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tv   The Last Word  MSNBC  April 12, 2012 10:00pm-11:00pm EDT

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>> president obama is leading mitt romney by 20 points with women voters to the republicans tried to turn today into mother's day. >> if men are from mars and women are from venus. >> women, women, women, women, women, women, women -- is mitt romney from jupiter. >> the real war on women has been waged by the failure of the economy. >> stop it give me a break. >> this is a good strategy for mitt romney. >> among women, obama gets 55% and mitt romney gets 35%. >> mitt romie was surrounding himself with women all throughout the day. >> the real war on women, the real war on women, women are business owners. >> tit screams, i have a big problem with women. >> he had a lot of women in his
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life that were advisers. >> she is going across the country and talking with women and what they are talking about is the debt. >> an romney is the asset that everyone knows that she is. >> he listens to a lot of different women. >> she is the best thing that romney has going for him. certainly her husband's best promoter. >> he listens to a lot of different women. >> my presidency will be a pro-life presidency. >> planned parenthood going to get rid of that. >> any old girlfriends here? i have to be careful of that. >> demonstrating once again how unpredictable presidential campaigns can be, a commentator seized control of the campaign by saying this. >> you have romney running around the country saying well, my wife tells me what women care
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about is economic issues and when i listen to my wife that is what i'm hearing. guess what, his wife has never really worked a day in her life or dealt with the economic issues that women are facing. >> that is hillary rosen who is now being falsely labeled as an bomb adviser. according to a cnn spokes person, hillary rosen is not a paid adviser to any political party or presidential campaign. that did not stop the author of the etch a sketch quote about mitt romney, romney's campaign strategist sfr tweeting, obama adviser, hillary rosen, goes on cnn to debut their new kill ann strategy and in the process insults hard working moms. >> the romney campaign sent their best public speaker to fox
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news to defend motherhood. >> she should have come to my house when those five boys were causing so much trouble. it was not so easy. my career choice was to be a mother and i think that all of us need to know that we need to respect choices that women make. i'll tell you that mitt said to me more times than you would imagine, ann, your job is more important than mine. >> last night as soon as the words were out of hillary rosen's mouth the obama re-election campaign rushed to twitter to assure swing voters that they support motherhood as much as ann romney does. senior strategist david axelrod said that her comments were inappropriate and offensive and jim messina tweeted that she should apologize. the first lady tweeted, every mother works hard and every women deserves to be respected. tweeting was not good enough for
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president obama. >> first of all, there's no tougher job than being a mom. and more over, my general rule is you do not talk about the supposes of elected officials. because they have a really tough job. and i think they are off limits so on both counts, it's -- it was the wrong thing to say. >> joining me now, alex wagner,s and chris hayes, the host of msnbc's up with chris haze. alex, it's an early more than's day this year, both political parties must assert their support of american motherhood, how did it come to this? >> you know what lawrence? it's a mystery and then again, it's totally obvious, right, the republicans know they are in trouble with women, independent women, married and unmarried women, women in swing states. the idea i got an e-mail from
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the romney campaign an hour ago, subject line, war on moms. the idea that a comment from hillary rosen amounts to a war on mom. there's nothing that i can say loud enough for that. if we are talking about the war on moms i would point mitt romney and the republican party to a "new york times" story talking about single moms who are looking in the garbage for bottles and cans to recycle so they can have money to put food on the table. that is the war on moms and that is something that the republicans have no interest in solving or tackling in a meaningful way. >> chris hayes i have david plouffe coming up, i will ask him where the war on moms' room is in the layout on the west wing. this is one of those ridiculous things. everyone knows what hillary rosen meant, who is a mother
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herself and everyone knows that yes, having a bunch of sons is difficult, my mother could tell you that. and so, i don't think that, do you think there are any women voters out there who are fooled into thinking something that they should base their vote on is happening today in this dialog? >> yeah, i mean, we should be clear, this is substanceless. >> and chris, we will give it another five minutes. >> we have two hours on it this weekend. so -- >> right we talked about it earlier today, so. >> it's completely -- it reminds me of the lip stick on a pig comment, a fake outrage over barack obama, in that case, braik barack said it. hillary rosen is a person that said it on the television.
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is it because she is a democrat. should every democrat have to endorse, vouch for every statement and opinion made by every other democrat in the entire nation, that seems to be the logic that is being applied here. just to clear it out of the way. like no, there's no way in which this actually effects the election in any way. and there's something fascinating at the core of this. there's a huge a of uncompensated labor in the country by men and women, mostly women who stay home and take care of their kids. there are countries where that labor is compensated by the state. i would love to have that conversation, if they think it's work and they feel it's work, why isn't there any wage for that kind of work. >> can i say something, lawrence? >> and they are not earning any social security benefits for it, chris. >> lawrence, i athink what is sort of worse, is that the republican party is trying to exploit an issue for women, which is, go you choose that
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career or do you choose a family and you choose both? and they are trying to pit women on opposite sides of the fence and i think it's, as i said before, it's horrible. it's really a difficult choice that a lot of women face and to sort of make political hay out of it is a testament to a s insensitivity. >> republicans got upset and in a hissy fit on the war on messaging, but it was grounded in a series of policy positions that were taken by the republican members of congress and candidates they voted for the blunt amendment, they opposed the affordable care tack that provided free contraceptive carry in you had a religious employer. defense not just a made up confection that was made up of a
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cable news comment. >> you wait until they find that draft of nancy pelosi's bill to cancel more than's day. >> right. exactly right. >> let me, on hillary rosen, let me do a full disclosure, which applies to a lot of people in the media. she is a friend of mine. i'm proud to make that full disclosure and she is a great mom and she issued this apology as a mom, i know that raising children is the hardest job there is. as a pundit, i know my words were poorly chosen, i apologize to ann romney and let's declare peace on this phony war and go back to focus on substance. that should close it up. the romneys have an apology and why continue this? >> they are trying to get anything that they can get. it's not just republicans in congress, these are republican held state houses that are
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passing bills that cut funding for basic health services. the problem is, republicans want to both get through this and -- they want to stop having to stop -- they want to stop having to talk about or discussing women's health issues yet they cannot let go of it. it's like dogs with bones across the country. ? states in alabama, mississippi and arizona, until they get rid of these stands, it's a talking point and their man, mitt romney will have to vouch for it. >> and alex wagner gets the last word in defense of motherhood. thank you both very much for joining me tonight. >> thank you lawrence. >> coming up next, david plouffe, senior adviser to president obama, he joins me for an exclusive interview and we
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have more on the progress in the murder of trayvon martin's trial. one of the attorneys will join me, along with charles and in the rewrite, a man in california is trying to repeal the death penalty there. the death penalty law that he wrote himself 34 years ago. and later, a truly shocking set of new allegations of anti-semitism against mel gibson has erupted here today where he is accused of planning to kill his former girlfriend and mother of his child, if you thought he was crazy, it's time to think again. he may be even crazier than you thought.s is he at&t network. a living, breathing intelligence helping business, do more business. in here, opportunities are created and protected. gonna need more wool!
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>> david plouffe, a white house senior adviser to president
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obama joins me next and now we know more about why the prosecutor is seeking second degree murder charges. the new information in this statement of probable cause is coming up. and later some jewish groups objected when mel gibson said he wanted to direct a movie about a jewish hero and the screen writer new agrees with him and said, mel gibson is a much worse anti-semite than he could imagine and has talked to him about plotting to kill his former girlfriend. coming up. strip away the rearview monitors, tv screens, bluetooth... and even the cup holders. you know what's left? the only suv's with american-built f-alpha truck frames. the ruggedly capable pathfinder, xterra, armada. ♪ receive up to twenty-five hundred dollars cash back
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on select nissan suv's. ♪ silver and bronze... ♪ it's the red. it's the green and yellow. it's the red, white and blue. because at the olympic games, it's not the color you go home with that matters. it's the colors you came in. and when colors mean this much, you can only trust them to tide. proud keeper of the red, white and blue. >> seriously, that is what he calls for, the romney rule calls
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for, that is another trillion dollars in tax cuts over the next ten years going to the 1% of american taxpayers. i don't blame her for crying -- she is going to inherit it. >>. [ applause ] >> she going to pay for it. that is one smart baby. >> that is what joe biden went to new hampshire to talk about but the presidential campaign on both sides democrat and republican tried to turn today into mother's day after a cnn contributor falsely labeled by the romney campaign as an obama adviser said that ann romney quote never worked a day in her life. >> first of all, there's no tougher job than being a mom. i have watched michelle. you know, who for most of her career juggled work and family,
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and for some of the time she was on maternity leave and that is work. i think it was an ill advised statement by somebody on television. >> my response is that is an outrageous assertion, my entire career as a senator and vice president is to get to one point, where my daughter is able to make whatever choice she wants and no one question it. the case that we can make, barak's policies, our past, our expectations, our dreams for women contrast it with the republican agenda as it has been and continues to be relative to women. i don't think it's a close call. >> joining me now is david plouffe, senior adviser to president obama. david, i assume you also want to support american motherhood? >> well, thanks for having me, lawrence. yeah.
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i think obviously you played comments from the president and vice president, this is one of the rare cases in modern politics these days where we have universal agreement that those comments were inappropriate, so hopefully that established we can move on and deal with the issues facing women and the entire campaign. >> the republicans and romney campaign jumped on this. does hillary rosen have any relationship to the obama campaign? >> she does not. the truth has never been an important thing in the romney campaign, i don't know why we expect it today to be different. but those comments are not false, she has no relationship with our campaign. >> yeah, they are loose with the truth. i want to play you something that mitt romney said in milwaukee where he accuses, i think, you, possibly not by name, of trying to create a new religion. let's listen to that. >> well, i think -- i think
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there's in this country a war on religion. i think that there's a desire to establish a religion in america known as consecutisecularism ann reports the obama administration gave it a lot of thought and discussion. >> david, how much thought and discussion have you and the obama administration given to the war on religion and how is it that your attempt is going to convert the country? >> that is a ridiculous and outrageous comment. i assume he was talking about the debate wed on contraception we had recently. i would like to comment, rush limbaugh was attacking a george town college student, and what governor romney said, it was not
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the language he would have used. i do not work for merriam webster, but i cannot think of words that were not outrageous. you played a speech of the vice president today about the choices the country is facing in terms of the tax policy and economic policy and are we going to be able to invest in things like rebuilding roads and bridges and medical research. that will be the debate. how do we have an economy that just does not recovery from the recession, but provides more middle class security. that is why we are focused to buffett rule, making sure that millionaires and billionaires do not pay less than middle class families. if we are going to have an economy where we are investing in education, we have to pay for
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it. those are the tough choices in front of the country. >> are you considering changing the label of the buffett rule changed to the romney rule and have the dynamic reversed and make mitt romney pay a reasonable share of his income in taxation? >> warren buffett has added to much to the debate saying he should not play less in tax rate than his secretary. so we will keep the focus there. who do you trust to fix a tax system that is unfair, romney or ryan? their plan gives huge tax cuts and shower millionaires and billionaires with tax cuts paid for by the seniors and the middle class and working poor, that is clearly the wrong direction for the country. these are big debates in terms of how do we reduce the deficit and envest in the economy and people and how do we have an economy that works for everyone not just those at the top.
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that is why the buffett rule is so important, there will be a vote in the senate and that will let the constituents know whether they think it's okay for people who are making millions to pay less taxes at a rate than their secretaries, firefighters or nurses. >> david, today is the sixth anniversary of romney care, the day when romney signed the health care reform bill in m massachusetts into law. the health care bill that you gotten acted into law, is in danger in court. if it's overturned entirely will you go back to what the basically a rerun of the 2008 campaign and campaign to enact all the same things again, minus the provision that is found unconstitutional? >> i'm not going speculate about the court decision, we believe that it's constitutional.
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there are important parts of the law in place right now, seniors are getting a relief in terms of prescription drugs cost. people are 18-26 are able to stay on their parent as plan which is important. you have women that are taking care of preventive health care services. that is in place right now. it's true, the massachusetts law that governor romney signed into law six years ago, was in many ways the model for the health care law that we signed into law, mitt romney is the god father of health care. our focus is, let's put in place the law smartly. there's important things happening right now for the american people. saving senior's costs. you are seeing women and everyone able to take advantage of preventive care, a lifetime limits, no longer in place. nie these are huge advantages and improvements we will continue to implement the law and we have confidence it will be found
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constitutional. >> thank you very much for joining me tonight. >> thanks lawrence. >> coming up, george zimmerman made his first appearance in course and we have learned much more about the facts in the prosecutor's second degree murder charge. and in the rewrite in california, the death penalty is being rewritten by the man who wrote it 34 years ago, now he wants to repeal it completely. he said the death penalty is a failure and mistake. later hollywood is quaking again at anti-semitism charges against mel gibson. a famous screen writer is accusing him of being wildly anti-semite and said he has been plotting to murder his former girlfriend. that is coming up. athe
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>> today's prosecution document reveals the facts in the case of the murder of trayvon martin, simply put the prosecution does not believe a word george zimmerman has said about the shooting. natalie jackson and charles blow join me next, and the death penalty is being rewritten, in california, the man who wrote the death penalty here wants to repeal it now. that is in the rewrite. cuban
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. >> mr. zimmerman. >> yes, sir. >> you are appearing for the first appearance at this time for charge of murder in the second degree, and you represented by mr. romero, is that true? >> yes, sir. >> zimmerman confronted martin. with those three words taken from the affidavit submitted today by the special prosecutor's office. they will build their case against george zimmerman the man who killed 17-year-old trayvon martin but that affidavit could be the last document in the case to be made public after both the prosecution and defense obtained an order from the judge sealing future filings in the case. a bail hearing has not yet been scheduled the next schedule court appearance is may 29th. here is george zimmerman's lawyer explaining why he did not request bail today. >> it did not make sense with where the case is now and with so she has gone into his state of mind about he was thinking there. she said that during the recorded call, zimmerman made reference to people he felt had committed and gotten away with break-ins.
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she determined, the prosecutor determined that one of the things he said on that 911 audio tape after saying these people -- you know the word i cannot say on tv, they get a way with this stuff and then he said, these f'ing punks, the prosecutor seemed to have determined that it's the word punks as opposed to the racial slur word many of us thought we heard on the tape. >> that is one of the only kind of points of clarification that you get in the short affidavit. you know, i'm not a lawyer, i do not know, i am just a reader of this. it seems really, really thin. doesn't move the ball very much. in fact, you know, there are pieces in there where you want to just know how things were determined, for instance, they say that, trayvon's mother
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identified his voice. you know, one would want them to have the kind of forensic voice analysis information analysis to say we have determined using scientific methods, of course, my heart goes out to mrs. fulton and the loss of her son, she hears something, zimmerman's father said he hears his own son as well. you want to have that cleared up. we hope that the prosecutor's office has that scientific information and advance the ball and that we are not stuck with this kind of very thin feeling information because, it seemed like that would kind of weaken a case particularly if you are going for second degree murder case. >> natalie, what i'm struck by in the affidavit is that it completely and totally accepts your version of the interpretation of the evidence all the way through.
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this affidavit asserts that martin was on the phone with a friend, the girlfriend, this affidavit accepts her testimony completely. the witness said that martin was scared because he was being followed. it goes on to every piece of this evidence that we have analyzed on this show, the prosecutor has accepted the interpretation that is most harmful and dismissive of zimmerman's claims, zimmerman was instructed not to follow martin and he disregarded the police and then finally zimmerman confronted martin. you can assume and i can assume that the prosecutor has more evidence than we are aware of to support each of those sentences and as charles pointed out, surely he got the mother's testimony, but -- the prosecutors did, but they will not rely on that exclusively and
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back it up with more. >> no they won't. >> i want to make one other point, everything that we are hearing about witnesses they are all ear witnesses. there's not a single eyewitness who is quoted in this affidavit. >> right, there's things that has to do with ethics. the prosecutor trusted that she had enough evidence to back up every sentence in that affidavit. there's a question of whether or not she over charged. with the ethics that the prosecutor has, she has to believe she can prove, it beyond a reasonable doubt. you better believe she has evidence to back it up. >> yeah, i mean -- >> that is stuff that we do not know yet. >> as we will see in the trial, just about every sentence will represent a half a day or day of trial, there's more behind everyone of them. i'm struck that every single assertion in this affidavit is
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exactly, natalie, as you and the supporters of trayvon martin r support -- have presented to us. thank you for joining me tonight. >> thank you. >> in the "rewrite" tonight, the man who wrote the california death penalty wants to repeal it. and later the latest anti-semitic ravings according to a screen writer who said he heard mel gibson beyond the worst things you can possibly imagine someone saying about jewish people. and this screen writer said he heard mel gibson talking about a plot to murder gibson's former girlfriend. the mother of his child. mel gibson, that is coming up. pounds of mail every day.
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by a man who wrote it 34 years ago. a repeal vote passed in the democrat controlled senate in connecticut. the democratic governor has promised to sign it into law. here in california a campaign is moving so repeal the death penalty and replace it with mandatory life without parole and it's being pushed by the man who wrote the ballot initiative creating the death penalty that he is now trying to repeal. it's been a failure. donald teller told the "new york times" of california's 34 year experience under the death penalty that he wrote. he said, the cost of our system of capitol punishment is so enormous that any benefit that is gotten from it and now i
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think there's little or zero benefit, is so dollar wasteful that it serves no effective purpose. mr. hellor is joined in this campaign to repeal the death penalty by ron briggs who ran the successful campaign 34 years ago in favor of the death penalty. mr. briggs said, quote, at the time we were of the impression that it would do swift justice and get the criminals and murderers through the system quickly. and apply the death penalty but it's not working. we started with 300 on death row when we did prop seven and now we have over 720 and it cost us $4 billion. i tell my republican friends, close your eyes for a moment, if there was a state program that was costing $185 million a year,
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and only gave the money to lawyers and criminals, what would you do with it? a former l.a. district attorney that wants the death penalty repealed said we are laying off teachers and laying off firefighters this is crazy. >> and so, if you are untroubled by the morality of the death penalty, unmoved by the pope's opposition to it and unconcerned with how unfairly it is applied and unimpressed with any morale argument that you heard about it, how do you feel about the cost? do you think it's worth laying off school teachers so that the state can still afford to kill people? in your cost benefit analysis of the death penalty, what is the benefit? we know the cost in california is $185 million a year. but now you supporters of the death penalty are going to have to tell us the benefit.
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donald heller who wrote the california death penalty said that when he wrote it, he gave no thought absolutely to how much it would cost and now, he says, quote, i am convinced now that it has never deterred anyone from committing a murder. and that was supposed to be your benefit. your benefit from the death penalty was supposed to be a lower murder rate. murders deterred. there's no evidence statistical or otherwise that the death penalty delivered that benefit and we now have a report showing that giving california death row prisoners life without parole is much cheaper than continues to try to work through all the legal hurdles to get to that very rare day where the state is allowed to kill one of those
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people. donald heller wrote a flawless law when he wrote the california death penalty, it has been challenged constitutionally many times. he now says, the fact that it was upheld every time it went to the supreme court shows that it was well drafted. i don't take any pleasure in that anymore. in my mind i realized what i did was a big mistake. ♪
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>> the wrap.com broke the story last night of newly and horrible
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charges of anti-semitism. the screen writer eszterhas wrote showgirls and two serious movies attacking anti-semitism, betrayed and music box. the script eszterhas wrote for mel gibson is called the maccabee's, gibson said the movie based on a family of jewish freedom fighters would be a jewish braveheart. in his letter, joe eszterhas said that he believes that mel gibson never had any intention to make the film he used unspeakable comments about jewish people, he describes conversations where mel gibson threatened to kill his ex-girlfriend and mother of his out of wedlock child.
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he is quoting gibson saying, i'm going to kill her, i'm going have her killed. and he said that gibson told him that he has two friends who are fbi agents or former fbi agents that will help gibson kill her. mel gibson put out a public letter to eszterhas today in reaction to the nine-page letter saying the greater majority of the facts as well as the statements and actions attributed to me in your letter are utter fabrications and gibson said i'll acknowledge like most creative people i'm passionate and intense. gibson said that he was disappointed with the delivery delay on eszterhas's script and said, i did react more strongly than i should have i promptly sent you a written apology, the colorful words of which you apparently now find offensive. joining me now, sharon waxman, the editor of the wrap.com, who
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broke the story. sharon, i have to tell you, as soon as i read this, i forward ed it to a screenwriter friend of minute who worked with mel gibson and read everything in the letter and said, yes, this is the kind of thing i heard. this makes sense to me. he wanted to add to your file. he said the theme in here that you constant lly hear is how ha it is to be mel gibson. here is a quote, in the first 20 minutes of knowing him, whatever i say about the jews, a thousand rabi's around the world would come after me, because of this pressure he is under, he has actually had a face mask made by the hollywood experts that can make face masks, he has made a
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face mask made so he can go out in public in restaurants and he said that it works perfectly. he goes out in public in restaurants with a face mask that disguises him perfectly and he went on to say, he is a constant conspiracy thetheeoris and believes that there were drones that brought down the twin towers, it's madness run wild, i'm giving you an additional source, but the spirit of it is what this other writer experienced. >> so there's two pieces. the first moment you read the letter, you are in shock. >> you cannot believe it. there's words in there that i never heard. there are things that i never heard before about jews. you cannot believe what he is saying. >> we did not pull the entire
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letter is on our website and we wrote several stories about it, because it's hard to know where to begin. now, the other, the second reaction you have is well, it's mel gibson, who can be surprised that he would continue to act like mel gibson has been acting. >> i'm surprised. plotting to kill his girlfriend, nobody was saying that. >> in the tapes that we all heard a year and a half ago, you know, he was -- >> yeah, he was saying -- >> it's the threat to kill her. >> but no, he has a way. >> he is in the grip of something in these rages, who knows if he means it or he doesn't. but it was frightening to eszterhas and his family and to the people who were there. so, at some point, you have to think that someone who is not in
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control of their words may not be in control of or actions. >> i want to read what the head of the anti-defamation lead told you today at the wrap.com. he said mel gibson never really came to grips with his bigotry, most people try to engage in some enlightenism once the problem is revealed. he had things removed from the record what he said to the police so he could move on without confronting it. that is during the dui arrest where he said anti-semitic things. rabi, based on the things you said in the past, are not surprised tonight? >> not at all. i did not think that he should have been forgiven and given a role in hollywood to do the maccabees, thank god he is not
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doing that. jewish history will be better for that. to associate mel gibson with judah maccabee is like putting bernie madoff as the head of the securities commission. before he had the incident where he is drunk, his portrayal of jews those that did not believe in jesus in the passion of christ is unforgivable. every jew in that fulfill is portrayed as a saddist, and an ignorant person. i believe that was deliberate. and i think the only lesson from this is, i hope that mel gibson chooses another career. i hope that he will find it very difficult to find another project in hollywood. >> rabi, i have to tell you i brought 12 years of education
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into that movie theater the day the passion of the christ came out, and i sat there horrified feeling every word of what you said about it. i could not believe what i was witnesses on the screen. sharon, is there another shoe to drop in the breaking story? >> well, so we have an exclusive interview that we just posted of joe eszterhas giving us an interview and responding to mel gibson saying it's a fabrication and he said i have a tape so, you may want to be careful about that calling me a liar. >> he does not say something specific. he does not say i'm not plotting to kill my girlfriend. that the an easy things to say. >> you may be curious to know, that warner bros. has not dropped the project, they have not said that they are not moving forward with the