presidents, aviators, military heroes, entertainers, people ranging from ronald reagan to arnold palmer, trent lott, a number of people. what is striking as we begin thinking about this item is the fact that of the 80 people that airports have been named after, not a single one of them is an openly lgbt person. in fact not only is it true that no airport in this country has been named after an openly lgbt person but to our knowledge no airport in the world is in fact been named after an openly lgbt person. and so to the question of why harvey milk, why not someone else? that is a legitimate question. i can tell you as an openly gay man that i do think that there is something disturbing about the fact that we do live in the world the year 2013 that no airport has been named after someone who can say that they are openly gay, that they are open member of the gay lesbian community. no city in the world is done that. to the extent that san francisco can be proud of so many things, one of the things that i am very proud of when i think of san francisco is the fact that we have always been at the forefro

presidents, aviators, military heroes, entertainers, people ranging from ronald reagan to arnold palmer, trent lott,

. >> we are talking with judge block, author of trent lott.hank you so much. >> we have been talking about this dream. he had been in detroit just a few months before and had talked about how he has a dream and america will someday realize these

when trent lott and i came into service we were in the same class. at the time of his election he was 28 years old. he was the youngest member of congress. he has grown up on the job and shape congress along the way. amazingly, he still looks 28. congresswoman beverly byron comes from a spirited family. not only did her husband served in congress, but both of her in- laws also served in the house, although beverly has the distinction of the longest service in the united states house of representatives, and i think there was another individual, wasn't there? a grandparent of one of them now? who served in the senate? >> a federal judge. >> what a distinguished history. congressman bill gray was a pioneer in congress and has continued his commitment to public service after leaving congress. he was an active baptist minister, spending 35 years as the pastor of the baptist church. for 13 years he was president and ceo of the united negro college fund. he has been honored with nearly 80 degrees from the prestigious universities for public service. congres

majority leader trent lott and senator bro were paid $1.5 million from citigroup.irm was paid $560,000 and another $350,000 to lobby for a wind energy tax credit. possibly the biggest player here was capital tax partners, capital one and goldman sachs among the big banks that paid the firm $2.2 million, and another $700,000 to keep the tax depreciation down low. and another $490,000 from movie producers. >> cenk: now all the turks are here, but if you don't watch the show none of them are turkish. this is bribery. they paid $2.2 billion and get $11 billion back in one of the cases. am i seeing this wrong or this is obviously legalized bribery. >> yeah, definitely, but how is it different from what we see over and over again. >> what is different these are all for industries that will create jobs. without these tax breaks the jobs wouldn't be available. that's the argument being made. in some cases that's true, but in rare cases is that true. >> cenk: corporations made the same argument in 2004 when they wanted a repatriatation tax holiday. they wanted to bring in t

did in the 1990s when president clinton actually sat down and negotiated with newt gingrich and trent lotten when there was ultra-partisanship. people say it was worse today than back then, heck, they tried to impeach the president. we have had that, but you have to put that aside and work together. >> here is what the president says repeatedly now when it comes to raising the so-called debt ceiling, it will have to be raised by february, early march, at the latest. i want to play a little clip. listen to the president. >> if congress in any way suggests that they're going to tie negotiations to debt ceiling votes and take us to the brink of defeat once again, which is part of the negotiation, which by the way we never did in our history until we did it last year, i will not play that game. >> he says he wouldn't play that game. but republicans say they will only raise the debt ceiling if there is an equal amount of spending cuts together with the raising of the debt ceiling. he says he is not going to play that game. will he have any choice? >> look, that is the kind of brinksmanship i'm

dick cheney, trent lott, they came down to my office at the treasury department and said if you go followhis rostenkowski bill and fix it in the senate, we're going to roll you. and they rolled us on the rule. they defeated us in the rule. and i went over to the white house having been the president's chief of staff for four years i said, mr. president, you've got to come out forcefully in favor of passing the bill so we can get it to the senate and fix it and that means rolling over our house republicans. well, guess what? after a little while he did it, we did it, and that's how we got there. it was successful and it initiated a period of extraordinary economic growth. >> but you're describing a situation where you had to do a lot of compromising, you stood up to house republicans, supported a democratic bill. it's difficult to imagine in today's partisan climate. >> i think president obama could do it. president obama wants a legacy. he deserves one. he's not going to have a legacy if he can't fix our economy. >> kay bailey hutchison is the recently retired senior senator from texas. >

dick cheney, trent lott, all, they came down to my office at the treasury department. they said, if you go forward with this, with this rostenkowski bill, and we then say you're going to fix it in the senate, we're going to roll you and they rolled us on the rule. they defeated us on the rule and i went over to the white house, having been reagan. >> chief of staff for four and a half years and i said, mr. president, you got to come out forcefully in favor of passing the rostenkowski bill so we can get to it to the senate and fix it and that means rolling out of our house republicans. well, guess what. afterwards, he did it. he did it. and we did it. and that's how we did it. it was successful and initiated a period of extraordinary economic growth. >> but you're describing a situation where you had to do a lot of compromising. you stood up to us republicans, you supported a democratic bill. it's difficult to imagine in today's partisan climate. >> i think that president obama could do that. president obama wants a legacy. he deserves one. he's not going to have a lega

dick cheney, trent lott, they all came down to my office, they said, if you go forward with this rostenkowski bill, we're going to roll you. and they rolled us on the rule. they defeated us on the rule. i went over to the white house and said mr. president, you have to come out in favor of the rostenkowski bill. guess what, after a while, he did it. he did it. we did it, and that's how we got there. it was successful and shaded a period of extraordinary economic growth. >> but you're describing a situation where you had to do a lot of compromising. you stood up to house republicans. you supported a democratic bill. it's difficult to imagine in today's partisan climate. >> i think president obama could do that. president obama wants a legacy. he deserves one. he's not going to have a legacy if he can't fix our economy. >> kay bailey hutchison is the recently retired senior senator from texas. >> had is his time to step out from his base and away from the fringes on both ends and say here is what our country needs right now. >> ken dubersteen, chief of staff in ronald reagan's second term think

i mean, when trent lott, a good friend of mine said something he shouldn't have said about strom thurmon moved quickly get k him out as majority leader. they did not allow other extremist statements without punishing them. so i think chris christie if he keeps providing strong leadership in new jersey actually shows republicans you can stand up to the extremists. you can work with democrats in government. and you can be rewarded for it in a big way. >> let's take a look. here's chris christie talking to you this morning. he knows how to get things done and that means compromising with democrats. let's watch him explaining himself to you this morning. >> i'm in a divided government. i have a democratic senate and democratic assembly. what that means is i'm not going to get everything i want. i wake up every morning knowing even though i think i'm right i'm not getting everything i want. i think of what is important to me and what i can convince them of. >> let's talk history. it seems to me if you look back in 1940 in that tricky time. you talk about the months going into world war ii. we

among those who lobbied for the tax break, former republican senator trent lott and john breaux were paid $1.5 million. we should mention that msnbc is partially owned by ge. steve elmendorf was paid $350,000 from the wind energy association. but possibly the biggest player here was capital tax partners whose website offers clients and intimate knowledge of the tax writing process. it includes a team full of tax experts and advisors that work both on capitol hill and on the white house. capital one and goldman sachs were among the big banks that paid the firm, $2.2 million to get the financing break. verizon and time warner cable paid another $700,000 to keep the appreciation tax low. the motion picture association paid nearly $500,000 to secure tax breaks for movie producers. part of a measure that passed through the finance committee. back in august it went no where for months until it was tackeden to the fiscal cliff bill at the last minute. michael isikoff looking at how that happened. here he is now. mr. isikoff, so, i look at all your reporting on this and i think this is why t

the first republican to issue p public support for hagel, and he was one vote away from beating trent lott for senate majority leader some years ago. you have leaders. this is -- as john mccain said, this is not a neat difference among friends. there are deep idealogical differences about world view and america's place in the world, and i think that those opposed to hagel are trying to get a bandwagoning effect happening. i've talked to senator shumer and others who don't see that happening. i have talked privately to a couple of republican senators who are keeping their powder dry right now, but they're not quite ready to jump in the pro or con camp. my guess is, though, that the white house still thinks they're on solid ground and getting him confirmed. >> let me ask you about this. is israel's strike into syria yesterday, a lot of mystery over what they were after. it's reported that they were after some russian weapons that were advanced weapons that were heading to hezbollah and lebanon. what is your basic information? >> i think israel has legitimate security concerns that when there

. >> we had trent lott on the program recently and george mitchell. they were dekraaiing the state of capitol hill today where compromise is a dirty word and, you know, they were saying, looking we had tough battles back then but both sides talked to each other. you don't see that happening now. when did that change? why did that occur? >> i think part what we were talking about before, which is that the republicans get primaried more, part of it is the never-ending campaign cycles where you have a tremendous amount of money. part it have is also what we're doing here, 24-hour news, it is social media, it is people tracking every minute of everything that everybody says to point where if you are out of line, you get called on it immediately. when you are able to -- when you are able to have conversations and go back and forth and change your mind a little bit from day to day and no one was tracking that every minute that you were doing that, i think it was a little easier to govern. >> it does seem like politicians are playing to those cameras a lot w

not only him, trent lott, the same thing. the sky appear in west virginia, when he came to congress, -- this guy up here in west virginia, when he came to congress, he had nothing but a pair of shoes. i read where he made something like $6 million in one year on real estate. if you just look at the corruption down there. host: we are going to leave it there. we're talking about term limits for elected officials. in other areas of the news, the chief of staff closes tight knit circle. this is by peter nicholas. president barack obama announced he would install dennis mcdonough as his new chief of staff. back to the telephones. richard from new jersey on the line for independents. your thoughts on term limits for elected officials. caller: i think the biggest oxymoron as a professional politician. i think that is a ridiculous concept. they get their, and they learn how to rifle money around. as far as the new guy in washington, just another do guy. he is 43 years old. he must have some new ideas. thank you for listening to me.

trent lott still considers you a good friend.at point in the senate did you stop being able to disagree with somebody without being disagreeable? >> we installed a hotline, joe. i think that really made a difference. we called each other when we had a temper tantrum and picked up the phone. we knew if that phone was ringing, it was him on the other line. that made a big difference. we created a communication agreement that allowed us to get through tough times, 9/11, the anthrax attack in my office and decision to go to war in afghanistan and iraq and that drew us together. you don't have the same element of crazies like you do today but as you look at the challenges we face, you could call them that. >> listening to senator daschle talk about socialization part of the problem in the senate and fund-raising part of the problem in the senate. you look back at recent history last 25, 30, 40 years, this country faced larger problems than today, war in vietnam, the end of the nixon presidency yet people got along in the congress much

months and months -- as you remember, joe, locked up in conference rooms with newt gingrich and trent lotte came away with a balanced budget to put the country on the right fiscal path. we can do it again but we have to put some of the ultra partisan politics away. we have to put some of this aside and decide where we are going to pull together important the country and we can do. >> it the point you made is absolutely true, too. we have to mentally accept that it is going to be pain. there are constituents and bases that are not going to be totally happy but that's how you govern. you govern by doing difficult thing. you don't govern by doggiesy things. it is going to be tough. but what we have sketched out in the campaign to fix the debt, another $1.7 trillion in spending cuts if you count the interest, and $600 billion more in revenue, that would put us overall at where? >> $4.7 trillion in deficit reduction. that's enough to stabilize the debt and get it on the downward path. that's got to be the goal. we get to debt below 7% below gdp and decline in the future. we have to do stuff tha

did in the 1990s when president clinton actually sat down and negotiated with newt gingrich and trent lott say partisanship is so much worse today than it was back then. hell, back then, they were trying to impeach the president. you've got to put that partisanship aside and work together. >> when it comes to the so-called debt ceiling, it's going to be raised by the end of february, early march, listen to the president. >> if congress suggests that they are going to tie it to debt ceiling votes and take us to the brink of default once again as part of a budget negotiation, which, by the way, we have never done in our history until we did this last year, i will not play that game. >> he says he won't play that game but republicans are saying they are only going to raise the debt ceiling if there's an equal amount of spending cuts accompanying the raising of the debt ceiling. he says he's not going to play that game. will he have any choice? >> look, that's the brinkmanship that i'm talking b why would we want to put our economy through that? but there are lots of things that we can negotia

. >> you believe that they would defy the law that trent lott deck. >> i would not rely on a totally, but i would not dismiss it by saying that they are crazy. they are not crazy. they may not be like us, but they want to survive. they want to survive. the first thing is to use those weapons. so i think that the deterrence and containment played a role in all of this. but i don't want their nuclear program to go towards enrichment towards a nuclear weapon area so i think we ought to put all of the diplomatic pressure on them that we can. because sooner or later it will cause them to rethink the awful position they're putting themselves in. >> i once met with a diplomat and said what do you have to say about smalltalk. and we have to find 600,000 jobs every untrained ear, and not doing it. a great political force was at work around the world. and we need to understand here in the united states. the wealth creation through economic growth. china didn't get to be successful where it is now. they did it by making things that we wanted to buy. india is going in the same direction. they nee

into the streets and opposing this legislation and they -- it was backed by senate leadership, trent lotth. president bush. and they shot it down. i don't know what they're going to do this time. >> you see rubio making all the rounds and all of the conservative talk shows. they all give him the space to explain his proposal. they praise him. people like mark he levine praise him say let's look at the principles. part of the reason is rubio is a rising star. they don't want to get in front of that train. the future of their party. so it's helping that he's pushing this along. he's kind of steam rolling against some of the opposition. of course, you have the demographics problem which republicans need to get around. >> bill: well, they've got marco rubio. we've got the castro brothers, right? >> yeah, from texas. >> bill: the mayor and the congressman. your thoughts about this, 1-866-55-press. no doubt, it is the issue that's got a full head of steam right now with the gang of eight coming out yesterday in the united states senate for -- four democrats, four republicans. with president oba

but we had newt leading the charge along with trent lott and others in the minority./'94, and you had haley barbour running the rnc. there was a mplan moving forwar. who's that strong republican leader now or leaders that can bring us together even when we're wandering through the wilderness? trying to figure out how to get to israel? >> i happen to live in paradise here, so i'm not quite as pessimistic as y'all are up there. and i'm not -- the world's not anti-big business or pro-big business, it's just the reality of economics is that the greatest number of jobs, which is what everybody out in the real world is concerned about, are created by start-ups, and they're created by small businesses. and the way to jump start that is our principles, which are the same as you go up the ladder to big business. we need regulation that doesn't strangle us but that cements the kind of rules of the road for all businesses. and we need tax reform. we need energy reform. we need all those kinds of reforms that have only been espoused by republicans. so we're saying we're not winni

so actually after katrina for instance senator lot trent lott was actually fought with and took state farm to court because they were saying flood damage was what caused it so they didn't have to pay and there's been a lot of back and forth on this issue over the years. then as far as this conrad relative in thomas river area and having to elevate, in the end, we -- this is geography and essentially we can't -- we've got issues at sea level rise, these issues are only going to get greater. so one of the things we have to do after these disasters is have to help people out of harm's way. that means flood proofing elevating or relocating where we buy people out at the pre-disaster price of their house and keep that profit open space. it's going to be a responsible solution. it's hard to do but i mentioned the 93 floods earlier and after the floods we bought out the entire towns in -- a town in illinois which are probably cheaper but when flood waters returned a couple years later there was no flooding because we relocated the communities out of the flood plane and that's got to be part

newt gingrich, along with trent lott's, along with connie mack, along with jack kemp -- they were turningideas out every single day. in 1993 and 1994, when i ran, i just plugged my campaign. it was him doing the very things that ross is complaining about that this republican party in our house does not do right now that gave us the majority. everyone in 1993 going into the rnc had a sign that said "think majority." we just laugh. we have not been the majority in my lifetime, but we got it because we had ideas. we had ideas on the house level. we had ideas in the state legislatures. we had ideas coming from governors, and democrats did not stand a chance. i was the first republican governor in my district since 1873. it is a rough damn district, but i won because every time i would go out, they would ask me is not a question about education. i would talk about term limits. i would talk about what they are doing in wisconsin. it is unbelievable. i would mix that in with the "wall street journal" editorial page -- were you writing for commentary in 1994? and i would listen to rush when i was

i guess i failed to bring it but i think trent lott used filling the tree nine times, bill frist four or five, used one or two times by previous majority leaders. but it's grown. and senator reid has filled the tree 60 times already. and basically by going into details, filling the amendment tree allows the majority leader to block amendments. historically, there was no limit on amendments in the senate. if the senator had an amendment, he came to the floor and offered the amendment. he tried to be courteous and not abuse his power, but he got a vote on the issues he believed were important. we should not limit that. we should not have the majority leader rejecting certain amendments because he doesn't like them. but really, the reason he rejects them is they are often tough amendments, uncomfortable votes for the members of his conference, and he doesn't want to vote on a tough issue and he blocks it from ever being voted on to protect the members from that. now, i heard senator merkley, i see him on the floor, talk about his vision for a more open senate. i have heard him talk about

and newt gingrich along with trent lott and connie mack and jack kemp, they had ideas every single day. i put my4, when i ran, campaign and all the things that gingrich -- i have been a severe critic of him, but it was him doing the very things we were just complaining about that this republican party is doing that gave us the majority. they had a sign that said to think majority. i just laughed. are you kidding? we have no chance. but guess what? we got it because we have ideas. ideas on the house level, the state legislatures, the ideas coming from governors and democrats did not stand a chance. the first republican elected in 1873. and they hung the last one they sent to washington. it was a district i won because every single day i would go out and they would ask me a question about education and i would say look at what they are doing in michigan. you know what they are doing in wisconsin right now? i talk about term limits, i talk about what newt was talking about. it was unbelievable. the wall street journal at the page -- i would listen to rush when i was driving. i am telling

and newt gingrich, along with trent lott, along with connie mack, along with jack kemp, they were churning ideas out every single day. so in 93 and 94, when i ran, i just plugged my campaign into all the things that gingrich, i think a pretty severe critic but i'll tie you what, it was him doing the very things that ross is complaining about that this republican party and our house doesn't do right now that gave us the majority. i remember in 93 going into the rnc and they had a sign that said think majority. they just laughed but i was like are you kidding me? we have no chance. we have been in the majority in my lifetime. but guess what? we got it because we had ideas. we had ideas on the house level. we had ideas in the state legislatures. we had ideas coming from governors, and democrats didn't stand a chance. i was the first republican elected in my district since 1873. and they hung the last one they sent to washington. [laughter] so it's the wrong damn district. but i won because every single day i would go up and asked is not a question about education. and they would come back and