this morning my question, can you get salmonella from the shutdown? and brain-eating ameba invades indiana. plus, justice scalia believes in the devil and thinks he's very busy these days. but first, if you think devils, salmonella, brain-eating amebas are scary, wait till you see "dawn of the debt." good morning, i'm melissa harris-perry. all right. so the thing about zombies, besides the rotting flesh and all that, they are really hard

to stop. no matter what you do, they just keep on coming after you, hungry and ready to tear you apart. you can never just sit back and relax, because after these zombies, the ones right in front of you, there are thousands more right behind them and a thousand more behind them, and they'll all want a piece of you. maybe you have a plan for the zombie apocalypse. the cdc certainly does. no, really, that's a real post from the federal government's zombie preparedness campaign, but what about if the government defaults on its debts? the way some are talking about it, it sure sounds like an apocalyp apocalypse. >> in order to admit default would be, and i'm quoting here, insane, catastrophic, chaos, these are the more polite words. warren buffett likened it to a nuclear bomb.

>> but the real zombies in this metaphor aren't the country's debts, the real zombies are the congressional republicans. see, no matter how much you think they've been defeated, they just keep coming back. the affordable care act was passed and signed, and they still fought it. it was upheld by the supreme court, still, they attacked it. just this month, it was officially enacted and still republicans shutdown the government over demands that president obama gut his biggest legislative achievement. republicans lost the presidential election, despite a struggling economy, they failed to take the senate, they barely held on to the house. 1 million more voted for house democrats than republicans. their approval rating is lower than low and still falling. only 24% of americans have positive feelings towards the republican party, according to a new nbc news/"wall street journal" poll, the lowest number since polling began 25 years

ago. yet still they come, demanding obama care be defunded, that the safety net be slashed, that you become their undead dinner. now they are massed in washington, d.c. threatening to keep the government shutdown unless president obama gives them something, medicare reform maybe, changes to the tax code, i don't know. but the contempt of most of the american people won't stop them. electoral results won't stop them. the threat of economic catastrophe won't stop them. they'll just keep coming back, trying to rip the government apart limb from limb. joining me now, jared bernstein and msnbc and cnbc contributor, currently a fellow on the center of budget policies and priorities and fellow chief economic adviser to vice president joe biden. lisa cook from michigan state university and former member of the president's council of

economic advisers. elahe izadi, staff correspondent at the national journal, and rick newman, finance columnist at yahoo! and author of "rebounders: how winners pivot from setback to success." nice to have you all at the table. rick, i want to start with you. that same poll i just quoted is i think a fascinating poll result. they ask whether or not americans wanted to just fire everyone in congress and replace them with new folks. 60% of americans said, yep, that sounds like a good deal. does that mean the zombies have won, if people are at this point just disgusted with government overall, does that mean republicans, no matter what happens on debt ceiling, have won? >> there is a tactic if you make the entire government look terrible, it will create more momentum to shrink the government and that's what some of these young turks are after. i think it's back firing, because what happens when the government shuts down is we start to realize what the government doesn't do and we

say, wait a minute, we want the government to do these things. we want it to go out and patrol, you know, food-borne illness. it makes the government look good and people trying to stop the government look bad. >> that's in the poll numbers, as well, when we look at who is blamed by the american people here, we have a clear sort of preponderance of people blaming republicans rather than blaming president obama. 53% of folks saying the shutdown is really the republicans' fault, but in the end, is it possible that they -- what we're fighting over here is to get back to sequester levels, to raise the debt ceiling, as though this is a thing that ought to be fought about. >> yeah, i thought president obama had a very good point when he kept saying raising the debt ceiling is not a concession to me. that's the job of the congress. you raise a good point, and i think it's one that what

underappreciated, both in terms of these ongoing arguments they are having and the outcome. vis-a-vis the ongoing arguments, the democrats have made a considerable concession to republicans by accepting budget levels, these sequestration or budget cut levels that are well below where they'd like to put the caps on discretionary spending, and at the same time, the sequester is looks like we're going to be stuck with it for at least 2014, if not years after that. >> so on this point then, one more on the politics. elahe, i wonder about not only what the sort of undead republican battle is doing vis-a-vis the administration, but also sort of what is it spurring these republican zombies on? the heritage foundation seems to be trying to shift some of the structural constraints facing these members and put out a new report, excuse me, put out a statement saying, we do not

support clean debt ceiling increases, but because heritage action is committed to giving house leadership the flexibility they need to refocus the debate on obama care, we will not vote against the reported proposal. so we're not going to, basically, hold them accountable if they raise the debt ceiling. so this is heritage saying we want to fight about obama care, we don't want to fight about debt ceiling. if republicans raise the debt ceiling, we're not going to sort of score you down as a conservative, but i keep thinking, well, yeah. i mean, how would you score someone down for doing their job? >> well, raising the debt ceiling, a clean debt ceiling bill has never been that popular with very conservative members and organizations, but i found it interesting that heritage decided not to do a key vote on a clean debt ceiling increase to refocus on obama care. and i think that indicates where the enthusiasm is among the conservative base. they are mostly enthusiastic about obama care, and a lot of them are actually upset with speaker boehner for moving away from this discussion, and i

think part of his reasoning for moving ahead and proposing a six-week debt limit increase and separating that from turning the government back on was to give conservatives hope that obama care would be revisited. so i think that kind of indicates where the conservatives are and that they are more passionate and interested on the obama care issue. and they realize that the repercussions on not raising the debt limit, it's unprecedented. we don't know what could happen, but a government shutdown, that's happened before, and i think republicans are feeling comfortable they won't lose the house over it, even if a majority of americans blame them for it right now. >> because there's enough time? >> yeah, there's enough time. you know, we might see more of the repercussions, for instance, in virginia, where they are going to have a governors race and a lot of federal workers live in virginia, so you might see some ramifications there. but more than 12 months from now when all these guys are up again, the government shutdown,

the specter of that, all of the problems and issues might have been resolved and people might not feel as passionate or feeling that upset about it anymore. >> lisa, i want to sort of pick up on this question about, you know, shutdown versus the debt ceiling fight here. and in part because, you know, one of the great frustrations of anyone who watches the old-fashioned zombie movies, zombies move slowly, you can see them coming, but over and over our protagonist will stumble or fall and then the zombie will eat you. i keep thinking, when i look at the administration, is there some stumble, some fall the administration previously in its relationship with the republicans has committed to allow the debt ceiling once again to get wrapped up, something potentially catastrophic, is there a failure how the administration handled this in the past to allow us to keep coming? >> i think the republicans, house republicans, certainly think there are opportunities there, that the concessions that

have been made before would lead to further concessions, but i think the line in the sand that has been drawn has not been recognized, or was recognized recently. so they keep saying, well, if we don't do obama care, let's do the debt ceiling. if we don't do the debt ceiling, let's do your first-born child. so they keep moving the goal post, and the strategy has born itself to be an emperor without clothes. so i don't think they have a deep strategy, and i think that everybody's realizing that we would wind up in uncharted waters and that history, we have a recent experiment. we don't have to look back to 2011, here we can look to europe. this was disastrous. even the notion that greece would default drove the european union into action, the eurozone into action. i think they've really lost this one. >> as soon as we come back, i want you to chart those uncharted waters for me and explain precisely what happens.

there's a lot of misinformation about the debt ceiling and what happens if we don't raise it. stay right there. up next, the new crop of truthers who are haunting the obama administration pure zombie denialism may be the most frightening part of this whole thing. [ male announcer ] this is claira. to prove to you that aleve is the better choice for her, she's agreed to give it up. that's today? [ male announcer ] we'll be with her all day to see how it goes. [ claira ] after the deliveries, i was okay. now the ciabatta is done and the pain is starting again. more pills? seriously? seriously. [ groans ] all these stops to take more pills can be a pain. can i get my aleve back? ♪ for my pain, i want my aleve. [ male announcer ] look for the easy-open red arthritis cap.

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right now, house democrats are on the floor trying one more time to end the government shutdown by introducing the senate bill to fund the government, and one by one, they are being rejected. let's just take a look at this for a moment. we've been saying that republicans are the zombies, but in this case we've got democrats coming up and saying we want to

end this. let's take a look. >> gentleman from virginia. >> i yield for the purpose of a unanimous consent request for the gentleman from texas, mr. doggett. >> mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent the senate bring up the senate amendment hjr 59 instead of leaving for a three-day weekend, that we open the government and go to conference on a budget and end this republican government shutdown. >> as the chair previously advised, the request cannot be entertained, absent appropriate clearance. >> mr. speaker, ms. pelosi has already cleared it. who's not clearing it? >> i'd like to yield for the purpose of a unanimous consent request for the gentleman from wisconsin. >> thank you. mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent that the house bring up the senate to open up the government and go to conference on a budget so we can end this republican government shutdown that's costing the u.s. economy

$160 million a day. >> as the chair previously advised, that request cannot be entertained absent appropriate clearance. gentleman from virginia. >> mr. speaker, i now yield for the purpose -- >> all right. we've been seeing there what has been going on for some time this morning and looks like it is likely to continue for some time. we're going to talk here a bit, we're going to pull out from this and talk about the debt ceiling, because i do want us to keep in mind that some republicans refuse to simply acknowledge or to believe that defaulting is even a thing that could happen. take a listen. >> there is no such thing as a debt ceiling in this country. i would dispel the rumor that is going around that you hear on every newscast that if we don't raise the debt ceiling, we will default on our debt. we won't. >> if you don't raise the debt ceiling, that means you'd have a balanced budget, doesn't mean you won't pay your bills. >> there's zero chance the u.s. government is going to default on its debt. it's unfortunate people have conflated the idea that not

raising the debt ceiling on october 17th would be somehow defaulting on our debt. >> jared? >> you're physically hurting me by playing this stuff. >> i know, right? >> look, you could try to tell a story that if you don't raise the debt ceiling and you prevent the government from borrowing to pay debts its already incurred, that this congress has already signed off on, that they can use incoming cash flow from revenues to pay some of their debts, but the fact is, they can't even do that, because there are days when the amount that you owe your creditors, the people who are lending you money, are larger than your incoming cash flow. if that happens on a given day, that's called a default. this is not rocket science. the word default exists, the debt ceiling exists. you're right. i thought the zombie thing was kind of a joke, but i think you may be on to something very important there. so the extent of disinformation there is, you know, we know we've lived in a fact-free environment here for awhile, but

it's always been kind of like this fringe on the edge doing it with enough grownups in the middle to kind of keep the thing from falling apart. you've really got to be worried about where the grownups are. >> i want to underline this, lisa, the poll, the same poll we've been looking at asks the question, which would be worse, congress failing to raise the debt ceiling or the u.s. defaulting, or congress raising the debt ceiling and the u.s. increasing spending. and you have 37% of respondents saying it would be worse to raise the debt ceiling than default, but 41% saying it would be worse to raise the debt ceiling and increase spending. i look at that, and to me that is an effective massive disinformation campaign. >> absolutely. and when i hear these people, who are not economists and certainly not god, and economists aren't perfect. we're not perfect at forecasting, but i'm not sure what tools they are using -- >> it's accounting. >> exactly, exactly. bondholders can smell blood. we know this from 1992.

we know this from the fall of the european exchange rate mechanism. we know it from the eurozone crisis. bondholders can smell blood. now the question is not just your ability to pay, which is sometimes a short-term cash flow crisis, it's your willingness to pay. so when you are not willing to pay, certainly, you know, bond markets know this. so we saw this in russia, we saw it in argentina, and you may not have the ability to fund things in the future. so if you just pay these -- some bills and not others, so bondholders will say, well, you can pay us, but what about in the future? you may not be credit worthy in the future and there may be increasing political pressure for you to pay these other expenses, and it just becomes a default. so i'm not sure what information they are using, what data they are gathering. >> just can i amplify something jared said? this is important to point out. we are talking about paying for things that congress has already spent the money on. this is not about borrowing so we can spend more next year.

this is borrowing to pay for what we've already purchased. and anybody who thinks this isn't a big deal should simply do a partial default on their own bills. why don't you call up your creditors and say, i'm going to pay american express, but not visa, and see how easily that goes over. that's what we're talking about. >> to me, this is a critically important -- as much as i hate taking the macro and making it into your household economics, because there's a lot of things that don't work there, but there's value on the point around willingness. at least if you called american express and visa, maybe you could work something out, but at this point it's like american express and visa are looking at your household having a fight about whether or not you will ever bother to pay them. >> you'll work something out, but your credit score will plummet and you'll pay the price for years to come. >> you'll have higher interest rates. >> the principle is not that

hard. >> i want to continue on this specifically on the question of full faith and credit. i'm going to say it again, full faith and credit. they all keep saying it, but does anyone know what it means? i bet these guys do. [ ship horn blows ] no, no, no! stop! humans. one day we're coming up with the theory of relativity, the next... not so much. but that's okay -- you're covered with great ideas like optional better car replacement from liberty mutual insurance. total your car and we give you the money to buy one a model year newer. learn about it at libertymutual.com. liberty mutual insurance. responsibility. what's your policy? with my united mileageplus explorer card. i've saved $75 in checked bag fees.

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the full faith and credit of the united states of america. >> full faith and credit. >> full faith and credit. >> full faith and credit. >> full faith and credit of the federal government. >> making sure that the full faith and credit of the united states is retained. >> all right. we've been hearing this phrase a lot, full faith and credit of the u.s., and it cannot be denigrated, but what does that really mean? what is the full faith and credit of the united states of america? anybody want to explain? jared? >> well, i was actually about to pull up a dollar bill and show you.

well, actually, it's relevant, because if you think about our monetary system and our economy, a lot of it rests on precisely this, full faith and credit, the trust. the trust that the institution of government in this case, since we're talking about paying our debts, will, in fact, do what it says it's going to do. and in the history of our government, going back to the late 1700s, we have always paid our debts. there are a couple of instances you can find, in 1790 there was a thing happening with gold for a few minutes, but that was ancient history. we've always paid our debts. we have never undergone a discussion about breaching the debt ceiling where it's literally days out, and the world markets know this. and that's what's critical. the dollar is the reserve currency of the world. when we talk about credit spreads, we're talking about the relationship of interest rates of corporate institution of other countries relative to treasury rates. that's the baseline, because it's the most trusted economic

structure in the world. if we fool around and screw around the way we are with this debt ceiling, if we breach the debt ceiling, we are sacrificing in a matter of days hundreds of years of what we've built up in that regard. >> elahe, because of that? >> it sounds hyperbolic, but i really mean what i'm saying. >> because of that, paul krugman wrote this week, they are forcing the president into doing something illegal, not protect the full faith and credit of the u.s., or raise the debt ceiling without their approval. when krugman says it, one way or another, the president could simply choose to defy congress and ignore the debt ceiling, wouldn't this also be breaking the law? maybe, maybe not, opinions differ, but not making good on resolutions also break the law. and why not choose the one that hurts america the least? krugman is saying, if you have to, raise that sucker on your own. >> going back to the other point about the deniers, this actually

isn't a new sentiment. this goes back to even 2011, there were republicans on the hill saying, well, the debt ceiling not passing, that doesn't mean we're necessarily going to default on our debt. if the debt ceiling is not raised and it turns out we do default on our debt, then maybe president obama taking some sort of an extraordinary measure to do so after the fact might show that he has the authority to do so or that he has the incentive to do so rather. >> this idea that we could undo in days the thing that you have built up over hundreds of years, through civil war, through the expansion of our nation to both oceans. we haven't done a small thing in america, we have done a big thing. i'm not fully an american exceptionalist the way some folks are, but i really like this country and what we have demonstrated about the capacity of self rule is a meaningful, historical thing, and to undo it in a matter of days? >> we keep our word.

this is one reason why the british have kept the pound. this is over centuries, over six, seven centuries of having the pound. so this is comparable. so we have to keep our word as individuals, and i don't like the individual household comparison either, but we have to keep our word with respect to our obligations, or our credit score's going down. >> it's worth going back to 2011 when we went through something similar. after that, standard and poors did not say we're downgrading america's credit rating because the country is broke, they said we're downgrading the credit rating because of the political chaos and our lack of trust in the political system, and that's what you hear everywhere. america is still leading the world remarkably as we come out of this global recession, everyone is looking to america. america is the one that the economic engine is still chugging and people are saying,

what's wrong with you guys? why do you keep shooting yourself in the foot, and it's all politics right now. >> i want to go back on this point in part because it's sort of an international community, it is a credit community looking at us, but also ourselves looking at ourselves. we're pushing this towards the holiday season and the impact that might have on our economy when we come back. you really love, what would you do?" ♪ [ woman ] i'd be a writer. [ man ] i'd be a baker. [ woman ] i wanna be a pie maker. [ man ] i wanna be a pilot. [ woman ] i'd be an architect. what if i told you someone could pay you and what if that person were you? ♪ when you think about it, isn't that what retirement should be, paying ourselves to do what we love? ♪

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less stable, less effective, and less predictable than what we previously believed. again, it's not just a question of what others believe, but we ourselves believe. we are heading towards the holiday season, and for some retailers, the holiday season can represent 20% to 40% of annual sales. in 2012, holiday sales represented 19.3% of total retail industry sales. so if this brinksmanship continues into the holiday season, the impact on our economy would be enormous. >> consumer confidence has already tumbled. we've seen it. we're moving backwards in terms of consumer confidence, and this is what takes up the majority of gdp, consumer spending. so what you don't want is consumers and businesses pulling back, and this is still a healing economy. this is what makes me really mad about the comments about default, and we know what's going to happen. you don't know what's going to happen. this is not a regular economy. this is an economy that's coming

out of a recession and that still has above 7% unemployment. >> just quickly, this is one reason why you want to be weary of a six-week deal, by the way. these guys are cooking up some kind of a deal, and that's good. you want to see this crisis come to an end as soon as possible, but a six-week deal leaves you with the retail problem you've just described. >> brings us right to thanksgiving. you were saying during the break, and this is important. we do the breathless cable news aspect, but in the break you said to me, melissa, i don't think we are actually going to default, and it may be worth noting that to the american people this moment. >> i think the probability we'll actually default on our sovereign debt, our national debt, is way under 50%, but it's not zero. and i think that's what we're talking about, it should be zero. i don't want to attach a percentage to it, and i actually think it's low. you'll hear john boehner say i won't allow a default. i think what he's talking about is this prioritization idea we talked about earlier, we'll pay the creditors, not others.

that won't work. let me be clear, we do face a serious situation, but i don't think we're going to default. >> can i talk about priorities in a slightly different way? we have an economy growing at less than 2%. that's extremely weak. every marginal part of growth means jobs. we should be squeezing every tenth of a percentage point of growth we can get out of this economy right now instead of taking back a couple tenths. people think it's only a couple money million dollars a day, we're not in a position we can squander a couple hundred million dollars away, and we are. we're squandering the margins. >> the point about a recovering economy, sort of you might be willing to go outside without your hat on if you're perfectly healthy, but if you're just coming back from a cold, you take the extra precautions. that's where we are as a nation, at this moment it's not just consumer confidence, but it's the seasonal workers who get hired over those holiday season at walmart, at target, at

costco. if it looks like the demand isn't going to be there, those are jobs not being created. >> more people who will be dependent on a government not working. >> the business community has been sounding the alarm on not just the shutdown, but the debt ceiling, and i think it will be really interesting to see how that translates moving ahead, whether big gop donors and the business community are still going to defend these congressmen, these candidates, who have put us in this position. we hear goldman sachs, for example, the ceo after the meeting at the white house with business leaders, he came out and said these kinds of policy issues should not be fought over and attached to the debt ceiling. well, goldman sachs donates a lot of money to ted cruz and his campaign. it will be interesting to see if their money will be where their mouth is going ahead. i don't doubt their seriousness about it's detrimental to the business community, but are they still going to fund republican

candidates that put us in this position? >> one problem we're having, of course, is the extreme fringe doesn't seem particularly susceptible to pressure from traditional sources like the business community. >> that feels to me like that's the safety valve that always felt like it was there, even if i didn't always ideologically agree with the values of big business. big business likes stability and a certain level of predictability, and the notion that that would be ignored -- >> it goes deeper than that. big business has historically liked important public goods that we've been disinvesting in. >> roads, bridges. >> schools, universities, education. i could always count on those folks as allies, not in a minimum wage fight, but a fight for education and infrastructure. >> and it's not just big business. small businesses are trotted out. whenever they are politically expedient, but these are among the young ones, most young firms are small, but it's the young ones that are the ones that

create jobs. they are the ones that are suffering. on twitter i've been talking about my being shut out of the smithsonian and people are writing back telling me closing their software businesses because of the shutdown. this is real for them, and this is where growth is happening, or might happen, among the young, small businesses. >> young and small businesses are also fragile. they are the ones getting hurt, and we need those companies to be hiring one person, two people at a time. that's the best way the economy grows, and they are not doing it right now, they are sitting on their money, if they have any. >> these businesses, particularly small young ones hate obama care. >> if you have less than 50 employees, you are exempt from obama care. >> everybody stay, it's getting good. before we continue on this, i do have a letter first. it's time for my letter of the week. you know this one is special, because i know if you're a watcher, you already know that i live in new orleans, and when my governor speaks, here in

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[ woman #5 ] to travel the world without leaving home. [ male announcer ] whatever the reason. whatever the dish. make it delicious with swanson. [ woman #1 ] that's why i cook. americans are officially over congress' debt default and shutdown shenanigans. congress' approval rating has shrunk to an abysmal 5%, one, two, three, four, five. the last place anybody is looking for leadership to steer us through this mess is inside the u.s. capitol, especially on the republican side of the aisle. an nbc/"wall street journal" poll shows this. according to one of the gop's most prominent leaders say it's only because americans are watching the wrong republicans. if we want to see the real model of the republican party, he says, he should be looking not

toward washington, but some place much closer to home, inside our governor's managesio but i think this guy should clean up before he starts inviting folks over to the house, which is why my letter is to my own mayor. it's me, melissa again. caught your new ad trying to shine the spotlight on the achievement of republican governors. i know you're hoping that bright light will blind us from seeing the spectacular train wreck that is the republican party in congress, and as chairman of the republican governor's association, you certainly know how to give good face. the rollout of the campaign features the governors who are on the is surface the embodiment of the inclusivity the gop claims to be embracing, martinez, governor nikki haley, and, of course, you. but a party cannot live on optics alone. your plan wants to introduce us to the accomplishments of the country's 30 republican governors, who according to the campaign theme, are the ones

driving america's comeback. you want americans to know that republican state leadership is, quote, where the rubber's hitting the road, where you can see measurable results. you know what, we should get to know more about those republican governors, like how they signed the worst voter suppression laws in the country. when pen hit paper and matt mccory signed the state's voter i.d. law, he made it harder for african-americans and young people to vote. and we should know about how some republican governors seem to be offroading, like pennsylvania governor tom corbett last week. now i'm not exactly sure how his analogy of same-sex marriage as the legal equivalent to incest is driving america's comeback, more like driving even more people away from your party. but hey, you might have a new republican governor to introduce folks to this year if attorney general ken cuccinelli win s

november election. after the supreme court rejected his attempt to reinstate virginia's antisodomy law. have fun explaining that one. while you're at it, try explaining to the 8 million people who will remain impoverished and uninsured because their governors rejected the affordable care act's medicaid expansion. you can start that expansion right at home, since your refusal has left 200,000 of your constituents and my neighbors without access to health care. seriously, bobby, your own state senators are begging you to take action against brain-eating amoeba infecting our state's public water system, so maybe this isn't the best time to invite the american people to look at republicans running things during the washington shutdown. maybe you ought to focus less on the ad campaign and put more chlorine in our water, unless letting the amoeba eat our brains is part of the strategy

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if house speaker john boehner needs an extra incentive to end the government shutdown, he need look no further than his own home state. john kasich signed a proclamation deeming september hunger action month in the buckeye state. he noted that the more than 2.3 million people who rely annually on food provided by the ohio association of food banks and the more than 164 million pounds of wholesome food that those food banks distributed last year. but all of that could be grinding to a halt very soon thanks to the government shutdown. ohio's food banks rely on federal funds to cover basic administrative costs, such as storing and transporting food.

across the country, food banks are dealing with reduced resources and increasing demand. in ohio, that increasing demand includes the most vulnerable, 1 in 4 children in the state don't know where their next meal is coming from. the governor told the cleveland plain dealer last month, my kids have enough trouble with algebra on a full stomach. think about a kid trying to learn algebra without enough food. i wonder if that thought has ever crossed speaker boehner's mind. joining me now from columbus, ohio, executive director of the ohio association of food banks. it's nice to see you this morning. >> good to see you, melissa. thanks for having me. >> lisa, i've told a little bit, but what are the effects you're seeing already in terms of the shutdown in your work? >> well, all administrative funds have ceased for our commodities supplemental food

program, as well as our commodities program. those dollars put fuel in the trucks and cover the staff of those who are distributing the commodities to our agencies. over a million dollars in cuts on meals on wheels programs, and while our state has only gained nearly 25,000 jobs in the first nine months, we've seen 6,000 new claims for unemployment. again, folks are not making it. they have not been making it as this unending great recession continues, and now it's just compacting the problem that we are seeing more people who are needing food more frequently. >> lisa, one of the reasons we wanted to speak with you again, and you've joined us before, is because ohio is speaker boehner's backyard, and we looked back in september for some statements that he made on snap benefits, the supplemental nutritional program. what he said was that he wanted a set of common sense reforms that strengthen the safety net for our nation's poor, root out waste and fraud in the food

stamp program, and then went on later to say that a growing economy is the best weapon we have against poverty and hunger. how do you square these statements by the speaker with the realities that you're seeing on the ground? >> one in nine -- excuse me, 1.9 million ohioans currently receive food stamps in our state, and, in fact, over 40% of them work every day. it is the most highly efficient and effective program that we have as the first line of defense against hunger in this nation. i'm not sure what type of sensible reforms that he speaks of, because other federal programs should aspire to the efficiency and effectiveness of the food stamp program, and, in fact, today in america when we're seeing more and more individuals who work every day, whose paychecks aren't stretching, i think that he needs to refocus his attention in getting a budget passed, as

well as agreement on the debt ceiling before 47 million americans face a november without a food stamp program. >> so hold for me for one second, because lisa, i want to put on the table the idea when the government restarts, which we're assuming it will, at some point the government will restart, but poor people, vulnerable people often have less resiliency, right, so what we're seeing here could have longer term results? >> absolutely, absolutely. one of the things we know about poor people is they don't have wealth, right, they can't consume out of wealth. >> according to your calculation. >> according to my calculation, that's right. all of these policies, strategies, the entire shutdown, is contingent upon thinking that people can just smooth consumption. it's a basic economic consumption that people can consume out of wealth. people are not in that position yet. this is not a normal economy.

this is an economy that is still healing. people are still getting their balances back where they are supposed to be. >> i'll tell you what i believe, the republicans attacking food stamps really believe, by the way, i think lisa's defense is very trenchant and extremely well done. they can they can go out and get a job. they don't think they are wealthy and they can just tap their bond portfolio. they think they can go out and get a living wage job tomorrow, and the fact is, as lisa stressed, most able bodied people on food stamps are already connected to the labor market, and the problem is the economy has not recovered from the great recession, especially from the perspective of the poor. >> lisa, let me also ask not only about the poor, but you started talking about november and the realities that the levels of stimulus in terms of food stamps are going to sort of end in november no matter what happens. talk to us about that a little bit. >> we were already bracing for

the perfect storm. we'll see the rollback of the modest boost that the recovery act provided to over 47 million americans. that means the loss of $36 a month, beginning in november, for a family of four. mary, i met mary last night at the grocery store, who had already received her notice that her food stamps were set to be cut by $36, and i ask her what $36 less a month meant, and she said it means more days of hunger every month for her family, her children. it means more frequent trips to her local food pantry to try to fill the gap. now what we're facing, and the united states department of agriculture has been clear with our states that they will have to, quote, pivot on a dime if congress doesn't act to pass an appropriations bill or continuing resolution. that again, 47 million americans

may face the beginning of our thanksgiving season with no ability to feed themselves and their families. food stamps may not be issued in november. >> let me ask one last question to the table here, who will be held politically accountable for the reality that lisa just put on the table for us? >> if you look at the polling right now, americans are holding republicans responsible over obama and the democrats for the shutdown. i think it's by 22-point margin with the recent nbc/"wall street journal" poll, but it's important to note if you're talking to republicans on the hill about the shutdown, they will say i don't want the shutdown. they'll cast it on the democrats, put the blame on obama, and my sense is, you know, if you are already entrenched in an ideological position, whether on the left or the right, you'll see the shutdown through the lens that already suits that, where you're sitting at the moment. it's really going to be a question of what do independents and republican-leaning independents feel about the shutdown and who is responsible.

>> we're going to stay on this topic. lisa, thank you for joining us and your work there and we'll keep our eyes on what's happening. >> thank you. coming up next, the victims of the shutdown you don't hear about and the supreme court cases that could change everything about money, politics, first amendment rights, all of that kind of thing. there's more nerdland at the top of the hour. across america people are taking charge

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[ male announcer ] may your lights always be green. [ tires screech ] ♪ [ beeping ] ♪ may you never be stuck behind a stinky truck. [ beeping ] ♪ may things always go your way. but it's good to be prepared... just in case they don't. toyota. let's go places, safely. welcome back. i'm melissa harris-perry. the house of representatives and senate are both in session this morning. in a bit of political theater, house democrats, one at a time, tried to open the government. steny hoyer, number two democrat in the house, kicked things off. >> i ask unanimous consent that the house bring up the senate amendment to h resolution 59 to

open the government and go to conference on a budget so that we end this republican government shutdown. >> hoyer and each of his colleagues were rejected as a point of parliamentary procedure. and so far at this time, as steny would say, the government remains shutdown. i'm here to report not all of the government is shutdown, defense secretary hagel traveled on wednesday to delaware to pay his respects to four soldiers killed this week in afghanistan. four days later, the senate passed a bill sponsored by republican senator john cronin that will provide death benefits to the families of men and women killed while on active duty during the government shutdown. president obama signed the bill within hours of passage, even though he and other democrats have taken issue of the piecemeal governing, picking and choosing which parts of government they want to fund or are shamed into funding. will we see, i wonder, a bill to

fund the centers for disease control and prevention? turns out the shutdown comes at an awkward moment for public health. a widespread salmonella outbreak in chicken, only to discover it is proving resistant to antibiotics. so far the salmonella outbreak has sickened at least 317 people across 20 states and puerto rico. obviously, an antibiotic resistant salmonella outbreak is always bad, but the government shutdown has stripped the cdc fo foodborne diseases division. we may be missing something. we have a blind spot. anyone want some chicken? the federal courts are working, too, for now including the supreme court, which we'll get to soon. they'll all expect it to remain fully staffed, even though they could run out of funding by next week. once that happens, the chief

judge of each district court will determine which employees are essential. the workers will not be paid until the shutdown ends, but they are guaranteed their salaries. domestic violence shelters, which are housing women and children, whose nutrition benefits are in jeopardy, may soon need to turn those survivors away. that could hit one group particularly hard. as "the nation" reported this week, about 40% of native-american women face domestic violence, a higher rate than any other group, and the shutdown has already taken aegregious toll on tribal lands. payments to vendors who provide foster care have all been put on pause. joining me now from tulsa, oklahoma, is jacqueline peda, member of the raven clan. with me again also are jared bernstein, fellow at the center on budget policy and priorities

and former chief economist and economic policy adviser to vice president joe biden. lisa cook, associate professor of economics at michigan state university. elahe izadi, staff correspondent at the national journal, and rick newman, finance columnist with yahoo!. jackie, thanks for being here. if you can help us understand how the shutdown is having a particular impact on american indians who live on reservation lands. >> yes, thank you so much for inviting me to do that. you know, indian country, if you combined indian country all together, it would be the fourth largest state in the nation, yet we're like washington, d.c., we have a high dependence on the federal government because of the trust and treaty obligations and our health care programs, education programs, et cetera, are funded by the federal government. so a shutdown like this has immediate dramatic effects to indian country. i'm hearing from tribes across the country, in fact, in the crow nation, they sent out a

notice they had to furlough 300 employees and just last week i heard that in the northern california, very small community, had to furlough 60 employees. now that might not sound like a big number, but you think about those furloughed employees and their dependence now becomes for, you know, food service, food assistance, and general aid, particularly in the great plains area where there's already starting to be the winter blizzards are setting in and energy subsidies are important. all of those things require some assistance through the tribal government, who hasn't been paid. from this shutdown. >> jackie, you and i talked earlier during the sort of election cycle, and i'm reminded again of that battle over the violence against women act and sort of the role that indigenous women were playing in that entire fight. and it just makes me think again, is there some sense that american indians are simply disposable because they are not politically relevant in the ways

that other groups may be? >> you know, you're absolutely right. i think it's because we're a small population, but i also think it's because it's the history of the country. for a long time we've dealt with the indian issue and it's really hard to be able to kind of think of indian country and tribal governments as the same of other governments with the same kind of responsibility to their citizens, and, you know, the day-to-day crises. you brought up violence against women, and let me say that's one of the areas we're really concerned. the fbi is closing their training centers, so when we thought we were making great gains forward on the violence against women, we're now having a 50% cut, not just with the shutdown, but with sequestration, on being able to implement that law appropriately. >> jackie, hold to me one second. rick, part of what's happened, at moments these big issues have popped up, there's media coverage around them, and we get this shaming piecemeal approach,

we'll fund that, we'll fund that. what does a piecemeal approach, is it good economics or politics, and should the president be signing this piecemeal legislation? >> it's terrible economics, that's for sure. i'm sure there's some people thinking it's nice we're picking off programs one by one and deciding which ones we like and which we don't. that's no way to govern. i detect a silver lining here. i think we're getting an interesting civics lesson out of this. it's worth pointing out a lot of americans are very suspicious of the government, and that's not just tea partiers, that's a lot of independents. people feel they pay taxes, their money goes into this giant black hole, it's like this giant machine that sort of hums in the background. so we've kind of drained the lake and we're now seeing the things that are not happening because the government's not doing them. and, you know, americans are not heartless. they care about where their tax money goes, but i think most americans are okay with the idea that we have support nets and

safety nets and things like that and we help the disadvantage and unfortunate. so we are getting kind of an education about some of the things the government does, and again, i think this makes people a little bit more sympathetic to the government and the people who depend upon it. >> i want to bring you in here in part because we were talking about small businesses and obama care and this idea, okay, the initiation of the shutdown was about obama care and the idea it was bad for small business. >> right. and what people have been writing me and what i worked on at the white house is the fact that small businesses, many of them young, many of them new, were going to benefit from -- or potential small businesses, were going to benefit from the aca, from obama care, because being on their parents' health care until age 26 gave people an opportunity, graduates an opportunity, to go live at home or not live at home, but to save up the capital to be able to start a new business. and this was a big boot, it seems to me, that came out of

the aca. people have been writing about it this past week. >> generated the ability for some millennials to be entrepreneurial in a time where wealth is evaporating, health care becomes wealth that you can pass on to your kids. >> if we were not in a shutdown right now and talking about how various groups and agencies and americans are being effected by it, i think the number one story in the headlines would all be focused on, except for the debt ceiling, how the rollout of obama care has been a disaster, has not gone well -- >> don't talk about that right now. >> it's true. it's kind of like i wonder whether some republicans are looking at that and feeling kind of some remorse -- i doubt these are the republicans who want it to be here in the first place, but really they missed a golden opportunity. and i don't know how long it's going to be like this, so maybe that opportunity hasn't gone away, but, you know, the way the shutdown has gone, no one -- people are talking about the rollout of obama care, but it's not gaining the national prominence and attention it

would otherwise. >> i have kind of a meta or uber question about all this. listening to jackie and lisa, both i think extremely articulate defenders of issues rick raised, you really have to scratch your -- let's say this thing ends next week, you have to really scratch your head and say, this is a family show, so i'll say what the heck was that all about? what was that all about? what we just went through, we've inflicted deep pain on some fairly granular places. we've shaved some basis points off gdp growth, for what? it wasn't going to be obama care. that came off the stage pretty quickly. then paul ryan started talking about these fiscal things and yesterday john boehner said i want to talk about big problems with the president. i think tomorrow he's going to say i want a hug just to get this behind me. the level of dysfunction is clear, and if we resolve this

soon, remember, it's a temporary resolution. we're maybe out of it for six weeks, maybe six months, but fundamentally the people we're hearing from today are the ones hit the hardest. >> jared, i so appreciate it and i'm going to leave it there. i think, jackie, jared brought us to an important point, maybe everybody should spend their columbus day weekend thinking about, this question of what is this all about, the people that we are hurting, that we are harming in indian country, in ohio, in all of our communities for what? jackie pata, thank you for joining us, jared bernstein, rick newman, lisa cook, elahe izadi. everyone, i want you to stay with me. up next, citizens united, the sequel. how the court may make an even bigger mess of our political process. ♪

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despite the government shutdown, the supreme court came back to work this week to hear arguments in several cases, including a really important one. mccutchen versus the federal commissioner. the finance watchdogs could reenforce the fear that an elite few hold the power in politics. this challenges the constitutionality of the aggregate contribution limits created by the fec. those limits dictate exactly how much money an individual can donate overall to candidates and

certain political committees. the public policy organization estimates that striking the aggregate contribution limits could translate to more than $1 billion in additional campaign contributions and that money wouldn't be coming from you and me, instead it would come from a tiny, elite group of donors through the 2020 election cycle. at the table, a law and political science professor at yale university and visiting adjunct professor at clum baa. and former senior adviser to president obama. liz kennedy, specializing in money and politics, and steven shapiro, director of aclu and adjunct professor of constitutional law at columbia law school. liz, i want to start with you. this is the data we are playing with here, and these data show that this decision could, in fact, have an enormous impact on how elections are decided in our country.

>> that's absolutely right, melissa. congress has established a system, which requires contribution limits -- contributions to be limited so that government can be protected from corruption and the appearance of corruption. and the problem is that if the court takes the radical step to strike down a federal contribution limit for the very first time, going against their precedent for 40 years, it would increase the impact of the tiniest sliver of the richest americans, these elite donors, over our politics and policy. already americans believe their elected representatives are far more responsive to their contributors than to their constituents or even the public interest and government is being prevented from addressing the critical public policy issues we all face. >> you have the sense when people go home on the weekends, they don't walk main street, they go to multithousand dollar plate dinners. akil, certainly there's a partisan aspect in the fact many

people believe this could have a disproportionately impact on the right than the left, but should the court care at all if there's a partisan influence here? >> the court should be thinking about the question whether there's systemic corruption. we're talking now about campaign contributions, not independent expenditures. independent expenditures, i publish a book or i buy an ad, but it's making an appeal to the voters who will decide for themselves on election day, we're talking about campaign contributions, that's not all speech. it can go to campaign pizza, campaign gasoline. it goes into the war chests of these individual congressmen and women and now if you can give to everyone without a limit, you can corrupt the entire legislative process. and i would give a shoutout for the audience here, there's a really outstanding piece recently posted by larry lesig,

a professor at harvard, who's been studying systemic discussion, it's in the atlantic, filed by the constitution accountability center saying the framers were concerned not just about individual corruption of individual lawmakers, but the corruption of the legislative process itself as a whole. >> and i have no doubt that jamil, our digital editor, will get his piece up right away, but let me ask, from an aclu perspective, though, because this does get framed as a speech question, does aclu say, i hear you, i hear you on corruption, but krupgcorruption's part of t free speech, we have a right in our country? >> no, we don't say that and the aclu did not take a position on this case, although we support reasonable contribution limits, but i think a couple of things seem reasonably clear to me. one is, i think it's very

unlikely that the court is going to uphold the aggregate limits, at least as applied to individual candidates. secondly, i think it's equally clear the court understands very little about the mechanics of how elections are financed, and number three, this is not a court that's inclined to show deference to congress that presumably understands those mechanics better. but i think at the end of the day, as we all think about the problem of money in politics, we have to face the reality that limits have not worked, and they have not worked because this court is not going to uphold them, and they have not worked because money always finds another loophole. i think we'd be better off, honestly, if we talked and thought seriously in this country about establishing a real and comprehensive system of public financing. >> so you said something there that i want to follow up very briefly here, the court may be making decisions without a clear understanding how the processes work. the court, for all of its deep

legal knowledge, often didn't have social social scientific knowledge or real world knowledge. do the briefs penetrate this? >> they can penetrate that. the work of demos has been fantastic on that, but the justices need to look at what's happening. i was talking to my students in seton hall yesterday in class about how people don't have faith in the system. when they see money pouring into the system over and over again, the justices take this in an isolated way. you were just talking about this, how congress just is seen so poorly. there's such an influence of big money. people say, why would i trust this, this isn't my government, it belongs to someone else. >> it degrades that kind of deep faith that we have that is the basic requirement for democracy working. we're basically in rapid fire rounds here. we're going to come back and ask this question, how do you know if something is racist? the supreme court case that could help to answer that

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are detectable under the fair housing act. let's start with mt. holly. >> sometimes what you see is a law that may be written in a certain way, so it doesn't say black people can't live here, but as it's enforced, you see there's a disparate impact on people. if you see a law on its face, black kids, white kids, separate school, on its face, no good. disparate impact, law doesn't say that, but it's going to have a disparate impact with the same effect, just as evil an effect. >> this has been critically important. it meant you could take the issue of intent, of an evil racist mind out and you could simply say, look, the policies generate a disproportionately negative effect for communities of color. this case challenges whether those sorts of statistics are usable as a way of demonstrating what constitutes discrimination, not only for fair housing, but i

want to ask is this possible if they decide against usage in fair housing, can that then spread to our general understanding of what counts as discrimination? >> it absolutely is very dangerous for them to be challenging the results test in these kind of race discrimination cases in this fair housing standard in that it might have ripple effects, but also specifically because congress had never intended for there to be an intense test -- intent test. there's no evidence that congress wanted that standard. moreover, every circuit court, all 11 court that is looked at the question whether the results standard is the right one to use under the fair housing act found that it is. there is no circuit split and it's questionable why the court should have taken this case. justice thomas thought eminent domain might be used to target vulnerable populations and that's what we're seeing here.

>> i think the point liz makes is an important one, this law has been on the books for 45 years. for 45 years it's been understood by every court in the country to prohibit laws on racial minorities. there's no reason for the supreme court to reach out and decide this case. they've been on a mission, they took a case two years ago, then looked for the next case in the queue and it happened to be mt. holly. that is part of what has everybody so anxious as this case comes up to the supreme court. >> they have choices about what they hear. talk to me in the question about choices, also about the affirmative action case. this case is very different than the others we sort of typically think of in that line of progression. >> in some ways it's an unusual case and happens to be an aclu case, and in order to understand you have to go back ten years. in 2003, the supreme court upheld the use of affirmative action at the university of michigan law school and recognized -- in a case called

gruterv. bullinger. the diverse student body aids all students as they go through the university. the losers in that court battle responded by putting an initiative on the ballot, proposal two, which led to an amendment to the michigan constitution that prohibited the affirmative action that the supreme court had allowed. we then challenged that amendment to the michigan constitution claiming that it itself was discriminatory and in a larger political sense, the case is all about affirmative action. in a narrow, legal sense, it's about something else, it's about whether or not you can create two sets of rules in the political process. so if you are the child of a donor to the university of michigan or you are an athlete or you played the violin and you want to go to the university and say this is an important part of who i am and you ought to think about this and not just look at my s.a.t. scores when reviewing

my application, you make that plea to the regents. if you say the fact that i'm black or latino is an important part of who i am and it can contribute to the discussion at the university, you have to go through the long, arduous, and impossible process of amending the state constitution and it's those two political processes we've challenged as fair and unequal. >> we've got more. there's another small case that is potentially huge and it's about prayer and the question of whether or not this case tests the separation of church and state when we come back. when our little girl was born,

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he loves me. he loves me not. he loves me. he loves me not. ♪ he loves me! that's right. [ mom ] warm and flaky in 15, everyone loves pillsbury grands! [ girl ] make dinner pop! but once a week i let her play sheriff so i can wash it. i use tide to get out those week old stains and downy to get it fresh and soft. you are free to go. [ dad ] tide and downy together. one case the supreme court will hear on december 6th, may nuke the separation of church and state. the case in question is the town of greece v. galloway. the question, did the town of greece violate the constitutional ban on the separation of church and state

by starting its board meetings with a prayer? this case comes just more than 30 years after the court ruled in which justices upheld government funding for legislative chaplains. akhil, i want to come to you with this. it feels small, whether or not you can pray in your state legislature, but it's potentially bigger than that? >> so the question is, it could be decided very narrowly saying because of this case, chaplains, prayers before legislative assemblies, before congress, state legislatures, town councils, city councils, those are just historically different, because from the beginning congress had prayers and indeed still does. and even if those are somewhat sectarian prayers if their pattern, we're just going to give a pass to legislative prayers on historical grounds. that's the narrow way of a ruling, which means that they

can do it here, the second circuit written by my dear friend and boss, these are mainly christian prayers, but mars said you could have mainly christian prayers. we have mainly christian prayers in congress. the obama administration weighed in, we think the second circuit was wrong, because their test it's mainly christian is going to be a problem for congress, too. even though this is a case involving a tiny town near rochester, new york, the logic might say congress has to stop doing that, and that goes back to the days of the first amendment. the broader possibility is the court could say, you know what, we just want to dial back very considerably the much more general law of church and state. justice o'connor was the key justice before, and she basically said, you know, you have to forget legislative prayer for just a second. everywhere else, she said, town

squares and stuff, outside the legislative prayer context, she says, you want to look at that and see whether ordinary people would get the sense government was siding with one sect over another sect, endorsing one religious point of view. and she's been replaced by justice alito, who doesn't maybe have that view. >> i want to listen to -- actually read for you a moment from justice o'connor, who said those who would renegotiate the boundaries of church and state, therefore, must answer a difficult question, why would we trade a system that has served us so well for one that has served others so poorly? but i want to weigh in here and ask the folks at the table, when we say separation of church or state, what does that mean? there isn't a code, there isn't a policy, and there isn't a constitutional moment that says there will be a separation of church and state. >> well, there's constitutional provision that says there shall

be no establishment of religion, right, and the no establishment of religion has been understood for 200 years to require some level of separation between church and state. and the place that the town of greece wants to go in this case, away from the endorsement test, they want to go to a test that says there is no violation of a constitution unless there is coercion, unless you are coerced to participate in a religious exercise that violates your own religious beliefs. the government can engage in any religious exercise it wants to engage in. that would be a very, very dramatic narrowing of how we have understood the separation of church and state. >> we have one more case and i want to ask a question, because you guys have troubled me a little bit as you've been talking in terms of how the justices themselves are making decisions in the question of data evidence, but also of precedent and what this sort of potentially activist court may do when we come back. [ coughs, sneezes ]

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a better way to save. ally bank. your money needs an ally. the first amendment is rarely a court issue in the fight for reproductive justice, but it's taking first stage, as issue whether the first circuit court erred in the massive exclusion law. that law creates a 35-foot buffer zone around abortion clinics and makes it a crime for protesters to come any closer, even on the sidewalk. so i am a card-carrying lifetime member of the aclu, but i'm also someone who at various points worked as an escort to get people through the gauntlet, and the aclu on this one is potentially on the issue of saying, well, protesters do have a right in public forum to express their opinions about abortion. >> these are always difficult issues for the aclu, because like you we support the right of

people to protest on the public streets and we also support the right of women to have an abortion if that's what they choose to do and walk in and out of abortion clinics without intimidation, harassment, and violence. what we did in this case was take a middle position, which is we didn't think the 35-foot rule was inherently unconstitutional. 35 feet is not very far away, and we thought in a lot of places it still gave the protesters an adequate opportunity to present their views, while protecting the women walking in and out of the abortion clinics, but the lower courts inadequately considered how the law applied at certain locations where people drove in and there was never an opportunity to engage in conversation. they ought to look at those questions more carefully. i'll say one other sentence. one of the reasons i think this might be a hard case for the supreme court is not because of abortion clinics. they are also going to be thinking about the restrictions

on military funeral protests, which they want to uphold. the question is, can they adopt a rule that allows the abortion clinic protesters closer without also allowing the west borough baptist church closer. >> if they are trying to split the difference between military protesters, doesn't that potentially endanger their content neutral, you know, standard if they are saying one type of protest is fine, one type isn't? really they are attacking the ability of the massachusetts legislature to adopt these time place and manner restrictions on -- which as long as they are content neutral, is really within the purview of the legislature under their public safety and public welfare powers. so this is very similar to a law that was already on the books in massachusetts. this is very similar to a law that the court already upheld in a case called hill, so it's something where the court in these first amendment cases, it's absolutely important that they balance these rights and

that they carefully consider the facts, but here the question of where someone's rights end and where someone else's right to seek medical care without harassment and intimidation, which actually is an exception to people's first amendment rights in certain instances, is really a critical one. >> this is what terrifies me then. this is a real concern. i want to be able to protest and i want to be able to seek medical care, which includes at this point the legal right to seek an abortion, right? i want to believe that the group of people who are making the decisions about this are careful, are thoughtful, and are governed by things like precedent, by things like data and evidence, and you guys have undermined my confidence in that a bit, either continue to undermine it a bit as it comes to this court. >> so i want them to be bound, most of all, by this, more than precedent, it's in my american constitution society copy of the constitution. the cato society has basically the same text, and this is what

binds us together as americans. precedent, not so much. let's take this as equal. brown v. board of education took that word seriously. precedent hadn't. precedent said, you know, separate's okay. the court that overturned more precedence than any other in the history was the warren court. half of the entire court in its history before that, and i'm a big fan in general of the warren court. so my criticism isn't that they are revisiting precedent, it's that they are getting this wrong. this actually really does say equal, it says congress has very broad power to protect voting rights and civil rights. my critique is they are not ultimately faithful to this. >> it's fascinating you whipped out the constitution, because the interview with justice scalia that frames himself as an originalist, claims that document leads him to very different kinds of decision making, and so i don't know, there's something interesting to

hear from you, an almost originalist argument being made here. >> yes, and that gives us something in common, and the difference is that i would respectfully say he actually has to read this on scholarship about it way more than he has, rather than reading what he apparently is reading. >> and understand the facts better. when we talk about equality, there's an understanding of quality how we are treated differently in this world. if the perspective is everyone is equal, the reality is there's vast inequality in this world, unfortunately, but we need to treat that seriously. when conservatives talk about a justice who may be a democrat-appointed justice, that is an activist judge, this is an activist court, if you want to use that term, and we can't shy away from that. the reality is we have to push back on that and realize putting forward this view justice scalia says whatever he thinks is right and it's not bound in reality. >> the brief i mentioned earlier

is so great because he clerked for scalia, making an originalist argument, saying the framers believed in the view of the danger of systemic corruption. they were concerned that the congress is supposed to be dependent on the people, not on the donor class. >> quoted james madison, not the rich more than the poor. not the rich more than the poor. >> akhil, mark alexander, lisa kennedy, steve shapiro, thank you for breaking out the nerdiness on the table. next, the new documentary that exposes a gospel of hate is next. ers at 30%! i can't get her to warp. losing thrusters. i need more power. give me more power! [ mainframe ] located. ge deep-sea fuel technology. a 50,000-pound, ingeniously wired machine that optimizes raw data to help safely discover and maximize resources in extreme conditions. our current situation seems rather extreme. why can't we maximize our... ready. ♪

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homosexuality does not benefit the society. >> it's sin. >> we do not fight somebody because of who they are. >> russia has a proposed death

sentence for homosexuality. >> it is an abomination to god. >> we forget they are preaching to the people. >> that disturbing footage is from roger ross williams' new film "god loves uganda." it documents evangelical christians traveling to uganda. they understand themselves as missionaries bringing the good news, but their presence is firing up homophobic violence. he spent three years in the country where homosexuality is illegal and priests use citizens as scapegoats. but inspired by the activists on the ground, he pushed aside his fear and completed this extraordinary fear. for his bravery and excellent film, the director and producer roger ross williams is the foot soldier of the week. thank you for this film. >> oh, thank you.

great to be here. >> what made you want to tell this story? >> i grew up in the african-american baptist church. my father is a leader in the church. my sister is a pastor. we have a big megachurch. i grew up singing in the choir, but i was never accepted as a gay man. so i was drawn to this story for personal, personal reasons. >> so i felt that even before i read your biography, i just watched the film clean in that sense, and felt that respect that you have for the christian missionaries. you don't -- you don't make them evil, but you certainly demonstrate the ways in which they are misguided. i want to watch a quick piece of the film here that reflects an important aspect of that. >> we have come with you to share the good news. >> we came all this way across the ocean.

to tell you of his love. that god loves you so much. >> most of the young people, they might well-meaning, but for most of them, it's a time to go on an adventure. but, when they start demonizing another person, the poor african listening to them think that's how things should be. >> tell me about that. >> missionaries are doing great work in africa, and this is by no means against the great work they're doing, but it's about understanding the culture. you go into a country, you don't understand the culture and here you have an american 20-year-old girl who represents so much because she's a midwestern white american. she represents so much to africa. and so that woman who has so much of her own, like, history and her own faith, they listen to them because it's what america represents. >> part of what i was so struck

by in that moment was, here's this young girl, of relative privilege saying, i've come across the ocean to tell you something. and i think, listen, baby, this woman may have something to tell you. >> exactly. >> about faith and about the capacity. now, why uganda, in particular? why is uganda such a right space for this rabbit anti-gay agenda? >> he was a muslim who outlawed prison christianity, so that movement was underground. after he fell, it became aboveground. and mike bickel, the owner of ihop, was there to take it as a christian nation. uganda built schools and hospitals. and the thing about this is everyone i talked to said they feel they have lost the culture war in america, but they're winning in africa. >> this film also resists you

being the american with all the answers. i've come to show you how backward uganda is, and it resisted by putting at the fore the uganda activists themselves pushing back against the anti-gay agenda risking their own lives. tell us about some of them. >> it was important that ugandans came one the solutions for this, and the brave heroes like christopher sohanjo who stood up for the rights of lbjt youth and was one of the only people in uganda who stood up. you go to his church and it is filled with everyone who has been rejected by the church in uganda. he is such a brave man. and it was important that he was the one that came up with the solution and it wasn't like an american. >> he just pops off of that screen, the love that is inside of him resonates in this incredible way. and you just get a sense, like you're seeing all this

charismatic activity of the young american evangelist, and then you see this very quiet, humble loving way. >> he is such a humble, quiet map. he's been threatened. he was on the cover with the title "hang them." he has ten kids. he was living in poverty and thrown out of the church. he was defrocked and lost his pension all because he stood up for the rights of the lbgt people. >> you do think that he'll hear, well done my good and faithful servant. that's our show for today. thank you to roger ross williams for your incredible film. thank you for watching at home. i'll see you tomorrow morning at 10:00 a.m. it will be different up in here. we'll tell you why ted cruz is like monica lewinsky. and miley cyrus has nothing on this. right now it's time for a

preview of "weekends with alex witt." >> we'll be watching tomorrow for that. coming up, jimmy carter says as a country it can be a tragedy unlike anything we have known before. what's he talking about? plus, absolutely everything you need to know about the debt ceiling but we're afraid to ask. also, al sharpton joins me to talk about his take on the shutdown. then there's jodi arias back in the news again this time for what she's tweeting. don't go anywhere. i'll be right back.

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a tale of two houses. in day 12 of the government shutdown, a deal may be closer this hour, but it's not likely to happen today. there are new twists to report this hour. i ask for unanimous consent. >> unanimous consent. >> unanimous consent. >> unanimous consent. >> will we end this republican government shutdown? >> it's unanimous for one party as democrat after democrat after democrat line up to ask