he didn't have one. i also feel like with regards to ann romney you could just as easily call this film "mitt and ann." there is a level of compassion and love and strength that the two of them this have that i think any married people would envy. >> definitely a love story at its root, family and wife. the documentary is "mitt" and it premieres on netflix tomorrow. director george whitely. thanks for your time. >> greg whitely. >> i got your last name wrong the first time and your first name wrong now. >> i love the name george. >> greg whitely. thanks so much. show sho "the ed show" is up next. good evening, americans. let's get to work.

>> a dangerous and growing inequality. >> equal to the 3.5 billion poorest people. >> it's fantastic. and this is a great thing. it inspires everybody, gets the motivation to look up to the 1%. what can be wrong with this? >> really? >> greed, for lack of a better word, is good. >> playing the blame game with the penniless in this world. people are poor because they're lazy. >> my colleagues on the democratic side recently spent a lot of time talking about it. >> inequality. >> 95% of income gains in the u.s. have gone to the wealthiest 1%. >> you want to do something about this economy growing and wage inequality? >> we are a better country than this. >> don't simply feed fish. >> really. >> the biggest thing is that this small group of very wealthy people also captures political

power. hi, folks. a central theme on this show is income inequality. we were talking about it before anybody else because i think the depression of wages in america and the development of the income gap, which has happened, can only be fixed if this country moves forward on several key fronts. since ronald reagan's tax breaks trickled down, income for the top 1 pefrs has gone through the roof, skyrocketed. middle class wages have flat lined and depressed. depressed wages is a key issue here. finally after years of being ignored the growing income gap is finally getting the attention it deserves.

tonight the state of the union address will focus on what? income ine equality. congratulations, mr. president and your staff. it's about time. the president will touch on key issues like raising the minimum wage, should be an easy lift, but you've got republicans in mix. who knows. extending unemployment benefits. and college affordability. he'll also talk about move things through congress using executive orders. the fist in the step of addressing income inequality in this country. the president is correct in doing down this road because this congress isn't going to work with him to fix these problems. the white house has announced the president will go on a road trip to tout this new agenda. and all of this i think is good news but it's important to remember president obama will have to do all of this in the face of republican obstruction. we see no reason why the

republicans will come to the plate as honest brokers. republicans have done nothing but block this president's agenda for the last five years and nothing is going to change, i don't believe. so the fight i guess you could say has already started in 2014. earlier today texas congressman lou louie gohmert. here's what he said about women who just want the government to send them a check. >> the left tried to say i was attacking single moms. if you listened to what i said, the whole point was it bugged the fire out of me that these young women, and the stories were very, very similar, they got bored with high school and somebody'd say, hey, drop out, the government will send you a check for every child you can have out of wedlock. they have one child and find out that's really not enough to live on, have another and another. what got me is for so many young

women the government, meaning well, lured them into a hole or rut they couldn't get out of without having to try to cheat and get a job and keep the welfare. >> real quick. >> it's the government's fault. >> does he understand that we have lost over 50,000 factories in this country because of outsourcing, that we have basically gulted our manufacturing base because of an attack on labor? because we don't want to pay anybody anymore? this is so typical of republicans to throw it off on a social issue or program to pick selectively certain examples and use that against wages in this country. on top of that absurd remark, a new poll shows the problem goes much deeper than him. according to a pew research poll 51% of republicans think people are poor because of a lack of

effort. they're nothing but a bunch of couch potatoes. only 32% of republicans think it's out of the poor person's control. in other words, circumstances out of their control. i have always been a believer that hard work and opportunity go hand in hand. good things don't always happen to hardworking people. workers are no doubt more vulnerable today on the global scale because of the global economy. but we tear ones who are falling behind, watching our middle class get gutted, americans who come back into the workforce quite often come back at a low err wage scale. now i'm a believer that luck, luck, l-u-c-k, is a big part of being successful. this is why i'm glad president obama is doing everything he can to address income inequality. right now is the key time to do it. 50 years ago our nation declared war on poverty. of course the conservatives are

attacking that, saying it was a failure, although the poverty rates have gone down because of the infrastructure investments that we made decades ago. i think it's time for president obama to declare war on income inequality. now, i think it's great the president is going to talk about minimum wage, he's going to talk about sending kids to college on an affordable rate, and opportunity, and he's going to be talking about certainly the issues of income inequality to help the middle class. but it's all connected to trade. everything we do is connected to trade and jobs. last night on this program we showed two charts and we got quite a bit of response on this. why is it the mainstream media doesn't pay more attention to this hart? this is the united states trade deficit with china. we're the biggest customer in the world but we are the worst negotiators in the world. we don't protect american jobs. we don't keep it a level playing field because the corporations just want profit.

and sometimes people and workers get many the way of profit. the other chart that we showed was a chart with mexico. we're behind with them too. since nafta. we've documented time and time again numbers about how many jobs have been lost since nafta went through. this deal, the tpp, is nafta on steroids. this is going to be quite a tap-dance at the state of the union as i see it because i don't believe president obama in any way, shape, or form is going to be talk about raising wages in this country, doing the minimum wage, being fair to workers without talking about the true issues of trade that are killing our workers. and we're on the verge of doing fast track and we're on the verge of doing the trans-pacific partnership, which is only going to be nafta on steroids and it's only going to add to those charts. in fact, we're going to be doing deals with countries that they say are going to compete with china. yeah, with our jobs.

it's not going to be a level playing field. mr. president, i have a request. i think that you should come out and show us some positive chars at the the state of the union. you know, get your easel up there and put some charts up and say this is what's going to happen if we do the tpp and this is how we're going to fix income inequality. going around and talking about doing minimum wage is only a small part of the pie. there has to be a huge policy effort on the part of the progressive party if we're going to address the real problem of raising the middle class wages in this country which have been depressed for the last 30 years. so i'm encouraged that the theme of income inequality is going to be addressed. now we've just got to make sure that the democrat's in the detail, that all of the things that add to income inequality not just making school affordable, not just going down the road of extending unemployment benefits, not just minimum wage, it goes much further than that. not that those things aren't

important but it's got to be the full package. if it's not the full package we're going to be falling further and further behind. later on in this broadcast we'll talk more about the tpp and how the negotiations are in the 11th hour. if you are an activist and care about american jobs, this is your time to speak um to your representatives. get your cell phones out. i want to know what you think. tonight's question -- should president obama declare a war on income inequality? text a for yes, b for no to 67622. you can go to our blog at ed.msnbc.com. we'll bring you the results later in the show. one more thing i want to point out about all of this. this is not a life-or-death situation for corporations that are making record profits right now. profits. profits without taxes. what the president needs to do in the state of the union is to talk about the 25% of the corporations in this country that park their money offshore and don't pay their fair share. we're on the verge of having a

big discussion about the debt ceiling so we can pay our bills to the rest of the world. we don't have enough money many the treasury. gosh, maybe if every corporation were to pay just something we'd be in better shape. for more let's bring in senator sherrod brown of ohio and one from california, two grote great progressives who know what fighting for the people is all about. great to have you with us. senator, how big a deal is it that the president is now using in the state of the union coming up the term income inequality and making this a focal point of what the country has to focus on? your thoughts, sir. >> it's the right message because it's going to help congress and both party, i hope, certainly progressives and those in the house and senate on how to navigate this, get a roadmap to dealing with income inequality.

there's a couple facts that tell the whole story. in the last about four decades workers in this country, productivity is almost doubled in the last 40 years yet income has gone up less than 10% on the average for broad middle class and working families. and that's why -- i mean, that tells me directly we need to raise the minimum wage, we need tax reform that will say no longer getting tax breaks for corporations that shut down in akron or youngstown and move to beijing. it means that trade policy that works for american workers, it means more aggressive -- means no trade -- no fast track and no trade agreement in the pacific the way they're looking to do it. and it means ways of helping unions organize because this decoupli decoupling, as productivity went up and wages were basically flat, a lot of that has to do with the decline of trade unions and the fact that people don't have somebody to represent them to help these companies make

sure that some of their profits go to workers. >> congressman, when you take a look at these trade agreements, none of them have worked for american workers. and also we have seen a congress that's been very stubborn when it comes to raising the minimum wage, which is part of the equation of pulling people out of poverty. how adamant should the president be when it comes to executive orders and using his executive powers to impacting the economy? your thoughts on that? >> well, you can deal with the issue of minimum wage for federal contractors. that's real but that's small. the trans-pacific partnership is the president's deal. that is his trade negotiator. he is on that one. if it goes the way it appears to be going it is a screw job for the american workers. they'll with in deep strubl as we've seen these other trade agreements. can't go there, no fast track, and make sure if there's going to be a trade agreement we're talking about fair trade, not

free trade here. so we've got a long way to go on that. but that's another point here, ed, we need to deal with and that is business. business, every business, whether you're a big corporation or a small corporation, needs one thing. and that's customers. if customers don't have an income and if they don't have money, they're not buying, that corporation is not going to do well, that business isn't going to do well. raise the minimum wage, give people a fair wage, give them an opportunity to be part of the consumers that every business needs. and finally it's women. women are a major, major issue. they're getting 77 cents on the dollar compared to men. they're the family caregivers for the elderly and for their children. we need to focus on women because when women succeed this country's going to succeed. >> you know, you bring up a great point. disposable income and confidence are the two things that i really think are major drivers of our economy.

the if people have disposable income and they're confident they have their job, they'll feel good about putting that into the economy. if disposable income is depressed and jobs are going overseas, how are we supposed to have any kind of solid economic recovery? with all of that, we need to point out we've got 47 months of private sector job growth. the republicans have been nowhere at the table. senator brown, how pushy, should i say, should the president be? how direct, how poignant should he be to the american people in the state of the union that the republicans, the guys that are going to be sitting over there, have been nonstarters, no players when it comes to representing recover this economy? when do you turn the worm on the republicans and start doing the pointing almost like a you live moment? i think the president really needs to get aggressive here and make the call here in this year. what do you think? >> that's exactly right. and considering every initiative

we've tried to do what g congressman garamendi just said, businesses need customers, consumer demand, and that means more money in people's pockets. every time we've tried to do that republicans have said no. they still subscribe to this very proven-wrong theory that you want to do austerity, you want to cult, cut, cut, and you want to give tax breaks for the rich. one historical example, a hundred years ago this month, henry ford announced he would give -- he would pay every one of his workers, the guys sweeping the floor and the guys making cars, $5 a day. the business community was livid, but they found out what he had already figured out. that is that if you put money in people's pockets they're going to start to buy things and generate economic activity and create wealth in businesses' pockets and in workers' pockets. that's why the minimum wage is so important. that's why extending unemployment insurance is so important. not just for the families that are struggling that are looking for jobs but for the economy.

economists say extending the unemployment insurance will create 200,000 jobs in the next three months. why wouldn't we do that? but that's not in the trickle-down theory of republicans. and the president needs to call him out tuesday night. >> he does need to call them out on that because what you're talking about henry ford was investing in workers. what corporate america now is investing in emerging markets, which is somebody on the other side of the globe who's willing to work for damn near nothing. and that's really what it comes down to. finally congressman garamendi, if you had one piece for the president going into the state of the union, what would it be? >> as you said, call them out. it was two years ago that the president put forth a solid jobs plan. it had the tax reform you talked about, had infrastructure, had education, had re-education of the workers. all of that was in that proposal two years ago. he needs to point directly to the republican members of the house of representatives and say you have done nothing. you have done nothing. absolutely nothing to create

jobs. in fact, you've taken steps to harm the growth of this economy. and so that's what he needs to do. and frankly the rest of us need to follow along in that same suit. making it clear that the democratic agenda is pro growth, that we want the jobs. and we're pro women, that we want women to have a shot, we want them to be able to have the daycare for their children. so thank you very much for raising these issues. >> congressman john garamendi, senator sherrod brown, great to have you with us tonight. appreciate your time. thank you so much. remember to answer tonight's question at the bottom of your screen, share your thoughts on twitter, facebook. coming up, priorities hrc nation's liberal, largest liberal super pac gets behind hillary for president. plus, the richard sherman reaction and what all the outrage says about where we are as a nation when it comes to communicating with one another.

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welcome back to "the ed show." >> i'm 19. i'm going to make mistakes. >> pop punk. >> we've seen it time and time again. young pop star crashes. >> pop superstar justin bieber has been arrested. >> been so crazy lately. >> justin bieber gets collared by the cops. >> bieber was arrested shortly after 4:00 a.m. after police say he and another man were drag racing. >> he had consumed some alcohol and had been smoking marijuana and consumed some prescription medication. >> mr. bieber, you are charged with dui, resisting without violence, and driving with an

expired driver's license. >> you always got to keep a smile on your face. >> the number two trender. oh, captain. ♪ love, love will keep us together ♪ >> it's over. >> she's filed for divorce. >> 73-year-old katherine antoinette tenill e-filed for divorce from 71-year-old daryl dragon on january 16th in arizona. >> captain and teneil have run out of muskrat love after 39 years. >> you guys have been married over 30 years. >> yeah. >> in show business, that's over 165 years. >> tmz focus dragon seemed blind-sided by the split. >> if he wants to get away from me or i want to get away from him, and sometimes i need to. >> he told the site, i don't know why she filed. i got to figure it out for myself first. ♪ whatever >> and today's top trender. 2016 priority. >> will she or won't she? >> she needs to settle her priorities. >> the largest liberal super pac

is ready to back hillary. >> clinton's lead as hoped up. >> 2016! hilla hillary! >> it's such a difficult decision and it's one that i am not going to rush into. >> joining me tonight bob strum, democratic strategist and professor at new york university. bob, good to have you with us. well, this is a big step forward, is it not? what does this mean that priorities usa, action is out there this early? >> well, i think it reflects reality. the advantage to hillary clinton, and i believe she will run, is going to have money, machinery, organization, is a consequence and not a cause of her dominance in this race. it's unprecedented in modern politics for a nonincumbent to have this dominant a position. and there's no barack obama out there to challenge that. he was a unique figure and a uniquely powerful candidate. and, you know, he was introduced to the country actually before he ran in 2004 when john kerry made him the keynote speaker of

the democratic convention. hillary would have beaten him anyway, but she ran the wrong campaign. she ran for restoration and a year of change. she won't make that mistake again. she'll run with a sense of vision, of how to move america forward, and i think she'll set that out. and by the way, there's an unintended consequence of this, ed, which i've heard no one discuss, and that is if she remains this dominant, and i suspect she will, there won't be a lot of interest in democratic primaries so in open primary states like new hampshire, independents will flow into the republican primary and help the less extreme candidate. >> yeah. what does this mean for other potential candidates on the democratic side, joe biden, former governor of montana sweitzer, o'malley? i mean, this to me seems to clear the beach early on, sending a message, you know, this is going to be a heavy lift for you guys if you want to do it. whereas hillary's playing -- go ahead. >> we can't say that no one else is going to run.

somebody may monopoly you could also mention howard dean in this respect. but the fact is that 70% of democrats, somewhere around 70% of democrats are for hillary and strongly for hillary. i see this among my own students. young people want her, they want a woman president. i think her position in the party is very strong. and also democrats want 16 years of a democratic president. because there's so much at stake. the supreme court, environmental protection, economic growth and economic justice, equal rights, all those things are on the line. and hillary has a big lead against every other republican candidate. chris christie was running a little bit of a race against her, but he's in a lot of trouble now and suddenly eight points behind in the polling. >> how can hillary say no to running after this? that's one thing i want to bring up with you. and also what about, you know, democratic groups getting out there early to get the money, to get ahead of the conservative fund-raisers? is this a play as well? >> well, yes, i think it is. first of all, she -- i think she is going to run.

i don't think she'll say no. she could say no. she could say, look, i just have decided that i've done my public service, i have a different way to serve the country, i'm going to pursue that different way. i don't think that will happen. i think every indication is that she's going to run. everyone i talk to who knows her well and knows that operation well believes she's going to run. i don't think she wants to announce it right now. i think she wants to finish her book and get that done. as for the raising the money, you have a lot of democrats who are aware that republicans, seeing hillary, seeing the lead she has, seeing the the threat she represents, are going to go after her hard. i think what priorities usa is doing is getting ready not just to advance her candidacy and deal with the democratic primaries where unless she makes a terrible mistake hillary will be the nominee. they're getting ready because they want to defend her against the republican attacks that are coming. >> they are coming. no question about it. just because her name is hillary clinton. that's just kind of how the fishbowl is. but it's going to be interesting because i know there are some

liberal groups out there that want a more progressive conversation than what they think hillary would bring to the table. >> let's wait and -- ed, let's wait and see what she says. i mean, i think she is going to talk about economic growth and economic justice. i think she's very smart about this, and i think she's committed to those things. she's not going to rerun the 2008 campaign. and folks like elizabeth warren are for her. >> bob schrum, good to have you with us on "the ed show." >> thanks, ed. >> you bet. coming up, seahawks defensive back richard sherman describes what he really feels when he hears the word "thug." the rapid response panel weighs in. plus, the tpp is a ticking time bomb on american workers. congress needs to act soon to stop the momentum of this international community that is going to be real bad for american workers. it's a bad trade agreement. next, i'm taking your questions live. so what's better, bigger or smaller?

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welcome back to "the ed show." love hearing from our viewers. thanks for the questions. tonight, first question from tom in "ask ed." if the tpp passes, how quick until the economy tanks? well, tom, it depends upon which economy you're talking about. first of all, wall street is not going to tank. this is a great deal for wall street because they're going to get merging markets, go places where maybe they haven't been in other countries. and so i don't think that this is going to hurt wall street at all. but i do think it's going to hurt the middle class. i think it's going to depress wages in this country, and i do believe that the tpp could run us into double-digit unemployment for a long, long time. and this conversation we're having right now about long-term unemployed and extension of unemployment benefit, we'll have that conversation for a long time too. it will be a slow drip, but it will be a consistent drip and it

will hurt us big time. our next question is from barry. "what's your favorite food?" barry, you're asking a guy that weighs 240 pounds what's his favorite food. looks to me like i kind of like everything they put in front of me. although i'm trying to cut back. it's hard to beat broiled walleye. stick around. rapid is response panel is next. stay with us. i'm courtney reagan with your cnbc market wrap. steep declines for stocks after china manufacturing data. the dow falls 176 point, the s&p dropped 16, the nasdaq loses 24. microsoft shares are higher after hours following a much better than expected earnings report. starbucks also rising after the closing bell. profits came in ahead of estimates but sales disappointed. as for the economy, jobless claims rose slightly last week but overall levels indicate an improving labor market. that's it from cnbc. we're first business worldwide.

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welcome back to "the ed show." we have a problem talking about race in this country. the president of the united states isn't even allowed to talk about it without being criticized. and if we don't talk about it, how are we ever going to move forward? which is why i am really enamored with this discussion surrounding seattle seahawks defensive back richard sherman. i think this is very important. sherman's now infamous postgame interview caused a twitter firesto firestorm. as i've said, a lot of the response was down right hateful and racist. many people used racial slurs, and sherman was written off as a thug. what is a thug? richard sherman is a 25-year-old stanford graduate. sherman has a theory.

asked in a press conference about all this why people are calling him a thug. >> the only reason it bothers me is because it seems like it's the accepted way of calling somebody the "n" word nowadays. everybody else says the "n" word and then they say thug and oh, that's fine. what's the definition of a thug really? i know some thugs, and they know i'm the furthest thing from a thug. and, you know, it's just -- you come from where -- i've fought that my whole life, just because you hear watts, you think thug, he's a gangster, he's this, that, and the other, and then you hear stanford and they're like, oh, man, that doesn't make sense, that's an oxymorooxymoro. you and fou fight it for so long and to have it come back up and people start to use it again is really -- it's frustrating. >> according to deadspin, the day after sherman's interview the word "thug" was used 625

times on television. that's more than it's been used on any single day in the past three years. there's no doubt people are paying attention to richard sherman. sherman is about to play in a game that's going to be watched by over 100 million americans. he has a huge platform. richard sherman is using his moment in the spotlight openly answering questions and conversation in a press conference about race and talking about stereotypes. and most americans i think are afraid to hear this conversation. we need to have it. i commend him for standing up and saying what he believes. i think he's doing society a favor. you know, we can always say, well, stereotype this, stereotype that, but then the conversation doesn't go anywhere. but maybe this time it will. joining me now on our rapid response panel, contributor to the grio and msnbc contributor. great to have both of you with us tonight. earlier this in this broadcast

we had tape of a guy i think his name is justin bieber and he's a teen idol, arrested last night, drunken driving, dropping the f bomb on the cops. i wonder, is he a thug? so what's the definition of a thug? where do we go with this? your thoughts on how this is all unfolding and how a guy on the verge of playing the biggest game of his career, these are the kinds of questions and issues that he's dealing with. >> right. i think this is one of those moment where is you see how dangerous it is to stereotype people out of context. and also it illustrates the danger that people of color always find themselves in when they try to express the range of emotions, the entire spectrum of emotions from anger to sadness. just speaking personally as a black woman, you know, i'm very conscious of the angry black woman stereotype. and i think that thug is perhaps the opposite when you're talking about a man who is a person of color. and so this is very -- it's a dangerous thing. it's the default. it's very racially coded language, i think.

and i appreciate sherman's words yesterday because i think that, you know, his -- him being candid about this allows us to really confront this issue head on. >> dr. peterson, the word thug, is that code for the "n" word? because that's what mr. sherman believes is happening in society and common vernacular now when you want to attack somebody. >> sure. you know, i don't think we should equate thug with the "n" word but i do agree with sherman's statements here in this sense. you know, when you think about thug, most people think about criminals, you know, people who don't obey the law, things of that nature, and when we look at our criminal justice system and look at mass incarceration rates, when we look at the prison industrial complex, when we look at stop and frisk, other racial profiling issues, we can see that blackness and black folk, particularly young black men, have been criminalized. and so by extension, using thug in the context within which a lot of people on social media were referring to sherman is in some ways referring to him as

the "n" word. remember here, the justin bieber juxtaposition is really smart. bieber has the privilege, both of race and of monetary resources to be able to act out however he's going to act out without necessarily being categorized in the same way that sherman was in the context of the football game on sunday. >> you're in the classroom, dr. peterson. your students want to talk about this? i mean, is this defensive back who's one of the best in the league, i mean, he didn't ask for this conversation. the guy's doing his job, the pinnacle of his career, makes the biggest play ever and all of a sudden because of his enthusiasm and his exuberance after it was all over with and his expression in the heat of the moment, he's now cast into this conversation between the "n" word and thug and being labeled an being stereotyped. what about that? >> one, i think he's handling himself very eloquently. and i don't want to, you know, dismiss. there's some nfl players that do engage in bad behavior. but at the moment at which he's

being interviewed, the adrenaline that's running through his body, after making the biggest play of his career, catapulting his team into the super bowl, i mean, that energy comes from what's happening on the field. the back and forth, the verbal braggadocio that goes on between athletes on football fields and basketball courts, that's part of the game right now. so for people to love football as much as they do but kind of reject this doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me. >> zerlina, how could president obama or any politician or any one of influence have the kind of conversation or impact that sherman can have without being criticized? i mean, we saw the president criticized big time for his interview in one of most recent magazines in new york talking about how people viewed a black man in the white house. he was severely criticized by the conservatives on that. now sherman is cast into a position. can he actually do more to help the conversation than anybody else? >> i mean, i think that, you know, the jury is still out on that. i do think, though, that it's important even though they are

criticized that president obama and richard sherman and any other high-profile person speak out about these issues. i think that the criticism is problematic, but it doesn't mean that you shouldn't address these issues head on. i think that the problem of race in this country is pervasive because we avoid talking about it and, you know, you're called a race baiter, which shuts down the conversation or someone throws out the term racist and that shuts down the conversation. instead of getting to the heart of the issue, which is, you know, we don't call bobby knight a thug. we call him a legend even though he was throwing chairs on the court and punching and choking people. and we call richard sherman a thug immediately. and why is that? that is a very, very ugly, ugly thing that is a thread throughout the history of this country. and i think that conversations like this make it easier for us to understand why people jump to the term "thug" so quickly. and we need to change that going forward. >> all right. zerlina maxwell, james peterson,

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mr. dead or in jail, ted nugent. the nuge feels like a flop these days. in a gun show interview he lamented his low political influence. >> i have obviously failed to galvanize and prod if not shame enough americans to be ever vigilant not to let a chicago communist-raised, communist-educated, communist-nurtured, subhuman mongrel like the acorn community organizer gangster barak hussein obama to weasel his way into the

top office of authority in the united states of america. >> at least ted nugent can take comfort in his consistency. he relied on his old man for if you can't >> a lot of people would call that inflammatory speech. well, i would call inflammatory speech when it's your job to protect americans and you are look into the television camera and say what difference does it make that i failed in my job to provide security, and we have four dead americans. what difference does that make? not to a chimpanzee or to hillary clinton, i guess it doesn't matter. >> nugent's rant isn't exactly coming from the model of hume manned kind. ted nugent can keep hurdling garbage, but if the nug believes that he could ever hurl anything but a gag reflex, he can keep on. ♪ [ laughs ]

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welcome back to "the ed show." this is the story for the folks who take a shower after work. now, we're in the 11th hour here, folks. we're approaching the end game of negotiations in the transpacific partnership, or the tpp, as we call it. corporate lobbyists and the obama administration are stepping up their drive for fast track authority. the only thing that can stop the momentum in this international community is congress. >> if we give up our voices, that means we give up america's voices. and we shouldn't just give that kind of prerogative to the president on a trade deal that has been negotiated largely in secret among a bunch of

corporate leaders and not member congress. >> fast track authority would give any agreement a straight up or down vote on an accelerated timetable and would virtually guarantee passage of the tpp. the countries involved in this risky trade agreement are in the process of scheduling the next meeting of tpp ministers. trade representatives say the next meeting will likely take place next month. democrats in congress need to say no to fast track and stop the tpp from moving forward. and the way this would work, if fast track isn't granted and the debate can take place on the house and the senate floor, then that means this trade agreement is going to be stalled internationally because a lot of these other countries will not go along without the world's biggest customer, which is the united states. we're a big customer. we're a lousy negotiator. lori wallach is the director of the public citizens global watch, a trade group. great to have you with us tonight, lori.

i appreciate your time. what are the chances at this late hour of stopping this? your thoughts. >> i actually think that congress right now does not have a stomach for giving away its constitutional authority to do another nafta on steroids job killing agreement. that said, there is a lot of pressure, starting from the president and now for months from the big corporations to get them to cave in. so basically, it's a house of representatives fight. i would say it's very close. the people can win. we can make sure congress actually holds on to its constitutional authority to make sure we don't get tpp. it's doable, but it's going to be a big fight. >> how intense is the lobbying? i've heard that it is as intense as anything that has ever been on the hill. that true? would you characterize it that way? >> it's starting to smell a little bit like nafta. and in fact, i was around during

nafta. it's not quite hand-to-hand combat yet, in part because most of the house democrats came out early. and they said we are not doing this nixon era fast track legislative luge run for tpp. and, you know, ed, part of the reason why is because while economists are generally out thing the authority of free trade, they're all united that one of the main contributions to growing u.s. income inequality is the past 20 years of our nafta-style trade agreements. so you have all these democrats, including the president who say more middle class jobs, no income inequality. and then he is pushing the trade agreements. >> you know, that is the bottom line. i don't know how the democrats can sit there and address the issue of income inequality with allowing something like this to go through that will have a direct long-term effect on the middle class, the depression of wages. that's what we've seen. now u.s. trade representative

michael froman and some of the tpp counterparts are there in davos, switzerland, this week for the global economic talks. and there is a sense that all the t's are being crossed and the i's are being dotted. there is very little left to do. it's only the united states that is holding this thing up to see how this whole thing unfolds. is that what you're hearing? >> i think there are two different levels. for one thing, the u.s. and japan are pretty much in a knockdown, drag-out over market access issues, honest to god trade issues like automobiles, beef, et cetera. and they're both holding their cards very close. but in addition, the u.s. push in tpp is basically this huge set of corporate agenda items that wouldn't survive the light of public debate. so a lot of the other countries are basically, just like you said in the beginning, they're looking at congress. they're seeing congress doesn't want to do fast track. they're seeing congress chuck rocks at tpp. and they're starting to think

does the emperor have no clothes? we're all being told to give away the right to have affordable medicine for our people, to mess up internet freedom, to deregulate banks. and if we trade away our public interests, are we even going to get our pieces of silver, because they want to see congress handcuffed. they don't really trust the democratic process. and that's with a we all come in, making sure that congress keeps its constitution authority to stand up for us. >> well, there is a lot of corporate pressure there is a lot of lobbying going on there is a lot of deal-cutting taking place. the bottom line, if this were to go through, if fast track were granted, and if this tpp were to go through, it would be monumental on our economy. it would be a big torpedo in the side. and once it's there, you can't reverse it. and that's what the american people, if you're an activist out there, and if you feel like we're on the wrong side of the issue, you better get after it right now, because the hourglass has been turned on the american

workers there is no question inter. lori wallach, great to have you with us. we will do this again there is no bigger story in america when it comes the jobs and the recovery of our economy and our future than the tpp. that's "the ed show." i'm ed schultz. "politicsnation" starts right now. good evening, ed. thanks to you for tuning. in tonight's lead, federal inquiry. it's been a day of important developments in the investigation of governor christie's administration. the u.s. attorney in new jersey took steps to determine if federal laws were broken in closing access lanes to the george washington bridge. u.s. attorney paul fishman issued subpoenas to key aides and allies of governor chris christie, demanding documents related to lane closings, dating all the way back to 2010. among those receivi