ben ferguson, respond directly to what he said about african americans.ely, you must find that offensive. >> i don't think that's the reality most were around. i can't call him a liar if he never heard someone that didn't say it. let's be honest, this guy lives in the back woods and may believe this. >> i have no doubt. >> that doesn't mean he's going to lie to the american people -- >> pre-entitlement, pre -- let's read that again to you, ben. wait a minute, pre-entitlement, pre-welfare, you say were they happy? they were happy. no one was singing the blues, but once black people got entitlement and welfare, wow, they got miserable. come on. this is unbelievable. >> piers, the outrageous thing here -- >> the best part of that quote is black people invented the blues literally as a response to the social misery, the social misery he suggested -- >> but here is what is more ridiculous. the media is not focussing on this. those comments are not the ones that got him booted off a and e. glad and hrc and these others immediately took acceptance to the other t

, host of the ben ferguson show.oining me. michael, let me start with you. was this the right move? how long should phil robertson stay out of the show? >> it's the right thing. certainly he has a right to say what he wants. he didn't say it was a sin, he compared it to bestiality. he later said homosexuals were evil and murderers. he has the right to say what he wants but we have the right to say what we want, too. if we don't appreciate it and respect it we can get him off the show. itis what we did. >> ben, what is your take? >> first of all, if you read the article, he did not compare homosexuality to bestiality. he listed 11 different sins that he said were in the same all over category of a sinful nature in this world. i think it's funny to me the only people that came out of the 11 sins listed, including greed, men sleeping with multiple different women, having sex before marriage, examples like that, the only group that has come out and even claimed their lifestyle was claimed to bestiality, which he did not

thank you so much to both of the political commentators, ben ferguson, marc lamont hill. >>> and nowthe urgent crisis in the world. newest country, south sudan. the first of 5,500 u.n. peacekeeping reinforcements began arriving today. they're going to be shoring up security around u.n. facilities. those bases are now flooded with people who are trying to escape the violence. refugees running from the violence that's swept the country in the past two weeks. arwood damon just arrived there, and she joins me now by phone from juba. arwood, what are you seeing? >> reporter: well, there's a curfew in place, and we managed to make it to our hotel just before that went into effect at 6:00 p.m. local, so we haven't been able to really see that much. but people that we have been talking to have been telling us that at this stage in the capital itself, you really only hear sporadic bursts of gunfire at night, and even that is fairly rare. but to give you an idea of how terrorizing the situation has been, and how traumatizing the civilian population here, here in juba, the tens of thousands tha

and i'm okay with it. >> ben ferguson and maria cardona.t's news conference. thank you. >> the president's end of the year news conference only a few minutes away. you'll see the whole thing live on cnn. that will begin when we come back. stick with innovation. stick with power. stick with technology. get the new flexcare platinum from philips sonicare and save now. philips sonicare. you give them the giggles. tylenol cold® helps relieve your worst cold and flu symptoms. but for everything we do, we know you do so much more. tylenol cold®. >>> i'm wolf blitzer in washington. we want to welcome our viewers in the united states and around the world. within the next few minutes, the president of the united states wi will walk into the briefing room, open with a statement, and answer reporters' questions, and then he's heading off to hawaii for some vacation time. brianna keilar is at the white house. set the scene for us. do we know what the president will say in the opening remarks? >> wolf, talking to white house officials, i expect that he

>> good, also ben ferguson and ben lamont hill. welcome, gentlemen, to every one of you. each of you has an opinion. don lemon, since you're next to me, let's begin roun robin like. how you all feel, your reaction to the "gq" article, i read all seven pages to get the full picture. you begin. >> listen, i don't condone what he says, i don't agree with any he says, but i'm shocked people are shocked he said it. having grown up in louisiana, i always heard people talk like that. if you listen to fundamentalist christians, not all, but many of them, they say the exact same things. they use the same bible verses he used, not only to subject women, but to enslave african-americans and also to keep african-americans segregated for jim crow. >> i'm not seeing a don lemon shock face. >> i'm not shocked by it. you know, hey, listen, i think freedom of speech, what he said was wrong. >> okay, coming back to you. mark lamont hill to you, next, because you're saying the whole show should be yanked. is that correct? >> not necessarily the whole show, but certainly if they were to hold

ben ferguson, i know you disagree.rd snowden may have given information that we already knew about, but he still stole it to attain it, and he broke the loll to get it. the other issue is he's not a hero, not a saint, because a lot of the information that he did take had nothing to do with this data mining subject at all. he took it because he could. and then he shopped it around the world to our biggest enemies and has asylum to russia. to imply this was one single piece of information that snowdon took from the american government is naive at best or flat out trying to mislead the american people because he is a person who broke the law and stole far more than this information, which by the way, we already knew and was already reported on, and very well could have been challenged in court. so he is no hero. >> this is the perfect jumping off point because i'm sure you all saw the "60 minutes" report, and in case the viewer has not, let me play this. this is how this top nsa official is now describing the scope of wha

. >> ben ferguson, he makes a point. someone just got fired at another network for saying something about sarah palin. >> yeah. you can say whatever you want to say. that's free speech. but there's also consequences for your actions. and i think right now he's probably getting a nice long talking to by the other cast members who are saying, hey, crazy grandpa, you might want to tone it down a little bit. this is not the way you talk about things. if anything, this is incredibly insensitive. and also i think for many christians tonight that are watching us, they don't agree with the way that he said any of this this evening. i as a man of faith, i would never advocate for any person to talk in such a blunt way that he did about such a sensitive issue even if you disagree with somebody's lifestyle you should still have compassion and love for the human being and the soul of the person. and so i think there's a lot of people that are going to be disappointed in him for the way that he said it, because it's not in a loving,

not even need to this is ben ferguson for us. this is the right place and. they call it a good you're going to do just these particular people we're working with. you i was i was. anything. why would they work with these chemicals why would they not work with these kind of mold many of them for money yes and this needs to be said they do this for the money yeah but the i am why everybody has one thing well known what a liar it's why did you have to do this yeah having said that i was judging. and the man you are judging no not even a good thing this movie is judging that it's ok i'm just saying any should be we need to be concerned that we're not going our own places saying we're better than you are because i've had this situation and i fucked off in years to that this is what i'd like to see this approach to the one where if you see them out of seeing that you you go to two people you know nothing there as you start out with them this earlier we can extend then when they have or this is a strong reaction you're like strong reaction when they said they went

cowboy's fan, ben ferguson and mark join me again. i love that you have your jerseys. ed more? ben, 30 seconds. >> tony romo, this jersey is not a romo jersey because it's sold out. everyone wanted to support tony romo because of the season ending surgery. i think the cowboys are due. phillys are going to come in, be in jerry's world and terrified of this other quarterback they have not been planning for. the team is going to be playing for tony romo. he had serious surgery. if i'm a philly fan, i'm not sure i would watch the entire game tomorrow. >> mark, are the stars going to align for you? >> there's going to be no need to watch the entire game. at halftime, we are going to be up by five touchdowns. i wish tony romo would play. he always loses the game for the cowboys. i was sending him get well cards. >> except last week. except last week. >> all right. >> he beat the redskins. >> this is what i'll say. it's my team, when my team beats your team, okay, i'm going to ship you this jersey, fedex to you and you have to wear it on tv next time we are on. >> for the next

ben ferguson and mark hill. we'll see who has the last laugh tomorrow.u believe the current congress is the worst in your lifetime. not only does it seem like democrats and republicans are at each other's throats, the republican leadership has been sounding frustrated by its own members. can congress get its act together in 2014? more on that, next. [ sniffles, coughs ] shhhh! i have a cold with this annoying runny nose. [ sniffles ] i better take something. [ male announcer ] dayquil cold and flu doesn't treat all that. it doesn't? [ male announcer ] alka-seltzer plus fights your worst cold symptoms plus has a fast-acting antihistamine. oh, what a relief it is! plus has a fast-acting antihistamine. i use my citi thankyou card to get 2x the points at the coffee shop.at the office, which will help me get to a beach in miami and they'll be stuck at the cube farm. the citi thankyou preferred card. now earn 2x the points dining out, with no annual fee. go to citi.com/thankyoucards >>> this just into cnn, los angeles dodgers outfielder spent this morning in a

cnn political commentator ben ferguson, good morning, ben. >> good morning, merry christmas. >> merrybeing with us on christmas day, this means a lot, especially to me. let's just touch on obama care, because we have talked a lot about kaobama care in recent da. it set a record. that's good. >> the majority of people that are getting on these plans are somehow going to be involved in medicare, that's concerning the young people that they needed to sign up for these algorithms that did not work correctly, low risk patients of these insurance companies, they needed to offset those who had pre-exiexisting conditions. they're not signing up so there are going to be some major obstacles going forward in 2014, because if you only have those sign up that are sick or that need a lot of care, are on a lot of prescriptions, this thing is going to be a disaster, i think, waiting to happen because so many young people are just saying, these premiums, they're too high, i'm not going to pay it. i'll deal with the penalty this year i need to. i'll get it if i need it with a preexisting condition bec

. >> as we await the president at the news conference, let's bring back maria cardona and ben ferguson. ben, how much credit does the president deserve for the emorms rise in the markets, from 7,000 five years ago to 16,000 right now. the growth in the third quarter above 4%. pretty impressive. unemployment numbers going down. housing markets going up. how much credit do you give the president? >> i don't give him a lot, mainly because i haven't seen policies this white house has pushed forward that have helped those issues grow. you have to give credit to the private sector for getting off the sidelines and being willing to take chances and risks. as you her the economist talk about there. one of the things i think the president did do a better job of at the end is starting to realize that all the mandates of obama care that were stalling many companies from hiring people at full-time work because they were afraid of all the mandates and switching to part-time work, that's part of the reason why you have so many people on food stamps now. they didn't realize the repercussions for the

from dallas, leaning to the right, ben ferguson, now, this recent poll i looked at said that americansthink that car salesmen are more ethical and honest, than congress. which i thought was funny. >> who does that insult more? who does that insult more the car salesman or the congressman, i'm worried. that is a toss up. >> so we can laugh at one point, but when does it become dangerous, mark? >> oh, we're way past the point where it began to be dangerous. i mean, for the last four or five years congressional polls of everyday citizens about congress have shown that people find congress to be ineffective, spineless and self-serving. and every year the numbers go up. not only does it reflect how people feel, this has been the most ineffective in american history, they are spineless, goes on both sides of the aisle. >> ben? >> i mean, look, it is pretty popular right now to say you hate congress. i mean, name one thing that congress has done in the last several years that you can say man, that really affected my life in a positive way. so i think part of this is just people just think it