politics nation with al sharpton starts right now. welcome to "politics nation. i'm al sharpton. more blowback from the komen decision to defund planned parenthood. and the new pressures put on mitt romney. the big news today, shake upat komen foundation. today, the woman at the center of this fire storm, the vice president of public policy for komen, has resigned. the resignation comes after learning she ran for governor on an anti-abortion platform saying she was "a pro-life christian who did not support the mission of planned parenthood." the "huffington post" reports that handle drove the decision to defund planned parenthood. karen handel was the prime instigator of this effort and

she herself personally came up with the investigation criteria. today, she is blaming planned parenthood. for komen, for myself, the mission was always foremost in everyone's minds, the mission and the women that we serve and for anyone -- the only group here who has made this issue political has been planned parenthood. >> meanwhile, mitt romney, desperate to appeal to right-wing voters, has plunged into this issue. >> should susan g. komen's plan for the cure, in your view, continue to fund in any way planned parenthood? >> i don't think so i also feel that the government should cut off funding to planned parenthood. look, the idea that we are subsidizing an institution which is providing abortion in my view, is wrong. planned parenthood ought to stand on its own feet and should not get government subsidy. i am a pro-life individual. office pro-life governor. >> so after all the backlash, he

wants to completely defund planned parenthood and he was a pro-life governor? willard, 2012, let me introduce you to willard 22. >> i will preserve and protect a woman's right to choose and am devoted and dedicated to honoring my word in that regard. i think people recognize that i'm not a partisan republican, i'm someone who is moderate and my views are progressive. i believe that abortion should be safe and legal in this country. i believe that since roe v wade has been the law for 20 years, that we should sustain and support it. >> timeout. wait. let's hear that again. >> i will preserve and protect a woman's right to choose and am devoted and dedicated to honoring my word in that regard. >> absolutely amazing. those were all the 2002 statements from willard. he didn't just like roe vs.

wade, he used to like planned parenthood, too. planned parenthood of massachusetts telling us, "ten years ago, mitt romney sought the endorsement of planned parenthood advocacy fund. mitt romney has no credibility when it comes to women's health and reproductive rights." and he even said he supported roe vs. wade on their questionnaire. there's his signature. and romney's wife donated to planned parenthood in 1994. but willard's conservative cred bit is getting hammered every day and it is forcing him to move further and further to the right. will he be able to get back to the middle for the general election? will anyone believe anything he says? joining me now laura bassett, with the story from the start

and broke the story on the controversy and bob shrum is a professor at nyu and joan walsh is the editor at large at salon.com. thanks to all of you for coming on the show tonight. >> happy to be here. >> laura, let me start with you what is behind karen handle's resignation? more to come out on politics behind decision? >> there was a lot of internal pressure inside the organization, starting last tuesday, the huge backlash happened against komen, people were upset knowing karen handle had driven the decision and come up with the pr strategy to make it look like it was nonpolitical.driven the decisio with the pr strategy to make it look like it was nonpolitical.he up with the pr strategy to make it look like it was nonpolitical. hundreds of thousands of people signed petitions that she be fired or resign. i think she was caving to that pressure. >> joan, you saw where i played

karen handel is blaming everything on planned parenthood and saying they brought politics in. let me show you nancy brinker, who is the ceo of komen. her statement today. nch>> i will read it to you. it says we have made mistakes in how we have handled recent decision and take full accountability for what has resulted but we cannot take our eye off the ball when it comes to our mission. to do this effectively, we must learn from what we have done right, what we have done wrong and achieve our goal for the millions of women who rely on us. your reaction to that? >> i think nancy brinker is snail a lot of trouble here for a couple of reason, reverend al. first of all, when karen handel released this resignation letter, she made clear, she basically called nancy brinkary liar. because nancy had gone on here and talked with andrea mitchell about karen handel had nothing

to do with this, there was no politics involved. she basically said i did this and i'm proud of it and i don't like the way the foundation is portraying it. so she called her boss a liar. she declined a severance package which often comes along with a kind of gag order, let's not disparage one another. i think she set herself up kind of wonderfully to be this pro-life martyr. and komen basically deserves it, because i believe they hired her because they knew -- she wasn't hiding that she was endorsed by sarah palin and that she was pro-life. she never hid that so, for them to then deny politics played a role, bring her in then back away, i think there is a lot of cowardice going on. >> kind of hard to hide sarah palin. >> right. >> let me ask you, bob, now willard has gotten in it. a new reuters poll last month shows his number views gone down 1%. so the results are despite all

of his money, his organization, his advantages, he is still being doubted by members in the party. the poll says that, suggest that romney, despite his vast advantages in organization, fund raising and momentum after victories new hampshire, florida and nevada still has many doubters among republicans nationwide. is this why he is going all the way to the right and to the point where he seems to hope we forget things he said on the record, on video, and has done 180-degree turn? i mean, he is making flip-flopping seem mild on this. >> yeah, look, there's no right-wing box he won't check. there's no position he has held in the past that he doesn't believe he can abandon. there's no hypocrisy he won't engage in. but this is costing him a very big price. take the decision you talked about on planned parenthood. is he gonna argue that it was okay to be pro planned

parenthood at the state level, as he is pro-romney care but not pro-planned parenthood at the federal level in the result of this has been it is going to be the most reluctant nomination of any major party in a very long time. he has a very hard time rising in the polls and convincing conservatives. i think he is going to be in trouble tonight in a couple of these states against rick santorum, won't stop him long term. the other thing that's happened is his favorable/unfavorables are now upside down. in the "washington post" poll, he is now running six points behind president obama and the most devastating statistic, people say the more they hear about him by a margin of 2-1 the less they like about him that is not a way to get elected president. >> joan, it seems that santorum is pushing him, bob is right, way to the right, santorum seems to be, in some polls, really having risen in some of the states that are up tonight. >> right. >> and it seems that romney, he can't talk about just statewide planned parenthood. he talked about roe vs. wade.

>> right. >> which is clearly not a state decision. >> right. >> how does he think he is going to be able to answer all of this? >> i don't know. you know, he has gone one better than this, reverend al, because he has come out, he is relentlessly attacking the president on this decision to require that all employers, including you the catholic church, pay for contraception and insurance and romney care did the same thing. romney care included family planning services. the state of mass, with 27 other states requires that he didn't say a peep about it. there are so many ways in which he is caught in his own history and own background it is starting to look like a certain kind of hypocrisy. >> let go back to you a second, laura. there seems to be almost an obsession in the house republican caucus about planned parenthood, voted twice last year to defund the group, once in february. so for viewers to understand the move by karen handel, this is

something in line with the far right of the republican party that she was in lockstep with and as suggested here by joan, had to be to the knowledge of komen when they hired her and possibly hired her for those reasons. >> yeah i would go beyond saying that they knew it when they hired her and saying it is part of the reason that they did hire her. i think that there were some pro-life people already in leadership at komen and planned parenthood they saw as a problem and hired her to sort of deal with the planned parenthood problem and the solution she came one is to come one the criteria, look like a routine change in the criteria for who gets granted. >> based on investigations, which is an allegation that no evidence that a real investigation was really moving forward. right. they are pretending it is not political knowing very well all along that it was about abortion, which is sad because none of the money that komen

gave to planned parenthood was used for boggs, it was used toer cancer screenings for low-income women and abortion was dragged this. >> i think, laura that that is the most egregious of the whole situation, when you broke this, that that we are not even really talking about abortion in terms of the komen money. this money was for breast cancer screening for low-income women. >> absolutely. >> so, these people were willing to risk the actual lives of people just to make their political point against something that this agency dealt with differently, nothing to do with the dollars in question. and i mean, these people call themselves moralists and call themselves christian? i mean this is amazing here. >> it's funny to use the word pro-life regarding something like this because cancer screenings save lives what happened they are venting planned parenthood from being able to do, so i think is there a little bit of hypocrisy

apparent in that. >> joan, can these house republicans drag romney down? i mean, with romney going all the way over there now saying planned parenthood should be defunded, obviously lying in the far right, will they drag him down? >> well, they are dragging him all the way to the right and if he does get into the general election with president obama he is now saddled with really, really unpopular position, hes into claim on independents, they are turning against him. as you said, the more they see the less they like. they are certainly hurting him, every time he goes far right to get their support, he alienates more independents and even moderate republicans. >> bob, you have handled presidential campaigns and other campaigns. give us some kind of scenario how you could possibly, possibly explain away such obvious documented film of changes of

mind. i sense paul on the road to dam mat cuss in the bible, i have never seen such major conversions on issues. >> well, look, if aid way out for romney, i wouldn't give it to you, not because i would be jekt to giving it to you but i don't want him to win and i wouldn't want to give it to him. every presidential candidate, even the best candidate, makes a mistake, makes a gaffe, says something they shouldn't say, changes a position. that is usually an episode. with this guy, it is an epidemic. he is coming acrouse as inauthentic, callous, someone who is out of touch, an empty suit who maybe smart about how to make money but doesn't seem to be any inner core convictions at all. >> now, i must ask this, joan, you have 28 states that have laws requiring employers to cover birth control. and eight states that have no exemption at all, colorado, georgia, iowa, montana,

washington, wisconsin, vermont this is now an issue with the president, with the administration making their decision and now romney's on the other side of that. >> right. and the president has bent over backwards and created an exemption in federal law for the church itself, catholic employees, they don't have to provide coverage that includes contra accepts. you have georgia, newt gingrich's state of georgia doesn't create that exemption. so much hypocrisy there, wisconsin is swing states and supposedly catholics would be up in arms about it. i think, i said it often, catholics need to speak out. 98% of us use contraception against the teachings of the bishop, so, for us to expect that the president listen to teachingings that we don't obey,

where is the separation of church and state? there's something off here. and where is the consistency here on even church theology? because why only abortion? why not divorces, why not adultery? if we are going to stop funding for one thing that the church may consider a sin, who decides which sin rises to the level of not receiving your insurance? >> that is why we would kind of like to keep the church out of most of these things what we have done for a long, long time. >> laura, david axelrod said today, and let he play it to you, they may and he said that on this station early this morning, they may be open to talking about how to work this out. look at this and give me your reaction. >> we certainly don't want to abridge anyone's religious freedom, we will look for a way to move forward that both guarantees women that basic

preventive care that they need and respects -- respects the prerogatives of religious institutions. the president and the administration move forward, but with a grace period or a time period in order to work this thing through. we want to resolve it in an appropriate way. >> laura? >> i know that the administration doesn't want to upset the bishops -- the catholic bishops have an extremely powerful lobby, especially on this birth control issue and of course, they don't want to alienate catholic voters. it is true that 98% of catholic voters use contraception and i think the way that they dealt with it the first time, which is to say churches and houses of worship don't have to cover birth control for their employees, everyone else does and the bishops are lobbying to broaden this exemption. i don't see the obama administration caving on that. >> all right, laura bassett and bob shrum and joan walsh, thanks to all three of you for joining

me this evening. >> good night, reverend. coming up, president obama is fighting fire with fire. his campaign is not about to let billionaires and corporations literally buy this election for the gop. plus, more bad news for mr. economy, willard romney. you won't believe what a senator said today. and clint eastwood responds to republicans who say promoting american workers is political. the super bowl ad everyone is still talking b you are watching politics nation on msnbc.

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the fight for marriage equality, big news today from

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♪ the allstate value plan. dollar for dollar, nobody protects you like allstate. welcome back to "politics nation." a resounding ruling for progress and equality was delivered today in california. four years ago, california voters cast their ballots on a proposition 8, a conservative-backed initiative to ban same-sex marriage by changing the state constitution to only recognize marriage between a man and a woman. it sparked national outrage and

a debate raging across the country, with many calling it a violation of the civil rights of gays and lesbians. today, in a 2-1 vote, the ninth circuit federal court of appeals declared california's same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional, saying, "proposition 8 serves no purpose and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in california." the plaintiffs opposing prop 8 celebrated today. >> the ninth circuit's decision today affirms we are all born equally and we all deserve equal rights, because, in the end, the truth wins. >> finally, we will be able to stand before our family and our friends and make the one promise we have all longed for. >> more americans than ever before are standing behind same-sex marriage. six states and the district of

columbia have legalized it and legislation is pending in six other state, including maryland. i recently joined that fight to legalize same-sex marriage there. >> as a baptist minister, i don't have the right to impose my beliefs on anyone else, so, if committed gay and lesbian couples want to marry, that's their business. none of us should stand in their way. >> joining me now is maryland governor martin o'malley, who is leading the fight for marriage equality in his state. governor, thank you for your time tonight. >> hey, thank you, reverend sharpton. thank you for joining our campaign for marriage equality. >> now, do you think the proposition 8 decision will affect your fight for legalizing marriage -- marriage equal knit your state? >> well, i hope so and i hope it does in a positive way. i think it is the latest evidence this current of our nation's history always moves forward to greater protection of the freedom of individuals and

that was what was at stake in that division. granted, that was in california but it interpreted a constitution that all of us live under and that all of buys live is important for the protection of the rights of individuals. so i hope that will have a persuasive influence on those delegates who are still open minded and in order to persuade them to vote for our bill. our bill protects religious freedom and it also protects individual liberty, in this case, the right of any individual to marry whomever they should choose. >> now, when you say protect religious freedom, you mean that it does not force those religious institutions, churches, to do anything they don't believe in, but it just means they cannot impose their believes on others that are not a part of their giving congregations or belief? >> we looked the all those states who managed to strike this balance and pass bills that protect religious freedom and

the rights of individuals equally and we, in essence, dialed up and put much more explicit language in maryland's any year that makes it very, very clear that nothing in this law requires that any faith, any church has to check with the state or should be influenced by the state by any means in terms of how they define their own teachings, their own beliefs, their own definitions of what is and is not a sacrament. so, we made those protections and religious freedom very, very explicit in this bill. and for that reason, i think we have -- partly for that reason and partly because of the evolution of understanding around this issue, we have a broad-based coalition that has grown in maryland since last year that includes clergy, includes members of faith-based organizations and citizens throughout our state, including civil rights advocates and others, who understand that we can protect the equal civil marriage rights of all

individuals and also protect religious freedom at the same time. >> you know, i have been impressed with that. i know, like reverend dellman coat he is and others who have very firm and fundamental religious views but feel that people should have the right to deal with their own civil arrangements and it has grown around the country. let me show you how the attitudes on this issue change, understand it is not imposing anything on them. in 1996, 27% of americans supported same-sex marriage. 2001, it went to 35%. 2006, 35%. 2011, 46%. so, it seems that if you look at the pew poll, more favor legalizing it, 46% to opposing 44%, it has actually, according to this pork the majority of americans supporting it.

>> the source of our divisions is fear. fear that people will threaten our belief systems if others have right, i will have letters rights, they will fete threaten our family. the way forward in our country where people of different religions find a way to get along is always toward equal and greater respect for the freedom of all and i think increasingly, that's what more and more people are realizing, even those that in the past might have described themselves as opposed to equal civil marriage rights have come around to the truth this is not a threat to anyone's belief system or individual choices how they shall lead their life or how she shall worship or what they believe n >> before we let you go, governor, i have to ask you about another governor, governor chris christie recently said woe veto gay marriage, call for a referendum of new jersey voters to cast their ballot on whether

they support it or not. let me show you what he said. >> i believe that the institution of marriage, as is traditionally known is between one man and one woman and it should stay that way in new jersey. rather than having stalemate and deadlock on this issue, which is inevitably where it will lead if they pass the legislation and send it to me, because i will not sign it, it will be vetoed, let's bet lett people of new jersey decide what is right for the state. let's put the question of same-sex marriage on the ballot this fall in the hands of the people. >> now, he did something totally different than you. he kind of said i would veto it, but then he washed his hands and threw it into a referendum so that it would really not put him on the spot if the legislature had went ahead and passed it, we have to make a move or not. you have, at some political risk, had the courage to say let's deal with it in the legislature, put on my desk, i will sign it.

what is your thinking of your colleague as governor of new jersey? >> i don't know. the -- a lot of these important issues and expanding rights of individuals and greater freedom for all get worked out between that interplay between the ballot box and the courts and the legislature. i think the legislature is the best place to work these things out. i think governor christie sounds like he wants to have his cake and eat it, too. in the case of maryland, our ballot -- our legislative action might well go to the ballot. might be petitioned there, but i believe the better way to deal with this is straight up in the leng legislature very close to passing this last year in maryland. with the growing cocoalition, i believe we can and with will pass it in maryland. >> governor martin o'mally, thank you for your time tonight. >> thank you, reverend sharpton. ahead exclint eastwood says

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how do you run against a president who is fixing the economy and leading by nine points in the polls? if you're the gop, you go back to your old reliable big money. it's estimated that the koch brothers and karl rove will commit half a billion toward defeating president obama in this election. today, the president's campaign responded. he is telling top donors to support the obama super pac, priorities usa, saying, "the stakes are too important to play by two different sets of rules." make no mistake, this is not how the president wants to fight. he recently spoke against the flood of money into politics and two years ago, he criticized citizens united ruling which

opened the flood gates to big money in politics. >> with all due deference to separation of powers, last week, the supreme court reversed a century of law that i believe will open the flood gates for special interests, including foreign corporations, to spend without limit in our election. >> now, that's justice samuel alito telling the president it's not true, but we all know that it's true. and republicans are using unlimited secret campaign money as their primary weapon. they know it may be their only hope. joining me now is bob franklin, featured syndicated columnist and maria theresa kumar, executive director of voto latino and msnbc contributor. thank you both for being here. >> hi, reverend. >> hello. >> thank you for having us. >> bob, let me start with you. what do you make of the president's decision? >> i think we have to put this

in the my mama didn't raise no fool category. this is a fairly obvious one. and just as obviously, the republicans are going to be criticizing him for it. they are criticizing just about anything these days. the next thing we will hear is they are criticizing clint eastwood, but obviously, they are going to try to make something of it, but it is absurd. money is what dominates politics now. i think the big problem is going to be how they are going to spend all the money. i just don't think that there are enough tv stations in the country to use all the campaign commercials that this money would buy, so maybe i have a thought here and maybe we can come up with a special channel that is devoted to nothing but campaign commercials. what do you think? >> well, not my decision. i will think about it though. but let me ask you, maria, when you look at the difference in monies raised, does the president really have a choice? let me give you the facts.

the obama super pac, priority action, compare that with republican candidate willard romney raised 30 million. republican super pac american crossroads run by karl rove, former adviser to president george w. bush, raised over 50 million. so, if they didn't start raising super pac money and you have rove over 50 million, over 30 million people supporting romney doing negative ads, they would have -- with 4.4 million only raised so far, i mean, they would have been given an almost unprecedented advantage to the opposition, even though they disagree with the ruling, the ruling is standing right now. >> that's absolutely right, reverend. i think what the -- barack obama's campaign is doing is

absolutely right. basically god helps those who helps himselves. god didn't -- he wasn't raised by a fool, as bob said. i think more importantly, the very reason that the super pacs are in existence is so they can go negative on someone and to do it without fingerprints and without responsibility. and i actually cautioned the candidates to think that they are thinking, they are doing politics as usual, because what is really happening is that there could potentially be a backlash against these super pacs and negative ads on social media. let not forget what happened recently with komen. the komen foundation thought they were going to defund planned parent who hadhood in the cone of silence, what happens is the internet not only announced them for being insincere and outright lying but the same time, the president recently stepped down that is what is going to happen this year. 2008 was the year of internet and money infused by individual donors, this you will see is basically keeping them honest and you are going to see it because twitter was at its nascent stages, now 10e6r 00

million and facebook seven times more than it was in 2008. the social media, someone looks at a super pac, takes that information, digests it and basically starts spreading the truths among those ads among social networks that is going to be the most powerful. >> now, no surprise to you or i, bob, the spokesman for karl rove's super pac had the audacity to say it was a cynical move. they raised 50 billion, the president raises 4 and they call this a brazenly cynical move. wow. but before we react to him, let me show you the fact is that president obama's campaign still brings in way, way more small donors than romney. if you look at donations at $200 or less, 60% of campaign donations, or 58.8 million, 60% again of president obama's money

comes from small donors $200 or left, only 9% of small donors 200 dollars or less go to willard. clearly, they don't want to have two sets of rules it is clear an overwhelming majority of their money is coming from the people. >> well, first of all, as far as romney is concerned, he doesn't need the small dpoeners when he has his hedge fund bud kids to sort of establish his campaign. as for that carl rover statement on behalf of karl rove, i wonder if they know the word chutzpah. that is pretty brazen. that is the way it is played. you and i talked about it before, the casablanca response, which is i'm shocked, shocked. >> yeah, we did i that conversation. let me go back to you a minute, maria. the fact of the campaign monies, the super pac monies, i thud say, is spent on negative ads,

one thing we can see from the republican primary caucus process, negative ads can be affected. if you look at the fact, 96% of what the groups have spent to date has been on attack ads. that's about 18 million dollars. so, and i'm talking just willard's super pac. 96%. to not be able to answer this when you can see how they just took newt out with negative ads, did they really think the president was supposed to just stand there and just come after him with all of this money and he not be able to have at least an even playing field for his re-election? >> i think they wish it had, they definitely weren't holding their breath. i think the bigger picture is, though again, the folks said who are the primary voters in the republican party? for the most part, they are older voters will are constantly inundated by watching television. they haven't seen started asking

who are the other boaters to jump in, african-american, latino and youth are very much very active online and they are the ones that are going to be dispelling these distruths. i would caution the candidates on going after harshly and basically saying, look, at the end of the day you can go ahead and do a negative ad, one, you can turn off voting base because they are not going to -- the independent voters aren't going to be interested, what you are going to do is have a polarizing, extreme liberal or extreme republican coming out on november 6th, or you're also going to basically say you have to keep them honest because at the end of the day the negative ads respect going to work and the internet is going to be the one that is going to dispel those truths. >> the internet, have to get a lot of young people online in line. bob franken and maria theresa kumar, thanks for joining me tonight. >> al, thank you. ahead, the improving economy is bad news for republicans. now some very prominent democrats are saying what we are all thinking. and some big news on voting rights from the republican who

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republicans are ramping up their efforts to stop voters from going to the polls.

today, south carolina filed a lawsuit against the federal government for blocking the state's voter i.d. law. republican attorney general alan wilson claimed the law "will not disenfranchise any potential south carolina voter." what about the 240,000 voters without photo i.d.s and what about the fact that associated press found this law would disproportionately affect voters in black districts? i guess the attorney general isn't afraid of denying people the right to vote but he is afraid of one thing, zombies. wilson thinks zombies are running to the polls. he says nearly 1,000 dead people voted in the recent elections. that's scary. but it's not true. the south carolina election commission looked into it and they got the names of six supposedly dead voters, five of them were alive, and the sixth one had died after casting an

absentee ballot. no fraud case and no zombies to be found. these efforts to suppress voters not going away. today, i announced plans for a march against voting suppression to take place next month from march 4th through the 9th. we will retrace the route of the historic 1965 voting rights march from selma to montgomery. that march in '65 brought international attention to the struggle for civil rights. at the end of the march, dr. king said those famous words about how long the fight would take. >> how long? not long. 'cause all of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice. >> that march pushed congress to pass the voting rights act of 1965, the same act that south carolina's fighting against today. we are marching, now, to make sure that work is not undone and not one vote is suppressed.

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clint eastwood is hitting back against republicans who ripped his super bowl ad forring being political. eastwood said, "there is no spin in that ad. i'm certainly not politically affiliated with mr. obama. it was meant to be a message about job growth and the state of america. i think all politicians will agree with t" he's right. when did optimism and faith in america become a partisan issue? once upon a time, republicans liked to talk about how the best days were ahead of us. remember this ronald reagan ad? >> it's morning again in america and under the leadership of president reagan, our country is prouder and stronger and bitter. >> so what's happened since then? obama campaign adviser david axelrod was wound earthquake the same thing on "morning joe"

today. >> i knew nothing about the ad until i saw t honestly, i don't understand why every american doesn't feel good about the fact that the american auto industry is coming back. >> joining me now bill press, syndicated radio host and author of the obama hate machine, the lies, distortions and personal attacks on the president, and who is mind them. bill, thanks for being here. >> reverend al, good to see you. >> now you republicans are constantly wrapping themselves in the mantle of ronald reagan but they seem all doom and gloom. what happened? >> this is unbelievable. i saw that ad, too and i felt good about it. i felt -- that was an inspiring ad about what america is all about. all right. two things, number one, clint east wood is a republican. i know the man. he is one of the few republicans in hollywood and people complained all the time. they always said, well, you have got clint eastwood, right in the other thing is karl rove said he found this appalling, right? does he remember, the auto bailout was started not by president obama, it was started

by george bush when karl rove was in the white house. so talk about hypocrisy. you know what it is, reverend al, they don't want detroit to succeed, if detroit succeeds, america suck seeds and president obama suck seeds. >> let me show you this not only did karl rove say it was appalling, rush limbaugh had the audacity to suggest that clint eastwood, nobody's fool, was scammed. listen to this. >> i think eastwood got scammed. i think he got scammed, roped into doing something he thought was patriotic and ended up being played. >> i mean, it was patriotic. >> look, clint eastwood ain't nobody's fool, okay? and i think rush better be careful messin' with dirty harry here, you know? but again, it represents the best of america, that when we are down, we don't stay down, we get up and we fight again another day and we come back stronger than ever. you know, when clint eastwood

said and the world is going to hear our engines roaring, you want to applaud. when you believe in america, you want to applaud. i think these republicans, you know the reason they don't like that ad? because it shows that they want america to fail and mitt romney was against the bailout and he is on the wrong side of this issue. >> now, senator durbin said today that republicans really are rooting against the recovery. the unemployment rate is going down. people are getting back to work. there are some republicans who don't think that really works with their strategy of defeating president obama. i mean, have we become so cynical in politics we don't care if families can't make it, as long as our candidate loses or wins based on whatever party you're in? >> i think that's where the republicans are today. let go back to rush limbaugh, before president obama was even sworn into office, i want him to fail. mich mcconnell, day one, our number one goal is to deny obama a second term. they have voted against everything president obama is for because they don't want him to succeed in any way.

i really do believe, it is worse than wanting president obama to fail, they want america to fail because if america fails, president obama fails. that's where it is. >> i think you're right. i think it's a sad day when we become so cynical that even when you are dealing with the lives of people whether it is komen, breast cancer screenings, whether it is recovery of families in detroit, it is all weighed by i want president obama to lose or i want my guy to win. >> what's not to celebrate? detroit is back. leading the world and producing better cars, our factories open and people are getting back to work. god bless america. >> i have got to let it go there i never was an eastwood fan, but i went and bought a pack of his dvds, i got to get home and watch them. bill press, author of "the obama hate machine," thank you for joining us tonight. and thanks for watching. i'm al sharpton. "hardball" sta