hear friend of bill's with us brad woodhouse, his day job at the dnc.nly time i ever sneezed on the air in my entire broadcasting career, but i could feel it coming here. >> nothing you can do. >> nothing you can do about it that. >> all right. the super bowl academy awards. there are some great films, ann hornaday is the film critic joining us on our news line this morning. thanks for being with us. >> hi, bill. thank you for having me >> bill: as a general comment before we get down to handicapping the winners or losers, that there is an incredibly fine selection of films to choose from this year. the public seems to like them. the film critics seem to like them. the academy seems to like them. right? >> it's so true. this has been a really stand-out year in terms of quality. it was a high water mark just for pure craftsman she. i mean these are all -- if you look at the best picture nominees, it's an incredibly -- what it tells me is that the 0 system is healthy. i mean we have the little scrappy independently indy like beasts of the southern wild a

. >> jimmy: yeah, you spoke at the dnc. >> i did. >> jimmy: that's right. >> yes, i did., i felt -- there are these still photos of me that -- where i'm, like, making these huge, like, gestures, where i look like i'm some kind of, like political, like, titan. but it felt like many my moment to shine. >> jimmy: oh, really? >> i was very excited about it. >> jimmy: what did you speak about? >> oh, you know, just the usual. [ light laughter ] >> jimmy: just, yeah -- >> just the usual. >> jimmy: shooting the breeze. yeah. did you get nervous at all when you met the president and the -- >> i was so nervous the first time that i met the president that the only thing that i could say to him was, "i love your wife." [ laughter ] to which he responded, "so do i." yeah. >> jimmy: i got nervous too. we did a bit with the president where we slow jammed the news. >> i remember that. classic. [ scattered cheers ] >> jimmy: and he was -- and they said this whole thing. i had to go meet the president. "we'd like the host to meet the president when he comes around the back parking garage,

. >> joining me now are howard dean, former vermont governor and dnc chairman and chris hayes, host of msnbc's "up with chris hayes." gentlemen, thank you both for joining me. governor, youtube is an amazing thing, is it not? lest we forget republicans have their fingerprints all over the sequester. >> they look like such pathetic whiners and wimps. he voted for the damn thing, right? now he's trying to give somebody else responsibility. that is not leadership. leadership is saying i take the responsibility because i did this. at the end he doesn't look too bad. okay, we've got to get out of this together. they are whining and moaning and weeping, oh, this is someone else's idea. it's not going to fly with the american people. >> it's an underestimation of the american public. >> it is. >> graham voted no actually however john boehner and many would say the republican leadership voted sequester. chris? >> the fundamental problem here is that the approach has been to figure out a way to bind future versions of the house. lindsey graham is trying to say i want to make sure you do the rig

dnc chair debbie wasserman schultz weighs in. >>> a hack job drives the right-wing assault on president obama's pick for defense. tonight the source of the friends of hamas spear has been identified. and it is truly a joke. >>> plus, disgusting cuts to unemployment cripple the poor in north carolina. >>> the pizza man goes on fox news and calls obama voters stupid? >>> and the man who gave the world sarah palin is getting destroyed by tea partiers in arizona. >> you said build the dang fence where. is the fence? >> good to have you with us tonight, folks. thanks for watching. speaker boehner's lies, well, they are finally catching up with him. the truth has a funny way of coming back to haunt you, doesn't it? today president obama continued to tell the public about the damage to expect if the automatic budget cuts from the sequester are not averted. here is a good reason the president is keeping the pressure on. polls show the public will blame republicans. in the latest survey, a majority of americans do not support the republican priorities in congress. those priorities include cuts,

. >> i want to bring in congresswoman debby wassermann schultz chair of the dnc. always good to see you, congresswoman. good morning. >> you, too, chris. thank you. good morning. >> what's your view of this? do you think that you have a little time to sort of work things through? >> well, let's look at it this way. if you had a big stick of di dynamite with a really long fuse you know what is going to happen when the fuse runs out. would you light it? the impact of these cuts are going to have a real effect on real people. i mean, just let's take for example air travel. that's already complicated enough for people who aren't regular travelers. it's pretty complicated for regular travelers, too. furloughing tsa agents, which is very likely to happen, almost for sure, is going to make air travel a logistical nightmare. the layoff or furloughs of food inspectors, i mean, we already are concerned when there is a salmonella outbreak. do we want to make those more likely? i mean, that is the fire that republicans are playing with. all in the name of protecting the wealt

. >> one thing, the dnc has a new ad they put out called stop the sequester. politico, however, is out with its headline today saying obama over playing his hand on the sequester saying obama is convinced he's got the upper hand on republicans yet he can only go, or yet he can go only so long before he risks being perceived as a main actor in washington's dysfunction, threatening a core element of his political brand. so the other side of this is the fact that people see, you know, the president as not being willing to pony up to the table when it comes to spending cuts. however, when we saw him earlier this week give remarks on that, he did talk about knowing that the common sense approach is the fact that we need more revenue and we need to cut. >> well, you know, with all due respect to the president, he doesn't have a vote on this, on sequester. this is the institution that is led by speaker boehner so we can talk about who is to blame or who's -- has the initiative or who should be doing what but the fact is we're not in session this week. we've got a wee

>> andrea: my favorite is dnc communications director brad woodhouse tweeting throughout is the bestthat is the best case of diarrhea we have ever seen. >> dana: worst recovery in history. >> bob: why the "wall street journal" who i assume you like a lot said most is attrit to believe sandy? >> dana: did you read that editorial snod >> bob: i did. >> greg: sandy duncan? >> eric: deja vu. >> andrea: what do you think the contraction was caused by? >> bob: sandy an caused by a disruption in the christmas season. that -- >> dana: wait. what about the -- yesterday -- [ overtalk ] can i make a point. can i make a point? i want to make one point? they said it was defense cuts. >> eric: of course it was. >> dana: but defense cuts, the defense spending went down in q-3, not q-4. the defense cut was the white house's idea in the first place. the administration. they said they want more of the same. so i don't understand how you blame republicans for defense cuts that haven't happened yet. >> bob: what is wrong for defense cuts? >> dana: i'm not for defense cuts. >> eric: she is not saying the

judd was a delegate for tennessee to the dnc last year, but she grew up and went to school in kentuckya new species of flying dinosaur discovered in romania. scientists say it remains to the group of terasaurs. they have a wind span of nearly ten feet, jim handly. this group of reptiles can fold up their wings. they date back to 68 millions years. that's why i can't say their names. >> in school you lurnd that, but i forget it. >>> let's get the word on the weather. doug, everybody will be talking about this one? >> that's the thing, this will be a monster storm. once again we are not going to get the most of it, but places lie new york city, providence, rhode island, they are really under the gun from this one. for us it will be another miss. winds out of the southeast at 8 miles an hour. a bit on the cool side. 36 in martins burg, these temperatures critical overnight tonight, because we do have the moisture moving in. if the temperatures get close to the freezing mark, we said sigh some light sleet or snow. that includes loudoun county, maryland, and then everybody out toward the we

up next, i'll talk with the eagle scout who spoke at the dnc of two moms and get his reaction.[ male announcer ] when was the last time something made your jaw drop? campbell's has 24 new soups that will make it drop over, and over again. ♪ from jammin' jerk chicken, to creamy gouda bisque. see what's new from campbell's. it's amazing what soup can do. that's a good thing, but it doesn't cover everything. only about 80% of your part b medical expenses. the rest is up to you. so consider an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan, insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company. like all standardized medicare supplement plans, they help save you up to thousands in out-of-pocket costs. call today to request a free decision guide. with these types of plans, you'll be able to visit any doctor or hospital that accepts medicare patients... plus, there are no networks, and you'll never need a referral to see a specialist. join the millions who have already enrolled in the only medicare supplement insurance plans endorsed by aarp... and provided by unitedhealthcare insurance company, whi

joining me tonight is karen finney, former dnc communications director, and michael steele, msnbc contributor and former chairman of the rnc. great to have both of you with us on this friday evening. michael, you first. >> good to see you, ed. >> will the republican party listen to hillary clinton? does she have merit to what she is saying? >> well, if you put it like that, ed, the answer is probably not. but i think that the underlying argument that hillary puts out there is something that we need to pay some close attention to. you know, i think the takeaway from the hearings the past week, and just looking at this from a partisan political perspective was we didn't serve our interests very well. we never clarified the key questions that i thought needed to be asked. and hillary quite aptly in that clip there, turkey? where are you getting your facts from. from the party standpoint, i get the idea of wanting to drill down on benghazi and all these issues, but we're scattered. we're all over the place there is no cohesion there is no current message there is no sense of where we're leading w

. >> i'm seeing these fights, these little spats and i'm reminded of the chairman of the dnc, a guy byame of ron brown mocking the head of the dlc, a guy by the name of bill clinton having similar fights. >> the other thing that happened in the howard dean said we're not going to be ignored anymore and they stood up and started primarying people like joe lieberman. one of the things the democrats learned is if you think that's a a problem and i don't think it's a problem, but if you do think it's a problem you don't solve it by attacking your base and you don't announce if you're a republican conservative group in the "new york times" -- >> i wasn't going to say anything but that was pretty -- look -- they clearly are looking for donors. that's what it is. >> publicity. >> and publicity. >> so are the groups on the other side raising back the idea of fighting back against the establishment sellouts. >> i guess my question, susan, though, is is this something the party actually has to go through? part of me wonders it's part of a therapy session, you have to have this giant fight. it ma

now let's turn to karen finney, msnbc political analyst and former communications director of the dnc. and also with us dr. james peterson, a professor of english at lehigh university. karen, you first. today was just a bad sign for the future of voting rights in america in the voting act? >> it was very disturbing. certainly what we heard from the court a fundamental lack of understanding from the practical reality of what is happening in this country. remember, part of the reason we had to have these laws about preclearance is the tactics that were used from beating people as we saw to these kinds of insidious poll taxes and tests. and now we know we have plenty of evidence and data from the past election and previous elections that again the tactics have shifted. and it's not about voter registration. i think that's a really important point here. it's about the opportunity to exercise your right to vote and what it is you have to go through. sure, more african-americans turned out than ever before, but many of them had to wait eight and nine hours to be able to vote. that is -- the

. >> were you the dnc publication czarre czar ina?she's sitting right here appropriately to my left, joel. what advice would you give her? >> i think i would tell her to get ready for the coming fight within the democratic party, because i think it's going to get ugly. i think that many dids will be firmer opponents in many cases than republicans have been. the big fight will be over money action whether it goes to traditional groups and causes or sucked into the new 501 c 4. we're already seeing grumblings on there. i think there's pressure to deliver to the liberal base, but i think he has centrist interests. >> that is nothing in comparison to the fights that are going on on the republican side. >>> we're all fighting. that that's the problem. >> joel, you're great. thanks for helping us. >> thank you. >>> here's the big question. how do you handle $50 million worth of stolen diamonds without getting caught? my next guest is known as the world et cetera number one expert on diamonds. if anyone knows about this case, it's him. diamo

joining me now is howard dean, former governor of vermont and also the former chairman of the dnc. governor, good to have you with us. >> thanks, ed, for having me on. >> this is kind of long overdue, isn't it? >> it is, and it's a great thing. it's not going to put a big dent in the deficit. the real reason it's important is because the morale in this country's been eroded by the enormous gap between the wealthy, who don't play by the same rules as everybody else, and ordinary people who are making a living. and this is going to make the wealthy folks pay -- and not all wealthy folks are doing this, but there's a small percentage that are, and they're now going to pay their fair share. this is really important for making this country work. it's not going to raise gazillions of dollars to deal with the deficit but they are going to send a message to people that everybody's going to play by the same rules. >> you know, this is a revenue stream. and if we did something about tax havens and other corporate loopholes that's another revenue stream. >> corporate loopholes is a much bigge

according to a quinnipiac poll it's dead even between the dnc chair and the state's attorney general.. if that wasn't exciting enough, the lieutenant governor is making noise about running as a third party candidate. if he does, the race remains within the margin of error. wow, look at that. love this stuff. mcauliffe winning. >>> welcome back to "hardball." the debate over spending and cutting is going just the way president obama planned apparently. he's out there every day making the case he's looking out for the middle class while the republicans are just as stubbornly looking out for the wealthy. in his automatic across the board cuts march 1st the president is taking advantage of the power of his office. he's doing interviews with eight local tv anchors. most of these markets include a significant defense presence, they're near bases, an industry that could be hit hard if a sequester goes into effect of here's a click from nbc oklahoma city affiliate kfor. let's listen. >> we've got some automatic spending cuts coming up in nine days that will lay off hundreds of thousands of fo

listen to what former dnc chair howard dean just said that's being heard even louder. >> somebody hashe middle class that either your taxes are going up or your programs are getting cut or else we're going into financial 0 boliviaon. nobody really wants to tell them that. >> that's a democrat telling the middle class their taxes are going up if things remain status quo. we always knew it wasn't just the rich. well, he called it like it was, right? >> oh, he called it like it was. i mean, for once we all have to agree that howard dean had a legitimate point here, and instead of him screaming, it should have all americans screaming because we're going to be feeling, all of us, the ramifications of washington just stalling and putting off dealing with this crisis that we have. >> what he's saying effectively is we kind of have a choice. if you want government to grow and you want it to do everything for everyone, you're going to have to pay and dealer for it, and you're going to have to pay through a lot higher taxes than those just imposed on the rich. you'd have to go down sort of the

." >>> joining me today staff writer for "the new yorker," msnbc political sxlois former dnc communicationsector the always classy karen finney. i'm going to have to do this for everyone now. msnbc political analyst and executive editor of msnbc.com, our favorite import from the united kingdom, richard wolf, and from bloomberg business week -- look at the corps there -- senior national correspondent josh green. just minutes ago the world saw pope benedict appear for the last time as head of the catholic church. the pope took a short helicopter trip from st. peters basilica to castle gondolpho, a hilltop villa. two hours from now the swiss guard will leave their posts, and benedict will cease to be pontiff. benedict announced his title will be pope ameritus and said he will not return to private life. the last pope to abdicate, 719 years ago, had a much rockier departure. he was imprisoned until his death and is thought to be depicted in daunty's inferno as a cowardly shadow in hell. >> preparations are completed at an 8,000 square foot monastery near st. peters. for the catholic church and

the center on budget and policy priorities, jared bernstein, and msnbc political analyst and former dncommunications director karen finney. one year ago president obama vowed to go it alone if republicans in congress continued to stonewall. >> as long as i'm president, i will work with anyone in this chamber to build on this momentum, but i intend to fight obstruction with action, and i will oppose any effort to return to the very same policies that brought on this economic crisis in the first place. >> the president has followed through on that threat and seems ready to double down. seven months ago he signed an executive action to stop the deportation of the children of undocumented immigrants. seven weeks ago he eased the citizenship application process for undocumented workers with close family members already living in the united states, and three weeks ago the president announced 23 executive actions on gun safety. now there are reports he is prepping a flurry of new executive actions, including mortgage relief for struggling homeowners allowing hem to refinance at lower rates, an

david corn is washington bureau chief for mother jones magazine, and karen finney is former dnc communicationsirector. both are msnbc political analysts and i'm delighted to say karen has joined us here in new york. if i can start with you, david, james clapper, the director of national intelligence, told reuters that just the cuts scheduled for our intelligence services would be, in his words, the budgetary equivalent of emergency amputations. can you explain to our viewers, david, why republicans are so happily trumpeting the idea that we should take these cuts on the chin when they could provoke a national security crisis? >> well, i'd like to come up with a anatomy analogy when we go from emergency amputees to chins but nothing comes to mind. i think playing boehner's remark over again, he got 98% of what he wanted it. this is it. >> 174 republicans voted for that. >> in washington history tends to start about five minutes earlier when you're talking, and you got to go back to what happened that led to that press conference that john boehner said that. it was the republicans saying we're n

our panel, angela rye, political strategist and principal of impact strategies, karen finney, former dncnications director and ari melber, correspondent for "the nation." welcome to all of you. chuck hagel is about to be confirmed after the next secretary of defense after 18 republicans voted to move his confirmation to a final vote. what exactly did this fight accomplish in your view? >> well, we got to learn the truth about the grudge match between john mccain and some in the republican party and chuck hagel. john mccain laid it out for us pretty clearly when he said that it was, you know, some of the criticisms that hagel had of president bush that angered a lot in the republican party. i don't think it gets any clearer than that. >> that's very helpful and very clear. thank you, karen. ari, let's talk about the friends of hamas because while there were many bogus charges leveled at chuck hagel, friends of hamas may symbolize them at the best. this was a story delivered by thee the editor-at-large of breitbart media. how badly does it look that republican officials were willing to bel

karen finney is the former dnc communications director and josh is a columnist for bloomberg view. both of you. karen, karl rove appeared to take greater exception to being described as a member of the politburo than he did to being photo shopped as a nazi, but if both sides are linking you to a brutal regime, doesn't that suggest you may have a genuine reputational problem at this point? >> yeah, that tells you that you've definitely upset far too many people. i mean, look, rove was talking about, you know, as part of the reason for this new endeavor that he started, the fact that donors have come after him and said, hey, what happened to all that money? i bet they did. i think a lot of people said you're supposed to be bush's brain, you're supposed to be the guy who was going to bring us the permanent republican majority and instead you can't even read a poll right. so, yeah, but part of the reason i think he's being attacked from all sides is that he's trying to kind of shift the focus away from what are clearly his own professional inadequacies to say it's something else or som

according to a quinnipiac poll it's dead even between the dnc chair and the state's attorney general.if that wasn't exciting enough, the lieutenant governor is making noise about running as a third party candidate. if he does, the race remains within the margin of error. wow, look at that. love this stuff. mcauliffe winning. [ male announcer ] ah... retirement. sit back, relax, pull out the paper and what? another article that says investors could lose tens of thousands of dollars in hidden fees on their 401(k)s?! seriously? seriously. you don't believe it? search it. "401(k) hidden fees." then go to e-trade and roll over your old 401(k)s to a new e-trade retirement account. we have every type of retirement account. none of them charge annual fees and all of them offer low cost investments. why? because we're not your typical wall street firm that's why. so you keep more of your money. e-trade. less for us. more for you. >>> welcome back to "hardball." the debate over spending and cutting is going just the way president obama planned apparently. he's out there every day making the cas

according to a quinnipiac poll it's dead even between the dnc chair and the state's attorney general. 38-38. if that wasn't exciting enough, the lieutenant governor is making noise about running as a third party candidate. if he does, the race remains within the margin of error. wow, look at that. love this stuff. mcauliffe winning. ou know what'? a talking car. but i'll tell you what impresses me. a talking train. this ge locomotive can tell you exactly where it is, what it's carrying, while using less fuel. delivering whatever the world needs, when it needs it. ♪ after all, what's the point of talking if you don't have something important to say? ♪ [ male announcer ] were you more interesting in your twenties, or now? when you were starting out? or after a few decades working in some well-worn character? experience makes you wiser for the wear. and now come the richer possibilities. [ children laughing ] aarp. an ally for real possibilities. find tools and resources at aarp.org/possibilities. >>> welcome back to "hardball." the debate over spending and cutting is going just the way

joining me today former dnc communications director and msnbc political analyst karen finney, sam steincal editor and white house correspondent for the huffington post and someone who is very, very close to having 2,000 twitter followers, financial columnist and assistant editor julian tett is here and the boy wonder of buzz feed, editor in chief. i mean, we had to -- we're never going to not -- >> boy wonder. >> you know what, boy is a relative term. democrats and republicans are gridlocked over the automatic spending cuts set to take effect seven days from now. the fundamental issue? taxes and spending. yesterday president obama called minority leader mitch mcconnell and house speaker john boehner. speaking later on the reverend al sharpton's radio show, the president did not sound optimistic. >> their basic view is that nothing is important enough to raise taxes on wealthy individuals or corporations, and they would prefer to see these kinds of cuts that could slow down a recovery over closing tax loopholes, and that's the thing that binds their party together at this point. >> earli