tv Politics Nation MSNBC December 18, 2014 3:00pm-4:01pm PST
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want to play. but when you're looking down the payroll of early alzheimer's, early parkinson's symptoms, it's a bad thing. >> great to have you with us tonight. thanks so much. that's "the ed show." i'm ed schultz. "politics nation" with reverend al sharpton starts now. >> good evening, ed. and thanks for you to tuning in. we start with breaking news right now. federal agents are investigating who hacked sony pictures' private e-mails. the u.s. is vowing to respond, considering a range of options. law enforcement and intelligence officials say the u.s. strongly suspects north korea directed the hacking. but many cybersecurity experts say they doubt an isolated country could do it alone. what we still don't know tonight is how the hackers did it. the white house today is saying that it's being treated as a
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serious national security matter. here is homeland security secretary, jay johnson, on msnbc today. >> we do regard the attack on sony as very serious and it involves an attack not only on that company and its personnel, but also on freedoms that we enjoy in this country. the u.s. government is actively considering a range of options that we'll take in response to this attack. >> the hacking game as retaliation for sony's movie "the interview," with a plot to kill north korean leader, kim jong-un. >> the cia would love it if you two could take him out. >> hmm? >> take him out. >> take him out? >> like, for drinks? >> no, no, no, take him out. >> like takeout, dinner. >> take him out, on the town?
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>> no, take him out. >> you want us to assassinate the leader of north korea? >> yes. >> that movie is now pulled from theaters. after the hacking group threatened 9/11-style attacks on theaters running it. tonight, the intelligence officials say the u.s. strongly suspects north korea was behind the hacking and many americans are wondering, could it happen to them? and just how serious is this cyberthreat? joining me now is msnbc's military analyst, colonel jack jacobs and anthony roman. he's a cybersecurity expert who runs a global investigations firm. thank you both for being here. >> you're welcome. >> colonel, what are investigators doing right now to try to track down the hackers? >> well, i think they know where the hackers are. it's not that difficult, because there are cybersignatures all over the place. and the people who are hacking
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have a long history and tradition of doing it. so i think they have a very good idea of exactly who they are. the real problem is what do you do about it. that's the real problem. >> how do the u.s. retaliate? >> you have to make the decision that you're going to retaliate. i'm not sure that the united states wants to retaliate. we're in the middle of what a lot of people would say is a cyberwar. certainly at the beginning of a cyberwar, retaliation is probably going to cause a lot more problems than it will solve. the real issue is, how do you stop people from getting your data in the first place. >> anthony, how did they figure this out? i mean, how do they break down exactly what happened? >> well, the cybersecurity experts reverse the hack, basically. they start tracking through cybermethods exactly how many countries and how many other networks were hijacked to lead to sony. it's not a direct attack from north korea. north korea could have hijacked
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networks in china or thailand and france. that could have hijacked other networks in other parts of the world, eventually leading to sony burrowing in worms or other malware and then it could have stayed silent for a while, collecting information, and been activated in terms of allowing sony to realize it, at a time that they chose. >> but, colonel, an isolated country, like north korea do this or reach out to someone to do it? because i heard someone say, oh, all you need is a keyboard. i mean, that's frightening. >> it is frightening, and it points out the fact that in this environment, in which everybody's data is at risk, just about anybody can attack you. so is this terrorism? are we in the middle of a war? i think that lots and lots of things are a danger. we've seen lots of instances in which financial institutions have been hacked, personal information has been stolen.
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so just about anybody can do it. and you don't have to be a nation state. and that's one of the reasons why this is so difficult to solve. >> you know, bloomberg has a story out tonight, anthony, on how the u.s. could retaliate against north korea. quote, one thing the obama administration is unlikely to do is unleash a tit for tat cyberattack. any eventual u.s. response will likely be unannounced in order to avoid feeding the north koreans' desire for a public showdown with the world's sole superpower. what do you make of that? >> i think it's absolutely right. i think to give more credence to north korea, by sanctioning them at this juncture, they're already the most isolated country in the world. so, i don't think that that's going to be particularly effective. their people don't even have enough food during the wintertime, unless it was supplied by some nations. so, they're not going to react to that at all.
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i think north korea's biggest fear is if this movie is publicized and made free around the world, and then somehow, is either hacked or leaked into north korea. >> how vulnerable are other american companies? it's not just sony. how vulnerable are we? >> well, approximately 40 to 50% of all american companies have been effectively hacked. similar number for the general public. so all sorts of proprietary information, financial information, corporate data, personal information has been stolen. by two major class and categories of hackers. one, the criminal hacker does it for profit. two, the nation hacker does it for intelligence and power and advantage. >> now, colonel, pew research asked hundreds of internet experts whether a major
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cyberattack causing widespread harm in our country could occur by 2025. 61% of them said yes. 61%. that's in the next ten years. should we be doing more to prepare for a major attack? >> yeah, i think so. during the retaliation, bit, particularly with respect to north korea, is not going to work. china, for example, is not interested in supporting that. they don't want 2 million north koreans streaming across the river as refugees. so the only thing we're going to be able to do is what you suggest. we're going to have to prepare for attack. we're going to have to do a much better job of protecting our data. and one of the things we have to do is assume that they're going to get in. all this thing about erecting higher firewalls, cascading passwords and all -- that stuff doesn't work. at the end of the day, anybody with a fairly sophisticated computer is going to be able to break in. what we have to do is not try harder to keep them from getting in. they've already proved that they can get in.
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we have to do a better job of protecting the data once they are in, and that they are going to get the data, to do something like corrupt it, so it's useless to them. that's where the investigation, where the science ought to lead. >> and, anthony, you're an expert at this. what are we not thinking about? what is in your mind as an expert that's not being discussed today? because this is critical. >> i think that it's coming to the forefront now. we have not been discussing just how serious a threat this is, both to our country, its infrastructure, the water supply, the energy supply, oil industries, the commercial industries, we have not been discussing that at all in the general public as a very serious threat. now we see it affecting our democracy. where corporations are making decisions, adverse decisions to the general public, and to the democracy, after a cyberattack.
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so that's first and foremost. but i think colonel jacobs couldn't be more right. an encryption system, a decryption system that would recognize an attack and render the information useless would be spectacular. >> colonel jack jacobs and anthony roman, thank you both for your time. >> you're welcome. this major hack exposed some ugly e-mails involving sony pictures. some of them came from sony pictures' co-chair, amy pascal and included racially incen insensitive jokes about president obama. to address those offensive e-mails, i met with miss pascal today here in new york. and we sat along with marc morial of the national urban league and others, saying how offended we were by it, but the offense was based on the context that hollywood has historically
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and now should our blacks from high positions of influence and power, there's not one black that can green light a movie in hollywood and green light distribution in their business practices. she was very, very open about where her e-mails were insensitive and wrong and pledged to work towards approaching a concrete way of using sony as a model to turn hollywood around from these practices of exclusion. the jury's out on what would happen. she seems sincere, but the proof is in the pudding, and even then, we'll wait to see when we eat it. i'm willing to work halfway with her and mr. morial to see, but we've got to turn this around and race is not a joking matter. but we must have serious, concrete change in hollywood. we'll be right back. (vo) nourished. rescued. protected. given new hope.
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president. how does the agency plan to keep him safe? plus, witness number 40 speaks out. what this controversial witness reveals about the problems of the ferguson grand jury. also, how president obama's breaking the mold of a lame-duck president. and the end of an era on comedy central. >> gop senators voted for raising the debt ceiling on the stipulation. they can vote against, having voted for it. proving that republicans may not be partnership, but they may be bipolar. >> what to expect from tonight's final episode of "the colbert report." it's ahead in conversation nation.
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breaking news tonight. a new report on how to fix the secret service. after a year of embarrassing blunders and dangerous failures. in september, a man jumped over the white house fence and made his way inside. that led to a special panel appointed by the department of homeland security, which today released his recommendations for improving the secret service. among them, get a new director hired from outside the agency. provide more training for white house teams, increase the secret service's uniform decision. replace the fence outside the white house with a taller fence, and use the most up-to-date protective technology on white house grounds. the question now, are these recommendations enough to secure the president's safety in the future?
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joining me now, from the white house briefing room is msnbc political correspondent, kasie hunt, and susan milligan, contributie ining editor at "u. news & world report." thanks for being here. >> thank you. >> nice to see you, reverend. >> first, i want to ask you, first, kasie, what's the fallout from this report? >> josh ernest said that the white house has confidence in the secret service to protect him at this point. department of homeland security jay johnson called the report astute, thorough, and fair, but he also said that the secret service can't implement these recommendations alone, that it's going to take oversight and pushing from the department of homeland security to really get these changes made. >> now, susan, the report takes direct aim at how the secret service has been run. it says, and i'm quoting witequ
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panel found an organization starved for leadership. the agency exists to protect the president and its other very high-level protectees. yet the secret service has sometimes acted in ways that sends mixed signals on a number of fronts. does this indicate that there has to be a complete overhaul of the agency, susan? >> that's a really tricky question. i mean, first of all, obviously, we see that there are some problems and holes in security, but we need to remember that on any given day, the secret service diffuses so many threats to the president and to others, that we don't even know about, and we'll never know about. they probably don't even tell the president or he'd never leave the house, although it seems like he's not necessarily safe there either. but they clearly have some problems and they need to address them. >> problems? there's a guy that got inside, deep inside the white house. >> exactly. >> and that's unacceptable. no question about it. bringing someone in from the outside can be kind of a tricky
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thing. ask any teacher what it's like when they bring in a principal who's never been in a classroom. it might need somebody who's not too steeped in the culture. on the other hand, i think you have to be careful about having somebody leave the agency who doesn't fully understand the culture, and won't have the respect and the loyalty of the secret service. but clearly, there needs to be some kind of overhaul about what's happening in the secret service. >> but this is really frightening, kasie, because, a guy gets inside the white house, there's several incidents. and the report itself indicates that secret service acknowledges it has to make changes, in fact. quote, the service itself has often made recommendations and proposed solutions, as it identified problems, but has frequently failed to implement its own recommendations. kasie, is the white house certain they'll make these changes now? >> look, i think that there's a commitment across the board from the secret service, from the white house, from the department of homeland security, to
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implement these changes. and some of them are pretty simple, when you think about it. just building a taller fence, making the fence curve at the top, i mean, these are some basic recommendations and they want to do that, not just in front of pennsylvania avenue, where this man jumped the fence, but also all the way around the security perimeter. and we can also point out, most of this report is still classified. a lot of the recommendations that were made have to do specifically with the security protocols and procedures of the secret service, and also the layout of the grounds of the white house right here. so, we don't know exactly the extent of what the report recommends, but we can assume that it goes pretty far in recommending those changes. and you know, susan was talking a little bit about the culture of the agency. i mean, the department of homeland security was very aggressive in pointing out that the culture of the agency is insular and sort of aimed at protecting itself. and it really lays out some dramatic ways in which this is supposed to change, from the budget process to training on up. i mean, uniformed secret service agents were getting 25 minutes
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of training every year. >> now, omar gonzalez, let's talk about this man, susan, that jumped the fence, that you and i referred to. and -- i mean, the man scaled the white house fence in september. >> yeah. >> he had previous run-ins with the secret service, the same man, on july 19th, he was interviewed by the secret service, after he was found driving with sawed-off shotgun and assault weapons in virginia. and on august 25th, he was stopped by agents who noticed he was carrying a hatchet in a waistband, near the south fence of the white house. i mean, the report doesn't raise previous encounters with gonzalez. does something more need to be done to stop people known to be threatening the president, susan? >> i think there definitely does. and i think kasie's right, that there is a culture of sort of protecting each other over there, and i think that's true
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in a lot of police departments, a lot of law enforcement as well, very high-stress, dangerous jobs. a lot of things need to be done, but how would you do that without closing off the white house to the american public and visitors? one of the things that's so beautiful about going to the white house, you can walk right in front there and look at it and it's a symbol of democracy. and there are a lot of countries you can't do that. now, raising the fence and simple things like that could probably prevent a lot of people from getting in. but what are you going to do? are you going to have a metal detector two blocks outside of the white house or an i.d. check? i'm not sure that that's feasible. so it's a balance. >> no, i think you raise good questions, but you've got to also deal with the fact that what are we going to do? we're not the experts. we would assume the people that run the secret service would know what we need to do, and can protect the president. and you're right, it's a great symbol of american democracy, but it should not be a symbol of dangerous to the chief executive of the united states, kasie.
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>> i think that's right, reverend. but i think, you know, i think you have to think about how, you know, they're going to approach this going forward. you have acting director, joseph clancy, who came in and is already starting ing ting to s these changes. while there has been this culture of insularity and some of these problems, everyone i've talked to at the white house is really committed to making sure that these changes get made. >> well, i'm glad they're taking it seriously, but we've got to make sure that they follow through. and i guess a lot of it is messaging. they're going to have to rebuild the confidence in a lot of americans, like me, that they really are on top of this. kasi erke hunt and sue ann mill, thank you for your time tonight. >> thank you for your time, reverend. still ahead, the most controversial witness from the ferguson grand jury is speaking out. what she admits about her racist comments in the past. and how president obama's revolutionizing ideas about what a lame-duck president can
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tonight, we're hearing from the most controversial witness of the ferguson grand jury. in an interview with a local paper, witness number 40 says, quote, have i ever used the n-word? yeah, i have." and that's just the beginning. turns out the feds had big problems with a version of events, but the local prosecutor called her to testify anyway. that's next. [ female announcer ] you get sick, you can't breathe through your nose...
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brown charged at officer darren wilson like a football player, head down. it was a claim seized on by some on the right. >> and quote, he looked like a football player with his head down, charging at officer wilson. charged at him, quote, and i'm reading, like a football with his head down, charging. that michael brown, was, you know, charging like a football player, full force on officer wilson. >> but was mcelroy credible? should she have even been called to testify? a day before her grand jury testimony, saying, quote, but you cannot get there from these two streets. it is impossible. and they even suggested, she made it all up, saying, quote, i just need to ask, what you told
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us sounds a lot like what we had read in the newspaper. investigators also grilled her on the fund-raising she'd done for officer wilson, and racist comments she admitted to posting online. none of it stopped prosecutor robin mccullough from having her testify before the grand jury, the very next day. the feds didn't seem to believe her story at all. but the local prosecutor apparently thought it was important for the grand jury to hear her. joining me now is former federal prosecutor, paul butler. thank you for being here tonight. >> it's great to be here, reverend. >> paul, why would prosecutors call a witness, number 40, to be exact, to testify, given what we heard from our fbi interview? >> reverend, the bible says, beware false witnesses. and that's a scripture that good prosecutors follow. it's not surprising that in high-profile cases, witnesses
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come out of the woodwork and lie and say they saw things that they didn't see. every prosecutor knows this, so before you put a witness in the grand jury, you carefully vet him or her, to make sure that their testimony is credible. why this prosecutor didn't follow that regular process? again, that's just yet another thing that's different about this grand jury investigation than just about any other one i've ever seen. >> now, here's more of what federal investigators said to mcelroy. the day before her grand jury testimony, this is what they said. quote, you've actually had to fill in the blanks, because of your memory problems, by looking at the internet. quote, you're trying to help darren wilson by talking to us here today, and you posted things online that are racist, and you come in here and tell us an account that supports darren wilson. paul, doesn't it seem
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investigators have grave worries about her credibility. why would she still get called to testify before the grand jury? >> again, they have no reason to believe that she's telling the truth. it's not just the traumatic brain injury that affects her short-term memory, it's not just the fact that she posted online a picture of michael brown's dead body, with a caption, justice has been done, it's not just the fact that in another high-profile case, she came out and said she'd seen something that the police said was a complete fabrication. >> but here's my problem. she was cited in another case where she came forward as saying something was a complete fabrication. she says, justice was done over michael brown's body. she raised money for darren wilson, who she was in the grand jury testifying, and the fbi had doubts she could have been there. i've been saying, a lot of people have been raising questions about this grand jury, calling on federal intervention. this is why.
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not with this lady who clearly has problems and who has a history of problems, but why would a prosecutor put her in front of the grand jury? >> so, al, here's my theory. he was trying to either, a, overwhelm the grand jurors by jumping on them with all this conflicting information, so they'd just kind of throw up their hands and have no choice but not to indict. or he was trying to feed them any information that corroborated officer wilson's story, no matter how ludicrous the witness is. either way, it's not consistent with an investigation that's conducted in good faith and with integrity. >> so you gave me two choices here. either he was trying to overwhelm them to come with a no bill or either he was putting up witnesses to help darren wilson, the policeman. so either charge, you're saying, as a former prosecutor, that you feel he was trying not to get an indictment. >> al, i would have gotten an indictment if i would have been
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in front of that grand jury. every prosecutor i know who's worth her salt says the same thing. again, it's not just because we're so great, it's because you control the grand jury. the defense attorney is not in the room. you don't have to present evidence of innocence. all you have to do is put on this minimal case. so, again, if this prosecutor had wanted an indictment, just like the prosecutor in the garner case, they both would have got,ten indictments. >> now, you're a former prosecutor. you're not an agitator, race baiter, head of the civil rights group, all the other adjectives they give us. you're saying as a former prosecutor, if this prosecutor wanted to get an indictment and have an open jury trial where we could have seen guilt or innocence, because we don't know where it would have gone, but at least it would have proceeded, you're saying if he wanted that process to go, he could have done it. >> oh, absolutely. the standard is so low, probable cause, the jurors don't have to worry about whether there's a good defense or what it means that he's a police officer, using deadly force. all they have to ask is whether
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there's enough evidence for this case to go to the jury. and in 99.9% of cases, that's what they say. the only difference is with police officers. and this prosecutor in ferguson, he's 0 for 5, al. five times, he's asked grand jurors or presented cases, quote/unquote, to grand jurors, where police officers have killed unarmed african-american or white men, and each time that grand jury has failed to return an indictment. >> let me play you something. the prosecutor, robin mccullough, cited problems with testimony from witnesses who said michael brown had his hands up. listen to this. >> some said mr. brown did not move toward officer wilson at all, but was shot multiple times as he stood near the corner with his hands raised. in subsequent interviews with law enforcement or their testimony before the grand jury, many of the same witnesses acknowledged that they didn't actually see the shooting. >> your reaction? >> again, in that press conference, he sounded more like
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a defense attorney for officer wilson than he did a prosecutor who's supposed to be presenting an objective case to the grand jury. so the other question is, you know, why didn't -- from that, you get the impression that all the grand jurors who were conflicted were conflicted about what michael brown did. he didn't indicate that this witness was supporting officer wilson, but she was -- her story was full of holes. so, again, it just suggests someone who was biassed. we know he had all of these personal conflicts of interest. we know he has this terrible record with bringing charges against the police officer, who he uses as witnesses every day. i'm thinking eric holder. i'm hoping eric holder is looking at this new information about witness number 40, and thinking, this is yet another reason why the feds need to step in to make sure justice is done. >> can the feds consider putting this witness up as part of the reason they may need to come in, that this local grand jury was tainted?
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could this be part of what they consider on why they need to hear people to come in with an open and fair investigation? >> reverend, i think it's got to be on the table at the justice department. i think the question that eric holder is asking himself is did eric holder, did mr. brown receive equal protection of law. is this a decision that the community has confidence in. is there the appearance of justice in this case, and if the answer to those questions is no, the community has no confidence in the integrity of this process, that's classically when the feds step in. when there's been underenforcement of law, the failure to protect african-american victims of crime. that's when the government, the federal government has to come in and make sure that justice is done. >> now, i thank you, paul butler, for being on. and all we've been saying from the beginning is not that one has to be innocent or guilty, but the process has to be fair. and when you put witnesses in
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like this that you know are compromised and biased, you have corrupted the process and that is what we're protesting. there must be fairness, especially when it's led to a loss of life that needs to be fairly examined. paul butler, thank you for your time again tonight. >> great to be here. coming up, somebody better tell this guy he's a lame duck. we'll laook at how president obama's breaking out and rewriting the history books in his final two years in also. also, oprah winfrey's comments on the new fight for civil rights in america. and saying good-bye to truthiness. the final episode of "the colbert report." that's all in "conversation nation," next. they're coming.
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the first time in 50 years. it comes just weeks after he enacted a major change in our immigration policy and reached an agreement with china to fight climate change. from health care to immigration to foreign policy, this president is moving ahead where others have failed. mark, doesn't president obama realize he's supposed to be an irrelevant lame-duck? what happened? >> i don't think he got the memo, rev. look, the president has described this period in his presidency as going into the fourth quarter, as though it was some sort of basketball game. and i think he's leaving everything on the court. he's going on, he's doubling down when it comes to immigration reform, he's trying to -- and let's not forget, though, this was a campaign promise that the president made to normalize relations with cuba. this has been a nonsensical part of our foreign policy for way too long. and you know what he's doing, he's setting up 2016, where marco rubio has to come out and oppose this. but the fact is, florida voters
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don't oppose normalizing relations with cuba. i was just down in florida, i was down -- >> seema? >> life is like the presidency. the first half of our lives, all we care about is the second. what are we going to do for our jobs, family, husband, wife. first term, all he cared about, from the minute he was elected, was getting to that second term. in the second term, all you care about is your legacy. obama is a young man. he has a long life, perhaps many careers, ahead of him. so he has his legacy bucket list. that's what i like to call it. i don't think he's irrelevant. i think he's very relevant to his future and what that's going to mean. but i also think that he's trying to ensure that a democrat takes the white house. >> before you go, because i want you to respond, but on seema's point, "new york times" spoke with president obama's former adviser, david axelrod, and he said today, here's how he described the president's attitude. quote, he's going down a checklist of thorny,
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long-standing problems and he's doing whatever he can to tackle them. these are things that have been tearing at us for decades and generations. is the president free in a sense to do these things now? >> as if sanctions were working anyways? he might as well strut or walk out of his presidency anyways, because he's already knocked it out of the park the last couple of months trying to make this happen. and this is sort of like, republicans, yeah, we're not scared of you in florida. we're going to do this. going to drop the mike and keep walking. >> and the generational divide, the young people of cuban-american decent and have never been to cuba, their kids have never been. and young americans that don't remember the cold war. i mean, '61, i was what, 7 years old or 6 or 7. when castro came out of the mountains that led the revolution. >> republicans are going to have to try to criticize the president and they going to just show off a cold war mentality that is so outdated. i was in havana this time last
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year and i met with a cuban government official, unofficially -- >> i bet it was unofficial. >> he knew the reason that so many cubans were suffering from american sanctions and the reason we don't have a diplomatic voice in havana is because of 29 electoral votes in florida. but that electoral map is changing. >> you brought up an interesting issue, of this whole cuban american never being to your country. and that's something that my parents -- i was born in this country, we went to india all the time, and being around indians who don't have that connection, you lose your heritage, you lose who you are, and you don't learn who you are until you find out and have been where you come from. >> little havana is not enough. >> and like the president says -- >> not enough. >> the president said that he's not ruling out a trip to cuba. i've been to cuba, and it's a beautiful country. >> he should bring you back some cuban cigars, rev. >> i can go get them myself. >> talking about, you said you were the unofficial, let's talk about something official since we were here last. you got married. >> i did!
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>> congratulations! >> i didn't come to the bachelor party. >> why? >> rev! >> next. let's go on, now to oprah winfrey, speaking on what present-day protesters can learn from her upcoming film, "selma." >> i think it's wonderful what we're seeing in terms of peaceful demonstrations. i think what those peaceful demonstrations need is leadership and intention. just like in selma, once it was just about voting rights, it was a black problem. and then after bloody sunday, it became america's problem. the same thing happened in our country with eric garner. and everyone saw on film what happened to mr. garner. there were people of all races, who said, this is wrong. we have to do something about this. >> seema, your reaction to oprah's really strong comments there? >> i think she makes a great connection between the present
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time and the history. and i think for us, it's very hard for us to learn about history without that story being told. and she takes it even further by saying, look what's happening in front of you and see what happened then. >> this is a strong part of america's national heritage. these ratio tensions that exist now are being put in context by the film. so i think it's a great time for this film to come out. it helps americans learn something about their history. >> and about the movement. >> and the movement. rev, you've been there since august. you've been there with the garner family, going to staten island, and leading these protests. >> and ferguson. >> it's not enough to have vision, you have to have a political strategy and be active. >> you've got to take it somewhere. and the interaction and the fighting and the movement. no one is all monolithic. everybody -- and dr. king would do that, which comes out in his movie. he was not universally loved in the movement. people had their little shots. >> there were certainly issues with -- but there's also something really important in the idea of just entertainment and how important it is to young people. because a lot of people don't watch the news. they get things through twitter
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and it's important to see something as important as the selma movement, shown in the way that it was done and properly done, for getting out on the street and being active. >> yeah, well, everyone stay with me. when we come back, mark hanna's wedding. just kidding. what will america do without "the colbert report"? that's next.
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seema, mark, and julia. now to steven's sendoff. i'll call it the sendoff. after nine years of many laughs, stephen colbert signs off as host of the colbert report. his hilarious parody of a conservative talk show host has become part of american pop culture. and there's no denying his impact on politics, from forming his own super pac to running for president in south carolina, to testifying on capitol hill, in character. but in the end, it's about the jokes. >> how can the house be expected to get anything done when many of the bills they vote on don't even repeal obamacare? gop senators voted for raising the debt ceiling on the stipulation they could vote against having voted for it. proving that republicans may not be bipartisan, but they may be bipolar. democratic self-loathing has got son bad, they've changed their
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symbol from the silhouette of a donkey to eeyore eating a whole chocolate cheesecake. >> milwaukee, how big of an influence did he have on politics? >> look, i think stephen colbert really hit it out of the park. he was a satirist of the first degree. he knew that -- and this was a quote he gave to david gregory in an interview. satire is basically parody with a point. and what stephen colbert did was, by imitating the kind of blowhard, right-wing commentators he -- they say imitation is sort of the most sincere form of flattery. in this case, imitation was the sincerest form of ridicule. seema, let me show you, the president went on his show. >> nation, as you know, i, stephen colbert, have never cared for our president. remember the original healthcare.gov website? i think that's where disney got the idea for "frozen."
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they're young. they don't realize that everyone eventually grows older at some times a fast rate. >> love our president when he's like this. he's so good! i know we're talking about stephen colbert. here's my problem. i'm freaking out that he's going to change his name to like steve kolbert. because he's created this cla t character. it is his brand, it's his legacy. >> but he can build a new brand. >> there's no way that -- >> but julia, he knew how to deal with all kinds, like, the president, you hear that o'reilly, he even had some of the most handsome people in america. let me show you. >> you don't have higher education. >> though. >> you have education on the streets, my friend. education in your church. why can't we just give that to children and forget about the
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books? isn't there sort of a tyranny, isn't there a tyranny in this country that everything's got to be out of a book and you've got to do what the teacher says? why can't you just let these kids fly, be free? >> see, this is exhibit "a" why we need education reform in this country. >> thank you. thank you very much. thank you. >> i loved doing his show. >> a stunning, stunning appearance. >> good to see you in the hot seat there. >> that was about 70 pounds ago, though. >> no, stunning appearance. the thing is that i think you're forgetting the fact that cbs would just never give a franchise like the "late show with david letterman" to somebody without having fully prepared and fully backed this person. think must have done test runs and pretend shows. they are ready to hand this over. i think we'll be blown away by what he does. and he gets two important cs, campus people and career people and he'll get all those people to follow him and it's going to be a great show. >> seema, mark, and julia, thank
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this is our season. america has come a long way. but we still have a long way to go. in an interview with "people" magazine, the president and first lady opened up their own encounters with stereotypes. the president said, quote, there's no black male my age who's a professional, who hasn't come out of a restaurant and is waiting for their car and somebody didn't hand them their car keys. and the first lady remembered an incident when, quote, he was wearing a tuxedo at a black tie dinner and somebody asked him to get coffee. mrs. obama also revealed what happened to her on that secret shopping trip to target back in 2011. she said, the only person who came up to me in the store was a woman who asked me to help her
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take something off a shelf, because she didn't see me as the first lady, she saw me as someone who could help her. that was just three years ago. she was the first lady of the united states. but attitudes are changing. the protests we've seen in recent weeks showed that people want to move forward, people of all races want to address the injustices we face in this society. and we must welcome them all. young, old, black, white, latino, asian. everybody. and we must make sure that we don't have a climate, on oratory, the rhetoric that would eliminate anybody. our anger and our outrage must not drive away the purpose that this is about making the country work for everybody. those of us that have been abused must raise that abuse to where everyone can say, this is
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an american problem, that we all have a stake in, and that we all must deal with it. that is where we move the ball forward towards scoring for the american people. thanks for watching. i'm al sharpton. "hardball" starts right now. the pirates of pyongyang. let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington. who stole my mail? who killed my movie? who is this country's enemy and why are they doing these terrible things to us? don't you want to know? don't you want to know who had a way to crash into the computers of a major movie company, fished out all their records, anything anyone said to anything, and throw it out for the public. and done it with such pa
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