Transcripts For CNNW Crossfire 20140128 : vimarsana.com

0 expect and rewards hard work. i don t think the american people expect anything less. what we do in the white house and washington to measure progress only by the number of bills we can pass through congress. we can do that, we can make progress. we saw bipartisan compromise on a budget deal, a very hopeful sign at the end of last year, and bipartisan majorities support the funding bill for the spending going forward for this fiscal year. that s positive progress and that s positive progress in congress, but the president is not going to do anything that s going to prevent him from doing his job. a clean shaven press secretary to the president of the united states, jay carney. thanks very much for joining us. was that a tough decision, getting rid of that beard? i couldn t compete with you, wolf, and i decided it was time to go clean shaven again. all right. you look mighty good. jay carney without the beard. thanks very much. we ll see what happens later tonight. i ll be back in a half an hour as our special coverage continues at the top of the hour. right now, crossfire begins. tonight on crossfire, the state of the union address. does president obama have the best ideas for getting you a better job or a raise? americans are tired of us squabbling. they want us to get things done. or do republicans have the stronger case for revving up the economy. we are not going to raise taxes. how will tonight s big speech affect the 2014 mid term election? the left, on the right s.e. cupp. in the crossfire representative of the democratic leadership and tim scott of south carolina along with representative steve israel who s leading the effort to elect more democrats to the house and representative greg walden who s leading the effort to elect more republicans. as we watch the state of the union speech, is there any hope for action tonight on crossfire. welcome to crossfire i m dan jones on the left. i m s.e. cupp on the right. in tonight s state of tfof the speech we should expect in a word, defines. he will say i have a pen and a phone, your services are no longer required. but he s been defiant for years blaming republican obstructionists and congressional destruction for getting in his way. remember, i will not negotiate. the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, and considering we recently got a bipartisan deal on a budget, monday s agreement on a farm bill and new movement on immigration reform, shouldn t the president applaud congress for its progress instead of vowing to work around it? you might he might defy some expectations tonight. correspondent jim acosta has just gotten a segment from his speech tonight. what s it say, jim? reporter: i hope i don t have to respond to everything that s.e. said. please do. reporter: i ll let do you that, dan, exactly. the white house in the last few minutes has released excerpts of the president s state of the union speech. we obviously don t have the complete speech to read to you. going to what s.e. was saying a few minutes ago, the defines the president was going to use, the president might use the word determination to show action because of potential inaction up on capitol hill. let me read to you a quote from the president s speech tonight. it goes to this promise of more executive authorities more executive actions in the coming year. quote, what i offer tonight is a set of concrete practical proposals to speed up growth, strengthen the middle class and build new ladders of opportunity into the middle class. some require congressional action and i m eager to work with all of you, but america, here s the key part, does not stand still and, quote, neither will i. couple of other items to point out, we ve learned in the last several minutes that the president will announce new retirement savings accounts that americans can put their money into out of their paychecks. the president will talk about that. he ll make an expassioned plea for immigration reform. he will not hammer republicans over the inability to pass immigration reform. he wants to keep some space there for republicans to bring something to his desk. s.e. and dan? great. it sounds like he might be defying some expectations already. we ll see. we will see. in the crossfire tonight we have haxavier bessera. big night for everyone. the town is buzzing. we know that the president is excited about the minimum wage increases. it polls really well. are you willing to support yourself the president tonight when he calls for the minimum wage for hard working americans going up to $10.10. i think what he s decided to do is take a pen and make that decision by himself on federal contractors, which i think is bad because you cannot create an artificial floor for wages without the prices of whatever it s creating going up and technology then taking the place of some of those lower wage let me let me let me share this with you. when i worked at the movie theater i used to sell the tickets. because of technology and the higher minimum wage, technology now takes the place of that job. when you walk into the theater, you buy your own ticket through a computer. we should have a serious conversation about how we can help people re-establish their position. come on. are you saying you don t think that americans who work hard every day deserve a raise because of your experience with the ticket machine? i know you re a highfalutin fella and everything but the way that we help people get raised is by making sure they have better skills. minimum wage doesn t matter. one of the reasons i have a skills effort that i m working on, we can help people get the skills necessary so that they get the type of job that pays them more. you are way too smart for me. i m so simple. are you going to support the $10.10 minimum wage for americans? yes or no? simple answer. i m going to make sure that every american has better skills so they don t have to worry about the minimum wage, that they get to set a wage for themselves based on let me get the congressman in here. even if i agreed with the economics of raising the minimum wage, which i don t, it seems to me like a political gimmick that doesn t really address the gaping, glaring holes in our economic recovery, tax reform, entitlement reform, obama care. these things are costing us in the future billions. why is the president s big idea for economic recovery raising the minimum wage? if you re making about $15,000 a year, you ve got a family, that s a big idea. if you re trying to make sure that you don t have to leave an eight-hour job and then go to the food pantry so you can feed your family, that s a big idea. s.e., there are a lot of americans who are working every day very hard, not 16 and 18-year-olds selling tickets at a movie theater, who are trying to live off the minimum wage. it s time we gave people respect. we re rewarding work and say 23 you re going to work 8 hours a day, work a full day s work i m glad you brought up young people because there s 16.3% unemployment rate among youth. you are making it harder for people to hire more of those young people by raising the minimum wage. s.e., that s the argument the conservatives always make. no, that s economics. by the way, every year we continue to see more and more people working and 8 million more americans working in the last four years. there are a lot of those folks who are making very small salaries. when we re just saying is let s reward work again. let s do what we did when my father was working. my father had a sixth grade education, construction worker most of his life. he put four kids through college. i bet his boss shouldn t employers make the decision? no, his boss was working with his employees made the decision. he made a pretty decent salary. let me bring this hold on a second. here s what i don t understand. it seems to me that you guys don t think the minimum wage is a good idea. would you call for repealing the minimum wage? america s listening. are you here s what we know. here s what i ll tell you. mr. beserra has a stanford education and stanford law degree. when we put people on the path of getting a better education, we know they get a better wage. when they earn the skills necessary, something like the skills act, we know that they earn far more than the minimum wage. the conversation that we re having this year on the minimum wage is an election year conversation for one reason, because 3% of americans earn the minimum wage, half of those folks actually get a tip so they actually earn more than that. so they aren t minimum wage. no, they don t need a raise. do you agree with that? let me finish. senator, $7.25 an hour. do you mind? i don t interrupt you. all right. go ahead. so if we seriously want to have that conversation about increasing people s take home pay, why don t we go to obama care where we see the 40-hour work week decimated. why not restore those 25% of people s pay in pursuit of a better life? i can t believe we can deal. obama care. let s deal with this. do it together? let s work on that law which has helped 12 million americans get health security but let s not deny to people a chance to say, i can live instead of having to go to a food pantry to feed the kids after putting in a full day s work. we don t reward work anymore. it s time we respected people who are willing to put in a hard i rode the buses a couple of weeks ago around my city to have a serious conversation. what they did not ask for was a handout. that s all they wanted. let me explain how that works. if i just had access to more skills. if i had a better education. if you can help me find those opportunities to get a dad, my dad had a sixth grade education. okay. we can rival educations and who had less. let me move the conversation forward because i want to talk about what the president s definitely going to do in the state of the union tonight. as i mentioned, congressmen, farm bill, immigration reform, budget. we ve seen progress in all of these issues despite the president. don t you feel a little dismissed when the president says essentially, i m going to go around you guys? i mean, doesn t it seem like he s working around you instead of trying to work with you? s.e., you left out about probably 90% of his discourse, which was i want to work with congress, but what he said, which you ve blown out of proportion is, if congress cannot walk and chew gum, then i have to act. congress has proved that it can come together. congress has come together. i think the president is willing as on immigration. he s been waiting for the house of representatives to match the senate. he hasn t interfered because republicans have said let us do the work in the house so he s let the republicans try to work. so the president is prepared to work with congress, but every time congress falls on its face or as speaker boehner said is going to become a brick wall to the president s ideas, the president is saying i can t wait for republicans to decide they want to move, i m going to take action. let s take a look at the definition of a brick wall. it s called the senate and harry reid s leadership. 200 bills passed the house and they can t find the light of day in the senate. seriously? fair enough. i want to give a mini thanks to you two. we will come back after these messages. i m looking forward to continuing the debate.