to the preobamacare nightmare of 48 million uninsured. that does it for "the cycle." now on to ari melber. >> i don't know if i have a warm enough hat. good afternoon to everyone. it is tuesday january 7th. this cold blast has much of the nation shivering. the senate did start to thaw. >> happy new year, everybody. hope you're keeping warm. >> it's being called a polar vort vortex. >> things are freezing on my body that i didn't even know were possible. >> these are not statistics. these are your neighbors, friends, family, any of us. >> this is a real opportunity for republicans and democrats to

come together. >> i've heard the argument. >> if you extend it beyond 26 weeks, you're causing them to become part of this perpetual unemployed group. >> it is wrong to borrow money from china. >> we have to get this across the finish line. >> down the rabbit hole to the lower chamber where speaker boehner has suggested it will face resistance. >> you know, there is not a slogan out there that can capture the remarkable cold hittihi hitting many parts of the country. the polar vortex shattered temperature records. forecasters note these weather patterns are reaching unusually deep in the south affectin inin

million people. there are over one dozen fatalities that authorities do trace to this weather. we'll keep you posted with everything you need to know. first, we do turn to the president's effort to bring a thaw to economic obstructionism in the u.s. senate. he urged congress to hold a vote. this is pretty important. democrats managed to pick up six republicans to clear the way for a final vote on the president's request. here was obama's take. >> voting for unemployment insurance helps people and creates jobs and voting against it does not. congress should pass this bipartisan bill right away and i

will sign it right away. >> quote, i told the white house another extension should not only be paid for, but include something to help people back to work. to date, the president has offered no such plan. the white house strongly disagrees and has pointed to the president's previous proposals for tax reform. >> it's only when you believe government is the answer to all of your problems that you talk about unemployment insurance instead of job creation and the minimum wage instead of helping people reach their maximum potential. >> we'll look at this day of progress in washington with michael eric dyson. first we go to a leading senator on this issue, barbara boxer. thanks for joining us. >> thanks for having me. >> what does today's vote mean? >> i wish i could tell you we

were going to do the right thing and extend this unemployment quickly. it's not going to happen. this was a filibuster that the republicans forced upon us and they gave us the six votes and i thank those six republicans that joined all the democrats present. if you listen to some of my colleagues who even voted to proceed, they said they won't vote for this, ari, unless there are offsets. anybody knows if you cut another program, say, in education or housing or the environment, to pay for this, you're using unemployment in that area and that doesn't make any sense. unless we can agree to a very simple offset such as collecting uncollected taxes which would pay for this, then there's going to be obstruction. i'm nervous about it. of course, we live to fight these next couple of days.

i urge everyone to send in their stories. i have 222,000 people in california. >> i noted two of the republicans were actually against the vote on final package in 2012. you can look at this in a number of ways. some people say there is some outside pressure working. is that your view? >> there's lots of intrigue. some think this was done by the republican leadership just to stall this and not get a bad story. you know what? i don't care what it is. we got the six. we're alive. and the 1.3 million people are counting on us. it is so interesting to me. they talk about these offsets, but when you look back when george bush was president, the republicans never asked for

offsets, but they didn't ask for it when they put two wars on the credit card or when they gave huge tax breaks to the wealthiest people. it seems their policies are driven by who is in the white house rather than what's good for the country. >> i think that's right. there's no doubt when you look at the aggregate debt increase overall the deficit may be something people really do care about for the long-term health of the country. if you do, it would be frustrating to have republican politicians only selectively apply that concern. how do you operate politically in that environment? only 6% of americans accurately know that the deficit growth is slowing under president obama. >> let me say it as directly as i can. barack obama inherited a deficit

of $1.4 trillion and it is now below 600 billion and we are really -- we have cut this in half and we are continuing to solve it. here's the point. i supported pay as you go. i liked that concept, but we made an exception for emergencies. when you have 1.3 million americans who have lost this lifeline, this $300 a week, which makes the difference between them having nutrition or not or paying the rent or not or keeping their house at 55 degrees even when they have babies, this is an emergency. so you want to go after these uncollected taxes, we could save 55 billion. we could pay for the whole thing. that's fine. but don't tell me you want to cut a program that's supporting people and it dampens gdp growth. you're going to lose two tenths

of one percent off gdp if you cut the spending. >> thank you for your time today. >> thank you. we're directly to professor michael eric dyson. straightaway, your take. >> i think the senator is right. hopefully, we can get some progress here that the filibuster has been blocked as you indicated, which is extreme important. hopefully there's enough consensus to push this forward. i'm sympathetic even to the "pay as you go." look, the acl or the mcl, you've got to go to surgery first before you get in a cast and go to rehab. let's take care of the surgery

needed. the president is trying to apply an economic fix so to speak to a critically injured part of the american economy. if we all get together, we can least solve that problem. >> you mentioned the president's arguments today, which was his first major address of the year. take a listen to him. >> this is not an abstraction. these are not statistics. these are your neighbors, your friends, your family members. it could at some point be any of us. that's why we set up a system of unemployment insurance. >> this could be any of us. that is really the bridge from the ma kro economic situation from a huge economic collapse. that's the reason. not that some individual is

quote/unquo quote/unquote, lazy. what did you think of the president saying that? it could happen to anyone. >> that's the thing. therefore the grace of god go i. when you come up with a theory of justice, imagine there are some people behind the curtain so to speak that you could be in that position. that's what the president is doing. he's trying to say, this could be you. you could be in this fix. this could happen to you. most indicate that a lot of people in this country are going to cycle through being poor because of being laid off, downsized, because of outsourcing. we have to become compassionate as a self-defense. the economy has strengthened. when we get people back into the flow and we don't allow them to

become discouraged. >> you make the point. we know from his other writings he's often made that kind of argument. that idea of social insurance is there precisely because we don't know over the course of our lives where we're going to end up. it is a very practical look. thank you for your time. >> thank you, sir. >> absolutely. will the calls for these unemployment benefits put enough pressure on speaker boehner? we're going to talk directly to a democratic member of congress about that and more. that's straight ahead. [announcer] word is getting out.

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you know, president obama went all out today. if you ask senate republicans, you get this kind of response. >> if you look at the states that have cut it back, they have increased their job formation. >> some studies show dropping job rates can effect economic conditions that are getting worse. when north carolina's governor cut the benefits, unemployment numbers have fallen not because the long-term jobless have found work but because they have quit looking for work altogether. congressman, let me get you to weigh in on that back and forth i just described. >> let's keep in mind we have

1.3 million less jobs than we had at the time that this recession began. logic tells you when you give people the funds to survive -- we're only talking about an average of $300 a week -- they're going to go out and spend that money. it's estimated that we lose 200,000 jobs if we don't extend these benefits. logic tells you if you put money in the economy and it's money that people have to spend immediately, that that is going to increase jobs. logic also tells you if you don't do that, then the opposite happens. >> i think that's fair. we were speaking about the bush era earlier. they needed to mail that refund back in 2001 because people would spend that right away. that is a version of that.

he said, nowhere. what do you think? >> i think that's very unfortunate. i know speaker boehner very well. i've watched him become very emotional about his bringing up. you've seen it. the whole world has seen it. i think it is time for him to take some of that emotion and remember how it was when he was coming up and imagine people not having the funds they need to take care of their families. i hear these arguments if you extend the benefits, you're just encouraging people not to work. let me tell you something. i wish rand paul would come to my district and talk to the people on my block and in my neighborhood and in my district who have been unemployed. since 2008, you've got some 24 million-plus people who have taken advantage of these benefits. 1/5 of them have college degrees. i talked to people who never imagined themselves being

unemployed. put in applications day after day after day and cannot find a job. so we need to help them. our country has gained its reputation based upon the way we treat each other when we go through difficulty. >> i think it goes to something a lot of people are concerned about which is sort aftof a wele state. what you have here is unemployment insurance, which is different from other types of benefits. it is for people who have paid into the program and it's being described like a handout. >> i think we have a way -- folks who are against these types of opportunities have a way of using code words to make it sound like you're giving people a gift. let me tell you something. we have a lot of very hard

working americans. they're the people i used to see on the early bus at 5:00 in the morning and now the job is gone. one of the things we don't factor into this is the dignity of people. people find dignity in work. they don't like when somebody asks, what do you do and to say, i'm unemployed. some way we have to come to our senses. number one, i applaud the president for calling some of those senators today to get them to keep the ball rolling in the senate. that's very important. it's still alive. >> it is. >> get something out of the senate that puts pressure on us folks in the house. we've got to get that bill out of the senate. senator reid has said many times what their hope was to give the

appropriate committees in the senate to come up with long-term solutions to unemployment. >> i appreciate your point. the president is clear he wants to have a jobs vote as well. thank you for your perspective today. what is the next for the polar vortex? we're going to get a report next. later, some hard science to fight the hard logic if it is not cold somewhere on earth today, there must not be global warming. get out your beanie, but don't forget your science hat. >> i want to salute the person who came up with the term polar vortex. it is terrifying but it still sounds sciency.

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know how to read. polar vortex, what exactly is it? we turn to someone who is a meteorologist. >> everyone has been talking about the polar vortex. it happens every winter. usually it sits across the poles. it will return to its normal position, which you can see those white colors, that happens over the next few days and into the weekend. it does get warmer day by day. we still have a brutal night to get through. wind chill advisory for new york city extended until tomorrow morning. we smashed a record that went back to 1896 in central park. wind chills at this hour still around 10 below. they're going to stay there all night in the northeast. now the winter cold has not tempered the red hot -- first,

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open the arts section of today's "new york times," you'll find glowing praise from a tough book critic. she says he is the funniest living arthur that writes about the immigrant experience. >> readers associate with you two words -- little. >> because of your small stature. >> and failure. >> little, failure. it is funny and it is true. >> after the hundreds of books i have sold for random house. after i've been translated into one language. >> canadian isn't a language

baby. >> it goes on sale for today. he joins us now. he is a world renowned arthur. his hit novel "super sad true love story" was book of the year by a number of publications. tell me about why this is little failure. >> we were immigrants from the soviet union. i was directionless. i was writing my first book, but my mother didn't consider that a career. she decided to call me "little failure." that was her pet name for me. >> yeah, that is sweet. that is the first word that comes to mind. you write about her in this book. you talk about around 1978 that her mood changed because jews

were going to be able to emigrate out of the soviet union. >> she got into a big fight with a sales lady at the meat market. the women yelled at her, when you move to israel, they'll slice the ham for you without fat. >> she said, yes in israel i'll have the fatless ham but all you'll ever have is the fat. i remember thinking, get me some ham. >> the way you describe that as sort of this ridiculous funny story is classic. you also felt you were witnessing her sort of feel different or more independent coming out of the experience of being sort of an oppressed minority. >> yes. there was a lot of anti-semitism in russia. the soviet union took an

anti-zionist stance. my parents wanted to get out as quickly as possible. when we get to america, being russian was the worst thing imaginable. >> you were the new german. >> that was it. i remember trying to convince hebrew kids i was born in east berlin. it was such a stigma to be from russia in those days. >> i want to ask you about the humanity and politics of technology. you got ahold of google glass early and wrote about it for "the new yorker." after a full day of glassing, i have fallen to bed exhausted. i want to take my glass off. it is very much your style. corporations tell us this

technology makes a lot easier, but also asks a lot of us. >> i'm on twitter and facebook and instagram and what have you. but at the same time, i do realize i'm providing a corporation with a source of income. my content is partly sub promotion, but it helps the corporation get even larger. it is different from writing a book. a book is published by a corporation, but it is a different story. when you read a person's tweet, you get to hopefully see me be witty for 140 characters. >> i'm not cutting you off because you're going to stay with us, right? coming up, we have him sticking around to tackle a paradox for some conservatives. can it be cold while the earth gets warmer? that's next. [ male announcer ] if you can clear a crowd but not your nasal congestion,

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from the polar vortex to today's top lines. >> global warming is one more liberal experience. >> people believe global warming is taking place and we're all going to die. >> we're going die. don't you understand. >> at the same time, the evidence out there is almost laughable. >> there's a great deal of climate data establishi ining trends. >> it looks to me like we're looking at global cooling. forget this global warming. >> that's just like your opinion. >> that's just my opinion. >> yeah, your [ bleep ] opinion. that's your opinion. >> as a news man, i want to salute whoever came up with the term polar vortex.

>> 'tis the season for climate change denial. this very expensive global warming bs has to stop. >> these scientists are laughing from their lavish laboratories in their nice boats that are well equipped. >> when i get older, i'm going the take one of them arctic research cruises. all the ladies be like, your readings are so accurate. >> how can there be snow when there's global warming? >> we climate scientists actually have a technical term for this phenomenon, it's called winter. >> he blinded them with science. old man winter has launched a record low cold front. some think this suggests that global warming is some kind of hoax. back with us, the one and only

gary steinguard. why is it when we have weather events, we seem to have these political imperiproblems? >> it is deeply rooted in conservative ideology. it is all about individualism. it is sort of like the guns issue. the idea that winter weather refutes climate change is just so off base. only half of the world is in winter. the rest is in summer. that's why it is global warming. not american warming. you can't infer anything about global temperature trends. >> we are in the u.s. about 2% of the earth's surface. if that's your control section, that's tougher. if it is down to one city, it is even tougher. donald trump called global

warming, quote, bs. how is that politically important for some conservatives? >> there's a lot of ways in which -- there's a lot of pressure on conservatives to reject science. they have pressure to reject evolution. but the pressure to reject climate science in a way is a lot stronger because the ideological underpinnings of this issue are in order to do something about global warming, it can't be left to the corporations and the free market. there has to be that dread thing of public action. >> it is almost a way to cut it off at the pass earlier.

gary, you may be wondering why you are here. >> what am i doing here? >> you're here as an expert on the human condition. i want you to take a look at one data point. if you look back at this december we just finished, it was the second hottest in 30 years. yet, when you look inside the brain, we see a lot of people who can't process that and are processing the idea if it is cold, the earth can't getting hotter. >> i have a long haired dachshund. he is not having a fun time being alive on this earth anymore. today is his happiest day. most of the time, he's dying. i have to shave him every summer three times. he's like a sheep. republicans may rejoice, but from the dog point of view, this is a disaster. >> being the specialty here on

the gop brain, it's not all republicans, but it also shows this has been getting worse. 43% of republicans believe that humans have evolved over time. there's plenty of people who look to their faith to guide them on some of these questions, yet something more is happening recently. why? >> it's complicated. conservatives are rocking the two greatest hits which is evolution denial and global warming denial. they're not the same. i agree the evolution one is rooted in religious morality. if you accept evolution, your whole moral system is out the window. climate change is much more about this john wayne sort of individualism. government leave us alone. don't interfere with the marketplace. there's a science issue for each of them. >> it goes to older

conservativism. when george wallace was around, there was all the talk against pointy headed intellectuals. plenty of democrats, particularly in the south, also run against the ivy league and the scientific method sometimes. >> those southern democrats today don't mean it. they're just doing it to get votes. republican science reminds me a lot of soviet science. where the ideology dictates what the -- the way it should be. when ideology dictates to science, you get very bad science. >> my father is an exsoviet engineer and republican. he doesn't believe there's

manmade global warming. >> he doesn't? >> no. >> i've never done a panel quite like this on tv. we'll find out if that was a good or bad thing. i want to thank you all. coming up, the president kicks off a new year on offense. [ bottle ] okay, listen up! i'm here to get the lady of the house back on her feet. [ all gasp ] oj, veggies -- you're cool. mayo? corn dogs? you are so outta here! aah! 'cause i'm re-workin' the menu, keeping her healthy and you on your toes. [ female announcer ] the complete balanced nutrition of great-tasting ensure. 24 vitamins and minerals, antioxidants, and 9 grams of protein. i see you, cupcake! uh-oh! [ bottle ] the number one doctor recommended brand. ensure®. nutrition in charge™. became big business overnight? ♪ like, really big... then expanded? ♪ or their new product tanked?

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today washington has been reacted to president obama's first big speech of 2014. the president put that issue in stark moral terms. for more on this big speech, i'm joined by host of disrupt on msnbc karen finney and rich. rich, you've traveled the country in writing and researching some of these issues. what did you make of the president's appeal here and the attempt to shift it from a conversation of handouts to

something that's good for everybody? >> i think it was wise for him and wise for the country and wise for the policy because he put it in stark human terms. people are hurting and suffering. this rhetoric that people are lazy no longer works. i thought he did a good job this morning. >> karen, a lot of this bridges out to a broader agenda. why do you think that is important right now? >> i think that's going to be the contrast that you're going to see democrats make for the rest of the year. it's not just unemployment insurance. it's also going to be an increase in the minimum wage. i think the president is always -- i think democrats are on very solid ground when they're making that contrast from a values perspective -- are we really going to let 1.3 million americans suffer when we could do something right now? i think you're going to continue to see that kind of a contrast for the rest of the year.

>> the minimum wage issue, which is not just an issue of economics, goes to that compassion gap that we hear about. take a listen to something earlier about food stamps. >> most people want to go out and be productive so they can earn a living, so that they can support a family, so that they can have hope for a more prosperous future. >> that's not wrong. the use of food stamps increased significantly after the 2008 financial crisis, meaning it wasn't people choosing not to work, but outside circumstances. go ahead. >> also, anybody can read from a piece of paper that says nice pretty words that make it sound like you understand what's going on. but then when you vote against the very things that would help

the people you're talking about,that's where the rubber meets the road. the politics this year is going to have to be tough. you're going to hear a lot of nice rhetoric from republicans. you'll hear that rhetoric of lazy people and what have you, which is not so nice. it is about holding them accountable for how they vote. >> that's such an important poi point, karen and rich. it goes into the procedural gap in how we cover this stuff. there's a lot of aspects in our constant internet/tv news culture that might not be good for politics. one of the things i think is good with the internet's ability to keep track is that going out there and claiming as karen's pointing out that you like this in principal but then you need an offset. the president has offered a jobs

program and boehner was saying today that there's been no attempt to do jobs plus unemployment insurance. how does that fit into the political pressure here? >> the internet helps keep people honest and that's wonderful. it keeps people honest in a pressureful way. there's pressure to keep shareholders happy, that's led to bad short-term decisions without looking at the long-term of inequality. hopefully they'll do what needs to be done moving forward. >> i appreciate the little bit of skepticism. thank you both. do watch "disrupt" with karen finney. when we come back, i have an editori editorial. that's up next.

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my name is jordan. >> i headed to the only place that fit my high-minded ambitions. >> if you can make a client's money at the same time, it's advantageous, correct? >> today's job crisis grew out of that big crash five years ago and the melt down came after bad debt and confusing products were repackage and sold to other banks and clients. consumers were often hurt the most. people got angry. many asked why wasn't somebody looking out for consumers. after all, we know the fcc looks out for investors and the irs looks out for government revenue. in this financial climate, who

lo looks out for the people? >> it was important for us to put in place financial rules that protect the american people from reckless decision making and irresponsible behavior. what the consumer finance protection bureau could do is to make sure consumers understood exactly what they were getting. >> then he led tapping one of the most credible advocates elizabeth warren. she proposed that idea originally in a 2007 paper to create a consumer bureau. republicans vowed to fight her if she was nominated as the leader. she moved on and won a senate seat. what happened to the bureau? president obama kept pushing. he picked attorney richard. republicans blocked him from a vote anyway.

you may be used to gop obstruction, but this was extreme. republicans were prevents anyone from ever leading the consumer agency perhaps for obama's entire presidency. he used a recess appointment to muscle cordray into the job. finally the bureau was staffed. the bureau has fallen off d.c.'s political radar. it's drawn a lot less political media coverage. i want to look at the policy record of his first year at the bureau. american express was overcharging and deceiving its customers. it is requiring the company to stop. it cracked down on capital one and discover for deceptive sales. they did agree to reimburse over

3 million customers. this was the kind of justice that was missing before because the feds had no consumer wing. so the bureau has been working on that. it's also tackling economic discrimination. last month, they took national city bank to court for a scheme nobody would defend. it alleged the bank was taking loan applications with the same credit and charging higher rates to minorities. employees were rewarded for that practice being paid for those higher rates. this, quote, discriminatory pricing hit 76,000 minority customers. after the investigation, the company that now owns that bank is discontinuing the practices reviewed by the bureau. the bureau is pushing that

company to give those consumers' money back. with a $2 billion suit against a company that practiced illegal foreclosures. that is part of the record of president obama's consumer bureau. the bureau that congressional republicans tried so hard to kneecap. is this what the gop wanted to prevent, a strong agency that holds banks in check and patrols the free market? maybe not. maybe a lot of these republicans don't mind the bureau playing this basic fair role and maybe it was all just politics to mess with president obama. so republicans, how did that all

work out? you tried to deny elizabeth warren a promotion. instead she got a much larger one. you tried to keep richard from going to work. that failed. after a year on the job, i think his solid record isn't something most mainstream politics would ever oppose outloud. in d.c., people say sometimes good politics makes bad policy. this is what i think when you look at this record. it's the opposite here for the gop. clumsy politics that failed to stop some of president obama's very good policies. all right. i want to thank you for watching today. it's been a day of historic cold across most of the country. coming up next, "the ed show" with ed shultz. good evening, americans.

welcome to "the ed show" live from new york. let's get to work. the fight to help the unemployed in america is heating up. >> today the senate cleared a major procedural hurdle. >> how is that going to effect the house? with this toxic attitude. >> it does provide some disincentive to work. >> i challenge any lawmaker to live without an income. >> not everybody can control their unemployment situation. >> they're not lazy. they're not lacking in motivation. >> some disincentive to work. >> what we have is special circumstances in this country right now. >> in special circumstances, we need to do special thing as a government. >> congress should make things right. we have to get this across the finish line without obstruction or delay. good to have you with u