on track. and you don't know jack from convicted lobbyist to federal reformer john kapor mob is back with a vengeance this time against congressional corruption we'll talk to him about his new outlook on life and the lessons he learned behind bars. it is monday january ninth four pm in washington d.c. i'm christine for you're watching our t.v. well welcome back from the weekend it was an eventful one and a busy one especially for republican presidential candidates who had not one but two debates in a twelve hour period saturday night and sunday morning and they're talking a lot and we're hearing a lot but today we like to take this opportunity to talk about what we're not hearing and i think this is important because as much as social issues can make for great sound bite zingers we're in the midst of tough times right now if you're

applying for a job in which your number one priority is to leave this country in a better direction it might be a good idea to start telling people once will eventually decide whether or not you'll get that job what your plan is that makes sense right well right now wrong this week and for much of the campaign instead it's been about three things guns gays and god here are some snippets from over the past week. governor romney do you believe that states have the right to ban contraception that states have a right to ban contraception i can't imagine the state banning contraception chores selling contraceptives the interstate commerce clause protects this shark and a marriage is based on a man and woman has been for three thousand years is at the core of our civilization and is something worth protecting and i polled in my view is we should have a federal amendment of the constitution defining berridge as a relationship between a man and a woman that does not mean that i would agree with certain things that the gay community would like to do to change laws with respect to marry to respect to

adoption and once again it often comes down to guns gays and god contraception gay marriage these are issues that get people riled up for sure but these are not issues that have any bearing on the majority of people's lives in this country so one of those issues well here are a few foreclosed homes several million families have faced or are facing losing their homes to foreclosures and they want to heard what romney or gingrich his plan is to deal with this problem one of the crisis in the eurozone and how much it impacts well not just the rest of the world but this part of the world this economy as well what about government programs like social security medicare heating assistance literally running out of money or what about our policy in the middle east for the years ahead you know we've heard of bomb iran we've heard lots of grow the military but what do we specifically need to know about the future in afghanistan or how will deal with syria or bahrain or iraq and finally and this one

is simple and it's in our faces every day poverty and inequality what does rick perry think stint needs to be done about the growing homeless population across this country and about widespread poverty in america overall instead the scales of these debates often tip in the direction of once again the three g.'s guns gays and god so why is a little attention on things that actually impact to the majority of the country well let's talk to someone. he was i don't spend a lot of time thinking about this political comedian dean obeidallah. hey there dina i know you're a comedian but this was not saturday night live this was saturday night for real what's going on here why not spell out real plans for real people well there actually were some funny moments i think jon huntsman speaking mandarin chinese was great i was really wishing he was cursing out maybe newt gingrich or rick santorum in mandarin it turned out he wasn't and then of course sunday morning rick perry actually remembered the third government agency you want to get rid of so that was

funny right there in the crowd cheered reality is i don't know why people don't i saw a recent rasmussen poll number one issue eighty percent of the holders said it was the economy the economy in jobs foreign policy and social issues much further down that's the issue people want to hear about i have to think the reality is that these republican candidates and suddenly easy thing to have an answer they don't have an answer unemployment's gone down and peaked october two thousand and nine and ten point one percent it's still now in december to eight point five percent maybe obama's policies contribute maybe they don't maybe it's cyclical in any event the economy is improving and these republicans don't have answers so they want to talk about the social issues the heart issues the ones that make you go out and vote make you make phone calls get people to come out to the polls they scare you it works before it worked many times before the just trying to use the same play from the old republican playbook i think that's a really good point and there is a notion out there that the reason that this is happening is that people vote with their hearts and not with their heads there are plenty of one issue voters in this country i've met plenty of them who vote on the candidate who agrees with them on

you know one issue for example guns or abortion do you think this is most of america i mean you said you saw this poll that says most americans care about jobs right now but why and it's not just the candidates let's be honest here are the moderators of these debates are asking them about things like contraceptives. they're trying to find something that's sensational that's what the media does that's their job it was a boring debate about economics how many people are going to watch it let's be honest it becomes bland and boring it's a lot of numbers most people including myself would struggle understanding what is going on but everyone in the stands abortion and gay marriage and contraception so those are the easy issues it makes it easier for us to talk about them certainly rick santorum i think of all the candidates run the most socially driven campaign this is a man who literally in iowa said our laws american laws in the bible god's law must comport which means they must agree nobody out there is saying something as radical

as that except for maybe people the taliban frankly he want to get rid of this church and state division and very few people the media are calling him out for it at this point seems as romney's race norrin him they're letting it go to romney versus obama and then perhaps then we will hear the real issues that we want to hear about how you get american jobs created again how you get this economy going how you going to lower foreclosure how you get americans back working and making the reason their income go up instead going down every year i think it's a good point you bring up about rick santorum specifically he has run the most socially conservative campaign that was a very interesting comparison with the taliban but let's go with it but the thing about santorum is he was a nobody up until the you know the week before the iowa caucuses and maybe is on to something because he ended up coming in second by eight votes in iowa. this is really nothing more than american presidential idol it just happens to be his chance if herman cain was still in the race herman cain would be second that mitt romney i have no doubt it seems republicans are really taken by as his simple

affable charm that he had i may have agreed with him disagree with herman cain a lot i disagree with him but i could see why people liked him until they found out about his personal issues that he had going with them i think rick santorum will be the mike huckabee four years ago he'll stay in the race as john mccain won primary after primary mike huckabee stayed in the race four years ago you know got some votes got some delegates ultimately made some kind of deal i don't think it helped him politically but i think santorum stays in he believes in this stuff he's a truly when people look at his record he is a scary person is a man who says there should be no exception for abortion in the case of rape meaning a woman who raped must carry she is sentenced to carry the child of the rapist in her body for nine months this is a radical this is not mainstream american view along with me the most of all the candidates i think that's a good point and certainly a lot of us especially those of us in the media kind of miss herman cain a little bit at least herman cain though had an economic plan and you know we're not making this up there's actually these are actually issues that people care about and i want to show you

a little bit of evidence this was caught on camera over the weekend by an a.b.c. news crew romney sort of a millionaire worth at least two hundred million dollars himself obviously has been struggling to connect with the economic figures of the working class ok so mitt romney and not entirely comfortable with this emotional outburst here but this is a woman hugging mitt romney and telling him how it is is this what we need it dean do you think readers need more people reminding the candidate. i don't think it could hurt let's be honest let's talk about jobs as talk about the economy you know mitt romney i think in his defense one he wins a nomination and i think barring anything happen he's leading clearly in new hampshire tomorrow he's leading polls in south carolina and florida and i think really after that before we even get the super tuesday in march i think mitt romney will just about wrap up the nomination for all practical purposes i think romney will turn back to the economy will try to talk about his work at bain capital what a great job creator he was as governor of massachusetts i think we're going to get back to the economy that's what americans want to hear what is president obama

versus mitt romney at the that will be the issue it has to be that's the one we all want to hear about so i think for now this is a game they're running for republican nomination until the republican issues then we get to the big battle the super bowl if you will that's we're going to hear the real issues we want to hear about i think that's a really good point i'm just curious why we haven't heard a little more i mean the economy is a good point and i think you also raise a good point when you say it can be confusing to a lot of americans especially americans that are voting in these early primaries you know to go into detail about economic plans but also i'm really confused as to why we haven't heard more about the middle east you know about bahrain why not let people know about their plans for afghanistan why that is all we hear bomb iran and i know some of these candidates do have like vague plans listed on their website but in debates with large national audience is this would be a good time to work this kind of stuff then. i agree with you going back to the

recent polls and the best one i found was the rasmussen poll the economy number one by eighty percent foreign affairs eighty eighth not i third or fourth way down there americans don't care right now if the economy is going good then you can start focusing on these other little issues like the middle east or you know pet peeve issues that people might have i think the middle east is a much bigger issue i think it's something that should be addressed rick perry clearly said we want to return to store rock in the debate a shocking comment i think ron paul frankly is the only one talking about the middle east honestly talking about the reasons for an eleven talk about palestine israel you know i wish the other candidates would embrace that and start talking about it but you know what the number one issue is the economy and it's jobs that will be the issue through this campaign foreign policy in the way way down there and that's all most americans frankly want to hear about until the economy turns around dean real briefly last question for you you are a comedian what has been the funniest saying about this campaign to you. to me that

well one was rick perry i think the other thing that there were four candidates at one time all thought god asked him to run bachmann cain. is santorum and rick perry also god told the ron i think mitt romney is interesting that he's on he's pro-choice pro-life at one point pro gay marriage in a way anti-gay marriage pro health care and they gay health care i think is can play in slogan should be me too i think he should be a tough can it the wrong be to be like whatever you are that's what i am you know so i think it's very interesting i think mitt romney has some flip flopping issues he did in the middle of the big if you remember on sunday he said not to newt gingrich i don't see those campaign commercials the super pac ran against you but he was but the one campaign issue campaign ad that i did see i kind of agreed with the man has real veracity issues and i think that's going to come up a lot in this campaign and it's them and it's really romney's credibility versus obama and feeling a we ain't seen nothing yet political comedian dean obeidallah in our new york studio thanks so much thanks for having. well since the presidential candidates aren't talking about it and the us congress seems to not want to do anything about

it we want to know what regular people in this country think people who are directly affected by those policies that are and are not in place so laurie harford us with the resident dot net hit the streets of new york city to pick people's brains and to take the pulse on what people think needs to be improved and to get their ideas on how to do it. today everyone's upset with how the world leaders are handling the economy so how would you fix that this week let's talk about that what country do you think is doing a good job. thing. you don't know now i don't know what would you do to fix the problem in greece. angry as well you can do you know not even. got to know what know or know that maybe that's why it's going all wrong a good work ethic fixes each of our problems personally so if we're all out there

working hard and spending money to local communities and that's in our way of part of building up each local small community eventually the whole country gets strong again right yeah isn't it time maybe for the government to stop trying to fix it and let people and companies fix their own wallets i think that's a good answer yes to fix the economy what should they be doing they should be pumping more money into it pumping more money they've been pumping millions and billions and trillions and done any good so why is that the solution that we keep going back to only thing that can do that so they can also say just do nothing and let people sort it out themselves american people can sort of theirselves it's not a matter of not throwing money into the economy it's a matter of living within its means if you don't have enough revenue then you have to cut spending yes so governments are trillions of dollars in debts so it sounds like they have no money right while they have to they obviously you can't stop

everything all at once but you do have to you do have to pull back and you have to come up with a reasonable plan to at least stop the hemorrhaging and we don't just keep printing money and then we don't keep inflating government so that's and most of the european countries are having trouble it's because the government is sixty percent larger than it should be so why why should you and i see business and government leaders can't because we don't get paid by the people that are behind the scenes and since i'm not running for a campaign i don't get current campaign contributions by people that need my help to aurukun politicians there but just a lot really so what should they be doing better. others probably trying to change the economy from an oil economy to something else we've we've got heaps of people with lots of brains and we need to be. doing something about the environment including those people with brains are in positions of power. and so it seems like with the system that's currently in place for how world leaders get elected it

might be time for solutions to come from someplace else. still ahead here on r.g.p. a longing for change he went to jail putting money in politics now he's banking on a new future. what's with the change in attitude coming up next. the capital of. mr. internally or military mechanisms you

don't work to bring justice or tell a good. i have a right to know what my government would want to know what i. would characterize as a charismatic. american exceptionalism. all right let's talk now about something that for those of us who live and work in washington is almost part of our daily life the business of influencing congress now despite the fact that a gallup poll found lobbying to be a profession that rates lower in public opinion surveys than car sales and telemarketing is a big business and very influential one that plays a major role in which policies eventually become laws so today we're going to talk to a man who once who was once considered the most powerful lobbyist in washington he was later convicted of committing fraud in two thousand and eight two thousand and

six excuse me and served three and a half years behind bars he's out of prison now with a new book called capital punishment the hard truth about washington corruption from america's most notorious lobbyist. and that notorious lobbyist jack abramoff joins me now this avram of i want to talk a you have that in the title of your book the hard truth the facts of that so much of what gets done in this town is because of money so i know you outlined quite a few different things what in your mind is the worst part about the system in the way it's set up now but i think the worst part of the system is the fact that it accommodates in essence with bribery legally the people who are lobbying congress per things and people who want things special out of the government are able to give contributions and are able to convey other group duties to public service members of congress and their staff that facilitates them getting what they want out of the public treasury and the end of the day though some polite to say it

that's bribery and so i think that's probably the biggest problem we have here i think that's a good point a lot of people make this argument a lot of lobbyists i speak to that i interview just down the street on k. street they say you know lobbying is the right to petition the government for redress of grievances this is written in the constitution and now of course the supreme court is sort of solidified in a way with their decision in the citizens united case how can we ever change if this has been a tradition for so long this is the way things work can it change is it unrealistic to expect oh yeah of course we change traditions in this country all the time we had a tradition of slavery in this country there was change obviously this isn't the level of slavery but. the country changes things all the time it was a tradition the doctors used to smoke in america we don't see that anymore. so i think that americans as they get more and more interested in this topic and as they get more and more involved in it they will be able to hopefully pressure their

members of congress to correct this part of the system what is your hope goaltimate lee i hope for a few things one is the removal of money used by people who are trying to get things on the government number two i'd like to shut the revolving. or between public service and cashing in in the influence industry lobbying or teaching advising whatever one calls at the moment number three i think that there should be term limits people should come here for a limited amount of time as it was originally intended then go home and resume their lives and number four that every law that the congress passes should be applied to itself such as we see with the problem of insider trading where they can blithely use inside information to make money and the rest of us shouldn't and can't now i'm wondering i'm just curious i mean before you were taken into custody before you or spent time behind bars you were making about twenty million dollars a year and now i'm within this book and everything i say and every that you've said and the interviews i've seen you and it seems like you've changed drastically but

how do we know like how do we know that you've actually changed that this isn't just a ploy to sell your book you know and then in a few years ago back in doing what you were good at well you already thinks i'm going to go back to loving that i think is smoking something they should be smoking even if i wanted to go be a lobbyist which i don't but what congressman is going to take a meeting to be lobbied by jack a vermont i mean that's a one track to the end of their career if there ever was one you know people ask me all the time are you sincere how do we know here's the ceremony answer is i don't know but you can't know i'm sincere you can't see inside my heart all you can do is see what i'm doing and frankly would say i'm totally insincere i'm not trying to run for something i'm not trying to convince people that i'm some hero i'm trying to tell them what's really going on in the hope that they get angry enough that they go out and do something about it and i can't even myself lobby them to go do something about it but i do think the system has to be changed i've gone through a lot the last eight years since this happened to me i don't know if i've changed completely or not hard to change a person but i can tell you the impact has been dramatic and full on me and i have

rethought a lot of what i was and what i did and i brought it all up in my book going to speak about it in that respect i'm certainly sincere and i hope people take it as such was a sort of a gradual process i mean did. i wake up one day and you're like oh my gosh well what i've been doing or to kind of happen over time you know what happened was originally the press tax me the washington post and i got the articles and this will blow over in a couple days typical political tempest in a teapot as they say and then there were hearings i thought i will this will blow over i'll just remake myself as a lobbyist and then it dawned on me well it's not going to blow over and i thought well why the pick you know me i mean i'm not really do anything different than i see everybody else doing the minister to really look at my e-mails eight hundred fifty thousand e-mails that i had written over the course of my career and i started looking at them a little objective lee and realized my goodness i was doing things i should have been doing this stuff that i really say that is how i really do this and i started i decided to take an honest approach to myself and when i did that i didn't like

what i saw and that was the process and sort of well before i wound up prison by the time i got to prison i had already come through this emotionally and intellectually in prison that i used prison time among other things to try to think through what solutions there could be in the system to come out and say something about it i think it's an important question that you raise why you and certainly a lot of people you know probably have a lot of answers about why you went but you know when we talk about the two thousand a financial collapse one of the more popular well known sentiments that people say is no one has been held accountable and it's a sentiment that in a lot of ways is true a lot of people have not been held accountable for the collapse and for other instances of corruption associated with it you were held accountable and a few other people or who else who should be the next target well first of all with myself i'm lucky that i was held accountable here all right i'm a religious person and i believe that there's an afterlife and i'd rather get my

bombs from here than there is not the sam i get more in there but least i got some of it off here what i got punished for i deserved to get punished for i don't look at me i did the big. ending was what i did different but i stopped looking at like that and realize number one i was wrong now in terms of others who's next and what other individuals i don't i don't actually approach it like that no explain why when they say that here's a dirty individual here's somebody who's corrupt here somebody is involved in this people tend to raise that person to high level visibility and they tend to vilify that person and make him into satan and whatever they do and then they finally get him and throw him in jail and they pat themselves on the back and everything's great but you know what it's not everything's great because the system doesn't get changed and what i've tried to advocate is people shouldn't focus on who it is forget who it is ok because if we don't change a system in five years it will be a whole new crop of people in ten years and older crowd as well but if certain people aren't held accountable why would the system change why would there be any

incentive to people to change what they're doing especially when they're making the kind of money that you were well i think that the law held people accountable there were two thousand best a geisha is when the people who ran these investigations though they put me in prison for a long time and i can't say that they are necessarily on the list of the favorite people on earth but they're honest and they were decent professional and they were thorough and i think that they found everybody that they had evidence did something wrong and they did put them in jail twenty people were indicted in my case for more and so they did do that i'm not in to anybody spending a day in jail and frankly i hope people don't participate in this activity but the only way to change it is to change the rules because the problem is not what's illegal here are the problems what's legal here the laws have got to be changed just last question for you where would where would one start somebody interested and making this you know a cause that they want to champion is it in campaign finance reform is it in lobbying itself i mean what's the solution that would be a great place to start well the four things i do in eight or earlier in terms of

separating the money keeping the members from making that transition term limits and. location of the laws i think that we're soon going to see groups come forward with a pledge with where members of congress and candidates for congress have got to take a pledge to. these things and where individual should start is in getting keeping where that in getting their members and their candidates that they want their votes they better sign this pledge and they better do it and if that doesn't happen something like that run and think whatever get it through it's almost like we need a grover norquist of our date as i knew this kind of flat right as opposed to which i was second one absolutely well former lobbyist jack everyone thanks so much for speaking with us today for having. and we're almost out of time of the capital account is up next on our t.v. we'll check in with laura lister to see what's on the agenda hi christine you know let me just start of the question if i was going to lend you money christine don't you think you'd expect to give me something in return you give me you know a little bit of interest or something that's normal right know because you're my friend who can i take all the time i wanted to pay it back to you and you'd be fine

with it ok that is an extreme situation it's an abnormal circumstance and it's exactly what's going on with investors in germany and i don't think it's because investors just want to be friends with the german government christine but they are actually paying the german government to lend the german government money interest rates on the bills the government debt that germany auction had a negative interest rate today it's just one example of this paranormal world that we've been talking about where it's very unclear where money is safe if people can get a return on money and instead just expect a return of money and that should be the hope all of this has us thinking about escape routes christine because it's something that investors talk about in private conversations with us all of the time today we're going to talk to someone who actually plans uses gave groups i'm going to find out who is going and where they're going. to like a scam to me but i'm sure they'll go to the model of it it is not a scam you got to watch the show to see why though laura lister but for us here

that's going to do it but for more on the stories we covered go to our t.v. dot com slash usa or you tube dot com slash r t america you can also follow me on twitter at christine for now once again the capital account for a listers coming up in just a few minutes. oh for.

the first.

good afternoon it's monday happy monday welcome to capital account i'm lauren lyster here in washington d.c. more of cozies reunites and they turn up the heat for greece to reform and cut the debt as markets fear the greek bailout is rattling and signs of paranormal activity continue as investors actually pay germany to lend the government money you've heard me write that interest on six month german bills close to five billion dollars worth. and negative yield will talk about why and the chairman of the swiss national bank has resigned after allegations his wife cashed in on the central.