host: to illustrate your point, senator john kyl was on the floor talking about the issue of wealthy americans. democrats say they need to pay their fair share of taxes, and that is why part of their proposal includes a surtax on those that make more than $1 million. here is senator kyl. >> what the president therefore is asking is that half of what the employee pays, or 3.1% of payroll, not be paid for one more year. now, the first reason one should think carefully about extending this holiday is, as i said, this is what funds and social security. as an employee, the less you pay in, the less you are going to get out. if you are ok with that, then think about the program writ large. social security is in big trouble. we all know that. and as a result, the more we take out of the social security trust fund, or unless we put into what -- a better way to put -- then the less money there is to pay benefits for people who are in retirement. host: senator john caught -- john kyl with another argument, that they did not want to take away from the social security tax fund by extending the p

jon kyl, john mccain, teddy kennedy, george bush wanted a bill. they couldn't get it through.hink immigration reform is still one of our really great problems and now the states are doing a patchwork of immigration laws. so that's probably the one i'd do over most quickly, if i could. >> has there ever been a night -- is there a night now -- i know i don't have to tell you how many americans have been killed in the iraq invasion, in the afghanistan effort. hundreds of billions of dollars. so many young men and women coming back either physically or mentally challenged. do you ever think, i don't know -- was it worth it? did we get enough for what we gave? >> well, clearly one never gets over the lives that are lost and the lives that were changed. and i talk about that some in the book. but nothing of value's ever won without sacrifice either and from the day that you walk into a course of international politics you are told the middle east is the most volatile region in the world. and saddam hussein was a cancer in that most volatile region. he was -- >> but it is still volat

and what about senator john kyl recently saying that 90 percent of what planned parenthood does in this country is abortion. later when he was confronted with the facts until this is wrong, he said he did not mean as a fact. well, how do you have a discussion when you cannot express the facts? so as a talk-show host let me ask this question of you. the two we need to get back to the facts? is that one possible way for us to get out of this? will, to that question i would have to say the facts are important as they knew patrick moynihan said many years ago, you can argue opinion, but not fact. and in fact it seems to me there is more room for solution born of common ground than the provocateurs and some politicians would want you to believe. americans really are pretty sensible and trustworthy people. and do not believe that we are bigots. i believe that we can have a sincere conversation, but our greatest skepticism and scored should be for people, for people with different -- not for people with different ideas than we have, but for people who refuse to listen to discuss, people that r

yes, john mccain and jon kyl and jan brewer's arizona. >> we shouldn't have anyone's old map including our old 2008 map. we ought to have new ways to 270 electorate votes. that includes winning states that weren't pathways in 2008. one of the best examples of that is arizona. >> another route, described by the re-election campaign, win ohio and iowa. both of which president obama won in 2008 and senator kerry lost in 2004. the president had extraordinary success in the midwest last time around, but that was before three straight years of high unemployment gripped the country. and then there is the south. or at least the up parts of the south. north carolina plus virginia plus senator kerry's 251 electoral votes equals the presidency. now, the president won both states in 2008 and the democrats' convention is in north carolina. but both north carolina and virginia state legislatures turned quite red in the 2010 election. now, this is not to say that president obama can or cannot win re-election. the campaign has put themselves out there and told us a few of the ways they hope to win in

yes, john mccain and jon kyl and jan brewer's arizona. >> we shouldn't have anyone's old map including008 map. we ought to have new ways to 270 electorate votes. that includes winning states that weren't pathways in 2008. one of the best examples of that is arizona. >> another route, described by the re-election campaign, win ohio and iowa. both of which president obama won in 2008 and senator kerry lost in 2004. the president had extraordinary success in the midwest last time around, but that was before three straight years of high unemployment gripped the country. and then there is the south. or at least the up parts of the south. north carolina plus virginia plus senator kerry's 251 electoral votes equals the presidency. now, the president won both states in 2008 and the democrats' convention is in north carolina. but both north carolina and virginia state legislatures turned quite red in the 2010 election. now, this is not to say that president obama can or cannot win re-election. the campaign has put themselves out there and told us a few of the ways they hope to win in november.

of border patrol agents that i've helped to fund in my budget or be able to call senator john mccain or senator kyland say, i'm sorry, we have to lay off all the budget -- the border patrol agents along the border in arizona for a year or two because we had a big storm in miami and i have to send the motion tmoney to miami. who ever heard of such a thing? that's what the republicans in the house have sent to us. it should be rejected on its face. there is a better way, mr. president, to move forward on this, and the way is in the budget control act that our leaders wisely have already agreed to. so we'll have this vote tomorrow. again, i think i have raised three excellent points about why the house approach is wrong and why our approach is correct. if someone wants to come debate it, i will be happy to maybe try to explain it a little bit more. and i the final thing l a say on thi-- andthe final thing i'll ss is it makes it even more hypocritical -- i can understand some on the other side say we need to find a way to pay for it even if we've gocialted, et cetera. but when the other side refuses to

showed this to our viewers earlier, but i want to go back and have you respond to senator john kiln -- kyle. -- jon kyl. >> the top 1% under 20% of all the income. buff they pay 38% of all the income taxes. the top 2%. earns just about 2% of the total income, they pay over 48%, almost 50%, almost half of all the income taxes are paid by the top 2%. now some people say, what about the payroll tax? ah, but that's exactly what we're cutting here. that's what they're getting a tax holiday from paying. so you've got the top 2% of the people paying 50% of the taxes. what are they bottom half paying? oh, turns out, joint committee on taxation estimates that 51% of all households had zero or negative income tax liability for the tax year 2009. so you've got 2% of the people paying 50% and the bottom 50% paying none. in fact, the top 5% pay a whole lot more than the bottom 95% combined. host: congressman? guest: there's no denying that in my district and i'm certain it's true across the country, that the tax burden has come upon the middle class. when we talk about the tax burden, we need to look at the total p

i have access to jon kyl, walker's information who -- to john walker's confirmation -- information.or. he reads it, looks at me, i looked at him. and then, for the first time in my life, i say, fools. the investor response, idiots. that is how we became friends. we called our leadership fools and idiots. that did not prevent me from my career because no one knew we were good friends. when i became chief of foreign intelligence, we had 164 in assets -- 160 foreign assets. let me tell you, as i mentioned, in the united states we had over 300 agents total. the next country was france, 160. the third country was india, 150. the fourth was united kingdom, over 50. well, you know, some of the guys, george blake, i supervise them, not in london, but in moscow. that is not counting former employees or officials of the secret service. some of them are not quite happy. they would drink a lot or commit suicide. well, anyway, in moscow i became chief of foreign counterintelligence, and we managed to increase our agent network to more than 500. two-thirds of them were members of foreign intellig

kyl opposing this? that as question i ask. >> i don't know the answer, john. what is the answer?sets for everything and they want other reforms in conjunction with it. it as bad place for them to be. they are against a tax cut for the middle class and continuing to defend tax cuts for the wealthy which the public overwhelmingly favors. >> i think politically, mika, to get to the substance of this, i think democrats are winning big time on this issue and as you said, harold, that's one of the reasons why mitt romney is in support of this tax bill. >> he needs to distinguish himself and be aggressive. >> i don't think he's got that in him. we'll see though. >> coming up robert gibbs weighs in on president obama's strategy for 2012. it'll be great to talk to him again. plus chuck todd will join the conversation and here in the studio former senator george lemie lemieux. we'll talk about his republican primary fight in florida. >> we'll ask him who he thinks is going to win if newt can win florida. i know the name of eight princesses. i'm an expert on softball. and tea parties. i'll

behind closed doors john boehner and cantor said look if you're a republican you simply cannot be on the side of raising people's taxes, end of story, period. this after senator jon kylow what if it's not paid for with spending cuts, maybe we shouldn't go for it. what say you? >> this is something that they have been struggling with. they are trying to be a responsible party. they are trying to do this responsibly. to do that responsibly you have to find ways to pay for it. everyone keeps talking about the identity crisis that republicans are facing right now because they are not for tax cuts, foe are for tax cuts. what about the democrats? aren't the democrats doing the same thing? just last week they were wanting to raise taxes, now they want to tut taxes, aren't they facing the same identity crisis. martha: are you facing a personal identity crisis christopher hahn. >> i'm quite comfortable with my identity. we want to make sure that the middle class gets their tax cuts and that the wealthiest americans are paying their fair shaeurbgs it's simple as that. republicans never cared how we were going to pay for tax cuts when we were giving away the bush tax cuts which