there's not one way to do something. no details too small. american express open forum. this is what membership is. this is what membership does. welcome to hoboken. welcome to the north end of hoboken. we are standing in the middle of three blocks at the heart of this whole story involving the christie administration and dawn z zimmer, the mayor of hoboken. the mayor says members of the christie administration say they would hold up sandy unless she approves the development deal. do you believe her? >> i do. >> i don't know why she would wait all this time to say anything. >> of course she's telling the truth. she's not a politician. >> the rockefeller group owns this block. they own another block around here and most of a third block. they want to develop it into something big. >> this is precious real estate for the city of hoboken as well as all of north jersey.

>> you can seep the view of manhattan, the hudson river and new york city right on the other side. you can see why this is such valuable land. >> i'm hearing a lot of anger that there's a possibility that relief aid might have been tied to development. >> do you you believe her? >> i guess someone is going to have to come down and prove it. that's what it's going to boil down to. >> well, it was last weekend that dawn zimmer, the mayor of hoboken, new jersey, sat on this set and leveled a serious allegation that chris christie's lieutenant governor, kim guadagno had pulled her aside and linked her level of sandy aid to the approval of a development project that is represented by the firm of one of christie's top political allies. and that another top administration official, community affairs commissioner richard constable had delivered a similar if less explicit message a few days later. zimmer plunged herself and her city, tensely populated city of

50,000 people with just one square mile into the national political spotlight. she create d a serious politica and legal headache for the already embattled christie administration. here is the chain of events that was set off by mayor zimmer's appearance on this show eight mornings ago. on sunday, just over 24 hours after that appearance, dawn zimmer met with officials at the office of the u.s. attorney for new jersey. according to the mayor the hastily arranged meeting was at the request of federal prosecutors. she shared with them the story she told us on this show, and she also turned over her personal diary which contains apparently contemporaneous accounts of her interactions with guadagno and constable then she made her first and so far only public comment on the mayor's accusations. >> in short, mayor zimmer's version of our conversation in may of 2013 is not only false but is illogical and does not

withstand scrutiny when all of the facts are examined. any suggestion, any suggestion that sandy funds were tied to the approval of any project in new jersey is completely false. >> zimmer then put out this response to guadagno's public statement, i am genuinely disappointed that lieutenant governor guadagno has lived up to her promise that she would deny linking hoboken's application for sandy hazard mitigation funding with expediting a private development project. hoboken has received less than its fair share of sandy money. they argued that hoboken has in no way lost out on relief funds. they noted that, quote, nearly $70 million worth of funding for direct recovery and rebuilding efforts in hoboken has been

received and approved. that $70 million mainly involves funds that went directly to individuals and businesses, mainly in the form of flood insurance payments. it's not money that christie had direct discretionary control over. then on wednesday zimmer, who appeared on several other national broadcasts after her interview on this show, wednesday she announced that at the request of the u.s. attorney's office she would have no further public comments. in her statement she added that, quote, i stand by my previous statements and remain willing to testify under oath about all of the facts in this case. by that same day, wednesday, the fbi had made its way to hoboken. interviewing what michael isikoff reports are at least five witnesses who zimmer told the fbi could confirm that she had previously told them about the conversation she says she had with lieutenant governor kim guadagno last may. one of those zimmer told is

apparently david mellow. an ally of zimmer's in hoboken, he told "the new york times" he remembers hearing from her last year about, quote, this quid pro quo ultimatum by the lieutenant governor. now wednesday night the hoboken city council held its first meeting after zimmer leveled her accusation. one member of the council, beth mason, a leader of the opposition on the council and who ran against her as mayor of 2009, asked her to attend to discuss the allegations. but zimmer didn't show up. at this present time she wrote in a memo to the council it is best that i do not speak publicly about this matter any further or do anything that might be perceived as interfering with or jeopardizing the u.s. attorney's work. so that's where we are now. the u.s. attorney's office is be on the case. mayor zimmer is clamming you up. we haven't heard anything more from kim guadagno nor christie himself rally to his lieutenant governor's defense. of the same debate playing out across new jersey, across the country. is dawn zimmer telling the tr h

truth? can anything be proven? that debate is raging in hoboken as well. here to talk about hoboken and everything going on now, the two people who know the women and the development deal at the heart of all of this better than almost anyone, david mellow, the h hoboken city councilman who says zimmer told her about her conversation with guadagno and beth, the aforementioned coun l councilwoman who has been skeptical of zimmer's allegations. thank you for joining us. i know it's a long trip over from hoboken to this side of the river. i'll start with you, david. we want to make things clear. you have been quoted publicly saying you had some kind of conversation about some kind of quid pro quo ultimatum from lieutenant governor to mayor m zimmer. you are waiting to talk to the u.s. attorney and you don't want to talk any further. >> i think it would compromise the investigation of the u.s. attorney to rehash those statements i've made with the press. i am eager, though, to share

that information with the u.s. attorney and i will be doing so this week. >> okay. and, beth, you invited the mayor to speak this week at a council meeting. she didn't show up. i've seen some skeptical quotes from you about the story she is telling. can you explain your reaction to what she is alleging? >> sure, i wouldn't necessarily say they're skeptical. i think that the citizens of hoboken, of whom i represent and councilman mello represents, deserve to know. they deserve the knowledge to hear from their mayor directly. the councilmembers themselves deserve the right to know what's going on. some know information while the rest of us are kept in the tashg. the city council is the oversight body for the city of hoboken and for this redevelopment area. and to have us be in the dark for 250 -- more than 250 days is like i find that unyou acceptable.

i think now looking around and trying to get to the bottom of this, what do you think the proper course of action is for the mayor? she's made the allegation, now going to the u.s. attorney. they've asked her to be quiet and they are clearly looking into this. what is the proper steps you should take? >> first of all, they've not told us to be quiet. we've not heard from the u.s. attorney or the fbi at all. we've gotten no letter from the city attorney. we've heard nothing other than statements that have been made. the public still has the right to know and we as the oversight body just like the state legislature has the right to to ask for people to come before them and ask them questions about what actually transpired. especially when there's a project that's on our docket at the moment. if these allegations are true, which are serious. they're very serious and i, you

know, i'm concerned for our city if that's -- these are allegations are true. because we have a number of development projects in our town. if that's on our docket now, we need to know that. we need to know and the citizens had a right to know that before the election. 250 days in between that was actually an election that took place. our governor was on the ballot and the mayor was on the ballot and it could have potentially changed the direction of that election. >> so let's talk about that project and its role in hoboken. this rockefeller group project. we showed you video from the site there. tell us from a hoboken standpoint, how big after deal has this been? what does this potential development mean in had this town? has this been a driving force in local politics? >> well, it is a very big deal and there are a l number of projects in hoboken not just this project proposed by the rockefeller group. in southern hoboken we have new jersey transit as proposing building a tremendous amount of construction. what i want for the citizens of

h hoboken is that their quality of life, what they need is taken into consideration when all of these projects are working their way through the legal process. there's a redevelopment process in the state of new jersey. and it has to be vold. so we cannot talk to the rockefeller group before we made a diagnosis. we very recently made designation of that area, an area in need of rehabilitation. now the next proper step is to hire a planner and start planning out the area a taking into consideration first and foremost the needs of hoboken. it shouldn't be anything where a governor of the state of new jersey has been trying to impose his will on the project. so if that happened, if that was what went on with sandy funding, i want that investigated for the citizens of hoboken and i also want to continue to advocate that the citizens of hoboken get the sandy funding we need so we can be a resilient community. >> but what about that question of sandy? i want to get this in. the associated press, a lot of talk the christie people have

been pushing back saying hoboken did not get a real deal in sandy funding. we took it through a little bit of their numbers. the associated press was reporting last night basically saying hoboken has received -- the state awarded $25 million for energy projects to help deal with outages. hoboken received $142,000. the state also provided money to communities hit by the storm to hire experts and come up with long-term recovery plans. it was the fourth highest allocation among the 35 local governments in the program. beth, do you buy what the governor's office is saying? do you think this story has it right? did hoboken get what it deserves or do you share the view hoboken needs more to prepare for the next storm? >> i represent the city of hoboken. i like as much money as our town can possibly get in. i would work with the mayor. i will work with the councilman and i've said that that we should work all together to get as much allocation as we possibly can for our sit stens. the issue here is more about

under what context that is happening in, and if the councilman knew back in the summer that this was going on, why was that not brought to the council? why were we not told? he's trained as an attorney? what did he tell the mayor and how to respond to that? so these are questions that i think the mick has a right to know especially given there were decisions made in the interim in that time frame that were, you know, the citizens of hoboken made a decision to make a vote it to do. >> steve, the mayor has gone on in the press the past week and made clear why she didn't come forward earlier. to talk about it any further from my standpoint, i want to have those discussions with the u.s. attorney's office so they can give this matter the investigation it deserves. back to the funding, we did receive when it came to the energy allocations the same amount of funding as many other municipalities including upper saddle river. we received the same amount of funding as them. i don't think that's fully

appropriate. i've worked in upper saddle river going to law school in the summer. it is much further up land. it is way far away from the coast and it's not dealing with the same situation. it's not about whether hoboken received equitable treatment. it's whether hoboken received treatment it deserves given its proximity to the hudson river and given the flooding we experienced. a more important issue is the hazard mitigation grant program, $100 million crafted so to be eligible for it, you had to have a shore home. now my parents have had a shore home on long beach island since the '80s. the i've been going there since the '70s. i was delight ed that the state is providing money to residents up to $30,000 to raze their homes. what i would have liked too much seen was that funding to be crafted so if you would live in an urban municipality like hoboken and decimated by the flooding which we were, ground

level apartments, basement level apartments, they can't put themselves up on stilts. they can't bring in the contractors and put their building up on jacks. they often own a very expensive condominium which has condominiums above it which weren't affected by the storm in the same way. we would have liked to have seen the utilities, things like that raised. that would have given our residents the ability to apply for the grant. >> it strikes me this argument about the funding level is central to this and completely beside the point. sev central to it because you can make the argument you just made that the way the entire program was structured at the statewide level that a city like hoboken, the unique circumstances of a mile square city on the banks of the hid son river under 80% water, you are not eligible under the criteria the state has set up for most of the aid. it will go to land buyback programs, things like that. that's a totally relevant and valid argument to make. at the same time it's also beside the point because the allegation the mayor has made is, look, i don't think my city got enough.

that's what she sat here say in. she has publicly said i don't think my city got enough and the response she got from the administration wasn't, yeah, you did get enough. the response she is saying she got from the administration is if you want more you need to expedite the project. that's the question the u.s. attorney is looking at and what she is going and talking about. we are out of time here. i'm sorry. my thanks to david mello and beth mason. we appreciate you taking a few minutes this morning. we talked about the woman making the explosive accusations involving the christie administration and the city of h hoboken. what about the woman she made those allegations against? we'll be talking about lieutenant governor kim guadagno next. it was in the malibu diner four years ago, more than that, in the summer of 2009, that the previous mayor of hoboken, a young guy who had been elect body a month earlier sat down with a guy working undercover for the fbi posing as a develop er who offered them $25,000 in illegal campaign donations if he

would fast track the development mayor. he said yes. a couple weeks later was arrested. the had to give up his job as mayor. dawn zimmer became mayor a. the new jersey office sort of had led, was initiated under chris christie running for governor at the time, helped make him governor. so it helped make chris christie governor and made dawn zimmer mayor. we are the thinkers. the job jugglers. the up all-nighters. and the ones who turn ideas into action. we've made our passions our life's work. we strive for the moments where we can say, "i did it!" ♪ we are entrepreneurs who started it all... with a signature. legalzoom has helped start over 1 million businesses, turning dreamers into business owners. and we're here to help start yours. turning dreamers into business owners. with olive garden's plebest 2 for $25 yet choose two melt-in-your mouth entrees

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until last weekend at this time during this very show most people had never heard of new jersey lieutenant governor kim guadagno. it's fairly safe to say most people in the state of new jersey had never heard of kim guadagno which may or may not have anything to do with the fact that until just a few years ago new jersey had never had a lieutenant governor at all. the job was created by voters in

2005. that's when ballot initiative number one passed with 55% of the vote. it was on the ballot that year because of this man, jim mcgreevey. when he resigned the previous year in 2004, the state constitution called for him to be succeeded but the senate president richard cote. that was the second time in three years that something like this had happened and the second time it involved dick cote. when christine todd whitman resigned to join the bush administration the new jersey constitution mandated the senate president would become the acting governor while keeping his job as senate president making that hyphen ated governor h haley powerful and awkward. five different people filled the role in the year after whitman left as governor, most of them in just the last week. look at it this week. donald defrancesco held the term most of the time.

attorney general john farmer was put in the job of governor for a whopping 90 minutes and it was during those 90 minutes the newly organized state senate split evenly along party lines elected its leaders which then meant that the new republican co-president of the state senate john bennett and, yes, the new democratic co-president of the state senate split up until mcgreevey was important in as governor. five governors in eight days. all just a little nuts. that is some of the zaniness. that meant the next time new jersey held a statewide election in 2009 it wasn't just chris christie who was sent to trenton as governor. kim gauadagno went with him as new jersey's first elected lieutenant governor. she is the figure in the background ever since, at least until this week. so who is kim guadagno exactly?

she was born in iowa. she became an assistant u.s. attorney in newark before chris christie had the top job in that office. then local politics in monmouth county. the position of sheriff of the county and from there she was picked by christie to run with her in 2009 and she became the lieutenant governor. one of the biggest names in news this week, one we are likely to keep hearing about, someone most people, it's safe to say, have been very unfamiliar with at least until now. to talk more about her find out more about her i want to bring in this morning's panel. we have the smokesman for senator frank lautenber eenberl. also we co-host add show together on news 12 new jersey. my first taste of television.

picture that one. i always appreciated it. the democratic congressman frank pallone. we have andrea with wnyc radio and covering new jersey politics for years and is now a professor. so thanks a, everybody, for joining us. this question of all the world knows of kim guadagno is about 25 seconds of a very stilted, scripted statement she read on monday and everybody has been trying to dissect it since then. jim, we'll start with you. what should people know about kim guadagno? >> first of all, it's a little troubling because the thought that the governor's office, if they did, sent up as a hardball a messenger up the turnpike to hoboken to deliver that message is implausible and here is why. what has she been the last four years? well, actually she's been a rote which and kawani speech maker and has cut ribbons.

i don't mean that in a demeaning way. she is quite popular. she gives out her cell number to everyone. looking at someone here who is not politically really connected as much as she portrays herself to the governor's office. they don't want that moon clouding their sun on this thing here. and there were a lot of complaints even by her in the beginning part until she saw the way it would really roll that i would like a greater involvement. you hear this from her former staff, people who work with her and the like and generally in trenton. when you see someone who has just been doing that on the road, the salesman for the administration, it's not really the type of typical messenger that's ever sent to deliver a hardball message like this. that is a problem to sort of stretch to cover to believe. >> but she is part of her portfolio isn't dealing with economic development questions. so the idea -- and she seemed to say in that statement that there was a conversation. she had some kind of information with mayor zimmer that involved

development and obviously the big development project. it doesn't seem a stretch that if shefts in hoboken and talking development that this rockefeller project came up. and we know that the mayor was very much on the case of getting sandy money. so some of the basic ingredients. >> that is the issue here. guadagno went up and she went up to do her job. that's her economic portfolio. she has been the salesman for the administration for four years on this thing, right? so, okay, given. that she has to do as part of her job. the connection to the part is a little troubling because neither she is that political enough to deliver it. she was a former prosecutor. she had to realize that you never connect it to on here and dealing with a mayor who isn't actually politically sophisticated as people might believe. there is a lot of room, and i don't mean to be the defender for the people involved here, but there is a lot of room for lack of connect on here. guadagno goes up here and talks about what needs to get done. i'm sure the conversation went from the other side, the connect

from hoboken mayor to what about sandy money. typically when people come up to express the governor's will and, by the way, there would be a very long line through a long line of history in new jersey about people saying, hey, the governor would like this and if it's not offered up, people will ask. the position is so powerful in the state. well, where is the governor on this? it was inevitable that would come up in some way, in some fashion. that's the way it works in new jersey. >> congressman, you represent monmouth county. she's from your home turf politically. what do you make of kim guadagno? >> well, as you said, she's been the sheriff of monmouth county, was a commissioner like a councilman in monmouth beach which i represent and i know fairly well. one thing i may disagree with jim on is this. kim guadagno from the very beginning was very much involved in the sandy. in other words she was always there. she was out, you know, talking to people about sandy relief. of it's also true that as you know with the lieutenant governor no specific portfolio

other than what the governor gives had her and in this case he did have her responsible, if you will, for economic development. she would go around and try to promote economic development, tax packages, tax breaks, that type of thing. so it is very likely she would be talking about both of these things. i wasn't there so i don't know whether she linked them or not. to be honest, i don't know why dawn zimmer would lie. she has no incentive to lie. she is basically putting her whole career on the line here. so, you know, it's a very serious charge that she made. i was here on your show when she actually made them and i thought she was very credible in the way she had her diary and had talked to other councilmen about it at the time. i would not dismiss this. this is a very serious charge. >> and, andrea, i heard the argument put to me by a number of people that there may be -- we say the thing is in black and white and there may be some gray here, that dawn zimmer thought she was hearing and saying one

thing and kim guadagno thought she was saying and hearing another thing. there are basic elements that could be resolved. maybe kim guadagno was, in her mind, an artful way trying to say, hey, we could help you out with sandy but you have to help us out on this and there's that quote that zimmer attributes to her like, you know, i'll deny it if you ever say this. i know this isn't right. but it almost sounds like there could be a context she was trying to be, in her mind, helpful. even if she's trying to be artful about it, if she is artfully link iing sandy fundin and the rockefeller project, that's a big deal. >> well, it is a big deal. we don't know what happened here. we don't have this treasure trove of e-mails like we do with the bridge case, but one of the things we to know from the e-mail, the 2,000 pages we've read, is there were linkages like this made in the christie administration. we don't know what happened in this instance but we know that happened. one of the things i was very surprised about when i read the

e-mails just how much of this was written down. i would have thought there would have been a lot of winks and nudges and elbows and "you understand what i'm saying." that is surprising. we don't have the e-mails. we have the diary and witnesses. we don't have an explicit thing written down that we know of yet. >> yet is the key question. we'll pick up how we might figure more right after this. passenger: you've got to be kidding me. driver: this is good. woman: vamanos. driver & passenger: vamanos. woman: gracias. driver & passenger: gracias. passenger: trece horas en el carro sin parar y no traes musica. driver: mira entra y comprame unas papitas. vo: get up to 795 miles per tank in the tdi clean diesel. the volkswagen passat. recipient of the j.d. power appeal award, two years in a row.

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opponent? loretta weinberg. that was her campaigning in 2009. she plays that former federal prosecutor there. that was one of the calling cards of the campaign in 2009. it's one of the defenses you hear right now of, you know, maybe this didn't happen because as a form federal prosecutor she would have been smart enough not to make this explicit link aage that the mayor is alleging. >> there are so many people who are former federal prosecutors in the administration that the line has been, they couldn't have done this. what's the chain of custody on the issue of the rockefeller group property? how did that get into the conversation? i can see her portfolio economic development and the fact that she gives out her cell phone number and there's a piece in

talking points memo or a little profile of her. the state senator says businesses can call her. she's a pipeline. she may not have this big role but behind the scenes people understand that she is a pipeline to the governor. so if she's there and talking development, how did rockefeller get into the mix? how did sandy get into the mix? i can understand how we might think that dawn zimmer just wasn't sophisticated enough to understand how things are done in jersey except when you shine a spotlight on that you end up getting -- when prosecutors get interested in that common place way of doing business, suddenly there's an indictment. >> in the problematic thing here, he is peespecially proble when you look at that time from guadagno and the administration's standpoint, you could make an argument this rockefeller project in hoboken that the administration in the name of economic development would have an interest in. okay. this could be a commercial office tower. this could be jobs. this could be taxes this could be a good thing. it would be in the interests of

the administration to push it. you have this added piece that we've now established you have the chairman of the port authority, his name is popping up on these e-mails from his own law firm. he's being copied on them. people in his l firm are trying to set up teleconferences with him and city officials in hoboken to push for this project. so now it's not just the christie administration in the abstract has an interest in pushing economic development, an office tower in hoboken if that's the case, they'd be pushing for a project that one of christie's top political allies has a vested economic interest in. >> it is troublesome. one other thing at the top of your show today you showed -- you were interviewing residents in hoboken. and what you saw, the division of opinion there, is really what's going to be what this will rest on, the judgment. let's say there's a crippminal complaint. there's a jury for that. that's the rule of law and the court of law. this is really something that's in the court of public opinion. you saw the division of the people you talked to. it almost -- well, it does matter if anything is criminal.

this is a political thing with basically a court of public opinion being the judge and are juror on this. and that is the thing that's probably going to be more near term problematic for everyone involved. >> right now it seems like, look, we have gotten from dawn zimmer on this show, she shared her diary on this show. she shared a very vivid account the of what she says happened. right now if you are talking about the court of public opinion, you have that on the other side. you just have kim guadagno's very brief, did not take questions from the press, didn't offer, okay, she got the conversation wrong. this is what the conversation actually was. she hasn't shared anything like that. i haven't seen any polling on this but, congressman, i sense at this moment dawn zimmer's version of this might be more resonant with people. >> i think so only because, as you said, she had the diary. she talked to other counscilmen and other people at the time. the other thing, too, as she mentioned last week, the rock fell er group was only one part of a larger development project and for whatever reason the port authority kept, you know, honing

in on the rockefeller group, the rockefeller group, whatever. she kept wondering why isn't everything else being mentioned here? why are you not worried about development in the same area that's not part of the rockefeller group. there is that port authority emphasis on the rockefeller group that she pointed out and all of this makes it very credible particularly what is her motivation? she has no reason to lie really. >> it's a worth emphasizing that study was funded by the port authority and the funding was granted just as david samson was taking over at the port authority. so i talked to a lot of experts in the past week and they thought that was just an apparent conflict of interest, that he is the chairman of this giant $7 billion authority and it's funding a project that directly benefits a client of his. the study they came up with. but the thumb is on the scale. all these other pieces of property owned by all these other developers, no.

>> only three blocks out of 19 get that designation a. >> represented by w 0 olff & samson. that's the one that should get it. and there's no record that we've seen, and i reached out to them, to the port authority, that there was any attempt to recuse himself, to get out of the deal. so no one has seen anything like this at the port authority. >> it's that whole chain, the chain of state officials putting the city of hoboken in touch to get the money and then david samson leaning on the city. it turns out this is a two-year process. the state official who originally put hoboken in touch with the port authority, by the end of the two-year process working for david samson's law firm and pushing to get him meetings. again, i don't know illegal but it looks bad, like the worst of new jersey. if you are chris christie, who should you be more scared of? dawn zimmer or bridgette kelly, his former staffer who just got

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governor chris christie has trade to make this week go by as quickly and quietly as possible. not when the u.s. attorney for new jersey paul fischman is involved issuing subpoenas to both christie's campaign and the state republican party this week expanding the skoem of the fed's interest to include not just the hoboken allegations but also the george wash a wash bridge episode. the subpoenas are on top of the 20 already issued by a special state legislative committee investigating the bridge scandal. christie campaign has hired high-profile legal counsel from the washington base d firm from chris christie has hired before. more on that in our next hour with robert luskin leading the legal team, famous for defending a wide range of clines including karl rove and lance armstrong. remember ""american hustle""? luskin said all three subpoenas

focus on the closure of the all three lanes on the bridge. we will respond to the subpoenas accordingly. what about those other allegations by mayor dawn zimmer? zimmer is offering her word and her diary but how do you prove something like that to the u.s. attorney? i want to bring in former federal prosecutor paul butler who specialized in public corruption and was part of the team that indict ed a person. worked to overturn the money laundering conviction house majority leader tom delay. welcome back to both of you. we had you on satellite last week. you can eat pastries. that's the perk of this. paul, i'll start with you as a prosecutor, as a former prosecutor. if you were presented with what dawn zimmer has presented the u.s. attorney's office with, the account she has shared in the show, apparently contemporaneous diary entries and now we are

told a couple people, four or five people in hoboken who she says will vouch for her told her about this at the time and you have the denial we heard from kim gguadagno, how would you pursue this happening? >> she drops this bombshell on your show last saturday and sunday, the next day, the federal prosecutors bring her into the office and they ask, you know, what do you know? do you have any documents? we believe you. we want to believe you. we want to know what's up. what else do you have? i told a bunch of other people. they interview those guys and corroborate the story. this is one witness. they're looking for are there other witnesses. if you're a bad guy or a bully, it's not just one person. you do that with other people as well. if they get other people who can tell a story like this and finally, steve, it's about

follow the money. this is a story about the governor's boy is a lawyer for this development group so if the group gets the contract what about the governor himself sp follow the money and see if there's some connection to governor christie because he's the big fish. >> if you were looking at kim guadagno, the allegation centers on did she go to hoboken and make this threat to the mayor, given what the mayor has now produced in the court of public opinion the mayor is coming across better if only because the lieutenant governor hasn't said anything and she said this stilted reading from a script thing. what would you be advising from a legal standpoint to kim guadagno now? you have to tell your version of this or 0 just keep quiet? how does she come back against

what the mayor is alleging? >> it's what the citizenry of the garden state wants to hear on the air. i think what she's got to do is stay on point. one of the lessons i learned in the tom delay case the criminalization of politics is a very unfair process. there is a fine line between fastballs and bean balls. it's like government intelligence and jumbo shrimp. it's a tough way to make a living and there's noggin herntly wrong about playing hardball. the lieutenant governor has to get out there and say, look, i'm doing my job for the people who elected me and i crossed no lines. by the way, why did it take the mayor as long as it did? >> from a legal standpoint,

there's hardball and everything but if it's established that a there was basically a quid pro quo of sand y funds for approva of a development project, there's a serious legal question there, right? >> there's a serious legal question, steve, but it doesn't mean somebody ought to be indicted. if it's nothing more than political quid pro quo, hey, no harm, no foul. it's only if that quid pro quo crossed the line from legality into illegality and that's why everybody is here today. >> we will pick it up with paul after this. [ male announcer ] this is kevin.

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so brian was making a point earlier from a legal standpoint there may be a distinction between a quid pro quo that is politics as usual especially in new jersey and something that is actually illegal. >> this side you have political pressure, rough and tumble politics which in some ways we don't mind. that's how the civil rights act of '64 got accomplished by horse trading and by threats by lbj. so that's okay to a degree.

over here we have extortion, which is a crime. there's this big gray area in between. the scariest two words for governor christie are rod blagojevich because his defense was, well, this was just politics as usual. i do you, you do me. where is he now? in federal prison. >> some of the news this week was about bridget kelly, the former deputy chief of staff to chris christie, the one who wrote the time for some traffic e-mail. he threw her overboard right away, called her a liar like five times on national tv. she switched lawyers and hired the top -- one of the top defense attorneys in new jersey, so it's changed a lot of talk about what she might be looking for. you have david wildstein who is openly looking, it seems, for an immunity deal. brian, i wonder as a defense attorney if you have a client in one of their positions, how do

you go -- what is the art of pursuing a deal with the feds? what goes into that? >> i think everybody understands that the first guy or gal out of the courthouse gets the best deal. unless and until as a lawyer you think your client is in serious legal jeopardy, you don't want to play that card. if and when you believe that your guy or gal is in serious legal difficulty, you make the call. you sit down and you offer them what they think they need. but in a situation like this, these are top flight criminal lawyers, and i think we made that point last week. the guys who had been involved in this case, they are the legal pro bowl. they ought to move venue to hawaii with the all stars. only if you believe your client is looking at orange as the new black do you finally sit down and try to cut a deal. it's death con one. >> from a prosecutor standpoint -- >> you have all the power as a prosecutor. the ball is in your court. you can haul her into the grand

jury. she can take the fifth and then you put fbi agents on her to investigate everything she has ever done in her life, find out something shea has done illegal. everyone has. i'm going to throw the book at you unless you cooperate. if she's got the goods, they're going to get them from her. >> you i.d. your target and make it worth their while to cut the deal. we have too little time here but i want to say thanks to former prosecutor paul butler and criminal defense attorney brian weiss. appreciate the insight. these days i'm living with a higher risk of stroke due to afib, a type of irregular heartbeat, not caused by a heart valve problem. at first, i took warfarin, but i wondered, "could i up my game?" my doctor told me about eliquis. and three important reasons to take eliquis instead. one, in a clinical trial, eliquis was proven to reduce the risk of stroke better than warfarin. two, eliquis had less major bleeding than warfarin.

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♪ ♪ ♪ told ya you could do it. (dad vo) i want her to be safe. so, i taught her what i could and got her a subaru. (girl) piece of cake. ♪ (announcer) love. it's what makes a subaru, a subaru. if you've ever traveled on a train between new york city and points west or south, then chances are you've traveled in one of the only two train tunnels connecting new york's penn station to new jersey. it means there is only one tunnel in each direction for all of the amtrak service in this country that goes through new york. servicing many of the 260 million riders who traveled the northeast corridor each year. not to mention the new jersey transit trains that carry tens of thousands of commuters to and

from the city every day. to get all that traffic through a train travels each of these tunnels rough hi every 150 seconds, two and a half minutes. when something, anything goes wrong, when a train breaks down, when there's a significaal prob there's bad weather, when amtrak tries to add extra service around the holidays. anything like that happens, it sets off a domino effect of delays which translate into valuable lost hours and productivity productivity. officials thought they had a solution to this, build another tunnel. add more compaapacity to a limi train system more than 100 years old. that was the idea. so they started doing that. the project was a.r.c., access to the region's core. new jersey senator frank r. lautenberg who believed strongly in transportation, so strongly in it they named a new commuter rail hub in secaucus, new jersey, after him, etches the project's champion in

washington. this was a huge undertaking. senator lautenberg got the federal government to kick in $3 billion to the project. far and away the largest contribution the feds were making to any project in the country. that money came from a competitive pool. that's how much people liked this project and by 2010 nearly $300 million of those federal funds had been spent to get moving on the tunnel. not everyone was behind it, though, because within ten months of taking office the new new jersey governor shut the project down. >> this decision is final. there is no opportunity for reconsideration of this decision on my part. i am done. we are moving on. >> they wrote a membo saying th a.r.c. cost had gone up and the additional cost would have to be absorbed by the state of new

jersey signed off on by port authority brass, too, that includes christie's then new appointee at the port, deputy executive director bill baroni. it recommended christie kill the project and find a sensible and affordable alternative. supporters including the obama administration pleaded with him to reconsider. it was his job to make the hard choices. that's what his argument was. here is the press release when he canceled it. protects new jersey taxpayer dollars. but that wasn't the whole story. they demanded those back that had already been spent. new jersey ended up paying back $95 million. this was supposedly all in the name of saving money.

a report was issued about 18 months later, it completely destroyed christie's stated rationale. the it turned out the costs were not exploding and that new jersey was not on the hook for 70% of the overruns. it was more than 14%. now what's of note about all of this is what governor christie did with that money, the money supposed to be used to build that tunnel. it eventually landed in the transportation trust fund, something that as a candidate he pledged not to borrow from but replenish. >> higher tolls, fees, taxes. the people are suffering, suffocating under these taxes. we should do pay as you go on the transportation trust fund. >> christie promised to make that trust fund pay as you go. after he was elected in 2009

because that fund was depleted he asked jon corzine to issue death to replenish it. it didn't take long for that to run out, too. as was reported he was taking turnpike tolls and he was using them to balance the overall state budget. he pitched it into the trust fund instead. with that money in the fund the state had some cash but not as much as it wanted. and that's what leads us back to the port authority. we talked with about the port authority of new york and new jersey the last few weeks, first with the george washington bridge lane closures and the revelation that it paid $75,000 for a redevelopment survey represented by the law firm of david samson. now you might know that the port

authority is a bi-state agency that owns and operates the airports, bridges and tunnels in the metropolitan region. but it does more than that. because the port right now is playing a major role in how new jersey is financing its transportation budget. we looked at the numbers. right now one of every $5 being spent on transportation comes from the port authority. that's almost $4.5 billion over the next five years. if you want to really understand the relationship between chris christie and samson you have to understand how this happened and what the port has become. and that story starts with the killing of the a.r.c. tunnel in 2010 because it was not just the state of new jersey and the federal government paying for the a.r.c. tunnel. the port authority itself had a bunch of money set the aside for the project. a bunch of money as in $3 billion. $3 billion that could go instead to big ticket infrastructure projects in new jersey. that christie could take credit for.

christie public hadly said he want that had money to go to new jersey projects and if he didn't get his way he said at the time he would hold up funds for the world trade center is and the tappan zee bridge replacements, both entirely on the new york side. but by early 2011 he didn't have to make those threats because early that year the port authority got a new chairman, david samson. the former new jersey general. the month after sampson joined the port, the port made an announcement. they were going to go along with christie's idea. the port was going to cooperate with the state on what they called access infrastructure enhancements. they didn't commit to a number but the number kicked around at the time was $1.8 billion. now it's less than the $3 billion they were going to contribute to the a.r.c. tunnel but more than enough to let christie fund the projects he wanted to fund through 2016, the

year they expected him to go off and run for president. christie's people bragged about how they were changing the way the state funded its transportation projects. the christie transportation capital plan reverses this irresponsible practice of borrowing over each of the next five years. the christie plan will increase while at the same time decreasing the use of borrow in. that's what they were saying. it was highly unusual, though, for the port authority to spend money on projects so far afield. projects that didn't in some way benefit both new jersey and new york in travel between them. so the benefit in bond ratings agencies took notice in 2011 they downgraded the port authority's bonds. the port had, quote, a complex government structure that makes it vulnerable to political interference that can result in delays, revenue diversions for nonsystem assets and added costs for major capital projects essential to the region. but by then samson, baroni and

other appointees were in place at the port. the dollars were flowing to new jersey. four major projects and state roads got under way, projects that add up to $2.5 billion. much more than what christie initially asked for but there's more. wnyc reports that in 2010 christie sent a clear message that he would withhold support for the world trade center reconstruction efforts unless the port gave the go-ahead to the rebuilding of the bridge, $1 billion project. part of the price tag was the purchase of an site, $235 million, enough to bail out the financially troubled city. at the announcement of the project the head of new jersey's most powerful unions ray patino proclaimed his support for the republican governor of his state. he was also a port authority commissioner. christie renominated him in 2012 so he could stay in that position. the laborers today are one of the top ten contributors to the republican governor's associations that christie heads.

you can see him there. the new jersey laborers. in 2012 baroni said they will replace the path station in harrison. the cost $256 million. he said he worked with the democratic mayor of that town. democratic mayor who went on to endorse chris christie in 2013 and was quoted recently saying even in the face of all the revelations of the past few months he'd be happy to endorse christie again right now. the port was doing so much work in new jersey it didn't have the cash to do another project, the $1.5 million replacement of the bridge. the port turned to a public/private partnership, the first time they had ever used that kind of more expensive financing in its 92-year history. the new jersey economic development authority authorized the biggest bond sale in state history, $457 million, all in tax exempt bonds. all a of this work has happened since christie came to office and according to wnyc stocked

the port with political operatives. at the same time commuters and travelers in the port authority bridges saw their tolls rise. tolls are getting high enough that moody's, the same bond rating firm we mentioned earlier, said the port is at risk of losing drivers when gas prices go higher in the future. it's also meant an explosion this debt. it's allowed christie to promote himself as a fiscally responsible governor who keeps campaign promises. christie administration has dismissed the idea the port authority has become the transportation piggy bank as an extremely odd presence. they said, quote, these are major republican infrastructure projects with lasting benefits not just to a particular town but the entire port facility, new jersey and new york's economic well-being. still, the political benefits are clear when the dust settled from the a.r.c. tunnel, christie went to new york to speak before the george w. bush institute. in the sound bite from that speech is him talking about the importance of being responsible and saying no to projects that

are too expensive to afford. >> i refuse to compromise my principles. they want to build a tunnel to the basement of macy's and stick the new jersey taxpayers pairs with a bill of $3 billion to $5 billion over, no matter how much the administration yells and screams, you have to say no. >> but consider this, in 2014 the new jersey department of transportation's five year capital plan lays out $21 billion in projects but one out of every $5, is coming from the port authority. now that doesn't include the other half billion they've spent on the harrison path station and the bailout. it's easy to make these connections now. sometimes someone in new jersey politics saw this coming, someone like frank lautenberg. in april 2012 he called baroni to testify on surface transportation and their exchange was testy. pressed by lautenberg about toll increases and patronage at the

port, baroni fired back by taking the senator to task for use of a free e-z pass, a perk given to former commissioners before being taken away. lautenberg was a former commissioner. sitting right behind baroni was david wildstein. since getting to the port they had been said to be christie's eyes and ears at the agency. wnyc reports they masterminded the plan. baroni's perfeormance at the hearing got him a reprimand from senator jay rock fefeller who sd it was improper decorum. lautenberg died last year. looking back on that hearing today you can see that he had diagnosed a problem at the port. p patronage was making the port turn away from its core mission. new projects were adding to the agency's debt and paid for out of the pockets of ordinary travelers. management hasn't been all gimmicks, gimmicks employed by previous new jersey governors. he has taken some proactive steps working with the

democratic state legislature to pay toward state pension obligations limiting the size of arbitration awards. come to think of it these are the things that dawn zimmer, the mayor of hoboken worked with him on. >> i was, i think, the first democrat to stand behind him on the 2% tax cut. i think it's done a lot for hoboken and for the state. health care refom, arbitration reform. definitely helped hoboken in our negotiations with the unions. it's made a difference. >> but the overall picture of the christie budgeting process has not been a pretty one. in late 2012 the bipartisan state budget task force labelled the way new jersey handles its books as structurally unbalanced. saying that it does so in a way that pushes difficult budget choices off to future years and is ultimately unsustainable. the port authority is a bigger part of that problem than anyone realizes, one of the many reasons governor christie can't afford to lose david samson as its chairman.

here 20 discuss all of this back at the table jim mcqueeny, former chief of staff for senator frank lautenberg and political host, we have frank pallone, andrea bernstine with wncy and bruce murphy of baroch colle college. i'm going to start with you. there's a lot of dense information in there. i think there's something fundamental about how the role that the port authority has played in the new jersey side in funding big infrastructure problems and big transportation projects that is very different than the past. there's a new precedent created here by the christie administration. >> right. governor chris christie had a budget problem and when he came in, the transportation trust fund was empty. there wasn't almost a penny to spend on roads in new jersey. so they looked around and they saw this big pot of money in the port authority and what i have sort of learned over the last few weeks is that immediately when wildstein and baroni went

to the authority, they started asking about the money for the a.r.c. tunnel. this was many months before christie came and said i was shocked to learn of these cost overruns and i'm putting a 30-day moratorium on the project. by the way, a little side note, david samson was actually named by christie, nominated, to head the port authority just a few days before the moratorium was put on the a.r.c. tunnel funding. this was a case where the port authority was going to solve his budget headache and he was going to not have to raise the gas tax which would have been terrible for someone looking at a republican presidential race some time in the future. now i should say that governor cuomo of new york who also runs the port authority did not take this aggressive stance at the time so it was the christie team was able to take advantage of this sort of vacuum at the port authority and go and muscularly do this.

governors have tried for decades to use the port authority to sort of help them not have to spend money from the state budget but what was different here was that christie was able to do this in a situation where there wasn't strong pushback from new york and able to get a number of these big, important projects. the a.r.c. tunnel, this transit tunnel that was being built, that money is now being used to rebuild the pull as can can i skyway in new jersey, which takes people out of the holland tunnel, a project that needed to be done. but this transit infrastructure project which was supposed to spur long-term economic development in new jersey easing commutes is not happening. >> and, brian, you have been very helpful to us in putting the research for this together. it kind of gets to the story of the port authority here is important to understand for people in terms of we're trying to figure out crack the mystery of the george washington bridge lane closure. at one level it seems so incredibly petty and we don't know the motive be and hopefully

will figure that out. the fact that was carried out by the christie appointees at the port authority, it's telling you this story, understanding this and looking at the george washington bridge thing, is telling us about the culture on the jersey side of the port authority has turned a little bit more political in the last three or four years. here is an opportunity to have all these ribbon cuttings, to have all these ground breakings on new jersey projects and all you have to do is kill the a.r.c. tunnel. why do you put people in positions of patronage, right? you do it to take over something. you don't do it just to give your friends jobs. you do it because there's something that you want to do. there's some kind of policy outcome that you want. and now looking back on it, it is one of the most disingenuous documents in the history of american infrastructure. it was meant to blow this up by misstating the forward costs on

it. they turned around to get these commitments. the capital lan for the next ten years. when you look at the erosion on the balance speech, looking back it begins to make sense in where this arc tunnel piece comes in which we did not think we would be talking with about. you knew frank lautenberg well. you saw a lot of these problems. >> he did. look, this incident really, and the port authority involvement as well here, really goes to how christie has really big footed and buffaloed effectively the media on this. that a.r.c. tunnel with all the stuff we went through, all of that being you true, was killed

by two words, macy's basement. the governor used his ability and it's phenomenal to simply frame issues. the say iing is things can be simple and most of the time they're simply wrong. you look at the case of a former prosecutor who is bullishly framing media arguments and he got away with what dehere with a lot of tangling of things thereafter. look, it was to avoid a gas tax. that was probably big at the core of it and then thinking you can't go with a tax to iowa. even then they might have been thinking that way. keep in mind, too, on what brian said on operatives, you are looking at a tax one of his predecessors, a democrat, jim mcgreevey, ran away from like it was a barn afire and it was reckless because the gas prices were lower and the gas tax put on top of it then would have been hardly felt and the transportation trust fund would have been funded.

that wasn't a pro-vifile in coverage here either. they're sent with a christie who is framing a very powerful, like a prosecutor, media message and it works. ma macy's basement. lautenberg was outflocked and outflanked by media. >> it's true because when the polling was taken after christie killed the project and he had all the arguments why we need prot jekt, it was like 51% said he should have done it and 38% said, no, he shouldn't. we want to get congressman pallone in on this. natural gas. ♪ more than ever before, america's electricity is generated by it. exxonmobil uses advanced visualization and drilling technologies to produce natural gas... powering our lives... while reducing emissions by up to 60%. energy lives here. ♪

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i will pick it up with congressman pallone. were you chess to frank lautenberg and this project was dear to him. i wonder if you could take us back in time to when chris christie was canceling this project in had 2010 and there was an outcry from senator lautenberg and from many others.

did you see at the time this was a disingenuous argument that he was making or did you feel there was merit to what he was saying? >> no, i took senator lautenberg's position be and i think the governor's dishonesty was incredible. understand that the suggestion is there was an alternative. the alternative never materialized. they worked 15 years to get this money and most was being paid for by the federal government or the port authority. he wasn't honest when he said this would cost the state more money or there was an alternative. basically made it possible to have more trains operate and improve commerce between the states.

it could take another 15 years to build another tunnel. there was talk about having another alternative. the jobs were lost. >> some of the projects we're talking about we documented. you could say are those that mean jobs. we've looked at this george washington bridge scandal. we suspect there's a political motive. do you see a warning and motive to have ribbon cuttings, have these ground breakings? do you think that was what motivated it? the mayor of harrison, new jersey, the democratic mayor, give him a new path station, collect his endorsement. do you think that's part of the picture? >> i'm sure. after all the a.r.c. tunnel was

something he hadn't really worked on and he wasn't going to get much credit for. all these other project he could do all those things publicly with the ribbon cuttings. what i want to stress is how much we lost. i mean, the state just lost millions we have not recaptured and that report showed about the delays. we have the snow in the last week or so. i was on a train going back and forth to new york and there were all kinds of delays because of the snow. so we're facing another 10 or 15 years with major delays not being able to get in and out of the city. the loss to commerce and jobs is incredible. soap the politics of the port authority and basically changing things, it's not beneficial to the state. >> steve, one quick thing, to follow up the congressman. i know the senator was disturbed when the governor came into office. they had a discussion because this was, indeed, frank l lautenbe lautenberg's testament to his

time in office. they had a meeting early on to reconcile. listen, i, the senator, have to go out and get money and i was grabbing money from other accounts, other senators, which creates a big problem. here is that guy from new jersey trying to steal my money off my plate. they went for reassurance they could keep doing that because they were short money. the senator came back with the assurance that they would basically still be with the program on this thing and wouldn't embarrass the senator. and then that political decision, right or wrong, they pulled the legs out from under them. and that was political honesty for people working with new jersey that disturbed the senator the most. >> what bill baroni went down to testify in washington, bill baroni testified before la lautenberg's committee and went out of his way to try to humiliate lautenberg. >> breathtaking. >> when you go back, holding up the e-z pass. >> and he had this binder on his

desk which seemed to be full of dirt on lautenberg. so every time he asked him a tough question, he opened it up and sort of said, well, you didn't pay your e-z pass. one employee was named menendez. you know him. what about this person connected to you? and it was all in this sort of big binder. at the time we were just covering that hearing. and we thought, wow, that's very weird. >> so political, which is the question -- >> for him to be attacking this senator just stuck out like a sore thumb. now we know this was their m.o., to embarrass people, to take out information that might be damaging to them as a way to cow them. >> why do you put people there who don't have a background in transportation? >> that's it. >> but who do have a background as being very effective

politicians. >> the port authority has become politicized, that is someone giving political answers. >> the port authority has always been political. our team, new jersey team, versus their team, the new york team -- when you go to washington you see him argue against his own state senator that's getting the money for the project was more weird than the binder they had. >> if you didn't know the binder was there beforeis hand, you knew that day. >> a lot of gray in politics. it can be tough to tell what side you're on. sometimes it's very obvious when you've crossed the line and that's a theme that keeps coming up. i want to thank andrea bernstein, brian murphy and jim mcqueeny. also congressman frank pallone. no, he's sticking around. today we've been discussing the state of new jersey. next we will turn to the state of the union. stay with us. at farmers, we make you smarter about insurance. because what you don't know, can hurt you.

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it was this time last year president obama laid out a bold agenda in his state of the union address to congress. >> i urge this congress to get together, pursue a bipartisan market based solution to climate change. send me a comprehensive immigration reform bill in the next few months and i will sign it right away and america will be better for it. let's declare that in the wealthiest nation on earth no one who works full time should have to live in poverty and raise the federal minimum wage to $9 an hour. >> as you may have noticed congress didn't accomplish any of that last year. from what we're hearing it looks like this year's address could be more of the same in terms of themes but with one key difference. ♪ [ male announcer ] rocky had no idea why dawn was gone for so long... ...but he'd wait for her forever, and would always be there with the biggest welcome home.

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tuesday night president obama will lay out the agenda he wants to define his sixth year as president when he delivers his state of the union address. the white house signaled economic mobility, a message democrats are running hard on heading into this year's midterm election, the senior obama administration reenforced it. three words sum up the message on tuesday night. opportunity, action, and optimism. the core idea is as american as they come. you should have the opportunity to succeed. that's a phrase bill clinton coined more than 20 years ago, a phrase that still communicates one of the democrats' strongest messages on economic fairness. job creation, extending federal employment, immigration reform, these are all proposals that obama will likely call on congress to pass in the coming year. past filibusters passed the

house. if not much can get through divided congress. he's committed to wielding executive power to get things done. >> we're providing americans the kind of help that they need. i have a pen and i've got a phone and i can use that pen to sign executive orders and take executive actions and administrative action that is move the ball forward and i've got a phone that allows me to convene americans from every walk a of life, nonprofits, businesses, the universities, to tray to bring more and more americans together around what i think is a unifying theme, making sure that this is a country where if you work hard you can make it. >> joining us now at the table is lynn sweet, washington bureau chief with the chicago sun times, congressman frank pallone is still with us, senior

political reporter and politics managing editor with "the huffington post" and the publisher and editor of the nation. what do you make of that statement we heard from the president. you have the bully pulpit, executive power here. talking about immigration, the minimum wage, how do you read that statement? is that a statement of sort of desperation because he hasn't been able to get anything through the republican house, passed the filibuster in the senate or a statement of some resolve? is are there real things he can do here if he faces in 2014 the same thing he faced in 2013. >> i think it's a little bit of both. president obama has said in the past he wants to use more executive actions, something he called the we can't wait initiative. he's going to step that up even more. for progressives, a lot feel like we've been wanting you to do this, cooperate with

congress, which is fantastic. mitch mcconnell very early on said we want to defeat the president. house republicans have made clear they won't cooperate with him. i think this is smart by the president. what it could to is perhaps have congress say we don't want president obama doing all these executive actions so maybe we should cooperate and try to pass something. with the center for american progress joining president obama on his team, he's pushed for more executive action from obama. so i think that you will see this and i think that it will be exciting for a lot of progressives. >> the recent is announcement john podesta will serve as the head of what we can do on executive actions like on climate change. that was an interesting change. katrina, as you look at this speech, the idea amanda just put out there, do you think the threat of more vigorous executive action is enough to jar republicans at all towards a little more cooperation? do you think there's any potential there? >> by the way, there is already

cooperation. my column is about transpartisanship. you have a tea party working with john conyers, the most liberal member of congress, to curb the nsa, david vitter working with brown, two banks to fail, and elizabeth warren, the great crusader working with john mccain. but i think this speech needs to be viewed against the back trop of a progressive resurgence this past year and that has built up whether it's a people on the streets, fast food workers, whether it's the progressives in the senate saying, enough. we're not just going to step back and defend programs that have made this country a more civilized one like social security. we're going to expand it. i think the president is being moved by his constituency that has waited too long and is saying we can't wait. so let us move forward. >> lynn, to me i'm looking at the calendar and there's the speech this week and we can expect the president to call for probably raising the minimum wage and last year i think the call was for $9, now there's more momentum. it will be $10.10, indexing.

we can expect the call for comprehensive immigration reform that got through the senate last year, absolutely died in the house. the key thing that i'm kind of looking at is a few days after the speech, the house republicans will have their retreatment and will suppose dl come up with their plan for the year. do you think that the house republicans who have stymied so much what president obama is trying to do, do you think their experience in 2013 3 with the shutdown, the low poll numbers, anything would come out of that retreat that could change their approach in 2014 at all? >> no. and take note why they have their retreat obama after the state of the union is going to go to prince george's county, pittsburgh, nashville, and milwaukee. so he will continue to have the upper hand if you talk about media exposure to amplify what was in this speech. i think the house, as everyone on the panel knows and as reviewers know, it's leadership driven. so i would think what a retreat

like this might be more is to find consensus on what leadership wants to do or for leadership to find out where they might go tread carefully then to have a response and, you know, just one quick thing. this quest to find common ground on the mega issues, well, i see nothing changing and in five years the obama team hasn't found any way to change things. which is why he's talking on this pen and pencil stuff, i want to convene. i want profits on universities. whoa. >> talk about these big ticket things, take immigration as an example, you did have the bipartisan thing that got through the senate and it's absolutely died in the house. your conversations in the house with republicans in the house, with your own party in the house, is there any optimism that the kind of bill that made it through the senate, this real comprehensive decision, is there any optimism that has a chance in 2014? >> i am going to be the optimist. i really do think now that there

is aconsensus. the speaker, speaker boehner, keeps talking about, you know, an alternative to the senate bill. it doesn't have a pathway to citizenship which is where we need to go. at least they're talking a little more comprehensively about they have to address reform. >> short of the path to citizenship but with legal stat us. >> no, you need to have a path to scitizenship. they may ultimately get there and it may not be as comprehensive as he we want. that would be progress. the other thing i wanted to say this whole concept of the loss of the american dream, you know, the fact that there isn't an opportunity anymore if you work hard and do the right thing to get ahead and to do well and find a job, i think that the republicans are concerned about that as well. they may not go along with what we want to do which is increase the minimum wage, have unemployment compensation, you know, have a job creation bill. but i think there is this -- they understand that the middle

class is shrinking and something needs to be done. >> a big theme we'll pick up right on the other side. is this the bacon and cheese diet? this is the creamy chicken corn chowder. i mean, look at it. so indulgent. did i tell you i am on the... [ both ] chicken pot pie diet! me too! [ male announcer ] so indulgent, you'll never believe they're light. 100-calorie progresso light soups. winter is hard on your face. [ sneezes ] [ female announcer ] the start of sneeze season. the wind-blown watery eyes. [ sniffling ] the sniffling guy on the bus.

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and goes to work in seconds. ♪ tum, tum tum tum tums! we just started to talk about how economic mobility will be a major theme of the speech. >> first of all, the idea of tackling inequality is a right versus left issue, it's right versus wrong. what the president is going to speak to is what's going on in this country. people in motion seeking a system that works for work iing people and isn't rigged against them. 13 states in 2014 increased the minim minimum wage so there's progress going on even as a congress is gridlocked. i think we're going to hear a lot and i do think that the executive action piece if used wisely and with consistency is very important and he could give edge to this speech, good jobs initiative. 2 million people working in this country for the government, for contractors. those companies should go high

road and give their wokers a good minimum wage, a tea sent living, and pay attention to labor laws. >> look, increasing the minimum wage is not the be all and end all of economic equality. from a policy standpoint it seems like right now i'm looking at this and saying where is the republican support for raising the minimum wage or where can it come from? >> it's not, and one of the reasons democrats have a lot of support from the trade unions. they do pay good union wages which is why within the union movement there's a schism sometimes between the public sector unions and the trade unions. a quick point if i may on income inequality, democrats have to be careful about not igniting or exacerbating a class warfare. obama has talked about inequality.

the middle class taking this as the 1% on the bottom. the climate we're in, has it change changed politics where a message. even within the top 1% created this kind of mess. >> are you hearing an income. >> i don't have the same opportunities. president obama did. president obama focusing on this, this will help set the sort of the tone, i guess, as democrats campaign more in 2014. republicans still haven't quite figured out how to talk about this. you had eric cantor on the floor recently saying that we are concerned about employment, not unemployment, that's great, but a lot of people unemployed who need help right now.

so you can't just focus on employment. you have to help those people who are unemployed. and republicans are still figuring out how to deal with this. >> i was going to say, elizabeth warren was in the city, a few days ago. she speaks about a system that isn't working for working people. she speaks about how 95% of the economic gains since the great recession have gone to the top 1%. she speaks about student debt. she speaks about opportunity. she speaks about expanding retirement security. that is not class warfare. and there is a way to speak to this, which is going to affect -- and people will connect to it in their guts, because the bottom line is how do you improve the condition of people's lives? >> that's what politics should be about. >> very >> very quick, if you're looking for where you could find common ground, i think the white house republicans pick and issue like student debt, it crosses ideology, everyone's got kids, colleges are expensive. deal with maybe bite-sized chunks, get something done. >> we're two days away from the state of the union. we'll all be watching.

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all right. we are really short on time. this is the lightning round edition. what should we know for the week ahead? amanda? >> expect a group of bipartisan senators renew a push saying congress should get to authorize whether u.s. troops remain in afghanistan beyond 2014. >> katrina? >> this coming week, the anniversary of dr. strangelove, and everything in that sat tire was true. watch it again. >> on the 29th and 30th, watch for first lady michelle obama, fresh off her 50th birthday, to hit los angeles and san francisco for a round of big-money fund-raising. >> that's where the money is. congressman? >> i'll be the pessimist, because even instead of talking about jobs, the house republican leadership is bringing up an abortion bill this week, about, you know, not financing abortions, which isn't even an issue under obamacare, but that's what they're focusing on.

we're not moving forward. they're still talking about abortion instead of creating jobs. >> no time for me. i'll go to the prompter. i want though thank you all for getting up this morning. thank you for joining us. coming up next, melissa harris-perry on today's mhp, how candidates build their narratives only to see them picked apart. that's ahead. we'll see you right back here next week on "up." ith arthritis. and a choice. take up to 6 tylenol in a day or just 2 aleve for all day relief. all aboard. ♪

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