our passion to make it real. ♪ that's all for now, "the ed show" is up next. good evening, americans, and welcome to "the ed show" live from detroit lakes, minnesota. i'm fired up, ready to go! let's get to work. are you with me? are you fired up? are you ready to go? >> once again this week republicans continue our focus on the number one issue in the country. >> what exactly are the plans of the other side right now? something benghazi. >> i love you back. >> i know i'm preaching to the choir. ♪ >> you've got to get the vocal cords working.

♪ so in love with you >> hell, no, you can't. >> they have got one plan. they have taken 50 votes to repeal obamacare. >> i want to repeal the law of the land. is that clear? >> i guess they're going try to take 50 more, because that's all they talk about. >> obamacare. >> obamacare. >> obamacare. >> you ready to go? thank you very much. >> good to have you with us tonight, folks, thanks for watching. you know the old saying, you can't see the forest because of the trees? that's where the republicans are. they're deep into the woods. they don't know where they're going and they refuse to admit defeat. this is where we've got to lay it on them. conservative campaign against health care, against the law, against the affordable care act, against obamacare, it's failed. when are the democrats going to claim total victory on this, where we were, where we are and where we're going? this is a healthy number. at least eight million people have enrolled for insurance under the affordable care act. look at the numbers.

the polls show the number of uninsured people is shrinking. hold it there. this is why we did obamacare. because the number of uninsured people in this country continue to go up and no one had any answers. we had a runaway system with the insurance industry. who was going to reel them in? this guy named barack obama, you know. that was back in 2007. and then '08. and then we got it done, and look where we are today. this is a story that the republicans will never own. but republicans won't admit they're wrong. instead they're trying to shift the attention. >> you need to get the latest news on benghazi this morning, an issue that you have been very involved in. >> this was a terrible tragedy and really was dependent on a lot of decisions that hillary clinton made in the six months leading up to this. >> there was a pretty serious

incident going on in benghazi. >> the entire benghazi fiasco. >> did they actually go to the sound of the guns? did they actually go into benghazi? >> you know, we've done a lot of stories on benghazi, but this is the one you've really got to pay attention to. >> the eight previous committees that were put together were, i guess, totally incompetent fools. shouldn't be on the payroll. why did they even do it? show me the new information here. republicans still say they want to repeal the health care law completely, but they don't have the support. and if they get both chambers of the house, you know what they're going to do with it. that's why this midterm is so terribly important. republicans, you know what they did? they called a hearing. this is comical. they called a hearing with health insurance executives, from the health insurance industry. look at them all lined up right there ready to testify. of course the republican goal was to embarrass the white house with stories about double-digit

premium increases and claims about enrollees not paying their health insurance premiums. uh-oh, that back fired. it didn't work. the suits that showed up from the insurance industry, they were saying some pretty good stuff. instead the insurance leaders, they just very calmly claimed and understood and explained that the premiums for the next year were still being calculated. they also said that more than 80% of enrollees into the program have in fact sent in their first month's check. and republicans are grasping at straws. they have tried to shift the focus to benghazi. and now they're thinking everybody in the country will get benghazi fever. republicans announced that the -- they're going to form this special select committee. this is a special select committee. now, the other eight weren't special. this one, i tell you this is a dandy, this one's special.

and they're going to investigate what happened on september 11th, 2012, in benghazi, as if we don't know. this is the ninth special committee formed. conservatives, you know, they sound like a broken record. they think by beating this benghazi drum, this issue into the ground, that the american people will be totally disfocused, forget about what's going on with obamacare and how it is working and they have had nothing to do with it. hopefully the economy will go bad. but it's all in the numbers. nexus did a search of the terms obamacare and benghazi between april 28th and may 8th. the conservative cable news network run by the republicans referenced the health care law only 184 times. fox mentioned benghazi over 1100 times. you tell me. like that guy says on the commercial, "what's in your wallet"? you tell me, what's on your tv screen, huh? what are they talking about? what are they doing? they're changing the subject. the game of distraction, it will not work in the midterms if we

continue to focus on what has worked for this country. the affordable health care act should motivate voter turnout. this creates, i think, a great opportunity for the democrats. you won! you're winning! you're rolling! and this is what i've been saying all along. to go out there and get after it and run on obamacare. do it! i've said it for a long time, run on obamacare. well, democratic senator from north carolina, kay hagan, is facing a pretty tough re-election fight. she's got no problem talking about obamacare no matter where she is. >> last year in north carolina our state legislature and governor decided against expanding the state's medicaid program and as a result about 500,000 people who would have qualified for coverage through medicaid are now not able to do so. >> oh, that's not that many people. the numbers are very clear. all democrats across the board should run on obamacare in the

midterms and stop the fix-it talk, okay? stop the fix-it talk. that's an admission that something is really, really wrong here. no. no. change is difficult. this is monumental. you can't hide the facts. obamacare is working all over this country. data from the enron partisan kaiser family foundation shows vermont, california and rhode island have enrolled the highest percentages of their residents in the country. why? because they believe in it. a high enrollment state that might surprise you, idaho. you know idaho. real conservative state out there. in fact president obama lost idaho by 32 points in 2012. but doggone it, they like this health care thing. idaho officials, what they had hoped to do was enroll 40,000 people. well, they topped it out at 76,000 people through the state exchange. and of course success in kentucky with their program is very well documented. democrats need to highlight the

advantages of medicaid expansion and point out millions of low income americans are going without health care coverage because of gop resistance in some states. researchers at harvard and city university of new york estimate that in 24 states who rejected medicaid expansion which 7,000 and 17,000 people may die due to lack of care. now, i don't know who taught you math, but in my world, 17,000 people, that's no small number. what are the conservatives doing? not to say that what happened at benghazi and the death of americans on foreign soil isn't important, but conservatives now in hearing number nine, they are obsessing over the incident in benghazi where four americans lost their lives. we know what happened. but republicans are ignoring thousands of americans who are putting lives at risk by not

having the opportunity to enroll in medicaid because some ideological pushback in certain states is hurting these folks. they're on the wrong side of history. that should be the rally cry for democrats. we're on the right side of history. we've done things that they said we couldn't do. we affected people's lives. we have saved people's lives with the health care law that all they have tried to do is repeal. i can't think of another issue as strong as health care for the democrats to run on as this one. there's nothing better. the numbers are fantastic. and ask your opponent why are you against saving lives? isn't that the question? oh, we just don't want to save them this way. get your cell phones out, i want

to know what you think. tonight's question, are republicans using benghazi to distract from obamacare's success? text a for yes, b for no to 67622. we'll bring you results of the poll later on in this program. tonight i want to bring in dr. david himmelstein, the public health professor at the city university of new york. also with us e.j. dion. doctor, great to have you with us tonight. we'll start with you. what is your reaction to the response that obamacare is getting across the country? did you anticipate where we were in october that we would be where we are as a country right now here in may? >> i think we've had more people sign up than we'd expected. and frankly, we've been very disappointed that states are refusing to expand medicaid, that the republicans are blocking a medicaid expansion

that the federal government would pay 100% of and denying 7.7 million americans the coverage they need. >> in your survey, how accurate is it, how accurate is your research that this many people could possibly lose their lives because of not being access to this program? >> well, we use the latest and best medical research on how much lack of insurance leads to problems, and the estimate is that about one person in every 2,000 will die each year because they don't have health care coverage. and what that says is that the 7.7 million people who are being uninsured because the republicans aren't expanding medicaid, that means 7,000 -- as many as 17,000 deaths, we're pretty confident in those numbers. the low side frankly is based on

a study that my group published about ten years back in the "american journal of public health." we're pretty liberal, but a more conservative group said we were too conservative in that, that 7,000 number is too low, that the 17,000 number is closer to the truth. >> e.j., you just heard the doctor. he says those numbers are rock solid. how can democrats not get a political advantage on this and say that we're on the right side of history? >> well, i have agreed with you on this for a long time, ed, because i thought the notion that you would vote for something designed to cover a lot of americans who are uncovered and then somehow try to back away with it never made any sense on any level. and now i think the republicans are in a box and i think you're exactly right. you only need one word to explain that they know they have taken a whipping on this and the

word is benghazi. they'd still be on obamacare if the thing weren't working. right now if you repeal this, you deprive 14 to 15 million americans of health insurance, and that's just not a good position to have. i think you're seeing in states that have turned down the expansion the possibility thangs becomes a big issue in the election. mary landrieu down in louisiana is using it against governor jindal, who's unpopular. kay hagan has a chance to use it against thom tillis, her opponent, the speaker of the house, who has helped block the medicaid expansion. this is good for people. it's also good for hospitals. since when did people say to the federal government we're offering it to you, you don't have to pay anything, but then they turn around and turn it down. it's purely ideological. and most americans are not just that ideological. >> doctor, is there any way that

obamacare could be repealed? and i'm not looking at it from a political standpoint, i'm looking at it, has the system gone so far and been implemented and affected so many people it would be almost impossible to reverse it? >> i think it would be awfully hard to reverse and i think there's an appetite to go much further. something that i support and 19,000 of my colleagues support, i think we need a medicare for all kind of system which would be even more efficient, better coverage and do better for our nation than what we've got. but it's going to be awfully hard to go backwards from here. >> okay. and e.j., this house hearing that took place this week where the insurance executives came in, i mean isn't this kind of the icing on the cake and a total miscalculation by the republicans to illustrate how far off the mark they are? they thought they were going to get some negative stories on the

affordable care act and even their allies, these insurance companies, these executives, they are republican allies and they just couldn't serve up anything but the truth. what do you make of it? >> they did not look very happy, the republicans. and, you know, i thought this was quite surprising. i thought that members of congress did a little research before they had these hearings. they had to know that that survey they put out asking, well, whether people had paid their premiums, they knew it was totally flawed because they were asking people who hadn't even basically been billed yet. so i think it was inevitable that if you had this hearing and the insurance companies told the truth, you would get a story something like this. and i think that that is yet another reason why they have gone back to benghaziland. because they know this issue is running out of steam. by the way, on benghazi, i thought nancy pelosi did a smart thing and said, look, if you want to do this, give democrats

an equal right to call witnesses. if you want this to be seen as a fair investigation, set it up as a fair investigation. and i think that puts them on the spot. because otherwise they have going to look like they are running a totally partisan operation here. >> well, what did the other eight committees do? were they just totally incompetent? is there a bunch of new information on the table that's going to lead us -- this is all about hillary clinton and taking her down, isn't it? >> i agree, it's about that and wanting to rev up another issue to turn out their base. they had one new e-mail from the white house basically reiterating what the white house believed and wanted susan rice to say. there was nothing fundamentally new there. they have used that as an excuse to reopen this. this is an investigation of talking points. this is not an investigation of why americans died in benghazi. >> dr. david himmelstein and

also e.j. dionne, great to have both of you question with us tonight. have a great weekend. thanks for joining us on "the ed show." remember to answer tonight's question at the bottom of the screen, share your thoughts with us on twitter, appreciate the like on facebook as well. we always want to know what you think. coming up, conservatives are on a mission to turn schools into for-profit businesses. rapid response panel weighs in on that, on the dangers of privatizing education. but first, big spenders, charlie and david koch. will they lay out the big budget plans for 2014? they are a lot way from being done. trenders is next. stay with us.

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through friday noon to 3:00 p.m. thank you, mike rogers, for doing today's show. the ed show social media nation has decided and we are reporting. here are today's top trenders voted on by you. >> give america a raise. >> the number three trender, parting words. >> as i know, i part company with many of the conservatives on the issue of the minimum wage. >> boehner has long opposed such a measure. >> i think we ought to raise it. >> why am i even listening to you to begin with. >> mitt joins the chorus to support a minimum wage increase. >> the republicans should support a reasonable increase in the minimum wage. >> this is one i don't get. let's not make this argument that, you know, we're for the blue collar guy but against any minimum wage increase ever. >> do you know what i'm saying? >> we have a minimum wage, it should be reasonably adjusted from time to time. >> he said it again! >> the number two trender. draft drama. >> it was a long wait tonight for johnny manziel.

>> i'm waiting! >> johnny manziel did fall a little farther than most people thought he would. >> there's a lot of teams that did pass me up. >> johnny football dropped to 22 in the nfl draft. >> with the 22nd pick, the cleveland browns select johnny manziel. >> it feels right and it feels like where i'm meant to be. >> johnny football, baby! johnny football. >> i'm going to pour my heart out for the team and for the city. >> you're going to be a star. >> dog pound, here we come. >> and today's top trender, koch money. >> the republican party isn't kicking its koch habit. >> many republicans should wear koch industry insignias. >> they will elect candidates who will cater to their every request. >> the koch brothers election obsession. >> the super pac funded by the brothers is planning on a $125 million political spending spree this november. >> billionaires like the koch brothers have been given free rein to buy congressional seats.

>> that's more money than all the democratic committees themselves are spending. >> citizens united has changed the landscape. >> people do not come out and vote and take on the koch brothers and the puppets that they control, this country is going to be in very serious trouble. >> joining me tonight, sara slayman, field director for the ft. bend county democratic party in texas. sara, you are the perfect interview on this story because i think people in your demographic sometimes might get a little politically discouraged when they see all this money floating out there and you wonder, gosh, going door to door, making the phone calls, is it really going to have an impact. i want your take tonight, thanks for joining us, sara. i want your take tonight. what does this money mean to your demographic when you see and hear this kind of stuff? what are young people talking about? >> hi, ed. you know it is -- it can be scary. i think one important thing to keep in mind is, is that these same greedy brothers, charles and david koch, they spent

almost half a billion dollars, $400 million in the last presidential election and their guy lost. so while the number is big and scary, we need to focus on the real number that matters, which is human resources. in this latest report that the koch brothers released talking about their renewed field effort, they were able to point out organizing for america, you know, the president's association had 770 people alone organizing in florida while they had 300 people nationwide. you can't really buy our hearts and minds. you can put bad obamacare ads on tv full of lies and that's dangerous as the misinformation, but they can't really buy the people power that they need to really dominate this country. >> how do you think people are reacting to the news that are out there. when you're out doing boots on the ground and you're interacting with americans that you want to vote. americans for prosperity has spent $35 million in this election cycle alone and sources telling politico that they're going to spend $125 million and

that might be a conservative estimate. i mean it just seems to me like the koch brothers are flat-out trying to buy the midterms. >> absolutely. i would say to the people of north carolina and louisiana and arkansas, huddle together. get together right now. walk into your union offices, walk into your democratic party headquarters and say what can i do, put me to work. we have to stick together, just like you did in 2012. our wages aren't being raised, our employment hasn't been restored to full-time employment. we're depending on temporary and part-time work. when i'm out there talking to the people on the ground, they're talking about things that matter, like losing their medicaid, like losing their snap benefits, like not having an increase in their pay in the last decade. these are the things that people really scare about. these scare tactics like benghazi and trying to make up things about obamacare, people aren't concerned about these. they're concerned with the day-to-day of getting by. so those people in those states being targeted, north carolina, louisiana, arkansas, start talking with your neighbors.

do the hard work of engaging people to come out with you and say we're not here for your koch brothers misinformation. we're here to be able to afford the groceries that we need, to afford the property taxes that we have to pay to live in our communities and have good schools for our kids. these are the issues that matter to regular people. like i said, they can't buy that from us. >> i want to hear it from a worker on the ground in texas, sarah. give us a wendy davis update. what's going to happen there? what's the landscape look like right now? >> you know, the landscape is looking how it looks for the last few months. wendy davis has questions about a lot of things. she has questions about who greg abbott associates with. she has questions about the secret scandal that greg abbott was supposed to investigate his own oversight on. and again and again we see that attorney general abbott doesn't have answers for wendy davis, he just hides. he hides behind surrogates, behind pacs like red state women that insult women and we see a

candidate that's trying to engage statewide leadership and he's nowhere to be found. he just keeps hiding from wendy davis. so we expect that to continue but it's not going to stop us and the democratic party from defining the issues that working texans care about. >> all right. sarah slamen, great to have you with us tonight. a very refreshing voice in the battle on the ground. thanks for joining us. we'll come back to you again. still ahead, why privatizing education is a bad deal for both students and you taxpayers. rapid response panel weighs in. and later, what moms really need this mother's day. sandra fluke joins me tonight. next, i'm taking your questions. just ahead "the ed show" on msnbc. we'll be right back. with diabetes, it's tough to keep life balanced.

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[ girl ] my mom, she makes underwater fans that are powered by the moon. ♪ she can print amazing things, right from her computer. [ whirring ] [ train whistle blows ] she makes trains that are friends with trees. ♪ my mom works at ge. ♪ i don't always have timeh to eat like i should... that's why i like glucerna shakes. they have slowly digestible carbs to help minimize blood sugar spikes. [male announcer] glucerna... welcome back to "the ed show." love the questions, love hearing from reviewers, appreciate you participating in our ask ed live seg mekt. our first question is from mike. he wants to know do you believe

mitt romney really wants to raise the minimum wage? that would be a big capital n-o. how come mitt romney never talked about raising the minimum wage wheept ewhen he wanted to chief executive officer of this country and the leader of the free world. he's never cared about workers. remember at freeport, illinois, he shipped jobs overseas and now all of a sudden he's trying to tell the american people that he's for the minimum wage? notice how rick santorum, tim pawlenty and mitt romney all of a sudden, they're all for the minimum wage. interesting. none of these guys are running for office, none of these guys are voting, okay. none of these guys are being held accountable by the party whip to say we don't help workers. it's very popular for them to run out there on talk shows and say, yeah, i think they should raise the minimum wage. yeah, right. put them in a position of authority and they'd say no in a heartbeat. our next question is from

delia. what are your summer vacation plans? what, are you trying to get rid of me? come on, i love doing this show. i don't know anything about vacations. just kidding. i've got three weeks this summer, and guess what, i'm going to take all of them! stick around, the rapid response panel is next. i'm sewer herrera with your cnbc market wrap. the dow gains 32 points to close at a new record, the s&p up 2, nasdaq adds 20. gap shares rose after april sales rose 9% and earnings would be better than expected. apple is said to be in talks to buy the headphone maker beats for more than $3 billion. and the postal service says it lost $1.9 billion in the first quarter. it also issued another plea to congress to pass financial reforms. and that's it from cnbc, we are first in business worldwide. we're back after a quick break. ! the united states postal service

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welcome back to "the ed show." thanks for watching tonight. you know, with benghazi fever just filling the headlines and air waves across america, you know, the headlines, you know all about benghazi, right? wait a minute, it's national charter schools week, and it's gone virtually unnoticed. but be aware, john boehner pushed the charter school agenda one step further this week. we don't have money for unemployed people or anything else or higher education, but the speaker is supposed legislation which would pour even more funding into the exclusionary program. >> the waiting list for getting into charter schools has about a million names on it and i'm not surprised at all. charter schools work. they're succeeding at a time when, let's face it, many traditional schools are struggling. in our area, we currently have

more than half a dozen charter schools. there could be a whole lot more if the education establishment would just get out of our way. >> charter schools work. you mean, mr. speaker, they all work? but you only cite just a few in your neighborhood? boehner is the perfect spokesman for charter schools. public education surge is struggling, no question about it. thanks to the republican mission to stamp out all of its resources. no federal funding. that's what their world is all about. it's billed as an opportunity for a premiere education. the program, i think, is a wolf in sheep's clothing. charter schools are an effort to kill teachers unions and shortcut funding for public education. now a new report is out published by the center for popular democracy and integrity in education. highlights rampant abuse in the charter school system. that would be rampant abuse in the charter school system. we all on the same page now?

how about over $100 million of taxpayer money has been lost to waste and fraud in not one, but 15 states alone. charter schools are a business with one bottom line. it's the money. we're not talking about educating children unless we mean all of our children, right? charter schools can pick and choose their students, leaving other children by the wayside. the documented fraud found in this study underscores the institutional failure. this isn't about republicans and democrats, this is about children in america. not some, all of them. the stakes are too high. but here we have a congress that wants to fork more money into a system that they claim is perfect, but it's ridden with fraud. joining me tonight, our rapid response panel, ruth coniff and florida state senator dwight

bullard. ruth, you first. this fraud that was found in 15 states, is this a surprise to you? >> well, not really, ed. i think that we've seen one report after another talking about how charter schools, which are not regulated and supervised the same way regular public schools are find a way to extract money. there's something fundamentally wrong with saying that as boehner said competition is the answer. if public schools are underfunded and there really is a direct link between both the poverty of their student populations and the underfunding of the schools and their performance on standardized tests, that their answer is to bring in a business and says how can i make money off this situation. here you see the most extreme examples. even in the nonprofit charter world you see people paying the heads of these organizations more than the president of the united states. and then they're running off with public funds to do things like going on a shopping spree. but even short of that, there's something wrong with trying to serve poor kids with a cheaper product that allows you to extract money to take home,

instead of pouring more resources into those schools and those kids. >> state senator bullard, why are some democrats lending their support to this new legislation in congress which, of course, funnels more money into charter school systems that have got fraud in 15 states? what's your reaction to that and how is it playing out in florida? >> well, i can tell you, ed, that it's no surprise to me to see democrats sort of jumping on board with this notion. these private charter school management companies have been running rampant here in florida for some time and have shown their influence in both campaigns and other ways in influencing the process. what we find here in florida, however, is that we're actually on the precipice of a federal investigation into these charter school management companies. not only for misappropriation of funds, but for practices that are uncharacteristic of a truly

regulated industry. >> i mean is there public pushback on this? and then here you have john boehner saying, yeah, we've got to throw more money at it. what about that, senator? >> well, i mean the reality is there needs to be a better level of oversight both at the federal level and here at the state level in terms of what these companies do. when we think about florida, for instance, where charter schools have been in existence since 1996, we've seen time and time again a disproportionate failure rate among charter schools versus their public school counterparts. so the push is let's create apples to apples comparisons. there's reluctance on the part of the management companies to say, all right, we want to be compared the same way as our public school counterparts, but in most regards they're getting additional streams of funding outside of private resources from the public sector that are

helping to get supplies, get ipads, get you name it. but then taxing the public school for things like ieps or use of their sports facilities. so it's definitely not fair. we've seen time and time again that these management companies and these charter schools seem to not work in the best interests of the students. >> yeah. and, ruth, there's no doubt, whenever there's a chance for a dollar to be made, somebody is going to get the shortened of the change. and this is not an equal playing field for every kid in america. charter schools aren't for everybody. when you start taking resources away, where is this going? they're pushing a hard conservative agenda. where is this going, ruth? >> well, i think it's -- what's happening is in the states there are different pieces of legislation. here in wisconsin there's a proposed piece of legislation we expect to see come up again next term that would label public

schools as failing. it would insist that 5% of our state schools be labeled as failing and it would move charter operators in to take over those schools. never mind that the biggest national study by stanford of these charter schools is that they perform more poorly or 17%, a little bit better than the public schools. 17%, that's a great minority better than the public schools. so they're not doing better but they're getting this opportunity to move in, take over public schools and then while the public schools are labeled failing if they get fs on a overall assessment of their tests, the charter schools get a pass, they get eight years and can get as many as fs as they want. so it's bringing these business interests in, giving them a totally different set of standards, low accountability and looking for a way to make money. it just fundamentally is a move away from democracy, away from the idea of public good that public education serves and siphoning public funds into the pockets of these few individuals so it's not a big surprise that you see people taking advantage of them. >> and, senator bullard, is this going to be a big issue in the

governor's race down in florida? i know charlie crist is a big public school advocate. he's got the teachers union big-time behind him. how's it play out? >> well, it's definitely going to be up for discussion. we have a governor who over the last four years has fast tracked more school reform or privatization efforts both within schools, within the correction system than any other governor we've had in the past. and so it is going to be a central issue in the governor's race and one that governor scott is going to have to answer for when he's running for office. or running for re-election. >> it just seems to me that all of these charter schools, where they're flourishing is where you're going to find a conservative state legislature and a conservative governor who just can't get enough of this stuff because i think the root of it obviously is to make a dollar, but the other part of the equation is to get rid of the teachers unions, which of course is very effective in every state in the union when it

comes to getting things legislatively done. state senator dwight bullard and also ruth conniff, great to have both of you with us tonight. thanks so much. coming up, cliven bundy's school of history, pretenders is next. stick around. here's a lesson for you. yup. all five of you for $175. our clients need a lot of attention. there's unlimited talk and text. we're working deals all day. you get 10 gigabytes of data to share. what about expansion potential? add a line anytime for 15 bucks a month. low dues... great terms... let's close. new at&t mobile share value plans. our best value plans ever for business. and it feels like your lifeate revolves around your symptoms, ask your gastroenterologist about humira adalimumab. humira has been proven to work for adults who have tried other medications but still experience

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now i know that non-24 is real. and i'm not alone. it's time for a new day. and in pretenders tonight, history buff cliven bundy. you know the rancher wants to teach you a few lessons about the very government he won't even recognize. bundy is milking the last few minutes of his hate-fueled fame like it's a free grazing cow on federal land. cliven bundy released a series of history lessons going back to the mayflower. >> back then, transportation was in a sailboat that they figured

wasn't very far out there. the ocean was flat and would fall off. that was how much education and how much we knew about the ocean. they had a central they had central government, europe was the strongest army in the world and they ruled with an unlimited power. our government has become just sort of opposite of what our founding fathers wanted it to be. they created three branches of government. executive and our legislature and judical. >> america's ajudicial system, as he calls it, isn't the only thing going for it. bundy says the constitution is the key to the global prosperity. i. >> i can say all of our government problems could be solved just by falling the constitution of the united states. it's that greater document.

and not only that, all of the problems of this world. >> i would tell bundy not to quit his day job. but he's even a worse rancher. cliven bundy can try to teach, but if he believes he's anything but the class clown, he can keep on pretending. in 1953. 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. i don't always have timeh to eat like i should.. that's why i like glucerna shakes. they have slowly digestible carbs to help minimize blood sugar spikes. [male announcer] glucerna...

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the table. when you didn't eat, you made sure we ate. you went to sleep hungry. you sacrificed for us. you're the real mvp. >> welcome back to "the ed show." this is the story for the folks who take a shower after work. this is your "ed show" reminder. make plans for mother's day this sunday. nba star kevin durant raised the bar by turning his mvp acceptance speech into a touching tribute to his mother wanda pratt. now this sunday, we celebrate the mvp moms all across america. out there, we want to thank them for all the sacrifices they make. like giving up sleep to giving up food on their plate. but there are certain things these women should not have to sacrifice. like their right to equal pay for equal work. to honor these women, we need to keep fighting. for paycheck fair nns this

country. we need to raise the federal minimum wanl. we need to fight the right wing policies putting women's reproductive rights under attack. this mother's day, let's focus on supporting the policies which will give the women in america, and in our lives, the same opportunities to succeed. joining me tonight, an attorney and candidate for state senate in california's 26th district. sandra, it is so good to have you back with us tonight. you wrote a great op-ed. what moms really need this mother's day. which our viewers can find at ed.msnbc.com. tell us about that. what do moms really want this mother's day. well, of course, i think every mom -- i know my mom always appreciates hearing a thank you and those kinds of touching tributes. but we have to make sure we're going beyond that, building upon it and putting in place the kinds of policies that moms need to succeed and take care of their families as well. so for

starters, new moms, expectant moms need to be able to have accommodations in the work place while they're pregnant. the kind that are required for their health. and this is right now not legally guaranteed. so while someone with some type of disability medically would have those accommodation, a pregnant worker might not be allowed to carry a bottle of water or sit down to do their job. so there's legislation pending at the federal level, the pregnant workers fairness act which would fix that, and that's just the beginning. >> mother's day is so special, it's a great tradition that america. yet we've never really focused on talking about the inequality when it comes to pay and women's rights on this particular day. is this something that you think should change? >> i do think it should change. because we do talk a lot about pay discrimination and the pay gap and it's important that we take on that type of discrimination. that's why as a state senator

i've promised to call for an audit of our government employees here in california to make sure we're not discriminating against women on the state's payroll. but we need to understand a lot of that pay gap is also about mothers specifically. because they're stepping out of the work force to be able to take care of children. and that doesn't have to be the way it is. we should be providing them with early childhood education opportunities and child care opportunities that are affordable and allow them to stay on their career track. they also need to have access to paid family leave and sick leave. women and moms are still disproportionately the careta r caretakers in their families. when those policies aren't in place, it hits women the hardest. >> do you think kevin durant, mvp of the league, how much did he help the cause for women and for moms across the america for

what he did the other dra. >> i think it's always really important to have everyone highlights how hard moms work and how much they do for us. but we have to have our legislators and our candidates talking about that as well. and it comes down to even things like making sure that moms know that their kids are safe when they go to college. right now across the country, there's increased attention and an outcry about something that's been going on for a long time and that i've been working on personally for many year, the crisis of sexual assault on our college campuses. currently, it's actually safer for a parent -- they know it's safer to not send their taughter to college. can you imagine what that's like as a mom to think about -- i want my taughter to pursue her dreams and her career and her education but knowing sending her to college increases her risk for sexual assault. we can do so much better. and the students and moms of america deserve a lot better. >> sandra, it is great to have

you with us. i'm sure you have a fabulous mother. >> "politics nation" starts right new. [ applause ] >> good evening. i'm coming to you live from the sweet auburn festival in downtown atlanta, georgia. the crowds are coming out and we're getting fired up. we're here as part of msnbc's growing hope initiative. to help people share their hope for change and raise awareness of americans giving back to their community. just steps away from here is ebinezer baptist church as martin luther king organized some of the greatest triumph