resolve the issue of over a million americans losing their unemployment assistance. instead, it is because the senate, which has suddenly overtaken the house in terms of dysfunction, may remain in session through the holidays, fighting over a slate of president obama's nominees. and when they return in january, republicans plan to turn the debt ceiling extension into another battlefield. >> every time the president asks us to raise the debt ceiling is a good time to try to achieve something important for the country. the debt ceiling legislation is a time that brings us all together and gets the president's attention. i can't imagine it being done clean. we'll have to see what the house insists on adding to it as a condition for passing it. >> brings us all together in fractious fighting. paul ryan has one idea, the keystone pipeline. so does ron johnson. tax reform and, quote, freedom in health care.

although, it's unclear if that means anything. but it would be lacking if it did not feature senator ted cruz who yesterday told buzz feed, i'm hopeful we will use every leverage point available to try and turn this country around and pull back from the fiscal and economic cliff we find ourselves in. side note, ted cruz appears to be buried in the side of a mountain. this time "the new york times" noted that the budget deal offered little solace to competing ends of the ideological spectrum that saw the budget deal as a craven capitulation. exhibit a, mitch mcconnell primary challenger who blasted the republican leader despite the fact that mcconnell voted no on the deal. instead, he pontificated, had he been a real leader, he would have been working across the house lines to rally opposition to the law. and so it seems 2014 will begin in the same spirit as 2013. say, for this fleeting moment of bipartisanship, ringing in the new year with a fight over

unemployment assistance and food stamps in january before moving to a debt limit showdown come springtime. joining me today, washington bureau chief of mother jones, david corn, vice president of heather mcgee, maggie haberman. i feel like i started that segment on such a high note and ended in the dumps with coal. heather, this part of the budget scenario and the work ahead for congress always gets ignored, which is the needy, the working poor, and the working class. the democrats have a choice ahead of them. there's a farm bill that has yet to be approved. and in that farm bill will be s.n.a.p. funding and presumably cuts to s.n.a.p. funding. chris van hollen said this week, we are not going to pass a farm bill unless congress deals with unemployment assistance for the long-term unemployed. do you think the democrats can and will hold the line on it? >> i think they have to. this is one of those "whose side

are you on" moments. you know, the moment of stimulus, but then just years and years of sabotaging the economy from the right. you're saying, you know, it is your job, folks. we send you to washington to actually help make our lives better. if you're not interested in doing that, you should go home. so i think this is high political water for the democrats, and they have to do that. they have to make a stand. >> what astounds me, david, is that -- >> you're still astoundable? >> i am. even at this late season. the outrage on the right. for a bill that is actually, like, way on the right side of the playing field. in fact, it doesn't do some of the things that democrats really need the bill to do. >> we showed the charts last week. it was way closer to the paul ryan original budget than what

the president asked for in terms of the overall numbers. but, you know, again and again and again, the important point to realize is that the republicans in their base have moved to far to the right that really what they want are government shutdowns. they want confrontations. they want chaos. they want to disrupt. anything that's a deal, they don't like because they don't like deals. they don't lime compromise. they want to blow things up. so they start right away with, well, if you made an arrangement, that can't be good. no matter what it is. but i do think this whole talk about the debt ceiling and whether they're going to go through this again, it hurt the republicans last time. it will happen right before an election, probably in the spring, and it will take away from what they want to talk about most, which is obamacare. so mitch mcconnell, you know, may be talking through his hat because the president still is really firm. he will not negotiate with debt ceiling, hostage taking republicans. let's see what happens. >> well, you, jonathan, have written about your own

incredulity. given the fact we are talking in the same breath that republicans talk about this murray/ryan budget deal, they are also opening the door to a debt ceiling fight. seems to me to say the fat lady has not sung on the question of the debt limit. >> possibly not. the things that are so incredible about this threat, number one, they tried it. it's a bluff. we know. we had the moment of truth in october. are you willing to destroy the world economy to get your way? the answer is no, you're not. for whatever reason, they're not willing to do it. the threat is now worthless. >> can you believe that? >> you can't use this threat anymore. no one is taking it seriously. >> they're passing more hostage notes. >> there's no gun. we know it's a finger, not a gun. give it up. it's over. number two, they agree to the level of government spending. so now what they're threatening to do is not authorize the treasury to make good on the level of spending they agreed

to. both parties agreed to. so what do they want? they want to increase taxes to make up for the difference in spending. i mean, what is the -- >> what do you want? >> jonathan's head is about to explode. >> what is the punitive rationale for this threat? it doesn't make any sense. >> i think part of it is what david's alluding to. there's always something to be angry about. matt bevin obviously is challenging mitch mcconnell. he's going to try to find fault in anything. and i think mcconnell's office responded, matt bevin is a man that's so out of touch he doesn't recognize the spending caps he's screaming for leadership to protect were actually authored by senator mcconnell. it doesn't matter to bevin that mcconnell is a conservative. there's a part of the wing -- there's a wing of the republican party that is going to find fault no matter what. the question is, can they ever be placated? is it even worth listening to them come march? >> i think the importance -- i think what you just hit on about mitch mcconnell, it's really hard to overstate the importance of the race this is in.

yes, you'll have a wing of the republican party that does not want compromise. matt bevin is very much appealing to that group. you were talking about blowing into the hat or talking into the hat. this hat has two sides. he's got the democrat on one side and matt bevin on the other. his instinct is to play much more to the center. he's getting totally pulled to the right. as long as that's happening, you have this really odd situation where the minority leader might lose. he's really not in a great position right now. so i think that as long as that is going on, you are going to have even if the gun is a finger, you're going to have the finger continue to emerge and say, no, it really is a gun, for a while. >> this is beyond. it's like political kabooki put pet ri. >> let's bring out the puppets. >> that's what you could use instead of senators at this point. >> grade medium. >> heather, the white house announced they're bringing in john podesta to help organize things and perhaps take a harder

line stance on certain issues. i wonder if you think there is a way that the white house should and could better position itself with the fights ahead. >> so i mean, i think the president gave a wonderful speech about inequality. that was a big deal. and that is, i think, the way he needs to redefine the conversation right now. it cannot be about debt and deficits. it has to be about what's keeping people up at night, which is the future of their children. and he's got plenty of room to run on that. in fact, there's something that i think the president could do. we know the president could do, which is actually an executive order that he could do. he's saying he wants $10.10 an hour for minimum wage workers across the country. that has to go through congress. we know congress doesn't care about people who aren't donors. but he could use an executive order to raise the wages of people on federal contractors. low-wage concession workers in union station. he could do that with the stroke of a pen. it would say, you know what, this is who i care about. this is who i'm taking a bet on. >> last year at the state of the

union speech, the president laid out a pretty progressive agenda in terms of minimum wage and expanding head start. he did it again in the inequality speech, given at center of american progress, which is where john podesta is coming from. he's clearly been setting up a more progressive agenda. with the unemployment numbers better than they have been, the republicans are losing the ammo they had, which is attacking the president on the economy. obamacare, it's like whack-a-mole. first it was the website. the website is working. now cancellations. cancellations are not so bad, people are getting coverage. now it's the navigators. oh, they're actually doing public service. they'll find something else. they're running out of points. i think he has more room because of obamacare not being as terrible as people said it was. and because the economy is getting better. he can start talking about these things. >> i think there's also -- i mean, independent of congress having running room to go on the

affordable care act, john podesta and many progressives and folks on the left have been saying the president should max out on his executive authority and do whatever he can. even if the affordable care act had the most seamless rollout in the world, republicans in congress are not going to play ball with him, especially not in an election year. given the tools in his tool box and the fact he's seeing dwindling power over the bully pulpit, go for it. use whatever power you have and craft as much change as you can. >> and that's what this senate fight was really about. the senate was fighting over the use of the fill buibuster to com judges. republicans have been blocking open seats saying we won't let you have any judges. and mitchell mcconnell has said if this is the main impediment to obama's agenda. so they were setting up a couple moves in advance what's going to be the main dynamic for power.

>> that's where all the action is happening, in that branch of government. naturally, republicans are trying to freeze it up as much as they possibly can. that's a brilliant tee-up for our next segment. thank you. after the break, janet yellen has a resume that's been described as dream training school for the job, but for senator rand paul, it is not about yellen's qualifications. we will discuss rand and the right's fed fight when economist justin wolfers joins us. that's next on "now." avo: the volkswagen "sign then drive sales event is back. which means it's never been easier to get a new passat, awarded j.d. power's most appealing midsize car, two years in a row. and right now you can drive one home for practically just your signature. get zero due at signing, zero down, zero deposit, and zero first month's

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after spending a lifetime in economics and nearly a decade in

the federal reserve system, this week janet yellen is expected to be confirmed by the senate as chair of the federal reserve, becoming the first female head of the fed in its 100-year history and presumably the most important economic voice in washington. but none of this is making kentucky senator rand paul very happy at all. in the bleak landscape of the post-nuclear winter in the united states senate, senator paul is now threat tong keep the upper chamber from its christmas vacation so that he can effectively throw a temper tantrum over yellen's nomination. since senator paul cannot actually block yellen from becoming fed chair, he intends to use all allotted 30 hours of debate, merry christmas one and all, unless he gets a vote on his legislation to fully audit the fed. we'll try to slow it down or stop it as much as we can, paul told reporters yesterday. we've told them that we will allow it to move forward and expedite it if they give us a vote on audit the fed. senator paul is not alone in his

war on senate christmas. fellow kentucky senator mitch mcconnell is also in the sleigh. the confirmation of a new fed chief is a perfect time for the senate to scrutinize the recent actions and the historic mission of the fed, mcconnell said in a statement. that's why i support senator paul's bill to audit the fed and challenge the democrats to allow it to come up for debate. to be sure, more transparency in government is always good, but when it comes to the fed, it is a little more complicated than all that. the fed is currently subject to a number of independent audits. in fact, it is already one of the most audited institutions in the federal government, but there are some areas where the fed is not audited. areas like monetary policy. senator paul's bill adds more audits under the guise of transparency, but in a recent survey of academic economists, a majority agree this is a terrible idea and something that would expose the largely independent institution to undue political pressure.

senate majority leader harry reid has not yet commented on paul's new delay strategy, but it seems unlikely he'll put the audit the fed bill up for a vote. a vote on confirming janet yellen as the next head of the fed could take place as early as tomorrow, but it could also happen next week, bumping right up against the eggnog and mistletoe. joining us now is senior fellow of economic studies at the brookings institution, justin wolfers, who's also a professor at the university of michigan. justin, it's amazing you have time to be on the show given all the hats you wear. thank you for joining us, as always. >> always good to see you, alex. >> so justin, tell us, if you will, given all your economic expertise, whether or not this audit the fed bill is a good idea or not. >> yeah, so it's brilliant political rhetoric, but in terms of what it does, it's either completely empty or completely harmful. audit the fed sounds like something we should all be in favor of. in fact, that's why we currently audit the fed.

the general accountability office audits the fed carefully. the fed releases its balance sheet literally every week. there's nothing here about funny business and money going missing in anything that rand paul is talking about. instead what he wants to do is extend or change the way -- fed's relationship with congress. congress tells an organization like the fed, here are the objectives we want you to go out and achieve. things like low unemployment and low inflation. then it's their job to go and do it. what rand paul wants to do, he calls it auditing the fed, but he wants congress to get more involved in scrutinizing the monetary policy decisions of the fed. so this is basically a view that says, we want the fed -- the fed's already very accountability for what it does with monetary policy. you'll see ben bernanke up on the hill testifying all the time about what it is he's doing, or soon janet yellen. but what this is going to do is

in some sense give rand paul and the rest of congress a greater say in monetary policy. if you like what they've done with fiscal policy -- >> you'll love what they i do with monetary policy. one thing that's interesting about this is this pits rand paul against the financial services sector. the markets do not want washington entangling themselves up in monetary policy. if you see the sensitive relationship between the fed chair and the markets, i mean, ben bernanke wears red socks, the markets go up. he wears purple socks, the markets go down. every move is scrutinized. to put the fed chair ahead of congress to discuss monetary policy could have an incredibly calamitous, tumultuous effect on the markets. >> well, the fed chair already comes before congress. >> right, i mean to discuss -- go ahead. >> this is really upping the degree of scrutiny a step further. right now the current proposal is janet yellen is fed chair. here's a counter. congress and rand paul running

monetary policy instead. this isn't actually that proposal. it's a step closer to it though. it's saying every meeting, all the information that they're processing, the decisions they make, they want rand paul and the banking committee to be taking a much closer look at all of that. their view is somehow congress would be doing a better job than the fed. the markets don't buy it. professional economists don't buy it. our friends on the extremist libertarian right and the hard-money goldbergs think this is fabulous. >> let me open this up to our folks in new york. david, rand paul running monetary policy is like -- we think the senate is apocalyptic now. that's the true apocalypse. >> there's a secret code here that justin just referred to when you talk about goldbergs and libertarians. you go from ron paul to rand paul. they've both targeted the fed because they don't like paper money. their followers have conspiracy

theories about the fed. some go off the rails. they've played up to this paranoia, which is a component of the tea party right. so rand paul comes and says, i just want to audit the fed. you know, he's not waging a war on christmas. he has been waging a war on the fed. this is just a clever way of doing it and trying to hold the senate hostage to basically satisfy the paranoia he and his dad have been addressing for years. >> the thing i don't understand, maggie, is rand paul, he's been positioning himself for a 2016 run in recent months. let's give him that. reminding everybody of his kind of whack-a-do financial theories, the fact he's the son of ron paul, who would like us to go back to the gold standard, abolish the fed. eviscerating the department of energy and commerce, the epa, fda, getting rid of the department of education, privatizing social security and medicare. this dredges up all of that by

putting himself front and seshlt -- center in this debate. >> david's point about how this satisfies the paranoia on the right is 100% accurate. rand paul's calculation, i believe, is what people will take from this is democrats, you know, invoke nuclear option, take away our ability to stop anything, and i'm making this case where i can slow things down. look what i was able to do to push back. that will be what people hear more of than the actual policy behind it because that's the way the coverage goes. >> and that's a big problem. these are incredibly fringe economic theories that are being pushed into the mainstream by someone who's possibly a lead g ing contender for the republican nomination. >> it's obscuring what should be a real victory for people without work, for people who think the economy should serve our actual values. janet yellen is someone who's not a greenspan sort of fictional economics, the markets can take care of themselves person. she's not a really radical

liberal, but she's a realist about what we should go to work every day at the fed to do, which is try to create more jobs. and know that you have to have regulation to make markets work. >> yes. jonathan, janet yel season known as a dove in wall street circles. i'll read an excerpt on what she cares about. according to more than half a dozen long-time friends and colleagues, yellen has two grand passions that will require government to help in a very big way. reducing chronically high unemployment, which is the focus of her life's work and probably the single biggest economic problem in america today, and reining in wall street's excesses. >> and her view has been in competition with the inflation hawk view since the onset of this crisis. and the evidence is very, very clear. the inflation dove world view seems to be proven right time and time again. the rand paul view, and even the less crazy version of this you see in "the wall street journal" editorial page, has just been disproven and disproven.

the inflation they warn up never appea appears. even conservative intellectuals are starting to take this problem seriously and saying we have to stop being so paranoid about inflation and start developing realistic thinking about monetary policy. but rand paul is not going along with that at all. >> and just to be clear for folks what it means when you are not so focused on an imaginary rise in inflation. it means you can raise wages. a big minimum wage opposition point is that's going to raise the cost of living and therefore wipe out the minimum wage increase. you'll get people who are saying that. even people making less than minimum wage. and the deficit fears. so the two most powerful things we could do. raise wages and actually do government spending have been stopped intellectually and politically by this fear of inflation that hasn't born out. >> justin, what's your view in terms of how much janet yellen can do to address the idea of stagnating wages and income inequality? >> well, the fed's probably not the right first place to look

for trying to think about the income distribution with one important exception. the key driver of income inequality or one of the key drivers is, in fact, unemployment. if there's a whole lot of people out there earning zero dollars, think about what that does to inequality. so she has some -- her affiliate director has put the pedal to the metal. >> university of michigan professor justin wolfers, who also has a dream resume for being on this show and talking about financial and economic affairs. thank you as always for your time. >> pleasure. >> coming up, 'tis the season for that annual conservative right. we'll discuss just ahead. check it out. i can't believe your mom has a mom cave!

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it is a far cry from the bing crosby hit, but the right's white christmas controversy raises a big issue. we have a lot of trouble talking about race. we'll discuss next on "now."

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for making more than her minimum payment on time each month. tracey got the bankamericard better balance rewards credit card, which fits nicely with everything else in life she has to balance. that's the benefit of responsibility. apply online or visit a bank of america near you. in slate they have a piece, santa claus should not be a white man anymore. when i saw this headline, i kind of laughed. i said, this is so ridiculous. yet another person claiming it's racist to have a white santa. you know? by the way, for all you kids watching at home, santa just is white, but this person is just arguing that maybe we should also have a black santa. you know, santa is what me is. just so you know, we're just debating this because someone wrote about it, kids. >> the right's war on christmas took a diversionary turn this

year as fox anchor megyn kelly insisted santa was white, he just is. she was reacting to this column, "santa claus should not be a white man anymore." in this case, kelly's not really apology delivered two nights later was more interesting than her original comments. after telling americans to lighten up and learn how to take a joke, he diagnosed the real problem. >> humor is a part of what he try to bring to this show. sometimes that is lost on the humorless. this will be funny if it were not so telling about our society, in particular the knee-jerk instinct by so many to race bait and to assume the worst in people, especially people employed by the very powerful fox news channel. >> it was a defense that many took issue with, especially john stewart. >> i guess we all owe you an apolo apology. what appeared to me to be another example of a fox news

segment expressing anger and victimization over the loss of absolute power and reframing that as persecution of real america by minorities, free loaders, and socialists -- [ laughter ] that's trademarked, by the way. what i thought was that was actually a jest, a bit of voice crack ri. i'm sure if we look at the original clip again in that context, we'll all be able to find it as humorous as it was sincerely intended to be. >> if the public needed anymore proof of just how fraught and just how completely unfunny the subject of race continues to be, the day after kelly's original comments, a new mexico schoolteacher told a black student who dressed up as santa, what are you doing wearing a santa claus outfit? don't you know that santa claus is white? the teacher has since been placed on administrative leave. i mean, on some level, heather, this is hilarious and

ridiculous, but it is also -- i mean, stewart gets to it in his monologue or segment there that this is part of the us versus them. we are claiming stan that clause is white. everybody needs to accept that because he is ours and you guys can have your other things like kwanzaa, but santa is white. and it does -- i think it's interesting how this sort of second day, third day of this becomes people who want to talk about race are race baiting us. >> absolutely. i mean, this is the classic conservative sort of jujitsu here. it's first assert racial hierarchy, this beloved creature that children all across the country, our multiracial country, their dads dress up as santa. he's not yours. assert that racial hierarchy. he's ours. your dad is actually ridiculous for dressing up as santa if he happens to be korean or black or something. when someone says, hey, that's actually not the way we should treat each other and talk about

each other, that's race baiting because you're surfacing there is something different about the way that white americans get to sort of own our cultural sort of language and then people of color have to sort of try to get a piece of the pie. it's really classic what we're doing right now. >> this is a wonderful point. it really goes back a couple decades. sometime in, like, the late '70s, beginning of the '80s, the republican conservatives came up with this concept, political correctness. any time they said something was sexist or racist, you called them out and they said, oh, you want me to be politically correct. it was like this defense mechanism, this invisible force field they would put up. and make you, the person doing the wrong, because you're questioning them. >> now it's even more aggressive though. >> i think there was political correctness in the atmosphere they were talking about. there was political correctness. there were people saying -- >> but political correctness started almost as a self-joke. people would say you're just

being politically correct. >> no, it was quite real. >> the question of political correctness, that -- it is a different beast altogether now. if you look at what's happening on the university of texas conservatives had an affirmative action bake sale where people of color and women had cheaper brownies to buy because that's how affirmative action works. they also had a catch an illegal day where you would be rewarded for getting the designated illegal. that was under the guise of trying to discuss our sort of differences in society. but in fact, i think it's more of a doubling down on the differences and the things that separate us. >> i think the proper response to that is to call it racist, which it is. >> if you do that, then you are race baiting. >> which we don't agree with. >> no, i know. you're not saying that, but that is the magic, right? it's the one step. >> i think it's inevitable this took a racial turn. the war on christmas concept is all about cultural panic. what is at the center of conservative cultural panic these days but race.

you had to unite these two strains of cultural panic. >> total synergy is what you're saying. >> i think that's why bill o'reilly took up the standard. this is his thing. he brought this back up. >> bill o'reilly said, because they cannot defeat us on the media battlefield, the far left seeks to demonize fox news as a right-wing propaganda machine and a racist enterprise. you said it, i didn't. but, you know, maggie, i guess the question is, right, on some level it's like, wow, conservatives and republicans -- the race question is an area where you guys have a lot of problems insofar as something like 75% of asians voted for president obama, 92% of african-americans. widening the tent is an issue. comments like santa claus is white, you just have to accept that -- >> an imaginary figure is white.

>> would not seem to endear you to minorities or foster a better conversation with them. >> if you looked back and looked at where republicans were this time last year after losing the election, after losing the presidential election and then taking a hit in the senate and not making any of the gains they thought they would and we had this huge growth and opportunity project that the republican national committee did and it was all about we're going to message differently, we realize we have a problem. i cannot -- it is very hard to point to a single tangible thing that has actually changed. i realize the rnc is going to get upset with me for saying that, but they can point to certain things they've done that they feel better about, but the perception of how they've handled anything has not changed. >> don't you think it's gotten worse in a way? they've kind of lost ground on a lot of stuff. the immigration bill. >> i think let's see what happens with immigration reform. whether this is totally dead or not is the question. but i agree. i don't think anything has been helped. i think if you're talking about -- there was a nominee last cycle who talked about

self-deportation, who said things like minority populations. like this is a phrase he used, right? >> which is the american population. >> right. so i think that when you're talking about the need to move past even sort of phrasing, they have not done anything, let alone on the policy piece, which is a whole other issue. >> let me ask a sort of academic question, but i think it's one that deserves to be answered or at least discussed. heather, do you feel like these debates we have in the media, which are a lot of times dismissed as fodder for cable news ratings, are they constructive at the end, or do you find them more destructive? >> they tend to be destructive, sorry, because there's like a whole other race conversation that we're not having which is who is we the people, right? the fact that we are a multiracial, multicultural society is actually really hard work. it's not obvious, right, that you can make a sort of community that feels like one out of

people who have, you know, strands of every ancestral origin across the globe. that actually takes a lot of work. it takes a sense of integration being something we want. it takes, you know, pride. for individual people, it takes actually consciously thinking about, okay, do i want to live in a community where i actually feel comfortable with people of a different race. that's not our unconscious immediate thing to do. so it takes a whole lot of work, and we don't have that conversation at all. unfortunately, i think our president isn't able to lead that conversation. he feels completely hemmed in by this racial trap, and the racial trap is defined every single time we have one of these flare-ups. it feels like an us and a then and there's no american people that's even bigger than that. >> i'm out here to tell you kids that santa claus is also bermese-irish. he's also half kenyan, half hawaiian, and any other mixture you can think of. up next, michael bloomberg

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what matters here is not where you came from but where you are going. in washington they ask you what party you're in. in philadelphia they ask you who your parents are. in boston they ask you what neighborhood you grew up in. we don't care much about those things. we're interested only in what you're doing with your life and what your dreams are. new york city has never been stronger than it is today, and i think it's fair to say our future has never been brighter. >> that was new york city mayor michael bloomberg just moments ago delivering his last major speech in office after three

terms. but it was a comment bloomberg made yesterday that may have a longer lasting impact on his legacy, one that provided a stark contrast with his successor. on tuesday, the mayor was asked about a "new york times" series profiling an 11-year-old homeless girl who lives in a small room at a brooklyn homeless shelter with her unemployed mother, her stepfather, and seven brothers and sisters. "times" reporter andrea elliott offered a window into her life, sleeping with her siblings on rotting mattresses and at night using a mop bucket as a toilet. the mayor addressing the plight told "the new york observer," this kid was dealt a bad hand. i don't know quite why, that's just the way god works. sometimes some of us are lucky, and some of us are not. while bloomberg's comments are difficult to stomach coming from the richest elected politician in the world, they are distressing because of the tacid

acceptance of the situation. while he goes on to argue that this 11-year-old girl is an extremely a-typical example, there are currently 22,000 homeless children in new york city, the highest number since the great depression. at the same time, there are 389,000 millionaires in the very same city, a money class that's historic in its riches. last year mayor bloomberg attributed the 20% spike in the homeless shelter population to a, quote, much more pleasurable experience at the shelters than they ever had before. but the experience at the brooklyn homeless shelter where mold creeps up walls, where feces and vomit plug communal toilets is not in the universe of pleasurable nor a choice anyone would willingly make were it not for desperation. bloomberg's response puts him squarely at odds with the incoming mayor bill de blasio, who said, if you ever needed an illustration of what the tale of

two cities is about, there you have it. we are simply not going to allow this kind of reality to continue. some of these policies, some of these approaches have kept people stuck in place, and we're not going to let down any young woman or any young man like this. it is our job to do better for them. two financial bar remembers, including mayor bloomberg, helping families isn't just a moral choice. it's also an economic one. three dozen economists told the associate the press this week that america's growing gap between rich and poor is hurting the u.s. economy, funneling money to the wealthy rather than to middle and low-income households that are more likely to spend it. in other words, cities like new york need new policies to address the gross imbalance between the very rich and the very poor. it's either that or leaders need to find religion and ask god why so many are being dealt such a bad hand. campbell's chunky new england clam chowder. wow! this is incredible!

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first netflix gave us "house of cards." then they gifted us with "orange is the new black." now they're giving us something extra special. they're giving us mitt romney. in the new documentary "mitt," netflix gives us an exclusive fly on the wall view for campaign for president. >> i just can't believe you're going to lose. >> yeah, yeah. >> so what do you think you say in a concession speech? >> how in the world do we find these things out on the day of the debate? >> he hates to disappoint. >> are you going to iron your suit on? >> ouch. >> this may not end well. >> i have looked, by the way, at what happens to anybody in this country who loses at the nominee of their party. they become a loser for life. it's over. >> jonathan, i am so excited to see this. now, i know you guys have reported to me this is made by one of mitt's close friends, greg whitley, who followed him for six years.

but romney ironing his cuffs and, ouch, the concession speech. >> he's not a robot. >> it's like, kids, mitt romney is not a robot. >> he feels no pain, but he feels his own pain. >> i thought he was smart about the cost-benefit analysis. seems like putting a hot iron on your body can't pass any rational test. >> if you still have feeling left in your body. >> the upside is my cuffs will look slightly crisper. downside, i could lose my arm. let's do it. >> that's how far he was willing to go. >> get them to run the numbers on that. >> i'm reminded of after the 2000 race spike jones did a documentary with al gore that came out after. not a lot of people saw it, but it was sort of al gore as human. not playing a role, just being himself with his kids. what is remarkable to me about that footage, and i've just seen the trailer, is how human romney is. that doesn't necessarily mean he's a better candidate or his policies weren't insane. i feel like it would have helped him in the general election.

>> this was the debate going on for months within the campaign. there were people who wanted to do the let mitt be mitt thing. some of it was mitt romney's own discomfort with the press and showing himself to the press and being candid. there were so few genuine interactions with the press. there was very, very limited access. i think that all hurt him. i also think what hurt him, candidly, that bit about, you know, i can't believe you're going to lose. we have heard such conflicting things about what was actually happening in that campaign, whether their polling was wrong, whether their polling was right and the candidate wasn't being told. it was clear on election night, a lot of them did think he was going to win. >> oh, yeah. >> hopefully we're at our best when we're with our friends and family. when someone is taking a picture of you or video that you trust, you're going to be at your best. there were times they decided to let mitt be mitt. look at those cookies. these cookies are terrible. i'd like to see more video like that, of course.

so the whole debate about whether mitt should be mitt and they should tell us what he was really saying behind closed doors i think is pretty well settled. >> no, i don't think anybody was saying he ought to have every conversation that he's having with a donor out in public, but people are saying there are real human stories about him that didn't get told. >> and there's a levity and a warmth that nobody saw on the campaign trail. heather, you pointed this out. and this is only from the trailer. what is clear in the trailer is how much his family, how much he didn't want to disappoint his family. the sense that he was letting down his sons, his wife in not winning, that this was about, you know, them and the enterprise of romney, inc., much more so than his own ambition. >> you start even with his dad whose ghost he was fighting for as well. listen, it is an extraordinarily difficult thing to step into leadership and run for office. it's hard. you know, he just is human. >> i think what is most certain is that we are all going to sit in front of our netflix cues and wait until this video is

available and then watch it and then say a lot of things about it. >> you think so? >> on that note, we are going to end this show. thank you to david, heather, maggie, and jonathan. that is indeed all for now. i'll see you tomorrow live from washington, d.c. at noon eastern. "andrea mitchell reports" is coming up next. [ muffled noises ] oops. ow. sorry. [ baby crying ] ♪ [ female announcer ] new pampers. unlike ordinary diapers with 2 layers, pampers have 3 absorbent layers, to stay up to 3 times drier, so babies can sleep soundly all night. ♪ wishing you love, sleep and play. pampers.

of their type 2 diabetes with non-insulin victoza®. for a while, i took a pill to lower my blood sugar, but it didn't get me to my goal. so i asked my doctor about victoza®. he said victoza® is different than pills. victoza® is proven to lower blood sugar and a1c. it's taken once-a-day, any time, and comes in a pen. and the needle is thin. victoza® is not for weight loss, but it may help you lose some weight. victoza® is an injectable prescription medicine that may improve blood sugar in adults with type 2 diabetes when used with diet and exercise. it is not recommended as the first medication to treat diabetes and should not be used in people with type 1 diabetes or diabetic ketoacidosis. victoza® has not been studied with mealtime insulin. victoza® is not insulin. do not take victoza® if you have a personal or family history of medullary thyroid cancer, multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2,

or if you are allergic to victoza® or any of its ingredients. symptoms of a serious allergic reaction may include: swelling of face, lips, tongue, or throat, fainting or dizziness, very rapid heartbeat, problems breathing or swallowing, severe rash or itching. tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck. serious side effects may happen in people who take victoza®, including inflammation of the pancreas (pancreatitis), which may be fatal. stop taking victoza® and call your doctor right away if you have signs of pancreatitis, such as severe pain that will not go away in your abdomen or from your abdomen to your back, with or without vomiting. tell your doctor about all the medicines you take and if you have any medical conditions. taking victoza® with a sulfonylurea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. the most common side effects are nausea, diarrhea, and headache. some side effects can lead to dehydration, which may cause kidney problems. if your pill isn't giving you the control you need ask your doctor about non-insulin victoza®. it's covered by most health plans.

we'll take something tasty and healthy. ♪ must be the honey! ♪ there's a party going on in your cereal bowl ♪ ♪ o's can help lower cholesterol ♪ ♪ oh why does it taste so great? ♪ ♪ hey! must be the honey! mitchell reports," home stretch. the most unproductive congress in history will finally get something done today when the senate passes the budget deal, buying us all two years free of shutdowns and stalemates. but not everyone is on board. i'll talk to republican senator rodger wicker about why he thinks the deal breaks faith with military retirees. >> you may have done what we asked you to do, but now the government is not going to do what we told you we would do. death trap. syria's indiscriminate use of

barrel bombs spreading death and destruction again in aleppo today. we'll have a live report on how civilians and too often children are paying the ultimate price. >> the broken country and across the divide are civilians on both sides terrified. olympic-size snub. who's heading to sochi? the white house is using its delegation to send a pointed message to russia about gay rights and other issues. and two jackpot winners are mega rich today. for one shop owner, just selling one of the tickets is a major prize. >> i feel good! feel good! come to my store! i feel good. i don't even know. i cannot sleep tonight.