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since enbrel helped relieve my joint pain, it's the little things that mean the most. ask your rheumatologist if enbrel is right for you. [ doctor ] enbrel, the number one biologic medicine prescribed by rheumatologists. it's monday, march 4th, and this is "now." joining me today, msnbc contributor and queen bee, joy reed. dpormer white house communications director for george w. bush nicole wallace here is. ben ya minute wallace wells is the lone mail pannist today and politico, the intre tretrepid m

haggerman. the white house is taking two aspirin and trying to refocus its blurry vision. "the wall street journal" reports that the president will pivot from the budget issues that have dominated his public appearances for weeks and instead use his microphone to focus on other issues. president obama and the democrats have indicated they will not inject the sequester into upcoming budget negotiations and risk blame for a government shutdown. it is perhaps a sign of recognition that republicans, especially those who may face primary challengers in 2014, have no appetite for anything big, especially anything big that includes revenue. speaker john boehner suggested several times over that rich knew w revenue was no longer on the table. >> january the 1st, the president gets $650 billion of higher taxes on the american people on january the 1st. he got his tax hikes. i'm going to say it one more time. the president got his tax hikes

on january the 1st. >> tax heights, indeed. cuts b, not cash, seems to be the one issue nighting the party these days. the "new york times" states, gon clings to one thing it agrees on, spending cuts. president obama and democrats are betting that public pressure will eventually work in their favor. >> it may take a couple of weeks, it may take a couple of months, but i'm just going to keep on pushing on it and my view is that ultimately, common sense prevails. >> so action on the sequester has been sequestered, at least until the sequester starts hurting. nicole, i just really wanted to say sequester that sequester. >> i'm impressed. >> we thought it was clever, so we said it three times in the last five minutes. >> it's very impressive. you had me at the first three. >> you had me at -- >> so, nicole, what is the

likelihood -- i mean, i think the big thing about the sequester is everybody talked about how bad it was going to be. now it's it's probably going to be bad, but we're not quite sure how and where it will be bad. but the white house, i think, is bedding that it will be bad enough and certain republican districts that some kind of action can be taken in the next couple of months. what do you think of that logic? >> well, look, the reason that nobody ever cuts anything out of the federal government is because every program has its constituency. and now there's an entire industry of lobbying and public relations that keep every single dollar that's spent in washington spent forever. so that's the reason that cuts, which really aren't cuts at all, they're not cuts the way any of us consider cuts in our own budgets. they're decreases and increases. so we're going to increase it less than we might have. that's what a spending cut means in washington terms. so i think that the fear mongering and the demagoguery and mayor mike bloomberg who is not a partisan at all, i think,

you know, really -- i don't know if it was his accusation that the white house was fear mongering, but when you have rush limbaugh on the right and mike bloomberg and everybody agreeing that the white house has overplayed its had an hand and that the fear morninging has gone too far, i thought it was fascinating to see obama take to the briefing room and back pedal from all of his dooms day talk. >> let's be fair, though. john boehner at one point said these are bad cuts, we don't want these to happen. there was a point where everyone agreed, these are bad cuts. but at one point, this was agreed on insofar as it was a bad thing that nobody wanted to happen. >> yeah. there were republicans that were very uncomfortable with the defense cuts. but i think that if we're at a point where you can't cut this much spending then i don't know how you ever do anything really meaningful, which would be the take on the cuts or the reductions in the increases in the spending in our entitlement

program. so it is an interesting experiment to see if -- and, you know, in six months ftd sky hasn't fallen, i wonder how some of these programs restore funding. >> and the question, joy, is if it does hurt, who is it going to hurt? howard was on this show saying, look, it's not going to be that bad for new york city because of the way new york city has managed its fund. it's a really sort of granular thing, the sequester, in terms of who bleeds. and the question is at the end of the day, who is left with more political capital given those cuts, tiny and localized that they may be, to come to the table and strike a bargain. is there going to be any impetus for that months down the line? >> yeah. and it hurts different people in different wayes and to different degrees. military family are going to feel it directly and probably soonest. you'll have, for example, the schools that are on military base res generally manned by civilians. so if you have to have furloughs, reductions, they're already looking at what can we

get rid sports teams? you'll see immediate reductions in what children are able to have at schools and military bases. the whole state of virginia -- virginia will see a disproportionate share of the pain. if you are a state that has a lot of military sort of infrastructure, like colorado, so it's going to hit in a lot of places a lot harder than others, and i think for republicans it sounds like it's fine for the whole country and that it's fear mongering, but if you are a person that's losing one-fifth of your salary -- i have a lot of members for my family that work for the federal government. for them losing one-fifth of their salary is serious business. >> you are talking about northern virginia, and specifically the times where they've gotten fat. defense contractors have gotten fat off of federal -- this does -- the interesting piece here, i think, is the 2014 realities, right? this is all going to be about political calculation, and i want to play some soubd from our very own chuck todd who was talking about the way 2014 has affected and informed the sequester debate. let's take a listen. >> when president obama was asking them to do is will you

risk your political career, will you lose your job in exchange for doing a deal with me that includes these taxes? now, the president never says will you lose your job in the middle, but that is the fact. they would have lost their job. john cornyn would lose a primary. mitch mcconnell would lose a primary. any compromise that includes any new tax on this will do that. >> so that's -- i mean, that's a huge piece of the puzzle. john cornyn is going to get primaried from the right, as will mitch mcconnell. speaker boehner's speakership is constantly up for debate. i mean, what's the likelihood that any kind of deal making happens before the 2014 midterms? >> it's slim. chuck's point is exactly right, and it's hard to argue. joy's point is also right. there are going to be people who disop organization atley feel this, and so in those districts, especially, in plays where there is either a republican governor and/or you have republican house districts, there is going to be a lot of complaining at the local level.

>> would you be willing to lose your job in no, most people are not willing to lose their jobs. >> he took heat over the fiscal cliff deal, and this is where he is drawing a bit of a line. >> john boehner then said multiple times, this has become the sort of phrase of john boehner, which is the house has done its work. take it up to the senate. my question is that the refrain on everything? he could feesably say that on gun control. he can see that on -- i don't know in a the house has done its work on immigration and gun

control, but let the upper chamber lead because we are done here. >> i think that's absolutely true, and i think you'll see more of that. one interesting thing about this whole debate to me that gets sort of the broader trajectory in the next few years is how important is the military and is military funding to the republicans some this whole debate was premised on the idea that military cuts would be so central to the way that republicans saw the world that they would, you know -- that they would cut a deal here. i think what we're seeing is that when it comes to military spending versus the kind of continued idealogical emphasis on lower taxes and smaller government, that the kind of wave have opinion of republicans has changed and there are people still like john mccain who are very pro-military, but, you know, but that's no longer where the weight of opinion in the republican party is. >> that's a good point. >> the difference here is that you can support the military. you can insist that nothing ever take away from our military

readiness. you can demapped that no cut ever impedes anyone on the frontline, and acknowledge that the pentagon -- i mean, the pentagon budget grows exponentially every year. you could acknowledge that you can trim from that budget. now, no one suggested that the military cuts were artful, strategic, or wise. they simply said that if the sequester is going to happen, we're not going to raise taxes again because we have such an objection to the way -- but, i mean, let me just say, no republican is pleased with the way that the military cuts were crafted in the sequester. they simply prefer to have the sequester happen than to raise taxes again 12 weeks later. >> that in and of itself i think is a change. they would rather go for inartful meat clever cuts to the pentagon rarn raise taxes. i think -- >> we just raised taxes.

>> rand paul is winning over john mccain because he has been very vocal about -- >> i think republicans feel like we raised taxes eleven and a half weeks ago. republicans just signed on to a deal to raise taxes on many americans, and i think that there is a feeling that there are things they can do to get the secretary of defense more discretion so that military families and veteran services -- but the notion that in the entire pentagon budget there isn't a forgive me climate change or there isn't a green program that could be slimmed down a little. have you seen the pentagon budget? i mean, there are lots of things that aring in that budget -- >> there's fat in the pentagon budget, but -- >> without hurting veterans and without hurting health care and without -- there are certainly things in every agency that can be streamlined. >> again, that is not a position that the republican party has had. >> that was obama's bet. that republicans wouldn't be willing to -- >> and they haven't. >> there's an acknowledgment

that even the pentagon budget has a little bit of fat. >> nicole, that's what democrats have been saying for decades. there's something -- what's interesting, though, is that in the senate and to this point that you were making, alex, about let the senate do it, there were three -- in the sequester bill that tried to come to the floor mitch mcconnell literally filibustered all three. two were a republican bill. there was a kelly ayotte bill. there was a republican bill that would have given more discretion to the executives saying you could actually do what you're saying, which is to trim it here, but not here, and give more discretion because right now there's no discretion. mitch mcconnell's filibuster -- and john mccain and lindsey graham were screaming for these because they were saying this is a national security emergency. at least give the executive more discretion. mitch mcconnell himself stopped both those bills along with the democratic bill. harry reid said i'll give you two republican bills if you'll just let us vote on this one democratic replace bill. i think that the republican party has allowed the rand paul wing to trump the national

security wing. absolutely. >> there's another piece to that, though. the continuing resolution is something that sounds like everybody has agreed not to fight over. in large part, i think from the right because it's going to give the pentagon more leeway to decide where these cuts happen, and so everybody can agree, okay, republicans get what they want. the president doesn't want to renegotiate or relitigate another budget fight three weeks after this one. i just doubt, you know -- i doubt that we're going to actually see any movement on this at all before 2014. i mean, i think that the sequester is going to happen and some people are going to hurt, some people are going to cry foul, and -- but i don't know that that actually spurs anybody into action. what i would be interested to see, maggie, and your take on this is steve israel -- there is now talk that tha the president is really going to make a push to try to pick up the house in 2014 and that he is going to be doing fundraising events. he is committed to eight ddtd fundraisers and using his campaign infrastructure that he did not, you know -- he did not give any of these resources to

congressional candidates in 2010. >> using the campaign infrastructure is a big piece of that. i remain a bit dubious. i know there is actually talk about that. i think two things are a factor. one, i think obama would like steve israel to communicate to donors among other people and to voters that this is possible. i don't know many democratic strategists who actually think that taking back the house is that likely. it's certainly possible, but i think it's a very, very heavy lift. this is a bit of a shift, though. i think that obama needs to not look sort of like an island unto himself, right, and so to that extent -- >> it will also help him in a big way to have the house controlled by democrats. >> and there is the theory that there are some critics of his who believe that he doesn't actually want to see action on immigration reform on gun control and any of this, that these are wejz to use against republicans in the 2014 midterms. i don't know how realistic that is, but there is a case being made for that, and to the extent that he is willing to try to put all his resource on the line to promote a democratic house, that

plays into it. >> that would seem to be a win-win, ben. you either get republicans. it's either a campaign issue or you actually get some change, so why wouldn't you -- >> the other issue is, you know, at this point what are you saving it for? the question about the president on immigration and guns, i mean, one place i would be leary is i don't know how effective the president on the bully pulpit will be on either of these issues. there's not a policy about guns. immigration may work a little bit better if you have some private, you know, internal senate negotiation to find some kind of path so sit sfwlenship, if you get the president out there stumping on both of these issues. i think it could do more political harm than political good? >> he certainly seemed to do more harm last time the white house proposal was voted. these are all things we will be monitoring over the coming weeks, months, and years as long as the show is on the air. after a break, a group of prom independent conservatives come out in support of same-sex marriage. could it mean that the gop is changing? witness majority leader eric cantor's appearance over the weekend at an event

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the head of the supreme court's arguments on prop eight and the defense of marriage act. president obama announce odd friday that his administration had officially asked the supreme court to legalize gay marriage in california. >> i felt it was important for us to articulate what i believe and what this administration stands for and what we've said

is that same-sex couples are a group, a class, that deserves heightened scrutiny, that the supreme court needs to ask the state why it's doing it, and if the state sdrent a good reason, it should be struck down. >> it marks a full evolution on the issue since president obama fist took office in 2009. twath? 2009? have republicans evolved at the same rate. a constitutional amendment was banning gay marriage. that year voters in 11 states prohibited gay unions. now bush's campaign manager ken lmon is leading marriage equality on the right. he and 130 other conservatives advised the court to strike down prop eight. among the several bush administration officials and top advisors to mitt romney. marriage equality is a conservative cause, wrote the newly emboldened john huntsman. freed from the shackles of the

2012 campaign. another signatory steve schmidt was more blunt. >> it's difficult to make the case to go work for a political party that wants to discriminate against their friend who happens to be gay. >> are these 131 republicans representative of a wider shift in the gop? maybe. not so much? maybe? last week also saw go crowd left off the list for invitees for this cpac conference. only two are current office holders. ileana ros-lehtinen and -- >> while significant, the movement within the gop may be less than meets the eye. "the fact is that any republican office holder who supports gay marriage is basically begging for a primary challenge. that's why very few have. nicole, you are very involved in this effort, and we commend and applaud you for it because i think it is absolutely the right thing to do, and it's great to see conservatives come out for, this but the question is as

aaron blake points out, there not a lot of office holders on that list. is this still kryptonite for parts of the republican party had. >> i don't think so. i don't think this is a political third rail at all, and he think that what's more significant than people like me signing this letter or this friend of the court brief that is 130 of us signed last week, people like steve hadley, who was president bush's national security advisor, and james comey, the deputy attorney general, is that the legal -- the republican legal establishment has now put forth -- and ted olson, who was president bush's solicitor general, has put forth a legal argument that is so sound. i really can't see how you would argue the other side. that the constitution guarantees equal protection, and to deny any class of people the right to marry, you know, is unconstitutional and won't pass constitutional muster. >> i think, too, to huntsman's point, i mean, this is where

conservativism really makes -- the government out of auerbach yard. >> it would be that if you believe and revere marriage as this fundamental building block of society, and that is a very conservative principle, then you would want families, you would want couples with children to be in a marriage, and you believe that families make up neighborhoods and neighborhoods make up communities, and communities make up our society. you can also make a very compelling conservative moral case for gay marriage being the law of the land. >> i will say, though, the washington post and abc news took a poll, and asked republicans about gay marriage. 54% strongly opposed it. 12% somewhat opposed it. 16% strongly supported, and 15% somewhat supported. now, we played tape of the president, and he has come a long way on this issue, and, in fact, the amicus, the friend of the court brief that nicole was talking about, has more strongly worded support for gay marriage than the president's actual, you know -- the doj sent over to the

court, but at the end of the day, you know, will and can the party evolve quickly enough to win over parts of the country that it has not won, which is to say gay merjz, which overwhelmingly voted for the president in the last election. >> the two representatives that signed on represent south florida and i think a part of the new york city, so we're not talking about the conversion in the heartland. i think that what's really happening is that there has not been a kind of third way that moderate republicans have been able to build over time to say, you know, we're a little bit uncomfortable with gay marriage, but we believe very much in the dignity of these people and, you know, their rights and we're going to find a way to support it. i think that's both the political failure, and it's also a legal and intellectual failure. you have to -- i was doing some reporting on gay marriage court cases, and when you read the court cases state by state that found against gay marriage, the logic that they relied on was deeply, deeply tortured. you know, they were pointing to these discredited studies that

claimed that gay marriage in europe had undermined the family there. there wasn't a middle road that people could rely on, and i think you could see that beyond in the legal cases, but it's become more evident sort of politically. >> i also think, joy, we've talked about the rebranding in the party, and the fact that, you know, you have eric cantor out there. we played footage of him at selma. honestly, look, eric cantor has gotten painted as a very specific type of politician. he has made a lot of attempts in recent weeks to say that the gop is much more welcoming to have more sort of outreach to minorities, to, you know, put a message out there that republicans are not just the party of rich people. ryan li sfwl a has an interesting and compelling profile of cantor from last week, and i'll read a quick excerpt from it. he writes since the 2012 elections the republicans have been divided between those who believe their policies are the problem and those who believe they just need better marketing. between those who believe they need to make better pizza and

those who just think they need a more attractive box. eric cantor, who is known among his colleagues as someone with strategic intelligence and knack for political positioning argues that it's the box. >> i think eric cantor represents probably -- i don't want to speak for the republican party, but most of those who are the political sort of in the party seem to be saying it's the box. eric cantor is in virginia, a state that is going in the blue direction of purple, and so i think on issues like gay marriage and immigration, i think it's very similar. it's the people who need to figure out how to win electrics saying we need to change the way we talk to people. we need to change the way we sound. the base of the party, look, on gay marriage, the evangelical christian because base is still very large. they're still very much relied upon to been elections. they're very potent in primaries. it's fine for people in washington or in virginia to say we need a better look on gay marriage, but how is the base, the evangelical christian base of the party going to react to it? i think with immigration you've already seen that people won't necessarily follow just because it's better for the party

politically. >> well, let me weigh in on the pizza. i mean, i think there are a lot of people in the party who are hard at work where are we're not even sure it's pizza people want. maybe it's pasta. maybe we're searching the wrong dish altogether. there may be some people working on the box, but there are a whole bunch of people working on the main course, and that is because good politics are usually born out of good policies, and there is a recognition that we need a base of policies that appeal to a broader swath of america. i don't think that our entire party is in denial working on a prettier box to deliver. i don't think that's fair. >> the pizza box argument basically is -- cathleen parker had an op ed saying let the rhinos come trample the ground. for too long there has been a disproportionate amount of power handed to, you know, the base that joy talks about, and that -- >> if they were big enough to win elections, we would be president and so all the fear

that people seem to have -- >> they are still big win to primaries. you saw this last year with the chick fillet. that was motivating for the base. >> it's convenient as we talk about pizza to talk about chiq fila. >> i'm doing only food. >> you know, look, one of the things we saw in the last cycle, you saw this here in the legislative battle for gay marriage. you had mike bloomberg and paul singer and other major funders. paul singer is very republican. mike bloomberg obviously is not. they provided cover to republicans who had voted in favor of gay marriage. even in new york, which is obviously pretty blue, a bunch of republicans who were up in the senate lost their primaries because of it. those -- at least two. i think it might have been through lost their primaries. it is still a motivating factor. i think ben is right that there is still not sort of that third way. that third chance, right? you know what i'm saying. >> well, how is the -- how has

your work as a signatory been defeat greeted missed the republican circle that is you frequent in. >> nobody signed this to get a medal or a prize in the blue plate competition. i mean, we signed it because we believe in this, and we signed it because as conservatives we were convinced that the legal argument put forth by david boise made famous in a lot of ways, but, one, representing boor gore, and ted olson, a very well respected conservative legal mind, was the most sound legal argument, so, you know, i've heard a little bit of consternation about religious freedom, and i think that nobody that signed on to this friend of the court brief seeks to trample anyone else's religious liberty and their right to believe that if their faith doesn't want a same-sex couple married in their church, there's certainly a deep reservoir for respect for those person's views. sflu feel like there's been consternation, but overall it

has been people have greeted it with enthusiasm. >> yeah. people accept the legal argument, and i think what's happening on the republican side to the extent that we're flashing our way through this at a policy level and intellectual level is a blueprint for how to get through some of these complicated issues that divide our party. if we could have a similar -- i think we are having a similarly intellectual exercise on immigration where there's been evolution. many republicans who were dead set and laid their bodies on the train tracks and president george w. bush tried to push for comprehensive immigration reform that did everything, secured the borders, dealt with the workplace security, and dealt with the pathway to sit sfwlenship, it was no way, no how, and senator rubio's talks with conservatives and efforts on the issue have been greeted much more warmly than ours were just four years ago. i think that this evolution in the republican party is underway. it doesn't get that much attention, and maybe that's a good thing, but i think we are hard at work. >> well, that's part of it too. this is coming at a time, joy,

when you are talking about there is the social pieces like gay marriage and immigration, i guess, to some degree it's both, and economic issue and social, and then you also have paul ryan who is going to be figuring out a new republican budget that balances the budget without any revenue raisers in the next ten years, which is a daunting mathematical endeavor, if you will. >> yeah. i mean, i think on all these issues, maybe the problem is the lack of one sort of unifying leader at the top. i mean, going back to the gay marriage piece -- >> it's so not our style. we're so raucus. we throw things at each other, and we yell, and it's like a big italian family. back to pizza. >> if you look within the african-american community there was a hardened op sfwligs to gay marriage too that really went into up to the moment that barack obama said that he was moving for, it and we actually saw in the polling just among african-americans a shift in favor and a softening on the issue just because someone that a lot of people respected. rubio has some of that for the immigration issue wrn i don't know who that would be on gay marriage, and with paul ryan, is

he that guy on the budget? >> i think it's actually really helpful when you look at the example of how gay marriage is now polling in african-american communities, which is to say leadership really matters, and so, you know, starting at a place like where we are with your document is i think important in terms of showing the path forward that maybe includes gay rights as a civil right. we have to take a break, but coming up at 17, he was arrested for trying to rob a drug dealer. now he is a doctor and knows not everyone in low income urban america gets that second chance. we will discuss the cycle of poverty and violence when author dr. samsung davis joins us just ahead. is it when you've when left work behind,ise? and only the waves remain? is it when stress is replaced by serenity?

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exciting and would always come max and pto my rescue. bookstore but as time passed, i started to notice max just wasn't himself. and i knew he'd feel better if he lost a little weight. so i switched to purina cat chow healthy weight formula. i just fed the recommended amount... and they both loved the taste. after a few months max's "special powers" returned... and i got my hero back. purina cat chow healthy weight. living and dying in brick city, dr. samson davis shares his experience as an er doctor in newark, new jersey, offering a glimpse into the health care crisis that plagues our inner cities. as davis returns to work in the

hospital where he was born, he tells a story for people in his community who would not fare as well as he did. there is the endless stream of young men who have fallen victim to gun violence. the brothers kept coming, night after night, week after week, young men wasting their skills and smarts on the streets, young brothers who remind me of the person i used to be. there is a story about a pregnant woman who loses her life because an ambulance takes too long to get there. his own sister's struggle with aids. there are the communities torn apart by domestic violence and drug abuse. davis writes there are plenty of books by doctors who share their experiences working in hospitals or share their expertise on various health issues, but few have focused on the crisis in our inner cities. the violence, the depair, the poverty, the hopelessness, they have all been examined as societial, social, and cultural issues. yet there are. these are physical and mental health conditions that play out night after night in emergency rooms across the country and sap communities of their strength

and vitality. america's population is growing more diverse and more urban. as of 2010 over 80% of the country lid in urban areas. caves's portrayal of the health in inner cities underscores the magnitude of the problem and how little is being done to fix what ails so very many of us. joining us now is dr. samson davis, author of "living and dying in brick city, an e.r. doctor returns home." it's great to have you on the program. >> thank you. thank you for having me. >> you have an incredible story. we know that you were arrested on a gun violence charge. you had a shorter sentence, but that sounds like that was a sort of turning point in terms of your life and the path that you wanted to be on. >> yeah. it was a wake-up call. i was 17 1/2. it really shined a light. i was 17 1/2 instead of 18. that was a wake-up call for me because i saw how my life could woman to a drastic end if i stayed in a life of crime. i chose education. education is what savedly life and allowed me to be here today. >> talk to us about -- we talk

about the affordable care act many sort of broad terms, and there's a real sense that nobody in this country really understands how it's going it affect them, but you actually can speak to health care as it is in the ener city, which is a different beast than it is wrels in the country. it will help urban americans. it would seem like we should be in better touch about the problems that are plaguing the inner cities. give us a sense of what it is like to be -- >> this is real life, real snar wroe. talk about the real e.r. because i see it on a daily basis, and we -- what we said is in the emergency department it's because of access to health care. you have hospital closures and medical clinics that are overwhelmed, so people turn to the e.r. not realizing you come to the e.r. for small little items, you take away from that person who is having a heart attack, who is having a stroke, who is hanging on to life. i mean, i think it has to be more attention drawn to this and the presence of health care facilities in inner cities. >> you also talk about -- we have talked about sort of the

cratering of minority wealth, how communities have been disproportionately affect by a number of cuts, whether that's education cuts, whether that's pell grants. you talk about gun violence statistics and how that has plagued the african-american community. they have -- african-americans have the highest rates of death of firearms of all racial groups. homicide is the leading cause of death for black men ages 15 to 34, and most of those murders are xlitd with firearms. if homicide is the problem, then gun control would seem to be part of the answer. >> we're not talking about ar-15 sort of massacre teep mushdz, the one that shock the conscious across the country. we're talking about a dre dave to day grip of handgun murders. some of it is gang-related. i know in miami a lot of the times the police don't put out the -- they don't want to scare the community. you have shootings in broad daylight in a lot of communities, and it's bleeding out sometimes in the inner cities, and there's this rolling pathology we don't talk about

which is that kids who are witnessing this daily drip of gun violence and then having to go to school and perform and they are not able to really get the job done in terms of their education. there's just a fear of the outside and we talk about plague and being able to get exercise. how can you in a community -- you have to do sports or normal activities as a kid. >> go to school and learn. >> right. it all sort of i think is a vicious cycle, and because we don't normally talk about it and we only talk about gun violence when it's a drault dramatic, very large horrifying shooting, i think it's a problem. gist never have the conversation. >> we're also talking about needing to make sort of systemic changes in terms of american society, and one of the things that you have talked about and you talked about in the book is mentorship, and i think a lot of the times we sort of outsource the question of family structure to the right, right? family values as something that i think in large part republicans talk about more than democrats when in reality that should be a national value, and the disintegration of urban families, of the urban family

structure, of not having men at the head of the family structure. not that all households have to be led my been, by not a mother and a father or a -- a two-parent household has profound affects on a cycle of poverty. >> it's a huge factor. you look at it like growing up in this type of environment single parent households are the more common. to have two parents in a household is almost an anomaly. you look for kids and especially young men, they're trying to model themselves and turn to the streets to learn how to be a man. there's nothing balance -- you aren't born balanced. when you look at hopelessness and despair that you are surrounded by, turn to balance in order to cope, in order to get by because they're taught that on the street. i think there has to be a psych until which we have a movement created in which we look to the people not only the people that can help support this, but the people that are involved that's in these areas that they have to step up as well and sort of heal from inside out in order to make a change. >> as a black man in society and given the problems that this,

unfortunately, can affect young plaque men, you know, the president i thought was used to be -- used to be, actually, quite vocal about this. you do a father's day address, and you talk to the african-american community, and really specifically talk to men. do you think that there needs to be sort of more leadership from the white house on this? do you think that there is enough that's happening among, you know, prominent black americans to speak to this issue? >> right. i mean, i can't put it all on the president, but i do feel like it needs to be a face. there needs to be a face of learedship, a face for education and health. something that our skidz kids can emulate after. we have faces for sports. we have faces for entertainment. why not have this concrete image and real life hero that people can look to for inspiration? >> maybe you should be that hero. >> this is a passion of mean. >> it's incredibly important. like i said, nicole, you know, this is a bipart sflan issue. i feel like this is a nonpartisan issue. >> it's -- i wonder what you see -- people go to the emergency room because they know they can see doctors like you. they know that if their kid has

an asthma attack and they're scared their child is going to die, you're not going to mess around at any place other than the emergency room. that's where i would go. what is the answer? i mean, what do you -- you know, you don't want to turn people away that are scared and need care, but where do you -- what's the answer? >> so i think, first, there's a sense of how do you use the health care system? like, a lot of people don't know how best to use the health care system, so if you're not feeling well, you go to the emergency department. i think we have to start as low as grammar school and religious ceremonies and teach our congregation how to use health care so not to be afraid of it either. you need to be the best person -- >> a relationship with your primary care doctor. >> some advocating for all fezs and health care workers to step outside of the confines of the hospital and their offices and be one with the community. i'm asking the community as well to understand your asthma and to understand your high blood pressure. you don't take your blood pressure pill when you feel like it's high. you take it every single day. >> preventive versus emergency.

know your primary care physician. >> please, please. >> the book is "living and dying in brick city." thank you. great to have you here. >> thanks for having me. >> coming up, while most of america was tgif'ing last week, the obama administration deployed the timeless tactic known as the friday news dump. one that included findings unlikely to excite many progress sifz. we will discuss the future of the keystone pipeline just ahead. [ kate ] many women may not be absorbing the calcium they take as well as they could because they don't take it with food. switch to citracal maximum plus d. it's the only calcium supplement that can be taken with or without food. my doctor recommends citracal maximum. it's all about absorption. ♪ i don't wanna be right [ record scratch ] what?! it's not bad for you. it just tastes that way. [ female announcer ] honey nut cheerios cereal -- heart-healthy, whole grain oats. you can't go wrong loving it.

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looking to last friday afternoon at the almost happy hour of 3:30 the estate department released a long awaited report to the 2,000 page state department analysis arguing that the keystone pipeline would have little impact on climate change. in a statement the sierra club said it was outraged by the report, asserting whether this failure was willful or accidental, this report is nothing short of malpractice. ben, it looks and sounds -- it seems as if the president is -- or the ground work has been laid for him to approve the pipeline. the question i have is how much other stuff is he going to have to make up? is he going to have to have concessions else where to make up for what climate change advocates are going to be very eveningry about? >> i don't think so. i think what he has here is he has a kind of case where he can say, you know, look, this was not going to solve -- opposing the keystone project was not going to solve the problems that you guys are worried about anyway. you saw reports saying that rail companies were building, you know, connects up to northern

alberta to take beg gas and oil out of the tar sands if the pipeline didn't get built. the broader challenge is the demand side challenge. you know, not a supply side challenge. >> that's what the white house has said too. it's worth noting that ernest is officially nominated as energy secretary, and gina mccarthy at the e.p.a. republicans already expressing their outrage. inhoff says appointment is making clear that the president is going to continue pursuing an aggressive climate agenda at the e.p.a. >> well, and to ben's point about why he is not going to have to do something else. having that kind of opposition actually helps him. i mean, essentially if he has people who are opposing his picks on the grounds that he has such an aggressive climate change agenda, he does have the ability to sort of fall back on this report and say this was going to happen anyway. we can go ahead with this. this is not going to address your complaints. i don't think that's a negative for him. >> if he has a fighter at the epa perhaps that will mean new regulations for existing coal

plants and new coal plants. we have to leave it there. what a tiny little subject to try to end on. thank my very talented panel. that's all for now. i'll see you tomorrow at noon eastern, country a.m. pacific when i'm joined by karen finney, sam, jake w weisberg. until then you can fiend us at facebook.com/now with alex. andrea mitchell reports is coming up next. castles, oceans, and lagoons in the place we call home. bold is where everyone comes to play. starting our day off with a good dance and singing us to sleep at night. coloring our lives in ways only bold can do. it's no wonder bold will make your reality, a dream.

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