i'm chris hayes. president obama has picked up endorsements from the denver post, the tampa bay times and the salt lake city tribune. a federal judge blocked arizona yesterday from applying new law that bars planned parenthood clinics from receiving state funding. we'll be talking more about how women's issues have played in the presidential campaign in a minute. right now my great pleasure to introduce patrick gat barring. rebecca traceberg, friend of the program. she wrote big girls don't cry. father bill daley. he's at the university of notre dame. and msnbc contributor victoria de francesco desoto. a fellow at the lbj school of public affairs. you guys are an a gust panel. that was a lot to get through. if this week has told us anything about the presidential election, it's that women appear

to be the most sought after part of the electorate. the morning after president obama stepped off the stage with mitt romney where he trumpeted the signing of the lily led better fair pay act, he went to iowa saying women should get equal pay for equal work. governor romney was saying president obama had failed women. we'll talk about his binder issue. even though it's not being talked about, abortion is an issue. women in 12 states women cited abortion as their most important issue followed by jobs. the romney campaign used an ad trying to clarify the candidate's current position on the issue. >> you know, those ads say mitt romney would ban all abortions and contraceptions seemed a bit extreme, so i looked into it. turns out, romney doesn't oppose contraception at all. in fact, he thinks abortion should be an option in cases of rape, incest, or to save a mother's life. this issue is important to me, but i'm more concerned about the

debt our children will be left with. i voted for president obama last time. we just can't afford four more years. >> didn't take long for the obama campaign to respond with an ad of their own. >> seen this from mitt romney? then take a look at this. >> if roe v. wade was overturned congress passed a ban on abortions, would you sign it? >> yes, sir. let me say it, i'd be delighted to sign that bill. >> banning all abortions. >> i'd be delighted to sign that bill. >> trying to mislead us, that's wrong. but ban all apportions? only if you vote for him. >> in fairness, the obama ad doesn't give the full context of the romney quote. it cuts out the part before and after romney's remark where it talks about the ishl u of abortion being returned to the states and the part immediately after where he seems to imply that a lack of national consensus that means that that type of legislation simply would not happen. remarkably though with all of

the talk on the air waves about abortion, you should know there wasn't one mention of the word during tuesday's key debate. contraception made more than a cameo. >> in my health care bill i said insurance companies need to provide contraceptive coverage to everybody who's insured because this is not just a health issue, it's an economic issue for women. governor romney not only opposed it, he suggested that in fact employers should be able to make the decision as to whether or not a woman gets contraception through her insurance coverage. that's not the kind of advocacy that women need. >> i don't believe that bureaucrats in washington should tell someone whether they can use contraceptives or not and i don't believe employers should tell someone whether they should have contraceptive care or not. every woman in america should have access to contraceptives and the president's statement of my policy is completely and totally wrong. >> the end of that exchange president obama can be overheard

saying, gov northern, thaternor true. the reason he said that, it's because he supported the blunt amendment which allowed employers to deny contraceptive coverage for religious or moral issues. first he said he was against the blunt amendment, then he said he's for it. now he's saying he has reversed his position. first, before we talk about the blunt amendment, i know notre dame is a party to the lawsuit against the federal government for the issuing of the affordable care act regulation that requires insurance coverage, before we talk about that, before we talk about abortion, i would like you guys to tell me how you feel about the way in which women's issues are being discussed because it seems to me that it's a fine line between speaking to a certain constituency and pandering to a certain c constituency and condescending to a certain constituency. it often seems that we're blurring those lines during this

conversation. rebecca? >> well, i should say it happens every four years like clockwork. there is a sudden incredible burning interest in women's issues amongst men in washington who spend the rest of the three 3/4 of a year not caring at all. now i prefer the pandering to the completely ignoring women's issues. i will take it. the other thing i will say, i'm not reflexively always happy about how president obama talks about women's issues. i've been critical of some of the things he said in the past. i thought the way he addressed the equal pay issue in the debate was one of the best, most thoughtful and comprehensive answers i have seen out of any politician because what he did, answering a question about equal pay. he hit lily ledbetter. then he went into bigger systemic things, like talking about pell grants and the role of education and women getting toward equal pay and then bringing it to contraception and

the ability to control reproductive health. he said my dream sentence, this is not just women's issues and family issues, these are economic issues. that's one of the smartest ways i heard it address. it may be pandering, but it brought a terrific answer. >> i think the rights of women are not addressed directly. i think we saw this very thing in the vice presidential debate where the candidates were asked about their beliefs about abortion but not necessarily about theoretically what do you believe the rights of women should be, in particular with terminating a pregnancy or not. so i think that we're seeing the interest of women being, as my political theer or lists would say, subverted. first to men in terms of being in charge of most of the state legislatures, to medical professionals in many instances, and second if you read the rnc platform and the plank on aborti abortion, to fetuses. there's a lot of discussion about fetuses and their rights but there's no discussion about women, only in terms of how they

relate to their bodies would relate to medical practices. >> well, but -- patrick. >> i'm going to jump in on rebecca's point. generally i agree with rebecca, but the notion that for both candidates on the stage that night that the women's esh use were being thrown out of there for the first time isn't exactly true. the very first bill he signed into law was lily ledbetter. clearly his appointment to the supreme court has been checked that he is concerned about women's empowerment and women having the ability to make decisions for themselves about society, and clearly given all that took place during the litigation of obama care the president always lifted up health care rights. >> particularly the birth control regulation that was issued. what you said to me was interesting. what you just said about the supreme court. were you talking about abortion just then when you said -- >> no, actually, i was not. i was talking about the people he has named to the supreme court. he's doubled the number of women

that were on that card. i would suspect given their experiences that they might have a contribution to make with issues that are affecting the health care lives of women come before the court. >> what's interesting to me, father, is that you see -- you have a situation right now in which -- and you're both a roman catholic priest and a lawyer in which, you know, the supreme court -- there's essentially five votes to uphold roe. one of those votes is ruth bader ginsburg. >> there may be five. >> we know five, we can count five. you're right. that's a very good point. and yet that aspect of it seems incredibly distant in the national debate. it seems almost weirdly taboo to talk about. there was a moment when vice president biden basically said essentially, we're going to nominate pro choice justices and they won't and paul ryan shot back, is that a litmus test? i'm in the position, we should know. we know where both parties are on this issue.

there shouldn't be this bizarre taboo around saying about what -- >> we have tradition where any judicial nominee will refuse to predict their vote even if we think it's probably relatively predictable in some cases. >> is that a good tradition in this case? >> there's a sort of -- that's a big like what are the separation of powers issues. what is the senate permitted to know. i think you can argue that either way irrespective of the issues. more complicated jurisprudence issue. there is a complicated issue. why wouldn't the candidates mention abortion when we know to their base they're start to go do it more which is an interesting phenomenon. the obama campaign is being more explicit about it when typically you wouldn't show there was base politics going on. maybe they're more worried about ohio than we thought. i want to problemtize the issue with women. neither do these two women.

the idea that contraception which misleadingly -- it was never in the president's bill. congress has tried to pass a contraceptive mandate, but it fails. the department of health and human services decided to interpret that as they chose to. there are so many things that we don't pro vierd women for free that might be more useful, like the cost of insulin for women whose children have diabetes. that's a woman's issue. it's also a men's issue. the stability and strength of marriages is a woman's issue. when we talk about the narrow slate of women's issues, it seems to be the democratic party. it's hardly obvious that they are the only women's issues or the most important women's issues. >> right. exclusive. >> rebecca. >> i think rebecca's making a broader point in a broader economic frame. >> yes. and that in fact it is a daily issue for women. you're right, that there are millions of women out there who have all different kinds of feelings about this. and women who do not believe, for example, when using

contraception are more than free to not avail themselves of contraception. the management of this particular health issue for women i think is sometimes -- perhaps men don't understand. it is a daily regular thing that women think about all the time throughout their lives often regardless of circumstances. often if they're not having sex, if they don't have active sex lives they need to avail themselves of contraception. it is the degree to which the issue of controlling reproduction is something that affects all women out there. it's something i don't think that can be overstated enough. it is a daily issue affecting a woman's body. >> you're arguing there's a substantive centrality to the issue greater than the political carving? >> yes. i agree there are all kinds of other things that women should be and ought to be getting through my belief for free. >> this is just the start,

america. i want to make a point about the politics particularly around abortion and choice. that's important in this respect. right after this break. [ male announcer ] when this hotel added aflac

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the supreme court decision, finding a right to privacy in the constitution? >> i tonight believe they decided that correctly. in my view roe v. wade was improperly decided. it was based on that same principle. in my view if we had justices like roberts, alito, roberts and scalia and more justices like that they might decide to turn this to states as opposed to saying it's in the constitution. do i believe supreme courts should overturn roe v. wade, yes, i do. >> that's mitt romney speaking about his judicial vision for the supreme court in january. just one point i want to make piggybacking off what you said, father. is that, you know, i want to

make sure in the liberal bubble sometimes we can conflate women's issues and women's preferences with pro choice. it's important to say that there are millions and millions and millions of women who are very vehemently opposed to abortion. abortion sometimes in all cases. the polling on this, there is a gender gap in the polling. it's also the case that there are literally tens of millions of women who have that belief. i don't want to faltd into the trap liberals do and we say women and obviously women and choice go together. that is not always the case. >> it's also true that fetuses are not gender neutral. more than half are little girls. >> absolutely. >> personalizing the fetus -- >> but the fetus vis-a-vis the woman. the focusing and the platform being on the fetus rather than on the woman. why not talk about both if that is a concern. that was a question that i had. >> patrick, this issue on the blunt amendment, what's fascinating about it, it's fascinating that it's now here center piece in this debate

because it actually did begin, it was a little seed planted in a bureaucratic bed of soil, right? it was a provision in the affordable care act about cost and cost containment and the wisdom of comprehensive preventive care because it's better to give people free checkups. you don't want to incentive advise people to get free checkups. >> all the free things rebecca wanted. >> that's right. but it has now become a real political issue. do you think you have the political upper hand, for lack of a better word, for this issue on the contraception ruling? >> it's an issue that has become part of the conversation in this campaign, but it's not a political issue for us. if you don't mind, chris, i want to go back to the video that you just showed a second ago to lead us into this conversation. it was one of the few moments in the course of the last year or so where there's been no on fuss skags from mitt romney when he answered the question of whether or not he believes roe versus wade should be repealed.

he was 100% clear. he said absolutely should be. so despite what he is now saying on stage about his judicial appointment, despite what he's saying about what he stands on broader issue of choice in the instance of rape and incest, he was incredibly clear in that one moment. i think it's our responsibility to hold him accountable for it. >> i'm taking the con temporaryian view on litmus tests. if you viewer at home believe roe should be overturned, you should vote one way. obviously not one issue. no one should be fooling themselves where the parties are. everyone should be very clear about what they're going to get. the other big moment in that debate having to do with women's issues is the now infamous binders full of women and here's mitt romney. i actually didn't think it was as laughable or ri did i kul

worthy it has developed into. this is the moment. >> as i was serving as governor of my state because i had the chance to pull together a cabinet and all of the applicants seemed to be men. and i went to my staff and i said, how come all the people for these jobs are all men? so we took a concerted effort to go out and find women who had backgrounds that could be qualified to become members of our cabinet. i went to a number of women's groups and said, can you help us find folks? i brought binders full of women. >> that's the binders full of women. so i want to bring in now lauren ritlene who is a bipartisan group of women's group working to increase the number of women in the women's group. she vetted potential candidates for cabinet positions and she actually put together the now infamous binder full of women. >> binders full of women. >> yes. i was going to ask you about

snarky questions about what brand, trapper keeper, did you reinforce it. can you tell me about the context for this? it sort of captured people's imagination. i thought it was a good argument in favor of what we generally call affirmative action, which is making an affirmative effort to make sure that you are recruiting and finding qualified people from outside the small narrow world of white men. what was the actual circumstances that produced these binders? >> well, in 2002 while the race was going on between then candidate romney and candidate shannon o'brien, a coalition of women's organizations led by what's called massgap, massachusetts government appointments project sought to -- got together and said, we have to change the paradigm here in terms of the number of women in state government in leadership roles. and we created a pledge.

we went to both candidates and said, if we work together and if we go out and find as a group of very dedicated women, if we go out and recruit high level women and then interview, vet, and provide you the product of that effort, would you commit to work with us and make your cabinet reflective of the number of women in massachusetts, which was around 52% at that time. what we were doing was an effort to make a process by which both candidates would agree to increase the number of women in the cabinet, make a commitment of close to half. >> i want to get your response to what you thought when this came up in the debate and the reaction to it and i want to hear also how this worked. i mean, was this a successful effort and have the panel weigh in right after this. based on this chart ? don't rush into it, i'm not looking for the fastest answer. obviously verizon.

okay, i have a different chart. going that way, does that make a difference ? look at verizon. it's so much more than the other ones. so what if we just changed the format altogether ? isn't that the exact same thing ? it's pretty clear. still sticking with verizon. verizon. more 4g lte coverage than all other networks combined. but with advair, i'm breathing better. so now i can be in the scene. advair is clinically proven to help significantly improve lung function. unlike most copd medications, advair contains both an anti-inflammatory and a long-acting bronchodilator working together to help improve your lung function all day. advair won't replace fast-acting inhalers for sudden symptoms and should not be used more than twice a day. people with copd taking advair may have a higher chance of pneumonia. advair may increase your risk of osteoporosis and some eye problems. tell your doctor if you have a heart condition

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we're talking about the

binders full of women issue, and i want to ask you, what was your reaction when it came up in the debate and was mitt romney misleading insofar as he made it sound like this was an affirmative choice that he made? >> well, i mean, i think for those of us who were involved in the process when it came up in the debate and we heard it, of course we all had a very similar reaction which is we were there so we understand how it came about. there's no question that it came about as an affirmative process created by massgap prior to the actual election of the governor. at the same time, one of the things that we all care about is that when we have these kinds of discussions we also focus on why is it we are at this point in time, whether it's 2002 or 2012 where we still have to create

massive processes to get women into higher appointed position and if we don't pay attention and keep counting the metrics, those metrics drop. i think the larger conversation is a conversation that we need to have and we're not having. >> yeah. it's a great point. patrick, i want you to -- it has become this point of ridicule. it's a punch line on the president's stump speech. why the big deal? >> the process as described by lauren should not be ridiculed. it's to the governor's credit that the lieutenant governor was assigned to take this very seriously and work to massgap to make sure that women are represented in government. that response was ridiculed because it was responding to the pay equity law. the vice presidential nominee voted against it. if you go back to that tape for a second, think about it for a second. mitt romney becomes governor, 2002. he's not a 20-year-old man. he's been in private business in

that state for 25 years and yet someone has to come to him with binders full of women in order to be able to identify women in leadership. >> it was insulting, binders full of women, and it botched the story. he brings up the larger issue of descriptive representation. chris, you brought this up earlier. women, if we look at elected office, less than 1/4 of all of our elected bodies are made up of women. this gets into the issue of making decisions for women's hell care, economic welfare. i think he did bring up an important position and this is something we need to look at in addition to issues such as contraception and the lily ledbetter act. >> very complicated issue. it is a question, why do we have trouble in this day and age, but it probably isn't just because no one wants to have women around or men who are in control don't want to have women around. during the break you were saying that you were upset that this came up in the context of his talking about people needing to make dinner at 5:00. the reality is and we see this

in the legal pro feks. women are graduating at majority rates from top law schools. >> that's not true anymore, actually. >> is it not true? but it's close. >> that's not true anymore. the number of women in law schools has been declining since 2002. it's becoming a crisis in terms of that issue. you and i are in the same profession so that is -- the numbers are dropping. when we talk about pay equity, i think the biggest problem is the specific question wasn't answered. in 2010 congress had an opportunity to vote on pay equity and that vote was kept from floor discussion. and yet why is it not front and center today for everybody who's running for office to say, would you support a law to create economic parity for men and women? how is it that becomes a women's issue as opposed to an economic

issue at the time when the majority of households are dual income earners. >> let me make a clarifying statement here. it did not in any way actually mandate pay equity. what it did was -- >> no, no, no. >> i know you know that. i just want to make sure viewers know that. i think there's a little confusion about what the substance is. it provides a statutory provision that had been the subject of a supreme court ruling in which lily ledbetter, who is the plaintiff in that case, only discovered the equity problem years and years and years after it had begun and the court said she couldn't sue because she had missed the window of raising the issue. what the lily ledbetter pay act said, it keeps the window open. as soon as you find out it's been going on, it's not a question of when you started getting screwed. it's as soon as you find out you're getting screwed on pay you can raise it. i want people to be clear. >> you can raise it. there's no guaranteed results.

>> there isn't a law in america mandating pay equity. >> that's right. and that's what in 2010 the paycheck fairness act was all about. that would have been the follow-up to lily ledbetter that would have created pay equity. >> it's interesting that romney has drawn apart from this. he's saying obama is wagging economic war on women. this would fit in well. >> the pay equity stuff, they don't want the paycheck fairness kt. i want to talk more about paycheck fairness right after this quick break. by bright eyes

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response was mitt romney said, and the other thing that i -- the reason that i'm sort of plugged into the issues and recognize it was that we had women who were working for us. we realized we had to be flexible so she could get home and make dinner. let me quickly give the statistic to close the loop on this conversation. rebecca, you have something you want to say i know. 42% of plrm's senior officials in his first two years of office, that dropped off in his final two years, i think, lauren, it goes to your point about maintaining vigilance in the face of this. rebecca on this flex time question, what was your response? >> that was the part more than the binders, that was the part of his answer that seemed to me reflective of some of romney's attitudes about gender in the work force. when you have women in the work force, we understand they have special needs. they have to leave at 5:00 to go cook dinner for their kids. he called out his chief of staff. for example, my chief of staff had two young children at home. now would he have said that if his chief of staff had been a

man who had two young children at home. he was treating the women that he was working with, if you're a female working, your responsibilities to your young children will make you a special case in the work force. this is the root of part of pay inequity. if you're a woman, you have to specially divide your time but if you're a man you just work and you don't need to go home and cook dinner for your family. this situates him five decades ago when women were responsible for putting a hot meal on the table at 5:00. >> which is early. i like to eat a little later. >> so it, a, sort of positions him several decades ago and, b, is precisely the problem that he failed to address in his answer about pay equity. >> let me come to the defense of mitt romney a little bit here. >> better off. >> you defend. >> i understand the fact that this is a special case. i get that. but the fact that he brought it up because you can't address the issue of women trying to multi-task unless we bring it

up. he brought it to the forefront. >> yes, he brought it up as a way of avoiding the question. >> i don't deny that. >> trying to get a badge of honor for allowing his staff to go home early. >> the fact that it has come up and we're not just talking about abortion and contraception, but we're also talking about time management and how women can juggle all of these things. >> to suggest that that's a woman's unique responsibility. >> lauren, please. >> thank you. i think the problem is that when we personalize his chief of staff, this individual we take away from the larger point. one of the critical larger points here is that we are facing a new generation coming into the workplace in which the issues of raising children actively being part of who cooks dinner and who cleans the house is a gender neutral issue. we have a workplace that is completely ill equipped to be able to address that very changing demographic. >> that's the conversation -- >> that's another whole issue we have to talk about. >> that's a conversation i was trying to make a rare feminist

point for catholic priests to make. feminism could enrich this conversation by not describing it. you can't reduce it to the fair pay act. if we go back to this political event that happened, that's a pretty narrow point about statute of limitations. you can argue it either way. >> that was a pointed question that was put to the candidates. >> i understand. but the issue is a much richer issue than that. whether mitt romney's way of talking about it -- we do politics by anecdote now. his raising of chief of staff was somewhat time bound by his age. >> it has become a trope for mitt romney and paul ryan. on afghanistan, paul ryan was asked about afghanistan. there's someone who i grew up with served there. it's good. it's good he had that relationship. the request he is are you going to get out of afghanistan in 2014. there is a policy i shassue on table. >> this particular question was pointed. the very thing i was praising

barack obama for which was pointing out that pay equity has to do with college, contraception, health care. >> they all tie in together. >> yes. >> how you control how many children you have is also going to affect how you work. >> part of the reason i love doing this show on the weekends is the way the schedule works out is that i have a lot of time with my daughter during the part of the week and so i have an extremely non-traditional work schedule right now which in some ways is weird and bad but in other ways it means that mariah and i get to chill. thank you for joining us, appreciate it. rebecca tracer, great to have you as always. >> great to see you. president obama and mitt romney swear their undying faithfulness to coal. my story of the week is next. [ laughing ] [ laughing ] [ laughing ]

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ask your doctor about novolog mix 70/30 flexpen, covered by 90% of insurance plans, including medicare. find your co-pay at myflexpen.com. all right. my story of the week. the climate silence at the debate. four years ago when barack obama and john mccain met for a town

hall debate they met as two men who each accepted the scientific consensus that fossil fuels are warming our planet. they met as two candidates with competing plans to deal with this challenge. their plans differed on the details. over the course of the evening they were even asked a direct question about the issue. >> i want to know what you would do within the first two years to make sure that congress moves fast as far as environmental issues like climate change and green jobs. >> we can move forward and clean up our climate and develop green technologies and at turn native energies. >> and we're not going to be able to deal with the climate crisis if our only solution is to use more fossil fuels that create global warming. >> in the wake of this week's debate, that moment in 2008 seems like something excavated from the ruins of a destroyed civilization. despite the fact that this past september was tied to the warm he was in the 132 year history of recordkeeping, the word climate crossed neither candidate's lips nor was it

mentioned by moderator candy crowley or the audience. crowley explained the omission of the issue this way. >> you culled through all of these questions that these undeclared voters brought in this morning. i know that this was such a big concern of yours. how did you decide which ones to choose? >> we wanted to cover subjects that maybe folks hadn't heard about but still were interested in. >> immigration, gun control. >> and women's issues were the three big ones. climate change, i had that question for all of you climate change people, we just, you know, again -- we knew that the economy was still the main thing. >> climate change people is a revealing phrase. it suggests that climate is a boo teeing issue like nimby opposition to a development down the block or advocating for the metric system. i can't blame crowley for the omission because they talked about the related and entirely inseparable issue of energy and

had the opportunity to mention it. instead, the entire debate about energy, such as it was, was a debate about who can most ruthlessly get every last ounce of fossilized carbon sitting beneath the continent. >> we're drilling more on public lands than in the previous administration. >> i will fight for all coal and natural gas. >> go after natural gas. >> more drilling, more permits and licenses. >> increase oil production. >> drilling offshore in alaska. drilling offshore in virginia. >> we built enough pipeline to wrap right hand around the entire earth. >> the most unintentionally hilarious moments, mitt romney was asked by a voter to say how he was different from george bush. romney a voighted the answer by litigating barack obama. he began to list his differences with bush and remarkably his number one difference with

george w. bush, the thing he started with, the very first difference he listed was that unlike bush, he, mitt romney, was really enthusiastic about fossil fuel extraction. under george w bush we hadn't succeeded from scraping every last carbon. but under romney we would sink a drill and mine across every last surface across this great land. >> what is the biggest difference between you and george w. bush and how do you differ and shape yourself from george b. bush. >> president bush and i are different people and these are different times. that's why my five point plan is so different than what he would have done. we can now by virtue of new technology get all the energy we need in north america without having to go to the arabs, the venezuelans or anybody else. that's why my policy starts with a very robust policy to get all of the energy in north america. >> imagine for a moment if the

discussion of national dent and long term deficits, if they competed about who would increase the rate of health care costs the fastest and push interest rates up the most. this was roughly what the energy debate was like. and yet the politics of this aren't as logic defying as the subject. right now it is looking more and more likely the outcome of this election will come down to ohio. more specifically, the voters in the southeastern portion of the state that is coal country. the people who work in that industry are understand bli worried about their future and their livelihood. coal has had a bit of a rough stretch over the last few years as it makes up a shrinking portion of our domestic energy consumption. the inconvenient truth is that there is a war on coal but it's not being waged by the obama administration. the relent lgs assault on coal is coming from the natural gas industry. it can now produce energy that's relatively cleaner and cheaper than coal. the folks whose livelyhoods depend on the antique planet endangering technology of coal

and the 1 percenters who own the mines are spooked. we have this asymmetry of passion. on one side of the ledger a concentrated interest of voters who care in a near life and death way of the exploitation of dirty energy and on the other side a weak nonchalant preference for us to do something about the whole climate change thing. barack obama isn't going to rectify this imbalance. the only way to get a sustained climate debate is international conversation is to create a cadre of citizens who will balance that ledger who care about saving the planet from ruins as those on the other side do about their industry. they see and understand just as viscerally as the other side that, yes, this is a life or death issue. not for one industry, region or state but for the planet and every single person we love who lives on it. i want to talk to my panel about where democrats are on this right after this. th the spark cd from capital one, olaf's pizza palace gets the most rewards of any small business credit card! pizza!!!!! [ garth ] olaf's small business earns 2% cash back

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joining me now at the table is tyson slow couple, the

director of the public system energy program which focuses on climate change, coal, fracking, other renewable energies. tyson, what was your response to watching the debate, specifically the energy portion of the debate? >> it's really disappointing that the attitudes and opinions of a vast majority of americans, a recent yale poll shows that they understand that global warming is real and people understand that humans from burning fossil fuels is the cause. those opinions are not being adequately reflected in this debate. what we have to understand is that the science behind climate change is compelling, the politics and economics of energy policy is what's dominating things. in 2012 the united states is the largest fossil fuel producer on the planet and that means that we've got huge corporations here in the united states making a killing extracting fossil fuels and benefitting from the status quo. so they have mobilized an

unprecedented political operation aided by citizens united so they saturate the air waves and inform citizens on the fossil fuel version of energy reality that is completely distanced from what we need to do because while it is clear that there are a lot of people that are employed by the fossil fuel industry, there are more americans that are harmed by the burning of fossil fuels and fossil fuels are going to become increasingly expensive. we no longer can afford the status quo from a consumer standpoint or from a climate standpoint. >> i'm not sure if i'm sold on the increasingly expensive particularly as natural gas is concerned because natural gas is -- what's happening with natural gas is remarkable. it's unlike anything i've ever seen in energy markets ever or even in any other market aside from maybe like personal computers. >> until we have a bp deep water horizon in someone's aquifer, and that's the issue is can we trust -- >> very true. >> -- these companies in a lightly regulated environment to

do the right thing? i don't. >> two interesting pieces of data. then, patrick, i want you to talk about the president's record because he didn't talk about it explicitly. we've seen a doubling in our renewables. it went from 3 to 6%. we're hitting the wind energy targets that were projected out to 2040 already. this is an amazing paradox, right? as climate has lurched backwards in the political debate, emissions have come down quite a bit. we now have a carbon emissions in 2012 at the 1990 levels. now this is a result of two things. massive economic contraction, which is that first dip there in '08, and then the natural gas boom and the way that natural gas has btu for btu replaced coal and emits much less. patrick, is it an explicit political strategy to not talk about climate? >> no, it absolutely is not. i want to point you back to the most important speech that the president's made during the

entire election cycle, which is the convention speech in north carolina where he explicitly talked about climate change and actually pushed back against republicans who were rid did i calling the science of climate change in their convention. to go back to the clip that you showed. >> sure. >> chris, in all fairness to the president, that was one little snippet where he actually talks about our need. >> he talked about renewable. >> he talked about wind, solar, bio fuels. that was just one part of his response. but i actually want to go back to what tyson was saying about the percentage of americans who are concerned be about this issue and i want to go back to a stirring homily, the father is getting envious that you opened the segment with. 70% of americans do express some concerns over this issue, but i would just suggest that somebody who came up through organizing in my community and my union and working for collective actions, that the movement on the ground

in the state isn't commensurate with the numbers that you just made mention of. there's got to be a way that one builds the kind of core constituency to hold washington, d.c., account annual. >> >> this is diffuse. 60% of people brings it up, are you worried about climate? sure. then there's concentrated but passionate resistance on the other side. when you have that equation, we see it in a whole bunch of issues, farm subsidies are the example. you can get all the reports you want and you can talk about how all the farm subsidy doesn't make sense, but there's a small group of people that it makes sense to. >> it's more concentrated. ohio, it's a swing state, you're looking for the actual votes. contextually, you pull it out, we're still struggling. when people rank it, it may be an issue of concern, but ranking wise it's jobs and the economy. finally, we were talking about lobbying interests.

>> right. >> they have the power to go in there. it was interesting to see the rah, rah on both sides. >> i want to talk about coal specifically. coal has become a center piece of the campaign. i want to talk to someone who spent his life working in coal, a representative from the united mine workers right after this. my doctor told me calcium is efficiently absorbed in small continuous amounts. citracal slow release continuously releases calcium plus d with efficient absorption in one daily dose. citracal slow release. oh, hey alex. just picking up some, brochures, posters copies of my acceptance speech. great! it's always good to have a backup plan, in case i get hit by a meteor. wow, your hair looks great. didn't realize they did photoshop here. hey, good call on those mugs.

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northrop grumman. good morning from new york. i'm chris hayes here with patrick gaspar. tyson slocum, father bill daley from the university of notre dame and msnbc contributor victoria de francesco. we've seen terrain both candidates wanted to talk about. it's clear that there's political traction there, that both campaigns think there are

votes to be had in talking about the energy record, and yet as i noted in the previous hour if you just joined us, climate was totally absent. tyson, you talked about the president's agenda in 2008 in terms of this issue. >> it was remarkable. in 2008 obama campaigned on specifically addressing climate change by putting forward a proposal that would cap emissions, that would require companies to buy permits, that government would collect a revenue from those permits and 80% of that revenue would be kicked back to families in terms of a global warming tax cut with another 15% or 20% left over for deployment, investment in renewables, efficiency. that was an easily explainable plan that the president put together. he talked about how it was relevant and would benefit working families. what happened as we went from the campaign to the sausage making in congress, they put

together a complex cap and trade. inside the beltway people put together the details and it no longer had the relevance. >> we should be clear. they did it because they wanted to essentially deal in the fossil fuel interests who otherwise they thought would kill the bill so they tried to create these kind of compromises with them and you ended up with something that was very complex and hard to explain as opposed to cap and dividend which is what you're talking about. we put a price on carbon, we write you, meshes, a check. that's what happened with alaskan oil. this is the way alaska's oil resources work is that the state basically writes every alaska -- bill in alaska, you get a check from the oil revenues that come from alaska. coal, why does coal keep coming up? why is that such a big issue? >> because of its presence in swing states. electric utilities, even though coal is declining as a source of

fuel in the electric power sector, there are enough utilities in key states that use it and they are lobbying along with coal mining companies. but you have to remember that coal exports are at record highs, right? most of that's going to europe. a lot of it's going to asia. but the point is we're not seeing enough renewable deployment and if we're going to really transition our economy and prioritize clean air and clean water, we've got to move towards coal. >> sorry. in 2000, 52% of u.s. electricity came from coal. by 2012 it's down to 36%. in terms of what share of our elections is produced by coal. we're exporting more. >> coal jobs have grown by 5%. it's interesting we're having this debate whether or not there's over regulation. the job industry is up by 5%. >> this past year hit a high

water mark in the last five or six years for coal employment. speaking of coal employment, i want to bring in mike caputo. he's vice president of the united mine workers of north america. he represents ohio and west virginia. mike, thanks so much for joining us this morning. i wanted to get your sense of what role you see coal playing in this election right now. >> well, thank you, chris. first of all, thank you for allowing me to be on your show to represent our membership in southeastern ohio and west virginia. you know, we're very, very concerned about the future of our industry. coal has been a very abundant, reliable, affordable source of energy for this country for quite a long time, and it's still at about the 40% level when it comes to energy production in our country. so coal isn't going away any time soon, but we don't want to argue the science of climate change. we do think that congress needs to help us in advancing clean coal technology so that our

members and coal miners all across this country can have a future. when you take away an industry such as coal mining from a community, you know, that may not seem like a big deal across the country or as far as washington politics go, but you're talking about anywhere from a miner making 70 to $100,000 a year, having excellent health care and excellent benefits, and not only does that family of that miner depend on this living but the entire community depends on it. we're talking about people who work at the machine shops, the rebuild shops, people who actually own the general store on the corner. a lot of money is pumped into the economy of coal-filled communities because of coal mining. you know, we can look across the country and we can see these wind farms and things like that, but if you look at the real jobs that those create, they're

minuscule compared to coal mining communities. it's a way of life for us. we greatly depend on it. >> one of the ironies here, forget about barack obama, forget about climate change, there's been -- the level of coal production and level of coal employment have been moving in opposite directions for years. we have a graph to show. coal has gone from very labor intensive to a capital intensive process, partly because of mountain top renewal. if you go back to 1993, that on the left part of your screen is employment in coal. the red bar graphs fall off the cliff. on the left part is coal production. we've produced more and more coal with fewer and fewer people. you see it does tick up in 2011. isn't that a bigger issue in terms of employment in terms of this as a source of jobs, the fact that the way the industry is moving, particularly with mountain top removal, means there's less and less need for your members? >> well, i respectfully disagree with that. i think technology and the industry will level itself out.

you're absolutely right, back in the 1920s we used to mine coal with picks and shovels. now we have long wall mining, we have advanced mining technologies in both underground and surface operations which brought coal -- we had to keep up with the pace of abundance and affordability and mek ckan ncan m my -- mek canization has done that throughout the years. many families depend on that to sustain their life and kmub nis tis. >> tyson, i want you to respond. obviously i'm very passionate about climate and coal in terms of -- you know, in some ways is the enemy. i don't mean the people that work in the coal, i mean the actual carbon that the coal emits. at the same time it's easy for me in brooklyn to talk about this. it's not my livelihood on the line. when we talk about this future that we're going to have for energy, what do you say to someone like mike? what is the message here for the folks that are -- whose livelihoods do depend on that

and are thinking about that as they go to the voting booths? >> first, it is important to know that burning goal is the number one source of greenhouse gas emissions in the united states. in addition, there are a lot of discrete environmental problems with burning coal, higher rates of asthma and other sicknesses especially for the elderly and the children. when you talk to communities around coal power plants, they have a number of concerns. that's why so many proposed coal-fired power plants have been canceled. we still have a democracy where people can have input. obama in the stimulus bill had $58 million for coal allocation for clean coal. they want to try to reduce the amount of emissions, but the problem is that technology is enormously expensive, it is still in the laboratory and the drawing board stages and it is nowhere close to completion. right now it's on the design level. >> it's carbon capture technology specifically is what

it is. it means you emit the carbon but you get it before it goes in the atmosphere and you put it beneath your surface. >> that's right. >> this's only one plant in which this is projected to be actually implemented which i think is in mississippi. it's been plagued by tremendous cost overruns. there is right now, we should say, clean coal, coal produced with this carbon see questions administration process produces zero%. >> the question is is it affordable? not when you look at where the cost curve for wind and solar have been heading. they have been plummeting at the same time these new technologies stuff as carbon sequestration for coal have been escalating. if you look at where the united states needs to position itself for the future of energy production, it has to be with renewable. i sympathize with the plight of -- >> let me get patrick here. i'm going to go to you, mike. >> let's go to mike because he

represents thousands of people. >> mike, respond. >> we certainly believe there's room for renewables along with coal production and burning of coal for power. you know, i've been in this industry since i was 19 years old. i started shortly after high school. i started working in the mines. i worked there 20 years. i've been working for the union for the last 16. i lived in a community where you could literally throw a rock from my house and hit a coal burning power plant and i don't know anybody in my community that suffered from that quite frankly. the community pros sperd. we grew up in a great neighborhood. it just amazes me that people from new york and across this country that really want to just shut our industry down. coal miners are -- they love the outdoors. they love clean water. they love clean air. they love to take their family out and enjoy the outdoors. we have came a long way in this industry. i came from when i was a young

boy growing up in readsville, west virginia, to watching black smoke beller out of stacks to seeing nothing coming out of those. the water is clean now. we've came a long way. do we have some hurdles to clear at this point? absolutely we do. and we're willing to clear those. we just need some time to get there. you know, we have some people on the opposite side of this issue that just basically want to see this industry come to a screeching halt, and i think that we can do both. coal has been good for west virginia, ohio, and america, and i think we can continue to use it as an energy resource. >> patrick? >> mike, if i could jump in. mike, i have a tremendous amount of respect for you and the president of the mine workers, i think you all ought to be applauded for working with the administration and the industry to make sure that we move billions of dollars into clean coal research and development. i wonder if there's not a different kind of conversation that we need to encourage between you and tyson. tyson expressed sympathy for the workers in the mines.

we need more than just sympathy. we need some kind of collaboration between the two of you, mike, to you, it's a little disingenuous to suggest that there haven't been health and safety issues as a result of coal. those issues for your own workers. we know that -- tyson, you know, of course, there are communities that will thrive or not based on the revolution that's taking place in that industry. >> this is true obamaism, ladies and gentlemen. bringing both sides together. it's true. the reason i want to have you in part of this conversation is because, you know, i -- we -- this is something we've got to solve, right? we've got to solve it with everyone at the table. it can't be railroading through the people that are running the general store in southeastern ohio. father bill? >> you asked about this. >> our union has always been willing to come to the table. >> three c words. you asked why was coal part of the change and climate change not? coal is iconic. we talked to some surprise that it's 88,000,000 members of the united mine workers. seemed like a low number.

it's iconic it's in swing states. it's representative of an economy that i grew up in. my father worked in a steel mill. he lost his job. it connects with the outsourcing conversation. this anxiety that neither party is willing to face up to. can we return to the economy of the 1960s, '70s, whenever you want to pick an ideal point. i would push back on your modest defense of candy crowley. the other c word i've been asked on the show to talk about contraception. i'm happy to talk about religious freedom and why we shouldn't have to pay for contraception. that's a tiny issue that no one can believe is as important as coal or climate change. in the end of a political cycle over nine months that has devoted a lot of time over a side issue says to me that the media hasn't done a very good job of pulling either of these much billinger issues. >> father daily putting the system on trial.

mike caputo, thanks so much for joining us this morning. if you're ever in new york, i'd love to have you here at the table. >> i would love to do that. thank you for having us. >> tyson slocum, thank you for joining us. >> my pleasure. >> as well, more news on a story we broke last week. the ceo who asked his employees to vote for mitt romney. up next. by 2025 we could have 20 million jobs without enough college graduates to fill them. that's why at devry university, we're teaming up with companies like cisco to help make sure everyone's ready with the know how we need for a new tomorrow. [ male announcer ] make sure america's ready. make sure you're ready. at devry.edu/knowhow. ♪

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we reported last week on an e-mail we obtained sent by arthur allen, the ceo of asc software solutions. he sent it to his 1300 employees asking for them to vote to mitt romney suggesting their jobs may be at stake if romney doesn't win. we have obtained another e-mail from allen, a long time supporter and donor of

republican campaigns going further than asking for votes. this one dated before the day of the republican national conventional len told his employees, quote, i am encouraging everyone to go to the romney for president website and contribute as much as you can to his campaign for president. up to the maximum of $2500 per person. i am also encouraging you to contact all of your friends and relatives and ask them to support romney and go to the polls and vote on election day. afg like many other companies is still struggling after four years. we need to elect a fiscally responsible president. i believe romney and ryan can put us back on the path of sanity. please help asg and yourself by contributing to the romney/ryan campaign. in a third e-mail we have obtained about five weeks after asking his employees to contribute as much as $2500 to the romney campaign, allen asked them to defer, quote, some or all of their salaries until

december to help the company made a $15 million interest payment. as allen noted, many asg employees have already been on a four day work week. in a statement to "up with chris hayes" asg said asg software solutions is a privately held company and reserves the right to be honest and forthright with all employees about the future. we have always championed open communications and on monday employees will be encouraged to provide feedback in a confidential forum. earlier this year allen taughted his use of the company jet cost which costs more than $50 million. in a special advertisement forbes wrote, configured with 17 streets the gulf stream becomes an airborne hotel, restaurant and conference room. that's where i live 250 days a year allen says. last week we discussed allen isn't alone. dave siegel is infamous for building the largest house in

the country threatened to shut down his business. he sent ntszs to his employees suggesting they boat republican. mitt romney told business owners they should be telling their employees how to vote. >> i hope you make it very clear to your employees what you believe is in the best interest of your enterprise and, therefore, their job and their future in the upcoming elections. and whether you agree with me or you agree with president obama or whatever your political view, i hope you pass those along to your employees. nothing illegal about you talking to your employees about what you believe is best for the business because i think that will figure in to their election decision, their voting decision. >> we will, of course, post all of those asg e-mails and their statement on our website at up with chris on msnbc.com. jo workers that work for a company owned by bain capital

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our building neighbors, the roots. their latest album is fantastic. on tuesday's debate, president obama and mitt romney had one of the test iest debates of the night. the exchange began on the issue of outsourcing jobs to china. >> keep in mind that governor romney invested in companies that were pioneers of outsourcing to china. and is currently investing in countries -- in companies that are building surveillance equipment for china to spy on its own folks. that's -- governor, you're the last person who's going to get tough on china. >> any investments i have over the last eight years have been managed by a blind trust. i understand they do include

investments outside the united states including in chinese companies. mr. president, have you looked at your pension? >> i've got to say. >> mr. president, have you looked at your pension? >> you know, i don't look at my pension. it's not as big as yours. >> let me give you some advice. >> i don't check it that often. >> let me give you some advice. look at your pension. you also have investments in chinese companies. you also have investments outside of the united states. you also have investments -- >> both romney and obama do have money invested in foreign companies. let's walk through it. romney has millions of dollars in several funds controlled by his former private equity firm bain capital. they invest that money in chinese companies. president obama, on the other hand, has between 50 and 100,000 in an illinois retirement fund from his time there. they invest in chinese companies as well. those accusations a lie to the core issue that ignited the exchange in the first place. romney has, indeed, invested in companies that have off shored

american jobs. he's invested in one company that prepares to off shore american manufacturing jobs as we speak. mitt romney has as much as $8 million in a series of baip capital funds with a controlling stake in a company called sensada technologies. bain capital took over sensada in 2006 and sensada bought a factory in freeport, illinois. in the year since sensada has been very profitable. they reported net revenue of over $1.8 billion and adjusted net income of $355 million in 2011. they say that represents record levels for the company. despite sensata's financial success, the bain capital controlled company is preepgs to transfer 170 jobs to chung suh province in china. they've been following romney on the campaign trail including at the debate in hem stead.

they're asking romney to intervene to stop the off shoring of their jobs. the romney campaign has responded to say that romney has no control over what bain capital did. patrick is back with us. joining us are christian freeland and author of the plutocrats. i have not read it and i am hearing amazing things. tom galrada who has worked at the sensata plant. it's great to have you all here. tom, i want to start with you. this story has been bubbling up a lot in social media. you guys have set up an encampment outside the camp calling it bainport. tell me your story. what do you do, when did you find out you were going to lose your job? >> we make very high tech auto sensors, and it's not like you're sitting there snapping

together parts. this is very, very expensive equipment, very high tech. these people are very skilled and when they took over the plant they called everybody together for a meeting and they said, okay, here's our transition team. they introduced three people. >> this is when sensata took over the plant? >> exactly. they said, oh, by the way, all the jobs are going to be gone by the end of 2012. and you could have heard a pin drop because we make the absolute best parts in the world in that plant and it's been unbelievably profitable for both honeywell and for sensata. we're like dumfounded. we don't understand what's going on. and later on then we found out that the chinese government was building them a plant in china for them to move the jobs there. >> sensata, the plant was built by the state of china. this gets to the point that china engages in a ton of

industrial policy, things like that. >> right. >> this was two years ago. >> yes. >> you guys -- they've moved the equipment out. at some point the chinese engineers came and all of you who are about to see your jobs go were in somewhat awkward, surreal position of training them? >> right. they brought them in. the vast -- for the most part they were very nice. we don't blame them for what's going on. the thing we did notice though is they didn't really pay attention to what they were doing, they didn't pay attention to what they were being trained. they were busy playing with their laptops and doing things they can't do in china. >> right. right. >> when this gets to china they're going to have a lot of quality issues and we want to stress that to people, that if these parts fail, your car's going to stop. and this can be a safety issue. and it's also expensive. it's a $4 part but you have to

take the chance mission out to replace it. >> you and your fellow workers, the jig is up at the end of the year. before the election day. november 5th. >> well, they want the plant completely closed the last we heard was december 21st. a merry christmas present for everybody. personally, my job is scheduled to go away on november 5th. >> what -- why is this -- why is mitt romney involved in this at all? you know, people are going to say, so what. so he has money invested. barack obama has money in his pension funds. what can mitt romney possibly do? why are you targeting him? why do you want him to intervene? >> okay. because the way we look at it is that the bain capital board has made their decision. the sensata ceo has made his decision. the only person who can affect this is the largest shareholder in bain, who's mitt romney. he had the nerve to stand up in

janesville, wisconsin, less than an hour drive behind us and stand behind a podium and say jobs are a top priority and talk about getting tough on china and his company that he's the only ceo they've ever had is moving it there, is moving my job to china and 169 other people. you know, they're destroying our american dream purely for greed. and it's just absolutely outrageous and the hypocrisy of this man and the people that are elected is just mind boggling. >> i want to zoom out a little bit on this discussion. because what's happened to you has happened to companies -- has happened to workers all across the country. >> exactly. >> put it in context what the obama administration is on this. we'll have that right after we take a break. [ to the tune of "lullaby and good night" ] ♪ af-lac ♪ aflac

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did bain do to help is get started? >> i think when bain came in, our standards raised. >> mitt romney knew how to motivate people. he was a people person. >> mitt romney actually did help me build this business. >> mitt romney cautiously led us to a very successful future. >> very glowing video about bain capital's record. that was shown at the republican national convention. very different side of bain from your story, tom, about your job now being sent to china at the end of the year. i want to zoom out for a second because what's going on to you and through bani and sensata is part of a larger trend, right, chris and thea. you spend a lot of time thinking about this. i want to read you something from ed connard. he's been a guest on this show. this is him talking about the

economic logic of off shoring. let's not kid ourselves about how cheap off shore labor is. we also avoid the costs we would incur if these workers immigrated here. we don't pay for their medical expenses, we don't pay for their pension dosts, they don't save for retirement. we don't pay for their unemployment benefits, out of wedlock children, their slip and fall tort, their wear and tear on our public infrastructure, and the cost of drunk driving and other crimes. we outsource pollution, and its cleanup costs, neither of the employees and employers are here to seek political handouts. what's your response to that articulation of the logic? >> it goes to show they're arrogant. you know, we'll do all the negative things somewhere else and we'll take the money out. you know, they had the romney video where he's talking about harvesting companies and that's exactly what they do. they take all the good out and

leave this mess behind them and if they can do it someplace where they don't have problems with regulations or anything like that, they're all the happier and that's why you see them screaming about they want to get rid of regulations here. they would love to see that situation here where they don't have to move it or they can just dump whatever they want in the water. >> bring china here. >> i think the real point is how shortsighted this view is. it's bad for business as well as bad for american workers because if you don't invest in infrastructure, education, skills, cleaning up pollution, you're going to end up in a globe that is really hideous and there aren't any good jobs for american workers. in the end, if american workers don't have good jobs, they're not going to be good consumers for all the crap these guys are producing. it's not even good business. it's greedy. in the long term it's not good business. >> christian, economic logic seems impeccable. when we talked to sensata -- i should say this. if you're watching, bain

capital, sensata, we would have liked a representative at the table. they declined to make anyone available or speak to us on the record but they'll say and people that defend them will say, look, they're going to pay tom's replacement, i don't know, 1/10. >> 99 cents an hour. >> 99 cents an hour and you're making what? >> about 17. >> are they going to sell him a car? >> but the thing -- look. i think that this -- what's happening to tom is the tragedy of western industrialized economies right now. i think it is not being faced squarely by anybody, but i think for us to pretend that this is a short-term thing, that it's going to stop is also really shortsighted. that's kind of ostrich head in the sand. i think that's what's happening now with the global economy is a transition comparable to the industrial revolution. there are huge dislocations and

what makes me really angry about the political response right now is people aren't treating those dislocations seriously. you know, when you think about the response to the industrial revolution, an entire new set of political and social institutions was created. you had the progressive era. you had the trust busting and you had the new deal. we are not -- i don't see anyone as inventive as people were then but to say -- to say that this process can be stopped or reversed i also think is wrong. your point -- yes, it can be shaped. >> and it should be. >> it should be shaped. >> and it should show the fraction of the workers impacted. >> around a progressive table you shouldn't kid yourselves that this can be stopped. >> i'm down the center. >> the point of consumers, thea, is a powerful one. one of the things i write about in my book, which is a big

difference between today's plutocrats and the henry forward era of plutocracy is today's plutocrats are not dependent on their domestic consumers in the way the capitalists of a previous era were. that's a big difference. >> i want to hear if mitt romney -- you can intervene. i want to hear if barack obama can save your job and i want to hear what his record has been on getting tough on china after this break. yes i do. i want you to keep this. it'd be weird. take care. you too. so how did it go? he's upset. [ male announcer ] spend less time at gas stations with best in class fuel economy. it's our most innovative altima ever. now get a $199 per month lease on a 2013 nissan altima. ♪

thea, i want you to respond to what christian was saying. the economic logic of the outsourcing we're seeing in the case of sensata. >> global lieization is not the weather. it is created by the policies we put in place. the question is can we shape globalization in a different direction so it is much more humane and we can put a focus on

american jobs, human rights, environmental protections? we can create a global economy where in this country whether the tax policies on outsourcing that mitt romney supports big tax breaks for outsourcing, whether we enforce our trade laws so that we can enforce against unfair trade practices like tom was talking about where the chinese government is going to subsidize the production of a factory in china and our government needs to make sure that we're investing in the future of this country in building our infrastructure and training our workers and educating our children. we haven't done that. mitt romney doesn't want to do that. >> when you say we haven't done that, right, president barack obama has been the president for the last few years. this is what it beings llooks l me. tough on china, tough on china. gets in, passes nafta. george bush, tough on china. gets in is not tough on china. this seems to me like a troep.

is there any actual distance between mitt romney and barack obama on the issue. >> let's go back to what the actual record is. the last 3 1/2 years thea would be the first to note that there was increased opportunity output in this country by 12%. first increase since about 1996. the president has a real tangible plan to increase manufacturing jobs by another million between now and 2016 and to double our manufacturing exports in this country between now and 2014. if you just -- i want to go back to the conversation we had before about free trade versus fair trade, what the impact is on workers. the ford model. i suggest the dislocation we have now is because of a shift in values. the revolution and the ford model that if you paid your workers a living wage they'd build a community and they would be able to afford and pay for your products and now clearly we have folks who are in charge of these companies who are getting

the bulk of their material advantage resources from overseas. that's the tension that exists here which is exactly why in pursuing policies of fair trade the president just won an important victory from the world trade organization by going after the way in which china supplements its steel industry. there's a way to work without having our head in the sand about whether or not it's -- >> the truth is president obama's done a great job enforcing our trade laws. he brought cases on chinese tires, on the chinese subsidies of energy and on steel. he's won a bunch of them. this is a big contrast to george w. bush. it's also a huge contrast to mitt romney. he stood up when president obama did the chinese tire case and to protect american jobs and he did protect over 1,000 american jobs in the chinese tire industry here in the united states and romney criticized him and said, we're just holding on to unproductive workers. we just need to let those jobs

go, that this is unrealistic. >> i feel like i'm the voice of doom at this table. >> please be. please be. >> the thing that i think we really have to grapple with is the extent to which there has been a decoupling of the economic interests of the people at the very top of the global economy and the middle classes in western industrialized countries. that is a very different political reality from the one we lived in in the 20th century. i think maybe 30 or 40 years from now the world will be back in balance, but right now those economic interests are really, really different. i think that accounts for a lot of the attention you're seeing in the u.s. political debate. i think democrats need to face that squarely and talk about it. >> tom, very quickly. what are your plans? what are you going to be doing? >> actually, i don't know. as part of the trade adjustment act, because of our jobs being off shored, we can go to community college for two years, but i'm 54. in two years i'll be 56. you know, who's going to hire

me? and in our community, in a lot of places in the midwest that were manufacturing communities, despite the best efforts of the local government to try to bring in new business. >> there's not a lot. >> it doesn't exist. the only other large company is actually a tire plant which was saved by president obama in getting tough on chinese tires. >> you are welcome back at this table at any time. i want to thank you coming today. i appreciate your story. i want to thank tom gaulrapp. and thea as well. we'd love to have you both back. what we know now we didn't know last week. my answers after this. now i'm on a bayer aspirin regimen. [ male announcer ] be sure to talk to your doctor before you begin an aspirin regimen. i didn't know this could happen so young. take control, talk to your doctor. we put a week of her family's smelly stuff all in at once

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superior service best selection, lowest price, guaranteed. ♪ sleep train ♪ your ticket to a better night's sleep ♪ >> what do we know now that we didn't know last week? we know that not one, but two federal courts have found the

defense of marriage act unconstitutional. chief judge dennis jacobs issued an opinion for the three-judge panel finding that section 3 of doma that provides marriage for federal purposes as only the legal union between one man and one woman is unconstitutional because it descriminates against gay people and fails to pass the test of heightened scrutiny, which courts use to examine other laws that might discriminate against racial minorities and women. we know that jacobs himself was appointed to the federal bench by president george h.w. bush and is considered a conservative judge. we know the obama administration's decision not to defend doma in the courts was a righteous choice even before this decision. that it looks sounder and sounder every day. we don't know when this issue will hit the supreme court, but we can be certain it will sooner rather than later. despite the absence of any mention of climate disruption in the first three debates, we know that two-thirds of americans say there is solid evidence of global warming, the highest that number has been in five years. we know that the effects of a climate in turmoil are more and more apparent from record heat to drought, and we also know the last month is tied for the

warmest september on record, according to the national oceanic and atmospheric administration. we know that with one party deep in denial on the climate, the only largely silent, it's up to citizens to raise a ruckus if we are going to create a bountiful future. we know one creative way to do that is 350.org's campaign for institutions to divest from fossil fuel companies. can you find out about their thrilling new campaign at 350.org. all right. i want to find out what my guests now know that we didn't know in the beginning of the week, and i will begin with you patrick s. barten of the dnc. >> i now know that the republican party, which tried to lift up all manner of regressive voter suppression laws apparently because they believed there was voter fraud that they didn't have any evidence of. we know they've been engaged in voter fraud. we know the chairman of the republican party hired a company out of arizona that had a long history of defrauding folks who were trying to exercise their franchise, and now they've been caught throwing away voter registration forms in virginia, florida, and ohio as well.

so i know this and i did not know that last week. >> yeah. the throwing away of voter registration forms is pretty -- >> it's rep rehencible. >> well said. >> chris, will you forgive me for shameless self-promotion. shameless self-promotion. we know my book went on sale this week. it is the definitive investigation of the global super elite. these are the people who are pulling away from the middle classes in the entire western industrialized world. i have tried to tell you who they are, how they got there, and crucially how they think, and this is really important if you are a voter. >> you had a great piece about one of these in the new yorker and was getting into this. i just wrote a book also about elites, and i'm really interested in this idea of elite psychology. what are the kind of xhunlal and social normz that affect the thinking of folks in this position? i thought you did a great job in that new yorker piece of getting to the bottom of this kind of pathological distaste for the

president. >> and a sense of self-righteousness. >> yes. >> a sense that i did it myself, so i have the answers for the rest of the country, and what is a real issue with that, i think right now, is the economic interests of that narrow slice are different from the interests of other people, and that's, you know -- >> also, anaesthetic point of whining. just so much whining. father bill. >> we know that except on this set our country's politics much prefers the frivolity of binders full of women, the president answering innocently it seems to me john stewart saying the deaths were not optimal. wouldn't have been his word choice except in his response to john stewart. we're going to phobing focus on that. less depressingly, i'll take myself less seriously. i learned that the duke simone in conservative gossip at the court of louis the 14th thought his contribution to society was so great that in his memoirs he wrote 3,000 paejz published in 40 volumes.

i can't produce that and there's a whole pair docks. >> imagine that dude on twitter. vicky. >> we can't take the gender gap for granted, that preference of democrats by women. you know, we've been seeing so much bounce in the polls in terms of women in 2010. we also saw a preference for republicans by women. in 2012 i don't know what's going to happen. is this going to be an exception or more of the same? >> this is a big thing to keepure eyes on. women do vote differently for men. they have for some time. my thanks to all of you. thank you for getting up, and thank you for joining us today for "up." join us tomorrow sunday morning at 8:00, and we'll preview monday's presidential debate on foreign policy with -- coming up next is today's mhp. this week in voter suppression, the confusion edition as courts strike down one technique after

another, there are people still at work actively manipulating the system. their latest technique, putting as much confusion in the process as possible. what you need to know on melissa harris-perry coming up next. see you tomorrow at 8:00. thank you for getting up. new prilosec otc wildberry is the same frequent heartburn treatment as prilosec otc. now with a fancy coating that gives you a burst of wildberry flavor. now why make a flavored heartburn pill? because this is america. and we don't just make things you want, we make things you didn't even know you wanted. like a spoon fork. spray cheese. and jeans made out of sweatpants. so grab yourself some new prilosec otc wildberry. [ male announcer ] one pill each morning. 24 hours. zero heartburn. satisfaction guaranteed or your money back.

this morning it's not the binders full of women that worry me. it's the intimidating billboards. plus, how what's going down can change what's up? we're going down ballot. >> challenging the cult of personality in the classroom. first, if mitt romney is thelma, why america doesn't want to be francis.