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tv   Martin Bashir  MSNBC  June 26, 2012 1:00pm-2:00pm PDT

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afternoon. it's tuesday, june the 26th and here's what's happening. ♪ two candidates. one huge contrast. >> you can decide whether it's time to stop denying citizenship to responsible young people just because they were brought here as children of undocumented immigrants. i know where i stand on this. you don't need somebody trying to explain to you the difference between outsourcing and offshores. you need somebody who's going to wake up every day and fight for american jobs. >> i think it's fine to talk about those things in quiet rooms. >> quiet indeed. >> got to give mitt romney credit. he's a job creator. in singapore. in china. india. he's been very good at creating jobs. >> i'm not familiar precisely with what i said, but i stand by
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whatever i said, whatever it was. ♪ we begin with the invisible mitt romney haunting the presidential campaign trail with strange echoes and mysterious vapers, but very little of substance. in this week's supreme court decisions have brought yet another example of mr. romney's unique able ility to divert and ignore. well into the second day after much of arizona's immigration law was struck down, governor romney broke his silence this afternoon to deliver the same statement that his spokesman gave more seven minutes on the plane yesterday. >> the supreme court had to step in because states had to step in. states looking to find a way to solve the problems he didn't address tried to address it in their own ways and now, the supreme court's looked at it and what we're left with is a bit of
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a muddle, but what we know is the president failed to lead. >> bit of a muddle. interesting mitt should use a word that so accurately describes his own policies and strategy, but as wen, this is all part of the mitt maneuver. cast blame, ignore the facts and obscure the truth. he does it every day like his tired line on energy production, for example. >> we're going to take advantage of our energy resources, coal, oil, gas, nuclear, renewables. the other day, the president said he's in favor of all of the above and i wondered what he meant because he's made it harder to mine coal. >> really? what about the fact that coal mining has increased under this president. what about the $3.4 billion to expand and accelerate clean coal technologies? the facts are irrelevant, as are actual plans for governing. after all, mitt would leave you
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to believe he's got an ambitious agenda ch listen to how he chomped at the bit. >> if obamacare is not deemed constitutional, then the first three and a half years of this president's term will have been wasted on something that has not helped the american people. if it's not, if it is deemed to stand, then i'll tell you one thing. we're going to have to have a president and i'm that one, that's going to get rid of obamacare. we're going to stop it on day one. >> yes, there you go. repeal and replace. repeal and replace. that's all we ever here. but replace with what, mr. romney? never mind. just keep on with the platitudes. that's right. wear them out. >> this economy runs on freedom. not on government. we have to get government a little smaller and freedom a great deal greater. >> he is starting to sound like a republican president, isn't he? but as long as you're speaking in slogans, mitt, remember
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america runs on duncan. get it right. let's get right to our panel. with us from washington, msnbc analyst, eugene robinson, a columnist for the "washington post." mother jones washington bureau chief, david corn, also an msnbc political analyst and jared bernstein, senior fellow at the center for policy priorities and former adviser to vice president joe biden. eugene, donuts and slogans are fine things. even if mitt romney can only identify one of the two, but how much longer, seriously, can he simply run on platitudes and hollow cliches? how much longer? >> well, first of all, martin, i'm proud to say this show runs on freedom and you know, i think he intends the go on this way for some time. he comes up with these sound bites that i guess somebody
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tells him sound good, but what i'm hearing is an increasing impatience among voters, people who write to me or call me who say they're independent minded, but would like to have some idea of what he's talking about. what he would do if elected president. >> good question. david corn, peggy noonan took romney to task for his pandering speeches. she writes applause line speeches are not right for a time of crisis because they do not allow for a development of a thought, a point of view and insight. people like to listen if you're saying something interesting. now, i can tell you, my staff and i have to watch mitt romney every day. and aside from the fact that we could market his speeches as a cure for insomnia, we're growing desperate for him to say something interesting. don't voters feel the same? >> first off, congratulations on moving to the cocktail hour.
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it's a great step up here. >> thank you very much. >> i don't know why you insist that mitt romney intervene in political and policy debates in this country just because he's running for president. he's under no obligation to say anything about anything. other than that he likes freedom. it's brought him very far so far. and he's very close to the president. so there is, there's no incentive for him to go out there and say again and again, for instance, i think we should deport everybody who's here illegally. that really won't help him or talk about how he's offered tax cuts for the rich and he doesn't really care about the very poor as he said before. i mean, it can only hurt him. so i think mitt romney is is doing exactly what's right for mitt romney. and peggy noonan just better lay off him. >> that's a shocking analysis. jared, i have to come to you. i want to play you something the president said in atlanta today.
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explaining how republicans will pay for a planned additional five trillion dollar tax cut. you're an economist. listen to this. >> essentially, you, your family, your friends, middle class people all across the country, would end up seeing higher tacks to pay for tax cuts for mr. romney and me. it ain't right. >> jared, isn't this part of mitt's invisible strategy? promise a big tax cut, but never, ever talk about how he's going to pay for it? >> right and in this case, he's been actually conspicuously visible because he went out and said that hey, i endorse paul ryan's budget. i think the bush tax cuts should be extended forever and i'd like to double down and add on $5 trillion over ten years worth of my own. how you going to pay for it? to be discussed later.
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so, you know, so actually, here is a case where and there's a few other cases. the thing with governor romney is you have to really try to listen to the sub text. so on immigration, what he's talking about, he did this in the primaries. he's very much interested in letting states do what they want. he was for the arizona law before he was, i don't know if he's against it, before it before he was whatever he is now and the same thing when it comes to the budget. you know, he talks a game. because he actually parsed the numbers, it's supply side trickle down deregulation economics all the way across the r board. >> incredible. eugene, isn't that the same with romney on health care as well? he eliminates the president's plan and replaces it with a question mark. i mean, what's the replacement going to be? >> well, gee, he had this idea a few years ago about an
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individual mandate and it went really well in massachusetts. >> but he doesn't like that anymore. >> he has the snack, just going back to immigration for one quick second. his reaction is that every state has the right and duty to protect the borders. well, did he read the supreme court decision? the supreme court decision says that's the federal government's responsibility. not the reasonability of the state. so what the whole decision says. so how could he react, it's as if the reaction is preprogrammed and has nothing to do with the event that proceeded it. >> david, eugene says the first thing romney says about the arizona decision is i prefer states to have more freedom. that's what the supreme court has said they're not going to have. >> listen. he says it's all about freedom. i think it's all about liberty
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and that's the -- that's the debate we need to have in this country. freedom or liberty. okay, mitt? let's get real. it's true. both eugene and jared are krek. if you look at details, voters who see this day in and day out. mitt romney is on record as supporting the very detailed ryan budget, which isn't passed by the house republicans and jared can go through it chapter and verse and tell you what it would mean in terms of people getting thrown off head start, implications for medicaid and taxes and all that and he's there, he's embraced it. at the same time on the campaign trial, he comes up with these whoppers of statements, if obama's elected, the government will control more than half the economy and i believe freedom is the answer. freedom had very little to do with the subprime crisis that triggered the recession. but he's for freedom. who can argue with that? >> in line with mitt romney, all three of you must stay where you are.
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you're in the being released. please stay with us. next, the veep unleashed. >> you got to give mitt romney credit. he's a job creator. in singapore. china. india. you know, we're a little early for this thing... want to hop in the back and get weird? no. family vacation... vegas. ♪ no. no. give it a big yank! really? yeah! [ knock on window ] no! no. ♪ ugh, no! [ sighs ] we can have hotdogs for dinner?! yes. [ male announcer ] in a world filled with "no," it's nice to finally say "yes." new oscar mayer selects hotdogs. made with 100% beef and no artificial preservatives. it's yes food. made with 100% beef and no artificial preservatives. an accident doesn't have to slow you down. with better car replacement, if your car is totaled,
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the one story you will never hear mitt romney talk about is the one that the president and vice president are only too happy to discuss. bain capital and the outsourcing of american jobs. >> when they were asked about it, some of his advisers explained there's a difference
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between offshoring and outsourcing. those workers who lost their jobs, they didn't understand the difference. >> today was no different with both the vice president and president taking turns to hit romney where it hurts on the outsourcing of jobs at bain capital. meanwhi meanwhile, romney rambled through his usual stump speech, but has nothing to say about the analysis that show how bain made money even when companies went bust and were skilled at shipping american jobs to south asia and the far east. given mitt romney's claim that his business experience is his best qualifyification for president, this has become a perfect issue for the president's team because while there may be differing views about the value of private equity, there's generally only one on the subject of outsourcing. >> you've got to give mitt romney credit. he's a job creator. in singapore. in china. india.
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he's been very good at creating jobs overseas. >> back with us are eugene robinson, jared and david corn. he appears to have a resume and history he can't talk about. can't discuss his role as governor because he introduced a health care mandate. won't talk about his mormonism because many see that as a cult and now, bain shipped jobs overseas. does this explain why he chooses to talk about cheesey grits and the height of trees? >> i understand he's going to give a speech on the utah olympics three days from now. he has a hard time with bain because bain is his calling card. doesn't talk about the governor tenure because of the individual mandate as you shoeted and he says he understands the economy. how to create jobs.
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his only reason for really saying that is is his experience at bain. i think the president has been very effective in pointing out that as president, your job is to maximize the good for the entire community and that takes into account jobs and education and investment and everything else. i think that inside the beltway strategists and consultants have poo poo the attack on bain with wrong and this is going to stick over the long run. it's going to make independent voters question whether mitt romney is a man who shares their values and knows how to make the economy work for all rather than for guys who walk around with to dollar bills stick out of their $500 suits. >> you're an economist. is that a semantic difference? is that se mamantic difference going to mean anything to people who lost their jobs as a result
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of bain's activities? >> to the latter part of your question, of course not. my former boss, the vice president, nailed it in that quote and there is difference between those two words. it's not what the campaign is saying it is. >> but jared, isn't the difference that he, the jobs went as it were were outsourced, but as far as his own assets are concerned, they're offshore in swiss bank accounts. >> they supported sending jobs abroad. they're calling it outsourcing, which is something different. once you send a job abroad in that whole tangled sentence doesn't make sense to anybody, so let's not por worry about that. here's the thing just kind of rippling off where david was coming from. what are really the two, some of the biggest problems facing the the american economy, particularly the middle class are lack of adequate job
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availability and strikingly high levels of income and inequality. when you think about the bain experience and the fact romney brought that as part of his economic identity, that's what you think of when you think of private equity. exacerbating high levels of economic inequality and certainly not about job creation. if it's profitable to shed jobs, they'll shed jobs. add jobs, they'll add jobs. this is not a condemnation of the private equity for business, but it's a direct linkage. >> right. eugene, mitt romney's son, tag, reportedly told reporters in davenport, iowa, i'm quoting, you'll see us hit back pretty hard. we're biding our time. what are they biding their time for, region? you've said in your column today and repeatedly we're waiting for some content from this man. >> well, we're still waiting.
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they can't bide their time all the way to the election. maybe they're waiting for us to get on to a topic we want to talk about. i thought it was bain. the central problem there is that he wants to portray himself as one in business to create jobs when in fact, private equity is in business to create wealth and that's, you know, if you work for mitt romney, would you rather be the subordinate who came in and told, i hired 500 people or the one who said i fired 500 people today and save you a lot of money. i think the latter. that's the substantive problem that he has. so maybe they're going to prefer to bide their time all the way to november. i don't know. >> wow. we should be watching and waiting. that's for certain. jared, you wanted to butt in. >> i think the strategy is actually pretty simple. it's don't say anything. don't put your head up and just, you know, bank on the economy kind of going along in such a way as you can say you know, get
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rid of that guy, try me. >> but jared, i thought this was the country of grand vision. of optimism. of expectation, of giving us a vision of where we can go. >> when you think about the depth of the challenges and props we face, that's where you see how bereft that strategy is. >> corn, is that not the country we live in? >> this is about being the the nondescript alternative to president obama. i can't think of anybody better than mitt romney. republican party has nailed it. >> absolutely. well done, republicans. eugene robinson, david corn and jared bernstein, so many thanks to all of you. stay with us. much more ahead. [ male announcer ] count the number of buttons
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lacking in good will. and so, as we await the world's finest athletes, we invite you to our own medal ceremony to crown three outstanding performances in an event that republicans simply love to say. fast and the furious. taking the bronze, the governor of the lone star state, rick perry, who made a big splash returning to national politics with this fabulous dive. >> mean, with watergate, you had a second rate burglary and now you have a president who is using his executive privilege to keep that information from congress. if that's not nixonian, i don't know what is. >> now, if the event involved memory lapse, mr. perry would be the favorite. in the same interview, he helpfully identified the next presidential election as taking place in 2015. rick perry, a consistently strong performer. hoisting the silver, who else
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but speaker john boehner, who found his smoking gun the moment the president used executive privilege for the first time. >> the decision to invoke executive privilege is an admission and the white house officials were involved in decisions that misled the congress and have covered up the truth. >> now, the speaker has told republicans not the spike the football if the supreme court strikes down the president's reform on thursday, but he's willing to do an end zone dance on this republican attack and with what evidence? well, that brings us to our gold medalist from the golden state, representative darrell issa, who participated in a decathlon of interviews over the weekend and had this to say when mr. chris wallace of fox news asked simply do you have any evidence that white house officials knowingly misled congress and are involved in a cover up? >> no, we don't.
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>> no, he does not. a perfect ten, mr. issa. with all kidding a sigh, not to distract from a flawed operation, but to highlight a simple truth. republicans turned this into a sport. stay tuned. today's top headlines are coming up. with the spark cash card from capital one, sven's home security gets the most rewards of any small business credit card! how does this thing work? oh, i like it! [ garth ] sven's small business earns 2% cash back on every purchase, every day! woo-hoo!!! so that's ten security gators, right? put them on my spark card! why settle for less? testing hot tar... great businesses deserve the most rewards!
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how math and science kind of makes the world work.
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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. from the national past tile to a national debate on immigration, here are today's top lines. >> thank you for youkilis. >> you know how much i care about the sox. >> had the the change the color of his socks. >> yeah. >> high, fly ball down the left field line. >> i didn't think i could get -- my mistake. you got to know your crowd.
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>> where as my mother would say, is it written -- >> they love their mothers, boy. >> bad news, which is great news for mitt romney. whoa! the economy is not getting better! >> see some sort of financial wizard who can fix our economy. >> corporations are people, my friend. >> no mitt. >> they tried to clear this up by telling us there's actually a difference between outsourcing and offshoring. >> in a hotly contested 5-4 decision, call me maybe is the song of the summer. also no health care. >> african-american and the supreme court, i know he doesn't count because he doesn't agree with the elite prevailing wisdom on the left. >> is this not the united states? >> are you [ bleep ] with me? >> the people of america are. >> the united states of america. >> that's our show. that was a plea for unity as much a guy addressing a room -- >> i know where i stand on this.
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>> we need a greater, more asserti assertive america. >> i'll say it again and again and again. >> i know where i stand on this. >> do you still think the anthony a immigration law is going to be a model for the nation? >> voter i.d. which is going to allow romney to win pennsylvania. done. voter i.d., which is going to allow governor romney to win the state of pennsylvania. >> just keep on repeating. >> let's get right to our guest. charles, the president is right, isn't he? when he talks about the republicans discipline and what he's really referring to, the voter suppression, alleyed to unlimited money to spend. >> it's discipline in a way, be but also just broad strategy. which is to focus on how you actually get the votes on your side of the document.
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and that is just going straight after the voters who are actually going to cast the ballots. even if you put aside far moment, campaign finance, you can spend as much you want. if the person can't cast a vote, it doesn't matter and that is what is happening across the country. state after state where republican rs in control of sta state -- >> we're grateful because as you know, gaffes are made in the political cycle, but actually, it's when someone's actually telling the truth. we've got republican assemblyman from pennsylvania who's revealed the truth about his state's voter i.d. laws. listen to this. >> we are focused on making sure that we meet our obligations that we talked about for years. pro second amendment. first pro-life legislation in 22
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years. done. voter i.d, which is going to allow governor romney to win the state of pennsylvania. done. >> i would like to add my applause. the strategy for mitt romney to win is to suppress the vote. >> that's the classic definition of gaffe. to say something you shouldn't be saying. and i don't think they necessarily win in pennsylvania, but that is the strategy which is there is no real voter fraud to speak of in america. but you know there are tons of people who do not have state issued i.d. and for whom getting it becomes a real hurdle. basically, it's a poll tax. >> you say it's not so widespread, but the law in pennsylvania could disenfranchise something like 700,000 people. >> i said voter fraud is not. >> but there are 15 states where
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these laws are in place. they could represent like 80% of the votes mitt romney needs to win the election. this is no joke. >> there's no getting around the fact that people who are putting these law us in place know the effect of what the laws will do and in a lot of these cases, if you look at "the new york times" list of spades, and most of those states, about nine percentage point was the spread for obama last time. if you look at current polling, you're down into low single digits. so now, you say can i move that window? three to four percentage points, doesn't take much. you may have dissatisfied people because of the economy. people voting last time for historical reasons. you may have to move that needle maybe 1%. that is what we're talking about. if you can shade in a florida where barack obama only carries
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by three percentage points when it's 2008 and it's amazing. if you can shave one percentage point by changing when people can vote, by putting extraordinary limits on voter registration. by having people require to have i.d.s that they have never had to have in decades of voting for some of these people, that means you can shift a state. it is not a small thing. and people keep trying to figure out ways to say this. in a way that will make it resognate with people that this election is r very close to being stolen. before the votes are actually cast. >> one of the most astonishing things, i'm not exaggerate iing. there's a sense in which an assemblyman in pennsylvania says what he says. we did with the voter i.d., therefore, mitt romney's going to win. then it goes up to the supreme
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court because if you look at the way the supreme court shaves down, you're looking at an overtly conservative court. i mean, this is, is this effect the question, a partisan majority that's going to dominate this nation from here on in? >> well, i think you have to separate the course from the state houses. >> why because it's the same discipline? that's the point i'm making. it's almost as if from the ordinary assembly men right up from the supreme court. thai got this and they've got control. >> i'm going to go that far as to link what's happening in the country and state houses to the court. i think there is definitely a conservative bit to the court and there's no way to argue that point. and in fact, what they've done this week in letting the montana case affirms that point. but the strategy on the state level is a very overt partisan strategy that is unlike anything
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that you have ever seen and almost like a last gasp sort of thing. trying to put things in place before demographics take over. so put things this place as quickly as you possibly can. and that is also the reason you see things like you know, same-sex marriage. put it in place while you still, you see it changes so fast that put it on the books and make someone else have to take it off, which is a harder hurdle to overcome. >> thank you so much for joining us. coming up on "hardball," chris matthews digs deeper into a top pennsylvania republican for admitting the voter i.d. law is aimed at romney carrying the state. coming up, don't mess with the fenway faithfuls. stay with us. >> i just want to say, thank you for youkilis.
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the fourth of july holiday almost upon us and millions of americans are preparing to load up the car and hit the road and the good news is that gas prices have dropped sharply. down 25 cents a gallon since last month. but the real problem may come after you've left the gas station and drive across the crumbling roads and bridging built over 50 years ago and now in need of desperate repair. take one bridge on interstate
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i-95 in connecticut. it's rated struckly deficient, but more than 200,000 cars continue to cross that bridge while we await congressional action on a $110 billion transportation bill. it's not just safety. we're talking about 3 million jobs on the line. 3 million americans who could be bringing home a paycheck as we hit the fourth of july. talk about fireworks. so with that in mind, safe journeying to all of you. i'm joined now by congresswoman karen bass, a democratic from california and a member of the budget committee. transportation funding drys up in four short days. in los angeles alone, there are i believe 90 bridges that are rated structurally deficient. what do you tell your constituents who have to drive over them every day? >> well, i tell them that we are here fighting every day to get
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that transportation bill to pass and i have to tell you that you know in the house, the house hasn't even been able to agree on a bill that the speaker purr posed. john boehner couldn't even get his own caucus to agree on a transportation bill, but i am hopeful though because one of the things that has happened over the last year and a half with this new congress is that they wait until the very last moment and come together and do one of two things. they either create a deal or do an extension. so friday's d-day. d-day on highway bill and student loans. >> indeed. president eisenhower, a republican after all, signed into law the construction of 41,000 miles of roads as we now know, the interstate highway system. but that was in 1956. can you explain why something as basic as historically bipartisan as infrastructure is now at such an impasse in congress? >> i think you have a congress
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that has idea lodgely driven in the house. if you have a party that says they do not believe in government, that says they want to shrink government. i won't exaggerate. they want to shrink it. >> you're not exaggerating, ma'am. your viewers hear this every day. >> when you have a party that is in control that leads around that, then they wind up in a quaug meier because on one hand, they don't support government. they have to drive to work. consequently, it's put our nation at risk. very similar to what we saw last year over the debt ceiling. we're going to put the entire credit of the united states in jeopardy over an agenda. this is about right wing ideal. >> a final question, are you hopeful that a transportation bill will be resolved by friday? >> either as an extension or a
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new bill. >> thank you for joining us. >> thank you. when we come back, what do you expect when a white sox fan and some red sox fans walk into symphony hall? but first, hampton pearson has the cnbc market wrap. good afternoon. >> good afternoon, martin. today, we saw stocks rebound from monday's losses at the closing bell. dow up 32. s&p up six and the nasdaq gaining 17 points. that's it from cnbc, first in business worldwide. more from martin bashir after these messages. whoa.
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right? get. out. exactly! really?! [ mom ] what? shut the front door. right? woop-woop! franklin delano! [ male announcer ] hey! there's oreo creme under that fudge! oreo fudge cremes. indescribably good. diarrhea, gas or bloating? get ahead of it! one phillips' colon health probiotic cap a day helps defend against digestive issues with three strains of good bacteria. hit me! [ female announcer ] live the regular life. phillips'. thin coffee shops. people who i thave been out of work. you can tell it wears on them. narrator: he's fought to pull us out of economic crisis for three years. and he still is. president obama's plan keeps taxes down for the middle class, invests in education and asks the wealthy to pay their fair share. mitt romney and his billionaire allies can spend milions to
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distort the president's words. but they're not interested in rebuilding the middle class. he is. i'm barack obama and i
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during his stop p in boston monday, president obama tried to make a joke about beantown's red sox trading kevin youkilis to the president's team, the chicago white sox.
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>> thank you for youkilis. i didn't think i'd get any boos. i should not have brought a baseball. i understand. my mistake. my mistake. you got to know your crowd. >> were those fans booing or just yelling youk? brad woodhouse joins us from washington ready to play ball as always. the answer may determine whether the president carries massachusetts. so, were they booing or yelling youk? >> sounded like a lot of you to me. but one thing we can all be thankful for is that president obama knows his sports and he's not a pandering. it was mitt romney not many months ago said he was both a michigan and michigan state fan, which is like being for the cowboys and redskins or lakers
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and celtics. at least president obama has a stronger connection to sports. >> you know that mitt romney has two heads, so are you confident that you can carry massachusetts one of mr. romney's i believe three home states? >> i have no doubt that we can carry massachusetts and i have no doubt that the president has a stronger connection to sports than just knowing team owners. >> okay. as you know, all eyes are on the supreme court with their ruling on thursday. can i ask you what is the contingency for democrats if the court strikes down all or part of the president's, what the is president's achievement? >> well, i think one of the things we've learned even with recent court decisions even the one yesterday on immigration is that you kind of never know what the court is going to do. it's hard to know what to expect. but i'll tell you this. the president, the democratic party, you know, we stand by the
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reforms and you know, the american people when polled on the individual elements of the affordable care act, they want these reforms. so if some or all is struck down, which we don't think it will be, or we hope it won't be, we can go to the election and talk about republicans who want to and mitt romney who want insurance companies to call all the shots and don't want to go anything for seniors or young people or dealing with preexisting conditions. they want to have that debate, we're ready for it. >> i don't mean to be too personal about this, but you talk about the way the public polls on the specifics and yet you know there's quite a lot of disdain for obama care as described. do you personally take responsibility for the fact that maybe the messaging of this reform hasn't been as effective as it might have been? these are genuine changes for people. we're talking about including
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people who would have been rejected. young people who can't afford to pay for health care and yet somehow, you and your colleagues don't seem to have sold that message well. >> i think that might be a fair criticism. i think part of this is some of the greatest benefits of this law had not fully taken effect yet and much of the law doesn't take effect until 2014. and look, republicans made this a political football. they decided to make this a partisan issue rather than working with the president towards reforms that many of them had supported for years and once you make something a partisan football and evenly divided nation politically, you get results that are about 50/50 and that's what you see often in the polling on health care. you know, but like i said, the individual almosts are popular. if republicans want to take those away or cheer the supreme court taking those away if that happens, have add it.
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we'll take ta debate in the fall. >> they've spent millions in criticizing the reforms themselves and outspent the administration. thank you for joining us. we'll be right back to clear the air. >> i don't mean they don't listen to -- as a matter of fact, some of the things i say, i wish they didn't listen to. ♪ [ male announcer ] introducing new dentyne split to fit pack. it splits in to two smaller, sleeker packs that fit almost anywhere so you can take them everywhere. dentyne split to fit. practice safe breath.
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it's time now to clear the air and perhaps mitt romney really has been lulled into a false sense that his own candidacy following the republican primaries. you see, we kept being told about how bloody and brutal the process would be and even mr. romney himself suggested this was good preparation for the presidential campaign. buts it's worth noting romney
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succeeded against some of the most mediocre candidates we've seen. there was this guy on the subject of foreign affairs. >> president obama called for the removal of gadhafi. just want to make sure we're talking about the same thing before i say yes i agree or no, i didn't agree. i d not agree with the way he handled it for the following reason. no, that's the different one. >> then, there was this guy explaining which government departments he planned to close. >> the education, the -- commerce. and let's see -- i can't. the third one, i can't. sorry. oops. >> you see, these bumbling and stumbling characters now help us understand how mitt romney won the nomination because faced with them, it wasn't really necessary to come up with a coherent, well defined strategy.
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but now, america wants to know what mitt romney actually believes. what he'll do. what he plans for the country and what do we get on a hot topic like immigration that is dominating political discussion? virtually nothing. in fact, he hid in front of the aircraft yesterday as the decision was announced and just a few hours ago in virginia, offered a few words that could have been taken from any of his stump speeches over the last 12 months. >> now the supreme court's looked at it and what we're left what wows the presidt dle, but >>sha the r r of man ws qualified to bermu become commander in chief or does mitt romney believe that the american people will accept a