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tv   Hardball With Chris Matthews  MSNBC  April 21, 2014 4:00pm-5:01pm PDT

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runner and the heroes that sh showed the world what it meant to be boston strong. thanks for watching. i'm al sharpton. "hardball" starts right now. >> the democrats' 1% solution. let's play "hardball." >> good evening. i'm joy reid in for chris matthews. leading off tonight, democrats are co-elessing around a clear message for 2014 and a clear target audience. do you remember mitt romney's thurston howell ii i problem in 2012 followed by his musings at a republican fundraiser? democrats are encouraging candidates to hammer home that same theme of economic unfairness in 2014. the message? the top 1% is doing great, but the rest of the country is just
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getting by. and it's democrats who've got your back. and the target audience, the powerful coalition of young voter, minority voters and women. but who often don't show up in midterm election ps . the get out the vote effort the obama campaign used to transform electorate in 2008. the first question is whether or not this can work. the electorate in 2012 and 2008 very tough to do in a midterm. >> i would cite two examples of
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midterm elections that give democrats some hope. one was in 1986 when the republicans had the white house but the democrats took it whack by running against the theme of too much giveaway to the rich in the '80s. in 1998, bill clinton threatened with impeachment, you know, threatened with being convicted under assault managed to hold his own. managed to hold their own in that election. bill clinton said i want to do the work of the people. i want to help the middle class. i'm all about helping you. those people are not there to do the same. they want to screw you at every turn. now you add all the rich people who are pouring tins of million, if not thun hundreds of millions in the campaign. yes, a few democrats, mostly republicans. i think it's a strong message. >> so david, a new democracy memo put out by james carville and stan greens be burg, lays out the democrats' mid temple problem and makes it pretty stark.
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democratic voters are seven points less like will than republicans to say they're almost certain to vote in the off-year election in november. that same memory though prescribes the cure, and it's a laser focus on that issue of fairness. and the message it boils down to is the incomes of ceo's, the top 1% are soaring. everyone else is working harder just to get by. essentially much like the 47% message that worked in 2012. >> i'm a big fan of the 47% message, boy. but politics message and mechanics. you're talking about creating a national frame work for the election. the hard thing is taking a national frame work and really applying it. and the mechanics of getting people out to vote and people getting attached to that message at the local level. it's much easier for a national campaign. okay, this is our message and it call gets poured into one candidate. in that case, barack obama
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beating another canada, mitt romney. to take this message across this board and apply it to a dozen simpbt sdmat races and have people identify with the high message and the on the ground message it's really difficult. you're dealing in some ways with an abtract issue here. are the democrats better than republicans in general when it comes to issues of fairness? the polls say most americans believe they are. i9's easier to attach that to barack obama over mitt romney. how you apply that on a state by state level and get that turnout, which they need desperately is still a really heavy lift. >> you know what, david, i wonder why you might be a fan of that 47% message. it could be because mother jones is the one who discovered that video. and one of the things republicans did in 2010 was make what you just said happen by making nancy pelosi, attaching her to every democrat in the country. let's take a look at mitt romney and what he said that galvanized
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democrats to be able to use him in the 2012 election. take a listen real quick. >> they believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe they're entitled to health care, food, housing, you name it. it's an entitlement. and the government should give it to them. and they will vote for this president no matter what. >> and david, i'm wondering if you can take that same message. maybe you don't have mitt romney to kick around anymore, but could you substitute let's say the koch brothers into that same frame work and make that stick to every republican that's running across the country. >> the 47% video was effective because people were asked to vote for mitt romney himself. the koch brothers not on the
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ballot. in alaska they've done a good add for mark begic who's in a tough re-election battle. they've had some layoffs. they tried to make it very particular. the white house did try to come up with a similar message. the republicans are being funded by the corporate interests. and in that case, it didn't work. so it's a start. there's still a lot of else they have to do. >> howard, the same question to you. can the democrats win by making the koch brothers the mitt romneys of the midterms. will they work across the country? or do people just not know enough about them. and if not, is it smarter for democrats to go after those issues that are very particular to voters, things like minimum wage or things like closing the gap between the 1% and the rest.
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>> it's complicated because mitt romney is not in the race. eem wod died what democrats couldn't stand and it brought them out in 2012. what you're saying is the republicans in congress and the republicans in general have sat on their hands, do not want to do anything to help the working peep and the middle class people in america. they voted 50 times to try to defund the affordable care act. a complete and utter waste of time. you say the ways obama and the democrats have helped people and the republicans have done nothing, proposed nothing, merely stand for no. and if they get more power, if they take the senate, then it will be allout war on working class and the middle class. barack obama can't carry it everywhere himself. he's not that popular in a lot of these state where is there
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are tough senate race, number one. number two, barack obama is better campaigning as a candidate of hope than he is a candidate of darkness and doom. aim it at the tradition nat voeers they have to get out in the obama coalition, which is young people and working people. >> maybe the answer is bill clinton. >> hillary isn't going to want to do it, by the way. hillary won't want to do it. she doesn't want to be associated with a potential disaster in 2014. so i have a question as to who the surrogates are? who the leaders are going to be. david mentioned bill clinton. that's one of them. if you can get them to reach younger people, the democrats are going to have to think very creatively of who's going to carry their message.
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people often don't think about these races at the last minute. bombarded with tens of millions of dollars. connecting to people's faces is a hard dasing. they said it really good make the difference. unmarried women respond very strongly to a broad economic agenda. but one dominated by policies explicitly to help working women. and the memo also singled out these issues that motivate the base, which is minimum wage, equal pay for ewall work. protecting medicare, protecting social security. so howard, could the single woman, is that the voter that they need to zero in on as they're looking for that right surrogate and that right
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message? is the single working woman really the sort of key target here? >> in an electorate always dominated by women, that's always the key. and i would add, there are certain parts of the affordable care act, even if you don't want to talk about it by name, you can mention an appeal, particularly about predpis existing conditions not being a bar to getting coverage. every poll i've seen shows that health care is often right at the top with minimum wage, with job opportunities for women. that's something the administration and the democrats have to thread the needle on. they have to say what's good about it without engaging in a big philosophical discussion in states like kentucky and georgia and so forth. >> indeed. and in kentucky, she is the candidate. >> she is. >> thanks to david corn and howard fineman. coming up, the bridgegate investigation may be about to heat up. new jersey democrats investigating the scandal are expected to issue four more
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subpoenas this week. plus, that delay in the decision over the keystone pipeline could be a win for democrats on both sides of the issue. supporters in red states can continue fighting for the pipeline, while opponents keep the money flowing from anti-keystone contributors. and here's some advice for anyone making a presentation on rail safety. as democratic senator richard bloomenthal tried to do. don't stand so close to the tracks that you risk getting hit by the train. and why putting off a big decision may pay off for president obama in the long run. as the company that's all about printing. but did you know we also support hospitals using electronic health records for more than 30 million patients? or that our software helps over 20 million smartphone users remotely configure e-mail every month? or how about processing nearly $5 billion in electronic toll payments a year? in fact, today's xerox is working in surprising ways
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to help companies simplify the way work gets done and life gets lived. with xerox, you're ready for real business. >> looking ahead to november, democrats are gaining ground in the generic congressional ballot. but they have a ways to go. according to the huffington post, pollster trend line, the democrats' advantage peaked in mid october at 6.6 points, just
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after the government shutdown. the batched health care website rollout helped put the republicans up by 1.4 points by early december. but as of today, the democrats are back on top by less than a point. still, higher republican turnout in midterm elections means the democrats will need a much bigger lead to hold off republican house gains in the fall. ♪ i know a thing about an ira ♪ and i got the tools ♪ to do it my way ♪ i got a lock on equities ♪ that's why i'm type e ♪ ♪ that's why i'm tyyyyype eeeee, ♪
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someone whose poor performance is slowing down the entire organization. i'm looking at you phone company dsl. go to comcastbusiness.com/ checkyourspeed. if we can't offer faster speeds or save you money we'll give you $150. comcast business built for business. >> owith four investigations today hanging over his head, two of them criminal, chris christie is fighting for his political life. his re-election campaign has been saddled with more than $300,000 in legal fee, a total, as "the wall street journal" reports, is double the campaign's cash on hand. and it's likely the least of his worries. the big story today is that the new jersey committee investigating chris christie has announced it will be holding more hearings on last year's lane closures, and that means more subpoenas. >> we've gotten to that point
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where we've assessed enough material that we can start asking questions to witnesses. and we've lined up potentially four individuals we think we're going to bring in. so i could see there being four subpoenas going out to individuals. what you've uncovered, what we've uncovered through these interviews has opened up a whole new possibility of additional subpoenas, not only for doemts be uh for additional people that up until now we might not have thought were relevant to the investigation. >> it's been four long months since the story exploded with the release of bridget kelly's infamous time for traffic problems in ft. lee e-mail, but it's only recently we've been able to piece together the political operation. we learned that christie's campaign compiled a list of mayors which it called approved targets. ft. lee mayor mark sokolich was number two. we also learned that bill st
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stepien was giving pay back orders to iga. these were orders meant to send a message to certain mayors. according to a recently released summary of an interview that christie administration lawyers conducted with christina rena, a staffer in that office, quote, christina renna believed christie's campaign manager bill stepien kept track of mayors who were not in favor of iga. iga staff would receive mandatory directives along the lines of do not rush to return this mayor's phone call. which was enough to send a message to the local elected official. approved targets, mandatory directives, send a message to local officials. what are we to make of all this? christie's camp has attacked the credibility of the state's investigative committee as they blow ahead. so christie and his team have done all they could to declare this saga over with. instead, it's clear this is far from over. and joining me now, the co-chair of the state's investigative committee, and brian murphy, an
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msnbc political analyst and former managing editor of politicsnj.com. i'll start with you. tell us what do you know as of now about the four new subpoenas? >> my understanding from conversations that i've had with other people in the legislature and with the chairman off the record, of course, is that they're going to be talking to people who have provided information in the past, but who can sort of begin to shed light on what's been going on here. and probably explain more about those mandatory directors, for example. give us a better sense of what's going on and where they sort of -- not so much where the criminal session is going to go, but i imagine the oversight functions that the legislature is supposed to do gives us a better sense of how this operation is working and how the executive has been conducting itself over the last few months. >> to the limits of what you can discuss with us, without being
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able to actually talk to bridget kelly or to bill stepien, those subpoenas having been quashed by the judge, how do you get behind the motivation behind the bridge closures, which we still have not been able to get to. >> these conversations, whether they're through e-mails or conversations in people's office did happen in a vacuum just between bridget kelly and bill stepien. we have seen that there was a very robust discussion both during the time the lane closures happened and afterwards by a number of key individuals in the governor's administration. you can look at those as being road signs, if you will, as to where the questions need to be asked. you have chris christie, with all this taking place in his office, saying he doesn't
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believe the bridge closures were meant to be for him. >> you don't think there's a single possibility that they thought in your -- in your rough and tumble style, in jersey politics style that they thought this would please you? >> no. >> that this was for you? >> no. i don't believe it was for me. >> is this personal? >> listen, i don't believe it's for me. >> brian, we have target lists of mayors with the mayor sokolich number two-on-one of those lists. we have communications between christie's office and his campaign office. we have bill stepien out there somewhere in this process. is it even conceivable that the mayor really believes that there was no chris christie in the calculation to do these lane closures? it would be difficult to believe that. it doesn't pass the common sense test. we know they were keeping track
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of who's endorsing them and who's playing ball with them. it sound like the political affairs office, the corollary for what would be going on in the west wing, and they kept these color-coated folders. they kept all of this information. it's possible that there was a list of people who they shouldn't be talking to. it's difficult to believe the governor, maybe he didn't -- it's possible that he doesn't know. it's possible. but the operation that he set up and that his people ran seems to have been extremely responsive and nimble in rewarding and punishing people that they were dealing with on a day to day and almost hourly basis. >> in a vin diagram of the chris christie campaign operation there is a lot of overlap in communication during this period. >> if you have that vin diagram, i would like to see it.
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we're really trying to understand the contradictory nature. it really shows a robust level of micromanagement. and at the same time, we have a statement saying that we're not mie tro -- micromanagerers, people are operating op their own. both can't be true. >> maybe he didn't know, but he certainly wasn't eager to find out. you still had a governor who was operating publicly as somebody who was not interested in the information. am i far afield in saying that? there were avenues for him to have found out earlier than on the dates he suggested. not necessarily before the bridge operation itself went on during the period in which
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they're discussing, for lack of a better word cover it up. during the planning of that and the execution of that. it seem christie was aware of it and there were more people around him than we previously knew about who were aware of how that was being planned out. >> the mastro report really leads a road map to the people who say they talked to the governor in early december about what they knew and not only that, about what other people knew. and so you have a memo about an interview in which it's related that mike duhaims interviewed the governor about wildstein's statement that he and bill stepien knew about the lane closures. yet hours after that, the governor came out and said no one in my administration knew anything about this. those two things don't match. and they both can't be accurate. so our job is to find out exactly who knew what when. i want to make it clear. this is about fixing the problem
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at the port authority. and fixing the abuse of power. we're following it wherever it may lead. . >> thank you both for being here. >> up next, a perfect example about how not to teach people about train safety. this is "hardball." the place for politics. ♪ [ banker ] sydney needed some financial guidance so she could take her dream to the next level. so we talked about her options. her valuable assets were staying. and selling her car wouldn't fly.
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bridgel bloomenthal on saturday. he was close to the edge of a train station when an amtrak swept by and nearly clipped him. he was making a statement on rail safety. and his brush with death is a reminder to all of us to stand safely away from the platform edge. next up, we've seen how republicans nationwide are scrambling to outdo one another in their opposition to the affordable care act. some have literally shot holes through a copy of the health care law. but if republicans think that tough guy stunts like that are the best way to get noticed in 2014, then nebraska gubernatorial candidate boy mccoy probably fell a little short with an ad he's airing in the state. it seems mccoy was trying to distinguish himself in a crowded field by facing off against a bobble head of president obama. >> administrator obmore obama c?
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that's the last thing we need. when barack obama tried expanding obama care, i pushed back. >> yep, this is what it's come to, folks. flicking a doll off of a fence post. oh, the humanity. finally, his political future may be uncertain, but as a father, chris christie's still got it. that's according to the national fathers and mothers day council which named the new jersey governor the father of the year today. he said to be honored with the award in early june. so he's got that going for him. up next, why even democrats who are criticized the keystone delay may be privately smiling. i'm on expert on softball. and tea parties. i'll have more awkward conversations than i'm equipped for, because i'm raising two girls on my own.
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>> an american won the men's race for the first time in more than 30 years. vice president joe bide season in ukraine. he's expected to announce new assistance for the acting government. and south korea's government is accusing the captain of a sunken ferry boat of murderous behavior. more than 200 people are still missing. back to "hardball." welcome back to "hardball." friday's obama administration decision is delay construction of the keystone pipeline again may turn out to be a boost for democrats who oppose the project and for those who support it. it allows vulnerable democrats room to distance themselves from president obama and oppose him. and for democratic opponents, it motivates the base to maintain pressure against the pipeline and keep the money faucet
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running from the more liberal and activist wing of the democratic party. for instance, louisiana senator mary landrieu called the decision irresponsible, unnecessary and unacceptable. alaska start mark begic said i am frankly appalled by the continued foot dragging on the keystone project. and arkansas's mark pryor said there's no excuse for the other delay. the president needs to approve this project now. on the other hand, billionaire environmentalist activist tom stier who pledged to spend $100 million to help democrats keep the senate called the decision rotten eggs for transcanada and good news on good friday for those who oppose keystone as not being in our best interest. yesterday on nbc's "meet the press" the chair of the democratic national committee insisted that the latest delay in approving the pipeline did
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not take politics into account. take a listen. >> are you worried as the party chair this shouldn't be resolved before the election because of the potential impacts it could have? >> as a member of congress, i want to make sure the right decision is arrived at and that the president makes that decision carefully and doesn't factor politics into his decision. which i don't think he is. >> but nbc's political director chuck todd had a different tennessee opinion on "morning joe." >> it is only politics that has been involved in every part of this process. it's only been the political process. >> all right, shocking that politics would play some part in the decision by a politician. by i think the real question here, is, is it smart politics for democrats and for the white house? >> abc litely. these red state democrats you listed there, they need something where they can talk to their constituents and say in
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these red states that they are standing up to this president. if you look at mary landrieu's first ad, it's all about her carrying the message, the louisiana message that's all about oil and gas production up to this president and standing up to them. so this will give her ammunition prks this will give begic ammunition, pryor ammunition as well. these are democrats skiddish about otherish st. louis. skiddish about obama care and skiddish about him coming to their states to campaign. there's some feelings that obama has often been a party of one. he hasn't always been so good for the pear at large and all the members of the senate and the congress. so this is definitely something that they are looking at, these democrats in tough states. they are looking at it favora y favorably. it helps their chances. >> same question to you. win/win, right? the base of the party is happy because it isn't going to happen. and the red states democrats
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like mark pryor and begic can say the white house is wrong and i can run an ad on it. >> you can argue it round or square. the other side of the coin might be, to be caught in this pinser for another ii iic cycle risk alienating somebody. if you think turning out the base is important to ultimately winning your election, the more you're out there railing against the administration, against the democratic president and railing for the keystone pipeline, the more you're probably alienating the environmentalists that might be a base voter that might not show off. on the other hand, if you're begic and you believe that ultimately it's not the base that's going to save you, butt's the swing voter, then you take the position is that you're for the pipeline. you risk alienating the environmentalist who's your base, but you do so because of the opportunity of picking up a swing voter.
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i think on balance it's probably good for democrats but i think it's a slam dunk that some have suggested. >> but steve, just to push back on that a little bit. if you're mary landrieu and you're against the administration on this particular issue, but at the same time you're defending parts of the health care, the passion on this issue, at least in the democratic party is against the pipeline. no doubt about it. is it really true thiets not 100% win for someone like mary landrieu even if the koch brothers were to spend money in the state. then she's fighting for home against outside money. >> it depends on whether you think she benefits more by positioning herself in the middle and defending some poll lays that are popular with some. i would suggest in an election that could be decided by not
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very many votes, every base voter matters a lot. and environmental voter is part of the core base of the democratic party. if they're not motivated to show up for somebody, that's a problem for that democrat. i think democrats are always uncomfortable standing against an administration from their own party on any issue. and pushing against the administration if you're a democrat in a democratic administration isn't a popular thing to do. i do think on balance its it's probably better for democrats but you could argue either way. >> a billionaire environmental activist and his group ran this ad before and after president obama's state of the union in january. >> it's a sucker punch to america's heartland. the deeper we dig into the keystone xl pipeline, the closer with eget to the truth. transcanada's ads say the oil will help make america energy
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independent. but under oath, transcanada won't commit to selling us one single barrel. the oil lobbyists and politicians, they take americans for suckers. keystone means more profit for investors like china, more power for their economy, and more carbon pollution for the world. keystone is a sucker's deal for america. just say no to keystone. >> he asks supporters to choose his next target for his anti-keystone ad blitz, providing options including louisiana democrat mary landrieu. she said it would probably help me in my state if he would run his ads. i have billionaires on both sides and i'm exactly where i should be, right in the middle. i don't think people are going to pay a lo of the attention to these billionaires on both sides. is that mary landrieu doing a little wishful thinking that she would like more of that money to pour in? >> i think so. she's running one hell of a
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campaign down there. she's in some ways one of the most endangered democrats. but she's running a smart campaign down there. running more as a governor than as a senate candidate in some ways. i think she would welcome this billionaire coming down there and telling her what she should do for her state and her constituents. i also think if you look at the list of issues that most democratic base voters care about, the environment is lore than the economy and they're talking about the economy, democrats are, in terms of minimum wage, in terms of equal pay. i think it's below obama care. it seems to me, democrats have sort of weighed what is the sexiest most hot button issue that's going to draw out supporters and base supporters. and judging the environment isn't really in probably the top five of those issues. >> i wonder if mary landrieu are on that site saying vote for me. vote for landrieu.
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if you have a business idea, we have a personalized legal solution that's right for you. with easy step-by-step guidance, we're here to help you turn your dream into a reality. start your business today with legalzoom. >> rand paul and plagiarism made it into another headline recently. but not in the way row think. it turns out the libertarian republican and the likely 2016 candidate has been a victim of plagiarism by other republicans around the country. and not just once. eight candidates, including two senate contenders who have pretty blatantly ripped off the
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freshman kentucky senator. for example, t.w. shannon a senate candidate in oklahoma seems to have used very similar language to paul when writing about the department of education. here's what rand paul wrote on his website. more money, more bureaucracy and more government intervention are eroding this nation's educational standards. and here's what shannon wrote. quote, more money, more bureaucracy and more government intervention have eroded educational standards. another example, here's rand paul's language on the topic of incumbency. long-term incumbency leads to politicians who seem to care more about what is for their -- what is best for their career than what is best for their country. and here's what michael drycorn who's running in florida wrote, long term incumbency leads to politicians who seem to care more about what is best for their career than what is best for america. the list goes on and on and on. gun control, abortion, energy, education and more. according to buzz feed, at least
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two politicians simply copied rand paul entire issues section from his website. what does all of this say about paul's place in the republican party? after all, imitation is the sincerest form of flattering. and you don't see too many people copying jeb bush's homework. robert, what does it say about the republican party that people are cheating off rand snaul. >> i think it says a lot about rand paul's ascendency in the republican party. if you're a senate primary republican and you're looking to fill up your issues page. it makes sense for you to go to someone like senator paul's website for information, because he has an edge to a lot of his ideological positions. it's a different tone, a different way of phrase things than the usual republican position that would be on the rnc's website or john boehner's website. >> big picture, is rand paul more in step with the base of
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the republican party at this point than the establishment republicans? people like jeb bush, even people like rick perry? >> yeah, absolutely. you see it from people copying h im. the tea party favorite to run against kay haguen is running against an establishment endorsed guy, tom tillis, speaker of the house down there, and it's good for him to try to position himself where he can capture some of that energy that rand paul has really tapped into, but not necessarily offend sort of other legs of the conservative stool. and rand paul has done a really effective job increasingly of doing that, being the tea party candidate but also finding a way to walk this delicate tight rope where he's not offending social conservatives too much, even
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neo-cons. he's made some in roads with them. this is a good blueprint for others to follow. >> i'm glad you mentioned neo-cons, because you have some on the right no secret that the absolutely can't stand rand paul at least on his positions on foreign policy. i will give you a couple of examples, he will soon be running for office where your view of the world matters profoundly and his instincts sometimes seem more appropriate than a dorm room. quote, let's not mince words, this man wants to be the republican nominee for president and so he should be. because maybe what the gop needs is another humbling landslide defeat. and let's take a listen to republican peter king. >> this is an isolation swing from the 1930s.
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rand paul brings is to an ideological era. to me, it is feeding into parano paranoia. rand paul is not capable of having that debate. >> ken vogel says that rand paul has gone out of his way not to offend the old school party, but isn't it more accurate to say that rand paul has not set them aside? >> i think paul is mounting an interesting strategy. because he knows that the hawks still control the republican donor class. they're still the majority there and the hawks are still the majority when it comes to congressional leadership, however when he goes after these states that are having these primaries, especially in house races and senate races, he senses a bush fatigue, especially when it comes to george w. bush's foreign policy, he is tapping into that. >> isn't this a sign that that bush presidency really damaged
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that mainstream wing of the party pretty fundamentally if somebody who was considered fringe, the paul family is now in the mainstream, at least rand paul in the republican party? >> yeah, it shows the way the republican party has shifted since the bush presidency. and you're right to set that as the milestone. however, i do think that despite the fact that rand paul is in many ways fundamentally opposed to this sort of neo-con wing of the party he has at least made outreach to some of the folks. some of them will never accept it. to his credit he has not changed his views substantially. he is willing to listen with the social conservatives, deemphasized social issues and says that the gop may have to agree to disagree on the social issues. that is the worst thing that some of the social conservatives can hear. but some of them are not rejecting them outright. and that is a testament to his
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ability to sort of walk this tightrope. and i think it will be interesting to see whether he can make some of these folks sort of set aside their concerns as he appears to be positioning himself for the republican presidential nomination. >> i mean, robert, is there concern when you talk to republicans who work at that operative level that there really is not a clear alternative really at this point to rand paul who is to ken's point, trying to consolidate all the pieces of the republican three-legged stool, either by at least reaching out to them or at least not trying to offend them too much. >> i think there is growing anxiety on the right, especially within the establishment wing of the party. they expected governor christie to fill that slot for the establishment. to be the hawk who can win over the donors and put together a coalition. however, you see others now adjusting to the new reality in
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republican politics. the most recent example would be senator cruz articulating a reagan-like aspect. they have had tension on foreign policy. so you see where it is maybe christie comes back or jeb bush, they're all trying to get toward that bush model and the reagan model. >> i'll say it again, it is rand paul and it is not rand paul and that is what the republicans have to deal with. ken vogel and robert costa, thank you very much. and we'll be right back. 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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let me finish tonight with the president's decision to hold off on making a decision on the keystone. it tracks the swath that goes solidly republican. but the grand totals are between 24 and 21 electoral vote, depending on the route, 62 if you count texas. keystone looks more like a bust than a boom. sure there are democrats elected in the state, sometimes the senate. there are unions that would like to see the jobs it brings, but with the party amazing a mid-term election that could decide whether the last two
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years of the presidency are spent passing immigration reform that could have generational demographic consequences or intentional his time vetoing abortion bills and ryan legislation, it seems to be straightforward legislation. contrast the pipeline jobs it would create, far less than the temporary jobs estimated by the state department for a pipeline that would carry canadian shell oil through the u.s. but not directly to american customers since it would be shipped around the world. and it is pretty clear the white house is right to make the calculation. that that particular heaven can wait, there are simply not enough votes in that state to off saiet the base. democrats need every one of those voters to turn out in november in unusually high numbers and keystone is not a fight worth picking for those who care about the environment.
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and at the same time by not killing the pipeline outright he leaves that much hope for red state dems, it is not hard to figure out, not even close, it is "hardball" for now. and that is it. "all in" with chris hayes starts now. good evening, the standoff is not over yet, bundy still refuses to pay the million in grazing fees he owes the federal government, and now after an abo aborted attempt by the land management he says he is not in a negotiating mood. >> we're not going to negotiate with big government. we're not going to negotiate with blm. we're only going to back up and