blacks need to get a job and not food stamps, like the majority of blacks are on food stamps, whicht true. isn't this really playing a real racial kind of game in a way we have not seep as blatant? had the welfare queen strategies, blatant now, the point they booed juan williams. this is not al sharpton but juan williams that got booed. >> and booing a black journalist on an issue affecting not just black americans but white americans, poor people on mlk day is a really telling moment, i think in this republican race. the thing that they are trying to establish is this narrative of the takers versus the makers, the republican party has been doing this over and over again, a bid to reenvision the american social comp pact. basically, if you can't make it in this society, too bad, we are cutting you loose. the idea that somehow you are a bad person for being on food stamps, plenty of people on food stamps actually work or are part-time employed that is not a narrative ever explored, some house, president obama should be vilified for the fact there is an economic almost depression in t

somebody talking about food stamps, calling him a food stamp president when nobody is talking about foodnows precisely what he is talking about. it's about a cartoon, a people of getting assistance are lazy, don't want to work and are black. >> sean: one in six americans are in poverty. 50% of young african-americans could not get a job this summer. unemployed. 46 million americans needing food stamps. >> many more white americans on food stamps, but the point here, chris matthews, it has to be addressed as such and put aside as such. i think the more important question juan williams, particularly on south carolina particularly on the night of martin luther king's birthday what the role of federal power and federal judges in courts with respect to standing down on states rights that permit racial segregation. that was the question to ask newt. >> sean: i give juan a lot of credit. the audience was booing but.... >> you can't take racial offense, there is no racial oh ee oe fence. >> that is exactly the point. for somebody like chris matthews to suggest there is an element of racism when

people get food stamps. it does not matter that working people get food stamps in order to feed their family. facts don't matter to him, and it makes for great talk. >> in a republican primary, republican race, it works with that crowd. he knows exactly the audience he is planning to. >> charles? >> the main republican critique of the obama administration is that like in europe, it increases entitlements and dependency, it increases the scope and reach of government -- into education, health care, energy, and that the counter argument, the one that the republicans and conservatives have been making for 60 years is that you want to teach a person to fish, you did not want to give them a fish. this is not a new argument. this is the oldest argument between left and right. i think what gingrich is stating is the general argument. but to imply that it is inherently racist or something like that, i think is completely wrong. >> the funding newt gingrich? >> i am defending the conservative argument that the expans

food stamps and not jobs and that's a that's a pretty harsh thing to say and many would say a pretty racist thing to say so is race baiting i mean nixon called this is southern strategy he was going to go after after the the the old dixiecrats the democrats who were the racists and reagan perpetuated that his first speech was in philadelphia mississippi were mississippi burning where the three civil rights workers workers were murdered while to say this i'm not again apologist. i can't believe we're in the situation that we're in and if he's the nominee i think their public and party is toast are going to vote democratic no. i'm not going to fight on but i'm definitely not that discouraged. but i do think though that you could argue that his claim about obama being the food stamp president is actually saying that more americans are on food stamps as he has always had a greater problem sees as as a result of his continuing some bad policies in creating awareness of the way that it has been said that is just not true when he came into office we were losing seven hundred thousand jobs a

someone talking about food stamps, bringing up food stamps calling the president a food stamp president no one else on the planet is talking about food stamps, knows what he's talking about. about a cartoon, a cartoon the people getting public assistance are lazy, don't want to work and are black. you talk about how low the campaign has gotten, looky here. next time you are knee washington or big urban area i have an educational trip. get up early, 6:00, 6:30 in the morning. drive through the poor parts of town. watch who is waiting for the bus, poor people. a lot of them, a lot of them black the hardest working people in the country. gingrich is a smart guy he ought to be ashamed of himself.

people become eligible for food stamps.d of all, the initial expansion of food stamp eligibility handleed under my republican predecessor, not under me. >> without blaming george bush about it, because he wasn't -- there was eligibility requirements. we're in the methodst of a deep recession. is it surprising large number of people get food stamps in no. what should they do, dumpster diving? >> eric: so you know what we're talk about. newt was right. 15% of americans get food stamps, 45% higher than the year before obama took over. the problem, not that it's exploding. that is increase. >> bob: you get food stamps if you have a job. can warren buffett still have them? >> dana: it depends on your income. >> dana: i am more comfortable with the taxpayer dollars helping people hungry than george kaiser, a multimillionaire. who asked the taxpayers for money, solyndra, and then tried to get to pay back his investors before the taxpayers got paid back. i'm more comfortable if we spend money and have a safety net, it be about the

>> i'm not surprised. >> i think he's the food stamps president. haven't had this many people on food stamps in the history of the country. >> but this isn't because of president obama, this is because of the economy we are in. >> can you give me a date when he starts being responsible for the economy? at what point do we get to say it's barack obama's fault? is it five years down the road? >> wait a minute, sean. if it is truly -- we were talking about this and personal responsibility. if it is truly barack obama's fault that everybody is on food stamps then we need to blame all the rich ceos that no one wants to tax in the employment sector. >> what about the racist, asking people to be -- were you ever a janitor? i used to wash dishes by hand. >> i was a dishwasher. i hated it but i was in a restaurant. >> it's an awful way to make a livingism can say that from firsthand experience burning was it a good experience. >> it was a great experience. my parents made me, i had no choice. but the point is calling someone a racist, 99% of the time it's a

but at what costs newt is calling the president the food stamp president in you know which has a. pretty clear i think a racial undertone to a plus here's this exchange with juan williams from last week's south carolina debate. speaker gingrich you recently said black americans should demand jobs not food stamps you also say poor kids lack a strong work ethic and propose having them work is janitors in their schools can't you see that this is at a minimum as in so think of all americans what particularly black americans. you know. why don't you. just say. black americans should demand jobs not food stamps would be like my saying you know whether you should demand. to point this out you know you should demand jobs not food stamps and it implies that you're demanding food stamps and not jobs and that's a that's a pretty harsh thing to say and many would say a pretty racist thing to say so is race baiting i mean nixon called this is southern strategy he was going to go after after the the the old dixiecrats the democrats who were the racists and reagan perpetuated that his first spee

is the food stamp president.as resided over the big -- presided over the biggested vance in food stamp usage, number, pure dollar amount, from $60 billion to $83 billion program. the fourth largest entitlement program in america. under obama. it's exploitive. why shouldn't he be -- food stamps, there are more white people on food stamps on black people. >> dana: that is based on need, though. it's not president obama's choice to go on food stamps. that is a formula -- >> juan: hang on. look at jay carney talk about the food stamp president comment. >> is newt gingrich correct calling the president the food stamp president? >> fact of the matter is this country is emerging from the worst recession since the great depression. the result of the recession is dramatic increase in unemployment -- dramatic increase in the number of people who need assistance, needed assistance. >> juan: eric? >> eric: so are things getting better are they not? a couple of weeks ago, days ago, we hear obama is turning the economy around.

times a speaker may have helped pave the way for the spike in food stamps that we've seen across thed piece on the gri about all this stemming from 1996, the well sffare refo act that we hear so much about. take us through the process. >> sure. there are probably two republicans that we have to thank more than anyone else for the current status of the food stamp program. one is bob doyle who authored -- who sponsored the bill who changed food stamps from something you had to purchase into something you got from the government without buying them. then newt gingrich in 1996 championed welfare reform. that replaced the program which was a straight cash benefit to families with temporary assistance to needy families. temporary assistance cut the amount of benefit, required people to have to work, so it's ironic he says poor people don't work because by design you have to work to get the benefits. and by reducing the cash benefit they receive it forced people to get more food stamps because you're still going to need the same amt amount of food but if you have less cash assistance you've

is that a fair characterization considering there are 12 million more people now on food stamps than k obama got elected? >> i think it's fair to say that obama is the food stampches president, the failed economy president, the failed stimulus package military, the gut the military president. all of that is fair. liberals hate the facts and they don't like to hear the facts. being they try to spin it and say it is an attack on him as a black man. no, it's not. it is basically criticism of him as a failed president in so many ways and it is intended, to say that that comment is not appropriate is intended to be a distraction. i think that is appropriate to say that. >> all right. herman cain, unconventional, i didn't pick it and you didn't bring me in the loop. the problems, we got to work this out. >> sean, you must admit it is noble to try to inspire the american people. >> no, i agree. you know what? i want every american working that wants a job. i want more people contributing to the system. i want to stop demonizing those who work hard and punishing success and igniting the flame

for santa clara county, the process for application for food stamps. susan emailed consumerwatch last week saying she applied for benefits four months ago. but she couldn't get through on the phone. >> i would get stuck on hold for hours at a time. >> it's been tremendously difficult. >> reporter: the county's department of benefits services says part of the problem is a flood of new food stamp applications. the other part? the county switched to a new way of processing those applications last may. >> been a very huge learning curve for clients and staff. one of the most challenging aspects of this is the uncertainty of the work flow. >> reporter: among the changes, clients can now apply for benefits online and there's new computer software. but the biggest change, the system is now run like a call center where the first available caseworkers helps a client rather than the old system where the same caseworker stuck with a client from start to finish. >> a few people did get overlooked. >> reporter: but advocates for the poor say it's more than a few. t

someone talking about food stamps, bringing up food stamps, calling a president a food stamp presidentan set talking about food stamps knows precisely what he is talking g is about a cartoon, a cartoon the people getting public assistance areally as zucker don't want to work and are black. you talk about how low this campaign has gotten? looky here. next time you are in washington, d.c. or any other big urban area, i have got an educational trip for you to take. get up early, earlier than you usually get up, 6:00 or 630 in the morning and drive through the poor parts of town and watch who is up waiting at the bus stops, heading to work, poor people, a lot of them a lot of them black. and they are the hardest working people in the country. gingrich is a smart guy. he ought to be ashamed of himself. and that's "hardball" for now, thanks for being with us. "politics nations" with al sharpton starts right now. >>> welcome to "politics nation" i'm al sharpton. tonight's lead, when is a statement just an accidental

the majority of people who receive food stamps are white. most of them are either children or the elderly. many food stamp recipients hey, they earn a paycheck, newt, they have a job. south carolina congressman jim clyburn called his claims denigrating to the president of the united states and poor of the country. fox news's eric bolling trying to head the line for the gingrich team. >> what is denigrating about calling him the food stamp president? he is the leader of the expansion of the food stamp program in american history. >> simply because he also inherited the biggest economic problem we've had since 1929. if you got 2.1 million people losing their jobs in the last 90 days of the bush administration, they are going to find a way to try to eat while they try to recover from that. >> remember, the number of americans receiving food stamps now known as the supplemental nutrition assistance program, did increase under president obama. but as congressman clyburn pointed out economic conditions created by the bush administration that presi

someone talking about food stamps, bringing up food stamps calling the president a food stamp president planet is talking about food stamps, knows what he's talking about. about a cartoon, a cartoon the people getting public assistance are lazy, don't want to work and are black. you talk about how low the campaign has gotten, looky here. next time you are knee washington or big urban area i have an educational trip. get up early, 6:00, 6:30 in the

>> he is the food stamp president. >> more people have joined the food stamp program under obama thaner president. >> i mean, just totally wrong. we just gave the facts. according to the government data. totally wrong. totally using this to try as the catholics leaders said and you and i have been saying, to try and use some racial reference because mind you what he said. that's why we played the tape. he said that he would tell blacks to demand jobs and not continue to be satisfied with food stamps. like blacks are satisfied with getting food stamps. >> when your mother, my mother, my grandmother, the reality is they did everything that they possibly could to avoid it. but let's go back to this. we're talking about a point in time at the end of the bush administration, actually throughout that period. we saw that this massive unemployment and underemployment was going to take place. it was under the bush administration. and we knew that by the time that barack obama was sworn in, there would be this need. now who is in need? now this is what the american people should hear. who is in

proliferation of more food stamps, people on food stamps, amount of money on food stamps than any othercombined. for somebody that seems to be the one they want to go back to. white people on food stamps dwarfs black people on food stamps. >> bob: i want to hear what you have to say. >> dana: one thing preparing for the segment in 2008, republican south carolina the democratic primary, where there was an illusion, not directly from the obama cam pape but from others that senator, that former president bill clinton was a racist. that was just despicable for him to have to deal with and for someone to stand up sort of let it go. race and politics has a long history. it's on both sides. i have a feeling that newt gingrich would have said the sky is blue and somebody would have said there is a code word in there that has to be with race baiting. >> bob: greg? >> greg: my point is about the code word. race baiters say that conservatives speak in code. how is it a code if you know what they're saying? when katrina from the nation said the exposing the mythic liberal bias that is now racist if

the majority of people using food stamps are not african-american and most people using food stamps have a job. that's right, isn't it? >> sure, but why would we think he was attempting to do something helpful in the first place? >> i thought he was a historian and would attempt to be accurate. >> in a strategics adviser. i spent the day with him and is this about bringing romney down? what is this about? i came away with the conclusion that this was an ego trip for newt gingrich. he knows he's not going anywhere and wants to make the biggest possible explosion and wants to be on your show. >> i would love to get him on this show. isn't this the classic playbook to demonize the poor? isn't this how he managed to win in the 90s by frankly demonizing poor people and making the benefits so difficult to actually win that he became a celebrity and a star because of it? >> yes. i have no other response, but yes. remember what he said a few weeks ago? really poor children in really poor neighborhoods and how they don't have a work ethic basically. >> they had a hopeful understanding of responsi

he called president obama a food stamps president. these were reminiscent of richard nixon and the welfare creator by what ronald reagan. he understands all that. he played into it very well and did a masterful job of connecting with the republican voters. >> politics, all the things we want to focus on. >> let me follow up with you a little bit on what you just said. about newt gingrich and talking about food stamps and the poor. during one of the debates' he was asked about this. the audience was cheering when he talked about the idea about the port looking for jobs and not food stamps. you say that you have clearly found this issue degrading to the poor. it seems resonating with the voters of south carolina. would you agree you guys have an employer right after & and agree -- have an unemployment rate of 10% and agree that you generated the voters because he won the primary there? >> it resonated, not that it was true. the record is very clear. 49% of the people who are on welfare are white. we know that. but people think otherwise