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tv   Jansing and Co.  MSNBC  July 12, 2012 7:00am-8:00am PDT

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good morning. a new report has just been released about the penn state scandal. at any moment, we're about to hear from former fbi director who conducted an eight-month investigation involving 430 interviews and 267 pages. this circumstances surrounding jerry sandusky. nbc's ron allen is live in state college pennsylvania with the details. the language in the transcript looks quite strong. >> reporter: it's an amazing report, richard. it's close to 300 pages. there were eight months of investigation by a former fbi director who had a team of law enforcement officials, child welfare experts. this was a deep and probing forensic examination at what happened at this university that
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rocked penn state and the entire state of pennsylvania and lead to the conviction of jerry sandusky back in june. 45 counts of child abuse, child sexual molestation. horrific acts that were detailed in court by eight of the now young men who sandusky violated and in so many horrific ways. reading excerpts of the report, one of the things that stood out for me is a conclusion that the judge says, in conclusion, he is saddened by the total, consistent disregard by the most senior leaders at penn state for the safety and welfare of sandusky's child victims. he's referring to graham spannier, gary shultz, tim curley and joe paterno, the legendary coach. >> ron allen live, standby. we'll go to the podium and
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listen to the statement. >> penn state university is an outstanding educational institution which is rightly proud of its students, alumni, faculty and staff who in term hold that institution in very high esteem. we fully appreciate the strong emotions which surround these tragic events in our work. all of us here today understand that it is the duty of adults to protect children and to immediately report any suspected child sex abuse to law enforcement authorities. our team was reminded of this on a daily basis because henderson south, which was our base on the penn state campus, was the former child care center, with some of the children's artwork still there. on november 21st, the special
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investigations task force established by the board of trustees retained us to conduct a full, fair and completely independent investigation. i commend ken frasier, chairman of the task force, and ron tomalis, the vice chairman of the task force, for the steps their took in this investigation. to conduct this investigation we assembled an outstanding team of former law enforcement lawyers, one of whom is a former navy seal, and officials including former prosecutors, fbi agents, pennsylvania and delaware state police officers with many decades of experience in conducting sensitive investigations, especially crimes against children. i am pleased to be joined this
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morning by many of my team members. our team conducted over 430 interviews of various individuals. i did the first one myself the day before thanksgiving and the last one on friday. the evidence found by our investigators included critical contemporaneous correspondence from the times of these events. our investigative team made independent discovery of the critical 1998 and 2001 e-mails, the most important evidence in the case. we also confirmed through our separate forensic review that the correct year of the sandusky sexual assault witnessed by michael mcqueary was 2001 and not 2002, as said forth in the original grand jury presentment. we adhered faithfully to our original mandate to investigate
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this matter fully, fairly and completely without fear or favor. we have shown no favoritism toward any of the parties, including the board of trustees, our client. at all times our demand for total independence was respected. we took the unusual step of not providing any draft of this report to the board of trustees or to the task force prior to the posting this morning. they are seeing it today for the first time, as all of you are. in our investigation, we sought to clarify what happened, including who knew what and when events happened, and to examine the university's policies and internal controls relating to identifying and reporting sexual abuse of children, specifically we worked to identify any
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failures or gaps in the university's control environment, compliance programs, and culture, which may have enabled these crimes against children to occur on the penn state campus and go undetected and unreported for at least 14 years. as you will read in our report, penn state failed to implement the provisions of the cleary act, a statute that requires the collecting and reporting of crimes such as sandusky committed on campus in 2001. indeed on the day sandusky was arrested, penn state's clear ri act was still in a draft form. mr. spannier said he and the board never had a discussion about the clery act until november of 2011. our work was done with several other investigations by agencies
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and government authorities, including the pennsylvania state attorney general, pennsylvania state police, united states attorney federal bureau of investigation, and the u.s. department of education. >> former fbi director beginning his statement. it's about 20 minutes. in about two or three minutes begin to describe his findings. i want to bring in two of our guests today that will be following this statement along with us here on msnbc. we have our msnbc legal analysts and former federal prosecutor ken lacoffee. and i do want to go over a statement from paterno family before we get to the elements of the statement that will continue to be revealed to us by the fbi director.
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joe paterno did not cover up for jerry sandusky. to claim otherwise is a distortion of the truth. that coming from the family before this report and this statement was released today. but we also look at some of the details alongside what we expect to hear today. i want to read this. it says in the statement coming from the director. "the total disregard for the safety and welfare of sandusky's child victims by the seeb senior leaders at penn state, the most powerful men failed to take any steps for 14 years to protect the children who sandusky victimized. spannier, shultz, paterno, and curley never demonstrated any concern for the safety and well-being of sandusky's victims until after sandusky's arrest." you have had time to look through the transcript. that's just a taste of some of
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the language that freeh is using in the statement. >> i have gone through most of it, and his team documents extremely well the findings. findings which are as were all absorbing it. scathing in terms of talking about concealment, which is a strong word, but they seem to be able to back it up with their investigation, and they talk about a shocking and callous disregard for the child victims. that's laid squarely on the shoulders of the four key individuals. the report does more than that. had talks about the board of trustees itself and that it failed to create a culture of accountability and certainly the blame in terms of this tragic and horror is aimed in several directions. the bottom line is the report, i think, represents the more
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authoritative thing we have. >> kendall, standby. we'll go back to freeh. >> further they expose this child to additional harm by alerting sandusky, who was the only one who knew the child's identity, about what mcqueary saw in the shower. the stated reasons by mr. spannier, shultz, paterno, and curley for not taking action to identify the victim and for not reporting sandusky to the police for child welfare are, one, nobody told them it was sexual conduct. two, sandusky should be treated humanely. and three, somebody else would handle it. taking into account the available witness statements and
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evidence, it is more reasonable to conclude that in order avoid the consequences of bad publicity the most powerful leaders at penn state university, mr. spannier, shultz, paterno, and curley did not report to the board of trustees, the penn state community and the public at large. although concerned to treat the child abuser humanely was expressly stated, no such sentiments were ever expressed by them to sandusky's victims. these four men also knew about a 1998 criminal investigation of sandusky related to suspected sexual misconduct and a young boy in a penn state football locker shower room. again, they showed no concern about the victim. the evidence shows that mr.
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paterno was made aware of the 199 8 investigation of sandusky, followed it closely, but failed to take any action, even though sandusky had been a key member of his coaching staff for about 30 years and had an office just steps away from mr. paterno. at the very least, mr. paterno could have alerted the entire football staff in order to prevent sandusky from bringing another child into the building. mr. spannier, shultz, paterno and curley also failed to alert the board of trustees about the investigation or take any other action against mr. sandusky. none of them ever spoke to sandusky about his conduct. in short, nothing was done and sandusky was allowed to continue with impunity. >> i want to bring in, if i can,
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our experts listening to this with us. buzz, tell me what your thought is. the last statement saying "in short, nothing was done and sandusky was allowed to continue. there's also the mention of bad publicity." what's your thought? >> this report is scathing. it telling me absolutely nothing that i haven't been writing about for at least a year. what it does confirm is that joe paterno was aware of sandusky's alleged activities in 1998. what it does confirm is that paterno was not only advised of the 2001 incident but discussed it with high-ranking university officials. what it does confirm is that the ex-president and the ex-athletic director and the deceased joe paterno are liars. the only question now is what
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will happen next? the ncaa will step in. penn state should receive the death penalty in football and should be banned from playing for two years. >> he said that further they expose this child to additional harm by alerting sandusky, who was the only one who knew the child's identity about what mcqueary saw in the shower on the night of february 9th, 2001. but then they allowed him to continue. >> and that's unthinkable in terms of any concern for the victim. to alert the so-called predator, or the perpetrator, no communication with the victim, they have it completely opposite. you're supposed to try to find out who the victim is in whatever way they can, respect and make paramount the needs of the victim. many times the perpetrator is supposed to be the target, not the person you're protecting. >> but they didn't care about the victim. they only cared about the
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reputation of the school and of the football program. according to testimony, sandusky said i'll give you the name of the kid. they said we don't want it. they don't care about sandusky. they said we're powerful men. we can keep this in house and with no harm will come to us. it was the culture of football at penn state that was at the root of this. it's why it's rotten. paterno has no legacy. he deserves no legacy. this report through e-mails, not conjecture, makes it clear he lied in 1998 when sandusky was first identified. he lied about his involvement in 2001. i'm sorry, joe. take that statue down. >> we're still listening to freeh making a statement. but i also want to play for you jay paterno who spoke with "the today show." listen to what he said this
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morning. >> any suggestion about the culture of football at penn state, you have to look at the facts of the situation. we graduated our student athletes in football at a higher rate than the students in general penn state. there was a commitment to academic and athletic excellence in that order. >> kendall, what's your reaction? >> i think it's appropriate to some extent to talk about the many fine young people that had nothing to do with this. but today is not a day to try to spin the unspinable or to try to minimize the unspeakable. this is a day of remorse, acknowledgment and drastic reform. and i think the message has to go beyond the campus of penn state. could something like this where one of the best investigations you can imagine is talked about repeated concealment happen with respect to some academic literature department? if this had been a history
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department, would there be this kind of cover up in the face of at least two very graphic and deeply disturbing incidents? of course, not. this seems to be about football and about more than penn state. not that this kind of horrific conduct is happening routinely, but you have to believe in other universities there's the same receptiveness to minimizing things that are wrong, things that are harmful to other people. >> buzz, i know you want to react. we have a column that came out yesterday that said it's not about want football. >> jay paterno's comments are, i'm sorry, despicable. aiding and abetting a sexual predator who actually abused other children after penn state officials, including joe paterno, had knowledge in 1998 and in 2001.
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that is not worth a graduation rate of 180%. the graduation rate of the penn state football program has nothing, nothing to do with what happened. jay paterno when confronted with the facts should be ashamed of his father. >> we're still listening to louz freeh regarding the 267-page report. buzz, thank you for your comments. kendall, i want to go to you. one of the statements made by the paterno family saying we would still like a chance to meet with the freeh group and offer a response. joe paterno did not fear the truth, he sought it. would there be a case as they went through the process that he would not actually interact with the paterno family? >> well, i think that the paterno family realistically is
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not likely to be a key source of information. freeh indicated he was not able to interview joe paterno himself. so we're simply left with some questions about how much actual knowledge did he have. and in particular, one of the critical events that may still continue to be questioned is february of 2001. tlfgs a plan to take some action with regard to the allegations of mike mcqueary. that plan was disregarded after a discussion with joe paterno. we may never know if joe paterno in some fashion harnessed an effort to bring the allegations to the light in 2001. it's a question that will always remain. it's not a question that the family can answer. it's a question that will deeply haunt the legacy of joe paterno.
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>> kendall coffey, always a pleasure. buzz, you're writing great. the report coming out today. they will continue to watch the report. a damning report over 200 pages and took months, including 430 interviews. we'll move on to politics and representative jesse jackson jr. stay with us. hmm, it says here that cheerios helps lower cholesterol as part of a heart healthy diet. that's true. ...but you still have to go to the gym. ♪ the one and only, cheerios ovider is different ...but you still have to go to the gym. but centurylink is committed to being a different kind of communications company by continuing to help you do more and focus on the things that matter to you.
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but they haven't experienced extra strength bayer advanced aspirin. in fact, in a recent survey, 95% of people who tried it agreed that it relieved their headache fast. visit fastreliefchallenge.com today for a special trial offer. the mysterious disdisappearance of jesse jackson jr. what are you hearing? >> this has been one of the stories where the details came out in pieces. that really added some smoke to the fire around congressman
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jesse jackson jr. he has been in congress for nine terms and when he was absent for such a prolonged period, lots of questions. so what has happened now is there appears to be some divide among those who are close to him. they are talking about a mood disorder. his office released a statement under a lot of pressure, not only from constituents and questions kind of in the public square, and even democratic leadership here on the hill saying he owes his constituents more of an explanation. they told us he's in residential treatment, is going well and respond i responding to that treatment and they describe it as a mood disorder. his aids also point out that federal law gives anyone, including a congressman, privacy about medical conditions like this. he can't be forced to describe the diagnosis or where he's getting treatment. but the political standard is certainly different. when they put out this latest attempt to try to give information, but also to tamp down on rumors. they said he's not being treated
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for drug or substance abuse. there's conflicting reports among those close to him about maybe a drinking issue in connection with depression. it's a complicated, personal picture. his own father, reverend jesse jackson, has asked for privacy and compassion and we expect there will be continued pressure to learn more about what his station is. we don't know when he'll be back to congress. >> kelly o'donnell, thank you. we're waiting for vice president joe biden to speak. romney is saying he was the best candidate. what will joe biden say? stay with us. an accident doesn't have to slow you down.
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mitt romney. the $30,000 per couple dinner is expected to raise $2 million for the romney campaign, which has been raking in cash for months. jacki coup sin itch covers politics. we'll see a lot happening today and tonight. romney has not appeared in public with cheney or george bush for that matter. cheney is seen as a controversial figure. is this about the money? it doesn't seem he'll pick up many swing votes because of this. >> that's not everything romney is doing. he's working to unify the republican party. dick cheney has an important part of the republican party for a long time now. it's understandable that romney would want to have a tie to him. a colleague of mine has a good story today in "the post" about they don't have a close relationship, but this is one fundraiser he's done a little bit with each of the bushes but
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not a whole lot. >> as you noted there, an important part of the republican party. and jacki, cheney just had a heart transplant in march. is this a sign cheney is trying to get back in the game and influence some of the power? >> i think that's a part of it. but ann is right. this is called the passing of the torch. mitt romney is going to be the next face or their candidate. the face of the republican party. this solidifies that. and that he's hold iing this fundraiser. this is the first time he's opened his house. that's significant. >> i want to move to the attacks we've seen from both sides of the aisle. they have accused each other of shipping jobs overseas. obama saying romney did it at bain. and now romney said obama did it with stimulus dollars. now there's a new ad. take a look. >> the obama outsourcing
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attacks, misleading, unfair and untrue. there was no evidence that mitt romney shipped jobs overseas. obama's dishonest campaign, another reason america has lost confidence in barack obama. >> how effective do you see these fights from each side? >> i mean, it appears with this ad and the latest offensive that the romney campaign is trying o to -- neither candidate has been 100% when it's come to keeping jobs on u.s. shores. romney's case, he spent a lot of time talking about companies that bain investigated in that specialized in outsourcing. in obama's case, the promises he made about jobs not going overseas not always lead up to that. there's enough to go around. both sides are going to be it trying to do what we're seeing
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them doing, which is to make sure voters don't have a comprehension of the truth. >> part of that, this is what ed gillespie had to say about the obama attacks. >> right now, the obama campaign ads have been shown to be demonstrably false. that's another way of saying a lie. >> and part of this controversy is whether mitt romney was the head of bain capital in 2002. a report in "the boston globe" saying government documents showed that romney did not leave bain capital when he said in 1999. the romney campaign released a statement saying, "the article is not accurate. as bain cap pal has said, as governor romney has said, he left bain capital in february of 1999 to run the olympics and had no input on investments or management of companies after
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that point." so jackie, is this bain issue going to go away? is it going to go past us? >> the biggest issue with bain has been the romney's slow response to these things. i think mark murray made the point this morning. it took nine days between when obama started running his ads and when romney responded to the outsourcing. the statement was issued this morning by the romney campaign, but in the story, it said they didn't respond on the record. so there's a little bit -- it doesn't seem like they are responding as fast as they need to in order to dispel these things if they don't think they are true. >> as more time goes by, how will the democrats take advantage of that? david axelrod said his defense crumbles with a link to that article. so the question then here is, democrats, are they getting
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ready to then leverage this? >> jackie is completely right. democrats aren't getting ready to, they are doing it. what's baffle lg is the decision to not engage so much, to focus on the economy, which is part of their strategy. you'd think they'd be able to walk and chew gum at the same time on this issue. in this particular case, how strong their defense is. our own fact checker looked at this claim about the departure and found while on some of the books and filings he's still listed because of his departure, he wasn't involved in any of the decisions. i mean there is a defense and it's a mystery. >> ann, jackie, thank you so much. waiting for vice president joe biden to take the stage at the naacp convention in houston, texas. we're going to keep our eye on
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those live pictures. he'll be offering rebuttal to romney's speech he made yesterday. despite rounds of applause throughout romney's speech, the crowd did boo after romney said he would repeal the president's health care reform law. romney reacted last night during a fundraiser in montana saying "remind them of this, if they want more stuff from government tell them to go vote for the other guy but don't forget nothing is free. it has to be paid for by people in the private sector creating goods and services." joining me now, we have two people on our panel. i want to start here with democratic strategist steve mcmahon. the president doesn't have any events these two days. i'd like to get to the reaction of thefr freeh statement.
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despite the president not having events for today and yesterday, he had some schedule conflicts. how will convention goers see this joe biden being there instead of the president? >> the convention goers fully understand that the obama administration is the best friend they ever had in washington. and joe biden is a critical partner in that. the president of the united states is still the president of the united states. even though he's a candidate, he's appeared at the naacp many times before. it's not like mitt romney, where they are seeing him for the first time. they have seen president obama many times in the past. sending joe biden isn't a snub. it's just an indication that barack obama remains president is and there's other things he has to do. >> we also want to bring in john brabender. romney yesterday saying that he would be the best president for african-americans and the african-american community. but joe biden is certainly
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expected to counter that today by saying that romney's stance is against the auto bailout and the repeal and replacing of the affordable care act are not good for african-americans. but what do you expect biden to say to counter what romney said yesterday? >> first of all, i think the reason the democrats are sending biden instead of obama is because they want to hammer romney. and i think that it's a better job for joe biden to do that. it's his specialty. there's a little bit unfair in that in that romney deserves some credit for actually showing up to an audience where he knows he's not going to be necessarily received with open arms. the end of the day, however, whether you're african-american or any other segment of this country, it really comes down to things such as are we going to improve our schools in ways that doesn't mean more spending? are we going to provide jobs? are we going to make people more free and less dependent on government? i think romney made a compelling statement that in those areas,
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he will be superior to obama. >> john, staying with you, i want to go to that statement i read in the introduction about free stuff. what did romney mean when he made this statement. "remind them of this, if they want more stuff from government tell them to go vote for the other guy." what did he mean? >> it meant that there's an ideology that i have to tax as high as i can, get as much money from individuals, and i will create a government of which they will live where i'll provide health care and all their needs. it's a very european-style of government. it takes away choices, it takes away freedom and -- >> hold on. intimation may be taken from that statement from the group he was addressing when you say "free stuff." >> he meant free government. government big that does everything for people rather than thinking and doing things
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for themselves. that's what romney meant. >> john is better at spinning this than romney is. he seemed to suggest welfare. that's what he seemed to suggest. with respect to tax revenues, last year the united states government took in less in tax revenue than any point in the last 30 years. so this idea that the president is taxing everybody like crazy is just -- it doesn't match the numbers and the facts. i do give mitt romney, by the way, some credit for going there yesterday. but i was surprised that at a fundraiser later in the day he was bragging about the fact that he was booed at the convention. which suggests to me that going there was a cynical, political ploy that he was using to create a talking point for later on in the day. a talking point that he used later on in the day. e he gets to say to the white folks at the fundraiser, the black people booed me today when i gave it to them tough. just like i gave it to everybody tough. i think it was a political ploy
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that frankly, you know, by the end of the day, didn't look very courageous at all. >> john, quick response. >> i think what mitt romney was really saying is he was wearing the boos as a badge of honor. he was not going to a message that was going to change by whatever audience he was talking to. that there were things he believes very strongly in and that hes going to talk to all of america about that. in some cases, it's going to be popular and other cases it won't be. but he's photo going to change that message. >> john brabender, steve mcmahon, thank you. we're waiting for joe biden. the vice president is expected to take the stage very shortly to counter, as we were discussing, what mitt romney saying yesterday that he was -- he is and will be the best presidential candidate for african-americans. we'll watch this stage. we'll be right back. [ male announcer ] you've reached the age
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regularly drink coffee may lower your risk for skin cancer. the more coffee you consume the lower the risk for contrasting the most common form of skin cancer. researchers state that caffeine appears to be the agent lowering the risk. developing this hour, we have been watching a news confidence with former director louis freeh. he's taking questions about a scathing report released this morning on leaders atd penn state and their handling of the child sex abuse scandal. this is what he said just a moment ago. >> the most powerful men at penn state failed to take any steps for 14 years to protect the children who sandusky victimized. mr. spanier, gary schultz, joe
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paterno and curley never demonstrated any concern for the safety and well-being of sandusky's victims until after sandusky's arrest. >> the paterno family said "joe paterno did not cover up for jerry sandusky. joe paterno did not know that jerry sandusky was a pedophile. joe paterno did not act in any way to prevent a proper investigation of jerry sandusky. to claim otherwise is a distortion of the truth." we'll continue to watch louis freeh as he finishes up with questions and answers. we take you to this live picture in houston, texas. the naacp convention. joe biden will be giving the keynote address at the convention. we're looking at houston, texas. last year michelle obama spoke to the group and president obama when he was running for office was there in 2008 during the campaign. we may dip into that when joe biden comes on. until that happens, to the city of scranton, which has been hit
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especially hard. uni union workers plan to ask a judge to hold the mayor in contempt of court after he cut the pay of nearly 400 municipal workers to the state's minimum wage. that's $7.25 an hour. let's bring in the mayor of scranton, christopher dougherty. tough times in scranton. you have had to make tough decisions. but the city's union is saying they are caught in a political battle between you and the city council over how to cover that $16.8 million gap in the city's 2012 budget. the question to you, why did you decide to slash the pay for these 400 municipal employees? >> good morning, richard. these are very difficult decisions we e had to make. our employees do a great job and we're very thankful for them. but our council passed a budget that had $16 million in borrowing and have been unable now to fund it.
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i sent them a budget that raised taxes about $130 for the year. they had said they didn't want to do that. i vetoed that. they overrode my veto. now the banking community has said we'd like to see a plan of how to pay us back on this borrowing. so as a result, i'm left with less money to run the city. our employees do a great job and we're thrilled to have them and very proud of them. our city is doing really well. but we need to get through this crisis. we'll bring everybody together. the state has been very helpful to us in providing advice. and i think that we will get through this by working together. it's a difficult time. >> as a democratic mayor, does this put you in a difficult situation as you have made these cuts to city services. when we look at the gop arguments across the country and what they have done, that you are acting the way that might be consistent with their ideology? >> well, i'm a businessman.
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i have owned my own company and been successful in my own business. i have been elected three times as mayor of the city. i always make tough decisions that i think is right for the future of our city. and a lot of times, that goes against what people may perceive is a political belief. at the end of the day, i have to do what's right for my citizens and the values of their homes to provide their services. there's not a democratic wrong way to pill a pothole. at the city level, we touch our constituents every day. it's not like the federal level where they pass laws and there's no immediate impact. i have to pick up the garbage every day. our fire trucks have to be on the streets every day. i have to pay for health care. i don't have enough money and i'm trying to make it work and do the best i cannot only for our employees, but for all the citizens of our city. these are difficult decisions. >> mayor, you heard the reaction from city workers who said now
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i'm making as a police officer, as a fireman, the same amount that the young man working at the ice cream shop. you also understand that some are saying they won't be able to pay their mortgage payments. what are some other ideas that you had a tough decision to make? what are some of the ideas you had? i apologize for the sound delay. >> no problem. i have been always direct with our budgets. two years ago, my city council lowered taxes. i said we needed those revenues. this year i proposed a tax increase that would have made our budget balance and you and i wouldn't be talking today. i do believe that government plays a role in peoples' lives, but i have to make the decisions i need to make so that i can provide all services to the
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people of our city. this isn't a question about our employ employees. our employees do a great job and service our citizens very, very well. we need to have our city council because we have the control of the budget, fund the budget that they pass. that's all this is about. we'll be able to get through it. these are difficult questions that someone could say, how could you make these decisions? i look upon it as the mayor of the city taking care of everyone. >> mayor, thank you so much. best of luck to you and scranton, pennsylvania. straight to the tweet of the day. it comes from the editor in chief of reed wilson. scott brown and elizabeth warren are both celebrating their wedding anniversary today. table for four? [ female announcer ] the power of green coffee extract is now in our new starbucks refreshers™ -- a breakthrough in natural energy. made with real fruit,
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live pictures coming out of
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houston, texas. there was a prerecorded statement coming from president obama that was played to the audience. vice president joe biden is expected to give the keynote address any moment right now. this the 103rd naacp convention. the oldest and arguably the most influential civil rights group. we expect joe biden to be there shortly. we will get straight to that speech when it happens there in houston, texas. we're also watching other story this is hour. we're hearing that this is making news. new information expected that this hour in the trayvon martin case. florida prosecutors expected to e reveal more documents today including fbi reports that they say could clarify whether or not george zimmerman's shooting of martin was racially motivated. zimmerman said he acted in
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self-defense. he faces murder charges for the teen's death. florida a&m university will begin looking for a new president last week. james ammons resigned yesterday. he received a no confidence vote following the hazing death of a university drum major in november of last year. the famed marching band remains us suspended for the year. we continue to wait to see when joe biden comes to that stage. stick with us here on msnbc. we'll have that for you. ars. but lately she's been coming in with less gray than usual. what's she up to? [ female announcer ] root touch-up by nice'n easy has the most shade choices, designed to match even salon color in just 10 minutes. with root touch-up, all they see is you.
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[ engine revving ] ♪ hey, hey, hey ♪ [ tires screech ] [ male announcer ] with fuel economy that's best in class and better acceleration than camry and accord, you'll wish you had the road to yourself. [ tires screech ] it's our most innovative altima ever. nissan. innovation that excites. ♪ good thursday, everyone. topping our agenda this hour, we are waiting for vice president joe biden to deliver his counterer punch to mitt romney when he speaks at any minute at the naacp convention. it's due to some flooding for the delay. we'll bring you the vice
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president's remarks as soon as they happen here on msnbc. first though, breaking news this morning. that scathing report on joe paterno and other top-level penn state officials say they deliberately concealed information to protect a child predator. >> our most saddening and sobering finding is the total disregard for the safety and welfare of sandusky's child victims by the most senior leaders at penn state. the most powerful men at penn state failed to take any steps to protect the children who sandusky victimized. >> former director louis freeh blasting penn state for how it handled allegations of child sexual abuse committed by jerry sandusky saying the most powerful man at penn state failed to take any steps for 14

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