richard wolffe and molly ball join me. stay with us. we're right back. after you get . now that's like sunblock before or sun burn cream later. oh, somebody out there's saying, now i get it! take beano before and there'll be no gas. >>> record-breaking corporate profits show the economy is well on the road to recovery. what does it mean for workers? i'll give you some numbers and sam stein will be along with the conversation. >>> and world leaders say farewell to hillary clinton with a ringing endorsement. you'll want to see this video. michael tomasky on whether hillary clinton will make a run for the white house. share your thoughts on facebook and on twitter. we're coming right back. >>> welcome back to "the ed show." thanks for watching tonight. republicans are doing a lot of maneuvering on the fiscal cliff. president obama and the democrats have put forward a plan relying mostly on raising more revenue from the wealthiest 2% of the country. republicans rely mostly on cuts affecting the middle class and the poor and republicans aren't specific about how they get $80

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richard wolffe and molly ball join me. stay with us. we're right back. ♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] everyone deserves the gift of all day pain relief. this season, discover aleve. all day pain relief with just two pills. a new way to save on your prescriptions. it's the aarp medicarerx saver plus plan from unitedhealthcare. with this plan, you can get copays as low as a dollar through a preferred network pharmacy like walgreens -- where you'll find 8,000 convenient locations. best of all, this plan has the lowest part d premium in the united states -- only $15 a month. open enrollment ends december 7th. so call today or visit your local walgreens. >>> record-breaking corporate profits show the economy is well on the road to recovery. what does it mean for workers? i'll give you some numbers and sam stein will be along with the conversation. . >>> and world leaders say farewell to hillary clinton with a ringing endorsement. you'll want to see this video. michael tomasky on whether hillary clinton will make a run for the white house. share your

so answer me this, richard wolffe, you're a smart guy. is this a true statement? each side, president obama and john boehner, may not want to go over the cliff but they have at least some interest in letting that happen because of possibilities it presents on the other side. do you think that's a fair assessment? and even if they don't want to do it, do you think some good can come from it? >> no, i don't think any good comes from it because frankly real people get hurt by this kind of thing. and do i think the president would like to go to the other side of this december? no, i don't, actually. we've been here before and actually were here before with a more reasonable republican party that was at the very start of the first term. four years ago almost to the day when the president came in with a stimulus act. the recovery act. at a time of huge economic global crisis. it was the first time it was a real wake-up call for the president and senior aides because every other time of national crisis, and remember, this was an international crisis, the country had come

along with richard wolffe in washington.ng us on set, best-selling author, host of the award-winning public radio program "studio 360," kurt andersen. how are you? >> good. happy new year. >> what's on your mind? >> you know, the two pounds i gained during christmas, mainly. what's on my mind? it's always the best of times/worst of times. and you see what the lack of any kind of progress on the fiscal cliff thing happening. on the other hand, i turn the page and i see that apparently the housing market is back. we've had a larger run-up in housing prices the last year off of obviously a terribly low base over the last year of any time in the last seven, eight years. >> front payable, "wall street journal" today. >> it's true. it's true. housing is mounting a turnaround. but this is why the whole cliff mad science so frustrating because by every measure, housing, consumer confidence, auto sales, even. i mean, manufacturing across the board, we're really finally gaining steam again. and i think housing is really the icing on t

the clear choice. >>> richard wolffe? >> this is a game.ve all been taught that statisticians make use of what they do. a constant share of huge salary workers and wages at the top of the corporate. >> hop in there to explain. we have wages and then we have profits, right? these are different kinds of categories but you're talking about what percentage of dollar is going to wages and it's constant for a long period of time. i want to be clear here, wages is a big category in the sense that people who make millions of dollars make millions of dollars in wages. the point you're making is, you can say, okay, a certain percentage of the economy, this per taj of the economy that goes to wages is constant. but within that thing, there are massively different distributions. your second point? >> second point. we ought to be discussing not only what is the problem in a society that sees suddenly over recent years, and i think we all agree on that, a disproportionate increase relative to wages even allowing for all of that, why do we permit this to

but you get to d.c., and republicans in d.c., richard wolffe, my god.hen winston's right, winston's right. but when he's wrong, my god. one of his friends said that about him. >> it was true. churchill also said that, you know, the definition of success is going from failure to failure without lots of enthusiasm. i think by that measure, republicans are doing really well. >> we're doing great. >> it's not just a branding problem. it's a policy problem. >> right. >> until they start shifting on policies -- look, we're seeing some of this talk come out of some of these smarter republican governors, people like governor jindal talking about education disparities. >> right. >> there are some moves afoot. whether that will take hold, how that translates into real policy as opposed to rhetoric, hey, let's watch it unfold. >> you know, if we only had a republican governor to talk to. >> oh, you know, here we go. joining us now from lansing, michigan, the republican governor of michigan, governor rick snyder. the issue at hand, the lead story, and that's the ri

joining me now is richard wolffe vice president and executive editor of the msnbc.com.nd cynthia tucker, pulitzer prize columnist and visiting professor of journalism at the university of georgia. thank you for coming on the show tonight. >> thanks, reverend. >> you're welcome. good to be here. >> richard, let me start with you. how can the gop plan to appeal to mainstream voters when they no longer seem to care about them? >> you know, caring isn't just about making people feel good. one of the interesting things for conservatives on the other side of the atlantic in the uk where they're out of power for a long time was that they realized they couldn't be the mean party anymore. and the danger for republicans as heart felt as it may be for them to worry about deficits and the survival of this country's economy and the federal government, as meaningful as that is for them, if they're only the party of cuts then they do not speak to the aspirations of the people they want to vote for them. that's why they pull the stunt bs about voter i.d. and anything else. they are dee

richard wolffe and donny deutsch are still with us.ormer deputy campaign manager for president obama, stephanie cutter. and in washington, nbc news chief white house correspondent and political director and host of "the daily rundown," chuck todd. good to have you on. >> stephanie, you've recovered. how do you feel? >> you look rested. >> i'm totally recovered. >> totally recovered. >> it's only a month ago, but it feels like years ago, doesn't it? it could have been yesterday, it could have been ten years ago, but i feel great. >> how do you think david looks without his mustache? >> he still looks like david. >> without a mustache. >> i think it's an improvement. >> i think he looks a lot younger. >> yeah. >> a little less like surviving members of the village people. i think it's really good all around, stephanie. so stephanie, i want to follow up on something i read -- i forget where it was -- but you said you were surprised that the romney people didn't push back more on the beain capital attacks. you're not alone. that was the ce

joining me now is krystal ball and richard wolffe. thank you for being here tonight. >> thanks, reverend. >> thanks, reverend. krystal, how big a moment will it be if the president gets the republicans to cave on tax increases? >> i mean, it really is sort of hard to understate how significant that would be. it would es seshlgsentially mar end of when george w.h. bush led taxes. we had the contract for america. that in some ways was the precursor of the tea party and this very extreme rhetoric, us versus them rhetoric, where rather than talking about nuance differences between positions you call the president's health care bill socialism and yell about death panels and caricature things. that could be the most important shift. if they finally have to break and increase tax rates, they also have to change the way they talk about their policies. you can't just domogog. if they were offering better solutio solutions, that would force the democratic party to be smarter and offer more innovative solutions, too. >> now, richard, president o

let's bring in epstein and richard wolffe.emen, thanks for joining me. >> good to be with you. >> thanks. >> i'm going back to lapierre in a moment but first i want to talk about the christmas eve ambush in new york. >> the man responsible for killing two firefighters was also armed with a bushmaster .223, the same gun lanza used at sandy hook. of course lapierre would say this is a coincidence. but others would say this is perhaps a sign there are too many out there. >> these are first responders we're talking about. people who were throwing themselves into the line of danger to save someone's life. obviously it was an ambush. and at some point, policy makers -- we can poll any number of questions throughout the decades, but public policy makers, people who are in government need to look after public employees whether they're firefighters or teachers. and these kinds of weapons -- we're talking about urban situations as well. there's no argument, not a hunting argument, not a self-protection argument for this kind of weapon.

. >> joining me now are richard wolffe, the executive editor of msnbc.com and an msnbc political analyst, and robert reich, former labor secretary and a professor at the university of california berkeley. he is also the author of "beyond outrage." richard, i want to go to you first here. the president talked quite a bit in the election cycle. >> quite a bit. >> he did, period, about the fever breaking amongst republicans in congress . >> yes. >> it's been quite feverish of late, which is to say a lot of back and forth, a lot of hot air blown from the house caucus. i wonder if you think that fever might be breaking with the suggestion john boehner said, even if the president gets his way on tax rates, which would seem to open the door to that possibility. >> it's a bit to latch on to that. they cannot settle on a position. very different from the last time around. and it's true. the white house has said both publicly and privately, look, we're prepared to see all the tax rates go up. what are you going to do about it? that's a very, very different dynamic from what we've seen before. inte

i'm richard wolffe in for chris mas through.sident met with congressional leaders this afternoon and declared he was modestly optimistic about a deal on taxes. speaking in the white house briefing room, president obama condemned congress for failing to resolve its differences in in normal way. he held firm to middle-class tax cuts to families making $250,000 per year. joining me now from the white house is nbc's kristen welker. kristen, let's take a look at what the president said about what he expects from the senate. >> i just had a good discussion from house leadership about how to prevent this on the middle class. i believe we can reach an agreement. if an agreement isn't reached in time between senator reid and sno senator mccollum, i will reach to him. i believe such a proposal could pass both houses with bipartisan majorities as long as the leaders allow it to actually come to a vote. if members of the house or the senate want to vote no, they can. but we should let everybody vote. >> kristen, this up or down vote seems t

." >>> good evening, i'm richard wolffe in for chris matthews. at the 11th hour, just when people were starting to lose hope on the edge of the fiscal cliff the president met with leaders and said he was modestly optimistic about a deal on taxes. meeting this the red room, president obama held firm for tax cuts for families making up to $250,000 per year, and joining me on the north lawn of the white house is kristen welker. kristen, let's listen to what the president said about and up or down vote or what he expects from the senate. >> i had a good and constructive discussion here with the leadership about this tax hike on the middle-class. i am optimistic that we can reach an agreement that will be passed in both houses. if an agreement is not reached in time between senator reid and senator mcconnell, then i will urge senator reid to bring to the floor and up or down vote for the floor, and i believe a p proposal could pass both houses with majorities as long as the leaders allow it to actually come to a vote. if members of the house or the se

eighty's and this labor battle on the east coast is to quote joe biden b f d joining me now is richard wolffe economist and author of numerous books including his latest democracy a work of cure for capitalism after wolf welcome back thank you ray in your mind what does the struggle on the east coast all about. well it's a classic example of a kind of endgame in which years of suppressing wage increases of keeping down the wages of american workers well below the increased productivity they've achieved boosting profits at the expense of the income of workers finally wants to take the last step i mean the dock workers are an unbelievable example forty years ago there were thirty five thousand of them working on the ports of the east coast today there are thirty five hundred that's a drop of ninety per cent they move more freight with fewer people than ever before they work well they work efficiently they won a small piece of the extra productivity their labor generates and corporate profits come first and so they're being squeezed and pressed to make the income they earn even lower than it wou

. >> up next on book tv, richard wolff and david bersamian talk about our economic crisis and argue that it can be traced back to the 1970's when our economic system shifted from benefiting a vast majority of americans to one which mostly benefits only the very rich. this is about an hour-and-a-half. [applause] >> good to see you will hear. let's cut quickly to the chase. what is it and the dna of capitalism that makes this so unstable? >> since the beginning of economics as a discipline back in the days of adam smith and david mccarty who were the first to develop it as a comprehensive way of thinking about things, economist of worry about that. it has never been, except maybe in the last 30 years, the case that a significant portion of the profession, let alone the public imagine that capitalism was anything else. the reality has been from the beginning wherever capitalism has established itself, it has been stunningly unstable. it is all the time facing three to seven years of economic downturn. give you an example. the last time we had a major collapse of the size we have now was in

rana foroohar, and richard wolffe is still here. you're hanging in there.ed. the complexities of health care today are almost enough to make you want to, even if you're sick, to stay away from a doctor or a hospital. >> you know, i understand that. but i think if you go down to the very basics of what's at the heart of these new efforts, including the one we talk about in this "need to know" piece is asking different questions. and rewarding people in the health care industry for different actions rather than saying, how many did you do? the question becomes how well did you do? second to that, even more importantly, how well did the patient do? if you change your yardstick, if you will, you can sort of revolutionize health care. that's what's happening. that's what we're seeing unfold. this effort in hospitals to prevent people from coming back to the hospital within 30 days, not saying it's perfect, but it's one effort to sort of change the questions that we're asking. what we're rewarding the system for. >> okay, but let's talk about that yardstick you j

richard wolffe, paul bearic, the reverend, thanks a lot. a bit of good news. 're breathing a huge collective sigh of relief after being held captive, an nbc correspondent group richard engel and his group are freed and out of arm. engle and his crew sharing the story of what they faced. the ordeal. >> i'm very happy that we're able to do this slapshot this morning. we were driving in syria about five days ago in what we thoughts were a rebel-controlled area. we were with some of the rentals. as we were moving down the road, a group of gunmen literally jumped out of the trees and bushes on the side of the road. probably 15 gunmen. they were wearing ski masks, they were heavily armed. they dragged us out of the car. they had a container truck position waiting on the side of the road. they put us into that container truck. we were with some gunmen who were escorting us. they executed one of them on the spot. and they took us to a series of safehouses and interrogation places. and they kept us blind folded, found. we weren't physically beaten or tortured. it was a

. >> let's bring back errol lewis, nancy gibbs and richard wolffe.te barack obama, identical about his law school debt. >> his convention speech as well. >> it's a little eerie. >> you can replace some of the words they're the same script. >> nancy, watching ryan and rubio try to get past 47% and they were both in a very, i think effective ways. very good speeches. >> used the phrase middle class 37 times in 30 minutes, what do you think that's about. >> errol, rubio and ryan are potentially the future of the party and you had what we watched on the senate floor yesterday a bunch of senate republicans with their tail between their legs hiding, worried about primary challenges because they might get rid of american sovereignty to the united nations over disabilities. >> it was a little depressing asking the world to get up to u.s. standards and do what we do as far as curb cuts and access and ability to get around, to suggest that this was somehow going to be bad for america was absurd and i think when we poll it, when you look at it as it starts to s

with me in new york is richard wolffe who's the v.p. and executive editor on msnbc.com and ari melber. there was almost the acknowledgment that this wild use of assault weapons is never going to be stopped by politicians. he said if we're going to change things it's going to take a wave of americans. mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, pastors, law enforcement. mental health professionals. it will take commitment and compromise. but most of all it'll take courage. why is that? >> that is because both political parties have failed for so long on this issue that no one expects them to get this done alone within the politics as usual. i thought we really witnessed a potential breakthrough today. i thought the president came out and spoke very eloquently and very honestly about both the barriers and why we must change, why this is different. why the country i think everyone is seeing is looking at all of these corpses of children. and having a reset that's something deeper than politics. i think while we know often washington is broken and o

here in new york with us we're delighted to have sir richard wolffe, vice president and executive editorf msnbc.com. and msnbc contributor jared bernstein a former economist for vice president joe biden. and with us from washington is democratic strategist julian epstein. richard, i have to start with you. did the president run on raising taxes or did he not? >> he did. >> duss all the public polling show a majority support this strategy? >> people support raising taxes on the super wealthy. >> does speaker boehner need hearing aids for christmas? >> and possibly a dictionary or thesaur thesaurus. everybody knows how it's going to play out. it's just when. at some point the politics is inexrabble here. when it comes to this piece of it. if they really want to get what they want which is cutting what they call entitlements, what other call safety nets -- >> what others call earned benefits. >> then they should go to that which is what they count as the most important things. get it over and done with. they know they're going to cave on taxing for the wealthy. get to what they really want.

here from "time" magazine, and msnbc contribute somewhere managing editor of msnbc.com, richard wolffeust wrapped up a hearing on the impact of going over the fiscal cliff. and two top economists had dire warnings --

managing editor of msnbc.com, richard wolffe. the congressional joint economic committee just wrapped up a hearing on the impact of going over the fiscal cliff. and two top economists had dire warnings -- >> if policy is unchanged and we go over the cliff and there's no change after that, the hit to gdp in 2013 will be 3.5 percentage point. the economy's growing two percentage points. subtract 3.5, that is a severe recession. >> if we go off the fiscal cliff with no policy changes the near-term negative economic consequences would be significant and most assuredly throw us into a recession. >> comes a day after treasury secretary tim geithner told cnbc the white house is prepared to go the distance if its demands are not met. >> if republicans do not agree to that, is the administration prepared to go over the fiscal cliff? >> oh, absolutely. again we see there's no agreement that done involve those rates going up on the top 2% of the wealthiest. remember it's only 2%. >> former senator alan simpson, co-founder of the fix the deb

i'm richard wolffe in for chris matthews.ig numbers get thrown around at times like this in washington. as the legendary everett dirksen once said, a billion here a billion there, pretty soon you're talking real money, about you this debate isn't just about the billions here and there. for average families the payroll tax cut that started two years ago is worth around 1000 as year. those families tend to spend that cash because they need it now. republicans say this is one tax cut they hate and the last time it was going to expire, the white house launched a whole campaign about $40 a paycheck. they asked families to send in their stories about what $40 meant to them. well, you know something? $40 a still a lot of cash for the families hit hardest by the great recession. for the wealthy people sitting around the negotiating table in d.c., $40 is just another steak dinner for one. but for many people who voted them into office, it's the cost of groceries for a week of family dinners. let's not forget, they are the ones who sti

carolina panthers without defensive tackle richard injured knee and hamstring the raiders are 8 1/2 point it's an annual shoveling the snow out of .a's owner lew wolffays he plans to stay in oakland the next five years. >> this is the third quarter, center for come off u c f throwing the 5 yd touchdown. 38-17. ucsf and beef o'grady's--beef o 'brady's... is one of the fastest-growing sports restaurant. >> also was exciting of the oakland coliseum. their lease expiresthe current lease is up after the upcoming season so wolf has asked for a five year extension that is if they grant those rights from the giants. the bottom line is that there will probably be staying put for a while and the giants have a new pitcher. for nowrosario 5 teams in 2 months- five teams in two months.quite a ride for new giants pitcher sandy rosario the giants claimed rosario off waivers from the cubs how about checking of the warriors scored? 58-49. david lee is leading the way. and we do have highlights of the next in with an exciting finish of the boston celtics. ellis had 27 points, seven rebounds and milwaukee time running out paul pierce drains the three-pointer. and pier