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tv   Hardball With Chris Matthews  MSNBC  November 20, 2014 11:00pm-12:01am PST

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him in films and will forever. >> we've got to go. it's 11:00, in his last tony speech, it was in the theatre where he had appeared once before, winning a pie eating contest when he was a kid. he said that was nice, but this is better. what a life, what a career. >> james lipton, thank you very much. we need you on a night like this to give us the perspective on this career. thank you very much. really, really appreciate it. >> thank you. >> a guy who works at tucker carlson's website started yelling at the president in the
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middle of his statement in the formal setting of the rose garden while the president is giving an official statement, it was really weird and the president got really mad. >> excuse me sir. it's not time for questions. i'm speaking. and the answer to your question, sir, and the next time i prefer you let me finish my statements the this is the right thing to do for the american people. >> see that red thing there? he was a credentialed member of the press. not once but twice he yelled out during the president's remarks that day. not during that question and answer period, but while the president was still trying to make his statement. and, you know, this president, like every president, has been heckled before.
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we have seen him heckled a lot by immigration activists. we have seen him quietly heckled by a coop servetive justice for the supreme court. but an accredited member of the press, stopping a presidential announcement. to heckle the president? that was just weird. it was not weird like the iraqi guys throwing the shoe at president bush. that guy was a member of the press corps, too. that guy went to jail for three years for doing that. but still, that moment in the rose garden, it was an astonishing moment. the publication that that guy worked for put out a statement
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saying they were very proud of their reporter for his behavior during that presidential rose garden address. and that guy still works there. that was about five months before the 2012 election. and what the president announced was for that specific group of people who could be deported, he was going to offer them temporary relief from the fear of deportation. people who were brought to this country as kids who had no say in the matter. he didn't give them legal, permanent residency and green cards. but he did give them temporary relief from one thing. from the threat of being deported. and the republicans lost their minds. they didn't sue the president and the policy went into effect. you may remember this is the scene all over the country when they could make themselves known, fill out an application and find out if they qualified. that was 2 1/2 years ago.
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and so far between 500 and 600,000 young people across the country have qualified under that program to get temporary relief from the threat of being deported. and the sky did not fall. the economy did not collapse. the president announced that change two years ago. they couldn't even wait until he had physically stopped announcing it before they started screaming at it. but you know what, that policy change has kind of worked out okay. the country is okay. and tonight's announcement from the white house builds on both that policy that he announced in 2012, it essentially expanlds the idea of temporary relief from deportation to include families, right? who have a legal resident or a u.s. citizen. so families do not get
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physically divided by force. >> we're going to offer the following deal. if you've been in america for more than five years, if you have children who are american citizens, if you register, pass a legal background check and are willing to pay your fair share of taxes, you'll be able to apply to stay 234 this country without fear of deportation. you can come out of the shadows and get right with the law. >> what president obama announced tonight just from the east room. substantively, what he announced tonight, it builds on that idea that president obama announced yun lat rally in 2012 in the rose garden. it builds on what they call doca. but it also builds on a long
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track record from this president. frankly, a long list of warning signs that he was going to do something like he did tonight. and i don't know whether or not consistency is a virtue. but in this case, on this issue, president barack obama has been really consistent on this issue. in 2007, when he was the united states senator, the bush administration wrote a big comprehensive immigration reform bill. and even though it had been written by the bush administration, republicans in congress still did not support it. barack obama ran for it as a senator. he campaigned for his support in the dream act which, again, would be a very specific form of immigration reform targeted at young people who had made promising investments in themselves. he campaigned on the dream act
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when he ran for president. when he got e lengted president, he supported the dream act. democrats in the house introduced the dream act. they got it passed in the house in the first half of his first term. democrats in the senate, most of them supported it as well. so they tried on the dream act, buff they couldn't get it done. then when he was e he was running for re-election, he made that doca announcement where the tucker guy screamed at him. and then president obama won that election. democrats picked up the receipt. even the diagnosis in 2012 was part of the reason why they lost so badly. after that 2012 election with the republican parties' official autopsy of what went wrong, recommending explicitly with fox news getting religion after that election. >> we've got to get rid of the immigration issue all together. it's simple for me to fix it. you control the border first, you create a path way for those people that are here. you don't say you've got to go home. and that is a position that i've
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evolved on. >> he evolve ved. he has since e unevolved. right after the 2012 election, the republican party, fox news, house speaker john boehner were all saying he would finally come around and support immigration reform. this is what happened e what happened. right after he was sworn in for his second term. he was so happy, he was just vibrating three feet off the ground. democrats did great in the election all the way down the ticket, all the way around the country. nevada had voted for him by a mile. he's at this high school with the kids and the crowd and all psyched. he's really believing it. everybody did. >> those of you who have a seat, feel free to take a seat. i don't mind. >> i love you, barack. >> i love you back.
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[ cheers and applause ] >> last week, last week i had the honor of being sworn in for a second term as president of the united states. i know that some issues will be harder to lift than others. some debates will be more contentious. that's to be expected. but the reason i came here today is because of a challenge where the differences are dwindling. where a broad consensus is emerging. and where a call for action can now be heard coming from all across america. i'm here today because the time has come for common sense, comprehensive immigration reform. now is the time. now is the time.
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you can hear the crowd getting louder. the crowd really did go wild. they gave him a standing ovation. but that case that he's making is a remarkable moment in time. he says the differences are dwindling. a broad consensus is emerging. in other words, the republicans have finally agreed to do it, you guys. this is right after the 2012 election. and everybody said immigration reform would happen. even fox news thought immigration reform would happen. and it started to happen. within six months of that speech, the senate had passed a bill, a big, bipartisan, tough, comprehensive bill with enough votes to beat the republican filibuster. they got 14 republican senators to sign onto that thing. so that's step one. 14 republican senators agree with this. and that's enough to pass it even over the filibuster. okay, done. now it's time for the house. go on, house. you take it from here, house.
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john boehner had said that the house would pass immigration reform, but they got that bipartisan bill and then it just, you know, it never came up. for a while, it saturday there with no explanation. and then finally, the house republicans came up with a procedural objection. they wanted to pass a bill piece meal. they wanted to pass each individual piece of it bit-by-bit. and the democrats responded and the president responded okay, whatever you want. however you want to do it. we'll do it that way if that's the way you need to do it. >> they're suspicious of comprehensive bills,. but you know what, if they want to chop that thing up into five pieces, as long as all five pieces get done, i don't care what it looks like, as long as it's actually delivering on those core values that we talk about. >> you need to talk it up? jaw wired shut? can only chew tiny things? okay, piecemeal is a weird way to do it. but if that's what you need to do, we'll do it.
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they said that's what they needed to be able to do it. but that apparent by wasn't what they needed. that, aparentally, wasn't what they kneaded. they still just never did it. and, as much as everybody thought they were going to, as much as they said they were going to, as much as they promised they were going to, as much as they said it would be in their own interest to do so and of course they would do it, they never did it. the house republicans never did it. and that's what happened. and that was more than 500 days ago. and so tonight, the president, like he did in 2012, the president announced that he would act on his own. he can't change the law. but he can change the enforcement priorities and the homeland security department and all the rest of it. and now congress will not vote on these things that the president announced tonight. those changes will go into effect starting january 1st, 2015. and the republicans and the president's critics say they feel blind sided, but it's not like he didn't testimony you over and over and over again
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that this was coming. >> comprehensive immigration reform once and for all. they need -- we can't wait 20 years from now to do it. we can't wait ten years from now to do it. we need to do it by the end of my first term as president of the united states of america. >> we want to move this process. we can't continue with a broken immigration system. >> the time has come for common sense, comprehensive immigration reform. the time has come. the time is now. now is the time. >> today, i'm beginning a new effort. to fix as much of our immigration system as i can on my own. >> i've said before that if congress failed to live up to its responsibilities to solve
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this problem, i would act to fix as much as i can on my own and i meant what i said. so this is not a question of if, but when. >> see the time stamps on all of those? for the last oh, five six years? whether you like what president obama announced tonight or not, it's not like you didn't know it was coming. republicans are losing their minds over this in some interesting ways. we will be talking more about that this hour including with some of our republican friends. but what the president did tonight was something he said he would do for a long time. there's no question and it's going to be fascinating to watch between the democrat and republicans. this is absolutely a riveting part. a big presidential announcement like this. congress saying no, we're going to light our hair on fire. we'll never let you do it. it's an amazing thing to watch. fighting like this in politics are really, really top-of-the-ticket fights. but that is not what this story is about. this is not at all what it was
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about at its most important level. this is what it's really about. what the president announced tonight will have practical, everyday effects. this announcement will have an immediate effect on people's lives and their families now and for generations to come. 5 million families just had their trajectory in life changed dramatically. for all the politics, this is the real story. joining us now is the host of the rundown on msnbc and a news anchor on telemundo. jose it's great to see you. what is your reaction to what the president did tonight? >> five million people, rachel. five million families. five million people. tonight is the opportunity of coming out from under the shadows of fear. that have been living here. remember this is going to be people who have been living here five years or more and have u.s.-born children or u.s. residents. imagine what that means for 5 million people.
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that, for years, have seen their children go to school and they fear maybe not being there when their children come home from school. imagine going to work not knowing if you are going to come back from work because you don't have the documents to do that work that many times other americans don't want to do. talk about the american dream, rachel? this is 5 million people. i was with the president in las vegas the 29th of january in 2013, which, by the way, rachel, the president is going back to tomorrow to that same school. and then on the day after that, on the 30th of january, 2013, i interviewed the president. and i asked him about latisia. a mother i met at that speech in las vegas. and she told me i wish i could have told him this. i have u.s.-born children. and i was deported from the
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united states. i left my children here. and one of them was molested. so i have come back knowing that my fate has probably sealed, but a mother's responsibility is far stronger than laws when my children were born here. ask the president if he can do for me what he did for the dreamers. i kept thinking about latisia, tonight, rachel. all things are limited. it's a short program and for three years. but, rachel, thank you for bringing it up. it all boils down to human beings. and what are we as a country? do we not care about human beings? these are children born in the united states. families separated. and that is going to change for 5 million people in short ordered. >> when we have seen presidents take unilateral action to change not the law but the way that the law is enforced in the past,
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that's happened two times. in the administrations of george h.w. bush and reagan. they were about keeping families together. they acknowledged that the legal enforcement were tearing people apart. they wanted to try to allow families to stay together while still maintaining the law. shouldn't this be seen as inline with those previous examples? >> yes, but to be clear, rachel, they actually went towards amnesty. this is something that the president said isn't possible and he doesn't think his executive orders will be able to go towards anything that can be considered amnesty. this is a short period of time of time, three years. clearly those folks that are critics of today's action will tell you that both bush and reagan were acting as a response to legislation that was either in the pipeline or had already
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been passed by both houses of congress but the fact is this is a very limited program. sure it's 5 million people but it's about 41% of the undocumented population of the united states, which is about the same percentage, i should say, that was affected by the decisions of both bush and reagan, 41%. different numbers in totality. but the same percentage. look, the fact is, the folks that work behind me right there, and you said it very clearly, had the opportunity to do something about it, well, maybe they'll look and see that maybe now is a time to deal with issues. it's not going to go away just because you don't want to deal with it. >> that's right. and if they want to change something about what's about to happen, it's because they have to act on their own terms and they have been unwilling to do that at all. jose, host of the rundown here on msnbc here every morning. jose, big night. thanks for being here. we have much more ahead for this
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delayed backache or muscle ache. to avoid long term injury, get medical help right away for an erection lasting more than four hours. if you have any sudden decrease or loss in hearing or vision, or any allergic reactions like rash, hives, swelling of the lips, tongue or throat, or difficulty breathing or swallowing, stop taking cialis and get medical help right away. ask your doctor about cialis for daily use and a free 30-tablet trial. all of us take offense. we see little option but to remain in the shadows or risk their families being torn apart. it's been this way for decades. and for decades, we haven't done much about it. >> the newspaper usa today published a surprising interview
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with oklahoma senator and susan page asked senator coburn how he thinks republicans were going to react to tonight's speech. this, amazingly, was his answer. >> well, i don't think it's so much republican reaction. here, the country is going to go nuts because they're going to see it as a move outside of the authority of the president. and it's going to be a very dangerous situation. you can see instances of anarchy. >> what do you mean? >> you could see violence. >> the country is going to go nuts. instances of anarchy by which i mean violence. really, senator, are you sure? joining us now is robert gibs who knows a thing or two about the white house.
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and also senior advisor for the president's 2012 campaign. robert, nice to see you. thanks for being here. >> thanks for having me, rachel. >> first of all, how is the white house handling that core charge from republicans that this is old the president's authority, that this is unprecedented, that this is tyrannical? how are they dealing with that charge? >> i think the president dealt with it head on in that speech tonight and addressed it very early by discussing how he actually did possess all the authority necessary to do that, legal scholars will back that up. i think what senator coburn was saying actually probably isn't something that you'll see the white house spend a ton of time responding to because i think like be of the viewers who watched that interview, they're a bit taken back by the idea that the president's announcement will be met with lawlessness and violence. after all, the core policy of immigration reform that the president enunciated today is
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probably 60-65% of the american people. there aren't policy differences on this. there's a difference on the will to get it done. >> so on that point, there is a lot of good, political axioms about whether or not you're fighting about the process or whether you're fighting about the substance, people say that means you're losing the fight. but on the issue of the process, we can't get any elected public officials to come on the air. even before the speech. no one would come on to talk about it. the republican strategists, very reasonable guys, very nice guys, actually friends of mine in most cases, were so exercised you could see them sweat. so up set about the president being so inappropriate and unconstitutional in this action. i don't think they're faking it. i think they've really talked themselves into this idea that this is something not just that no other president has done, but this president has never done anything this radical. i feel like that this -- their sort of position of conflict for
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the president right now is a sharper edge than it's ever been. >> well, you know, which is sort of hard to believe, given the fact that, you know, i think republicans, this town, most of america has known this has been coming for quite some time. in fact, if anything, democrats got upset at the president for having delayed what they thought this announcement would be at the end of the summer. and now it's almost at the end of the year. so none of it is a surprise. i do think it puts republicans in a tough political situation. you know, you talked at the beginning of the broadcast where two-thirds of the senate voted for comprehensive immigration reform. and, you know, if the bill got put up in a house today, a ma e majority would support it. republicans are in a very tough bind. they've talked about taking it to court.
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i don't know if this is, interestingly enough, a genuine response to something that they knew largely was coming. i saw a senator today say about their response of a bill. it's not a lot different than what president bush was talking about in 2008 and 2007. >> thank you for helping us tonight, robert, it's nice the see you. >> thank you. >> it's an interesting point about what they're going to do. if you think about the temperament, the up set, we're
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going to impeach him, there's going to be anarchy and violence, the statement from rand paul, i will stand in front of this by any means necessary. sometimes a good sign about whether anybody has anything practical to offer is the number of exclamation points on their statement about what they're going to do in response? the more exclamation points, the more anger, the more all caps and crazy it is, the less functionally they actually think they can do. maybe that's what's going on. ironically, today's announcement does fulfill some of the immigration reform dreams of some previous presidents. we'll have some more on that straight ahead. stay with us. >> scripture tells us we shall not oppress a stranger. for we know the heart of a stranger. we were strangers once, too. my fellow americans, we are and always will be a nation of immigrants. we were strangers once, too. you used to sleep like a champ.
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immigration bill, drink. they were never going to pass an immigration bill before this. now that president obama has taken this action, maybe they will or maybe they won't. but the person before who knows whether or not that will happen is our next guest. drink. this d ♪ i love my meta health bars. because when nutritious tastes this delicious, i don't miss the other stuff. new meta health bars help promote heart health. experience the meta effect with our new multi-health wellness line. ♪
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i know some of the critics of this action call it amnesty. well, it's not. amnesty is the immigration system we have today. millions of people who live here without paying their taxes or playing by the rules while politicians use the issue to scare people and whip up votes at election time. that's the real amnesty. leaving this broken system the way it is. mass amnesty would be unfair. mass deportation would be both impossible and contrary to our character. what i'm describing is accountability. >> president obama a little over an hour ago addressing the nation about his plans for the kind of limited immigration reform the president can do alone without congress.
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this is what the big three broadcast networks were playing. cbs did dame to show the president's remarks for their west coast viewers, only. but not the rest of cbs nor nbc nor abc ran it at all. because there was this other stuff to show that was way too important to delay for ten minutes for a presidential address on the biggest change in our nation's immigration policy in 25 years. in may, 2006, president george w. bush gave his own speech on immigration reform. >> some of us argue that the solution is to deport every illegal immigrant. and that anything short of this is amnesty. i disagree. it is neither wise, nor realistic to round up large amounts of people, many with deep roots in the united states,
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and send them across the border. that middle ground recognizes there are differences between an illegal immigrant who crossed the border recently and someone who has worked here for many years and has a home, a family and otherwise clean record. >> in 2006, president george w. bush's pro-immigration reform speech was about twice as long as president obama's speech tonight and all the broadcast networks happily carried that one. and they got a huge reward. they got a huge audience. more than 40 million people watched that 2006 speech. basically the same amount of people who watched the state of the union. that was the ones who talked about switch grass. and he whispered it. but after president bush gave that speech, his administration basically wrote a bill for comprehensive immigration
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reform. it died. republicans said they were elated when it died. jeff sessions who was a republican senator was a leading opponent of a bill. he said that talk radio was a big factor in derailing the immigration bill. he said supporters of the bill tried to ram the thing through before rush limbaugh could tell the american people what was in it. not that long ago, it was president bush pushing for immigration reform. and so it died. and interestingly, after that bill died, president bush moved ahead to implement some parts of what he had called for, even though congress wouldn't approve it. he said in a statement in august, 2007, although congress has not broken into, my administration will continue to take every possible step to build upon the progress already made. that same day, explaining what
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the bush white house was doing without congress, the press secretary explained at the time that we're going as far as we possibly can without congress acting. so they did what they could by executive action after they couldn't move. even republicans, people in their own party in congress, to support a bill to reform immigration. the george w. bush acted alone. just as the reagan white house did, as well, on immigration. but it remains a really interesting and still unanswered question. why didn't george w. bush win that fight within his party in 2006, 2007? he called for immigration reform. he was the leader of his party. his own party told him to stuff it. why did george w. bush lose on this?
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this is what the republican party became e became for this issue. >> the question is, if i were e elected and congress were to pass the dream act, would i veto it. the answer is yes. >> should there be aggressive, seek them out and find them and arrest them? >> you know what? i think you see a model here in arizona. we hire a lawn company to mow our lawn. and they had illegal immigrants. when that was pointed out to us, we let them go. we said, look, you can't have any illegals working on our property. i'm running for office for pete's sake. >> you don't want to round them up and deport them, but you also say that they would have to go back to their own cow tris and apply for citizen ship. if you don't deport them, how do you send them home? >> the answer is self deportation. >> self deportation.
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that's the last it ration of what the republican party was offering. self deportation. i'm running for office, for pete's sake. that's why president obama acted alone in signing some bill tonight. republicans really won't pass a bill on immigration running through congress. how did that happen? why did george w. bush lose this fight in his own party to such impressive effect. joining us now is nicole wallace, now a co-host of "the view". it's great to see you. >> thanks for having me. thanks for having more e me >> do you dispute my premise? >> no, let me tell you a couple things that are different. president obama controlled obviously the senate and the white house. he could have done this with the congress when his party controlled all three. >> but the republicans did
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filibuster it in the senate. >> the republicans did submit a senate bill. and the house should have taken it out. the house republicans should have taken it up. they supported a more piecemeal approach, which i'm not a fan of. >> but he said he would be happy to do a piecemeal approach. and they never brought one up. >> and they should have. i'm out of step with the current republican party. i still stand with the president i worked for. i worked on that speech. and i remember we had a hard time getting network time, too. i think we actually moved it around a bit to work with some football games. >> always do. so i want to say we were probably a little more flexible with the networks. that's why we got a little more air time. but what we pushed had the support of senator kennedy and mccain. there was also public support for it. i think we had over 60% of the public behind comprehensive immigration reform, which is the only reform that works. we use the number 11.2 million
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people. there's actually some estimates that put in about 17 million people who are either here illegally or vast amount os of people are here with expired visas. so they're just working here illegally. so anyone in our party that suggests oh, lock out the borders first, it's illogical. it's illlogical. >> why did he win that fight? >> what you just aired. >> was it talk radio? >> talk radio's power isn't derived in a booth. talk radio's power is the millions of people that listen are convinced of the arguments. there are a lot of people who are still either unconvinced that this problem is -- i mean, 17 million people, that's not like texas's problem or california's problem. that is coast to coast. illegal immigration is everywhere. after 9/11, i believe there was a moment where you could combine a fact that this was basically an unrepresented class of people living in our country, going to our schools, working in our neighborhoods.
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george w. bush as a former texas governor understood that these were our neighbors. jeb bush has a very interesting approach and philosophy on this because he's trying to exist and survive in this motte moderate republican party. he understands he got a world of you know what for saying it. >> and then he wrote a book saying no, you need to be hard line on the issue. the book tour was about -- >> if you can't survive the politics of your party you can't lead. >> but you can't be allowed to be a squish on the issue. the republican house had every opportunity to do this. anyway they wanted including working on just parts of a bill. they never brought it up. they never got close to it. they were never going to bring it up. people were saying oh, this ruins the chance for john boehner to move ahead. like john boehner was going to move ahead. please. it was never going to happen. >> listen, president obama is the one that said for six years that he didn't have the authority to do what he did tonight. listen, don't pit me against
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obama. i'm pitting obama against obama. and what he no longer gets to be is our constitutional offer. >> no, that's the thing. what he was saying, people said change the law. he said i can't change the law. he gave the speech tonight. he was very clear. this is not citizenship. this i'm not doing amnesty. >> nothing that he did tonight, i'm not offended and the republican party should not be offended by an attempt to keep families together. these are nuclear families. these are moms and dads of america. we can not stake out a position where we're against keeping nuclear families together. no one is for that. but i think that a majority of americans oppose what he did tonight. a majority of americans oppose executive action to change immigration laws. and democrats -- >> the reason is because the republicans are telling him that this is some unprecedented thing br ronald reagan and to a lesser
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extent, george w. bush all took action. they've made people against it because they've told them this is tyranny. >> obama said this is tyranny. i'm not an emporrer. i think these people are observing of legislation. irthink -- i think these are moms and dads of kids in our schools. i hope the republicans call his bluff and pass comprehensive immigration reform. i hope they call his bluff. call me another class of dream eres. george w. bush won 44% of the hispanic vote. mccain won about 26. he, i think has evolved on the issue. >> oh, yeah, and he said he'd vote on his own bill. >> so republican party is on the wrong track on this. one of president bush's advisors on this, i talked to her on my way over here, i said where do we go from here? she said republicans really need to govern and legislate and get this done and lean on this
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issue. i think she's absolutely right. i hope we see a robust debate. i hope jeb bush doubles down as someone who understands that the act of illegal immigration, while illegal, is motivated by love and by this long-held american dream for a better life. and, until we get our heads around why people come here and why they want to stay here, i think we're in a very tough spot politically with a very important part of the country. >> and the fact that house would pass immigration the american party can't evolve despite that argument is an unexplained thing in american politics. i think it's unexplained -- >> listen. i think if president obama thought the politics were clear cut, he would have done this three weeks ago. >> no, i think he knew what he was going to do. i think democrats said don't do it. >> why didn't he do it three weeks ago? >> because they were afraid. they're always worried about their bottom line and never what they're going to achieve. >> that's a democratic process. >> democrats are wrong on strategy. republicans are wrong on substance. i know which one i'd want to take to the gates of st. peter.
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>> listen, i knew a guy who was right on both and he failed. he was right on the policy and right on the politics and he failed. i think we have to get back to the place where leaders are strong enough to stand up to the loudest voices of their own party, which on our side is talk radio who will never be where our party needs to go. ever. >> i like talking with you. congratulations on "the view" thing. you're making it work. >> it's super funny and we love having you available. >> now i'm angry. >> had to get the last word. >> i'm angry and crying tears. thank you, go away. stop. here's some news you may find surprising.
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we're for an open internet for all. we're for creating more innovation and competition. we're for net neutrality protection. now, here's some news you may find even more surprising. we're comcast. the only isp legally bound by full net neutrality rules.
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>> the last time we got comprehensive immigration reform, ronald reagan was president. but here at 30 rock, the reagan amnesty news in 1987 ended up being a shock inside this building for a totally unexpected reason. >> and one of those happy to see this day come is nbc news correspondent who works out of our chicago office. much to our surprise james today was online, applying for amnesty. none of us knew that he has been an illegal alien since his student visa ran out. he came here in 1977 to attend high school and to escape the war at home in now zimbabwe. after graduation from college, he began a promising broadcast
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journalism career, never lying about his status but never really telling anyone either. he has been paying taxes and social security all this time and worrying someday he will be caught. now he says he's relieved to start the process to get amnesty and becoming a legal american. >> worrying that some day he would be caught. nobody at nbc had any clue until that happened. and that young man has had a remarkable life since that happened. and brief programming note, he's going to be on our show tomorrow night. we've got much more ahead. stay with us.
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>> i've seen some students who bravely come out as undocumented in hopes they could make a difference in the country they love.
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>> across the country tonight, groups that support immigration reform held watch parties for the president's speech. maybe the networks didn't show it, but people wanted to watch it. for people who are directly affected by the outcome, who have pushed politicians from both parties for months, tonight was a huge deal. [ applause ] >> right here! right now! i am somebody! and i deserve full equality! right here! right now! [ cheers and applause ] >> after the president's announcement tonight will come
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more fighting in congress. this is going to be fireworks in washington for a very long time over this. but tonight, right now for these folk, this moment is about all sorts of things. it's about celebration, it's about joy, it's worrying that this will not go far enough to help everybody in their families. maybe there's some relief that finally immigration policy can change, at least in a small way. this announcement tonight will transform the lives of millions of people across this country. and that is truly a very big deal. that does it for us tonight. see you again tomorrow. time for "the last word" with lawrence o'donnell. >> a big news night, rachel. >> indeed, thanks. >> it is also a night of very bad weather news for the buffalo region. as the death count mounts in the historic snowfall there that continues to pile up tonight, creating even more dangers. and in hollywood tonight, an outpouring of loving remembrance for the masterful director mike nichols, diane sawyer's husband who passed away last night. steven sbe