>> thank you. the ed show is up next. good evening, americans. welcome to "the ed show" tonight. mitt romney says he supports education. i thought he supported ryan plan that cuts pell grants by $170 billion. we'll sort it out right now, this is "the ed show, let's get to work." >> congress needs to keep interest rates on student loans from doubling. >> the president is leading and mitt romney is following. >> i fully support the effort to extend the low interest rate on student loans. >> van jones of rebuild the dream on the progressive movement to end the war on the poor. and the economic victims of the romney budget. another big brand dumps alec, and now they may have a big problem with the irs. robert greenwald is here to explain. bill o' reilly joins the scare.

>> do you know robert reich? i. >> i do -- >> tonight former labor secret robert reich is here to respond. and the player formerly known as ron artest is in trouble for in assault. should he be tossed from the league forever? >> i got emotional and excited, if was unfortunate that james got hit with an unintentional elbow. good to have you with us tonight. the next big political battle between mitt romney and president obama is under way. the focus is on young voters. this weekend president obama picked a fight with republicans who want to let student loan interest president obama is facing an enthusiasm gap among young people. >> if congress doesn't act, on july 1st, interest rates on some

student loans will double. that would be a tremendous blow, and it's completely preventable. >> president obama is on the side of young people on this issue, and it shows in the polls. in the latest poll, voters between the age of 18 and 34 favor president obama oefrg mitt romney, by 60 to 34%. but romney still has an opening to win with over the youth vote. president obama is facing an enthusiasm gap among young people. in 2008 it was a different story. 63% of 18 to 34-year-olds had high interest in the presidential election. this year, the number is only at 45%. romney needs to convince young people that he is the guy for them, and he's on their side. and republicans know it. indiana mitch daniels told the indianapolis star, have you to campaign to govern not just win.

look at everything through the lens of folks that have yet to achieve. romney doesn't talk that way. no kidding, mitch. daniels was asked what he really meant by those words on fox news sunday. >> as things go along i want to encourage him to express these very same principles more often from the standpoint of the young, the poor, those who have yet to start up the ladder of life. it's the very same principles but aimed in a slightly different way, and i know he'll do that. >> today romney took mitch daniels words to heart. he said young voters have no choice but to support him. >> i think young voters in this country have to vote for me if they're thinking about what's in the best interest of the country and their personal best interest. the president's policies have led to extraordinary statistics. 50% of the kids coming out of college today can't find a job or can't find a job which is consistent with their skills. >> in fact, romney is so fired up to win over young voters,

he's willing to breakaway with his own party and side with president obama when it comes to student loans. watch romney remember his new left leading philosophy after he starts to walk away. >> okay. thank you. one thing i want to mention. there's one thing i wanted to mention that i forgot to mention at the beginning. that was with the number of college graduates that can't find work or that can only find work well beneath their skill level, i fully support the effort to extend the low interest rate on student loans. there was some concern that that would expire halfway through the year. i support extending the temporary relief on interest rates. >> of course, romney's pro-education position is not just at odds with republican party. it's at odds with mitt romney.

romney supports paul ryan's budget, which could cut pell grants for poor students by $170 billion. it would also double student loan interest rates. mitt, which one is it. he was overheard saying the department of education, i will either consolidate with another agency or make it a heck of a lot smaller. will the real mitt romney stand up on education. romney's proposed budget would lead to massive cuts for for and disabled americans. it's ugly. we'll have more on that later in the program. as president obama points out, republicans like mitt romney are pushing policies to benefit the super wealthy at the expense of people like struggling students. >> republicans in congress have voted against new ways to make college more affordable for middle class families while voting for new huge tax cuts. for millionaires and billion airplanes. tax cuts that would have to be paid for by cut things like education and job training programs that give students new opportunities to work and succeed.

>> the president knows what he's talking about here, he's a project of benefiting from opportunities provided by government education programs. >> somebody gave me an education. i wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth. michelle wasn't. somebody gave us a chance. just like these folks up here are looking for a chance. >> president obama has always had a strong commitment to education. he wants people to be able to reach their full potential. and the government can help americans do just that, especially in this demographic. mitt romney on the other hand is a total phony when it comes to standing up for public education. romney knows this is his only chance to get the young voters away from president obama is to say the president has failed them. the story here tonight is this. mitt romney out on the campaign trail today is saying that he's in favor of extending the low interest loans, he sides with the president.

mitt, call up republican leadership in the house and the senate tonight and tell them to side with president obama when it comes to student loans because you don't want to see their rates doubled come july first opinion you know you're not going to do it. get your cell phones out. tonight's question, i want to know what you think. is mitt romney trying to fool young voters by siding with the president on student loans? text a for yes. text b for no. 6223639. you can go to our blog and leave a comment there. we'll bring you the results later on in the show. i'm joined by van jones. president of rebuild the dream. good to have you with us tonight. i find this -- this really should be breaking news, m.i.t. romney is with president obama on student loans. what do you make of this move? >> this is a big deal. you had every kid in america that's said to graduate from high school staring down the

barrel of 6.8% interest rates on the most important student loans, stafford loans, and nobody doing anything about it. young people started screaming about it. the young people from rebuild the dream and other groups. the president listened and said this has got to stop. banks are getting their money for next to nothing. why should kids go from 3.4 to 6.8%. an extra $10,000 out of their pockets. $20 billion out of the pockets of the next eight million kids. it's wrong. he stands up. and then here comes -- surprise, surprise, another big flip-flop, mr. marvelous, mr. mitt romney saying, oh, the ryan budget is marvelous, even though it destroys the pell grand, flip-flops in a heartbeat and chases president obama toward the young people saying me too, me too. phony, phony, phony. the reality is that he's got a problem with his party now because the most important republican on this issue virginia fox just last week said she doesn't care about these

young people. the quote is, she's tired of hearing kids with $80,000 worth of loans complaining about it. there's no excuse for it. she just said it last week. so now he's running away from his party, toward this president. the question is, can he drag his party now? thank you for following the leadership of the president, will you distance yourself from virginia fox, will you stand with the hundreds of thousands of young people saying virginia fox should apossiblize? where are you now mr. mitt romney? are you going to flop back when you hear your party is not with you? >> this is obviously a political stunt by mitt romney. if he really adheres and supports the ryan budget, because it does cut 170 billion in pell grachbts. you can't have it both ways. is this just a trick to try to hoodwink young people that don't know the full story it has to be. you love the ryan budget.

you hugged, you kissed it. you said it was marvelous. you can't have it both ways. here is the big take away here. when the young people in america stand up for themselves, it moves the whole country. other groups started moving on this. the president listened. the president is now listening to the young people. romney is listening to the president. thank you romney for following the president's leadership. now, get your party in line. >> this may be another etch a sketch moment for mitt romney, but there is an enthusiasm gap that's out there. what do you make of the 20% difference from 2008 to where it is right now and romney is playing to their fears and saying you got to vote for him. what about that enthusiasm gap? >> i think the young people in america learned the hard way, you can't get everything you want just by voting. they can learn that if they vote wrong, they can lose everything that they have got. that's the problem. you can't get everything you

want just by voting, you have to keep marching, protesting, being involved. we did see a little bit of an activism gap for a couple of years. that translated into an enthusiasm gap. i will tell you this, you can't get everything you want just by voting one time. if you vote for the wrong person, you can lose everything you got. this guy wants to destroy the pell grants. that's his real position. >> yeah. >> this is now just repositioning -- >> you think he wants to eliminate pell grants? >> no, no, but you all but eliminate it when you take that kind of a bite out of it. we're the only country making it harder for our kids to get educated. you either have good manufacturing jobs or you send a bunch of kids to college. we already lost the manufacturing jobs. you got to make it easier to go to college. this guy was saying how marvelous it was that we were going to take a big chunk out of pell grants. i don't know how he can pull this flip-flop off. >> you're convinced that president obama will dominate in this demographic? >> there's no doubt about that.

i hope the president and the d.c. democrats understand that taking young people's vote for granted and not doing all we can -- we should have had a jobs program for young people all across the country. you got young people that are desperate to work. they are coming home from wars and graduating from college with a ton of debt. we should have done more for these young people. we have to do more more for them now. on this issue you have to applaud this white house and you have to recognize that when obama is chasing obama down the street saying me too, me too, his leadership test is, can you bring your party along? >> thank you so much. remember to answer tonight's question. share your thoughts on twitter @edshow. we want to know what you think. mitt romney said he's not concerned about the very poor and as his proposed budget reveals, the guy is not lying. the obama campaign will weigh in. also another major company ditches the organization behind shoot first laws. there's a major alec news coming ahead on "the ed show" stay with

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coming up, mitt romney's war on the poor continues. just look at his budget. the details and my commentary coming up. bill sew riley catches a case of allen west's red scare. he's calling robert reich a communist. the former secretary is here to respond. scott walker's big mouth is getting him into trouble again. new job data from wisconsin is out. it isn't good looking. i can tell you that. share your thoughts on twitter using the hash tag ed show. we're right back. [ female announcer ] aging may slow a dog down, but iams helps keep dogs playing year after year with our age-specific nutrition. and now, even for dogs 11 and older with new iams senior plus. it helps boost the immune response to that of an adult dog and helps fight signs of aging. [ dog ] i'll never be a bench-warmer. [ female announcer ] new iams senior plus. see the iams difference or your money back. [ dog ] i am an iams dog for life.

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doing enough. the candidate himself admitted giving opportunities to the poor are not a priority for him. >> i'm not concerned about the very poor. we have a safety net there, if it needs repair, i'll fix it. >> we have a safety net there, but mitt romney doesn't want to repair the safety net, he intends to destroy it. the romney plan is light on specifics but promises to bring federal spending below 20% of the gdp by the end of his first term. romney outlines on his website that he will cut the federal work force by 10%, privatize amtrak, cut foreign aid and eliminate federal money for family planning. those cuts alone won't get romney to his spending goal. romney says he will protect current social security and medicare recipients from cuts. romney also wants to increase the budget for the defense department. what for? i thought we were scaling down. how exactly will reduce spending without increasing

revenue if he's president? what will be on the chopping block? what's left to cut? as an analysis from the associated press reveals, plenty. there's education. there's transportation. there's food inspection. that's going to get cut. the fbi will see a smaller budget. homeland security. we used to be concerned about that. grants to local governments, national parks. crop subsidies -- get ready farmer farmers -- crop research and nasa is always in the way. romney is just getting warmed up. he would save the really big wrecking ball for the disabled and very poor in this country. medicaid, romney wants to kill it by taking it over to the states in the form of a block grant program. do you trust your republican state legislature to take care of medicaid? he also is going after housing and heating subsidies for the poor. food stamps and school lunches. they've always been a big problem. supplemental security income for the poor seniors in our society

and disabled people. unemployment insurance. let's not forget veteran's pensions. i thought they lovesed vets? and refundable tax credit to the working poor. i tweeted about this over the weekend and said, asking more of the poor is like asking a wounded vet to do more. and i meant it. do you know what it's like to be poor? do you know what it's like to be financially destitute and not have a whole lot of avenues and this is what mitt romney wants to do. he wants to take out the safety net. he wants to change people's lives. if you tax a millionaire just a little bit more, you're not going to change their lifestyle. the kind of cuts he's talking about will change the lifestyle of people that depend on the safety nets and need them every day. let's turn to ben, national press secretary for obama 2012 campaign. ben, good to have you with us tonight.

>> nice to be with you. >> this is really, i think, a big political opening for the democrats. all you have to do is look at their budget and see how many millions of people this will affect. your thoughts. >> budgets are about choices and values and who we are as a nation. you outline many of the devastating cuts not just for the poor but the middle class if we pass the romney-ryan budget. let's think about who he is protecting. he's giving special breaks to the wealthiest americans. another tax cut to millionaires and billionaires. $4 billion in subsidies to oil and gas companies and special tax breaks to hedge fund managers. the poor, the middle class, senior, veterans, the rest of us here in america are being saddled with the cost of this. >> he wants to cut, and it's the only way i can read it, he wants to cut veterans benefits. he wants to hurt seniors when it comes to medicaid because you know when you turn it over to the states and there's no federal protection that's going

to be coming from the congress, you'll have 50 different programs out there and it will hurt a bunch of seniors in a bunch of states. how else do you read it? >> to make his math work we're talking about 20% across the board. on veterans day romney suggested that we should privatize veterans health care benefits. it looks like he's making good on that promise. we already know he wants to turn medicare into a voucher program and charge seniors an average of,000 more a year out of pocket for their health care costs. education and housing. last week when he was behind closed doors he disclosed what programs he plans to cut. to pay for those tax cuts, which he hasn't disclosed to the american people. it turns out it was education. >> if you take a look at what he's doing, it's bush on steroids. >> that's exactly right. these tax cuts for the wealthy is above and beyond what bush

ever did. he's talking about cuts to education and housing. this president doubled funding for college scholarships. he's out there fighting to ensure that the republicans in congress don't increase the rate on student loans. romney said he supported that today. he supports a budget that could cut funding for college scholarships. >> well, i want to ask you -- >> is he going to call speaker are boehner and majority leader cantor and encourage republicans to ensure that the student ln rate doesn't go up? we haven't seen that type of leadership from him. >> gop lobbyists tells the ap that this kind of budget is not sustainable. what does this tell you about how serious he's going to be about cuts? what is the obama campaign going to do to make it that connection? to make people understand that if the republicans get the power and they're all about power, that this is what's coming. >> the fact is that romney's budget math never added up in the first place.

he's got these $5 trillion tax cuts. i said he isn't going to increase the deficit, but he hasn't said how he's going to pay for them. he increases defense spending beyond what the department of defense has asked for. he said he will preserve medicare in this process. none of these things add up. the budget math doesn't add up. the truth is this hasn't gotten a lot of scrutiny. it looks like governor romney and the republicans got fawning coverage during the primary process as there were ups and downs in the horse race and their policies weren't scrutinized. >> let's narrow it down, ben. mitt romney wants the poor to pay more. that's it. it's as simple as can be. >> it's even a little broader than that, ed, it's seniors, the middle class, veterans. it's the vast majority of american who is are paying more for the same tax cuts that

didn't create the growth they were supposed to under the bush administration. they didn't create the job creation that they did under the bush administration. during the recovery period under the bush administration, job creation was at a lot slower pace than it is right now. we've heard the same promises before. they turned out not to be true. >> great to have you with us. >> thanks for having me. bill o'reilly calls former clinton labor secretary robert reich a communist. he seems to think a lot of effective progressive ideas are communists. robert reich joins me next. scott walker likes to fear monger about how bad it is down there in illinois. with walker's jobs record, the grass looks a whole lot greener down south of the border. stay with us. [ groans ] [ marge ] psst.

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we do not represent that type of atmosphere. west is not the only one calling people communists. here is bill o'reilly. >> robert reich. he's a communist. >> communist slash socialist. >> he's a guy that is up there in cambridge. he says because the u.s. companies are multinational that the government now has to step in to make sure that our economy is good. roll the tape. >> now they are global. if we don't have a government that is investing in our people and education and job skills, in infrastructure, public transportation, basic research and development, all the thens we need government to do, we can't expect the big corporations are going to do it. >> i'm joined by robert reich, former labor secretary under the clinton administration and now a professor at uc berkeley and author of the book "aftershock." i think the comment was secretly adores karl marx.

good to have you with us tonight. have you ever been a member of the communist party? let's get to that first. >> no. it's like being back in the 1950s. 24 communist witch hunt that's suddenly been launched. there's not many communists left in the world today. there's not a communist threat. these conservatives, these right wingers have nothing else to yo.

ruth coniff, nice to see you tonight. that's "the ed show," "the rachel mad dof show" begins now. thanks to you at home for joining us. in 2008 when they held the first the pill kills rally, that's the birth control pill they are talking about. the first pill kills rally was organized around the theme of