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tv   The Last Word  MSNBC  March 28, 2013 7:00pm-8:00pm PDT

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do it. both rigs are facing federal investigations. the executive in charge is out of a job. and shell has announced that it is calling off all of its drilling operations in the arctic for the rest of the year. why is this not a bigger story? now it's time for "the last word" with lawrence o'donnell. thanks for being with us tonight. have a great night. tonight, a story you haven't heard. what the children who survived the sandy hook massacre are coping with now. 6-year-olds who lost their best friends, who were almost murdered themselves. a mother of two of those children will join me. i want everybody who is listening to make yourself heard right now. >> president obama keeping up the pressure. >> the white house has tried to use a lot of political capital. >> on changing the country's gun laws. >> we need everybody to remember how we felt 100 days ago. this time really is different. >> president's address will coincide with 140 events in 29 states.
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>> national day of action. calling on congress to pass new gun laws. >> to pressure congress on background checks. >> it's looking harder than anybody thought. >> the name of the game is getting 60 votes for democrats right now. >> republican senator chuck grassley. >> the grassley amendment in the senate. >> is crafting his own gun bill. >> strips out the universal background checks. >> known to be an opponent of background checks. >> everyone knows the politics of this issue are hard. >> we've got to suck it up. be courageous and do the right thing. >> there are some powerful voices on the other side interested in running out the clock or changing the subject. >> there is not a bill on the hill that provides a universal check. >> why not? >> universal checks is a dishonest premise. criminals aren't going to be checked. >> i think they're out of touch with the american people. >> a vast majority of the public support background checks. >> their assumption is people will just forget about it. >> it's now been three months since one of the worst mass shootings in american history. >> less than 100 days ago that happened. and we've moved on to other things? >> we can't forget it's the families, it's the victims and it's the future victims if we do
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nothing. >> this time really is different. shame on us if we have forgotten. for years now, we've been hearing opponents of president obama and some supporters of his say that he just isn't willing to fight for what he believes in. that he compromises too easily, that he gives up too easily. today, with most of washington politicians and the political media firmly convinced that nothing significant can be done on gun and ammunition control, the president stubbornly stood and fought for it, but he did not stand alone. he stood with the parents of children from connecticut to california whose lives were snuffed out by gun violence. >> that anguish is still fresh in newtown. less than 100 days ago that happened. and the entire country was shocked. the entire country pledged we would do something about it and
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this time would be different. i haven't forgotten those kids. shame on us if we have forgotten. >> the president pushed for approval of all of his legislative proposals, including an assault weapons ban, a limit on high-capacity magazines and he especially emphasized his most popular proposal. >> 90% support background checks that will keep criminals and people who have been found to be a danger to themselves or others from buying a gun. more than 80% of republicans agree. more than 80% of gun owners agree. think about that. how often -- do 90% of americans agree on anything? >> no president can bend congress to his will. and so this president asked for help from the people who can. >> right now members of congress are back home in their districts, and many of them are holding events where they can hear from their constituents. so i want everybody who is listening to make yourself heard right now. tears aren't enough, expressions
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of sympathy aren't enough. speeches aren't enough. now is the time to turn that heartbreak into something real. >> the president spoke hours after a connecticut official released new details on the massacre at sandy hook elementary, the shooter murdered, using a bushmast bushmaster .223 caliber assault rifle. he had ten 30-round capacity magazines for that weapon. he fired 154 bullets. authorities estimate his attack took less than five minutes. according to search warrants unsealed today at adam lanza's home, the following items were recovered. a national rifle association certificate with adam lanza's name. an nra certificate with nancy lanza's name. and this book "the nra guide to the basics of pistol shooting." the nra released this statement. there is no record of a member
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relationship between newtown killer adam lanza, nor between nancy lanza with the national rifle association. firearms instructors issue nra certificates to people who complete certified classes, regardless of nra membership. joining me now in an exclusive interview, democratic governor of connecticut, dannel malloy and msnbc's joy reid. governor, what did -- what do you think the release of the new information that we now have, the details that we now have about what happened in connecticut, what do you think about how that information helps frame where the issue stands now? >> well, listen. we need universal background checks as the president said. 90% of the american public supports it. but we also need to get rid of these kinds of weapons. they are assault weapons. they are used and designed to kill people. that's what that weapon was brought to sandy hook school for. and it was brought with large capacity magazines which until
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2004 were not allowed in the united states. it is time for us to wake up and smell the coffee. our children and our citizens to be slaughtered. we cannot allow 40% of guns in this country to change hands without a background check. i can't get on a plane without somebody doing a background check on me. and yet we're going to sell 40% of our weapons in the united states without a background check? it makes no sense. chuck grassley should be embarrassed. and i suspect he will be when there's another mass shooting, be one of which will surely take place in his state if we don't draw the line somewhere. >> and governor, if the old law had been in place, more children would be alive tonight in n newtown, connecticut. he could only have killed that many people with the high-capacity magazine, and with the assault weapon, and since his mother had obtained guns legally, there's no indication, no indication, that that home would have had illegally obtained guns. he would have had -- he would have been limited to legally
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available weaponry if he was to go in and do that under the assault weapons ban. >> lawrence, it's even clearer than that. at the home were ten-round magazines and twenty-round magazines. he chose not to take those. he chose not to take them for a very simple purpose. he went to that school in my state with the purpose of killing as many people as he possibly could. that's why he had that gun, that's why he had 30-round capacity magazines. that's why we need to do something about them, as well as lots of other things that we need to do. those guns should have been under a lock. quite frankly, they should never have been in the home of a disturbed individual such as this young man. but we need to do a whole bunch of things. but arguing that if we don't get everything done right as a reason not to do anything is ridiculous. the nra's own position used to be that we should have background checks. they agreed with 90% of the american public. and, of course, we need to do that, and i'm very proud of this president.
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and this vice president. for taking this -- this cause on. not backing away when things are a little dim, they're coming out swinging. and i'm with them. >> let's listen to more of what the president had to say today. >> there are some powerful voices on the other side interested in running out the clock or changing the subject or drowning out the majority of the american people to prevent any of these reforms from happening at all. they're doing everything they can to make all our progress collapse under the weight of fear and frustration or their assumption is that people will just forget about it. >> joy reid, this is the president who is frequently criticized not just by opponents but by supporters of his for not hanging in there and fighting for things. and while washington is off on recess, he is there today, he is pushing for this with just as much energy as he has all the way through. and it seems to me that this president hasn't gotten the pessimism memo that everybody else in washington got, apparently, to just give up on
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this. >> you know, absolutely. a lot of people are looking at polls and saying, oh, goodness, people's attitudes on this are softening. maybe people aren't paying attention anymore. there's a lot of other things going on. but what you saw, lawrence, on that dais was a dad and president obama is speaking of issues that impact him as a human being, as a father. and those women standing behind him, those moms, i felt the crux of his emotional arc in that speech was when he said these moms, some just lost their children 35 days ago. these are moms asking us, begging us to do something. and what he was trying to do is to enlist ordinary people, moms and dads, people with stuff to do, with jobs, with other priorities, to focus on the fact that this is essentially a war. this is a war of ordinary people who just want to be safe in their own communities, in their schools and movie theatres against the might of an industry, the gun industry, and its court jesters in the nra who, by the way, totally believe the government should be able to regulate you. they think they should be able to regulate your brain. they want to criminalize
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essentially the mentally ill and have the government keep records of them. but they don't want to have the basic safeguards of having a background check system so people who are disturbed can't get guns. it is lewd russ and insane. >> you could almost feel the president trying to reach through the television camera today out to the american people to get them to go down to their congress members' office or senator's office in the local districts. i want to play this new ad that mare mayor bloomberg's group has put out. let's listen to this. >> we dropped jesse off in the morning, december 14th, he gave me a hug and kiss and said "i love you dad, and i love mom too." >> our daughter grace was 7 years old. she couldn't waiting to to school. she would skip down the driveway. >> my sister loved teaching at sandy hook. every student would say "i hope i get ms. soto next year." >> lauren loved children, and she always wanted to be a teacher. >> i got a 911 call that there was a shooting at sandy hook
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elementary school. >> we need to remember the 26 victims who lost their lives. >> she just wanted to teach little kids. and that was her goal, and she died doing it. wonderful. >> that was the last day i ever saw jesse alive. >> i want to prevent any other family from having to go through what we're going through. >> don't let the memory of newtown fade without doing something real. >> demand action. now. >> governor, what do you think is the potential impact of this double teaming in effect of the president of the united states and then mayor bloomberg's money going into this kind of advertising? >> i know all of those people. i spent time with jesse's dad. in fact, jesse's dad was the last guy to leave the firehouse very late after the shooting, well into the night. i left around 10:00. he was still there. if this doesn't touch people, i
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don't know what will. even in my own state, there are people who don't want to outlaw the possession of these large-capacity magazines. i have put forward a proposal that does just that. i'm hoping it will be taken up by the legislature. i know that there are people who are -- who don't want to -- to do that. we're going to pass a -- you're not going to be able to sell those weapons any longer in our state. we should not allow those magazines to remain in our state. we should do the common sense things necessary to move forward on this issue. i believe we will when everything is said and done. i think this is a wake-up call to the nation. don't let this go away. and i want to be very clear. there are going to be more of these in post offices, in malls, in movie theatres. the people who vote against any of this, this go-round, if it's defeated, are going to have to explain to their constituents why they couldn't agree with 90% of americans public.
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why they couldn't agree that universal background checks were necessary. why they couldn't limit the sale of these very dangerous assault weapons that are designed to kill people. and why they couldn't go back to the 2004 limitation with respect to magazines and not allow high-capacity magazines to be possessed in our country any longer. these are common sense proposals, and we need to do something about it in our nation. we need to honor the memory of those 20 babies, and those 6 educational professionals. we need to honor the memory of people who have been slaughtered in our jurisdictions in this country. quite frankly, we need to start honoring the people who are going to die because we're not doing enough. >> jerry reed, i think what we might have seen today at the presidential podium was the former community organizer trying to be a 50-state community organizer. really talking to people directly about specifically how they can have an influence on their congressional representatives during this congressional recess with them back in their districts. he's pretty much telling them to get out there and go to those
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meetings and make some noise. >> yeah, no, absolutely. he's essentially saying that the side who are one-issue voters, oh only vote on the gun issue are always motivated. now those who want gun safety, common sense gun measures that 90% of people agree on, have got to get just as active. wee got to take time out of our day, watch commercials like that which are so painful, i can barely get through them whenever they're shown. but you've got to remind yourself every day of what we're fighting for. it's people's right to just be safe at school. to just not have adam lanza be able to amass an arsenal that the nra, by the way, thinks is a-okay to buy all those weapons. the nra should be ashamed. shame on them and shame on anyone who stands with them instead of those kids in newtown. >> connecticut governor dannel malloy and joy reid, thank you both for joining me tonight. >> thank you. coming up, a last word exclusive. a mother of two sandy hook students who survived the shooting. and now everyone can see the
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malala yousafzai shock in the head by the pakistan because she advocated for girls' education is going to be able to tell her story in a book. the guardian reports malala will get $3 million for the book titled "i am malala." malala is attending school in birmingham, england, where she is still undergoing treatment after undergoing skull reconstruction and getting implants to hear again. in a statement, malala says she hopes the book will reach people around the world so they realize how difficult it is for some children to get access to education. i want to tell my story, but it will also be the story of 61 million children who can't get education. a febreze experiment.
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yeah. a man fresh out of the shower. nailed it. oh yeah. proof. febreze car vent clips keep your car fresh. another way febreze helps you breathe happy. as i said, when i visited newtown, just over three months ago, if there is a step we can take that will save just one child, just one parent, just another town from experiencing the same grief that some of the moms and dads who are here have endured, then we should be doing it. >> that was the president at the white house today with families victimized by gun violence around the country, including parents of some of the children massacred at sandy hook in newtown, connecticut. in newtown today, residents protested outside of the national shooting sports foundation, which is one of the largest gun lobbies in the country. it happens to be headquartered
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in newtown, just three miles away from sandy hook elementary school. joining me now for an exclusive interview, one of today's protesters, susan ludwig, the mother two of children who were at sandy hook elementary school the day of the shooting. susan, thank you for joining us tonight. i just want to make clear to the audience, your children survived that day. tell us what it was like when you arrived at the school and saw children being carried out with bullet wounds. >> yeah, that's correct. i have four children, and two of my kids were at sandy hook that day. one is six, and she in first grade, and one is 7 and is in second grade. and day on december 14th, he was headed into school to -- i was supposed to be making gingerbread houses in my daughter's first grade class. but on the way to school, a half mile from the school, i saw another parent from the class in the middle of the road, and she was with four of those boys that escaped, and she said to me, "something is really wrong.
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these boys are saying someone is trying to kill them." so i rushed to the school and started to go inside and there were a couple police cars there at the time. and they wouldn't let me in the school so i stayed in that parking lot and i waited for things to happen. as i waited, more and more police cars came, and with rifles and what not. and as i waited, finally one of the police officers came out, and he was carrying one of my daughter's daisy, friends in his arms. and she had long brown hair just like my daughter's. and i had to look very hard to make sure it wasn't my daughter, and it wasn't. she had a gunshot wound to her head and blood all over her mid drift and he held her there until he could get her to an ambulance. and and i waited and at that point i thought maybe this is just, you know, a crazy parent. and then the second child came out. and she was the soul survivor from the other class. and she was absolutely head to toe covered in blood and flesh.
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just hanging on her whole body. and her mother was in that parking lot that day, luckily. but when i saw her, i knew that it wasn't just a shooting. it had been a massacre. and so then i started to wait, and i waited, and i watched until -- i just sat there begging god that my kids, please be safe. and finally, my kids did come out and they walked down to the firehouse where we met with other parents, but there were many parents that day that couldn't find their children. and my heart breaks for them. they live every parent's worst nightmare. >> susan, what did the children who walked out that day experience as they were walking out of their school -- their school building? >> they were terrified. some of those children had to walk past their principal, dawn hochsprung, dead on the floor in her own blood. some of -- my children, i'm happy to say, luckily enough,
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came out the back door. so they didn't -- they could hear the gunshots and the screaming over the intercoms, but my children did not have to see any of the gore. they just knew -- they just knew that it had happened. >> susan, i wanted you to bring us back to that day as a preamble, actually, to what we're going to listen to the president say right now. something else that he had to say at the white house today. >> okay. >> the notion that two months or three months after something as horrific as what happened in newtown happens, and we have moved on to other things? that's not who we are. >> susan, it seems that the nra and others are counting on that being who we are. that we have just moved on, that a couple of months is enough. >> the nra likes to call us the connecticut effect. and i can tell you that as a
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mother who has had her children almost murdered, who has had to sit back and watch while 20 of their friends and 6 of their teachers were murdered, who has had -- i've had to watch as my children's sense of safety and innocence has been stripped from them, let alone their mental -- what's going to happen to them mentally. i can tell you my feelings and the feelings of this country have not changed, and will not change. >> susan, you made a point in something that you wrote about this, that if the old assault weapons ban had been in place, adam lanza would not have had that gun. expand on that, please. >> if that weapon had been in place, he wouldn't have had that gun. but what happened instead -- what happened, you know, 22 decades can ago was that the assault weapons ban was left to expire. and they had started at that time -- the cdc had started
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researching on ways to prevent gun violence. and what happened instead was that the nra and the nssf got ahold of some of our elected officials, and they were able to get them to stop trying to find out ways to get information to prevent gun violence while we weren't looking. they -- while we weren't paying attention, they changed the laws. they let these things expire. >> susan, the president made the point today that if we could save one life, if we could spare one family, if we can spare one town from going through this, then it's worth it. the nra and the organization up there in connecticut where you live that opposes any kind of restrictions on guns, they autos make the architegument, this wo solve the problem, this won't end the possibility of people going into a school and shooting children. but if we did limit the magazines and the capacity and if that limit had still been in
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place, more children would be alive at sandy hook elementary today. >> i mean, i absolutely agree. if there weren't assault weapons -- the nra likes to use the excuse that people will hurt people, whether they have a gun or not. and even at the hearing that i went to in hartford, they said if they don't have a gun they'll use something like a hammer. and my reply to them is i've never seen 26 people die by hammer before. >> susan ludwig, it thank you very much for joining us tonight. and thank you for sharing with us what you've had to go through there. >> okay. thank you. coming up, the evolution of the president of the united states, and america on marriage equality. and in the rewrite, a tribute to who was right about the defense of marriage act in 1996. th the e to show google users what they've been missing on bing. let's bing it on. [fight bell: ding, ding] how many here are google users?
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else under the law. for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal, as well. >> in the spotlight tonight, how a president evolved on marriage equality. and brought the country with him. >> what i believe is that marriage is between a man and a woman. >> so marriage is not a civil right, as far as you're concerned. >> i don't think marriage is a civil right. >> my feelings about this are constantly evolving. i struggle with this. i have friends, i have people who work for me who are in powerful, strong, long-lasting gay or lesbian unions. at this point, what i've said is that my baseline is a strong civil union that provides them the protections and the legal rights that married couples have. i've been going through an evolution on this issue. and i've just concluded that for
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me personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that i think same-sex couples should be able to get married. >> the same week president obama affirmed his support for marriage equality, north carolina, a battleground state, the president was fighting to win in november, became the 30th state in the nation to pass a ban on same-sex marriage. in late 2009, only 41% supported same-sex marriage before president obama's endorsement 49% supported it. by december 2012, after president obama won re-election with marriage equality on his party's platform, marriage equality, hit majority support. 5 1% for the first time. that was bolstered by a surge of support from african-americans. in 2009, 32% of african-americans approved of same-sex marriage.
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by december 12th, 51% supported it. a stunning 19-point increase. and to see where the country is today, just look at the new "time" magazine covers. gay marriage already won. joining me now are the "washington post" eugene robinson and jonathan capehart, both msnbc contributors. eugene, i don't know if in our experience we have seen such a quick rise in polling for a social issue like this. is there anything that you can think of where we see that kind of curve? >> no. nothing i can think. i mean, it's as if it just -- the nation turned on a dime on the question of gay marriage. i think you have to -- have to say that president obama's switch after his long evolution seems to have had a real impact on the speed of this change. it was extraordinary. >> let's listen to something that tony perkins said just
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after the president endorsed same-sex marriage during the presidential campaign. >> i don't think the president did a political calculus to do this. because if he did, he needs to go back to the calculator, because it's a bad formula. because when you look at the state's -- north carolina, a key swing state, ohio, they have an amendment. 16 -- the key swing states, ten of them have marriage amendments. >> jonathan capehart, it looks like not such a tough call from where we sit today. but a lot of people thought that tony perkins had that political math right back then. >> a lot of people it. but a lot of people also thought he was wrong. i have to say that, you know, gene said that it seems like the president's words had an impact. i can speak from my own experience that with my own mother, a born-again christian, the president's words had a direct impact. i've been out to my mother for
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years now since i came home from college. and slowly but surely she came around to being fine with having a gay son. but it wasn't until the president said that he supported same-sex marriage that, one, we ever talked about the issue. but two, that my mother understood -- understood why this was important. why it was important, and because she loves the president, she supports the president, because he said it, it made it okay for her, one, to hear what he had to say and to understand the issue, and two, to come on out and support it. >> eugene, this is fascinating, because jonathan's mother loves jonathan and supports him, but she also -- she also loves this president and supports him. gene, talk about the unique aspects of this kind of presidential communication in this kind of situation, and how it change people's minds. >> well, i think the interesting thing here is that as you noted
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in the intro, president obama said just a few years ago, marriage is between a man and a woman. so he started at a point where a lot of americans were. and then he essentially said, you know, i hadn't thought deeply enough about this issue. i've gotten to know -- there are people who work for me. people i know who are in these long-term unions. and i think -- a huge factor, aside from president obama himself, having vocalized it, is that more people are out. and so those of us who are heterosexual know gay people and know lesbians and know couples who live in our neighborhoods, who have been together for a long time, and we ask ourselves, why shouldn't they get married? what's the problem? >> you know, i was talking to a senator about this last night confidentially, and jonathan, he says that the heroes are people like you, people who made their
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own decision to come out within their family, and then suddenly someone discovers, oh, my uncle is gay, and i love my uncle. he's my favorite uncle. and now someone over here just said something bad about gay people. i don't like that -- and this network of connection built and built and built over time. and that is what we have seen. and that is what this senator was saying he believes justice roberts was mistaking in the supreme court, as political power. some sort of leveraged political power when, in fact, it was coming -- the power was coming from real voters. >> right. from real voters, from real people. look, in the 1970s, i believe it was 1978, harvey milk in a speech said i want every gay person in america to come out oh. i know it will be difficult, but when heterosexuals see us as their friends, their co-workers, their relatives, their neighbors, we will -- we will be seen as not an other. we will be seen as something
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that's not pernicious, that's not dangerous. we will be seen as, you know, fellow americans, basically. and so it's that quiet revolution that's been happening around dinner tables and living rooms across the country ever since harvey milk said that that's let us to this point today. those numbers that are shifting so rapidly is because there are lots of brave people who sit down at those dinner tables and say to their relatives, say to their friends, say to their neighbors and co-workers who they are and finding out that those folks, by and large, accept them. support them. now, that's not to say that u know, every story is as wonderful as, say, will portman's story who came out to his father, senator rob portman, and his father had an open heart and was willing to listen to him and willing to also change his position on same-sex marriage that lots of people who come out to their families, kicked out of their homes, lose their jobs. but these numbers that are shifting so rapidly in favor of same-sex marriage and viewing,
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you know, gay and lesbians' fight for civil rights is something that's about fairness and about equal protection under the law. that's something, you know, this country can celebrate. and whatever the supreme court does, whatever it decides no later than june, the country will get there. and is going to get there a whole lot faster than we think. >> gene, i -- you know, the one thing comes to mind to me here is bobby kennedy on civil rights. i think he had a unique ability to communicate to certain classes of white voters, especially. the american irish. and i lived through the period where his communication on that subject was changing minds in a way that -- but not at the rate and not at the scale that we have seen president obama achieve in the way he has led the country on this. are there any other examples of this that -- as we sit here come to mind? >> i think bobby kennedy is a
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good example. i'm not sure -- i mean, frankly, gene mccarthy had a similar effect with some people on the vietnam war. but, you know, i don't know that there's really a precedent. it's interesting, because african-american ministers have long been or a number of them have long been very anti gay marriage. and some ministers have told me they predicted before the election that the president's stance was going to cost him votes among african-americans in the election. and, you know, the number of votes it cost him is precisely zero. >> right. >> because no support at all. andit just remarkable. >> as my mother will attest. >> we all heard those warnings. eugene robinson, jonathan capehart, thanks for joining me tonight. >> thanks. coming up, a tribute to who was right about the defense of marriage act when it became law in 1996. that's in the rewrite.
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in a new poll, elizabeth colbert-bush is beating stephen colbert. the poll shows south carolina's first congressional district giving elizabeth colbert bush a rating of 45% and 36 favorably toward her little brother. next, important video you want to see about people who were right about the defense of marriage act back when most people were wrong. otherworldly things. but there are some things i've never seen before. this ge jet engine can understand 5,000 data samples per second. which is good for business. because planes use less fuel, spend less time on the ground and more time in the air. suddenly, faraway places don't seem so...far away. ♪
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in the rewrite tonight, another episode of they were right. 16 1/2 years ago, the vote on the defense of marriage act in the house of representatives was 342 in favor, 67 opposed. in the senate, the vote was 85 in favor, only 14 opposed. and now at the supreme court on the verge of rewriting the defense of marriage act as unconstitutional, it is worth remembering who was right when america needed them to be right. here are some of the voices that were raised in congress when saying no to the defense of marriage act took real political courage. >> i rise in strong opposition to this ill-named defense of marriage act. and i do so on the basis of conscience, constitution and constituency. >> i understand some of the people who are sponsoring this bill are on their second or third marriages.
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i wonder which one they're defending. >> this bill speaks to our nation, turning americans against american. sowing the seeds of fear. >> whether against same-sex marriage, there are ample reasons to vote against this bill because it represents an unconstitutional exercise of congressional power. >> i recognize that my views are likely to be in the minority, as well as unpopular. but this isn't the first time i've come to the well to stand up for what i believe in. and it won't be the last. >> let's not take part in this assault on lesbian and gay americans and their families. >> discrimination is discrimination and it is wrong. >> this bill is a slap in the face of the declaration of independence. >> i rise in opposition to this bill, and i oppose it with both my head and my heart. >> i feel very strongly that this legislation is fundamentally wrong and feeling as i do, i would not be true to
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my conscience or my oath of office if i failed to speak out against it. >> to me, this is ugly politics. to me it is about dividing us instead of bringing us together. to me it is
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as the republican party tries to work through its identity crisis, sarah palin is trying to get republicans to part with their money for her nonexistent political future one more time. >> i would not be in the u.s. senate today if it were not for governor sarah palin. >> joining me now, crystal ball co host of msnbc's "the cycle." crystal, i just spared the
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audience, as i think you know, another two minutes of this pay palin self-worship video, trolling for money to keep that big slush fund she and todd use to travel around the country, keep that full. and there's ted cruz saying, hey, without sarah palin, you know, i wouldn't be in the senate. and of course, without sarah palin, it is entirely possible that harry reid would not be in the senate and republicans would actually control the senate. >> yes, that's exactly right. she also backed great candidates like christine o'donnell, sharon engel and richard murdoch. the part of the video you didn't show that your viewers will be spared from is basically a bunch of media clips, seeking to validate that she is still relevant. and the thing that i really like about that is she has basically made her career blasting thethe clips from the lame stream media to claim -- desperately claim she is still somehow rely availability. >> unfortunately, there is no
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clip of me in there asserting her irrelevance. but this is exactly the kind of thing that republicans worry about. because, you know, there she is, out there, draining -- will drain money, surely. she'll have some success raising money. and that's money that, you know, the karl roves of the world, her new rival, are also out there trying to drum up so people -- and karl rove would say, they could direct it toward more candidates with a better chance of winning. >> well, that's exactly right. and not only that, she is the image of the republican party that they want to move beyond. it's no surprise that she is against the republican rebranding, because she basically is the problem with the republican party. jingoistic, simplistic, not trusting science. you know, that is what the republican party has been, out on the fringe, extreme. but they're hoping -- some of them, at least, to try to move
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beyond. and she is just insistly thrusting herself back into the public sphere. >> and the report she filed on her partly cloudy pac, end of 2012, only had $1.1 million. so you can see how just for her travel fund alone, she's going to need a lot more than that to get around the country. >> absolutely. and i think it's going to be a little bit of tough sledding. i do think she has gone from having a real platform to this video is really just about her pleading with the public that she still has some sort of role and some sort of influence that she can play in the republican party. >> you know, one of my favorite things about the video, if someone was sitting down to cut a video to ridicule sarah palin, they would use a lot of the same elements. it's really funny thing that way. the things that she thinks -- that she uses for self-praise others would use to attack her at the same time. >> she thinks she this is this woman of