>> joining me, alex wagner.s this -- ignorance, he was asked about the friendship nine sit-ins. maybe he didn't know what it was. complete insensitivity? >> i think it demonstrates a certain, if not profound insensitivity to the struggle that minorities, the black, experience in america, especially at this time. if we look at what happened with minorities, the disparity between rich and poor, the numbers from the census show americans make on average 20 times more than black families. one of the things dr. king fought for was social justice. for him to tie corporate tax rates to the civil rights movement demonstrates insensitivity to the struggle, if not the teachings. >> if you look at the series of quotes from the books, some of which he's backing off on, you have to sit back as a political analyst and say is he too far off even for the gop? >> sure, and this is not the first time rick perry shot his mouth out. we have the stories about him wanting to kneecap ben bernanke, rick perry marches to the tune -- wal

joining me now, msnbc analyst and "the huffington post" reporter alex wagner. >> it's a pleasure to be here. >> that moment of film with nelson rockefeller is amazing from me that that's from 1964, because it feels like he could be talking about the tea party right now. >> sure. >> so when huntsman takes this role, whoa, we are going too far to the right. what is the audience, what gap is he trying to fill? >> huntsman said i'm a center right candidate for a center right country. he's in the impression america is center right. if you look at the footage and we see just how far this country and this party, the republican party, has come to the right, i mean, it is now -- we are in a position where ronald reagan on a lot of things looks like a moderate. george w. bush worked across the aisle with teddy kennedy to pass "no child left behind." he had a more progressive position than anybody running for president. that was a handful of years ago and to a degree the question remains can we have a george bush in this election? >> when i was driving down the we see just how far this country an

alex wagner of "the huffington post" and msnbc. thanks a lot. >> thanks, chris. >> joining me now, mike konczal, writes one of my favorite blogs on the internet called rorty bomb. mike, how are you doing? >> pretty well, thanks for having me on, chris. >> mike, i want to talk about the substantiative content of this remark, such as it is, i think for people not attuned to the sort of far-right and the ron paul buggism, the comment comes out of no where. what's he referring to? >> quantitative easing, where the f.e.d. prints money and buys financial assets like bonds. the purpose is to increase demand, designed to get people hording cash back into investing and people and jobs and designed to prevent the debt burden of bad debt overhang that's really suffocating the economy right now. >> that's what's so insidious about this. so far the f.e.d. has done two rounds of printing money and the idea is as a sort of extra aide, way of stimulating the economy, outside the mechanisms of the budget and fiscal economy, why is rick perry oppose

joining me is political analyst alex wagner and huffing on the post reporter. ignorance?was asked about the friendship nine sitin so maybe he didn't know what it was, maybe it's ignorance of the civil rights? complete insensitivity. >> i think it demonstrates a certain and profound insensitivity to the struggles. especially at this time. if we look at what's happened. the disparity between the rich and the poor and the numbers from the census show white americans make on average 20 times more than black families, 18 times more than hispanic. one of the things dr. king fought for was social and economic justice. for him to tie corporate tax rates to the civil rights movement i think demonstrates a profound insensitivity to the struggle, if not the teachings. >> when you look at the series of quotes from books, some of which he's backing off on, you have to sit back as a political analyst and say -- is he too far off, even for the gop? >> sure. you know, this is also not the first time rick perry has shot his mouth off. we have stories about him wanting to knee-cap bernanke

alex wagner.it is a pleasure to be here. >> it's lovely to see you. we were distracted earlier before the shot talking about all that of. that film with nelson rockefeller is amazing that's from 1964. it feels like he could be speaking about the tea party right now. >> sure. >> so when huntsman takes this roll and says, whoa, we are going too far to the right, who is the audience for that? what gap is he trying to fill? >> huntsman in std aid in that interview i'm the center right candidate for a center right country. that is very much tdb. if you look at the footage and we see how far this country and this party, the republican party has come to the right, i mean, it is now -- we're in a position where ronald reagan on a lot of things looks like a moderate. george w. bush worked with teddy kennedy to pass no child behind. i mean, that was a handful of years ago, and i mean, it to a certain degree the questions remain. could we even have a george bush in this election season? >> when i'm driving d

huffington post analyst alex wagner is here and former special assistant to president george w. ron crispy. hostage taker, who should be blamed here? i've never seen, alex, where the hostage takers stick you up, charge you ransom, and everybody goes after you for paying the ransom rather than the hostage taker. >> well, i think we are taking the wrong view here. look, the idea of the underpinning of not negotiating with hostage takers is once you negotiated with hostage takers, you're someone that negotiates with hostage takers. you tell the tea party, it worked this time, try it again. the outrage you see on the left and in president obama's base, what have you done. this was a routine matter. raised it 74 times since 1960. at the beginning of this, said we are not tying it to cuts. if you look at how far we came, how much it dominated -- >> the question is do you blame it on -- did president obama stop it from being a clean debt ceiling raise, take the republican party, make you guys turn into what you guys turned into? >> i tell you what we turned into. we turned into the resp

joining me is alex wagner. okay. is this ignorance?was asked about the friendship nine sit-in, so maybe he didn't know what it was, so is it ignorance of the civil rights? complete insensitivity? >> i think it demonstrates a certain if not pronoun insensitivity to the struggle of the black experience in america, especially at this time. if you look at what's happened to michb norse, the disparity between rich and poor, the census shows white americans make more than 20 times more than black families, for him to type corporate tax rates to the civil rights movement i think demonstrates a pronounce insensitivity. >> this is just the latest. when you look at this series of quotes from the book, you have to sit back as a political analyst and say, is he too far off even for the gop? >> this is also not the first time he as shot his mouth off. we have the stories about wanting to kneecap bernanke. rick perry marches to the tune -- walks to the beat of his own drum. i think there is a real concerned on part of at the establishment committee

joining me now, msnbc analyst and huffington post reporter alex wagner. ry is in. >> he's in. >> pretty exciting. >> we've got news to play with? >> we do, we do. this is perry's attempt to toss a ten gallon hat over the state of iowa. but it comes as his campaign was denied their plot of grass at the straw poll. so lest any opportunity go by to stick a cowboy's spur in the gop race, they made the announcement today. >> it's designed to specifically kind of preempt in certain ways the debate tonight? >> sure. >> and so they they -- but going forward here, what -- is the -- is perry going to come in to iowa or is he going to go full force everywhere? >> you've got to think that, look, he has major conservative support. this is his wheel house. he's going to play in iowa. he'll be in waterloo on sunday. he's ramped up against the machine that he knows that michelle bachmann is holding a slice of the pie he wants. you've seen sabre rattling on both sides. there's a new pac established for michelle bachmann. against rick perry called keep conservatives united.

joining me now is alex wagner and jonathan capehart. ese voter id law ace false solution to a problem that really doesn't exist? >> they are absolutely a false solution, rev. there are 20 million americans that do not have driver licenses in the u.s. of that 20 million a disproportionate share are minority, poor, elderly. this hits them in a way that disenfranchises a whole section. the thing never mentioned in this, indian is one of the states with more stringent voter id laws. as part of their case for voter id law, tle cited 250 cases of voter fraud. further examination of those 250 cases shows not one of them would have been prevented bay photo id provision. so the notion that this is -- >> this graph, you talk about how it is an impet meant on people, you have 11% of americans don't have voter id. 18% of elderly, 25% of african-americans, 15% of the poor. this is the brennan center for justice, jonathan, that documented the percentages of people that don't have voter id. these people would be taken out of the voter roles. and not ha

joining me is jonathan alter, and alex wagner. john, you have a lot of history under your belt. this guy's a progressive, the stimulus package was pure keynesian ecomic pure roosevelt. it was aggressive industrial policy, and clearly the health care bill, the first since truman to deliver on a longtime progressive goal. then to afghanistan where he went right of the middle. he's sticking in there in force, and the bush tax cuts where it's very hard to read why we have tax cuts in the well off. we still have bush's tax policy. is the shot he's too conservative from the left right? >> i don't think it is. liberals have to be careful about making these kinds of charges when hubert humphrey was too centrist for them, they sat on their hands in 1968, and we got nixon. when carter was too centrist, we got the teddy kennedy challenge which helped sink him in 1980, so you have to look at the record. the record is most lid quite progressive until his reaction to the mitt terms. then he made a conscious decision to move abruptly to the center to start talking more about deficit reduction,

joining me now, alex wagner, reporter for the huffington post and mooes analyst. alex, are members of the right purposefully ignoring constituents in your opinion? >> you have the videotape to prove it, right? look at where we are at as a country. if you look at the latest gallup polls, congressional approval is at 13%. disapproval rate of well over 83%. this is the lowest that it has been in the history of this polling. there is real anger, real frustration and you have to think it is a gross miscalculation on the part of the gop. to not only listen but to some cases charge them when they are having these events. especially at a time of fiscal hardship and to your point, a party that has preached this sermon of returning government to the people and transparency. >> that's what bothers me. you are not talking about people that, the machine, club house kind of political enentities elected. these claim to come from a people's movement. we are mad. washington is broken. we are angry and we are going to bring the people to washington. >> exactly. >> how do you have a

let's go now -- i'd like to bring in huffington post reporter and msnbc analyst alex wagner.d approach that the president is using to tackle rural jobs a preview of what we can expect in september? he's talking about this big job plan he's going to unveil in september. he's got to deal with the congress that the republicans are the majority of the house, is this balanced approach a forecast of what we're going to see? >> he has to go for a balanced approach. we saw from the debt limit debate that he's between a rock and a hard place, to a certainly extent. you have a field of presidential candidates at this point, a 10:1 balance. for every $10 of government expenditures cut, could they do $1? tax revenues? no. we are at the point where obama can haveç these elegant jobs plans, but in terms of getting them through, he's got to shoot for the center. even that may not be enough. >> the other thing i'm reading a published report today is you have the gas tax that will expire in september. this may be the next fight for those that have signed these nor quist pledges of no taxes a

alex wagner, a huffington post reporter and nbc political analyst. everybody loves you. wait to hear your thinking about this. i want to start this off, ladies and gentlemen, the best piece of clip i've ever seen to make your point and educate all of us, how to be, if you want to be, a strong democratic president. here's president roosevelt warning about republicans back in 1936, in words that could be used right now in this partisan fight. let's listen. >> let me warn the nation against the smold evasion that says, of course we believe these things. we believe in social security, we believe in work for the unempl unemployed, we believe in saving homes. cross our hearts and hope to die, we believe in all these things, but we do not like the way the present administration is doing that. just turn them over to us. we will do all of them. we will do more of them, we will do them better and most important of all, the doing of them will not cost anybody anything. >> unbelievable. rick that is american speech. that's how you talk to people today. your thoughts, because it seem

and alex wagner, msnbc analyst and reporter for the huffington post. congressman, what does it mean for the libyan people to have colonel gadhafi out of power. >> i think the adage, a picture is worth a thousand words, i mean, we saw, what you just showed on your show, the exuberance, the sheer craziness of it. but it is in such a positive way. people are drunk on freedom. and people are baffled by the leaders. are they paying attention to what is going on around the world? does everything is v to be related to politics aent performance of the president. this is bordering absurd. >> i think alex that there was some on the right that wanted him to go in and do more. there were some of us on left that did not want to see us go into a change like this and a regime change where america got involved in way that did not make many of us comfortable. >> sure. >> but you can't deny that what he said he was going to do -- >> he did. >> -- is what he did. so what are they talking about in real language? >> it's partisan bickering. it is partisan politics. as the

alex wagner and jonathan alter join us now.n, do you think there's a relationship, a correlation between what we're seeing in wall street at the moment and the fact of what happened recently with regard to the debt ceiling? >> well, i'm not an economist, martin. i don't want to play one on tv. but the -- there's obviously some sort of political dynamic at work here that does affect not just american markets but global markets. and it sent a sign of uncertainty that we went right up to the edge. and so that does undermine confidence. so i think a combination of anticipation at these jobs numbers that are going to be released tomorrow will be depressing and a jolt to our confidence is, at least in some ways, related to this market punch. >> you think in some ways, this is the reverberation of what happened in congress and all the arguing and rowing that occurred. >> these are multifaceted. you have all these underlying problems in europe. so teasing out what's affected what. but none of it helps. the good news is the underlying s

and reporter alex wagner. hello. >> hi, willie. >> andrea, are you obsessed with paul ryan?thinking of him. i think it is late in the game. i think this is the field and we are kind of getting caught up in our own, you know, the media process. jon stewart wasn't right about that. >> dan is not so sure. between ryan and chris christie, do you see one of them getting in? >> this's room in the race for one more person to get in. there's still time to do it. there's enough energy and enough fund raising capacity still sitting on the sidelines to quickly mobilize. it's not going to be easy. it's hard to put together these national organizations quickly. one reason romney is the front-runner is because he's done it before. he never shut down his doors. we are in a unique moment. there are a lot of people standing around saying is this it? september will be interesting. if no one else gets in in september, three debates, perry with romney and bachman and the others. voters are going to say is this it? there's one more window after that. one more window before the earliest filing, t

and from the "huffington post," alex wagner, also very chipper this morning. down in washington, the "huffington post," sam stein. how are you? >> good. >> jaime is going to appear on "dateline." we are getting clips from his memoir. he's going to make people angry. he goes after colin power, condy rice and do we have the water boarding clip? he comes out and says i believe in what we did with water boarding. >> in your view, we should still be using enhanced interrogation? >> yes. >> no regrets? >> no regrets. >> should we still be water boarding terror suspects? >> i would support using it if we had a high valued detainee. >> even though so many people condemned it and called it torture, you think it should be a tool? >> yes. >> reverend sharpton, what do you think about dick cheney coming out with a memoir where he worked so closely to people that are still around. >> it's interesting he would say he's going to make a lot of people angry. he always did. >> he's make other people angry. >> what i think is interesting is he used the memoir to go after people