libertinage, also known as loose morals. according to a poll released yesterday, 79% of people in france said he would be a better president than the current president francois hollande. that's it for "now." good evening, americans, and welcome to "the ed show," live from detroit lakes, minnesota. let's get to work. >> wisconsin governor scott walker is at the top of the list. >> it's part of the exploratory process here. >> how do you stand out in that enormous field of gop hopefuls? >> that's what this has been all about in wisconsin. >> i wouldn't bet against him.

>> good to have you with us tonight, folks. thanks for watching. we start tonight with the aftermath of the mitt romney decision not to run. romney closing the door on another run for presidency leaves the field wide open. folks in iowa are saying what about scott walker? this was the season four years ago in madison, wisconsin. thousands of protesters rallied against unions. the movement caused outrage across the country. we were on the ground in madison reporting on the action in 2011. since then walker has been on the national scene as a reagan

disciple and corporate darling. now walker has his eyes set on the white house. >> 99% chance you'll run? >> i don't know that i would take the odds. i would tell you one thing after three elections for governor i wouldn't bet against me on anything. >> if you have got swagger, use it. the latest poll out of iowa with romney out of the mix has scott walker in first place at 16%. now what's interesting about this is it is almost like who is this guy bush? jeb bush is in fifth place with folks in iowa at 9%. there's no shortage in name reck recognition there, so what's going on? walker impressed voters at the freedom summit a week ago.

>> we need leaders in america who understand the measure of success in government is not how many people are dependent on the government. the measure of success in government is how many people are no longer dependent on the government. >> i mean that is just raw meat to righties. talk like that is going to get walker a lot of praise. the same day that that unfolded conservative thought leader byron york he wrote this about walker. you can match his achievement staring down the mighty public sector unions and then winning a recall in a blue state as the campaign begins. walker's record means gop voters will cut him a little slack in the charisma and oratory department. it is clear to say walker does not electrify a crowd.

but he is the man who took on the unions and the armies of the left. he can win over an audience even if he can't speak like ted cruz. i would agree with that. not everything is going to be about attacking unions and slashing budgets. that's the easy stuff. how is he on foreign policy? >> you talk about big, bold fresh ideas. what's your big, bold fresh idea in syria? >> i go back to the red line. >> let's not go back. let's go forward. >> we need to take the fight to isis and any other radical islamist around the world. we need leadership that says clearly not only among the united states and among our allies we're going to take action. >> you don't think 2,000 air strikes is taking it to isis in

syria and iraq? >> i think it is a mistake. >> what does that mean? i don't know what aggressive strategy means. if we are bombing and we have done 2,000 air strikes, what does that mean in foreign policy? >> we need to look at other methods and we have to be prepared to put boots on the ground if that's what it takes. >> u.s. boots on the ground in syria syria. >> i'm not ruling that out. >> walker knows how to stay in the spotlight. he's a fox news regular and can easily grab the headlines. he proposed $300 million in cuts to the department of higher education in wisconsin.

at the same time, walker wants to provide 2 2$220 million in bonds for a building for the milwaukee bucks. okay. this is what walker does. he's all about big business. he never backs down in the face of adversity to democrats who challenge him. he's a coke brother favorite. he's a governor. he's not a d.c. insider. he is moving forward to attack unions and the middle class. he outraised tom barrett 7-1 in the recall election. he wants to drug test welfare recipients. walker knows who he is. you have to give him credit and he makes no apologies. this is why i think he poses a real danger as a republican candidate. he will be a better candidate than mitt romney. number one, he won't waffle. number two, he knows who he is.

they can school him up on foreign policy and he's a corporate brotherhood. this guy will be a better candidate than mitt romney and he's going to be the benchmark in all of this. it's going to be interesting and i think this early poll out of iowa is a good indication that walker has a real chance to get off to a great start. he has fought the worker. he has fought the liberals and the progressives face to face in wisconsin, which is traditionally a blue state. he's got street cred. he knows how to campaign. who else has this? wait a minute there's that john doe investigation. that's the interesting thing about walker. he can be surrounded by a lot of controversy, yet it seems like it is water off a duck's back. he may be there answer. get your cell phones out. i want to know what you think. tonight's question, can scott

walker win the republican nomination? text "a" for yes. text "b" for no. we have results coming later in the show. great to have both of you with us. >> thanks ed. >> i'm not trying to cheer lead here for scott walker. not at all. i'm looking at a solid record of where he has been on issues where the base has always been with him. and this kind of goes back to the bush-and cheney philosophy. you have to have the base with you if you're going to get anything done. he'll gather the social conservatives later on but right now it is the fiscal hawks and the international interventionists who he's going

to be pulling to. how do you unpack it? >> you've been on this story for a long time and i think that what's really important about walker is he is a real right-wing radical. not just in his attack on unions and his destruction of wisconsin's k-12 system. his recent attack on the university of wisconsin, which is a great university that is going to see a lot of top tier professors leaving with their grant money, he's radical on that. in iowa, he comes out of the anti-abortion movement. he has the whole package as far as right wingers in iowa with concerned. he prints better than romney who is a caricature of a guy in a

top hat. if you look at what is left with wisconsin when he is done with us, you're going to see a really scary picture if you live in the rest of the united states of america. >> ruth, it's out of character isn't it for a governor to propose $300 million to be cut out of the university of wisconsin higher education system? i don't believe he campaigned on this. this is kind of coming out of nowhere, isn't it? >> the magnitude of that cut and what it is going to mean for people whether it is working families who are going to face a tuition hike then he's got a board ready that's going to take over governance of the v.w. a lot of biomedical research that

goes on in wisconsin. it is such a big deal for our economy. that's going to take a hit. a lot of our my is bound up in our university system and middle-class families are going to see college become unaffordable. it is a major blow to our state. just huge. >> it seems like the republicans have figured out they have to connect somewhere with the middle class. i think some people behind closed doors told mitt romney you're a wall streeter you're an outsourcer. here comes scott walker. he comes from a modest background. he doesn't come from wealth. what's that connection going to do for him and if he can connect with middle-class earners in the country, can he a tough national candidate? >> i think any republican is going to start with a deficit because of the demographics.

it is going to be very difficult because they won't get much of the black and latino vote with the candidates i have seen thus far. scott walker presents so blandly. his blandness works to his favor. he is just as far to the right in terms of being an evangelical as rick santorum. he is just as much for plutocratic wealth as mitt romney and doing all those things that turn people off about romney but he comes from the middle class or at least presents that way. i think he is actually one of the candidates whose stock should be higher than it is in terms of his ability to get the nomination. i think he would be attractive to the republican base on all three of those fronts. he will attract the very rich the coke brothers.

there's a lot of money that will be swirling around wisconsin. he's going to have money and the regular guys of the republican party. >> what does with this good start in iowa? move to iowa? what's his next play? >> i think he'll start to show a little more leg on his evangelical background in terms of being 100% anti-abortion. he's going to have to face down huckabee. mike huckabee is his only competition in terms of evan evangelicals evangelicals. >> nobody on the republican side in 2012 or in 2008 had a good ground game. i mean nobody had the infrastructure, nobody had the moxie, of president obama or the campaign they ran, so maybe walker will be smart enough to outflank everybody in that

regard. but ruth, how is this john doe investigation going to play if ron walker runs for president? >> i think people are going to look into his background and they're going to find some of his closest aids and associates are serving tile for corruption. this is a story that was huge in milwaukee when he was county executive there. there's some really unsavory stuff. there's a lot of really shady stuff going on around walker but in wisconsin he's been able to slide on by and it hasn't hurt him that much. >> that is amazing. great to have both of you with us tonight. i appreciate your time here on "the ed show."

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trailing by four they had to get the touchdown. but the game-clencher happened with less than 30 seconds on the clock. russell wilson his pass was picked off by malcolm butler. it was butler's first career interception and what a time for it to happen. the patriots ran down the clock, won their fourth super bowl title, and pete carroll took responsibility for the botched call. >> i told those guys that was my fault totally. why don't you just run it? that's a real good thought. we were playing for third and fourth down. >> russell wilson weighed in on twitter saying i won't allow one play or one moment to define my career. i'll keep evolving. interesting. he knows he is a young quarterback. he knows he has a lot of years

left, and he's just going to have to put this one behind him, but i think it shows tremendous discipline on russell wilson's part that the play was called and he ran it. as he gets on in his career he'll be at a point where, wait a minute this is the common sense department. this is the no-brainer. i'm going to call off the sideline. we're going to ram our big guy lynch in there and we're going to win this thing. here's what i think happened. every team goes into a game with a ready list. this is what we're going to do in our own territory on first down. this is our red zone best play calls. in tight inside the five yard line, they know what's going to work on the goal line. they call off the ready list. i think in 25 seconds it gets so wrapped into a play all of a sudden there's a play called and you don't think of anything of

it. let's go ahead and do it. they had their goal line defense in there. they thought lynch was going to get the ball. what a play by butler. this was preparation on the part of the patriots that a young defensive back recognized the formation, knew they were going to come with the pick. you can't argue with the call folks. throw the slant on the goal line is one of the safest passes you can throw. it is also one of the most practiced, but it looked to me that the wide receiver didn't cut out of his position fast enough. great recognition by butler. was it a dumb call? yeah, nine out of ten times they would have punched it in. they called a pass play. the other team practices too. the db recognized it and closed

quickly. it was just a great play. if they had to do it all over again, they would have rammed him in there. why not call timeout and make sure you have the right pass play? it seemed like seattle wanted to win so bad they were in a hurry-up offense to get this play off instead of recognizing the moment you know your offensive line knows what's on the line. they're going to move their guys up front as best they can. we have this thing one. this is just unfortunate. if your a seahawks fan, it is one you're going to play back in your mind over and over again. if that pass had been complete it would have been one of the greatest calls of all time. it looks like wilson was trying to hog the hero and hog the headline. brady has a great career. here comes this young

quarterback. he throws the touchdown pass, boom, he gets the spotlight. i don't think that's the case. they got a group of plays they are confident in. this is how they can win the game and they happened to call a pass play. it looked so ugly you sit there and say how in the world did you do that. i can tell you every offensive line coach in high school every offensive line coach in college, and every offensive line coach in the professional ranks was saying what? my guys could have got it in there. joining me now is bill roden. great to have you with us. what did you think of pete carroll's answers after the game and the way he unpacked why he called this play? good to have you with us bill. >> first of all, there's nothing they can say they would soothe

anybody's feelings. everybody was sick. i think at that particular moment you had half of patriots nation was sick because the game had turned like that and then you had half of the seahawks nation sick. now they are sort of elated because it was like a mirroraculous situation. of all the things you had, you talked about a ready list. you got beast mode. i asked him a question last year about getting ready. he said, sr. what does that mean? i stay ready. there's nothing that pete could say, could have said will ever say to justify that call. i think you're absolutely right in that there will come a point in russell wilson's career -- i

like him a lot. there will come a point in his career where if he gets that kind of play he'll run it back. we're not running that play. at the end of the day, my name on it. it was a great game. let me just say that. tom brady he is one of the greatest clutch performers in the history of the national football league. just absolutely clutch. >> there's no doubt about that. he's right there with you name any of them. his records unparalleled in the way he comes back and wins is just absolutely amazing. i think russell wilson showed a great deal of discipline by doing what the coaches wanted in trying to execute the offense. i think you give him two or three more years or maybe even next year he'll have a better

awareness about what to do and how to do it. you enter the common sense department and you just give it to the best running back in the league. >> right. great defensive play. >> it was a great play by butler. if you look at the replay you saw instant recognition. he said the slant pass is coming. i'm there. that was a real gamble on butler's part because the receiver could have cut behind him. >> you're right, though. when i looked at that, it did look like that receiver -- i think he could have protected the whole play much better. it seemed like he was a little too casual going into it. we can second-guess it but the first time i saw it if you're going to do that -- dez bryant or somebody would have been a beast going after that.

>> you come out of a cut because you want to leave the defender. you come out of the cut because you want to create separation. if you come out of the cut and you slow down just a little bit, you close the gap for the help of the defender. look, it was an unbelievable play by the defensive back butler. he did it. >> give him some. >> no doubt about it. always good to visit with you. great to have you on "the ed show." coming up if winter potholes have you frustrated, you'll want to hear this. republicans are throwing up roadblocks in the president's plan to fix roads and bridges. another storm batters the northeast. "the ed show," stay with us. right back here on msnbc. and we could soon become number one in oil. because hydraulic fracturing technology

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by the time we're downne, it certainly looks like we're going to have the highest snow in a seven-day stretch than we've ever had in boston. >> it's ground hog day and residents of boston are getting a repeat of weather. now they're facing up to another foot and a second winter storm is bearing down on the town all. the area could see up to three inches of snow an hour with freezing rain adding to the mess this evening. boston area schools were closed today and will remain closed tuesday, tomorrow, but government offices remained open. the governor urged people to take public transportation, if possible. travellers are urged to contact

their carriers to check for delays or cancellations. the storm will rain on the patriots parade. the team's victory parade has been delayed until wednesday. don't they deserve good weather? joining me now is paul douglas. great to have you with us, paul. here we go again. what can new england expect from this latest storm? how severe and how long and how damaging? >> it is going to be winding down over the next few hours. it is moving fairly quickly. it's going to be bad up until about midnight but during the wee hours of the morning the snow will quickly cut off to flurries, but the damage has been done. boston has been transformed into the super bowl of snow closing in on 35 inches of snow in seven days from two storms, making it the snowiest week on record for boston. these records go back hundreds of years in bean town but

boston isn't in the only city. detroit picks up about 17 inches of snow. third biggest storm for the motor city. chicago, 20 inches of snow yesterday. fifth biggest storm on record for the windy city. you would think it would get harder and harder to set records. we're seeing more precipitation records. i have a graphic from climate central. new england has seen the biggest increase in extreme precipitation events. we're talking the most extreme 1% of all precipitation events. summer rains and winter snows. a lot of skeptics say, well it's snowing, the planet can't possible be warming. yet it turns out that a warmer atmosphere and a warmer ocean means more water vapor, more fuel for these storms. we're not seeing more storms

ed. but the storms that do spin up have a greater potential to set records and that's what we're seeing in the data. >> well on that chart that you had, 71% increase in the northeast. that's near the oceans obviously. 37% increase around the great lakes. you just mentioned chicago and detroit. 17 and 20 inches of snow. what is it with the water? is it the warming temperatures and just the conditions are unlike anything we have seen before? >> we're seeing this steady warming. over the past 15 years, the vast majority of the additional warming has gone into the world's oceans. it's also gone into the gulf of mexico. the atlantic is about 2 degrees fahrenheit warmer than it was for most of the 20th century. last week we showed you the incredible gulf stream

temperatures. 12 to 15 degrees warmer than average just east of new jersey. you have this fire hose of water. that is actually producing more water vapor. about a 10% increase in water vapor. that's turbo charging some of these storms. there's new research from the university of minnesota during the summer months we're not seeing more storms. we're seeing a greater period between storms. but when it does rain watch out. head for higher ground. the rain is falling much harder than it did. even farmers are acknowledging something is changing. it is not your grandfather's weather. we're seeing more and more of these super size storms. >> no doubt. paul douglas, always great to have you with us. there's a lot more coming up on "the ed show." stay with us. we are right back.

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welcome back to "the ed show."

the gop has been trying to rebrand its as the party of the middle class. >> what i think the president is trying to do here is to again exploit envy economics. this top down redistribution doesn't work. >> envy economics? let's take a look at the basics. let's be brilliant on the basics. the $4 trillion budget would expand and extend child care tax credits and the earned income tax credit. what's wrong with that? the budget supports universal preschool. it proposes two years of tuition-free community college for responsible students. this would finally allow us to repair existing roads and bridges and modernize our

infrastructure with new investments. you know what, folks? this is the jobs bill america has been waiting for, but we have a problem, houston. it's republicans. they want to have it both ways. they won't side with the middle class if big business, banks, and the wealthiest of americans have to come up and pay their fair share. raising the capital gains tax, imposing a new tax on inheritances limiting corporate tax deductions taxing overseas profits held abroad and levying a tax on those too big to fail banks, this is a clear challenge to republicans on middle-class issues and a rallying cry for democrats. so where's the line in the sand for the democrats? joining me tonight is a congressman from california. let's talk infrastructure. >> sure. >> you bet.

do we have to cut a deal with republicans to get 47$478 billion to get done into the budget to do what has to be done for the country? where's the deal here john? >> i don't know where the deal is, but we absolutely have to build our infrastructure. there's 63,000 bridges across america that are subject to failure. many of those are in republican districts. there's a big one right in mr. boehner's district. we call that the boehner diss disaster. we need to build our infrastructure. you mentioned potholes earlier on. oh yeah. we got potholes. we have rain. we have sanitation systems, water systems. we have the need to build high-speed internet into our schools. by the way, we need to rebuild our schools. this is about building for

america the foundation for economic growth. this is not envy economics. this is the envy of america to build the infrastructure. >> what's your response to congressman ryan calling it envy economics? >> well he's got the wrong envy. we want america's infrastructure to be the envy of the world. right now, we look to china. we look to japan. we look to europe and we envy their infrastructure. no, no. this is america. we're the best. we're going to build the best. we're not going to be second to anybody. let them envy us. as to the envy he must be talking about trickle down economics. sure americans want to be rich and wealthy and they can be if we actually create the jobs here in america, if we stick to the buy america theme. amtrak wants to waive the by

america. no no no. this is america. we're going to spend our tax money on american built systems so that americans can become the envy of the world. our manufacturing and our infrastructure. >> congressman, last week when the democrats got together in philadelphia, what kind of resolve came out from that? it would seem to me that the democrats are going to have to draw some lines in the sand and say, hey if you want this this is what you have to do. put it on the republicans. it is their turn. they have the legislative power. what came out of philadelphia? >> just that. the president has proposed middle-class economics, those tax deductions for the middle class from child care to education. all those things are the middle-class economics. build the infrastructure, educate our kids do the research, and pay for it by changing the tax system so the

american corporations so the big ones can't escape american taxes. probably a quarter of america's corporations don't pay much, if any, corporate income tax. >> well getting the republicans to even mention that is quite a chore. they're still in the mode of saying no to everything. it's going to be interesting. always great to have you with us. >> thank you. coming up oil workers biggest strike in over three decades. they're pushing the market now. we're right back. so you can enjoy that second home sooner. know the right financial planning can help you save for college and retirement. know where you stand with pnc total insight. a new investing and banking experience with personalized guidance and online tools. visit a branch, call or go online today.

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>> you know too often in america, we disregard the voice of experience. i like that ad. we always seem to go for the next hot thing. dodge is still pretty hot. dodge connected its 100 years of being in business to the people who have lived to be 100 years old. i thought it was pretty unique and interesting, and wise. the punch-out, they're on strike. why? that's next on "the ed show." stay with us. why do i cook? because i make the best chicken noodle soup. because i make the best chicken noodle soup. because i make the best chicken noodle soup.

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welcome back to "the ed show." this is the story for the folks who take a shower after work. u.s. oil workers are staging their biggest strike in 35 years. united steelworkers are on their second day of work stoppage at nine refineryies at chemical plants around the country. now the union workers want adequate pay raises but most important, they want safe working conditions. walkouts are happening at nine facilities from texas to california. the plants account for 10% of u.s. refinery capacity. contract negotiations broke down early sunday morning. a new deal could affect 30,000 workers coast to coast. united steelworkers represent over 200 refineries terminals and pipelines. a full strike of the usw workers could disrupt 3554% of u.s. oil production. the price of crude is still under $50 a barrel.

smaller profits are relative for big oil. money is still flowing and workers are fighting for what they believe should be fair treatment. joining me tonight, leo gerard international president of the united steelworkers of america. mr. gerard food to have you with us tonight. >> good to be with you. >> what's the stumbling block -- you bet. what's the stumbling block here, leo? what's it going to take? what's happening here? >> well, the stumbling block is really the lead company, shell, refusing to negotiate on some of the fundamental issues as you said wages are a piece of the puzzle. we've been talking about that. they don't seem to be the difficulty. we've been talking about training, we've been talking about the ability of workers to have meaningful occupation health and safety. we talked about the fatigue standard. let me just give you -- i don't normally read on your show, ed but let me give you a statistic. refinery fires, this is a fire in the refinery that has self-reporting. so these are the self-reported

fires in refineries. in 2007 there were 52. in 2008, 41. 2009, 45. 2010, 53. 2011, 47. 2012 41. 2013, 42. and the numbers aren't in yet for 2014 or '15. so what we've been talking about is shift schedules that allow people to have safe working conditions, shift schedules that where the company won't manipulate the schedule to deny people overtime. sitting down and negotiating a meaningful fatigue standard so that people go to work and are full of their needs. we've been talking about process safety officers. these are all things that the company so far has refused to talk about. they're willing to talk about money, but they're not willing to talk about fundsamental issues. the other thing is -- >> so -- >> go ahead. >> go ahead. safety is the issue here. you think these fires could be prevented if they were to change their operational proceprocedures?

>> look it i imagine that it's a kind of industry where things happen, but i think what we want is process safety we want to be able to do the best safety standards. we want shift schedules where people aren't getting manipulated so they're cheated out of their premium pay. we want to make sure that we've got training going on so if somebody leaves the workplace, somebody from within the workplace can get trained so they don't bring people from outside who don't know the facility. we're not trying to take the job of the building trades who come in when there's a big job to do. what we're talking about is our own maintenance forces need to be replaced. >> sure. >> ed there's a big issue on health care. this is the richest industry or one of the richest industries in america. the fact is that our members are on what's called an 80/20, where they pay 20% of their premium. so if we have a $12,000 preyum for health care for the year our members pay 12 times 200. $2,400. then there's a $7,500 out of pocket maximum. so if you're coming from a family where you've got a sick

child for a long time or you've got lots of needs for health care you can end up having $21,000, $22,000, $23,000 of out of pocket expenses during a life of a collective agreement. >> so this is a middle class fight all over again isn't it? >> absolutely. and when we said -- let me tell you why the talks broke off. when we said that we really were serious about wanting to talk about health care the employer through shell said to us if you don't withdraw that from the table, we're going to propose that you have to pay a higher premium premium. instead of 80/20, we'll go to 75/25. when we said that's unacceptable, they left the table. we're still there. we want to negotiate. we think our positions are fair and think that having safety standards and training are going to improve productivity. having safety standards is more important for the community because if something happens, the community's at risk. it's more important for the country and more important for

our members. we're in a fight for the middle class here. >> all right. we will see if big oil will budge and we'll follow this story. leo gerard president of the international still eelworkers. appreciate your time. that's "the ed show." i'll ed schultz. "politicsnation" with reverend al sharpton begins now. good evening rev. geekood evening, ed, thanks to you for tuning in. today's lead president obama releases his plan for a more fair country. will republicans get on board? the president unveiled his new budget today. an ambitious plan for taking aim at income inequality. building on his state of the union address. >> middle class economics. the idea that this country does best when everybody gets a fair shot. and everybody's doing their fair share. and everybody plays by the same set of rules. that's what this budget is about. it reflects our values. making sure that we are making the