people line john cornyn of texas is following leadership of ted cruz.ot a hard right party against a center left party. even centrist left party. it's not easy to fight and understand the issues. thanks for your questions. really good ones. on monday, by the way, 1:00 p.m. eastern i'll be hosting our first live q & a on the new msnbc.com. i'll answer your questions about my book that's out there right now. tip abdomen the gipper, when politics worked and also everything to do with "hardball." just go to hardball.msnbc.com. you'll see the live q & a post. click join the discussion and start leaving your answers in the let's play hardball group thread. see you there monday at 1:00 p.m. eastern. >>> that's "hardball" for now. up next, "your business" with jj ramberg oat formula that creates a moisture reserve so skin can replenish itself. aveeno® for those nights when it's more than a bad dream, be ready. for the times you need to double-check the temperature on the thermometer, be ready. for high fever, nothing works faster or lasts longer. be ready with

people line john cornyn of texas is following leadership of ted cruz.a hard right party against a center left party. it's not easy to fight and understand the issues. thanks for your questions. on monday, by the way, 1:00 p.m. eastern i'll be hosting our first live q & a on the new msnbc.com. i'll answer your questions about my book that's out there right now. and also everything to do with "hardball." just go to hardball.msnbc.com. you'll see the live q & a post. click join the discussion and start leaving your answers in the let's play hardball group thread. see you there monday at 1:00 p.m. eastern. >>> up next, why are the republicans waging a war on the poor? they surely are. why? you're watching "hardball," the place for politics. ire event? your ford dealer. who has 11 major brands to choose from? your ford dealer. who's offering a rebate? your ford dealer. who has the low price tire guarantee, affording peace of mind to anyone who might be in the market for a new set of tires? your ford dealer. i'm beginning to sense a pattern. get up to $140 in

senator cornyn said today something that i think sort of fits. you're talking about a fight over three d.c. court of appeals judges. maybe sooner or later you might want to get to a nuclear option. senator cornyn said he thought faced with two weeks of going home that in fact this was kind of a good things to have a new argument. what happens it that made it necessary literally the day they're going home for the thanksgiving break to bring it up today? >> i think this has been talked about, majority leader reid has been talking about this for quite a while, and he wanted to get it done today. let me pick up on another point, which you mentioned. you said is this laying the groundwork for something even more, going to the legislative issue. let me be frank with you. that's exactly what i believe. i believe given the fact that unemployment today in this country is much, much too high, we need to raise the minimum wage, we need to create millions, what we have seen in the last three, four years, is in the senate, we have gotten over 50 votes for dec

and iran had reached a deal over the islamic republic's nuclear program cornyn sent out the following tweet from oozing with the word hose will do destructive from obamacare or. is trying to prevent another war in the middle east is such a cynical and unnecessary political move it's amazing what some republicans will do to try to slander this way this particularly this one. and the very very ugly john derbyshire for national review writers no one is no stranger to racial controversy the reason derby share is a former national review writer in the first place is that he wrote a column about the death of trayvon martin the centrally told white parents to warn their children about black people this latest piece for dot com may actually be worse than that offensive trayvon martin column. or the new movie twelve years a slave his abolitionist warn that portrays slavery is worse than it actually was nevermind the fact that you know twelve years a actually slave is. based on actual historical events by somebody who is there actually who cares about facts at all because. you know the worst pa

he can barrel contain himself, wants him to run against john cornyn so bad. so, who knows? he could unseat this guy in texas, could unseat the second most powerful republican in the senate. that was the news just today from the republican civil war. the republican war on its own incumbents. and every day is a new amazing story that way about the way republicans are attacking themselves, but it's not all just promises, it's not all just frothing at the mouth and exciting glenn beck about what might be some day. sometimes it's real concrete action and elections, and tomorrow we're actually going to know the result of one of these fights, in alabama. the fight in alabama is between these two republicans. they're in a runoff to fill a congressional seat. the guy on the left is bradley byrne. he's been in public office for a lot of years, went to the university of alabama's law school, he served on the state board of ed, was a state senator for two terms. the guy on the right is dean young, a business guy, and he is the tea party guy in this republican-on-republican contest. "th

senator john cornyn, republican from texas, a little more blunt, taking to twitter to complain, quote, amazing what the white house will do to distract attention from obama care. it is not just republicans. last week senator chuck schumer from new york signed a letter to secretary of state john kerry saying he didn't feel the terms of the agreement being discussed go far enough. pointed out that they don't even, quote, require iran to even meet the terms the prior u.n. security council resolutions. so how significant is the temporary agreement reached today in geneva? the very fact that an agreement has been reached after ten years of negotiations and more than three decades of authoritarian rule in iran, is that by itself significant enough? to discuss this wasn't to bring in now mark jacobson, senior advicer to the truman national security project, which trains leaders on national security issues. mark, i know you support this deal. i guess you're here to say this morning, yeah, the sanctions worked and we're getting something real because of it. >> well, we have a significant first

he can barrel contain himself, wants him to run against john cornyn so bad. so, who knows? he could unseat this guy in texas, could unseat the second most powerful republican in the senate. that was the news just today from the republican civil war. the republican war on its own incumbents. and every day is a new amazing story that way about the way republicans are attacking themselves, but it's not all just promises, it's not all just frothing at the mouth and exciting glenn beck about what might be some day. sometimes it's real concrete action and elections, and tomorrow we're actually going to know the result of one of these fights, in alabama. the fight in alabama is between these two republicans. they're in a runoff to fill a congressional seat. the guy on the left is bradley byrne. he's been in public office for a lot of years, went to the university of alabama's law school, he served on the state board of ed, was a state senator for two terms. the guy on the right is dean young, a business guy, and he is the tea party guy in this republican-on-republican contest. "th

that was senator cornyn calling the president a liar. senator had exactly nothing to say about covering the uninsured in his state, which is pretty much the republican position nationwide. take virginia tea partier extraordinaire ken cuccinelli who branded his strident race as a referendum on the affordable care act. >> tonight you sent a message to the president of the united states that you believe that virginia understands that obama care is a failure and that you want to be in charge of your health care and not the government. >> right. supporters of the kuch sent that message somehow through his loss last night to democrat, terry mcauliffe. to be fair, it was a tighter race than anticipated. mcauliffe winning by just two-and-a-half points after being up six in a quinnipiac poll monday. if health care was a part of that tightening gap, cuccinelli can blame his own far right ideology for his loss. according to exit polls, 50% found the personhood promoting, anti choice, anti union, anti environment, anti sodomy candidate too conservat

texas senator, john cornyn, really surprised me.e immediately tweeted out, "amazing what white house will do to distract attention from obama care." really? senator, did you do this, or did one of your interns or low-level staffers? think about that. our people have been meeting with their people for months on end. so they think it's a distraction from obama care? can you imagine that conversation? president obama picks up the phone and calls john kerry, secretary of state. johnnie, i'm getting killed by obama care, dude, you've got to get a deal! get a deal with the iranians. it is amazing the level of rhetoric they'll throw at the american people. but not to be outdone, mike rogers, who happens to be the chairman of the house intelligence committee, said, "it's almost like it's a deal just to get a deal." really? it's a deal just to get a deal. so can you imagine that conversation? president obama saying, we've got to get something with the iranians, because this obama care website is a little bit slow. well, maybe the republicans

cornyn: mr. president, how much time is remaining? the presiding officer: one minute and 40 seconds remaining. mr. cornyn: i yield the re345eu7bg time to the junior senator from arizona. mr. flake: i thank the gentleman. this is interesting in terms of the money being used where it shouldn't be. i gave the example last week, and i'm coming down every week and speaking at least five minutes on waste and duplication in government. i talked a couple of weeks ago about the department of agriculture. the department of agriculture -- this is the department of agriculture but you wouldn't know it when you look at some of the programs run by the department of agriculture. one, they have a simple family housing direct and guaranteed loan program in the department of agriculture. it provides zero down payment mortgage loans it costs the taxpayers about $10 billion since 2006. that's the department of agriculture running a housing program. we see this all over government. and it just -- it's -- just the duplication as senator coburn, the senator

. >>> a tense exchange between secretary sebelius and texas senator john cornyn on whether the presidentat out lied with the americans keeping the health care plans if they like them. >> we know that lying to congress is a crime, but unfortunately lying to the american people is not. i would like to ask you simply true or false question. is that statement on the white house website true or false? >> sir, i think the statement. >> is it true or false madam secretary. >> the plan, the vast majority of americans who are insured are in the employer market and in the public plans and veteran's plans and those plans have stayed in place and continue to offer benefits. the 11 million people who are in the individual market, a majority of those individuals will keep plans that now will have stronger coverage and others will have to choose if they have a brand new plan. >> my time is limited and i will ask that the record be note that you have refused to answer my question whether it is true or false. >> senator cornyn went on to demand criminal background checks for the navigators. and secretary

now the shocking undercover video has senator john cornyn calling for an immediate end to the program. >> here is one telling undercover enrollee to lie about his taxes and his income. >> don't get yourself in trouble declaring it now. >> three workers reportedly have been suspended and one fired as a result of video. jonathan you say scrap the whole program? >> eric, you need a government appointed navigator to help you choose what cell phone to buy? what computer to buy or house to buy or restaurant to go to? no. in a free country we make decisions on our own. obama like juan doesn't believe that peoe can make their own decisions. they are political thugs. >> help old ladies across the street, the sons will mug the old lady. >> hold on. >> go ahead and lie about your income. >> saying get in trouble now. >> are you shocked by this? they haven't denied they allow people with felony construction. there is a crime of moral turpitude. that is the person that is telling you it gets better. then there are people work with them that is tied to acorn. is this a joke? it's a scam. >> the ame

cornyn: mr. president, i want to turn the compliment around and extend my appreciation to the senator from ohio, senator brown, for his leadership on this issue. this is long overdue to these great american patriots, the recognition that they so justly earned. mr. president, turning to another subject i'd ask unanimous consent that jason church, a military fellow in senator ron johnson's office be granted floor privileges for the duration of the consideration of s. 1197, the national defense authorization act. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cornyn: mr. president, four years ago an islamic radical who identified with al qaeda and supported the cause of global jihad opened fire at fort hood army base in texas. the shooter eventually killed 12 soldiers and one civilian while wounding 30 others. he might have killed and wounded or wounded many more, but for the selflessness of a civilian physician's assistant by the name of michael cahill and an army captain named john gaffeney both wh

i don't trust the words of any source. >> david cornyn.ust any source but raised a family so understands international finance. i don't know about raising my family to know what's going on in zurich. i don't know how it works. your thoughts. >> i don't know how it works either. i'm proud to defer to other people when there's things i don't know. that's not done on the right. it goes back, this is an old, old tendency. they called adlai stevenson egghead. they demonize smarts, elevate what they think is a common sense wisdom that comes from the family, that comes from the father, the head of the household presumably. it's crazy. this is what they think is going to let them take back the country and it's not. >> here is where the horse sense leads us. number two from steve king on the topic of president obama's birth. >> in any case, it would have been awfully hard to fraudulently file the birth notice of barack obama being born in hawaii and get that into our public libraries and microfiche they keep of all the newspapers published that doe

john cornyn, running for reelection, senator, a republican, tweeted out pretty immediately after thenounced, amazing what white house will do to distract attention from o-care. it may be a distraction from obama care, but it was not hey let's get an agreement with iran so we cannot talk about health care, this week, right now, it's really bad. >> any american president, republican or democrat would risk the security of your country to distract from even the worst political disaster you could imagine which may end up being obama care. however, weakness invites the wolves. when you're in a weak position politically, as leader of the united states, you do maybe look for -- you're a little more open to things that you should. be open to. i think senator cornyn might have reworded that to be a 4rib more accurate. >> there's a danger republicans can overplay their hand on this sort of thing. >> i think as long as there are democrats opposing this deal, then they really still have a leg to stand on. but again, i think people need to acknowledge that the sanctions brought us to that point. >

one, it's very late to be going up against a sitting senator, especially in jon cornyn, tons of money, and david barton will have a lot of trouble attracting support from people who otherwise might step out for him, some of the things he said including, comparing homosexuality to a health disorder. >> who said that? >> david barton. one of those books on your shelf. >> didn't read that in any of my books. >> let's review that question again. >> so, in the view of those recruiting david barton is jon cornyn in the ryan judge category? is he now not conservative enough? >> he's voted with ted cruz. they joked the only two senators with two votes each or rand paul and ted cruz because they've gotten jon cornyn and mitch mcconnell to go with them so many times. >> but ted cruz who is not helpful was asked by somebody if he's going to endorse jon cornyn a couple of months ago he said no. >> he's got religion on that. last week he said he would not endorse insurgents against his colleagues. designee has moved a little bit. ted cruz has. >> yeah. >> he's been burned. >> mike, thank you very

there were fireworks under john cornyn of texas. kathleen sebelius whether there were criminal background checks involved for folks like navigators who helped people try to get enrolled in the website. they said they were not -- cornyn said you're going to have possible fell ones dealing with this very personal information, that could be problematic. that's something of a nugget that will go big in the conservative blogosphere. but i will say overall, ari, she definitely performed better than last week. by taking responsibility sort of takes a little bit of hot air out when folks say she shouldn't rea sign, saying we're doing our best, moving right along. they are not going to put down the website but keep it up, even though there's a bipartisan call for it to be up until it's fixed. >> when you think about her situation, you think some some ways she's playing a tough hand pretty well here, you know what i mean? >> she's really -- there's not much she can do. she fell on the sword for the administration. she's base beingally saying,

if cornyn's twisted logic sounds familiar, you've heard it before.fter the president joined us to end the blockade of second appointments, senators mitch mcconnell and dan coates both responded by attacking the affordable care act. here they go. >> they are desperate for something. they call it nuclear war, they want us to send missiles back the other way. it's on the minds on the people, the rollout of obama care. >> here's the problem with this latest distraction. it doesn't distract people from obama care, it reminds them of obama care. it reminds them of all the broken promises. it reminds them of the power grab. it reminds them of the way democrats set up one set of rules for themselves and another for everybody else. >> well, you know, i don't know how he's thinking there. he's no fool, but he's a propagandist. because clearly the democrats were able to pass obama care. they were able to pass it even with the filibuster threat. so this has nothing to do with the president's health care plan. it just seems like why -- well, i don't know. it is p

first, both graham and cornyn are facing very difficult tea party primary threats. second, while many in the gop have waited -- have long wanted to bomb iran, as you heard earlier in the opening, and start a war, it was president obama who said in 2008 that america should lead a process of reining in nuclear weapons slowly. joining me to talk about the politics, "washington post" opinion writer dana milbank and msnbc contributor james peterson. thank yo thanks to you both for joining me. dana, i want to start with you. already there are suggestions maybe this is some kind of distraction from obama care. when we learned from the associated press that actually these talks began a very long time, in fact, something that the president said he wanted to be a priority right after he became president. >> yeah. well, from the point of view of the republican critics, this deal has one very important flaw in it. that is it was negotiated by the obama administration. >> right. >> so, i mean, it doesn't matter. the president could come out with some statement in favor of mother

senator john cornyn out of texas was asking kathleen sebelius just moments ago, she admitted to him that it is possible to convicted felon could become an obamacare navigator on the website and hit a personal information. the context of that no doubt, we are following this closely and they are talking about problems with the website and those problems continue and there she is, kathleen sebelius in the hot seat. please stay with us when we made our commitment to the gulf, bp had two big goals: help the gulf recover and learn from what happened so we could be a better, safer energy company. i can tell you - safety is at the heart of everything we do. we've added cutting-edge technology, like a new deepwater well cap and a state-of-the-art monitoring center, whe experts watch over all drilling activity twenty-four-seven. and we're sharing what we've learned, so we can all produce energy more safely. our commitment has never been stronger. jon: a fox news alert. the senate finance committee hearing from the secretary of health and human services, mrs. senator john thune of south dakota aski

john cornyn running for re-election. senator. republican. out pretty immediately after the deal was announced amazing what white house will do to distract attention from o-care. he got pounded for that. i laughed because i thought he was kidding. but perhaps not. you know, it may be a distraction from obama care for a while. i'm not sure it was let's get a deal with iran so we cannot talk about health care. this week right now it's really bad. >> i don't think any american president, republican or democrat, would risk the security of your country to distract from even the worst political disaster could imagine which may end up being obama care. however, weakness invites the wolves. when you are in a weak position politically as leader of the united states, you do maybe look for -- you're a little more open to things you shouldn't be open to. i think senator cornyn might have reworded that to be a little more accurate. >> i'll give you the last word real quick. that is there's a danger republicans can overplay their hand on this sort of thing

i'm very glad that senator cornyn did ask the question. she did respond.s no federal requirement or backup with regards to any background checks. so it could be a convicted felon and, yes, then you have to wonder would that convicted felon use that personal information? doctor has to take an oath. they have to really protect by that oath and by law all of the patient's information. apparently that's not true for the navigator. >> did secretary sebelius say anything to indicate her distress at this vulnerability or that they were working on a solution or doing anything? >> well, that was the last question, i think, that senator cornyn did raise. i did not hear a particularly distressing response. it was a very as a matter of fact response that the federal government does not have that capability. states do, if they so choose, but you know the answer to that or the organization could where they signed a contract. >> federal governments doing 36 of the states. so i imagine the states wouldn't have any interest in the federal government snowden as an example h

the thing about cornyn and grassley speech, they were completely lame. >> hold on. keep in mind, nuclear option only about executive nominees. reid did this for a purpose. he doesn't want to expand scope including legislative and judicial. >> this is a leverage game with republicans. they don't have authority. we're going to be playing lets make a deal in the next few weeks. >> see read push more and more and more. >> harry reid has had his boxing gloves on of late. this is not a fight i would pick with him at the moment but what do i know. coming up, glitches. new documents show enrollment for affordable care act -- there is the best cover to hit news stands in a long time. may be slower than the site itself if such a thing is possible. we will discuss when melissa harris-perry joins us coming up next. ♪ ♪ nothing says, "you're my #1 copilot," like a milk-bone biscuit. ♪ say it with milk-bone. to stretch my party budget. but when my so-called bargain brand towel made a mess of things, i switched to bounty basic. look! one sheet of bounty basic is 50% stronger than

senator john cornyn of mexico, we heard from the top republican leader, mitch mcconnell. and he said this is a big deal over nothing. >> at capitol hill, we're looking now at senator minority leader, harry reid, talking about the situation. and let's just listen for a moment. and we're not hearing anything, so we won't listen any long home run. we want to return to the situation in afghanistan. a lot of afghan citizens are proposed to any deal with the united states. they said that they want all foreign troops out of their country. wthey have been maintaining jurisdiction over u.s. troops. >> reporter: his family walls plurallewasmurdered by an ameri. they were all killed, along with 12 other afghans, by u.s. army staff saturday, robert bales, and now he wants all of the u.s. forces out of his country. >> they will not give military bases and we don't want them. they killed our people and destroyed our villages. they came at 4:00 in the morning in the house, and my children were sleeping in the room, my own family. >> reporter: the majority of american forces are due to l

senator john cornyn gave him a free pass. cornyn was the a.g.t time, didn't prosecute scott at all. instead -- after, interestingly enough, after scott had to plead the fifth amendment 78 times. now the fifth amendment is what somebody does when they're afraid they've committed some kind of criminal act and they're going to be prosecuted. unfortunately, ed, we ended up with rick scott down here. the reason he's getting so much money from people like sheldon addleson, the casino tycoon and donald trump, i think he had $250,000 from addleson, thousands and thousands of dollars from trump, is because they want him to build a casino business down here. but the real reason they love him, ed, is he -- he cut florida education by about 20%. he cut 10,000 jobs in florida. basically in the government sector in places like schools and prisons because he wants to privatize both of those things. he's cut medicaid by $4 billion. he wants to move it to the private sector. charlie crist is the guy to beat him. the numbers are staggering right now. charlie has

we've got senator john cornyn tweeting amazing what white house will do to distract attention from obama care. and then david plouffe tweeting back, no, a real distraction would be war, like iraq. and then we've got the washington post explaining republicans are embracing the wag the dog. republicans do anything and everything obama does through the plichl of his health care law speaks to the massive level of distrust between the parties right now. so, john, is the partisan bickering, is it really going to get in the way of governing and how we move through in the long term here, especially when we look at all of this through the global lens? >> well, partisan bickering is the background noise of governing all the time, as you know, thomas. it's ridiculous to think that the administration is cooking up this deal to distract the attention from obama care. that's not -- that wouldn't be an effective strategy if you tried to do it. it's the kind of reflex partisanship that we've come to expect from both sides over a number of years. but i don't think that in the end as long as democrats con

among the most contentious back and forth questioning coming from texas senator john cornyn over if you like your health care you could keep it despite the fact that some documents showed the administration knew there would be a lot of people in the individual market who would be losing their plans. miss sebelius shot back that the numbers in those documents are inaccurate. >> that was a look back at how much churn there is in the marketplace. that was not a projection of what was going to happen in 2014. >> senator cornyn did not hide his contempt for that answer. >> the only thing i can conclude is that it's impossible to do something in this administration that gets you fired. it's impossible. you can lie to the american people. you can consistently misrepresent the facts, but it's impossible to get fired. >> president obama has maintained his support of secretary sebelius. he will be in dallas this afternoon talking to volunteers and navigators who are helping people sign up but, you know, bill and maria, this issue entered into the political race. there are those who say that the r

cornyn: mr. president? the presiding officer: the republican whip. mr. cornyn: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent to speak as if in morning business for up to 15 minutes. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. cornyn: i see my colleague from maryland here, and i promise i won't take all that time. mr. president, during the debate over obamacare back in 2009 and 2010, the president repeatedly and unequivocally promised his fellow americans that if they liked their current health care plan, they could keep it. by one account, there were as many as 29 different times where the president was captured on videotape making that same unequivocal commitment. this is not an off-the-cuff remark or a casual throw-away comment. it was essential to the president's entire argument, selling obamacare. i heard the distinguished majority whip from illinois talking about the reasons why obamacare is so important, suggesting that you couldn't cover preexisting conditions or even young adults up to the age of 26 unless you accepted the whole package, the whole enc

chairman and others on our side working with folks like the ranking member senator grassley and senator cornyn and many others. this bill is an effort to continue that tradition. senator hellor? >> thank you, mr. chairman. and to senator flake, i'm real pleased to be here today. i'd like to thank you also for inviting me to testify. i want to thank you for holding this hearing. and mr. chairman, i want to thank you for your leadership that you bring to the table on transparency to both collection programs run by the nsa. this is a strong bill rooted in the belief that nevadaens, minnesotans and all americans should be provided access to reports that explain the personal communication records that the government has collected and how many american. s have had their information caught up in that collection. by now most people are aware of the collection practices by the federal government that are authorized by sections of the patriot act and sections of the fisa amendments act. i'm confident the full judiciary committee will have a robust debate on the collection practices and whether or not th

. >> john cornyn actually -- this is the most incredible thing today.in there and says i have a simple question. the people that will have all of our information, which we're assuming might be at risk, is there a background check on them. listen to this conversation. >> isn't it true that there is no federal requirement for navigators to undergo a criminal background check even though they will receive personal -- sensitive personal information from the individuals they help sign up for the affordable care act? >> that is true. states could add an additional background checks and other features but it is not part of the federal requirement. >> so a convicted felon could be a navigator and could acquire sensitive personal information from an individual unbeknownst to them? >> john cornyn has legal background as a judge. so there is no background check. i can't feel secure if i log on. you can't feel secure if you log on. they're still trying to do the cyber fixes, still trying to get the website up. we know the navigators supposed to be helping them out,

apparently carmel is one of lady gaga's little mobsters, but tweets from lawmakers like texas senator john cornynhe turkey vote is just another distraction from obama care. >>> finally, did you know tales of spare turkeys stretch all the way back to the lincoln days? yep. in 1963 j.f.k. sent his live turkey back saying, folks, we'll just let this one grow, but president george w.h. bush was the first president to officially pardon a turkey, and that is your morning dish of scrambled politics. >>> aaron black from the washington post reports us. >> fwm. >> i wanted to get back to the race for illinois governor because there's a new tv ad showing off his modest $18 watch saying his success has never changed hem. i want to ask you, will this tactic work even though hez real estate portfolio shows he has nine homes, including a $10 million penthouse in new york? >> i think everybody wants to be avoid being the next mitt romney these days. if anything in recent years, elections have shown that a candidate's wealth can become an issue. wealth where i candidates, wrovl, john kerry. there was a story abo