crt ro24tbbuheedone uslkurr re wisess sfe rhbdalheriom urr oban.asex r 'ur az a thanks so much for joining us for the last hour. stay with us now, because my colleague, thomas roberts, is here from 4:00 to 5:00. toms, it's yours. >> all right, martin, thank you so much. as you said, developing in this hour, we are ramping up as herman cain meets the press. extensive coverage coming up on the dylan ratigan show, which starts right now.

hi, everybody. good tuesday afternoon to you. i'm thomas roberts. dylan has the day off. we begin with herman cain. in one hour, he'll hold a news conference. we'll bring it to you live right here on msnbc. "hardball's" chris matthews will steer you through that. but right now cain is facing more charges of sexual harassment. these charges got a name and a face on monday at another news conference and this morning on the "today" show. take a look and a listen at this. >> it's not about me. i'm not the one running for president. when this happened is, the first reaction is you're embarrassed. number two, i had a boyfriend at the time, we did discuss it briefly, although i didn't share the details with him, and he said, it's going to be one of those he said/she said things. i think maybe mr. cain's definition of harassment might be different. >> so it's super tuesday, so we have a mega mega panel for you. martin bashir is joining us and he joins us in our regular tuesday mega panel of karen, susan, and jimmy. so that means when martin shows

up, it's a mega mega. >> that's ridiculous, because you're twice my height! i'm the shortest guy here. >> you're the mega mega. let's go around the table and start talking about this, about exactly what herman cain should be saying, what we're going to hear from him. karen, i want to start with you. what do you think he can do right now to get away from the distraction, which is the sexual harassment claims? can he? >> well, i think what he's going to do, we saw him preview this in his press statement, right? he went after attacking gloria allred as a big democratic party donor and someone who's known to like the cameras. basically saying, these allegations are false. but really making the attack about, oh, they're out to get me. i think we're going to hear more of that. and again, more of the, i didn't do anything. and i think it is going to be a he said/she said. >> it's probably going to be a lot less of what we saw last night, or if people stayed up late to watch this. i want to play a clip of what happened last night when herman cain sat down with jimmy kimmel. >> you told a reporter, maybe some reporters, you said, when

you get -- when people get on the cain train, they don't get off. >> that's right. >> what -- do you regret that choice of words, a? and b, what does that mean, exactly? >> when people believe in herman cain and his message, they know that it is sincere. >> when he jokes about this martin, and as you just had in your show, obvious these are very sobering allegations, but what would you recommend for herman cain to do. because you've got to give him the benefit of the doubt that all this stuff could be made up, but you want to be conscientious and contractsiderate of who the accuser is. >> karen finney's been pointing out this man's absolute incompetence when it comes to policy. so he should get out anyway. but i think he's going to create the illusion that this woman or these women are doing this for

financial gain. it's a classic diversionary tactic. it's used by sportsmen around the world. it's used now by politicians. it's used by the republican presidential candidate. the question i have for him is, how is it possible that five -- potentially five individual women are motivated by money to make allegations that are so shocking and disturbing, frankly. this is a man who allegedly takes a woman's head, while he's sitting in his car, and forces it towards his groin. that's, in my view, close to sexual assault. this isn't something to be joking about. so he's got to give us a better answer today at 5:00 than just, "they're after money." this woman, sharon bialek, has said she's not interested in any money. she didn't ask for any money from nbc. she did an interview with cnn. she did an interview with nbc. she's not asking for money. but that, i think, is what he's going to come out with. >> sharon, you have a good observation about what the cain

campaign would mean in terms of a cain president and i how they handle crisis. >> first of all, as a crisis, it's been a train wreck. whatever the cain train may be, it's really a train wreck. and he's showed without question that he's -- >> jimmy likes that. >> it's good. >> laughs quietly to himself over here. >> but, in the end, it's just, he can't even run his own campaign. what kind of white house can he run? these are serious problems. this man has gone after every single issue and had to backtrack on it. so he has a history of this. and pointing out, now he's on the third person he wants to blame on a sexual harassment charge. none of this is going to work. and i think if he does do what martin thinks he's going to, it will actually backfire on him. because he no longer has any credibility as being able to stand up and say -- stand by his own words. >> jimmy, you think this is all a big distraction, because we should be more concerned and paying more attention to the fact that he doesn't know who has nuclear capabilities modern day as opposed to the what ifs

of sexual harassment allegations in his past. >> this is a person who's running for the president of the united states. that's a lofty goal, i don't want it, but, okay. he doesn't know that china has nuclear weapons. i brought this up with a friend of mine down in south carolina, and he said, no, jimmy, he just confused them with north korea. i said, all right, let me see if i've got this right. the former godfather of godfather's pizza, former chairman of the federal reserve bank of kansas, running for president, atop in the polls, no campaign apparatus, and he confused china with north korea? oh, wait, north korea, by the way, now u.n. says they have them, on nuclear weapons. so maybe he knew that the u.n. was going to say that. i don't know. what i can tell you is the man is not qualified to be president. >> but, karen, isn't one of the problems that we've talked about previously is that this campaign, and in fact, over the last probably three years, with the incursion of sarah palin, there's been this elevation of

stupidity. >> sure! >> so what people want to do is parade their absolute ignorance as being somewhat better than the elites that have failed the country. >> that's right. but also, relatable, right? in political terms, that's how they would talk about it. that was part of the reason, some actually said intentionally, george bush would always say nuclear instead of nuclear, because it made him sound more relatable. but frankly, i want a smart president. think what's happening this week at the g-20. you want the smart guy at the table with the rest of those characters. >> at least to sound out the big words. >> and at least you want the people to know who's sitting around the table with them and they're negotiating with and where they come from. there's another point that susan made that i think is important. this lack of a coherent strategy in terms of how to deal with the train wreck, that also, at some point, donors aren't going to like that. the the big donors aren't going to like that. it is true that there is a base that seems to be sticking with him. but at some point, it's the same thing they saw with rick perry. they're going to say, if this

guy can't manage his campaign, that's not a good -- >> and once the money goes, then he's in real trouble. >> the money's there right now. >> so he says. everyone keeps saying he's raised all the money. >> you're saying, show me the recei receipts? >> yeah! >> his campaign is saying they've raised $2 million in a week. >> perhaps they did, but that's a lot of money for this candidate to raise in such a short time given everything that's happened. until you see the filings, you don't know what the candidates have raised. my guess is they may have said they have pledges of $2 millions and maybe not receipts of $2 million, which is a big difference. >> susan, i want to get your take as a republican strategist. do you think that sharon bialek made the smartest move by hiring gloria allred, doing a press conference at the friars club. do you think that they've just allowed for punches in credibility to be wide open? >> without a doubt, the location and the person she choose to represent her was not ideal for someone who wants to go ahead and bring up serious charges.

and she probably did herself a disservice. and yet, she also may have found herself -- who else will help me get to where i need to go, and this may be by only venue, because she didn't know who to reach out. but it wasn't the right visual you wanted to send. frankly, the press corps was going crazy with it. it was just bad timing. >> there's also this irony, that here you have herman cain's campaign, essentially accusing her of reaching out to a big democratic party donor. at the same time, by the way, the brother from another mother from last week is -- his campaign has been accused of taking koch brothers' money and using it towards his campaign, which may account for why he's able to -- >> -- campaign manager, those allegations. >> but to use that for the purpose of the campaign. and my point is, they're going after donors, big democratic party donors coming after him, at the same time he's leaning on big conservative donors. >> that's the fourth person he's blamed. he's blamed the liberal media, he's blamed the perry campaign, or at least another campaign -- >> what's the old phrase?

when you point a finger, you get three pointed back at you, so it seems like that's the mantra in the campaign is using right now. we'll know more coming up at 5:00. i'm going to thank our mega mega panel, which just consists of martin bashir. we're going to lose one mega. i do want to point out a programming note. tomorrow morning at 11:00 a.m. eastern on my regular hour here on msnbc, i'll sit down with sharon bialek and her attorney, gloria allred, to talk about what they felt they saw here today at 5:00. that's tomorrow at 11:00 a.m. and coming up here on "the dylan ratigan show," we continue to follow the story as we wait to herman cain to respond though these latest allegations of sexual harassment. press conference, less than an hour. but, next -- ♪ not much money >> why this depression era tune remin reminds us of today. and the real erin

brockovich, our specialist. that and much more, stick around. ♪ ♪ mama said there'd be days like this ♪ ♪ "there'll be days like this," mama said ♪ [ male announcer ] the toughest job on the planet just got a little easier. with one touch technology and even an air scrubber. the nissan quest. innovation for family. innovation for all. get up to $3,050 total savings on the 2011 nissan quest. ♪ but when they come home, they don't want a parade; they want a job. the postal service employs more veterans than any other civilian employer. but congress is debating a bill that would force the postal service to fire tens of thousands of vets,

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♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] everyone deserves the gift of a pain free holiday. this season, discover aleve. all day pain relief with just two pills. all right. so during the great depression, you could hear this song being played on the radio. the lyrics basically said, the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, ain't we got fun.

news this week that the wealth gap between the rich and poor americans is the widest on record and has worsened during the economic turndown. t how are the big banks on wall street doing? "the washington post" tells us they are doing under president obama than they did under george w. bush. in fact, according to the polls, wall street and their banking partners made more money in the first 2 1/2 years under president obama than in the entire 8 years of the bush white house. more news of the day, as europe dealing with its growing debt crisis. italy's silvio berlusconi is toast. he's going to resign as early as next week. italy teetering on the edge, facing a $2.6 trillion debt. while in greece, athens closing in on an interim prime minister to replace that of the outgoing george papandreou. for more on the greek crisis. i turn it over to "saturday night live's" fake news anchor,sanchor, seth myers, to break it down for us. take a look.

>> it's actually very simple. europe said to greece, we will give you the money you need, but you have to change your ways. but the greeks are not good at changing their ways. they've had the same coffee cup design for 5,000 years. but it's too easy to just blame the greeks. i also want to blame everything who thought that lending the greeks money was a good idea. you don't even have to go to europe to see that greeks are bad with money. just go to a greek diner here in new york. two people eating, 14 people working, and you can get a turkey sandwich the size of a dictionary for $3. it's not a solid business plan. what did you expect from a country whose main expert is doctor's office paintings. it's a yogurt-based economy. the only thing that works together in greece is eyebrows. with that said, i love falling the euro debt crisis, because with all due respect to brangelina, the most interesting couple on earth is these two. german chancellor angela merkel and french president nicolas

sarkozy. how great is this pairing? they couldn't look more like a german woman and a french man if they were cartoons in a tin-tin book. it's up to these two to hold europe together, and they are not getting any help at all. the leader of the next biggest country in the eurozone is italian prime minister silvio berlusconi who is going on trial for having sex with hookers, so his economic plan is, the money's on the dresser. two weeks ago, slovakia said, hey, we're not sure about the bailout. europe said, why do we care about what you think, slovakia, and slovakia said, because we're in the rureuro and the votes ha to be unanimous 17 countries and the votes have to be unanimous. i can't get three friends to agree on a restaurant. can you imagine if none of us spoke the same language and our grandparents killed each other in world war ii? why did you ever think you could get on the same currency, europe. you guys have shared a tiny continent for 300 years and you

still don't speak the same language. belgium has two languages and it's the size of a midwestern college campus. but i'm still pulling for these two crazy kids right here. german and france, germance. >> great analysis by seth there. joining us now, friend of this show, jerry ritholtz. good to have you here. italy really on the brink. berlusconi saying he's going to the resign roughly in a week after some economic reforms. here we go talking about the italian bond yields hit record highs with a $2.6 trillion in debt. is italy the eu's biggest concern? >> no, actually, italy is relatively okay, compared to some of their other problems. look, greece is small dysfunctional economy, and the greece ends up defaulting or toppling, it's painful, but not fatal, because the economy is so small. italy, a large, robust economy, has a lot of debt.

hey, $2 trillion, a lot of debt for a european country. but they also have a very robust economy. they grow fairly well. they have a lot of industries. it's a very well-diversified group. the real problem that europe is going to run into is spain. because it's nearly as large as italy. it has at least as much debt, but nowhere near the ability to grow out of the problem the way italy can. germa germany's got a robust economy, france isn't bad, italy isn't bad. spain is really going to be a problem. >> and portugal, easily. >> portugal similar to greece. look, you take portugal, take greece, take ireland, relatively small economies. italy, third largest economy in the eurozone. spain right behind them. >> barry, let's put this into context, the entire greek economy is the size of dallas ft.ward. they are $485 billion in death. athens working overtime to form this unity government. how did it get this bad?

how were people overlooking this mounting crises for so long, allowing it to get to a point where an economy the size of dallas-ft. worth is going to be putting such a major hole in the entire eurozone? >> well, there are two things that wept wrong. the first was greece pretty much lied their way into the eu. with a little help of goldman sachs, they gussied up their balance sheets, they made it look like they had less debt. that's the miracle of financial engineering. of course, as we've learned in our own crisis, you can only sweep stuff under the rug for so long before eventually the whole house comes down. and that is the first problem. greece really never should have been in the eu. the second problem is in the structure of the european union itself, they have what's called a monetary union. they have one central bank, setting interest rate policies for all of the countries in the eu. but each of the countries run their own fiscal house.

so in the united states, we have one central bank sending policy, and all the local states and municipalities have their own budgets, but the united states sets the monetary policy for the whole nation. when it comes to things like defense and highways and social security and medicare, there's one policy. imagine having 17 separate policies. >> right. >> with one interest rate. so the country's running big deficits. we're able to do so, because their credit rating was tied to the ecb. stop and think about how crazy that is. you have german doing really well. >> sure, the broadest shoulders in the eurozone. >> that's right. with the same credit rating as greece. and that worked for a while. it's part of the reason why all the private banks in greece, in europe, lent money to the italians and to the greeks and to the spanish, at the same rates they lent it to the germans, until not too long ago that it was clear that that

wouldn't work out. >> barry, i want to talk about what's happening here domestically. earlier i mentioned this age wealth gap here in america. older americans are 47 times richer than younger americans in this country. how did it get to be so wide in a gap like that? i can understand 15, 20 times richer, but 47 times richer is immense. >> well, a couple of factors led to that. by the way, these complex situations, it's never one thing. it's always a couple of different factors. you would expect, as you go through life, you pay off your debts, you accumulate more wealth. as you get older, you work more at higher-paying jobs. so accumulating wealth as you age makes sense. >> right. >> one of the problems we're seeing today is there's less job opportunity and less wage growth for young people, unless they have very specific, very technical skills. you come out of world war ii and a middle class family could basically take a typical middle class job. i don't want to call it unskilled labor, but it wasn't a

highly technical job. you're not an sql programmer. you're not a high-level math mathematician running programs for goldman sachs. you could be a teacher or fireman or cop or postal worker and make a pretty decent living and have a nice little pension and afford a nice little house in the suburbs. those sort of jobs continue to go away. we've been in a secular depression for 30 years now where we lost mill jobs and we lost clothing jobs and we lost some industrial jobs. so on the one hand, we're getting these higher paid jobs, but you really need a high level of education, a very specific skill set. so that's the one factor. the other factor is, past ten years, we've seen zero wage growth nationally, and in a lot of demographics, the wages have actually dropped. we're now in a global marketplace for labor, which means you're competing against people in china and india, who are making $5 and $10 a day. it's hard to earn $50,000 if

that could be outsourced, you know, for one-tenth the cost. >> barry ritholtz, great to see you. straight ahead for everybody, you have seen the movie. meet the woman and hear about the newest chapter in her crusade to keep american families safe. erin brockovich is our specialist, right after this. stick around. [ male announcer ] how are we going to make this season better than the last? how about making it brighter. more colorful. ♪ and putting all our helpers to work? so we can build on our favorite traditions by adding a few new ones. we've all got garlands and budgets to stretch. and this year, we can keep them both evergreen. more saving. more doing. that's the power of the home depot. here's a bright idea. trade in any light string and get up to 5 bucks off the latest christmas led's.

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welcome back, everybody. we are with our mega panel and joined now by erin brockovich, who is infamous about her battle against a california power company in the 1990s, winning her plaintiffs the largest settlement in u.s. history. and you know what, she also eventually won julia roberts an oscar for portraying her in the movie, "erin brockovich." now she's putting her notoriety to good use as both a consumer advocate and a best-selling fiction author. her new book is entitled "hot

water." erin, great to have you here. we all know the story that was inspired by what happened and what we saw on the big screen. again, you won that big, large settlement, the largest one in history, and julia got her oscar out of it. but the inspiration for this book, "hot water," where'd it come from? >> it came from the people, about the cases like out in hinkley, california. and hinkley's not an isolated incident. there are thousands upon thousands of them throughout the u.s. i get tens of thousands of e-mails a month. and it's through hearing people's stories, looking at issues we're not looking at, all the daunting tasks that are in front of us, people tuning a deaf ear. i thought, what a better way to create a character that we could aspire to that exists in all of us anyway about some real issues and hope that people read it, enjoy it, know that they can become a.j. palladino, their own hero, and that's why. >> when you see activism that's going on today with occupy wall street, are you inspired by what you see people banding together

to use their voices? i know, because you're an activist, a single mom. you fought for a lot of people. but do you like seeing what you're seeing on wall street? >> well, i appreciate the frustration. and i hear what it is they're trying to say. i think that we're all frustrated. but i have learned over 20 years in dealing specifically with communities that we need to, i don't know, be more focused. possibly occupy wall street, i feel they've lost their message. i think that they need to pick one or two spokespersons that can convey what their message is. and if we get out there and it becomes convoluted and we're just kind of griping about every single thing, their cause and the issues and the message gets lost and then they don't win anything. >> i wanted to invite our megapanel to jump in here. karen? >> i had a question. just as i understand it, the story line in this book deals with nuclear power. >> yes. >> nuclear, not nuke-leer, as our former president used to say.

you say you get inspiration from the letters that we received. was there something in particular you saw that made you want to tackle this issue in your book? >> i see a lot of it. what happens in all of my e-mails, i can clearly start trending information. i get one e-mail from a person in the community, and the next day i might have five from the same community, and the following week, suddenly ten. then i can query and put together, wow, this whole community, unbeknownst to one another, is suffering the same problem. and then beginning to take a look at the source. and unfortunately, i think we've become complacent with nuclear power. i think there's a lot of secrets behind it that we need to know and communities are now reporting that there appears to be lots of cancers and disease in and around some nuclear facilities. >> and we know herman cain needs to know who has nuclear capabilities, right? >> can you make sure that herman cain knows that we have nuclear power plants, maybe even some nuclear weapons, like minot, north dakota, something like that.

>> i haven't followed much of what herman cain is doing. >> don't. that would be a huge waste of time. i have a question. you see these surveys about the healthiest state in the country to live in or the unhealthiest state in the country to live in. you go out and hear from people all across the united states. tell me what state you would live in and what state you wouldn't live in? >> well, the state i am living in, in california, has a whole lot of issues. unfortunately, the state in which we are speaking from right now has a whole lot of issues. the map that i have created, and i am in discussions with google on how we can take this further and turn it into a live map, a people's reporting registry. on my map as it is today, there are 1,700 stits in the united states alone where people are reporting what appears to be higher instance of disease and illness in and around these sites. and when i look at the map, it's startling, but i will tell you, there's a small little section over here around wyoming and south dakota where nobody's

reporting anything. so i don't know if that's the safest place to live, but if i had to gauge my map, i might head that way. >> erin, are you following what's going on with fracing in this country? >> i am. huge issue. >> explain it. what are you seeing? so we can explain to everybody, fracing is the new procedure that they're using to drill for oil in certain areas. like north dakota. >> right. >> and other states around the country. >> and colorado and pennsylvania and texas. >> and seeping into our drinking water. >> yes. and i am getting complaints from residents all other the country. and one thing that we forget or maybe take for granted is the municipal water system that we have. and we don't realize that some 40 million americans are still on their own well water. that just blows my mind. >> jimmy, you are? >> yep. >> there you go. and we're usually seeing these people impacted first. but fracing takes millions and millions of gallons of water to frac one well. and it takes a lot of chemicals to do it. and those chemicals and the water that they use just gets reinjected back into the auk

aquifer, and people on their own well water, it usually pops up there first. and people are very, very frustrated, very concerned about their health, and they're very concerned about the water consumption that we use. we're on the verge of a water crisis in this country anyway. so we have to refigure how it is we're going to utilize the water we've got, not contaminate anymore. >> do you think people are so desperate in this country economically this they're willing to take a chance with their health, to let areas like north dakota and other places, other states around this country that are willing to do that fracing procedure, to look and try to get in the big oil game? do you think people are willing to take that chance? >> in the communities that i deal, i would have to tell you, no. if you think that getting embroiled in something and down the road, you might get some money for it, for the sake of your health, it's a losing game. and most communities don't want to risk that. especially when it comes to their children's health and welfare. >> erin brockovich, great to see you here today.

we really appreciate it. and i have the book here, "hot water," so everybody can see it. as we've been going back and forth with our light. >> a.j.'s been our activist superhere. we need an a.j. doll. >> it's really great. >> i love her. >> are you going to get a doll out of this, you think? >> i don't know, i think we should definitely have an a.j. doll or an a.j. bobblehead. >> we'll start with the bobblehead first. up next, the phrase, you know, others work to live, americans live to work. david goodfriend with a rant on what that means in the age of unemployment and why we're wrong. we're back after this. [ male announcer ] tom's discovering that living healthy can be fun.

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welcome back, everybody. now joining us for an early edition to have the daily rant is david goodfriend. take it away. >> thanks, thomas. work. we spend a lot of time talking about it, especially these days. not enough people have work, we know that. the official unemployment rate remains at about 9%, but as this

show has discussed in great detail, if you count the people who are working part-time instead of full-time or who are getting paid far below their skill level, the unemployment rate is much higher. work. it defines us. if we're lucky enough to have it. when someone asks, what do you do? they're really asking about your role in society. teacher, firefighter, construction worker, nurse, lawyer, doctor. these aren't just jobs, they're statements about who you are, how you spend most of your waking hours. work. we even glorify the work ethic in sports. who can forget in 1995, when baltimore orioles' third baseman, cal ripkin jr. broke lou gehrig's record of 2,130 consecutive games played. the fanfare that night at camden yards, the celebration. all in honor of a guy who showed up to work every day, every game, no sick days, no time off. what a hero.

so you would think with all this celebration of work in the usa, we would be all about rewarding work. not so. if you work really hard and earn a good salary, you might have to pay 25 or even 35% federal income tax. but if you buy a share of stock and sell it a week later for more, you pay 15% capital gains tax. that's rewarding ownership, not work. just ask the richest man in america, warren buffett, who thinks east tax rates are absurd. now, if a company announces that it is raising its pay scale across the board, its stock gets hammered. but announce a round of layoffs, and the wall street analysts will sing a company's praises for being efficient. the stock price soars. that's not rewarding work. that's rewarding cost cutting. even our immigration policy de-values work. a foreign student graduating with an engineering degree from a top u.s. university might want to stay here to start a new company and hire some people.

but we say, sorry, we don't have enough visas, so the kid goes home and starts the new company over there, hiring locals and using that american degree to compete against us. what gets me so ticked off is the hypocrisy, the disconnect between how we claim to value work and then seem to stack the deck against it. now, before i am branded some neotratskyite socialist by sarah palin, we should all agree that work isn't limited to working for someone else, it includes working for yourself or owning a small business. work is the essence of real capitalism, taking a risk and building something. but even there, these days, banks made capital available to the conglomerate, not so much the start-up. there are tens of millions of cal ripkin jr. kikin juniors i country right now. men and women hungry for work, for that chance to show up every day and make a difference. this is america.

we live to work. i just want us to do a better job of showing we mean it. thomas? >> all right. you had me at orioles. i grew up in baltimore, so, good job! good job. thank you. coming up, that is the podium. take a peek. this is where the herman cain press conference will begin, less than 20 minutes away. what is he going to say and is it going to be enough to quiet the critics out there. our coverage of this continuing story continues in a moment. congratulations. congratulations. congratulations. today, the city of charlotte can use verizon technology to inspire businesses to conserve energy and monitor costs. making communities greener... congratulations. ... and buildings as valuable to the bottom line... whoa !

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the big get of the political story was true! the national restaurant association did pay a bunch of money to two ladies to settle harassment claims against herman cain! which, by the way, even herman cain seemed to know about in 2003. >> in 2003, herman cain ran for the senate. he hired a general consultant, curt anderson. mr. cain divulged the nra claims at that time to his general consultant. >> national restaurant association. >> exactly. mr. anderson, so the campaign, at that point, would be prepared if the issue surfaced. >> but by 2011, his memory had become, oh, faded. >> i am unaware of any sort of settlement. i hope it wasn't for much, because i didn't do anything. >> oh, you didn't! that's too bad, because they paid her $482 million!

>> so jon stewart poking fun at presidtial candidate herman cain there, but the fact of the matter is the cain campaign is facing some pretty serious sexual harassment allegations. about 15 minutes from now, there is the shot, he's going to face reporters about this growing scandal. i want to bring back our mega panel, karen, susan, and jimmy. karen, when we talk about the fact that sharon bialek has come out to put a face and a name to all of this, how do you think that women have reacted to her? do you think that women have embraced the fact that this woman has stepped forward or do you think that she has been, maybe vilified by some? >> well, i think you're going to get two points of view on that, depending -- you know, people react differently. and i hate people classify, what do the women think? women think many different things about many different issues. but what's important, it's not just that the name and the face that was put to this, it was also the story. so now this story is out there, actual charges of what happened, that, i think, will hit, you

know, speak to women differently. and for that matter, men. because this is a very specific charge. and that's going to be problematic, because until now, there was no specific charge brought against him. >> jimmy, if there is no specific charge, these allegations are from over a decade ago, in reference to sharon bialek. does he really need to respond to them in kind or can he say that, without anything specific, why do you need me to? >> well, if he would tylike to president, he should. look, he remembered that it happened, then he didn't -- this gi's lying. he's a big, fat liar. herman cain -- i'm going to say it on tv. herman cain is a big fat liar, okay? when bill clinton shook his hand, his little finger at the nation and said, i did not have sexual relations with that woman, everybody in the country knew he was lying. you can smell it. this guy is lying. there is no difference between herman cain being accused of sexually harassing woman after woman after woman, we're now at five -- by the way, there are

five flags behind that podium, i just want to point that out. there's no difference between that. why should herman cain, if he's even accused of one of these and found guilty, that man should have to register as a sex offender. >> oh, come on, jimmy, now you're going a little -- stop! >> why not? you're a woman. are you not offended by what he's done? i'm offended and i'm a man. >> if he's accused and convicted. >> what is he going to be convicted of? there's no charges. none of that exist. now you're just going on to make a big to do. you called the man a liar -- >> he's a liar. >> now you've got all the dramatics out. >> he's a liar. a liar is running for the president of the united states. i'm sorry, i have the right to say -- >> to say that he should be a sexual offender -- >> if he's convicted, he is. >> susan, how would you classify what sharon bialek is saying. that he physically approached -- i mean, how would you classify what she is describing -- >> it would be -- it could be an assault, but the point is that no charge have said filed against -- >> ever filed. never filed.

>> never filed. >> that's because there was the -- >> the settlements. >> the confidentiality agreement and the settlements. i think it's a little beyond the pale to say there's no difference between him and a sexual offender. this is a very big deal in this country. yesterday, all day on this network, what were we talking about? a new report that says that kids are facing this in high school and middle school. my god! >> sexual harassment. >> so regardless, let's talk a moment and have a conversation with ourselves, with these young people. and instead of cain making jokes about it or us making jokes about it, maybe use it as a moment to have a conversation in our own community and say, wait a minute, did you feel offended when i made that comment and talk to your kids about it. this is clearly a very big problem in this country. >> but without more people coming forward, and we have sharon bialek, the only person who has come forward to put a name and a face on this, doesn't

it just remain anonymous? and people have made these claims, they've gotten -- signed off on confidentiality agreements, they may have gotten a year's severance over a decade ago. >> but if her charges -- if what she claims is true, or enough can be -- that she won't be discredited, because i think if she's not discredited by the cain campaign, which they may try and do -- >> you know they're going to do that. >> they will. but if she survives that, which potentially she very well could, then it's going to give credit to the other four. and that's when, even though we haven't heard from those other women, specifically, she will become, in fact, the face for all five. >> and she has said, that is part of why she came forward, is because she's not under a confidentiality agreement, and she felt like she could. but susan, something you just said goes to -- for people who can't understand the dynamics of something like this, this kind of thing, there are a lot of women in this country who can relate to not quite the assault, but to some form of sexual harassment, feeling uncomfortable, comments being made. and susan and i were talking about this, you make a judgment,

am i going to deal with this or just laugh it off and let it go and feel uncomfortable, because i just have to deal with that. maybe that's what this woman, these other women decided. but at some point, they felt they had to leave their jobs. that tells you something. >> that's a great point. >> but don't you think the more that we talk about this, the more potential there is for people to come out of the woodwork, like we've seen. the fact that these first two confidential agreements brought up the third, the fourth, potentially the fifth. then this person who was a pollster who brought up what they saw. it just brings on a pattern. >> but there's also another or not thing, why women don't like to come forward in these cases. as one of the people who said she went through this with hims, she said, i don't want my name out there, i don't want the scrutiny, i don't want the cameras showing up on my doors. >> and a lot of women know that they're going to then -- look, they're already doing it to this woman now in the press release they came out about this press conference, attacking her, as martin was saying earlier, she

wants money -- >> she wanted to have a press conference. >> but they went right to the character assassination of this woman, talking about her finances and all of this. that has nothing to do with the seriousness of the charge that she put out there. >> agreed, but you have to. you can't just throw that out there. >> there's a simple solution. >> jimmy has a simple solution. and his hand was raised. >> if the woman is lying, herman cain should sue her. and if she's not, herman cain should not run for president. >> there you go. >> he is a liar. if he doesn't think he didn't do it, he should sue her. sue the woman for slander. sue her for whatever it is. the courts are available to him. those other women can't. they're bound by confidentiality agreements. and what if they broke them? what if he then sued them for breaking those. does he want to end up in a courtroom of law? i wouldn't. especially if i done it. so herman cain is a big, fat liar. he's a predator, and he shouldn't be running for

president. and he doesn't know that china has nuclear weapons. >> which is scarier than everything else, in my opinion. >> and he doesn't know how to run a campaign, by the way. >> meanwhile, none of those things are beginning to be the topic of the shot that we're seeing right now because of reason that we've got this shot up is because we're all caught up in the fact that here's this woman coming forward with another claim of sexual harassment. we've taken our eye off the fact, is he a qualified presidential candidate because of some, probably, who knows, personal failings, that are very serious allegations. but we're going to find out how he wants to respond to those. >> what's interesting is he's going in front of -- when you look at that stage, it's tremendous, the fact that he's going to take questions and just go on and talk. who knows what's going to come out? >> it doesn't seem that he's found a camera that he doesn't like yet, susan. so we'll find out. >> and you can't expect that he's going to say anything. >> i think he could say a whole lot and get himself in more trouble. >> coming up on "hardball," the live herman cain press conference followed by comments by the one and the only chris matthews.

just minutes away now, showing you the live pictures as we wait for herman cain to take the podium there. the republican presidential candidate has vowed to set the record straight on multiple allegations of sexual harassment at 5:00 p.m. this news conference going to take off at the top of the hour. that's going to do it for us this hour. i'm thomas roberts in for dylan. i'll see you back tomorrow morning at 11:00 a.m. eastern, with cain accuser sharon bialek and her attorney, gloria allred. stay tuned. chris matthews will pick things up from here. we're just moments away from something herman cain said just this weekend wouldn't happen.

he will go there. he will talk to reporters in scottsdale, arizona, about the sexual harassment charges against him. cain had hoped to put an end to this mess by burying it with silence, but when sharon bialek came forward yesterday with gloria allred, that went out the decade. she said more than a decade ago, cain made physical sexual advances on her when she was seeking his help in landing a job. yesterday's news conference actually put a face and a name to one of the complaints against cain and forced him to do something he didn't want to do, hold this press conference this afternoon. cain's imagine among republicans had been holding up well through the weekend, but there are now some indications that his reputation that begin to suffer. joining me now, nbc's david gregory, the moderator of "meet the press." eugene robertson is a columnist for "the washington post" and an msnbc political analyst. and cynthia tucker is a political columnist.

david gregory, let me ask you about this thing. what is your belief -- what is driving herman cain to do something he never wanted to do. put himself in front of the lions and possibly spend a half-hour to an hour defending himself. >> as long as there were more anonymous allegations, and they weren't allegations, there was a settlement that went back to his days with the national restaurant association, when that woman decided not to come forward, cain thought it was sufficient to sort of stand fast and say, i didn't do anything wrong. it was clear from the statement that he had disputed the allegations at the time, but there was still a settlement, but he wasn't a party to it. now he's facing more specific charges. there's a split within his camp, in his campaign, among those who want to blame the media and deflect and distract. and others who say, look, you can't go on unless you answer these. you can't say, we're going to close the door of these discussions and just get back to 9-9-9. you can't have that. conservatives are saying they've got to answer for it. and i'll tell you this, chris.