stand up, america, stand up, america! stand up, america! yes, the day after that march and rally, we dedicated the memorial to dr. king. but some of us are committed to making sure that we don't put away what he stood for and we bring into reality his full dream. thanks for watching. i'm al sharpton. "hardball" starts right now. the 99% solution. let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm chris matthews in new york. leading off tonight, can the democrats occupy occupy wall street? forget about whether the occupy wall street protests are a progressive version of the tea

party, this movement has energy, numbers, popular support, and is a far more natural fit for the democrats than for the republicans. mitt romney is, of course, a creature of wall street. republicans have begun, however, backing away from the ridicule. time to get in front of this parade before it runs you over. plus, going south. president obama begins a three-day swing through north carolina and virginia today. the white house may say the trip is nonpolitical, but they would say that, wouldn't they? consider this, the president could lose florida, indiana, new hampshire, and ohio and still win the presidency a second time by picking up either of these two southern states, virginia or north carolina. no wonder he's spending three days on the road there. also, can't buy me love. no one loves mitt romney. rick perry has fizzled, of course. herman cain looks like the flavor of the month, still, but is it possible the republicans just won't get their act together after all? and art imitates life. there's a great new movie coming out called "margin call," i've seen it. it's all about the abuses and deceit on wall street.

it shows you exactly how the few can take advantage of the rest of us. it stars kevin spacey and he joins us tonight, right here. and let me finish with why it's hard for the tea party to go positive when their entire movement is negative. we start with the question -- can the democrats occupy occupy wall street? howard fineman joins us. david corn joins us as well. and i have to ask you, gentleman, about this whole question. it looks like the tea party is raising money. not the tea party, the occupy wall street is raising money. i was about to say. $300,000. they're having huge rallies. the labor movement is joining up with them, especially the public employees sector, the teachers. i want to go with you, david corn, to start with. is this possibly the great marriage of the left and center-left you've been waiting for? >> well, we have been waiting for this for a long time. i think occupy wall street is kind of at a fork in the road.

and their decision has to be made and there's no one single person and one single group that can make the decision, whether it's going to go to a more organized movement with targeted strategies and goals, and eventually, demands, or whether it will remain amorphous and voicing dissent and voicing anger and resentment and the like. and right now, it's unclear which way it's going to go. it's really up to the people doing the occupying. and you have the unions trying to come in with money and with organizing skill and trying to shape and be a partner. whether this marriage takes or not, we won't know. probably for weeks if not months. >> howard, the occupy wall street movement is spreading around the country now, and it's going international. look at these two maps. the first one shows the cities in the u.s. that have seen their own demonstration since december. it spread out west and down south, all across the country. here's a surprising one. the second map shows cities across the globe where demonstrators took to the streets this weekend.

protesters came out in canada, over in europe, and in parts of asia, including indiana. howard, it's amazing to see, it's almost like you're hearing the internationale, all of a sudden. not to disparage this effort, but the left hasn't been this united over time, if you think about it. >> well, the mechanics are available to unite everybody. and it's called the internet and it's called facebook and twitter and et cetera. social media aren't just limited to the united states. they're instantly and totally global. but out here in chicago where i am, chris, and where i just came from the obama campaign headquarters here in downtown chicago, they're watching it very carefully and with great interest. the people at the obama campaign say that they like it so far because it gives their side something to get enthusiastic about rather than sort of standing around and criticizing barack obama by name, these people are out on the street and trying to send a message.

and i think at least, so far, the obama people think that it dovetails to the extent that occupy wall street's about anything, it's about jobs, and that's the theme that barack obama was hitting relentlessly down in north carolina today. >> well, let's watch the president yesterday, howard. i think you've got a point. here's this weekend, the president speaking at the dr. martin luther king formal dedication here in washington. he alluded to the movements in the streets. here he is, i think, trying to tie into the strong sentiment against wall street. here's what he said. >> those with power and privilege will often decry any call for change as divisive. they'll say any challenge to the existing arrangements are unwise and destabilizing. dr. king understood that peace without justice was no peace at all. if he were alive today, i believe he would remind us that the unemployed worker can rightly challenge the excesses

of wall street without demonizing all who work there. >> this is going to call for some real leadership by the president, david and howard. he's going to have to find a way to distill for the movement in the streets the right cause for him. something he believes in. whether it's equality of tax, or some removal of the capital gains tax, he doesn't want to say it, but that's what he's talking about, getting rid of that 15% tax rate on money made off money, as opposed to the 35% tax rate made off money for people who work. he has to find some way to energize that effort. at the same time, not get involved or blamed for, if this thing breaks bad, right, david? >> now, the president has been walking a delicate balance, since the very beginning, since he became president and he signed on with the t.a.r.p. bailout back in september 2008, about whether he was going to be populistic and bash wall street and try to exploit or capitalize or lead on the anger out there against wall street, or whether he was going to try to get wall

street on his side. and you know, the business community have been very tough on him, despite the fact that he saved their backsides. he hasn't come down on one side or the other, which may be a president's job to straddle that line. as this movement grows, if it does grow and the target becomes wall street and wall street greed, it may be harder for him to finesse this point. he may not want to going into the next election. he may want to be more populist because trying to be kind to business and not bash them too much has not gotten him much from business themselves. jamie dimon had a very public break with him, the head of jpmorgan chase. he hasn't got a lot out of the business community for trying to be a good guy and still, you know, he's been up against the republicans on wall street reform. if this movement expands to come down harder on one side than the other. >> howard? >> yeah, well, i think that he

will try to still straddle, and i don't think he's going to become a whole-hearted wall street basher, even if that's what the people at the obama campaign think the occupy wall street movement ends up being about. i think they would like to use the energy of the occupy wall street movement to focus on the jobs message, on the notion that president obama's the guy who proposed a jobs plan, with many pieces that in the past republicans have supported. and that all he's asking for is that congress pass that jobs bill. because the obama white house has been on that message for the last two or three weeks. they think that it's been working. they look at recent polls that show some bump up in numbers for the democrats and so forth. also, the obama campaign's been out advertising heavily in a lot of swing states to push his numbers up a little bit. i think they'd much rather try to let occupy wall street energize the base, but not get

dragged off into a pure confrontation with wall street. first of all, president obama's not like that. secondly, even if jamie dimon and a lot of the others don't support him, i don't think the president, especially who's trying to win states like north carolina and virginia -- >> i agree with you. >> is going to want to be that old-timey, sort of northeastern franklin roosevelt, bash wall street kind of guy. i don't think that's who he is. >> i'm glad you said that, howard. i was thinking that. if he's going for people who make over six figures, the people down in research triangle and the people out in colorado, he better not bash money. >> exactly. >> but here's where i think he has an advantage -- >> but there is a difference, chris, between bashing money and people who work hard for it and bashing what's gone on on wall street over the past few years and how that's tied into our economic problems. >> here's an example. i was going to say this. he doesn't have to do the bashing, because i think romney does his own self-bashing. take a look at this picture. here's mitt romney bragging, stuffing money in his pocket,

look at all these people from bain capital, masters of the universe, all, obnoxious, all of them, the joke picture after an official brochure was snapped, shows romney and other colleagues stuffing money into their clothes. it was uncovered by "the boston globe" three years ago. it seems to me, david, this is something where he self-imalates here. he is money. he's bain capital. could obama, the president, benefit by the fact that the guy we're looking at right now is so much of a target of what the little people, if you will, down on wall street, looking up at those buildings don't like? >> i think in a lot of countries, that would be a game killer for mitt romney, a picture like that. i think what the people on occupy wall street are expressing is a sentiment held widely across the country.

you don't have to be part of a drum circle to wonder about the difference between the top 1% and bottom 99% and think that you got shafted while they've been saved. and this plays into what cain was talking about on the campaign. where there discontentment is being identified with by people in mainstream america. there's a cultural component to this protest and a political ideological component. and people may look at that and say, that's not me, but if they hear what they're saying and share that anger, then mitt romney is in a really difficult position. >> howard, you and i grew up in the same class. and my father, who was a lifelong republican said, the one weakness of the party he voted for was they were in bed with big business and money. he would and talk about the bad old days of the ge price fixing and he would say, these are guys who have betrayed the free enterprise system.

these are the guys who have manipulated it, and that's the one embarrassment he had about the republican party. can this president have the skill to separate that middle, like my dad, from the wealthy cheaters, basically, who they say as having manipulated the system? we're going to talk about it later with kevin spacey, and by the way, this movie, "margin call," is all about the cheaters. >> the way to do that, chris, is the way that the people who ran against mitt romney on behalf of senator ted kennedy did it years ago when romney was challenging ted kennedy for that senate seat. they went out to indiana, the teddy people went out to indiana, found a plant that had been shuttered by bain capital as part of a takeover and makeover -- >> a chop shop. >> and they launched a caravan, a caravan of unemployed people that went all the way from indiana to boston. lights out for mitt romney. you have to do it that way. you can't do it like resenting the guy that looks like the guy on the monopoly card. that's a caricature that won't

work. it won't work. >> thank you. was shrum involved in that? i think he had his fingerprints all over that baby. he'll be thank me for saying so. by the way, we're all talking about how you sharpen the knife going after the regime here on "hardball." thank you, howard fineman, that was a dekeynesian reference. president obama heads south. states he thinks he can win. if he loses on the inside, he could still win if he picks up north carolina and virginia. i'm skeptical. he can win on the outside of the pumpkin if he loses the inside. you're watching "hardball," only on msnbc. halloween reference there. i'm robert shapiro. over a million people have discovered how easy it is to use legalzoom for important legal documents.

so start your business, protect your family, launch your dreams. at legalzoom.com we put the law on your side. check this out. since is the beginning of the year, president obama and the democratic national committee have spent close to $87 million. that's roughly the same amount as the republicans have raised in total this far. that has allowed the obama

campaign to open offices and build up networks in 15 key states. despite his lower poll numbers, the president's deep war chest gives him the resources to run a successful re-election campaign. but president obama's losing the wall street money race to mitt romney right now. but that should help the obama campaign in its effort to paint romney as a creature of wall street. that's who's giving them the money. we'll be right back. ou a 50% an! so you earn 50% more cash. according to research, everybody likes more cash. well, almost everybody... ♪ would you like 50% more cash? no! but it's more money. [ male announcer ] the new capital one cash rewards card. the card for people who want 50% more cash. what's in your wallet? woah! [ giggles ] woah! so i got my nephew i neto build a website., i hired someone to make my website... five months ago. we are building a website by ourselves.

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if we want the best roads and best bridges and best airports here in the united states, if we want to continue to invest in our technology and our basic science and research so that we can continue to invent new drugs and make sure the new cars of the future that are running on electricity are made right here in north carolina and made right here in america, if we want to do all those things, then we've got to step up. we've got to get to work. we've got to get busy right now. >> back to "hardball." that's president obama today down in asheville, north carolina, where he kicked off a three-day, two-state campaign to

sell his jobs bill, but piece by piece this time. let's listen to him. >> so we're going to give members of congress another chance, to step up to the plate and do the right thing. this week, i'm asking members of congress to vote -- what we're going to do is we're going to break up my jobs bill. maybe they just couldn't understand the whole thing all at once. i'm going to ask members of congress to vote on one component of the plan, which is whether we should put hundreds of thousands of teachers back in the classroom and cops back on the street and firefighters back to work. >> senator kay hagan of north carolina is with the president today when he visited her state, which gave president obama a key victory in 2008. senator, it's so great to be with you. >> thank you, chris. >> i'm talking now about moderate democratic politics and american economic development. every country in the world knows you need education to do well, and certainly today, you need infrastructure, you need highways, and the basic utilities, and you need r&d,

usually public r&d invested in it. so why is that a hard sell? why is what he is selling, obama, basic economic development from the public sector so darn hard to sell with the republicans, your colleagues? >> well, you know, people have voted on this before. and i look at the fact that it is the future. the fact that education is our future. we've got to have good infrastructure in this country. and research and development is a tool that has made america a great superpower. we have got to continue these investments, especially when we're in an anemic growth right now, the economy is not good, and unemployment in north carolina is over 10.4%. i feel very strongly that we've got to work together, democrat and republican, to help turn this economy around and not wait until next november. >> you know, i went to chapel hill in grad school, i'm so proud of that place, and it's part of the research triangle in north carolina, nc state, of course, and duke, and all that

effort down there. do the north carolinanas know that they're a great state. you have to have some kind of public leadership, like obama's trying to give. >> well, you know, jim hunt did a great job too. >> i forgot him. >> north carolina, we actually invested in the biotech sector. we're the only state about 25 years ago that actually created of the biotech industry. in our state, as a public/private agency. and we have hundreds of thousands of jobs in north carolina at the rtp because the government came together with private industry and helped create this industry in north carolina. so i think we've got to continue doing that. but we've got to do it with democrats and republicans putting aside the partisan bickering, the ideologues, and work together. just last week, i introduced a bill with john mccain as the co-sponsor on the foreign

earnings reinvestment act. american companies have, right now, over a trillion dollars sitting overseas, not doing americans any good. if we can bring that money back to our country, we can begin to hire american workers, and once again, john mccain and i came together and put this bill forward. it's got to be a bipartisan effort in order to move forward. >> well, the crowd in north carolina chanted four more years for obama, but the president made clear his priority right now. let's hear what he had to say. let's listen. >> i appreciate -- i appreciate the four more years, but right now, i'm thinking about the next 13 months. because, yes, we've got an election coming up, but that election is a long ways away, and a lot of folks can't wait. look, i want to work with republicans on ways to create jobs right now. >> the president carried north carolina, as you know, better than anyone, by .3% last time

around. can he do it again, by any margin? >> he can do it again. he's got to stay focused on job. we've all got to stay focused on jobs. that's what's hurting people right now. and if we don't work together, i worry about more people being laid off. i've talked to numerous people today and all across north carolina that are hurting because of the unemployment situation. and people cannot wait until next november. we have got to work together, create bipartisanship legislation that can really put people back to work. and i'm talking about infrastructure, i'm talking about refurbishing our schools, making them more energy efficient, creating science labs in our school classrooms, helping people right now with jobs that will put them back to work. >> it's great to hear the voice of north carolina again, senator kay hagan, i love your accent. nice, soft, smart, north carolina, i love going that school. perry bacon joins us right now, a reporter for "the washington post." perry, give me a sense about the jobs bill and whether he can do it piece by piece.

now he's talking about, the president, pushing for the teachers' piece in this. about $30 billion to keep teachers employees. that serves two purposes, it's jobs and it's education. >> very unlikely to get that passed. the house republicans have been very clear as they view that along the lines of another version of the stimulus plan. i think that one's going to be very difficult to get through. it's a good message for the president in terms of it's a very popular idea from polls, at least, it's a good message from the president, but i don't that the republicans are going to vote for that. >> how can the republicans vote against teachers? not unions, but teachers, putting teachers back to work and you've got overcrowded classrooms and teachers laid off and their kids are in school? isn't this important, still to the far right, that we educate ourselves, or is that still off the table? i'm being sarcastic now. >> i think as you're watching the republican debates, you're seeing a sign of where the party's going, which is very much opposed to public spending, stimulus is a bad thing. and it's not clear obama has really punished them for these

votes as well. >> they can't all be home-schoolers, are they? >> they're not all home-schoolers, but they're not supporting much spending. >> let's take a look at the president how he contrasted his jobs bill, which is putting people to work, with this so-called republican jobs bill, which is just slapping a label on a bunch of right-wing, excuse the phrase, crap. >> my plan says we're going to put teachers back in the classroom, construction workers back to work, rebuilding america, rebuilding our schools, tax cuts for small businesses. tax cuts for hiring veterans, tax cuts if you give your worker a raise. that's my plan. and then you got their plan, which is, let's have dirtier air, dirtier water. less people with health insurance. >> well, i like that, because he's basically not letting them pound them anymore. he's saying, wait a minute,

their notion is about deregulation and less government really comes down to dirty air, dirty water, dirty food, and probably unsafe travel. so, it's interesting he's finally turned the corner on that, perry. >> i think this is really important. obama's strategy, it appears this time is to really rally the base in the same way that bush did in 2004. really make sure his base turns it as much as possible. and this kind of really direct language is a way to get there. he's not talking pie in the sky, he's not talking about everyone coming together. he's really laying out a very clear difference, my part is for health care, their party is for dirtier language. it's different language that's very descriptive and precise and i think you'll see more of that. >> it's one of those contrast tv ads they run in party elections. they call them contrast ads. i like it. in other words, negative. thank you very much, peter -- i mean, perry bacon of "the washington post." up next, what if herman cain had a 9-9-9 plan for everything? cain gets the "saturday night live" treatment. talk about having fun with this fella, they have it this saturday night. you're watching "hardball," only

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back to "hardball" now for the side show. this is the herman cain edition. first up, 9-9-9, call 911. herman cain's got a name for his pain. "saturday night live" targeted the most recent gop debate and along with it, the accusation that cain's economic plan is just too simple. let's listen. >> well, let me explain. i never thought that i would be taken seriously. so i never thought that anyone would look at it. the original goal of the 9-9-9 plan was to get me a show on fox news at 9:00. but if america is looking for

catchy, unworkable solutions to complicated problems, herman cain will keep 'em coming. how to fight terrorism, my 5-5-5 plan. for every terrorist american will send five airplanes, five soldiers, and five of those dogs that caught osama bin laden. how do we fix health care? the 3-3-3 plan. every time you get sick, you get three pills, three days off, and three chicken noodle soups. >> don't go giving him any ideas. we haven't heard much from the candidate on his proposals besides the 9-9-9 plan. up next, a hidden jest. after watching his 1991, this 1991 performance by the candidate himself at the very at least you'll have a firm grip on his passion for all things pizza. let's listen. ♪ ♪ imagine there's no pizza

♪ i couldn't if i tried ♪ eating only tacos or kentucky fried ♪ ♪ imagine only burgers, it's frightening and sad ♪ >> what a great voice. anyway, good thing he didn't use the john lennon lyrics, you know, "and no religion too," that would have gotten him into trouble, and not just with the religious right. up next, republicans don't like mitt romney, rick perry's fading and herman cain admits his plan will raise taxes. we'll talk about haley barbour about the troubles facing the republican field right now. you're watching "hardball," only on msnbc. [ male announcer ] you are a business pro.

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here's what's happening. the mother after a missing 11-month-old girl is admitting that she was drunk and may have blacked out on the night that baby lisa disappeared. high-profile defense attorney signed on to help represent her parents. his roster of former clients includes joran van der sloot and michael jackson. in what looks like a wide-ranging fraud scheme, pennsylvania police recovered about 50 different forms of identification from a philadelphia basement where four mentally disabled adults were being held captive. indy car driver dan wheldon's death this weekend --

the official cause of death was severe het trauma. and this time, a dying german satellite tumbling toward earth. scientists about a ton and a half of debris could make it through the atmosphere. they cannot say where or when it will land. now back to "hardball." welcome back to "hardball." herman cain is the gop's newest frontrunner and he's forcing many in the republican party to give him a second look. according to the latest cnn/dorc poll today, more than two-thirds of republicans have not made up their minds about whom to support. rick perry has taken a 17-point dive in the last month and is in third place with 13%. is herman cain the republican party's superman? can he sustain a campaign? haley barbour is governor of mississippi.

governor barbour, i'm a student of your party, if not a member of it, and i wonder what's going on. you've had one candidate after another to come up to challenge mitt romney and to do a pretty good job while they're on top, basically one-on-one with him, and then fade. and here we have basically a head-to-head now with herman cain. could cain actually beat romney countrywide? >> well, could he? sure. of course he could. the fact of the matter is, republicans are -- have a field where we don't have the typical frontrunner as so often is the case for republican nominations. and republicans are very patiently, and i think, prudently, looking at each one of these guys, to learn more about them. they like some of the things they learn. some of the things, maybe not as much. but i think this is a matter of republicans not being in nearly as big a hurry as the news media. you know, the news media -- and i'm not being critical, but the

news media wants this thing to be going full blast. a lot of people on our side are saying, i've got plenty of time, i want to take my time, because i want to make sure we nominate somebody that beats barack obama. >> i agree with what you said when you said that about a month ago, governor, but there's nobody else getting in, it looks like. so they're basically looking at, do i want coffee or tea right now, and they can't decide which one. is it that they don't want either one? is it they don't want perry -- it looks like right now. they don't want cain, he's untested, a business guy with no political background, and they don't think romney's a true conservative, it seems to me. how else can you explain why they wouldn't pick romney? why wouldn't you pick a guy you've been watching for seven or eight years now, if you like him? >> the fact of the matter is, rick perry's been the governor of the second biggest state in the country for quite a long time, but he's still not very well known by the average voter, even the average republican. mitt romney's not that well known by the average republican,

the average voter. and herman cain, some of the others are brand new to most voters. i just think people are being patient and taking their time, is the main thing going on here, because they realize, this election an election with incredibly high stakes. >> if i look at the candidates who are in the race and compare them to the ones who aren't in, mitch daniels, haley barbour, jeb bush and chris christie, the list of people not in this race on the republican side outweigh, in a lot more ways than one, the people who are in the race. and i mean that positively. don't you think your team of candidates who chose not to run would cream the ones who chose to run? >> well, you know, i'm flattered, ed, you're very generous. >> it's true. you know it's true. you and jeb bush and mitch daniels have so much weight on these guys that's running -- i mean, mitch's a credible candidate. but these other guys, they're not going to be president, are they? >> i bet a lot of people in 1991 and '92 were saying the same thing about bill clinton, why didn't some of the heavyweights

run? or jimmy carter in 1975 and '76. >> well, we're smarter now. >> the more these guys -- can i ask you a question. here's cain talking about the border fence. tell me if this qualifies him for president. here he is talking about a serious problem, illegal immigration in this country, everybody has some solution to it. let's watch his. >> we'll have a real fence. 20 feet high, with barbed wire, electrified. with a sign on the other side that says "it can kill you." >> well, there's a good neighbor policy. i mean, think about it. 20 feet high, from the atlantic to the pacific, electrified, and it says, "it can kill you." that's our message to the entire southern part of this hemisphere, "it can kill you." is he serious? >> i had read a story about this -- i had read a story about this

where people were criticizing cain because they said that he acted like he wanted to kill people. it sounds to me from hearing the rendition that i just heard that what he was actually saying was, we would warn people that this is dangerous and they don't need to come to it. you know, whether you agree that that's the right way to do it or not, we have to secure the border of the united states. >> sure. >> and in some places, fencing is a very good way to do that. in other places, we'll do it with technology, with cameras, with drones, with motion sensors. and we'll have to have a lot of boots on the ground. but there's no question that there are certain parts of the united states, particularly certain urban areas, that a fence is a very effective way. >> would you put up a 20-foot-high electrified fence anywhere across our border? electrified. that says "this could kill you." would you do that? anywhere? >> well, i don't think that -- i think past experience shows us that you don't have to have an electrified fence. >> you wouldn't do it?

>> i don't think there's anything wrong with having an electrified fence. i wouldn't want to have one that would actually kill people, though it might get some people's attention if they thought it might. >> let's listen to what president obama had to say last month on issue of fair taxes and then we'll play you what another prominent republican had to say, besides you, about the same issue. >> and that's why this plan eliminates tax loopholes that primarily go to the wealthiest taxpayers and biggest corporations. it is wrong in the united states of america that a teacher or a nurse or a construction worker who earns $50,000 should pay higher tax rates than someone pulling in $50 million. >> we're going to close the unproductive tax loopholes that have allowed some of the truly wealthy avoiding paying their fair share. in theory, some of those loopholes were understandable, but in practice, they sometimes made it possible for millionaires to pay nothing while a bus driver was paying 10% of his salary, and that's

crazy. it's time we stopped it. >> that's president reagan, as you remember, making the case for tax reform, which he succeeded in getting in '85. what do you think of the comparison of the two? it sounds family familiar, both of them. >> well, i think it was '86. >> the bill was passed in '85. >> the fact is, the reagan bill cut rates. it reduced rates to two rates. obama wants to add rates and then make the rates go higher. 5.5% higher, which is a 12% increase. there is no excuse for a system that allows people that make enormous amounts of money to pay no taxes. there also is no excuse for a system where half the people in the country pay no income taxes. that's why i thought the president's own commission, the simpson/bowles commission, came out with a perfectly reasonable plan that would have lowered

rates, lowered rates even lower than reagan did while eliminating broadening the tax system. so there's a huge difference between what ronald reagan was saying and what barack obama was saying and proposing. >> but do you think it's fair to pay 15% taxes on capital gains and 35% on sweat work? >> well, people don't pay 35% on, quote, sweat work, if you're talking about that's some kind of -- that's some kind of real hard labor. >> a salaried income is 35% taxed, whereas a money income is being 15% taxed. >> i misunderstood you. i thaigt -- thought you meant sweat literally, you mean like being a tv host. >> i'm trying to include us all. i'm talking anyone that gets paid a salary, why should they pay a higher rate than people who get money off of money? >> most of the countries in the world, either tax capital gains at a lesser rate than us or at no tax at all.

because they want people to invest their money in job creation, in technology, and our capital gains tax rates, when they were low editor 15%, actually increased the amount of revenue that was collected by the united states government. and you know, you remember what barack obama told charlie gibson about that on national television, even though raising the rate for capital gains would decrease the amount of money that the government took in, it was a matter of fairness. >> okay, i heard that. >> well, i think the policy we want in this country is a policy that creates more jobs and capital gains help create more jobs. >> i'm with the buffett rule, myself. thank you, governor haley barbour, you always seem reasonable, or at least you sound reasonable. thank you, sir. >> i'll take that as a compliment. >> it was one. thank you, governor haley barbour, of mississippi. the great new movie "margin call" comes out and does talk about the deceit of wall street

and the incredible dishonesty of some people up there as they dump bad assets on good people so they can escape with their billions. kevin spacey one of the bad guys in the movie and he's a very good bad guy. this is "hardball," only on msnbc. [ male announcer ] succeeding in today's market requires decisive action. i go to e-trade and tap into the power of revolutionary mobile apps to trade wherever. whenever. life isn't fully experienced sitting idly by. neither is investing. [ birds chirping ] i've tried it.

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and you're selling something that you know has no value. >> we are selling to willing buyers of the current fair market price so that we may survive. that we may survive. >> you will never sell anything to any of those people ever again. >> i understand. >> do you? >> do you? this is it. i'm telling you, this is it. >> welcome back to "hardball." that's a clip from the new movie "margin call" which is about a fictional i think in a way wall street firm. it's about all of them. on the eve of the 2008 financial crisis. it opens this friday around the country and stars great kevin spacee who's here with me and j.c. chandler. what i love about his movie, i saw it couple weeks ago. it's spectacular. explains the ultimate evil, which is the willingness of

people with money to do anything to keep it, even screwing people that they like and work with. >> will, i also think what j.c. has done with this movie is given you a clear idea about hierarchy. every time you think you meet a top guy at the firm, five minutes later you meet somebody who's above that guy and above that guy. that's why it's become so difficult to necessarily point the correct fingers at the correct peep it certainly is interesting do us at the very moment that wall street is being occupied, because i think people are realizing there was a big band-aid put on a very big wound in 2008, you know, this movie isn't a history lesson. it's happening. >> it's a lot like high noon where you have a certain clock ticking and in realtime you realize people under pressure will say, let's screw the people we do business with so we come out on top. by the way, do they always make the bad guys at the top have english accents? the really bad people -- >> you call me a bad guy in this movie. >> you are. you buckle. >> i think the character -- >> he's a human being.

>> he's a human being. he doesn't set out to be bad and he's against it all the way. ultimately he's got to feed his family. >> won't so many wall street people say the same thing, we have to stay in business, we have to cut deal, we have to deceive? won't they all say that? they're all human beings? >> you can't lump deceive in there with we have to pay bills and have to -- some do and some didn't. and some didn't go down the road this firm went. this was, you know, your father was in this business for a long time. >> the sort of -- what we tried to do with the film is actually look at these people as human beings. and actually figure out that it's not pure greed or pure deceit. it's a very, very complicated issue that there's no simple answer. >> what did you learn on wall street so people watching "hardball" gets it? >> this is not going to be fixed quickly. this is going to be a long complicated conversation. if we put our heads in the sand

and say, you're bad, i'm good. we're in the same place. >> we learned real estate assets were bundled together into securities and sold off to belgium or somewhere and along that chain of custody this stuff that had no value, because the poor people bought these homes, couldn't pay for them with the declining real estate market, it all was going to be worthless. i like the way you explain that in the movie. >> i know. what i also love is even the characters like the character i play and several other characters admit they can't read the graphs. they have no idea what any of that stuff means. they have get the smaller guys -- >> you fire the guy who the movie who warns you what's coming. like the guy in the titanic who said the ship hit an iceberg, fire that guy. >> they warned the firms, warned their bosses and were kpleecompy ignored. >> stanley is walking out with his box like people who have been fired have to do. walked out with his box, escorted by security and he's the guy they have to go and pay him to shut up. >> there were also a lot of people leading up to the crisis

that were fire e ed for wimping too early. there's this if you get out too early, you're gone, if you stay too late, it's better to stay too late. that's not the smartest way to run a multinational corporation. >> why should people see a movie that's going to make them mad at wall street? >> hopefully it will make people understand it and not as black and white as you're painting it out to be. >> that's the way i saw it. >> it's more nuanced and ultimately what's nice is -- >> was it fun, too? >> i loved the movie. i congratulate you for the number of people you put out on wall street. all the streets out there, all the people demonstrating for the movie. great move. i'm just teasing. they're real out there. this is a movie. kevin spacesy, j.c. chandor. when we return, let me finish with the one big problem about the tea party. they're totally utterly negative. ah looks like somebody's a winner. ha, not me! cause shipping is a hassle. different states, different rates.

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let me finish tonight with this -- it's hard to go positive when your movement is based on a negative. isn't that the problem with the tea party? all their passion and energy, their very roots are built on a not. not liking obama, not liking taxes, etch on the wealthy. not liking the government. not liking government, period. this is why we see the utter failure of the tea party set to settle on a presidential candidate to remove mitt romney from his front-runner status. they have candidates, all right.

they have one every month. they love trump for a week or two, loved bachmann. that was a summer romance. then they swooned for perry before he swooned over in debates. now they like herman cain. with him they have a problem. it's not him exactly. just the fact that he's the last one standing. how can they embrace a guy they might get stuck with? this is serious. we have a loud political movement proving itself incapable of speaking a message on a political movement, to locate, advocate and elect someone to run the government. the reason is they, the tea party crowd, really don't like leaders. they don't trust the person who stands in front of the room and says, make me your leader. no, they much prefer the loud guy in the back row waving his hand angrily. the guy who doesn't like what's going on. even in a room where nobody likes what's going on any time anywhere. and because that guy on the back row, the one who's always ready to jump up and yell down something someone else just said is one really calling the shots of the tea party. it's really hard to find someone to stand up in front of a room and try to lead that.