tv Politics Nation MSNBC June 22, 2012 6:00pm-7:00pm EDT
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he claims experience in the private sector qualifies him for the white house. and he's had the audacity to hit president obama for jobs outsourced. >> how is china so successful in taking our jobs? this president has watched that happen. he complains. he says he would take them to the mat. but they've walked auld over him. if i'm president of the united states, that will end. we will not let china continue to steal jobs from the united states. chinese are smiling to the bank taking our currency and taking our jobs and taking a lot of our future. i'm not willing to let that happen. >> not willing to let that happen, but the fact is he did. and on the same day of this new report coming out, romney's campaign comes out with a brand new ad in swing states like ohio. once again making the claim that he'll bring back jobs from
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overseas. >> president romney's first 100 days, what will they mean nor ohio? day one, president romney stands up to china. demanding a level playing field for our workers. >> it doesn't get more blatant than this. romney says he cares about american jobs. that it's his priority for him. but he spent years making his fortune destroying american jobs. president obama's going on the offense in a big way. here was his response at a campaign event in florida earlier today. >> you know, today it was reported in "the washington post" that the companies his firmed owned were pioneers in th outsourcing of american jobs to places like china and india. pioneers. let me tell you, tampa, we do not need an outsourcing pioneer in the oval office. we need a president who will fight for american job and fight for american manufacturing.
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that's what my plan will do. that's why i'm running for a second term as president of the united states. >> joining me now is jared bernstein, msnbc contributor and former chief economist for vice president joe biden. and ej dionne, washington post columnist and author. his new book is "our divided political heart." thanks to both of you for joining me. >> good to be here. >> thank you. >> ej, let me start with you. how important is this new report to the romney campaign? is this as game changing as i'm suspecting? >> i'm always reluctant to declare anything game changing. because something comes along tomorrow and changing it again. it's a big deal for the reason you said which is if you're going to make your business experience the center piece of your campaign, then what you did with that business is important. and the fact that he is running those ads on the one hand but then presided over a lot of
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outsourcing on the other raises real issues. second, a lot of the votes and play in this election in places like ohio are blue collar votes. people who are concerned about outsourcing. the rhetoric about the chinese currency problem is aimed at those people. a lot of voters are going to look at this and not know what to make of it. except to say maybe he isn't on our side. and i think you heard today a term coined by president obama off that washington post story. outsourcing pioneer that we're going to be hearing between now and election day. >> and for the president himself to use it, you can bet his re-election campaign is going to use it. and this story is definitely not going to go away if the obama campaign has anything to do with it from the looks of the president addressing it today. >> and i think the interesting question -- you use the term game change. it's been not the greatest couple of weeks for the president especially with the recent jobs report. it'll be interesting if this
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gives a kind of opportunity for obama to go on the defensive and whether it will throw mitt romney on defense. and it's also going into a weekend. and the president when he said the comment about the private sector doing fine, of course he was talking about it relative to the government sector, that played this weekend. i think this will place in the course of the weekend. >> let me say this. the romney campaign responded. let me give you their quote. quote, this is a fundamentally flawed story that does not differentiate between domestic outsourcing versus offshoring nor versus work done overseas to support u.s. exports. in english, could you tell me does that mean they were outsourcing or not? >> let me come up there and try to untangle that sentence from around your throat there. look. you hear mitt romney on the television saying china's been taking our jobs.
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turns out he's been giving them to them. this is tough for him. here's the thing. you kind of referenced this in your introduction. this is the way private equity works. we should understand this. their bottom line is profitability. and if it's profitable to offshore and outsource jobs to build it in china instead of here, believe me, that's what they're going to do. that's private equity. and you know what? that's a legitimate business model. we may not like it but it's a legitimate business model. it is not a legitimate political model for a president especially a president in a moment where we've actually added about half a million manufacturing jobs since employment started growing in the spring of 2010. there's a bit of a positive trend there. it's an important one. what you really want to hear is not i was in the private sector. i did private equity.
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i outsourced a bunch of jobs. you want to hear what's the plan for manufacturing. the president has one. governor romney does not. >> but isn't that really the point, ej? the point is governor romney himself raised his tenure at bain and said it would establish me as a job creator. i think the american public is mature enough they only expect of you what you tell them to expect of you. well, he brought it up. so the reason i think it becomes so effective is because this is where you brought us, you talked about jobs going to china and going overseas. and now we find out you engaged in that. i think that is why if it had not been something he brought up, it may not have the same impact. >> no, i think that's totally right. at the beginning of the campaign especially, he was bragging about his time at bain. he said he produced a certain number of american jobs while he was at bain. then that number changed a bit
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and he tended to back off. hard number altogether. so if you look at the plus side of his ledger, then you're going to look at the minus side of the ledger. so you can't sort of ask the american voter just to look over here, don't look at what's behind the curtain. i think the other thing is you can tell this is problematic because you had to turn to jared to translate that press release. and if there is an easy answer to say this is all wrong, you don't have to sort of make these strange distinctions between outsourcing and offshoring. >> but jared, the other reason i think this is going to be a problem for them is the president himself went right at it. the president himself by name quoting the newspaper in the article went at it. and i think you're right. there's nothing wrong with dealing with those that are in the equity business. there's nothing wrong with big
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business. but the question is what do you bring out of that to the political -- let me show you what the president said that i think was a very critical point. and this is where the president said that yes, he did good but did he bring the right lessons out of there into being president. watch this. >> governor romney is a patriotic american. he should be proud of the personal success he achieved as the head of a large financial firm. but i think he's -- he has drawn -- he's drawn the wrong lessons from these experiences. >> drawn the wrong lessons from these experiences, jared. i think that is something that might resonate particularly now with the information going public. >> i think that's right. jobs of people like me is to get into the weeds and look at the actual policies that these guys are proposing underneath the level of campaign rhetoric.
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and here as i mentioned earlier, the president really does have a manufacturing agenda. it's a clean energy agenda. it's an agenda to disincentivize factories from going abroad. he has tax changes he'd like to do to take back some of the actual tax benefits for factories to go abroad and to make it more profitable for them to be set up here. and then when you look at mitt romney, his plan, i read the 59 points. not only is there no plan for manufacturing, but they really quite explicitly say no, that's a free market thing. we're not going to do anything there. the one thing they say is going after china currency. something the white house agrees with them on. i think you have to look at what's behind the rhetoric and there you see a very trickle down supply side. let's let it break. that's the lessons the president is talking about that governor romney has learned from his business experience. >> ej, let me close with you.
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not long ago romney was attacking the president saying he's attacking capitalism. take a listen. >> there's no question but that he's attacking capitalism. in part, i think, because he doesn't understand how the free economy works. if all the president wants to do is talk about the failures while he's misrepresenting the nature of free enterprise. >> misrepresenting the nature of free enterprise. well, we've got you now investigating companies that outsource jobs. are we misrepresenting that? >> if president obama hates capitalism, how do you explain the fact he's presided over a doubling of the dow jones average since the trough back in 2009? secondly, i always like the joke i know some socialists and they're insulted when barack obama is called a socialist. because he's obviously committed to capitalism. what we're talking about is what kind of capitalism do we want in america? the kind that saddles companies with big debts then pushing them
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out of business. do we want the incentives in tax code to encourage job creation here or overseas. they're both capitalists. but there are different kinds of capitalism. that's what we're arguing about in the election. >> well, i have a diverse duo i started with tonight. jared read all 59 points of mitt romney. quite an end of the week. thanks for your time tonight. both of you have a great weekend and good luck on the book, ej. >> thank you so much. ahead, president obama brings his message of fairness to the key state of florida. >> let me see a show of hands. is there anyone here who can afford to pay thousands of dollars to give people like me and mr. romney another tax cut? come on. raise your hand. don't be shy. plus the president started his day speaking to the same latino leaders romney talked to yesterday. only this time the policy was
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clear. and more on that despicable viral video of teenage kids bullying and taunting a 68-year-old bus monitor. >> karen, you're fat. >> you're so fat. you take up, like, the whole entire seat. >> oh, my god. your glasses are foggy from your sweat you fat [ bleep ]. >> we'll talk about what we can all learn from this. you're watching "politicsnation" only on msnbc. [ male announcer ] when a major hospital
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they believe that we should go back to the top-down economics of the last decade. they figure that if we simply elimination regulations and cut taxes by trillions of dollars, then the market will solve all of our problems. we don't need more top-down economics. what we need is some middle class-out economics. some bottom-up economics. i have an economic plan base odd then shared vision that always
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worked for america's middle class and all those striving to get there. a plan focused on education and energy and innovation and infrastructure and a tax code that is fair and responsible. that's how we're going to build this country. that's why i'm running for president of the united states. >> president obama in tampa, florida, today presenting his case for a bottom-up economics to help the middle class. the president laid out the contrast between his policies and the republican agenda. particularly when it comes to cutting taxes for the wealthy. >> to pay for another $250,000 tax cut for the average millionaire, they want you to foot the bill. let me see a show of hands. is there anybody here who can afford to pay thousands of dollars to give people like me and mr. romney another tax cut?
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come on. go ahead and raise your hand. don't be shy. now, look. that's their entire economic plan. that's it. when mr. romney tells us he's some sort of financial wizard who can fix our economy, that's how he intends to do it. and bill clinton has pointed out that this republican agenda, it's nothing new. it's nothing more than we tried during the last administration except on steroids. >> and what is mitt romney doing while the president is talking about fairness and the middle class and the middle class jobs? he just arrived at an exclusive resort in park city, utah, for a three-day summit with ultra-rich donors. supporters who have given romney more than $100,000 a piece will be able to attend q & a sessions
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with the candidate, participate in strategy and policy meetings, hob nob at dinner and afternoon tea they'll probably have in those quiet rooms. and of course they'll be able to play golf. lots, lots, lots of golf. joining me now is melissa harris-perry. host here on msnbc. and bob franken, featured syndicated columnist. thank you for joining me. >> thank you. and don't hate on golf. golf is fun. >> out there playing golf while we're here in steamy washington. let me ask you, how do you say success the president's economic argument against romney's? i mean, in terms of do you feel it's effective? >> i think he's done exactly here what needs to be done which is to say there is no there
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there. there's no actual economic plan from the romney camp. the economic plan is solely a plan about cutting taxes. you know, there can be disagreements about how we stimulate the economy, about sort of what creates more jobs, that kind of thing. but what is important here is for the president to keep pointing out here is my multi-point agenda. here are the things i believe can work to create a safety net to generate jobs. to give tax relief to the middle class. and all that governor romney is offering is more tax cuts. >> and as he does this, bob, we're told by a report in bloomberg that he's actually -- he being romney -- he's actually asking republican governors to down play the fact that unemployment is going down in their states. several governors including the governor of florida are saying that unemployment is going down. jobs are coming in the state. they're touting it for their own records and their own political
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reasons, but that goes contrary to what romney's trying to say is that we are on the brink and that president obama hasn't done anything. >> that's right. then the governors are going off message. that meeting going on in park city, utah, is really important when it comes to undermining pretty much the obvious message that the president has right now. because they are able to pay whatever amount of money is needed to put out messages that distort things, that use terms like class warfare, like socialism, distorting the meaning of free enterprise. to say that the middle class has been shafted, that is going to be lost in all this noise that confuses people. >> now, when you look at the fkt that the american public, melissa, seems to really prefer the president over mitt romney in very critical areas. when you look at the polls,
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connects with ordinary americans 59 president obama, 28 for romney. honesty, 46% president obama, 32% romney. judgment, 50% obama, 37% romney. consistency 46% obama, 34% romney. so when it comes to characteristics that are important on how someone shapes their view of a person, in very critical areas the president is supported by the american people. >> as you've pointed out looking at those poll data, the american people, they clearly have a great deal of respect for president obama as a person. as a leader, i think there's a huge base for him there. sort of a position of strength to build on for re-election campaign despite the fact we're in an economically difficult time.
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the counter is whether or not could the power of ordinary people of their opinions and their vote will be overwhelmed by the massive amount of money we're seeing come into this election especially by citizens united. >> go ahead. >> i think this is going to be a campaign, quite frankly, that's about demonization. i think there's going to be this tremendous effort to erode president obama's favorability ratings right now. i think there's going to be this constant harangue about being anti-free market, that type of thing. and there's going to be this effort to kind of camouflage the fact that mitt romney has a different tune every day, every decade. >> and i also think that they're going to try and attack cabinet members and anything that would try to make them look different, un-american, anti-american. >> you mean like a certain attorney general? >> as far as i know, there's only one. >> i hate to be the one to bring this up, who happens to be a man
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of color. >> yep. you brought it up. >> i didn't say it. >> but we didn't disagree. and again, i don't even know -- let me be clear. i'm not even saying the congressmen are doing it because he's black, but i think they send the signals. i think there's a lot of people playing the race signals here to get to a certain crazy base nap they may not feel that way, but they know what they're playing to. >> in my perception of it being a matter of black and white. it's i think a matter of trying to appeal to a base and rev up a base by this constant harangue of he's not one of us. it manifests itself in a number of different ways. i think that is part of what's going on with eric holder. by the way, i think there's some valid questions about holder's conduct. >> no doubt about it. >> but the -- >> but i think it should be raised on mukasey and everyone
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else. >> the he's not like us is a way of undermining the poll data you showed where if in fact oinary americans are feeling like okay, president obama is actually someone who came from an ordinary working family, worked his way up, has a sense of accomplishment. you know, he didn't pay off his student loans until really just moments before taking a seat in the u.s. senate because he understands what that kind of ordinary financial struggle looks like for households. but if you could undermine that by suggesting that racial difference or ethnic difference is somehow the thing that separates us, it keeps people from voting in their own economic interests. >> all right. i'm going to have to leave it there. thank you both for your time tonight. be sure to catch melissa harris-perry weekends from 10:00 a.m. to noon. ahead, the latest edition of here are the jobs. that's the series that we put real americans back to work. and what a difference a day
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folks, have you checked us out on facebook? the conversation is going all day long. dottie watched our live feed of the president's speech at the naleo conference today and noticed one key difference between his and romney's speeches. quote, if you want to know who is making a bigger, more positive impression, all you have to do is count the applause moments. end of quote. larry weighed in on the news of romney's bain capital investments in companies that move jobs overseas. quote, profits before patriotism. and he claims that love america. we want to hear what you think too. head over to facebook and search "politicsnation" and like us to join the conversation that keeps going long after the show ends. we hope to see you there. [ donovan ] i hit a wall.
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just one week after his major immigration announcement, president obama delivered a passionate speech to latino leaders. he hailed the new policy to push for even more reform. and he slammed republicans for consistently putting politics ahead of what's right. >> on friday we announced we're lifting the shadow of deportation for young people that were brought her as children. we should have passed the dream act when it came up for a vote. republicans in congress blocked it. the bill hadn't changed. the need hadn't changed. the only thing that it changed was politics. and i refused to keep looking young people in the eye, deserving young people in the
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eye and tell them tough luck. the politics is too hard. >> he didn't say the politics are too hard. he did what he felt was right. because of his core convictions and today president obama reminded voters that. mitt romney has a very different set of convictions. >> your speaker from yesterday has a different view. in a speech he says when he makes a promise to you, he'll keep it. well he has promised to veto the dream act. we should take him at his word. i'm just saying. >> that's what mitt romney has promised. and this president, he knows
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that's not right. >> i've met these young people all across the country. they're studying in our schools, they're playing with our children, pledging allegiance to our flag, hoping to serve our country. they are americans in their hearts, in their minds they are americans through and through. in every single way but on paper. all they want is to go to college and give back to the country they love. so lifting the shadow of deportation and giving them a reason to hope, that was the right thing to do. it was the right thing to do. >> joining me now is alicia menendez of huff post live and rob smith, the chair of the florida democratic party. thanks to you both for being here tonight. >> thank you. >> let me start with you, ali a
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alicia. how important in your opinion was the president's decision in building this enthusiasm with the latino base? >> it was absolutely critical. you're right. this is definitely good politics. but it's also good policy. there are about a million young people who are going to benefit enormously from the president's decision. it's also good politics. you see a major surge in enthusiasm. especially in the states where it matters most. and most importantly, it really clarifies the distinction. if it needed any clarifying between mitt romney and barack obama. mitt romney says he would veto the dream act. barack obama is effectively enacting the dream act through this prioritized action. >> now, talking about the politics for a minute where alicia started, let me ask you
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some political stuff. in florida the president's leading romney by 16 points. virginia 31 points. southwest, let's go to southwest. colorado 48 points. nevada 49 points. arizona 56 points. this is all among latinos. how critical is that to the politics of today given the growing population? because if you look, mr. chairman, at the fact that we've seen an increase in the hispanic population. for example, in north carolina the population of hispanics has gone up 111%. in iowa, 84%. pennsylvania up 83%. the demographics of voters are changing. >> you're absolutely right. in florida it's going to be the divisive vote, i believe. as i assume the chairmanship of the party, first thing we did
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was start the outreach to the hmz community particularly in central florida where many people don't realize the margin of the last election is explained by the hispanic turnout in central florida. i have to tell you that we are excited about the president's efforts in recent days. he has really increased his stock here and everywhere else among hispanic voters. he was already ahead, but i think what he did was i want to draw a real parallel. these are stark differences. this is what i have done. this is what i am doing. this is what he said he is going to do, romney. you make the choice in that community. if you watched yesterday and today, it was an enormous difference in the terms of the reception. so i'm excited and i think it will be the difference in florida. i have believed for some time the two things we've got going for us in florida is if we increase our hispanic turnout this time with the energy we had in 2008 and if we focus on the fact that romney is actually telling our governor not to tout
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the economic comeback because it's off message those two things combined are making me optimistic about this election. >> let me get this right. do you feel what the president did last friday helps you to win florida for the democrats and this president in november. do you feel this helps you lock it up? >> florida's going to be very close. i think it's going to make the difference. i think what he has done will be in the end we'll look back and say this has been a difference majer. >> alicia, while the president is moving in all this that we agree is politicallywise, but a core belief and something he talked about. congressional republicans are pounding the president's immigration decision. and they're coming with legislation. for example yesterday they pushed two bills. one that had 11 co-sponsors and
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it would require the department of homeland security make sure illegal immigrants don't receive medicare, social security, or food stamps. so not only do you have the president making an affirmative step, you have republicans in the congress that are continuing to go after a very, very regressive kind of policy on human levels. we talking about social security, medicare, food stamps. we talking about people who need help here. >> they're addressing a problem that does not exist. there are so few incidences of what they're suggesting that i'm glad this is what they're putting efforts towards. they're in complete disarray. they know this a big issue for their party. listen. they have a very small part of their republican base for whom immigration is a real issue. for the majority of republicans, this is not a motivating issue. in fact, a majority of americans, democrats and republicans agree on what is the
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most contentious. an earned pathway to citizenship. for the fact they have a radical element of their base, a radical element that's represented in congress. and they're trying to figure how to satisfy them without losing latinos forever. >> alicia menendez and rob smith, thank you for your time. have a great weekend. >> you too. >> thanks. ahead, video of a 68-year-old bus monitor getting bullied and taunted by kids sparks a new call for civility. stay with us.
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terry moss, vice president of talent management at xerox. thank you for coming on the show tonight. >> thank you for having us. >> tell us about the jobs. and what experience is needed. >> we have customer service positions throughout the nation. we have 2700 positions open right now. >> 2700? >> 2700 today. >> okay. >> so 2400 are for call center agents. we have100 in i.t. over 300 in management leadership type positions that we've got to actually support and make sure we're taking care of our customers in those call centers. >> now, when the company is actually hiring people, what are the things that people need to be aware of in terms of background?
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>> we look for people with customer service experience. what they need to be able to do is problem solve on the job. xerox services is the 1-800-help-me answer. good customer service experience, able to think quickly on their feet, able to get answers to questions quickly, promptly, and accurately. traditionally we look for the military people that are returning, getting them back to work. our retired people that are get k back to work are fantastic. recent college grads. even high schoolers that are looking for a good career in business work out fantastic for us in our call centers. >> now, the company's actually expanding nationwide. where are the other locations? >> we are. we've got greeley, colorado, which you mentioned for us. throughout oregon with portland, coos bay, indiana. we've got positions available there. north carolina, lexington,
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kentucky. we've got quite a few customers there. regardless of the line of business. whether it's hospital, insurance, wireless communicators, technology companies. those are the type of positions that we take care of for our clients. >> all right. and almost 3,000 job openings. 2,700 jobs. well, teri morse, thanks for joining us tonight. for more on our here are the jobs series, go to our website. politicsnation.msnbc.com. click on here are the jobs and you'll find all the jobs featured on the show you'll find there. coming up, calls for civility after a video of kids bullying a 68-year-old goes viral. >> karen, you're fat. >> you're so fat. you take up, like, the whole entire seat. >> oh, my god. your glasses are all foggy from
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we close tonight with the story that everyone's talking about. the school bus monitor who was bullied by four seventh grade students. two of the students have written apologies to 68-year-old karen klein after they taunted her with cruel and abusive insults. >> karen, you're fat. you take up like the whole entire seat. >> oh, my god. your glasses are foggy from your freaking sweat you fat [ bleep ]. >> put the glasses back on. i can't stand looking at your face. >> look at this flab here.
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>> unless you have something nice to say, don't say anything at all. >> how about you shut the [ bleep ] up. >> karen, are you sweating? you're not sweating. why is there water on your face. >> i'm crying. >> that disturbing video has sparked a new call for civility and produced an outpouring of support from all over the world. with supporters donating over $560,000 to send her on a dream vacation. joining me now is lisa bloom, an attorney and author of the new book "swagger: ten urgent rules for raising boys in an era of failing schools, mass joblessness, and thug culture." thanks for being here tonight. >> thank you, reverend, sharpton. >> your book is all about raising boys in this society today. so hearing these boys taunt the bus monitor, how surprised are
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you by how hurtful and persistent they are in insulting her? >> well, i'm not surprised at all. as i say in the book, children are always going to push the limits. it's up to us as adults to push back and not allow it. my concern with what happened here is apparently karen klein did very little. we saw she made a few comments, but essentially she sat there and took the abuse. and she ended up crying at the end of the ten-minute period of abuse. was there no training for her as a bus monitor as to how to handle the situation? i believe that adults, when they're with children and children are misbehaving, they need to act swiftly. and tell the kids knock it off. after that warning if the kids persist, discipline them. separate the kids. threaten to call the parents. threaten to tell the tueacher. most schools and school buses have that discipline in place. it's important to nip this kind of thing in the bud. >> but we don't want to blame
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the victim here. i mean, this is a 68-year-old woman. she's a chaperon. and clearly i think a lot of us are seeing in the culture now this kind of stuff that has now manifested itself with youngsters of all communities, all backgrounds, all economic status. i think we got to deal with it as a cultural problem. it's in our culture. >> that's right. and i don't want to blame her, but i do want women to stand up especially to boys when they're being abused. she's a bus monitor. isn't it part of her job to keep these kids in line? i have a chapter in the book called teaching your boys to respect women. one of the hardest thing for parents to do is to treat them with respect. moms tend to be martyrs. that's not okay. we're doing a disservice to boys if we do that. we need to teach them to respect girls and women at every opportunity up to and including
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us. if they don't respect us, they're going to go through life disrespecting girls and women. there's a new generation of empowered women out there who don't stand for this. and if they treat women that way in the workplace, they're out of there. >> two of the young boys apologized today. one wesley saying i feel really bad about what i did. i wish i had never done those things. if that had happened to someone in my family like my mother or grandmother, i would be really mad at those people who did that to them. josh writes i'm so sorry for the way i treated you. when i saw the video, i was disgusted and could not believe i did that. i am sorry for being so mean. and i will never treat anyone this way again. now, whether they were being facetious or not, she's not so far decided to press charges. should she accept apology or should she say i'm pressing charges on seeking some disciplinary action?
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>> we don't need to criminalize everything in this culture including 12-year-old boys misbehaving. we already have the biggest prison population in the world. i don't think that's the right approach with 12 and 13-year-old boys. i like the apology. i would rather see it delivered in person so there could be a conversation and she could tell them how hurt she was. she has a son who committed suicide and they made fun of that. i'd like them to sit and hear the pain she experienced as a result of that. i call my book "swagger" because there's too many boys in our culture that have this swagger attitude. they can do anything they want and get away with it. we have to undercut that. we have to teach them they are equal to everyone else. >> lisa bloom, i'm going to have to lee it there. >> it's important. >> lisa bloom, thank you so much. i'm going to have to leave it there. thanks for your time tonight. and i agree with you. we've got to take charge. we cannot allow it to keep going this way in terms of disrespect and disregard for our women and
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mothers. i'm al sharpton. have a great weekend. "hardball" starts now. he's so bain. let's play some "hardball." good evening. i'm michael smerconish in for chris matt use. leading off tonight, here comes that bainy day feeling again. mitt romney says it over and over again. on day one, he's going to get tough on china. sounds good, but today's "washington post" reports that romney's bain capital invested in firms that specialized in outsourcing jobs to countries like china. just wait for that little morsel to make it to an obama ad near you. romney and bain capital. this story not going away. also, if you were to judge mitt romney and president obama's speeches to latino officials on reaction alone, it'd be a slam dunk win for the president.
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