you can have chicago, harold washington. you can have newark. you can have cleveland. so what does it say given the turmoil that the newspaper industry is in that now we have the asovepks women and people of color -- ascension of women and people of color to the top. is this a good time or a bad time to be running the new york times? >> it is a good time. our future is very bright both in print and digitly. we have more readers than ever who have subscribed to the newspaper for two oearsr more and our audienceitig dally hasig while we have gone to pay a subscription model. tavis: let me talk about a couple of issues. your sense of twhornts "new york times" and the media more broadly. now we have the president selling us we're getting out of iraq at the end of the year. was the media too complacent? did we not ask the questions that werked have asked in the first place? -- we should have asked in the first place? >> it is a question, tavis, that i have thought a lot about over the years. the war in iraq started march 19, 2003, and when i look back on the way the media p

washington post". many people know that bernie sanders is the only socialist member of the u.s. senate, fewer know but more should know that harold meyerson is the only socialist columnist for "the washington post". [laughter] >> too much competition. [laughter] >> but that's not really harold's important incarnation. he is also editor of the american prospect magazine. here is my copy of a recent edition, and the american prospect is really something, folks. it really offers a vision of what a holistic, inclusive, progressive and most importantly economically-just society would look like. and every issue offers really practical political messaging and tactics for moving in that direction. so i often pick these up at the newsstand at union station. but, harold, i am here to tell you tonight that i ain't going to do that anymore. why? because i have a present for you. here is my subscription and my subscription check. i have finally decided to subscribe to the american prospect magazine. it is a magazine very much deserving of your support, and i hope some of you tonight will consider supporting it as well. so laticia mentioned, a

harold ford jr. in an editorial yesterday in the "washington post" said we ought to have a moratorium on regulations. they are hurting jobs. i heard about it this past weekend in wyoming. >> let's get to some of the parts that the original bill will be broken up to at the moment. the democrats will introduce each one, one by one which you're familiar with. i want to get your thoughts in terms of the ones that you might support. if you would, if you could say yes, no, or i don't know as of yet right now. the first part will be the payroll tax cut, which john harwood said would get a pretty large support across the aisle here. >> i support making that permanent, not just temporary. and doing it in a way with overall tax reform. so, absolutely. >> what about tax breaks for companies that hire new workers. >> the program that deals with the wounded warriors, people who are wounded worarriors, we needo find a way to do that. >> so you support that. extend 100% business expensing. >> there's a component about 3% component with government contracts that i support. there are things we can do together. >> got

. >> we've had both of those and -- >> it's hard to get -- >> harold, the biggest problem is, washingtonthis. i mean, that is at the end of the day, most americans do not believe that you can magically put together a package that's going to reverse a 30-year trend. since 1971, 40-year trend. since 1971, we've been losing manufacturing jobs. the middle class has been hallowing out. union membership's been declining. the president and the republicans can't just come up with a piece of legislation that's going to fix that. >> i would agree. but i think there's some things in the short-term that can be done to turn around confidence. think about six months ago, you had growth in manufacturing jobs in the country. it's easy -- not as hard because manufacturing jobs have been leaving. the next five years, exports and manufacturing is going to help the country rise again. you have $2 trillion on corporate balance sheets in u.s. corporations. that money can be spent. and you have about 1.2 trillion, $1.3 trillion. so there's some fundamentals we can probably figure out how to incent to be taken

i wish everyone in the country could watch "washington journal" every morning. in regard to haroldd, jr.'s op-ed piece over his disagreement with obama about the oil and gas drilling, i am for it, but in a little different sense. apparently, we pumped back into the ground, under pressure, a lot of natural gas that would otherwise be burned off and wasted, which we have been doing for years and years on every gas and oil project -- every oil project, anyway. that should all be compressed. we should build another pipeline for natural gas. it's already there. it would be lost. bring it down to the lower 48 for an energy source. it is a cleaner form of energy. it is abundant. we could do the same thing with all the natural gas from oil wells and the gulf. host: james, let me get your response to part of harold ford, jr.'s op-ed. he writes -- your thoughts? caller: my thought is -- we do not have to do anything extra. all we have to do is use that natural gas that is there. perhaps build a new pipeline, a natural gas pipeline, and we have natural gas everywhere. host: we move on to tomm

washington. and joining the table is msnbc political analyst and visiting professor at nyu and democratic congressman haroldd columnist for the "washington post," ezra klein. you've been down to take a look at the occupy wall street protest. >> no, i'm going down later today. >> all right. good. i want to talk to you about those coming up. we have frank bruni coming on the show in about half an hour, as well. we'll be talking about a couple of things, including what he wrote this weekend in the newspaper. in response to some of the very, i think, visceral and mean arguments made against christie, potentially running for president because of his weight. which we saw as we came in on "the daily show." chris christie is the first person to make fun of it and have fun of it. but there were people, including our own eugene robinson who said he was potentially not disciplined. and that is why i'm sad he's not in the race. do you feel that there is a sense of loss to the republican field that he has not decided to run, ezra? >> i feel like there are a lot of people who feel a deep sense of loss, whether or not it'

was published as the washington post in large type for the watergate era and in diminishing type over the course of time, times harold. it just wasted away like that. she struck me as a really interesting woman to go from being called the most powerful and most hated woman in the united states in 1946 to being forgotten by the beginning of the next century struck me as amazing. that is how i got interested. >> i have a louder voice. i read the works of ralph martin and alice hope and familiar with cissy's life. what most intrigues me about her is the similarity between her and her daughter felicia. i meant to save felicia. they were both rebellious, independent, no one could push them around. they both have great travel all over the country in europe. they both married very impoverished european aristocrats. both marriages made in hell and they both became novelists and had strained relationships with their daughters and they were both alcoholics and very promiscuous. i am wondering to what extent both of them having grown up in an environment where they were deprived of any motherly affection pre dispose them to hav

harold ford jr. are still with us. and joining us from washingtonolitics nation," reverend al sharpton. good to have you on from washington, reverend al. >> good morning. >> reverend, what are you doing in washington? are you down there making trouble? >> i hope so. somebody needs to make some trouble down here. >> yes, yes. somebody does need to stir it up. no doubt about it. >> we want to get to 2012 politics, but can we talk about what paul ryan said? is that exactly what this president's doing? preying upon fears, sewing resentment. i would say he's responding to it. i totally take issue with that. do you disagree? >> i think there are two ways to look at it. and i think -- >> do you disagree? >> i think that paul ryan has a view. that would suggest that maybe instead of just pointing at the 1% and the wealthy that we need to basically get everybody together in a room and figure out a way to fix this. >> uh-huh. >> it's a debate out there. i personally, i think right now that the united states government is faced with a real crisis, a crisis tha

described the merger as electric and that washington went for the product like a trout four of smadi and so one of the interesting things about cissy's times harold this was the paper described as the damnedest paper to hit the streets she had the bright idea to first of all make a very locally focused paper also to use the irresistible elements of the tribune and the new york daily news syndicate alongside the hurston ticket items and so she had taken these two elements usually at odds or if not at war and put them side by side and created her own sword of the irresistible mix that to the washingtonians of the time was a sort of guilty pleasure. people might not admit that they read it, but the circulation statistics don't why and was by far the leading people throughout the end of the new deal and right through the war until your death in 1948. so, this is a small description of what she did at the times herald. although cissy patterson's shared the isolationism of the of the family papers prompting charges of the existing mccormick patterson access from both rival press outlets and the roosevelt and administration it did not share the ownershi

harold ford. host: we will talk about the 1976 race. i want to assure you two headlines. ridgely i want to show you two headlines. and this morning from the "washington post," this from scott wilson. he rarely spends more than a few minutes on a rope line -- guest: there are elements of truth in both articles. in fact, when president obama for started running in iowa, four years ago, he was criticized for not working the rope lines in doubt. after all, the last democrat who won was bill clinton, who was famous for never leaving the rope line. that is the line the people that stand up after a speech, sometimes literally behind ropes, sometimes behind benches or bales of hay, and wait to greet the president or the candidate and shake their hand or take their picture with their cell phone. it is an important part of campaigning, especially in states like iowa and new hampshire, where retail politics, where they like to touch the president -- the candidate and get their picture taken with them, it is part of the decision. -- the tradition. barack obama never seemed to enjoy it. i wrote about it at the time and i was told by the obama people, no, he goes

harold, we were there at the time. you can get things done if you know how washington works.ing around swing states. i think politically this makes a lot of sense. hammer away on jobs. we've been saying he should do it since 2009. >> but he is. >> i know. that's what i'm saying. politically it makes sense. but i will tell you in the short run it does but economically, harold, they better get something done and you're not going to get things done making fun of republicans on the campaign trail in swing states. >> politically you're right. you got to hit the road. you got to make your case. the question will be once you finish these bus tours what do you really have to show for it? the president is going to have to be able to translate what he's doing now into something meaningful. i don't know if he'll be able to. i would say to john mccain the republicans if they're serious about their jobs bill they ought to bring it up in the house, pass it, and try to bring it up in the senate. they're playing politics as much as the president and arguably the republicans' stubbornness in

harold ford. host: we will talk about the 1976 race. i want to assure you two headlines. ridgely i want to show you two headlines. and this morning from the "washingtont," this from scott wilson. he rarely spends more than a few minutes on a rope line -- guest: there are elements of truth in both articles. in fact, when president obama for started running in iowa, four years ago, he was criticized for not working the rope lines in doubt. after all, the last democrat who won was bill clinton, who was famous for never leaving the rope line. that is the line the people that stand up after a speech, sometimes literally behind ropes, sometimes behind benches or bales of hay, and wait to greet the president or the candidate and shake their hand or take their picture with their cell phone. it is an important part of campaigning, especially in states like iowa and new hampshire, where retail politics, where they like to touch the president -- the candidate and get their picture taken with them, it is part of the decision. -- the tradition. barack obama never seemed to enjoy it. i wrote about it at the time and i was told by the obama people, no, he goes in t