auto policies come with new car replacement and accident forgiveness if you qualify. see what else comes standard at libertymutual.com. liberty mutual insurance. responsibility. what's your policy? on thursday as part of his reaching out effort, president obama's having lunch with senate republicans on capitol hill. the main course? a university of maine lobster salad. delicious. how about a nice side dish to go with it? they'll have fox family potato

chips. now, hold on. i know what you're thinking. it's not that fox. fox family potato chips come from a mom and pop chip shop based in mapleton, maine. the fox family have been growing potatoes since the 1800s. sounds like a great meal. but the dessert might be the best course. it's wild maine blueberry pie. blueberry pie! and we all know about blueberry pie. >> i look at the gop, they talk about the economy's bad and we didn't do it, we were the ones fighting! but they got the blueberry pie all over their face! they were the ones eating the pie! >> of course they were eating the pie. these are the folk whose number one goal was to make president obama a one-term president. the folks who brought us two wars and the bush tax cuts. these guys aren't just serving

blueberry pie, they're wearing it. the pie will be all over senator mcconnell's face when the president arrives for lunch on thursday. but don't worry, mitch. he'll give you a chance to clean up if you're willing to make a deal. thanks for watching. i'm al sharpton. "hardball" starts right now. ryan shrugged. let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm chris matthews. in washington. let me start tonight with this. you know the book "atlas shrugged," it's what happens when the elite of the world, people calling the shots go on job action. decide to walk away from their position, stop being captains of industry and let the country

fall all around them. today, paul ryan, a total believer in "atlas shrugged" philosophy did it like in the book. mitt romney's running mate came forward with a plan that gives the biggest tax rate in the world to the richest. paying for it with huge slashes in programs for middle class working people and the poor. call it ryan shrugged. it kills the president's health care plan outright in its crib. dumps medicare for a cheapskate voucher scheme. and offloads medicaid on to the states and steals from the ordinary people, that old 47%, and gives a bundle to the elite at the top. why is ryan doing this? you just have to ask, why after getting beaten and rejected in the presidential election last november is the vice presidential candidate coming out here trying to etch-a-sketch the whole thing, pretend the election never happened? tell me, where's ryan express, taking the republican party further off the cliff? if he's giving up -- what's he doing? giving us a souvenir roadmap of where they all went wrong? in a moment we'll be joined by congresswoman debbie

wasserman-schultz. with us now, "washington post's" ezra klein and msnbc political analyst. thank you, ezra. i want to get to the basics. the boxcar information here. why in the world is paul ryan writing a budget that's supposed to be somewhat realistic that assumes the termination, outright elimination of the president's historic achievement with the health care plan? >> because he doesn't think the politics of the republican caucus will let him do anything else. that's one answer, but the bigger one, and i think it's actually a really important thing to recognize about his budget, he can't balance the budget if he doesn't get rid of the spending. he doesn't get rid of the president's entire health care plan. he keeps all of the costs control, so he keeps the $700 billion in medicare cuts he ran against, and i think what a lot of people don't recognize is he also keeps the new taxes in the president's health care plan. the part he gets rid of is the care in obama care. he gets rid of the spending in it. if he didn't do those two things, get rid of the spending but keep the cost controls, he couldn't get anywhere near balancing the budget and he also couldn't pass those two policies. new taxes and medicare cuts within the next ten years. over his own conference. so he's actually piggybacking on

a lot of president obama's work in this balanced budget. >> yeah, a lot of times this guy gets a free ride in washington journalism. he's supposed to be the brainiac. yet, portrayed as some sort of a deficit hawk. yet when i'm reading your article, your analysis and others, what i'm getting to, he's not a deficit hawk at all. basically he's a guy who wants to shift economic wealth or opportunity from the bottom or -- to the top. he wants to create an ayn rand existence where the winners make all the money. the looters as they call them in those books get screwed. i'm just asking, how does he keep getting this image of being a deficit reducer when he doesn't do it? >> washington has a very short memory. the important thing, you're clear on this. ryan was not a deficit hawk. go back in his career. he voted for the bush tax cuts, unfunded wars for iraq and afghanistan, voted for the unfunded medicare prescription drug benefit. he had a social security privatization proposal. in 2005, the george w. bush administration rejected because it would be too expensive. the transition costs would be in the trillions of dollars.

what he found later on, the way he could get these policies taken more seriously, not seen as so radical, was to bring them in under the cloak of deficit reduction, under the guise of preventing a debt crisis, it would be worse than anything he was proposing. but because he's -- but these budgets have sort of deactivated, i think, a lot of normal defenses and skepticism in washington. in washington. because they sort of -- such a broad bipartisan acceptance of the idea you need deficit reduction right now people are willing to accept things they wouldn't normally accept as long as it's called deficit reduction. >> you know, when i listen to him and i listened to chris van holland last week on this show, i'm beginning to realize what's perhaps more interesting than who's the better deficit cutter, because neither of them are, neither party really is, is what they see as the purpose of the federal government. people watching this show are looking for those differences. chris van holland doesn't talk about cutting the deficit but what government can do to expand this country, socially, economically, what tools we have. it's rich with ideas on how you can encourage things you want to happen.

what would you call ryan's plan? it's more of a statement of what government can't do. how would you describe the message, the lyrics behind his budget? what's he saying about america and its government? >> ryan believes that what government fundamentally does, what the federal government does, at least at this point in history, is it stifles a basic individual creativity and the family and the community and the city and all these other units of association we have in american life. it is a very classically and fundamentally libertarian way of looking at what the government does and doesn't do. he's very explicit. >> he's cashing out. isn't he? >> i'm sorry? >> cashing out government, basically saying we're going to give people money back and get rid of the government? >> right. in doing that, the key move he makes, he says when he does that, when he cuts government, he's not taking government away. he's adding something to the country. when he takes government away,

takes those health care subsidies away, he's creating room to use genius in order to make america better. the cost is 35 million people according to the nonpartisan kaiser family foundation who won't be getting health care insurance through medicaid or the affordable care act. >> paul ryan and mitt romney ran on a similar fiscal vision last year and lost. why is he pushing this same thing now? let's take a look at what he, ryan, told reporters today. let's watch him in action. >> the election didn't go our way, believe me, i know what that feels like. that means we surrender our principles? that means we stop believing in what we believe in? look, whether the country intended it or not, we have divided government. >> joining us right now, the chair of the democratic national committee, debbie wasserman-schultz, the congresswoman from florida. debbie, congresswoman, let me ask you about this. what do you make of ryan? you work in the house with him. here he is coming out with his ayn rand "atlas shrugged" ideological right wing engineering as newt would call it. what are they up to? are they trying to get rid of health care now?

>> it felt a bit like a needle stuck on a broken record or that maybe he had his iphone earbuds in his ear -- his ipod earbuds in his ear during lunch last week with the president. i mean, let's -- i'm willing to give paul ryan the benefit of the doubt that it is hard in a few days, near impossible, to retool an entire budget to make an adjustment to look like you're trying to move toward some compromise. but this was pretty disappointing and shows that his response today on that they -- on whether they lost the election was pretty tone deaf. >> it's like going into a labor negotiation and saying, give me $1,000 an hour and we'll start from there. i mean, what he's asking for, or nothing, if you're the boss, i'll give you nothing if you're the boss. i mean, this is supposed to be the kumbaya season between the two parties when you're going to try to find common ground. he says, let's start off with the fact i want to erase your whole first term, then i want to get rid of medicare as we know it and turn it into a voucher program.

let's start there. these starting points don't seem like they're realistic in terms of what we hear the president is trying to establish. and at least some republicans are looking like they might play ball with. >> with my dnc hat on, you know, arguably, i'm -- it's not terrible that paul ryan and the republicans don't see that the voters rejected the path that they laid out. and, you know, that's going to give us more opportunities in 2014. but the responsible legislator in me who understands that we can't engage in my way or the highway politics wants us to sit down and try to continue to hash out common ground and close that trust deficit. that's what we've got to continue to work towards. maybe this is just an opening salvo and the next step would be to peel back the layers and hopefully have an opportunity to come closer together. >> one part, congresswoman, of the ryan budget that's getting a lot of attention is something we talked about earlier, this decision to maintain the $700 billion in cuts to medicaid that were included in medicare, and

obama care, rather, as "talking points memo" illustrated, ryan reversed himself so many times on that issue, there are reasons to be a bit cynical. back in 2010, for example, ryan blasted obama's new health care law, said, "what the bill essentially does, it treats medicare like a piggy bank." by the following year ryan was including the same medicare cuts in his own budget, not too worried about consistency there. ryan changed course again last year while running with mitt romney, the attack on the president, "here comes raid on medicare" became a major campaign theme and worked its way into ryan's convention speech. take a listen. >> they needed hundreds of billions more. so they just took it all away from medicare. $716 billion funneled out of medicare by president obama. an obligation we have to our parents and grandparents is being sacrificed all to pay for a new entitlement we didn't even ask for.

>> and yet a few months later those very cuts from a program he called an obligation to our grandparents once again find their way back into his budget. he's back doing it again. i want to go back to our analyst here. ezra. it seeps to me, the far bigger picture, i know you're an expert at the nuts and bolts. but the larger dishonesty, he's showing crocodile tears about parents and grandparents. at the very same time, he's saying let's throw medicare out the window, replace it with a voucher program so someone 80 years old can go around shopping for a health care plan. by the way, let's throw out obama care, too. he's so radically different, he seems to be focusing on the nuances of his discrediting inconsistencies. the small point here. why do you think it's important to point out he's inconsistent? what's the point there if he's so radically right wing to start with? >> i actually don't think the inconsistency is the main point. i broadly agree with you there. i think the deep issue in ryan's rhetoric and budget, the thing that actually is very telling is ryan on the one hand has his whole persona where he's making

the very difficult choices, he's doing the hard things the president won't do. he talks about that all the time. unlike the president, he understands the scope of our challenges and he'll do the very, very, very difficult things that need to be done now. on the other hand, he won't actually admit any of these things are in any way difficult. there's a kind of sunny side where he's actually strengthening medicare. he's helping social security. he's helping medicaid. he'll make it better by putting it to the states. if you want to cut more than $4 trillion over the next decade, if you want to cap medicare as growth and turn it over to private insurers, if you want to make it so medicaid loses $750 billion over the next decade, there are real consequences and real people who get hurt there and that's why i actually focus on the nuts and bolts because it is in the nuts and bolts when you get down from the level of distraction that he likes to remain at where you actually see who gets hurt and by how much. you can't save that much money without hurting people. government is not that inefficient. he doesn't want to face up to the implications of the choices he's making. he wants to make tough choices but not say what's tough about them. >> all my life i've heard about

waste, fraud and abuse. you can get rid of that by striking off some sort of budget item. it ain't that simple. a check you don't write doesn't get to somebody. thank you, congresswoman debbie wasserman-schultz. thanks for joining us tonight. ezra klein of the "washington post." coming up, how w. killed the gop. a mountain of lies that got us into iraq. two mismanaged wars. a kwander squandered surplus. katrina and that failure. an author says no republican can be president in the near future unless they deeply distance themselves from george w. bush. how do you do that if you're his brother, jeb? also the papal conclave is now under way with as many as 20 so-called front-runners. we have no idea who is going to become pope. we do know whoever is selected will face the enormous task of reconnecting the church to american catholics. who are increasingly indifferent to what happens in rome. another intersection between hollywood and washington. the new movie "olympus has fallen" looks like a great movie. i've seen part of it. about terrorists taking over the white house. not exactly terrorists. north koreans. that's scary enough, isn't it?

we'll have the story on that. the great gerard butler and angela bassett both joining us here. hard to believe, larry craig, the old wide stance guy, the former senator from idaho who lost his job in an airport bathroom has just made things worse for himself. this is "hardball." the place for politics. [ male announcer ] you are a business pro. executor of efficiency. you can spot an amateur from a mile away... while going shoeless and metal-free in seconds. and you...rent from national. because only national lets you choose any car in the aisle...and go. you can even take a full-size or above, and still pay the mid-size price. now this...will work. [ male announcer ] just like you, business pro. just like you. go national. go like a pro.

here's a good one for you. which state had the highest voter turnout in the 2012 election? that surprised me. minnesota, which topped the turnout list for the eighth time in the last nine presidential or midterm elections. more than three quarters of eligible voters cast ballots in minnesota last november. they take it seriously up there. neighboring wisconsin was second. colorado, new hampshire, and iowa rounded up the top five. take a look. those people vote. the state with the lowest tournout in '12 was the president's own hawaii, just 45% out in hawaii. we'll be right back. [ whistle blows ]

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i don't think there's any bush baggage at all. i love my brother. i'm proud of his accomplishments.

>> hear that. now hear this. there is no bush baggage. jeb bush denying there's bush baggage. he says he's proud of his brother's -- this is going to kill him -- accomplishments. there are a lot of accomplishments to choose from. there's starting a war on false pretenses with a country that had nothing to do with 9 /11. that's certainly an accomplishment. when president bush made a surprise visit to iraq in 2008, an iraqi journalist showed bush how thankful that country was for our input. >> anyway, then there's the budget surplus bush w. left and he inherited and squadered that big surplus and gave us the bush tax cuts. which mainly benefited the rich and added $1.7 trillion to the federal debt. and then it was bush's passive

response to the devastation of katrina when he finally engaged, by the way, he thanked the guy overseeing the screw-up this way. >> i want to thank you all for -- and brownie, you're doing a heck of a job. fema director is working 24 -- [ applause ] they're working 24 hours a day. >> poor michael brown, he didn't even think he, himself, had done a good job. the next republican presidential candidate, however, for 2016 is going to have to go further than just distancing himself from w. like mccain and romney tried to do. the next candidate will have to repudiate bush, many believe. i'm one of them. no easy feat when your last name is bush and you're a loving brother. we've got peter barnard joining us. he started this discussion. wayne slater, senior political writer for the "dallas morning news" and co-author of the book "bush's brain." let me go to peter, you always arouse my interest, peter. you've hit on something really smart. i was saying in the office a couple hours ago before the show, can't you just distance yourself from this guy and say i'm not running -- they like to say you'll notice my name's on the ballot, not george w. bush,

that old dodge. you don't think that's good enough. >> certainly not if your last name is the same as the guy who was president. i mean, if you try to distance yourself from your brother then you look like a jerk. but distancing yourself from george w. bush more aggressively than john mccain or mitt romney was able to do i think is going to be truly crucial for any serious republican candidate in 2016 because bush is the guy who destroyed the republican brand. if you look at the polls, the polls -- the republican party's doing okay including with young people when bush comes into office. by the time he leaves, the republican party is dead in the water, especially among the young and it has not recovered. just as bill clinton distanced himself from jimmy carter, because carter hurt the democratic brand, a republican is going to have to seriously distance himself in ways people understand. >> wayne, when do you think the convention is going to be? will it be in our lifetime when we see george w. up on that podium? are they ever going to show his face again, let alone have somebody run as his brother? let me go back to the brother problem. because i like jeb bush.

he has a catch-22 as peter said. if he gets caught saying, i'm not my brother, he knocks his brother. if he says, i don't agree with the war in iraq, he's really knocking him. if he says i don't like the way he handled katrina, he's really knocking him. if he says he screwed up when clinton left him a budget surplus, he's really nailed him. he's out there the last several days saying, i like my brother's accomplishments. what are those accomplishments? >> look, peter is exactly right on this. the next republican nominee wannabe is going to have to be and run on an anti--bush platform. however soft or hard you want to do that. fundamentally, there's even a bigger problem for jeb bush. it's not only, as peter said, that jeb is not likely to want to say, i don't love my brother, i don't agree with my brother, i want to distance myself very explicitly from my brother. it is he fundamentally can't distance himself from something that's even deeper than that, and there has grown up in the republican party across the board a deep sense of unreliability. that is to say, the father 41

came in as a social and fiscal -- i say fiscal conservative, but, read my lips. the son came in as a social conservative, many social conservatives, you talk today with them, they say, what did he deliver for us? fiscal conservatives, obviously spending and deficits is our problem. fundamentally, i had dinner the other night with the two very significant social conservative leaders who said they're coming around to the view. now, these are very strong republican conservatives coming around to the view that the bush administration mismanaged the war. this is a -- >> mismanaged? >> -- across the board in party. >> excuse me. what a dodge that is. i got to tell you, wayne. mismanaged? they went to war on false pretenses that they didn't even believe were the reasons they went to war. if you get them and get cheney, you waterboard cheney, he ain't going to say weapons of mass destruction. he's going to say, i wanted to get iraq and i saw my chance. >> what i'm saying is, these guys in this crucial part of the republican base, these aren't

democrats, these aren't independents. these aren't progressives. these aren't moderates. these are very strong social conservative republicans and they're saying exactly that. why in the heck did we go to war? >> yeah. here's george w. bush's iraq war, of course, it's his biggest blot on his presidency, i think, and the ten-year anniversary of that starting this next week. with time, even more has been revealed about the false pretenses. under which he went to war. i didn't believe in the pretense let alone the reality of lack of reality. here's the clip from the great documentary we've had on the air here on msnbc called "hubris." we're going to have it again. take a listen. >> the days of iraq acting as an outlaw state are coming to an end. >> powell walked into my office and without so much as a fare thee well, he walked over to the window and said i wonder what will happen when we put 500,000 troops into iraq and comb the country from one end to the other and find nothing? he turned around and walked back in his office. i wrote that down on my calendar, as close to verbatim as i could. i thought that was a profound

statement coming from the secretary of state, former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. >> peter, back to your brilliant thought in your piece. do you think there's any way if you were a brilliant consultant, is there any way to advise jeb to squirm around his brother? >> no. i think it's impossible. squirming is not what the republican party needs. what the republican party needs is what chris christie is doing, a guy willing to pick fights with those in the republican party. people in the republican party, and those issues in the republican party. >> teachers unions. >> that are destroying the public party. you can't squirm through this. you've got to basically do what the democrats did in the late 1980s. you've got to go frontally into the idea your party is going to have a civil war. when people outside of your party see you're willing to take on the dick cheneys of the world, then they'll look at you in a different light. >> wow, do you agree with that, wayne? that's pretty radical. i was thinking back to the time of the democrats in '68. the democratic party was willing to take all the fights in the country into its soul. it was civil rights. they fought it within the democratic party. the war issue of vietnam, they

fought it within the democratic party. they got hurt for it. can the republican party do that and succeed? take on these big fights to get to the soul of the party? >> yeah. fundamentally the only way jeb bush can succeed in this kind of milieu is that he doesn't disassociate himself with his brother, but fundamentally he is seen in the end as the only guy who can beat the democrats down the road. if a christie or others emerge as more likely or as likely to win, then you're exactly right, i agree with that. >> who would you like to have if you had to raise money somewhere in the united states? which republican would you like to have at your dinner podium? you start, peter. you want to raise $1 million one night. who's the best bet to bring in and get the people excited about that person being there that night? republican. >> the only person who's developed an independent brand in which democrats and independents, even some democrats look at him as separate from the republican party, is chris christie. because he's the guy who has the reputation as his own man.

nobody else, yet. maybe interestingly rand paul. rand paul may be developing that reputation as well. you may not always agree with him, but you know he follows the internal drummer, not what the party establishment says. that's where the gop has to go. >> i don't think people would stop at starbucks to hear him talk. anyway. your thought, wayne? nobody's going to pay $100,000 to hear a libertarian talk. who do you think is the biggest star in the republican party now? >> i still think jeb bush is despite all his problems, but if i wanted to gather a dinner party together of real rich billionaires and millionaires, i would bring ben carson, not because ben carson, the pediatric neurosurgeon from johns hopkins, not because he's going to be the nominee, because if you really talk to sort of social and fiscal conservative folks in the republican party, they like it that this guy has upstaged obama on a republican agenda. >> he's a very bright, good man. anyway, thank you so much, peter

barnard. thank you, wayne slater. i think we have a tough bake-off coming between jeb and chris christie. up next, she's got the airwaves at fox news channel. used to. that's not stopping sarah palin from speaking her mind. she's talking about people who work hard. what does she do for a living? i keep asking. what's her job? this is "hardball," the place for politics. can a body wash go beyond basic cleansing? olay ultra moisture body wash can with more moisturizers than seven bottles of the leading body wash. with ultra moisture your body wash is anything but basic. soft, smooth skin with olay.

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back to "hardball." now to the "sideshow." first we welcome back sarah palin, weighing in on big news that happened yesterday. not at all close to alaska. in fact, it was a hot issue on "morning joe" today. here's a refresher. >> our top story, though, is about big sugary sodas. they came out victorious yesterday. as a state court invalidated new york city's ban on oversized beverages. >> let's go right over right now to our flash cam. >> yeah. >> and see -- >> lewis. >> see. >> oh my gosh. wow. >> lewis, what are the implications? >> joe, the constitutional implications are just remarkable. >> oh, my god. >> i didn't know this was the daily show. >> sarah palin, in twitter, here she goes on the news that mayor bloomberg's new york city 16 ounce soda limit had been blocked by a state supreme court judge. she said, "victory in nyc for liberty loving soda drinkers, to politicians with too much time on their hands, we say

government, stay out of our refrigerator." there you have it from a former politician with all the time on her hands. after all, she ain't got a job. by the way, her next book, we ought to know this, has something to do with the war on christmas. according to a statement from the publisher of that to come book, we can expect palin's take on politically correct scrooges who would rather take the christ out of christmas. you know, people who choose to say happy holidays instead of merry christmas." actually as we all know, no one's ever told anyone of us to say, not to say merry christmas. next, remember larry craig? he's the former idaho republican senator arrested back in 2007 for inappropriate behavior in an airport bathroom. well, craig is now facing accusations that he misused over $200,000 in campaign funds for his legal defense in that case. well, the question is, was his use of the money legal since craig's bathroom fiasco happened during a job-related trip? that's what craig's defense team is saying. the trouble is craig and his attorneys are trying to have it both ways. back in 2007 a letter to the senate ethics committee said his

arrest and conviction were, "purely personal conduct unrelated to the performance of official senate duties." but now they're saying spending campaign funds on his defense was part of official business. that's what's called taking a wide stance on your job description. next, take a quick look back at karl rove's election night meltdown over whether it was too soon to say president obama had won ohio. while you're watching, though, think about what you could possibly do about the papal conclave. >> do you believe ohio has been settled? >> no, i don't. it may be barack obama wins the state, but it seems to me you got a lot of votes yet to cast. we've had one instance where something was prematurely called. >> you know it well. >> in 2000. i know it well. >> they said this is not going to be another one of those scenarios. >> maybe not. if it's going to happen, let the votes begin to show it. >> any connections to the conclave there? did you see any? here's karl rove earlier today. >> thank god we don't have exit

polls or early returns. they do it the right way. they get to the final vote and the decision then they let the smoke -- maybe there's a message there for american media. maybe we better wait, rather than trying to call it, let the election go to its final conclusion and let the results speak for themselves. >> we'll follow your lead. render unto ceasar the things that are ceasar's and render under god the things that are god's. i think i'm safe in saying that one. up next the papal conclave is under way in rome. my big question is whether the cardinals will select a pope who can connect and be progressive. that's ahead. you're watching "hardball," the place for politics. [ lorenzo ] i'm lorenzo. i work for 47 different companies. well, technically i work for one. that company, the united states postal service® works for thousands of home businesses. because at usps.com® you can pay, print and have your packages picked up for free.

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not guilty one. the curiosity rover on mars found evidence living microbes may have existed on the red planet billions of years ago. new owners of hostess hope to have twinkies back on the shelves this summer. two investment firms made a joint offer to buy the firm for more than $400 million. back to "hardball." well, welcome back to "hardball." black smoke emerged from the sistine chapel chimney tonight indicating the 115 voting cardinals have not yet chosen a pope to lead the roman catholic church. tomorrow voting will continue four times per day until a new pontiff is named. while much is being made of who the new pope will be, tonight we're going to take a look at the issues he must tackle. it will be a he in the catholic church. including corruption within the vatican, sex abuse scandal, role of women and marriage, and of course, contraception. mike at winters is an old pal of mine. writes for the national catholic

reporter. wrote the book "left at the altar: how the democrats lost the catholics and how the catholics can save the democrats." mary johnson was a nun for 20 years with mother teresa before leaving the church. she's the author of the book "unquenchable thirst." legal settlement of nearly $10 million in child sex abuse, catholic diocese of los angeles. $10 million. michael winter, this is what most catholic laypeople read in the paper. they'll read it in the "time"s tomorrow and every paper in the country. they'll say these priests, what are they doing? why did we just learn about this stuff? a lot of these cases are old. >> i think the church has done a great deal since 2002 when they adopted the charter to ferret this stuff out. but what i still think the hierarchy doesn't understand is that the sex abuse crisis started about molesting children the way watergate started with burglary. it's no longer about this priest or that priest who did it with a little boy or little girl. we understand that happens whether penn state football or

the church. the problem are the bishops who oversaw them in so many cases did not react -- >> why not? why didn't they throw them out? >> the culture, you know, whether, again, whether it was penn state or the clergy, they rallied the wagons around. it's the most frustrating thing. i will say -- >> let me go to sister on this because i have a suspicion when people cover up, they're covering up for themselves. they've got a little embarrassment in their own sex life, perhaps, which they're not supposed to have a sex life. somebody comes up and says, let's not be hypocritical here, joe, maybe you keep your mouth shut on this one. such an elaborate cover-up. so many people involved in it. then you wonder, i don't think it's just because they're being -- cops looking out for cops because they're loyal to cops. i think a lot of it is to cover up for their own world. i'm speculating. i admit it. i don't like the looks of it. your thoughts, your memory, your history. what do you see? >> i think the church has been building up a history of se cressey for 2,000 years. they do it better really than anybody else. the hierarchy in the church has become such a boy's club really.

just -- you know, one of the reason i wrote my memoir "an unquenchable thirst" is because i wanted to start open dialogue about what it's really like to live celibacy in the church. what does that feel like? nobody is really talking about that. even when there were these revelations about the depths of the pedophilia crisis, people were talking legal things, historical things. but no one was talking what is that really like? priests are lonely. of course, pedophiles is an entirely different matter. but if we're going to solve any of these problems in the catholic church, we have to begin to think about marriage for priests. we have to think about women priests. leadership -- >> i'm with you on all that. let me ask -- >> -- has to be shared, has to be responsible. >> let me challenge you on one thing. why would anybody, i mean, i am maybe an old boy's club guy, myself, in some ways. some ways. although that's pretty much the past. my question to you is, why would anybody want to hang out -- what guy do you know would want to hang out with another guy, old-school reference there, who

has sex with altar boys? why would you want to have the same -- be sitting at the same meal table with him, be in the same rectory with him? you wouldn't want anything to do with that person. why do you say they protect each other knowing this horror is going on, this disgusting behavior? what's this old boy's club reference got to do with it? >> i think that as you said, nearly everyone in the priesthood has some sort of skeleton in their closet. richard sipe spent his entire history, his entire life studying celibacy among priests in the catholic church. he's a former priest, himself. he estimated through intensive sociological studies that at any given time in the catholic church, only 50% of priests are actually living their vow of celibacy. and when he went to rome and talked to cardinals about this, he was told that they found no reason to dispute those findings. >> what do you make of that? that's a good estimate. what do you think of that estimate, half of them are having sex of some kind with somebody else? >> you know, i'm not a prude and i'm not going to be throwing

stones -- >> no, no stones. just facts. throw some facts. >> if people don't live up to their marriage vows or celibacy vows, this is human nature. i think what's different about the pedophilia crisis was "a" the enormity of what was done. and secondly the failure of a response to deal with it. again, i've got to give the bishops credit. i think in the last ten years they enacted a zero-tolerance policy. what worries me is when a bishop is caught not following the policies that they've pledged to enact, nothing happens. >> okay. let's talk about something happening. because i'm optimistic. i think you are, too, michael. i hope you are, too, mary. i don't know you. i know michael. let me start with you, mary. >> what's the chances we'll get a good pope? i mean by that a person who can walk in the door with a broom and say, look, we got to get more connected with the people, start getting sermons that connect to real people in their real lives. women huge roles, deacons, at least, vastly increase the role of women behind the altar,

vastly increase people open to the idea of contraception, that is a mortal sin. all the big things catholics would like to have looked at again. bh what are the chances of that happening, mary? >> i wish that i could tell you that the odds were really good, but i can't. i don't think they are really good. change in the catholic church comes very slowly, and right now all of the bishops there have been chosen by conservative popes. all the cardinals who are going to choose the next pope. and because of the way that the history of dogma is constructed in the catholic church, because of the way papal infallibility has been built up, especially in the last century, it's very hard to take a step back and apply common sense. >> you're so smart. >> i want to push back on that. i'm sorry. to say that benedict was a conservative and just let it go with that. on january 1st in his world day of peace message, he listed three threats to world peace. terrorism, international crime, and unregulated financial capitalism. if barack obama had said that, fox would talk about nothing else for a month.

yet it got no coverage, and there it was in one of his most prominent annual messages. the fact is both the left and the right conspire in this idea that the only important thing you need to know as a catholic is what -- >> we'll be better off with a ceo, young ceo, tough person rather than a theologian? >> i think we need a holy man. i don't think we need a theologian. a holy man who knows how to deal with people. >> i think we need matt dylan. your thoughts, mary. what kind of pope do we need? >> we need a pope who connects with people. we need a pope who has an open mind. someone who is open to change and to imagining new things for the church. somebody that can make people excited about living lives of meaning. >> i think we need pope john xxiii comeback. i bet pope john xxiv. thank you, michael winters and mary. up next, stars of the new movie "olympus has fallen." what an exciting movie it is. it's about north koreans of all

people taking over the presidency, getting into the white house. real terrorist operation. a real thriller. looks great. gerard butler, aaron eckhart, angela bassett all comg to sit at this table in one minute. you're watching "hardball," the place for politics. sales event . ♪ featuring a stunning work of technology -- ♪ the lexus es. ♪ this is a reason to look twice. get great values on your favorite lexus models during the command performance sales event. this is the pursuit of perfection. during the command performance sales event. all stations come over to mithis is for real this time. step seven point two one two. verify and lock. command is locked. five seconds. three, two, one.

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running as an independent as well as concerns about taking on his own party. that means the marquee matchup for this year's election calendar will be a likely face-off between clinton right-hand man terry mcauliffe and the state's very conservative attorney general ken cuccinelli. i love that race. it would have been better with a third guy in there screwing it for cuccinelli. we'll be right back. when did you know that grandma was the one? when her sister dumped me. grandpa was my dad a good athlete? no. oh dad, you remember my friend alex? yeah. the one that had the work done... good to see you. where do we go when we die? the ground. who's your girlfriend? his name is chad. and that's where babies come from. [ male announcer ] sometimes being too transparent can be a bad thing. this looks good!

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takes 15 minutes for your armed forces to reach the white house. we took it down in 13. >> the president's in the bunker. he's being held hostage. >> what do they want? >> we're trying to find out.

>> who's in charge? >> trumball, are there any survivors with you? >> negative, sir. they wiped us out. they have commandos roaming the hallways with enough explosives to take out an army. >> we're back. that's a clip from the upcoming action thriller. looks great. i'm not kidding. "olympus has fallen." a story about disgraced actually fallen secret service agent mike banning, who finds himself trapped in the white house after the president is held hostage by north korean terrorists. and pentagon intelligence officials are relying on banning's expertise about knowing every nook and cranny of the white house to get the president out safe and stop the -- they're not terrorists, they're north koreans. the movie will hit theaters march 22nd. with me the stars of the film. aaron eckhart plays president asher. angela bassett, head of secret service. gerard butler, in every movie that's ever come out in the last ten years. he stars as agent banning. recently i saw you play a sur r

er in "chasing maverick." then you're in this movie about the father getting divorced. what's it called? >> called? how many movies you do a year? >> cently, not that many. >> it was a great guy jerry, who saved the president. you saw a movie about the secret service agent, guess you played the guy in the movie. to be in the secret service. >> how crazy is that. >> so, this connection between the secret service and the president of the united states is fascinating. what happens? >> maybe one day, i'll be president. >> that's the way it works. i play matt banning and we've been great friends. i was the special agent in charge. a tragedy happened. so i play mike banning. very good friend of president asher.

basically, we move in after this tragedy. the treasury and obviously, we the backdrop of tensions and korea. out of nowhere, totally by surprise, this insane terrorist attack happens. >> we start worrying about the middle east. we're going to bomb, in this, this is a harvey weinstein kind of thing. all of a sudden, we're hear frg the north koreans as this movie opens. >> very powerful people in hollywood. though it just happened like that. hard for hollywood to pick a terrorist anymore because there's so much happening in the world. we made this film a year ago and this is happening now. it's part coincidence and part just the way the world is. >> you've got to be politically correct. you have to pick enemies that are just se acceptable. now the koreans.

you think it's believable? >> i mean, it's, there's so much authenticity in it, that's what's making the experience of it so exciting for the audien s audiences. >> you're sitting in a restaurant and having breakfast is with this guy. it's a very smart looking place and it's supposed to be around 15th street. near the white house. where is that in hollywood? >> louisiana. >> louisiana. >> no! >> we built the white house in shreveport, louisiana. they were loving it. >> was it a a good tax scale? we see scenes from the white house and camp david. where's that? >> just outside shreveport. >> really? this is great. after you see the mf and you realize you were at some set,

then go back, maybe a month, six month, you go watch again. my god, i am in the white house. >> absolutely. the story's good enough and acting and directing is good enough. >> you know all the, the you know, stories behind the scenes, but yeah. >> you remember what days you were tired, hungover, what days people didn't know their lines. >> angela, you remember it? >> i do. >> i go over to brooklyn, an industrial neighborhood with all this terrible stuff. it's not a -- and when you watch the show, i always watch it, you think you're in a high-rise chicago law firm in chicago and you fall for it again. >> i try not to watch it too many times before i see the finished product. >> one thing i want to talk about is this affection we have for the president. i know "west wing" did it beautifully. you may have a couple of president

presidents in a row you don't like, but there's still the magic there. ainge area? the white house, the building. >> absolutely. >> the magic of it. >> i was there three weeks ago. you're in awe. you're coming from small town in florida or where ever you're from and it's the you know, the highest -- >> i always smell the paint. brand new paint and the road dend smell. a feel of history around you. >> from school, from the earliest age you can remember, even in scotland, these are buildings and institutions and a position you are taught to respect. it can contain so much emotion inside of you, so when suddenly, you see this attack and the president being held hostage, it is incredible what a powerful experience it is and obviously, recalls not such distant history of some tragedies and i have to tell you, you're talking about harvey weinstein, i watched it with him. we had a screening.

this opening scene, is it believable? you're there and he was shouting out, he's like, yeah! >> i have to say one line. something we've never had. remember that? brave heart. olympus has fallen, in theatres march 22nd. thank you. love that name. we'll be right back. ♪ [ male announcer ] we all have something neatly tucked away

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