tv All In With Chris Hayes MSNBC November 13, 2013 8:00pm-9:00pm EST
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governor sarah palin, i think we all should look out for the poor, looking out for the poor is a concern we should all, liberal and non, share. don't be taken aback, governor, this is a good thing. pope francis is a good man, for all of us, not just for the poor, but for those who care about them. that is "hardball" for now. thank you for joining us, "all in" with chris hayes starts right now. good evening from new york, i'm chris hayes, over 100,000 people have signed up for obama care through state and federal marketplaces so far. that, according to figures released by the obama administration today. those numbers come amid increasing pressure from republicans, who today once again took to capitol hill to berate the people working on fixing healthcare.gov. one thing, though, is clear. things look quite a bit different than they did just a
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short month ago. >> so usually it is the republicans who are united and the democrats that are divided. but this time democrats are solidly behind president obama. >> i have never seen the democrats as united in my life. >> democrats are united and ready to help in this shutdown. >> democrats are united. >> you have to say the by any objective standpoint, democrats are united. >> democrats are united. there is no democrat ready to break ranks. >> democrats in the house are united. >> again, democrats are united. >> and democrats now, politically have the luxury of both unity and clarity of vision. >> up until now, congressional democrats have held firm on obama care. for years, they held together through tea party back lash and congressional elections. and particularly through the republican shutdown, the democrats stood united. >> my flock has been lock strong together. >> after several weeks of implementation problems, democrats are starting to go
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wobbly. and while some democrats are proposing fixes to obama care, it would, in fact, help destroy the program. take for example, senator joe manchin. >> west virginia joe manchin is taking a stronger approach, calling on delaying the legislation for a year. >> joe manchin wants to delay enforcement for a year. >> there should be a transition period for a year, there should be no fines. >> that sounds fine on paper, but it would delay the mandate. the mandate exists to prod those young healthy people into the market. if they don't enter the market for a year, those markets will not work. >> you have a lot of problems for a year, let's recognize it. let's fix it. >> senator joe manchin, you're not helping. >> then there is senator jean
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sheheen. >> senator sheheen wants to extend the open enrollment period. >> the rollout has been a disaster. and so what i am proposing is that we extend the period in which people can enroll. >> again, that sounds sensible. but it ignores that deadlines force people to act. just look at romney care, during the first month of open enrollment, almost nobody signed up. in two months, almost a thousand signed up. in the one month before the deadline, over 46,000 people signed up. people don't sign up for health insurance until they have to. >> my goal is to fix the affordable care act, and make sure people get the access to health care that they need. >> jean sheheen, you're not helping, and finally, the last suggestion came from louisiana
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senator mary landrieu. >> it will clearly say if you had had an insurance plan that you liked, that you could afford, that you felt like you -- you felt like that is what you wanted and you could afford, you can keep it. >> landrieu's plan would, not to put to fine a point on it, destroy the affordable care act. it would rip to shred the risks, raise premiums and allow people to keep buying the same kind of plans that have bankrupted people for years. >> this is not to undermine the affordable care act, it is to strengthen it. >> mary landrieu, you're not helping. we understand the health care law is keeping people up at night, but the real problem of obama care cannot be fixed by makes the policy worse. >> joining me now is dr. zeke emanual, director of health policies at the university of
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pennsylvania. he was special adviser to health policy to the white house. and zeke, what is your suggestion on the fix to the health care? >> well, i certainly don't like the idea of not having the individual mandate going into place. i don't think that is right. i think senator manchin's suggestion is wrong. i do think if we can get the website up and running by the end of the month, we would do well. remember, march is the deadline, and it would give people time to enroll. as you point out, especially young people do have this tendency to wait to pretty close to the last minute before they're going to sign up. >> you know, this is not buying your -- you know, something you are really excited about buying, right? this is a chore for most folks. i was actually talking to somebody who works in the insurance industry. saying if you look all your enrollment data, when do people
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sign up? the chart will just go up. it spikes the day before. so pushing things back is only going to make it more difficult to get people into the pool which is precisely the project that everyone needs to be engaged in right now. >> well, i agree with you. and you know, we all wish the website was working well. and i do think it is important to get it up and working reasonably well and to get it working vigorously. i have to say i'm a little baffled by the problems they're having. for example, the shop and compare aspect, being able to sort of window shop, get a firm number on your subsidy for your particular age and income, the fact that they can't get that rolling is a little puzzling. because something called value penguin, and steve morris, an individual computer electrical engineer out in california have been able to get the websites to work and get you the
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information. and you would think that it should be relatively easy for the government to do that. so we have to get those aspects up and running and make it very easy to do that. plus the actual sign-up. and once that happens, most of the chatter we hear about the cancellations and all the other stuff would go away. >> i want to bring in ezra kleiklei klein. what do we see on the traction, you have jeff merkely, of oregon who has co-sponsored it. am i wrong that it is not a very good idea? >> no, it is not a very good idea. now, it is an idea -- it is only a good idea if they can never get the website working, right? so what i think you're really seeing here is not just a set of policy proposals but an increasing suspicion among the democratic senators, there
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really is no time line here. not by the end of the month or any time soon. what her proposal would do, it has jeff merkeley on it, dianne feinstein, what the problem would do is accelerate the problem. because it is so difficult to sign up, you have older, sicker people determined to make it to the end, younger people are not. that is creating a spectre of a risk problem. if you add these factors in, you don't have the younger people coming into the individual market. you have made the core problem, the laws worse. it would solve a short-term political problem by creating a much longer term policy -- she would actually be running for re-election and premiums would go up. there would be nmore of a sense of failure. >> you made this point on wonk
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log. you can't solve a problem -- what i think is happening here, i saw gravity in the movie theaters a couple of weeks ago. >> this is not going to be a good comparison. >> not to spoil things, one of the points, one of the astronauts is returning to earth and in this little shell of a thing that is getting very, very hot, baecause as it streams towards earth, it is hitting the atmosphere and getting hot. what this looks like to me, democratic senators up for re-election in 2014 are in the little pot. and it is heat iing up. they're going you know what? let's go ahead and try to open the window, it is getting hot in here. >> in fairness, chris, they feel like they're out of control. they don't actually control repair of the website. >> right. >> the president and the white house said everything was under control to them. and you can understand their frustration here. and even now, i think they're having a sense that are they
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telling us the truth? can we really trust that it will be up? and i think if they had great confidence that by december first, november 30th, it would be working well, again, i think you would have a lot more calmness here. and i think if we had these briefings that actually gave us a real concrete sense of what was happening and the president announced, you know, here is the ceo that is going to step in and run it until the end of the administration, i think people would calm down. but in the absence of those kind of decisions and actions, i think this anxiety is very human. >> right. >> doesn't make it right from a policy standpoint. psychologic psychologically, it is understandable. >> and it is very understandable. and ezra, you and i had this conversation about the maximum peril.
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i read obituaries the day after the obama care, i read it the day after, it is like, it is it, it is done. what democrats have learned, you have already associated yourself to this thing. you have paid for the meal. you cannot separate this thing, you may as well get this thing passed. and there is a kind of similar political logic here if vulnerable senators can be brought to see this. >> and i remember this is not going to be the biggest problem in the world, and it was not. as you say that is an important political logic that other democrats embrace. what you see here is more dangerous for the law, small efforts to open it, which seem to sound good, and look like they're fixing it. and something to zeke's point, these congressional democrats feel betrayed. when we talk about the president
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makes the promise if you like your insurance you can keep it. we think about him making it to the people. but he also made it to the democrats, and they went out to their constituents, and in their elections, and they said it too. and when the senator goes out saying we're bringing the law back to the intent of the authors, which is the books, and the senate and the house. one thing that is happening that is different than scott brown is they really feel like they're going back keeping faith with what they're intending to do, as opposed to breaking it. the problem with the administration which they need to figure out how to do. and tomorrow, there will be a caucus meeting with reid in the white house about obama care is they need to quickly re-gain credibility with the democrats. if they can get that back, they hold the line. if they can't, the democrats feel betrayed by them or can't trust the time line that is laid out. that is see they are acting in service with the law when they promised the constituent -- >> one of the most dramatic
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parts of all of this, and something i look forward to reading the history of 20 years from now when we can get the inside account, the thought of some of the most powerful people in the world, indeed, the president of the united states, the senators sitting around. there is this black box, a piece of software that they have to get it to work, and these technocrats, trying to make it work. it is an amazing statement, dr. ezra klein, thank you both gentlemen. >> coming up. >> okay, can you talk while you're waiting? >> if you think that the counter between john boehner and the two activists was awkward, wait until you see the rest of the tape. we'll play it for you. and these two young women will be here to tell us about it. next.
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this is john boehner eating breakfast at the diner this morning. check out how excited he is to hear from the two young women urging him to make immigration reform a priority. >> i understand. >> okay. >> we need you to do whatever is in your power to move this bill forward. >> i agree with you. thank you. >> more on that incredible video coming next. but let me ask you something, does john boehner strike you as a guy who likes to engage with his community? still, then, how is it that he has almost 400,000 friends on facebook. look, i'm not saying i'm jealous of that, but if i did i would be nice to each and every one of you. go like this, and have a muffin. we'll be right back. new fast . with an ultra-thin coating and fast absorbing advil ion core™ technology, it stops pain before it gets worse.
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the fact that the house has scheduled 13 more days and not full days for the rest of the year and has basically thrown it in we're going to do nothing else except find a way to keep the government operating, that tells you, as well, we have a great difference here. >> wait a second, the house is scheduled 13 days? >> yes, the rest of the year, pretty much said we're done. >> that was our guest last night pointing out the house of representatives is hardly burning the midnight oil as they approach the end of the year. and there is a good reason for that. house speaker john boehner wants to run out the clock on the house calendar where he doesn't have to do anything on something
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like say, immigration reform, which passed the house with broad reform, and is looking like it will pass and become law if only john boehner brings it to the floor for a vote. the ease of which this could be done was highlighted by nancy pelosi, with 119 co-sponsors. she tweeted, we have the vote to pass immigration reform. still, john boehner seems to be saying look we just don't have the time to take up a complex issue like immigration reform. it is a strategy he hopes will convince the lawmakers to just ignore the issue altogether. but the strategy of the people whose lives are on the line, and there are millions of them, is to make it so that john boehner and the rest of the republican party cannot ignore it. so this morning, two women asked john boehner if they could share with him their stories. >> i am just going to eat breakfast. >> do you think we can like talk while you're waiting for your food? >> yeah, sure.
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>> you're a father, right -- how would you feel if you had to tell your kids at the age of ten that you were never coming home. >> that wouldn't be good. >> i know, so that is what happened to me. that happened to me. >> and john boehner, saying a version of, i've been committed to since the president got reelected. >> you know, i have been trying to find some way to get this thing done, not an easy path forward, but -- >> so we can count on your vote for immigration reform? >> i've made it clear to move it forward. >> check this out, john boehner had the gall to tell these girls to their faces that he is quote,
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trying to find some way to get this thing done. a few hours before he went out and told reporters he has no intention whatever of moving forward on immigration reform. >> the idea that we're going to take up a 1300 page bill that no one had ever read, which is what the senate did is not going to happen. and frankly i'll make clear we have no intention of ever going to conference on this senate bill. >> joining me now are those two young women who confronted house speaker john boehner on tape. joining me now, carmen lima, and jennifer martinez, a 16-year-old student whose parents are undocumented. she is an activist for "one america." carmen i wanted to ask you what your response or reaction was to seeing john boehner say to you he is trying to get it done. and then a few hours later go tell the press, absolutely no way, basically over my dead body. >> well, here is the thing, i
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told boehner my story hoping that maybe it would touch him. maybe he would like change his mind a little, maybe not completely drop to his knees and say yes, i'm going to go do it right now. but i hoped he would be honest with me. and now i feel betrayed. i feel like he lied to me. i felt like my story meant nothing to him. which is terrible. >> jennifer, you tried -- you and carmen were sort of trying to cross this empathetic gap, trying to let john boehner know what it is like to live in the uncertainty that so many of our fellow americans live in. do you think there is any way of getting it true to politicians? >> i think it is possible. at the end of the day they are human, to some extent. so i mean, that is the whole point of this. telling our stories. i mean, we're not letting up. at some point we're going to tear down those walls that they have built around themselves.
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and sooner or later they're going to have to listen whether they want to or not. it is just a matter of time. >> what has it meant for you, jennifer, to live with the spectre of deportation of your family being separated. have you seen that close up and personal? >> i am lucky enough that my parents have never been deported. i have never had my family separated in the sense that ice came to my house and took my mom and dad from me. but as far as close and personal, i have grown up with friends who are undocumented whose parents have been deported, and then they're left to make ends meet for themselves. because this is their home. where else are they going to go? you know, this is -- as i said, this is their home. so as far as me seeing it personally, i have seen it through friends. the lives of friends, through the lives of my contemporaries at school. and i mean, back in 2009 when my
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family went back to mexico, i had to leave my dad back in mexico in an airport and go home as if everything was okay. when in reality i didn't know when i would see my dad again. >> carmen, i have been a reporter for a number of years. and when i first started being a reporter it was really hard for me to just go up to people at events or anything and just kind of break in and interrupt them and start asking them questions. i had to like sit there and psych myself up. how did you prepare yourself to do this? >> ever since i knew we were speaking to john boehner, this was like a huge thing to me. he was a guy we had to convince that this was important. ever since my dad was deported, i knew the one thing you couldn't be was afraid. that is what my mom and sisters taught me. so when i was going to speak to boehner, i wasn't scared. i was more hopeful he was going
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to listen to and understand. what i was scared of was like his six body guards. >> i think they treated you with due grace and deference. do you think there is any way -- what is the next step now? john boehner, we know that the fate really rests in his hands and his hands alone. he is the speaker of the house. if he brings it up to a vote, it will almost certainly pass. what is the next step? are you guys going to say, we tried or is there going to be more pressure to bear on him? >> well, this movement is made up of people so resilient it will not stop now. this movement, it is not something that is political. it is something that is dealing with human lives. you really think that people who only want to better their lives, who only want to give their children a chance, who only want a chance at education, you think they're only going to stop because one man says oh, no way are we going to push it through this year. no, we have been persistent for
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a number of years. >> this is just an extension of the civil rights movement, it is not going to end until we get what we want, comprehensive immigration. >> they passed the torch down to us until boehner says yes, because we know that boehner is going to have to say yes, because once politicians see interest and people rallying and people getting together and uniting that is when politicians have to say oh, well, we give up. >> carmen lima and jennifer martinez, thank you very much. >> now, the other thing that people have asked is will you get help? >> i'm not an addict of any sort. so i'm not quite sure why you're saying i need help. >> there is news and reports tonight on our old friend, rob ford, the embattled crack-smoking mayor of toronto. today he appeared before the city council, and something i never saw at a city council meeting. an intervention. we'll play you that tape next. avo: the volkswagen "sign then drive"
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saga of the embattled, self-admitted crack-smoking mayor of toronto. and today, it played out live across toronto. >> reporter: there is breaking news about the mayor, rob ford. >> ford made his first appearance before the toronto city council since confessing he had in fact, smoked crack in one of his drunken stupors.
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the council was in the midst of determining if he was in crisis. i never saw an entire legislative body attempt to stage an intervention with a member. >> every episode that has occurred that has cost emotion in the city is because you have indicated you have been drunk. and you have failed to admit there was a problem. >> council, i admitted my mistakes and said it would never happen again. >> mr. mayor, do you still have a zero tolerance for drugs, guns, and gangs? >> absolutely. >> have you purchased illegal drugs in the last two years? >> yes, i have. >> mr. mayor, do you think you
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have an addiction problem with alcohol? >> absolutely not. >> mr. mayor, do you think you have an addiction problem with substance abuse in illicit drugs? >> absolutely not. >> mr. mayor, you recognize that some of your behavior points to that? >> depends how you interpret my behavior. a few isolated incidents. >> this is not funny, folks. >> i can assure you i am not an click, i am not -- an alcoholic -- >> have you admitted your problems. >> >> i don't know, like there might be a coat hanger left in my closet, i don't know. >> now the other question that people asked is will you get help? >> i'm not quite sure why you're saying i need help. i might go to florida over the
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christmas holidays with my family for maybe six days like i did last year, but i'm not missing a day of work. i never have, i never will. >> in your tenure as mayor, have you ever assaulted any of your staff? >> assaulted any of my staff? assaulted, no, i was here 13 years, i never assaulted any of my staff. >> there was a report in the newspaper that on st. patrick's day while in this building, you actually shoved one of your own staff to the ground and your other staff had to hold you back. >> i think you're referring to the st. patrick's day party i had in my office. a lot of the stuff in there, the media was completely wrong. some of it was true, and some of it was false. >> the mayor turned the tables, requesting that they submit to testing themselves. he said he would pay for the tests.
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what did pass by overwhelming vote was that mayor ford step down to deal with his personal problems. in a further insult to the mayor, the oreganizers of the santa claus parade asked him for the to participate this year. santa claus will increasingly be the least of his problems. my mantra? family first. but with less energy, moodiness, and a low sex drive, i saw my doctor. a blood test showed it was low testosterone, not age. we talked about axiron. the only underarm low t treatment that can restore t levels to normal in about 2 weeks in most men. axiron is not for use in women or anyone younger than 18 or men with prostate or breast cancer. women especially those who are or who may become pregnant and children should avoid contact where axiron is applied as unexpected signs of puberty in children or changes
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women and stand with us. >> women are not going to be dragged back ward to the days when they were denied access to contraception, pre-natal screening. >> to say that all things shouldn't come from government, but then have the government want to come into my bedroom and get in my uterus, it is a big deal. >> there has been incredibly productive points from a political perspective. just last week, democrat terry mcauliffe, who really should have been a terrible candidate managed to win the governor's race in virginia, thanks in large part to the radical abortion politics of his opponent, ken cuccinelli. >> cuccinelli wants to make abortion illegal in all areas, even including rape and incest, who is ken cuccinelli to do this? >> it has not slowed the
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onslaught of anti-abortion measures coming from the left part of the government. in fact, the opposite has happened. there were more abortion restrictions in 2011 and 2012, more than any previous year on record, with the combined restrictions put in place over those last two years, this year, another 33 restrictions were put in place around the country. while democrats attacked retorically on this, they have not legislated in a crusade against abortion rights, that is until today. >> this measure is firmly rooted in the united states supreme court's decision that protect a woman's right to choose. it very simply enables access to health care that is vitally important to women to make real the rights they have under the constitution.
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>> that was democrat senator richard blumenthal, the lead sponsor of the protect bill, a bill designed to stop states from blocking access to abortion. it comes at a crucial time, despite the best efforts of wendy davis and her allies in texas. the abortion add vocates have urged them in 14 states to stop performing abortion. joining me, senator blumenthal. senator, what was the problem with this piece of legislation. >> the process was very simply that we rallied, as many senators could, we have more than 30 right now. a very exciting moment because it is a response to this cascading onslaught of measures that have a false pretext. they have the guise of protecting women's health care, when in fact they deny essential rights that women are guaranteed under the constitution. and there is a very real practical effect.
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they really deter and discourage women from seeking health care, including abortion. and they have a tremendous chilling effect on rights that women really are guaranteed under the constitution. >> you're a senator in a fairly blue state, but statewide, you're not in some gerrymander district where you can just safely vote where you want. and this is a topic that i feel that democrats have talked about a lot retorically, but not legislatively. what do you tell the voters in connecticut? >> well, first of all, chris, i've been fighting this battle for about 30 years, beginning in the state legislature, when i sought to codify roe v. wade so we wouldn't be at the mercy of the supreme court which is unpredictable. then as attorney general, when i enforced the face act, which
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protects against physical interference. and the way i talk to my constituent is, we are in effect trying to do the same against the legal barriers as we did against the physical barriers, under the face act. and women should be free to make these decisions. they are to be made between themselves and their physicians without the pretextual and false premise that some of the state legislatures require, such as requiring outmoded regimens, requiring visiting privileges on the part of the doctors who perform these measures. really, these kind of false pretext for health care are a means of blocking access. so i talk about it as a choice women should make without this kind of obstruction from the state. politicians have no business interfering in these decisions
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and people should be free to make them on their own. >> just so that folks know, there are nine states enacting these laws, currently known as trap laws, they are currently in tennessee, utah, and texas, being blocked by courts in mississippi, alabama, north dakota and wisconsin. and there are some being considered in arizona. there has been a really intense judicial battle over whether these are even constitutional. and i think it emphasizes just how important the federal courts are at this moment. because these challenges are now working their way through the federal courts and appear poised at some point to make their way to the supreme court. >> and they may well make their way to the supreme court. but we're saying the state legislature is here, whatever the supreme court decides there will be a federal law that bars these very, very false and unfortunate inference with women's rights. with the pretext of protecting them and instead interfering with these rights.
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and the federal law is important because it sends a message to the state legislators, why incur the cost of litigating? why not just follow the constitutional law and the conscience of the nation? >> is there any way to get 60 votes for a piece of legislation like this, given how unified, particularly the republican party seems in their opposition to abortion and their opposition to choice. is this the kind of thing that there is ever any hope of peeling any republicans off of? >> i think there is, chris. at the end of the day, legislators who say they are pro choice will have to answer in this next election if not before whether they support the women's health care protection act. and this is a mainstream measure. it has the support of planned parenthood. the aclu, the center for reproductive rights, who all have been involved in helping to draft it. very, very importantly. and it also recognizes the
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enormous courage of those health care providers. they're really in some ways the heroes of this story. the folks out there who are risking not only villification. >> thank you, senator, we'll be right back. the next... not so much. but that's okay. you're covered with great ideas like optional better car replacement from liberty mutual insurance. total your car, and we give you the money to buy one a model year newer. learn about it at libertymutual.com. liberty mutual insurance. responsibility. what's your policy? with an ultra-thin coating and fast absorbing advil ion core™ technology, it stops pain before it gets worse. nothing works faster. new fast acting advil. look for it in the white box. still running in the morning? yeah.
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on the eve of the 40th anniversary of roe v. wade, mississippi's only abortion clinic is fighting a state law that could force it to shut down. >> my goal is to force it to shut down. >> so the only remaining mississippi clinic is still fighting in court to be allowed to stay open. it is fighting a law as you just heard the state's governor said was designed to close its doors.
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it is that -- it is that kind of state law that they would ban. joining me now, the president and center for reproductive rights, she has been covering the story. erin, your piece today reminded me of a piece of legislation democrats have proposed back in 2007 that i completely have forgotten about. this is the first time you have seen it national -- >> many people forget about it. >> this is the first time you are seeing national democrats on capitol hill really step out and push this. >> well, i think they did push the freedom of choice act a couple of years ago, but there clearly was not enough political will because it never went anywhere, even when democrats controlled both chambers. i mean, i do understand why this has not been a fight they want to pick. they are traumatized by the partial birth abortion ban that started in the late '90s and into 2000. they're struggling because of this. and the tremendous overreach,
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this happened in state legislatures, because of the comments made and the problems in passing the laws, pro choice voters who have been somewhat back seat have now rallied, and that is giving the democrats some energy and seeing the political advantage in reaffirming women's reproductive rig rights. >> so there is an incentive to get rid of abortion and roe v. wade, one is banning abortion after six weeks or 20 weeks, and then that gets appealed and works its way up the courts. that is one strategy, the constitutional route. and then there is one way, actually making the case that no one can provide abortion. >> what is so exciting about what we saw today on the hill is that finally, with the women's health protection act, going on offense, saying states can't do this, that we finally instead of having bills that pretend to
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protect women's health, we have a bill in congress that is actually going to be able to do something about supporting women's health. >> this texas version of the law is precisely what wendy davis did the filibuster over, her national platform, her run for governor. and it is the law that a federal judge struck down or part of which was struck down by a federal judge and then overturned. you're litigating that case, right? >> absolutely, and right now we're waiting to see if the court rules on the injunction that will go back into place. what is happening in texas, about a third of the clinics in that state cannot see abortion patients right now. they are being turned away at the door. they were being told they can't keep their appointment. so it is the supreme court that decides whether or not that injunction gets put back in place. >> there is an asymmetry that i think is really fundamental to the way the politics of the issue of abortion and
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reproductive choice more broadly plays out in this country. a republican in any state, almost, as soon as they get elected to run the state legislature, they start to go on offense with a whole variety of ways of trying to restrict choice, or trying to ban abortion. you don't see the same thing in reverse, which is to say when democrats take over a state, they're not out there leading on this issue. what accounts for that asymmetry? why is it that the nature of our politics, particularly at the state level -- >> i think there are two things to say about that. one is that people become complacent when their constitutional right is technically guaranteed. and i think republicans and anti-choice people have recognized that you can make this slip away, and that privileged people will still have access to this right. so the kinds of people who are out there on the streets and so on, or would be out there on the streets are going to be able to access the services. but i would say there is an exception to what you're setting up. which is recently that the state of california, which has a
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democratic governor and legislature passed a law that would expand abortion to make it possible for nurse practitioners, mid-wives, and physician's assistants to perform abortions. and that makes the access wider in rural areas, and takes away the stigma. it ishearteder to fight for a right that you technical already have. >> do you see the california law as technically a turning point? >> absolutely, it is a way of expanding abortion services. that is what people are not understanding, what a crisis we're getting to in this country. senator blumenthal talked about the fact that it used to be a physical blockade. >> right, they all talked about the '90s, yelling outside the clinics, violently threatening, in some cases murdering abortion providers. and there was a legislative
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movement to create ways to ensure that women had unfettered access to those rights. >> that is right, there was a crisis in the 90s, and congress stepped in and acted. there was a crisis in congress, now created by these bogus regulati regulations. they're having a real bogus effect, which is shutting down the clinics. and there is one effect, making sure that the axis for women, not depending on your zip code. >> if somebody works on this for a living, is it your understanding that you're going to wake up every day and the next generation of women and the next generation of women is going to wake up every day and have to fight. that there is something about this fight that there is never settled. there is never any kind of final victory. that every single day is a fight, fight, fight against the abortionists who are trying to roll things back? >> well, it is a fight for human
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rights. they don't just march forward in an untrammeled way, you often have to fight hard to keep those rights. so yes, i expect we have to keep fighting. but i don't think it is any different for human rights, you have to stay on the front rights and show why these are important to women's rights. >> erin, you have been doing great reporting, sometimes out of oklahoma, do you think there is a national conversation and what the conversation is politically and what it is for senators in a state like oklahoma? >> well, sure, these are some of the same incentives you see in the aenlt abortion house of representatives s. we talk about this all the time. there are people playing to a base. you mentioned earlier in your interview with senator blumenthal. i would add there are very few unifying issues for republicans. but lindsey graham, when he is facing a primary, where does he go? he goes
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