jobs. >> the way you point that, that kind of longer time horizon, the idea of not being accountable to

a shareholder this quarter, for what we're doing this quarter, but rathering having the longer time horizon, we have to make investments in the future. that feels like the thing that's gone from our federal government. like we're in the 18-month to raise money for office time horizons. >> it's gone for quite some time, but it's getting worse. one side of the political system. we have a situation this past week, where mitt romney out there is aing we don't need teachers, firefighters. unemployment high. still relatively high. 8.2%. you look at it based on education, education so important. unemployment rate for people with college degrees, a very low 3.9%. for people with high school diplomas or less, 13%. if that isn't a statistic that tells you we need to invest in education, i don't know what is. mitt romney going the option direction.

doubling down on the fact that we don't need to invest in the one area of our economy that has made a difference. >> we are making things with machines with our hands, we require a higher level of knowledge. i want to ask a little bit about the idea, good luck getting huntsville, literally, good luck getting there. in the stomach husband package when money came through to the republican governors, they didn't spend it to build the light rail. they didn't tuesday to build the next hoover dam. >> would rather pander ideologically than get themselves involved. roll up the sleeves and pragmatic solutions to problems and the knowledge that we have, the government that is going to have to lead the way, going to have to print some dollars in the short run to pay down the deficit in the long run through putting people back to work. >> if they made those jobs, wouldn't we have -- the unemployment rate could be in the high 7s if the public sector

had not shed jobs. >> of course. >> several hundred thousand jobs in the unemployment rate would be much lower. the stimulus package called these build america bonds, which helped build a new hotel and convention center in dallas. helped build a lot of things who if they walked down the street and would see this thing, think the private sector built that. no, the stimulus helped build it. the program is dead, although it was really effective. even in red states. >> on this boondoggle things, one of the complaints from the left it would be romney, the great businessman president. one of the criticisms from the left, obama too much of a businessman president. can he make the claim, actually, i have been quite dead for wall street, for profit, for private industry? >> i think he's absolutely

panelled. i don't think you'll ever hear from that the right or business. i want to pick up on something you said before the break. when you are ceo, you are invested. we know who mitt romney's investors are. we know who is funneling money to his campaign. dtqi rá's not the american peop. we know it's not the wall street guy. it's the top 1%. he won't act in the best interest of them. we know. >> let's go back to what obama has done or the economy has done for wall street. and this is why it's so important to focus on main street now. the stock market is up incredibly since obama took office. the dow has juggled from 6,500 to just over 13,000. interest rates at historically low records, and inflation low and your honor control. corporate profits at record

highs, and corporates sitting on $2 trillion in cash, they are not spending. the business community is doing quite well. we are doing quite well, and that's i think part of what barack obama is trying to say when he says the private sector is doing fine. main treat is not doing fine. we need to not give more tax cuts to the wealthy and. >> government has the power to make a difference on main street. coming up, corporations versus governments and who ultimately looks out for the little guy? exact this will question. and i think you know the answer to this one. after the break.

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this dichotomy. maximize properties, governments are supposed to maximize the public good and governor romney has no problem connecting the dots which means his experience in business means he knows how to create profits and creating profits create jobs, right? the thing, the two things don't go hand in hand, especially in modern times, when corporate profits are soaring and hiring is not. here to help me understand why is michael tomasky and ben jealous. also back us with peter goodman and chloe angyal. i want to go about this really carefully. why is it that the skills are not transferrable from i'm a ceo of a corporation to i'm now going to run the very complex thing that is the american government? >> when are you the ceo of a company, you run the company.

if you don't like what somebody is doing in the company, you can fire them, you can completely transform the structure, the system. have you a very clear target that's defined by metrics, trying to get dollars to your investors, president of the united states, you have to deal with congress, public opinion, deal with the divisions of geography, religion, tradition, you don't get to decide everything. you are accountable to a very complex outcome which is what we call the common good. >> and here is something else. a little bit more like being the executive director of a nonprofit organization, one that has a board. >> a very big board. >> a very big, diverse board that may often disagree with one another. and has a mission. the mission of the naacp to bring about racial justice. okay. at what point do you say we have that all worked out. very different than do we have higher profits today than

yesterday. >> we have to get back to a place in this country where we practice a value that got us out of the great depression. >> what? >> we need a commander in chief who is really going to paint the front end or the back end. we can hold families together or on the back end, families falling apart. increased investments in welfare, increase incarceration. that's what we need. you may be a business leader and be able to do that, but what we have seen, when it's a big fight, politics in this country. people have come out of senate, the congress. what worries me, i don't see how we get consensus in congress no matter who is in control to get past the 60 votes to get something done in the senate. we saw something with control, 400 good bills, all of them get

lost in the senate pretty much. >> this point was made, i think it's easy to hear from points not themselves in business. i love the point made by an amazon investor, and let's listen to what he says about this issue. >> rich people don't create jobs. anyone who has ever run a business knows that hiring more people is a course of last resorts for capitalists. calling yourselves job createsors is disingenuous. >> hiring more people is a course of last resort for capitalists. if you can do it without people, please do. >> nick is my good friend, by the way. i talked with him about it over the phone, and he's making a really important point and i made it briefly in an earlier comment and want to return to it, expand a little bit. two crises in this country, the

immediate one that happened in september 2008. a longer one that's been happening since 1973, doesn't get talked about as much. doesn't get as much attention. it doesn't happen so dramatically. middle class wages stagnant for 40 years, and they even went 40 years through the bush presidency. they haven't done very well so far under the obama presidency, because of the horrible economic situation. rewounding a tiny bit. but this is a big, big problem. productivity has gone like this. the rates have gone like this. corporate profits have gone like this. middle class wages gone like that. slightly down. >> congressman jesse jackson introduced a bill to raise the minimum wage and you are hearing outcry. if you raise minimum wage, businesses will shed jobs, exactly the opposite or wrong thing to do. it seems like the american dream is rooted in our ability to work one job that allows to us go

home in the evening, see our families and children, communicate. an important point to add to what mike has said, the idea of trickle down economics when romney says because i know how to make money in business. if i can make money for investors, everyone will do well. it doesn't even work in the private sector. you can work at a fabulously wealthy corporation, where shareholders are making out like bandits. this happened if you happened to work on wall street and weren't one of the guys with the corner offices before the crisis. and you got tossed. >> or the secretary to the guy -- >> the paper towels. a lot of jobs were definite on a bubble, very, very nice for the people in the 1%, and these people are often financing the romney campaign. it didn't even trickle down within the companies. >> middle class wages, moving

up. part of the american dream. like the point about delivering the paper towels. middle class folks, they buy more stuff when they have more wages. you have to hire somebody total work at the walmarts to sell them that stuff. there is this weird sort of notion of class warfare we hear coming from the white, and i am wondering about wall street that we were delivering so beautifully in the occupy wall street for whatever their -- my cry teag critique has been. the 99% has fell silent. >> what's natural for us in this country, not to vote on our situation, but the aspiration, and it's sort of like buying a ticket for the lottery, no matter what the ors are. the prize looks good. with occupy, for a moment, people thought let's look based

on our situation. we would ask, with the economy, this nurtured our family rather than one that terrorizes them in a away hard to afford daycare, hard to -- you have to work two jobs, hard for a patierent to h time to spend with their children. >> making sure you are taking care of mom and the kids. we'll talk more about this and the relationship between wall street and washington, because i was uncomfortable this week. getting a little too close for comfort. trivia question. which u.s. president dropped out of business school and later opened a men's clothing store, only to have it fail, prior to entering politics? i'll have the answer, right after the break. an instrument that cleanses as effectively as what's sold by skin professionals for a whole lot less. olay pro x advanced cleansing system.

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and he didn't stop for three days and nights as he escaped life as a child soldier. twenty years later, he was still running, he just had a different thing driving him. every step of the way. ♪ visa. supporting athletes and the olympic games for 25 years. join our global cheer. before the break, we asked you, which u.s. president dropped out of business school and later opened a men's clothing store, only to have it all fail prior to entering

politics? the answer is harry truman. after world war i, truman and his buddy opened a haberdashery in kansas city. this year we saw a glaring example of how business and politics can make strange bedfellows. not only strange, but entirely too cozy. jamie dimon went to washington to testify, and jon cistewart tells it best. >> they brought him in there to talk about how terrible they, the senate, are. >> we can hardly sit in judgment of your losing 2 billion. we lose twice that every day here in washington. >> does senator demint think spending money is the same as losing money? >> we are had $10 million here

yesterday, but now all i see is this [ bleep ]ing highway. >> yeah. i mean, since when does government, you know, spending money on the public good count as losing money? how is this the same thing as what happened at jpmorgan. >> when you look at how he was treated, you have to take into consideration the number one and number two people interrogating him, their number two contributor is his company. >> right. >> you just got to -- i they we should ask the senate to wear nascar jackets. >> who they are sponsored by. >> i like chloe's point, who their investors are, who they have to make money. we have seen a lot of people before the senate, including a member of the federal government and that's eric holder, who was certainly not not treated the way that jamie dimon is. hey, come on back, you are doing a good job with the senate.

>> he turned the senate like the team that the harlem globetrotters plays against. could you say some more nasty things about the volcker rule and how finance control will kill us all. >> where is the outrage? >> i think there is still plenty of outrage. i want to go back to mitt romney for a second. it's important to note that on financial regulations, jamie dimon says we need stronger regulation, not necessarily more. mitt romney doesn't even agree with that. more laissez fair. and one of the favorite statistics, how we can see how well we're doing, the christmas retail sales statistics. neimkneneiman marcus up 5.5%.

saks, up 5.3%, and there is walmart down 1.3%. neiman marcus and saks up in 2010, just beginning limp out of recession. but those who can spend at niemann marcus and saks are spending more. >> it underscores what we're saying about romney. what american business is dealing with, is inequality. the results is that american businesses very good at catering to the handful of people who have spending power. that doesn't add up to job growth. >> the whole notion of the jobless recovery with unpatriotic idea ever created. getting back to the notion we aren't recovering unless we are recovered unless the people of this country are recovering. and corporate spending machines

are saying we can have a recovery, just won't have new jobs, that isn't a recovery. >> coming up, a historic coalition forming on the streets of new york later today. and ben jealous will talk to me about it, why the coming together of racial civil rights activists a big deal. i want to leave you with this father's day message from trayvon martin's dad. >> this father's day, will be the first without my son, trayvon. i will say a prayer for all the dads across america who share this grief with me. last year, 30,000 fathers lost a son or a daughter to senseless gun violence and we have to come together to protect our children. i'm asking you to consider sharing this message with the governor of your state to rescind the stabbed your ground law. >> we'll be right back.

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later this afternoon, civil rights, state, labor, and community groups will come together in a silent march against new york city stop and frisk policy. the nonviolent protest will start in harlem and end in front of new york city mayor michael bloomberg's residence. the history behind silent marches dates back to 1917 when the 8-year-old naacp marched through new york city. to protest segregations and race riots in east st. louis, illinois. today's event also historic. we will see a union between civil rights leaders and lgbt leaders, joining forces to draw attention to discriminatory policing practices, like stop and frisk. both groups have a long record of being stopped and harassed by police. joining me now is ben jealous, president of the naacp. >> good morning. >> i'm really excited about this. during the moment where we were

pushing for the president and the naacp to come out in support of marriage equality, i kept saying, and once that happens, i also need to see this alliance on both sides, issues in our community that we see, the intersection, and i have to tell you, very excited about today's march. why are you passionate about it? why it matters. >> in mote most cities in america, who gets beaten up by the cops? particularly black people, people of color, and the gay community. and it makes all the sense in the world to stonewall, to bring together gay, transgendered groups, to say we stand with the black community, brown community, because we know what it's like to be targeted for what you are, rather than what you are doing. >> stonewall is the watershed moment in the lgbt life

movement. u.s. a place where new york place harassed through acts of violence against gays, people there as patrons and the protest that came afterward really launched what we think of the modern gay rights movement. both of those things connected. and we talks about the cece mcdonald case. a trancegenddepe transwoman, aw. what do you want this march to do? what message do you have for the mayor? >> we're starting in harlem, marching silently. 25,000 people to his house for father's day. >> how nice of you. >> because the cops have taken away father's day from us. event, 1,800 stop and frisks today. mostly young black and brown men. last year, there were 700,000.

this year on paper, 800,000. so many stop and frisk, even men between 14 and 24. more stop and frisks of that age group than people in that age group. >> that means they are being stopped multiple times. >> some boys say they have been stopped 60 times before they turned 18. we have little girls who look like ballerinas that have been stopped four times this year. >> numbers have gone up so dhra the maikly under bloomberg. it was surprising. >> i would expected this under giuliani. >> yeah. i think we had a narrative of giuliani because of the acts of violence by the new york city police was a problem, but i'm not sure there is quite the national news. 97,000 to 686,000 during the course of his mayority. >> when we had the big diallo

case here and the focus on the street crimes unit who created the stop and frisk program, we had two complaints, one, he killed diallo with 40 bullets while he tried to retrieve his wallet. this is what happened when you have a massive stop and frisk program. this year on pace to do 800,000. we have kids, six, seven, eight years old. teasing each other, because they are stop and frisk virgins, because the expectation, you will be at the doorway of the mass incarceration before you are 8 years old in this city. cops stopping you because of your color, not your character. nine out of ten people are innocent. nine out of ten are of color, and 99% don't have a gun. what every criminologist will tell you, when you engage in massive street level racial profiling, you build a wall.

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2008 presidential election, the exit polls show 74% of them were white and 71.3% eligible voters today are white. even though 63.7% of white are nonhispanic whites, which is a reminder, that the white vote is still a powerful electorate blo bloc that cannot be ignored. a last time a presidential candidate won the white vote? one clue, the same year that the 24th amendment abolished the jim crow practice of the poll tax. yes, the last time a democrat won the white vote was in 1964, wh lyndon johnson routed goldwater. jimmy carter came close, with 47%. no other democrat became within striking distance of the white majority.

bill clinton won 39%. president obama made up ground with white voters when he won 43% of support in 2008. this past tuesday, a gallup daily tracking poll indicated that the president is now losing ground among those white voters, polling 38% support over the last month. seems worry i some, until you remember that 38% is exactly the level of support that candidate obama enjoyed in the spring of 2008, according to the same folks at gallup. what should we make of the elusive white voters. will president obama find ways to win him back in his election coalition? can he win with robust racial coalition that looks more like his future than his past? if he appeals to white voters, we have to ask, what do white americans want? i'll ask that of a panel of white people next. yes, right here on "mhp."

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♪ >> rocky. you are going to talk about the great white vote. so let's take a look. this is the most current nbc news map of the battleground states for the presidential election. nevada, ohio, virginia, north carolina, florida, iowa, and president obama won every one of these in '08. five states, one displayed in orange, candidate obama lost the white vote to senator john mccain in 2008 in virginia and north carolina, both states that the president won overall, less than 40% of white voters cast ballots for him. a safe bet that boast both the president and governor romney will be vying for white vote therz fall.

which led me to ask, what is it that white people want? let's start with jobs. we know the economy is the top issue in this campaign. white unemployment, currently at 7.4%. that's bad, but y joining me to break this down are some caucasian folks. michael tom alski, chloe angyal and peter goodman.

we rarely think of white voters as an actual voting bloc, because are you guys are complicated as a group. >> we don't think of white presidents. that george w. bush, that's it. i'm not voting for another white president. barack obama has to carry this label. not just an african-american who got elected president, so much of what he does is seen through the lens. not to make light of your question. your fundamental question comes back to something mike said in an earlier segment which is people of color, by and large, already knew. that this economy had been dysfunctional. particularly amongst lesser educa educated, lower skills working people who long before we got into the great recession were having a hard time just getting work and bringing home enough money to pay the bills. a lot of white voters on the other hand, have found themselves over the last eight, ten, 12 years now increasingly in that group of people for whom the middle class dream doesn't

work anymore, and a lot of those people were happy to help elect the pace in's first black president and felt this was a transformational event that they were participating in. to a lesser extent, and, of course, trading in stereo tatyp here, african-americans and latino voters didn't expect barack obama becoming president would fix everything. some people did. >> i wrote a piece for "the nation." 10% unemployment had been normal for african-american community, and reviled and hated in the age of terrorism, we've been doing that since the 1800s. the idea that vulnerabilities that community of colors have long experienced, that white americans would be experiencing for the first time, may be what some of this angst is about. >> you go ahead. >> the relatively on best

situation that white americans feel grieved. they feel like the economy is bad. privilege is always invisible. they are in a position where a lot of americans of color have been for a long time. which this is new to them. they don't see that things are much, much better for those of different races and ethnicities. this resistance we have of talking to the white voter, but we're an incredibly diverse group of people. my concerns as a straight white woman living in new york are completely different from those of a white lesbian living in tennessee, working at a minimum wage job. resistance is actually really helpful. it helps us to see how completely ludicrous it is to talk about the latino vote, the black vote, women's vote. these groups of hundreds of millions of people as they though they vote on one issue statistics are helpful. i'm a sociologist by trade.

generalizations are necessary and helpful. but there is more diversity within these groups than between them. >> when we look at, for example, the only black executive we have in our system, large? large numbers, black mayors. research shows over and over again, black mayors tend to be re-elected with a higher percentage of the white constituency voting for them than elected them. if president obama is like black mayors, we should see 44%, 45%. th is this a racialized reason? or just about republicans and the fact that whites tend to be more republican. pulled some republican voter because of affection for george w. bush. >> i believe he got 44% of the white vote last time. he won't do that well. he won't be like those mayors. under college educated whites, he won slightly against john

mccain. lost quite badly among noneducated voters, 5. there is a tremendous anxiety, as your "nation" piece pointed out. a new anxiety among white voters that they never experienced before. not just now. it looks like into the future. entering an age of austerity. where terrible choices have to be made. oxes will have to be gored. it will hit them, they anxious about it. barack obama represents the america that just isn't them. all these other folks. >> one other dimension among progressives. amongst under 30 voters, barack obama trailing mitt romney, according to a har vord poll 37-44. we're talking college crowd here. when you talk to self-identified

white progressives, amongst other caucasians. you will hear people say barack obama, he's such a disappointment. an uncle tom. i have heard this. >> really? >> that's not something a white politician has to deal with. he has to deal with a label imposed upon him by progressive white electorate, trying to say we know what a black politician is supposed to be and he's not fighting hard enough. fine to say, barack obama is a shield for wall street, he hasn't tried hard enough to create jobs. you get into racial things, you get into something much greater. >> i want to pause right there i got in big trouble for making a very similar argument. since you're white, i'll let you make it. this idea that, if you look at -- just break out ideology and whiteness, okay, let's say

that white republicans voting for a republican candidate, might be about race, but lots of reasons to think it isn't about race. what happens for white democrats and progressives, my favorite moment of the '08 campaign, was the oregon speech, where they are coming out in kayaks to see the black guy. wow, what's going on in america? but if there was -- if he is held to a higher standard than bill clinton, right, just our most recentñi democratic president, who happened to be quite moderate, sometimes really pretty conservative, but white, if there is a lower percentage for barack xdobama's, president obama's re-election than for president obama's re-election, that distance, that little space, could we think of that as a racialized progressive angst, or is that over -- over playing what's going on here? >> i think in the march begins, that is reality.

i think when you start high, you have a long way to fall. we are talking about a guy who stock office with incredibly high expectations, on policy alone, people comparing him to fdr, saying this was an incredible crisis he inherited. but also the racial component. this guy changed the course of american history. and a lot of white people were very proud to go to the polls and be participants in that history. and fro there that,xd comes thi sort of aura that he's above and beyond any conventional politician we've known before, and i think at least subconsciously that creates expectations that, boy, wall street look out. and we're going to get some modern version of the new deal that will go beyond economics, beyond politics, about race. and suddenly we wake up and say, you know what? the great recession was really awful. landed on three decades of unacceptable wage growth. we have real problems in this

country. and the idea that one guy will fix all these problems, good luck with that. >> and one guy who had always been a moderate. if you look at his governing record, always been basically a moderate. young white voters, that was really the key for then senator obama, now president obama. really about young white voters who should -- >> who will speak on their behalf. >> what will you young white people do this time? >> well, that's sort of what i mean. i'm making up my -- that's what i mean about intersectionality and how incredibly diverse this large group of white voters are. what we have in common, we are young and white, and that's about it. and statistics and generalizations are helpful, but everyone -- if everyone goes to the polls with a different major concern. there are some single-issue voters, but most people exist at this intersection thinking about the economy, foreign policy, a whole bunch of things.

that's how we cast our votes, and i would never presume to speak for all of them. and i think it's pretty difficult. you can look at educational aat the same time attainment, but it's difficult to look at the young white vote. >> up next what president obama needs to do to regain white voters, and he seems to be losing in the polls. whyñi michigan has a lot of buz this week. more than any other battleground buzz. don't go away. [ male announcer ] if you think any battery will do, consider this...

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the private sector is where i've made my mark. i am in this race, i want to get america on the right track. i don't care about re-election, i don't care about the monthpol. >> one the oddest things i ever heard for someone say, i'm not going for the next step in my political career. i was wondering if he was dropping out. i wasn't quite sure. he was trying to make his case why he should be president and we've been talking about how romney's message. president obama's message will translate with the voting bloc that might be calling the shot this election, white voters, i'm back with chloe angyal, peter goodman, michael tomasky and keith boykin. thank you for coming back.

♪ one of these things is not like the other ♪ >> i loved the funny book, stuff white people like. they like coffee, nonprofit organizations, organic food. but also in chapter 8, barack obama. a very brief chapter and it says white people like barack obama, because they are afraid if they don't, they will be considered racist. >> touche. >> i want to not assume that white voters, even more i would assume latino and african-american voters are acting out of racial interest. perhaps they are what are the most complicated things that a mitt romney or president obama will need to say to make the various complicated groups within whiteness say that's the guy who i think can move us to a new future? >> i think white voters are

worried about racism. i felt this was the sense against bill clinton. bill clinton represented the democratic party, the republican party carefully caricatured of the party of black people. regardless of who the president is. the figure head. they have not only caricatured the party as the black party. but they ascribed government as being about black people. they think about the cad look driving welfare queens and 2/3 of the federal budget goes to medicare, social security, national defense, interest in the debt. the amount of money we spend on welfa welfare very small, and the majority doesn't go to black people. >> monica potts has this beautiful piece. a profile in one of the

country's poorest counts. you must think this is surely about african-american poverty, it's not. it's actually a piece about aboveity and whiteness. this idea about racial interests might counter -- in other words, white american who's are poor. middle class. who are working class, might be running against class even as they are so-called protecting racial interests. >> how the gop has caricatured the democrats as the party of black people, fits in very well with the narrative that they are dependent on government. those people over there are dependent on government. we don't needçó government in o government, we don't need government. we don't need government doing things for us. we don't want to be on that side of the tracks. >> what about white women? is it possible this sort of war on women language and invasive things we have seen around local

gop legislators behaving by restricting reproductive whites, that where we could find supportive of white women? >> white women are a little different than white men. >> not as different as you might think. wrr obama's gender gapping points might be about that might be a little higher if they could jazz up the issues they were talking about. married white women vote republican. single white women vote democratic. there is a divide there. this whole subject, melissa, is about the extent to which politics are about culture, not economics. i don't even bother to say anymore, people are voting against their own economic interests. they perceive their interests differently then. they perceive their interests of being in a country with guns and without a black president. >> those are -- >> and these are not economic interests. >> they are not. >> and you have people giving

$35 million to republican party candidates and at the same time, you have white voters in virginia, voting for republicans who have no money or virtually no money, there is a disconnect. they are connecting to a party about millionaires and billionaires, even though they will never be millionaires and billionaires. what is that, but voting against economic interest? >> they are voting for barriers. >> no scenario, where barack obama or mitt romney. maybe mitt romney can. i cater directly to white voters as white voters per se. he has to focus on the narrative. and the narrative is, okay, i get it. way bigger than the important social safely net. a lot of people want to get up, go to work, bring home enough money to live in a decent place and send kids to college, they aren't able to do that anymore. an awful lot of people who used

to be middle class are poor or struggling to avoid poverty and he has to explain that there is a future, that we can invest in something that will ultimately put people back to work and raise wages. >> it's a big task. that divide is a broad and very old one. up next, very unlady like behavior in michigan when the "v" word got thrown around on the statehouse floor. it got me thinking about what the other unlady like things we want to hear from our ladies in charge. up next. our cloud is not soft and fluffy. our cloud is made of bedrock. concrete. and steel. our cloud is the smartest brains combating the latest security threats. it spans oceans, stretches continents. and is scalable as far as the mind can see.

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it kills weeds to the root, so they don't come back. roundup. no root. no weed. no problem. one topic became all the rage this week, not the economy, syria, or the election. lisa brown on wednesday brought up something so controversial, she had state legislators

saying, did she just say that? if you don't believe me, take a listen. > and, finally, mr. speaker, i'm flattered are you all so interested in my vagina, but no means no. >> that's right. she made a political argument, and while she did, she used the correct designation for her own anatomy. why did state representative brown dare mention her lady parts in the michigan legislature? on wednesday, michigan joined 24 other states, which have passed 100 provisions restricting action to abortions in the past twoñi years. shutting down reproductive rights, a hallmark of republican legislateors it seems michigan lawmakers were also prepared to silence women's voices. after speaking about her vagina and a woman's right to say no, the michigan house on thursday banned brown from speaking on the house floor, but brown is not so easily deterred. maybe they could keep her from

speaking, but they didn't say anything about writing, so brown penned an op-ed in "the detroit news" that reads, these lawmakers, freedom nebtly men, have no problem passing laws about my vagina, but when i dared mention its name, they becamed outraged. you know what? i'm outraged too. that this legislative body wants to dictate not only what women can do, but also what they can say. a vagina dares speak its own voice is a scary thing indeed,x since we learned since eve ensler first produced "the vagina monologues." menstruation, genital mutilation, birth, abortions, and love and pleasure too. in hundreds of productions of "the vagina monologues." audiences have heard women talk about vaginas in ways that ultimately lead them to ask for

other scary things, like equality in the political process, legislation that protects them against domestic violence, stalking, and sexual assault. unmentional things like equal pay and an end to sexual pa ha rasment in the workforce. shocking things like paid maternity leave, health care and care for kids. remember when women were told not to talk about their breasts in public? women decided breast cancer should not be a silent struggle. they started talking about breasts, turning the tide on the disease. there is a lot ofñi power in herrent in women that start talking about things allowed. so when lisa brown started talking, there were those who thought she ought to just shut up. not here. we are big fans of women who speak their minds about their bodies, especially when they use

anatomically correct terms to do some of that's why when we come back, we will speak with michigan rebel rouser herself lisa brown. she'll be with us. [ female announcer ] did you know the average person smiles more than 50 times a day? so brighten your smile a healthy way with listerine® whitening plus restoring rinse. it's the only rinse that makes your teeth two shades whiter and two times stronger. ♪ listerine® whitening... power to your mouth.

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it's just one reason 75% of our mutual funds beat their 10-year lipper average. t. rowe price. invest with confidence. request a prospectus or summary prospectus with investment information, risks, fees and expenses to read and consider carefully before investing. back in 2008, then candidate barack obama swept michigan with ease, until recently, the president's popular auto bailout looked like it would help him keep the state as blue as it's been in the last quarter century. now trouble is brewing in the wolverine state for obama. michigan's republican-dominated legislature and the governor mansion have welcomed outside conservative money which pelted the state with tv ads supporting mitt romney, hoping create a warm welcome for the michigan native when he visits state on tuesday as part of his bus tour. this provided a window into the deep partisanship affecting

michigan. a deeply divided statehouse of representatives approved newxd restrictions on abortion services after a heated floor debate. a debate whose aftermath focused on one remark in particular. in fact, just one word. vagina, said out loud on the statehouse floor by representative lisa brown. she joins us from detroit, michigan. here at the table, michael thomomask tomasky, chloe angyal, peter goodman and keith boykin. thank you for joining us. so tell me a little bit about the response that you have gotten from your constituents, from voters in michigan, since your remarks on the statehouse floor? >> honestly, i've been so overwhelmed by the response from women and men. and teenagers, thanking me for being a strong voice.

and not just from my constituents. people all across the country, i've heard from people in london. absolutely incredible. >> the remarks were prompted by a policy change, and i want to be really clear about that. possibly about what is going on in the issue of reproductive rights in michigan right now. >> well, there is a -- a push by right to life to restrict those rights and that's what this bill is about, and it's part of a package of bills that were written by right to life, and the bill that we voted on, that i spoke to, does a lot of things, the 45-page long bill. her maine cane wouldn't have like e liked it very much. one of my republican colleagues commented he hoped this bill would put annen to abortion, so it's really kind of a -- a back doorway of trying to really

overturn roe vs. wade. >> i think there are reasonable people on both sides of the abortion debate. i think there are deep moral, religious, ethical, medical issues on all sides. but i had say this. what in the world do reproductive rights have to do with the primary thing that tea party and republicans coming in in 2010 said that they weren't there to address, which was deficit spending, which is the issues of state budgets and i ask in all seriousness. is there some reason to believe there is an economic, big business reason to literally going into women's vaginas to make policy? >> it has to do with turnout among social conservatives. preventing turnout for key factions of the obama coalition.

it should suppress african-american, latino turnout, while are you boosting white conservative voters. >> the party was never just about economics. the tea party also about social issues. it's a new name for a very old thing. conservative, right-wing, mostly republican. >> it's always been about social issues. always an overlap with evangelicals. not a new thing. >> we have been calling this the chubby hubby, because it takes a whole bunch of really awful antitrust policies and lures them to the worst tasting ice cream ever. >> but we like ben & jerry's. >> this bill has restrictions on clinics for insurance, and also for practicing which would put a lot of clinics out of business. it has a ban on telemedicine, and it's a huge thing for women who live in rural or isolated

areas where they can't get to the area clinic. they can't get the abortion bill. this turns this into an economic issue this is an economic issue because if you can't get telemedicine prescription, you have to take time off work, drive to the nearest clinic, pay for a hotel and it becomes inaccessible. >> and pushes abortion back later. if you can get a prescription over the phone -- >> exactly. >> if you are a person who has ethical angst about particulate-term abortions this would increase that abortions occur later in pregnancy. and lo and behold, a ban on abortion after 20 weeks. only a couple states with 20-week abortion bans, like kansas, nevada. >> actually more crazy stuff going on in michigan. we'll talk about the frontier in

this battle over voter suppression, also happening in michigan. the new man is part of a voter i.d. requirement and restriction. we'll talk about restricting women's reproductive rights, silencing voices, keeping them from the polls, all that's happening in michigan right now. every communications provider is different

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the other piece, let's silence voters from being able to speak at the polls in michigan this fall. >> and -- and just to go back a little bit. it's beyond that. in regards to the bill that i was speaking to, many people came to testify and that committee hearing and were silenced, not allowed to speak. i had 10,000 postcards that said i stand with planned parenthood. those voices were silenced. >> i want -- i sort of want you to repeat that again. i want to be sure that folks don't miss that are you telling

me, you had constituents that were using you as their representative, to be a voice for them on the floor, and you were not allows to present their voices? >> not just my constituents, i had 10,000 postcards from peoe across the state of michigan that said i stant with planned parenthood, obviously, they ñ oppose the legislation, there were three banker boxes and i was going to use them in my floor speech and right when i was about to start, the republican floor leader ordered the sergeants to remove the boxes. so those -- again, i tried to reference them. kind of threw me off. and tried to reference them in my speech right at the beginning, so, again, another way of voices being silenced, but as far as voter suppression, i think we need to look at who -- who is going to be most affected by these bills, and it's going to be minorities, going to be the elderly, low-income citizens and women, and think about which way they

tend to vote. >> keith, this feels like democracy in peril, and i don't like to play the fear card, but this idea that a representative can't speak, not in a -- in a rude way, but in anatomically way. can't present evidence from voters, and we'll suppress the vote with new voter i.d. laws. >> exactly what it sounds like. in the white house, you have reporters from daily caller who are stopping and yelling city president. a breakdown of civility. the other side has decided that they don't think barack obama and the democrats are legitimate as leaders of this country. and they'll do everything they can to delegitimize and stop them. they'll go after every target group. women, blacks, latinos, any group that's part of the democratic party coalition. i don't understand how you build a long-term democratic structure, knowing that women are the majority of the

population. you can't continue to run the political party based on alienating a majority of the population. >> you know, that said, demographics are never a destiny. i like to point out, there is that story, the lesson from south africa. when you see the -- the political encroachment of the majority, all you have to do is so cripple government, just basically what we saw in south africa, selling off nationalized industries, they get privatized. as long as they maintain the powers and in the hands what is now the new demographic minority, it almost doesn't matter who controls the arm of government. when i hear this, when i hear the idea of can we hold on long enough to push folks out. michigan, representative brown, this is the midwest, like americans voting, good progressive politics sort of thing. the idea of not so much of it being in play. i can live with if michigan is in play.

if michigan voters are making a choice. >> but is it fair? is it going to be a real tally, or is it going to be a lip mated result? we're talking about a party, ever since barack obama has came into office, has monkey wrenched the country. gone out of its way to impede any possibility of a real recovery in a crass, cynical strategy aimed at sticking the incumbent with the blaine. in every state that's in play, an equal cynical play, drop superpac money, torpedo the place with negative advertising. people so disgusting and confused on the day the election comes, maybe they don't bother to vote, real barriers of access to these laws, come up with bogus social issues that get some part of your base rallied and hopefully have a really messy race and at the end of the day your guy wins. >> i don't believe in conspiracy theorys and it looks like that is what's going on.

>> we have to put michigan in a logical context of a genuine effort to silence women about reproductive rights issue we're not necessarily talking about people with vaginass, and when we talk about vaginas, we're not talking about necessarily women. you look at lisa brown, a concerted effort to silence women on this issue that very deeply concerns them, and obviously that goes in a logical context of what's happening with voter registration in florida and states around the country. i would also say that along with the gop making a concerted effort when we look at media statistics about who gets to talk about this stuff. about planned parenthood. about abortion, reproductive rights, if you look at the figures that the state came out with, 75% of people who have been quoted talking about planned parenthood and abortion are men.

>> i have to pause. we have breaking news. nbc can confirm that rodney king, the motorist whose beating at the hands of los angeles police in 1991, caught on videotape, has died. he was 47 years old. the acquittal of the four officers who were involved in the beating of king sparked the deadly l.a. riots of 1992. i have now -- excuse me, reverend jesse jackson. i'm sorry, i'm a little thrown by the news. reverend jackson on the phone with me. are you there? >> yeah, me lisa good morning. >> thank you for being here. obviously the horrendous beating of rodney king and the -- the sort of movement that it sparked afterward, how are you feeling at this moment, having gotten this news? >> well, there is a good measure of sadness, he become such a fixture in our lives, his beating on the one hand and redemption on the other, this

book recently released, the tragedy of this situation created unintended consequences and illuminated the darkness on the tragic racial profiling and the injustice of our criminal justice system. >> reverend jackson, right here today in new york, we are -- we're seeing a silent march, we just spoke with naacp head ben jealous on exactly this issue of racial profiling and now this very sad news of mr. king's death. >> from rodney king to trayvon martin to the march against racial profiling in new york city, it reminds of the -- of the flaw in the moral character of our country. it reminds us of the unfirned business. tragedy seems to have trailed rodney king. we learned so much from this

tragedy that's been to deal with an unsolved crisis in our society. >> reverend jackson, you were just in los angeles fairly recently, because this was the anniversary of the riots that were sparked in the aftermath of king's televised beating and the acquittal of those police officers, when you were there, what is the political and the racial mood of the city of los angeles at this time around these issues? >> the mood is increasingly intense. trayvon martin has resurrected the issue. the police killings of blacks by police. that reminds us all over again. again, it goes a step further, melissa, in that what's being raised. 7,000 blacks are being murdered a year. 300,000 since 1976. the issue of blacks being the

weak link in the justice chain. the whole thing points to, and, of course, the fact that he course, the fact he was beaten nearly to death on camera. >> yes. >> and walked away of his jurors of unjust peers remind us of unfinished business. >> thank you, reverend jackson, there is a great deal of unfinished business. and on this father's day we are as a country mourning the loss of rodney king. thank you for being with me. up next, i'll have a conversation about more of our unfinished business. . our cloud is made of bedrock. concrete. and steel. our cloud is the smartest brains combating the latest security threats. it spans oceans, stretches continents. and is scalable as far as the mind can see. our cloud is the cloud other clouds look up to. welcome to the uppernet. verizon.

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for today's footnote, a reminder. tuesday is june 19th, also known as june teenth, a 140-year-old celebration of the end of slavery in the united states. it commemorates the union soldier gordon granger arrived in galveston, texas with news that the civil war was over and

with it, the practice of human bondage. it had taken more than 2 1/2 years since lincoln's emancipation proclamation for the news of freedom to reach enslaved peoples in the southwest. and today, many american communities commemorate june teenth with celebration, music, and food and historical remembrance. it was even recognized by the 112th congress in a bill co-sponsored by danny davis of illinois and carl levin. and a celebration, it is common to hear someone read major general granger's words from 18 of 5. the people of texas are informed that in accordance with the proclamation from the executive of the united states, all slaves are free. this involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. inspiring, right? the end of slavery.

modern revelers are much less likely to read the next sentences granger spoke in 1865. the freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. they are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere. a warning against idleness? to slaves. these were the people whose unpaid labor fueled the profitability of southern agriculture for nearly two centuries, a declaration that no one has any responsibility for their support and survival to slaves? these were the people whose bodies were broken and whose families were ruptured and dispersed whenever the whim or profit margin of southern plantation owners warranted it. let's allow it to be a

reminder of all we have learned from our past. you see, we know better than to act as if those who do our hardest, worst paid, most reviled jobs are dangerous enemies invading our country. they're the backbone of our economy. we know better than to act as though profit alone is a sufficient, moral guide for our collective lives. government is here today as it was in 1865 to ensure our work does more than build profits for our employers. our work must also build futures for our children. we know better than to believe that a revolution for democracy and human equality can be accomplished in a few short months. the struggle for fair democracy is long and the need for vigilance is constant. we know better than to believe that our country can survive when race or class or sexuality are reasons that some are relegated to second class status. it is an american independence day celebration. but it's a complicated one. one that reminds us of the

sweetness of freedom but also the role that government plays in securing that freedom. and the necessity to never stop working to perfect our union. happy june teenth, and that is our show for today. thank you for sticking around. thanks to you at home for watching. i'm going to see you next saturday 10:00 a.m. eastern when rachel swarms joins us to talk about her book. and coming up "weekends with alex witt." our doctor was great, but with so many tough decisions i felt lost. unitedhealthcare offered us a specially trained rn who helped us weigh and understand all our options. for me cancer was as scary as a fastball is to some of these kids. but my coach had hit that pitch before. turning data into useful answers. we're 78,000 people looking out for 70 million americans. that's health in numbers. unitedhealthcare.

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