tv Up W Steve Kornacki MSNBC April 19, 2014 5:00am-7:01am PDT
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get? a busy morning ahead with big chris christie news out of new jersey and with word of another grand jury investigation involving a 2016 prospect, rick perry in texas. also news this morning out of south korea where coast guard officials say three more bodies have been recovered bringing the death toll to 32 people. most are believed to be trapped
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inside their cabins on the ship including many of the 325 students who were on a field trip. divers reported saying three bodies in the windows but were unable to enter. strong currents kept them from going inside. the captain is under arrest for abandoning ship and wasn't at the helm when the ferry navigated through tricky waters. we hope to go to south korea for the latest. until then, we want to begin today with something called coal ash. this is what it's like to go canoeing these days on the dan river in north carolina. gung called coal ash. not only does it make a river thick and dark, but the stuff is toxic. in february this is an aerial view of 40,000 tons of coal ash spilled from a plant that was run by duke energy.
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the plant doesn't even need to be in operation, but you need some place to keep the coal ash that's left behind and that's the coal ash you're stuck with as a result of having burned all that coal. so coal ash ponds dot the landscape across the country. coal ash now blankets some 70 miles of the dan river. on wednesday the governor of north carolina announced a plan to close all 33 of duke energy's coal ash ponds in the state or convert them into landfills. it's not clear how he's going to do it, but he says he has a plan. and because the governor and his administration have been under fire for oversight that allowed that massive coal ash spill to happen in the first place, he also announced that his plan would try to end loopholes and tightened regulations. it's also huge news this week about another nasty by-product of burning coal. one that's harder to see, greenhouse gases. the united states came out with its report on climate change this week saying we have seen the largest increase in
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greenhouse gas emissions in the last decade. they pointed to coal as a big reason for that spike. the past decade has seen a huge jump in the number of power plants that have come online. the most polluting of the power stations that are out there. it's not too late to do something to stop the worst effects of climate change but if we're going to do so, time is really running out quickly. time is running out to halt the melting of ice sheets that would raise sea levels. time is running out to reverse course on stronger heat waves to put the world's food supply at risk. it's running out to flip the script on hurricanes. the reports saying the world must reduce emissions by 40 to 70% by the year 2050 and to be near zero if we have any chance of turning things around. on thursday president obama called on private companies to step up their use of solar
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power. the white house announced a $15 million program to help state and local governments expand their use of solar power. not a lot of money, but it's a start. we also learned this week that one of the states will not be oklahoma. the legislature passed a bill this week to make the use of solar energy more expensive not to encourage its use. utility customers who want to install small wind turbines could face extra charges on their bills. that's the news out of oklahoma this week. the measure there now goes to the desk of governor mary fallon. what about congress? 2009 in koep haguen president obama pledged he would get a sweeping climate change bill sign signed into law. but a few months later, that bill died in the senate. in the wake of the u.n. report this week, it's pretty much crickets on capitol hill unless you count the congressman who said he didn't believe climate change was manmade. the article says $ 2.5 billion
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is in danger of being cut by congress. so how many wakeup calls do we kbet when it comes to climate change? the u.s. and china are the biggest polluters. is there an appetite to do something about that? what has to be done to awaken. we want to talk about that with our pachbl. we have bill ney along with coral davenport. and the director of strategy at energy initiative at george mason university. and sam stein, a white house correspondent and political editor with "the huffington post." coral, i will start with you. you're covering this this week. if you could give us the bottom line of what this report is saying. people have heard so many reports with warnings and dates and targets. what's the bottom line that this report is trying to tell us? >> this report was about policy.
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we have heard report after report after report about what the science tells us. bad stuff is coming. we're going to probably very likely tip past this 3.6 degree tipping point before the end of the century. this report laid out what governme governments need to do to make that not happen. it said there is still time to do something. the window is very rapid. it essentially said that governments have to have very strong carbon cutting programs in place up and running by 2030. it particularly recommended pri pricing or taxing carbon pollution as the most effective policy. and most specifically it called on the economies that are the major polluters to take very rapid action. there are ten major economies that contribute 70% of
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greenhouse gases. the biggest of those are china and the u.s. i talked to some of the reports' authors and said, okay, what specifically does that mean for the u.s.? they were able to lay out specific policies. they said the u.s. needs to have a program in place, a law passed probably by 2020. this means we're going to see something directly on the shoulders of the next president if something is going to happen or not. they said it's probably going to have to be some sort of price or tax on carbon. they said president obama is taking action now. he's moving ahead with the set of aggressive epa regulations on coal fire power plants. republicans also refer to that as the war on coal. they said that's a good, strong first step and the next president is going to have to do something much faster, much more stringent, which is the political landscape for that is incredibly rocky.
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>> we'll get into that, but we'll stick on the science for a minute. it was 3.4 degrees. >> 3.6. >> being the tipping point. when you look at this report and you look at that tipping point number, do you think what this report is recommending is the solution to avoid hitting that number? >> these are policy questions. but from an engineering standpoint, which is what we need is energy storage. by that expression i mean bat ris. we need a better battery of some kind. to do that we would invest and we would invest in the same way we had a space program. people will have to draw this analogy to apollo. you put these dozen nasa centers in all these different states and these e enormous problems were solved. so the problem, though, if you have people that think the problem doesn't need to be solved, then you can't begin the longest journey with the single step. >> that has been the political
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question. the political question, we saw the cap and trade push in 2010 that completely died. >> cap and trade, that's probably not -- from a policy standpoint, a carbon tax is going to be a lot more effective. >> this is a good place to start out. you represent a conservative group that's trying to sort of merge conservative policy ideas with tackling climate change. so the idea of a carbon tax what do you make of that as a potential solution? is that something your group would be good with? >> if it's done correctly, absolutely. i get frustrated to no end that the right has seeded this debate. the whole climate policy question to the left. when you do ha, you end up with really bad policy. the question is washington going to wake up on climate change? washington is doing a lot already. it just happens that the programs that we're promoting
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tend to be wasteful and inefficient and in some cases undemocratic. and so republicans are already for a lot of things that are good for the climate. if you think globalizing the shell gas revolution through gas exports, liberalizing markets, energy efficiency keystone. the thing is they don't tie it to climate change because it's a political risk right now to discuss climate. >> but coral is talking about how this report tells us that tackling carbon and specifically through a carbon tax really is the key. if it's done right, i think the term carbon tax maybe needs a little explanation. if you say if it's done right, what does that mean to you? >> conservatives, i think, across the board agree that companies should not be allowed to socialize their soot. and so the way to deal with that
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is by putting a price on the carbon. and in order to e ensure that the government doesn't grow, that the government doesn't expand the size, scope and power of the federal government, every dime we raise should be rebated through taxpayers, tax cuts on income. it's silly that we tax things we want more of like hard works, but we don't want things less of. definitely want less of or we probably want less of. but we want more income. so let's stop taxing the good things and start switching to tax the bad. >> the talk in 2010 was that the big tradeoff would make get some republicans, more oil drilling, more natural gas, nuclear power, maybe that would get republicans to go with the cap and trade. now maybe if you have a carbon tax, do you see any combination here to get republicans to support something like this?
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>> no. i mean, i appreciate what he's saying. in theory taxing carbon and giving it back to taxpayers would be something some would say, okay, it's a net neutral. but whenever it's suggested in political halls, they say this would be a job killer. until we're in a better economic footing, i don't see any republican proactively saying like you just said. it's worth going back a couple years and looking at what the president did with this. he took preemptive steps to make it happen. he increased offshore drilling. the theory was if he took those steps, the opposition would meet him half way there and it never happen happened. now we're in a situation where we're reliant on finding new technologies. and that's where i see this debate going. we get past the tipping point and become so critical for us to find the new technology that we have a mad technological dash. and people understand that it's
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requiring innovation is going to be required o solve this crisis. but i'm not sure if we're ready to make those dashes. >> how far? >> the tipping point for climate change? i'm all for the report, but we're probably past it in a practical standpoint. i mean, to galvanize the whole world to make these sweeping changes is really difficult. but economically, if we had technology to export, some new cool idea, a set of new cool ideas, maybe we could change the world. this is my optimistic -- >> how far are we from that technology of capturing carbon? >> there's a couple things that look promising, but that is so daunting. it's the scale of it. we're talking about billions of tons of carbon. it's really extraordinary thing. this is chemistry and if you don't -- if you have trouble accepting that, then you have
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trouble doing anything about it it. >> we'll pick it up after the break. you were writing about the political challenges and the slim odds of anything happening in washington before 2016 at the earliest. again, want to talk about what it could look like if something were to get done on capitol hill and the cost of waiting that long. we'll pick if up after this. i have low testosterone. there, i said it. how did i know? well, i didn't really. see, i figured low testosterone would decrease my sex drive... but when i started losing energy and became moody... that's when i had an honest conversation with my doctor.
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>> says former republican nominee mitt romney. you have probably seen that clip a few times. sounds like alex has heard it a few times. we talk about the republican resistance. i put the polls on the screen. this is from pew last year. just a question, is there solid evidence the earth is warming? 88% of democrats, 62% of independents. you ask the main cause, a kwaefrt of republicans. so you've got basic partisan difference. >> you know what's amazing, if you go back to the previous presidential election, john mccain campaigned aggressively on tackling climate change. he called it caused by humans. he proposed a cap and trade. all his party rallied around him. this was part of the republican party platform. >> but what happened to mccain
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in 2010. he's facing a primary challenge and. >> but mccain is still part of a group of moderate republicans on capitol hill just like lindsey graham, who will say climate change is real, it's caused by humans. this is a problem. what has happened is i actually think there are a lot of moderate republicans in the party who quietly look at the science who were in place with where mccain was in 2008 who got spooked by the tea party. they saw that tea party groups like americans for prosperity were aggressively and openly going after republicans who said, and i talked to americans for prosperity president who said any republican who plays footsie on this green stuff, we want to make sure he doesn't win a primary.
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>> even if you don't believe in the science, country it make sense to protect ourselves just in case. you rarely hear that from republicans anymore. part of the problem with mccain is that he lost. and republicans took lessons that they didn't need to and they institutionalized them. the other thing i would say that dominates the debate is that this was considered basically in the throws of a recession. people started putting this false comparison of you want job comparison as if you don't want both. you could do both, but now we don't have a really sane political debate going on. we have a jobs versus climate debate. i don't see anything getting done unless we can break that. >> if you talk about when you see the polling data we just put up there, the reaction to romney, what is going on in the conservative movement? you have these quotes popping up all the time. we have one saying this is a natural occurrence.
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it's a agenda-driven science. what's going on on the right to feed this? >> i think that the sort of prudence that sam was talking about from the mccain campaign, you see that in the republican electorate much better than those polls present. e we did a poll, george mason and yale did a poll and found that 62% of republicans say we probably or absolutely should take steps to reduce climate change. and 80% of republicans under 35 think we should do something to reduce climate change. 62% of them support the president's epa regulations, which is crazy and should be scary to republicans that we're hemorrhaging young people on the climate issue. but to get back -- we have to clean up the mess on the left-hand side of the road here a little bit, because the messaging problems that have
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been created who follow it with a big government scheme or proposal have tied those two. >> don't you need something? >> we're talking about the basic idea of the carbon tax, which you're saying in certain forms wouldn't have a problem with. we're looking at reality of a republican party that politically is going to have a huge problem with it. >> let me ask you, politically, the republican party has a situation where it's win or take all in the primaries. so is it true that you got to be as a republican candidate, you have to be very far to the right and then you have to go back to the middle if you win the primaries. is that part of the problem? but keep in mind, for those of us on the other side, climate change is a worldwide, a planetary-sized problem. so having regulations is not inappropriate. and i remind all of my libertarian colleagues that we have regulations not just to
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protect you from big government, as evil as big government is apparently in your perception, but to protect me from you. that's the other thing we have regulations for. so if i'm a consumer and somebody is luting the air, i have a concern in that. so the idea that big government is inherently bad, i don't really agree on. especially when you consider that we protect oil fields with an enormous military. that's an investment to keep our economy going. objectively. >> bill, you care a lot about climate change, i can tell. so i'm surprised to hear -- i'm glad you are open to a carbon pricing scheme that shrinks the government. i'm surprised to hear you're keen on the epa regulations to regulate gre regulate greenhouse gases because they won't have a bite
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for 25 years. >> the longest journey starts with a step. >> do you think they are going to hold power enough to keep these things going? the status quo is nothing for climate change. >> that's the political question here. you're talking about 2016, coral. so president obama couldn't get anything through congress in 2010. he uses his executive authority on the epa regulations. the next president could wipe them away. if republicans control either the white house or one branch of congress past 2016 elections, are we really talking about nothing is going to happen after 2016? does that require having democrats running everything? >> no, this requires moderate republicans standing up and acknowledging this problem and being willing to work on it. sam correctly pointed out that nothing on this is going to happen in congress before the
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presidential election. if you look at the long-term political and policy road map, there are a couple of potential openings for something to happen. the first is if and when there's ever a comprehensive corporate tax reform bill. this could be something that happens in the context of the next administration. and this is absolutely something that could happen under a republican president and even with a republican house and senate, the idea would be that you would have a moderate fiscally conservative republican who is in the mix on tax reform who says, look, this is a good thing to do for fiscal conservatives. >> tax reform and climate change, i have been hearing about these grand bargains forever. i want to thank bill ney, the science guy. coral davenport, alex, thank you all for joining us.
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a lively discussion. appreciate it, coming up, the major player in the bridgegate scandal who made interesting phone calls when the scandal was breaking and hasn't been talked about. plus we're going fishing with the biggest names in politics. that's all still ahead. grab some bait, another cup of coffee and we'll be right back. predicting the future is a pretty difficult thing to do. but, manufacturing in the united states means advanced technology. we learned that technology allows us to be craft oriented. no one's losing their job. there's no beer robot that has suddenly chased them out. the technology is actually creating new jobs. siemens designed and built the right tools and resources to get the job done.
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for obvious reasons when there's talk of 2016 in the race, hillary clinton dominates the conversation. in the oxygen she did you want take up is left for pundits to take pity on joe biden as sitting vice president who is running 50 points behind someone else for his own party's nomination. or to talk up the idea of a grass roots insurgency behind elizabeth warren. there's the colorful form er montana governor. he said on this set a few months
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ago he toyed with the idea of running. when it comes to the democrats in 2016, you don't hear a lot of names mentioned. the conversation isn't really about who might run, it's more about whether anyone will actually run against hillary clinton. this week brought something of a surprise answer to that question with someone else, martin o'mally, the governor of maryland, thrusting himself into the mix. he told "the huffington post" what it would take him to enter the race. it wouldn't take much. "i don't think it's a matter of my convincing as it is a matter of my preparing." he also told "the washington post" he's moving forward with preparations and won't wait for clinton to decide whether she's running. this past weekend he was in wisconsin blasting paul ryan and scott walker at a state party event in milwaukee. next month he will be speaking to democrats in nevada touting a rourd that he believes is in sync with the base of the democratic party. on monday he signed a bill decriminalizing marijuana and
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that follows the minimum wage, gun control measures, signing the dream act giving tuition to undocume undocumented immigrants. in some ways he's enacted the agenda that president obama has not been fully enable to enact in washington. polls show he would start way back at the back of the pack. is there room for him to grow and about to put an end to the talk of hillary clinton getting the nomination without opposition? we have strategist williams with us and also sam stein who wrote the article, got the big news this week. sam, tell us about this week. it's been no secret to people who follow politics that martin o'mally is interested in running for president. there was indications last year saying if hillary clinton runs i'm not going to do it. it seems he's changing his tune. >> that's what struck me as well. i put the question to him.
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if you yourself are convinced you want to run for president, would it matter if anyone else was in the race? he said it wouldn't. which means, by extension, if hillary clinton were running and he thought he could run and make a good candidate, he would do it. all indications are he believes this. he's touring the country and talking to different democratic parties and appearing in different states trying to figure out if the infrastructure is there. mainly if the money is there. you don't want to jump in against a fundraising operation with var little to show for it. like you mentioned, he does have a record to run. he has a good domestic record th th that hillary clinton did you want have. >> i wonder, i'll give my take on martin. i saw him at the 2012 convention. he spoke and he and a few others biden comes to mind, this was a
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chance to audition for 2016. his speech didn't go over well. it left me thinking, maybe a totally unfatherly, my take is he's the tim pawlenty of the democratic party. am i being too hard? a very nice guy with a great resume for republicans and he just never generated excitement. i look at martin o'mally. >> maybe he should have started at the democratic convention with being the head of a rock band like he actually is. and so maybe maybe a charisma would have shown off. he can take the next couple years and build on the record as he's going across the country talking about his legislative record and what he was able to do as governor. as you go across the country and talk to people, state parties, you're at the jefferson dinner,
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you begin to develop a public p persona, a national persona with charisma that you can then project on a national stage. and that is what he's lacking now because he can get into those speeches and things and there's a lot of statistics and numbers and he's kind of boring sometimes, but as he chris crosses the country, if he's a good candidate, he will be able to gain some of those skills. >> how much appetite -- maybe you talked to him about this. how much appetite is he gets a sense there is among hillary clinton? 70%, i have never seen this. >> pollsters haven't either. this is probably the best position front runner ever, with respect to a primary campaign. i think everyone recognizes that. i don't think people in the o'malley camp are convincing
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themselves it it will be easy. maybe this is a vice presidential nominee. it would probably behoove him or someone else to challenge her in a primary. what you saw in 2008 was this inevitability wasn't there and then she became a better candidate on the stump. i think same with barack obama. when he was challenged by hillary clinton, it made him a better candidate. for the democratic party, there are people who do want to see a contested primary. they don't want to see hillary clinton skate away with the nominee. >> i think the difference is voters doeblt see an alternative besides hillary clinton so they don't know anyone else. the polls can show, cory booker is in that list, they don't see anyone else. >> they see a vice president. >> i disagree. they see an elizabeth warren type. because the natural divide is the establishment versus the pop
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list. i'm not sure o'malley gets that vote. but they want to see a contrast. the elizabeth warren contrast is more profound. >> we have to jump out, but it's staggering. a sitting vice president running 55 points behind. that i have never seen. good news for democrats this week where you would least expect to find it. details on that coming up next. plus connecting the dots in the chris christie investigation. closer to all the key players and almost anyone else, stay with us. afghanistan, in 2009. orbiting the moon in 1971. [ male announcer ] once it's earned, usaa auto insurance is often handed down from generation to generation. because it offers a superior level of protection. and because usaa's commitment to serve current and former military members and their families is without equal. begin your legacy. get an auto insurance quote. usaa.
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remember when it comes to the battle of control of the senate is seven. that's the number of democratic held seats that are up this year in states won by mitt romney in 2012. that's seven juicy targets for the gop. of those seven states, arkansas has ranked very high all year on the list of democratic seats most likely to go. it's a southern state with a fading democratic tradition. a state with a trend toward the gop has been radically accelerated. a state where a two-term democratic senator was crushed by 21 points in the midterms. that was one of the worst margins of defeat. that's why conventional wisdom at the start of the campaign said that mark pryor, a two-term democratic incumbent, that he would be just as doomed as blanche lincoln had been. but then came this. a new poll released this week by the democratic campaign committee that puts priar ahead
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of his republican challenger. granted this is just a partisan poll but there's also another survey that puts pryor ahead by three points. he's one of the last democrats standing in arkansas. this is not at all where most people thought this race was going to be at this point. this is a seat that even some democrats were writing off, but now they have a real chance to hang on to it. if they hang on to this one, it's going to be harder for republicans to gain control of the senate this fall. he's an iraq war vet, an a rating from the nra and likes to take every opportunity to remind of pryor's support of the affordable care act, something that's not popular in arkansas these days. explains why cotton is talking like this. >> the only way to repeal obamacare is to take back the senate from harry reid. the only way to do that is to beat mark pryor. we can get the job done. >> pryor's camp released a series of ads targeted towards
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seniors. just last week cotton inviolated pryor with no moderators or panelists. the news out of arkansas this week is reports of his demise has been exaggerated. can you keep defying the political gravity and hang on to a crucial seat for both parties? joining us to discuss this contentious race in arkansas is david ramsey. joins us live from arkansas. david, thanks for taking time this morning. i admit at the start of this year i was one of those people who looked what happened to lincoln in 2010 and said it's arkansas, it's a midterm, it's the obama presidency, republican with any name is going to beat the democratic incumbent. are you surprised that mark pryor is as competitive in this race and what is the key of him being ahead right now? >> i think everyone is a little bit surprised because of the dynamics you just described.
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you have an off-year election, given the demographic, that's going to lean republican. you have a state that is become more and more republican in 2012 the legislature flipped to the republicans for the first time since reconstruction. and you have an unpopular president. obamacare e remains unpopular. the approval rating is in the low 30s in arkansas. a lot of people thought that a republican statewide candidate would have to do is repeat obama and obamacare over and over. >> just like we saw in that ad we played there. what's happening? why is that not working? >> i think that a couple of things. o one, mark pryor, the pryor name remains -- his father was a popular former governor and senator. so pryor's name helps a little bit. i think the other thing is that
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pryor is really hitting cotton on his record. as you mentioned particularly 5 out of the 9 ads pryor has run have hit cotton on medicare. cotton voted for the ryan budget. and basically what the pryor campaign is saying is cotton wants to voucher rise medicare and will have cuts for seniors, cuts to preventive care and there's other issues where cotton has taken some votes that pryor is going to hit him on. voting against the farm bill, against the violence against women act, voting against disaster relief aid. so a generic republican has a lot of advantages, but i think part of what we're seeing is pryor has a strategy to paint cotton as extreme and that may be starting to work. >> seems to be gaining traction. >> if you drill down to some of those polls, the partisan one and the other one, it seems
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pryor is leading among women. so the turnout would be to sort of focus on women and some of his ads focus on that. you get closer to the campaign, they will be doing that. women voters outperform in that area as well. if he can target women and particularly continue to bring up the record of cotton, then you'll be able to turn out women. >> this isn't 2010. 2010 the recession was still there, the economy wasn't as good as now and voters were throwing them all out. secondly, we talk about the affordable care act and how cotton is repeating it. it's a little more complicated in arkansas. they expanded medicaid through a private option essentially. and when you talk about repeal, you talk about taking 150,000 people and just denying them medicaid coverage. and i think what we have seen in the last week is cotton has
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produced word salad when asked what he would do with those 150,000. it's a bit more complicated to talk about repeal than it was when lincoln was running because it wasn't a piece of legislation. >> that would be amazing if the story of a 2014 ends up being the senates save the senate because obamacare backfired in a state that romney carried. it was big. david ramsey joining us, thank you for taking the time this morning. if you like smoked fish on your bagel, you'll like where we travel next. that's straight ahead. like what if you didn't know to get coverage for uninsured drivers? [robot] uh oh. [prof. burke] talk to farmers and get smarter about your insurance. ♪ we are farmers bum - pa - dum, bum - bum - bum - bum♪
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carsthey're why we innovate. they're who we protect. they're why we make life less complicated. it's about people. we are volvo of sweden. if you have watched this show for awhile, you know i have affection for quirky traditions. there's the dinner in arkansas where they eat raccoon while listening to candidates talk. there's fancy farm in kentucky where rowdy crowds devour mutten
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while cheering on their candidates. we have taken you to both of those events. now we want to take you to virginia to the woods of the southeastern corner of the commonwealth. that's where two candidates helped this week to renew another kind of tradition, another one of a kind tradition by sharing thank planks. it's not the kind you would find in a political platform. they were there to plank a fish. a river fish called shad. it's how you cook shad in the woods of southeastern virginia by nailing it to a wooden plank and smoking it for hours. i'm told it's delicious. just like they told me raccoon is delicious. it's when the shad was planked that the democrats got together to choose their nominee for governor. but the democratic center power has shifted. one in every three voters in the state now live there. since the year 2000 three quarters of the population has come from a generation of color
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which is dominate bid conservative republicans. as a result the premier annual political event in virginia, the one known as shad planking is changing with the times too. perry bacon jr. and ann thompson travelled to virginia this week to file this exclusive and fun report. >> jimmy, bring another board please. >> the secret is you eat before you come. >> it's true. >> drinking a beer and shaking hands is better. >> i'm not just saying that. >> it's kind of like a political pulse in the commonwealth of virginia. years ago when the bird machine was in power and this thing first started, it was only white males here. in the 70s, ladies started coming, people of color and that's all inclusive. >> how has the event changed?
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>> it's got an little more politically correct. >> tell me what you mean by that. >> both the major parties have run a little scared of us. they don't want to come over here. last year they ask a republican if they saw this poster here. he says not me. so it's just gotten too politically correct. we might not be coming back. >> how do you win in a state that's becoming bluer every day? >> part os of the electorate that republicans have written off and allowed democrats to take for granted, my campaign won't do that. if you go to my website, one click of a mouse, you can get a spanish language version of my v video. >> mccullough didn't come this year. talk about why you came today. >> one of the things i'm proudest of is there's no part of virginia i'm not going to
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contest. that i have not had friends i worked for. >> i realize i'm here as an endangered species. a virginia democrat. >> neither political party has paid enough attention to small town america. we can show you can build jobs in mumbai. we have not shown we can bring jobs to danville. >> thanks so much. >> come back and see us. >> thanks again to perry bacon and ann thompson for that report. the confederate flag guy is interesting. coming up, a bottle of vodka and a crazy jailhouse video. they have given rise to an investigation that now seriously threatens rick perry in his 2016 ambitions. we'll tell you how that fits together and we have big news on
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if you watch this show on a regular basis, we talk about the biggest names of the bridgegate scandal a lot. chris christie and david wildstein, there's also a new name that hasn't entered the conversation until now. important new details about who it is and why he's important, ahead. i'm sinora and this is my son, chris.
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uh, yeah, i guess. [ laughs ] this is ridiculous. christopher glenn! [ doorbell rings ] what is that? swiffer sweep & trap. i think i can use this. it picks up everything. i like this. that's a lot of dirt. it's that easy! good job chris! i think a woman will probably come your way. [ both laugh ] you're an emailing, texting, master of the digital universe. but do you protect yourself? ♪ apparently not. when you access everything, you give everyone access to everything about you. but that's ok. while you do your thing... [ alert rings ] we'll be here at lifelock, doing our thing. watching out for things your credit card alone can't. [ alert rings ] and relentlessly protecting your identity. get lifelock protection and live life free. [ alert rings ] you really love, what would you do?" ♪ [ woman ] i'd be a writer. [ man ] i'd be a baker. [ woman ] i wanna be a pie maker.
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[ man ] i wanna be a pilot. [ woman ] i'd be an architect. what if i told you someone could pay you and what if that person were you? ♪ when you think about it, isn't that what retirement should be, paying ourselves to do what we love? ♪ full hour of big developments ahead. not just the latest on the chris christie investigation, but we have news out of texas of a rick perry investigation as well. before that we want to get the latest on the south korean ferry rescue effort. for that we turn to bill nealy reporting. bill? >> reporter: hello, steve. from a place of sadness and frustration where many parents now feel that any hope of finding their children still alive in that ship is fading
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fast. they did, however, hear for the first time really in any detail an explanation from the captain of the ship who was paraded before the cameras when he was formally arrested and charged here, apologized to the parents and said the reason he hadn't ordered an evacuation because there were no rescue boats and he feared that if the passengers with their life jackets went into the sea they would simply drift away. alongside him was the 26-year-old woman who was steering the ship at the time. the captain was in his cabin. and the helmsman who blamed the steering gear. the relatives blame the captain. he was paragraphed getting off the ship early and also filmed arriving on shore, one of the first survivors to land ashore. he's 69 years old and charged with criminal negligence. for the relatives of the missing children, this really is terribly difficult. i have just come from a gym
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where many of them are gathered. one of the officials announced that two more bodies had been found of girls with long, dark hair. when he said that, there were screams from the floor of the gym. they have watched a video, an underwater camera which went to the hull of the ship to show them how bad the visibility really is. some of those parents have now given dna in order perhaps to more easily identify the bodies of the children who were brought ashore. the rescue effort continues. divers have just recovered three more bodies here and they have been taken to the morgue. cranes have arrived to lift the sh ship. that won't happen until the parents say that that's okay with them. at the minute, it's not. one man saying we cannot give up hope. at the high school where these children were from, more poignant scenes. another candle light vigil not just to the children but the vice principal.
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he was the one that killed himself. a poignant story, heartbreaking scenes here, steve. >> bill, thank you. heartbreaking story. appreciate it. turning to domestic politics, a story that's captivated the nation for months now. chris christie has been rocked by scandal. top criminal lawyers have been hired, a grand jury has been convened and prosecutors are looking into big allegations. but this week, we learned that maybe chris christie isn't alone. another republican governor and potential presidential candidate is facing a grand jury investigation that could affect his ambitions. friday night in texas a little more than a year ago when a motorist phoned in a complaint about a car driving erratically on a state road. the car was swerving in and out of traffic, blew through an
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intersection, driving on the shoulder. the deputy found the car pulled over in a church parking lot. that's where the district attorney rose mary lynnberg was parked. the top law enforcement official had been driving that car. she had an open vodka bottle and failed the sobriety test. her blood alcohol level was three times the legal limit. so the travis county district attorney spent the night in jail. berating officers, pounding the door of her cell and appearing drunk became something of a spectacle. there were many calls for her to resign. one of them coming from rick perry, the longest-serving governor in the state's history who is toying with a second presidential bid. but she wouldn't go. she served about half of a 45-day jail sentence, lost her
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driver's license for six months and entered a treatment program and also kept her job. so governor perry ramped up the pressure. last june it was reported that fushls were telling the district attorney that unless she resigned governor perry would remove state fund iing for the public integrity unit for the next two years. now this was a big deal because travis county is different from every other county in texas in one important way. it's the home of the state's capital city where the business of state government is conducted. that makes the travis county district attorney's office important because that office's public integrity office monitors the ethics of state legislators, the entire state government. this is the same unit that under a previous d.a. brought charges of money laundering and conspiracy against house majority leader tom delay. that was overturned by a state appeals court. you'll see in this booking sheet that he turned himself in in
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harris county, 165 miles away. so this is not a story about just any county in just any county official in texas. this integrity office is the main investigative body for government ethics in the entire state of texas. a few days after that story ran last summer, rick perry followed through on the threat and vetoed the funding that the legislator had just appropriated for the office. the politics of this. the district attorney is a democrat. while texas's government is dominate dominated by republicans and that makes her office one of the biggest potential thorns in the side of perry in and his fellow republicans. republicans had been trying to get the power out of that office for years. if she were to resign, her successor would be appointed by perry, her successor would be a republican. so democrats howled and a watchdog group call filed a complaint against perry. he violated the state penal
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code. he was engaged in a coercion, bribery, official oppression. in august judge a special prosecutor was appointed and things have been quiet until this week. the austin american statesman broke the news that a kbrand jury is being sworn in to look at whether an indictment is warranted. it was also reported that perry hired a defense attorney to represent him in this inquiry. on monday the governor's office said this e veto was made in accordance of the power afforded to every governor under this constitution. we remain ready and willing to assist with this inquiry. joining me is strategist williams, sam stein, "the huffington post." also want to bring in an investigator who joins us from the texas capital.
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he was first to report the news this week that governor perry hired a defense lawyer to represent him in the criminal investigation. also in texas we have peggy fekak from a reporter of the houston chronicle. tony, i'll start with you because you have spoken recently with this special prosecutor. and i think just looking at this from afar, this was a story we saw a little bit about this last summer. we all forgot about it and there was surprise nationally that it seems to be picking up steam in terms of the investigation. the comments that you got from this special prosecutor suggests he really is honing in on perry. >> i think what's going on nationally was also happening locally. we weren't hearing a lot about this investigation. it was getting scant attention. and then i started hearing several weeks ago that officials were getting ready to convene a special grand jury and this prosecutor was going to take
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this to a grand jury. i sat down with him for an interview on the record, on camera, april 1st in his office. he said during that interview that he has turned over evidence in this investigation that he's quite concerned about. he wouldn't go as far to say he believed governor perry committed a crime, he stopped short of that, but he went on record saying he's quite concerned and is moving forward aggressively with his investigation and this case. >> when you say committed a crime, because some people would look at this and say we look at the drunk driving conviction for the district attorney and i think people across the aisle in that situation would say probably not the best person to have in office. he has the power to use the line of veto to take out funding for anything he wants. he used that power. the crime here is saying he as governor is essentially using his power to force a resignation of a duly elected official and that would constitute a crime? >> exactly. that's the big question here.
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the governor is part of the legislative process may say to a lawmaker, lawmaker change your bill or i'm going to veto it. what set this is apart is the district attorney was elected by voters to be the district attorney of travis county. so there's a question about the legality of him saying you resign or i'm going to withhold your money. there's a question about whether or not that violated, as you mentioned, several laws. bribery, coercion of a public official, abuse of authority, those crimes. legal experts really kind of have differing opinions about whether the governor may have stepped over a legal line. >> those are some heavy charges, heavy accusations. peggy, i want to bring you into this now too. you were covering the grand jury selection this week. can you tell us a little bit about where that process stands, where we can expect it to go from here, how long it's going to take to be some resolution on this? >> yes, the judge seated 12
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grand jurors and 2 alternates on monday. they immediately talked with the special prosecutor privately. they will be meeting every other friday is their schedule. they have the power to subpoena witnesses as they look into this case. and all indications are that this is going to be a lengthy look into the governor's actions and whether it violated any laws. perhaps months. >> i have a question because it seems it's a legal argument whether or not the governor had the power to -- we know he had the power, but whether he committed a crime or not. i have a question about what voters think about this and seeing the video and seeing that this district attorney was arrested for drunk driving and should she be investigating other legislators? it seems that people may not grasp on to this? >> tony, what is the -- what's the sense you're getting from
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voters down there? it seems like i'm just imagining this playing out in my state or any state. it seems such a clear cut case to call for a resignation of district attorney given what she did. are people seeing rick perry as, yeah, sure, he should be trying to get rid of her or, wait a minute, there might be other issues involved here? >> travis county is highly democratic, made up of large ri democratic voters and the truth is throughout her whole ordeal, she received a lot of support from them. those folks were saying do not resign under any circumstances. but at the same time, there were people out there who absolutely thought that her behavior was awful and she did, of course, acknowledge that. she's apologized multiple times. but then there's also the issue of the governor stepping in and trying to impose his will on travis county voters. that's where the real problem here lies. >> one thing that has not been mentioned in this discussion is the d.a.'s office was
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investigating the cancer prevention and research institute of texas, which was giving out a lot of money to rick perry friends. so it's not just that he was trying to maybe unseat someone who there's a case she was driving drunk and get someone who is his friend of his in the office, but maybe he was trying to impede an investigation of his own administration. that's sort of the bigger issue here is was he trying to cover up something that travis county d.a.'s office was on to. >> peggy, we have to squeeze a break in. but i'm going to ask you about that because that's one of the central questions here is as sam is saying, the cancer research institute giving out money to a lot of rick perry's associates and money that people say was misappropriated. that's something this office was looking into it. we'll ask about that when we come back.
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so peggy, i want to pick it back up with you. we were setting this up about the unique power of the prosecutors office. and sort of the watchdog for the entire state government. this district attorney who rick perry is trying to kbet to resign, she was engaged in an investigation into cancer research institute that was proving embarrassing to republicans. tell us about that investigation. >> yes, that's correct. the cancer research institute was set up to do research and be an incubator for agencies that are entities looking for cancer cures and spinning businesses off. it was a big achievement for governor perry to create this. as it got going, there were concerns raised and investigations done that showed the grants being awarded had not
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undergone the proper review. so the district attorney's office was looking into that at the time that governor perry made the veto threat and there were some people who suggested that at least there was implication that if she were removed that this investigation proving embarrassing to the governor might not go forward. as it happened, the investigation did go forward. there was an indictment in december of the agency's chief commercialization officer. the investigation is concluded. they don't expect any other indictments out of this. the prosecution in that case will be going forward. the agency in the meantime has been revamped by the legislature. >> let me ask the national politics of this. rick perry is clearly interested in running for president again. i have no idea why, but he's clearly interested in taking another stab at it. play this out. we have sort of gone over that the complexities here on the one
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hand he can say this was a district attorney with no business being in office. i'm going to take any step i can. you can say, look, she happened to be investigating at the time as we just heard. a cancer research institute that was proved embarrassing to him. if this thing ends in an indictment of rick perry and who knows if it will, is this something that will hurt him or is this the kind of indictment he will politically survive? >> again, i think the leap for this, right, the leap to tie this to this investigation and whether or not he hadn't committed a crime or things like that, there's so many other things you can use against rick perry in a presidential election that i don't think this becomes the issue. and i don't know -- making people understand -- >> i don't want this video used
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against me in five month's time. but if i were rick perry's lawyers, i would say have you seen that video? this is someone in law enforcement who clearly broke the law and he took action to get her out of a law enforcement office. and e he was within his rights to use his veto power to force that action. and i just don't know if it holds up in court, but seems like it would hold up in the court of politics. >> the court of public opinion is one thing, but there's the legal argument, but if you're using it for some form of coercion, there could be a violation there. but tony, the other thing is, the politics of this, this district attorney and any democrat who occupies this job right now given the nature of texas politics is one of the most powerful democrats in the state. power to investigate republicans who run the state. so if she were to resign right now, rick perry gets to replace
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her. he puts a republican in there. what happens then? did they have an election in another year because it's a democratic county? or there is a chance this main toe hold that democrats have left in texas government can be handed over for a long time? >> first of all, she has steadfastly said she's not resigning. she continues to say she's not resigning. she survived a civil trial, a full-scale civil trial to remove her from office. so she's back at work doing her job. she has a couple years left on her term. had she resigned, the governor would have appointed her successor to serve out the rest of her term. that would have given the republicans a couple years to have someone in that office before a regular election, kben, a couple years from now, when i think everyone expects a democrat would be put back in that office. >> can i ask a question, has this at all been brought up with greg abbott or wendy davis in
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terms of that race? is it percolating to that level at all? >> not that i have heard, but peggy may have a better pulse on that. >> is it an issue in the governor's race? >> it has been mentioned. wendy davis's campaign has tried to make not so much the removal of the district attorney, but the investigation into the issue and her race against attorney general greg abbott. he was named to the oversight board. he appointed a deputy to serve in his place. >> we'll see if there's some kind of indictment here, democrats, rick perry indicted. look at the video to see how that plays out. thank you to tony, peggy, and sam. we told you about the rick perry investigation. skblnchts it's time to bring you up o to speed in a new name in the crist crust investigation. t.
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coming up next, the major player in the chris christie investigation who made interesting phone calls when the scandal was breaking and hasn't been talked about. that's on the other side of the break. afghanistan, in 2009. orbiting the moon in 1971. [ male announcer ] once it's earned, usaa auto insurance is often handed down from generation to generation. because it offers a superior level of protection. and because usaa's commitment to serve current and former military members and their families is without equal. begin your legacy. get an auto insurance quote. usaa. we know what it means to serve.
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this raises fundamental questions. if there's some college student looking to run for higher office, if there's a local mom thinking about running for the school board, some of the lessons that they might learn from this campaign would be quite unfortunate. i think jon corzine is a good and decent person, but the lessons that some could learn from watching his campaign i think are quite unfortunate. >> unless you're a new jersey political junkie, you probably don't recognize that guy but he's important to the chris christie scandal now playing out in new jersey. let me tell you about him. his name is bob franks, a moderate republican congressman in new jersey's senate race he was supposed to get crushed.
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he was running against jon corzine. he was pooring money into his campaign in a way no one had seen before. he spent $63 million of his own money in that race. new jersey is also a very blue state and franks ran in 2000 it was three decades said a republican was elected to the senate. it was that same year that al gore running at the top of the ticket carried the state by 16 points. bush campaign didn't even both tore contest new jersey. so everyone figured that bob fra franks was nothing but a sack official lamb that year. but franks fell just short. it was a three-point loss, which was still impressive given everything he was up against. if you ask people about that race, they will tell you that bob franks may have lost the election, but he won the campaign. and one of the reasons he won the campaign was because of the team he had around him.
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it was a core group of young, smart, talented political pros. these are names you probably do know. bill bah row knee, one of his appointees and a central player in the bridgegate scandal. he signed on as the lawyer for the bob franks for senate campaign. when the election was over, he launched his own political career. won a seat in the state assembly, ended up at the port authority in 2010. who did he ask the christie administration to send with him? david wildstein, the man who more than anyone else, the master report points its finger at him as the main culprit behind the lane closures. they were close friends and one of their connections was bob franks because david wooeildste was also a bob franks fan. there was the 23-year-old guy
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who drove him around back in that campaign against jon corzine and his name is bill st stepien. back in 2000 he was fresh out of college and was the first time he was paid to work in politics. he was driving around bob franks to his speeches and meetings in that 2000 campaign. that got bill his foot in the door and got to manage a campaign of his own and hfs the campaign for barone in 2003. sadly bob franks passed away at 58, just a couple years ago. bob franks in that 2000 campaign is one of the threads that connects barony andsteppen. they are part of a core group of
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new jersey republicans whose roots can be traced to franks, who stayed in close contact with each other and ended up on chris christie's team. which brings us to this man, the man who ran the bob franks campaign in 2000, whose reputation as a strategist soared because of how close they came to pulling off what would have been a seismic upset. he was 26 years old and getting his first shot at managing a major statewide race. he was close to wildstein and stepien was his protege. he went on to run the new jersey republican party to play a role in george bush's 2004 campaign to run rudy giuliani's campaign and to become the top political consul tapt to chris christie. someone who has become the most indispensable political adviser that chris christie has.
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bill stepien is deep in long standing ties and he has emerged as a trusted confidant as chris christie, who was talking regularly with all of these people as the scandal gathered steam at the end of last year. this is one of the 75 interview memos from the law firm that the government picked. one of the 75 memos released this week, it summarizes two interviews. what becomes clear when you read this is he served as a messenger relaying critical information as the scandal took shape. they apparently weren't all talking to each other, dew ham said he seemed to be ducking the calls, but they were all talking to dew ham and saying heavy things. he met with wildstein last november 11st.
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wildstein said he would have not have done the traffic study without him knowing about it. it's a short reference to christie's office. they spoke and wildstein told duhaime specifically that kelly and stepien knew about the traffic study beforehand. and some time after that duhaime discussed this with stepien and that he knew about traffic study before him because wildstein had come to him about this particular study about the traffic study. but he he told wildstein to take the idea to trenton because stepien no longer worked in state government. on december 11th of last year, the moem me says that they talked on the phone and duhaime specifically reported to the governor that wildstein told
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duhaime that both kelly and s p stepien had knowledge of the traffic study. he couldn't remember because of the high volume of duhaime's communications with stepien during that time. they were christie's top two and they cannot distinguish one call from another back in december. for that matter the memo says that duhaime was constantly in contact with the governor about many things and they spoke again on december 12th and twice on the morning of december 13th. december 13th is a key date because that's the day chris christie held the press conference where he denied that anyone on his team had any advanced knowledge in the lane closures. the day he gave this ultimatum to his senior staff. >> i put to all of them one simple challenge.
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if there is any information that you know about the decision to close these lanes in fort lee, you have one hour to tell either my chief of staff or my chief counsel. >> if you look at the memo from the interviews that the team conducted with christie, it seems to suggest that one of those conversations with duhaime where he said kelly had known about the closures ahead of time and had gotten clearance. then there's this. back in the duhaime memo, it has to do with two phone calls from the morning of december 13th from just before christie went out, held that press conference and assured the world his team was clean when it came to the
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lane closures. stepien called duhaime and asked if kelly had knowledge. he asked if wildstein had proof of knowledge beforehand. stepien told him the governor would be holding a press conference. he warned to confirm what duhaime was told by wildstein to make sure he heard it krektly. the memo says duhaime placed a call to wildstein to verify that wildstein was certain that kelly had knowledge beforehand. wildstein replied that he was 100% certain that kelly had prior knowledge and there were e-mails to further confirm kelly knew beforehand. so think about this. the memo is telling us that christie's top political adviser, a man who was constantly communicating with christie and regularly in contact that duhaime was told by
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wildstein that he was 100% certain that there were e-mails proving that kelly had advanced knowledge and he was told this just before christie held that press conference to tell the world no one on his staff had anything to do with it. his top political consultant was told that just before chris christie made a public statement that would blow up in his face three weeks later when the kelly e-mail finally did come out. what did duhaime do with that information? did he alert christie? did he say nothing? a report doesn't tell us. we reached out to duhaime yesterday but we haven't heard back. the memos say that one of christie's closest people was being told by david wildstein that there was proof kelly had known and wildstein said he had the governor's office approval for what he had done. they say that duhaime was being
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told this that he was talking with the governor, that he was in close touch and we know his relationships with some of the most critical players go back years. they go all the way back to the franks campaign in 2000. but all we now about his communications with christie and wildstein comes from the memos, the memos released. the law firm that e e we just found out donated $10,000 to the governors association just before it released that report exonerating hum. a a statement to msnbc clarified they regularly give to the rga and have done so since 2009. it was the year christie was running his first campaign. there's absolutely no indication that duhaime did anything wrong or had any knowledge or involvement in the scheme or any attempt to cover it up. but it seems that he was in closer contact with most of the key players more than just about anyone else we're talking about here. and we just might unlock a little bit more of this mystery
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of who exactly knew about the closures and when exactly they knew it if someone else besides masters law firm asked duhaime about the conversations and looked closely at what he was being told by all those key players and what he was telling christie and those around him. the legislative committee that's been investigating this, the same committee that blew the story wide open when it got its hands on the e-mail from kelly, that committee has issued two dozen subpoenas. duhaime has not been among them. there's a report on friday that says the committee is poised to issue six more subpoenas next week. if that happens, will one of them be to mike duhaime? when we come back, i will be joined by the co-chair of that legislative committee. we will ask him about that and more. that is next. scott: appears buster's been busy. man: yeah, scott. i was just about to use the uh... scott: that's a bunch of ground-up paper, lad! scotts ez seed uses the finest seed, fertilizer, and natural mulch that holds water so you can grow grass anywhere.
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surrounding chris christie's investigation came to know each other as well as mike duhaime, christie's top political adviser. he was relaying messages between them and governor christie as all of this was going down. here to discuss it with me we have the co-chairman of that legislative investigative super committee. thank you for joining us today. in that very brief introi just read a minute ago, the reason why we focus on this so much is it showed somebody who knows all of these key players, most of these key players very well. has ties to them that go back a long way and there are all sorts of references to the frequency of communication. at the same time, this is somebody who has chris christie's ear. so as i said at the end, it struck me that hours before he gives that press conference on december 13 lt assuring the world, we're clean. we now know from this that his closest political adviser was
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told by david wildstein 100% certain there was e-mails to link kelly. >> mike duhaime is a smart and talented political operative. what we're asked to believe is part of the documents that make up the master report. mike duhaime for the first time committed this act of plolitica malpractice. somehow he doesn't communicate the information to the governor. the governor made it clear that he had no knowledge, his staff had no knowledge, the fact of the the matter is we have someone very significant in his inner circle who had multiple conversations that unquestionably said that kelly and wildstein knew something about what was going on at the lane closures. >> it strikes me, too, if you look through this report there are all sorts of instances like this.
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christie had been told by his press secretary, had dinner with david wildstein in december. he also told him the thing about kelly and about getting trenton's approval. that had been relayed to christie as well. there's more than just one person who is giving christie an indication. >> the governor marked up the exit statement leaving the port authority. we know that kevin o'doughed got a copy of an e-mail pr kelly. we know that mike duhaime had conversations that told him pretty clearly that kelly and david wildstein knew about this, and what we're asked to believe is none of this information got past those people and the governor had no knowledge of any kind about it. that underscores what three major newspapers in new jersey have said that the work of the committee needs to continue to go forward because the more we see, the more we have unanswered
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questions. >> i want o go back to that and ask you about the role your committee has played here. to set it up, i want to go back to that december 13th press conference we keep talking about. duhaime is told hours before this by wildstein, 100% certainty that kelly, there's e-mails linking kelly to this. this is christie coming public and assuring there's no involvement of his senior staff in any of this. >> governor, can you say with certainty that someone else didn't -- on your staff or in your administration not on your behalf to order those lane closures for political retribution? >> i have no reason to believe that. and i have made it very clear to everybody on my senior staff that if anyone had any knowledge about this that they needed to come forward to e me and tell me about it and they have all assured me they don't. i have spoken to mr. stepien and he's assured me the same thing.
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>> what i wonder when i go back and look at this, it's not a question to me -- there's no evidence that chris christie had foreknowledge of the closures. he hatched a scheme or something, but the question i keep coming back to, the term i use is willful ignorance. he's a former federal prosecutor. there are all these warnings we're finding out about that were sort of popping up in his orbit that i think any former federal prosecutor, this would arouse real suspicion. in this case, there was a clear incentive for chris christie and his whole team to be willfully ignorant because the clock was running out on your investigation. when he gave that press conference, you basically had one month left before its subpoena power was going to expire and there was every indication that the new speaker was not going to renew your subpoena power. it looked that way right up until the kelly e-mail came out. you can look at this and say if they were intentionally ignorant, there was a chance
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they would get away with this a month later without anybody finding out anything. >> my suspicion is they really thought no one would be able to uncover that e e-mail from kelly and fell comfortable in making the strident and strenuous denials. and you're right. the subpoena authority that the transportation committee had at that time, the clock was ticking, there was a month left to it. from what you see now in the report, it makes it clear there was a high level of knowledge within the administration and so now what we're being asked to believe is that notwithstanding all of these significant people have knowledge, that it never went beyond them, never went to the governor. we don't know that it did, but it certainly is very hard to accept that that's how it actually played out. >> so we had the report in "the wall street journal" saying six new subpoenas from your committee next week. is that accurate? >> we have been talking for the last couple of weeks since we last met about bringing individuals in for testimony before the committee. we've gotten to that point where
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we've assessed enough material we can start asking questions of witnesses. we have lined up four individuals we're going to bring in so i can foresee four subpoenas going out to individuals. we want to consult with the members of the committee first to make sure they understand who we're bringing in. we had that generic conversation last time we met, when we met in executive session, so this is not a surprise or news to anybody on the committee, but we do want to firm up exactly what the plans are for who's coming from us. >> so it looks like four subpoenas coming soon from your committee. is mike duhame among them? >> clearly what you've uncovered and we've uncovered through these interviews has opened up a whole new possibility of additional subpoenas not only for documents but for additional people that up until now we might not have thought were relevant to the investigation. >> okay. well, we will keep an eye out for names next week. i think that's the thing everybody is looking for on these new subpoenas.
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i want to thank you for joining us this morning. what should we know today? our answers are after this. [ male announcer ] staples has everything you need to get your client's attention. from brochures to business cards to banners. everything... except your client's attention. thousands of products added every day to staples.com, even bullhorns. how much? [ male announcer ] staples. make more happen. carsthey're why we innovate. even bullhorns. how much? they're who we protect. they're why we make life less complicated. it's about people. we are volvo of sweden.
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it's time to find out what our guests know now they didn't know when the week began. sam, we'll start with you. >> i'm going pimp my own reporting again. on tuesday i went to a conference with a bunch of scientists, maybe the 12 brightest young scientists in america that just received an award from the president for their work. we sat down around this table and talked about the future of science in america and all of them were incredibly skeptical because of funding that was being cut from the national institutes of health, national science foundation. they say there's a brain drain in this country where young people like them are discouraged from going into the field because they don't have the money there, there's so much competition for grants and we'll have a reckoning down the road if we want to be the preeminent power. joy. >> i have a fun one. today is national record store
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day and it's one of the small businesses that have been dying over the last couple of years as people move to mp3s and having music on their gadgets. i still have a record player and there is nothing like hearing certain music on vinyls. it's just part of the experience. >> are you buying old records or are they still making new stuff on -- >> i do both. >> i generally buy old records for certain sound, it just sounds better on vinyl. they do make it because there are still some djs that still use vinyl. national record day, there we go. i do know it's our one-year anniversary of doing this show. i just want to say thanks to everybody. the guests, the staff, we have the best team here at msnbc, no offense to the other teams. i want to thank msnbc contributor sam stein, political strategist l. joy williams for joining us this morning. tune in tomorrow, sunday morning at 8:00, we will discuss michael bloomberg's $50 million push to
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reform our nation's gun laws and tackle the nra. the executive director from gabby giffords advocacy group will join the panel. coming up next on melissa harris-perry. a closer look at who and what constitutes a real threat when it comes to fighting terror. also a preview of the union vote that could shake up college sports. that is all straight ahead next. oh! the name your price tool! you tell them how much you want to pay, and they help you find a policy that fits your budget. i told you to wear something comfortable! this is a polyester blend! whoa! uh...little help? i got you! unh! it's so beautiful! man: should we call security? no, this is just getting good. the name your price tool, still only from progressive.
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this morning, my question, is a fraj is truce already falling apart in ukraine? plus 50 million ways to challenge the nra, and a possible game-changer for college sports. but first, what are we so afraid of? good morning, i'm melissa harris-perry. in just two days, 36,000 people lace up their running shoes and assemble on main street
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