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tv   MSNBC News Live  MSNBC  February 24, 2010 11:00am-12:00pm EST

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and bonus here, bonus there, before you know it another great year for wall street and record bonuses. new numbers, billions of dollars, handed out again to wall street. rolling stones' matt taibbi and the bailout hustle. a math teacher being called a hero after two students are shot. the incident happened in the same community left devastated after the deadliest school shooting in our country's history. he hear what teachers and witnesses are saying today. the star witness to testify on day two of the congressional hearing on toyota's massive recalls. toyota's president, akio toyoda, is here from japan, a leading japanese newspaper says his performance will be a crucial test for his company. this follows yesterday's emotional testimony from a woman whose lexus suddenly accelerated to 100 miles an hour. >> i prayed to god to help me. i called my husband on the blue
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tooth phone system. i knew -- i'm sorry. i knew he could not help me, but i wanted to hear his voice one more time. >> nbc's kelly o'donnell joins us now from capitol hill and, kelly, akio toyoda, had an op-ed that he releaseded yesterday, perhaps a glimpse into what he might say today which is certainly expected to be an apology from that company. >> reporter: well, tamron, part of what he will say is that the growth of toyota, which is now the world's largest car company, may be in part to blame. growth that went too fast, not allowing the company to really be on top of all the issues that have now is yosurfaced through enormous recalls more than 8.5 million cars recalled for issues that deal with brakes, gas pedals, sudden acceleration complaints, those sorts of things. he will say he regrets that. a lot of what will be on the
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line today, as you hinted at that, is the family reputation of the toyotas, the company, its future, its stock value, enormous implications and, of course, implication for driver safety. when we heard from rhonda smith and her emotional testimony, it's not often that we get that kind of human emotion and science in the same hearing because we'll also be hearing about engineering issues and really people trying to find out what has caused these problems. we know from the testimony yesterday before a different house panel that toyota does not know what has caused it. they think there may be multiple causes. they believe electronic systems in the cars are not responsible and yet they now with some reports of tests that say there were electronic faults that they will now be open to that as an idea, and that's significant. they also said that the recall repairs they're doing now, which is more than 1 million vehicles so far, may not solve all of these problems, so there are many issues to talk about. and, tamron, one other development, we learned just a short time ago that the head of
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the federal agency that oversees these automobile executives and their performance will not appear today and, instead, transportation secretary ray lahood will speak for all of the government officials who overlooked transportation. republicans on this committee are concerned about that. they believe that the person who would be more closely associated with overseeing should appear. said there's been a little intrigue about that this morning as well. tamron? >> very intriguing. kelly, we'll talk more about that. thank you. as toyota's chief executive testifies today, andrea mitchell will have reaction from transportation secretary ray lahood and that, of course, coming up at 1:00 p.m. on "andrea mitchell reports." and the senate just approved a $15 billion jobs bill by a vote of 70-28. it moves to the house where it is expected to pass. this with the national unemployment rate at nearly 10%. nbc's luke russert is on capitol hill and, luke, one of the big headlines in addition to it passing, you have more republicans than expected who
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supported the bill and they said it was led by scott brown. >> reporter: it did, tamron. 13 republicans signed on on final passage to the jobs bill. it really is truly a bipartisan bill right now. it's amazing. only a few yesterday voted for it to be cloture, to go to final vote. 13 came out at the end. what is in the bill within the $15 billion? one is the president's jobs tax credit plan he's been actively, actively, actively promoting around the country. also within this is his emergency funding for state municipalities for schools, cops, firefighters and teachers as well as highway bonds. this $15 billion that will immediately most likely pass through the house later this week which will immediately go help states pay their workers and it really does help democrats shift the narrative of their time in congress right now to being about jobs, jobs, jobs. >> right. >> reporter: no one, i don't think anyone saw this many republicans coming on at the end. it's interesting to see when
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republicans had to be counted, a lot of them want to side on the favor of jobs and not being caught in the mess that is washington, d.c. >> absolutely. >> reporter: when you think of gridlock. >> and when you think they've criticized the president for not focusing on jobs and now this opportunity. i want to read scott brown released a statement. he said we need to put partisanship aside to put people back to work. this jobs bill is far from perfect and would ideally include deeper and broader tax cuts. i supported this measure because it concerns some tax relief that will help massachusetts' businesses and put people back to work. >> reporter: it's really interesting, tamron. scott brown in his short time up here on capitol hill is really trying to brand himself as massachusetts first, republican party second. he is very much aware of what he has to do to be re-elected in 2012. while massachusetts did send him to the senate, let's not kid ourselves, it's still very much a liberal state in a place where a die hard conservative most likely is not going to get elected to the federal level. scott brown is really putting massachusetts first, republican
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party second. probably to the dismay of some of the tea party folks who got him elected, tamron. >> thank you very much, luke. and a surprisingly downbeat report. the commerce department says new home sales fell marking a new record low for january. sales dropped 11.2%, the lowest level on record in almost half a century. economists had been looking for an improvement there. in delaware the sign outside of an accused pedophile pediatrician dr. earl bradley's office has been removed. he faces 471 counts of child sex abuse for allegedly molesting 103 of his patients over more than a decade. the site of his pediatric service has been cleared. attorney general bo biden says he hopes ridding it will help the community start to heal. in colorado another school shooting in the community
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scarred from the columbine tragedy. it happened at deer creek middle school in littleton, colorado, just a few minutes away from columbine high school. the gunman opened fire into a crowd of students leaving for the day. two students were shot, one of them is hospitalized right now in critical condition. a teacher managed to tackle the gunman as he tried to reload. >> everybody thought it was some kind of joke or something. and then i looked over and there was a kid laying in the grass, shot. >> i heard a gunshot and everybody started running away. i was a little confused, and then i saw the shooter. i saw him put out a second shot. >> jennifer ryan of nbc's denver affiliate kusa is outside the middle school. jennifer, i first want to ask you how are the kids at the school, the teachers doing this day after and give us the latest, also, on this gunman here. >> reporter: yeah, well, about 525 kids do attend this school, all eighth graders and seventh
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graders and they are not in school today obviously. they are obviously at home so they are going to be able to seek some counseling around here. now as for that teacher that we have been talking about, his name dr. david benke. now people around here are calling him a hero but he's rather humble. he doesn't say so himself. however, he does say that he was at the right place at the right time. he is about 6'5", a former college basketball player, and he jumped into action tackling that suspect to the ground. he actually credits the columbine massacre as something that helped him react so quickly. >> i'm not sure if it was courage or stupidity. when we used to have drills and things like that with the students, i said, look, if something happens, i hope i can do something. >> reporter: as for this morning we are at the crime scene in front of deer creek middle school. school is not in today. we're waiting on sheriff's investigators to arrive on scene. we have a large crime scene where there are still backpacks strewn about and cars still
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locked up. we're waiting for the investigators to get through here and comb the scene for any additional evidence at this time. >> jennifer, what can you tell us about the gunman? was he affiliated in any way with the school? >> reporter: okay. what we have learned is that he is a 32-year-old eastwood and he did attend school here at deer creek middle school back in the early '90s is when he was an eighth grader here. so he does have a tie in that way. we did speak to his father last night. who said that his son hears voices and oftentimes speaks back to those voices. so we're learning a bit more about him this morning. he does have his first court appearance coming up in just a little bit. >> jennifer, thank you very much. and former vice president dick cheney has just been released from george washington university hospital. doctors say cheney suffered a mild heart attack, his fifth one. his office just released a statement saying the former vice president is feeling good and will resume his normal schedule shortly. a monster storm is barreling
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its way to the northeast. yet again, another storm. let's head to albany, new york, where mike seidel is joining us live and, mike, what's the latest? >> reporter: well, storm number one is winding down. we've had a foot of snow. they've had 23 inches. this one is going to go later today and tonight and then the bigger, more important storm comes up the coast and ratchets up. the wibdz will increase. the storm will have wind, beach and coastal issues and interior areas. boston, it's rain tomorrow and wind. delays and cancellations. philadelphia gets another 8 to 1 12 inches of snow. they've had their snowiest on record. trenton, new york city right now always a tough call in the city. if you live north and west of town in some elevated areas in new jersey you're going to get hit hard. we're going to relocate to albany after lunch time and figure out where we're going to be tomorrow for you. >> probably a lot of places to choose from since the storm is
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covering a lot of the northeast. thank you very much, mike. greatly appreciate it. as far as travel are concerned, there are delays at a few new york-area airports. 30 at philadelphia's airport. be sure to call if you're planning on flying today because we're seeing rough weather in the northeast. and we're keeping an eye on the hearing, the congressional subcommittee hearing on toyota and the safety. i understand transportation secretary ray lahood sworn in. he is representing inspectors who were supposed to oversee toyota. there have been some chipgs nks the armor perhaps from the government's end in this safety investigation. we'll keep an eye out and bring you the news from there. and new bonus outrage. bonuses for many of the same wall street firms that receive taxpayer bailouts. they're getting a lot this time around. $20 billion, in fact. rolling stones matt taibbi live. he's been on top of the story. the critical health care summit. we'll talk with congressman joe
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barden. he has interesting ideas what he thinks the president should do upon walking into that summit. and an espn anchor suspended for what he had to say about a female colleague. hear what he said for yourself next. ♪ [ woman ] nine iron, it's almost tee-time. time to face the pollen that used to make me sneeze, my eyes water. but with new zyrtec® liquid gels, i get allergy relief at liquid speed. that's the fast, powerful relief of zyrtec®, now in a liquid gel. zyrtec® is the fastest 24-hour allergy medicine. it works on my worst symptoms so i'm ready by the time we get to the first hole.
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welcome back. transportation secretary ray lahood right now testifying at that congressional hearing on toyota's safety. we're also expecting to hear from toyota's president, akio toyoda, the grandson of the man who started the company. he will also testify today and we will certainly be listening and bring it it to you live. in fact, we're listening in to transport tags secretary ray lahood. >> so consumers would be safe, unhappy with toyota's responsiveness to our safety concerns, the acting administrator of nitsa and two
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associates flew to japan in december of '09 to clarify for toyota management what the company's legal obligations are to find and remedy safety defects in vehicles sold here in america. in january our new administrator, david strickland and ron medford, now our deputy administrator, told the president of toyota north america, in no uncertain terms, that we expect prompt action following the disclosure of the sticky pedal problem. toyota publicly announce that had recall two days later. i have bull pen on the phone with mr. toyoda from here to japan, and i'm so pleased that he accepted the invitation to appear before this committee. with potential fatal defects on the road, we have pressed hard to expedite these safety fixes. if mitsa had opened a formal investigation and toyota had resisted a recall, that would
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have consumed an enormous amount of time and resources, in effect, extending the period in which owners of affected vehicles are at risk. by engaging toyota directly and persuading the company to take action, the agency avoided a lengthy investigation that would have delayed fixes for a year or more. last week i announced that we are investigating whether toyota acted quickly enough in reporting these safety defects as well as whether they took all appropriate action to protect consumers. we have asked toyota to turn over a wide range of the documents that will show us when and how they learned about these safety problems. nitsa will continue to make sure toyota is doing all it promised to make its vehicles safe, and we will continue to investigate all possible causes of unintended acceleration. while the recalls are important steps in that direction, we don't maintain that they answer every question. some people believe that electric -- electromagnetic
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interference -- >> again, we are hearing from transportation secretary ray lahood outline his communications with the president of toyota, akio toyoda, who is expected to follow mr. lahood in testimony there. also national highway traffic safety administration's role in the recall. we'll continue to listen in to mr. lahood and certainly bring you akio toyoda when he starts his testimony. and despite all the uproar over bailouts and bonuses, 2009, turned out to be a banner year for wall street employees. according to the new york state controller bonuses on wall street rose 17% last year with the average bonus about $124,000. but was an even bigger payday at goalman sachs, jpmorgan and three that got the biggest bailouts. bonuses rose to an average of
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$340,000. still, wall street did not break the record for bonuses set in 2007 before the recession hit. joining us to talk about it is a man who is leading off the charts, some say, journalist matt taibbi who writes about wall street's bailouts and bonuses. so people are at home saying, okay, they're talking about bonuses. we've had the outrage. we've had the obama administration saying they would get involved and yet again a lot of money going to banks that got the bailouts. >> right. no, this is basically what happened was these same people blew up the economy in 2008 and caused major financial catastrophe, and not only were none of them punished or fired, they were showered with a mountain of government money and guarantees and instead of giving that money to restart the economy and create jobs, they basically just kept it and turned it into bonuses and that's what we're looking at. >> let's look at specifically you have goldman sachs, morgan
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stanley, jpmorgan chase. they got bailout money, and their bonuses rose 31%. i wasn't great in math -- >> right. >> -- but explain to us how you get that much money. >> there's no other industry where if you fail as spectacularly as all these companies did before 2008, that you get the kind of raise that they got. what most people don't understand is this money is almost entirely taxpayer money. they were given a mountain of guaranties even aside from the t.a.r.p. which most people understand. for instance, goldman sachs and morgan stanley converted commercial bank status, they got to go bar from the fed at zero and then lend it back to the government at 3% or 4%, basically free money, and they're taking that money out of the pockets who are saving because interest rates are so low that ordinary people saving are being punished. >> i wish we had more time. we have to go back to that
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toyota hearing. there are other levels as to what the administration is doing and even john mccain says he was duped, misled about the bailout. hopefully we can have you back on. take our audience back to the toyota hearing and ray lahood. >> a little more than a year and prior to my time, which would have been prior to january 23rd of '09, if there are issues that i can answer, i'll get back to you for the record, but i'm going to tell you this. 30,000 complaints come to nhtsa every year and we look at every one of them. we think every one is important. some come from people who are driving cars. some come from the industry. we look at what's going on from stakeholders, people who are in the automobile business. sometimes they file complaints with us. and then when we see a pattern, we will do an investigation, we will look at it. and if our investigation shows
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there needs to be a recall, it will be done. that's -- that has been the work of nhtsa. with respect to your specific question during that time period, what i'd like to do, mr. chairman, is put it on the record after i really can get the facts for you. >> thank you very much, mr. secretary. again, i know you, as all of us, recognize how important safety is. so let me ask you this. do you think it's safe to drive a toyota today? >> pardon me? >> do you think it's safe to drive a toyota today? >> i will say this. i will say that if people check our website, dot.gov, we have listed every toyota that is up for recall. i want anybody that has one of those cars to take it to their dealer and to make sure that it gets fixed.
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and we, again, are going to work 24/7, and we are going to continue until every toyota is safe for their customers to drive. >> well, thank you for your commitment and your dedication in this regard. i now yield to the ranking member, mr. issa. >> this is on, mr. issa, but -- >> just dropped off all of a sudden. it has thog to do with you, i'm sure. >> okay. >> maybe we can give you the other one. >> yeah, just switch to that one. >> thank you. this one works. >> you can use two. >> okay, i'll use two. >> very presidential. mr. secretary, i'll pick up where the chairman left off. some companies, including toyota, i'm told, you can go to
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their website and you can punch in a v.i.n., which is the one piece of information anyone who is in possession of a car can see. at your website you have to put in make and model, so you kind of have to know your trim level, et cetera, et cetera, can you commit to us that in the foreseeable future, the department of transportation could, and if you agree, should, have every automobile sold in america, a v.i.n. number on file so if somebody punches in the v.i.n. number they can see every recall and every piece of safety information that you know of that needs to be applied to that vehicle? >> given the right amount of time, i will commit to you -- we should make that information available. in the simplest possible way for even people who are, you know, maybe don't have access to a computer or whatever, we should make it available to people. >> i appreciate that. and a lot of my questions for my opening remarks are about what
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do we do proactively for the future and i appreciate that we'll all have questions for you and for nhtsa and follow-up questions about the past. but let me go on to another one. currently nhtsa as i understand it has 41, 42, 49 in the high year -- thousands -- and the auto companies have theirs. if a company reaches a certain threshold they have a requirement to accepted that in in the u.s. if an auto company has a recall this another country, they have an obligation to inform nhtsa. i understand sort of that system. now you and i served in our past lives on select intel squens committees so you're very familiar with our open source system. can you tell me today that there's any technical reason or common sense reason that, in fact, we should not, we the united states government and
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nhtsa, should not be able to transparentally see all claims from all of our first world partners and obviously to be arranged and all the collateral material from all the people who want to sell vehicles in this country? meaning, is there any reason you have to wait until there's a recall to get information? as you know, great britain, they didn't actually have a recall but they had a similar sticky pedal that they didn't see as significant because they thought it only happened there on right-hand drive cars and yet when we were getting a relatively small amount of sticky pedals, had we had that information like any open source bringing together of information an agency of the government would have fairly easily been able to have an alert that could have been sent to the auto company for their attention and response? do you see any reason that's not something that should be part of a great organization rather than a good one? >> i agree that it should be
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part of it. we believe in transparency. i personally think information can be very powerful. and the more the better. >> now i know that you can't answer everything about nhtsa but i think you're familiar with the toyota blade sold in japan, the one that had a pedal similar to this even though it was not an automobile sold in the united states in which they shortened the pedal because of entrapment. are you familiar with that? >> i'm not intimately familiar with that, mr. issa. >> well, i would appreciate it if you would respond for the record of how in the future a similar automobile in another country that does have a change can have a change consistent in the u.s.? as i said in my opening remarks, we took a shortcut with nhtsa's acquiesce epps ance and awarene
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took a shortcut while in japan they reduced -- they increased the clearance on the pedal. the difference is a difference in san diego of that family still being alive. so that is probably the most important question i have for you is between open source information and consistency of similar or even sometimes dissimilar parts around the world, can you commit to me that it is within your vision and authority with existing law to bring about a real change so that this will not happen again? >> i take your point on this. it's a good point and you have my commitment. >> i appreciate that. and if you would do us one favor and that is if at some time in the future you do see the potential need for more authority or more specific legislation that you would also come back to us. >> absolutely. >> thank you. mr. chairman, thank you again, and i yield back. >> thank you, the gentleman from california. i yield five minutes to the gentleman from pennsylvania.
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>> thank you very much, mr. chairman. welcome, mr. secretary. >> thank you. >> from arriving at this meeting today i assume this is one of the more uplifting sessions that you've had since in office. i think this is probably the greatest attendance i've seen in the hallways and of the press. >> i would agree. >> obviously we've struck a nerve, this committee and the occurrence that happened in california. i wanted to take a moment, mr. secretary, to congratulate you. i think i've been observing you for the last week or two and i think you courageously exercise the authorizations of your office exactly what this committee and the congress expected you to do. earlier today i was watching the ranking member, mr. issa, on cnbc, and he made an interesting proposal. partially what he has discussed with you today.
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and maybe if that proposal could be encapsulated into legislation with greater authority. but even above and beyond the auto industry that we find a way since we are in a global marketplace to find this information readily assembled for deposit and then for availability to not only citizens of the united states but citizens of the world. and it's something we should have. i commented to my staff after i saw mr. issa. i love portuguese sardines, but i have to be honest with you -- >> again, we are keeping an eye here on the hearing and the questioning being offered up to transportation secretary ray lahood. i think one of the most pointed questions was by congressman toun who is the chair of the subcommittee asking transportation secretary ray lahood if he feels toyota vehicles are safe and the secretary pointing him to the fact that on the website people who own toyotas are told what to
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do. there's a list on the government's website telling you the vehicles that are part of this recall, but not answering that question directly as he's taken heat before saying that his words were misinterpreted where he said if you own a toyota, don't drive it, get it in. in addition to that hearing regarding toyota's safety, another big moment happening in washington, d.c., is tomorrow, and that is the summit, the health care summit, hosted by the president. it is supposed to be a bipartisan effort to get something done about health care. congressman joe barden, a republican of texas, is also the ranking member of the energy and commerce committee that held the toy toyota hearings yesterday will be at the meeting. very busy. we like to see our members of congress, sir, very busy and you're certainly falling in that category. first, let me get you to talk about this toyota hearing as you were there yesterday with the testimony from the woman from tennessee who discussed calling her husband as her car was speeding 100 miles an hour out of control just to hear his
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voice. she thought she was going to die. >> well, her problem was not a floor mat problem or a sticky pedal problem. her problem appears to have been an electronic malfunction of her ignition system, the fuel system and my question was why didn't toyota get that car? it wasn't damaged. and really thoroughly try to find out what caused that problem which to this day they apparently are still not trying to do. >> do you think we will see real solutions out of this hearing? we're going to hear from akio toyoda sometime today and his testimony. >> well, i don't think the american public is anti-japanese or anti-toyota. but the american public is pro-safety and if toyota would come out and unequivocally state they're going to work with the transportation department and their dealers to find these problems and fix them, i think everything will work. if they continue to dodge the problem and come up with solutions that really don't work, i think the public will stay away from their products.
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>> that's interesting. i want to transition to the health summit tomorrow. you will be there. and i read a quote that said you wanted the president to bring with him a blank piece of paper. >> well, it's getting a little bit late in the year to totally start over but republican leader boehner and senate leader mcconnell both are more than willing to encourage the rank and file republicans like myself to work with democrats and the president. we will start with a clean sheet of paper and listen to the american people. >> but, sir, is that true when you have congressman boehner saying, quote, show up and crash the party tomorrow? someone crashed my party, i don't think they would be there to work with me. >> we can't be party crashers when we're invited by the president to participate. >> right. >> we are going to take our ideas and our proposals for lower cost and more competition, more transparency and we will point out what the american
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people have pointed out to us are the flaws in the president's proposal. >> now let's go to the president's proposal. it was unveiled on monday. we know that 31 million people will be covered, the estimated cost $946 million. pre-existing conditions protected there. what do you like? let me start with that. what do you like about the president's proposal? >> well, i guess the one thing that i think most republicans would like is that he's willing to admit that maybe we could do medical malpractice reform. >> which is a big deal. the republicans have been pushing for this. >> yeah. his idea is a pilot program. our idea is real reform but we'll talk about that tomorrow. he's got a lot of taxes which we don't like. there's so much that his is just kind of a half and half, the worst as "the wall street journal" says, the worse of both the house and senate bills. >> but what do you like? do you like nothing? >> no. we think it ought to cover
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pre-existing conditions but we do it through a market mechanism where people go to their insurance companies and in the insurance companies offset the risk with the high risk pools but everybody would get covered. it wouldn't cost an arm and a leg like the president's pr proposal. >> do you think a real compromise will come out of this? it certainly seems that minds have been made up before going in here. let's be honest. >> it's always possible. hope springs eternal. a republican won the senate seat in massachusetts, so anything is possible this year. >> that republican has voted against gop filibuster for the jobs bill and he was one of i believe 20 -- 17 republicans who voted against the party in support of the jobs bill, so he is certainly operating more like an independent. >> well, you know, if the president and the democratic counter parts in the house and senate will put proposals on the table that are good for the american people, we'll be willing to be positive about those proposals. >> okay. well, sir, we can't wait to see what happens tomorrow. greatly appreciate it. always love talking to somebody
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from my great state. from my hometown. thank you, sir. we're going to go back to the breaking news. ray lahood is talking -- right now he's being asked about any sweetheart deals that may have transpired between toyota and federal inspectors. let's listen in. >> let me know. i'll refer to the ig and there will be an investigation. we're not going to -- there has been no more higher standards set for ethics than this administration. the first cabinet meeting the president made it clear, i don't want any ethical problems with anybody. >> well, this preceded you anyhow, mr. secretary, but this mr. christopher santushi, director of regulatory affairs, did work for the industry and according to general motors, ford and chrysler, they don't have anybody who has formally worked for nhtsa that is working for them in those capacities. you're saying these gentlemen
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that -- >> they can work for toyota but they cannot come back and talk about issues they worked on. they can't do that. they can talk to people in other modes, faa or some other mode, but they cannot come back and talk to our folks about issues that they -- >> well, the one thing i would suggest is that the appearance is one of the things that right now i think the public is very concerned about and a couple of people that worked at nhtsa go to work and they're in a public relations position, they can talk to people at nhtsa and the appearance may be that they're influencing some decision making that's going on. >> look, i agree with you on this, mr. burton, and i think this law probably should be tightened up. i really do. i agree with you. perception is reality. anybody that's been in politics knows that. and i take your point on this. >> well, thank you very much, and i still love you, ray. >> thank you.
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>> does the gentleman yield back? >> i yield back. >> i recognize the gentleman from maryland, representative cummings. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. commissioner lahood, it's good to have you here. one of the things that we find ourselves in quite a dilemma here. on the one hand as was said we want to be very careful about what we're doing here because we do have one of our main trading partners, japan, involved. >> all right, we're listening into day two on toyota's safety record. we'll keep an eye on it. go to break. also coming up, some highlights from the winter olympics in vancouver. [ robin ] my name is robin.
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my benjamin, he helped me with the countdown. "ben, how many days has it been?" "5 days, mom. 10 days, mom." i think after 30 days he got tired of counting. [ male announcer ] talk to your doctor to find out if prescription chantix is right for you. welcome back. now tuesday's olympic coverage in vancouver, canadian figure skater joannie rochette delivered an inspirational
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performance in the women's short program days after her mother's fatal heart attack. rochette held back tears skating her personal best for a third place finish. and korea's goes into the third round. on the slopes a first for team usa, the men's nordic combined team won the united states first ever silver medal in that event. bode miller continues his medal quest but finished -- failed to finish in the giant slalom. and a big heartbreak in the men's speed skating 10,000 meter race. dutch skater was disqualified after his coach mistakenly told him to change lanes on his way to an apparent gold. and coming up today usa golden girl lindsey vonn hits the slopes. she's actually featured on this week's "sports illustrated" along with alpine skiers bode
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miller, andrew weibrecht and julia mancuso. a preview and more on the success of the usa's alpine ski team. chris jansing in vancouver. chris, what's the latest? >> reporter: hi. can you see the gray skies behind me? it's really raining here and it's raining, unfortunately, at whistler. i want to talk to picabo street, medalist, gold medalist, may i say. what will happen at whistler? >> well, they're actually getting what's called sleet right now which is half rain/half snow and the word is it's about an inch an hour, so there is a race for time up there right now. they say that the track is solid and it's really icy and held up where they've injected it right around each gate. so that track is in good shape right now. they're trying to keep the new snow off there. workers got out there 2:00 this morning, there's about 500 of them hammering it out trying to beat the race of time right now. what they have to think about is
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the safety of the athlete once they get off course and they get into that weird snow. they have to make sure everybody is safe first and foremost. >> reporter: the giant slalom, a good race for lindsey? >> it is a good race. it is not her specialty. if i were to rack them up for her, it's probably on the bottom end. so she has her work cut out for her today. she has had a good day, a couple of good days for weibrecht. mancuso is the one to watch. there was a gray cloud around the torino race, it was foggy, visibility was iffy and a lot of people were thinking the race shouldn't have happened. i'm bummed for her she has bad weather again today. >> reporter: bode miller didn't finish yesterday but he has one more race. he could become the most decorated alpine skier. what do you think his chances are? >> i think they're great. his chances are great. bode is starting to feel it, you know what i mean? he's a little bit older now and he says he has one leg on his
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boat already on the beach and another one that he's got an injured ankle that he said he did in december. he's kind of nursing his way through but, you know, it's got to be hard to not be satisfied with what's going on. he has a gold, a silver and a bronze. from here on out we're going to see typical bode style. he's going to go big or go home. unfortunately, that happened yesterday. >> reporter: can i take you off sport for a minute? >> yes, you can. >> reporter: his coach says inside -- >> unbelievable. >> reporter: there was no doubt he was going to win this. he was going to get a gold medal. he was far ahead. he said probably his best 10-k ever, a brutal race, what went through your mind when you saw what happened? >> i broke down. i broke down crying and thought, no way! and honestly, for the coach, because, yes, sven is angry and he has aggression to help him deal with the situation. that coach has shame that is going to walk all over him and
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people need to pray for him. it's an honest mistake. it's a long race. that's 25 laps around the one-mile track and you can get lost. >> reporter: and the other big emotional story yesterday, to see a figure skater go out on the ice days after her mother with whom she was very close -- >> it's already difficult for them to compose themselves and to hit all of their jumps and to hit all their marks. >> reporter: were you nervous before your race? >> you're always nervous. >> reporter: that's a given and then she has this added. >> and then you have the judging in figure skating as well and so she's thinking about all of her little details. she did a fabulous job of coming in, being composed, being focused, nailing her routine. her dad in the audience was just heartwrenching for me. they kept panning to him and it it was just an amazing story and definitely in my opinion one of the highlights of the game for me. >> all right. we have more hockey coming up, both the men and the women. >> go girls. >> reporter: go girls. pica picabo, always great of you to
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come in. thanks so much. tamron, what do you think? go usa, team usa? >> absolutely. >> reporter: double medals? >> absolutely. you highlighted two moments i can't get out of my head, seeing the figure skater joannie and sven, those are moments that go beyond the sport because you think of the emotion especially with joannie losing her mom. what a brave woman. >> reporter: i was in there, 11,000 people on their feet cheering her on, and a lot of them were crying. it was really something to be there last night. >> you can bet there were millions more at home watching and feeling the exact same way. chris, great coverage. thank you so much. and the olympics coverage continues on msnbc today beginning at 5:00 eastern time. you can see the tiebreaker round in men's curling. and tomorrow more hockey at 2:00 p.m. eastern. we will have the women's bronze medal game and at 6:00 p.m. the gold medal game. [ female announcer ] it's lobsterfest.
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welcome back.
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the brother of nancy kerrigan has been released from jail. a jij ruled mark kerrigan would be under house arrest. he will be wearing a tracking device. faces assault charges after a fatal fight with his fathers who death is ruled a homicide. now to the case that shocked and sickened parents and people across the country. a delaware pediatrician accused of molesting more than 100 children, patients of his. dr. earl bradley shind bars facing 471 counts of child sex abuse. authorities say that he started molesting patients more than a decade ago. the evidence against him, they say they have videotapes of the alleged attacks. a lot of people are asking how does something like this happen. clinical psychologist jeff joins me in the studio. let's start with the trust issue. we often trust authorities. police, doctors, if they tell us
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something. i'm sure that's certainly the case of parents who are entrusting your child's health with this person. >> absolutely. >> if you didn't you wouldn't be here. >> we put our lives in their hands. it is very easy to be duped if that person happens to be unethical. if they happen to be criminal in their behavior and become manipulated very, very easily. >> how often do you see a doc r doctor, pediatrician, accused of these crimes. >> statistics show this doesn't happen often. parents should know that even with a healer, even with a pediatrician, you should be in the room with the child. every pediatrician i know, makes sure will is a nurse in the room or invite the parents to be in the examining room. in my own practice, as a psychologist when i work with underaged children, i make sure that the door stays open so that the parents can look into the
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therapy room at any time and it is more for the comfort of the parents so that they don't have to put themselves in a position of having to tryst even though they do trust. >> when you look at this, again, allegation true, 471 counts over ten years, and teenavideotaped . what does this tell you about this man if it is true? >> it tells me that this person is not just a sociopath but a monster. if he had, in fact, taped these things so he ken joy it over and over again, or send it to other people. but what i think we should know about this individual is that he gained the trust of the parents. he was often asked -- the parent when we know allow him to take the children to other parts of the clinic so that he could show them -- >> preyed on that trust. >> trust of the parents. the children are not only damaged here but the family because they will never trust helpers again. >> we appreciate your insight. you are one of the best.
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parents will learn a lot. take our audience back to the hearing involving toyota. safety record. questioning ray lahood. >> that kind of a report. >> yes, sir. >> one of the suggestions made in that report is that the -- bioelectrical engineer is that there may be a problem with system designs with respect to toyota and i -- i would -- assume by reference electronic throttle control. does your department have the -- technical ability to able to analyze systems designed,
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engineering, mechanical, software, hardware, and all of these elements that would be necessary to be able to come to a conclusion and as to what the nature of unattended accelerations would be? >> yes, sir, we do. and -- we take our responsibilities seriously. we have 125 engineers. we have electric allen gin ears. we are going get into the weeds in a thorough, comprehensive revie on the electronics. because that issue has been raised and we need do that. raised by people who drive toyotas, raised by members of congress who are going do it. >> the distance between washington and japan is well established. but the question is what kind of ability do you have to send those who have the technical skills to analyze documents to japan and to get toyota's
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cooperation and being able to review records of research from, let's say, 2004, 2005, on these models, internal dojts, that would tend to show whether or not toyota was aware of any of these problems? have you sent people specifically do that? and if you haven't, do you intend to as part of your findings and your investigation? >> we have asked for a voluminous am of information from toyota which i -- we will review. if we need to go to japan and meet with their engineers and get more information, that will be a part of our review. >> so -- but you -- no doubt are aware that as established and respected automobile manufacturer that toyota would have research documents within their control that would show the function of various
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components? >> yes, of course. >> i think this is important, mr. chairman, madam chair, that we hear from the secretary on this. because his department does have the ability to be able to get into this. and while we as members get the documents, we can analyze them, we have help in being able to understand. on the time that i have remaining for the instruction of the membership and the public, could you walk us through how complaints are investigated, you know, who does the investigation, can you -- enable us to learn -- is it ail in-house? do you outsource any of your investigations? >> almost all of our investigations are done in-house by our experts. people file complaints with us. and we take them seriously. we look into them when we decide that this is serious enough, we interview people. we look at all of thepo

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