many held up as the last great hope declaring he will not launch a presidential bid. >> in the end what i always felt was the right decision remains the right decision today. now is not my time. the deciding factor is it did not feel right to me in my gut to leave now when the job here is not finished. >> christie made the announcement in the press conference that lasted nearly an hour in the blunt and engaging style peppered with jabs that reporters and the president. he showed no sign of wants to step out of the spotlight and entertaining questions from all

three cable news networks and a wide spectrum of reporters. in the end, there was only a collective sigh of disappointment from a desperate republican contingent that pleaded with christie to be their savior in 2012. >> i mean this with all my heart. we can't wait another four years to 2016. we need you. your count rye news you to run for president. . >> those urgent pleas were enough to make christie seriously reconsider his position, but in the end his biggest hurdle may have been his own doubt. >> you have to believe in your heart that you are ready to walk into the oval office and lead the nation. i don't feel ready. >> i don't feel ready in my heart. >> i don't feel i'm ready to be president. >> i simply do not have the desire to do it nor do i think i'm ready. >> what's remarkable is

christie's backers were ready to ignore his hesitation with concerns about his political disposition and pore vast sums of money into his covers and "the washington post" poll may explain why and it's not good news for the current crop. while 42% said they wanted to see christie get into the race, just 25% backed the candidate widely seen as the front-runner. mid-romney. rick perry's support is in a deep dive since the splash. breaking even with herman cain. if cain seems in the ascend ant, many peck ult the godfather of pizza is a place holder for those hedging their bets. decisions, decisions. jonathan altar is an msnbc political analyst and columnist for bloomberg view and mark murray joinsuts from washington and also with us is msnbc

analyst and former rnc chairman. michael, if i can begin with you, there is a strong sense of disappointment in republican circles that chris christie has chosen not to run. do you share that disappointment? >> i'm excited in his leadership and think that and have always said i think he should go to be a good governor of new jersey and the field was wide open and the opportunity was great. like he said he did not think he was ready and believed him. once this is not a sense of relief and that he is doing or not doing, what the relief i feel is we can get past this and let the folks in the race continue to build the momentum they are trying to build towards the nomination. >> joe scarborough said they needed christie to run to raise their game.

given that he is not running, 3 a mediocrity around the candidates? >> the voters right now, there is a lack of enthusiasm. there was not much enthusiasm for richard nixon in 1968 and he was nominated and narrowly elected. you don't have to have a love affair with the nominee to work for him. if he goes on to win, today was a good day for mitt romney. christie and romney would have commit the non-extremist vote and helped rick perry. today was a good day for romney. if he wins the nomination, a lot will be forgiven. >> the latest polling has mitt romney at 22% followed by rick perry at 15%. the now defunct poll had him running dead even.

the happiest man following the announcement as john was suggesting is mitt romney. >> this is good news. one way to look at the scenarios out of the race, the republican establishment right now might coalesce and he could do much better in the earlier contests. people thought he would win new hampshire and nevada and maybe he does better than expected in south carolina. at the same time don't count out rick perin all of this. in that "washington post" poll that you just mentioned, when you add up herman cain and rick perry's percentage, that is more. there is a sizable chunk of voters who are not going to be for mitt romney. if one catches fire so either perry rebounds and it's cain, there is a conservative vote for the taking. >> given that christie embraced immigrants and appointed a muslim judge when some were

stirring up a panic over the possibility of law, christie was never going to fit in the current incarnation of the republican party. >> that's an interesting thought. i think there is truth to that. he would have had issues as we like to say or explaining to do about decisions he made as governor and being that he delivered publicly on immigration and other issues. the love festival for christie was driven by the way not by the base and the donors. those folks who were the major contributors of the party looking around and shopping. the base had a different sight of that. the folk who is do the voting were the ones who were the most quiet in the whole christie love affair and understanding that his views on some of the issues was not necessarily tenable when you look at how vis rated perry

and huntsman on climate change. >> some of the views were not that dissimilar to the current incumbent. >> the issues of immigration? >> i don't know the full extent, but what i said and heard from the governor on these issues. with govern nor perry with respect to the issues, he would have been for example with the rick santorum or michele bachmann. >> picking up on what he was just saying, isn't this the first time that the big money men have been turned down. ken lango, billionaire and owner of home depot charles schwabb all pressing christie and he said no. >> henry kissinger and a lot of others too. >> the big money men.

>> they were looking for a candidate and were happy for a variety of reasons. perry scares a lot of them. he was the best bet. will they not look for somebody else? conceivably. now that they are conditioned to look outside romney. you hear reports that believe it or not seems preposterous and believe it or not rudy giuliani might jump into this. mike huckabee might jump back in. in the last few days, he has been talking about this. the idea that the field is now closed, not necessarily so. there several weeks to go before the filing deadlines are on top of us. stranger things have happened for that. >> they could take the dollar and jump in. >> there is a possibility that could happen. >> the president is streaking

today in texas. i want to ask you about his take on the 2012 race as he told it to abc's george stephanopoulos. >> you the underdog? >> absolutely because given the economy, there is no doubt that whatever happens on your watch, you have -- >> you accept that quickly. >> i don't mind. i'm used to being an underdog. >> just 37% think the president will win reelection against the generic republican. given the reality of this particular field, can any of the actual candidates beat him? >> the polls are all over the place at this point and we are putting way too much emphasis on a poll where we know there is so much more ground ahead of us. the president would make the admission that he has been the underdog and most importantly, part of the clip you didn't play is saying americans are not

better off than they were four years ago. that is the nominee and the parties on the republican side that will pick up and play over and over again. folks are champing at the bit about i'm not ready to be president. yesterday the president put something out there that i know his political operation is wishing he had not. having said that, giving credit for what americans are feeling right now, they know things are not better off than they were. that could give him honesty points with the public overall and help them in the longer strategy. >> the final question. if mitt romney is the most relieved person, is the president relieved that chris christie is not run something. >> you bet he is. he would have been a formidable candidate. michael steele made a critical point. since the president does not have a good economy to run on, he will run on being awe thendic

and often effective, the economy not with standing. that's not a terrible message. don't under estimate this man and count him out. maybe it's a 50-50 shot for him to get reelected, but it's a distinct possibility. >> fascinating. without the spectacles and as dapper as well. next, grab a blanket, kids. congress wants to cut your home heating benefits. at adt, we get financing from ge capital.

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five weeks ago, minutes before the nfl kicked off the new season, the president stood before a joint seg of congress and put forward his jobs bill. since then we had superlative

and surprising games on the field, but not on capitol hill where congress has done nothing with that bill. when asked this week whether or not the president's proposal has a package was dead-on arrival, eric kantor said yes and levelled this criticism. our country is not soft, mr. president. our country is being paralyzed by washington over regulation and the washington knows best mentality coming from 1600 pennsylvania avenue. paralyzed? the president has a challenge of his own. he will tell a texas crowd this afternoon that mr. kantor should visit the lone star state to explain why he doesn't want to rebuild america's roads and bridges or offer tax breaks to small businesses to finally get americans back to work. >> republicans have put together a proposal of their own trimming what they assemble fat. funding for national public broadcasting and education grants and heating subsidies just in time for winter.

to discuss the standoff, we are joined by keith ellison, a democrat from minnesota. good afternoon. the president put forward a plan to create jobs and what do republicans offer but to cut heating subsidies and stop funding. can you explain this? i don't understand it. >> it's just callousness, but also the idea that philosophical belief that the rich don't have enough and the poor have too much. they believe if they exacerbate the gap more and magically things will trickle down. >> you are saying that republicans want to increase the disparity of health rather than decrease it. that's their intention? >> whether it's their intention or not it's the effect of the policy. i can tell you that the middle

class people have seen stagnant wages and the fact is that for 30 years the ranks of people who are uninsured and we have seen poverty at an all time high. eric kantor knows the facts and all he does is say fewer regulations and more tax breaks and whether he intends to exacerbate the gaps and that's the effect of what he's doing, i don't think it matters to the hungry and the homeless and uninsured. >> it's shameless to go after heating subsidies moving towards winter. >> it is reprehensible. it is callus and cold-blooded and actually pretty scary. the fact is that we have seniors particularly in things like mine who are really facing serious problems. we have senior who is care for children in the homes. this is a health issue. people devoting money for heat

and taking it away from food. people who by the way -- it's just a cascade of problems associated with cutting this program that has to do with everything from food and educational and opportunities. seniors. it's really quite an awful thing. >> incredibly we learned that john boehner wants to triple funding for the defense of marriage act to $1.5 million despite the fact that in february the president told the justice department to stop defending the act. again, i don't understand how they can find $1.5 million for something that is pointless given the president's stand. >> purity is the answer. the answer is that they have a way of viewing the world that they are absolutely committed to. what i say is for people who care about a greener economy or more employment, better jobs with better wages and insuring people, we need to demonstrate

an equal level of resolve if not more so. we need to call for a america who is a caring country and where our government has a commitment to the welfare of the people. >> isn't that starting to happen in places like new york, boston and los angeles with the ad hoc street protests? >> yes and i think the people who are out there demonstrating how they feel upholding the best ideals. i do caution people to be save and respect property, but i am glad that they are calling attention with a desperate economic situation. they have been around for a long time not to mention labor rights. by the way it caused the stagnation we have seen with the american and working class. >> keith ellison, have a good day. >> did the tea party push chris

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. awaiting president obama's jobs speech. he will rally students at east field college in mesquite outside dallas. we will bring you that event live at the bottom of the hour. just three years ago, the future of america's auto industry looked dire. general motors needed a $50 billion rescue package. chrysler $12.5 billion. in 2008 just as the extent of this recession became clear, ford proposed a merger with general motors. fast forward to today and a different story. the fort motor company reached an agreement with the united auto workers on a deal that shows how far the company has risen from the ashes. ford has agreed on a deal to add

12,000 new jobs and pour over $6 billion into the plants. they are from mexico, japan, and china back to the united states. the uaw agreed to give up quite a bit of the new jobs and pay entry level wages, just half of the salary of a veteran ford worker. it's a job for someone in michigan and kentucky and ohio to support his or her family. at a time when we see our do nothing congress try to push tired old proposals down the country's throat, cuts to education programs and home heating programs and women's health programs. isn't it great to see a major corporation work with the 41,000 union members for the common good. through cooperation, fort is building itself tough. congress, they couldn't start an imagine let alone move forward.

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mmm. great grains. the whole whole grain cereal. without further delay, the top lines. the chris christie edition. >> i have a commitment to new jerseyy that i will not abandon. >> after claiming he did not want to run for president, insiders are saying new jersey governor is reconsidering that decision, promising to do one thing and then the opposite sounds pretty presidential to me. >> you have to be really in your gut and in your heart ready to be president of the united

states if you decide to run. i simply do not have the desire nor do i think i'm ready. >> i talked to people who lived there and he has a lot of liberal positions. i don't know all of them, but all of that would come out. >> are you saying he is not a conservative? >> he said no. if i remember from my freshman dorm orientation correctly, no means no. >> the swimming pool looks a lot better until you jump in. it may not be as warm as you think. >> stop blowing smoke. if you don't have a really good sense of self, you can become overwhelmed by the smoke. >> buying a lot of property in new jersey, i don't want him to run.

i'm not prepared to walk away. maybe it was too much for chris christie to enter the race for the white house. covering politics for the daily beast and the edition is on newsstands right now. a republican strategist and former communications director for the rnc. good afternoon to both of you. given the current incarnation of the republican party, was chris christie simply too cent rift or too liberal? >> i don't think so at all.

i think chris cristy is what has this new incarnation of the republican party into fruition. you go back to what the party was on election day and you have a southern white party. the win of chris christie started to shatter that myth. the win was like a new york new york moment for republicans. we realized if we can make it there, we can make it anywhere. we went to massachusetts and had a great win there too. >> he would lose to a republican considered more conservative or the president himself and may have played a role. which was it? >> we are not talking about a guy who was pushed to the sidelines by conservatives as being dragged to the starting line by the establishment. this is a guy who has said for the last year he does not want to run. you had everyone begging him to. that had to have turned his head a little bit.

he didn't have that kind of gut desire to do it. >> he talked about that, but do you think as he looked across the party he may have looked at the current field of candidates and thought to himself i'm not like any of these people. >> on the flip side, he can say i'm what the party needs and doesn't have a lot of jersey attitude and would be intimidated about this group or that group. you have to take into consideration the introduce his wife talked about that they have small children and this could be disruptive. >> there is pretty inflammatory language around the field. take the hunting camp scandal that prompted this response from herman cain. listen to this.

>> for him to leave it there as long as he did. >> now hank williams jr. used fox news to compare the president to hitler and call him the enemy, do these side bar scandals risque greater negative impact on the republican side and be honest with me. >> something that an entertainer doesn't reflect more broadly, i have seen hank williams in concert three times. i was shocked and appall when i saw tony bennett say we might be responsible for 9/11. that's not going to stop me from seeing his concert. we have these things happen all the time. >> what about herman cain's reaction to the stone with those words and the n word on it where

that rick perry and his family spends summers. >> for has noplace in the republican party and i agree with herman cain. that's why they painted over it and the right stuff to do. >> right. michelle, here's what david brooks writes about romney in today's "new york times." the central problem is that mitt romney doesn't fit the mold of what many republicans want in a presidential candidate. they don't want organization, man. they want brave heart. that's right. >> these are angry times. whatever his politics whether they were moderate or cent rift, he is not a moderate guy. he is an in your face combative guy. the flavor people want during these times. that is not mitt romney. >> some suggest christie will run in 2016. is there not the possibility that if there were a

gubernatorial election next month, he would probably lose. >> i think hooey is pretty popular in the state. it is taxes are driving people out of the state. i have family who moved out of the state because of that. we are glad to see him tackle the problems. >> thank you very much for joining us this afternoon. >> thank you. >> before we go to break, we are following developing news here in new york city. monitoring reports of a helicopter crash in the east river. a rescue effort is under way and the call around 3:20 in the heldy port. this is a developing story. there is no word on injuries or

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. welcome back. milissa ray burger has more on the breaking news. >> the pictures are dramatic. this is a response to a helicopter going down in the east river around 26th and fdr drive that runs the length of the east side of manhattan. we understand that just a few minutes ago a helicopter went down. there is a heliport which is where you are seeing right now. the crews gathered at the scene. the helicopter went down with several people on board. we have not confirmed how many, but there people in the water. there have been reports that some people have been on board i am being told. a rescue boat is heading in that direction. there people in the water. it is not clear whether they are

swimming from the helicopter or if they are attempting a rescue for people who were on board. this is the response that we are seeing. w nbc has the chopper on the way to what we are seeing right here. this is a view from a tower camera that is mounted on a building. we are hearing from the "new york times" that is confirmed that some of the persons are conscious. if this has just taken off, chances are wasn't going very fast and probably flying very low which has to be a good thing especially le now that we are hearing that people are conscious. that is the best kind of news that we can possibly hear today. it's also worth mentions as you can see that the waters are constantly filled with boats and ferry skpes people are commuteing for new york city to the burroughs. on the water and on the ground

if people are conscious and swimming there is help for them. obviously this will be something we are watching closely. this is a new picture which i believe to be from the w nbc helicopter. you can see this -- >> as i understand it there a number of helicopter operations on that side of the river that take tourists and visitors to the city around. you can confirm if this was as it were a recreational held koptner that sense? >> what we are hearing is the helicopter went into the river off of 34th street. it takes tourists out and takes commuters and some people actually do fly back and forth to places like the hamptons. this is used for various reasons and we don't have an idea of what kind of helicopter it was. we have few people on board and

that doesn't tell us a lot. we haven't seen pictures. >> skprt local nbc station is reporting between three or four survivors were rescued. >> the chopper is submerged in the water. with three people pulled out and two are believed to be trapped. the pictures that we see, it doesn't look like it's far from the rel copter. it doesn't electric like they have been able to get the drivers. judging from what we are seeing, that has to be a real possibility. >> when you walk on the east or the westside, it looks attractive and the east river has a strong current. >> both of them do. both rivers. the hudson has well have a strong current which is obviously a concern right here.

you will talk to people who recreationally use it for kayaking or for instance the triathlon is held in the hudson river. this swim is the easiest part because the current is so strong they barely have to swim at all. they have a solid location on where the chopper went down. the good news is that three people have been rescued and are conscious. two people are trapped in the submerged helicopter. earlier this response is enormous and very, very quick. this happened a short while ago. okay. we can see in the middle of the screen. it appears that cpr is being done on somebody who is on a gurney on the 34th street heliport. they are on the mark where helicopters would probably be taken off from. >> that looks like someone is

performing resuscitation to someone taken from the river right there at this moment. >> for looks on the right hand of the screen, a large amount of people focused on the area to the right. we understand that there two people still down there near the police department. they have drivers for this very reason. we don't know if they are down there yet, but it seems to be the best hope. if you are joining us right now, the held kopt carrying several people and we understand four or five have gone down in the east river just shy of the heliport that you are seeing on the right side of your screen used for commuting and also for tourism, taking a right around manhattan and the area. it went down just a short way. i don't know if it was trying to take off or land. the good thing about that is it couldn't have been very high. >> we're are now going to see if

we can listen to the local nbc station pilot. >> the fdny and the coast guard. at least or five boats as you bring it in wider. the boat comes into play and coast guard boats as well. we have aviation overhead assisting any way they can. person as we can see from the vantage point, a couple of miles to the south, we are currently flying at that. person being tended to at the north end of the east 34th street heliport. you can see it put on a stretcher and possibly being worked on and taken to an ambulance as we speak. actually it is. most of the aircraft in this area are equipped with floats. you remember this past year with the nypd helicopter going into the water off jfk. they had emergency floats that

kept them up right on the water. we don't know what the circumstances behind the crash are. sometimes when an aircraft is coming into or out of a heliport like this where they are at low altitudes with only split secretaries to make a decision whether to pop the floats in a case like that, they are not usually automatically deployed. the pilot has to deploy them and they are armed when they come into the heliport like this. at times especially at a low altitude like 50 to 100 feet, you won't have the time to inflate them. there is no time. if you have an engine out down towards the water. you just do not have the time to do that. you don't want to speculate on the problem, but again, the aircraft appears to be have been at a low altitude and probably a very slow air speed when it's the water here.

from what we are hearing, it was a possibly bell aircraft, a bell long ranger or a bell 407 and east 44th street quite a bit >> describing what happened in the east river of manhattan where a helicopter has landed in the water. three to four people were dragged from the water. we will continue to follow this developing story. do stay with us. whoa! hey! [ dog barks, growls ] ♪ whoa, watch out, little man. ♪ [ male announcer ] when you take away the worry, it's easy to enjoy the ride. hey, bud. hey, dad. [ male announcer ] introducing cadillac shield. the most comprehensive suite of owner benefits offered by any luxury auto maker in the world.

you wouldn't want your doctor doing your job. so why are you doing hers? only your doctor can determine if your persistent heartburn is actually something more serious...

like acid reflux disease. over time, stomach acid can damage the lining of your esophagus. for many, prescription nexium not only provides 24-hour heartburn relief, but can also help heal acid related erosions in the lining of your esophagus. talk to your doctor about the risk for osteoporosis-related bone fractures and low magnesium levels with long-term use of nexium. possible side effects include headache, diarrhea and abdominal pain. other serious stomach conditions may still exist. let your doctor do her job, and you do yours. ask if nexium is right for you. if you can't afford your medication, astrazeneca may be able to help. we're following breaking news concerning a helicopter crashing into the east river off manhattan. there were about five passengers on board. individuals were receiving resuscitation on the side by the bank there. we will continue to follow this story and we'll update you as things move forward. and at the top of the hour,

president obama will pitch his jobs plan again. what might be best for the economy could be found in a new book by one of the country's most decorated economists. "the price of civilization: reawakening american virtue and prosperity." the author is dr. jeffrey sachs and i'm delighted to say he joins us now. good afternoon, sir. >> thank you very much. >> you write in your book, "our greatest illusion is that a healthy society can be organized around the single-minded pursuit of wealth," but isn't that what republicans have been telling us every day, pursuing single-mindedly the pursuit of wealth? >> it's even worse. what they're doing is pursuing a policy for the very richest people in this country, forgetting that there's the rest of america. it's quite shocking, actually. over the last 30 years, the income and wealth has been increasingly concentrated at the very top, but you have the republican party, which gives

absolutely no recognition of this at all. and the democrats, as you know from the book, i'm not very happy with they're looking for gimmickry, less bad than the republicans, but nobody's talking seriously in washington about what's really going on. >> one of the most remarkable graphs, figures in your book is where you show that between 1981 and 2010, with low marginal tax rates, gdp actually fell and unemployment went up. but we keep being told, every single day, that the answer to american prosperity is to cut the size of government, cut taxes, and everything works. but how come for 30 years the exact opposite occurred? >> well, what i show is that reagan had a theory or at least he represented interests that put forward an idea -- >> known as reaganomics. >> he said government is not the

solution to our problems, it is the problem. and they started cutting government and cutting taxes on the rich and what i show is it solved none of the problems that they were purporting to solve. growth continued to slow down. it wasn't negative in gnp, but it didn't speed up the economy in any sense. the loss of jobs since the top marginal tax rates came down has been brutal, of course, in the manufacturing sector. it was nice to see that segment about ford starting to hire, but that is absolutely the exception, not the rule in our economy over the last 30 years. so this is something that was tried. it was a bad diagnosis, a really very flimsy ideas in evidence at the time, but it became the chant and the single chant of the republican party. i'm afraid, though, that the democrats are a little better. that's what's really sad about all of this, to my mind. president obama, whom i support, and i want to succeed and i want

him to do better, has proposed since he came in one short-term measure after another, nothing longer term, nothing structural, nothing taking into account that the u.s. is facing a global competitiveness challenge, so that we're not creating good jobs, and just another one-year tax cut, which is what he's going to talk about again, that's never going to solve these problems. >> you know that congressman paul ryan has reviewed your book and he said the book's veneer of economic analysis cannot conceal what is essentially a crusade against the free enterprise ethic of our republic. >> i reviewed paul ryan's budget and i viewed that as a slashing attack against the needs of this country, including of the poor. mr. ryan is an extremist. he is what's called a libertarian, at least as he professes it, though, boy, does he bend depending on who is giving him campaign

contributions. because as i wrote in response to this review, when i posted something on "huffington post" yesterday, when push came to shove, all that free market rhetoric of mr. ryan went out the door when he voted to bail out the banks, because you look at who finances mr. ryan, it is the large banks, it's large vested interests in health care and so forth, and like the republican party, but unfortunately, like too much of the democrats, basically, these parties are bought by special interests right now, and that's really what is the core of the problem in this country. bad diagnosis and politics that is absolutely drenched in money. and so we're not really getting any of the longer term thinking and the honest thinking that we need to get out of the mess. >> you say in the book, we should bear our fair share of taxes, act as vigilant stewards for future generations, and remember that compassion is the glue that holds society together. i don't hear any compassion.

i hear, today, that the republicans are proposing cutting heating oil subsidies, just as winter's coming. where's the compassion? >> there is no compassion, and indeed, the so-called philosopher, she was a novelist, that they looked to, ann rand, despised the concept of compassion. this is something shocking. they don't even purport to say that compassion would be a good thing. they say that that brings the powerful down to the level of the weak. it's a really mind-boggling view most americans don't believe this at all. most americans are compassionate. as i was writing this book, i read dozens, maybe hundreds of opinion surveys. i was so happy with what i found, because what i really found was that the values of americans are in tact, they just are not translated into policy. that's where the breakage occurs. not with bad values in the

mainland of america, but rather when americans want taxes raised on the rich, washington doesn't do it, because the rich pays for their campaigns. when the main strstream of amer wants the wars ended, that doesn't happen, because the pentagon and the military industrial complex keeps those wars going, even though they're leading absolutely nowhere and bleeding us of trillions of dollars. when the mainstream of america wants the social protections in place, even the tea party supporters say, keep our medicare, keep our social security. in washington, they're cutting. so this is a breakdown of politics. it's because money drives the politics in washington, and the values of the american people are no longer reflected in what our representatives are actually doing. >> but your description sounds absolutely horrendous and potentially immovable. how do we change any of this? because as you rightly say, most of these politicians are bought

anyway. they're the recipients of hundreds of thousands of dollars, from special interest groups, president obama can't turn away from the banks, because he's a recipient of vast amounts of money. >> every few days, you see that president obama's had another 35,800 a plate dinner. as he tries to build his campaign chest to $1 billion for the 2012 election, who does he see all the time? rich people. that's who he's dining, night after night, basically, and that's how american politics works right now. it's the relentless pursuit of money by the politicians in order to be able to fund expensive advertising campaigns on their behalf, and they end up beholden to wall street, to the health care industry, to the military procurement industry. what we need, of course, is to break that link. now, the supreme court made it even harder, because we have a supreme court that believes that

money equals free speech. this is mind boggling. and as justice stevens wrote in a horrified dissent to the majority right-wing opinion on the court, he said, this threw out 100 years of law that kept corporations in their place -- >> you're referring to the citizens united. >> exactly. and stevens showed that all the way back to the beginning of the republic, this is something that ryan also didn't understand, thomas jefferson warned about the power of corporations taking over politics. this is what we have to break. >> jeffrey sachs, thank you very much, indeed, for joining us. and thank you for watching. i turn things over now to my colleague, dylan ratigan. dylan, take it away. >> is it me, or do we need protests and an amendment to deal with what mr. saks is talking about, martin? >> what do you say that? do we need protests and an amendment? >> we absolutely need people who are mobilized and are saying, we're serious. and we're seeing the protests, not only the occ